Dusk Along the Niobrara

by John D. Nesbitt

  Dunbar said, “Did this kid ever say what the stranger looked like?”

  “Oh, yes, and I remember. He said the man was tall and well dressed, not some range rider. He had light-colored hair and was clean-shaven.”

  “That’s not much, but it’s something.”

  Verona stuck out her lower lip. “It reminded Alex and me of someone we knew, but like you say, it wasn’t a very full description, and this kid wasn’t going to stick around.”

  Dunbar said, “He was lucky, in one way, at least. Some witnesses get run out of the country, like he did, but others don’t make it that far. They just disappear.”

  “Well, he got away all right, as far as I know. He took off across country in the dark.”

  “And Alex?”

  “Oh, he never peeped. But the fellow we were reminded of started acting fishy, as if he knew the kid had stopped there at Alex’s place.”

  “What about the kid? What did he look like?”

  Verona pushed out her lips and made a small frown. “There wasn’t much to him. Thin and not very tall. He had straight blondish hair and blue eyes.”

  Dunbar nodded in a way that I thought I recognized, somewhat routine, as if he didn’t have much interest. But I had the impression that he had heard some of this story before.

  He drew his brows together. “Why did you never come forward about this?”

  “Puh. Like I said earlier, you figger there’s more harm than good that can come out of it. First off, I never had any proof. Second, Alex was dead, and I couldn’t change that. If he did get killed for having stolen horses, which I doubted but couldn’t say for certain, I didn’t want to be a part of it. And if he was killed for knowing something—well, I didn’t want anyone to know that I had some of the same knowledge.”

  “So you’ve never told this story to anybody.”

  “No, sir. And I wouldn’t have told you if I didn’t trust you. And this kid, too.”

  “But to go all this time and not tell anyone. Two men were killed.”

  She rubbed her nose. “I’ve always felt sorry for that. But I did what I thought I had to. As for the first man who was killed, I only knew what I had heard. I didn’t see it, and I didn’t know for sure who the stranger was. I don’t spread stories I’m not sure of. You don’t know what might come back. My life wouldn’t be worth much to some people.” She shifted her eyes, twisted her mouth, then came back to look at both of us. “It’s not just that I don’t have a nickel to my name.” She took a breath, as if she was still uncertain about what to say. “I was never a pretty girl. I never cared about men. I didn’t choose to be that way. I just was. But a lot of people don’t care much about you or what happens to you when you’re not like them.”

  Dunbar nodded. “Well, it’s good that you’re telling us now.”

  “Maybe I’m soft. Like I said, I trust you.” Her eyes were like small, gray, cloudy agate marbles as she turned them to me. “And this boy. Maybe he reminds me of that other kid.” She blinked. “I felt sorry for him. More than sorry.” Her cigarette had gone out. She turned it in her fingertips, dropped it, and stepped on it with her coarse boot. She took a breath as she stood with her head lowered. “The whole thing made no sense, and it’s probably still a nightmare to him.” She looked up from the ground. “The main reason I’m telling someone now is like you said. If you don’t say something, you’re helping the person who did the wrong. And I don’t think it’s over.”

  “I’m afraid you might be right.”

  “This has all come back to haunt me since I heard about Bill Pearson. The way I see it, you’ve got a sheepherder, a horse trader, and a dirt-grubber, all killed.”

  “And maybe a traveling drunk.”

  “I don’t know about him, except what you said. But with these others, I don’t think someone should get away with doing in someone else just because he’s low and poor and got no one to do anything about it.”

  “I’m glad you’ve seen a reason to tell what you know.”

  She shrugged. “It could put me next on the list, but I guess that’s a chance I’ve got to take.” She leveled her cloudy agate eyes on Dunbar. “I don’t think I need to tell you to be careful about who you talk to or what you tell ’em.” She pointed at me with her thumb. “And I hope this young fellow understands.”

  The sun was slipping in the west, and any drowsiness I had felt earlier in the day had vanished. The seriousness of the situation seemed very clear to me.

  “Don’t worry about him,” said Dunbar. “He understands.”

  I felt that I should be able to speak for myself, but I also felt that no more needed to be said on this topic. I nodded to her and said, “Thanks for telling us what you know.”

  We left her to do her chores, and after watering our horses, we mounted up and rode out of the yard. Behind us, the sheep and the goats and the calves made a ground-level chorus as the peacock on the roof sent out its long, strange, choking call. It ran a chill through my neck and shoulders.

  Dusk was drawing in as we rode toward town. We rode through a muddy draw, following the trail through a marshy area with cattails, and I realized we had crossed the Niobrara.

  A little while later, up on the warm, dry grassland again, Dunbar took to whistling the tune to the song about the woman who died in the snow. I thought it sounded like a song of celebration in comparison with what we had heard at Luke Hayward’s.

  CHAPTER TEN

  A scarlet sunrise was giving way to an orange and yellow sky when Dick Ainsworth stopped to loom over Dunbar and me. We were sitting on the ground between the campfire and the chuck wagon, drinking coffee after a breakfast of bacon and fried potatoes. I had been thinking about our visit with Verona the day before, and I was imagining that the peacock was sending out its strange, piercing call with the sunrise.

  “You two,” said Ainsworth, with a brief pause, “can finish the job of moving the trash pile. We need it out of the way so we can build the corner there.”

  Dunbar looked up and seemed to be studying the man.

  “Any questions?” asked Ainsworth. His dusty black hat cast his face in shadow as he bore down on us.

  Dunbar shook his head. “Not from me.”

  “Me, either,” I said.

  “You know where the tools are.” Ainsworth pivoted and turned his back on us.

  As I finished my coffee, I mulled over this small turn in events. Ever since Hodel left, I was expecting to have the miserable job dumped on me, but I didn’t expect Ainsworth to pull Dunbar away from Del Bancroft. If I had a good thought at all, it was in knowing that the work would go faster with two people.

  We gathered our tools and took up where Hodel had left off. Dunbar never complained about the work that came his way, and he often had a cheerful air as he went about menial tasks, as if to say that he was never too good for that kind of work. But on this morning, he did not whistle or move about in a sprightly fashion. He worked almost with a vengeance, stabbing at the rubbish with a pitchfork and pushing the wheelbarrow with full force. I exerted myself as well, thinking we had best make as much progress as we could before the heat of the day came around.

  The work itself was difficult and aggravating—disentangling wire and cloth from pieces of old furniture, rusted stovepipe, and an endless quantity of empty cans and bottles. All of it was cast-off debris that people threw out with the assumption that they would never see it again. And here we were, moving it to another heap, where perhaps someone else, years later, would have to deal with it again.

  In the middle of the morning, after moving a couple of dozen wheelbarrow loads, we took a break and went to the wagon for a drink of water. I had the clean sensation of sweating from honest work, and I wiped at my face with my shirtsleeve.

  As Dunbar and I drank from tin cups and crouched in the thin shade of the wagon, Dan covered the dough he was mixing and joined us.

  “Looks like you boys got the dirty work.”

  In a matter-of-fact tone, Dunba
r said, “Somebody has to do it. It’s work.”

  “You wonder if Ainsworth is tryin’ to get even for what you did to Larose, or whether he’s got some other grudge.”

  “Don’t know what it would be.”

  “Maybe not a grudge as much as a resentment. A kind of jealousy. Wants to keep everyone else below him, make sure no one rises. As if he felt someone was goin’ to question his authority.”

  “It’s more than I care to worry about,” said Dunbar. “There’s other things that at least I think are more serious.”

  Dan nodded.

  Dunbar wet his lips after taking a drink of water. “This may or may not be related, but do you have any memory of a story about a sheepherder being killed up on Old Woman Creek? I’m guessing it would be about fifteen years ago.”

  Dan’s pale blue eyes widened. “Oh, yeah. Bludgeoned. They thought his partner did it, because he disappeared.”

  “Huh. No one had any other theories?”

  “Not that I recall. It seemed like one of those strange things that happen when people live off by themselves—alone, or in close company—and lose their bearings.”

  Dunbar said, “I’ve heard some of those stories. Sheepherders or prospectors all alone, or two men who get stuck in a cabin for the winter. That sort of thing.”

  “Is there somethin’ that’s got you interested in this story?”

  “Well, any story is interesting when someone gets bludgeoned, shot, stabbed, or poisoned. But I would guess you mean whether it has a relation to other incidents.”

  Dan twisted his mouth. “Somethin’ like that.”

  “Let’s just say I’m working on that idea.”

  “Sure.”

  “And it would be all right if you didn’t go out of your way to repeat a question I might have had.”

  Dan held his eyes on Dunbar. “Not with the things that have happened recently.”

  Dunbar and I worked through the rest of the morning. When we heard the triangle ringing at noon, we finished the wheelbarrow load we were working on and headed for the wagon. Several of the other hands had already served their grub and were seated on the ground. As I washed up, I heard a bit of chatter going around.

  Dan told me he didn’t need help at the moment, so I took my place at the end of a short line. Dunbar stood behind me. The aroma of beef stew wafted on the air, and I was ready to eat.

  Mullet stopped next to me, having served himself a bowl of stew with two biscuits on top. His sparse mustache was curved into a half-smile as he said, “Good grub. Better git some.”

  I thought it was apparent that I was standing in line for that very purpose, but I thought he was being friendly as a way of expressing sympathy for my getting the job of moving the rubbish. So I said, “Best idea I’ve had since breakfast.”

  He bobbed his head as he took in Dunbar and came back to me. “ ’Bout enough news for a week in just two days.”

  “How’s that?” I asked.

  “The dame that run the beer parlor handed in her dinner pail.”

  Dunbar’s voice was quick. “What do you mean?”

  “Dead as a doornail. They found her just a little while ago.”

  “Who found her?” Dunbar’s face was clouded like dark skies in the west.

  “Don’t know. Someone.”

  “What did it look like?”

  “Don’t know that, either. At first, they thought that fella Hodel mighta done it, but then someone said she was open for business yesterday. And of course, he was stone-cold dead the day before.”

  Dunbar’s eyes had a hard cast. “We saw her in the middle of the day yesterday.”

  I recalled seeing him skip into The Bower with the three empty bottles and come right out. I said, “And we were gone the rest of the afternoon.” As soon as I said it, I hoped no one pressed us for details about where we went. Now more than before, I didn’t want to give away a witness.

  “I’m going to see about this,” said Dunbar. He left his place in line and headed for the center of town at a brisk pace.

  Mullet stood watching with his mouth half-open.

  Boots Larose appeared by his side. He was wearing his six-gun, which he often did when there was no need for it, and he had his thumb resting on the yellow handle. With his left hand, he stroked his chin beard. “He mighta been the last person that seen her alive.”

  “Oh, go on,” I said. “I was with him.”

  “When he went in by himself?”

  “You don’t miss much,” I said. “Does someone pay you to keep an eye out?”

  “I didn’t say who seen ’im. But you might say it’s common knowledge.” Larose gazed in the direction Dunbar had gone.

  I said, “You know damn well—”

  He crowded up next to me and swung his left elbow to hit me on the arm. “Don’t tell me what I know, kid.”

  I settled back on my heels and took half a step backward.

  An insolent expression crept onto his face. “I don’t even know what kind of business she ran. For all I know, she sold more than beer and ale.”

  “That’s a low thing to say about a woman who can’t speak for herself anymore.”

  Larose gave a loose shrug. “Who’s to say? All I know is that she’s out of business now. But maybe it’s a good opportunity for that lady with the French name.”

  I thought, You wouldn’t say that if Dunbar was here.

  Mullet blinked his eyes and said, “I’m gonna sit down and eat.”

  “Go ahead,” said Larose. “I’ll be there in a minute. I’m in line behind this kid.”

  Dunbar returned after the rest of us had gone back to work. He stopped at the wagon long enough to eat a bowl of stew standing up. When he joined me, he said, “It’s true, all right. They found Mary Weldon on the floor behind the bar where she served us. They think it happened sometime yesterday evening or last night.”

  “That’s too bad,” I said. “Does anyone have an idea how it happened?”

  “Other than cast suspicion on me, which didn’t last long, no.”

  “Boots Larose said something to that effect, that you were seen going in there by yourself. But anyone who knows that much also knows that I was right there and can testify that you weren’t gone a minute.”

  “Oh, it’s just talk. A distraction.”

  “Were there no signs, then?”

  “No. In that respect, it’s very similar to the way that George Hodel came to an end. Hand me the pitchfork, if you would.”

  I did as he asked. “Any idea of a reason?”

  “The few people I talked to seemed mystified.”

  “And yourself?”

  He stabbed at the pile and lifted out a mess of bottles and rags. “To me, it’s apparent. But I need to keep myself from making assumptions or being convinced that my theory is the only one possible.”

  “And yours is—?”

  “Again, similar to Hodel. I think Mary Weldon met her end because she seemed to know too much.”

  I used the shovel to scrape up a small heap of broken glass. “That she was the source of George Hodel’s gossip, or that she heard things from him?”

  “Could be either way. And let’s not forget that she lent an ear to Bill Pearson as well.”

  I frowned. “But she said she didn’t hear anything definite from him.”

  Dunbar jabbed the pitchfork into the pile again. “And I believe her. But we’ll mind how I phrased it. For seeming to know too much. Someone is worried about the truth coming out. That kind of fear makes people do desperate things.”

  I said, “It seems to me that someone might be going too far. Silencing people who may not know that much. For all we know, these last two people, at least, didn’t know the whole truth. Even Verona doesn’t know it for sure. She said so.”

  He dumped the rubbish into the wheelbarrow. “No, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t someone who does. And beyond that, the truth exists.”

  “You mean it’s out there somewhere.”
>
  Dunbar nodded. “Yes. It’s been there all this time, and nobody owns it.”

  I thought, And somebody else might know. In my mind, I had a picture of a terrified kid, the second sheepherder, running for his life to who knows where.

  After we had worked more than two hours in the afternoon, Dunbar stuck the pitchfork in the pile and said, “I’ll be back.” With no further ceremony, he took off as before, except this time he headed for the Phelps Hotel. Some ten minutes later, he appeared, opening the door and moving aside out of view. Mrs. Deville stepped through the doorway into the sunlight, and Dunbar followed, carrying her Gladstone bag.

  They crossed the street to the train station and waited. Some fifteen minutes later, a steam whistle announced the eastbound train. It slowed to a stop, let out a long hiss, and took on the single passenger. Dunbar waved his hat in farewell, and when the train chugged into motion, he waved it again. As the train receded and Dunbar walked toward me, I heard again the sawing and hammering of the work crew.

  We labored on through the hot afternoon, using the pitchfork, the shovel, and our hands as necessary. We did not talk. I fell into my own thoughts, and I was sure Dunbar had fallen into his. I wondered if Mrs. Deville’s departure had anything to do with recent events. I was sure it must, but I told myself not to make assumptions. I reminded myself that if two events happened in sequence, the first might or might not be a contributing cause of the second. And when there were three or more events, the relationship was even harder to determine.

  I thought also about Mary Weldon and how unfair it was that her life was cut short. I remembered my earlier impression that she might have seen difficulties earlier in life and had found a garden of opportunity here in the dusty, windblown West. Now it seemed to me that the garden I had imagined, rather than having grapevines and fruit trees and a fountain, was a dark place with poisonous reptiles, lethal plants such as nightshade, and vines that shut out the daylight. The imaginary garden in back of The Bower had become a gloomy garden of sorrows.