by James, Terry
‘Not really. I was just making conversation.’
Matt doubted Jethro’s motives were that cut and dried but the older man kicked his heels and they travelled the next half-mile in silence. As Matt had expected, heads turned as they rode into town. Even in a remote community like this one it was doubtful they hadn’t heard of Jethro Davies. Matt slowed his pace, distancing himself as they plodded between two lines of buildings that were not only solidly built of timber and stone but also clean and well-maintained. Even the folks wandering between the shade of one porch and another, were well turned out. It reminded Matt of some picture he had seen in a dime novel titled The True West and as far removed from anything he had seen, until now, as a flying train.
A dark-haired kid, about nine or ten years old, ran beside them, his face bright with excitement as he stared at Jethro. Suddenly, he sped ahead of them, disappearing inside a doorway. As they approached, the jailhouse came into view and a man in his late forties, wearing a wrinkled grey suit and a sheriff’s badge, stepped out onto the sidewalk. Pushing his Derby hat back, he waited for them to draw level, catching Jethro’s reins and drawing the horse to an easy stop.
Matt braced for trouble.
‘Jethro Jesse Davies, I was wondering when you’d show up.’ The sheriff nodded towards Matt. ‘Who’s your friend?’
‘His name’s Matt Lomew. Matt, this is my old friend Bill Gration.’
Old friend?
The sheriff looked Matt up and down, showing only a hint of interest. ‘Any reason I should know you, Mr Lomew?’
Still pondering the knowledge that Jethro should be friends with a lawman, Matt shook his head.
‘Then welcome to Weekesville, Mr Lomew.’ The sheriff smiled and shifted his attention to Jethro. ‘Have you got time for coffee? You look like you could do with some.’
‘Sure, and maybe you could get Elmer over here.’
The sheriff turned and nodded towards the boy who lingered in the doorway behind him. The kid took one last look at Jethro sliding from his horse, then burst into a sprint back along the main street. Matt watched him, wondering who Elmer was and why no one in the town seemed particularly bothered by their presence. Noticing an elderly lady standing outside the general store opposite, he touched his hat and nodded.
‘Good day to you, son,’ she called across. ‘Will you and Jethro be staying long?’
‘No, ma’am. We’re just passing through.’
‘Oh, shame.’ She sounded genuinely disappointed. ‘Well, you tell Jethro if he wants me to open the old place up, he only has to ask. I’m Mrs Standen, by the way. You take care now.’
A dozen questions filled his mind, but following Jethro’s lead, Matt tied his reins to the hitch rail and followed him and the sheriff inside the jailhouse. As he shucked his slicker by the door, he noticed the layout was a basic affair. A single room with two cells running along the back wall, off to the side a curtained area with a narrow cot and a washstand, and in front of that stood a desk with a well-worn chair behind it and two equally worn straight-backed chairs facing it. Finally, there was a pot-bellied stove in the centre, where Jethro stood already nursing a cup of coffee.
The sheriff grinned as he handed a cup of the thick black brew to Matt. ‘Hope you like your coffee strong, Mr Lomew. I have to drink it that way. It helps me stay awake. Being sheriff in paradise doesn’t exactly keep me busy.’
Jethro chuckled as he eased himself into a chair. ‘Hope you ain’t complaining. You always did favour the easy life, Bill.’
‘You got that right, Jethro.’
They both laughed.
‘How are Tina and the kids?’ Jethro asked.
‘Oh, they’re fine. I’ve got five kids now. Tina had twin girls last fall.’
‘You’re sure right about having too much time on your hands.’
Reaching into a drawer, the sheriff pulled out a wooden flask, shaking it near his ear before leaning across to add a generous measure of whiskey to all their cups. His gaze rested on Matt, taking in the Colt before he returned the flask to its home and reclined comfortably in his chair, rocking back as he crossed one ankle across a knee.
‘Cheers,’ he said, raising his cup.
They supped in silence for a few minutes. It gave Matt time to think, although the scene made no sense to him. In the company of Jethro Davies, the last place Matt would have expected to find himself was having a drink with a sheriff, unless there were bars between them. But here they were, and aside from a few lingering glances in Matt’s direction, the sheriff seemed as relaxed as if he were attending church on a Sunday.
‘So, this doesn’t look like a social call. What brings you back to these parts, Jethro?’ the lawman asked, as the silence lengthened.
Glancing in Matt’s direction, Jethro seemed to wait for him to offer up the story. When he didn’t, he said, ‘You remember my nephew Stone? Ethan’s boy?’
The sheriff’s expression stiffened, his fingers tightening around the cup. Somehow, the tension seemed to ease some of Matt’s anxiety about the easiness between the outlaw and the lawman.
‘He killed a man over in Garner. There’s a posse behind us, but Matt and me are aiming to catch up with him before they do.’
The lawman’s eyes narrowed, some of the friendliness disappearing behind a deep frown. ‘Did you have anything to do with it?’ he asked, addressing Matt.
‘No. He’s no friend of Stone’s. Matt and I tried to stop him. I got this for my trouble.’ Jethro cradled his broken arm before hugging his waist. ‘And Matt … well, he already had one of Stone’s bullets in his back before he got singed.’
It was an unwelcome reminder of his injuries and Matt curled his fingers, feeling the sting beneath the light cotton gloves covering his blistered fingers. He gulped the last of his coffee, suddenly fired up by the slow pace of the conversation.
‘There’s something he hasn’t told you, Sheriff. Stone took a young woman hostage.’
The sheriff’s Adam’s apple bobbed, his cheeks paling despite their rich tan. ‘Sounds like he takes after his pa. Crazy dangerous. You got any idea where he’s taking her?’
Jethro nodded. ‘Same place Ethan took her mother … fourteen years ago.’
‘Good Lord, no. You mean Marianne?’ The sheriff’s chair crashed into the cot as he came to his feet. ‘I’ll mount up and ride along with you.’
‘No.’ Jethro staggered to his feet, gripping the sheriff’s arm before he could grab his coat from a hook on the wall. ‘This time I don’t want the law around.’
Matt didn’t understand the look of comprehension that passed between them, but it didn’t matter. He had set out knowing what the outcome would be. Either he or Jethro wouldn’t be coming back alive. But whatever happened, he had to know Jessie would be all right.
‘I think he should come along. Jessie might need someone she can trust when all this is over.’
‘You aiming to pull out?’ the sheriff asked.
Matt shook his head, letting his gaze linger on Jethro.
‘Something you two ain’t telling me?’
Matt waited for Jethro to fill the lawman in, but all he got was a mocking grin.
‘Me and Jethro have some unfinished business.’
‘And what might that be?’
‘I’m the man who killed his brother Ethan. Ain’t no other reason for him being here, except maybe to stop me doing the same to his nephew.’
The sheriff laughed, a full-bellied roar of amusement.
‘I don’t see how that’s funny,’ Matt said, his ire rising. ‘Unless this isn’t a real town and you aren’t a real sheriff. Maybe right now, that nice old lady Mrs Standen is drawing a bead on me.’
This time, Jethro joined the sheriff in his amusement.
‘You’ve got it all wrong, Mr Lomew. Jethro is a big part of this town, but as for you killing Ethan … I’d say you did him a favour.’
‘Do you mind telling me how?’
The sheriff’s blan
k expression showed real confusion. ‘Why? Because you killed the man who killed his wife.’
CHAPTER 14
A gust of wind circled the office as the door opened then slammed behind them. ‘Did someone call for a doctor?’ The craggy-faced man who entered did a double take. ‘Jethro Davies. It’s been a while.’ He dipped his shaggy grey head at the sling on Jethro’s arm. ‘Are you after a second opinion?’
‘No, Elmer, it’s broke and no doubt about it. I was wondering if you’re up for a ride out to the old silver mine.’
The doctor shivered visibly. ‘Any special reason?’
‘Ethan’s boy, Stone, is up there. He’s got Jessica-Rose with him.’
‘Jesus Christ!’ Elmer actually staggered. ‘Your Jessica-Rose?’
Matt watched with interest as Jethro nodded solemnly. He wondered if maybe his fiery fall had done more damage than he thought and right now he was back in Garner, running a fever and hallucinating about this whole thing. He took a deep steadying breath and closed his eyes against the madness. But when he opened them again, the same three faces stared back at him.
‘Have you put it all together yet, Matt?’ Jethro asked, with a glimmer of amusement momentarily replacing the mocking stare.
‘I think I’m starting to. Marianne was your wife, who was murdered by Ethan. And my Jessie is your daughter?’
Jethro grinned. ‘Your Jessie? I can see when all this is over you and me are going to have to talk.’ His expression sobered under Matt’s solid wall of mistrust. ‘I would have told you sooner, but I owed my little girl an explanation before I told you anything.’
The possessive reference to Jessie riled Matt more than he liked to admit. If any of what Jethro and the lawman had said was true, it would take a while for him to accept it. A few disjointed words couldn’t undo the years of constant unrest that had dogged Matt’s heels since he had killed Ethan Davies, and nothing either man could say was going to make him change his game plan.
‘Ain’t no point yacking about it now,’ he said, hiding behind his gambler’s mask of indifference. ‘Are we going to finish this?’
Jethro got stiffly to his feet. ‘Bill, Elmer – I’d be obliged if you’d follow along but keep out of it until the shooting’s over.’
Bill Gration nodded. ‘However you want to play it, Jethro.’
Jessie came awake fighting and sucking in great gasps of air as she slipped from a dreamless sleep and back into the waking nightmare. As she tossed off the last vestiges of grogginess, she realized that Stone’s weight no longer pinned her, but her hands and feet were tied making anything more than a pathetic wriggle impossible. And without the shade of the cottonwoods, the sun slanting down forced her to close her eyes as quickly as she had opened them.
‘Good, you’re awake.’
She cringed at the sound of Stone’s voice, but it sounded faraway and after several attempts she forced her eyelids part way open to see him standing bare-chested and wet with sweat, leaning on the handle of a pickaxe at the mouth of the mine. He reached for his canteen hung on a sharp rock near his ear and took a swig of water before wiping his hand across his face. Blood smeared his forehead as he disturbed the gash across his nose, but if it bothered him he didn’t show any sign of it as he straightened up and rolled his shoulders a couple of times.
‘It’s nearly time,’ he said, ducking out into the open to stand on the platform with her.
She pressed her lips together, not wanting to know what for as he crossed the narrow space between them like a predator closing in on its prey. Dropping to his haunches, he grabbed her by the back of the neck, dragging her into a precarious sitting position before forcing the canteen to her swollen lips. Despite her best intentions to resist, she gulped the cool liquid, feeling it ease the tightness in her throat before coursing through her like snake-oil tonic.
‘That’s it, you drink it all down,’ Stone said.
Something about his gentle tone worried her and she gagged, managing to turn her face away from the sweet tasting water which then flowed down her chin and soaked into the remnants of her tattered nightdress. Its sudden coolness sent a shiver through her, adding to the feeling of foreboding that seemed to block out the sun’s brightness and plunge her back into despair.
‘It’s not poisoned, if that’s what you think.’ He took a long swig before tossing the canteen away. ‘I just want to make sure you can scream when you need to.’
Stone’s eyes glinted with mischief as he looked her over. But instead of the ravaging she expected, he pressed her back down onto the creaking boards, sat back on his heels and looked high up beyond her.
‘I know you’re up there,’ he shouted, his words echoing around them. ‘It’s a long time’ til nightfall. But hey, don’t you worry about me. I’ve got plenty to keep me busy.’
He threw himself down on Jessie, forcing his lips against hers while his hands groped everywhere. Feebly, she struggled against him and the ropes but it was useless. When his mouth moved away from hers, she screamed.
‘Good girl,’ Stone said against her ear. ‘Now the real fun starts.’
He pulled her with him as he got to his feet and headed back into the mine. The skin on her bare legs and buttocks burned white-hot as he dragged her cruelly across uneven ground and over jagged rocks. When he eventually tossed her like a rag doll into the back of the mine, she was glad of the semi-darkness to hide the tears that streamed freely down her cheeks.
‘I won’t …’ She struggled to form the words through swollen lips. ‘I won’t scream again. No matter what you do to me, I won’t call Matt to his death.’
Stone chuckled and slammed his fist against one of the thick wooden supports holding the roof of the mine in place. It shifted just a little, but enough that the roof gave up some of its structure. As tiny rocks and stones showered her head and legs, she almost choked as she sucked in on her terror, refusing to give him the satisfaction of playing along with his plan.
‘You’ll scream.’ Stone nodded his belief. ‘Right up until the point where the dust and dirt fill your mouth and nose until you can’t catch a breath and then the rocks crush you as you’re buried alive … just like your mother.’
He stared at her long and hard. His gaze seemed to bore down into the depths of her soul, tearing open old wounds and releasing a flood of memories as suffocating as the dirt and darkness. Feebly, Jessie tried not to recall the day her mother had died, but the events of that summer afternoon were suddenly as clear as the cloudless blue sky.
‘You used to live here with your pa. My mother used to visit, to bake and to clean the cabin.’
‘I used to love those cookies she made.’
Jessie’s mouth watered. She could almost taste the cinnamon in them. Yet even that pleasant memory brought with it an unpleasant aftertaste.
‘You hated to share.’
‘She made them for me,’ he said, spitefully.
Jessie clamped her mouth shut. There was little point arguing over cookies then or now and Stone’s darkening mood seemed to hint at a more deep-rooted grievance. But what grudge could a ten-year-old boy have had towards a three-year-old girl?
‘She should have been my ma,’ he said, as if reading the question on her mind. ‘That’s what Pa wanted, but she told him she couldn’t leave you and Uncle Jethro. Do you know what that did to him?’
Jessie shook her head.
‘It broke him, made him crazy sick until he wouldn’t eat, didn’t sleep. I couldn’t bear to see him like that.’
Jessie cringed. She remembered everything now as history prepared to repeat itself.
Matt and Jethro headed towards the mountains beyond the town. It was impossible to ride hard. Neither one of them was in any condition to be sitting a horse let alone travelling over a little-used road that was barely more than an overgrown track. A half-hour later, Matt began to doubt Jethro’s sanity as, side by side, they approached what appeared to be a solid wall of rock. As if reading his mind, Jethr
o chuckled.
‘This is it. Just beyond that crest the ground slopes away into a narrow valley carved out at the foot of the mountain.’ He closed his eyes as if picturing the scene. ‘There used to be a cabin next to a clear running stream, a small corral and a lean to for the horses. Off to the right there’s a small stand of cottonwoods.’
Just then, they topped a small rise and, as if from nowhere, the scene appeared below them, a sight more ramshackle but no less beautiful than Jethro’s description. A horse, still saddled, dipped its nose into the stream but nothing else stirred. The cabin had long since rotted and started its return to the earth, but despite the lack of cover, he couldn’t see Stone or Jessie. With panic starting to rise within him, adding to the nausea that came and went in waves, he took a minute to get the lay of the land. Wide open on three sides and bathed in glorious sunshine, there was only one small detail Jethro had left out.
‘How do we get down there without being seen?’
Jethro looked down the gentle slope, the only way into and out of the area. ‘We wait until the sun goes down.’
Just then, the sound of a shotgun disturbed the serenity of the scene. Both men slid clumsily from their horses, falling flat to their stomachs before crawling across the ground to peer again over the rise and into the valley. Inside the natural curve of the mountain and about thirty feet above ground level, he made out what looked like the entrance to a mine with a narrow wooden platform fronting it. Allowing his gaze to slowly wander, he glimpsed a flash of red against the cold grey backdrop and located Stone, about ten feet to the right and fifteen feet below half hidden in another recess.
Another shot boomed in the silence.
‘What the hell’s he firing at?’ Matt asked as he watched Stone reload.
‘The mine above. He’s trying to cave it in. Do you see Jessie anywhere?’ Jethro asked, wiping across his eyes before squinting again at the scene.
‘No. Maybe he dropped her off somewhere.’
‘She’s here.’
