Jake Read online

  Jake

  CYNTHIA WOOLF

  Jake

  originally released under the title

  Redeemed by a Rebel

  Copyright © 2014 Cynthia Woolf

  All rights reserved.

  ISBN: 978-1-938887-43-7

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only and may not be re-sold or given away to other people. The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book via the Internet or via any other means without the permission of the publisher is illegal and punishable by law. Please purchase only authorized electronic editions, and do not participate in or encourage electronic piracy of copyrighted materials. Your support of the author’s rights is appreciated.

  Jake is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, brands, media and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales, is entirely coincidental.

  Published by Firehouse Publishing

  Books written by Cynthia Woolf can be obtained either through the author’s official website:

  www.cynthiawoolf.com

  or through select, online book retailers.

  PROLOGUE

  April 1876

  St. Louis, Missouri

  The iron pressed against Jake Anderson’s back was almost as cold as the rain pouring out of the night sky.

  “Knock on the door,” demanded his brother Zach, his voice angry and on edge.

  Jake did as he was told and pounded on the front door, hard enough to be heard over the din of the rain.

  “What the hell?” said his eldest brother, Liam, when he opened the door. “Jake? Zach? What are you two doing here? It’s the middle of the night.”

  Zach growled from behind Jake. “Are you going to let us in or make us stand in this rain all night?”

  “Come in. Zach, put that gun away.”

  “Can’t until the kid here,” he poked Jake in the back with the gun, “is inside and we’ve talked to you.”

  Jake walked into the foyer of the house his oldest brother owned in St. Louis. Steamer trunks and carpet bags lined the hallway down to the parlor.

  “Sorry to do this to you, Liam. I know you’re leaving tomorrow,” said Zach, laying his hat on one of the trunks.

  Jake threw his hat on the trunk next to Zach’s.

  “Yes. At first light. Now, tell me what’s going on and why you brought Jake here at gun point,” said Liam.

  “Only way I could get him to come.”

  “And?” Liam said, exasperated. “Don’t make me beat the story out of you word by word, little brother. Just tell me the problem.”

  Liam pointed at the two chairs in front of the fire, then went to the fireplace and stoked the banked coals to life. He added a piece of wood to the tiny flames before he turned once again to face them. “Jake. You first,” he said in a tone that brooked no argument.

  “I killed an army captain,” Jake said, refusing to sit. He couldn’t sit. Couldn’t be still. He wanted to scream at the injustice, shout at God for his betrayal.

  “Why’d you do a damn fool thing like that?”

  Jake shrugged. “I didn’t have a choice.”

  “There’s always a choice,” countered Liam.

  Zach put away his gun. “No, there’s not,” said Zach. “There was reason for it, but he did kill the man. I use the word ‘man’ loosely.”

  “Damn it, Jake. They’ll hunt you down and hang you for this.” Liam had been a colonel with seventeen years service, Jake knew he was familiar with military justice.

  “The son of a bitch deserved to die. And as soon as I can, I’m going to kill the other bastard, too.”

  “He’s mine,” snarled Zach.

  “Who?” asked Liam.

  “The colonel.”

  “Jesus! You two had better tell me what’s going on. Start at the beginning.”

  Jake began to pace. The hardwood creaked under his weight and small droplets of water from his wet boots followed in his wake. He swallowed hard and took a deep breath. He didn’t want to relive that moment when he’d lost Elizabeth, but he knew he had to. For Liam. So he’d understand.

  “I went to see Elizabeth just like I did every day, just to snatch a few minutes together.” His voice broke and he paused, gathering himself to face the memory. “Her mother and aunt kept her pretty busy with wedding plans so we didn’t get to see much of each other.

  “When I got there, I heard a gunshot come from the house. I ran to the door but the damn thing was locked and I had to break it down. I lost precious moments doing that. When I got to the parlor, there were two men standing over Elizabeth. Her face was bloodied.” Jake’s voice cracked.

  As if the memory were there, right there, and he was watching it all over again, he felt the color flee his face as he remembered Elizabeth’s. He wet his lips and continued on choked words. “Her dress was ripped, skirt bunched around her waist. The one holding the gun was a colonel and the other was a captain. Both in full uniform. The bastard captain was buttoning his pants when I walked in. I shot him on the spot.

  “As soon as the colonel saw me, he ran out the other door toward the kitchen. I followed but he was on his horse and riding away by the time I reached the back door.”

  Jake stopped. His body shook. His hands fisted and white knuckled. He took several deep breaths to quell the tears before he could continue.

  He watched his brothers eyes fill with pity and he knew he had to finish.

  Jake continued as though he were reciting a story. It was the only way he could get through the whole thing, the only way he could relive those moments. “When I got back to the parlor, I went immediately to Elizabeth and got down on my knees beside her. The bastard colonel had shot her in the chest, but she was still breathing. She opened her eyes. They were filled with terror until she realized who I was.” His voice cracked. He paused. It was too fresh. The memory too new and painful. Rage filled him.

  “Jake,” she said to me. “I tried to stop them, I tried.”

  “Shhh,” I told her. “You’re going to be fine. It’s all right.”

  “I tried…tried to stop them…stop John but,” she whispered. “I love you, Jake.”

  “She closed her eyes and took her last breath in my arms. I held her for I don’t know how long. Finally, I picked her up and laid her on the sofa. I went back to the captain, made sure he was dead and then looked through his pockets to find out anything I could about the colonel.”

  “After he’d kicked the shit out of him,” interjected Zach.

  “The captain was John Longworth. Elizabeth was engaged to him before we fell in love and she left him to marry me. Longworth was her father’s choice, not Elizabeth’s. She told me stories of the way he treated her. He used to hit her, never where it would show, never where her father could see. I showed her that not all men were monsters. He’d come a long way to do this to her. His papers said he was stationed at Fort Leavenworth.”

  Liam turned to Zach. “Isn’t that where you’re assigned?”

  “It was,” responded Zach angrily.

  “Was?”

  “Let the kid finish his story. Then, I’ll get to mine.”

  Liam nodded. “Continue, Jake.”

  “I didn’t know what to do, but I thought I was doing the right thing and went to the sheriff. I explained what I saw and what I did. Then I went to Mayor Green’s office and told him. He sent someone to Aunt May’s to fetch Elizabeth’s mother. I didn’t want Mrs. Green to come home and find the mess and Elizabeth….”

  Jake paused and took a deep breath, needing the air to clear his mind and relaxed his hands not realizing he’d fisted them again until he stopped talking. “After that I went back to her house. The sheriff had already ha
d the undertaker get the bodies. With Elizabeth gone, there wasn’t any reason to stay, so I walked and walked. I walked all night and somehow ended up at home.

  He ran a hand through his hair, still wet on the ends from the downpour outside. “The sheriff came out to my house in the morning, brought my horse with him and took my statement again. That’s when I found out there was another version of what happened. The asshole that got away was Richard Jordan. The bastard told Elizabeth’s father that I’d raped and killed her in a fit of drunken rage and then shot the captain when he tried to stop me. Luckily for me, the sheriff didn’t believe him, because I’d gone to him right away and he knew I wasn’t drunk and wasn’t raging against anyone but the sons-a-bitches that did it.”

  Jake slumped into a chair, his legs no longer able to support him after reliving the whole bloody mess again.

  Zach took over the tale. “That’s where I come in. The colonel was visiting the fort. Longworth was an old friend of his. Colonel Jordan ordered me and my unit to go with him to arrest Jake. He didn’t know we’re brothers. Colonel Jordan is determined to see Jake hang to protect his career and his own neck. He wants Jake to be tried for murder in an army court. The long and the short of it is, I cold cocked the colonel, my men looked the other way, and I grabbed Jake and ran.”

  Zach leaned forward and hung his hands between his knees. “Now we’re both here and on the run from the law. If they catch us, I’ll be court-martialed for attacking a superior officer and for desertion. Jake will be tried for the murder of the captain.”

  “Shit!” Liam turned his back on them, his frustration palpable and stared into the flames that were now crackling merrily. “Why’d you come here? I have the kids to think of.”

  “We’re not trying to involve you and the kids. I knew you were leaving tomorrow. I wanted to see you before we disappear completely,” said Zach.

  Jake, still numb, watched his oldest brother pace the carpet as Jake had been doing only minutes before. “Liam, I…” Guilt choked the words away.

  “What about the sheriff and her father, the mayor? Don’t they believe you?” asked Liam.

  Jake sat back in the chair. He hadn’t slept since the murder happened. Was it really only two days ago? His mind and body were beyond exhaustion. His nerves raw. “The sheriff believes me and didn’t arrest me. Mayor Green trusts the colonel because he is a colonel and a friend of Elizabeth’s ex-fiancé, Longworth. Jordan has the mayor convinced he and the captain came upon me and I shot the captain. Her father never did cotton to Elizabeth marrying me, a simple farmer, when she could have been a captain’s wife.”

  Liam looked at them both. It was a long time before he spoke like he was calculating everything in his mind, weighing each word before he made a decision. “I know you’d like nothing better than to rest, but we can’t. We leave now. Start packing the wagon. We need to make as much distance as we can before we stop tomorrow. It’s going to be a long journey.”

  Liam threw Jake a bag. “Start loading.”

  “Where are we going?” asked Jake, clutching the bag, though he didn’t much care where they went. Everything that mattered in his life was gone.

  “Deadwood. In the Dakota territory,” said Liam. “I bought a claim.”

  CHAPTER 1

  August 1876

  He’d been dead. Deader than a doornail in a rotted-out door. Becky Finnegan remembered finding Horace Sutter splayed across the rocks like the annual sacrifice to some unknown god. Heck, that wasn’t something she was likely to ever forget. She’d had to leave him to collect her no good, drunkard father, Billy, from The Gem where he spent all the gold she worked her butt off to get.

  She’d lied to Billy once again, only given him part of their gold. If she gave him all of it, like he wanted, nothing would be left to buy food or the pans and other equipment she needed to work their claim. And then there’d be no gold for him to go drown his sorrows. Sorrows that were her fault, according to him, since Becky killed her Ma by getting born. And then he’d beat her and she wouldn’t be able to work so there’d be no gold and the cycle would start again. Better to lie to him.

  Resigned, she grabbed the mule’s bridle. Buster snorted at the small jerk she gave the gear as she started walking downstream along the narrow path that followed the creek. She’d made this path, going back and forth to their claim on a daily basis. After collecting Billy from The Gem, after he’d spent another night drowning his sorrows. Better there than at their campsite where he’d just complain and then beat her for the hell of it.

  She and her father, Billy, originally came from the coal mines of West Virginia. Some said they were rebels because West Virginia was in the south during the War of Northern Aggression. But that was so long ago and there’d been many, many stops along the way. Becky barely remembered the place anymore. She supposed the only reason she didn’t forget it altogether was because she’d lived there with Grandma Bess. Those were the memories she liked to remember. Grandma Bess was so good to her, but then she had to go and die. Then there was just Billy and new place after new place

  Every time she hoped this might be the spot, the one where they could put down roots. But it never was. Billy leached the goodwill from the townsfolk until there was none left and they had to move on.

  She’d gotten lucky with her education. One of the ladies she worked for took pity on her and taught her to read, write and speak so she was able to get better jobs as time went on. But not good enough to keep Billy supplied which was why she spent all day in the cold river panning for whatever gold, flake or nugget, she could find.

  She went into The Gem and saw Billy, face down on one of the tables next to the door.

  “Hi, just came to get Billy,” she said to the man behind the bar.

  “Ah, if it isn’t Miss Finnegan. Where are your bruises Becky? Guess Billy’s been keeping his fists to himself lately.” Al Swearengen, owner of The Gem and procurer of flesh, said from in front of his second floor office.

  “No thanks to you and all the whiskey he downs here,” she said. There was a running dialogue that she had with Al, every time she picked up Billy.

  “Thanks for that. I love the gold Billy spends here every night. He almost single-handedly keeps me in business.”

  She rolled her eyes and looked over at Billy, wondering if she really could be related to the reprobate. She’d get the barkeep to load him on the mule and then, when they got back to camp, she’d untie him and let him slip to the ground. She used to try holding him up, to slow his fall, but too many times, she’d ended up trapped beneath him until she could shove his heavy body off her. Totally ignorant of the whole situation, he blissfully slept off the effects of his alcohol fueled stupor.

  There’d been just as many times she left him at The Gem and let them deal with his sorry ass..

  Dan, the barkeep said, “you get your father and get out. I keep telling you, this ain’t no place for a girl like you to be seen.”

  “Oh, I don’t know, Dan,” said Al looking dapper in his black three piece pinstriped suit. He wore no tie and his shirt was open at the collar. Becky craned her neck to look upward at him. “We could give her a job that’s a lot easier than working that claim. Wouldn’t you like that Becky? No more standing in the cold river. You’d be flat on your back, but you’d be warm.”

  He leaned on the hand rail of the second floor walkway. The small porch like structure went along the whole back of the building, all of the doors to the whores rooms were off of it and visible from the bar where the barkeep could keep track of the comings and goings of the men from the rooms.

  “Not today, Mr. Swearengen, but I’ll be sure and keep your offer in mind.” She hoped the sarcasm came through in her voice.

  Swearengen laughed. A great rumble from deep in his chest. “You do that. Help her load Billy on to her mule,” he said to the barkeep then he turned away and went back into his office. “See you tomorrow, Becky,” he called over his shoulder.

  She nod
ded, then looked at the fancy women lounging around the room in varying states of undress and silently agreed with Dan. She should get out. She didn’t understand how they could do what they did. She’d rather work day and night in the creek than let any man with a dollar in his pocket touch her in that way.

  ~*~

  The road leading to Deadwood was jammed for miles with wagons of every shape and size. Families, merchants but mostly lone men, all of them were seeking their fortunes in the gold fields.

  The last part of the journey took almost the entire day to go just the final two miles distance to get from the top of the hill overlooking the settlement to Deadwood itself. The town had sprung up practically overnight after word of the gold strike reached the outside world.

  Structures of every size lined the main street. Tents were thrown up in front of the buildings. The largest of the buildings were The Gem Theater, the Grand Hotel and The Bella Union. Weary miners could spend their hard earned gold on liquor, women and games of chance in the saloons and whorehouses of The Gem and The Bella Union. Places where they could remember easier, happier times when they were farmers, ranchers, lawyers and sailors. The people came from all walks of life, having given up or lost everything in the Panic of 1873.

  Jake watched from atop his horse as he rode behind Liam’s wagon. He and Zach had taken turns riding point in front of the wagon and now it was Zach’s turn. After more than five months of traveling, he began to wonder if they’d ever get to Deadwood. Constantly looking over their shoulders, waiting to see if the Army was going to find them before they could get out of the State of Missouri, had them all on edge for the first half of the 1000 mile trip.

  Deadwood was on Indian land and, therefore, not subject to the laws of any government. That little fact could keep them safe, at least for a while. He hoped their luck held and he and Zach could fade into obscurity there.