Chapter 13 - The Last Ride to Ironwood
Rafe dropped the match.
Odessa moved faster than Emmett had ever seen.
Her boot crushed the flame.
Rafe fired.
Emmett slammed into him.
They crashed through Elias’s desk.
The revolver skidded away.
Rafe grabbed a broken chair leg.
Odessa seized his wrist.
He stared up at her.
For years men had turned her size into a joke.
Rafe was not laughing now.
She twisted the weapon away.
“Three years,” she said.
Rafe struggled.
“You murdered my husband.”
“Vain did.”
“You helped.”
She could have broken him.
Emmett saw it.
Rafe saw it.
Odessa released him.
“No.”
She stepped back.
“You don’t get to turn me into what people said I was.”
Deputies arrived.
Rafe was shackled.
This time properly.
Thomas recovered.
The ledgers were found in Rafe’s coat.
Vain and Rafe were both jailed pending territorial trial.
Puit surrendered himself.
The conspiracy finally became public.
Newspapers arrived.
Reporters wanted Odessa.
The giant widow.
The murdered husband.
The disgraced cowboy.
She refused spectacle.
“My husband’s murder isn’t entertainment.”
One reporter pointed at Emmett.
“Which husband?”
Odessa looked at Emmett.
“The living one.”
Emmett smiled.
The trials took months.
Rafe pleaded guilty in exchange for avoiding the gallows.
Vain refused.
Thomas testified.
Puit testified.
Bell testified.
Whitlock testified.
Emmett testified.
Finally Odessa stood.
Vain watched her.
For years he had relied on the assumption that she could be made ashamed.
Ashamed of her size.
Her widowhood.
Her loneliness.
Her financial trouble.
She was ashamed of none of it.
She told the truth.
Nothing more.
Nothing less.
Vain was convicted of murder, conspiracy, fraud, cattle theft, arson, and attempted murder.
His property was seized to satisfy judgments.
Ironwood was broken apart.
Part of its water rights returned to ranchers Vain had cheated.
Emmett’s record was formally cleared.
The Bar Seven offered him a foreman position.
Again he refused.
He returned to Kesler Ridge.
But trouble remained.
The bank argued that despite Vain’s fraud, Elias’s original debt still existed.
Odessa might keep the ranch only if she paid a substantial sum before spring.
They had won justice.
They might still lose their home.
Emmett considered selling his small inherited parcel in Nebraska.
Odessa refused.
“We save this together or we lose it together.”
Then Silas Whitlock arrived.
Behind him came ranchers from across the county.
Wagons.
Cattle.
Lumber.
Feed.
Odessa frowned.
“What is this?”
Whitlock handed her a book.
A community account.
Every ranch Vain had cheated contributed.
Not charity.
Repayment.
Kesler Ridge had unknowingly lost water for years while Vain profited.
The ranchers calculated what they owed.
It was almost enough.
Almost.
They were still short.
Then the railway company representative arrived.
He carried a contract.
They wanted right-of-way through Kesler Ridge.
The payment exceeded the remaining mortgage.
Odessa read it.
Emmett watched.
“You don’t have to.”
She smiled.
“I know.”
She signed.
The ranch was saved.
That evening Emmett found her beside Elias’s grave.
She placed his old wedding ring against the stone.
“I kept my promise as long as I could,” she whispered.
Emmett remained at a distance.
Then Odessa turned.
“Come here.”
He approached.
She took his hand.
“I don’t want our marriage to be a contract anymore.”
“Neither do I.”
“So tomorrow we end it.”
Emmett stared at her.
“What?”
Odessa’s eyes glistened.
“We get an annulment.”
He could not speak.
She squeezed his hand.
“Then, Emmett Doyle, if you still want me, you can ask properly.”
He laughed through sudden tears.
Before he could answer, a rider galloped toward them from town.
He carried a telegram.
Emmett opened it.
His smile disappeared.
May you like
The message contained only one sentence.
BARTON VAIN ESCAPED DURING PRISON TRANSFER.
