Redemption

Chapter 17

Chapter 17

Colt collapsed onto the hard floor and forced his eyes to stay open. Granny had left for bed right after Jessie, leaving him alone in the room. He squeezed the leather bound journal in his hands and reached for the pencil in the pocket of his work shirt.

Opening the book to reveal the pages inside, most filled with the scratching from his pencil, until he found a blank page.

I swear it’s like a wildfire in my mind today. What am I supposed to do with a woman I hardly know for two weeks under my roof? She doesn’t even know why she’s here, but I guess that doesn’t really matter. The problem is that she’s here and she needs to go back home. How in the name of everything sensible am I supposed to do that? I have no idea who her family is apart from their names. The telegraph lines will be down for two weeks at the least, so I have until then to think up something to tell them. I’ve got to find some way to assure them that I took care of her and that I didn’t do anything to cause her pain. More importantly, I’ve got to find out why she even ended up here in Arizona from South Carolina in the first place. On top of all of that, I’ve got to hide her from Sherman as long as possible.

This entry is probably one big complaint, but there must be some way to figure all of this out.

Colt put his pencil down and leaned his head against the wall. He was so tired that he wasn’t making sense even to himself.

Closing the book, he set it aside and hid it under the pillow on the floor. He lay down and covered himself with a blanket, trying to ward off the chill even with a fire blazing in the stove.

Something good would come out of this. Something that he couldn’t see at the moment would have to happen in order to make this whole endeavor worthwhile.

With that thought, he drifted off to sleep and the blissful ignorance of his current trials that awaited him there.

*****

Jessie rubbed her eyes and blinked a few times as the morning sun shone through the window beside her bed. She wanted nothing more than to lie in bed all day, but she knew that she had to get up and make herself useful. If this was her home for two weeks at the least, then she would make the most of it. Colt and Carby wouldn’t be sorry that they let her stay with them.

Sitting up, Jessie stretched and reached for her crutches. Making her way to the mirror on the other side of the room, she looked at the wound on her head, and found that it was mostly healed over. She smiled slightly. For some reason, having the gash on her head healed up made her feel closer to recovery. If only she didn’t have a bum leg.

Heaving a sigh, she dressed herself in her blue dress, slightly put-off again by it’s absent ruffles. Since that was nothing to be helped, she shrugged it off and went about coming her hair and putting it into a braid at the side of her head. She hummed as she weaved the three strands to make one, her fingers moving on there own from years of braiding her hair.

She donned her shoes and stockings before exiting the room, her crutches making clicking sounds against the floor.

The front room was empty, but Colt’s blanket was carefully folded in the corner of the room. Surely he hadn’t left for work already.

She looked out of the window and saw him on the front porch, sitting on the steps with a coffee cup in his hand and Worthless lying beside him. Glancing toward Carby’s room, she found the door still closed and assumed that she was still sleeping.

Jessie opened the front door and walked out onto the front porch.

Colt turned to look at her, and a slight smile appeared on his face.