Judgment on Earth

Chapter 1

They rolled along again in the buggy, Jarrod and Maybelle, just as they had a few days before, but this time Maybelle was not belligerent. She was just silent – scarier in a way, but Jarrod could understand why she was scared. She was embarking on a life she had no idea about living, and she was doing it without the man she thought she loved and needed. Billy Joe Gaines was in her past, and her future was hers, but she was terrified about that future.

Afraid Billy Joe would turn up again and this time be enraged with her, maybe even hurt her? Or afraid he wouldn't turn up, and she would be starting another life? Alone.

Jarrod could understand. He left her alone to think and feel for a while before he asked, "Shall we talk a bit about where you're going from here?"

"Other than your house - I don't know," she said, somewhat quietly for her, but Jarrod had the feeling the wildcat was still in there.

"Well, I need to tell you something I haven't told you. I always knew you were a brave young woman – fearless in a lot of ways – but you can be afraid and brave at the same time. When I see the courage you brought with you into town this morning – "

"Oh, don't start, Counselor," Maybelle said, the echo of the wildcat returning. "I still don't need no lectures."

"You're going to have to put up with some, but I won't give you any right now," Jarrod said. "I just wanted you to know how I felt about what you did today. It took guts. And you're gonna need those guts as we go forward."

"We?" Maybelle said, still defiant and sarcastic but not as brittle about it as she was the first time they rode down this road together. "You going with me?"

"Part of the way," Jarrod said. "You're gonna have to put up with me for at least a few days, probably a lot longer. But the goal is to get you settled with yourself and your future."

"In prison?"

"Not if I can help it," Jarrod said, "but not with Billy Joe either."

"I know that," Maybelle said, softer. "If he found me now, he'd beat me into next Sunday."

"Has he beaten you before?"

"He's slapped me around."

"Is that why you left him this time? Did he slap you around?"

She hesitated. "A little," she finally said, "but that's not why I left him."

"Let me guess," Jarrod said. "Being with my family showed you another side of life, a side you want more. Maybe a side you thought you'd get with Billy Joe, but you didn't, and now you know it."

She hesitated again, and then said a small, "Maybe."

Jarrod let that "maybe" sink in, into her more than into him, before he said, "We're gonna be talking a lot in the next few days, not just about your trial. About where you're gonna be going after the trial."

"Prison," she said.

Jarrod said, "There are other places for you to go."

"I'm no fool, Mr. Barkley," Maybelle said, a bit of the belligerence back. "I won't be staying with you or your family."

"Believe me, Maybelle, I never considered you a fool," Jarrod said. "You're smart. You know what you want and now you know you weren't getting it with Billy Joe. Now we figure out how you can get it, and I know you have the courage to do that. It's the discipline you lack, but that can be learned. Believe me, I know."

Maybelle chortled. "You know how to learn discipline, do you?"

"You may find this hard to believe," Jarrod said, "but when I was a kid, I was only a little more well-behaved than my brother Nick. He was born when I was four years old, and I knew my days of being spoiled as the only child were over. I had to learn discipline to show him a good example, and to keep him from getting me into trouble as often as he was getting into it. I went to school, I learned, and then the war came along. I joined the army, and that's where I really learned discipline."

"They don't take girls into the army, Mr. Barkley, and I'm not all that interested in that kind of discipline anyway," Maybelle said.

"No," Jarrod said, "but there are other ways to learn discipline, and other ways to learn how to nail down what it is you want out of life and how to get it. That's what we're going to try to get for you. And I'd be pleased if you called me Jarrod. With two other 'Mr. Barkleys' around the house, it'll be less confusing." He gave her a smile.

She gave a small one back.

"Now," Jarrod said, "I need to ask you some things I haven't asked yet, and I need you to tell me the truth and be as complete and as accurate as you can be. I need to ask you things in order to defend you and in order to help you get going after you're freed."

"You're pretty sure I'm gonna be freed," she said in a voice full of doubt.

"I'm a good lawyer," Jarrod said with a more certain smile.

Maybelle gave in. "All right. What do you want to ask me?"

"I want to know where you came from, who your people are, and how you ended up with Billy Joe Gaines."

"I'm surprised you didn't ask me that before," Maybelle said.

"I was going to wait until Christmas was over," Jarrod said. "And now it's over. Tell me, Maybelle. Where did you grow up? It wasn't around here."

"Kansas," she said, straight out. "Out in the country, way west of Topeka."

"What was your family like?"

She stiffened up again. "I was tenth of sixteen kids."

Jarrod was a little surprised. "Well, I've heard of big families like that."

"It was no place to be," Maybelle said. "All I was good for was looking after the younger kids. I got out as soon as I had help doing it."

"That was Billy Joe Gaines?"

"That was Billy Joe Gaines," Maybelle said.

"How did you meet him?" Jarrod asked.

"He was the third of ten kids, and he didn't mean any more to his family than I meant to mine. They were the next farm over from us. He got tired of pulling the plough because his daddy couldn't afford a mule. I met him when we all went to this show a traveling preacher was putting on, and then I'd meet him where our farms met. We decided to run away together."

"When was that?"

"Three years ago. I was fourteen, he was sixteen. We made our way out here, picked up Corey and Hayes in Colorado."

"And pulled off robberies along the way," Jarrod said.

"After we met up with them, Billy and them did. I never did. I just kept a place for them to run to." She looked at Jarrod. "So you see, Counselor, maybe I didn't keep Billy Joe's stolen goods, but I did a lot of other things. They call that being an accomplice, don't they?"

"They do," Jarrod said, "but just keeping a place for them to run to isn't the same thing as helping them rob and kill."

"They never killed!"

Jarrod was surprised. "Maybelle, they killed a bank teller right here in Stockton a little over a year ago."

Now Maybelle looked surprised, genuinely. "They never!"

"They did," Jarrod said, and then watched her face.

She looked puzzled, even shocked. Quietly she asked, "Did they kill anybody else?"

"I don't know," Jarrod said. "You don't know?"

"Billy never told me nothing about anything," Maybelle said, still looking stunned. "He brought stuff to me, money and stuff – but I never knew he killed anybody."

Jarrod sighed, looking back out to the road in front, thinking. "Maybelle, I'm gonna have the sheriff check and see if you're wanted anywhere else between here and Kansas. Do you know of any charges against you anywhere?"

"Plenty of charges against Billy, maybe Corey and Hayes too, but I never did anything except keep the camp or the room wherever we were." Then she said, almost ashamed, "Billy'd never let me."

"Well," Jarrod said, "I'll have to check things out, but if all you did was be there when they brought what the stole into your camp, that doesn't mean you'll go to prison."

"Counselor," Maybelle said quietly, "I talk a big talk, but it was just big talk. I swear, I never did any robbing or shooting and I sure never killed anybody or was around when Billy did it – if he did it."

Her voice was very small, her face screwed up like a little kid who had been scolded. Jarrod said, "If you're not wanted anywhere, and if what you say is what you'll swear to before a judge and a jury, we stand a good chance of keeping you out of prison, maybe even keep you out of court if you help the sheriff round up Billy Joe."

"You didn't take me to see him and talk about that," Maybelle said.

"No, I want to get you home and safe from Billy Joe before he catches up to you. The sheriff can come later."

"You're pretty sure Billy Joe's gonna come after me."

Jarrod looked at her, seriously. "You are too, and he's not going to be coming to rescue you from the law this time."

"No," Maybelle said. "Like I said, he'd beat me into next Sunday."

"You'll be safe at the ranch."

"I wasn't before."

"This isn't 'before,'" Jarrod said. He looked at her again. "We're going to do our best to make sure your 'befores' are over, and that Billy Joe's reign of terror is too."