Narrow Escape

Chapter Twenty-nine

Chapter Twenty-nine

Slattersville

"I sent Charlotte a telegram today," Lane told Hart as he sat behind the desk in the sheriff's office. "I told her we're fine and we're waiting for more of Stewart's men to leave the sinking ship."

The four cells in the back were almost full of Stewart's men as each one had come to town to withdraw money they had at the bank. Until Charlotte was able to identify the men that rode with Stewart to MineralCity all were being held. Once they learned the ones that had not ridden with Stewart those would be left go.

Hart chuckled as he rested a hip on the corner of the desk looking down at Lane. "Well after what we heard last night I think the four days we've waited has been to our advantage along with getting this Lew person off the streets and behind bars. Even Miss Stewart has left to stay with friends. I wonder how she talked her father into letting her leave the ranch at this time."

"Well if we believe the information we're hearing more than half of his men are gone and more each day are leaving. I'm sure some of those that have left are ones that rode with him to MineralCity. I'll put out wanted posters on them as soon as we know all the names and have their descriptions."

Hart got up to replenish the coffee in his cup from the pot on the small stove in the sheriff's office. "Have you heard how Charlotte's doing since they returned home?"

"Belle sent one saying she'd doing fine," Lane answered him. He took a drink from his cup before going on. "In over a year Charlotte's had a lot happen to her. First the man's she was to marry dies, her father tells her she had to marry a man who..." Lane thought about the story Charlotte told him about her rape, "who...mistreated her and now this thing with Stewart."

"Not to mention marriage to you," Hart interjected trying to stop Lane from worrying about Charlotte any more than he was. "That in its self would be enough for any sane lady to deal with."

"Yeah," Lane answered almost smiling at Hart before he became serious once more. "I'm worried about my not being there for her right now to help her get through what happened to her."

"I understand," Hart replied. "She has Belle, Eleanor and Harriet to look after her. Belle told me once all this is over with and you and Charlotte are once more happy and settled she plans on taking a long trip somewhere."

"I hadn't thought how all this would affect Belle," Lane said thinking back on that time and how he and David Moreland had tried to talk her out of selling the ranch and buying the saloon. "She hated seeing the pity in everyone in town's eyes. Even Boyd Stockton, Regina's father, tried to talk her out of buying the saloon but no one was able to. She's tried to make us think she's been happy but I remember the old Belle and the way she used to be before her world collapsed. How she is now is a façade to cover the hurt she still feels from what that man did to her."

"Maybe a long trip would do her good," Hart told him. "She...."

"Sheriff...Sheriff Preston!" a man bellowed as he came running into the office. "Mr. Taylor sent me from the bank to tell you that Mr. Stewart sent a man into town to take some money out Mr. Stewart's account."

Lane remembered the man as having been behind one of the teller windows at the bank the day they were in there with Donald Sellers.

"Why didn't Jason or Jeff let us know a man rode in from the ranch?" Hart asked.

"Maybe they came in from another direction?" Lane answered. "Let's go to the bank and find out."

"I'm right behind you," Hart told him as they all hurried from the office to the bank and entered to find one of them men Hart and Lane had seen when they were here before.