Wild Embrace

“Yeah, and I’ve been riding him for too long that way, that’s for sure,” Earl said, yanking on his reins to stop the horse. He slid out of the saddle, but did not offer the reins to Everett. “Never mind about him, Everett. I’ll do the ugly task of shootin’ him. You can have the job of getting rid of his body.”

Earl walked the horse toward the stables and gave Everett a sidewise glance. “I don’t guess my daughter’s arrived home yet, has she?” he said, his voice thin and tired.

Everett lowered his dark eyes to the ground as he walked into the stable with Earl. He did not reply, just busied himself removing the horse’s saddle.

Earl went to Everett’s side and placed a heavy hand on his shoulder. “Have you gone deaf?” he asked irritably. “I asked you a simple enough question. Has Elizabeth returned home?”

Before Everett could answer, Earl saw something half hidden beneath some straw in the corner, the light from the lantern spilling onto it.

“What the hell is that?” he said, for the moment forgetting Everett’s strange silence. He sauntered over to the pile of straw and kicked it aside. His eyes widened when he discovered that it was a saddle—an Indian saddle.

His head jerked around, his eyes questioning Everett. “Where did that come from?” he asked. Then he saw an unfamiliar horse in a stall to his right. “That horse. It doesn’t belong to me.”

He stomped back to Everett and gathered Everett’s shirt front into his hand and leaned into Everett’s face. “If you value your job, you’d best begin talking,” he said, his words hissing through his clenched teeth. “Whose saddle? Whose horse?”

“I was told not to tell,” Everett managed to say, his eyes wild with fright. “If I do, she’d make sure I was let go.”

Earl’s heart skipped a beat. He dropped his hand away from Everett, placing it on the handle of his holstered pistol. “She?” he said, an eyebrow rising. “Who, damn you? Who?”

“She’ll not like me tellin’ you,” Everett said, dropping his gaze to the floor.

At the end of his patience, Earl now grabbed Everett by the throat, half lifting him from the floor. “If you don’t tell me,” he said, his eyes narrowing into Everett’s, “I’ll not only be shootin’ my horse this evening, I’ll use one of my bullets on you.”

“Elizabeth!” Everett shot out. “She told me to hide the saddle. She came home the other night. She was ridin’ that horse there. It was saddled with that Indian saddle.” He swallowed hard, then said, “And she was dressed in some kind of Indian dress!”

All of this was coming too fast for Earl. It was spinning around inside his head, not making sense. He jerked his hand away from Everett’s throat and wiped it on his breeches. His breath came in short, raspy sounds.

“She’s here,” Earl mumbled, walking toward the door. “That’s all that matters now. My Elizabeth. She’s home. She’s safe.”

Everett hurried after him. “Sir, you’d best not go to the house just yet,” he said, his voice hushed. “You’d best let me tell you what happened yesterday to Elizabeth.”

Earl stopped and turned to face Everett. “What about Elizabeth?” he said, his voice ominous. “Damn it, what about Elizabeth? Tell me. What happened to her?”

Everett slipped his thin hands into the pockets of his loose, dark trousers. “The sheriff came,” he said thickly. “He took her away. He arrested her. He took her to Copper Hill Prison.”

Feeling his knees close to buckling beneath him, Earl grabbed for the door jamb and steadied himself. He blinked his eyes nervously, finding it hard to breathe.

Then he turned his gaze back to Everett. “Why would the sheriff arrest Elizabeth?” he said, his voice weak. “Why?”

“He said that she was in on the recent escape,” Everett said, shifting his feet nervously in the straw. “He called her an accomplice, or something like that. He said she helped the renegade Indian escape.”

Again Earl felt a weakness sweep through him. He concentrated on the Indian saddle, and then on the strange horse. “You say Elizabeth was using an Indian saddle on that horse, and she was dressed in Indian attire when she arrived home?” he said, his mind conjuring up all sorts of nightmarish thoughts about what Elizabeth may have gone through after being abducted by the renegade Indian and his partner.

And now the damn sheriff had cooked up some cockeyed idea that she had joined the escape party? That she had actually had a helping hand in it?

The thought filled him with a keen revulsion for the sheriff and his idiot logic.

“You know as well as I that Elizabeth had no part in anything,” Earl said, doubling his hands into tight fists at his side. “She was taken captive.”

Then his eyes wavered. “How’d Elizabeth look when she got home? Did she look as though . . . as though she may have been tortured by her abductors? Was she all right?”

Everett slipped a hand from his pocket and rubbed his chin thoughtfully. “Come to think of it, she looked better than I’ve ever seen her.” he said, nodding. “There was something about her eyes—a happiness of sorts. No, I don’t believe you have to worry about her having been tortured in any way. I’d say that someone took mighty good care of your daughter.”

Earl lifted an eyebrow at his response. Then he hurriedly took a horse from a stall, slapped his saddle onto its back and fastened it. “I’m riding into Seattle,” he said, stopping to eye his lame horse. “Do what’s required here.”

Everett nodded and went to grab a rifle that was propped against the stable wall.

Earl swung himself into his saddle and gave the Indian saddle another lingering stare. Then he slapped his reins and rode quickly away past the towering house and through the gate.