by Jake Logan
“That might just mean he’s been here before, ma’am,” said Billy.
“He’s right. He might have come this way hunting for Jeter,” Ambrose said. Amy saw the gleam in his eyes again. He had been so despondent after learning that the posse had hanged Jeter, but now a new mission had come to him. Collecting all the artifacts left by the dead Jeter could take years.
“Shall we hurry?” Amy looked over her shoulder into the wagon bed. The corpse was turning noxious in the summer sun, in spite of the canvas shroud they had wrapped Jeter’s body in.
“I agree. Let’s go!” Ambrose snapped the reins and bounced and banged across the grassy area just behind the cabin. Amy wondered at the large number of rocks until she noticed the nearness of the rocky knob poking up not that far off. Then again, Ambrose had a knack for hitting every single rock, no matter how well buried.
They pulled up in front of the cabin. Before Ambrose could secure the reins a woman came out. Amy sniffed at the sight of the woman. Definitely not the sort of woman a man like Slocum would care for, she decided. That meant this was Jeter’s woman. His wife, if Ambrose’s sources were accurate, and Amy had no reason to think they were not. Ambrose was nothing if not thorough when it came to finding out details about Jeter’s life.
“Mrs. Jeter?” Ambrose hopped down without offering to help Amy and went up the steps, hand on the brim of his hat. Amy wondered if he would take his hat off to this woman. He did.
“Can I help you down, ma’am?” Billy stood at the side of the wagon, looking up at her like a puppy dog.
“Thank you, Billy,” she said, letting him take her hand to help her jump to the ground. She landed, turned her ankle, and felt his hands grab her around her trim waist, supporting her and keeping her from making a complete fool of herself.
“Careful,” Billy said, grinning. “It’s a long way down from up there.”
“For me, it is,” Amy said, smiling weakly. He didn’t immediately remove his hands from her waist, forcing her to disengage him. “Thank you.”
“My pleasure, ma’am,” he said.
Amy hurried around the wagon and climbed the steps to stand beside Ambrose. He had already done the introductions and didn’t bother introducing her to Mrs. Jeter. Amy wasn’t sure if this was a good thing. It was impolite, but she had no desire to know or be known by this plain-looking woman.
“May I call you Ruth?” asked Ambrose. “I know this is forward of me, but after so many years following your husband’s career, I feel I know you well.”
“If you like,” Ruth Jeter said, a tiny smile curling the corners of her mouth. “Would you like to come inside?”
“Of course I would. I need to speak to you of important matters.”
“It’s about Les, isn’t it? I already know. He’s dead.” Ruth’s face turned impassive. “The posse hung him. Mr. Slocum came by to let me know.”
“Slocum, eh?” Ambrose made it sound as if this were the first he had heard. “You know him well, this Mr. Slocum?”
“Not that well,” Ruth said, and Amy perked up. The woman was lying. Why, she couldn’t say. “He came through hunting Les a week or so back, then left this morning. He . . . he promised to get a wagon so I could move my belongings into San Esteban.”
“How kind of him,” Amy said with more than a hint of sarcasm. “What will you do there?”
“Move on, most likely. I don’t have much in the way of family. And I’ve been out here so long, all my friends have drifted away.”
“How sad,” Amy said. She got an irritated look from Ambrose and she quieted down. Why Ruth Jeter’s tale of woe affected her this way, she couldn’t say.
“It’s my understanding that Slocum had all your husband’s belongings. The ones not taken by the marshal and the posse. I would like to examine them, if I could.”
“Why?” Ruth looked puzzled.
“I am an historian,” Ambrose said. This was the first time Amy had heard him use such a term to describe his collecting hobby. “I intend to document every stage in your late husband’s life. Of course, I would pay you for any of the belongings that would play a significant part in this documentation.”
“I don’t understand,” Ruth said, “but what Mr. Slocum brought’s over on the table. It’s Les’s gun and holster, a few other items. Nothing much.”
“His hat,” Ambrose said, pouncing on the items like a hungry cougar on fresh meat. He held it up and ran his fingers over the dusty brim. “And his six-shooter, of course. And the belt. It has seen better days, hasn’t it?” He slid the six-gun in and out of the holster a few times. Amy saw how well-worn the holster was and how quickly the pistol slid free.
“Not a great deal worth much,” Ruth said. “That sums up my life with Les, I suppose.”
“I’ll need to interview you at length,” Ambrose said. “But later, since you are going to San Esteban. Will you stay there long?”
“I don’t know. Honestly, I do not.”
“I see. Yes, there’ll be time for us to talk. I have so many questions about your late husband.” Ambrose coughed, cleared his throat, and rested his hand on the table holding the hat, six-gun, and other items. “I am interested in these things for my research. What price would you place on them?”
“Price? I don’t know. I hadn’t thought to even take them with me.”
“Fifty dollars,” Ambrose blurted out. Amy saw the shock on Ruth Jeter’s face at such a princely sum for something she would have discarded. “Fifty now and that much more if you have other items of his for sale.”
“You can look around. I don’t know what there might be, but you’re welcome to it.”
Ambrose gestured to Amy to box up the six-shooter and the rest, as if Ruth Jeter might change her mind. Amy obeyed, hefting the gun and wondering how many men it had killed. Too many. She looked at how Ambrose was seated at the table, his hand on Ruth’s as they talked intimately. Maybe the six-gun could kill one more. Pushing such a notion from her mind, she went to stow the mementos in the back of the wagon next to their former owner’s body.
“Need help, ma’am?”
“No, Billy, I can do this.” Amy worked for a few minutes, then swung around and sat on the back of the wagon. “Billy, who used to own this farm?”
“Don’t rightly know. An old couple, if memory serves. Reckon they got tired and moved on.”
“Or maybe Jeter killed them and just moved in,” she said. “I’d heard a rumor to that effect.”
“He was a killer, that one,” Billy agreed. “But you think his wife’d stay on land stole from a dead couple? She didn’t seem like that would set well with her.”
“You don’t take her for a squatter?”
“Not on dead folks’ property. She’s got some sensibilities ’bout her.”
Amy snorted in disgust. What was it about Ruth Jeter that made men go crazy? Couldn’t they see the woman was the perfect wife for a bloody-handed butcher and the most vicious road agent West Texas had seen in years? No self-respecting man would ever share her bed.
She looked up to see Ambrose emerging from the cabin, Ruth Jeter right behind.
“I appreciate all you’ve told me, Mrs. Jeter,” Ambrose said. “You can come with us, if you like. We’re headed for San Esteban.”
“Thank you, but I’d better wait for Mr. Slocum. We might miss each other, and I wouldn’t want to worry him none.”
“You could always follow,” Ambrose said.
“There’re no horses or mules here. Les didn’t let me keep any,” she said.
“Afraid they’d be stolen while he was away?” Ambrose looked as if he intended to snap his fingers and have Amy take down every precious word.
“Didn’t want me gettin’ away,” Ruth said simply.
“Billy there said Mr. Slocum was riding your husband’s horse. Is that so?”
“The stallion was Les’s favorite of all the ones he had ridden in the last few years. I’m glad Mr. Slocum got it. He deserves something after Les
shot his horse out from under him.”
“With the six-shooter Miss Gerardo took?”
“I suppose.”
“We need to get going,” Amy called. “Time is working against us, Mr. Killian.”
Ruth laughed at this and said, “That sounds so much like Mr. Slocum. He looked at the watch and said the same thing.”
“What watch is that?” asked Ambrose. Amy heard his “collector” tone once more.
“I think it was Les’s watch. The marshal gave that to Mr. Slocum too, along with the horse. For his trouble.”
“That’s so,” Billy piped up. “Marshal Eaton gave Mr. Slocum the watch. I seen him do it, but I thought the watch was Mr. Slocum’s.”
“Then why did Jeter have it?” Ambrose sounded like a prosecutor interrogating a lying witness on the stand.
“He lost it maybe. I don’t know if Mr. Slocum said, leastwise not to me.”
“So,” Ambrose muttered, more to himself than the others. “Slocum has both Jeter’s horse and his watch.” Louder, he called to Amy, “Make a note to speak to Mr. Slocum about those items, will you, Miss Gerardo?”
“Yes, sir,” Amy said. She started to jump down, but Billy was too attentive for her. His strong hands went around her waist and lifted, and then set her down as gentle as the caress of a butterfly wing across her cheek.
“I’ll want to speak further once you get to San Esteban, Mrs. Jeter,” Ambrose said. Amy didn’t hear what Ruth Jeter said, but Ambrose laughed.
Amy wasted no time climbing into the driver’s box. She waited impatiently for Ambrose to join her.
“What a treasure trove,” Ambrose gloated. “Jeter’s hat and pistol.”
“Did you tell her you had her husband’s body in the wagon?” Amy asked pointedly.
“Of course not. What would have been the purpose? It would have upset her unduly, and she might have forgotten all those delicious details that flowed so easily otherwise.”
“Like John Slocum having both the horse and watch?”
“Yes, yes, that. I must see to buying them off Slocum before he disappears. I’m surprised he has stayed in the area this long. Drifters tend to . . . drift.”
Amy rode in silence, her thoughts boiling like a stew. She wished she had never come—and that Ambrose had never met Ruth Jeter.
25
Slocum cursed his bad luck as he got behind the buckboard and pushed while the team pulled. He thought he had found a shortcut back to Ruth’s cabin, but had only gotten himself mired down in loose sand. With a lurch, the wagon pulled free and began rolling along sweet as you please. Scrambling to get into the wagon proved a chore since the frustrated horses he had rented from the livery were determined to move as fast as possible. They had struggled in the soft arroyo bottom, and now wanted to stretch their logs.
Two quick steps and a jump got him back into the driver’s box. He grabbed the reins and steered the horses up and out of the offending dry river bottom. The stallion trotted along behind, its long tether keeping it close, but not so near that it got tangled up.
“You should have stopped me,” Slocum said to the stallion. “You know this country better than me.” He found his way back into the broad, green valley where the cabin sat, and wished he hadn’t been so much in a hurry that he’d risked the rockier shortcut back from San Esteban. As it was, he had wasted a full day. He hoped Ruth hadn’t written him off as forgetting about her.
As he rode, he thought about the woman and the times he had been with her. There was an unmistakable attraction between them, but Slocum wondered if it existed only because of the woman’s circumstances. Being married to a man like Les Jeter would make any woman lonely and desperate. For his part, he was drawn to her, but couldn’t put a finger on exactly what it was that drew him back like a moth to a flame. He was horny from being on the trail so long, but the times he had been with Ruth went beyond mere physical need. That bothered him a mite, but not too much. He doubted she felt any attraction for him other than as her rescuer.
Being stranded in the middle of the Davis Mountains had to wear on her until even a drifter would appear exciting.
“Finally,” Slocum muttered as he swung around a bend in the canyon, found the road up the middle of the valley, and drove to the cabin. It was a mere spot on the landscape when he sighted it, and it grew too slowly, taking most of the rest of the day to get close enough to make out details. Slocum felt a pang taking Ruth away from such a place. The farm would be perfect for raising horses. The pastures were too small for more than a hundred head of cattle, but horses were more valuable and had to be in demand up at Fort Davis and Fort Quitman up north. The Army alone would keep a man rolling in money.
Or a woman.
Slocum couldn’t forget this was Ruth’s only legacy from her thief of a husband. Since women couldn’t own real property, she had to sell and move on, or find someone to buy the place and keep it in his name just so she could stay. He knew Ruth had no real connection to the place and its memories.
As he slowed and pulled the buckboard around, it came to him that Jeter might not have even owned this place. The stories he had heard in San Esteban hinted at the outlaw murdering the actual owners and simply becoming a squatter—but a squatter enforcing his claim with a quick pistol and a vicious liking for murder.
He had barely halted the team when Ruth came running out. The smile she gave him was genuine, sincere, and not a little disturbing.
“John!” She hurried down to the wagon and grabbed his hand. “You’re back. I was beginning to think you weren’t coming.”
“I took longer than I should have,” Slocum said. He didn’t bother her with stories of how he had chosen a shortcut that turned out to take longer than if he had simply retraced his path. “You ready to go?”
“Of course I am,” she said. The brunette smiled almost shyly, then got a devilish look in her eyes. “If you hadn’t come soon, I’d have thought I’d made a mistake not going with that nice gentleman who showed up right after you left.”
“Who’d that be?” Slocum asked, but thought he knew.
“He said his name was Killian. Ambrose Killian.”
“Doesn’t surprise me.”
“Would it surprise you to know he paid me fifty dollars for Les’s hat and gun? Fifty dollars! Imagine that!”
“Nope,” Slocum said. “The man’s got something loose in his head.” He wondered if he should tell Ruth about the collector’s single-minded need to gather about him anything Jeter had touched or owned. It wouldn’t serve any purpose, he decided, so he pushed it aside. “You have what you’re taking?”
“It’s only a few bags,” Ruth said. “I never owned much, and what I have is mostly clothing and a few other items.”
“And fifty dollars Killian paid you,” Slocum said. “That’s good. You’ll need some money.”
“I’ve almost forgotten what it’s like to need money,” Ruth said. “Les brought me everything. It’s been years since I actually held a greenback or even a coin.”
“That’ll change,” Slocum said.
“Why do you say that?” Ruth looked at him sharply.
“No matter where you go, if there are two people together, money’s what they want. They’ll talk about money they had, money they have, or money they’ll get somehow.”
“How sad,” Ruth said. “There are more important things in life.”
“Might be,” Slocum allowed. “Money was never enough for a man to buy his life if your husband pointed a six-gun in his direction.” Slocum wasn’t sure why he said that, but it caused Ruth to turn pale.
“I’ll get my things.”
“Let me help,” he said, climbing down. He had to take a few seconds to stretch. He hadn’t realized he had been driving for so long. His shoulders ached from using the reins on the balky team even more than his back hurt from pushing the wagon out of the sandy river bottom. By the time he had climbed the steps to the porch, Ruth had already picked up everything.
&
nbsp; “This is all,” she said. “This one’s got my clothes and the other’s packed with . . . odds and ends.”
“I can get them,” he said. Slocum took both bags. The one with the clothing was light. The other made him sag a little under its unexpected weight. He threw both into the rear of the wagon and looked around. “What else?”
“I wish I could take the goats and maybe some of the tools in the barn. But that’s all.”
“You can sell the tools in San Esteban,” Slocum said. He walked downhill to the barn, Ruth following. He hesitated just inside the door, staring at the pile of hay where he and Ruth had made love the first time. Glancing back, he saw her staring at the same place. He doubted the same thoughts were going through her mind as raced across his.
He dropped ropes around the necks of the goats and led them out, tying the ends to the rear of the wagon. Carrying the carpentry tools and steel farming implements took the better part of the afternoon, and they eventually filled the wagon. He reflected on how much easier it would have been to bring back a couple of pack mules, but then Ruth would have had to ride out. As it was, she already sat patiently, hands folded in her lap, in the wagon.
A smile came to his lips. Riding all the way back to town with her leg pressed up alongside his wasn’t such a bad way to travel.
But all the way to San Esteban she hardly said a dozen words.
“Here,” Slocum said, handing Ruth a sheaf of greenbacks. “The smithy bought all the tools.”
“There must be a hundred dollars.” She looked up at Slocum, her brown eyes soft and moist. “You keep it. You did all the work.”
“I don’t want it. You’ll need it. Don’t let anyone rook you out of it,” Slocum said, pressing the wad of greenbacks into her hand. “I’ve got you booked into the hotel for the night. You can decide what you want to do tomorrow.”
“The stage,” she said distantly, her eyes drifting to the depot.
“I’ll talk to the old geezer who’s the agent. His name’s Sanford. He’ll see that you get on the right stagecoach. Which way are you going?”
