“We’re in the same place,” Suellen said, glancing around darkly. “Where I found you.”
Haskell turned his head, grinding his teeth against the stiffness in his neck. He saw the stout cottonwood reflecting the firelight, and it all came back to him.
“Shit,” he said.
“It’s all right, Bear. You’re okay now, honey. Lay back against my lap. That’s it. You need to rest.”
He realized that his head, filled with misery, was resting on Suellen’s right thigh. A cloth bandage was wrapped around his forehead. Her leg was warm beneath him. A wool blanket covered him. Suellen had a similar blanket draped about her shoulders. She wore a green felt hat and a wool-lined denim jacket over a cream shirtwaist and dark blue wool skirt. Brown leather riding boots rose nearly to her knees.
“What?” Haskell tried, his voice a mere rasp. “How ... ?”
He gave an anguished grunt and threw back his blanket. His bladder was ready to explode inside him. He struggled into a sitting position, trying to get his legs to work. His head throbbed, the result of Krantz’s Winchester love tap. Bear’s back was stiff and sore, his neck even more so. It felt as though someone had punched a broken wheel spoke through it, and the splinters were grinding around between the bones.
“Oh, Bear, you must be still!”
“Can’t!”
“What’re you doing? You can’t go after them now.”
“I’m not going after anything just yet,” he said, frustrated by his inability to raise his voice much above a cat’s purr, “except a good piss!”
“Oh,” Suellen said.
Haskell stumbled a few yards away from the camp. Fuck modesty. His bladder seams were unraveling. Besides, his body felt as though he’d been trapped for the past month in some sort of Dark Age style torture contraption. He fumbled with his fly buttons, hauled himself out, and cut loose with a long, warbling sigh.
“Ah, shit,” he rasped with the luxury of his evacuation. “That feels good!” At least something did.
His piss hit the cold ground and steamed.
Behind him, Suellen chuckled.
Haskell looked around him. A small, red-wheeled, two-seater buggy was parked nearby. Two horses, both picketed to pines, grazed beside it. One of the horses was Haskell’s own—the buckskin he’d acquisitioned from Fort Laramie.
“My horse,” he rasped in surprise.
“I found him at the springs when I went for water,” Suellen said.
He glanced over his shoulder at her, frowning. “When you ... ?”
He shook his head. He’d wait and get the whole story when he was finished with the task at hand and was better able to comprehend it. The lack of oxygen had made him foggy and dull. He felt half-drunk.
When he was finished, and feeling better at least in that regard, he tucked himself back into his pants, buttoned up, and walked back to the fire. Suellen was poking a stick into the flames, arranging the burning branches. A coffee pot steamed on a rock.
Massaging his neck, Haskell tried again to clear the frog from his throat, achieving moderate success, and said, “What’re you doing out here?”
Suellen tossed the stick into the fire and rubbed her hands on her thighs. “I saw you ride out earlier. I’d ridden into town to buy some eggs. I was restless, so ... I decided to follow you. To see where your trail led. I knew you were investigating Lou’s murder, and ... ”
“And you were curious what I’d come up with?”
She hiked a shoulder. “Yes.”
“You could have waited and asked me when I got back to town.”
Suellen’s eyes blazed. “Well, as it turned out, if I hadn’t ridden out here, you’d have never gotten back to town—now, isn’t that right, dear heart?”
Haskell’s ears warmed with chagrin. He sat down where he’d been sitting before. She’d piled his gear there, including his saddle, right where he must have fallen when she’d cut him down from the tree. “I reckon you’re right, Suellen. Don’t tell me you were able to scare them brigands off!”
“That’s what I did, all right.” She seemed right proud of herself. “I saw them all gathered around a man hanging from that cottonwood, and I gigged old Rufus right toward them.” She rolled her eyes toward the cream gelding grazing beside Haskell’s buckskin. “I yelled and hollered and shouted till my lungs were fit to bust, and, guess what? They turned and high-tailed it like Georgia shoats smellin’ peach orchard wine on the evenin’ breeze!”
Her accent had thickened as her emotion had climbed, and now she sounded as though she’d never left the South but was sitting on a padded swing chair on some white-painted promenade overlooking dewy jade hills studded with mossy oaks, a fine spring mist spitting down from a soft, hazy Georgia sky. Her eyes danced as she threw her head back, laughing.
“I guess they didn’t want to be seen around a dead man, and, since they didn’t seem to have the hide for killing a lady, they fogged the sage, as Lou used to say!”
Her laughter was short-lived. She beetled, her dark-brown brows. “Who were they, Bear?”
“I was going to ask you the same question.”
“I didn’t see any of them up close. Even if I had ... ” Suellen hiked her shoulder again. “I’ve never gotten out much, gotten to know the town. I take my buggy for rides in the country from time to time, but I do try to avoid the lowly sorts that populate these parts. I ride out here to get away from the people of Diamondback, not go looking for more out in the county.”
“How in the hell did you get me down?”
“Lou always kept traveling gear in the buggy for me. He knew how I liked to take my rides, and he was afraid that if Rufus ever went down or I got lost, I’d be stranded overnight. He packed matches and blankets and whatnot, including an ax for firewood. I used the ax to cut you down. Took me a few whacks, but I cut through that rope, by god!” She smiled with concern. “I’m sorry I couldn’t have found some gentler way.”
Haskell massaged his neck again, cleared his throat. “It did the trick, I reckon.”
“You’re sounding better. How do you feel?”
“Better.”
Suellen sank down beside him, stretched one arm across her shoulders, placed her other hand on his thigh. “You seemed to be regaining consciousness when I first found you, but then you passed right out again. I could feel your heart beating, hear you breathing, so I built a fire as quick as I could to get you warm. Then I unsaddled your horse. You were out quite a while. I was beginning to think you’d never wake up, that you’d just lie there and die with your head in my lap.”
“I’m still kickin’, Suellen.”
“I declare, Bear, I don’t think I could have bore it—losin’ you both so close together!”
“Like I said, Suellen, I’m still kickin’.”
“Can’t you at least put your arm around me, Bear? I’m cold, and it’s awfully dark out here.”
“Let’s not go back to where we left off last night—all right, Suellen? I got enough on my plate right now.”
“Oh, Bear, why do you have to be such an obstinate son of a bitch?”
“Can I have a cup of that coffee?”
“Sure, sure.” Suellen strode around the fire and filled a tin coffee cup, using a swatch of ragged burlap so as not to burn her hand.
“You got any whiskey?”
A guilty flush rose in her pretty, classically sculpted cheeks as she said, “Brandy.”
“That’ll do.”
She walked over to where a leather war bag sat on the ground near the trunk of the cottonwood, and pulled out a small, hide-wrapped flask. She removed the cap from the flask and splashed a goodly portion of brandy into Haskell’s coffee. She gave it to him, and as she went back around the fire to pour herself a cup of coffee, he blew on his own and said, “Suellen, you know who lived in that burned-out ranch headquarters behind us there?”
“Yes, I do.” Suellen set down her filled cup and cast a frown into the darkness south of the cotton
wood. “What happened to that place, Bear?”
“That’s what I’d like to know. Who lived there?”
“Bliss Lomax and his daughter, Clara.”
Haskell frowned. “I thought you didn’t know many folks around here.”
“Bliss and Clara Lomax are the exception. I’ve ridden out this way before, and stopped at the springs for water. That’s how I met Bliss and Clara, his daughter. Clara’s a bit shy, but Bliss is very friendly. He always offers to check Rufus for me, to make sure his shoes are sound, and Clara often brings me out an apple or a hardboiled egg. They don’t get many visitors out here, and I think they’re lonely. Clara is a half-breed girl. Bliss told me that his wife had been Hunkpapa Sioux. She died some years ago, when a horse bucked her off and she hit her head on a rock.”
Suellen frowned concernedly toward the cabin again. “I do hope they weren’t in that fire!”
“I think they were.”
Suellen gasped and slapped a hand to her chest. “Bear, no!”
“There’s two graves out back of the place. I don’t know if it’s them or not, but who else would it be? I don’t know if they died in the fire, or if they were shot. I’ll probably never find that out. But I am going to find out who killed them, though I probably already know.”
“The men who hanged you?”
“Who else?” Haskell sipped his coffee, instantly soothed a little by the brandy. “What I want to know is why.”
Suellen was staring toward the cabin hidden in the darkness. Haskell saw a tear dribble down her cheek, turning to liquid gold when the firelight hit it. Haskell found himself surprised by her show of emotion. He’d always thought she was so wrapped up in her own sorry story that the stories of others couldn’t touch her.
Maybe she’d changed. He supposed that even Suellen could change, though he was still skeptical.
Haskell took another couple of sips of his spiked coffee then rested the cup on his thigh. “Have you ever heard of a man named Krantz? A kid called Willie?”
Suellen turned to Bear, both eyes bright with emotion. She blinked, brushed a tear from her cheek with her hand. “Is Krantz an ugly man with a scarred lip?”
“Yep.”
Suellen nodded darkly. “I’ve seen him in town a few times, when I’ve gone in to shop. He ogles me in the most lewd way imaginable.” She shuddered as though cold, and drew the blanket more tightly around her shoulders.
“Did you tell Lou?”
Suellen shook her head. “He would have made too much of it. He would have turned it into something even uglier than what it was.” She shook her head again, sniffed. “I let it go.”
“Do you know where I might be able to find this Krantz feller?”
“I have no idea. I’m sure he rides for one of the ranches, but I don’t know which one. There are several around here.”
Haskell tried to remember if he’d seen a brand on any of the horses. He was sure he had, because, being both a lawman and naturally curious, he was habitually observant. Under the circumstances of his encounter with the five riders earlier, however he might have been too distracted to let any of the brands burn itself into his brain.
“Let’s get back to Bliss and Clara Lomax,” he said. “Do you have any idea why Krantz would want them dead? Or why the man Krantz works for would want them dead?”
“Of course not,” Suellen said a little defensively. “Why would I know that?”
Haskell studied her. “I’m just asking, Suellen.”
“Well, stop asking so many questions!” She leaned against him, rubbing her forearm against his arm like an affectionate cat. “I’m cold.”
“It’s my job to ask questions. And I got one more.”
“Oh, get it over with, then!”
“Did you ever see Clara Lomax in town?”
Suellen took a moment to answer. Then she nodded her head against his shoulder, and said, “Yes. A few times. But, remember ... ”
“I know—you stay home most of the time.”
“I don’t like to associate with those people. Leastways, most folks in Diamondback. The unwashed lot of them!”
Haskell gave a wry snort and took another sip of his coffee. “You can take the belle away from the ball, but you can’t take the ball away from the belle.”
“Oh, shut up, Bear. I’m cold. Why won’t you hold me?” She looked up at him with her doughy eyes, the firelight dancing in them. She pressed her chest against his arm.
Haskell tried to ignore the sensation. “Did you ever see Clara with anyone in town? A boy, maybe? A certain boy?”
He was thinking of the kid who’d bushwhacked him just before Krantz and Willie had shown up.
Suellen sighed, disappointed by his response, or lack thereof, to her intimacies. “No, I never saw her with any boy. The only person I ever saw her spending any time with at all was Bernadine Bennett.”
“Bernadine Bennett.”
“That’s right. Her father runs—”
“The mercantile, I know.” Haskell frowned as he stared pensively off toward the horses munching grass and occasionally, idly stomping their hooves.
“They appeared to be pretty good friends,” Suellen added. “I’ve never known either to be much of a talker, but when they were together they chatted up a storm. I guess they found themselves soul mates, of a sort.” She looked up at Haskell, hugging his arm. “I’ve always felt that way about you and me, Bear. Despite our obvious differences, of course. Where we both come from.”
“Soul mates,” Haskell said, still staring into the darkness. But what he was seeing was the heart traced into the top of one of the two graves behind the burned cabin. And the ring snuggling down inside the small, hide sack, itself nestled inside the heart.
“Oh, Bear, you’re so tiresome!” Suellen heaved herself to her feet, and, holding the blanket tight around her shoulders, stomped off into the darkness.
Haskell sipped his coffee, thinking over what he’d learned. Making plans for tomorrow. Suellen returned to the fire. She was carrying her boots and socks and some white garments that Haskell couldn’t make out in the fire’s dim light. She tossed the boots and the garments down by the fire and then walked barefoot over to Haskell.
She stood over him, the fire flanking her on her left. She stared down at him for a long time, her bare feet planted in the grass beside him. He couldn’t see the expression on her face. She lifted her right hand. There was something in it. Something heavy.
The firelight danced along the barrel of his nickel-plated Schofield.
Taking the pistol in both hands, she aimed it at him.
Haskell’s pulse quickened. He looked at the gun, which he’d forgotten about with his sundry other distractions. She’d apparently found it where he’d tossed it down some distance from the cottonwood.
“What’re you doing, Suellen?”
Chapter Sixteen
“I could kill you, Bear,” Suellen said.
Haskell’s mouth had gone dry. He cleared his throat, which was finally opening, and said, “Why’s that?”
“For what you do to me, and give me no satisfaction,” Suellen said tightly, angrily. “I should kill you for that.”
Haskell lifted his right hand. “Give me the gun, Suellen.”
“He’s dead, Bear.”
“I know he’s dead, Suellen.” Haskell paused, his mind twisting and turning in on itself. “Did you kill him?”
“I told you I didn’t.”
“Why are you aiming my gun at me?”
“Fuck me.”
Haskell studied her eyes, like dark pennies in the shadows. “Say again?”
“Fuck me and I’ll give you your gun back.”
“Suellen ... ”
“He’s dead, goddamnit, Bear!”
Haskell lurched forward and grabbed the gun. She gasped with surprise but did not resist. He jerked it out of her hand, and sagged back down against his saddle. Standing over him, she crossed her arms on her chest and slid her shi
rtwaist off each shoulder. She wore nothing beneath it. When her breasts stood proudly out from her chest, the fire gilding the outside curve of the left one while relieving the other one in alluring shadow, she crouched down, grabbed the hem of her skirt in both hands, and straightened. The dress rose to expose her long, lean legs and the glove-like tangle of hair at the top.
Suellen didn’t say anything. She just stood staring down at Haskell, enticing him, taunting him with her beauty.
His heart knocked against his ribs.
He fought his eyes away from the woman standing over him. His throat seemed to be swelling shut once more. He rolled over, set his pistol down beside him, rested the side of his head against the wool underside of his saddle, and said, “Good night, Suellen.”
“Bastard!” she cried, and kicked his back.
It wasn’t much of a kick. Even if it had been, he wouldn’t have minded. His cock was as hard as oak, and he needed a distraction from the image of her bare breasts and her pussy. He closed his eyes, yawned, feigned sleep.
Sobbing, Suellen lay down beside him. He could hear her pull her blanket up with a grunt, felt her turn over and ram her round ass against his own. Her butt quivered as she cried.
“I’m so lonely,” she said. “I’m so, so lonely! You don’t understand how lonely I am!”
Haskell didn’t say anything. He tried to sleep. His dong remained painfully hard, pressing against his trousers. Try as he might, he couldn’t scour from his thoughts the image of her lying beside him, naked under her shirtwaist and skirt, her body quivering, breasts jostling. He flashed on how her pussy must feel—warm and damp with emotion.
Haskell rolled onto his back and looked at the stars. “Sorry, pard. But a man can only take so much.”
Suellen stopped crying. “What?”
Haskell rolled toward her, worked his hand under her blanket, lifted her skirt, and placed his hand against the smooth globe of her ass. “I was just asking Lou’s forgiveness.”
She started to roll toward him, but he stopped her by tightening his grip on her bare ass. She groaned. He snaked his middle finger down between her legs, into the tangle of hair, and dipped it into the warm, tender flesh of her cunt.
GUN TROUBLE AT DIAMONDBACK (Bear Haskell, U.S. Marshal Book 1) Page 12
