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Illustration by Paul Campbell © 2007

 

 

Jacqueline

by Rachel Kovaciny © 2007

 

 

 

 

I came into the world six months ago. The Kootenai River gave birth to me. At least, that's how I tell it to myself.

 

Truthfully, I woke up six months ago on the banks of the Kootenai. I wore a plain silver ring on the middle finger of my left hand and a ragged cotton shimmy. Nothing else. A woman bent over me, her calloused hands rubbing my wrists. "Honey? Come on now, wake up," she crooned.

 

I opened my eyes, squinting in the bright sunlight, trying to see my rescuer. Her face and neck were gently wrinkled, and she had grey hair pulled back into a tight bun. Her faded yellow sunbonnet dangled down her back. When she saw my eyes opening, she smiled. "There now, I knew you'd come 'round." She stopped rubbing my wrists. "You're gonna be all right."

 

I coughed, turned my head to the side, and vomited dirty river water.

 

"That's it," she coaxed, "Get it all out. You likely swallowed half the river."

 

I groaned. My entire body ached and, as I peered at my hands, arms, legs, I could see why. Nearly every inch of me was bruised or scraped. The Kootenai does not give birth gently.

 

"I don't think you've broken anything," the woman said. "All your limbs feel sound. Surely got banged around some though." She smiled again. "Good Lord is lookin' out for you -- I don't usually do my washin' on Tuesdays, but I felt poorly yesterday and decided it could wait a day." She patted my hand gently. "Don't you worry, you'll be all right." She paused, and then asked, "What's your name, Honey?"

 

I blinked. Name. My name. "Ja -- Ja -- Ja --" I stammered.

 

"Jane?" she tried to help.

 

"Ja -- k --" Why was this so hard? I should know this! "--lin," I ended. That didn't seem right. Yet it was familiar.

 

"Jacqueline?" She smiled. "That's a lovely name." This woman sure smiled a lot.

 

I nodded. Jacqueline. It was familiar. It had to be right.

 

"And a last name?"

 

I shook my head. I could remember nothing else.

 

"Well," she soothed, "no matter. Likely you're plumb wore out." She straightened up, shaded her eyes with her hand, and looked around us. "Not sure how to get you to the house, Jacqueline. My husband Luke's out plowin' with both our horses. The house ain't far, but I don't reckon I could carry you." She chuckled. "I ain't as young as formerly. Took a lot of doin' just to heave you out of the river. Don't suppose you could stand up, maybe walk a little with my help?" she suggested. "Like I said, it ain't far -- I told Luke we had to live close to the river so I wouldn't spend half my life totin' water. So we built it just far enough off so we won't get washed away if it was to flood."

 

With her help, I managed to struggle to my feet. I swayed and the cool spring breeze blowing along the river made me shiver. Once I started to shake, I couldn't stop.

 

"Here, now, you're chilled through, ain't you," she said soothingly. "That old river don't really warm up for another month yet." She squatted by her bundle of washing, untying the blanket that held the clothes together. "Let's see if this don't help." She wrapped the thick wool blanket around me and I felt a bit better. "I've got a fire goin' in the house -- it won't take long to warm you there."

 

Leaning on my rescuer, sometimes clutching her frantically when I stumbled, we finally made it up the small rise to her home. When I saw the open front door and cheery red curtains at the only window, I thought it the friendliest cabin I could imagine.

 

She settled me on a low stool as close to the fire as I could safely get. While I gradually warmed up, she bandaged the worst of my cuts and scrapes. Then she climbed a ladder into the cabin's small loft and rummaged about in a trunk. "You can wear this extra dress of mine for now," she told me, descending the ladder, a grey cotton dress thrown over her shoulder. "It won't fit you right, but we'll take it in later. And I got some right nice checked gingham we can make you a new dress from."

 

"Thank you," I managed to say. I knew, from looking around the simple cabin, that she didn't have dresses and cloth to spare. She'd probably gotten the gingham to make her own new dress. "I -- I don't even know your name."

 

"Why, so you don't. It's Gertrude, more's the pity, Gertrude Chapman. But you just call me Trudy like everyone else does." Trudy checked the iron coffeepot hanging over the fire. "Do you like coffee?"

 

Did I? "I don't know." First my name, then coffee -- why couldn't I remember simple things like that?

 

"We'll just have to find out, won't we." Trudy smiled as she poured the dark liquid into two shiny tin cups. "There now, try that. If you don't like it black, we can sweeten it with a little sugar."

 

I raised the hot cup to my lips. It smelled familiar and I took a hesitant taste. I smiled. "I like coffee," I told her.

 

Trudy smiled as well. "How about that," was all she said.

 

*****

 

By the time Trudy's husband Luke came home from the plowing that evening, we'd learned that while I liked coffee, potatoes, and salt pork, I most definitely did not like turnips. But I'd discovered something more disturbing than my inability to remember my name or what I liked to eat. I could not remember anything that happened to me before I woke up on the banks of the Kootenai. Nothing. No family, no home, no sweethearts, nothing.

 

"Luke, we have a visitor," Trudy told him as he opened the door that evening.

 

I rose from the chair by the fire, where I'd remained most of the day, too weak to move about much. "Hello," I said quietly.

 

Luke nodded. "Hello," he replied, also quiet.

 

"This here is Jacqueline," she told him. "Poor thing nearly drowned in the river. If I hadn't left the washin' 'til today --" Trudy gasped. "The washin'! It's still down by the river!"

 

Luke smiled a little. "I'll fetch it." He left the cabin again, carefully shutting the door behind him.

 

"That man sure don't talk much," Trudy said after he'd left. "But his heart's in the right place."

 

*****

 

And so I began life with Luke and Trudy Chapman. They made me a pallet of old quilts in the loft that first night, and it remained my bed ever after. Trudy seemed to delight in the company of another woman; they lived far from any other settlers. And she and Luke both assured me that my help with the planting, the garden, and work around the cabin more than paid for my way.

 

Trudy took especial joy in helping make my new dress. When I wore the soft green gingham outside, I felt as if I could blend in with the grass and the wispy trees down by the river, as if I could disappear if I wanted to. I wasn't sure why I'd want to disappear, but I often had a panicky desire to hide, to run to some safe place where no one could find me. Whether these were leftover feelings from my unknown past or a reaction to losing my memory, I couldn't tell. I didn't confess this to Trudy -- I didn't want to worry her. We altered the grey cotton dress to fit me too, and I wore it most days, so as not to soil the gingham.

 

*****

 

Once or twice a week, I would wake up terrified, my sweat-slick body shivering, my heart pounding as if I'd run a mile. Images would fill my mind, frightening images. Sometimes they were caskets and graveyards, the normal stuff of nightmares. Other times they were men chasing me, snatching at me with hands that grew larger and larger. And I felt myself falling, saw the world rushing up past me. And always there was a face in the background, a girl with black hair and green eyes, a wide smile. It was on days after I'd had these murky dreams that I felt most compelled to run and hide, to disappear into the waving grasses that surrounded us.

 

*****

 

I discovered I knew how to do many things. I could bake a pie from the dried apples in their root cellar. I could saddle a horse, or harness it. I could fire Luke's pistol well enough to kill a rattler coiled by the path to the river, although handling the sidearm always made me feel angry and frightened. Like my desire to run and hide, I hid these feelings from Luke and Trudy. If I didn't know why I felt these things, why worry them. Besides, I was too busy finding out that I could pluck a chicken without making much mess. And I could read.

 

It was that last ability that impressed Luke and Trudy the most. While they both could make out words after much patient effort, I could read aloud with ease. As soon as we discovered this, Trudy pulled a large black Bible from a trunk by their bed.

 

"Read me something from this, Jacqueline," she urged. "Find me Psalm 23, I always did favor that."

 

I paged through the heavy book and finally found the passage she requested. As I read, Trudy closed her eyes and smiled peacefully. When I'd finished, she opened her eyes. "Don't it remind you of this place?" she asked. "Green pastures, still waters, and a table laid before us?"

 

"I suppose so. Except I wouldn't exactly call the Kootenai a 'still' river." I thumbed through the Bible, trying to tell if it brought any memories back to me. Like so many other things, it seemed familiar, but I couldn't remember why.

 

Weeks stretched into months. Life fell into a comfortable rhythm. Luke's grain crops grew tall and stately, and finally the time came to harvest them. The three of us, along with the two horses, worked harder than I'd thought possible, first cutting the wheat, then hauling it back to the barn, threshing it, and loading it into sacks.

 

Early one morning, we loaded those sacks into the Chapmans' wagon. The time had come to sell the grain in town and use the money for winter supplies. I felt excited about our trip to town. Perhaps someone there, even just one person, might know who I was, who I'd been before. Town was a day's wagon ride west of the farm, built right alongside the Kootenai, Trudy told me. I felt a little afraid too -- what if I had a family there? A family I had no memory of? Would I stay there? Or would I come back here, with Trudy and Luke? I liked life on the farm, the peace, the green pastures and still waters, as Trudy said.

 

*****

 

We reached town at dusk. Luke let us off at the one hotel, then headed for the mill, hoping to sell the grain yet that night.

 

I looked around me as I stood in front of the hotel. Most of the people were either in the two saloons or the hotel's dining room by that time of night. I looked into the face of every person we encountered, hoping for a spark of recognition. Anything that told me I'd been there before, seen these people before. The man behind the hotel desk gave me an odd look, but didn't say anything. I figured he just wondered why I kept staring at people.

 

The porter carried our two small bags up to our rooms. Trudy explained that tonight we would rest up from our journey, then lay in supplies tomorrow, that being Saturday. On Sunday, we would go to church and leave for home after an early meal.

 

*****

 

All Saturday, as we visited various stores and bought supplies for the long winter ahead, I kept hoping to recognize someone, or be recognized. No one we met treated me as anything but another stranger. I went to sleep that night disappointed, even a little angry. Angry with myself, for not knowing who I was, where I came from. My past stayed as grey as the dress I'd worn all summer.

 

That night, I once again awakened frightened and shaking, my mind filled with the sound of hollow laughter and the feeling that I'd fallen off a high cliff. And the dark-haired girl floated before me, as usual, but this time her green eyes were wide with fear, her smile replaced by a silent scream. I curled up on my side, squeezing my eyes shut as I tried to block out the unknown terrors swirling in my mind like the fearsome waters of the Kootenai.

 

*****

 

Sunday, as we walked down the wooden church steps after the service, a ragged boy appeared before us. "'Scuse me," he said, handing me a folded piece of paper, then running off.

 

I slowly opened the dirty paper, barely breathing.

 

"Maybe someone's recognized you," Trudy echoed my thoughts. "But why not just come talk to you?"

 

I read the note silently: "Meet me behind the church. --LB" The words were scrawled, barely readable.

 

Someone knew me. Someone with the initials LB. I blinked, the sunlight suddenly so bright it hurt my eyes.

 

"What's it say?" Trudy asked. "Somebody musta recognized you, to send you a note."

 

I nodded. "I'm supposed to meet them behind the church."

 

"Behind the church? Well, what're we waitin' for?" Trudy began walking around the side of the building, but Luke stopped her.

 

"Maybe Jacqueline'd like to meet this person alone," he suggested.

 

"I think I would," I agreed slowly, somehow knowing I should go by myself. "I'm sure it won't take long. I'll meet you back in the hotel."

 

Trudy returned my smile. "Sure. You just take as long as you like, and bring this friend with you to eat if you want to. After all, who knows -- could be you've got a feller waitin' for you back there." She squeezed my arm, then released me. "Here, you wear my shawl, it's a mite chilly out here." She pulled the waist-length shawl off her shoulders and put it around mine.

 

"I'm not cold," I protested. "Don't you need it?"

 

"I'm goin' on inside. Who knows how long you'll be standin' out here talkin'. Go on now, shoo."

 

I watched them walk off toward the hotel, Trudy holding Luke's arm as they crossed the street. I slowly, almost reluctantly, started around the building. My heart beat faster and faster as I neared the next corner of the whitewashed church. Who waited for me? A sweetheart, as Trudy suggested? Why meet me back here instead of on the front steps?

 

When I rounded the last corner, I understood why. Standing in the church's shadow was one of what Trudy had yesterday called 'the soiled doves'. I could tell immediately what this girl was, what she did, just by glancing at her low-cut dress and painted face. I'd seen many like her as we hurried past the two saloons.

 

She beckoned me closer and grabbed my arm when I neared. "Are you crazy?" she whispered. "You think just 'cause people think you're dead for a few months, it's safe to come back?"

 

"Who are you?" I asked coldly, prying her fingers from my arm. "What are you talking about?"

 

"This ain't no time for games," she whispered. "You know danged well who I am."

 

I shook my head. "No, I don't. I don't know anything. I've lost my memory."

 

She narrowed her eyes, pushing greasy blonde hair out of her face. "You're loco?"

 

"No, not loco -- I just can't remember anything. I woke up on a riverbank this spring, that's the first thing I can remember. Now, if you know who I am, who I was before, please tell me quickly." I didn't want to spend any more time in her presence than necessary.

 

"I reckon I've heard of people losin' their memory, so maybe you're tellin' the truth." She looked around us, then motioned me closer yet. "Your name is Rosie Cole."

 

Rosie Cole. It wasn't familiar. "Are you sure? It -- I don't remember that name."

 

She shrugged. "Probably ain't your real name, same as mine ain't originally Lola Burdett neither. But that's what we called you."

 

"We?"

 

"Sure, me an' the other girls."

 

The other girls. Oh, dear God, no. "Was I a -- a --"

 

"A whore? Sure, same as me. You really don't remember anything?"

 

I shook my head, my stomach churning. They called me Rosie Cole and I was a whore.

 

"Well, you worked over at Mr. Linn's, like me. You showed up last winter, lookin' for your sister." Lola's whisper grew even softer. "You didn't tell anyone but me this stuff, an' only 'cuz you needed help. That's why when I seen you on the street yesterday -- well, Mr. Linn told everybody you fell in the river on accident that night an' drowned, but I never did think that's what happened. Remember any of this?"

 

"No." I was glad I didn't. It didn't sound like I'd lost much of a life.

 

"Well, you came searchin' for your sister. She'd been workin' for Mr. Linn too, only she died before you got here, in a bar fight. Caught a stray bullet."

 

"My sister?" The blurry image of a face drifted through my mind. Black hair and green eyes, a wide smile. I held my breath. The face from my nightmares! Was it a memory? My sister's face?

 

"Sure, your sister Ruthie."

 

Ruthie. Ruthie. The face came back clear and strong then. And with it came a million memories, a lifetime flooding through me all at once. I closed my eyes and put my hands over my face. Ruthie, Mama, Papa, our farm in Missouri , Papa dead in the war, Mama dead from fever. I leaned against the church for support. Ruthie disappeared two months after Mama's burial. She rode to town one morning and never came back.

 

I dropped my hands from my face, but my eyes stayed squeezed shut. I thought I might cry, but I didn't. Ruthie stolen away by a man who thought her dark-haired beauty would make a nice addition to his establishment. A man named Jack Linn.

 

Jack Linn -- the name I'd sputtered on the banks of the Kootenai. My name was Rose Leigh Dorsett. Not Rosie Cole. Not Jacqueline. Somehow my mind clung to the name of my my sister's captor when everything else slipped away.

 

And I remembered that night, six months earlier. The night I drowned. "I remember," I whispered to Lola. "I tracked Ruthie here. Found out how she died. I went to work for Mr. Linn, changed my name so he wouldn't connect me to her." I opened my eyes. "And I wired for a marshal to come arrest Jack Linn for kidnapping."

 

Lola nodded. "You told me, only me. You needed to send the telegram, an' you hadn't worked there long enough for him to trust you to go out unguarded. But me -- he didn't think stupid Lola would ever work against him. I sent the telegram and brought you one of those little pistols."

 

"I know. I waited and waited for a marshal to come. And none ever did." I stopped talking, remembering my anger, my determination to avenge Ruthie's death myself. One night, Jack Linn took a bunch of us out to a party at a big ranch up north. I got him to stop the wagon, let me out so I could relieve myself in the bushes. He followed me, didn't trust me walking off alone in the dark. Left his gunmen to guard the rest of the girls. I could feel the bushes tugging against my tawdry dress as I'd walked away from the wagon, hear the river surging past in the darkness. I confronted him, told him who I really was.

 

I closed my eyes. I could feel the cold derringer clutched in my fingers. And I could hear him laugh at me as I raised it. Feel the sting as he struck it from my trembling hands. And then -- he had his revenge, instead of me having mine. And afterwards, I could feel myself falling. Then nothing -- I could remember no further. I couldn't even remember landing in the river.

But I hadn't died. I opened my eyes. "It ends now," I told Lola. "I'll get a gun. I'll shoot him. In broad daylight, if I have to. I don't care if they hang me, at least he'll be dead." Even as I said it, I knew that I didn't want to hang. But I didn't want to fail either. I couldn't let Ruthie's humiliation and death go unavenged.

 

Lola shook her head. "That marshal you wired for? One come. Last week. He visited Mr. Linn's, talked to us girls. Asked if we're being held there against our will, all kinds of questions. Questions about you." She looked down. "We all lied. We didn't none of us remember you, or Ruthie. An' we all said we signed contracts an' got paid regular."

 

"Is this marshal still in town?" There might still be a chance to get justice without hanging myself, after all.

 

Lola nodded. "He's stayin' at the jail."

 

"Lola, thank you." I remembered her now, her past kindnesses. "Stay out of Mr. Linn's for a bit if you can, just in case there's trouble," I warned.

 

Lola took my hands and squeezed them. "Good luck, Rosie."

 

I looked down at our hands. We both wore plain silver bands on our left middle fingers. The sign we belonged to Jack Linn. I would take that ring and throw it in his face. "Thanks, Lola. You took a real chance meetin' with me. I got one more question. Does Mr. Linn know I'm still alive?"

 

She shrugged. "He was gone all yesterday. You been lucky so far. I hope it holds for you."

 

I nodded. "Thanks again."

 

*****

 

I entered the jail cautiously and looked around, fairly certain I'd never been there before. I still wasn't sure how much I should trust my returning memory. A rough wooden table took up most of the front room, and the grotesquely overfed man behind it used up the rest of the space. I took note of the half-dozen holsters and pistols hanging on the wall by the door. Ahh yes, the town ordnance that all guns had to be left with the sheriff. An ordnance only the harmless and meek actually obeyed.

 

"Can I help you, Ma'am?" asked the monstrosity.

 

"I'm looking for the federal marshal," I replied. I remembered this ineffective bully. The only time he enforced the law was when it might gain him a free drink or a full belly.

 

"He just stepped out. Something I can help you with, maybe?"

 

"Yes, actually." I casually moved until I stood in front of those pistols hanging on the wall, my hands held primly behind my back. "Could you give him a message when he returns?" Ever-so-slowly, I unbuttoned the back of my dress just above the waist.

 

"Why, I reckon so."

 

"Thank you. Tell him that the person who sent the wire wants to meet him." I slid a pistol from its holster behind me.

 

"Right. Meet him where?" I was surprised to see him writing my message down. I hadn't thought he'd expend the energy.

 

"In the place mentioned in the telegram." I tucked the pistol into the waistband of my dress, grateful once again for Trudy's shawl. It would hide the bulge.

 

"I'll be sure to tell him," the sheriff promised.

 

"Thank you," I said again. I smiled as sweetly as I could and walked out, praying he wouldn't notice the empty holster on his wall. I doubted he'd bother to be that observant.

 

Once outside, I paused. I'd taken the pistol, left word for the marshal to meet me at Jack Linn's. But what should I do next? Confront Mr. Linn myself?

 

A sleek black horse cantered into town, stopping in front of the bigger saloon. The dismounting rider made up my mind for me. It was Jack Linn himself, and the very sight of him filled me with hatred and loathing. I crossed the street, resolute. I'd left word for the marshal that I'd be at Mr. Linn's, after all. He could arrest me at the scene of my crime, if nothing else.

 

I walked into the saloon, head held high. I knew everyone would stare at me, at my proper gingham dress, at the whore they thought had drowned. The stench inside sickened me: the familiar odors of liquor and chewing tobacco, laced with cigarette smoke. I strode up to the long bar along one side wall. "Hello, Fergie," I greeted the bartender.

 

Fergie swallowed his plug of tobacco and blinked his watery blue eyes. "Rosie?"

 

"Where's Mr. Linn?" I asked. It was too early for there to be many customers. Most of the girls sat around tables, idly playing penny-ante.

 

"He ain't here," Fergie lied. "Won't be back 'til tonight."

 

I smiled. "He walked through those doors two minutes before I did. Is he upstairs? Or out back?"

 

A deep rough voice answered me from the door to the back room. "He's right here."

 

I turned to face him. He hadn't changed in six months. I wondered if he thought I had. Jack Linn always reminded me of the pictures of apes I saw at school. His arms were a little too long, and his torso looked too large for his spindly legs. I remembered his hands too, those grasping long fingers, the rough nails he bit down past the quick.

 

"If it ain't Rosie Cole," he sneered. "The poor girl that fell in the river." He smiled, but only with his lips. "Come home at last?"

 

"Hello, Mr. Linn." I could barely breathe and my hands trembled, just as they had that night by the Kootenai.

 

"Come on out back, Rosie, I'm just fillin' up a few bottles for tonight. You an' me've got a lot to talk over." The smile stayed in place, showing too many teeth. "We'll have to celebrate your return."

 

I followed him into the back room and he shut the door behind us. I backed against a stack of liquor barrels and tried to stop my hands from shaking.

 

Jack Linn stayed by the door. Little groups of bottles on the floor showed that he'd indeed been refilling what Saturday night's business had depleted. "Let me guess," he said. "You've come to finish what you tried to do six months ago."

 

I felt the hard warmth of the pistol pressed between the liquor barrels and my back. I resisted the urge to reach for it. The time was wrong. "Why else would I be here?"

 

He chuckled. "Maybe you want your old job back." He moved closer, closer, until we were inches apart. "Or maybe you want me to finish what I started six months ago."

 

"Keep your hands off me," I hissed. "I'm a decent woman now."

 

The chuckle became a laugh, loud and mocking. "Once a whore, always a whore, Rosie." He shook his finger at me. "Don't go pretending to be something you aren't." But he backed away a little.

 

"I've had a lot of time to think these past months." I was stalling for time, trying to gather my courage a little more firmly.

 

"Oh yes? What about?"

 

"What I tried to do to you." I gestured to the empty bottles on the floor. "Please, don't let me keep you from your work. I can talk while you fill those."

 

He smiled. "Thank you." He knelt by one of the kegs, keeping his eyes on me.

 

I watched him start to fill an empty bottle with whisky. "I've thought a lot about how I tried to shoot you. And I've come to the conclusion that I was wrong."

 

"Wrong?" That surprised him.

 

"Sure. Just because you kidnapped my sister, turned her into a whore, that doesn't give me the right to kill you."

 

"Is that so?"

 

I shrugged, casually reached behind me, and pulled out the pistol. "Then again, maybe it does." I aimed it at his forehead and cocked the hammer. "And even if it doesn't give me the right, it sure gives me the reason."

 

Someone crashed through the door. I was startled, afraid it was one of Mr. Linn's gunmen, but I didn't take my eyes off my prey.

 

A stranger entered, pointing a revolver at me. "Put down your gun, Miss Dorsett," the young man said. "I'm Federal Marshal Dan Hutton."

 

"He deserves to die. He took my sister, he as good as killed her himself." I kept my pistol aimed between Jack Linn's eyes. "I don't care if I have to hang for it." My finger tightened on the trigger.

 

"He does deserve to die. And he will. But not like this," Marshal Hutton reasoned. "It's not up to you to carry out justice. It's up to the law. Let me arrest him so he can be tried for his crimes. Let him hang."

 

Jack Linn laughed. "It'll never happen," he boasted. "You'll never get those other girls to talk, they're too afraid. You got no evidence. All you've got is scared little Rosie who can't pull a trigger."

 

"Please, Miss Dorsett, put down your weapon. Let justice take its course."

 

"Are you sure he'll hang?" I asked.

 

"With your testimony, the things you wired me, there's no doubt."

 

I considered my options for a few seconds: spend time in jail for killing Jack Linn, possibly hang for it myself, or see him hang and then return to those green pastures and still waters. I lowered my weapon. "Then arrest him." I flicked my gaze over the stranger, noting the shiny federal badge pinned to his long grey coat.

 

As Marshal Hutton pulled a pair of handcuffs from his belt, Jack Linn twitched. I swung my gun up again and fired, hitting him in the hand. He howled and dropped the bottle he'd planned to use as a weapon. It shattered on the floor.

 

"Where'd you learn to shoot like that?" the marshal asked me as he cuffed Jack Linn's hands behind him, ignoring the blood, and hauled him to his feet.

 

"My father taught me." I glared at Mr. Linn. "And you thought I couldn't pull the trigger."

 

Jack Linn glared back. "But you couldn't kill me."

 

I shrugged. "I don't have to." I pulled his silver ring off my left hand. "Here, this still belongs to you, even though I don't." Just like I'd planned, I threw it right in his face. It bounced off his cheek and fell clinking onto the floor.

 

"Come along, Miss Dorsett, I'll need to take your statements about this and everything else," Marshal Hutton told me, pushing Mr. Linn toward the door.

 

"Would you mind if I stopped at the hotel first? There are some people waiting for me." It would take a lot of explaining, but I hoped Luke and Trudy would let me come back to their farm with them even after they learned of my past. It was the only home I had now. I smiled at the marshal. "And please, call me Jacqueline."

 

 

The End