by Rusty Davis
Purple-faced and angry, Lucinda Jones jerked open a drawer of Jackson Jones’s desk and grabbed the .45 that lay inside. She trained it on Carrick. “You were always clever, Carrick. Lucky, too. I was sure Easy would kill you. Francis Oliver and all of his devils could not kill you! I had someone watch you so Gordon Crowley could find you alone. He botched it. A woman always has to do everything herself, Carrick. Do you really think you could walk in here and leave, free to do whatever you want? You leave on my terms, or you leave dead.”
“Lucy, what is he talking about?” Petersen asked. “You said this man killed Jackson. He didn’t? Put that gun down. It might go off!”
Carrick kept pushing. “After the fire I went up there to see if I could find any reason why a worthless old cabin would be torched. Found a gold hat pin with the cuff link. Didn’t mean anything at the time. Godfrey in town said all that was stuff he didn’t sell, so it must have been bought out of town. Not many folks travel, Luce. Not many. Got me thinking. Somebody put a bottle of imported fancy French wine in the wood pile.”
“Fool,” she hissed at Petersen.
“Lazy F and Double J bought the only cases of wine in the past year. Then I recalled the hat. You wore one when I met you in town. You didn’t wear one the other day when your husband was killed. Hat couldn’t stay on without a hat pin. Bet not too many ladies in Buffalo Horn Valley have gold hat pins. Put that together with the cuff link to hold those starched cuffs of your ranch manager, and the story is plain. So, I got the two of you there, which means I know what you were doing. But it don’t make sense, Luce. You were queen of the range. Why kill the king?”
“Queen!” She snorted with derision. “We left this ranch once—once in all the time we were married. We spent two days in Denver, most of that at the stockyards breathing cattle dust. I wanted San Francisco. I wanted Saint Louis. I wanted to tour the East, and see cities and bring the best of their comforts here so I could have a proper life. What is the use of having all this money if you can’t have luxuries and enjoy life? Do you know the only thing he ever talked to me about?”
“An heir.”
“That’s right. I was allowed to share this ranch house on the condition I produce an heir, as if I was another head of livestock. I could have fine dresses, but there was no place to wear them because society out here is nothing but horses, cattle, cowboys, and women who follow cowboys! Can you imagine what it was like being wife to that man? Once he all but bought me from my family, all he wanted was to show off that he had the prettiest woman in the prettiest dresses, as if anyone in Lincoln Springs has any taste! And he wanted an heir. He was starting to sour because we didn’t have children yet. He was starting to look at me as though I was one of his prize stock that didn’t reproduce upon command and because of that ended up as steaks for the crew! He was going to divorce me unless I had a child. He told me that if I didn’t do my job as expected he would find someone who would, as if I was a lazy cowhand! Henry’s different. With Jackson gone, we can manage the ranch from Denver, or maybe even Saint Louis. I can enjoy my life. Jackson Jones put me in a cage. I had to break out the only way I knew how.”
“You walked into that cage wanting fine things at any price, if I hear right, Luce,” Carrick said.
“The price was too high!” she replied.
“You sent that rider to salt the water hole, didn’t you?” Carrick asked.
“Do you know how easy it is when you are the only woman on a ranch to get a man to do what you want?” Lucinda asked. “It was simple! You were lucky that day—always lucky, Carrick!”
“You . . . You killed your husband?” Petersen’s voice sounded like that of a twelve-year-old boy. He had been trying to utter words as Carrick and Lucinda talked. “I thought . . . we could get . . . The syndicate man was one thing, Lucinda. I was willing to talk to him for you, for us, but this is something different. No one would have known about it until we had left the range. I . . . I . . . The sheriff. We have to tell the sheriff. I could be arrested.” Petersen turned to Carrick. “I never meant . . .”
“Really Henry? Squeamish at this late date? Don’t turn sanctimonious on me. Did you think we could hide what we were doing forever?” Lucinda’s tone dripped with scorn. “I knew the old war horse was getting suspicious. It wasn’t love, of course. The man did not know how to love anyone but his dreams. I was a possession. No one was going to touch one of the great man’s possessions.” Bitterness, anger, and hate mingled in her voice.
She turned to Carrick. “When you showed up, it was time. I wanted to wait until some time when I was sure you could be blamed, but then he wanted to go to that cabin. I don’t know if he suspected or was curious—he was intrigued by you, Carrick, because you stood up to him. I had to be sure he never got there. I rode up ahead of him, and it was simple. The first shot was because I had to, but let me tell you Carrick, the next two were to prove to him that I’m not merely a thing to be used and tossed aside. I showed him that a woman can do a lot of things on this range, and I taught him the last lesson of his arrogant life!”
Carrick heard hysteria creeping into her voice.
“All these men never once suspected a woman. Easy is sure you did it. Even though he has some unrequited feelings for Jessie Lewis, that does not extend to you. When you shot him, I was so hoping he would die because if he did, the crew would have gladly gone out to exterminate you. But he recovered. You have all the luck, Carrick! Or rather, you did.” She laughed. “I will tell you what happens next. Henry and I will tell him we trapped you into confessing. By the end of the day, you will be swinging from a tree here at the Double J. I will cry a lot and for me—for me, Carrick—they will do anything. Did you think you could walk in here and expect to walk back out again? You and your family acted as though you were somehow better than everyone when you lived in the same dirt as the rest of us. I am going to be the one to get out of that dirt. You always thought your luck would last forever, even as a kid, but it has run out at last.”
“Lucinda, this . . . this is wrong,” said Petersen. “You killed Jackson? I cannot in good conscience condone that. You must turn yourself in . . .” He took one step toward the door. “I must summon Easy.”
The gun in Lucinda Jones’s hand spoke once. Peterson staggered back, hand to his chest where the red was already flowing. The surprise on his face was frozen as he staggered. The second shot knocked him down as the words he tried to say became whispers, then gurgles, then moans, then nothing.
The gun now covered Carrick, held in a steady hand. “It was interesting to have Henry around, but he was too weak for my taste,” she said. “You would think a man who scruples to adultery would not get squeamish at getting rid of the husband, but men are unreliable. I’m sure where I am going, I can find someone else. I will let Easy run the place while I avoid all these bad memories and live in Denver, or California. By now, Carrick, Easy Thompson and the others will be coming to investigate the shots. I will tell them you shot Henry and tried to kill me, but I got the drop on you. They won’t really care if the story is good or bad. They want to hang someone to avenge Jackson, and you will do fine. Shooting Easy was hardly the way to get him on your side, Carrick. I will get what I want. Do you know what your problem always was, Carrick?”
“I didn’t kill my friends?”
Her lips pressed together to the point where they were bloodless. “You never cared,” she sneered. “When we were kids, everybody else wanted something. They wanted gold; they wanted land. You wanted to ride in the wind. You’re no different now. You could have had a ranch, and that no-account girl you seem so fond of. Little Reb! Even Jackson raved because she caught some stupid horse! It wasn’t enough for you that she was going to keep her pathetic ranch. You had to keep interfering. You had to stir up trouble as you blundered around without any idea what you were doing! How much like you!”
Easy Thompson burst through the door. A square of light opened then shut behind him, sealing off any escape.
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br /> “Thank God you’re here, Easy,” Lucinda exclaimed. “Carrick killed Henry. He admitted killing Jackson. I found Jackson’s spare gun to defend myself. He was going to kill me. You have to help me.”
Easy moved past Lucinda to look at the ranch manager’s body. He rose, face dark with anger. “Boys!” he called out.
“She’s lying, Easy,” Carrick said, wondering whether to go for his gun now or try to talk his way out. He kept taking fast glances out the window. “You know I didn’t kill the boss. Boss and I understood where we were headed. Showdown was a ways off yet. Bet he told you the same. Some day. Not yet. He tell you?”
“Easy, ignore him!” The foreman’s hand was on the butt of his gun, frozen as Lucinda and Carrick tried to pull him in different directions. “I’m Double J now, and this cowboy wants to pull down Double J.”
“Easy, she’s lying. You knew something was going on at that cabin,” Carrick said. “Bet somebody saw a rider in a woman’s hat heading that way, and you didn’t hear about it until later. Or somebody saw Petersen up where he didn’t belong. Maybe somebody saw him at the railroad office. Bet I’m the only one not Double J you asked. If I wanted to, Easy, I could have killed you that day. Didn’t want to then and don’t want to today. No crime being loyal. Only one person in this room wasn’t loyal. I found one of her hatpins and one of his cufflinks up there, Easy. Bottles of wine up there, Easy, only came from here because nobody else on the range drinks the stuff except Francis Oliver, and she sure wasn’t with him. Bet one of the hands saw her take the oil up there to burn the shack. She can shoot better’n a lot of men, Easy. Reb had told me that but I had forgotten. Bet there’s an old buffalo gun lying around that she used.”
Carrick breathed in fast and hard as he finished. Sweat was dripping down his back. Loyalty was a hard habit to break, and Easy was a loyal man. His face had the look of a man struggling to swallow bad-tasting medicine and ready to spit it back in somebody’s face. Carrick had seen the same look when Easy wanted to kill him up by the shack.
He took a shot in the dark. “Easy, it was all about money, not the range. She was gonna sell everything to that man from Chicago staying in Lincoln Springs, that syndicate man. Somehow, she heard about Oliver looking to sell land to mine coal. Petersen here went to spy out those rumors. Railroad man can identify him, I’ll bet. She could have made a fortune by selling all the land that has coal. He was gonna buy the land, send all of you packing, and run the place from the East. Maybe they would run a ranch; maybe it would have been a mine. Fortunately, we’re never gonna know. She would never live here; she wants to spend Jackson Jones’s hard-earned money in places like San Francisco. Right, Luce?”
Lucinda’s face was purple with anger. He knew he was right, but she had enough self-control not to blurt out anything in front of Easy. Carrick had failed to bait her into a confession while Easy Thompson was there to hear it. He had set this up; now he had to finish it. He had a flash of Colt Ramsay’s face. He gave a thought to Reb. Wherever she was. Well, it was his play. If words weren’t going to save his life, then he could go down like a man. He waited for her to make the first move, or Double J would certainly kill him. He looked at Easy Thompson. The shoulders tensed. Easy was going to go for his gun.
Lucinda had been watching both men. She had put her gun down on a chair when Easy Thompson arrived. Now, she frantically picked it up. “You are not going to stop me,” she yelled, her voice echoing loudly through the room. “Carrick, you killed my husband and you have to pay for it!”
Boom! Something exploded as Lucinda continued to shriek. The house’s wall shook. Mortar billowed from the wall by the windows and plaster cascaded from the ceiling. Easy stepped back as the dust flew. Carrick reached for his gun. Lucinda, who had ducked on reflex when the gun exploded not far from the open window, now took a step back to the table and aimed, squinting as she looked at Carrick with his back to the sunlight streaming in the room.
Two guns fired, almost together. Glass smashed as shards flew everywhere. Lucinda’s exclamation of anger was stifled as she staggered to her left, into Easy, who roughly pushed her away. Carrick’s shot at the reeling target went wide. He never fired his second. More glass shattered. Lucinda lurched sideways. Red blossomed through the pale-blue material by her left hip, matching the stain on her right side. “Kill him . . . Easy . . .” she croaked open-mouthed. “Kill . . .”
She staggered into another bullet that passed through her chest and buried itself in the wood of Jones’s vast desk. No more coherent sounds emerged as Lucinda wobbled rubber-kneed and bleeding, before falling to the floor with a final anguished groan.
Easy looked at the dots of Lucinda’s blood on his clothes, then at Carrick. No expression. He had never drawn his gun. The massive foreman stared at Lucinda’s body. He looked out the window and nodded as though to himself. He moved his feet out of the way as Lucinda’s blood trailed towards him across the wide planks of the floorboards. His face showed disgust as he watched her dying spasms.
The door burst open. Men with drawn guns spilled in. “Not now!” Easy Thompson roared, holding up one hand. “It’s all over. You can clean up the mess. Then you can take these two—” he gestured at Lucinda and Petersen “and dig a deep hole and toss ’em in.”
The Double J men holstered their guns. Buzzing. They did what they were told, unasked questions in their eyes.
“Boss told me what he suspected, Carrick,” Thompson said to Carrick, ignoring the commotion around them. “He thought it was you meetin’ Lucinda up there. It was Petersen?”
Carrick nodded. “She confessed before you got here. She mentioned the syndicate man to Petersen. He knew Oliver had coal in his lands and that there was coal on the old Bar C lands. They could sell it all and leave the range rich. I figured it was one of them; Reb was sure it was her. I wasn’t entirely sure I had any of it right until I saw the way she reacted.”
“Never did tell you.” Easy’s mustache wriggled as his face worked with emotion. “Don’t like bein’ wrong, Carrick. Remember Larry Gordon?”
“Rider I killed? The salt?”
“Him. One of the boys told me Larry seemed to think he was somebody important lately. Saw him talking quiet with Petersen the mornin’ of that day. Fella was out north most of the last few weeks. Didn’t know until the other day.”
“So you had your suspicions, Easy?”
“Had questions, Carrick. Didn’t quite connect until now. I figured this was some dirty deal between you and her. Boss knew a syndicate man was around, wondered a bit if you were workin’ with them. He sent Petersen to spy on with Oliver, but he never suspected her. He would have in time. Boss was startin’ to realize she wasn’t what he thought she was. Not sure that he really wanted to know, long as she gave him a child.” The sigh Easy Thompson let loose came from the tired soul of a worn-down man.
“I wanted it to be you, Carrick, no matter what Jessie said. You put fear into Jackson Jones, Carrick. No man should have done that. Jackson Jones gave me my life back when he made me foreman. I owed him everything. He told me once you were a shadow in his path. Never saw the man afraid of anything until you came along. Guess I only saw what I wanted. Didn’t start thinkin’ about anyone else until after you shot me that day I braced you at the shack. You could have killed me and the law would have had no problem. No. I got you wrong, Carrick. Got a lot wrong. Got to tell Miz Jessie she was right. Got to see her soon and tell her.” Easy put out a massive hand. Carrick shook it.
“Might have been nice to know what you were thinkin’ in there, Easy,” Carrick remarked. “Didn’t want to kill you unless you were in on things with her. Don’t think Jess would have approved.”
Easy’s chuckle at his own joke rumbled as he and Carrick walked out to the suspicious eyes of Double J riders who watched from a distance. Then he looked away from Carrick towards the small oak grove by the old house. He stopped and shook his head before turning back to face Carrick. “Guess you plan as good as you
shoot, Carrick. She set you up to die by puttin’ a gun in that room; you set her up better. Hand it to you.” He took off his hat.
Rebecca Lewis—emerging from her lair behind a tree ten feet from the old house’s gaping window—came striding over to meet them, her rifle in her right hand and a massive buffalo gun in her left. The flame of anger was still in her eye. Underneath her old brown hat, her black hair streamed around and behind her like a battle flag. She waved both arms as she greeted Carrick, wincing in pain as she moved her right arm to point it accusingly at Carrick. “No, she ain’t gonna be like a rattler in a corner. No, she ain’t gonna move some place a girl can’t see. No, she ain’t so evil she’ll try to kill every last living thing to survive. No!” She was shouting louder and louder the closer she got to Carrick. Easy was grinning. Carrick discomfited was too good a show to miss.
“Reb, whoa up one minute!” Carrick replied. “You know as well as I do there was not one bit of proof what happened. If she didn’t feel like she had the upper hand enough to spill her guts, we never would have known. The risk was the only way. Seems to me you told me you could have my back when I told you the plan.”
“Told you more than that! Told you she wouldn’t go gentle, Carrick. Told you she wouldn’t sit still for you so you could do things nice and neat your way.” She hefted the buffalo gun in her left hand. “Told you she might move to places I couldn’t see her and not sit nicey-nice and confess prim and proper as if she was a lady. Told you it was a risk! Told you you could get your head shot off, as if I was supposed to care!” She shook the buffalo gun in his face. “This can blast a hole in anything. Good thing for you I distracted her before she blasted a hole in you. Maybe now that I think of it she should have so a girl could get some rest from a crazy man that never does nothin’ the proper way!”
