A Bride For The Asking -- (on hold)

Chapter 9--Where is Rose McGregor?

Ben Johnson, his wife, Bonnie, and their son, Jamie, were just sitting down to supper when there came a knocking at their front door so loud it rattled the new glass windows Ben had taken so much pride in installing for Bonnie just the week before.

Ben finished saying grace, though the pounding at the door grew louder with each repetition.  His mouth dry, Ben figured who the caller was, but he finished grace, not wanting to frighten Bonnie in her delicate state.  After a firm “Amen,” Ben stood up.  He and Jamie exchanged a troubled glance.  Ben then looked pointedly towards the back door.  Jamie nodded imperceptibly.



The knocking ceased the moment Ben scraped back his chair.  Ben took his time walking towards that ominously silent door.  Behind him, he heard the familiar step of his son as he crept away from the table.



Before Ben could twist the knob to open the door, it burst inwards, slamming into his outreached hand with an ominous crunch.  A wild-eyed, whiskey smelling, Silas Farthingham shoved Ben backwards into the room with the barrel of a sawed-off shotgun.  Silas reached behind him with the toe of his boot and slammed the door behind them. 



The shotgun he held to Ben Johnson’s chest never wavered.  Silas promised himself he would have the truth out of Ben Johnson, or see him dead within the hour.  Maybe both, if he found out he helped Rose McGregor set a torch to Mon Repose.

He knew all along she’d had help loading up their meager possession what with her aunt having a broken arm; a broken arm that Ben Johnson had set himself.  He had chafed at the delay at discovering her helper, while Rose got further and further away from him.

It had taken Silas a couple of weeks to track down the one who had helped Rose McGregor.  He’d just found out this very evening at the saloon that Ben Johnson and that scrawny kid of his had went with her back out to the cabin she and her aunt had been squatting in since the war.  Damn that blacksmith.  Now he would pay, Silas thought, liking the thrill of having power over the other man. 

“Where is she?” Silas demanded in the voice of the true fanatic. 

Spittle ran out of one corner of his mouth when he spoke and dribbled down into his beard unnoticed, disgusting Ben even worse, if that was possible.   “Tell me now, if you want to keep breathing,” Silas ordered, poking Ben harder with the gun barrel.

Ben took in the wild look in Silas’s eyes, and knew he was in trouble.  Maybe his whole family was.

“Calm down, Mr. Farthingham,” Ben spoke evenly to try to soothe Silas, trying not to breathe in the noxious whiskey fumes Silas was wafting in Ben’s face.

“Where is who, Silas?” Ben turned his head to the side in an effort to avoid breathing in the worst of the alcohol fumes.

Silas’s fury flared.  He screeched like a train whistle.  He raised the gun barrel and hit Ben up side the head with it.  “You know exactly who I am talking about, damn you.”  Silas screamed.  “Where is Rose McGregor?”

Ben staggered but tried to stay on his feet.  If Silas knocked him out, he knew Silas would head directly into the kitchen and his wife and child.

Unbeknownst to the fanatic at the front door, Jamie had already slipped out of the back door and ran hell bent for leather towards the sheriff’s office like his father’s life depended on it, because it probably did.

Jamie scared Lee Roy Jenkins out of ten years growth when he burst unannounced  through the door of the sheriff’s office like all the hounds of hell were after him.  Deputy Jenkins jumped up so fast out of his chair that he dumped it over backwards, and spilled the plate of supper his wife had brought for him all over his desk.

“Dad blame it, Jamie!  What do you mean flying in here like we are under attack?  Scared me half to death, you did,” Deputy Jenkins yelled, still wielding his fork like a weapon.

“Sheriff, you’ve got to come quick,” Jamie panted, his lungs on fire from running so hard.  “Silas Farthingham’s over at our place.  He’s got a gun pointed at my pa!”  Jamie fought hard to gulp air into his burning lungs and hold back the tears of fright and anger, that wanted to shame him, at the same time.

Deputy Jenkins grabbed his rifle and a handful of cartridges.  “You run over to the cafe and tell Thomas Henry and Charles Duncan to come quick over to your pa’s, boy.  Tell’em to come armed.  Then you come on back here and wait for me.  You hear, son?”

“I hear you,” Jamie said aloud, but Jamie already knew he would be going with the two men back to his house.  Jamie didn’t wait for the deputy to finish speaking before he had darted out the door. 

Sighing, the deputy walked out of the door behind Jamie Johnson, hoping he didn’t have to shoot Silas Farthingham before the night was over.  Not that he would mind killing that low-life.  Some people just needed killing.  Silas Farthingham was one of them. Deputy Jenkins just hated all the paperwork he’d have to do to explain doing the state of Georgia a favor.  Damn Yankees anyhow.  He locked the door behind him and headed down the boardwalk towards Ben Johnson’s place.  His gut told him this wasn’t going to end well.

***

“I want my lawyer,” demanded Silas, standing with both arms thrust through the bars of his cell. 

“I’ll let him know you’re wanting to speak to him—in the morning.  Not before,”  Deputy Jenkins informed Silas Farthingham, tired and disgusted, an hour later.

It had taken all four of them, Ben, Thomas, Charles and himself to wrestle down Silas and take away that shotgun without somebody being shot.  Sober, Silas would have been enough to deal with, as he was a big man. 

Drunk, he was danged near impossible.  He’d kicked Thomas so hard in the jaw with his booted foot, he had knocked one of Thomas’s teeth out.  Thomas didn’t have that many left to lose, either.  It made Thomas so mad, he’d hauled off and hit Silas back before he thought about it.  Silas was now sporting a fine shiner from Thomas’s bony fist. 

Lee Roy walked out of the cell room and closed the door to the cells behind him with a heavy sigh.  Then he walked on through his office and out of the jail for the last time that night.  It was after ten O’clock.  He was sure Edith, his wife, was fast asleep, and probably the fire had died down in the stove.  It would take him a while to get it going again and heat up another plate of supper and he was hungry now, sure enough.  Heck no, he wasn’t going by Alfred Barnaby’s house and disturb him just to tell him his client was in jail.

He was tired of dealing with drunks, carpetbaggers, scalawags, and Yankees of all sorts, Deputy Jenkins thought as he walked along.  Rose and Mary were smart getting a new start.  Maybe it was time to think about retiring and doing the same thing himself.