Crazy Woman Creek

by Welch, Virginia

  “I thought it best to wait for you here.”

  “How’d you know I was coming to Aeschelman’s?”

  “Your basket was empty,” said Luke, glancing toward the basket on her arm.

  “Oh.”

  Lenora was keenly aware of Luke’s nearness, his clean shaven face and intense brown eyes. Most of all she was aware that he was looking at her with more than passing interest, which secretly pleased her. He looked at her in the way a man looks at a woman when he appreciates her femaleness, not any particular part of her, just the look an attractive woman expects to receive when she walks into a room full of men—as if they’ve never seen a woman before. She felt self-conscious and at the same time very flattered. His eyes upon her made her aware of her hair, her clothes, and her shoes. She hoped nothing was out of place or less than spotless.

  “How’s everything at the ranch?” he said.

  “Fine. Everything’s been quiet since you arrested Mr. Wright. I can’t thank you enough, Deputy Davies, for getting to the bottom of it.” Even the oblique mention of her recent troubles brought an unbidden image of Ulysses, butchered and bleeding. She longed for the day when the disturbing image would fade and she’d remember him only as the slobbering, lovable companion he had been.

  “That’s what we’re here for,” he said.

  “Deputy Davies, you said you wanted to speak with me about the investigation. Do you have news from the other law offices? Downstream?”

  “No, haven’t heard anything in a while.”

  “Did you ever speak with Ben Slocomb’s folks?”

  “Yes. Ben didn’t harm your dog, Mrs. Rose. You needn’t worry yourself about that.”

  “I didn’t think so.” The deputy didn’t seem forthcoming this morning. More like he was content to gaze into her eyes, enjoying the moment. Or at least that’s how it seemed to Lenora.

  “Then your news is...?”

  “It’s a question.”

  Lenora waited.

  “Mrs. Rose, what is your husband’s middle name?”

  “Surely you are not thinking of contacting my husband’s family on my behalf, Deputy Davies,” said Lenora, taken aback. “That is my purview, and I see no need to alarm them.” After the scene in Mr. Morehouse’s office, Lenora was in no mood for paternalism. God help the man who thought otherwise.

  “You needn’t worry, Mrs. Rose. Notifying kin is your business. I was just thinking that knowing all I can about Mr. Rose can only help our investigation.”

  “I see,” said Lenora, softening a little. “I apologize for taking exception, Deputy Davies. I’m afraid I’ve had an upsetting morning. I’m still on edge.”

  “May I be of service in some way?”

  “No hope of that. In fact, no hope at all,” she said, her voice heavy with dejection. Lenora glanced to both sides, worrying unreasonably that someone besides the two of them and the oblivious store owner had entered the mercantile without her knowledge and was observing Luke and her together. Seeing no one she returned her attention to Luke.

  “Sounds pretty bad,” said Luke.

  “It is bad.”

  “Perhaps if you tell me what the problem is, we can work on a solution together.”

  Why should he care? Lenora debated baring her soul to the deputy. It did seem that he meant well. He had stood up against the bullying she’d endured from Sheriff Morris. He’d ridden all the way out to her ranch, nine miles from Buffalo, to check on her welfare. Etta Nolan had said that the deputy enjoyed a good reputation in Fort Laramie. And James would have approved of a man who looked after the welfare of a woman whose husband was missing.

  Now that incongruous thought gave her a moment of confusion. But not knowing what to make of it, she quickly filed it for later analysis—probably much later, at night, when she had trouble sleeping.

  And Ulysses had liked the deputy.

  “The bank refused me a loan,” she blurted, amazed to hear herself revealing her personal problems to a man other than James. “Mr. Morehouse thinks I am incapable of running the ranch myself.”

  “He’s right. You can’t.” Luke’s face was placid, giving away nothing, not even a hint of a smile.

  Lenora’s mouth fell open. “I take it then, Deputy Davies,” she continued, recovering her wit, “with a judgment as to the capabilities of the female sex, you are of the persuasion that women should be denied suffrage as well?” Lenora could hardly disguise her annoyance.

  “I didn’t think we were talking voting rights, ma’am. I thought we were talking ranching.” Luke spoke at his usual, unperturbed pitch, which annoyed her even more.

  “The premise is the same.” Lenora blanched as the words came out. Her failure to sound composed irked her. Then from the side of her eye she saw Mr. Aeschelman stop working to listen from the top of a ladder where he was perched, arm outstretched above his head, reaching for a large box of castile soap. Likely he didn’t understand everything they were saying, but Lenora was determined to stay calm and avoid a scene nonetheless. She assumed it was the rising pitch of her voice, not the words themselves, that had caused him to look in their direction.

  “It’s the same,” she repeated more quietly. “Ranching or voting. If a woman wants to do either one she shouldn’t be denied the opportunity merely because she’s a woman.”

  “Some people think like you,” said Luke, noncommittally.

  “And your opinion, sir?”

  “I don’t know that my opinion matters. I’m not running for office.”

  “You sidestep the issue, Deputy Davies.”

  Luke rubbed his chin as if in deep thought. “I suppose when it comes to ranching a woman deserves equal rights like a man.”

  Well that’s better.

  “Man or woman,” he continued in his unique drawl, “if a person plans to knock on the pearly gates a little earlier than God intends by running a one hundred and sixty-acre ranch all alone, probably best no one get in the way. Can’t imagine why anyone would choose such a frustratingly slow and hungry death, though.”

  Lenora’s foot began to tap automatically with nervous tension. “I believe you mock me,” she said, her mouth set in a straight line. Instantly another thought struck terror in her heart: Did he know about her family condition but chose the path of discretion by hiding behind the “female” argument to dissuade her from holding onto her ranch? For some unexplainable reason it mortified Lenora to the tips of her toes to think that the eminently eligible and disarmingly handsome deputy knew she was expecting a baby. That meant he knew that she and James ... oh my. She glanced quickly at her midsection. Nothing showing.

  Oh don’t be a silly goose. Babies are born into the world every day and they all get here the same way. What is, is what is. Men don’t think about that when they see a woman who’s expecting.

  Do they?

  Luke shook his head and drew himself up straighter, as if he sensed her perturbation and needed to emphasize his seriousness. “No ma’am. I don’t mean to poke fun. I was just thinking about specifics, that’s all.”

  He crossed his arms and leaned against the counter, his tall frame looming over her, making her feel small and conspicuous. So he was big and manly and represented the law. So what? In that moment Lenora reminded herself that she was a ranch woman, a homesteader. She might have to work at it, but she wouldn’t be intimidated by this man or any other. Truly, things—and she—had changed since James disappeared. She pulled her back up a little straighter.

  “Such as?”

  “You ever pulled a stuck calf, Mrs. Rose?”

  Lenora grimaced at the thought. She was embarrassed to be speaking of such indelicacies with a man. Birthing calves was ... disgusting. James’ purview, not hers. “Of course not. That’s what ranch hands are for.”

  “Do you know how to treat steer infected with blackleg?”

  Blackleg? She knew it was a cow disease, but what she knew beyond that wouldn’t cover the tip of her pearl-encrusted hatpin.

&
nbsp; “It’s a bovine ailment. One employs the services of a veterinarian for such afflictions.”

  “What’s the best feed to produce a good milker?”

  “Deputy Davies,” said Lenora, sidestepping the issue, her feathers ruffled, “no rancher alone, not even a man, is capable of doing all those things and knowing all those things. Ranchers depend on the experience and knowledge of others.”

  Luke remained silent, allowing her words to hang in the air, indicting her. Finally he spoke. “Maybe that was Mr. Morehouse’s conclusion too.”

  Lenora looked stricken. She had debated herself into a corner. Now how to get out of it? “If Mr. Morehouse thinks I can’t run my ranch alone, then he should have done his job and lent me the money to hire the expertise I need to succeed.”

  “Mr. Morehouse doesn’t work for you, no matter what he says about wanting to help. He works for Wells Fargo. His job is to look out after the bank’s business. Your job is to look out after yours.”

  “Which is exactly why I need a loan.”

  “Borrowing money isn’t always the answer. Debt is an attractive trap.”

  “It would only be for a short time.”

  “Another trap. Everyone thinks tomorrow will be rosier.”

  Lenora sighed a deep sigh of frustration. “Too many naysayers in this town,” she said. “You sound like Mr. Morehouse. I’ll bet men don’t have to jump over all these fences when they need a loan.” Her voice dripped with petulance.

  “Maybe not, but a door that shuts in your face isn’t always a bad thing. Sometimes it forces you to take another, better road. You just don’t know it’s better till you arrive at where you’re supposed to be.”

  Lenora only nodded, her eyes cast down to the floor. Suddenly the tips of Luke’s fingers were brushing her shoulder, gentle and kind. Startled by his forwardness, she looked up and their eyes met. At once she was bathed in a warm feeling of intimate affection. Something very good stirred deep within her. Something exciting.

  “It could even be providential,” he said.

  His fingers had barely touched her, but it was long enough to set Lenora’s heart fluttering and make her breathing rapid and shallow. He had touched her, and there was no denying that his touch, however light and brief, thrilled her.

  His touch and kind words had fanned another flame inside her heart. Since she had stepped out of Mr. Morehouse’s office, a hopeful thought more wispy than smoke from a match had floated silently up the back of her mind, and now Luke’s words were like a breath of oxygen to that near-dying ember. Perhaps, just perhaps, some good would come from the bank’s refusal to lend her money. Perhaps her circumstances were not beyond redemption. Things were not always as they seemed. In science class years earlier Lenora had picked up an ugly gray rock covered with wart-like bumps, a homely specimen in a world of precious stones and pretty gems. But when her instructor arranged to have it cut in half, on the inside was the most beautiful fractal of glittering lavender crystals she had ever seen. Perhaps, if she were patient, the end of her current predicament would prove to be as delightful as the inside of that humble geode.

  But for now she had to figure out the best way to deal with the warty bumps.

  “Yes, it could be, Deputy Davies.” For only the second time since she had walked into Aeschelman’s, she smiled at him.

  Luke looked at her warmly and then glanced toward the area of the mercantile where Mr. Aeschelman was occupied pulling sewing notions from yellow cardboard boxes. Luke lowered his voice. “Are you sure there is nothing I can do to help?”

  “Do you know how to get someone declared dead? I mean, legally dead? Mr. Morehouse told me that if I can get a death certificate for James, then our ranch passes to me. Without that piece of paper the government will declare the ranch abandoned—by James I mean—and they will take the land away from me.”

  “I know how to get a death certificate. And I know about homestead law. But it never occurred to me that you would want to petition for legal declaration.” Luke’s faced took on an unmerited somberness.

  “Until now I would have thought that too. But it’s only a formality. If James comes back after the property transfers to me, it would be just as much his as mine.”

  “I see.”

  “I have only eight weeks, Deputy Davies,” said Lenora, becoming animated, almost pleading. “James has been missing four months. The law allows a man to be away from his homestead only six months before he jeopardizes his ownership rights.”

  “I am aware of how the Act reads.”

  “Can you help me?”

  Luke glanced again at Mr. Aeschelman before responding. “I’d be pleased to help you, ma’am” he said, lowering his voice to a whisper. “But that’s just another reason why you should give me your husband’s full name. I’ll need it to petition the judge.”

  “Oh,” said Lenora, looking startled, “of course. James is actually his middle name. He was named for his grandfather, Sterling James Rose.”

  #

  Luke’s face revealed nothing and he said nothing, just nodded slightly to show that he had heard. But bells were clanging a five-alarm fire in his mind. As if he needed to reassure himself that it was still there, he pushed a hand to the bottom of his pant pocket to touch the expensive gold pocket watch that had been turned over to the sheriff’s office just this morning. A child had found it on the steps of Johnson Ebenezer Christian Church. Luke ran his index finger over the lavishly scrolled engraving that embellished its cover, felt the spring-loaded finial at its base, and balled the heavy chain into the palm of his hand. With an uncomfortable mixture of guilt and apprehension, he remembered the owner’s initials that had been memorialized in large ornate letters in the center of the flowing scrollwork:

  SRJ

  James Rose’s pocket watch seemed bigger and harder than it had been when Luke entered Aeschelman’s to wait for Mrs. Rose. As he walked along Main Street’s boardwalk it slapped against his thigh uncomfortably with every step, a tactile testimony that a man was missing and the lawman responsible to find him was keeping quiet about evidence that could possibly lead to his whereabouts.

  Why hadn’t he pulled the watch out of his pocket and showed it to Mrs. Rose at Aeschelman’s? After he heard the dead man’s full name from his grieving widow’s enticing lips, there was no doubt in Luke’s mind that Mrs. Nolan’s account—shared with Luke in confidence—of the events that had taken place at the Rose ranch the night the man had disappeared had been accurate. The feckless Mr. Rose, to refrain from venting his spleen on his beloved wife and assisted by her unusually good pitching arm, had ridden away carrying on his person this very pocket watch. Somehow the man had managed to abandon his tied-up horse at North-East Creek and lose his time piece on the church steps not far from the edge of town, miles from where he tied his horse. If the child had found a skull or one of the cadaver’s bones, Luke would have ascribed the distance between the two finds to the foraging of carnivorous animals, which are known to scatter bones. But no wild animal Luke could think of would take such an interest in a gold pocket watch. And he couldn’t figure out why the watch hadn’t been found before this. There were no flower boxes or any other movable objects on the church steps behind which it could have dropped. Someone must have found the watch elsewhere and laid it on the steps with intent. Someone wanted it to be found.

  But all that didn’t explain Luke’s omission. He had intentionally kept his mouth shut about the pocket watch. Would Mrs. Rose’s identification of the watch have led to the discovery of her husband’s whereabouts? Maybe, though Luke figured that was unlikely. Even if she had claimed it to be her husband’s, what happened four months ago on the banks of a swift-moving creek on a black and stormy night was done, and her claims about the watch one way or another wouldn’t alter those events.

  So why not show her the watch? If her identification of it would make no difference to the investigation and couldn’t change what had happened to her husband to cause him t
o go missing, why not show it to her? He should show her the watch. He would show her the watch. But he couldn’t bring himself to do it right now. It was wrong to procrastinate. He knew it. But James Rose was easier to deal with as a dead man, out of sight though not out of mind. If Luke had pulled that watch out of his pocket for her to identify, he would have seen a look of shock and then grief in those beautiful green eyes, then the tears would stream, resurrecting what Luke had observed at the start of the search and rattled him now when he thought of it: a heart-jerking display of Mrs. Rose’s enduring affection for her dead husband. But by all accounts James Rose wasn’t the saint she thought he was, and thank God she seemed to be pulling out of her abysmal grief. Better for her, thought Luke, if he left things the way they were. No, resurrecting James Rose and all the emotions the irksome man stirred up in his widow wasn’t convenient for anyone right now.

  Nevertheless Luke promised himself that when the time was right in the investigation, he would question Mrs. Rose about the pocket watch. But right now he had no idea when that would be.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Sheriff Morris was sitting at his desk reading a sophisticate―a magazine of interest to only men―when a click of the door handle signaled a visitor. Hurriedly he shut the publication, pulled open the bottom drawer of his desk, stashed the magazine at the back of it, and neatly shut it, taking care not to slam.

  His deputy stepped over the threshold looking disturbed. Luke noticed the hasty movements of his boss but was too distracted to contemplate them.

  “Howdy,” said Sheriff Morris.

  Luke uncharacteristically saluted a silent hello with a jerk of two fingers, shut the door, took off his hat, walked to his desk, and hung up his jacket on the coat rack behind it. But instead of sitting down or walking to the wood stove to start the day’s second pot of coffee as he usually did at this hour, he walked to the sheriff’s desk and stopped, pulled the pocket watch from his pocket, and dangled it in the sheriff’s face.