"Everybody can feather their nest, but it's not just anybody that can lay an egg!"
Jess nodded his head but shrugged. "I've had a couple of people try to tell me. But I don't think nobody has told me the real truth yet. You think you know, or did you see it?" He asked, knowing full well that both Scrappy and his brother hadn't told him everything.
She looked at him for cold, hard second; a number of euphemisms went through her head: she rejected them all.
"He raped her."
She had broken a solemn vow of silence, and felt slightly sick, but this was a matter of life and death.
"Your father raped your sister." she said it another way "... and she told me. Oh, not because we're friends; we dislike each other pretty cordially, but because... well, I don't know why, Mister Matthews, I'll be honest. Maybe because I already knew her other secret, that she and Roland Smith were lovers. Anyhow..."
She looked down at the floor of the funeral parlour with a frown. The next part felt more like a confessional.
"I told her she had to leave, just pack and leave. Don't think for a minute, Mister Matthews, that Zenobia actually considers me any great source of advice, but it must've just given her the push she needed to do what she knew she needed to do. She went back and packed.... your Father caught her. He beat her out into the street, and then started to beat her to death in the street... along comes the man she loves, and you know the rest. She shot your Father before Roland Smith did, so she would hang, not him."
And as Miss. Mudd told him everything.... everything without any filters, Jess felt sick to his stomach. What had he done? Or more so what had he neglected to do!? He had neglected his brother, his sister, his mother. He'd failed them. He swallowed past the lump that had swelled in his throat, but he couldn't allow himself to show that kind of emotion. He bit the inside of his jaw.
"Right." He said low, not knowing how one was supposed to react to finding this out. "And don't no one else know about this I suppose? Ray? The law?" He asked as he stood up, putting his hat back on, knowing full well that he was going to have to act fast and he was going to have to figure out a way to free his sister.
He'd understand if no one in this town that knew him ever talked to him again and if his brother hated him forever. Jess felt like a failure; his brother had every right to hate him for not protecting his siblings.
"Everybody can feather their nest, but it's not just anybody that can lay an egg!"
"Sorry, it's a lot to find out in one big lump... but I think you needed to know." the little actress said sadly.
"Right." He said low, not knowing how one was supposed to react to finding this out.
She started to reach a hand toward him, but then let it drop. Who knew what was the right thing to do in a situation like this?
"And don't no one else know about this I suppose? Ray? The law?" He asked as he stood up, putting his hat back on, knowing full well that he was going to have to act fast and he was going to have to figure out a way to free his sister.
She simultaneously shrugged and shook her head.
"I haven't told anyone, I swore not to...I have the feeling Ray knew all along, and been beating himself up ever since for not doing anything about it. Well, we can all do that, but... end of the day, it was your Father did this, not you, not me, not Ray." she said, looking up at him with her hard, clear blue eyes.
He was on his way out.
"Where you going? What're you going to do?!" she called after him.
"Didn't even ask me about my plan" she pouted after he'd gone.
The girl was right. They could all stand around beating themselves up for that they did and didn't do, and Jess sure could do a lot of that, he had failed in so many ways. Standing around and doing that though didn't save his sister. He nodded and was headed out the door. He had no idea what he was going to do, but at least he would go over and try to see his sister. Maybe she would talk to him and have some idea of how he could help her.
As he left though, he heard Miss Mudd calling after him and he wasn't going to stop but he swore he heard her say something about a plan. He stopped in his tracks and turned back to face the girl.
"You got a plan?" Seeing as he didn't even know where to begin, he figured he'd better hear the girl out.
"Everybody can feather their nest, but it's not just anybody that can lay an egg!"
"Sorta" she replied.
"But it's what you might call a pretty desperate sort of a plan.... I don't think you'll like it until you see for yourself what we're up against." the little actress admitted.
"Go and see her for yourself... if they'll let you. Then see if you can think of your own plan... and then when you can't, come and find me. I live at the hotel but usually I'm at the theatre, rehearsing." she advised him.
Jess was growing more and more frustrated and flustered as time went by and the more he leanred about what had happened. He listened to as Miss. Mudd spoke and then nodded.
"Thank you for your kindness ma'm." He said to her, taking his hat off and sitting it in the center of his chest. "I know it won't easy sharing all that but I do believe it will help her case." He sat his hat back on his head; giving her the smallest smile and nod of appreciation. He turned then and headed towards the jail, looking for Ray as he went.
"Ray!?" he yelled as he walked out, looking around for him as he mounted his horse.
"The Law may very well 'be an ass', but a man can travel a mighty long way on an ass."
Meanwhile at the Marshal's Office, Lewis Reeve was calling to talk to his client... and to the lawmen holding her.
He knocked on the door and let himself in, wondering if Marshal Guyer himself would be there to talk with or one of his deputies Pike or Wentworth or that new feller with the pretty daughter... name escaped him.
"Hello?" he called. Who knew, they might be downstairs in the depths of the place, in the subterraneous cells beneath the Courthouse & Municipal Building.
@[Flip]
"The law is the law."
"Mining's not everyone's choice of hobbies, it just happens to be mine."
Coming out of the cell block after releasing Ezera Klienfeld, again, he heard someone calling, so he picked up his pace. Pike was not in, and Val Caine was out of the office, so it was only him for the time being. He entered the office to see Lewis Reeve just starting to turn, "Mister Reeve, how can I help you?"
This seemed odd; he had never really met the young man, he had seen and spoken to him at the big opening night performance, but that was about it. So here he was, and he feared that it might be about his prisoner, Miss Zebnobia Matthews. What legal maneuver might this attorney bring at the twelfth hour, so to speak, although the sentence was close to being carried out.
"If this is about Miss Mathews, I'm afraid my hands are tied in this matter, unless, of course, you have sought a stay of execution from the Governor." Speed wanted to know.
@Javia
@JulieS
@Stormwolf
@MD
"The Law may very well 'be an ass', but a man can travel a mighty long way on an ass."
"Mister Reeve, how can I help you?"
"Hullo, Marshal. I expect you can guess who I'm here about" Reeve replied, taking off his hat.
"If this is about Miss Mathews, I'm afraid my hands are tied in this matter, unless, of course, you have sought a stay of execution from the Governor." Speed wanted to know.
Reeve nodded "I applied for a stay before she even left Helena... no news yet on that." he said grimly. The young lawyer didn't expect to win every case he defended, but this defeat was especially bitter as the mitigating circumstances... well, no point rehashing all that again in his mind. Miss Matthews had refused to testify around anything that involved the abuse her father had inflicted upon her since her mother's death and, more adamantly, around her affair with the gunsmith, Roland Smith, even though he had ridden off into the sunset with some Irish woman.
Females, Reeve never would fully understand them.
"No, I was just hoping I could just talk with you about Miss Matthews living arrangements while she's here. While she... waits. I realise you have to keep her secure, she's got a number of relations around here..." he forbore to say 'if not many friends' - for Zenobia was not an easy woman to get along with "... and I just heard her brother's back in town, not the kid, her older brother."
"The thing is, no disrespect Marshal, but you fellers here, bunch of old men and a boy..." Poor Charlie Wentworth was so designated "... you're not really fit to attend on a young woman in the last week of her life... if someone respectable and totally trustworthy woman could be assigned to take care of Miss Matthew's needs... I would take care of that personally, you understand, there would be no financial burden on the Marshal's office... and your choice of person entirely, someone you would be happy with."
"The law is the law."
"Mining's not everyone's choice of hobbies, it just happens to be mine."
"Then what you are asking is for me to release her into the custody of a woman. And just who might that be?" He asked. "Mister Reeve, I can appreciate your concern for her welfare, but I have to remind you of the process for such a release from our custody to someone else's. I'll need a court order for that release."
"I understand your concern, Lewis. My deputies and I are doing the best we can to see to her needs, but you do understand she was convicted of murdering her father. Now, before you go off on he deserved it, half the town knows that. I know that. But she was convicted by a jury of strangers. She didn't help herself by remaining quiet. That just sealed the deal for her."
He paused, "Lewis, I fear that she might kill herself, given the opportunity. Now, if I can, I'd be willing to do what I could to see about a new trial, here, where it happened, where there are countless witnesses for her defense. And, I'll see about that court order. Other than that, I don't have the authority to release her to anyone's custody, even to mine."