by Jo Goodman
Annalea’s head lifted a fraction as she frowned deeply. “Why would Pa know him?”
“Because he spends considerably more time in Jupiter than any of the rest of us.”
“Yes, but mostly he’s in the Liberty Saloon or the jailhouse.” Her frown faded, replaced by a lopsided grin as she comprehended her sister’s point. “Oh. I see. Liberty or the jail.”
“Happy could have made his acquaintance in either place,” said Willa. “But if it happened, I’m inclined to think it was probably the jail.”
“He and Pa might have shared a cell. Wouldn’t that be something?”
Willa did not hear any condemnation in Annalea’s tone. In fact, she seemed unreasonably intrigued by the notion. “I was not suggesting that they shared a cell. I was thinking of the posters hanging in the sheriff’s office. Happy might have seen this man’s likeness on one of those.” Shrugging, Willa returned her regard to the man’s countenance. Where the skin wasn’t scraped, it was bruised, and where it wasn’t colored red and purple, it was ash. Sometime during her ministrations, the left side of his face had begun to swell. If he tried to open his eyes, he would only be able to see out of one. That struck Willa as a damn shame, although not, she reflected, for the same reasons it would strike him. She was remembering the exceptional clarity and color of his blue-gray eyes. “Right now I am hard put to believe his mother would recognize him.”
Annalea nodded in agreement. “He seems worse off than when I found him. I didn’t think that was possible.”
Willa started to explain how that had come to pass, but her attention was caught by Cutter’s shout from two hundred yards up the hillside. “What’s he saying?” she asked Annalea. “And what has he got in his hand?”
Annalea had already jumped to her feet. “It’s the shoe. He found the shoe.”
“Lot of fussing for a shoe, though I expect this fellow will be glad of it. Wave Cutter back here. We need to go.”
Annalea cupped her hands around her mouth and shouted for Cutter.
“Not what I asked,” Willa said dryly. “And here comes John Henry. I’m not sure the dog knows his name yet, but he does recognize that come-to-me cry of yours. Go on, Annalea. Walk him out to meet Cutter.” After Annalea and the dog hurried off, Willa spread one of the blankets on the wagon bed and another beside her patient.
“What about your name? It’s the least of what we need to know, but we have to call you something.” She did not really expect a response, but she did not think she imagined a shift in his breathing. Could he hear her? She pressed on, regarding him more keenly. “On the other hand, Dr. Frankenstein’s monster never had a name, and truth be told, you put me a little in mind of him.”
Willa waited for a twitch and was rewarded when she glimpsed his long fingers curling the merest fraction. It was something at least, although if she were being strictly honest, she had hoped that it would be his mouth that twitched. Because all things considered, it was rather a nice mouth. Not particularly amused by the odd thought, Willa reined herself in as she gathered the soiled cloths and went down to the run’s gently sloping bank to rinse them. She had just finished wringing them out when Cutter and Annalea returned, John Henry quite literally dogging their footsteps.
Willa slung the damp cloths around her neck and stood. She absently brushed herself off as she approached the trio. “Did you find anything besides that shoe?”
“Bits and pieces of clothing. Evidence that there were four horses, but I think only three other men. Best as I could figure out, he rode with them for a ways, probably from town, before things took a turn. Could’ve been planned from the outset, and they surprised him, or maybe he had his suspicions and no choice in the matter. Plenty of good hanging trees back there, and we know they had a rope, but I can’t say if that was their intention and they had a change of mind.”
Willa nodded. “Lots of ways to kill a man, but if his death is less important than his suffering . . .” Her voice drifted off.
“Yep.”
Cutter’s laconic response prompted Willa’s rueful smile. “You think you can put that shoe on him without twisting the foot overmuch?”
“Sure.” Cutter immediately bent to the task.
“We are going to move him onto the blanket and carry him to the wagon. We will have to lift him over the side.”
“What can I do?” asked Annalea.
Willa did not have to think about it. “You have the naming of him. Choose carefully. It’s his until he decides it isn’t.”
Annalea straightened her shoulders and nodded gravely. She crooked a finger at John Henry and he dutifully followed her back to the wagon. She set him on the bed and climbed in, and the pair of them sat beside the stranger for the whole of the journey back. John Henry occasionally sniffed the man’s privates as if they might hold the secret to his identity while Annalea teased out his name in more conventional ways, testing them one by one on the tip of her tongue. By the time they reach the ranch, she had it.
“He is Augustus Horatio Roundbottom,” she announced when the wagon stopped.
Cutter asked, “Are you certain?”
“I am. I reckon he won’t cotton to being addressed with any variation of Augustus or the more formal Mr. Roundbottom, and we will have the truth out of him soon enough.”
Willa’s smile was perfectly serene. She nudged Cutter with her elbow and whispered, “That’s my girl.”
Jo Goodman is the USA Today bestselling author of numerous romance novels, including The Devil You Know, This Gun for Hire, In Want of a Wife, and True to the Law, and is also a fan of the happily ever after. When not writing, she is a licensed professional counselor working with children and families in West Virginia’s Northern Panhandle. Visit her online at jogoodman.com or facebook.com/jogoodmanromance.
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