figured he’d been crazy to picture her in a dress. With Elizabeth beside him, there did seem to be a big difference between a lady in a dress and a mud-covered young girl who didn’t want anyone to see who she really was.
Father, came the prayer from his heart. You look upon hearts and not on the outsides. Would that You didn’t know the hatred for Olney that’s in my heart. Even in the middle of my punishment for it, I cannot make it go away.
Chapter Five
“I don’t care what I told you earlier, Miss Calderwood.” Otto Violet stared across the desk at both of them, little round spectacles perched precariously on a monstrous nose that looked as if it might pitch them off at any second. He pointed to the dusty red book on his desk. “I cannot find any defense in my law records for you, Mr. Brown. You have committed an actionable offense, and I believe you should be punished for it.”
“But I’ve given you a retainer,” Elizabeth reminded him.
“That you have,” he said. “So now I’m giving it back.” He slid the money she’d given him just this morning across the desk at her. “I won’t defend Mr. Brown. You went after our town marshal, sir. That is a case of public hanging, to be certain.” He thumped the book for good measure and sent whorls of dust into the air. “I’ve been thinking of it all day. I don’t like to lose cases. It mars my reputation. Therefore, I will not take this case at all.”
“But you promised.” Beth hadn’t touched the money on his desk.
“I don’t want you to worry yourself with this any longer. Come on.” Aaron squeezed her shoulders. “We’ve other lawyers in this town to choose from. I’d rather argue on my own behalf than trust someone with my life who doesn’t trust me.”
She gathered the money into her reticule, and together they returned to the street. But Violet’s refusal to represent them had been a blow to her. “There are only two others to choose from.” She dabbed at her eyes with a perfectly folded linen handkerchief. “And of the three, Otto Violet is the best.”
“I wonder,” Aaron said speculatively, “if Harris Olney is passing his own money around in this town.”
For all intents and purposes, Aaron might have been a different man when he and Elizabeth marched into Seth Wood’s esteemed law office an hour later. He’d had his first bath in three weeks. He’d shaved, too. And he’d splashed himself with bay rum and had put on his very best Sunday suit. He hoped the physical improvements would make him look more defendable.
He held the door open for Beth as the bell tinkled sharply to announce their arrival. And, strange as it might seem, Seth Wood was sitting at his desk looking as if he’d been waiting for their arrival.
“Ain’t no use you two coming in here,” he said brusquely. “I ain’t gonna represent you, neither.”
“You all been meeting and discussing my case?” Aaron growled. “Seems like everybody’s decided not to get involved with this at once.”
“We’ve decided we won’t be crazy, that’s all.”
“Has Harris Olney been sniffing around offering to pay you money if you’ll turn me down?”
“That’s no business of yours, Brown. You know that.”
“I know what’s fair,” Aaron said. “I’m entitled to a fair trial with a jury of my peers. Doesn’t look like I’m gonna get that.” He pointed a finger right between Seth Wood’s eyes. “My blood will be on your hands, Wood.”
“Nope,” the lawyer said stiffly. “You’ve brought the blood on yourself.”
By the end of their meeting with Wood, Aaron was as mad as a bear. “Beth, there’s no use you traipsing around all day at my side. You’re going to wear yourself out and not be any good to anybody tomorrow.”
“I thought I could help.”
“Well, I don’t see that your presence is doing anybody any good.” He didn’t mean to be unkind to her. It was just that he was as frustrated as he’d ever been in his life. And he figured that, at this rate, he wouldn’t have a life very long.
How he hated to see Olney win.
“Aaron.”
“I’m takin’ you back to the Pacific Hotel. You’ve helped me by coming, Beth. If nothing else, you got me free to walk the streets for two last days before I go on to glory. At this point, I’m appreciating every extra minute I get.” He had only one more chance at a lawyer. He wasn’t placing too much hope in that one, either. He figured Harris had made a point to get to all of them before he did.
He delivered Beth to the hotel and saw her safely to her room. Then he went to visit John Kincaid, the third and last lawyer to set up business in Tin Cup.
“Now look,” he said to Kincaid when he stomped in the door and saw the man sitting with feet crossed atop his desk, just waiting for him to walk in like all the others. “I don’t like this cat-and-mouse game.”
“Neither do I,” Kincaid said, swinging his boots to the floor.
“I guess I just went and got my hopes up,” Aaron went on. “Last week, I thought I was hanging for sure. This week, I start to see possibilities. Next thing I know, those possibilities are slipping away. I’m not a trapped animal, Kincaid. I don’t take kindly to being pounced on and played with.”
Kincaid rose slowly and went to stare out the front window of his office. “Never was too fond of Harris Olney myself.”
“You’re saying you’re not gonna take his money to tell me no.”
“I’m saying I’ll decide the merits of taking your case on my own, Mr. Brown. Whoever represents you Thursday is going to have a tough go of it. Everyone’s hungry for your hanging. And everyone’s hungry for a hero. Unfortunately, you gave them one when you got tromped on by Uley Kirkland.”
“Are you saying everybody wants to hang me just for Uley’s sake?”
“It would seem a proper show of respect for what that kid did.”
“I suppose I’m in trouble.”
“You tell me something,” Kincaid said. “You tell me if you were planning on pulling that trigger.”
“Would it make any difference if I told you that I wasn’t?”
“It might make a lot of difference. It might make a lot of difference in how I look at you.”
“Okay, I wasn’t.”
“You telling the truth?”
Aaron was at the point of growling again. “I generally tell the truth, Kincaid.”
“So why were you holding a gun on the marshal’s back, Brown?”
“Because I didn’t want the marshal to shoot me first.”
“You’d be willing to tell me the whole
