Page 18 of Love and Order

CHAPTER 1

Cambria Springs, Colorado Territory Wednesday, June 25, 1873

It didn’t take long for the vultures to circle, waiting to feast on Rion Braddock’s carcass. By the time the durn sheriff returned to the jail from putting up his horses then left again to get food for their breakfast, a mob had formed around the door—both men and women—calling for his neck to get stretched. And all the while, Joe Trenamen and Calliope huddled together, talking in circles he couldn’t grasp.

“I’m gonna need y’all to slow down and tell me plain, from the beginnin’, what you think is goin’ on.” Rion stared through the bars at Calliope.

His sister!

He was still trying to wrap his head around her standing there. “Because up in the cave, you were talkin’ about murdered women, then you said Miss Hattie’s been taken. I feel like I’m missin’ pieces of this picture you’re tryin’ to paint.”

It was Calliope’s … partner? beau? both? … Trenamen, who answered first. “Five years ago, a woman’s body was found in a train car in the Chicago train yard. A train line the Pinkertons work with. The woman had been stabbed multiple times, and her head was shaved bald.”

Rion cursed under his breath. “Who would do such a thing?”

Calliope continued. “The woman was a senator’s niece, in Chicago for the Republican National Convention, when they chose Ulysses S. Grant to be the Republican presidential nominee.”

A chill swept him. He’d been in Chicago looking for Calliope at that time. “All right?”

Trenamen cleared his throat. “A second murder, similar to the first, happened days shy of the first anniversary of that first murder. The second happened in St. Louis. That time, a woman was found in the train yard, near a train the Pinkerton Detective Agency works with. Stabbed viciously a number of times, and her hair shorn. She went missing as people poured into the streets to celebrate the completion of the Transcontinental Railroad.”

Calliope’s expression dripped sadness. “You just told me about being there during that time.”

As the picture they painted took shape, something like dynamite exploded in his chest. “I done a lot of things in my twenty-five years.” Including killing three men who were gunning for him. “But I ain’t never killed a woman.” He rattled the door. “Not in St. Louis. Not in Chicago. And sure as shootin’ not here.” Why would he shave their hair if he had? “You ain’t pinnin’ murders on me. Now get me out of this cell, and I’ll help you find who did. But it ain’t me.”

Trenamen held up a hand. “Settle down. We’re trying to—”

“You settle down, you—” He loosed a name unfit for his sister’s hearing, but just then, he didn’t rightly care. He rattled the door harder and longer than the last time. “I’m bein’ railroaded—by my own kin!”

“Orion James, stop it!” Despite her eyes brimming with tears, Calliope stared him down. “Believe it or not, I’m trying to save your life!”

Walking to the back of the cell, he smacked the wall with his open palm. Pain jolted through his forearm. “I didn’t do this!”

“Did you visit a brothel recently?” Trenamen’s voice was quiet.

Rion glared through the bars. “I told you, that ain’t my way.”

“So you haven’t set foot in any such establishment?”

“Set foot in one, yeah. Talked to one of the doves—because the fella I was tryin’ to collect the bounty on had roughed her up a while back. Why?”

“What was her name, the one you talked to?”

Rion thought. “Serafina, I reckon. Why is this so all-fired important?”

“When?”

“Tarnation, Trenamen! Answer my question.”

Calliope’s shoulders slumped. “The soiled dove known as Sweet Serafina was murdered—stabbed with her hair shorn—last week. Her body was found in an abandoned cabin outside of town. Your boot track was in the cabin where her corpse was found.”

“The dove that confronted you near the medicine show …” Joe Trenamen crammed his hands in his pockets. “She told Sheriff Downing you were one of the last to be seen with Serafina.”

Rion’s stomach soured. “Whatever you saw, it ain’t my boot track. I ain’t been to no abandoned cabin ’round these parts anytime recent.” Did they even care?

“We need to get to the bottom of why so much of this matches you if you’re not responsible.”

“Like I said, I’m bein’ railroaded.” And he’d only discovered that as Calliope unfolded the facts of the case against him. So many facts …

How in blue blazes could that be? He had nothing to do with Miss Hattie’s disappearance. The afternoon he ate at the boardinghouse, they’d talked for hours. Then he made a beeline right for the cave. By the time he left, few people would’ve been out, and he hadn’t come across anyone. He’d just made his way to the cave.

And yes. He’d gone to talk to the soiled dove at the brothel, but he’d talked to her for maybe ten minutes, probably less. She was very much alive when he left her.

“Since you bring it up, can you think of anyone who would want to railroad you?” Trenamen asked.

He paced to the cot and slumped onto it, his shoulder braced against the thick wall. “Plenty of people. Ellwood Garvin.”

“The man who raised you?” Trenamen frowned.

“Don’t you dare call what that ol’ fool did raisin’ me .”

“Understood. But that’s who you mean, yes?”

“Yeah, him.”

“You think he’d set you up?”

“He’s ornery enough. And he’s been accusin’ me for years of stealin’ from him and killin’ those gals he took in. Tryin’ to pin what he did on me.”

Trenamen nodded. “Who else?”

He grunted. “I’m a bounty hunter. Dependin’ on what side of the law you’re on, I might be loved or hated.”

“True.”

Outside the office, the crowd whipped into a frenzy of angry voices, and one rose above them all. Sheriff Downing’s.

“Go on! All of ya. We don’t know nothin’ yet.”

Someone shouted something back at him.

“We’ll be looking for Hattie again soon. In the meantime, tamp down your anger and go back to wherever ya came from!”

Downing eventually shooed most of them toward their homes or businesses. Once they’d filtered away, he unlocked the door and let himself in, basket in hand. He locked the door behind him.

“Got breakfast, Braddock.” He set the basket on the desk, barely in view of where Rion stood. It sounded like he might be unpacking things. “And you two—”

Both Calliope and Trenamen swung his way.

“Bess is awake. She’s worried y’all’re not there. I told her I’d send ya her way as soon as I could.”

The two looked at each other, then faced the cell again.

“I’ll be back soon.” Calliope’s pretty features reflected her concern.

“Don’t worry about me.” He glanced around. “Got food and a bed. I’m used to makin’ do with a lot less.”

The little thing looked ready to cry again. To his credit, Trenamen slung an arm around her and tucked her against his side. “We’ll be back in a while.”

Once they’d left, Downing brought a plate of flapjacks and eggs. Normally, Rion’d put away such a meal in no time. Today, he wasn’t hungry—not with how quickly things had turned against him. Downing pushed the plate and a fork through the slot in the bars, and Rion received them. He’d eat some, keep his strength up.

He’d need it. He wasn’t staying … not one minute beyond what he must.

Despite the early hour, the town was abuzz with news. Someone had been arrested for Hattie Ingram’s disappearance—and possibly for the murders of the other two other women. With such a story to break, Lucinda Peters waited outside the sheriff’s office, despite everyone else having left as directed. That would actually make her plan easier to accomplish. As she waited for the door to open again, she jotted in the journal she carried everywhere—notes, questions to ask, or details to recall. But until she spoke to the sheriff and his suspect, she was much too short on the detail aspect.

After some minutes, a key turned, and the door opened. Lu darted onto the boardwalk and caught the knob, waiting for the tall, handsome man and the smaller woman—both of whom she’d seen around the medicine show several days earlier—to exit. That day, she’d seen the woman run after the man now locked inside the jail, and her handsome companion had chased after her. What had all that been about?

Focus, Lu. If she was going to break this story, she had to keep her wits about her.

“Morning.” She nodded to them as they exited, and before they could question her, she ducked into the office, much to the sheriff’s surprise.

“Who’re you?”

“Lucinda Peters. I’m a reporter.” Not exactly the truth. She was a writer—of dime novels for now, but no one needed to know that. Especially since she hoped this story would give her the break she needed to get on with a real newspaper and to show her family she had what it took. She waved toward the cell where the big man huddled, eating. “I’d like to speak to you about the prisoner you’ve brought in this morning.”

“Were you just waitin’ outside my door? I told everyone to git. That means reporters too.”

“If you prefer not to speak, sir, may I at least ask your prisoner some questions?”

The lawman folded his arms across his broad chest. “Are we havin’ a misunderstandin’ here? I said go away.”

She arched her brows, a half smile on her lips. “Please?”

He went to the door and opened it, waiting. When she made no move toward it, he became flustered. “Who do you belong to, woman?”

“Belong to?”

“What man accounts for you? Who’s your husband—or your father, as the case may be?”

“I can assure you, Sheriff, I belong to no one.” Her father and brothers were back east, working their blessed newspaper, much too far away to answer on her behalf. And she had no husband. Didn’t want one either—particularly not if it meant going back to her upbringing, where women and girls were expected to be proper and look pretty. “I’m my own woman.”

He harrumphed. “Then I’ll tell ya one more time: Git—or I’ll lock ya in one of my cells, missy.”

Would he really? She glanced around the sparse office, filled with the sheriff’s desk and a few chairs—one on his side and two facing it. And across the way, a wall of wanted posters. In the front corner near the window, a potbellied stove sat cold—the weather far too warm to fire it up in June. And along the back wall, three cells filled the space, each separated by iron bars.

Lu marched to the one adjacent to where the big man balanced a plate of pancakes on his knee. “I’ll take this one.”

“You little—” He stopped short but stomped into the cell and took her arm. “Let’s go. Now.”

He tried to guide her through the door.

She dug in, resisting his attempts. “You promised, Sheriff, if I didn’t go, you’d lock me in one of your cells. What sort of a lawman would you be if you don’t follow through on a promise like that?” She wrestled her arm free. “No one will possibly believe you mean business if you don’t carry out your word.”

The sheriff’s face turned an unflattering shade of red.

The man in the adjoining cell snorted as he eyed them both with an irritated look, then shook his head and forked a bite of food in his mouth.

“You little—” The veins bulged along the sheriff’s neck. “Do us all a favor and git, already!”

Lu paced back to the cot and sat, opened her book again, and began to write.

The lawman gaped and, after half a breath, spun and marched out, clanging the door closed, mumbling something about her being deranged.

Lu stifled the self-satisfied grin that leapt to her face. About time …

“Pardon me.” She immediately turned to the fellow in the next cell. “Good morning. My name is Lucinda Peters. Might I ask your name?”

He glanced up, then put away another bite of his food, chewing in silence.

Downing stomped out the office door and into the grassy area, carrying a heavy wooden crate.

“What has our friend, the sheriff, arrested you for, sir?”

He forked another bite of the pancakes into his mouth, chewing slowly. She watched for the moment he swallowed to ask another question, but he’d already lined up his next bite and took it before she was able. As he scraped up bits of pancakes and eggs with his fork, he avoided eye contact.

“Does this have something to do with the woman who went missing a couple of nights ago? Miss Hattie Ingram, I believe.”

A moment later, the sheriff returned, and the man in the cell crossed to the door, whistling sharply as he did. Holding the plate and fork out through the slot in the door, he waited for the sheriff to collect it and whispered something to him as he did. The sheriff nodded, set the plate in the basket on his desk, and returned to slip a heavy canteen through the bars.

The big man took a swallow, then another, and setting the canteen down near his cot, sprawled on his stomach, head resting on his arms.

“Are you the one who murdered the prostitute known as Sweet Serafina, sir … or the previous victim, Mary Redmond?”

He flinched and, after a second, shoved himself up onto his elbows and swung a bewildered glance her way.

“What’d you just say?”

“Did you murder the soiled dove, Sweet Serafina, or the waitress from Dutch’s Café, Mary Redmond?”

His face paled. Then suddenly, he lunged up off the cot, whistling sharply again as he went to the bars. “Downing!”

The sheriff sauntered over, his face stern.

The two men huddled at the corner of the cell and, for several minutes, spoke in whispers. If only she could make out half of what they were saying, it could be very useful to her story. However, once they broke their impromptu conversation, the big man—whose name she still hadn’t gotten—flopped back on the cot, his expression haunted.

Like a man who hadn’t known an acquaintance had been murdered …

Lu scribbled in her book.

Suspect was startled by news of either Serafina’s or Mary Redmond’s murder. Not a feigned shock, either. His face paled as soon as I said their names, and he rose to confer with Sheriff Downing.

“So I take it from your reaction that you weren’t aware of Serafina’s murder? Or was it Miss Redmond’s?”

The big fellow gulped a breath and settled his elbows on his knees, rocking slightly.

Had the news of one or both of those deaths honestly disconcerted him so? A pang of guilt lodged in her chest. How could he not have known? It had been big news, ever since Miss Redmond went missing on her way home from the restaurant late one night.

The man must be playacting—an accomplished liar who’d kidnapped and murdered several, acting the part of an innocent man.

She pressed on in her questions with one that had plagued her thoughts since she first learned the detail. “Why did you shave the women’s hair?” The clippings hadn’t been left at the scene, so what in the wide world would someone want with them?

“Stop your yammerin’, woman!” Downing growled from around the corner. He clomped across the floor. A door opened, then slammed. When he stepped into view again, he carried a bedroll and a pair of saddlebags.

Downing pulled the large key ring with numerous keys from his desk and paced to his prisoner’s cell. “Braddock.”

Seeing Downing holding the bedding and saddlebags out to him, the big man rose and pulled them through the bars.

Lu opened her book again and jotted the name. Braddock. It was something, anyway.

The loud turning of a lock’s tumblers drew her attention, and in a heartbeat, Downing had her cell door open. He crossed to her and, grabbing her by the wrists, pulled her to her feet. Her book and pencil tumbled from her fingers, and as she mentally scrambled to retrieve them, Downing hoisted her onto his shoulder. She screamed, fighting to free herself from his ironclad grasp. He carried her out the front door, down the steps, and to a huge old pine with its lower branches sawn off. Downing dumped her on her backside in the bed of dead pine needles.

“Ow! You brute!” She smoothed her skirt, covering her petticoats so they weren’t on display for all to see. Lu glared, though he didn’t meet her eyes. Instead, he grabbed an object from the ground and clamped something cold around her left wrist. Her jaw went slack as he locked a shackle in place with a key from that same key ring he’d used inside.

“There, missy.” He gathered the now-empty wooden crate he’d carried outside earlier and turned it upside down beside her. “You asked to be locked up. You got yer wish.”

“You said you’d lock me in your jail cells.”

“You ain’t disruptin’ my office with all your prattle.” He patted the tree trunk. “This ol’ girl here was the jail before Cambria Springs installed the bars for those cells. This’ll be where ya stay until yer ready to follow instructions.” He waved to a pile of heavy chain, one end attached to the shackle around her wrist, and the other locked around the tree trunk. “I’ll bring you a canteen here shortly, but you got enough chain to move around a bit. Follow the shade of the tree, missy. You’ll be more comfortable that way. And I’ll leave the crate so’s you don’t have to sit on the ground.”

Downing marched back toward his office, leaving her to gape after him. When the door clattered shut, frustrated tears sprang to her eyes.

This wasn’t what she’d intended at all!