Janet Quin-Harkin (27 page)

“Well, lookee, boys,” one of them said. His eyes went over Libby’s body, to which her wet undergarments now clung revealingly. He was a heavyset man, dressed from head to toe in black and he wore a gun belt decorated with Mexican silver. Two silver pistols hung at his hips. “What have we got here?”

“Looks like we just caught ourselves a mermaid,” another man added.

“You all alone, little lady?”

Libby tried to act as if their presence was not alarming her. She nodded politely to them and then bent to gather up her things. She noticed one of them was carrying a bottle.

“She’s all alone. Ain’t that sad?” one of them said and the others laughed.

“What she needs is a little male company,” the first man suggested. He was slurring his words. The silly grins on the other faces indicated that they had all been drinking. Libby just prayed that drink had dulled their wits and made them slow.

She was now clutching her bundle of wet clothing to her chest and she tried to walk past them. “Thank you, but I’ll have male company very soon, when my husband returns,” she said, stressing the word
husband
.

The men were straddling the path, barring her way.

“What husband?” the man in black demanded. “You ain’t really got no husband, have ya? You’re all alone out here—-just like us. We’re all alone and we’ve been without a woman too long.”

“There are bar girls in town now, so I understand,” Libby said frostily. “I’m sure they’d be delighted to entertain you.”

“Yeah, but they cost money,” one of the men complained. “Do you know how much they’re charging these days? No one’s got any money until the creeks go down.”

The man in black grabbed at her underskirt as she tried to push past them. “Besides, why pay for what you can take for free?” he asked. Libby caught the sickly smell of alcohol on his breath and wrenched herself away from him. He went to grab at her, but misjudged and stumbled. That fraction of a second was all that Libby needed. She sprinted ahead of them up the path to her cabin. Her breath was coming in gulps and the pain in her side stabbed as she ran, but she did not slow, all the way up the hill. She had the feeling that if only she could reach the cabin, she’d be safe.

When she got there, she found it all closed up and no sign of Ah Fong or the children. They liked to go with him and find food. With trembling fingers she untied the canvas flap and let herself in, running across to take down the rifle. With its cool metal barrel in her hands she felt more secure and she stood there, feet apart, gun at the ready, waiting as she heard the blundering feet, the ribald comments, and the curses come up the hill toward her.

“Don’t be shy, little lady,” one of the voices called out to her.

“You’re going to like it as much as we are, darlin’,” another added.

Libby cocked the rifle.

“Don’t come any closer,” she commanded through the canvas. “I’m warning you! Stay away. I’ve got a gun and I swear I’ll shoot the first man who comes through this door!”

“Oh, she’s got a gun. Ain’t she sweet?” a slurred voice said and there were drunken giggles. “Oh, we’re so afraid.”

“I like a spunky woman. It’s so much better after a struggle.” A big hand reached in to pull back the canvas and the man in black stepped into the cabin. “Come on now, baby. You ain’t going to shoot old Bart now, are ya?” he crooned.

“Get out!” Libby shouted. “I mean it. Get out or I’ll shoot!”

“She don’t mean it. She couldn’t hit a. . . .” He was going to say
fly
. He lurched toward her, his mouth hanging open in anticipation as Libby pulled the trigger. There was an incredibly loud blast and the anticipation on his face turned to surprise as he clutched at his middle and crumpled to the floor. The other men peered in with stunned faces. Libby stood facing them, still squarely on both feet, rifle still aimed.

“I’ve plenty of ammunition and I’ll do the same to you if you don’t go away,” she said. “Now get your friend out of my cabin and go.”

She motioned to them with the rifle. Still stunned by what had happened, they dragged out the lifeless man and Libby heard them slithering back down the hill. When she was sure they had gone, she sat down, shaking. She had actually shot, maybe even killed a man, and it had not been hard.

She was amazed how calm she was. She played through the scene again in her mind and it was as if she were a spectator at a play, not personally involved at all. She felt nothing, neither guilt nor fear. She put the rifle back on the wall and scraped away the bloodstained earth from the dirt floor just as if she were a machine and not a person at all. She had just sat down with a cup of tea when she heard voices and the children came bursting in with Ah Fong in hot pursuit.

“Look, Mama, look what we found for you,” Bliss yelled. “Ah Fong says that these leaves taste good.”

“And Mama, I picked you flowers. Aren’t they pretty?” Eden added, holding out a sagging bouquet of wild flowers to Libby. Libby took them and smiled graciously. She smiled and nodded at everything they told her, determined to say nothing about what had just happened.

When Ah Fong asked her later, “Something wrong, missee?” she turned on the smile again. “Wrong? What could be wrong? Nothing’s wrong, everything’s fine,” she said, so forcefully that he went about his chores without saying anything more.

It was late in the afternoon when Ah Fong looked up from the stove, where he was frying rice. “Horses coming,” he said.

Libby listened and then she heard them too, a faint drumming of hooves along the trail, getting louder and closer. Her eyes went to the rifle again. She had held off four men, but could she hold off more?

“Get under the bed, girls,” she commanded, “and don’t come out until I tell you to.”

“What is it, Mama?” Eden asked fearfully. “Is it bad men coming for us?”

“It may be,” Libby said. “Just do what I tell you.”

Ah Fong shot her a querying look. “You stay out of the way too,” she said.

The horses galloped into the clearing.

“We know you’re in there,” shouted a man’s voice. “Come on out with your hands up.”

“Go away!” Libby yelled. “I don’t know who you are, but I’m not being tricked into coming out. I’ve still got my rifle and I’ve still got bullets.”

“Don’t be a fool,” the voice shouted. “We’ve got the place surrounded. Come out and surrender before it’s too late.”

Libby glanced back at the children cowering in the corner and Ah Fong by the stove. She couldn’t risk any shooting with only canvas to protect them. Cautiously, she opened the canvas. “What do you want?” she asked, looking up at strange faces.

“Is this the woman?” the leader asked.

“That’s her,” a voice replied and Libby saw one of the men who had chased her up from the creek.

“Come with us please,” the leader said.

“What for?”

“You’re under arrest for the murder of Bart Jackson.”

“But he attacked me. It was self-defense,” Libby said in outrage.

“You’ll be able to tell your side at the trial,” the man said. “Now get out here before we have to drag you behind the horses.”

Libby looked back at Ah Fong. “Take care of the girls for me,” she said. “Don’t let anything happen to them until I get back.”

“Don’t worry, missee. Ah Fong take good care,” he said. “You don’t let them devils push you around. You got law of United States for you.”

“I hope so, Fong,” she said, letting the canvas flap fall.

The leading man reached down and dragged her up roughly onto his saddle, then they set off at a gallop back down the trail. It was an uncomfortable ride for Libby, held like a sack of potatoes in front of the man, and she was shaken and bruised by the time they rode into the main street of Hangtown.

“Here she is. We got her,” members of the posse shouted as they rode into town. They shot off guns into the air and men came running from the bars into the main street. Someone brought out a table and chairs. The man let Libby slide from his horse and someone pushed her to the front of the crowd. The whole scene was assuming a nightmare quality. It was such a close reenactment of the trial she had witnessed on her arrival in Hangtown. She remembered the way they had pushed the Mexican girl to the front of the crowd, the way she had stood there defiantly, fear gradually overtaking defiance as she realized what was going to happen to her. Libby looked around the faces of the crowd; they had the same excited, eager look that she had noticed before, as if they were about to witness a sports event. She realized then that they wanted another hanging.

Five men took their places in the chairs, one of them the doctor who had shown the only spark of justice and compassion at the last trial. Libby looked around the crowd, hoping to see other familiar faces, but there were none.

“State your name please,” the man in the center chair asked.

“Elizabeth Grenville.”

“Elizabeth Grenville, you are charged with the murder of Bart Jackson earlier today. We have in the crowd three men who saw you kill him. Is Slim here?”

One of the men stepped forward. “I was there, along with Billy Bob and Dutch,” he said. “We saw her gun him down in cold blood.”

“That’s not true,” Libby began.

“Shut up and let the man speak. You’ll get your turn,” came from the table. “How did it happen, Slim?”

The man looked at Libby. There was now no sign of the drunken grin. His eyes were hard and sharp as they watched her. “We was walking down by the creek,” he said, “and we was passing this little lady’s cabin and we knowed she was all alone there, so Bart said why don’t we pay a call on her and see how she’s getting along? So we called out to her and she yells out something we can’t quite hear, so Bart pulls open her door and steps inside and before he can speak—bang—he’s lying dead on the floor and her standing there holding a rifle in her hand. And she looks up, cool as a cucumber and says to the rest of us, “Get him out of here or you’ll end up the same as him. I swear to God.”

Libby ran over to the table. “Don’t listen to him,” she begged. “It wasn’t like that at all. They tried to grab me down at the creek. They were all drunk. I ran all the way back to the cabin and got my rifle. I told them not to come in but the man in black came in anyway. He was laughing and he said I couldn’t shoot a fly. It was when he reached out to grab the gun that I shot him. I didn’t mean to kill him but it was self-defense. They were going to. . . .” Libby’s voice trailed off, unable to go on.

“Is this right, Slim? Billy Bob? Dutch?” the doctor asked, looking up from the table.

The three men looked at each other and grinned. “We were just having a little fun, that’s all. We didn’t mean no harm. There was no call to go shooting anyone. It was coldblooded murder. I say hang the bitch.”

“That’s right. String her up. Let her get what’s coming to her.” Voices from the crowd took up the chant.

“But if it was self-defense,” the doctor tried to shout over the noise of the crowd. “A woman has a right to protect her honor.”

“Nobody touched her,” Slim yelled. “It was all in her head. I tell you, she’s got a crazy idea about men looking at her—comes from being too long without a man. If you let her go, she’ll like as not gun down any miner who happens to look her way—I swear it.”

“That’s right. It ain’t safe to let her go. Get rid of her,” voices from the crowd picked up again.

Libby looked from one face to the next. They wanted to hang her, she could see that. They were itching for the excitement of a hanging. It didn’t matter whether they thought she was innocent or not. She thought of her children, with only Ah Fong to take care of them. She thought of Hugh and wondered if he would ever know what she did for him, however misguided and stupid it had been. Then she thought of Gabe. If only things had been different, she thought sadly, and wished she had not sent him away that night.

“Take her down to the hanging tree,” someone yelled. Pistols were fired off into the air. Horses neighed and stamped around uneasily. Hands grabbed her and the crowd surged forward, sweeping her along with its momentum so that her feet hardly touched the ground. Buildings flashed past her and a large oak tree loomed ahead. Men were already attempting to throw a rope over a branch that jutted out over the street.

“Wait! Listen to me!” Libby screamed, but the roar of the crowd drowned out her voice. She wondered if it would hurt much and if it took long to die. The rope was secured. “Bring her over here,” called the man with the noose. A hefty push in the back sent Libby staggering forward. She stumbled and the crowd roared and jeered. She remembered the Mexican girl’s proud defiance and brushed herself off, turning to stare at them with equal disdain. “You’re all animals,” she shouted. “There is not one person here who is worthy to be called a man.”

“Shut her up. She talks too much,” a drunken voice yelled.

Hands jerked the noose over her neck.

“Hold it right there!” a voice commanded and a bullet spat into the dust right at the feet of the potential hangman. Gabe Foster stepped between Libby and the crowd, both pistols cocked. “Nobody moves until I’ve had my say,” he shouted.

“Get him out of here. We’ve heard enough,” men shouted from the crowd.

Gabe faced them calmly. “I think enough people have seen me shoot,” he said. “Just be quiet and listen to what I have to say.”

The crowd muttered and fell silent. Gabe did not look at Libby, but stepped in front of her, facing the crowd. “Which of you have come across this woman before?” he asked.

Several hands were raised sheepishly.

“And what was your impression of her until now?”

“Stuck up,” someone muttered. “Kept to herself. Didn’t like to joke with the miners. . . .”

“In other words,” Gabe said, “she was what you would call a real lady. Am I correct?”

Several murmurs from the crowd.

“She still gunned down Bart,” growled a voice at the back.

“Can you blame her?” Gabe shouted. “Would you expect a proper lady to act any differently if she was attacked and grabbed by a band of drunken miners and had to fight for her honor?” He scanned the group, his gaze moving from left to right. “I think you’ve all been away from civilization too long,” he roared. “What would you feel if this was your sister, or your sweetheart, or your mother, or your wife? Would you want one of them to have to go through what this lady’s been through? Would you condemn her because she tried to defend herself from the ultimate degradation? She has lived here alone, bravely taking care of two little children with nobody to protect her or look after her.”