Rose's Mail Order Husband - A Historical Mail Order Bride Story (Montana Brides) (14 page)

Rose’s sisters let her go just enough for her to get a look at Jake. He laughed and joked with the others, but when he caught her eye, some question lurked there below the surface. He
didn’t offer the salvation from uncertainty she thought he would.

She thought all she had to do was marry him, and everything else would be okay. Now they were married, for better or for worse, and
everything would not be okay—not by a long way

How much did she really know about him?
Nothing. Wasn’t that the whole point of marrying a mail-order husband? You never knew what you were going to get. Had she grossly misjudged not only him, but this whole marriage proposition, too? What if it didn’t do what she wanted it to do? What if it didn’t offer her the shelter and protection she hoped it would? Where would she be then?

If that happened,
she’d be utterly lost. She’d be as good as dead.

But
no one seemed to notice any change except her. If anything, marriage somehow redeemed Jake in the eyes of his new in-laws. They managed to forget their suspicions of him and welcomed him into the fold of the newly married.

Where had the minister gone?
He’d vanished somewhere, along with the Sheriff. May he vanish forever into the shadows and never bother her or her family again! But that wouldn’t happen. She could only rest for a few moments until he came back, asking questions and seeing things she’d just as soon he didn’t see.

What torment Violet must have gone through before he pried the truth out of her about beating up Cornell! At least she had that out in the open. No wonder she could enjoy her wedding, even with the Sheriff poking
around. He already knew the worst there was to know about her.

Rose shuddered and let her sisters comfort her. They probably would have stood there, leaking at the eyelids, all day
long if good, staunch Violet hadn’t intervened. “Let’s get out of this parlor!” she blurted out. “Let’s get over to the dining room, and we can all sit down and have something to eat. We can relax there, or we can go sit in the front sitting room.”

With a gaggle of conversation, the three couples repaired to the dining room.
But no one seemed all that interested in food, except the minister, who materialized from his hiding place just in time to eat.

Jake leaned on Rose’s arm and hopped from one room to the other. As they entered the dining room, Rita set a platter of steaming roast beef on one of the side tables and went out to the kitchen for more. The three couples wandered around in a daze, but none of them sat down.

“I wonder if the Sheriff wants to eat something before he heads back to Butte,” Violet murmured.

“Where is he?” Iris whispered back. “I didn’t see where he went.”

“Maybe he went to get his horse out,” Mick suggested.

“I don’t think he’ll wait long enough to eat,” Chuck remarked.

They didn’t have long to wait, however. The Sheriff strutted into the room before the words finished coming out of his mouth.

“Come on, Hamilton,” he announced.
“Time to go.”

“Wait!” Rose cried. “You can’t go yet.”

The Sheriff scowled at her.
“Why not? I told you I’d wait long enough for you two to get married. That’s done. Now it’s time to leave.”

Violet stepped in. “Would you like to eat something before you leave, Sheriff?
There’s plenty here. We don’t want the food going to waste.”

“No, I don’t want to eat anything,” Sheriff Maitland thundered. “I want to take this man back to Butte to stand trial for Cornell Pollard’s death.
That’s what I came here for, and that’s what I’m going to do. Now, come on!”

Even as he said these words, a thought crossed his mind, and he came up close to Jake’s face, peering at him hard in the brighter light of the dining room.

“Is anything wrong, Sheriff?” Chuck asked.

“What is…..
” He pointed toward Jake’s head, “what is that?”

Everyone in the room craned their necks to see what the Sheriff was pointing
at.

“What are you looking at?” Iris asked.

“Look,” Sheriff Maitland barked. “Look hard. You can’t see it very well because his hair is black. But it’s there.”

“What is?” Chuck asked.

“Look!” the Sheriff shouted. The newlyweds surrounded Jake and stared at his head as hard as the Sheriff did until they all saw a crust of black just inside his hairline above his left ear. “Now do you see it?”

“What is it?” Iris asked.

“Ask him that,” Sheriff Maitland screamed. “Tell us, Hamilton. What is it?”

“I hurt myself,” Jake murmured.

Violet’s head swung around and she gasped, staring at Rose.

“
How
did you hurt yourself?” the sheriff demanded.

“I fell over,” Jake replied.

“
How
did you fall over?” Sheriff Maitland yelled.

Jake lowered his eyes to the floor. “Does it really matter?”

“Of course it matters!” the sheriff boomed. “You killed him, didn’t you? You killed Cornell Pollard.”

“Sheriff!”
Violet cried. “You can’t mean it!”

“I do mean it,” the sheriff shot back. “I wasn’t completely certain before, but I am now. Do you know how he got that injury on his head, and the other one on his arm? Cornell hit him with the poker from the fireplace in the library. I noticed a stain of dried blood on the hook of the poker when I examined the room, but I
didn’t think anything about it at the time. Now I know where it came from.”

The other newlyweds gasped in shock at the revelation. Rose quailed, and her stomach wrenched into a ball of knots.

Violet turned to her. “Rose, did you…?” She stopped.

“Sheriff,” Rose began, “you can’t do this! You don’t understand.”

“Don’t try to defend him now, Rose,” Mick growled. “He’s a murderer.”

Rose choked on her sobs. “He is not a murderer. He didn’t kill Cornell.”

Mick rounded on her with his teeth bared. “You’re delusional, if you think he’s innocent. All the evidence points to him. You just love him too much to admit it. He’s a snake in the grass, and he somehow managed to rope you into believing he’s innocent so you’ll tell everyone so at every opportunity. Anybody can see that.”

Rose shook her head, and tears flew away from her face. “It isn’t true! You’re wrong.”

“You haven’t given anybody any reason to think otherwise,” he pointed out. “And neither has Jake. You’ve both gone out of your way to confirm your guilt in everyone’s minds. You’ve been more concerned about moving into the Bird House than with proving your innocence.”

“That’s not true!” Rose wailed.

Mick clenched his jaw and turned away. Violet stepped up again. “She’s distraught over Jake leaving. Just let her alone, and she’ll come around.”

“I will not come around!” Rose shrieked. “I will not see sense, or snap out of it, or any other words you want to use to say that I will think Jake is guilty because he isn’t. Now stop saying that!”

She stared wildly from one face to another, but they all closed to her with their mouths clamped shut and their eyes narrowed.

In the end, Iris came toward her. “Listen, Rose. You have to admit to yourself that the evidence is overwhelming.
He’s the only one who could have killed Cornell. Admit it. He’s going to Butte to face justice, and that’s the best place for him.”

“I’ll tell you what,” Sheriff Maitland put in. “I’ll show you the evidence for yourself.
I’ll show you the inside of his gun, where it left the marks on the bullets that killed Cornell. Will that convince you?”

Rose shook her head, distracted with grief and fear, but Sheriff Maitland ignored her. “Give me your side arms,” he said to Jake.

Jake pulled out one of his pistols. He flipped it around and passed it, butt first, to the Sheriff. Sheriff Maitland pulled back the hammer and opened the tumbler. He examined the interior of the firing chamber. Then he smelled the gun before handing it back to Jake. “And the other one?”

Jake handed over his other pistol and the Sheriff gave it the same inspection.
But this time, when he looked down into the firing chamber, his eyes lit up. “Ah-ha! Right here!”

He held the gun open for all to see. “You see those little spikes of metal sticking out of the wall there? They left the marks on the bullet I took from Cornell. That proves it.” He held the gun aloft. “This is the murder weapon.”

His performance didn’t ruffle Jake in the slightest. “And I suppose you kept the bullet to match to the gun.”

“You would think of something like that, wouldn’t you?” Sheriff Maitland shot back. “As a matter of fact, I did keep the bullet, and the district attorney can present that evidence at the trial.
So you might as well tell us all how it happened. Tell us how Cornell Pollard died.”

Jake cocked his head on one side. “I really don’t know how he died.”

The Sheriff snorted. “What? Are you really going to stand there and tell me and all the rest of these people that this gun didn’t kill him? Are you going to tell us you were nowhere near the library at the time of his death? You can’t expect us to believe that.”

“I didn’t say the gun didn’t kill him,” Jake replied. “And I didn’t say I wasn’t in the library. But I didn’t kill him.”

“Then how did he die?” Sheriff Maitland demanded again. “Tell us.”

“I really don’t know,” Jake insisted. “I would tell you if I could.”

“Stop!” Rose wailed. “Please stop!”

She covered her ears with her both hands, and her sleeves fell back around her elbows.

“Rose!” Violet gasped.
“Rose, your arm!”

Sheriff Maitland stared at Rose’s arm. “Miss?” he gasped. “How did you get that mark on your arm?”

Rose sank into a chair, covered her face with her hands, and sobbed. “You don’t understand. Jake didn’t kill Cornell. You can’t take him in. He’s innocent.”

“Young lady,” Sheriff Maitland rumbled. “If you have something to tell me, now is the time to do it.”

Jake hopped over to her. “Say it, Rose. Say it now.”

Rose lifted her face to him. Tears stained her cheeks. She opened her mouth, but faltered when she saw her sisters staring at her with their jaws hanging open. “I can’t!”

“Rose,” Jake continued, “if you don’t say it now, I’m going to be hauled off to jail as a murderer.  We’ll probably never see each other again. You have to say it now.”

Rose covered her face again, the sobs ripping out of her chest in great wrenching bursts.

“I killed Cornell!” she blurted out. “I killed him!”

“You!”
Violet gasped. “Not you!”

Jake held up his hand. “Don’t accuse her until you hear the whole story. She kept silent all this time because she
didn’t want you and Iris to know. She thought you wouldn’t be able to forgive her for killing him.”

“But how…
.?” Iris asked.

Jake faced the company. “After we got back from Butte and had supper, Chuck and Violet went out for a walk. I guess Mick and Iris went off to the barn together. Rose and I went out the back door. We sat on that bench by the back shed, just sitting and watching the moonlight over the land. We
didn’t say much. We just sat there, holding hands.”

“Did you hear the scuffle between Violet and Cornell?” the Sheriff asked.

“We heard something,” Jake admitted, “because Rose came back inside. After a while, I heard another noise. I don’t know what it was, but I came in to find out if Rose was okay and to check and see if she was coming back out to me or if I should head back to the Fort House. I found her in the front hall.”

“Was Cornell still there?” Violet asked.

Jake nodded. “Rose and Cornell were talking about something. They were speaking in quiet voices, so I couldn’t understand what they were saying. I came into the hall, and I walked right up to them. I asked Rose if everything was okay. She didn’t answer me.”

“Did Cornell say anything?” Iris asked.

“Not right away,” Jake replied. “So I tried to introduce myself. I stuck out my hand and said, ‘I’m Jake Hamilton, pleased to make your acquaintance, you must be Cornell Pollard, I’ve heard a lot about you’—all the usual stuff.”

“What was his reaction?” Chuck asked.

“He didn’t react at all,” Jake told him. “He turned around and walked away into the library. Rose and I followed him in there, and Rose started talking to him. She said she was marrying me, and the least he could do was behave civilly toward us.”

“What happened then?” Sheriff Maitland asked.

“He picked up the poker and started smashing the place up,” Jake recalled. “He moved so fast that he caught me off guard. I didn’t see the poker coming the first time, and he hooked me in the side of the arm. He swung it around a couple of times, just slashing the air with it. But then he aimed and caught me on the side of the head. I fell over, and I don’t know what happened after that.”