Page 10 of Follow the Lonesome Trail

So, with Edith still graciously fuming about her own loss in the romantic department, she had been all too willing to help Constance go on an adventure that would hopefully aggravate Jeremiah to the point of calling off the betrothal or at the very least buy her some time to think of someone else she could possibly get married to who would at least keep his lips to himself.

The long and short of it was, Constance had answered the advertisement for a teacher near the ranch her father co- owned.

(It wouldn’t do to go too far from the nest. She did want to be found eventually, after all.)

“You’ve got to be joking.” Tate rubbed a hand through his hair. “You’re telling me that we robbed a train, could go to prison for life, and it won’t even matter because your father might not even want you back?”

Constance frowned, “Well, I’m sure he will…once he finds out about it all.”

Tate groaned and buried his head in his arms on the low rail of the porch.

Lightning flashed in the distance but none of them called out a number.

Finally, Gideon spoke, “Ma’am, we truly are sorry for all of this.

But I’ve got to be honest. I don’t know what we’re supposed to do next.

You need to go back home, and they’re going to ask you all sorts of questions.

Even if we did drop you off somewhere far away from here and you refuse to tell them who did it, my money’d be on them still finding out it was the boys.

Somebody bone-headed enough to rob a train and kidnap a body without planning what to do afterwards would be bound to leave evidence somewhere. ”

Tate threw his biscuit at Gideon and it bounced off his knee. Marsh just looked irritated.

They all went quiet for long minutes. Constance could tell that underneath all the aggravation, Gideon was worried.

Train robbery was no laughing matter, much less the kidnapping of a cattle baron’s daughter.

A couple of foolish boys making a stupid, albeit large, mistake shouldn’t be shuffled off to prison, should they?

Constance couldn’t get the idea of Tate and Marsh going to prison for sheer stupidity out of her mind.

Birds chirped outside and the world smelled fresh and new after the thunderstorm the night before.

She sighed as she finished making the bed.

It wasn’t the spirit of the law. Besides, she felt a bit upset at her father for unintentionally causing part of this ruckus.

If he would just read the letters coming into his office, he would have seen what his partner was up to under the ranch’s name.

Her father might be absent-minded at times and a poor listener when it came to understanding why his daughter didn’t want to marry a scoundrel, but he would never be caught up in something so immoral and, she was sure, illegal.

Constance finished pinning her hair up and walked toward the kitchen. Gideon was there already cooking bacon in the fireplace. She watched him for a moment, but being unable to turn her thoughts to anything else, she struck right at the heart of the matter.

“I don’t suppose you’ve had any brilliant notions during the night of how to get me home?” The ‘without your brothers going to prison’ part was left unsaid, but hung heavy in the air.

“Best idea I’ve had is to turn myself in and tell them it was me and somebody I hired,” Gideon said quietly, pulling the bacon from the fire.

Constance frowned. “That’s no good. You’ll go to prison yourself. Or maybe even be hung!”

“Well, I can’t let that happen to the boys!” He sounded irritated, as if offended she would think otherwise.

“That’s all fine and good, but I’m fairly certain that if we examine the matter systematically, we can find some sort of solution.”

“It had better be quick. Wouldn’t surprise me if the sheriff already had an idea about who robbed the train.”

“Already?”

“Sheriff Taylor is smart. Won’t take him long to find something to put him on the boys’ trail.”

Constance sat down at the table in silence, fiddling nervously with the brooch at her neck. Gideon remained quiet for so long that when he spoke again, it nearly startled her.

“This land hasn’t been ours for all that long.”

Constance glanced at him in surprise at the change of subject.

“Pa was a surveyor for the railroad and bought it when me and Tate was just little.” He paused. “He and Ma were real fond of it. Ma passed having Walter and then Pa was gone a couple years later. They’re buried out back.

“It’s a nice place,” Gideon finished after another strange pause.

“It is,” Constance agreed, hoping he’d go on. When he didn’t, she said, “Home is important.”

He took a breath that sounded a little harsh to her ears. “But what does it matter if the people supposed to be in it aren’t there?”

Just then the front door slammed open and Tate came in carrying Walter upside down.

“Put me down!” Walter shrieked, even as he laughed.

“Where’s Marsh?” Gideon asked.

“Out with the horses, he’ll be in here in a minute,” Tate dropped Walter down to where his hands could touch the ground, then let go. The boy tumbled in a squawking heap.

“I’ve been wondering…” Constance began, then, unable to explain her question, simply said, “Is his name really Marsh Marshall?”

Tate and Walter both snorted and Gideon swatted Tate upside the back of the head.

“He hates his name, so we’ve always called him Marsh,”

“Not always,” Tate grinned, as Marsh walked in the front door. “We used to call him…”

“How ‘bout you shut up or I’ll tell her why we call you Tate ,” Marsh said with a straight face.

Tate lost his grin very quickly.

“Your name isn’t actually Tate?” Constance asked.

“Nah, it's William,” Walter said, grabbing several slices of bacon from the plate Gideon had set on the table.

“Then why do you…” Constance started, but Tate cut her off.

“I’ve got to go see to the milk cow,” Tate said abruptly and stalked out of the room.

Gideon grinned as the door slammed behind him and said in a loud whisper, “He ate an awful lot of taters when he was a kid…”

“Hey Gid!” Tate’s shout was serious, cutting off the rest of Gideon’s sentence. All three of the brothers immediately moved towards the front door.

Constance slowly followed, then stopped when Gideon waved a hand at her to stay back. She obeyed, though she still moved as close to the window as she dared.

Four men had appeared in the yard. Constance’s palms grew damp as she realized the middle-aged rider sitting lazily in the saddle wore a sheriff’s badge. Two deputies had already dismounted and held Tate in handcuffs. A third moved towards Marsh.

“What is this?” Gideon’s voice carried loudly.

“Mornin’, Gid,” The sheriff said as he dismounted, “I hate to tell you this, but the boys are gonna have to come with me.”

“They didn’t do nothing!” Walter said, rushing over to where Tate was pulling against his captors.

“What are you talking about?” Gideon tried to grab Walter, but the boy was already past him, latching onto the first deputy’s arm and pulling.

“Now, Gid, don’t tell me you don’t know what these boys were up to. We practically tracked their horses here and they match the descriptions given by the witnesses. There ain’t nobody else nearby…hey, quit that kid!”

“Get him off me!” yelled the deputy that Walter was practically climbing.

Tate tripped over the second deputy’s foot and hit the dirt, spluttering as he got a face full of grit.

By this time the third deputy had grabbed hold of Marsh’s arms, pulling him back as he tried to go to his brother’s aid.

Just as Gideon rushed forward the first deputy screeched and leapt back, accidentally kicking Tate in the rear.

He jerked and Walter hit the ground, wiping his bloody mouth as the deputy held his equally bloody right ear.

A loud gunshot cut through the chaos and froze everyone in their tracks. For a moment, Constance felt sick and nearly fell over in relief when she saw the sheriff lower his smoking pistol from the sky and slide it back into his holster.

“I said, that’s enough.” The sheriff didn’t shout, but he might as well have. “The two of you are coming with me and that’s an end to it. You can’t go around robbing trains and kidnapping ladies with no consequences.”

Gideon stood up, helping Tate back to his feet. Constance knew just what he was about to say when he took a step towards the sheriff. And though it was far from brilliant, she had an idea.

With a spring in her step, she strolled out the front door with a, “Goodness, was someone shooting?”

Sheriff Taylor, to give him credit, was a bit surprised when she walked out the door, but when she introduced herself as Miss C.J. Morrow, the lady who’d been abducted from the train, she could see the wheels turning in his brain.

“Are you alright, ma’am?” the sheriff asked.

“Why of course!” Constance smiled politely, then said, “But why on earth do you have those boys all tied up?”

“They’ll pay their dues for kidnapping you, don’t you worry none about that,” one of the deputies chimed in, his eyes wide and a faint blush touching his cheeks as he looked her over.

“Well, yes, of course I was kidnapped,” Constance said, directly to the sheriff, “By two rather incompetent men. Despite that, I did find some difficulty in trying to get away from them,” she walked down the steps as she spoke and slipped a hand in the crook of Gideon’s arm.

“But as you can see, Mr. Marshall here did a wonderful job of rescuing me! I wanted to be taken into town yesterday, but after my ordeal, well, I believe Mr. Marshall must have thought I needed the rest, so he kindly let me stay here for the night. The men even slept in the barn. Wasn’t that generous of them? ”

She beamed up at the sheriff and squeezed Gideon’s arm, hoping he’d let her do most of the talking.

Sheriff Taylor stared at her, with one eyebrow raised. “Mm. Generous. And just who were these two desperate characters Gid saved you from?”