Chapter 22
Ernestine Frost hurried out the rear of the boardinghouse. Behind her came Jeeter, puffing from the weight of her carpetbag. “I am so proud of you,” she told him.
Jeeter grunted. The carpetbag was not as heavy as the packs containing her books, which he had already loaded on the horse he had rented from the stable. But it was heavy enough that he would gladly drop it and leave it if Ernestine would not become upset.
“You didn’t kill him,” Ernestine said. “You had the opportunity but you refrained from squeezing the trigger.”
Jeeter had never really considered shooting Glickman. Not when the shot was bound to draw people, and more law. But he did not mention that to her.
“It shows that you can change,” Ernestine said. “That you are not the rabid killer everyone else thinks you are.”
“I’m not rabid,” Jeeter said.
“I know you are not, my love,” Ernestine sweetly declared, and held the gate open for him. “You have proven that my trust in you is not misplaced.”
“I’m glad.” Now that they were man and wife, Jeeter naturally wanted to make her happy. But it surprised him considerably that she was so giddy over a trifle.
“I can’t wait to get settled somewhere and start our new life together,” Ernestine gushed. “Won’t it be wonderful?”
“Wonderful,” Jeeter echoed as he lugged the carpetbag to the packhorse. “The important thing now is not to be seen riding out of town. If we are seen we will head west to throw them off the scent and swing north later.”
“Maybe I should talk to the sheriff,” Ernestine said. “Let everyone know I am with you because my heart is swelled with love, and not because you took me against my will.”
“That deputy we left tied up in your room knows the truth,” Jeeter said. “He will tell the sheriff.”
“And all will be well!” Ernestine smiled and clasped her hands and raised her eyes to the starry sky. “Oh, thank you, Lord, for preserving us!”
Jeeter glanced skyward, and frowned. An oversight on his part had occurred to him. He had never asked her feelings on religion. “Talk to God much, do you?” he asked, trying to make the question sound perfectly innocent.
“No more than most, I would imagine,” Ernestine said. “The Lord is my shepherd. I shall not want.”
“Have you ever read the Bible?”
‘Not all the way through, I must confess. But I have read most of it, in snatches, at one time or another. We can read it together nights now that you have learned to read.”
Jeeter could think of something he would much rather do at night than read, but again he held his tongue. “I admit I don’t know a lot about it. But something a parson said once has stuck with me. It is the truest thing I ever heard and it explains a lot.”
“A parson? You must attend church, then. This is a side to you I did not expect.”
Jeeter could not recall the last time he was in God’s house. The parson had sat next to him at a restaurant and gone on and on about the Almighty and the soul.
“What did he say that so impressed you?”
In the process of tying a knot, Jeeter answered, “That God sends his rain on the just and the unjust.”
Ernestine waited, and when he did not say anything else, she said, “That’s it? That one quote?”
“It’s enough,” Jeeter replied. “It is everything.”
“I am not sure I understand. There is a lot more to the Bible than that. It overflows with truth.”
“None of the other Bible sayings I have heard made a lot of sense to me,” Jeeter said. Particularly the one about turning the other cheek. If he had taken it to heart, he would have long since been dead. “But that one did.”
“Don’t you worry,” Ernestine said. “We will read the Bible together and I will explain everything that needs explaining and it will all make sense.” She paused. “But why that one quote more than any other?”
“Ever seen a baby that has had its brains dashed out? Or come upon a woman who has been staked out and raped? Or a man who has been tortured by Apaches?”
“Good Lord, no.”
“I have. And that there rain business is why I can sleep at nights,” Jeeter said.
“How can—” Ernestine began, and turned. Spurs had jingled in the alley. A man was coming toward them. He wore a high-crowned Stetson and tin gleamed on his shirt. “Oh no!” she whispered.
Jeeter had heard the spurs, too. His Lightning was in his hand, close to his leg, as he came around the packhorse. “Evening,” he said with a smile. “What can we do for you?”
“Good evening.” The man doffed his hat to Ernestine. “I am Deputy Powell. I am looking for Seamus Glickman and I wonder if you folks—” Powell stopped. “Hold on. Aren’t you the schoolmarm, ma’am?”
“She was,” Jeeter said, still smiling, and clubbed the deputy above the ear. Once, twice, three times he struck. At each blow Powell staggered. Powell tried to draw his revolver, but it was still in his holster as he oozed to the ground and lay twitching and groaning. Jeeter hit him one more time to shut him up.
“Oh my!” Ernestine breathed. She never did like violence, and this churned her stomach. “Did you have to be so brutal?”
Jeeter was examining his Colt. It appeared none the worse for the clubbing. “He is still alive.”
“That is something, I suppose,” Ernestine said without much enthusiasm. Here they were, barely married an hour, and already he had tied up one man and beaten another. Lawmen, no less. “I just hope this is the end of it.”
Jeeter shoved the Lightning into his holster. “Mount up. We better light a shuck before someone else shows up.”
“Are you sure you don’t want me to talk to the sheriff?”
“Not after what I have done to his deputies, no.”
“We don’t want a posse after us, do we?” Ernestine envisioned her new husband in blazing battle against superior numbers, and shuddered. She did not care to be a widow so soon after becoming a wife.
“They will come after me anyway,” Jeeter said.
“I can set things right. Don’t you want that?”
“What I want is for us to go on breathing,” Jeeter said. “Now, are you my woman or are you not my woman?”
“I said I do, didn’t I?”
“Then do as I say and climb on this horse.” Jeeter held the reins for her. “We can be long gone by the time this law dog and Glickman are found.”
Confused and hurt, Ernestine mounted. “I hope you are not one of those husbands who likes to boss his wife around.”
“I am not,” Jeeter assured her. “But I will be bossy if I think we will live longer.”
“You are off to a fine start.”
Jeeter put a hand on her leg. “Trust me. Please. Folks have been thinking bad things about me all my life. I have found that the best way to deal with their misguided notions is to avoid them.”
“My mother taught me that honesty is the best policy,” Ernestine imparted.
“Honesty is fine and dandy,” Jeeter said, “so long as it does not get you dead.”
∗ ∗ ∗
“It is all your fault, big brother,” Verve Larn said. “You told us it would be safe to come here.”
The four Larn brothers were sitting at the bar in the Tumbleweed, a seedy saloon frequented by those who liked their saloons dark and rarely visited by the law. The owner had spent a good many years behind bars and was friendly to those who had done the same or might end up there.
Stern Larn took a swig straight from his bottle and wiped his mouth with his sleeve. A minute ago, out on the street, there had been a lot of shouting and running around. Then a man had rushed into the saloon and loudly informed the owner that Crooked Creek Sam had been found murdered.
Now Stern said quietly so only his brothers heard, “They don’t know it was us who done it. Quit your frettin’.”
The man who had rushed in was not done. Puffed up with the importance of h
is news, he practically hollered, “And that is not all! The schoolmarm has been taken!”
“Taken how?” some asked. “Taken sick?”
“No, no,” the man said. “She was stolen.”
“Someone abducted the schoolmarm?”
“Hold on to your hat,” the man said. He had saved the best tidbit for last. “Word is, the hombre who stole her is Jeeter Frost.”
“The hell you say.”
Everyone in the saloon began talking at once, some asking questions, others divesting themselves of opinions about the character of any man who would stoop so low as to steal a schoolmarm.
A man at a table near the Larns stood up to say, “I have done my share of deeds I am not proud of, but I would never stoop to stealin’ a woman.”
Happy Larn snickered and whispered to his brothers, “Listen to him. Shows how much he knows. We’ve stole women before. Remember that filly with the red hair? She sure was a wildcat.”
“It was a shame you strangled her,” Cordial Larn said.
Happy Larn shrugged. “She shouldn’t have riled me like she done. She had only herself to blame.”
Men were converging on the bar to hear more from the bearer of sensational tidings.
“I told you we had nothin’ to worry about,” Stern Larn reiterated. “We can finish up and ride on whenever we are of a mind.”
“What say we join the posse?” Verve Larn proposed. “It ain’t every day we get to hunt a jasper as famous as Jeeter Frost.”
His brothers stared at him as if they had never seen him before, and Stern said, “I have heard some lunkhead notions in my time, but that beats all. The idea is for us to fight shy of the law, not rub elbows with it.”
“It might be fun,” Verve insisted.
“You go if you want,” Cordial said. “And if anyone recollects seein’ you down toward Crooked Creek and asks if you had anything to do with the death of Crooked Creek Sam, you can tell them shootin’ him was fun, too.”
“Forget the damn posse,” Stern snapped. “We have business in Coffin Varnish the day after tomorrow. Or have you forgotten?”
“I ain’t forgot nothin’,” Verve said. “I will be there with the rest of you. Kin comes before all else.”
“A family is like a chain,” Stern said. “All the links have to be strong or the chain will break.”
“Dang, that was well put,” Happy said. “You have a way with words.”
“Enough rotgut and I can babble with the best of ’em.” Stern smirked, then soberly told Verve, “But I was serious about the chain. You are one of the links. You must always be there for those who share your blood. Kin is more important than anything.”
“I know that.”
“Then let’s not hear any more foolish talk about posses and such,” Stern said. “We have killin’ of our own to do. Those Haslett boys would like nothin’ better than to put windows in our skulls.”
“That is only fittin’,” Happy said, snickering, “since I can’t wait to put windows in theirs.”
“I wish there were more of us than there are of them,” Cordial said. “Four against four is too fair.”
Stern Larn nodded. “I have been thinkin’ the same thing. We need an edge and I figure I have come up with one.” He smiled. “We get to Coffin Varnish before they do and lie in wait for them.”
“Shoot them from ambush?” Happy said. “The people in Coffin Varnish might not like that.”
Verve snorted. “They invite folks to kill one another, they shouldn’t be particular about how it is done.”
“I never said it had to be in Coffin Varnish,” Stern Larn said. “We can lie in wait for the Hasletts just outside of town. Pick them off with our rifles before they can get off a shot.”
“You are a man after my own heart,” Verve said.
“I like the idea as much as you do,” Cordial said, “but there was mention of permits, which means we have to get permission from somebody.”
“That’s right,” Happy said. “If we don’t do it right, we are liable to have the law after us.”
Stern Larn sat back. “Only if the law knows it was us. What if we shoot the Hasletts and skedaddle? We can be halfway to Denver before anybody comes after us.”
“The only one who knew about the feud is Crooked Creek Sam,” Verve mentioned, “and he won’t be tellin’.”
“Let’s put it to a vote,” Stern said. “Do we bother with a permit or do we do this the way hill folk have been killin’ one another since the dawn of creation?” He held up his hand. “I will start. I vote for ambush.”
“For ambush,” Verve said, squirming in his chair.
Happy Larn added his say. “Ambush.”
That left Cordial. He endured their stares while refilling his glass and then emptied half of it at a gulp.
“Well?” Verve prompted.
“I am a Larn, ain’t I?” Cordial said. “I am as strong a link in the chain as any of you.”
“Good.” Stern Larn rose. “Finish your drinks and let’s fan the breeze. We have us some killin’ to do.”
Chapter 23
Seamus Glickman had pounded his boots on the floor for so long and so hard, his feet were throbbing welters of pain. He pounded them several more times, wincing as his ankles protested with agony, and listening intently for someone to call out and demand to know what all the ruckus was about. The other boarders had to hear. But no one yelled; no one came. He sagged, his chin on his chest.
As soon as Jeeter Frost and the schoolmarm left, Seamus had started pounding. That was a good twenty minutes ago. His ankles were tied, and Frost had secured his arms to the bottom of a bedpost, but he could still move his legs. Not that it had done him any good.
For the umpteenth time Seamus pushed against the gag with his tongue. It would not move. Frost had wedged it fast and tied a smelly bandanna over his mouth to keep it in place. Damn him to hell! Seamus thought. Damn them both, the shootist and the schoolmarm. Seamus did not care if Prescott was a woman. She deserved to be strung up by her thumbs and horsewhipped.
Seamus had been doing some pondering while he pounded and he had come to a decision. He was through with the law. Wearing a badge paid well but not well enough to justify being buried before his time. Jeeter Frost holding that Colt on him had been a revelation. Frost could easily have shot him. Seamus suspected that if not for the schoolmarm, that is exactly what Frost would have done.
Seamus had always appreciated the fact that wearing a badge entailed risks. He knew a lot of lawmen were bucked out in gore. But knowing it in his head and experiencing it were two different things. Now that he had actually and truly stared death in the face, Seamus did not like death’s expression.
The question was: Should he stay on until Hinkle’s term of office was done with or should he quit right away? He was mulling it over when steps sounded in the hallway and someone shook the door.
“Open up. This is the sheriff.”
Seamus slammed his boots on the floor and gurgled as loudly as he could gurgle.
The next instant the door resounded to a powerful blow. The jamb splintered and in burst George Hinkle, his shoulder lowered, his revolver in hand. “Seamus! You’re alive!” Hinkle produced a folding knife and made short shrift of the strips of shawl. “I was worried,” he said as he cut. “We found Powell out in the alley. Jeeter Frost pistol-whipped him.”
The instant his hands were free, Seamus yanked on the bandanna and pulled out the gag. Spitting and coughing, he swallowed a few times to lubricate his throat. “That damned Frost got the drop on me.”
“You are lucky all he did was tie you up,” Sheriff Hinkle said. “Powell about had his head half split open.”
“Then Frost and the schoolmarm got away?” Seamus stiffly rose and sat on the edge of the bed. He was going to tell Hinkle the truth about Ernestine Prescott, but he had to endure another fit of coughing.
“That poor woman. There is no telling what she has had to endure. Everyone in town is
stirred up. I asked for twenty volunteers to form a posse and had to turn forty away.”
“There is something you should know,” Seamus said.
“Whoever saves her will be the talk of the territory,” Hinkle went on. “I intend for that to be us. She is my ticket to better things. To being appointed a federal marshal.”
“What are you on about?”
“I don’t intend to be a county sheriff forever. This badge is a stepping-stone, like everything else in life.” Hinkle came over and clapped Seamus on the shoulder. “I tell you that if we save the schoolmarm, we can rise as high as our ambition takes us.”
“We?”
“Don’t you have a hankering to move up in the world? Wouldn’t you like to be a federal marshal, too? The schoolmarm has done me the biggest favor anyone ever did, and she doesn’t even realize it.”
“What if she is with Frost because she wants to be with him?” Seamus casually asked.
“Don’t be ridiculous. She is being forced. We have the word of the justice of the peace. Besides”—Sheriff Hinkle grinned—“you wouldn’t want to spoil my chance at the federal job, would you?” He paused. “Now, what is it you wanted to tell me?”
Seamus thought of how Ernestine Prescott had helped cut the shawl into strips and done some of the binding while Frost covered him. He thought of how she had pulled the wool over everyone’s eyes, how she had been seeing Jeeter Frost behind the town’s back, as it were, and now the entire town was worried about her welfare and her virtue when she was as safe as could be and had probably lost her virtue some time ago.
“Well?” Sheriff Hinkle prodded.
“I can’t rightly recollect,” Seamus lied. “Maybe it will come to me later.”
“In that case, fetch your horse and whatever supplies you think you will need. The posse heads out in half an hour.”
“Do you still want me to lead it?”
“Why wouldn’t I? That is, if you are up to it.”
“I want to set eyes on the schoolmarm again more than anything,” Seamus said. So he could slap her and thank her for her part in his humiliation.
“I am sending Jack Coombs with you,” Sheriff Hinkle said.
Blood Duel Page 17
