"We'd love to have you, Belle. Bring the judge with you," Mary Rose called out.
She couldn't make herself let go of her husband. Family and friends surrounded her brothers. Adam looked as if he was in a daze. Harrison doubted he'd even remember what was now being said to him by John Morrison.
They went outside together. The road was almost deserted. Once the outsiders had heard the disappointing news that there wouldn't be a hanging anytime soon, they'd gone on back home.
Bickley and five others in his vigilante group stood in the center of the road. Harrison noticed they were all armed. He shoved Mary Rose behind him.
"Sir, go on and get in the buggy. Cole will make certain you get there. Take Mary Rose with you."
She started to go to her father, but she kept her attention on Bickley. He wasn't looking at Adam now. Harrison seemed to be the target of his anger.
Bickley went for his gun. Mary Rose didn't hesitate. She threw herself in front of her husband to shield him.
Harrison shouted, "No."
Everyone drew his gun at the same time. The judge was quicker than all of them, for he already had his pistol out and cocked. He'd had a pretty good notion of what Bickley planned to do, and so he'd waited by the side for his opportunity.
The bullet went right through the center of Bickley's forehead. He flew backward and landed in the dust.
"Any of you other boys want some of this here gun?" the judge roared.
Bickley's friends shook their heads and put their hands up. "Then get the hell out of my town," the judge ordered. "And haul that trash on the ground with you. Git now."
Harrison was shaking. He grabbed his wife and squeezed her. "You damned near got yourself killed. What in God's name were you doing?"
"Making sure you didn't get killed."
"If you ever… dear God, Mary Rose, I can't go on without… how could you…"
Cole started laughing. "Give her hell at home, Harrison. You know why Bickley tried to kill you, don't you?"
"I'm guessing he hates lawyers like everyone else does. Harrison, are you sure I have to become one?" Travis asked.
Harrison wasn't amused. He let Cole pull his horse after him and squeezed into the buggy with his wife and her father.
Travis and Douglas and Cole rode in a half circle with Adam in the center all the way home. They didn't trust Bickley's friends, of course, and they weren't about to let one of them kill Adam or Harrison now.
Harrison 's jaw was clenched tight. Mary Rose knew he was still trying to recover from Bickley's attempt. She decided she would take his attention away from the matter by talking about the trial.
"Father, wasn't Harrison wonderful?"
"Yes, he was wonderful. I'm glad he didn't have to get brutal. It worked out just the way he planned it."
"He wasn't brutal?"
"Oh, heaven's no. I thought he was very agreeable."
" Harrison? How did you get Mitchell to lie?"
"I didn't."
"Then…"
"He told the truth… as he knew it to be," he deliberately added to mislead her.
"Was it a plan of some sort?"
"Yes."
She leaned against him. "Quit talking in such clipped tones. I know you're mad at me. It's a wife's duty to protect her husband. Do try to get past it."
He lifted her up onto his lap and shoved the side of her face down onto his shoulder.
"I'm proud of you, son," Elliot told him.
"It was easy, sir. Adam was innocent."
"But that wasn't what this trial was all about, was it?"
"No, sir. It was about hate."
Elliott nodded. They all fell silent as the buggy climbed the road. Elliott was thinking that he couldn't wait to get Harrison alone and find out what the plan had been. He knew how Harrison 's mind worked, and he also knew, without any doubt, that he would never, ever lie in court. He wouldn't get anyone else to do it for him either. So how had he pulled it off?
Part of the answer was smiling up at her husband. Harrison hadn't lied in court, but he had lied to Mary Rose and her brothers. Elliott understood why he'd done it, of course. They wouldn't have been as calm and controlled if they'd known beforehand what Livonia 's sons had done to their Mama Rose.
Elliott wondered if Harrison would ever tell them the truth. He'd ask him just that question tonight, he decided.
"I'll have to get back to England soon," he announced.
"You can't leave yet. I have so much to show you. I want to introduce you to Corrie, and I want to show you my mountains. I'll show you where the ghosts are buried if you stay."
Elliott was pleased she didn't want him to leave. His eyes became misty, and he slowly nodded. His voice was shaky when he said, "All right, daughter. I'll stay another couple of weeks. You and Harrison can come to England to visit me next summer. I'll add on another week if you promise me now."
"But you have to come back here next summer. I can't leave then," she said.
"Sweetheart, we can take a month and go back. I want to show you Scotland," Harrison insisted.
"I won't promise until I talk to Harrison, Father. Can you wait until tomorrow?"
He agreed. "I don't want to wait to hear about the ghost graveyard. Tell me all about it now. Who did you bury there?"
"Monsters from under my bed," Mary Rose answered. "When I was five or six, I wouldn't sleep in my own bed. I'd always wait and sneak in with one of my brothers. I always did sleep with them when I was younger, and they were trying to break me of the habit.
" Douglas hung a curtain up to separate me from the living area. We were still living in a cabin then. Anyway, I was sure I heard monsters under my bed. All my brothers but Cole tried to convince me I was imagining things.
"Cole took a different approach. He got down on his knees, looked under the bed, and then let out a whistle. 'Well, I'll be. There's a monster under here all right. Mary Rose, close your eyes real tight while I haul him out. He's too ugly for you to see.'"
Harrison and Elliott were both smiling. "Cole had already taken his gun out. He shouted to Douglas to open the door. He went running outside so I couldn't see him. Then I heard a shot."
"He killed him for you."
"Of course," she answered. "He promised me he'd let it stay there all night so other monsters would know what the Claybornes think about them, and in the morning, we'd bury it. I was very young, and of course I believed him. I made him shoot a monster about once a week. I figured I was safe then. Cole would put an empty box out on the stoop. He told me not to look inside or it would scare the curls out of my hair."
She laughed thinking about it. "I was very vain about my hair. I didn't dare take the chance. We walked across the meadow and up the first hill and gave the monster a burial. We didn't pray over him because I didn't want the thing to get into heaven."
Harrison pictured the little girl holding on to a gunfighter's hand. "You were surrounded by love," he whispered.
"Yes, she was," Elliott agreed. "Tonight you must tell me another story. I found out quite a lot about you from the letters. Your mother didn't hold a grudge. I wonder where you came by that trait?"
"I think from Cole," she answered.
"And Douglas and Travis," Harrison supplied.
"I wasn't a perfect child, Father. I complained, and I always told Mama Rose if my brothers did anything I didn't like."
"Will I have to shoot monsters for our children?"
"Of course. It's a father's duty. If we have a boy, I'll name him Harrison Stanford MacDonald."
"The Fourth," he added.
"The Fourth," she agreed.
"And if it's a girl?"
"I think I'll name her after the two women who loved me so much. Agatha Rose. It's pretty, isn't it?"
Elliott was too emotional to speak. He nodded to let her know how fine he thought the name was. And fitting.