Author's Note:
Hey friends, just want to let you know, in case anyone would be interested, that I made some slight edits in chapters 17 and 24. In each of those chapters, there was one scene that I felt needed some enhancement and/or clarification. Nothing that changed the plot or anything like that, but I just wanted to do a little bit of tweaking. (You can always send me a message about updates to any story if you have questions.)
So here's Part Seven, and I'm working on two more parts to wrap up this whole I'm Fine tale. Hope you're enjoying it.
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Oath of I'm Fine
Part Seven
Chapter Twenty-Five
The year: spring 1867
Jess Harper's age: 21 years old
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"I'm tellin' ya, mister, you got the wrong man!"
Jess Harper's insistence that he was innocent, yelled over his shoulder to the man behind him, went unacknowledged. The ranch hands on each side of him held his arms in a relentlessly strong grip, their fingers digging into his flesh. A third man, the owner of the ranch, stood behind him and ruthlessly kicked the back of his legs to buckle them and force him to drop to his knees. Jess gritted his teeth as the man jerked both his hands behind his back, winding a rope around his wrists, binding them tight.
He had been leisurely making his way across open range when the three men took him by surprise, riding out from behind some rocks. One immediately lassoed him and pulled him from the saddle. Before he knew what was happening, the three of them had pounced on him. With his arms melded tight against his torso from the pressure of the rope, he couldn't fight with his hands. He had tried to lash out with kicks and head butts, but they quickly beat him down, doing plenty of damage, and then threw him over his saddle, tied him to it, and brought him here, to this obviously prosperous ranch. He had no idea who these men were, or what offense they thought he had committed, or why they thought he would have done it. They hadn't given him any explanation. They hadn't said much of anything. Just glared at him with more hatred than he had seen in a long time.
Jess looked up, back and forth between the faces of the two men who had been holding him. "Listen to me. I was just ridin' through this area. Whatever it is you think I done… you're wrong. I didn't do it!"
"We got an eyewitness that says you did," one of the men, Keller, snarled.
At Jess' eyebrows hiking up into a puzzled grimace, Keller cocked his head to the side, and Jess looked in the direction he indicated.
With both eyes blackened and swollen, one of them nearly to the point of being shut, he could still see the witness clearly enough to recognize her. There she stood, looking all innocent and beautiful. And, unfortunately, believable.
He knew she was hurt when he broke off what had been going on between them. He didn't even know how to label it. Friendship? Flirtation? Some romance maybe? Whatever it was, it was very brief and fairly meaningless. So he had thought.
After leaving his job as a wrangler at the Shannons' ranch up near Denver, Jess had gone to the southern part of Utah Territory, hearing the Bannisters were sighted there. That had turned out to be a dead end, but then he came across a newspaper article detailing how the gang had raided several ranches and robbed a bank in Arizona Territory. He had gone there on the hunt for a good long while and then ended up back in Texas. In a general store in Laredo, he had encountered a beautiful brunette. They ended up having lunch together in a café.
She was unlike any girl he had ever met. Feminine mystery mixed with feisty tomboy and topped off with delicate beauty. She was interesting and occasionally funny, and it all drew him in. He was travel weary from his journeys, his awareness a bit sluggish. And the welcome she and her family gave him─along with their phony name─had blinded him for a while to the true nature of themselves and their family business. He had done something he ordinarily would never have done. Let his guard down.
The first few days of being around her and her family were somewhat confusing, but quickly became mighty worrisome. After a week of spending time with her─and sometimes the two of them being with her family─he realized who and what they were and knew he had to end any association with the whole lot of them. He had to get out of the situation and do it right fast.
He had tried to let her down easy when he told her he had to be moving on, heading north, away from Texas. But she took it real hard. Her wounded pride, or broken heart, or whatever she was feeling had turned into absolute rage. And the sweet, beautiful girl turned into a wildcat.
She had slapped him in the face and then actually punched him in the gut before storming away. He knew she was furious, but that was two days ago. They had spent a lot of time together, but dadgum, they had only known each other for little more than a week when he called it off. So he figured she would have settled down and accepted it by now. Instead, she was spewing lies to put him in this mess.
On this ranch just outside Laredo, she apparently was getting her revenge.
He stared at her, finding it hard to believe─even though "hell hath no fury like a woman scorned"─that she would do this to him.
Blood still oozing down his chin from his split lip, he yelled, "Tell 'em the truth, Troy!"
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Pressing a hand to her heart in feigned fear, she forced a flutter into her voice, as Jess had heard her do before.
"I'm sorry, Mister Harper, but I had to say what I saw. I couldn't let these upstandin' ranchers punish three blameless men for your crime."
Jess struggled to his feet. He stared incredulously. What was she talking about?
"Troy, what in blue blazes did you tell 'em?"
At that moment, he saw a fourth man coming at him. With a rope. Coiled into a noose.
"For the love of all that's holy, Troy! Tell the truth!" His blue eyes met her brown. "They're gonna hang me."
He thought he saw a flicker of regret in her eyes, and he latched onto the hope that she would set things right.
"Let those three men over there go," the man behind him called out to a couple of ranch hands near the barn.
Troy looked to her left, and following her gaze, Jess saw her father and two brothers mounting their horses and spurring away. It all made sense now. The rancher here had hauled in the McCanles men for committing some kind of crime. Troy had found out and figured the way to save them was to hand Jess over to pay for it. To some small degree this might be about her getting back at him for ending their friendship─or whatever the heck it was─but it was mostly about getting her family freed, sacrificing him to save them.
He was sure 'nuff outta luck. He was gonna be hanged based on what Troy had convinced this small lynch mob to believe about him. He turned desperate eyes to the man in charge.
"Mister, listen to me. You gotta at least take me to the law. So's we can git this straightened out. Don't you know who they are?"
Keller thumped Jess hard in the ribs with his rifle butt to shut him up. As Jess fell forward to the ground, the breath completely knocked out of him, Troy quickly stepped forward, drawing the ranch owner's full attention.
"Mr. Evans, sir, is it all right with you if I go ahead and leave now?" She glanced at Jess, then back to Evans, her eyes widened. "This is all rather disturbin' for me. And you know I was on my way to visit my sweet auntie, the one who's married to the preacher man I told ya 'bout. She's been ailin' and dear Uncle Obediah needs me to help care for her, sir. They'll be worried somethin' awful, if I don't hurry on."
"Certainly, Miss McCarthy. Of course I understand why a young lady would not want to be here while we discuss the… justice we must bring to this criminal. And I thank you for telling me what you saw, about this hombre here cutting my fence. It's lucky that you had briefly met him in town and knew what kind of varmint he is and what he'd be up to. You spared me from doing wrong to that man and his sons who were just riding through."
Troy glanced down modestly.
"But I don't think it's safe for a sweet girl like you to be traveling alone. I could send my son along to see you to the preacher's house."
"Not to worry, sir. I'm sure my guardian angel will be lookin' after me." Troy nodded a shy goodbye, quickly mounted, and urged her horse to a canter, not quite in the same direction her family had headed, but Jess knew she would angle over to join them.
She can sure git that bashful act a' hers goin' when she needs it. Jess' thoughts were churning with rage. Still kneeling in the dirt, he struggled to regain enough breath to speak, gulping in air to force the words out in spurts.
"Mister Evans… you need… to wake up… Her name ain't… McCarthy. It's the same as those three sidewinders… you just turned loose. Their name's… McC─"
He could say no more and almost choked as Evans stuffed a wadded-up bandana into his mouth.
"Boy, I'm sick of hearing your lies! Yesterday twenty head of my cattle were rustled away. I can say that alone made me see red like I never have before in my life. Then we found those three men on my range at sundown and reckoned they did it. Hauled them in here and kept them under guard in the barn till I could figure what to do with them.
"But then this morning came the worst of it… when I found a different fence had been cut too. And a good portion of the herd in that section of grazeland got through to the water that fence had been keeping them away from. Did you know that the lake there has gone rancid? Did you know that when you cut the fence? Now a good lot of those cows are sick, and some are dead! You're even worse than a thief!"
Positively livid, Evans stomped back and forth, stopping again in front of Jess. "Now, I ain't just seeing red, boy. I ain't never been so full of righteous wrath. I came back here and was gonna hang those men. If that preacher's niece hadn't been riding along and saw you cutting those wires, and come here and told us about it, I would have hanged three innocent men! Because of you! All this trouble, my cattle lost, because of you!"
Unable to speak in his defense, Jess shook his head adamantly.
"We know you did it," Keller growled, pulling Jess to his feet. "Not only did that preacher's niece tell us she saw you cut the wires, we found wire cutters in your saddlebag. Now, why would a saddletramp like you need to be carrying those?"
So when they brought him back here and probably weren't looking in her direction, Troy had even planted evidence to frame him.
"You're gonna pay, boy. A rancher's entitled to mete out his own justice when his cattle's been stole and hurt like this."
"Rustler!" The other cowboy beside Jess backhanded him hard across his face. Then the ranch hand turned to Evans. "Come on, boss. Let's get this done."
Holding onto the bridle of his gray horse, Evans glanced over at Traveller. "That's a mighty fine bay you got over there, boy. I'll be keeping him as partial restitution for what you did."
A wild anger flared in Jess, at what they were going to do to him, and worry over what would become of Traveller. Without further thought, he surged into Evans, driving the man back into the trunk of the large oak they intended to hang him from. Evans' head slammed against the tree, and as he fell, Jess went down with him.
He kicked ferociously at the three men who had immediately charged forward to pull him off their boss. He managed to land a hard kick to each of the ranch hands, but they made quick work of the already-beaten man with his hands tied uselessly behind him. More injuries were added to the ones Jess already had, and he was subdued in no time.
Butler, the man who had brought the noose, looped it over Jess' head and tightened it around his neck. Evans clambered to his feet, and along with Keller and the other ranch hand, hustled Jess up onto the gray and led the horse into place under the tree.
After throwing the long rope over a sturdy limb, Butler tied the end around the trunk. Evans again took his place in front of the horse, holding onto the bridle. The men paused in the doing of their wicked deed to allow their boss time to catch his breath and blot the blood from the wound that Harper's attack had caused at the back of his head, and for them all to discuss something about the cattle.
Jess mentally blocked out their voices.
He knew there was nothing he could do now but accept his fate. He sat tall in the saddle and looked at Traveller, his lead tied to another tree.
The bay was eyeing his master, shuffling his feet restlessly, agitatedly snorting, tossing his head, and pawing his front hoof across the ground.
You're a great horse, Trav. Best I ever knowed. And ya been a true friend. I hope they'll take good care of ya.
Taking as deep a breath as his battered lungs and roped neck would allow, Jess looked beyond his horse, off into the distance where the sky was colored a nice shade of light blue.
Reminds me of that rare color Benjie's eyes had. Reckon I'll be seeing ya soon, li'l brother. You too, Ma, Pa, Chloe, Johnny. I'm comin' to y'all. Is Francie up there with ya now, or still here somewheres?
Feeling the roughness of the rope grate his neck, and how tight it was cinched, he found it increasingly difficult to draw a full breath and even harder to swallow.
Shouldn't be long now.
He focused on the tall green grass swaying with the wind in one of the pastures. What was that verse Ma taught us?
He maketh me to lie down in green pastures.
He leadeth me beside the still waters.
Jess bowed his head and closed his eyes. Through the suffocating cloth in his mouth, he tried to whisper the next words aloud. They came only as muffled sounds, but his heart knew their meaning.
"He restoreth my soul."
Then…
He raised his head.
He lifted his eyes to the heavens.
He gazed at the huge white clouds.
And waited for them to kill him.