Chapter 2
The oldest of the little boys shrieked and kicked Ben in the shins when he tried to pry the three-year-old from the woman’s winter cloak. And the baby howled even louder.
“Please. They are hungry and tired. Give me a chance to feed them, and they will settle down,” Roseanna pleaded.
“I can’t do that, ma’am,” Ben panted as he tried to wrangle the middle boy.
“OH. No, don’t do that,” the worried woman squealed when Ben caught the smaller of the two toddlers and swept the tiny fellow off his feet. “He has a nervous . . . stomach,” Roseanna finished when little Arthur vomited on the unsuspecting lawman.
Ben tried to swipe at the mess dripping down the front of his shirt and lost hold of the rascal.
Although the toddler landed on his bottom with a resounding thud, little Arthur didn’t waste any time dashing back into the protective cover of Roseanna’s woolen cape.
“Please. Just stop,” Roseanna begged, standing and backing into the alcove under the staircase that led to the second floor. With the older children tucked safely behind her, she said, “I can explain if you will give me a few minutes to get them settled.”
At a loss, Ben relented a little. “Up you go, then,” he answered, nudging the group toward the stairs. After herding the woman and children into one of the cells on the upper floor, he puffed out a breath. It sure didn’t sit right with him to lock a woman up. However, his duty was to the law, and he’d already lost too much time in the pursuit of Sheriff Danbury’s killers. “I’ll have the postmaster’s wife check in on you a little later, Miss Sherman,” he advised as he turned to go.
“Thank you,” the terrified young woman answered, her voice trembling.
That pulled Ben Chauncy up short. “For what?” he asked in confusion.
“For not taking my boys from me.”
The chilly winds of early winter howled through the nearly naked treetops as Ben and the rest of the hurriedly assembled posse returned to Roses Briar late the next morning. Heavy frost laid the long grass flat on the open plain, and the cold nipped at any exposed skin.
The unhappy prisoners were stiff-necked and quiet. But more importantly, the fellows responsible for the stage heist were familiar to the men of Roses Briar, and the implications for the small community would be staggering.
“What’re we gonna do with’em, Sheriff?” one of the men asked. “You can’t put’em in the same cell as the dead man’s wife.”
Ben groaned. He hadn’t thought that far in advance. The fact that he had a woman and three small children locked up in his jail cell hadn’t escaped his mind. But Ben had been shoving every reminder of the petite blonde and her unruly charges out of his head. He just didn’t want to think about it. “Take them to the icehouse and post a guard,” he finally directed. “And keep quiet about this until I contact the Pinkerton Agency.”
“You gonna say anything to Rassbach?” the wainwright asked.
“No! And neither are any of you. Not until I have a chance to get the whole story from those two,” Ben tersely answered with a nod at the disgraced agents.
“There you are,” the postmaster’s wife scolded when Ben entered the Sheriff’s office. Then she held out her hand and demanded, “Give me those keys now, deputy. Before I clobber you about the ears with my cast iron frying pan.”
Blanching, Ben unwrapped the scarf from his chapped face and tossed his hat on the desk. “Now, Hilda. What has you riled?”
“Riled? Riled!” the matron shouted before holding out her hand. “Keys! Now!”
Ben complied out of sheer self-preservation and watched as the furious matron stampeded up the stairs. The baby’s overwrought wails filled the building, and the weary lawman took a deep breath. He’d only been deputy eight months, and nothing in Ben’s experience prepared him for Miss Roseanna Sherman and her charges.
Footsteps above him drew Ben’s attention, and he hurried up the stairs. “What’s going on up here?” he demanded when Hilda pushed past him on her way back to the main floor.
“We need hot water and clean cloths!”
Ben watched the matron go, then finished his ascent. However, his exhausted mind couldn’t fathom what awaited him when he reached the top of the stairs. “Please, Miss Sherman. Can’t you keep the children quiet?” he grumbled, scowling at the imps huddled in one corner of the cell.
The oldest, Caleb Matthews, peered up at the Sheriff before tightening his little arms around his baby brother. “We be quiet,” the three-year-old promised, withdrawing further into his mother’s cloak for warmth.
“See that you do,” Ben admonished before turning his gaze to the woman huddled on the bed. Her blood-stained clothes were even more disheveled than before, and Ben didn’t recall her looking so pale and weak.
The fussing infant in Miss Sherman’s arms was also scrawnier than he remembered – the child’s cry weaker, and . . . “Ma’am, is the infant ill? He looks . . . blue.”
“Get out of the way, you daft man,” Hilda scolded, hurrying back into the cell like a Texas twister. “And go for the doctor. This poor girl had quite a time of it with this little lamb.”
Befuddled, Ben stepped aside. “Were you injured during the hold up, Miss Sherman?”
“What are you rattling on about, Benjamin Franklin Chauncy? Go on! Get out of here and fetch Dr. Rooney like I asked!”
Reacting to the urgency in Hilda’s voice, Ben turned around and thundered back down the stairs. It was bad enough he’d been forced to lock up a woman. What on earth was he supposed to do with two small children and a sick baby as well?