“Ham and potatoes okay?” Samantha asked.
The kitchen smelled of the cooking food and John’s mouth watered. “Sounds good.”
The Mexican woman took a plate, filled it with ham and potato slices, and repeated the process with the other empty plate next to her. She brought the plates over to the table, set them down, and returned a moment later with two large glasses of water. John and Paul began to eat. The Mexican woman walked over to the stove and began to clean up the area.
“Where you boys from?” Samantha asked.
“Wyoming,” Paul said. He glanced over at John and took another bite of his food. “Came down to do some ranching.”
“That why you got those extra horses?”
“Yep,” John said in an effort to go along with the lie. He wished that they would’ve worked out their story earlier so they could keep the facts straight. “The last man we worked for didn’t have any money when it came time to pay us, so he gave us them horses. Seemed like a fair deal at the time.”
“Was that somewheres around here?” Darlene asked. “Times have been pretty tough these parts.”
“No,” Paul said, “it was a good ride, least four or five days. What was that guy’s name, John?”
“Joseph Heimann.”
“Yeah, that’s it. Felt sorry for that old fucker.” Paul glanced up at the two women. “Excuse the language.”
“Nothing we haven’t heard before,” Darlene said.
Paul smiled. “I suppose not. Joseph lost both his boys in a fire. Damn shame.” Paul scraped up the last of the potatoes and looked at his brother. John had already finished and was drinking the rest of his water.
“That was delicious,” John said, setting his glass down.
“Glad you enjoyed it,” Samantha said. She turned to the Mexican woman. “Esperanza, go ahead and clear the table.”
Esperanza walked over, collected the dishes and glasses, and started to wash them in a metal tub that sat next to the stove. Samantha looked at John, smiled, and walked over to him, one arm slipping around his shoulders. “Now how about that bath?”
The brothers stood, picked up their saddlebags, and followed the women upstairs.
Esperanza watched the two men follow Samantha and Darlene up the stairs then turned back to the dishes. She knew that in a few moments the floor above her head would creak and that she might hear someone moan or scream.
The dishes done, she wiped her hands on a faded towel and headed for the front door. A moment later she had returned to her seat on the porch. The heat was building and the air was thick with humidity, a rare thing out here in the desert. It was going to rain for sure.
Esperanza subconsciously fiddled with the rosary that hung around her neck, her fingers moving up the beads with the grace of habit. She felt sorry that Samantha and Darlene had to give themselves the way they did, but life was hard all around. Esperanza considered herself lucky that Jerry let her work on his ranch, cooking and cleaning for him, without having to give herself to anyone.
Esperanza fanned herself with a small, thin board. This wasn’t a great life, but it was still better than what her life in Mexico would have been like. Her parents had arranged for her to marry an older man from their village, a man who was notorious for abusing anyone who displeased him. Esperanza had argued with her parents, begged them not to force the marriage, but they wouldn’t listen. All they cared about was the large dowry that would be theirs on the day of the wedding.
And so Esperanza had fled north, first to California where she lived for three years, working as a maid for a rich Mexican landowner. Things were going well, but one day she caught sight of one her father’s friends. She didn’t know what he was doing in California or if he even saw her, but she couldn’t risk being caught; she’d be sent back to Mexico for sure.
That night she packed her things and boarded a stage bound for Phoenix. The stage was attacked by Hualapai just outside of Jackson and two passengers and the driver were killed. She hung around Jackson for a few days, hoping there would be another stage, but one never came. Word reached town that until the Indian situation was taken care of there would be no further stage service.
Someone in town told her about Jerry, how he had lost his wife to consumption and that he might need some help keeping his house. Esperanza walked out to the farm, spent the afternoon talking to Jerry, and was offered room and board in exchange for helping around the house, cooking, doing the laundry, that kind of thing. And in all the years Esperanza had lived with Jerry, he never made an advance on her. For that she was thankful.
Occasionally she had to endure some snide remarks from Samantha and Darlene, but that only happened in the presence of customers, and the girls always apologized later. Most folks didn’t take too kindly to a Mexican bossing around a couple of white girls.
The wind dropped off and the heat and humidity instantly settled across the porch. Yep, it was going to rain for sure.
#
John loved sex.
Samantha was on her hands and knees, face buried in a sweaty pillow, her lips parted in a moan. John was on his knees, hands locked on Samantha’s waist. The bed’s headboard rammed against the wall, matching John’s thrusts. John closed his eyes, gritted his teeth, and climaxed with one final thrust. He lingered inside of Samantha for a moment and then freed himself and collapsed to the bed. Samantha rolled over and looked at him.
“I take it it’s been awhile,” she said. She put her head on John’s chest.
“Longer than I care to remember.” John suddenly felt angry and guilty. For most of the day he had managed to avoid thinking about yesterday’s events, but for some reason everything was rushing back to him now. He’d shot three men in cold blood and now he was eating and screwing with blood money. He closed his eyes for a moment and fought off the surge of guilt that rippled through his chest. Why couldn’t he just relax and enjoy this? Was he going to feel guilty every time he spent some of that money?
“How long you boys going to be staying around?”
“Not sure. We’re looking for work if there’s any available.” John opened his eyes and looked at Samantha. It was obvious that Samantha had lived a hard life, but beneath the wear and tear she was genuinely pretty. John wondered what his future wife was going to look like, how she would smell, what her lips would feel like.
“We got all the help we need, but there might be something in Jackson.” Samantha’s voice was soft, one finger twirling the hairs on John’s chest.
“That the town down the road?”
“Yeah. Since you boys know how to break horses, there might be something available at the livery stable. Sid needs help from time to time.”
“That would be fine.” John sat up, moving slowly so Samantha had time to lift her head. John got off the bed and pulled on his pants. “Be right back. Need to use the shitter.”
“It’s just outside the back door, through the kitchen.”
John smiled and left the room.
Samantha placed her head on the pillow and lay there for a moment, waiting until she heard the back door slam shut. She heard the sounds of Paul and Darlene’s sex floating through the wall; it sounded like someone was being slapped. She and Darlene had hoped the men would bathe first, but both insisted that sex was more important than being clean. The smell of John still lingered in the room, ripe and raw, with a tinge of something rotten. Samantha tried not to think about it.
After making sure the door to the bedroom was closed, she lifted John’s saddlebag up onto the bed and opened it. She gently removed an old shirt, a small pot, a cup, and a bag of bullets. At the bottom of the saddlebag was a small stack of money, neatly bound with a thin piece of twine. Samantha looked toward the door, listened for the sound of someone climbing the stairs. The hallway was quiet. Samantha lifted the money out of the bag.
A folded piece of paper jutted out from the center of the bills. Samantha pulled the paper out and unfolded it; it was a shipping receipt for Weste
rn National Bank. On the left side of the receipt was a list of denominations, and written in small, tight script along the right side were several figures. Written at the bottom was the total: $50,312.00.
Samantha lowered the receipt and thought for a moment about what she should do. Those boys had told her that the last rancher they’d worked for didn’t have any money to pay them, and yet they had a bundle of money stashed away, more money than fellas like them had any right possessing. And then there was the receipt. This was no good, no good at all.
Samantha replaced the receipt, money, and other items and returned the saddlebag to its original spot. A moment later she was dressed and heading out the bedroom door.
She paused for a moment at the bottom of the stairs and glanced toward the kitchen before walking out the front of the house. Samantha stood in front of the house for a moment, looking for Jerry.
“Have you seen Jerry?” she asked Esperanza.
“He’s in the barn.”
“Thanks.” Samantha stepped off the porch and walked toward the barn.
A few years back Darlene and Samantha had worked for a woman in town named Tabby, but her house burned down under suspicious circumstances. The next day Tabby left Jackson, a cloud of rumors swirling in her wake. The most consistent theory was that Tabby was still a Southern sympathizer and her house had been burned down as a warning for her to leave town.
Whatever the reason, Samantha and Darlene found themselves destitute and they were forced to spend a couple of days sleeping on the streets before they met Esperanza. She took an instant liking to the two women and convinced Jerry to take them in. They occasionally had to take care of Jerry’s needs, but for the most part he left them alone. It wasn’t the most exciting life, but it would do.
Samantha entered the barn and saw Jerry and Ed, Jerry’s nineteen-year-old nephew who lived in the barn next door, feeding John and Paul’s horses. Neither of them looked up as Samantha approached.
“Jerry, I got something important to talk to you about.” Samantha stood a few feet away from the men and the horse. One of Jerry’s hands was bleeding, which meant he probably had cut himself and wasn’t in a great mood.
Jerry picked up one of the horse’s front legs and began to clean out the hoof with a screwdriver. “Shouldn’t you be fuckin’ one of them boys?”
“This is about them.” Samantha swallowed and chose her words carefully. “I think they held up the National stage.”
Jerry looked up at Samantha, pissed as hell about the interruption. He looked over at Ed, who was pretending he couldn’t hear the conversation. “Give us a few minutes. Go check on that calf.”
“Yessir.” Ed exited the barn without looking back.
Jerry walked over to Samantha, the dirty screwdriver clenched in one fist.
“So what’s this about?”
“One of them boys, fella named John, went outside to use the outhouse, so I went through his saddlebag….”
“Cut to the chase.”
Samantha forced herself to speak slowly. “Down at the bottom of his saddlebag was a wad of money and a shipping receipt from the National stage. And you know the stage never came through last night.” Samantha paused. “Them boys always stop by.”
Jerry looked at Samantha, trying to figure out what to make of this. It was possible those boys didn’t have anything to do with the National and just got some money that still had a receipt mixed in. But he had watched them as they rode up to the house from the road, at their filthy clothes and faces. They didn’t look like folks who would be making a withdrawal from a bank. Hell, they’d probably never been in a bank their entire lives.
“He still in the shitter?”
“I don’t know. Probably.”
“You get back upstairs and do whatever that boy asks, understand?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Don’t screw this up, woman, or it’ll be your ass. I’m going to get the sheriff.”
Samantha nodded and returned to the house. John was waiting for her upstairs, already naked, wondering where in the hell she had run off to.
CHAPTER FIVE
The afternoon sun simmered overhead as Jerry rode toward Jackson, his horse lumbering along at an even pace. Trees encircled Jackson, and a large creek flowed around the south side of the town. Jerry rode over the small wooden bridge that hung above the creek, which was low from the lack of rain.
Despite the creek, Jackson was a dry and dirty town. The single road that cut through the town was nothing more than a strip of swirling dust, with deep ruts cut into the ground from wagons getting caught in the mud. Most of the buildings were adobe, with wooden shingled roofs, but the town had managed to scrounge up enough wood for the general store and sheriff’s office.
Jerry rode past the livery and looked around for Sid. He was nowhere to be found. Two horses were tied up inside the livery, slowly chewing on dry hay. One of them had kicked over the water trough. Sid was going to pitch a fit about that.
Roughly two hundred people called Jackson and the surrounding area home, working in the mines that lined the bluffs to the north, or providing travelers with services like lodging, food, or wagon repair. Once upon a time Jackson seemed destined to become a boomtown, as travelers slowly turned the town into an important stopping point for east-west travel. However, constant battles with the Hualapai slowly whittled away most of the travelers, who sought out less dangerous routes. Eventually the army established a fort and waged war on the Hualapai, and while the flow of the travelers had slowly returned, it never reached the levels that the town had enjoyed previously. Now the only people who came through Jackson were on various transport stages, either on their way to or from somewhere else, or coming to load up on coal. There were rumors that Jackson was going to be linked to the railway, but those rumors never turned into anything. In the end, even the army had forgotten Jackson, leaving behind four soldiers to maintain the old fort. And no one in town had seen them in months.
Jerry nodded to a few people he knew and glared at a young man named Josh who owed him money. The sheriff’s office was in the middle of town; Jerry tied his horse to a faded and rotted post and walked into the building.
The inside of the office was dark, and Jerry stood in the doorway for a moment to let his eyes adjust. The office held two small cells that were separated by a row of bars, along with a desk and a gun rack that was filled with rifles. The floor was packed mud. Sheriff Roscoe Trane sat at the desk, eating a sandwich. Trane weighed at least three hundred pounds, and the rolls of fat on his face vibrated as he ate. His clothes were soaked with sweat and rings of salt stained his armpits. The entire office smelled of sweat and piss and old leather and earth, and no matter how often he came to the office, Jerry could never get used to the smell. Trane took another bite of the sandwich and looked up at Jerry.
“Whatcha need, Jerry?”
“Got something we need to talk about.”
“Make it quick.”
Jerry walked over to the desk. “Got some boys out at the house. I think they robbed the National stage.”
“I’m listening.” Trane chewed with his mouth open and even in the gloom of the office Jerry could see Trane’s yellowed teeth working over the food. The sight sickened him.
“One of ‘em went out to use the shitter and Samantha found a National shipping receipt in his saddlebag.”
“That a fact.”
“Yessir.” Jerry looked at Trane for a moment, saw the anger in Trane’s eyes, and looked away. Trane was fatter than hell, but he could whip a man like no one else. The last thing Jerry wanted was to give the sheriff an excuse to get really pissed off.
“They have the money with them?”
“I don’t think…no, probably not.”
“Interesting.” Trane finished off the last of the sandwich, licked his fingers clean, and looked at Jerry. “So what do you think we should do?”
“I don’t know.”
“Who else knows about this?”
/>
“Just me and Samantha.”
“Can that whore keep her mouth shut?”
“She damn well better.”
“How would you feel about coming into some money, Jerry?”
“What do you mean?”
“Answer the fucking question.”
“I could use some money, sure. Times are tough and a reward would….”
“There’s no fucking reward. We’re going to find that money and split it. I was thinking 80/20, in my favor. Them terms acceptable?”
Jerry thought about it for a moment. He knew Trane would take only one answer. “That seems fair.”
“Good.” Trane wrestled his enormous frame out of the chair and walked over to Jerry. “You fuck with me and I’ll bury your sorry ass.”
Jerry said nothing.
Trane walked over to the gun rack and took down two rifles. “You better take one of these,” he said as he handed one of the guns to Jerry.
#
The washroom was in the back of the house, just off the kitchen. Paul and John each had their own washtub, and Samantha and Darlene were gently bathing them. The water was warm and brown from all the dirt. Paul’s face still hurt, and with all the grime and filth removed, his wounds glowed a deep red.
“Damn if this doesn’t feel good,” John said.
“I hear that.”
Samantha moved behind John and washed the back of his neck. She was doing her best to avoid his eyes; she was afraid he’d realize what she had done if she looked at him too long.
The sound of pounding feet echoed through the house and headed up the stairs, which vibrated from the pressure. The floor overheard creaked. John and Paul looked at each other for a moment. The sound of things being moved around echoed down to the washroom. Paul cursed himself for leaving his gun upstairs.
The pounding feet returned to the first floor of the house and then the door to the washroom burst open and Trane and Jerry rushed in, rifles leading the way.
Dead or Alive Page 6