Maude March on the Run! (13 page)

B
ORDEN KIND WAS SITTING THERE AT A DESK, IN A
chair on little wheels, and he was alone. “My sister is innocent,” I said, taking note of a closed door behind him.

Another such door stood open, and inside I could see a room not much larger than the cot inside it. A window high on the wall was too small to allow anything larger than a cat to crawl out of it. It did look clean, I'll say that for it.

Maude could likely sit down while she waited for whatever happened next. I worried for a moment she might not mind being in there enough to overcome her feeling of wrongdoing and leave.

This being my second go at it, I knew better than some that jail-breaking was largely a matter of chance. Maude could ruin everything if we caught her in a fractious mood.

I said, “I have written to the sheriff of Cedar Rapids about the matter, and sent the money back, but I didn't know if he believed me.”

“What money is that?” Borden Kind said.

“The money from the bank robbery in Des Moines. We didn't rob the bank”—and here I had to think about what
I'd written, for Marion was supposed to have breathed his last—“but got the money when the true robber died of his wounds.”

“I have a nose for lies,” Borden Kind said.

“Then you should take a look at today's paper and smell one. Or better yet, have Maude tell you her story, and you will smell the truth.”

“I have heard nothing of money being received in Cedar Rapids.”

“Perhaps the sheriff is crooked.”

“That's an interesting story you tell,” he said. “But you aren't saying anything different than what a guilty person says: ‚I didn't do it.'”

“It's what the innocent person says, too,” said I. In some deep corner of my heart, I was enjoying this conversation. “For what innocent ever comes to you to say he's guilty?”

“That's not my point,” he said. “The guilty don't claim to be guilty; they claim to be innocent. What fool of a lawman believes such a claim?”

I said, “If this is how you think, how can you ever believe anything?”

He gave me a long look of the resigned sort.

“Can you ask about that money?” I said, and I saw on his face the look of not wanting to be fooled. “Can you find out if any money was returned to the bank?”

When finally he answered me, he said, “It ain't that easy, son. The sheriff you're talking about is in another state, taking the whole matter out of my jurisdiction.”

“Then you don't have to hold Maude, either.”

“If what you say is true, and he has money he didn't return
to its rightful place, it's your sister's word against his. That's a hard fight to win.”

He didn't see any good coming out of this conversation, and for a fact, neither did I. I took a firmer tone and said, “My sister has done nothing wrong. She shouldn't be sitting in jail.”

“I can't help you, boy. I have a job to do.”

Marion opened the back door and came in, a pistol in his hand. I was struck by how quiet he was, compared to the kicked-in door of the last jailbreak. But Borden Kind heard him coming and broke off sounding impatient with me.

“Well, now, I should have realized you weren't alone,” Borden Kind said to me.

“You don't leave us any choice,” Marion said, and I figured he must have been listening the whole time. He threw the rope to me and I commenced wrapping it around Borden Kind and the chair he sat in.

“This will not help your sister's case,” Borden Kind said right before Marion stuffed a rolled-up sock into his mouth and tied it over with a kerchief. Marion had come ready to do justice to the job.

“We're sorry to do this,” I said to him, “but according to you, nothing will help Maude's case. We can't leave her fate to the kind of justice that considers the truth too hard a fight to win.”

Between us, Marion and me tied the chair to the leg of the desk so he couldn't roll around in it, banging against the wall. Something about doing this together with Marion, or maybe that so far we hadn't run into trouble, began to lift my mood.

More than that, I was entirely happy in the way of working at something I liked. Trading horses, for instance. I wasn't
grinning foolishly, just noticing jail-breaking, when it went well, had its good points.

This was our second jailbreak, and while we had done well enough at the first one, we were much better at this one. There was a piece of Aunt Ruthie at work in me, for I did like a job well done.

While Marion tightened a few last knots, I looked in the desk drawer and found a key. Maude was standing right inside, at the ready, when I unlocked the door.

“You don't look much the worse for wear,” I told her as she brushed past me. Marion held out Maude's hat, which had been on the sheriff's desk.

He said, “I hope you aren't going to get arrested again. It's hard work, breaking you out. Never had such a hard time breaking myself out.”

Maude took her hat from him fast, almost as if she would slap him with it. “I guess I don't need you totting up how many times I've been arrested,” she said, “like it's something I do for sport. Like I bellied up to the local watering hole and broke all the mirrors and drilled holes in the floor.”

“She has a mouth on her like a drover,” Marion said to me.

Since working at George Ray's, Maude's language
had
gotten a little ripe. “Getting arrested puts her in a bad mood,” I said cheerfully. I was right in the midst of one of the best times of my life.

Marion gave me a meaningful look and said to her, “I don't know what you have to be mad about. You got yourself arrested again and here I am in the nick of time. But I can't continue riding with you. I want the boy to come along with me. I'll leave him with his grammaw in Wichita.”

“We don't have time to fight about it,” I said. Maude could just have her conniption fit later, was how I saw it. “We don't have enough rope left over to tie up someone else if they happen in now.”

Maude walked out of there, bold enough she didn't peek outside first. We went straight to our horses and rode away at the same walk other riders were using, without ever looking back.

“I hope you don't think you've fooled him with that sorry attempt to steer him south,” Maude said to Marion.

“I doubt that I have,” Marion said. “But it means he'll have to consider more than the single possibility of following three sets of tracks westward.”

I
DIDN'T NOTICE ANYONE LOOKING AT US AS IF THEY
thought us unusual. The peddler's wagon had moved on and the town had gone back to its usual business, and I was glad of it.

Maude rode well ahead of us. Though she did drop back as we got to the outskirts of town. She said, “I hope we didn't lose the eats.”

I passed her a twist of candy to hold her.

“Let's us ride faster for a time,” Marion said, and so we did. We rode south, which might have lost us some time but for the fact we turned west soon enough.

Within an hour we had run back onto the trail. We had horses and all of our supplies, and we weren't riding hamper-scamper in all directions, hoping to meet up later.

There was no one chasing us, but it had been a thing to get the blood moving. A feeling like laughter kept rising in me. I wished I had a way to share it all with Aunt Ruthie. Lately I felt I'd come to know certain things about her, and I believed she would have enjoyed a good jailbreak.

I didn't know which was more surprising, the twists of fate
that got Maude arrested, or the stroke of luck that made it possible to free her again.

After several minutes we slowed down again. It was tempting to make some distance. Yet we couldn't keep our horses running full-out, or they wouldn't have the speed if we needed it worse later on.

“Have a peppermint,” Maude said. “That usually makes you feel better.”

That usually made
her
feel better, but I didn't say so.

“Did you get the wire off to Uncle Arlen?” I said.

“I was still figuring out what to say when they grabbed me,” she said. “But I hadn't yet said who I wanted to send it to, so that's all right.”

“We might could try again,” I said. “I saw a newspaper that reported a sighting of you in Texas.”

“Texas!”

“That's where they're looking for you today,” I said, deciding that was enough for her to know just then. I had on my mind that newspaper story and had made up my mind to wait until Maude fell asleep. Then I would tell Marion the whole of it. “If we're quick enough to reach the next town, we can send a message before Borden Kind sounds the alarm.”

“She has something there,” Marion said. “Right after that sheriff gets loose, they're going to be watching for you in these parts.”

“I'll wait for you at the edge of town this time,” she said with a glance that included Marion. “You mustn't be long enough to worry me.”

Marion didn't give any hint he'd heard this near apology.

“I'll leave one of my dimers with you, and you can pretend you're caught up in reading,” I said to Maude.

To this she made a small huffing sound.

“Powder Keg McCarthy makes good reading,” I said. “He has fought Indians in Kansas, brought a murderer to justice in the Dakotas, and tracked a rogue bear in the mountains of Colorado.”

“I would rather have the dime you spent,” Maude said in a lively tone.

“Keg is often in some kind of trouble, but is seen to do the right thing in the end,” I said. “I think you'd like these stories.”

“How many dimers do you figure you've bought?”

“I might could've bought a horse if I'd saved the dimes,” I said.

This got her. She pushed her horse for a little speed and rode ahead, as if to say she hoped I wouldn't bother her.

“You're awful quiet,” I said to Marion.

“I'm thinking we'll send you into the next town.” He looked at me. “If word is being passed along, they aren't looking for a boy alone.”

“All right.”

He said, “Unless you don't care to do it.”

“I'll do it.” I didn't care to think a great deal about it, but I would do it.

Then Maude rode back to us and said, “What did we agree to say in that telegram?”

Marion joined in on planning the words as we rode.
Macdougal is ailing, but we will arrive in a timely fashion,
we finally decided. I would sign it with the initials SAM.

Some might guess it came from someone named Sam, going to meet someone they didn't know, but it would mean “Sallie and Maude” and let him know we were coming his way.

Maude didn't like the idea of waiting around for me on the edge of a place. She still might be recognized.

I said, “You can pull your hair to the back of your head, and it will not matter so much then the color is dark.”

“At least I wouldn't look so much like the posters,” Maude agreed. “But I've lost my hairpins.”

I said, “Can you tear a strip off that petticoat?”

“What boy do you know who uses bits of petticoat to tie his hair?”

“If it's dirty enough, they will not know what it is,” I said. “For right now, it's all we have.”

We ate from the pickled eggs and biscuits as we rode. We didn't reach another town for two hours. Heavy on my mind was the worry the sheriff would have been found and he'd've telegraphed all the surrounding towns to be on the lookout for us.

This place was some larger, some rowdier, and nowhere near so prosperous-looking as Sheriff Kind's town. I saw that medicine peddler's wagon again, just closing up shop. I might could have gone for the closer look I wanted earlier, but the mood for idle curiosity had flown.

The telegraph office was hung with wanted posters, three and five in a sheaf. I riffled the pages of some and didn't see Maude's poster anywhere. I couldn't look like I was interested in anyone specific, but like I was doing it to pass the time as I waited my turn.

I came across a picture of the Black Hankie Bandit. He
didn't look awful much like a man with a bad reputation. This picture was taken before he had a bullet hole in him.

My turn came up. I waited as the telegrapher tapped our message out. Aunt Ruthie had taken the trouble to teach this alphabet of dots and dashes to her students one year, and I remembered enough of it to know he sent the message I paid for.

I said all of what we agreed to and then added something I thought of at the last. I told Uncle Arlen he was to leave us a message at Fort Dodge. He should send it to Sam Waters, and we would pick it up when we arrived there.

I stopped for a minute as I came to a newspaper office. Some of the recent pages were stuck up on the window, and I looked to see what stories they had run lately.

I would have missed it if I'd been going by the pictures alone. They showed a woman with her hair pulled into broomtails at each side of her face. I had never known Maude to wear her hair in such a manner, and she wouldn't be flattered.

The headline wasn't awful large, which was something.