Claudia Dain

by A Kiss To Die For

  Jack heard an angry whisper and a muffled slap; poor kid probably got a quick one on the tail.

  "Don't you normally know the names of the folks you hunt?" asked a man in a well-pressed coat. He didn't seem to be carrying, but that could be misleading. There was always room in a pocket for a small pistol.

  "Yes, I do," Jack said, keeping his voice level and calm. "I don't know who this woman is. I'd like to find out."

  "Now, folks, let's get this woman off that horse and give her a respectful burial before anything else," a man said.

  Jack studied him. He was a bear of a man, barrel-chested and dark bearded, his brown eyes ringed with heavy brows and lashes so that he resembled a huge raccoon.

  "Now, Reverend, that's fine but we've got a woman here who's been kilt and the man who did it is standing plain as a stump for all to see."

  "Mr. Hill, that's an assumption and a man doesn't deserve to hang on an assumption. Besides, we don't even know how she died."

  "We know she's dead and he's a man who wouldn't take much pushing to get it done," another citizen said, his florid complexion flushing with emotion.

  "Don't forget, Reverend, he pushed a man off of a moving train!"

  "Sue Ann, that's not the way I heard it," Reverend Holt admonished.

  "That's not the way it happened."

  Jack turned at that voice. He knew her voice, knew the feel of her breath on his face and the scent of her skin. He turned and saw her at the rim of the crowd that had formed around him. Jack willed her to keep her distance and stay out of the trouble he could see galloping toward him like a herd of mavericks.

  "No, it ain't," Jack said, cutting her off as she took a breath to continue, silencing her. "And that has nothing to do with this. This girl was out on the prairie, alone, and she deserves a name to go with her burial."

  "I agree," said a familiar voice.

  Jack allowed himself a deep breath. Sheriff Lane moved through the crowd, the folks making way for him. Lane might think him just as guilty of murder as the others, but he wouldn't be leading the way to the scaffold. Not without a trial, anyway. Lane was a cautious man who didn't jump too quick to a spot until he was certain the spot would hold his weight.

  Lane lifted the blanket and took a gentle hold of the girl's dark hair. The bruise on her neck stood out boldly in the strong afternoon light, purple and red and black, and her face was dark red and puffy with congealed blood. Even with all that, she had been a pretty gal and young.

  "Lord God, he strangled her!"

  Sheriff Lane lowered her head and dropped the blanket down to cover her. They shared a look then and Lane heaved a sigh. The killings would no longer be a secret, a secret kept to protect the quiet lives of the people of Abilene.

  "Who is she?" Jack asked in an undertone.

  "I don't know, not from here," Lane answered softly.

  "What are you waiting for, Sheriff? Lock him up!"

  Sheriff Lane looked at Isaiah Hill, owner of the boot shop, and made himself chuckle. "What'd you think, Isaiah? You think this man killed this gal out on the prairie and then dragged her in here just so he could get arrested?" Lane looked Jack up and down, smiling as he did. "You think he'd bring in his own victim, just to find out her name?"

  "He would if he was smart and wanted to throw us off," Hill mumbled, sticking to his theory.

  "Do I look smart?" Jack said with a small smile.

  There were a few titters at that and the crowd started to break up, with the help of both Reverend Holt and Sheriff Lane. It was painfully obvious that the people of Abilene didn't think he looked too smart. At the moment, he didn't think it was a good idea to get insulted about it.

  "I'll be ready to do the service whenever she's ready,"

  Holt said. "Thank you, Mr. Skull, for bringing her to us. We'll see she gets a good burial."

  "The name's Scullard, Reverend, and thanks for your help."

  The reverend looked surprised at the name and then nodded and went on down the street toward the church. There were a few hangers-on, mostly kids, and the Samaritan. Her blue eyes were huge and her freckles stood out against the white of her skin; Jack looked askance at the girl draped over his saddle and then back at the Samaritan. She looked ready to faint.

  "Where'd you find her?" Lane asked.

  Jack could hardly hear him; he could only stare at the girl who stood so still in the face of ugly death. She shouldn't have to see something like that, something so brutal, so final. Wasn't there anyone to take her home?

  "Go on, ma'am," he said, his voice hardly above a whisper.

  She looked at him then and he watched her take a shaky breath that made her bosom rise underneath all that ruffled lace. She looked at him as if he were the last horse for fifty miles of hard walking, as if she wanted him to grab her and take her away from Abilene and the dead girl who lay across his horse.

  Yeah, as if any decent woman would mess with him. Not unless she was either desperate for a man or a half-wit, and even then she'd have to be drunk. This gal wasn't any of that.

  "Go on," he urged.

  She slowly left then, one step at a time, until she was walking away from the death he had brought with him. She never should have seen anything like it, not in her life. Death and murder, those were his companions, and he worked real hard to keep honest folk away from such filth, even if it did leave him shoved to the edge of polite society. An outcast, by choice and disposition. Jack heaved a sigh and turned to face Lane.

  "The gals in that family are a potion," Lane smiled.

  "There's more than one?"

  "Her ma and her aunt; her grandma you can leave out."

  "I'll leave them all out."

  Lane nodded in easy agreement. It wouldn't do to have a bounty hunter running after Anne; she was too innocent for his kind and too sweet for them all.

  "Out on the prairie you said?" he asked, getting back to it.

  "Yeah, out toward Council Grove, near the railroad markers. There was a trail this time, but it played out after a mile or two. Wind kicked up."

  The two men carefully untied the girl from her perch, Joe waiting patiently to be relieved of his burden. Keeping the blanket arranged around her, they carried her into the sheriff's office. The dark was soothing after the harsh light on the street.

  "That's north of the last one," the sheriff said, laying the girl down on an empty bunk in an empty cell. Jessup watched from behind his bars and said nothing.

  "Yeah," Jack said. He took the blanket and arranged it around the girl with all the consideration of a lover until she was well covered and insured of her privacy.

  "How far south do you make Council Grove from Abilene?"

  Jack left the girl in her cell and walked back to the sheriff's desk. He sat down on his chair and waited for Lane to pour him a drink. When his glass was full, he drained it, without waiting for Lane. Lane was not offended.

  "About twenty-five miles."

  Death was twenty-five miles from Abilene, and coming.

  Chapter 7

  Doc Carr came before anyone had to go hunting for him. He'd heard all about the murder from at least three sources and was slipping on his coat by the time the third walked through his door. Walking to the sheriff's, he heard it again a few more times, once from a child of six who lisped it out with ghoulish delight.

  Jack Skull was universally deemed responsible. Malcolm Carr was not disposed to disagree. He'd known more bounty hunters than he wished to and found them all disreputable and violent to a man. Jack Skull had the worst reputation by far. He had no desire to stand face-to-face with Jack Skull. No decent man would.

  What he thought was clear when he opened the door to Lane's office and raked Jack with a gaze as sharp as any scalpel. Lane swallowed a smile. Jack lowered his hat brim and leaned against the rough wood wall of the jail-house. It didn't matter to him if the doc liked him or not; he was here because of the girl. If anyone might know who she was, it would be the only doctor for fifty squ
are miles.

  Doc Carr flipped back the blanket and got down on his knees to get a closer look. Black hair swept out from the confines of the blanket to tangle on the floor; a rope of hair had wound itself around her throat and across her breasts like a fancy necklace. The doctor eased the strands away from the wound that had killed her.

  He rubbed his hands over her head, down her arms, around her ribs.

  "No sign of any other injury; no breaks that I can tell." Carr stood to face Lane. "You don't need me to tell you how she died. It's plain enough."

  "Yeah. Looks like he used a cord of some kind, doesn't it?" Lane asked. "You make it out to be rope or something smoother, like leather?"

  The doctor got back on his knees and studied the raw bruise on the slender throat. "Too even for rope. Leather. Maybe a driving whip; too slender for a bullwhip. I don't know," he sighed, getting to his feet. "Could be lots of things. I've never seen a wound quite like it. The double line of bruising, I don't know what to make of that. Not many men would kill a woman this way." He looked at Jack as he said it. It was as plain a statement as an indictment.

  Jack didn't answer the look. What the doc thought didn't much matter.

  "You know her?" Jack asked.

  "I know her," Carr answered, looking hard at Jack and then shifting his gaze to Lane. "She's part Cherokee, from her grandmother. Lives with her aunt out on Lyons Creek; not much out there."

  "Wouldn't her aunt be hunting her? She's been gone awhile," Lane said.

  "Probably not. Spends most hours drunk as she can get. That's how I know about her, the girl had to fetch me to tend her aunt's broken arm when she got tripped up in her skirts."

  "That how you know her? As 'girl'?" Jack was angry, his anger pressed down and squeezing out like apples being pressed for cider. The girl deserved the dignity of her name.

  Doc Carr looked at him briefly and then back down at the dark-haired girl; he covered her with the blanket as he answered.

  "Her name's Mary. Mary Hopkins."

  "We'll see Reverend Holt gets her well buried," Lane said, urging them out of the room.

  They went gladly enough; only Jessup was left to keep her company in the darkness of her death. Jessup would have been happier if they had taken her with them. He was of no mind to keep company with a dead woman. But Jessup had no say in the matter.

  "How does she compare with the others you've seen?" Lane asked Jack. That brought Carr up short and he looked hard at Jack.

  "The same," Jack said. "Just the same."

  "Yeah, that's what I was wondering."

  "Others?" Carr cut in. "What others?"

  "There's a trail of bodies from here to Texas," Jack said.

  "We've had our share of murders around here, Malcolm, and the marshal and I decided it would be best if we kept it quiet, so as not to alarm folks needlessly."

  "It's hardly needless if people are dying!"

  "You don't understand, Malcolm," Lane said, "these killings are spread all over the country, months apart."

  "And all women?" the doctor asked.

  "All young women," Jack supplied.

  Malcolm Can studied Jack coldly for a moment before asking, "You're from Texas, aren't you?"

  "Sometimes," Jack answered, returning the look without blinking.

  "Now, Malcolm," Lane said, "Jack's been hunting this man longer than I have. The killings started in Texas, best we can figure. We're all working to find the man responsible for this."

  "You don't seem to be succeeding," Malcolm said, glancing across the floor to the bunk that supported Mary Hopkins.

  "Take me to her place so I can talk to her aunt," Jack said. "Maybe she'll have something to tell us. I've been chasing empty clues for months and need to talk to someone who can maybe give me a description."

  "It's not difficult to find," the doctor bit out, clearly wanting to avoid such close and extended proximity with Jack Skull. "East bank of Lyon Creek, just below West Branch."

  "I need someone who can introduce me to the aunt, someone she trusts, so that she'll talk."

  Carr found it hard to argue against that; no one would willingly talk to Jack Skull. They made plans to leave ten minutes later; the doc wanted to close his office and Jack wanted to get a drink.

  He went to the same saloon, the Mustang, and ordered a beer from the same man. He was still talkative.

  "Heard about the girl, of course."

  "Of course," Jack said before he took a long swallow of the brew.

  "Pretty thing, by all accounts, and hair as black as coal. Shame a poor girl like that had to end up dead out on the prairie."

  "Her name's Mary," Jack said, wiping his mouth with the back of his sun-browned hand. "Mary Hopkins."

  "Pretty name, too. Lots of Marys in these parts. Popular name, being from the Bible and all. My mother's name is Martha. Funny, when you think about it, Mary and Martha? You know the story, Martha always working at her house and Mary sitting around, idle. Just like my ma, never still, always sweeping or washing or ironing or canning or sewing, but never still. And now this Mary—"

  "Yeah." Jack cut him off. Mary Hopkins was about as still as a woman could be. "You know Mary Hopkins?"

  "Nah," the bartender said easily, "don't leave town much and she's not from around here."

  "How do you know?"

  "Bob Walton mentioned it, after he brushed coattails with Doc Carr. Heard she's from Lyon Creek way."

  If there was one thing Jack had figured out, it was that there were no secrets in Abilene.

  "You ever been down there?" Jack asked. Anyone could have done it, especially a man with a mother who was so busy tending to her house that she'd have little time left to pour on her son.

  "If you're going to accuse me, you might as well know my name. It's Shaughn O'Shaughnessy and no, I've never been to Lyon Creek. Never been to much of anywhere. Too busy running the bar."

  He didn't seem offended by the unspoken accusation. Jack smiled and took another long swallow. A man couldn't afford to be touchy when he owned a saloon; he'd have to learn to get along with all kinds.

  "As long as we're exchanging names, mine's Jack. Scullard."

  It may have been the first time Jack had told Shaughn something he didn't already know.

  "Scullard?"

  "Yeah. Pass that around, if you've a mind."

  "Jack Scullard. Seems familiar," Shaughn mused.

  "Glad to hear it," Jack said, letting himself smile a bit. Maybe he was making a bit of progress in this town.

  "What part of Texas claims you again?"

  Jack finished off his beer before answering, "The big part."

  O'Shaughnessy licked the edges of his drooping mustache and pondered, quiet for a time. The saloon was quiet; even the old man in the corner had stopped mumbling in his sleep. The first flies of the season buzzed with angry spring energy through the dark room, searching for a place to light.

  The Mustang was not a large saloon, the floors were wide plank, the walls sanded board planks, and the bar dark stained pine; the heavy woodiness of the place was relieved only by a beveled mirror behind the bar. It was a fine mirror, framed in gilt wood, carved and ornate, and over four feet long. Jack could see himself clearly in that mirror. He could just about see the whole room. There was a single large window on line with the bar and two glass doors, open now, since the weather was so friendly. It was through those open doors that he saw her walk by, bustle as busy as ever.

  A train whistle blew high and long and a long curl of dark hair flew back over her shoulder as she picked up her pace.

  "What is it with that gal and trains?" he muttered.

  O'Shaughnessy's tongue snapped back inside his mouth to hide behind his teeth. Seemed the man would talk about anything, anything except the little Samaritan who smelled of wildflowers.

  "She got a name?" Jack asked, pushing his glass away from him. "I don't think there's any warrant out on her; this isn't business," Jack joked lightly.

 
"Then it'd be personal? You don't need to know nothing personal about that gal."

  Shaughn O'Shaughnessy clearly had his limits and that gal was one of them.

  "Then let's make it business," Jack said, sick of the dodge and wanting a simple answer. "She ever leave town? Ever take that train she's always meeting?"

  Shaughn blanched a bit, the red running away from his cheeks to bury itself in his neck. Jack Skull with a burr in his boot was no fun to mess with.

  "She stays put, like me, even more. Never left Abilene that I've ever heard." Jack just stared at him, considering, waiting, until Shaughn said, "She's a good girl of good family and all her family's here, in Abilene."

  "Her name?"

  "Anne. Anne Ross."

  Jack smiled and pulled his hat down low. "No, no bounty on an Anne Ross. Thanks for your help."

  Shaughn didn't answer, he just threw his rag down on the bar hard enough to make it slap and then wiped so hard he got a splinter in his palm.

  Doc Carr stuck his head in the door just then and Jack walked out to meet him. Their horses were hitched in front of the sheriff's, Joe looking eager enough for all that he'd already been ridden a distance that morning. Carr looked nowhere near as eager as Joe did. They all knew why.

  Lane stood chuckling on the boardwalk in front of his office as they rode off; Jack ignored him. Malcolm Carr turned in his saddle to scowl. Neither one had any effect on Lane's good humor.

  Jack turned once to look back toward the train. Anne Ross stood there, trim and straight, a pillar of immovable expectation in the midst of arrivals and departures. Jack shook his head at the sight she made and then turned his face south, toward Lyons Creek.

  * * *

  They found the place late that afternoon, when the dipping sun cast their mounts in long shadow. Carr led in, since his was the familiar face and they didn't want a bullet shot into the dust to be the first howdy they heard in that isolated place.

  But no shot rang out. No one answered the doc's call of greeting. No sound came from inside the squat sod house that hunkered down within sound of Lyons Creek's babble. A few scrawny chickens scratched in the raw dirt around the gaping door; there was no dog to give warning. All was quiet in that late, slanting afternoon light, a house was never meant to be so quiet. Jack felt the muscles in his stomach clench at the heavy quiet of the place and he licked his lips to cover the rolling beginnings of nausea. He never could stand the heavy press of quiet when there should be the sounds of living. Jack fingered his gun, stroking the heft of his grip, finding comfort. Carr led in, but Jack pulled his six-gun free of the holster, ready to shoot anything that didn't look exactly right.