Angel

He balled up his fingers in a fist. Without warning, he swung hard at the defenseless man, making a sickening thud as the sucker punch hit Cole in the area of his bullet wound. All the air came out of Cole's lungs as the blow connected. A small patch of red immediately appeared on his shirt.

Still kneeling, Blanche screamed when she saw Cole almost black out from the pain.

"NO!" she shouted.

Danny whirled around.

"So ... you and this scum were playing house? He's good enough for you, but I'm not?" He stood over her, watching her sob. "Now little lady ... you're not going to tease me anymore. I'm going to take what's mine."

"Please ... no," Blanche begged.

Cole watched helplessly as Danny unbuckled his belt and unfastened his trousers, keeping the gun in one hand pointed at his captive. Drunk with power, Danny pushed a trembling and kneeling Blanche to the ground on her back, then used the tip of his boot to raise up her dress over her hips, exposing her undergarments. He was about to lower his pants when Cole charged him headfirst, hands tied behind his back, using his head as a battering ram with them both tumbling to the ground. Danny was able to squeeze off one round before Cole's momentum knocked him down, bashing the deputy's head against the jagged tip of a large rock protruding from the ground.

Danny slumped over on his side, a growing pool of blood forming in the dirt around his head. Blanche could hear Cole wheezing. She rushed over to Cole, who was lying face down on the ground. He groaned when she turned him over, to see a bright red spot on his shirt in the chest area where the bullet was lodged. She saw that there was no exit wound, and she'd seen enough gunshots wounds to know he wouldn't be recovering.

She pressed her cheek against his, feeling his life slipping away.

"My love ... my love ... don't leave me," she pleaded in vain.

"Listen to me." He craned his neck so he could whisper into her ear. "Jim and I buried $4,000 dollars in a tin can outside my house in Lee's Summit. People in town can point out my house. Go to the southeast corner of the house. Go fifty paces due east, into the woods." His voice started to gurgle as blood bubbled up.

"You know I love you, my angel," he managed to say.

She cradled his head as she watched the color drain from his face. "I do."

Cole heard her and managed a faint smile.

"I'm dying ... oh God ..." he mumbled.

His head relaxed in her lap and his eyes fluttered shut. He was gone, in the loving embrace of his angel.

* * *

"Where's Mommy?" the little boy asked his grandmother. He was decked out in his Sunday best, on his knees playing with his tin soldiers on the house's spacious wrap around porch.

"She'll be home soon, sweetheart. She's still out walking," Florence answered patiently. She was sitting on the porch's stairs, staring down at the patch of gravel where she found the wounded gunman that fateful evening.

"She does it every year. She walks out there, doesn't she?" he asked, playing intently with his pretend army.

"She's never missed a year since you were born. We take her by wagon the first few miles. She walks the rest," his grandmother replied.

"Why?"

"She wants to remember the man who gave her the money to save our house."

He stopped playing and looked up at his grandmother with innocent eyes. "Did she love him?"

"Very much so."

"Did I ever meet him?" he asked, as he resumed his pretend battle.

"No Cole ... but he's always going to be a part of you."

She raised him up to his feet and kissed his forehead, holding him at arm's length and seeing the spitting image of his father.

* * *