The men were busy filling the loft with hay when Jesse leaned out the loft door and yelled, "Look Pa! Horses!" Two horses approached from town, and Fletcher's normal, lazy smile tightened into a thin line. Sheriff Cruz rode up, followed by a glowering Gordon Flaherty. Spot and Darcy came out onto the porch as well, both looking grim and worried. Eli's body hummed with nervous energy. In his experience, nothing good came along with Gordon. Before the two riders could dismount, Spot and Fletcher were right behind Eli, flanking him. "Manuel, can I help you?" Fletcher asked calmly.
"Morning, Fletch," Cruz greeted tightly. "The doctor told Flaherty that his wife might be here and he insisted that I ride out with him to retrieve her."
Fletch drew in a long breath and blew it out, stuffing one hand in his pocket, but resting the other on Eli's broad shoulder. "Will, Jesse, come hold these horses," he drawled. The boys obeyed and the two men stepped towards the trio who all stood with their feet set and their arms crossed over their chests. "JoAnna is here, recuperating. Flaherty turned her out while she was sick. She's not going anywhere with him. She's staying right where she is until she's well enough to make decisions for herself."
"She's my wife!" Gordon snapped, "Only I get to say where she goes or doesn't."
Eli stepped into him, right into his personal space, taking a play from Marta's favorite moves back when she was Kisser and bossed fifty boys around like it was her job. "Back off," he warned.
"You back off, she's not yours, remember? You have no right to keep me from her." He bravely shoved Eli back, but barely moved him.
"I w-won't lllll-llllet you hurt her."
Gordon chuckled, low and patronizing in his throat before letting out a barrage or stuttered half syllables with a mockingly stupid smile on his face, like he knew exactly which buttons to push. Spot sidestepped over behind Gordon and stared hard at his old friend.
"Both of you knock it off and take a step back or I'll cuff you both and take you back to town to cool off in the lock up," Cruz warned, but sent an apologetic look Eli's way. Trout looked down at the sheriff's belt and saw the shackles there. His throat nearly closed at that moment and he swallowed loudly. He could still vividly remember crawling to his knees, still cradling his limp, useless arm to his chest. A heavy hand clamped down on the shoulder keeping the broken arm attached to Trout's body. He held in the groan and wobbled his way out the door, into the waiting arms of the New York Police where he was shoved to the ground and the officers feet. He couldn't fight anymore. It hurt too much to move. He was having hard time holding back from throwing up on the officer's boots after the impact with the ground jarred his broken bones again. He lay still while they cuffed his left hand, but the second the officer touched his right arm, some sort of instinct kicked in and his shackled left hand flew out, connecting with an officer's leg. That was the last thing he remembered. He took a club to the back of the head, was cuffed and thrown in the wagon that set off moments later, full of newsboys, for the city lockup to wait until morning for arraignment.
Spot's voice cut through the pain as he ran his hand up and down his long since healed forearm. "Don't give Cruz a reason, Trout. Don't make him cuff you. Flaherty ain't worth it," Spot warned.
He shook out his arm, testing the strength of his fist a few times. "Shhhhhe is," he answered, not unlocking his eyes from Gordon's washed out ones.
Spot scoffed. "You wanna stay here and protect her from him or look out at her from a cell? Think about it Trout, think with ya head, not ya heart!" It was always Spot's biggest problem with him. Emotion was weakness, and Trout was a big sap. For years as kids, those words were snapped at Trout.
"I ssssss'ay," he answered through teeth clenched so hard his jaw hurt as JoAnna burst out the door with Clarice in her arms. Eli started forward in shock and everything started happening sickeningly fast. Marta caught JoAnna and kept her from running off the porch and began to murmur gently in her ear while Jo cried out, wanting to know what was happening. Eli's startled step spooked Gordon who threw a sucker punch that caught Trout in the Adam's Apple and he fell to his knees gasping for air. Next thing he knew, he was on his face in the dirt with his right arm wrenched behind his back and Gordon's bony knee between his shoulder blades. He felt a pop in his shoulder and panic flooded him like it did when he was being cuffed all those years ago. He reared back, throwing Gordon to the ground behind him, where Spot got a hold of him and held him back. He watched from his knees until he was sure that Gordon was contained and then he slumped down and held his arm, it hadn't hurt this bad since the original injury. He peeked up at JoAnna through his eyelashes, panting and was surprised to see her staring back at him with her heart in her eyes. Fletcher came up to his left and tried to help him, but he shook him of and gritted, "I'm fine," through this teeth as he, slowly got up off the ground. His voice was strange sounding from the blow to his voice box and his eyes didn't leave hers and she nodded before she looked back at her husband. Fletcher's hand wrapped around his bicep and he glared down at it and back at the Cowboy.
"You're hurt, don't go doing nothing stupid now. Easy." Fletcher's brown eyes stared him down with intense calm and put out the fire raging in him. He nodded and took a deep breath, but Fletch's hand didn't move. Instead of feeling held back, he felt comforted, like someone was on his side.
Spot shoved Gordon roughly at Cruz and the sheriff held onto him and tried to move him back to his horse. "He came at me first! You saw him!" When he wasn't getting his way. He started yelling to JoAnna in a pitiful way. "Come home with me, Dove," he pleaded, fighting against the sheriff. "I'm sorry, you just get me so crazy sometimes and that letter and your book got me so jealous! You do that to me! You drive me out of my mind and make me do crazy things. I can't live without you. I'll die if you don't come home. Do you want me to kill myself?" She stared at him, not allowing the mask of blankness to fall and let him see the scramble of emotions that was happening in her head. She looked down at Clarice, who reached up and took her hand with a scared smile.
"Go home, Gordon," she said in a thready whisper, not raising her head. "We both know that you won't even put a bullet in the gun before you hold it to your head to scare me into staying. Its not the first time you've done it." She looked up, tears running down her face, "But it's the last. Sheriff Cruz, please take my husband home and make sure he understands what will happen if he trespasses on this property again."
Gordon laughed hysterically and pulled away from Cruz. "You're joking, right? You're leaving me for him?" He flung his arm out towards Trout. Fletcher's hand tightened on his arm as Gordon rushed them. He couldn't take his eyes off of JoAnna. She scowled at him and turned into Marta, who wrapped her arms protectively around her back and glared at him. "You really are crazy, you know that? You're going to give up the life that we have for an idiot who belongs in an asylum with all the other rejects and retards. What kind of life are you going to have, JoAnna? He's an animal."
"You are the only animal here," Jo answered in a shaking voice. "I'm not leaving you for him." Trout's heart sank and he had to force himself to keep standing there. "I'm leaving you for me. I always thought you gave me butterflies in my stomach like he did," she turned and faced Eli, smiling at him softly and sadly as she remembered the butterflies he used to unleash in her stomach, "but they weren't butterflies." Her eyes narrowed in disgust as she turned back to Gordon. She didn't pull away from Marta, she just untucked her face enough to be heard, drawing strength from Marta's warmth and comfort. "They were my guts trying to warn me about you, but they were the first thing I could feel after Wichita and I welcomed feeling anything." She didn't look at any of them, focusing her dark eyes on the pattern of Marta's dress. "My head says I can't make it on my own."
"You're not on your own, Jo," Marta growled over her head. "You never have to be alone again if you don't want to be."
Jo nodded, burrowing deeper into Marta's embrace. "It's what told me that the squirrelly feeling in my stomach was a good thing and that I should stick around with you. I needed a three year old tell me the difference. She said you were a bad man who made her tummy feel squirmy, yet she'll sit with him and fall asleep. You are a bad man. I know that now. My heart hasn't told me a single useful thing since I left New York. So, all I have left is my gut." She pulled away from Marta and set her glare on Gordon. "And you make my gut feel sick. Between my gut and Clarice's, I know I can't trust you. Go home and leave me alone."
"This ain't over, JoAnna!" Gordon yelled as Cruz escorted him away. "You watch! You'll come crawling back once he figures out what you did, what you are. If he doesn't, it won't be because he love you! Its because you're all he can get! Damaged goods!" The sheriff seemed to have reached his limit for Gordon's insults and clocked him in the temple with the butt of his rifle. He nodded at the Fletcher family and draped the small, annoying, semi-conscious man over his saddle and led him away.
The strange calm that JoAnna had managed to maintain crumble. She sank down to the porch and covered her face, sobbing loudly and painfully. "Talk to her," Fletcher whispered in his ear, gently pushing him forward as he released his arm. He walked like he was drunk, like his legs weighed too much to move across the yard and knelt in front of her on the steps. His heart ached as he watched her fall apart in front of him. She lay on the floor, sobbing and coughing in equal measures, with her arms wrapped over the top of her head.
He put his hand lightly on her arm and gently stroked up and down. "Jo," he whispered, his voice still rough from the hit to the throat. She looked up at him, and suddenly the despair that was there was gone. She shoved him back roughly, her brown eyes blazing like burning embers. She wasn't herself and he knew it, but that didn't make it hurt any less. He recognized the look in her eyes because he'd seen it in Spot's and even in his own many times. It was an empty but angry, hungry for a fight, desperate to feel anything but whatever has a hold of you kind of a look.
"How could you do that to me?" she screamed and shoved him again until he backed down the stairs. "You ruined everything! You sent that letter with Marta and made my world fall apart! Why couldn't you leave me alone? My life was awful but at least I didn't know it!"