Mississippi

by J. B. Richard

  Porter pointed toward the sunset, out across the darkening mountainside where there was not only Apache, but maybe a posse, and who else had caught a whiff of that money and was lurking in hopes of having a big taste? There was one other danger, and that poison could show up anywhere. Clint wouldn’t be understanding, even though there were Apache bucks on the fight. Mississippi would be branded a traitor if found with Port. Then they’d both have a target on their backs.

  For the night, not knowing where those Apache were, it was in their best interests to stick together. In the morning, he’d go his own way again, find Clint, and tell him what he’d seen. Except he’d leave Porter’s name out of that conversation.

  CHAPTER 4

  Loose wisps of hair tickled Jessa’s nose. She pushed the flyaways behind her ear while bent over the creek, knees stuck in the mud, scrubbing her one dingy change of shirt—faded and patched up, with mismatched buttons. Behind her at the house, if she could call it that—really, it was a dovetailed stack of wood and stone held together with a mixture of mud, horse shit, and straw—Topper banged away. She bent more nails than she got in the wood. That trade post sign might never get hung. She should have had Port do that during his last visit three days ago. Maybe her thumbs wouldn’t be so sore.

  Other than him rubbing his hands over Topper’s curves, he had only been interested in finding the missing money, and for the hundredth time, they told him no one, not a single person—including Butch—had been by in the week since they’d left town.

  “Jess, come here.” Topper crawled down the ladder that leaned against the thatched roof. The sign hung crooked. Topper’s smile matched. “I’m going to town. My supplies to stock this place should be in. Help me hitch up the buckboard.”

  When Topper left, Jessa hung her wash on the line. Linens flapped in the cool mountain breeze. The sun warmed her shoulders. It was very nice to have some quiet. That Topper, she was a chatterbox. She could expound on any subject and make herself sound like an expert in all areas of life. Last night at supper, she’d blabbered for twenty damn minutes about the color of green beans. Why weren’t they a sweet peach color, and what if peaches were green? Jessa didn’t care as along as both were ripe for eating.

  A horse snorted close by, behind her. She whipped around on her heel. Had Topper forgotten something?

  A roan held a rider slumped far over its shoulder. The man’s face was gray, his clothing stained with dried and fresh blood. The thin, weary animal stood not three feet from the door of her shack. The man groaned hoarsely, drool stringing from his parched lips. Jessa dropped the empty laundry basket. The horse’s legs quivered, looking in poor shape, just as bad off as the rider who had to be the missing Butch. She hurried and threw open the flap on one side of his saddlebags. Neatly bundled stacks of greenbacks, more cash than she’d ever seen, ever dreamed of seeing, enough to last a lifetime. Her heart pounded, fingers tingling as she hesitantly reached, waiting for the bad luck that usually followed her to strike. Lawmen, Porter, Clint and his gang, or even Mississippi—were they hidden out in the bushes, watching, waiting to swoop in? Her dreams would be killed in the same minute they came to life.

  In trembling hands, she regarded the stack. Hundreds, all of them. She zipped the end as though it were a deck of cards. She ducked to the other side and looked in that bag. It, too, was piled full of money, lots and lots of money.

  Butch gurgled, lifting his head just a hair. His eyes opened for a few seconds, then glazed over, and he went limp.

  The cash, she knew what to do with that. Hide it. Butch, there was no hiding him. He’d left a damn blood trail into the yard, right up to her door, and the horse tracks. Port, Topper, Sheriff Pike, a posse—anyone could plainly see and would know. She might as well drag him into the house and fix him up, if that was possible. That was a lot of holes in one man. His coat was stained in an aged red, which appeared dark brown, from shoulder all the way down over one pant leg, where it had dripped onto the stirrup and dried there. How had he survived this long? Strong man, unwilling to give up. Maybe, just maybe, he would live.

  How she managed, God only knew. She got that heavy son of a gun rolled onto the only cot in her shack. Topper wouldn’t be happy when she saw Butch in her newly claimed spot. She might throw him off if she could lift him. She’d taken over Jessa’s bed while she slept on the dirt floor near the fire. It had been a small sacrifice, given that Topper had lost her man and her business. At the moment, her life was scattered in pieces, and she was desperately working to pull it together. To hear Topper, she liked Butch about as much as she enjoyed Rascal’s company. That left Jessa to do all the nursing.

  She peeled open his shirt. Stitches!

  Who had patched him up? Why hadn’t the money been touched? Someone could have had a fortune. Most expensive stitches ever. Two of the three holes were closed. The open one seeped. They had all been cleaned, but not stitched. Why not doctor all of them?

  A calm breeze flowed through the window. The coolness should have relaxed her tense muscles, but she was thinking too hard as she gathered needle and thread and then began to clean the skin where she would make the stitches. A bird screeched. Jessa jumped back and realized why only half the stitching was completed. She’d bet someone got scared away before the job was done, and that’s why the money was left behind.

  This could mean real trouble for her. Besides the ones she knew about, who else was now looking for that money? Neither Clint nor Porter would have stitched up Butch. Not even Mississippi would have done that.

  Jessa grabbed her rifle off the wall rack, checking the load as she headed out the door. Butch’s horse had wandered to the water trough. She gathered the reins and led the weakened animal into the corral with Bean. The horse went straight for the hay and ate while she stripped off the saddlebags, but not the saddle. She had a plan, but first she would quickly take care of Butch.

  She shut the gate behind her, then hurried across the yard. This was her chance to get out of these mountains. She wasn’t going to lose that for anyone, not even Mississippi. Booker had promised to get her out of there, which was a lie. She’d trusted him, believed he would be good to his word. She wouldn’t be made a fool of twice. She couldn’t count on anyone but herself. Unfortunately, she would have to tell Topper. With her living there, Jessa couldn’t much hide Butch, which meant Topper would ask questions until she got the answers she wanted. And she would want that money. But maybe they could split it.

  Jessa wasn’t much fond of that Porter. Topper was, though. They couldn’t split that cash and him not know, and he’d want it all, minus the small amount promised to Topper.

  After Jessa stitched Butch’s open wound, she slipped on her moccasins, then led Butch’s horse far out into the mountain to a sweet-smelling grassy meadow and turned the animal loose. There was a spring nearby, lots of incentive for that mare to stay happily right where she was, so there should be little worry of her finding her way back to Bean. Horses, by nature, were herd animals, and the mare would eventually seek company. Jessa had kept to rocky ground where she left no footprints alongside the mare’s occasional track. If someone did happen to find Butch’s horse and the empty saddlebags that she’d secured back into place, she didn’t want to be suspected of being anywhere near the missing cash.

  When she got back to her place, sweat dripped down her back, and the crimson sun hung just above the mountaintop, reminding her that lots of people had died trying to get that money. She might be next. She grabbed the shovel out of the barn, then checked that the cash was still hidden under her stack of wood in a canvas sack that looked no better than the clothes she was wearing.

  Jessa moved the flat stone that marked the grave of her sweet baby girl. With tears in her eyes, she then sank the spade and carefully placed the dirt into a sack so as not to leave any evidence of digging if someone came nosing around. An hour later, she precisely returned the stone marker into place. She had laid a pretty bunch of wildflowers atop it just th
at morning.

  Thoughts of Libby, her dear little infant, filled Jessa’s mind. Had Libby lived, she would have been walking by now, maybe talking. Perhaps mama would have been her first word. Jessa wiped at her eyes. There was a pain like no other in her from that awful loss. To lose a child was the worst kind of suffering. That cut-your-heart-out hurt never truly left a body. Inwardly, the grief had left her somewhat empty.

  What scraggly grass there was high up in the mountains covered the edges of the supine headstone, and Jessa did her best to make it look undisturbed. Besides her and Sheriff Pike, no one who passed by would know what that rock symbolized and wouldn’t think about the flowers gone missing. If anyone did, Bean had gotten into them.

  Might be harder to leave this place than she had first thought. The gravestone was dull in color, with no special markings, not even a name. It looked like nothing more than a steppingstone in the yard, and not many traveled the deer paths around her—Indians mostly, a few trappers now and then—and for whatever reason, they all left her alone. Could be because she’d once caught a red fella sneaking out of her cabin with a sack of flour under one arm, her five-pound bag of sugar, brown-paper-wrapped bacon, and her twelve-inch Griswold skillet. She’d squeezed the trigger of her rifle and thrown buckshot at that no-good thief. He’d dropped the goods, and she’d lit out screeching like a crazy woman on his heels until he had disappeared back among the trees.

  Jessa chuckled.

  Before covering up with her quilt, her bones tired and ready for rest, she lifted Butch’s head and pressed a cup to his lips. Most of the water gurgled out the side of his mouth. The cool mountain breeze whistled softly through the trees. A wolf howled on a peak somewhere in the distance. She cut a piece of bread, then curled up near the flames.

  The snort of a horse jolted Jessa awake with a heart-thumping start. Her feet hit the sod, and she sprang off the floor, her head an inch from smacking the ceiling. She grabbed her rifle, whipped open one side of a shuttered window next to the door, and thrust out the serious end of her long iron.

  Shaking the sleep out of her head, she recognized Clint, Rascal, Mississippi, and the quiet one, Jay, sitting atop weary, swaying horses. They’d found her—well, not her. They’d tracked the money. She’d known it would eventually happen but hadn’t expected it to be this quick.

  Clint eyeballed Topper’s sign, and Rascal began to harshly laugh. “Told you that bitch couldn’t be trusted. Those horse prints stop right at her door. Topper probably got the money and lit a shuck.”

  “Shut up! Somebody’s home,” Clint snapped.

  Jessa sighted in on Clint’s hat. She knew what he was thinking. Whoever was inside would give them answers. Her rifle barrel was hidden under the shadow of the porch roof, and the sun was in their faces. All four of them squinted.

  Why did Mississippi have to be there? He had a speck of decency in him that the rest didn’t. She had recognized it when he had pulled Rascal off her. The others had just watched. They didn’t care. They might not have liked it, but not one of them had been willing to step into her trouble and do anything about it. Rascal could have done anything to her. She couldn’t shoot Mississippi.

  Maybe it was those gray eyes that drew her in or the confidence thrown around with each stride when they’d walked down the street. Whatever it was, her chest fluttered. She just couldn’t fall in love with him, not like she had Booker. She wanted out of there. She didn’t want to be tucked away forever. She wanted a life, full and happy. She’d thought she had that with Booker.

  She needed to forget Mississippi. She didn’t want to shoot at four armed men, and she figured three of that lot would throw lead balls back her way. Perhaps she could just scare them away, but she doubted it. Men like them didn’t scare too easily. Her body quivered.

  Clint began to step down. Jessa squeezed the trigger, breaking the silence of the morning. His hat flew ten feet. Stunned, he stumbled, his foot slipped out of the stirrup, and his ass hit the ground.

  “Git back on that hoss and git the hell outta here!”

  Clint picked himself up, brushing the dirt off his pants. Mississippi smirked. Jessa figured that he was not only amused, but probably recognized her voice. The others had all drawn their side arms, but no one shot and they seemed to be waiting for Clint’s word. The horses all pranced nervously at the sudden tension.

  Clint stepped into the saddle. “We’re friends of Topper’s. She here?”

  “I know who ya are and why you’re here. It ain’t to parlay with Topper.” Jessa glanced over her shoulder at Butch, who moaned softly. His lids were shut as usual. Sweat beads made his face glisten.

  If they burst in and found him, she’d have to explain. She couldn’t hold off three of them, not shooting anyhow. Mississippi wouldn’t raise a gun in her direction; she was sure of that. It was that decency in him. His hands were gentle those times he’d touched her. She couldn’t imagine him ever being rough with her. Those others… She shuddered at the thought of what they might do to get what they wanted out of her. They had to get their hands on her first. That wouldn’t be easy.

  She took a deep breath, then steadied her aim at the middle of Clint’s chest.

  She had a choice to make: feed them a little of what she knew and use that to cast them in another direction or outright deny knowing anything of Butch, his horse, or the money. Then pray they didn’t break in. She’d tried to rake away the mare’s prints in the yard and had scrubbed the blood smears off the porch boards after dragging Butch inside. Had she done a good enough job to fool them? These weren’t farmers and shopkeepers she was trying to hoodwink. The boys were savvy right down to their stocking feet, their senses made keen by hard living. Staying alive meant being aware of every little detail.

  Jay, the best rifleman among the gang—or so Mississippi had told Jessa—pointed at a smudge in the dirt. Oh no, it must have been a hoofprint. She couldn’t see the mark in the ground from inside the cabin.

  Jay looked over at the others. “The mare went that way. Ain’t so sure Butch did. No more blood drops.”

  Jessa’s mind was made up. She had to give them a small chunk of bait. If she didn’t, they’d overrun her and find Butch. Then she’d really have some explaining to do, and they likely would get rough with her.

  They all eyed one another. Mississippi shifted, and his saddle creaked, his hand now poised above his Colt. The fool was going to get shot to hell trying to protect her. Clint and Rascal were on one side of him and Jay on the other. Was Mississippi that good on the draw? Why risk it?

  She threw open the door, surprising them all. Every narrowed, speculating eye was on her, except Mississippi’s. That fool actually grinned at her, happy to see her it seemed. She couldn’t reciprocate because the other three men shrewdly eyeballed her as if she were easy prey.

  Her rifle aimed once again at Clint’s chest. “I got your friend inside. Whilst I’s patching ‘im up, something spooked his horse. Took off that way. Tried to find it but couldn’t.”

  She knew they would never believe that she’d just let that money run off without a try at it. She was dirt poor and had nothing to lose by trying to grab it first. They knew Topper. Therefore, they knew Jessa’s type and would expect her to act in accordance. She would spoon-feed them just enough of the truth to keep safe, if that were possible, and to keep Mississippi from doing something stupid, thinking he had to protect her. He should know she was far from helpless. Although, she was helplessly falling in love and mad at herself for it. He was a drifter, a wanted man, not exactly the settling down type.

  CHAPTER 5

  Mississippi didn’t trust a word that little all-fire hellcat said—not as far as Butch’s horse and the money was concerned. She had to know something more than the horse ran off. Why get so defensive? Shooting at a man was serious business, especially a rattler like Clint, a man accustomed to using his brute strength to get what he wanted. Being a woman wouldn’t save her from his pistol or fists or anything else
if Clint had a mind to clobber her.

  She had them. With the sun glaring in their eyes, not one of them had seen that rifle aimed until Clint’s hat went sailing. They were clear targets, sitting ducks. Clint recognized he would be the first to die, so he turned his horse, following Jay, who was trailing the mare. Dead men couldn’t spend money, and Clint didn’t want someone else getting his share. He wanted to live and enjoy his cut as much as the rest of them. Mississippi’s plans took a different shape than what he’d first conjured up. Now he saw Jessa with him, if that could be so for a wanted man. Maybe he could change his name? But he couldn’t change his face, and there were posters of him plastered in every town. He was thinking like a fool.

  Bean stood alone in a rickety lean-to with a short run made of dovetailed logs. No roan mare. Jessa was smart enough not to keep that horse there. So what had she done with Butch’s ride? The mare wasn’t the flighty type. It would’ve had to have been a grizzly or something big and mean to spook that horse. Cougar maybe? Possible but unlikely. No wild animal tracks. She had the money. He just knew it.

  Out of sight of the cabin, Mississippi pulled up reins, studying the scuff mark in the dirt next to the print of Butch’s mare. That scrape had been made by a flat, smooth-bottomed shoe, not a boot, no heel. Jessa had been wearing moccasins at the trade post and when he had spent the night with her in town. That mark was dainty, not man-size. No Indian had made that scuff. Mississippi glanced over his shoulder toward where he knew her mind was probably spinning, asking herself what to do now. They had shown up, tracked the money to her yard, to her door. If she hadn’t hidden the cash, she’d be doing so in short time and in an almighty hurry.