by Ed Gorman
"I see." Then: "So you were here the whole time?"
"Why, yes," Turney said, sounding surprised. Here they'd been talking about the evening, them relating how Bobby had been acting all evening, then all of a sudden Ben Gregg seemed to be questioning if Turney had even been here. "Why would you ask that?"
"Somebody thought they saw you about nine o'clock."
"Well, if they did, it was somebody who was peeking through my window."
"Who said that anyway?" Jean Anne said. She was angry.
"It doesn't matter. You said you were home."
"And you believe me then?"
"If it's the truth I believe it."
"I don't like the tone of that, Mr. Gregg," Jean Anne said. "We love your brother. He's like one of our own family. We're trying very hard to believe he's innocent. But we have to tell the truth. We have to say exactly what happened that night. You wouldn't want us to lie, would you?"
"No, I wouldn't."
"Well, there you have it then. My husband was home the entire night. If someone said they saw him anywhere else, they're wrong. And Bobby acted just the way we said he did. He was a lot soberer by the time he left and he'd quit talking about the Proctor girl."
He saw her again, the girl. Peeking out from behind the curtain. Again, and for a reason he couldn't explain, he felt that the girl wanted to say something to him. He wondered what. He was intrigued.
This time, her mother saw her too. "You get back in there and get to sleep, young lady."
She vanished.
"She likes to listen to adults," her father said. "She has a lot of curiosity."
Jean Anne smiled fondly. "She has my husband's mind. My son and I are bright enough, I suppose—but Richard and Ruth are the real brains in the family."
"Oh, now," Turney said. But he said it in such a way that Ben knew they'd had this particular little joust many times.
"So Bobby left and that was the last you saw of him?"
"Yes."
"And you haven't had any word from him since?"
"No."
Ben looked around the area by the front door. Turney's Wellington boots stood there. The Easterner had made no concession to the styles of the West. Given his Edwardian-cut clothes and his boots, he would have been right in fashion in downtown Boston. It was the first sign of vanity he'd seen in the anxious man.
Ben stood up. Walked to the window. "Right over that hill is the river where the body was found? You see anybody on the hill that night?"
Without looking at each other, they both shook their heads.
"Virgil Earp asked us about that," Turney said. "But we couldn't be much help to him there either."
"Didn't hear anything either, I suppose? Screams, anything like that?"
"Nothing, Mr. Gregg." Turney cleared his throat. "Nothing at all, I'm afraid."
Ben turned back from the window and as he did so, he made sure to knock his foot against one of Turney's Wellington boots. He bent down to right the boot, and in doing so took a close look at the heel. A V symbol was raised on the heel, the V for Victor Boots. It matched one of the heel patterns he'd traced on the muddy bank.
Turney said, "My wife bought me those for my last birthday."
"You've got a good eye for boots, Mrs. Turney."
"Thanks. I wanted to get something that would last."
"Well," Ben said, "I guess I'll be going. I've still got some work to do tonight." He didn't know if he had his killer. But he did know that he had somebody who'd been there that night.
Just as he was turning to the door again, he saw the girl—Ruth—watching him from behind. He'd never seen a girl so forlorn. She looked as if she'd been crying too. But it must have been silent crying, otherwise he would have heard her. As in most frontier houses, the rooms were very near each other.
"We're praying for Bobby," Jean Anne said.
"Night and day," said Turney.
"This may turn out all right," she said. "Sometimes the Lord surprises us."
"Yes," Ben said, "sometimes he does."
He opened the door. The night was cool. He wanted to be out in it. It promised a kind of clarity that would help him escape all the complicated lies he'd been treated to here.
Ruth was still watching him.
He said good night again and left.
8:47 P.M.
Bobby aches when he sees the lights of town. So many pleasures a man takes for granted in normal times. Just the liberty of walking free and unfettered down the street. Or the pleasure of sipping a friendly beer in a saloon. Or watching town girls in their town dresses walk coyly past him.
It is a different world now that he is being hunted. At any moment somebody could step up and arrest him. Or open fire on him. The way the town hates him, nobody's going to complain if he gets shot in the back.
The alley is narrow and dark. He crouches behind a tree. Sweat stings his eyes. He smells rank from his time in the attic. He wants to reach the mouth of the alley across the street. That will bring him to a straight path to Richard Turney's house. Richard and Jean Anne are sensible people. And his best friends. They'll loan him money. Help him escape from town. That's all that's left him now. Escape.
He leans away from the tree. Looks down the street. All the houses dark or darkening now that bedtime nears. Another pleasure a free man takes for granted. His own bed and the freedom to luxuriate in peaceful sleep. A hunted man never sleeps. A part of his mind always stays alert to trouble.
He runs across the street and then keeps on running. There are long stretches of open road on the way to the Turneys. He has to keep low, move against the deepest darkness he can find.
Dogs and coyotes; wagons and trains. The noises keep up a running dialogue with the night.
But what if they turn him in?
But that's unthinkable. Not the Turneys. They'll know he didn't do it. As religious as they are, they are generally not quick to judge people. They'll give their old friend time to explain himself, to be heard.
A horse.
Somewhere behind him.
Coming up fast.
He pitches himself in a leaf-littered gulley still muddy from last Monday's hard rain.
He rolls all the way down the leafy, shallow gully and then lies completely still. Sweat is freezing on him now. His breath comes in raw, painful gasps.
A posse man could have spotted him. Closed in. He listens for the horse to slow. Fortunately, the rhythm of the horse's hooves cutting into sandy earth remains the same. Wherever the rider is going, he's going in a hell of a hurry.
Heart pounding. Head aching. So unreal, all of it, him in this gulley, Suzie Proctor in her grave. God. So unreal.
He gives the rider plenty of time to vanish into the dark distance, and then he stands up, brushing leaves from chest, hips, and legs.
He needs to hurry more than ever. The Turney home has begun to assume a magnificence well beyond its reality. There he will find nurture and acceptance and understanding; there he will find comfort and solace and help. If only he can travel these last few miles without being seen.
He runs on. For the first time in his young life, he finds himself feeling old. He's barely twenty-three, but he can feel the incredible stress all this exercise has put on him. Even two years ago—even with his smoking and drinking—this wouldn't have been anything for him. But now...
He runs on.
He is just starting to feel good about things—he will escape—he will ultimately be found innocent—
—when somebody opens up with a carbine.
He's running along a leg of the moon-dappled river when somebody from behind one of the birches lining this side of the shore starts firing.
One of the first three shots comes so close to his face that he can smell it.
Two more shots.
He dives and rolls. He doesn't know what else to do. Dive and roll, all the gunslingers always suggest in dime novels. That's about the only thing a man can do when somebody is ambushing him
.
The only thing these supposedly knowledgeable gun-fighters don't mention in their stories is how hard diving and rolling is on the body. Solid earth doesn't give any when a human body collides with it.
He's just had to roll down a ravine. And now he's diving and rolling? Being a fugitive is damned hard work.
After his body has been jolted, rattled, and shocked enough, he crawls to his knees, gets behind a boulder, and begins to take a little target practice of his own. His assailant doesn't seem to realize that the moonlight makes him a reasonably easy target.
Bobby is gratified to hear the man cry out in pain.
The sweetest sound he's heard in some time.
8:48 P.M.
Ben Gregg was walking toward his hotel when he saw Virgil Earp hurrying from the town marshal's office. His mount was ready for him. He was about to swing up on it when he saw Ben.
He walked over and said, "Your brother was holed up at Serena's place."
"How'd you find that out?"
"My deputy, Sam. Your brother knocked him out."
"I take it he's on the run?"
"That's the way Sam tells it."
Ben nodded to Earp's horse. "You have any idea where he might be hiding?"
"Nope. I just hope I find him before the posse does."
"They still working this late?"
Earp shook his head. "The other two posses came in and gave up. They're pretty much tired of lookin' for him. But there's six or seven of the boys who're still lookin'. And now they're in town here. I guess they decided I wasn't so stupid after all, him holin' up at Serena's place all this time." He made a face. 'The other thing is, they stopped off at a trail saloon about five miles east of here and drank most of the afternoon. They probably tied a pretty good mean on too."
"You could always call them in."
"Not where Suzie Proctor's concerned, Gregg. Just about everybody liked her and they sure want to see her killer caught."
"Maybe I'll look for him myself."
"How about you?" Earp said. "You got any ideas?"
"Afraid not."
"Well, if you find him, bring him in."
"I will, Marshal." And he would too. He'd rather take a chance with Earp and Earp's jail than with a gang of drunks.
* * *
Ben watched the marshal ride off and then went up to his room. The moment he opened the door, he knew that somebody was inside waiting for him. The perfume told him so.
"You need to keep the lamp off. For both our sakes."
"Who're you?"
"My name's Serena. I am in love with your brother."
"Where is he?"
"I'm not sure. But I have an idea."
"Where?"
She sighed. "Do you know the Turneys?"
"I just came from there."
"They're the only people in this town who'll help them."
"Besides you."
A hesitation. "I know I am in trouble. They already hate me here because I'm a whore. But I love him. I know that someday we'll have a family together. Or shouldn't I say that because I'm a whore?"
"Whore is a mental state."
"I don't understand."
He took his pipe from his suit jacket, tamped down the tobacco with his thumb, and got it going with a stick match. "In your mind and soul. If you feel like a whore there, then you are a whore. But if all that you give men is the use of your body—and you don't cheat them or hurt them or hurt yourself—then I reckon there're are worse things to be."
She laughed. "I should have you along when the town girls call me names."
"I'd be happy to go." Then: "Shouldn't you be at work?"
"I quit tonight."
"How'll you support yourself?"
"We're through around here anyway, your brother and I. We'll go somewhere else and start a new life."
He found it strange that a woman with such sure ideas wouldn't have come up once in his brother's letters. The kid was forever falling in and out of love, but he'd never once talked about Serena.
He said, "I'm going to ask you something and I'd appreciate an honest answer."
"All right."
"You think he killed her?"
"That Bobby killed Suzie?"
"Yes."
"No. No, he wouldn't do anything like that. Ever."
"He drinks."
"Yes."
"And sometimes he has a bad temper."
She looked cold, hard angry. "He didn't kill her."
"Good enough."
"Certainly you can't think he killed her."
"People always surprise me. Sometimes for the bad and sometimes for the good. It makes you lie awake some nights and just think about things."
"He didn't kill her, Mr. Gregg. He didn't kill her."
He said, "You'd better go. I'd better check out the Turneys' place again. He has to give himself up before that posse finds him."
"I'll go with you."
"No."
She stood up. "You can't stop me. If I want to follow you, I can. You might as well take me along."
He said, "I don't mean to hurt your feelings here, but are you sure my brother's in love with you?"
"Not yet, he isn't. But he will be and very soon now. Some men are just very slow learners, and Bobby is one of them."
He liked her more than he might have expected. She was a little hard, but she had an honesty and dignity he admired. It wasn't easy to have any self-respect in her chosen calling, but somehow she did. Nobody pushed her around or took advantage of her. But given Bobby's history with women, he wasn't sure she was going to get her man.
"You do exactly what I say."
"Fine by me," she said.
He looked out the window. "We'll have to go out the back way."
"Why?"
"Virgil Earp's got one of his deputies stationed across the street. I'm sure he's ready to follow us."
"What if there's a deputy in back?"
"Then you'll have to do a little dramatic presentation and divert him."
"What're you talking about?"
"You'll see."
9:09 P.M.
Turney was just putting the cat out for the night when he heard the scuffle of a boot on dry earth outside in the night. Alarmed, he looked hard to the right and saw nothing. Then he looked to the left.
"You've got to help me, Richard," Bobby Gregg said.
Turney hardly recognized the man. Sweat, dirt, mud, even leaves covered various parts of his body. Even from a distance of four yards, Turney could smell the sour body odors.
"They're looking for you, Bobby." He didn't know what else to say. He felt guilty. As if Bobby could read his mind, knew all about Jean Anne's notion to blame Bobby for the murder and keep Richard free. He swallowed hard. Bobby might have been a ghost, he'd rattled Richard so hard.
Gregg surprised him by smiling. "Hell, Richard, you think I don't know that?"
"Who's there, Richard?" Jean Anne said from inside.
Richard waved Bobby inside.
* * *
Bobby knew instantly that something was wrong. Soon as he stepped inside. The first thing was, they kept backing away from him. They were usually physical people. They patted shoulders, gave hugs, Jean Anne was even known to put a kiss on your cheek from time to time. But now they were wary of him, as if he was a disease-carrier. And they kept glancing anxiously at each other, as if responding to a secret only they knew. And then he realized what this was probably all about. Of course. They probably believed he'd killed her. Sure, that was why they were acting this way. You have a good friend for a number of years—a solid, honest, decent friend, one you think you know pretty well—and then he suddenly kills a woman. The woman he loves, no less. And so things change. He becomes a monster. And he's standing right in your own kitchen. Asking for help. No wonder they looked scared and nervous.
He said, "I didn't kill her. I want you to know that."
"Everybody sure thinks you did," Jean Anne said.
; "Does that include you?"
Her eyes avoided his. "No."
He said, "It does, doesn't it? You believe I killed her and so does Richard here. That's why you're acting this way."
"We don't know what to think, Bobby," Jean Anne said. "We kept telling people over and over you were innocent. But when so many people believe something—"
"When so many people believe something, it must be true, is that it?"
"Something like that," she said miserably. "You talk to him, Richard."
Richard said, "Maybe it'd be better if I fetched Virg Earp."
"They'd still lynch me. They'd go over him if they had to. Or hell, he might just let them hang me, an election comin' up and all."
"Then what's the alternative, Bobby?"
"Running," he said. "For right now that's the only alternative anyway. Running. But I need a bath and some fresh clothes and some money."
The look again, passing between them.
"We could get in trouble."
Bobby smiled. "Yeah, Jean Anne, you could get in trouble. But I could get lynched." In some ways, it was hard to believe that they'd ever been friends. He remembered so many good times with these people. Hell, he was the little boy's godfather. But that was gone from him now. They'd never be friends again.
"We could at least do that for him," Richard said.
"Some fresh clothes. And some money. He could scrub up at the sink over there."
"I'd appreciate it," Bobby said.
"You might, but the law won't, Bobby. Earp'll get on us for helping you escape."
"We have to help him, honey, he's our friend."
"Some friend," Jean Anne said. "He kills a woman and then comes here and wants us to help him."
And it was then she figured out the way to handle this whole thing. She had a Navy Colt in her drawer. She'd kill Bobby with it. There'd be reward money and the case would be closed. No more questions asked.
She sighed. "Oh, all right. I'm sorry if I sounded unfriendly, Bobby. I'm just scared is all."
"I really appreciate this," Bobby said. "It's the only chance I've got."
Richard found him clothes. Jean Anne set up the sink so he could give himself a good sponge bath. She went to the drawer with the gun. It was also where they kept their cash box. There was eighty dollars in there. Everything they had. She'd give Bobby thirty. It'd be good when her money was found on him. It would demonstrate that they really had been trying to help him escape. But had been forced to shoot him when he demanded every penny of their savings. Virg Earp would have no reason to disbelieve them.