Maddie's Justice

by LAFOY, LESLIE

• ISBN13: 9780553580457
• ISBN10: 0553580450
• Format: Trade Book
• Copyright: 2000-09-05
• Publisher: Fanfare

Summary

Nothing is as dangerous to a lawman As a wanted woman.... It had been a clear case of self-defense, but Maddie Rutledge was branded a murderer by a corrupt judge and sent to prison. Now on her way to testify against those who imprisoned her, she is escorted by a lawman with a tarnished past of his own. For Rivlin Kilpatrick it was to be a routine assignment. But there is nothing ordinary about this fiery woman whose compassion touches his soul and forces him to confront the demons that have driven him to the lonely life of a U.S. marshal. And there is nothing easy about their trek to Leavenworth, for an unknown enemy has determined that neither will arrive there alive. Maddie cannot say which danger threatens more peril--those who want her dead, or the dream of a love she can never have....

Excerpts

Rivlin kilpatrick stood in the corner of his mother's drawing room and watched his family and their friends celebrate the birth of yet another Kilpatrick grandchild. He knew the people in attendance, had grown up with most of them.  He had once belonged among them, had something in common with them. But then he'd gone off to do his duty and fight for General Grant in the war and everything had changed. He had changed. He had left as a boy of seventeen and become a man in a world far distant from drawing rooms, fancy clothes, and polite society. He no longer fit in this place, among these people, or in the kind of life they led. Rather than face the painful truth of it day after day, he'd left. And then returned again, this time the dutiful son taking up the reins from his late father's hands. It had been a mistake.

But then, he mused, tossing whiskey down his throat, if there was one thing he did exceedingly well, it was make mistakes. He could be counted on for that. He could also be counted on for taking damn near forever to see the error in his judgment and then taking yet another eternity to do what he should have done in the first place.

It had only taken him six months this time, though, and that was a record for swiftness. He could only think that it had something to do with managing to live--against all odds--to the ripe old age of twenty-five. If he ever reached thirty, he might actually be capable of good judgment. If it ever happened, he'd write his mother to tell her of the rare accomplishment, trusting her to share the uncommon and unexpected news with his six older siblings. They'd all be astounded. And, with any luck at all, their exclamations would be just as joyously exuberant as their outraged squealing was going to be when they discovered that he'd slipped from their clutches again.

With a tight smile Rivlin set his empty glass on the tray of a passing servant and left the room. He paused at the table in the foyer to remove the telegram from the Marshal's Service from the breast pocket of his dress coat. He carefully placed it on the silver tray then went upstairs to change his clothes and the course of his life.

13 August 1871
Oklahoma Territory

Maddie Rutledge stepped from the one-room schoolhouse and shaded her eyes against the glare of the late-morning sun. The heat rose from the parched earth in shimmering, undulating waves. Maddie peered through the rippling curtain, trying to see down the trail that led into the woods. It was so unlike Lucy to be late. If it had been any of her other Cherokee students Maddie wouldn't have worried, but Lucy Three Trees religiously abided by white concepts of time.

Something was wrong.

Maddie could feel it in her bones.

The dark shape of a single horse and a black carriage separated from the tree line and came toward her through the heat. Maddie recognized the vehicle and knew that Mrs. Stewart, Tahlequah's self-appointed Maven of Right and Proper, was coming to conduct her monthly surprise classroom inspection.

Any other time Maddie would have been annoyed by her presence. Today, however, she saw the woman's arrival as a welcome blessing.

Ten minutes later, with Mrs. Stewart enthroned at the front of the classroom, Maddie strode to the line of horses picketed in the shade of the school building. Hers was an ancient steed, saved from death by her insistence that the animal could ably serve her simple riding needs. Pausing at the saddle-bags, Maddie removed her battered felt hat and holstered revolver with a wry smile.

The good Christian women who had raised her in the Iowa orphanage would be appalled by both articles, she thought. The hat they would eventually, but grudgingly, accept as being a frontier adaptation necessary to protect her skin from the harsh sunlight.

But the gun . . . The good women would never, ever accept a six-shooter. Guns were the devil's tools, an evil that corrupted the heart and hand of the person holding it. Of course they didn't have western diamondback rattlesnakes in Iowa and, having never been confronted by six feet of coiled, deadly poison, the good women would never understand that sometimes snakes had to die from a cause other than old age. That was a fact of life in the ter- ritory and one Maddie had quickly learned on her arrival two years before.

Appropriately armed and shaded, Maddie swung up into the saddle and set off toward the Three Trees' cabin, her mind working through the possibilities. Lucy was almost ten, an only child, and since her mother's death last winter, the woman of the house. Her father was frequently absent, visiting friends and relations in neighboring settlements. Lucy could be ill and suffering alone. Or she could have had an accident and been unable to get herself to the mission for help. Or . . . Maddie jerked upright. Eight Cherokee girls had been brutally raped and beaten to death over the course of the last six months. She didn't want to think that Lucy could be the ninth.

Maddie pushed her aged horse as fast as her conscience would allow, assuring herself that there could well be a thousand other reasons why Lucy hadn't come to school that morning. The mental fortification was fairly successful until the trail entered the tree line. As she forced herself down the narrow trail to the tiny clearing that held Lucy Three Trees's dilapidated, one-room cabin, her hands trembled on the reins and the hairs on the back of her neck prickled.

The sound of an equine snort stopped her own animal short. Maddie's mind clicked through the implications even as she swung down from the saddle.

Lucy didn't own a horse. She walked to and from the schoolhouse every day. None of Lucy's friends owned horses either. They were all just as dirt poor as she was. Leaving her mount at the side of the cabin, Maddie strode to the corner and cautiously peered around it.

Her heart slammed into her throat. She recognized the big sorrel. It belonged to Caleb Foley, the son of the head Indian agent. And the whispers said that it was Caleb. . . .

Maddie dashed round the corner, a cry strangling in her throat at the sight of the splintered cabin door. Her only thoughts those of saving Lucy, she scrambled over the debris and through the opening.

In the darkness of the tiny cabin Maddie caught terrifying bits of the reality . . . Lucy cowering naked in the farthest corner, her face streaked with tears, her long dark hair tangled and bloody, a half-dressed Caleb turning away from the girl to swing the fireplace poker in another direction. Maddie gasped and instinctively stumbled back and out of his reach. He bellowed and came after her. Lucy cried softly.

Inescapable truth and a strange sense of calm flowed over Maddie as Caleb Foley bore down on her. Sometimes snakes had to die.

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Excerpted from Maddie's Justice by Leslie LaFoy
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