Chapter 9 - Fire in the Bitter Creek Night
Bitter Creek had never looked peaceful.
It looked watchful.
When Gideon, Clara, Anna, and Sheriff Bell rode into town the next morning, conversations stopped along the boardwalk.
Everyone had heard about the barn.
Most had heard about Rusk.
Rumors moved faster than horses in small towns.
Harlan Pritchard opened the mercantile before they reached the steps.
“You found something?”
Bell answered, “Maybe enough.”
Pritchard locked the door behind them.
The ledger lay on his counter.
Clara hated seeing it there.
Names covered the pages.
Women reduced to amounts.
Men reduced to bribes.
Human suffering transformed into neat columns.
Anna pointed to one entry.
“Judge Keene.”
Payments appeared every three months.
Another name.
Deputy Territorial Marshal Ephraim Dodd.
Another.
A railway purchasing agent.
Another.
A bank official.
Pritchard whistled.
“That’s not a crooked business.”
Bell looked grim.
“That’s a network.”
They needed to reach federal authorities before Rusk could destroy the evidence or silence witnesses.
A train would leave Rockwater at six the following morning.
Bell arranged four horses.
They would leave Bitter Creek at midnight.
No announcement.
No farewell.
At sunset, Gideon went to the blacksmith for supplies.
Clara stayed with Anna in a room above the mercantile.
Pritchard’s wife, Ruth, brought food.
Clara barely ate.
“You love him?”
Clara nearly dropped her spoon.
Ruth kept folding blankets.
“I didn’t say anything about—”
“You looked out the window seven times since Gideon left.”
Clara glanced toward Anna.
Anna was smiling.
Traitor.
Clara lowered her voice.
“I’ve known him four days.”
Ruth shrugged.
“Some people take years to show you who they are. Some manage it in five minutes.”
“That isn’t love.”
“No.”
Ruth looked at her.
“But it might be the road toward it.”
Clara stared into the soup.
“I was supposed to marry him.”
“Supposed to isn’t much use.”
“He destroyed the contract.”
“Sounds like Gideon.”
“I thought I wanted that.”
“To be free?”
“Yes.”
“You don’t?”
Clara looked toward the window.
“I do.”
“Then what’s wrong?”
Clara whispered, “I’m beginning to want something I can’t tell whether I chose or simply needed.”
Ruth sat across from her.
“That’s a fair fear.”
Clara looked surprised.
Ruth continued.
“Don’t marry a man because he rescued you.”
Clara’s chest tightened.
“Don’t stay because he bought you boots.”
A tear slipped down Clara’s cheek.
“But don’t run from something good just because bad men taught you to distrust wanting it.”
Clara looked away.
Below them, a bell rang.
Not the church bell.
Fire bell.
Pritchard shouted from downstairs.
“Ruth!”
They ran to the window.
Flames rose from the far end of Main Street.
The sheriff’s office.
Bell sprinted across the road.
Gideon appeared from the blacksmith shop.
Then another flame erupted.
Behind the mercantile.
“Downstairs!” Ruth shouted.
Smoke filled the rear room.
Someone had stacked oil-soaked rags beside the wall.
Pritchard threw water.
Gideon arrived seconds later.
“Clara!”
“Up here!”
He looked up toward the stairs.
“Out front!”
Clara grabbed Anna.
They descended.
The front door would not open.
Pritchard pulled again.
“Locked from outside.”
Gideon’s face appeared through the front window.
“Back!”
He smashed the glass with a hammer.
Wind rushed inside.
Smoke followed.
Clara helped Anna through first.
Then Ruth.
Pritchard.
Clara climbed onto the sill.
A beam cracked behind her.
Gideon reached.
Their hands met.
For an instant she remembered another hand.
Dodd dragging her through a corridor in St. Louis.
She almost pulled away.
Then Gideon said her name.
Only her name.
“Clara.”
She looked at his face.
Present.
Not past.
She took his hand.
He pulled her through.
They fell into the snow.
Flames licked the roofline.
Across the street, the sheriff’s office burned.
Bell ran from it carrying a metal lockbox.
“The copies!”
Anna shouted.
Bell held them up.
Safe.
Then a gunshot cracked.
The lockbox jumped from Bell’s hand.
Everyone ducked.
A rider galloped from the alley.
Scar by the ear.
Dodd.
Gideon moved instinctively toward him.
Clara grabbed his arm.
“No!”
Dodd escaped south.
Bell lifted the fallen lockbox.
The bullet had dented the side.
Pritchard stared at his burning store.
Thirty years of inventory.
His home upstairs.
Clara watched his face.
Guilt crushed her.
“I’m sorry.”
Pritchard looked at her.
“For what?”
“This is because—”
He interrupted.
“Don’t.”
Clara blinked.
Pritchard pointed at the fire.
“Rusk set that.”
“He did it because of me.”
“No.”
His voice hardened.
“He did it because he thought he could.”
That sentence traveled through the crowd.
Men and women had gathered.
Buckets passed from hand to hand.
The same people who watched Clara step barefoot into the street days earlier were now fighting flames beside her.
A saloon woman named Mae covered Clara’s shoulders with a blanket.
The barber brought water.
The preacher climbed onto the roof of the adjoining building.
Even the stagecoach driver who had abandoned Clara in the mud worked the pump until his hands bled.
By midnight, the mercantile was damaged but standing.
The sheriff’s office was gone.
Bell looked exhausted.
“Our train plan is dead.”
“Why?” Gideon asked.
“Dodd knows.”
Anna said, “Then we ride now.”
Bell looked toward the southern road.
“They’ll expect that.”
Clara studied the town.
Then the stagecoach station.
“What about the mail wagon?”
Everyone turned.
“The east mail leaves at four,” she said.
Pritchard frowned.
“Road doesn’t go to Rockwater.”
“No.”
Clara looked at Gideon.
“It goes to Fort Mason.”
Bell understood.
“Federal garrison.”
“And telegraph,” Clara said.
Gideon smiled slightly.
Ruth noticed.
“Oh, you two are trouble.”
Clara almost smiled too.
They changed the plan.
At three forty-five, hidden beneath canvas mail sacks, Clara and Anna climbed into the back of the wagon.
Gideon rode separately.
Bell remained in town to misdirect Rusk.
The wagon left before dawn.
For two hours, nothing happened.
Then the driver stopped.
Gideon rode forward.
“What is it?”
The driver pointed.
A tree blocked the road.
Freshly cut.
Gideon’s stomach dropped.
Clara heard horses behind them.
Too many.
She pushed aside the canvas.
Riders appeared on the ridge.
Rusk had found them again.
May you like
And this time, there was nowhere to hide.
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