Читать книгу The Redemption Of Jake Scully - Elaine Barbieri - Страница 8

Weaver, Arizona

1872

The heat of midafternoon scorched Weaver’s main street as Lacey Stewart walked wearily toward the Gold Nugget Saloon, pulling a limping burro behind her. Her platinum pigtails were in disarray, her face and clothes smoke-stained and the wound on her forehead was grotesquely swollen. She was feverish and more tired than she had ever been in her eight years of life, but she forced herself on.

Dizzy and disoriented, unaware of the sudden silence her appearance elicited, she pushed open the saloon doors and started toward the bar. Fragmented sounds and images raced across her mind. She heard again the gunshot that had awakened her at dawn in her grandfather’s isolated cabin. She heard the crackle and hiss of fire, felt the intense heat and choking smoke of the blaze suddenly surrounding her. She saw her grandfather appear beside her bunk to guide their frantic escape through the flames and falling beams.

Flashing even more brightly before her eyes was the image of her grandfather slumping to the ground when she thought they were safe at last, the same moment when she noticed the bloody wound on his chest.

Her grandfather’s final words resounded in her ears as Lacey reached the saloon bar—words he had spoken as he pressed the small, family Bible he had also saved from the flames into her hand…

Go to town…to the saloon. Ask for Jake Scully. Tell him who you are. He’ll take care of you, Lacey. Take the Bible. Depend on it. Let it guide your way. It’s yours now, darlin’. Go…hurry…

Lacey nodded in response to the voice so vividly real in her mind. She had been too numb to cry when she covered her grandfather’s still body with Careful’s blanket and placed a bunch of drooping wildflowers beside it. His instructions had reverberated in her mind as she left the charred remains of the cabin behind her and turned the burro toward town.

She couldn’t remember when Careful started limping, or when she started walking.

The sound of her name penetrated Lacey’s confused haze. She turned and looked at the big man standing behind her in the silent saloon.

The big man reached for her as darkness abruptly consumed her.

Lacey came slowly awake in a large, shadowed bedroom. Her head hurt, and her limbs felt too heavy to lift. She shifted in bed and moaned slightly at the pain. She became belatedly aware that the tall man was sitting close by.

She strained to focus as he moved closer. She heard him say, “My name is Jake Scully, Lacey.”

She rasped in response, “My grandpa’s d-dead.”

“I know.”

“The cabin burned down.”

“I know that, too.”

“My grandpa said—”

“I know what he said.” Interrupting her, the gentleness in his deep voice a comfort despite his emotionless demeanor, Scully continued softly, “Charlie Pratt was a good man. He staked me when I needed help. He did right when he told you to come to me. Don’t think about anything but getting well, Lacey. I’ll take care of the rest.”

The single tear that slipped out the corner of Lacey’s eye somehow scorched her skin as it slid across her temple, but Scully brushed it away with his hand.

His deep voice soothed her fears as her consciousness began slipping away and he repeated, “Don’t worry. I’ll take care of everything.”

A bright afternoon sun lit the large, masculine bedroom as Lacey slowly awakened. She glanced at the unfamiliar surroundings, gradually recalling the numbing events of the past few days: long, confused hours as she lay in bed recuperating from her wounds; the doctor’s gentle words; encouraging female voices; Jake Scully’s reassuring presence.

Lacey’s throat choked tight and she threw back her coverlet. She stood up slowly, hardly aware of the oversize man’s shirt and rolled-up trousers that hung loosely on her childish frame as her attention was caught by the muted notes of a song coming from the saloon below.

She stepped down onto the barroom floor and walked toward the piano, where a gray-haired, heavily mustached fellow continued his enthusiastic playing.

Unconscious of the attention she drew from the saloon patrons, Lacey joined in, singing hoarsely, “Oh, Susannah, don’t you cry for me…”

So intense was her recollection of the many times she had sung that song to raise her grandfather’s spirits after another day’s fruitless prospecting, that she did not notice the two men at the end of the bar who exchanged anxious glances at the sight of her. She did not see them slip out the doorway into the alley, nor did she see them meet up with the fellow obviously waiting for them there. She had no way of knowing that fellow harangued the two men for their ineptitude before slapping money into their hands and giving them new orders that they dared not ignore.

Lacey remained beside the piano as the old fellow banged out another boisterous tune. She was unaware of the danger that still threatened her until Scully slid a protective arm around her shoulders and turned her back toward the safety of the upstairs room.