Wicked Wyoming Nights by Greenwood Leigh

Author:Greenwood, Leigh [Greenwood, Leigh]
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Publisher: Ten Talents Press
Published: 2011-12-02T05:00:00+00:00

Chapter 21

“Eliza, wake up. They’ve put your uncle in jail for stealing Mr. Cord’s cows.” Lucy shook Eliza again, but the girl only stared at her with vacant eyes. “Oh, do wake up. Mr. Blaine is nowhere to be found, your uncle is calling the sheriff every terrible name he can think of, and Cord just stands there looking like a great stone carving.”

“Cord?” Eliza repeated sleepily, sitting up in bed. “What about Cord?”

“He’s hauled your uncle to jail for rustling.”

“What!” Eliza gasped, wide awake now.

“I said Mr. Cord has caught your uncle trying to take one of his cows, and he’s had the sheriff lock him up.”

“B-but that’s impossible,” stammered Eliza, certain she was still dreaming. “There must be some mistake.”

“Maybe,” said Lucy, handing Eliza her robe, “but your uncle is in jail and you’re going to have to get up and go down there. Nobody can make head or tail out of anything he says.”

Eliza’s mind refused to accept Lucy’s words. It couldn’t be happening. Her uncle wasn’t a thief! She threw on her clothes as quickly as she could, convinced everything would be straightened out by the time she reached the jail.

Iris stumbled in wearing a night cap and a voluminous flannel nightgown under a thick housecoat. “What on earth is going on? Why are you getting dressed at three in the morning?”

“Mr. Stedman has had her uncle locked up for stealing one of his cows. The man’s raving like a lunatic, and Miss Eliza’s got to go down there and make some sense out of all that gibberish.” Lucy’s story was beginning to grow with each telling.

“Give me a minute and I’ll come with you.”

“Maybe you’d better not,” Eliza said apologetically. “Uncle says some pretty terrible things when he’s mad. When he calms down, he’s angry at everyone who heard him.”

“I never got out of bed,” said Iris with a crooked grin. “Be sure to let me know if I can do anything to help.”

“Where is Mr. Blaine? Can’t he talk to Uncle?”

“Nobody has seen him,” Lucy related. “Though I’d like to know what he’s doing out of his bed in the middle of the night.”

“Don’t worry about that now. Just send him to the sheriff’s office the minute you find him. I’m sure it’s all a ridiculous misunderstanding, but I need Mr. Blaine. Uncle Ira never listens to anything I say.”

The scene that greeted Eliza’s eyes outstripped even her worse fears. The Buffalo city jail had to serve the whole of Johnson County, but it was a rudimentary affair with no separate area for the cells, and Ira was locked up only a few feet from the sheriff’s desk. He had an unobstructed view of his hated protagonist and was screaming profanities at Cord and ignoring the sheriff’s orders to be quiet so he could get down what Mr. Stedman was saying. Cord, accompanied by Royce and Sturgis, was answering the sheriff’s questions with a steely calm that immediately made Eliza uneasy.

Still followed by Lucy,

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