CHAPTER 26
Chet stared on in disbelief at Matthew’s incredible skills in fighting. All of his feelings of repulsion for the weakness of this man melted into a new respect. He had thought both Matthew’s and Chet’s life would be shortly over once Jack had batted the gun from Matthew’s hand. Instead Matthew had saved them.
Chet saw Matthew breathing hard as he stood looking down upon Jack. Then Chet remembered Matthew’s wife. They had come all this way. Jack’s own words proved him to be lower than Chet could have imagined. His heart went out to Matthew and his loss.
Matthew turned to Chet and looked at his fallen partner. Without a word between them, Matthew stepped over to his gun, picked it up, and handed it to Chet. Then he turned on his heels and left to find his wife.
Fear flooded his heart as he slowly walked toward the hiding place of his wife. He refused to believe that Jack had spoken the truth about Alice, but fear kept his feet from moving too fast to find the truth. Tears welled in his eyes at the sight of her blue dress. He froze in his steps as he looked on from a distance. Everything in his being longed to see it move, to see the stirring of life, but it lay motionlessly.
Hesitatingly he began his movement for her again, each step fraught with agony of heart. What would he do now if she truly was dead? How would life ever have the same meaning and joy? He pushed the bushes apart as he stepped through them.
A sob broke from deep within himself when his eyes looked into the eyes of his love. She was looking back to him through tears of her own. Her mouth had been gagged and her arms tied behind her with a rope that looped down to her ankles.
Matthew fell to her side, his hands fumbling to undo the gag. His lips pressed to her face as he both kissed and cried upon his wife. “I am so sorry,” cried Matthew, “I am so sorry, my Love.”
Alice could only cry as Matthew tore at the ropes that bound her. Words had escaped her in the flood of relief that flooded through her tormented mind. The nightmare had ended.
When Matthew finally was able to remove the ropes, she flung her arms around Matthew’s neck and pulled herself against him. The two lay on the ground together, tears mingling together upon their cheeks while they embraced.
“I thought you were dead,” Alice said between sobs.
“I was while you were gone. And if I didn’t find you, I would have stayed dead.”
They kissed and hugged and kissed.
“I will never lose you again,” promised Matthew. “I will die and kill before anyone gets to you again.”
Matthew felt Alice’s lips move upon his ear as she said, “I will love you through this life and into eternity.”
And then she said, “Thank you, Jesus. Thank you! Oh, thank you, Jesus.”
Finally Matthew pulled himself away from Alice. “Did they hurt you?”
“Not too badly. I think I have a black eye.” That much was true. Matthew had seen the swollen eye when their eyes first met. “I slapped him last night at the cabin, and he rewarded me with a punch. Beside that, no. He was nervous last night because one of his men that he had been left behind to shoot you never came back. All night long Jack and his last man stood by windows looking for their other man, or an attack.”
“That’s because Chet killed their other man.” Then Matthew remembered the current condition of Chet, “We have a new friend, and he’s been hurt. We need to go and help him.”
Chet saw the two coming to him from around the rock that had blocked his view into the hollow. His eyes widened at the sight of Alice. “I knew that sorry son of a…” He checked himself mid sentence remembering his manners. “I knew he was lying,” Chet said, himself now lying.
He had propped himself up to a rock. Blood had soaked the front of his shirt and the left leg of his pants. Both Alice and Matthew hurried to his side.
“Alice,” said Chet, “you are a sight pretty ‘an your husband here gave you credit for. My name is Chet.”
“This is Chet Garret,” said Matthew as Alice immediately began carefully tearing Chet’s shirt open to get a good look at the wound.
“Thank you for all you’ve done,” she said as she paused to look into his eyes. “We are in the deepest of debts to you.”
“Ain’t nothin’,” replied Chet. “Any decent man would’ve done similar like.”
Alice tore a strip of cloth from the bottom of her dress and used it as a cloth for cleaning. Then she asked, “Matthew, there is a canteen on the horse and a small flask of whiskey in the saddle bag. Would you please get them for me?”
Matthew looked over his shoulder at the still body of Jack.
“He ain’t doin’ no harm no more,” said Chet. “I suspect his throat done swelled all the way shut. He stopped breathin’ while you was gone fetchin’ your Alice.”
On his way to the horse Matthew stopped to check on Jack, putting the back of his hand beneath Jack’s nose. Nothing. A strange feeling fell on Matthew. He had hated this man, but he didn’t want this. He deserved it, but not from Matthew.
Chet had been watching Matthew as Alice cleaned his shoulder wounds. “Looks like you got a ghost of your own now.”
Matthew hung his head, and he understood Chet now.
When Matthew returned with the canteen Chet said, “I didn’t believe you when you said you used to be a fighter when you was just a pup. I ain’t never seen nothin’ like it.”
“It’s not something I do anymore,” replied Matthew.
“Kind of reminds me of David and that giant feller,” said Chet. “Just about makes all that God stuff sound just a bit more possible.”
“Chet, God brought us through all this,” said Matthew. “I don’t know why He let it all happen, but He saw us through. And like I said yesterday, He truly loves you.”
Chet gave that some consideration, “Maybe so, but I ain’t able to be seein’ me all sure fire ready to embrace it all like you did, so to speak. I gots to give it some more thinkin’.”
Chet flinched in pain as Alice dribbled a little of the whiskey on the wound.
“I think,” said Matthew, and then paused “I think we’ll be going back to Chicago.”
Alice’s hand froze and her eyes turned to Matthew. Then quietly she offered Chet a drink of both water and whiskey. “I don’t think that my troubles ought to change the plans of God.”
Matthew was quiet, and Chet tried not to look at either of them. “But,” said Matthew, “this land isn’t safe for women.”
“Maybe not, but where does it say that following God is supposed to safe? I will follow you wherever you go, but my vote is for staying out here, where God called us.”
Chet had lost his resolve to tell Matthew to go home. Instead he said, “You could do a mite bit worse than stayin’ out this way. Like I said, not all men are as bad as that man.”
Matthew said nothing for a time. Then he said, “I’ll have to give it all some thought. But first we’ve got to get you into some town to get you some help.”
Alice, having bound up his shoulder turned her attention to his leg.
“That one was from your fool of a husband,” said Chet. “From the minute I saw him shoot that gun, I knew I was goin’ to get shot by him.”
“I think that this can’t be fully blamed on me,” Matthew said in defense.
“No you’re partly right there, but then again I do remember tellin’ you not to get that gun out till I was dead.” Chet’s lips curled into a smile.
“I just about thought you were dead.”
“It were close at that.”
Matthew got a puzzled look on his face. “I was watching you and Jack from up on the hill. I have a question for you- Why did you start jumping around when you had your gun on Jack?”
A shudder visibly ran through Chet’s body. “A snake. It came out of the rocks right at me.”
“A snake made you jump away?!”
With a shake of his head and shudder running through his body, Chet said, “I hate snakes.”
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