Dark Trail (15 page)

Promptly at six, Cletus closed the store, pulling down the front blinds, double-checking the safe, and setting up the new red licorice display for the kids tomorrow. He took his usual route out the back door to the alley.

If you walked five sandy blocks straight down the alley, you'd reach the backyard of Cletus' house.

Tonight, walking, he whistled.

Usually at day's end he was so fatigued, he thought of nothing except supper and sitting in the parlor in his stocking feet and having his youngest girl rub his toes. How she loved to do that, sweet child that she was.

But tonight Cletus looked and sounded ten years younger. It was the money in his pocket, of course. His wife was really going to be surprised. He'd already made up his mind that he wasn't going to tell her where it came from. He'd lie and say that Mr. Sanford, the owner of the store, had given him the money as a bonus, unlikely a tale as it was.

So he whistled. When he saw a sweet collie, he stopped to pet her. And when he saw a woman taking down white bedsheets from her clothesline, he waved.

He was half a block away from home when he stopped whistling.

A single, simple thought had just hit him: I'm not a lucky man. I've been blessed with a true-blue wife and three wonderful children, but I have not been blessed with luck. I'm not strong; I'm not handsome; I'm not successful. And I will get caught. Somehow, Sheriff Carter will find out what I've done and he'll come after me. Then, Lord, I'll be looking for a new job, one where I have no responsibility with firearms, and my wife will be frying shit sandwiches because that'll be the only thing to eat.

He turned sharply around in the sandy alley and went back to the downtown area. The red sun was sinking just on the sharp black edge of a garage roof.

“Sheriff.”

“Howdy, Cletus.”

“Sheriff, you have a minute?”

“I was just going over to the café for some supper. Care to walk along?”

Bolder than he'd ever been, Cletus closed the door behind him, shutting the two men inside the sheriff's office.

The sheriff looked amused with Cletus' new boldness. ‘This must be important.”

“It is.”

“Then go ahead.”

“Sheriff, I've made a mistake.”

“All right.”

“A bad one.”

“I see.”

“I accepted a bribe.”

Sheriff Carter smiled. “No offense, Cletus, but who the hell'd want to bribe you?”

“That woman.”

“What woman?”

“The one who almost shot Ben Rittenauer this afternoon.”

“Just what the hell are you trying to tell me, anyway?” For the first time, the sheriff looked interested in all this. Now, instead of sitting back, he was hunched forward, elbows on his desk.

“I sold her another gun.”

“What?”

“Yes. And I'm sorry.”

“Why in God's name would you do something like that?”

“Because I was greedy.”

“Son of a bitch.”

“I knew you'd get mad and I'm sorry.”

“When did this happen?”

“About forty-five minutes ago.”

“Son of a bitch.”

“Like I said, I'm sorry.”

The sheriff stood up. “You may just have gotten a man killed tonight, Cletus.”

“I realize that.”

“That was a dumb goddamn thing to do.”

“That's why I came over here. To tell you.”

Sheriff Carter put on his fancy hat and started for the door. “You say she bribed you?”

“Yessir.”

“How much?”

Cletus told him.

“What're you going to do with it?” the sheriff asked.

Cletus took the bills from his pocket and offered them to the sheriff. “Hand it over.”

The lawman looked at the money in Cletus' hand. “I imagine your wife and kids could use that, couldn't they?”

“Yessir.”

“Then you keep it and take it home.”

“But—”

“Somebody might as well get something good out of this whole goddamned mess.”

And with that, Carter pushed his way out of the office and into the dusky street.

His hand wouldn't quit twitching. He kept making it into a fist so Hollister wouldn't see.

“You all right, Mr. Evans?” Hollister asked, working the traces as the horses moved swiftly toward the Adair ranch. There was amusement in his voice. He could see how anxious Evans was and he was enjoying it.

“How about you, Mr. Rittenauer?”

“Me?”

“Yes.”

“I'm doing fine.”

And he sounded fine, too. He really did.

Hollister looked over at Evans and smiled. “Did you hear that, Mr. Evans? Rittenauer is doing fine.”

Evans didn't reply, just stared straight ahead. He should have gotten his own ride out to the ranch. Being this close to Beth wasn't good. He wanted to turn around and shout at her about how she'd betrayed him.

His hand started twitching again, his gun hand.

Hollister said, “It won't be long now, Mr. Evans. It won't be long now at all.”

He hitched the horses faster.

The bar was filling up for the evening when the sheriff came in. Everybody was talking about the fight out at the ranch. Almost nobody felt that Evans could win. Everybody was talking about how Ben Rittenauer had once killed one of the Bremer brothers. Anybody who could kill one of the Bremer brothers didn't have anything to worry about from Frank Evans.

Guild was at the bar when the sheriff came up. He had to elbow his way up to Guild. The men were drunk enough now that they were no longer intimidated by a lawman's badge.

“You're going to need that drink, Guild,” the sheriff said, pouring himself a shot from Guild's bottle of rye.

“Oh. How's that?”

Before he spoke, the sheriff downed his whiskey with great efficiency and poured himself a second. He didn't ask permission this time, either.

The sheriff said, “You put her on the train.”

“That's right.”

“But she didn't stay on the train.”

“What?!”

The sheriff shook his head. “She got off the train and went straight back to the general store and bribed the clerk into selling her another gun.”

“I'll be goddamned.”

“Then she went over to the livery stable and got herself a horse.”

This time it was Guild who shook his head. “How long ago?”

“Half-hour, from what I can figure.”

“You riding out there?”

The sheriff nodded. “Thought you might want to go along.”

Without asking, the lawman poured each of them one more drink.

They raised their glasses and threw them back.

“She's a damned determined woman,” the sheriff said.

“She always was,” Guild said.

They left.

When she reached the ranch, Sarah found more than two hundred people dressed in fancy dresses and evening clothes spread out across the rolling, shorn grass on the west side of the huge house. She'd reached the ranch before the wagon because the liveryman had told her of a shortcut that only a horse could handle.

In the dusk, the first stars were coming out, the glass lanterns were beautiful against the sky, and the air was fresh with the scent of mown grass.

The guests were loud with laughter and their own self­ importance. She had no trouble slipping among them to reach the house.

Once inside, she went straight back to the kitchen. She wished there were time to stop and look at all the lovely furnishings and the paintings on the walls, or to watch the string quartet in the library tuning their instruments and trading soft, smart jokes.

In the kitchen a small group of white, Mexican, and Indian women were busily preparing dinner. Outside the screen door a huge side of beef turned over and over on a fiery spit. Without a word, she grabbed a white apron and started helping. She was pleased with her own ingenuity. Nobody would question why she moved among the crowd.

The gun was in a deep pocket in the folds of her dress. When the time came, when she could get a clear shot at Ben Rittenauer, she would be ready.

Beth wished the wagon ride would never end. She wanted to go right on past the ranch to someplace golden and magical, someplace that her mother would have liked and admired, where older men with white walrus mustaches took care of young girls like Beth.

But despite the vividness of her daydreams, Beth kept looking at Frank Evans' back, at how he was half slumped-over and his right hand kept trembling. He knew he was going to die in an hour or so, and Beth felt more pity for him than she wanted to. He had been an abusive lover and a cold friend, and yet she saw his desperation and insecurity, had always recognized it as much like her own desperation and insecurity. She wanted to put her hand on his and say gently, I'm still your friend, Frank. I'm better off with Ben. But I'm still your friend.

The wagon clattered on into the chilling night.

Back in her daydream she imagined someplace wonderful, imagined herself floating into a ballroom in a dress that would shame a princess. And the men would watch her so admiringly.

With perfect mean satisfaction Hollister said, “That hand of yours is starting to shake pretty bad, Mr. Evans. You want a drink from my flask?”

Before she even knew what she was saying, Beth heard her own voice. “Leave him alone, Hollister. You've been picking on him all the way out here.”

Ben was looking at her—curious, maybe even angry.

“Just sit back and relax, Beth. He's no concern of yours anymore,” he said gently.

Hollister turned around and looked at her, the same cold smile as always on his face. Hollister was having himself one fine time.

He sped up the horses and the wagon rushed on into the darkening night.

Sarah was carrying a tray of glasses from the kitchen to a picnic table out under a chesnut tree when she saw, far down the dusty access road leading to the house, the black surrey. She paused, squinting her eyes so that she could see who was in the wagon. She recognized Frank sitting next to the driver. Frank. She felt sick and exhilarated at the same time. She wanted to run to him and tell him to go back, go back, tell him they could start all over again, that there was still time to get out.

“Hey!” the bosswoman said. “Hurry up! There's no time to lollygag!”

Sarah rushed the glasses over to the table, nearly stumbling in the process. That would be a nice pickle; to stumble and shatter all those glasses; then she'd be exposed for who she really was.

“Look, everybody!” a voice shouted to the red and yellow and gray streaks of dusk sky. “Look! It's Hollister and he's bringing back the gunfighters!”

All Sarah could think of was the way the crowd had reacted the time Sarah Bernhardt—her favorite actress—had arrived at the train station in Denver. How they'd pushed to see the actress. There'd been something almost frightening about it. The way there was now. Nearly two hundred people formed a circle around the surrey when it pulled up near the ranch house.

Despite several hours of liquor, the guests were curiously subdued. They were just looking, staring.

Tom Adair, in a fancy red brocade evening jacket, eased his way to the front of the crowd, grabbed hold of the surrey, and helped himself up onto the first step.

“Ladies and gentlemen, these are the folks we've been waiting for!”

The crowd burst into applause and excited shouts. At the moment, Tom Adair sounded and looked like a circus barker.

“I'd like to ask the two men to stand up when I introduce them,” Adair cried. “And be sure to give each of them a nice greeting.”

Adair stepped down so that the people in the surrey could get out of the wagon.

As Frank Evans stood up, Adair said, “This is Frank Evans, whom we've all heard so much about!”

This was the only time in Sarah's memory that the adulation of a crowd made Frank Evans look uncomfortable. “On the second step down, he froze and ducked his head, his eyes averting from the noise and the crowd.

“And now here comes Ben Rittenauer and his lady friend!” Adair sang out, once more sounding like a shill introducing a carnival act.

As Frank pushed his way through the crowd, Beth and Ben came down the steps. Rittenauer handled the moment a lot better than Frank had. He stood on the ground shaking a few hands and letting drunks pat him on the back and shout out good luck.