Chapter 12
"Josef! Josef, you're awake," Elizabeth exclaimed, taking her husband's hands in hers. "Oh, I was so worried."
"You can't get rid of me that easily," he chuckled, reaching up to stroke a tear away from her cheek.
"Josef, I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry I've caused you all of this grief." Josef shook his head.
"I was an old fool to think that I could run after you as if I was still a young man. I should have stayed in Boston."
"I'm glad you came," she said softly.
"You're glad I had a heart attack?" he asked, amused.
"No!" she exclaimed. "I'm glad you made the effort, but I'm not glad you over-exerted yourself. We're taking the train home as soon as you're well."
"I don't want to go back there."
"What?"
"Boston's not getting our problems solved, Lizzie." She sighed softly.
"Then what do you suggest?"
"We're going to visit our daughter in Colorado Springs."
"I don't know what you're talkin' about," Jake said with a heavy sigh, as the men urged their horses on through the winding paths. "It's too dark to see a damned thing, Horace!"
"I tell ya I saw somethin', so hush!" The men collectively sighed and drew their pistols from their holsters. They waited in silence for minutes before the reflection of a pale glint of moonlight on silver flashed their way.
"Up there!" Hank exclaimed in a whisper. He cocked his pistol and urged his horse on. "Let's get him, boys." They all followed Hank's trail, guns at the ready. They listened for any sign of noise up ahead. The closer they drew to the glow of the shining object, the more they realized that they needed to make sure this was their man. They'd killed Cal Jackson thinking he was Abagail's rapist, and it turned out he'd been innocent of that crime. No, they had to make sure.
"Freeze!" Hank yelled suddenly. The sound of a cracking branch ahead alerted them that they had been heard. "We're lookin' for the man that raped a woman in Colorado Springs. We don't mean no harm, but if ya try and run, we won't hold back from shootin'!"
Silence filled the space between them, but in a moment, the sound of footsteps hitting the ground hard echoed off of the trees.
"That's the bastard we're lookin' for," Jake said with a nod. The men headed off in full pursuit, all ready to bring the man in and send him to a fate worse than Abagail had suffered.
At a little after midnight, Michaela was lying wide awake. Sully had dozed off somewhere between an hour and a half and two hours ago. She had watched him sleep for a while before turning over and facing the wall, willing herself to sleep. But she couldn't. She couldn't seem to get the past couple of days events out of her head.
Her rapist was in town. That was what kept her awake the most, she decided. Knowing that he could be anywhere watching her made her feel as if she'd been trapped in a see-through box and put on display to him and only him as the rest of the town passed on obliviously.
The fall into the water had been a brief memory. The next thing she remembered was coming to in the teepee with Snow Bird. Then there was learning the news that her baby might have been miscarried, the realization that it would be a waiting game until another doctor came to town, and then there was Abagail's death.
She turned over to face the wall, staring at the patterns on the wall, willing herself to sleep. But it never came. She was tired, but sleep wasn't in the cards. With a sigh, she pulled herself out of bed and walked over to the window, looking out over the sleeping town. A few lamps were left burning in the windows of a few homes dotted across the mountainside. She sighed, leaning against the sill, her breath fogging up the cool window pane. With a frown, she looked off toward the church. Abagail's body was laid out inside. Tomorrow was the funeral. Michaela sighed wistfully, wondering if she could have saved the poor woman from her terrible fate had she not been recovering from a nasty fall into the flooded creek.
She wondered if Loren would blame her. She certainly couldn't blame him. He'd lost a wife, a son-in-law, and now a daughter within a year's time, and he was left with one daughter and an orphaned granddaughter. She couldn't blame him if he was angry at the entire world for what had happened to him.
Frowning, she glanced over toward the mercantile, where she could see Margaret pacing back and forth on the porch. Little Hanna was still staying with Horace and Myra, and Michaela figured that might be best until Loren and Maggie figured out how they were going to go about raising the poor girl without her mother and father.
She looked out toward the tree line, wondering how the men were coming in their search for this man. One part of her wanted him to be brought in and brought to justice. The other part wished against it for the simple fact that she didn't want to ever know his face. She didn't want to look into those eyes and realize that he was the man that took away her innocence and forced her on a spiraling course toward a new life. She wouldn't give up Sully for anything in the world, but still, she would never forget what this man had put her through. The thought of putting a face to that hatred was unsettling.
She turned away from the window, a chill creeping up her spine at the thought of him being out there, perhaps even looking at her right now. How could they have traveled this far across the country without noticing the same man traveling the entire time? He must have found his own way to Colorado Springs, considering he most definitely was not on the stage coach with them. They'd enjoyed that ride alone together.
For a moment, Michaela thought about waking Sully from his slumber just to ask him to hold her, but she thought against it. They'd both been through quite an ordeal and needed to sleep, though she was the only one having trouble with that.
She sat down on the edge of the bed, slowly, as to not wake her husband, and she stretched herself out before lying back down and closing her eyes. A headache began to throb at her temples, and she knew that this was going to be a long, long night.
Michaela's eyes shot open, and her heart jumped in her chest at the pounding on the door downstairs. Gasping, Michaela momentarily wondered if he'd finally come to her to hurt her one last time, but the moment she felt Sully sat up next to her, she realized she was safe, and she took a moment to get her bearings.
"Dr. Mike!" Brian hollered, running up the stairs. "Dr. Mike, somebody's been shot!" Michaela's heart leapt into her throat, and somehow she realized this was it. Sully took her hand, and she looked at him, her face showing as much worry and concern as his.
"C'mon," he said softly. "I'm comin' with you." They dressed quickly and rushed down the stairs where the Reverend stood, hat in his hand.
"What's happened?" Michaela asked breathlessly.
"We caught the man that raped Abagail," he said quietly. Michaela froze in her spot.
"How do ya know it was him?" Sully asked, needing to know for sure. The Reverend held up something in his hand, and Sully took it to examine it closer.
"Abagail said he wore a mask when he attacked her." Michaela closed her eyes.
"Dr. Mike?" She slowly opened them to look at the confused reverend. She shook her head. Glancing at Sully, her eyes were full of tears. Sully slowly held up the mask, and when the reverend turned away, Michaela nodded only once to indicate that yes, this was the mask she remembered. He felt anger bubble up inside of him, and he started to head off, but Michaela grabbed his arm.
"No!" she insisted. "No." Shaking her head, they held a silent conversation between them, and the Reverend was in the dark about it all. One gaze from Michaela told Sully all he needed to know. She was going to handle this, but he wouldn't be too far off.
"I'm goin' with you. I ain't lettin' him near ya by yourself," he whispered.
"Good," she said with a nod. "I need you with me." Sully took her hand.
"They took him to the clinic. Ya might want to look at Horace though. He fell from his horse and might've broke his ankle."
"Thank you, Reverend," Michaela said with a nod, stiffening up and trying to put her emotions aside. In this case, it was going to be impossible.
"C'mon," Sully urged her. "You're the doctor." Michaela nodded.
"Yes, I am. I've never wanted to not be a doctor so badly in my entire life than in this moment."
When they reached the clinic, an angry crowd had gathered. Blood was dripped in splotches along the porch, and Michaela shivered.
"Let him die! Let the rapist die!" An angry voice shouted above the other voices in the crowd. Michaela couldn't say she disagreed. She wanted him to die. She wanted him off of this planet so her fears about him could go away and so that one less man like him was on the planet. But at the same time, her job was to save lives, and the only way to truly make this man pay was to have him tried and sentenced. Her faith in the justice department might have been low, but she knew that he'd never get off of his charges after this.
Perhaps she wouldn't be able to come forward with her claim, considering no evidence could be found, but she could make sure he paid for what he did to Abagail, and what his deed had helped drive her to.
Sully helped his wife through the crowd and into the clinic. She could barely breathe now.
Inside, surrounding the table was the search party.
"He's bleedin' awful bad," Robert E. said, glancing over his shoulder.
"I say let him. He lives, it could be one of my girls next," Hank pointed out.
"I say let him die, too," Jake replied.
"Better yet," Hank continued, get a horse and a rope, and we'll string him up now!" Michaela glanced over to see Loren sitting in the back of the room, unable to move or say a word. She wanted to comfort him now, but she glanced at the Reverend, who was already on his way to do that.
"Come on, Loren. Let's take a walk." Loren didn't argue. He didn't want to be in the same room as that bastard any more than he had to, though his thoughts were the same. He wanted retribution. He wanted somebody to pay for what his poor daughter had gone through.
Michaela slowly made her way to the table, seeing the man's boots and legs first. He dressed in fine clothes, though she expected as much. She was clutching Sully's hand now. Next she saw the blood staining his shirt, as Robert E. put pressure on it. And a chilling realization that she was, for the first time, about to see the face of the man who her child might one day look like made her sick to her stomach.
She faltered, and Sully held her.
"You gonna be ok?" She could feel in his tense arms that it was taking all of his power to hold him back from finishing the man off himself.
"I can't look at him," she whispered so the others couldn't hear. Sully wasn't certain he could either, but in his mind, he needed to know. He needed to see the man's face so he knew what kind of scum could hurt his wife in such a way. He wanted to remember every detail of his face, of his eyes, of the eyes she saw when he threw her to the ground and took away her security, her innocence, and her faith in people.
"Is anybody gonna do anything?" Robert E. asked. "He's passed out from the blood loss." Sully and Michaela once again held a silent conversation. Then he leaned in, whispering to her.
"I ain't goin' nowhere. Don't be scared. You're safe. I promise. Ya know what ya have to do." Michaela nodded, reaching within herself for the strength to save the life of a man she wished were dead.
"Let him die," Hank pressed. "He lives, he's just gonna do this again."
"Gentlemen, I need to examine my patient," she said with a not-so-certain tone. She wedged herself between Hank and Robert E. first focusing on the wound as Robert E. let up on it to let her look and then focusing, for the first time, on his face. No longer was he a stranger.
"God no," she whispered the moment she saw those familiar features. She winced in pain, letting out a sob she was desperately trying to choke back. Her knees began to quiver, and Sully reached out to hold her up. "Sully…." He looked over his wife's shoulders to see a man, who much to his surprise, was familiar.
He was speechless. They had spoken with this man. He'd dined with them. He had been a childhood friend of Michaela's. And all along, he'd been the man that had done this to her!
"He got a name?" Hank asked. "Ya know him, right?"
"We do need a name," Robert E. said with a nod. "Gotta wire for the marshall." Michaela couldn't move.
"Dr. Mike? A name!" Jake insisted. Michaela blinked back her tears, looked at Sully, and then looked back at her patient. How could this be? How hadn't she seen it when he'd been at their house? Perhaps she'd been too focused on her nerves about the wedding day. Perhaps she had been too involved in her thoughts to see what was right in front of her. Now here he was, bleeding in front of her, needing her to save him, and he was the man who had raped her.
"John," she whispered.
"What?"
"John. John Lewis," she said, wiping a tear back and placing her hand over her mouth.
"Ya do know him," Robert E. said slowly.
"Not as well as I thought," she muttered.
"I'll see if Horace's foot's ok to walk over to the telegraph office."
"I'll take a look at him soon," Michaela assured them. The men cleared out, and Sully and Michaela were left with a bleeding-to-death John Lewis.
"What're ya gonna do?"
"Let me see the mask."
"What?"
"Let me see it!" she exclaimed. Sully uncertainly held the mask out to her, and she took it in her hands. It was a black and brown striped bandanna he'd folded up. It was wrinkled and old, and when she opened it up, it was embroidered with his initials. J.L.
"Ya remember this?"
"I remember…I remember what it looked like folded. The initials were hidden. I…" Michaela shook her head.
"It's him, isn't it?"
"How can it not be?" she asked, holding her tears back, as she began to gather her supplies. Sully eyed her.
"You're really gonna do this?"
"Don't try to talk me out of it. I have to save him. I have to watch him pay for what he did to Abagail. What he did to me…No, dying like this is too easy for him. He has to be punished…"
"He will be," Sully assured her. Michaela cringed when she touched him to unbutton his shirt. Sully helped her with the task. Never had he assisted in a medical procedure before, but he wasn't about to leave Michaela alone with her rapist, regardless of the fact that he was unconscious and incapable of doing anything more to hurt her.
John was lying in the jail cell now, still unconscious. The men had hastily moved him after Michaela had removed the bullet from his chest. He'd lost a lot of blood, but he had pulled through. She'd expected as much from him. He wasn't going away without a fight, but he certainly had a fight of his own on his hands. If she had anything to say about it, he was going away from a very long time, and he would be enclosed within steel bars for the rest of his life. Or, he would hang. What she found unsettling was that she could picture it in her mind. She almost wanted to see it. Wanted to see the fear in him as they enclosed his head in a black sack and shut off his view of the world for the last time.
Sully and Michaela stood outside of the bars looking in on him. The rest of the townsfolks had settled down for the most part and had gone to bed.
"They're going to try to lynch him," Michaela said quietly.
"I know," he answered. "They're angry. I'm angry."
"So am I," she said, shaking her head. "How could it be John? How, Sully?"
"Nobody knows why folks do things…they just…do."
"That's no excuse."
"No, it ain't," Sully answered, wrapping his arms around his wife's shoulders. "He's never gonna be a free man, Michaela."
"Not if I have anything to say about it. If the judge tries to let him go…"
"That ain't gonna happen, but if it did, he wouldn't be alive long enough to get out of his town." Michaela turned in her husband's arms, and she looked up into his comforting, blue eyes. "I'll protect ya, Michaela. No matter what that means."
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