Chapter Two

Milo

He looks startled at my offer, then flashes white teeth at me in another spiteful smile.

"I've already gotta job, Marshall, in case yer a blind idiot and can't tell your dadgum head from'a tail. I've got a mite over three years left to finish bustin' these rocks." The hard edges of his voice are sanded the slightest grade smoother as he says, "The rate I'm goin'... the free falls I keep takin', it'll take longer than that, though, I reckon. Near an eternity, most likely…" And suddenly he has a look about him like someone took one of those pickaxes and thunked the sharp point straight into his heart.

I know he has tried to escape twice; each attempt added six months to his sentence. The warden told me that if he were to try again, they would add two years. I guess they are tired of chasing him down and dragging him back. My head reels with that knowledge looking at the man now. He is hardly more than a kid. He looks as wild and fierce as the Texas wind, not something to be fenced in and anchored down.

"If you take the job I'm offering you and get it done right; you can have just a year left on that sentence, Mr. Harper."

"Jess, Mister," he reminds me immediately. But his keen eyes sharpen, and he has a look now like I just slapped him across the face. My words sink in. His chest starts moving rapidly up and down, thumbs in a constant dance like he is thumbing a gun hammer. I can tell he is trying to read me and get a bead on whether I can be trusted. He wants to swallow what I am saying, but I am a lawman, and to him, a sworn enemy.

"Jess," I quickly correct myself.

"You jerkin' my chain? Offering me a job and sayin' I can get outta here early. You ain't double-deckin' me?" The questions are hissed out, and his voice has a bit of a shake to it.

I know he is afraid to get his hopes up.

An inmate with a wheelbarrow full of gravel rumbles across the space between us. The man's back is bent to his work and judging by his appearance, he has been at this task for as many years as Harper has graced the earth. It is downright depressing.

"I am being straight with you, son," I say as reassuringly as I can over the noise of the wheelbarrow. "I tried to get your sentence thrown out altogether, but the best I can do is have it mitigated to what you have already served and what you were originally sentenced. I have the governor's approval on that. My hands are tied, though, with the year you have had added on after those two escape attempts. I tried talking the warden out of it, and he said, no way, that it would send the wrong kind of message to your fellow inmates."

There is a massive play of emotions across his handsome, far too young face. I have just offered him a partial way out of this hell. The defiance is dropped now. He hugs at his stomach, slightly hunched over, and looks down. I can tell he is shaking. Those terrible chains on his legs clink as he shifts stances.

It is quiet between us for a while, but his breathing is fast, like he is in a panic.

I get drilled with those aching eyes before they shoot back down, and I'm looking at thick black eyelashes. "I gotta get outta these chains, Mister. I...I can't take 'em anymore," he mutters, and his voice cracks like he just turned thirteen.

The yearning in that voice. God, help me.

"Living ain't much without my freedom. I'd as soon have'em put a bullet in me or a rope 'round my neck as wear these another day."

I can tell he means that.

My heart feels achy, like I ate too much spicy chili con carne before bed.

That cold steel veneer he wore is shattered to pieces. He looks nothing short of vulnerable turning up at me from the spot of ground he has been drilling a hole in. His eyes are pleading now like he is begging for help and asking a desperate please, but would never speak the need aloud. And that slight tremble he had before has turned into a full-on body shake. I can tell he is gripping his shrunken middle harder in an effort to keep himself under control. The kid wants out of here so bad it hurts to look at him. I know right now that he will never stop trying to escape, and he will eventually get himself killed in the process. This young man is doomed unless he toes the line with me.

I don't know what it is about Jess Harper, whom I have only just met, but everything in me wants to help him. Sue always says that I am a big softy, taking in all of the strays, staying up through the night to nurse sick calves back to health. Harper is pulling at my heartstrings, more like jerking at them, and he is hardly as innocent as a stray dog. He is serving time here for manslaughter. He shot a man, a bigshot with lots of friends. No one was there to see it and prove his story that it was in self-defense. With his reputation as a hired gun, a fast draw, and the fact that his known associates are a wild bunch, some of them outlaws, he never stood a chance in court. The kid ran, too, making him look all the more guilty. He made it almost to the border before getting caught and brought in to face trial. He was lucky, in my opinion, to receive as short a sentence as three years. Maybe the man who sentenced him saw what I see now, looking at a hurting, desperate man, barely out of his teen years, in need of rescue, and maybe the judge's heart softened, too.

Since Harper last spoke, I have not said a word, thinking he needs a minute or two to get himself under control. I am right because that mask of toughness and defiance slips back over his face, although the shaking has not stopped, and the depressing metallic clinking that goes along with it.

"I still ain't sure you're not just blowin' smoke at me, Marshall. What kinda job are we talking about? What's in it for you to go through all this trouble of workin' my sentence down?"

I decide to get straight to the point; too much time has passed already.

"I want Brad Huddleston, Jess. And I need your help in bringing down his operation."

Harper deflates right before my captive vision, and I am pretty sure what's leaving him is the hope that he let himself build up over the last couple of minutes. His head drops, and he grips at his stomach again. He snaps back up right away, though, and he pins a look on me that is hard but devastated all in one badly damaged package.

"Go to blazes, Marshall," he spits out. "I ought to've known it'd be sumthin' like that. Ain't gonna happen. I'm no rat." With that, he turns and starts moving like he plans to inch his hobbling way up the hill and go back to work.

I am a little shocked. I didn't think for a second that the kid would turn me down, with as badly as he wants freedom, especially not for a scumbag like Brad Huddleston.

"Jess, wait a minute," I say, "I'm not finished." But his back is turned now, and he ignores me. I can't help but cringe at the horrible shuffle he has to make to get anywhere. He could probably move faster, crawling on all fours, but I guess that is part of the idea. It is pitiful and cruel. No man, animal even, ought to be chained like that every day for six months.

"HARPER!" Clements yells and peels himself off of the boulder, leaving behind its benevolent shade. "Just where do you think yer going, boy? You better stop right there. You ain't got permission to move!"

The kid stops in his tracks but doesn't look over at the guard, only stands there, hands clenching and unclenching in compulsory repetition. The muscles in his shoulders look strained enough to tear through the seam of his sweat-drenched shirt.

I don't say a word, only hold up a hand to Clements, a gesture that makes it clear that I do not want or need his interference.

I take the few steps needed and plant my boulder-sized body in front of Harper. I have already decided that there is no way I am leaving this forsaken place without helping him somehow, whether he wants to work for me or not. I blame my too tender heart for that guarantee. Some tough lawman I am.

"You didn't let me finish," I say.

I think he is afraid to look at me now like he won't be able to control his emotions: anger, sadness, disappointment, whatever they may be. Instead, he just stands there breathing hard, trembling like a spooked horse, and staring at the ground.

"Say yer piece, then, Marshall, so's you'll leave me alone. It ain't Christian to work a man's hopes up like you done, just to yank his feet out from under him." His voice shakes with anger, and who knows what else, but he still hasn't looked up.

"Alright, Jess. I'll get right back to the point." But I miss the mark, I guess, because next, I say, "I respect your adherence to loyalty. That is a rare quality in a man."

"The POINT, Marshall!" He almost yells in that scratched-up baritone of his.

I take a deep breath. He certainly lives up to his reputation of being a hard case.

"When you worked for Huddleston two years ago as a hired gun, you helped him in a range war. No doubt you were aware that the man was already engaging in some shady activities back then, am I right? Is that why you got out when you did, Jess? I mean, left his employment?"

He looks up, but only to give me a hard glare and no answer.

"He is a murderer, Jess. His operation has grown. He has at least twenty gunmen working full-time for him now, and we know they are robbing stages, banks, trains, burning out homesteaders, and small farms, but we can't pin anything on them. That is why I need you, son. There has to be someone on the inside that can help us set up a trap to catch them in the act."

"You say he's a murderer? That's a big call, lawman. What kinda proof you got to back that up? See, I've been accused of somethin' similar myself. The man I killed drew first, and I didn't have a choice but to gun him down. Forty dollar a month, tin star lawmen like you said I shot him without provocation. I'm payin' with my freedom for your kinds' so-called proof. I'm gonna need more than the garbage yer throwin' at me to buy whole hog what yer sayin'."

"Understood," I say affirmatively. "I have not had the chance, Jess, to say that I think you are here unjustly. I knew the man you shot, see. And I do not doubt that he would have drawn first in a showdown. He was too yellow to do otherwise."

"Yeah? Well, yer heart bleedin' out for me now don't do me a lick'a good, Marshall. Could sure've used that kinda de-fense eight months ago. You're a day late and a dollar short, amigo. And I got no use for yer opinion of me one way nor the other."

He is practically blowing steam out of his ears.

"Take it easy, Jess," I calm. "It seems to me like you could use someone on your side, and I am just trying to make you understand that I intend to help you, but you must give me something in return. I think you have been given a raw deal, son."

His expression softens a little, but his tongue doesn't. "Well, that's right neighborly of you. Makes me feel real mushy inside like a dadgum little girl who just got gifted a big-eyed puppy." The words drip with sarcasm. "Now, are you gonna let me get back to work?" He hooks a thumb up toward the hillside. "My job, ya know? Or maybe yer gonna tell me next that you think I ought to be elected Johnson's successor, or some other kinda hogswallop like that?"

I let out a sigh. I have to get through to the man somehow.

"Huddleston is killing women and children, Jess."

That statement drops on him like a stone from above, and his mouth kind of drops open like the back gate of a buckboard.

"You got proof?"

"Not enough, but I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that he is the one behind the killings. His crew try and make it look like Indians have done it. They burned out two homesteads last month and massacred the families living in both. The people were scalped, Jess, even the children."

He swallows that down and rakes a hand through wavy hair. His dark face drains a little of its color as he processes the horror.

"Dadgum," he whispers and draws out slowly.

I can tell, for the first time, that he really believes what I am saying. I let the information sit for a minute so he can marinate in it.

"I have been trying to pin Huddleston down for a year, now," I finally say. "And I am going to need you to trust me that I know for certain it is him behind it all. And no," I add. "I do not have evidence in my back pocket that I can just show you to prove it's him. You are just going to have to find it inside yourself to remember what trust is, Jess, and use what you can dig up for me, because not only do I want to bring Huddleston to justice, I am about desperate to stop him before he makes another attack like the last two."

I pause there and watch his face. He is chewing on his lip and still breathing like a racehorse in recovery.

"He has to be stopped," I speak with the fervor I feel and hope it sinks in and stirs the man. "The lives of innocent people are at stake here, Jess. You can help save them and help yourself in the process. Can you find it in yourself to do that? To trust me and let me try and help you?"

He studies me with his eyebrows twisted down in a knot, but he doesn't stay quiet for long.

"You sure said the word trust a heap'a times just now, Marshall, kinda like you mean it, or else yer tryin' mighty hard to convince me you're bonafide." And he gives me a slight smile. It is a flicker, but it actually looks genuine. "It ain't gonna be an easy job," he adds.

I have him hooked now. Tension leaves my body. "No, it most certainly will not be easy," I agree firmly.

"I'll do it."

As soon as he says it, his eyes level on me, and all of the wild emotions that have run havoc through him seem to have calmed.

I smile. "I can't tell you how glad I am to hear that, Jess."

"How soon?"

"Right away. Sam, the guard, will drive us both back to the prison. You will sign some papers, have your gear returned, and you will walk out of the gates. I will be waiting for you with a horse outside."

"Just walk outta them gates, huh?" He gives a little gesture of his hand to mimic what he says. His expression darkens beneath another twist of those expressive eyebrows. "But it ain't like I'm gonna walk out of 'em a free man, nor leave 'em behind for good," he rasps.

It seems he regrets what he just said, though, because his head ducks down, and he quietly mutters, "I ain't meanin' to complain, sir."

That kind of floors me. I think he is showing me his gratitude and cooperation. The guard nearly had to beat a "sir" out of him, and he gave it to me freely just now.

"Over two years freer than you were before," I quickly interject, trying to keep things moving forward. "Look, Jess. There is so much for us to talk about, but we will have plenty of time for discussion and planning. It is a long ride back up to Forest Hill."

In acknowledgment, he nods his head at me.

I turn to look for Sam to let him know we are ready to pull out, but ease back as Harper speaks.

"Any chance you gotta key for these? Maybe get one off a guard?" He queries, glances down at the chains, shifts his feet, and looks back up at me with longing that he doesn't even try to hide. "I'd about trade my right arm to be shuck of 'em right now and forever. They give me a feelin' like being a coyote with a leg in a bitin' trap. I ain't got it in me to wear them a dadgum second longer."

I give him a sympathetic smile that makes its way up from my weeping soul. "No, son. I wish I did, but I'll ask Sam. You won't have to wait much longer, though. They will be taken off as soon as we get back."

He rubs at his stubbled jaw and gives me another nod of acquiescence.

Now, where is Sam? I am ready to get this show on the road and those things off of Harper's legs.

"SAM!"