Silver Creek - G.L. Snodgrass Page 0,40
back, retrieved both plates, and delivered them to the jail.
Luke thanked her then sighed heavily. “I need you to leave.”
“What! Why?”
He looked back over his shoulder at the door to the jail cell in the back. “Because. I don’t know them Feltons. There’s no telling what they might try.”
Rebecca groaned under her breath. “Luke Parker, I walked across this continent when I was eight-years -old. I’ve lived on a farm in the middle of nowhere for the last eleven years. I’m a western woman. We don’t scare easy.”
Luke’s smiled and started to shake his head.
“If you mock me,” she growled “I will burn your next steak. I know how to use a gun. I can help. You can’t do it all alone.”
He stepped around the desk to take her by the shoulders and look deep into her eyes. “Becky, I know you’re tougher than my old brindle ox. I seen it more’n once. But …”
“Luke,” she interrupted, “there are a dozen stories of women standing with their man against danger. Hundreds maybe. If you say this is man’s work … I swear, I will never talk to you again”
He sighed again, “It is a man’s work, and you know it.”
“But …”
“Listen Becky. I know you wouldn’t break. But, you are my weakness. If Felton thinks you’re involved in keeping his brother behind bars, then you become fair game in his world. And we both know. If he takes you. I’d trade that scum in that cell for you in an instant.”
She frowned as she shook her head. Luke might be correct but that didn’t make it all right. “But, what’s to stop him doing that anyway. Whether I help or not.”
Luke took a deep breath. “Convention, I guess. Men out here don’t take kindly to women being hassled. Felton would ruin everything if he took you. An outsider. But if you stand with me. Holed up in this jail. Then that changes the way people will look at it. A woman taking on a man’s job should be expected to be treated like a man, they’ll say. It might be enough for him to take action.
She pulled back as her forehead furrowed. “Why do I feel as if you are making up excuses to keep me out of danger.”
He smiled and shook his head. “Maybe a bit of both. Besides, I need you on the outside feeding me information along with three meals a day.”
Her heart ached at the thought of leaving him all alone to face them. But she could see it in his eyes. He was never going to back down from this. She fought to keep a tear from her eyes. This felt so wrong.
“Please, Luke. Please be careful.”
He smiled then reached into his desk and removed two letters. “Wrote these last night. One to the Marshal in Carson City. The other to the Army out at Fort Ruby. Can you make sure they get on the stage? Give them to Chester himself.”
Rebecca nodded as she took the letters from his hand.
“I love you,” she said as her heart broke in two. Why did it always seem as if they would never be safe? Why must there always be another danger just around the corner?
Chapter Sixteen
Rebecca sighed heavily as she rinsed the last dish and put it aside. Her stomach turned over with worry at the thought of Luke all alone. It wasn’t right. She had been watching the street. No one had gone to the jail to offer to help.
Not one person. For two days.
Taking a deep breath, she wrung out the dish towel then turned to Helen and raised an eyebrow. “it’s quiet. I thought I’d take a break.”
Helen scoffed then shook her head. “You are not going over to the jail. He’s right. You stay away from there. You’ll just make it harder for him.”
Rebecca felt her soul sink. There must be something she could do.
“What about …”
“No,” Helen said emphatically. “Listen, don’t you think I know what you are going through. Chester left this morning guarding enough silver to sink a canoe. There have to be a hundred men within spitting distance who would like to take it from him.”
The worry behind Helen’s eyes shocked Rebecca. She had never seen this side of her.
“It is like this every time he goes out.” Helen continued, “I have to wait. That is all I can do. That and pray that he returns safely. That is what we do. It is the price of loving an