The
Lady Fugitive
By Ada Brownell
How does a
respected elocutionist become a face on a wanted poster?
Jenny Louise Parks
escapes from the coal bin, and her abusive uncle offers a handsome reward for
her return. Because he is a judge, he will find her or he won’t inherit her
parents’ ranch.
Determination to
remain free grips Jenny, especially after she meets William and there’s a hint
of romance. But while peddling household goods and showing a Passion of the
Christ moving picture, he discovers his father’s brutal murder.
Will
Jenny avoid the bounty hunters? Can she forgive the person who turns her in?
Will she find peace, joy and love?
Published by Elk Lake Publishing, a division of Book Club Network.
~~~ CHAPTER ONE ~~~
April 1908,
Peachville, Colorado
The barn door creaked. The judge’s
massive body loomed in the opening, his scowling face crimson. He slid a razor
strap back and forth in his manicured hands. “Jenny!”
Her heart thumping like a dasher
churning butter, seventeen-year-old Jennifer Louise Parks dropped the curry
brush and moved past the buckskin’s large rump toward the side door.
The huge man limped closer. “Didn’t I
tell you to quit flirting with those young men at the opera house?” His deep
voice boomed among the stalls. “I want it stopped.”
Jenny inched backward. She swallowed. Icy
tingles
crawled up her back, her neck, and over her scalp.
“But…but…I was just being polite. I was
honored they came to hear an elocutionist. They complimented me on my
recitations.”
Judge Danforth Schuster, her uncle,
stepped closer, looking her up and down in the dim light. When she backed away,
he grabbed her wrist and tightened his sausage fingers. He lifted the strap
with his other hand.
“It’s about time you had a good
lickin’.” Tobacco and liquor breath sprayed her cheeks as he tried to turn her
around.
This nightmare was not happening. Jenny
wiggled, twisted, and scratched like a cat caught by a
naughty child. The man clenched her tighter. Gritting her teeth, she braced her
legs and shoved. She might as well have tried to move the boulder out by the
windmill.
Relaxing a moment, she took a deep
breath, jabbed an elbow into his dome belly, and stomped her
boot heel down hard on his foot with the ingrown toenail.
A deep cry ripped from his throat. The
hairy arms lost their hold, and she whirled out of his grasp. She
ducked in time for his fist to miss her face. Then she ran past the horses and
out the door.
Breathing hard, she slammed into a
wall. She stumbled backward.
The wall moved, and gentle hands kept her
from falling. A smile crinkled the young man’s cheeks. “In a hurry, ma’am?”
“Yes!” Winded and trembling
from her ears to her ankles, she gulped air.
His hand steadied her, and then he
released his tender hold. “Sorry. I apologize for not announcing my arrival. I
came to see if the judge needs any merchandise today.” He gestured toward his
peddler wagon.
She stared at the contraption with
Household Goods painted on the side. He was not one of the judge’s hired
“investigators.”
“I—I don’t know if he does. He’s in the
barn.”
The peddler’s olive-green eyes picked
up the color of his shirt. His gaze lingered. “Are you sure
you’re all right?"
She blinked, still breathing hard, nodded,
and turned to go to the house. Trying not to show the handsome man the
white-hot anger searing her insides, she relaxed a bit. She didn’t want him to
guess something she didn’t like happened in the barn.
“Is there anything I can help you
with?”
Jenny glanced to see if her uncle was
coming. He wasn’t. She shook her head.
“Ma’am, I enjoyed your poems and songs
about Colorado the other evening at the opera house.”
“Thanks.”
Freckled cheeks crinkled into a shy
smile. He extended his tanned hand. “I hoped to run into you, but had no idea
you’d run into me. I’m William O’Casey.”
Glancing at the barn again, Jenny’s
face heated. She lifted her chin and stuck out a shaky hand. “Nice to meet you,
William.”
He
held her fingers, looking intently into her eyes until she pulled free. “I need
to go.”
“Nice to meet you,” he called as she
rushed to the house.
Each step brought her closer to
admitting the truth. Her life here was over.
She entered the large two-story home
Daddy built before she was born, and gently closed the screen door.
Aunt Gertrude sat on the country French
settee in the parlor. Her fingers lazily tatting lace, the lady’s thin cheeks
crinkled into the sour expression she wore at home.
Jenny scooted toward the stairs hoping
Gertrude wouldn’t notice.
“What’s the rush?” The woman slicked
back and tucked loose dyed hair into her brunette bun. “In the time you’ve been
gone it looks like you would have that mangy horse exercised and groomed. See
why the judge and I are selling the animals except our personal mounts? This
ranch is too much work, even with the judge’s men helping. Wouldn’t hurt you to
help more around the house. Since I’m going to Denver tomorrow, you will need
to take charge while I’m gone.”
Gertrude’s sharp voice and nasal tone
grated against Jenny’s smoldering insides. “Wouldn’t you like me to go with
you?”
“Why would you need to go? The judge
wants you here.”
“But…”
Should she tell her aunt “his honor,”
tried to spank her, a grown woman?
She took one step toward the parlor,
and then shame paralyzed her. The terror over staying with the man emanated
from more than the razor strap. She didn’t like the way he looked at her. But
sharing that would only result in accusations. Aunt Gertrude would blame Jenny
as she had Jenny's friend when a wealthy neighbor compromised the maid.
“She’s a little tramp,” Gertrude had
said, her blue eyes large with pride over having such wisdom.
The authorities didn’t even look at
Roberta’s bruises.
Jenny spoke with a steady voice. “I
need to clean up. Then I’ll go to the kitchen and help Polly with supper.”
“About time.” Her aunt’s long nose drug
out the whine in time.
A vision of her twin brother’s bloody
back after the judge took the horse whip to him flashed through Jenny’s mind. Aunt
Gertrude was going to Denver tomorrow. Heart pounding with urgency, Jenny
swooped up the spiral staircase, then on up the narrow stairs into the attic.
She pulled her mother’s satchel from behind the chimney where she stashed it,
running her hand along the bulging lining to see if it remained intact.
Satisfied and breathing fast, she
planned as she worked. She would not stay here one more day. Surely Daddy
didn’t know what he was doing when he changed his will so the ranch went to his
sister and the judge. Shaking her head, she recalled how her uncle had visited
Dad in the tuberculosis sanitarium after Mama died. The judge needed a place to
live after he lost his elaborate home in a drunken gambling frenzy.
And
everything changed.
After filling the ceramic basin from
the water pitcher on her dresser, Jenny washed her face and dried on a white
towel. She would leave when her aunt and uncle were asleep. But how would she
make sure no one followed to keep her from getting on the midnight train to
Minneapolis—to John and Aunt Betsy?
She’d need a disguise. She tiptoed into
John’s old room. Digging through drawers and closet, she collected pants,
shirts, a coat, and their pa’s old wire-rimmed eyeglasses.
“Jenny! What are you doing?”
Jenny jumped.
“You need to get down here,” Gertrude
droned. “The judge will want his supper right away. Polly is so slow.”
When would Gertrude get it through her
head Polly could prepare a meal without a lot of help? Gertrude, used to having
servants, expected Jenny to be one.
“I’ll be right down.”
Back in her room, Jenny stuffed a few
more things into a large leather bag and placed the bags she packed in the
closet.
Downstairs she paused by the kitchen
window. The peddler and the judge stood talking in the yard. The judge laughed
and chattered as always, his chest puffed above his swollen belly as he stuck a
cigar under his bushy mustache and smoked.
The young man held his hat in his hand.
His auburn locks curled around his ears and glistened in the evening sun. If
only she could ride in his wagon and catch the train!
Remembering his gentle hands around
her, she hugged herself.
“That peddler is a handsome un,” said
Polly, her black face beaming. She handed Jenny Mama’s blue-patterned
plates to set the table. Then the woman, who had been a part of the family for
as long as Jenny remembered, took another look at her. “Y’all looks disturbed,
baby. What’s gone wrong?”
Jenny transferred the dishware to her
other hip. She leaned over and whispered into Polly’s ear. “I’m going to
Minneapolis like John did. Tonight.”
The wrinkled face clouded, yet a gleam
lit her eyes before the old woman spoke. “Ah wondered when you’d go.”
As Jenny worked, the
peddler climbed on the high seat above his mule team and drove away. Most folks
would have invited him to supper. She turned from the
window. Nausea stirred her stomach. Daddy’s chair, the china, the silver, the
goblet awaited the judge’s entry. How would she survive this meal?
When night yanked the sun over the
mountain, releasing a deluge of darkness, she placed the last dried supper dish
into the cabinet. As soon as she hung up her towel, Polly thrust an oilcloth
bag into Jenny’s hand.
“What’s this?”
“Food. Y’all needs it.”
“Thank you.” Jenny
planted a kiss on Polly’s soft cheek, clutched the bag to her chest, and darted
up the stairs to her room. There she wriggled into John’s clothes. Her toes
peeked out the bottom of the trousers, the extra fabric puddled on the floor. She
grabbed a straight pin, inserted it where they needed cutting off, and surveyed
the plaid shirt. Rolling the cuffs would be good enough.
Hoping the clicking metal scissors
didn’t make too much noise, she shortened the pants. Her fingers fluttered like
a bird’s wings as she hemmed the bottom.
She’d just turned off the light when a
key rattled and her door lock clicked. She gasped. “What are you
doing?”
“We’re not taking a chance you’ll run
off like John.” The judge’s voice hit her heart like his fist had nearly
hit her face.
“Your aunt is leaving for Denver tomorrow, and I want you here to cook while
she’s gone.”
Jenny clamped her teeth. She’d get
out,
even if the door was locked.
After waiting long enough to hear
snores from the other room, she lifted the window. She dropped her things into
the huge snowball bushes below and skimmed down the trellis as she’d done most
of her childhood. Thunder rumbled and a few sprinkles dripped
on her face when her feet hit the ground. She reached for the things she dropped.
“Gotcha.” The judge grabbed her. His
loud laugh echoed in the night air.
Jenny screamed.
“I figgered you might escape. Now you
won’t be so comfortable. You’re going to the cellar.”
When they came around the house, Aunt
Gertrude stood on the back porch holding a lamp that flickered in the breeze.
Great. She’s watching.
Fury loosed Jenny’s tongue. “Quit
twisting my arm. That hurts.”
She stumbled and rolled, bent on
escape, but he held her like a mousetrap sprung on a rodent.
“You can’t hold me! I will get away.”
The judge laughed louder. “We’ll see.”
Short breaths came like hiccups as the
judge guided her to slanted wooden doors leading down the concrete steps to the
cellar. He shoved her into the darkness and slammed the opening shut. A padlock
clicked.
Copyright 2014
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