Redemption, Kansas

by James Reasoner

  “Was there any gunplay, the first time a herd tried to come through after they were hired?”

  Eden shook her head. “No. I’ve heard it was rather tense when they rode out to talk to the trail boss, but nothing happened. The herd went around the town.”

  Bill wondered if something really had happened, and Eden just didn’t know about it. Any man with enough backbone and grit to ramrod hundreds of cattle and a dozen cowboys all the way from Texas wouldn’t be the sort of fella who backed down easily. But maybe she was right; he didn’t know.

  “With the trail herds all going around the settlement, I wouldn’t think there’d be much for a pair of lawmen to do in a town like Redemption.”

  A worried look appeared in Eden’s eyes. “There are other troublemakers in the world besides Texas cowboys, Mr. Harvey.”

  He wanted to suggest that she call him Bill. Mr. Harvey sounded too much like his pa. But that struck him as being a mite too forward, so he didn’t say anything about it.

  Instead he asked, “What sort of troublemakers?”

  “We do have a saloon, which means men get drunk and fight from time to time. A lot of buffalo hunters and freighters pass through, and they can be rough sorts. Also there’s a bank, and some men tried to hold it up once. Deputy Norris had to shoot one of them.”

  “What about the other man he killed?”

  “That was a man who drove a freight wagon. He treated one of the, ah, women who work for Miss Stanley too roughly, and when Deputy Norris showed up to handle the complaint, the man pulled a gun on him.”

  So Redemption had a whorehouse as well as a saloon, thought Bill, and the Miss Stanley Eden mentioned would be the madam. That didn’t really mean much to Bill. He had been with a few soiled doves in his life, but something about them always made him sad, and he didn’t seek out whorehouses with the same eagerness his friends usually displayed. He’d always had a curious mind, though, and liked to learn as much about a place as he could.

  Despite that, he wasn’t going to ask Eden for more details. Anyway, he wasn’t in any shape for any sort of cavorting. Sipping tea was about as wild as he could handle right now.

  “You think I could, uh, have a little more of that tea?”

  “Oh! We’ve been sitting here talking, and I forgot all about it. I’m afraid I’ve let it get cold.”

  “Doesn’t matter,” he told her. “Cold’s fine.”

  She helped him drink the rest of it, then said, “You should get some rest now.”

  His eyelids had started out heavy and gotten heavier as they talked. He nodded and said, “Yes’m.”

  “I’ll help you lie down again . . .”

  That was easier than it had been for her to get him sitting up. She still had to get close to him again, though, and he wasn’t so tired that he didn’t enjoy it.

  “I’ll pull the door up almost closed so it’ll be darker in here and you can sleep better,” she said. “But if you need anything, call out. I’ll hear you, or my father will.”

  “Much obliged, Miss Monroe,” he said, his voice thick with weariness.

  “Eden,” she said. “Call me Eden.”

  He started to smile, but he dozed off before he could tell her how pleased he’d be to do that and how she should call him Bill.

  Chapter 5

  When he awoke, he felt a pressing need to relieve himself. He hesitated to call out, worried Eden would answer the summons, but some things couldn’t be ignored.

  Luckily, her father pulled the door back in response to the call, and he fetched a bucket and helped Bill do what had to be done. When that was taken care of, Bill said, “I sure am much obliged, Mr. Monroe. Not just for this, but for taking me in to start with.”

  Monroe grunted. “You can thank my daughter for that,” he said with a sour look on his bearded face. “It was her idea, not mine. After all the hell you Texas boys have raised around here, I wouldn’t walk across the street to spit on you if you were on fire.”

  Bill felt a surge of anger inside him. “I’m sorry you’ve had problems, but I didn’t have any part in them.”

  “It was your kind.” Monroe slashed at the air. “Never mind. You’re here, and with that bad leg I don’t imagine you’ll be going anywhere for a while. Eden’s always been too softhearted for her own good. I’ve tried to tell her you can’t trust just anybody, and the place would’ve gone bankrupt from extending credit to every miserable sodbuster in these parts if it was up to her!”

  From the sound of it, father and daughter didn’t get along too well, and while Bill was sorry to hear that, it wasn’t any of his business. He said, “Well, I sure appreciate what you and Miss Eden have done for me, and I intend to see to it that you get repaid for your trouble, even if it takes a while.”

  Monroe snorted as if to say he’d believe that when he saw it with his own eyes. Then he said, “One more thing while I’m talking to you . . . While you’re here, you’ll treat my daughter with respect. I know you Texans think every woman in Kansas is fair game for your lewd advances, but if I catch you doing or saying anything improper to her, I’ll thrash you within an inch of your life, hurt leg or no hurt leg!”

  Bill couldn’t hold his anger in this time. He pushed himself up on an elbow and said, “Listen here, sir. You got no call to accuse me of such a thing. I plan on treating Miss Eden like the lady she obviously is. Anyway, it’s not like I can get up and waltz her around the damn room!”

  Monroe glared at him. “It’s not waltzing I’m worried about.” He pointed a finger at Bill and went on, “You just remember what I told you.”

  With that, he left the storeroom, and Bill was glad to see him go. He’d felt an instinctive liking for Eden, but the same couldn’t be said of Perry Monroe.

  When Eden brought Bill some supper that evening, she wore a worried expression. “I hear you had a run-in with my father.”

  “Oh, it didn’t amount to anything,” he said with a shrug. “Nothing for you to concern yourself with, Miss Eden.”

  “Father can be pretty gruff and outspoken,” she said as she set the tray of food on a crate. “We don’t always get along very well. It hasn’t been easy on him, raising a daughter by himself.”

  “Your ma . . . ?”

  “Passed away when I was young,” said Eden. “I remember her, but just barely.”

  “That’s a shame. I was just a kid when both my folks died, so I know what you’re talking about.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that. Here, let me help you sit up again, and you can eat.”

  Bill held up a hand to stop her. “I’m feeling a lot stronger now since I rested some more. I reckon I can sit up by myself.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “I’d like to give it a try, anyway.”

  She smiled. “All right, suit yourself. But whatever you do, don’t fall off that cot. You don’t want to undo all the hard work your chuckwagon cook and I put into patching up that leg.”

  Carefully, Bill worked himself into a sitting position. He’d been telling the truth. He really did feel stronger now. But he was famished, and the smell of the roast beef and potatoes and greens on the plate was making his mouth water.

  “Should I feed you?” asked Eden.

  “No, ma’am. I can manage.”

  He did, although Eden stayed close by, sitting on the stool where she could reach him easily if he had any trouble. Bill forced himself to eat slowly instead of wolfing down the food. He didn’t want to make himself sick.

  The meal made him feel even better. He had spent a lot of his life outside, doing the work of a ranch hand for his uncle since the time he was twelve years old, and that had toughened him up considerably. Anytime he came down with some sort of illness, he got over it quickly, and he figured he could shake the effects of this injury sooner than anybody expected, too.

  Eden had brought him a cup of cool buttermilk to go with his supper. He washed down the last of the food with it and licked the buttermilk off his lips. With a smile
, he said, “That was mighty good. I feel like I could whip my weight in wildcats.”

  Eden laughed. “I don’t think you’ll get a chance to try. We don’t have any wildcats around here.” Her face suddenly grew serious. “Some other predators, maybe, but not wildcats.”

  “What do you mean by that?” asked Bill.

  She waved off the question. “Oh, nothing. Don’t worry about it. Can I get you anything else?”

  Bill thought about it. “Something to read, maybe. That’d help pass the time.”

  She smiled again. “Of course. I’ll bring a lamp in here and put it on that crate right beside the cot where you can reach it to blow it out when you get tired and want to go to sleep. And I have several books you might like. Have you ever read anything by Jane Austen or the Brontë sisters?”

  Bill shook his head. “No, I, uh, don’t reckon I have. I like the books by that Fenimore Cooper fella, though. The ones with Indian fights and such.”

  “Well, I’ll see what I can find.” She lowered her voice. “If nothing else, my father has a stack of those penny dreadfuls that he doesn’t know I know about.”

  “Whatever you think best, Miss Eden.”

  She took the tray with its empty plate and cup and left the storeroom. Bill leaned back against the wall. The cot was set up in a corner, so he had a wall behind him and on his left. With the pillow propped up to lean on, he was comfortable.

  Comfortable enough, in fact, that he went to sleep without meaning to.

  Sometime during the night he woke with his heart slugging hard in his chest. He knew he’d been dreaming, but other than a few fuzzy images lingering in his brain, he couldn’t recall what the dreams were about. There had been a loud noise and a bright light, and as he lay there on the cot with his hammering pulse gradually slowing, he figured he must have had a nightmare about the rustlers’ raid on the herd the night before. That noise he recalled was the long-haired rustler shooting at him.

  After a while he calmed down enough to realize he was lying down with the sheet pulled all the way up. The last thing he remembered was leaning against the wall after supper, while Eden went to fetch a lamp and a book.

  She must have come back in, found him sound asleep, and gotten him lying down again without waking him. Or maybe her father had done it. Bill didn’t know which to hope for.

  All he knew for sure was that he was a damned lucky cowboy. That brindle steer could have killed him, and when it hadn’t, he’d had the good fortune for the herd to be near a town where folks could help him. He couldn’t ask for anybody better to be taking care of him than Eden Monroe.

  He sure wasn’t likely to find a prettier nursemaid, either.

  With that thought putting a smile on his lips, Bill went back to sleep.

  He knew something was wrong as soon as he looked at Eden the next morning. When she came into the storeroom to see if he was awake, her face was pale and drawn, as if she hadn’t gotten enough sleep.

  “What happened?” asked Bill.

  Her eyes widened in surprise. “What do you mean? How do you know anything happened?”

  “I can tell by looking at you.” Her eyes were slightly redrimmed, he noted, and a hunch told him it was from more than a lack of sleep. “You’ve been crying.”

  She sighed. “You’re right. A friend of the family . . . died last night.”

  “I’m sorry. Who was it, if you don’t mind me askin’?”

  “Abner Williams. He was one of the partners in the Williams and Hartnett Livery Stable. A good friend of my father, and one of the founders of the town.”

  Bill shook his head. “That’s a real shame. Had he been sick for a while, or was it sudden?”

  “Oh, it was sudden, all right.” Unexpectedly, Eden laughed, but the sound was hollow and brittle and there was nothing real about it. “Very sudden.”

  “What do you mean by that?”

  She shook her head. “Never mind. I was just seeing if you were awake. I’ll bring you some breakfast in a little while.”

  “Thanks. I’m obliged.”

  “You know, you don’t have to keep saying that every time I do something for you. Otherwise we’ll never get around to any other conversation.”

  “Fine.” She was annoyed with him, he thought, and if that’s the way she wanted to be, he wasn’t going to argue with her. “I didn’t mean to fall asleep on you last night.”

  “I wasn’t aware that you were on me last night.”

  “That’s not what I—” He stopped. “You know that’s not what I meant, don’t you?”

  She didn’t answer. Instead she said, “I’ll be back with that breakfast.”

  Perry Monroe came into the storeroom a few minutes later. “Eden said you probably needed some help with your, ah . . .”

  “Yeah,” Bill said. “I do.”

  He sure hoped Eden was wrong about how long his injured leg would keep him from being up and around. This was no fit way for a man to live.

  When those personal chores were finished, Bill said, “I heard about your friend Mr. Williams passing away. I’m sorry about that.”

  “Why should you be sorry? You didn’t even know him.” Monroe was bound and determined not to be friendly. If that was the way he wanted it, thought Bill, that was the way it would be. He shrugged and said, “I just know what it’s like to lose a friend.”

  “You don’t know a damned thing about it,” Monroe snapped. He stomped out of the storeroom, leaving Bill staring after him.

  Eden returned about a quarter of an hour later with a tray of food. This time the plate held eggs, flapjacks, and bacon, and steam rose from the cup of coffee beside it.

  “I assume you take your coffee black?” she asked.

  Bill grinned. “Black as sin. Uncle Sam, our cook, he brews it up strong enough so he has to be careful the pot doesn’t get up and walk off on its own hind legs. The only sweetening he uses is the little peppermint stick that comes in the Arbuckles bag.”

  “Well, I don’t think your cup is going anywhere under its own power, but maybe it’ll be strong enough to suit you.”

  “I’m sure it’ll be fine.” Bill was already sitting up, so when she placed the tray on his lap, he dug right in. After a few bites, he added, “Say, I didn’t mean to rile your pa earlier.”

  “My father riles easily,” said Eden. “What happened?”

  “I just told him I was sorry about what happened to his friend Mr. Williams, and he got upset. Said I didn’t know a thing about it.” Bill left out the curse Monroe had added.

  “It’s not just him. The whole town is upset . . . and scared.”

  “Scared?” Bill repeated. “Why would folks be scared? Did that liveryman die of some sickness that’s contagious?”

  Eden didn’t answer, but the man who stepped into the doorway in time to hear Bill’s question said, “No, the thing that killed Abner Williams isn’t catching. But it seems to be going around anyway.”

  Bill looked up and saw Marshal Frank Porter standing there. The lawman wore the same sort of weary expression Bill had seen on the faces of the Monroes.

  “What do you mean by that, Marshal? What happened to Mr. Williams?”

  “He was killed,” said Porter. “Murdered. Shot down from behind like a dog.” A thin, humorless smile curved his lips. “You might’ve been better off getting gored by that bull while you were closer to some other settlement, Harvey. We’ve got ourselves a backshooter in Redemption.”

  Chapter 6

  Porter came on into the room and took his hat off as he gave Eden a polite nod. “Morning, Miss Monroe,” he said.

  “But not a good one,” said Eden.

  Porter pursed his lips. “No, not particularly. You mind if I ask you a few questions?”

  “What sort of questions?”

  “Well, the livery stable’s not far from here. I thought maybe you might’ve heard some sort of disturbance coming from that direction during the night.”

  “You mean like a guns
hot?”

  Porter shrugged. “Yes, ma’am. That’s sort of what I was gettin’ at.”

  “No, I’m sorry,” Eden replied with a shake of her head. “I didn’t hear anything unusual. I must have slept through the shot.”

  Bill spoke up, saying, “This fella Mr. Williams, he was killed at the livery stable?”

  Porter looked at him. “That’s right. Abner was an old bachelor, so he had a cot in the tack room where he slept nights, in case somebody needed to bring in a horse or take one out. Josiah Hartnett, his partner, has a family and lives a few blocks away.”

  “And the stable’s close by?”

  “In the next block, same side of the street.” Porter frowned at him, and Bill noticed that Eden was watching him curiously, too. “Why all the questions, Harvey?”

  “Well . . .” Bill rubbed at his jaw as he thought about what he was going to say. “Sometime during the night I woke up and thought I’d heard a shot. I figured I was just dreaming, though, probably about those rustlers who raided the herd night before last. But I reckon it could’ve been an actual shot.”

  “You know what time that was?”

  Bill had to shake his head. “No, sir, I’m afraid not. It was mighty dark, though, so it had to be the middle of the night.”

  “If you can’t pin it down any closer than that, I don’t see how it helps me. Abner was alive last evening and dead this morning when Hartnett got to the stable early, so we already know somebody shot him during the night.”

  “Shot him in the back, you said?”

  Porter nodded. “That’s right. He was in his office, next to the tack room.”

  “Just like Mr. Hendrickson was in his bakery,” said Eden. “And John Lightner was at the saddle shop and Mr. Tompkins was behind the counter in his apothecary shop. All of them shot from behind in their own businesses at night. Four murders in the past two months, Marshal.”