I nodded. This was common enough. The Land Grant Act had been set up by Easterners, who were familiar not with these arid lands, but with fertile soil and abundant rainfall, and, thus failed to understand that a quarter section here could not provide sustenance for a family.
“Then comes along big operations like the Bar X Bar, and it gets tougher to find sweet grass and water.” She stopped to point a finger at me, stabbing it in the air to emphasize her words. “But we were still making it. Bob’s got a good crew of men, and he always found ways to profit.”
“Until…”
“Nothing here changed,” she said, and spat. “Crawford did. Last three years he didn’t mind holding our notes till the cattle were shipped.”
“This year…”
“Bob rode in to town a couple weeks ago. We wanted a little extra cash for payroll. First time ever, he didn’t give Bob none. Our —”
“Was it Crawford that Bob spoke to? Not Calhoun?”
“Crawford, Marshal. Bob cussed that man out again and again as he stomped back and forth of where we sit.”
There went my obvious link between Nichols and Calhoun.
“Our crew decided they’d wait for their payroll until the cattle shipped,” she continued as if I hadn’t interrupted. “Otherwise we might have lost plumb everything.”
I thought that through. Crawford hadn’t told me any of this. What was he hiding?
“Marshal?” she prompted me.
“Cattle shipped now?” I wanted to know that Nichols hadn’t needed cash badly enough to kill Calhoun. Hearing that the hands had decided to wait for payroll helped.
“Our boys are moving ’em to the rails as we set.”
“That must take a load off.”
“My man is dead, Marshal. Ain’t nothing gonna take that load off.” The tears welled in her eyes again.
I found myself taking her hand from her lap and squeezing it in mine. Her palm was calloused, skin on the back of her hand raw. We sat there in silence until she sighed and slowly withdrew her hand.
“Don’t mind me,” she said. “Get on with your questions. I won’t rest until you’ve cleared him.”
I felt helpless. Doc wanted me to avenge one man, she wanted me for another reason, and I’d be unable to ignore the memory of those three bewildered boys in the doorway and how it might be for them to grow up thinking their pappy died robbing a bank. Yet I still had little idea how to proceed.
I tried putting myself in Bob Nichol’s boots, and that led me to another question. “Just before he left, did Bob tell you anything that seemed strange?”
She shook her head. “Marshal, I told you, I’ve worked my brain into a knot. He left one morning, no different than any other when he went to ride the range. Four days later — yesterday — One-arm Jake stopped by with Bob’s horse and told me as gentle as he could why Bob wasn’t coming back himself. Jake’s a good man.”
Jake was. I’d been dreading the prospect that I’d be the one breaking it to her.
“Four days?” I asked. “That didn’t seem strange for him to be gone so long?”
“Not for a man riding range. Lots of time’s he’d pack a mess of grub —” She stopped and squinted puzzlement. “Marshal, he didn’t pack grub that morning.”
“Without fail,” I said, “he’d pack grub if he figured on riding range for more than a day?”
“More than a half-day,” she said firmly. “He hated to miss a meal. And he weren’t fussy about chuck-wagon cooking.”
I nodded agreement. Good cooks on the range were treated like kings, simply because so few were good.
“Anything else strike you as strange?”
She shook her head.
“In the months before, did he ever leave for a few days without taking grub?” Maybe that would point me to where he’d gone. I had a strong feeling now that if I could explain his absence, I’d be a lot closer to the killer.
She shook her head again, now slowly, as if she were giving it more thought. “Strictly speaking,” she said after a pause, “there was his trip to Denver. He didn’t pack no grub for that.”
I seized on it. “Any chance he went there four days ago?”
“None.”
“You sound certain.”
“I most certainly am. Iffen he was headed for Denver, he’d have told me. Just like the first time. No, Marshal, when he left this time, he didn’t have no bag packed.”
I kept my thoughts to myself. Could be he had unfinished business in Denver, business he’d been reluctant to share with her, especially if that business involved something that had led to his death.
I kept my voice casual. “How long ago was that?”
“August,” she said. “His brother passed on there. Bob had to settle some papers. Spent time with a lawyer fellow by the name of Leakey. I remember that. Bob and I had a lot of fun with that name.”
“Must have been important, going to Denver,” I said, letting my eyes wander across the horizon as if it mattered little whether she answered or not.
She smiled. A defeated smile. “We thought so, Marshal. Those papers were some mine claims. Each one turned out as useless as Bob’s visit. Worse, cash poor as we was, it didn’t help none, paying for rail tickets and hotel.”
“Where’d he stay?” I asked. I hoped I wouldn’t have to go to Denver. But asking now would save me a trip this way again, should I ever need the information.
“The Broadway Hotel,” she said without hesitation. “Overlooks Cherry Creek. I remember because he went on and on about how things were in Denver. How he’d take me there and show me all the fine things as soon we could afford it.”
Sudden silence. I swung my eyes back to her.
The tears had begun to roll again, and her face held a helplessness that tore at my heart.
“I’m sorry, Marshal. I promised not to cry. But thinking of how he dreamed for the both of us, and now ain’t nothing gonna bring him back so that we’d ever get to Denver the two of us…”
She fought for breath. “Maybe I’m about done with this kind of conversation. It’s hurting too bad.”
I stood.
She remained on the stool.
“I’ll do my best,” I said.
I doubt she heard me. She continued to stare at the ground as I walked to my horse.
Her sadness stayed with me as I rode back to Laramie. In the loneliness of the sage and brush and wide-open sky, there was nothing to distract me from thoughts of love and death.
Because Helen had loved her man so deeply, his death was that much greater a loss to her. And if he had lived? Every year for ten, twenty, forty, however many years, their love would have built to its final tragedy, that one or the other must die. Was this not plain, that the greater the temporary triumph of love, the more crushing its inevitable defeat?
I took a path through some tumbleweed, and a jackrabbit spurted dust as it kicked away from the hooves of my horse.
I watched until its white tail stopping bobbing in the distance and realized it might pass the bones and pieces of hide of a dozen of its kin, yet would never understand that it too, was as mortal as all other jackrabbits who had lived before. No, of all the creatures, only we faced such a curse, able to know as we lived that death someday would steal from us everything we had learned, remove from us our greatest loves.
The blackness of that futility settled heavy on me and despite my best efforts, my mind turned again and again to the woman I’d sworn to return to come spring. I had no certainty of where our love might lead, and like Helen, was discovering that the sweeter the love, the more the pain. That only worsened my loneliness, and made the last miles into Laramie a long, haunted trip against the darkening of the sky.
I wasn’t able to maintain a hold on my self-pity, for waiting in front of the marshal’s office was a man named Benjamin Guthrie, who demanded that I hunt down and shoot the rebs who had broken his left arm some time in the previous hour.
Chapter 16
&n
bsp; “Step inside,” I said to calm this man’s rantings. “Tell me about it.”
I began to unlock the office door.
From the street, Benjamin Guthrie raged at my back. “Marshall, this is no time for talk! I demand immediate justice.”
As I pushed the door open, Brother Lewis sprang from his bed behind the jail bars. “Marshal, it’s been noon since I was fed. Dogs get treated better. I demand you release —”
I shut the door on him and turned back to face Benjamin Guthrie, the lesser of two evils.
The sun was nearly gone now, so that both of us stood in the long shadows of early evening. I didn’t have to see him clearly to know him. More than once since I’d taken the job here as marshal, we’d passed each other on the street and nodded acquaintance.
Guthrie was a big man, taller than I was by an inch or so, probably heavier by twenty pounds. Full beard, touches of gray in the black of his hair. As usual, he wore a suit and vest, befitting his occupation as proprietor of GUTHRIE DRY GOOD AND CLOTHING, one of the larger stores on Main Street. This time, however, the left sleeve of his jacket was pinned to the suit, and his left arm stuck out, supported by a sling.
“Don’t stand and gawk at Doc Harper’s handiwork,” he told me. “Do your job.”
“Which is?”
“To protect the folks of Laramie. Respectable folks who work hard and pay your wages.” He winced as he shifted.
It had been a long day of riding. I wanted a small shotglass of whiskey and enough quiet and peace to drink it slow. Then I wanted sleep. And no dreams. I did not want, at this moment, yet more action to protect the folks of Laramie, especially ones who seemed to think that bullying was the best way to prod me.
Yet, despite my natural stubbornness at being pushed, I had to agree with Benjamin Guthrie. I’d taken a job.
“You said rebs,” I sighed.
“Durn straight,” he blustered. “Who else?”
I did not like what his question meant. “You mean,” I started slowly, “you’re making a guess?”
“No guesswork. Who else in this town would attack one of Laramie’s respected businessmen?”
“Listen close,” I said with as much patience as I could find. “Did you eyeball the man who did it?”
“How’d that be possible?” His voice did not lose any of its petulant rage. “They threw a sack over my head first and roped me like a steer.”
“Someone else witnessed it. Right?”
My plea was wasted in the thunder of his indignation. “If I had a sack over my head, how’d I know if anyone was around to witness?”
I closed my eyes. “Backtrack some. Just tell me what happened.”
“I just did! Now get to work!”
“Humor me.”
He shook his head at my incompetence, then winced again at the pain caused by his slight movement. “I stepped out of the Red Rose just before dinner.”
“Time?”
“Five-twenty. Dinner’s always at five-thirty. Mabel knows dinner’s at five-thirty. And Mabel knows durn well it ain’t to be served a minute later. Five-twenty gives me time to stop at the store and amble on home, just like I always do.”
Mabel had my sympathy.
“Five-twenty then. You step out of the Red Rose.”
“Where, I might add,” he lectured, “them rebs was sitting and able to watch me leave.”
“Right.”
“Like always, I first stop at the store for a final check to make sure the door’s locked. That’s probably what gave them time to sneak outside.”
“Right.”
“I turn back to go home. I pass the Red Rose again, and there’s a gap there between it and the building next to it. That’s where it happened. Sack’s thrown over my head. A rope cinches my arms tight against me. Them rebs must’ a been waiting to pull me back into the shadows there. Then something wacks me hard against my arm. I knew right then it was busted. I about passed out from the pain.”
“You robbed?”
“No.”
“You have an argument with any of them in the Red Rose?”
“No.”
“Without a witness and without reason…”
“Marshal, I demand justice. This arm didn’t get busted by itself.”
“Mr. Guthrie, I can’t arrest someone just on your say-so. Maybe there’s someone else in town who carries a grudge.”
“Not a soul. I do business square.” His face broke into an ugly, taunting grin. “We hired you on because we heard you were fast and tough. You suddenly afraid of gunplay? ”
“Always have been. Only a fool ain’t. What’s your point?”
“What I came here for!” He almost bellowed it. “Justice!”
I nodded. He’d expelled enough of a lungful that I could smell beer on his breath, even with the wind that blew down the street between us.
I thought of my advice to Old Charlie, when I’d told him to turn in the bank notes unless he wanted Crawford to keep gnawing on him. Guthrie would do the same to me unless I at least made it appear as if I was doing something.
“I’ll have a talk with them rebs,” I told him. “And I’ll ask around to see if anyone saw them follow you from the Red Rose.”
“That’s it?”
“The best I can do,” I said. “Unless you want the badge.”
I guessed he was glaring at me, but the effect was lost in the shadows that separated us. And I was too tired to care anyway.
***************************
No gray jackets occupied the Red Rose. Nor the Comique Dance Hall. Nor the Laramie Saloon.
I began to check the hotels. Not because I believed they were behind the attack on Guthrie. Two days earlier, they’d handled Old Charlie with a calmness that led me to believe they weren’t the sort to jump someone from hiding. As to who and why Guthrie had been attacked, that was too puzzling for me to try to figure this late in the day.
No, I wanted to find those gray jackets to let them know how Guthrie was spreading the word against them. If I could clear them quick of Guthrie’s accusations, it might save ugly trouble later. I didn’t need more grief, not with my mind on a killer who probably hadn’t left Laramie.
Naturally — considering the state of my feet — it wasn’t until I walked to the registration desk of the last hotel on my list that I found where they’d chosen to reside in Laramie.
The Union Pacific hotel.
“Yup,” the clerk mumbled. “Three rooms they took. The brothers split two rooms. Miss Christopher took the third.”
“Obliged,” I said and tried to read his guest list upside down from where I stood. “Four brothers?”
He protected his list. Amazing. The less power a person had, the more jealous of it he’d be.
“I’ve had a long day,” I said. “Help me out.”
He looked out from a skinny face that didn’t crack into a smile.
“Someday you might need me,” I said with the same weariness. “A Colt .44-40 will probably do you more good than the names will do for me.”
He thought it through, as if we were actually bargaining. Probably the only reason I wasn’t forcing him was because I still smelled the stink of the bullying tactics of Benjamin Guthrie.
“Ike. Peter. Josh. Wiley.”
“Last name?”
“Christopher.” He said it as if I should have known they carried the same last name as Dehlia.
“How long they booked for?” I asked.
He hesitated again. Which was once more too often for my state of mind.
I walked around the desk.
He huffed at my trespass.
I ignored it and swept him aside as if he were a bedsheet draped over a clothesline.
“Don’t put me in a worse mood,” I said.
He stayed put.
The register showed they had prepaid for three weeks. Not only that, but they had taken three suites on the top floor. A pricey stay.
I moved away from the desk and smiled at t
he clerk, who was smoothing his hair back with one hand and wiping lint off his shoulder with the other. Obviously, I’d contaminated him.
“Don’t worry about me,” I said. “I’ll find my own way up.”
***********************
The red carpet of the long hallway absorbed the sound of my boots, and because of that, I heard the indistinct murmur of voices as I approached the rooms on the top floor of the hotel.
The register had shown that Pete and Wiley occupied suite 205, and the voices came from behind that door, so I decided to start there. I knocked softly.
Immediate silence. I could imagine the reaction of gunslingers at an unexpected knock and I decided not to light any fuses.
“Nothing to be alarmed about,” I said to the door. “Marshal Keaton paying a friendly visit.”
Some thumping. Footsteps that creaked toward the door. It opened, not to show Pete or Wiley, but Dehlia Christopher. Same black jeans as when we’d met the day before. Now a red shirt, sleeves rolled halfway up her forearms. She probably knew the effect of that red against the rich blond of her hair. I certainly did.
“Marshal Keaton,” she said. She remained in the doorway.
I removed my hat and held it in my left hand. “Didn’t expect it to be you,” I said. “I was looking for some of your brothers.”
“What a shame.” She said it so flatly that I could not decide if it had been sarcasm.
“If they’ve got the door covered, ma’am, you’d be welcome to let them know my hands are empty.”
“Marshal, I’m surprised you’d make an assumption like that. Unless you’ve had reason to cover one or two doors in your past.”
In the Red Rose the day before, her voice had been playful, seductive. Now it was slightly tense, as if the banter was forced.
“If you’re through with the games, I wouldn’t mind getting down to business.”
She shrugged and invited me inside.
The suite was a double room, lit by oil lamps trimmed to a dull glow. One side held a large bed. The other side held assorted pieces of furniture — writing desk and cane chair, tall wardrobe, low armchair. A throw rug covered most of the floor between.
Silver Moon Page 10
