Anita Mills (9 page)

“Don’t guess you’ll be puttin’ that where it ain’t wanted no more,” the kid said coolly.

“Oh, God…oh, my God…Jesus…ohhh…,”

Turning to Laura, the boy shook his head. “I shoulda done that the first time he beat up on my sister. He’d change after the baby came, she said. He was upset. She made everything out to be her fault. But it didn’t make any difference whether she crossed him or not He was always upset about something, and he was always hittin’ her. Now they got two little kids, not countin’ the one she just lost.” Squinting up at the sky for a moment, he added, “A man don’t change his nature—if he’s born mean, he stays mean until somebody takes it out of him. I shoulda done that a long time ago.”

“Thank you,” she managed. “If you hadn’t shown up when you did, I don’t know what I would have done.”

“I heard you hollerin’, so I figured I’d find him. You’re lucky he didn’t cut you up some first, ‘cause he likes to do that, too. Jake don’t enjoy a woman ‘less he hurts her.”

“He’s done this before?”

“Yeah. There’s been two others I know of, but the law wouldn’t do anything about it, ‘cause the women wouldn’t say it was him. I guess they figured if he wasn’t hanged for it, he’d be back to kill ‘em, and they was beat up pretty bad the first time, you know. And Maggie woulda sworn he was at home when it happened, anyways, ‘cause she’d be afraid to tell on him.”

“I see.”

“No, you don’t. Nobody can. Three days ago he beat her until she spit up blood, and like I said, she lost the baby. She’s twenty years old, and she looks forty.”

“I’m sorry.”

“But I got even for her,” he went on. “To somebody like Jake, his life ain’t worth much without his tallywhacker.”

“Aren’t you afraid he’ll come after you?”

He looked to his brother-in-law, who was still flopping on the ground like a fish out of water, crying and moaning in agony. “By the time he can get on a horse and ride, me and Maggie and the kids’ll be somewhere he can’t find us,” Walking to his horse, he swung up into the saddle. “You tell ‘em what you have to, ma’am, ‘cause the law ain’t findin’ us neither.”

“She’s lucky to have a brother like you,” Laura said softly.

“I’m just sorry it took me so long to grow up enough to help her, that’s all.” Adjusting the brim of his hat to shade his face, the kid kneed the animal. “Tell ‘em it was Tommy Hale that shot him.” Turning his horse, he went east on the Platte Road toward Omaha.

“Jesus…you gotta help me,” Jake Eldred gasped. “My privates is gone,”

Instead, she walked away. Her pity had left with the boy. “Hey, you!——I gotta have a doc—I gotta!” Eldred called after her.

When she reached the cluster of tents, she hesitated for a moment before she ducked beneath an open canvas flap. “Mrs. Taylor,” Dr. Warren murmured, looking up from a battered campaign chair. Refolding the newspaper on his lap, he exhaled. “Is there anything I can do for you?”

‘There’s a wounded man across the road—over by the river,” she said, coming to the point quickly. “He accosted me when I went for water.”

“I can’t say it wasn’t bound to happen,” he observed dryly. “This is hardly the place for a decent female, and so I told your husband when he brought you out here.” Realizing how unsympathetic that sounded, he unbent enough to ask, “You aren’t hurt, are you?”

“Just my dress, and I can fix that.”

“I told your husband your condition wouldn’t protect you—there are men in these camps so woman-hungry that a wart-covered crone isn’t safe around them.”

“He wasn’t from camp—he’d apparently just stopped for water when he saw me.”

He heaved himself up from the folding chair and reached for his hat. “I’ll see if I can round up some fellows to look for him, but if you’re going to stay out here, things like this are bound to happen. It’ll be different in another year or
so
,
but right now, it’s no place for a lady,”

“I’m not the only female out here,” she pointed out.

“Oh, we got hog ranches popping up like dandelions after a rain, all right, but women like that know what they’re getting into.”

“There’s no need to send anybody out to look for the man who accosted me, anyway, Dr. Warren,” she said tiredly. “He’s been shot twice, so he’s not going anywhere,”

“No need to get uppity with me, Mrs. Taylor. The truth’s the truth, regardless of the messenger. But you’ve come to the right person, anyway. Who shot him?”

“I don’t know—somebody who just happened to see what was happening. I didn’t even get a chance to thank him before he rode off.”

“Probably running from the law, and he didn’t want any notice,”

“I don’t know,”

“Well, there’s no need to bring you into it at all, then. I’ll just report finding a wounded man, and if he dies, that’ll be the end of it. If he doesn’t, he’ll be too afraid of hanging to mention his part in the business.”

“Thank you,” she said dryly.

“Doc! Doc Warren!”

“Excuse me, ma’am. Yeah?” Warren answered loudly.

A breathless fellow burst through the open tent flaps. “There’s been an accident ‘bout thirty miles up ahead! You gotta come real quick!”

“How bad is it?”

“Real bad, Doc—I guess they got a man about cut in half up there. They ain’t moving the car off ‘im till you get there to say he’s dead.”

“I’ll get my bag just in case,” Warren decided. Noticing Laura again, he said brusquely, “Your little matter will have to wait, I’m afraid.”

“But—”

“Mrs. Taylor, I’m in a hurry. If that fellow across the road dies before I get back, it’s not much of a loss, anyway.” Having said that, he picked up a large canvas bag and pushed past her.

Not wanting to go back to face Jake Eldred by herself again, she went to her own tent, where she sank into a scarred kitchen chair, laid her head on the table, and wept. She didn’t know what she’d expected .of Warren when she’d gone to see him, but what she’d gotten was little more than censure, she reflected bitterly. If she’d gone in there shaking and crying, vowing to go back to North Carolina, the railroad doctor would probably have rushed over to pin a medal on the man on his way out of camp.

She hated it here. She hated everything about the place—the isolation, the heat, the hostility, the endless days of waiting for a husband too tired to talk when he came in. The war had taken more than Danny from her. It had changed Jesse to a driven man.

The stinging tears of self-pity subsided, and she sat up. Things would get better. She’d be all right. She was a strong woman. Instead of feeling sorry for herself, she ought to be praying for the man trapped under that train thirty miles up the track.

Feeling better, she washed her hands, then turned her attention back to the bread dough. Punching it down again, she separated it into three parts, flattened them on a wet cloth, then rolled each piece, pinching the ends together before she put them into the loaf pans. As hot as the weather was, it wouldn’t take them long to rise this last time.

Determined to keep busy the rest of the day, she baked, mended, and sewed on the fancy lawn christening dress she was making for the baby. The whole front was delicately pleated with tiny stitches, while the yoke above them was intricately embroidered with white silk roses on white lawn. The work was so tedious and so time consuming, it’d take another month to finish the gown the way she wanted it to look.

That night, she read in bed, all but oblivious to the storm outside, finding company in the mythic heroes of the Trojan War. Too sleepy to finish the story, she trimmed down the lantern wick, then blew out the flame. As the thin line of smoke curled into the darkness, she closed her eyes.

“Mrs. Taylor! Mrs. Taylor!”

At first, she thought she’d been dreaming, then she realized someone was outside, shouting to waken her. Rolling over, she groped for the lantern. The wind had died down, and the rain had stopped, but the sun wasn’t up yet.

“Mrs. Taylor, can you hear me?”

“Yes,” she mumbled sleepily. “Yes!” she answered more loudly. “Who is it?”

“Russell—Bill Russell! Are you decent?”

“Yes!”

Leaning over the side of the bed to reach the lantern, she searched for the box of sulphur matches.

She could hear Russell fumbling to unfasten the tent opening.

“I’ll get it!” she called out.

She struck a match and lit the wick, watching the flame grow until it cast grotesque, flickering shadows up the pale canvas walls. Padding on barefeet to the front of the tent, she managed to unlace the heavy flaps. The yellow light illuminated the man’s haggard face and reflected in his red-rimmed eyes.

“Whatever—?” She could feel the ground sway beneath her feet, and she knew. “It’s Jesse, isn’t it?”

“I wish I could say it wasn’t,” he answered. “I’m sorry, Mrs. Taylor—there wasn’t anything anybody could do.”

The ground gave way, and the world tumbled like a brick wall collapsing around her before everything went mercifully black.

S
pence reined in and leaned forward to ease his tired shoulders as he stared at the muddy Missouri, thinking it was still a long way to California, and he had to keep going or he’d never make it across the Rockies and the Sierras before winter hit. He’d probably made a mistake by taking the Platte Road west, but he’d wanted to avoid the Comanches and the desert heat in Texas, and any way he chose, he couldn’t miss hitting mountains. Besides, Ross and Liddy had been down this road six months earlier.

It had cost Spence more than five hundred dollars and a lot of wasted time before Allan Pinkerton’s “agency in Chicago had gotten back to him with information gleaned from Ross’s sister Phoebe in England. By telling her Sally Jamison’s will had been probated, leaving Lydia a sizable amount of money, Pinker-ton’s man had managed to get the address of Ross’s maternal uncle in San Francisco.

While expressing horror at her brother’s scandalous behavior, she’d confided that he’d written his family, saying the blockade had made it impossible for him to join them, and he and Lydia were heading west instead, where he’d been promised a position in their uncle’s banking business. Assuring them of his noble intent, Ross had also said Lydia had opened his eyes to her husband’s true character, implying that Spence had married her for her money. Once they were settled in, he also indicated she’d get a divorce, and they’d legalize their “irregular union.”

Irregular union, hell. It was adultery, no matter what they wanted to call it. And Spence would see both of them dead before he’d agree to any divorce. They’d dashed his dreams, stolen his child, and made him the laughingstock of Crawford County, and there was no way on earth he’d forgive them for it.

He just wished he’d found out where they’d gone earlier, before he’d had to spend months enduring the whispers, the knowing looks that told him the whole damned neighborhood knew his wife had cuckolded him. And it hadn’t helped one damned bit to know that most of them pitied him. It he hadn’t been waiting to hear from Pinkerton, he would have gotten out of there a long time ago.

But so far, the information he’d paid for was proving out, he conceded. There’d been a Mr. and Mrs. Ross Donnelly and son registered at the finest hotels in St. Louis and Kansas City last March. Now, if he found they’d stayed in Omaha also, he’d know he wasn’t on a wild-goose chase.

When he reached town, he wanted to find a hotel where he could get a bath and a decent meal for a change. Not knowing what he’d get into in California, and not wanting to carry a lot of money on him, he’d been sleeping under the stars, making himself skillet biscuits and strong coffee, and fishing in the river whenever he could. By now, he was pretty sure he smelled worse than a billy goat.

The bay sidestepped suddenly, and Spence jerked to attention. He heard the heart-pausing buzz before he saw the coiled rattlesnake, and he pulled the reins taut with one hand while he went for the Navy Colt with the other. He pulled the trigger, and the headless coil unraveled to writhe a couple of times before it lay still, looking like a dirty piece of rope in the dusty road. As the gun smoke dissipated, he shoved the revolver back into its holster.

Four months ago, he probably couldn’t have killed the snake with one shot. It had taken him hundreds of hours of practice, but now he could cock and fire five times and hit his mark with every bullet. And he’d made himself quick enough that he could draw and shatter a dropped shot glass before it hit the ground. Ross wouldn’t have any more of a chance than that rattlesnake.

“Come on, Clyde,” he murmured, nudging the horse. “We’re not getting anywhere just standing here.”

Clyde.
It was a helluva name for a good animal, Spence reflected wryly. But when Trader had gone lame outside Boonville, Missouri, he’d been damned lucky to find the chestnut gelding that he hadn’t cared what they called it. “Clyde’s a mite fidgety, and that scares some folks off, you know,” the fellow had warned him as he took Spence’s hundred dollars. Fidgety had turned out to mean if the animal was given its head, it ran like an Arabian. What Clyde had lacked, Spence decided, was exercise.

A steam whistle sounded behind him. Half turning in the saddle, he could see the train coming down tracks parallel to the road. Suddenly, the air brakes squealed, and the black iron locomotive shuddered before it slowed. The cars passing him proclaimed Union Pacific R. R. in bold, gaudy letters. Mustachioed men and bonneted women stared out of windows rolling by. In one of the cars, a tow-headed little boy had his nose pressed against the glass while he waved at Spence.

As the track cleared, a wide sign peered across the rails, welcoming strangers. Omaha. The Gate City of the West. The train’s clattering wheels ground against the steel tracks as the air brakes grabbed again, venting a burst of steam and smoke into the air. Mastered now, the cars rolled docilely into the whitewashed depot marked simply, Omaha.

While porters pulled iron steps down and a heavy door swung open, Spence scanned the street ahead, looking for a place to stay. Two signs stood out, one calling attention to a boardinghouse, the other announcing a hotel. In about five minutes the street would fill with people leaving those railroad cars.