Mississippi

by J. B. Richard

  Topper dropped into a chair, her mouth stupidly hanging open. “How’d ya get it?” She quickly shook her head. “Never mind. That ain’t important. We gotta get out of here.”

  Jessa understood Topper’s thinking. If Clint and the others lost the posse, they would be back, and she hoped Mississippi would slip the noose. The others, she didn’t so much care about. If they didn’t come, then the posse would likely come around questioning her connection to the wanted men and the money. They might search the place. It would take but a glance to find Butch, and him being there made her look guiltier yet.

  She was now associated with that stolen money. She couldn’t count on Sheriff Pike’s help. Maybe at one time, he would have intervened, but not after today. He was a lawman. Mississippi was an outlaw. She’d made her choice, and he clearly hadn’t approved. The same as he hadn’t approved of Booker. Booker wasn’t a wanted man, though. A no-good, cheating card shark, yes, but there had been no papers on him.

  “I’ll tell ya what we’re gonna do. Help me load him into the buckboard first.” Topper stood from her chair.

  “Why?” Jessa didn’t want to haul him along, moaning and needing more care than they could manage easily on the trail. “We should just leave ‘im. His friends will probably be back.” Her fingers were crossed for Mississippi.

  “Darlin’, you don’t know that for sure. Curry’s one mean bastard. He’ll dry-gulch them boys if he has to. So we can’t let Butch here to just die. He don’t deserve our help, but I’m gonna give it to him anyway. I know he’ll slow us up, but my late husband regarded him as a friend. I couldn’t do anything to help him, but I can do this.”

  Jessa understood, but she still didn’t want Butch slowing them down. There had to be another way besides dragging him along. Arguing with Topper would get her nowhere. She had to think.

  They groaned and heaved. Sweat soaked Jessa’s back and ringed the pits of Topper’s shirt. Fifteen minutes later, they dropped Butch into a narrow space that wasn’t loaded with Topper’s supplies. Jessa collected a few things in her carpetbag. A brooch of her mother’s. It was too fancy for Jessa to ever wear, but she liked to look at it and remember her mother wearing it. Next, the books Mississippi had read from, also her mother’s. Her change of shirt. And she opened the Bible Sheriff Pike had given her the day after Libby was born. Her sweet little baby girl. Jessa’s name and the date of her birth was written in that same Bible, a line above Libby’s. She tucked it safely inside, then left the house.

  When she moved the stone marker and began to dig, tears blinded her. She wiped at her cheeks. Topper stepped forward. Likely, she had guessed why all the tears. She’d known about Libby, and she’d seen Jessa placing flowers on that spot almost every morning. Jessa had told her about Libby’s birth and passing when she’d gone to visit at the trade post. That was two years ago. Hard to believe that much time had passed since she held Libby or smelled her little baby head.

  Topper pushed the empty sack toward Jessa. “Here, I’ll do the digging.”

  Jessa didn’t care to argue. Thinking about Libby made her sad to the point of exhaustion. Had she not been tucked away up in these mountain to keep the shame of being with child out of wedlock hidden from the townsfolk, friends, and neighbors who respected her father as one of their leaders, perhaps Libby would have lived. He’d been too busy to check on them regular. He hadn’t gotten the doc to them in time to save her. Fever had swept through the territory a month after she’d given birth, and they both had fallen ill. When Sheriff Pike found them, Jessa was delirious, the baby badly dehydrated. She’d lived a few more days, unable to recover. The doc left them, and Sheriff Pike had stayed and helped her bury Libby.

  Topper pulled the sack of money out of the ground. She began to cackle madly. This was her dream, the same as Jessa’s. They were about to escape these mountains and all the heartache that lived there.

  It came to Jessa then, how they could unload Butch. She needed to talk to Doc. He was always willing to help her. But this time, she would be asking a lot of him. Butch might be dead tomorrow, or he might stay strong and fight his way back to health. Either way, she and Topper needed shuck of him. They couldn’t ride back to Burnt Cabins and hop on a train with a wounded man, one of the men who had robbed that town.

  By the time they got to Piketown, the sun was nearly down. Shadows covered the land, and the evening air was cooling. Jessa halted the team behind Doc’s office, then handed the reins to Topper. “I’ll be a minute.”

  Topper nodded, and Jessa knocked once before the door opened. Doc held a scatter gun taller than himself. She’d never known him to own a gun or look so jittery. He pulled her inside, smacking the door shut. Sweat beaded his cheeks.

  “You okay?” She was shocked to see him in such a state.

  “I’ve had some unexpected visitors lately.” He wiped his handkerchief over his face.

  What she had to say would certainly be unexpected, and Doc probably wouldn’t like it. She hated to ask and involve him, but she had no choice. There was nobody else to turn to. Stan, the livery owner, was another who was always willing to help her, but she wasn’t having horse trouble. She was having outlaw trouble.

  “I got a patient for ya.”

  “I’ll get my bag.” He turned toward his desk where his black bag sat.

  “No need. He’s in the wagon. Just help me bring him in.”

  Guilt panged at her. Doc was always good to her, and there she was about to dump and saddle him down with the raw hunk of shot-up meat named Butch. She’d taken care of him for only a few days and was worn to a nub. He needed constant sponging and couldn’t hold up his head to drink.

  Doc reached for the door.

  “Wait.” She grabbed his arm. “I gotta tell ya something.”

  Doc paled. “I have a feeling I already know. I seen ya with the one called Mississippi.” He cupped his chin with his thumb lying upside his cheek and thought a minute. “I’ll say he was dumped at my back door. No one has to know it was you. Unless someone seen ya with him.”

  She knew the risk the doctor was taking by helping her. She didn’t want him getting hurt and believed Clint would kill anyone who got in the way of that money. No one could find out she had brought Butch there—no one—or Doc might find himself using that gun. “No one seen us coming to town. I’m sure.” She hesitated, then went on. “The ones that Mississippi rides with, they could track him here. Wouldn’t be hard. I can’t hide the wagon tracks.”

  Doc nodded, understanding what it could cost him if he opened that door, making the choice to help her. She couldn’t have left Butch to die, although she had sort of suggested it when she mentioned leaving him for his friends to find. They could take Butch, but moving would be too slow and they would have to change their plan. The train in Burnt Cabins wouldn’t be an option as long as Butch was with them, and that train was the fastest way out of the territory through which they wouldn’t be tracked.

  Doc turned the knob. A few minutes later, with all of them lifting, they carried the unconscious Butch inside and slid him onto a bed in one of Doc’s personal rooms. He figured the outlaw was less likely to be found there, and he would stay out of the saloon where there was talk of the robbery in Burnt Cabins. Then, if the sheriff happened to find Butch, Doc could play innocent, dismissing himself from knowledge of the robbery.

  “A hunting accident. That’s how the one called Mississippi had described this one’s condition,” Doc said.

  Jessa threw her arms around Doc. “Thanks.”

  None of this was for Butch. Doc was her friend. He’d seen her grow up. Knew her mother, was there when she died, cared about Jessa, loved her in a neighborly way, and was a partner to her father in building this town. An old-time friend. She could count on him. He would do what he could within the law to protect her, even if he didn’t like all her decisions.

  Doc hadn’t liked Booker. Considering the situation, it was doubtful he thought any better of Mississippi, who was a
better man. Maybe not completely an honest man, but he had charged into a hail of gunfire and saved Bean. Booker would have never done that or anything else that put him in danger, not for her anyway. He’d shown his cowardice the day he died.

  “You take care, Jessa.”

  The door clicked closed, and she turned and crawled onto the wagon seat next to Topper. Bean was tied to the back.

  They headed away from town and toward Devil’s Cauldron. The sky was black. Not a star twinkled, and all was silent. Would they make it to the train? It was a long shot. Was Mississippi alive, or had he been hanged or shot? Had the posse returned to the cabin, searching for the stolen money? Had they found Libby’s grave where the money had been hidden?

  For once, Jessa’s spirit felt weak. She wasn’t one to cry over nothing, and she didn’t dare right then because Topper was sitting next to her. Topper was able to handle rough, frisky men who could not control themselves, like Rascal, but girly tears made her crumble. She’d never had children of her own and wasn’t the mothering type, so there were certain situations and a particular flow of emotion that she just never seemed to figure out how to deal with. As far back as Jessa could recall, Topper had told her crying never solved anything. She’d been told each time to dry her eyes.

  The last few days—she didn’t know what it was—but Jessa’s emotions were up and down and all over the place. One minute, she could burst out crying, and the next, she was pissed off. She missed Mississippi and figured he should be around. Port had visited Topper when he could before it all went to hell and they had to go on the road. She wondered if he had heard about the shootout with the posse. For Topper’s sake, she hoped Porter didn’t run into that crew. Topper was sweet on that man and had high hopes of getting married again. Only, this time she’d be marrying a rich man.

  Jessa looked up into the moonless night. Marriage wasn’t where her mind was. Even if she never laid eyes on Mississippi again, she wished to somehow know that he was still breathing. That was all she wanted, more than she wanted that money. She sniffled.

  The next morning, they were deep in the hills, Piketown long behind them. Another few days and they’d be at the railroad. They had crossed the mighty backbone of Blacklog Mountain at a slow pace, then had to rest the horses and Bean. At noon, the smell of fresh coffee lured a couple trappers out and into their camp. They bartered for supplies, and it was the perfect alibi for them to be in the mountain, away from her cabin and far from Piketown. They had become traveling saleswomen.

  The trappers were happy to hear news from Piketown. Nothing of the manhunt or posse was mentioned. In return, news of where they had crossed sign of Apache was shared, and they warned the ladies to keep their rifles close at hand. They’d buried two men, one burned to death and one skinned. After they finished their stew, the two men cloaked in furs quietly left. It took Jessa and Topper only a few minutes to pack up camp. If a posse stopped and questioned them for any reason, they looked legitimate.

  Just before nightfall, their buckboard rattled into the basin of the cauldron, swampy and damp, and the skeeters were biting. It gave the skin a clammy feel. They unhitched the team, and while Topper started a fire for heating up their leftover stew, Jessa headed for a shallow trickle not far away, still in sight. But there were a few trees and bushes scattered between them. She stretched her shirt off over her head, wet the tail, and began to bathe herself. Sweat, the kind that came with worry plus the beads from the sun, had baked on. If the horses, thinner than a few days ago, held up over the rocky terrain while pulling the load, they would reach the town of Burnt Cabins by week’s end.

  Jessa splashed water on her face and once again found herself wondering what had happened to Mississippi. Maybe she should go back and find out. Topper could have the money. Jessa had been poor most of her life. Why start dreaming of something new when she missed that rundown cabin?

  Libby popped into her head. She had an ache in her heart to lay flowers on the spot where her little girl was buried. She missed being a mama. It had only been for a short time, but it had felt right when most things in her life never really felt that way. It was like the first time she met Mississippi. She’d fallen in love with him that instant. It seemed crazy, him being a wanted man, and if Sheriff Pike had his way, Mississippi would soon be hanged if he hadn’t been strung up already. She hated that thought and wiped at her eyes. There she was being all sappy again. What had gotten into her? She was more tired than usual and stressed. That could be it. She just wasn’t herself as of late, and she needed to be focused. She couldn’t go back looking for Mississippi. The whole lot of them would likely kill her while trying to get back that money.

  A shrill scream cut through the air. Jessa bolted to her feet, twisting in the direction of Topper’s cries. She shoved on her shirt, yanking it down over her head, and took off at run, rifle in hand. Was it Clint? Rascal? Jessa couldn’t see Topper for a patch of brush. The posse maybe? Or worse than all those things, the Apache?

  Jessa burst out of the prickly thicket twenty feet from a fierce-looking warrior. The other four had Topper’s legs spread wide on the ground, holding her down, her clothes torn to shreds. Her skin was bruising already, and they were doing the unspeakable to her. Jessa took aim and squeezed the trigger. The buck closest coughed blood the instant the bullet drilled his throat. She swung her rifle, aiming at the others. Working her finger, she blasted them to hell, aware that Topper was still on the ground, crying and probably in shock. Two more savages fell, never to get up again. The other two roared their war cry, one wielding a lance with feathers and scalps tied to it. The other came at her with a long knife that glinted in what was left of the fading sun. Her gun clicked empty. Without thought, she swung the barrel with both hands, clubbing him upside the head as he struck at her and cut into her forearm.

  She yelped. Blood poured from her arm. The other one thrust his lance, poking at her belly. They had her surrounded. She would be used as roughly as Topper. A rifle blasted, and flame lit up the darkness. The Indian with the lance fell dead on his face. The other turned and hightailed his ass into the trees. A second rifle blast followed behind him. Topper was on her feet, wavering and naked as a jaybird, blood dripping from a cut on her mouth.

  A coyote called. Jessa had lived in these mountains long enough to recognize a false cry when she heard it. The buck was calling his friends. Who knew how many more Apache were out there? They had to run. They needed to get out of there now.

  She grabbed her small carpetbag and pulled out the change of shirt for Topper, who stared as though she didn’t know what it was or what Jessa was asking of her. She was probably still in shock. Another coyote called out, then another and another. In all, there were eight. That was too many for her and Topper to win this fight.

  Twigs snapped. Then something sprang out of the brush at them. Jessa jumped near out of her skin and screamed right along with Topper, who dropped her rifle. The buck with the knife was back and brought lots of friends. Jessa had taken time and reloaded. She popped off a couple shots, then grabbed Topper by the wrist and took off with her, running like mad through the woods. She hoped neither of them tripped over a tree root or something in the dark.

  The steamy breath of one of the redskins raised the hair on the back of Jessa’s neck. She swung Topper forward by her arm. “Keep running!”

  Jessa whipped around, squeezing the trigger. Orange flame stabbed into his chest. The buck dropped midleap at her. She turned, and up ahead, Topper screamed, but her yell sounded far away. She couldn’t have gotten that far. The sound died. Footsteps, running toward Jessa, came in closer. She ducked into the brush.

  The moon was bright, but hopefully, they wouldn’t spot her. She curled back, her spine tight against a tree, and sorted her options. She could run. It was too dark to follow any tracks she might leave. If she didn’t make a sound, she just might live. Where was Topper, though? And was she alive? No more screams cut the air.

  After a long while, there
were no more footsteps. Had they given up looking for her? Or were they waiting for her to come out of hiding? She’d killed some of them, so her death wouldn’t come pretty. They’d torture her after they used her. Where was Mississippi when she needed him? She’d even settle for Sheriff Pike, who was still fast with a gun for his age.

  Her heart pounded in her throat. The night was too quiet, and she had two shots left. She’d heard tell of people holding back one bullet for themselves rather than letting the Indians kill them off. She’d never quite understood that decision until now. That left her one shot. Or she could count the chamber as empty, no shots, if she had to oblige Topper. She hoped it didn’t come to either of those things.

  She silently slunk from under the brush without snagging her clothing. Each step was taken with caution so as not to snap a twig or crunch a leaf. Those things would give away her position real quick. Under the moon, the path before her was fairly straight, visible to an eye that would recognize a deer path. Topper had been out of her head, distraught and screaming, and if she hadn’t been dragged off through the woods, then she likely had run along here. Clear of brush and not too rocky, it would have been the easiest escape route.

  Jessa listened to every little noise for sign of the enemy. An owl hooted from up in a tree somewhere off to her left, and bugs hummed by her ears. The moon sparkled on the rocks maybe ten yards in front of her. Beyond them, in sort of a circle, the ground appeared black, blacker than anything else around. Like someone had dumped a wagon full of tar in one spot. It was a hole. A big one. The ground there had fallen in.