by Ralph Cotton
“What are you saying, barkeep?” Peerly asked. “That a woman did this to my pard?” He almost chuckled at the prospect of Julie Wilder having done it.
“I’m not saying she did anything,” said the bartender, spreading his hands. “But she did come in while you were out back in the jake. I think I should mention it.”
“She didn’t have a damn thing to do with it!” said Constance Whirly, stepping forward in her house robe, a lantern raised in her hand. She glared hard at the bartender. “You ought to be ashamed of yourself, James Addison, casting suspicion on that poor woman after all she’s been through. Your brother, the doctor, ought to hear how you’re speaking. He’s a fine, decent man . . . but listen to you.”
“Constance, I’m sorry,” said the barkeeper. “All I’m doing is bringing up the fact that she was here!”
“Then bring up this fact too,” Constance continued. “That poor child is so scared of Plantz and his men she can hardly speak when they’re around.” Her eyes turned to Peerly with accusation. “And for a damn good reason, I have to say.”
“Watch you mouth, old woman,” Peerly warned. His gun hand had lowered some, and he seemed interested only in getting to his horse and getting out of town. “Me and Plantz and the others are still around. This town don’t want to get on our bad side,” he threatened, looking from one face to the next.
“See here, Nez Peerly, this is a terrible thing that’s happened,” Bales said, taking on his councilman tone of authority. “But let’s not—”
“Shut up, you ball of spit!” said Peerly. He aimed his gun at Constance Whirly. “You! Old hag! Go get my horse from the hitch rail and bring it over here!”
Old hag . . . ? Constance stared at him with a bemused expression. “Go stick something sharp up your ass,” she said.
“Please,” said Bales, cutting in, “I’ll go get your horse for you! Everybody hold on. Let’s keep ourselves civilized!” He turned to a young boy standing among them and nodded toward the buckskin bay at the hitch rail out front of the saloon. The boy turned and ran to get the horse.
“If you had any decency, Nez Peerly,” Constance said as she turned to walk away, “you’d go hang yourself beside that idiot, Reese.”
“You might want to think about whose side you take, woman!” Peerly shouted at her back. “We’ve still got power across this blood lands!”
“Power! Listen to yourself, Nez Peerly,” said Constance without turning to face him. “Yet, you’re telling us we need to side with you, against a poor single woman whose only purpose is to avoid you rotten bastards.”
“Why you!” Peerly raged. His hand clenched instinctively around his pistol butt. But the sight of shotgun barrels rising and the sound of hammers cocking caused him to keep himself in check.
“That’s it, Peerly, you little worm,” Constance called back to him. “Shoot me in the back. Show the world what a craven little coward you are.”
Peerly looked back and forth, his face reddened with humiliation. “I shouldn’t let her get to me like, huh? I mean, she’s just a crazy old woman.”
“That woman has friends in this town,” Bales warned.
“Yeah, all of them are men,” said Peerly, looking from face to face, “and I know how she got them.”
“You’re saying too much, Nez,” Bales said just above a whisper.
Peerly turned to the boy who ran up leading the buckskin. Snatching the reins from the boy’s hand, he swung up quickly into the saddle. “Plantz ain’t going to like the way you’ve treated me. He’s going to want to know more about what happened to Reese,” he warned.
“All we can do is tell him what little we know,” said Bales. “We had nothing to do with hanging Delbert Reese.”
Chapter 24
Leaving Umberton, Peerly raced the buckskin bay along the flat trail, riding much too fast and recklessly in the darkness. At the sight of the glowing campfire, he slowed the horse and reined it off the trail. Thinking it might be Julie Wilder making a camp for the night, he eased down from his saddle and led the buckskin quietly through the grass until he saw the blanket-wrapped figure lying near the fire.
“Now I’ve got you all to myself,” he whispered, stepping into the fire’s glow, cocking the pistol in his hand. When he stooped down over the figure he stuck the gun down against the flop hat and said in a louder tone, “Make a move for your gun, woman, and I’ll kill you right here and now.”
“Woman?” said Potts, smelling the whiskey on Peerly even with a foot of distance and the flop hat between. “You’re not just blind drunk, you’re blind, period! Who the hell are you?”
“You old son of a bitch,” Peerly said, realizing his mistake. He stood up and stepped back. “What are you doing out here?”
“I came out here to get away from all the racket you and your pard was making. “Now, gawddamned if you ain’t followed me!” He rolled up into a sit and rubbed his bearded face.
“Now I get it,” said Peerly, keeping his gun pointed at Potts. “You killed Reese!”
“Killed Reese?” said the old man. “You mean Delbert Reese is dead?” He looked surprised for a moment, then said, “How’d the world ever get that lucky? What happened to him?”
“His body is swinging from a beam in the town livery barn,” said Peerly, wondering if he could convince Plantz that this old livery-tender had killed Reese. No, he decided, there was no way Plantz would believe it. “Somebody hanged him.”
Potts shook his head. “I’m not surprised somebody hanged him,” he said. “But I am surprised they did it in the town barn.”
Looking all around at the hoofprints Julie’s horse had left on the ground, Peerly said, “That woman has been here, hasn’t she?”
“Well, yes, she was. I invited her to stay, but she said she was going to push on all night.”
“Yeah,” said Peerly, now considering Julie as the person to hold up before Plantz, “I can see her hand in all this, the more I think about it.”
“That poor scared woman?” said Potts. “I’d love to see you try to convince Ruddell Plantz she did it. He’d shoot you himself.” Potts knew better than to push Peerly too far, but he saw that he still had some room. “When are you boys gonna learn to leave that poor woman alone? She’s nobody you have to worry about.”
“Who says I’m worried about her?” Peerly said. “And as far as leaving her alone, I ain’t bothering her.” He shrugged. “But I damn sure will, if she’s the one who hanged Reese.”
“How do you know he didn’t hang himself?” Potts asked, knowing this was unusual, Peerly talking to him in a civil tone. He ventured a hand out, picked up his stick and stirred the embers of the fire. “Nobody ever hangs a person unless there’s a lynch mob behind it. A person is too hard to handle, when they see a noose tickling the top of their head.”
“A woman could talk Delbert Reese into eating his own boot,” said Peerly, in reflection.
Potts shook his head. “That poor girl. I can see in her eyes that she’s never had a good turn come her way in this life.”
“Maybe she’s never deserved a good turn,” Peerly said, his tone turning harsh. “She’s nothing but a whore.”
“That woman, a whore?” Potts gave him an astonished look. “Where the hell did you ever hear something like that?”
“Her mother was a whore!” said Peerly. “The parson can tell you all about her. She was camp follower back when the colonel was soldiering.”
“Well, even if her ma was, that doesn’t mean this woman is,” said Potts. “Besides, when it comes to whoring, who’s the party at fault, the woman who sells, or the man who buys?”
“I got no time for this,” Peerly said haughtly, catching himself engaged in a conversation with a livery-tender. “How long ago did she leave?”
“Who?” Potts said. But seeing Peerly give him a flat, cold stare, he said, “All right. She was here about two or three hours ago.”
“Old man, I want you to realize that I could have kill
ed you, out here, like this, nobody around. Who would have ever known about it?” He took a step back, uncocked his pistol and lowered it into his holster. “But since you’ve kept a civil tongue in your head, I’m going to let you live. How does that sound?”
Potts shrugged. “Obliged, I reckon.” He continued stirring the stick in the fire. “I wish you’d leave that woman alone though. She’s already sadder than a whipped pup over what happened to her.”
“Yeah,” said Peerly, thinking of the possibilities once he caught her alone, “but there’s something I always liked about a sad woman.”
Hearing Peerly step away, up into his saddle and turn his horse to the trail, Potts offered himself a thin smile, staring into the dancing flames, “Adios, Nez Peerly,” he murmured.
At dawn, Julie set up her first six targets to the west of the house, the same as she’d grown accustomed to doing. This morning she felt the sting of having had very little sleep, being up most of the night on the trail. Yet, the shooting practice had to continue. On the ground a few feet away lay the bolo she’d used on Delbert Reese. Baines had been right. She could not have risked firing a shot and having the whole town gathering around the livery barn, not if she intended to continue wearing her mask, she told herself. And so far the mask of being a frightened helpless woman had served her well. She wasn’t going to give it up, not just yet.
Oddly, she told herself as she stepped away from the targets to her usual distance, but the more she wore the mask of being afraid, the less afraid she’d become. The more she’d denounced trouble, to Constance, to the sheriff or to anyone else who would listen, the better she seemed to become at handling it. And killing? Well, she thought, killing was a terrible thing, wasn’t it?
She raised the big revolver, checked it and lowered it loosely into her holster. Scanning the targets from right to left, she let her eyes go across the woods line. “Time to go to work,” she said quietly to herself.
At the woods line, in the same spot where he and Reese had watched her shoot before, Peerly sat with his rifle across his lap. He had ridden nonstop throughout the night, continuing to push the buckskin bay dangerously hard and fast along the flatlands trail. But that didn’t matter now, he told himself, staring at the woman, her firm hips, her breasts. He recalled the taste and the feel of her.
“And I like everything I remember of you, Miss Julie Wilder,” he whispered quietly, feeling his hands tighten around the rifle stock.
In the yard, Julie drew the big revolver, not quickly, but adequately. She raised the gun out at arm’s length, not firing from hip level the way she usually practiced. Her first shot barely struck the target, hitting it on its edge and causing it to spin backward to the ground. Her second shot missed her target altogether. He third shot was no better. Her fourth shot hit its target, but her fifth and six shots fell short and kicked up dirt.
From the woods line, Nez Peerly stepped out quietly and grinned to himself. Seeing Julie reach for reloads from her gun belt, he quickly raised his repeating rifle to his shoulder and fired round after round as he walked toward her from the woods. Julie watched the targets fall to the ground with each shot. Then she turned, startled at the sight of Peerly’s rifle pointed at her.
“Why don’t you drop that gun, sweet Julie, before you hurt yourself?” he said, full of confidence, having knocked down the targets, having caught her with an unloaded gun. This was to his liking; he had her all to himself, this frightened helpless woman. You’re all mine . . . Sort of like his own private slave, he told himself.
Julie held on to the revolver. “Wha-what are you doing here?” she said in a fearful tone.
“Do you think I’m joking about the gun?” Peerly demanded, taking closer aim at her. “Drop it!”
She did. The gun landed at her feet; Peerly came forward and stopped a few feet from her. “You killed my pard, sweet Julie,” he said, a slight grin on his lips. “I can’t let you get away with that.”
“Who?” Julie looked confused.
“Delbert Reese, gawddamn it!” Peerly snapped. “Don’t even try denying it.” He gestured a nod toward the bolo lying on the ground a few feet away. “Now I can see how you did it. You choked him to death with that Mexican doodad, then hoisted him up on a rope and made it look like he done it himself. Am I right?”
“No, you’re wrong!” said Julie. “I haven’t done anything, to anybody!” She gestured toward the bolo, taking a step. “This is just something I carry to—”
“Hunh-uh,” said Peerly. “Keep your hand back away from it. I like you a lot better unarmed. The way you was when we first met.”
Julie stopped with a worried look on her face. “Why did you really come here, Mister? This has nothing to do with your friend being dead, does it?”
“Well, it does, sort of.” Peerly grinned. “The fact is, you’ve caused me a bit of a problem.” He walked forward, motioned her back away from the revolver lying on the ground. “I’ve got to not only explain to Ruddell Plantz what happened to Reese; I’ve also got to explain what you’re doing back here after me and Kid Kiley sent you running.”
Julie felt anger stir inside her. “Is that what you two were doing in the barn that day, just scaring me away from here?”
Peerly chuckled. “You should have seen your face that day in the barn—talk about scared! You were trembling like a little cold lamb!” His contempt for her showed on his face.
Julie felt angry not only at him for what he and Kiley did; she felt angry at herself for having fallen for it. But that was all right, she told herself, calming her anger. Look where she had run to; look what she had brought back with her.
“All that, just to get me out of Umberton? You two wouldn’t have raped me again, had I not run and gotten away?”
“Rape ain’t what I call it,” Peerly said, enjoying the fear in her eyes. He liked hearing her talk about it. “I just call it a man doing what a man’s got to do.”
“Why were you men worried about me being here?” she asked. “I know it wasn’t about your conscience bothering you when you saw me.”
“Naw, nothing like that.” He shrugged. “Picking at you was like picking at a wounded fawn. It was fun because we could do it. We knew there was nothing you could do about it. You’d already rolled over and showed us your belly, so to speak. The only reason we wanted you out of here, I reckon, is because Ruddell wants this place for himself.” He grinned and waved a hand, taking in the burnt barn, and the house. “Why do you think we didn’t burn the house down too?”
Hearing him talk so freely about everything that had happened here sent a chill through her. He had nothing to hide; he didn’t intend for her to be alive long enough to tell anybody. “Now you’re worried about Plantz thinking you didn’t do a good enough job scaring me away?”
“That’s going to change once he hears what you did to Reese.”
“But I didn’t do it,” said Julie.
“It won’t matter. I’ll convince him you did. He’ll be grateful for me catching you and putting an end to things for once and for all.”
“You’re going to kill me?” she asked flatly.
Peerly gave her a strange look. “I believe that’s all up to you, Sweet Julie.”
“Oh, I see,” said Julie, her eyes looking deep into his, a determined look coming to her expression. She pulled her shirttails from her trousers and began unbuttoning her shirt, starting at the top and working her way down, her eyes fixed on his.
“Yeah . . .” Peerly sighed, watching her. “You’re catching on.”
“Like you said, it’s up to me,” Julie replied. With the shirt opened in front, her firm pale breasts exposed, she pulled the shirt down off her shoulder and slipped her left arm from the sleeve. Peerly’s rifle barrel tipped toward the ground, his attention no longer on keeping her covered.
“Take everything off,” he said in a heated voice, almost panting.
Without answering, Julie pulled her right sleeve down off her arm, slowly, takin
g her time, her hand drifting back out of sight for only a second. But when her hand came back into sight there was nothing slow about it. Suddenly her arm shot forward with the quickness of a striking rattlesnake. Peerly saw a dull shining object leave her hand in a spinning blur, but he had no time to get out of its way.
He gasped as the flat blade of a throwing knife stuck deep into his chest where his rib cage joined. His rifle exploded; then it fell from his hand. He clutched the knife handle, a shocked look on his face. “I was . . . starting to trust you,” he whined.
Julie stepped forward, bare-chested, her shirt in her left hand. She kicked Peerly’s rifle away from him, and stood close, almost against him, as if taunting him, letting him see what he would never have. “All you had to do was leave me alone,” she said in a soft, almost soothing voice. “You just couldn’t do it.”
She stooped down with him as he sank to his knees. She stared into his eyes as his chest bucked violently. His face lost all expression. His hands fell limply; he weaved back and forth until Julie gave him a slight nudge. When he landed lifeless on his side, she grasped the knife, put a boot on his chest and pulled it out of his heart. In doing so she saw the silver necklace her father had given her lying around his neck. She reached down, unclasped it and gathered it into her hand.
“You wore this to remind you of what you did to me,” she said to his dead blank eyes. “You sorry bastard.”
Standing, the silver necklace firmly in hand, she waited a moment before putting her shirt back on. In the silence, a gentle warm breeze swept over her like a lover’s caress. There were no longer masks to hide the faces of these cowardly men, she told herself. Remembering clearly the names Reese had given her, she whispered them to herself as if reciting a death chant.
Chapter 25
Riding beside the parson in front of the five riders, Ruddell Plantz raised his hand and stopped the men less than a thousand yards outside of Umberton. Beside him the parson looked back and forth pensively and asked, “Where do you suppose they are?”