The Poacher's Daughter

by Michael Zimmer

  Nora stopped what she was doing at the stove to look at Rose. “What for?”

  “To get you outta the house before you lose all your color, is what for.”

  Nora’s gaze hardened. “Men prefer pale women. It makes them think we’re fragile.”

  “Dang it, you got to quit lookin’ on the mossy side of things. The sun’s shinin’, in case you ain’t noticed.”

  Nora walked to the window to stare across the empty plains. “Maybe I was too hasty, saying I wouldn’t go back,” she remarked softly.

  Although she didn’t elaborate, Rose knew what she meant. “Whorin’s no life for you. We got a place here. We’ll make it work.”

  “There’s no future here. Not for me.”

  “Don’t talk that way. You’ve worked too hard to get away from parlor houses to go back now.”

  Nora smiled bleakly. “You’re a good friend, Rose. I’ll bet with a little luck we could’ve made something of this place.” She turned away from the window. “But that didn’t happen, did it?”

  “The winners is them that hang on.”

  “Sometimes the winner is the one who knows when to let go.”

  “Not if it’s a brick wall they’re fixin’ to walk into.”

  Nora went to the door and slipped outside. Rose followed only as far as the jamb, standing there with one hand on the frame, an ache in her heart that was like a length of steel post embedded there.

  • • • • •

  They were standing at the corral one morning in early June, having just turned the stock loose for the day, when Rose heard the buckskin whinny. Looking up, she saw the runty gelding standing about a hundred yards out, his ears pricked toward the gulch that led down through the bluffs.

  “Son-of-a-bitch,” Rose grunted, scurrying over the corral poles. She raced into the cabin, and was back outside with the Sharps by the time a couple of horsemen hove into sight. Although her heart was pounding, she could tell at a glance that neither man was Frank Caldwell, and some of her worst fears subsided.

  Nora appeared at her side, shotgun in hand; her face was flushed, eyes wide. “I wish you wouldn’t do that,” she said. “You scared me half to death.”

  “Riders comin’.”

  “I see them, but you shot out of that corral like a cannonball. It wouldn’t have taken ten extra seconds to go through the gate.”

  Rose let that one pass. Propping the Sharps against her hip, she quickly buckled on her gun belt. “You’d think after what happened with Stroudmire I’d have better sense than to wander around outside without my pistol,” she murmured, mostly to herself.

  “I don’t recognize them,” Nora said. “Who do you think they are?”

  “Horse thieves, I reckon.”

  “They look more like hunters. They’re wearing buckskins.”

  “Take a gander at that second horse, the black with the star that fella in front is leadin’. Ain’t no wolfer owns an animal like that.”

  Nora nodded but remained silent. As the riders drew near, Rose felt a chilling pessimism. Something about the lead rider nagged at her, but it wasn’t until he rode into the yard that she realized what it was.

  “No,” she breathed, the Sharps hanging slackly in her hand. “No, god dammit … no.” She started forward in a stiff walk, but quickly picked up speed. By the time she reached the lead horseman, she was almost running, the Sharps raised above her head like a club.

  “Nooo!” she screamed. “God dammit, no, no, no, noooo!”

  Before she could bring the rifle crashing down against the horseman’s head, the second rider spilled from his saddle and grabbed her, forcing the rifle down, pinning her arms at her side. “Rose!” he shouted. “It’s all right, Rose. It’s all right!”

  Rose kept her gaze on the first horseman, tears pooling in the corners of her eyes. “You was supposed to be dead,” she whispered fiercely. “God dammit, you was supposed to be dead!”

  “I know,” Wiley Collins replied. “I’m sorry.”

  Chapter

  30

  Rose jerked away from the arms holding her. They belonged to Dirty-Nosed Dave Merritt, and under different circumstances that would have elicited a major jolt in itself, but, at that moment, she hardly noticed. Dirty-Nosed Dave stepped back cautiously. Then Nora appeared, her shotgun leveled at Dirty-Nosed Dave’s belly. Both hammers were cocked, and Nora’s expression was furious.

  “Get away from her!” Nora screamed.

  Dirty-Nosed Dave back-pedaled quickly, throwing his hands up. “It’s me, Nora, Dave Merritt.”

  “I don’t give a damn who it is. Grab her like that again and I’ll blow your head off.”

  “Christ,” Dirty-Nosed Dave squawked, his Adam’s apple bobbing. “Has everyone gone crazy?”

  The Sharps hung loosely in Rose’s right hand, its muzzle nearly brushing the ground. She was looking at Wiley as if in a trance. “I saw you drown,” she said distantly. “I saw it.”

  “Mind if I get down, darlin’?” Wiley asked with uncharacteristic humility. “Me knee be sore as blazes, and it’d help to walk it some.”

  Rose hesitated, then nodded. “For a while, but you can’t come inside. I don’t ever want you in my house again.”

  Wiley smiled. “I’m not dead, though I appreciate ye concern. I’ve developed a healthy respect for ha’nts meself of late.”

  He was different, Wiley was, and not just in his dress—the fringed buckskin trousers and a thigh-length leather jacket embellished with floral patterns of beadwork. His hair was long and he had a beard and mustache, although combed and recently trimmed. When he dismounted, she saw that his right leg was missing below the knee, replaced by a peg carved from a juniper tree, held in place by a criss-crossing of leather straps.

  Firming her grip on the Sharps, Rose backed away. She wasn’t afraid of him, but she didn’t want him standing too close, either. In her mind, Wiley had been dead for so long that some of the taint still remained. “What do you want?” she demanded.

  “I’m wantin’ nothin’ from ye,” he assured her. “We’re on our way to Canada, Davey ’n’ me, and I stopped to tell ye we was still alive, and to say good-bye. ’Tis a bit selfish, perhaps, but I wanted to apologize for the hardships I put ye through.”

  “You never put me through no hardships.”

  A gentle look crossed his face. “Could we water our horses, Rosie. I didn’t want to linger on the Yellowstone, as I was a-feared men might be watchin’ the crossin’s.”

  “Just like old times, huh?”

  He shrugged self-consciously.

  After a pause, Rose nodded toward the water trough in the corral. “You know where it’s at.”

  Taking the reins from Dirty-Nosed Dave, Wiley led all three horses toward water. His limp was pronounced under the peg, as if the stump were still tender. They watched until he was out of earshot, then Rose turned to Dirty-Nosed Dave. “Put your hands down,” she said curtly.

  “I would’ve thought you’d be glad to see us,” Dirty-Nosed Dave muttered indignantly as he lowered his arms.

  “Well, you thought wrong,” Rose replied. Her gaze returned to Wiley. “I saw him get shot,” she said. “What happened?”

  “He was shot. Once in the leg, a second time in the back. I was knocked off my cayuse, too, and both of us was in the river. I’d lost my pistol and was tryin’ to burrow under a crawdad when I saw Wiley’s nag floatin’ past. You and Shorty was still shootin’, so I figured that was my chance. I kicked out to Wiley’s horse and grabbed hold. That was when I saw Wiley, tangled up in the downside stirrup. He was near drowned but still strugglin’, so I got my shoulder under his head and kept his face above water as best I could. I figured soon as things slowed down, them cusses would come after us, so when we got around the bend, I cut Wiley loose and we swum for shore. Wiley was unconscious by then, but I floa
ted him into some alders to lie low. It was as poor a hidey-hole as you’re likely to find, but it turned out them buggers wasn’t all that interested, after all. A couple of ’em rode up and down the bank a few times, but they never looked close. They’d ’a’ spotted us easy if they had.

  “We holed up till dark, then floated downriver some more. The next day, when I pulled Wiley outta the water, he was in bad shape. I reckon he’d’ve died … hell, I reckon both of us would’ve died, had not some Red River ’breeds come along. Bone-pickers, they was, waterin’ their horses. Turned out there was a whole caravan of ’em back in the hills, thirty or forty of them squallin’ carts they favor, plus a passel of squaws and kids and dogs and cats. A regular damn’ village on wheels. It was a ’breed squaw what took off Wiley’s leg with a handsaw. He carved his own peg.”

  Dirty-Nosed Dave followed Rose’s gaze to where Wiley was watering the horses, smoking a cigarette and staring absently at the skyline.

  “He ain’t the same, is he?” Dirty-Nosed Dave said softly. “I picked up on it last summer. He ain’t dumb or nothin’, but he’s lost his fire.”

  “I barely recognized him,” Rose admitted.

  “He’s different, and better in some ways because of it, but he ain’t cut out for this kind of work no more.”

  “Where’d you get that horse?” Rose didn’t specify the well-groomed black; Dirty-Nosed Dave knew which animal she meant.

  “Wyoming. It’s what they call a polo pony. After we left the bone-pickers last fall, we went north to Alberta. I got a job snappin’ bronc’s on a spread outside of Medicine Hat, while Wiley played cards for money in town. He did all right for a while, but he ain’t got the patience for that kind of work full time. Around Christmas he ran onto some fancy dude outta British Columbia who offered him top dollar for that horse. It’s called Midnight Blue, and I reckon all hell’s breakin’ loose for its return right about now.”

  “If he ain’t cut out for stealin’ horses, why’d you let him take such a famous one?” Rose asked testily. “Dang it, even I’ve heard of the Lazy-Sixteen’s Midnight Blue.”

  “Well, it ain’t that we haven’t seen the error of our ways,” Dirty-Nosed Dave assured her. “It’s just that this is the only thing we know how to do.”

  “The lad’s tellin’ ye true, Rosie,” Wiley said, returning from the corral. “Times have changed too much for old sods like me ’n’ Davey. We don’t fit in anymore.” He looked at Dirty-Nosed Dave and Nora. “Would ye mind giving me ’n’ Rose a couple minutes privacy?” he asked politely.

  Nora glanced at Rose, but she nodded that it was all right, and the two of them wandered off toward the barn.

  “How are ye fairin’?” Wiley asked when they were alone.

  “I miss Shorty. I miss him a lot.”

  A look of anguish crossed Wiley’s face. “So do I, darlin’, so do I.”

  “Why didn’t you come back, or at least send word?”

  “Ye know the answer to that. I was shot up bad and couldn’t run. I couldn’t risk word that I was still alive gettin’ back to Caldwell or Joe Bean.”

  “What are you goin’ to do now?”

  “I’m bound for British Columbia. Maybe with the money I make from this”—he indicated Midnight Blue, standing, high-headed and nervous, at the corral—“I can buy some land and raise horses legal.”

  “You figure they’ll let you stay in British Columbia after showing up with a stolen polo pony. That ain’t gonna impress the neighbors much.”

  He grinned. “Ye could be right. California, then.”

  Rose bit her lower lip. “You ain’t comin’ back, are you?”

  “No, darlin’, I ain’t. I be too well-known in these parts. Sure as shootin’, I’ll hang if I stay.”

  “Then you ought not tarry. There’s been enough killin’ around here of late.”

  He nodded, then limped forward to kiss her gently on the forehead. Stroking her cheek with his fingers, he said: “Ye be a beautiful woman, Rose, me love. Have ye realized that yet?”

  “Get outta here, Wiley” she said, shoving him back. Shoving him so hard he almost fell over on his wooden leg. “I got no time for blarney.”

  Wiley squared his shoulders, then motioned for Dirty-Nosed Dave to bring their mounts. Glancing at Rose, he said: “Watch out who ye buy a horse from, darlin’, for there be scoundrels lurkin’ in every corner of this territory.”

  She smiled in spite of the tears stinging her eyes. “If ever I wonder, I’ll just compare ’em to you, for I’m danged if I’ve ever met a bigger scoundrel than Wiley Collins.”

  Laughing delightedly, he accepted the reins Dave handed him. Mounting awkwardly because of his leg, he took a hitch around his saddle horn with the lead rope from the big stallion called Midnight Blue. “So long, Rosie!” he called. Then, nodding a farewell to Nora, he reined toward the Helena trail, the one Muggy had come down the night they’d hung him.

  Dirty-Nosed Dave held up a moment, eyeing the buckskin. “He found his way back, did he?”

  “He saved my life,” Rose said simply.

  Another man would have asked how, but not Dirty-Nosed Dave. He smiled and lifted his reins. “Watch them hoofs,” he warned, meaning the buckskin’s. “He’s wicked with ’em.”

  “Take care of yourself, Dave. Take care of Wiley, too.”

  With a quick wave, Dirty-Nosed Dave spurred out of the yard. Watching him go, Rose touched the scar below her right ear where she’d been creased by a bullet during the Musselshell fight—a finger-wide stretch of ruffled flesh, less than an inch in length, yet a lifelong reminder of the smoke and thunder of that bloody day that changed her life forever.

  • • • • •

  Rose was working in the garden a couple of hours later when she heard the pounding of hoofs in the gulch through the bluffs. Her pulse quickened as she moved to the edge of the pumpkin patch to retrieve her rifle and pistol. The horsemen came out of the coulée at the head of the trail like wine spilling from a jug. Rose didn’t recognize the rider in the lead with the nickel-plated star pinned to his vest, but she could tell at a glance he wasn’t a man to abide foolishness. He jogged his big chestnut horse toward her, pulling up only at the last minute to avoid trampling the fist-size green-and-black striped squash hidden among the vines.

  “I’m looking for Collins. How long ago was he here?”

  “Collins who?” Rose asked, feeling a quick anger at the lawdog’s abrupt manner.

  “I’ll not banter with you, Missus Edwards. How far ahead is he?”

  Rose let the Sharps’ muzzle dip a couple of inches, then come back up, a move not lost on the lawman. “You’re talkin’ mighty big for a trespasser,” she pointed out.

  He scowled, and Rose thought surely the fat was in the fire then, but the scowl faded, replaced by a wry grin. “You’re feisty. If I hadn’t been married to the same good woman the past twenty-three years, I’d consider calling on you.”

  “You’re too old for me,” Rose said. “You’d probably break something.”

  “Well now, I’ve ridden some mighty rough horses in my day.”

  “It’s the long haul I’m thinkin’ of. Collins passed through here four or five hours ago, heading northeast.”

  “Little lady, you might be surprised at my endurance. What was his destination, did he say?”

  “Up the Musselshell to the Mo, then east into Dakota.”

  “I don’t hold your lies against you. I was told you were tight with the Collins gang.”

  “Collins never had no gang, and I ain’t tight with him. I trapped wolves with him one winter, but that don’t make us married.”

  A second horseman came up, also wearing a star, although he was clearly a subordinate. “Jed,” he said to the elder lawman, “the lady back there insists it isn’t Collins we’re chasing. She says she’s never seen them before.
”

  Jed continued to stare at Rose. “Nobody wants to believe it was Collins on account of the Musselshell Massacre, but I know the truth of it well enough, and can guess the rest.” Turning to his deputy, he said: “Gather the posse, Leroy. We’ll ride north toward the Bulls and see what we see.”

  When the deputy was gone, the lawman said: “My name’s Jed Plover. By rights my authority ended at the territorial line in Wyoming, but I’m not a man to give up easily, no matter what you might think of my endurance. I know your reputation, Rose Edwards, so understand this. I’ll tolerate no lawlessness in my jurisdiction. You keep your shenanigans out of Wyoming and we’ll do fine, you and me. Try something crooked in it and I’ll hound you to the Yukon.”

  “I’ll remember that,” Rose said neutrally. She remained where she was while Plover returned to his posse, heading it north at a brisk trot. When they were gone, Nora came over with her shotgun.

  “There were some hardcases in that bunch,” she observed, her gaze following the dust of the retreating posse.

  “That lawman didn’t seem too bad,” Rose replied. “I’d say he was a determined feller, though not much of a tracker.” The posse was angling slightly west of north, toward the trail that would take them over the Bull Mountains to the Musselshell. Wiley and Dave had taken the Helena route, swinging slightly south of northwest and skirting the Bulls.

  “He might be fooled, but I doubt if the others are.”

  “What others?”

  “A couple of Caldwell’s old bunch, Larson Web and Billy Garcia.”

  A chill slid down Rose’s spine. Web was the old man she’d met at Two-Hats’s, and she still remembered what Frank Caldwell had told her in Billings about Garcia and his vow of revenge for shooting off part of his ear. For a moment she considered it odd that neither man had come forward to confront her, but then she realized such a straightforward approach wouldn’t be their style. She also thought Nora was right when she said those two wouldn’t remain duped for long. They were old hands at this game, and would soon discover that the trail they were following had no fresh tracks on it. They’d know about the other trail, too. The one that led to Helena.