Crucifixion River

by Marcia Muller

  I nodded. That was exactly how I felt.

  “Mister Hoover and I were going away together,” she said. “I don’t know where, just…away. If he dies…”

  “He won’t die.”

  “You don’t know that he won’t.”

  “I don’t know it, but I believe it. You should, too.”

  “You’re so young, so full of optimism. And I’m…”

  “Not old,” I said quickly. “Not much older than me.”

  “But I’ve lived a much harder life. You don’t have any idea how hard.”

  No, I didn’t. But I could imagine. From all the things that man Kraft had said before he shot Mr. Hoover, her life with him must have been awful.

  “Regardless of what happens to Joe, I’m going far away from here. I hate the delta. I’ve always hated it.”

  “So have I.”

  “Then don’t make the mistake I did,” Mrs. Kraft said. “Don’t stay here, don’t linger a moment longer than you have to. Leave before it’s too late.”

  As soon as she said that, I thought of James Never Jim Shock. Truth to tell, I hadn’t stopped thinking about him since I’d first set eyes on him. Such a handsome man. And he wasn’t a mere peddler. He was…well, a sort of happy banjo-playing troubadour who’d traveled far and wide, seen wonderful places, and done all manner of exciting things. A free spirit. And a hero, too, the way he’d saved us all from harm tonight.

  Did I dare let him be my way out of here?

  He seemed as taken with me as I was with him. He’d called me a beautiful woman, and the touch of his hand on mine, the hard muscles I’d felt when I hugged his arm-the memory made me all tingly again, my face feel warm. He was everything I’d ever dreamed of in a man, wasn’t he? And he’d be good to me, I was sure of it.

  Dad. Mother. The idea of stealing away-they wouldn’t let me go voluntarily, not alone and never with a man I’d only just met-and perhaps never seeing them again made me feel sad. I loved them both and their lives had been difficult since that accident in Chicago when I was a child. Mother was so tired, worn down by years of hard work, and lonely except for my company. Dad worked hard, too, his writing his only escape. It put a hollow feeling in my chest, thinking of what would become of them when I left. But I had to think of myself first, didn’t I? Don’t you always have to think of yourself first when you’re young and trapped?

  I glanced over at Mrs. Kraft. She was staring into the flames, her mouth bent down, eyes blank again. No, I wasn’t going to turn out like her-beaten, broken, and, despite what she claimed, probably trapped here in the delta for the rest of her life. She wasn’t a strong woman, not like my mother, not like me. If Joe Hoover didn’t live, she’d be completely alone, with nowhere to go.

  I went back to my room, where I lay down on my bed in the dark, pulling the quilt around me. Mrs. Kraft was right. This was no place to make a decent life. I couldn’t linger here; I had to leave before it was too late. The only question was whether I should wait and make my way alone or leave right away with James Never Jim Shock.

  Boone Nesbitt

  I spent most of the long night sprawled in one of the overstuffed chairs near the hearth. Now and then I dozed, but I was too keyed up to sleep. Mostly I tended to the fire, listened to the wind and rain, and let my thoughts wander.

  The shootings had put me on edge. Sudden violence always has that effect on me, whether I’m directly involved or not. I’d shot two men in my time, been fired upon by them and by two others, drawn sidearm and rifle on half a dozen more, and I was weary of gunplay. Weary, too, of drunken fools like Luke Kraft and cold-blooded types like James Shock. No simple peddler, Shock. I’d seen his breed before: sly, deadly connivers hiding behind bright smiles and drummers’ casual patter. Kraft wasn’t the first man he’d killed with that hideout weapon of his; the swift draw, the dead-aim bullet placed squarely between the rancher’s eyes at forty paces, proved that. He was a dangerous man, capable of any act to feather his nest, and he knew that I knew it. Knew what I was, just as I knew what he was. He’d been as watchful of me as I’d been of him since we’d had our conversation out in the barn.

  Be more to my liking if I was here after Shock instead of Harold P. Baxter, alias T.J. Murdock. Shock was the sort I’d always enjoyed tracking down and yaffling-a proper match for my skills and my dislike of criminals. Murdock, on the other hand, seemed to be a decent family man. Likable. Intelligent. Nonviolent. His only sin was an incident eight years ago in Chicago, unavoidable and accidental by all accounts except one. If any man other than Patrick Bellright had been affected, Murdock and and his wife and daughter wouldn’t have had to flee for their lives, or to spend eight years hiding in a California backwater like this one.

  Yes, and if any man other than Patrick Bellright had been affected, I wouldn’t be here ready and willing to tear their patchwork lives to shreds for a $10,000 reward.

  Pure luck that I’d found him. Murdock might’ve lived the rest of his life at Twelve-Mile Crossing if Bellright hadn’t employed the Pinkerton agency; if I hadn’t been transferred from the Chicago to the San Francisco office; if I hadn’t had a penchant for back-checking old, unsolved cases; if Murdock hadn’t risked publishing sketches in San Francisco newspapers and magazines and I hadn’t spotted the similarities to Harold P. Baxter’s writings for the Chicago Sentinel. Circumstances had conspired against him, and in my favor. Bellright’s favor, too. Patrick Bellright-financier and philanthropist, with a deserved reputation as a hater and seeker of vengeance and brass-balled son of a bitch.

  There wasn’t much doubt what he’d do when I brought Harold P. Baxter back to Chicago to face him. He’d pay me my blood money and dismiss me, and a short time later Baxter would either turn up dead in a trumped-up accident or disappear never to be heard from again. An eye for an eye, that was Bellright’s philosophy. Hell, he was capable of killing Baxter himself and laughing while he did it.

  But that wasn’t my look-out now, was it? I’d made my living for twenty years as a manhunter, and I’d been responsible for the deaths of several fugitives, by my own hand and by state execution. One more didn’t matter. That was what I’d told myself when I set out from San Francisco two days ago. A stroke of good fortune like no other I could ever expect in my life. $10,000. An end to twenty years of hard, violent detective work and hand-to-mouth living, a piece of land in the Valley of the Moon, maybe a woman to share it with one day. I was entitled, wasn’t I?

  Sure I was. Sure.

  The only trouble was, now that I was here, now that I’d met Harold P. Baxter and his family, doubts had begun to creep in. He was a fugitive, yes, but not from the law and likely not in the eyes of God. All the men I’d tracked and sent to their deaths before had been guilty of serious crimes, but Baxter was an innocent victim of fate and one man’s lust for revenge. Send him to a certain death and I would no longer be on the side of the righteous; I’d be a paid conspirator in a man’s murder.

  $10,000. Thirty pieces of silver.

  In San Francisco I’d convinced myself I’d have no trouble going through with it. Now I wasn’t so certain.

  I dozed for a time, woke to add another log to the fire, dozed again. When I awakened that time, I saw that James Shock was no longer asleep on the nearby sofa. A visit to the privy out back? Or was he up to something? The way he’d been making up to Annabelle hadn’t set well with me; she seemed smitten with him. I wouldn’t put it past him to sneak into her room…

  No, it was all right. Just as I was about to get up for a look around, Shock came gliding back into the common room, paused to glance my way, and then laid down again on the sofa. Wherever he’d gone, it hadn’t been to answer a call of Nature. He hadn’t put on his rain gear and he was still in his stocking feet.

  I sat watching the fire, listening to the rain slacken until it was only a soft patter on the roof. The storm seemed finally to be blowing itself out. I flipped open the cover on my stem-winder, and leaned over close to the fire to read the ti
me. Some past 5:00 a.m. Be dawn soon.

  And before another nightfall I’d have to make up my mind about Harold P. Baxter, one way or the other.

  Rachel Kraft

  I was still sitting in front of the fireplace, my mind mostly blank as it always used to be after one of Luke’s beatings, when Sophie Murdock came through the door from the bedrooms. At sight of her, I sat up straight, an icy fear spreading through me.

  “Joe? He’s not…?”

  “No. Resting peaceably,” she said. “Missus Devane removed the bullet and dressed his wound. You can see him now.”

  I stood haltingly, a sharp ache in my ribs where two days ago Luke had twice kicked me after knocking me to the floor, and followed the ferryman’s wife to a small guest room. Joe lay on a narrow bed, his eyes closed; Caroline Devane was pulling a quilt over him. She straightened, putting a hand to the small of her back as if it ached, and turned toward me.

  While Mrs. Murdock gathered up some bloody towels and a basin of pink-tinged water, Caroline said: “He’ll sleep for some time, and I think he’ll be all right when he wakes.”

  “I’m grateful for you helping him.”

  “I’m glad I was able to.”

  “Would it be all right if I sat with him?”

  “Of course. I’ll be in the next room. Rouse me if he wakes.”

  “Yes, I will.”

  The women left the room, and I moved toward the bed. Joe’s brow was damp, his hair disheveled. In sleep, he looked more like a little boy than a grown man who had thrust himself between me and Luke’s long-barreled Colt. I took my handkerchief from my skirt pocket, wiped his brow, and then drew over a rocker from the other side of the room and sat close to the bed, studying his face.

  It was a good face, strong if not particularly handsome, weathered by his work on the range. He’d taken me away from the ranch, forgiven me for stealing Luke’s money, and given me hope for a new and better life.

  But did I love him? I’d wondered before if he were merely a way out for me. Now that I no longer needed him to defend me from Luke…

  With a sense of shock, I realized what I hadn’t allowed myself to think before. I was now a wealthy widow. I didn’t have to remain in the delta; all that rich ranch land would bring a handsome price, and I’d be able to go anywhere, do anything.

  Of course Joe would go with me. He’d want to, wouldn’t he? Surely he would. And after all he’d done for me, I couldn’t abandon him.

  But Joe had ranching in his blood. It was all he knew, all he cared about. He’d spoken often enough of owning a place of his own, perhaps in the cattle country of eastern Montana. Was that what I wanted for myself, life with another rancher and in another hard and lonely place?

  When I’d married Luke, all I wanted was love, a family to nurture, an untroubled life. Joe could offer me all of that. I’d told Annabelle Murdock that the delta was a harsh place that had bred a harsh man, but not everyone here was like Luke. His father had been a hard man who frequently beat him. Maybe it wasn’t the delta but the lack of love that had turned him cruel and bitter and led him to take out his frustrations on me.

  Seeing Joe lying there so helpless, having put his life on the line for me-not for the money, for me-I thought that perhaps I had enough love to make a new life with him no matter where it was. And it would be a good life, an untroubled life, with a good and gentle man.

  I moved the rocker closer to the bed, slipped my hand under the quilt, and entwined my fingers with his rough, calloused ones. And soon dozed…

  “Missus Kraft?”

  The man’s voice seemed to come from far away. I moved my head from side to side against the rocker’s high back, slowly opened my eyes. The first person I saw was Joe, still resting easily. Then, when I twisted around, I found myself looking at the peddler, James Shock.

  “I didn’t mean to startle you, sister,” he said softly. His expression was grave, with no hint of the lustful gleam that had been in his bold stare earlier. “How is he?”

  “He’ll recover. Missus Devane saved his life.”

  “He’ll have a doctor to look at him tomorrow. I’ll see to that.” He paused. “I’m sorry about your husband. But he left me no choice.”

  “I know that, Mister Shock.”

  He peered keenly at my face. “You look tired. How long have you been sitting here?”

  I truly didn’t know and I told him so.

  “How would it be if I sat with him while you rest?”

  I didn’t want to leave Joe, but my body, bruised as it was, ached from sitting in the hard chair. Perhaps I should lie down for a while. It seemed days since I’d last slept. “Thank you, Mister Shock. If you wouldn’t mind.”

  “Not at all.”

  “You’ll call me if he wakes? I’ll be in the next room.”

  “Immediately, sister. Immediately.”

  I stood and, after brushing my hand across Joe’s forehead-which was cool and dry now-I left the room.

  The roadhouse was quiet, everyone in bed or asleep in the common room. Sometime while I’d dozed, the storm had slackened; the sound of the rain was a light pattering now. I opened the door to the second guest room. The lamp was still lit and I saw that Caroline Devane was still awake, sitting up on one of the two beds, crocheting an antimacassar of intricate design.

  “Mister Hoover?” she asked.

  “Still asleep. Mister Shock offered to sit with him so I can rest a bit.”

  “The accomodating Mister Shock.”

  “You don’t care for him, do you?”

  “Not very much, no.”

  “He saved our lives.”

  “It was his life he was interested in saving, not anyone else’s.”

  “Perhaps. Does it really matter?” I lay down on the second bed and drew the counterpane over me. “Can’t you sleep, Missus Devane?”

  “No. As tired as I am, I have decisions to rethink. What has happened here tonight is sufficient to make one reconsider the wisdom of the course she’s undertaken.”

  “I’m not sure I know what you mean.”

  She hesitated before speaking, the crochet needles clicking in the silence. Then, as if needing to unburden herself, she said: “Two years ago I had an affair with a friend of my husband. My marriage wasn’t a brutal one like yours, it was simply…empty. I seldom saw John. He was in state government and constantly traveling from Sacramento to San Francisco. When he was at home, he ignored the children and me. I needed someone, and Hugh…well, he was everything John wasn’t…kind, attentive, ardent. And so we became lovers. Our affair lasted six months.”

  “What happened then?”

  “John found out about us.”

  “What did he do?”

  “Immediately began divorce proceedings. The court awarded him custody of David and William, with virtually no visitation rights allowed me. Life in Sacramento soon became intolerable for me. You must be aware how society treats a divorcee, particularly one of an important man.”

  “Caroline, I’m so sorry. Did Hugh stand by you?”

  “For a time. But he’s a successful lawyer and the scandal was damaging to him, too. I no longer blame him for ending our relationship. He really had no choice.”

  “What will you do now?”

  “The only member of my family who hasn’t turned on me is my sister Mary. She and her husband have invited me to live with them on their farm in San Joaquin County. But I suspect they only want me as extra help with the chores and their seven children. It would be a hard life for me.”

  “Then why go there?” I said. “With your nurse’s training…”

  “That’s what I’ve been considering. No one in Sacramento would allow me to practice. But this is a large country, and John’s influence and the web of rumor only extend so far. If I could establish myself in a new city, rebuild my respectability, then perhaps once my children are old enough…” She sighed. “But it takes time and means to accomplish that. I have a great deal of the former, but none
of the latter.”

  I was silent.

  “Well, I’ve burdened you enough with my troubles,” Caroline said. “You have far too many of your own, and you must be very tired. I’ll let you sleep now. Perhaps I can, too.”

  But I didn’t sleep right away. Joe was alive because of Caroline’s ministrations; I owed her a debt of gratitude for that. I found myself thinking of the $3,000 I’d taken from Luke’s safe. I no longer needed it now that Luke was dead and I was a wealthy widow. The money meant little to me, but it would mean a great deal to Caroline Devane. She was so desperately unhappy, just as I had been before Joe came into my life. My fortunes had changed, and it was in my power to change hers, too.

  She wouldn’t take the full amount if I tried to give it to her; she was too proud to accept money as a gift. But she might be persuaded if I offered part of it as a loan. I determined to speak to her about it in the morning, and not to take no for an answer.

  T.J. Murdock

  Traces of light began to seep in around the shutters on the bedroom window. Almost dawn. Sophie stirred beside me; I knew she’d also been awake for some time, even though she’d lain still and silent.

  “Stopped raining,” she said now.

  “About an hour ago. Wind’s died down, too.”

  “I heard you get up earlier.”

  “Checking on Joe Hoover. Missus Devane was there with him.”

  “How is he?”

  “Alive and resting easy. No fever.”

  “She’s a good nurse and a strong woman, troubled or not.”

  “Yes, but he still needs a doctor’s attention. He can’t travel…we’ll have to keep him here until the peddler can send Doc Kiley out from River Bend.”

  “That’s right. Shock offered to return there this morning.”

  “Not for any selfless reasons, I suspect. He knows he has to report shooting Kraft to the sheriff, even with witnesses to back him up, before he can move on.”