The Devil You Know

by Jo Goodman

  “Have you ever run from anything?” she asked, smiling when he required a moment to shift his attention from the inner workings of his mind to her out-of-the-blue question.

  “Run? I suppose that depends on your perspective. I never ran from a fight, if that’s what you mean. The folks I scammed over the years might characterize what I did as running away when I vanished on them, but to me, I was just done. The marshals would tell you I ran once while I was in custody. I call that an escape. I didn’t try to get away because I was afraid of going to prison. I just had other plans.”

  Willa stopped dragging the brush through her hair. “You had other plans?” she asked, incredulous, but also a little amused.

  “Uh-huh. And they didn’t include prison.”

  “You, Mr. McKenna, were truly running your own game.”

  “I was.” He offered no apology for what was in the past. “It’s different now.”

  “Are you sure? You were thinking very deeply there. I suspect plotting.”

  “Oh, well, that’s true enough.”

  “And . . .” She set the brush down and twisted her hair into a rope. “What do you have in mind?”

  “I was entertaining the notion of inviting Easterbrook back to the valley. Maybe send Cutter into Jupiter so he can drop a hint or two about Buck McKay.”

  “Draw him out, you mean.”

  “Yes, but not only him. His friends, companions, associates . . . whatever you want to call them. I don’t believe he’ll come alone. I don’t believe he came alone last night, but that’s only supposition, not fact. We know that what was done to me wasn’t done by a single man. It’s hard for me to believe he’s acting on his own now. There are two other men who have reason to be sure I’m dead.”

  “You certainly pissed in someone’s soup.”

  “I must have.”

  Willa crawled into bed beside Israel. She lay on her side, head propped on an elbow, while he remained sitting up against the headboard. “Are we agreed that it was you who walked into the Viceroy in Jupiter looking for a room?”

  “Yes. It seems likely.”

  “Mr. Stafford told Cutter you were carrying two bags. Tell me what you think might have been in them. You must have some idea even if you have no memory.”

  “It’s likely that at least one of them held clothes. My parents met me when I was released and gave me money for clothes and sundries to make a fresh start. I don’t remember buying anything, but I would have done that after I purchased my ticket. I told you that walking to train station is the last thing I clearly recall.”

  “I understand, but you know where you meant to go with the ticket. You’ve never said, Israel. Isn’t it time you did?”

  “You think it’s important. It’s not.”

  “So tell me.”

  The headboard thudded dully as Israel dropped his head back against it. He closed his eyes for a moment. “You’re right. It’s time. I’ve known where I was headed from the beginning. I just did not want to bring him into it. I thought—”

  Willa could not let him finish without interrupting. “You’re talking about Quill. That’s where you were going.”

  “Yes.”

  “He’s here? Temptation? His ranch is in Colorado?”

  “Mm-hmm. By train, a couple hours south of Denver.”

  “So close,” she said more to herself than him. “And you didn’t tell him where you were when you wrote. I understand that you don’t want to involve him in what happened after you left Chicago, but telling him where you are and what’s gone on doesn’t necessarily mean he’ll arrive at the front door.”

  “You’re wrong. It pretty much means exactly that.”

  “He was expecting you, Israel. Don’t you think Quill will be worried? I would be.”

  “Worried? I don’t know. Over the years he’s learned to set his expectations fairly low.”

  “I don’t think you’re being fair to him.” When Israel said nothing, Willa found his thigh under the blankets and ran her hand along it from hip to knee. “I’m not sure I understand why you were going to visit your brother. Of all the places you could have gone after your release, you chose there. Why?”

  “He invited me. Quill asked me to come work for him.”

  Willa’s eyes widened ever so slightly. “At his ranch?”

  “I know,” he said. “The irony is not lost on me either. I had it in my head that I’d learn about ranching, help him out, maybe even come to like it. I knew that his offer was partly prompted because he wanted to keep an eye on me. I guess I could have been insulted, being the older brother, but the hand he put out to me never felt like a slight. I was grateful for the chance, and I wanted to do right by him. I promised myself . . .” He fell silent for a time before he picked up the thread again. “I meant to be different. Dependable. Steady. Responsible. Accountable to someone outside of myself. During the time I spent behind bars, I made myself believe this leopard really could change his spots. And then I woke up in a place I’d never heard of, battered and bloody, and knew only one thing for certain: This time, I managed to disappoint even me.”

  “Oh, Israel, you don’t know that you did anything to deserve what happened to you.”

  He lifted one eyebrow in a skeptical arch and said dryly, “History would indicate otherwise.”

  “But—”

  “Don’t, Willa. I’m not martyring myself, and I’m not looking for sympathy. Easterbrook knew me as Buck McKay. There are only two explanations for that. He either recalled me from riverboat days or I introduced myself to him as McKay. The former is actually preferable because one of the things I meant to do was put that name behind me. If I used it on the train somewhere between Chicago and Jupiter, it means I was playing cards again. That’s not a good sign.”

  “I asked you this afternoon what it would take to get you to play. You told me that if someone were cheating, that could hook you. I think if you took up cards on the train, something like that must have compelled you. You might very well have taken the high road.”

  “As opposed to . . .”

  “Getting liquored up and not know what you were doing.”

  His mouth curved sardonically. “Definitely a low road.”

  “Well, I’m just trying to make sense of it. I know you don’t drink much, not to excess, but you just got out of jail. That’d be cause for a lot of people to celebrate until they were blind with drink.”

  “If I drank that much, then I wasn’t sitting in a poker game. The two don’t go well together, not if I mean to win, and if you recall what I told Annalea, I always mean to win.”

  “Maybe you were drugged. What about that?”

  Israel chuckled. “You’re reaching, but I appreciate the effort.”

  “It’s not as far a reach as you seem to think. We know you made it to Denver because that’s the only place you could have boarded the train to Jupiter. We also know your destination was Temptation, so something—or someone—influenced you to take the spur. You arrived with two bags, according to Mr. Stafford, and had none when we found you. It doesn’t seem a stretch to me that you were drugged to get you on the train to Jupiter and robbed not long after you arrived.”

  “Robbed of what? My clothes?”

  “Maybe Easterbrook and his friends thought you were carrying something more valuable.”

  Israel was quiet, mulling it over. “We just don’t know, Willa. We can’t. Other people hold answers to our questions, and I’m not so sure the answers matter any longer. Whether I am entirely at fault for bringing this trouble down on myself—and now all of you—or whether I merely contributed to it in some way, I am still part of it. What we are going to do about it matters. If you don’t like the idea of trying to draw Easterbrook and his friends to the valley, then I need to leave for a while.”

  She stiffened. “I wondered when I
would hear that.”

  “Then you’ve known all along it had to be said.”

  “I’m not opposed to trying to get Easterbrook here, but in consideration of Annalea’s presence, I want to think about tracking him down.”

  “You heard your father’s description of the man. Even with Zach and Cutter adding to it, the man could be almost anybody. Hell, Willa, they never saw the color of his hair. Maybe he was bald under his hat.”

  “We could backtrack, go to Stonechurch. Someone might remember him there because he was asking after you.”

  “That was all a lie, Willa. He was never there because Buck McKay was never there. Even without my full memory, I’m sure of that. What I know about Stonechurch is limited to the fact that Quill was there settling some business a while back, and there is nothing connecting me to Quill at that time. Easterbrook pulled the name of that town out of thin air.”

  “Or maybe you mentioned it to him when you were liquored up or drugged or simply exchanging pleasantries with a fellow passenger.”

  “Exchanging pleasantries,” he repeated, amused.

  “Why not? It’s a long trip from Chicago to Saint Louis to Denver, and you don’t have to try hard to engage people. It comes naturally to you. Is it so hard to imagine that you talked to a lot of folks on that trip?”

  “Maybe I did. I’ll give you that it seems more like me than getting drunk. There was not much chance for conversation in prison or jail, and not much that I wanted to say when I had visitors, so I probably was ready to exchange—”

  Willa interrupted him when she suddenly pushed herself upright. “That’s it, Israel. That’s the question we should have been asking from the very beginning.”

  “I wasn’t aware I asked a—” He stopped again, this time because she was vehemently shaking her head.

  Willa laid a hand on his arm, partly to keep him from speaking, and partly to steady her excitement. “I sent Cutter into Jupiter the day after we found you, and I told him to ask after folks who got off the train when we thought you did. He inquired at the hotel and the boardinghouse and the saloon and got virtually nothing for his effort. It was the same when he spoke to Sheriff Brandywine. But the very first person Cutter went to was his mother, and when he asked her if she knew about anyone arriving from Denver, she mentioned the Cuttlewhites.”

  Israel nodded. “I remember. He spoke to them. They didn’t know who got off the train.”

  “That’s right, but Cutter should have asked them who they might have passed time with on the train. He could have asked them if they had a recollection of who boarded the train with them in Denver. Do you see? You could have spoken to them. They might recall you getting on even if they don’t recall you getting off. They could have seen you with Easterbrook. We need to talk to Mr. and Mrs. Cuttlewhite, Israel. That’s what we need to do.”

  “That’s a lot of could haves and might haves.”

  “I know, but—”

  Israel caught her chin, held it while he kissed her lightly on the mouth.

  “All right,” he said. “But can we sleep first? I’m sure the Cuttlewhites will appreciate my reluctance to leave this bed right now.”

  He caught her elbow before she poked him in the ribs and drew her down when he lay back.

  “Why don’t we see if you do?”

  Chapter Twenty-two

  The space beside Willa was empty when she woke. She sat up, bleary-eyed, and stretched her arms wide then high. It was on the point of remembering her conversation with Israel about paying a visit to the Cuttlewhites that she truly awakened. She threw back the covers, swung her legs over the side of the bed, and then danced on the cold floor until she put her feet into thick socks and found her robe.

  She parted the window curtains to gauge the sunrise and realized by the sun’s height and the clear white of dawn on the horizon, she had stayed abed longer than had been her intention. A little more distressing was the additional six inches of powder that had fallen overnight and the four-foot-high drifts that had been swept against the barn, the bunkhouse, and her windowsill. She did not remember hearing the wind beating against the roof, but then again, after Israel had finished appreciating her, she had slept like the dead.

  Thinking about it now brought a wickedly satisfied smile to her lips and more than mere warmth to her cheeks. She saw proof of both when she sat at the vanity and regarded her reflection in the mirror. She was vaguely embarrassed by the pleasure she felt seeing herself as Israel must have seen her. Her eyelids were still heavy with sleep and only dark half-moons of her eyes were visible under her lashes. She touched her lips and found them tender, but still sweetly sensitive to the brush of her fingertips. Turning her head to the side, she was able to see a bruise on the curve of her neck. She remembered that he had suckled her there, sipped her skin until she whimpered and beat lightly at his shoulder with the heel of her hand. This was what had come of that, his brand, the sign he left to mark his territory.

  She was not troubled by it because she imagined he could still feel where her nails had pressed crescents into his back and where her teeth had nibbled on his shoulder. Her marks might not be painted on his flesh the way his were on her, but she had to believe they were etched in his mind. It would take more than a blow to his head to make him forget last night.

  Willa blinked when she realized that not only had she spoken that thought out loud, but that she was also mooning at her reflection.

  “Who are you talking to?” asked Annalea, pushing open the door. She looked around. “Oh, it’s just you. Well, I don’t want any part of that conversation.” She sat at the foot of the bed and then threw herself backward on it. “Pa says there’s fried eggs and bacon in the warmer if you have a taste for that this morning. Don’t see how you couldn’t have known since the whole house smells like cooked pig.”

  As she had been otherwise occupied with thoughts of a carnal nature, Willa was only now able to receive the most excellent aroma of bacon. “Hmm. That must be what woke me,” she said.

  “Pa said your stomach would get you up. Israel wasn’t so sure. He told us you didn’t stir at all this morning, even when he gave you a shake.”

  Willa wondered if he really had tried to wake her. He could hardly tell Happy and Annalea that his appreciation had exhausted her. “Braid my hair, will you?”

  Groaning as if this were an imposition rather than a task she genuinely enjoyed, Annalea heaved herself off the bed and went to stand behind Willa. “Two or one?”

  “Just one, please.”

  Annalea picked up the brush and began pulling it through Willa’s hair. “I’ve been thinking about Mr. Easterbrook. Seems funny how he showed up here, out of the blue and all. Even if Israel did something to provoke the man, that would have been a while back. What kind of man holds a grudge that long? That’s what I asked myself.”

  “Well, the Pancakes and the Barbers have had a grudge against each other for a lot of years.”

  “Mm-hmm. It sorta got passed down, didn’t it? Like your ring or Granny’s rocker.”

  “Yes. Like that, I suppose.”

  Annalea returned the brush to Willa and then neatly separated her hair into three ropes of equal thickness. “So, I had Easterbrook’s grudge on my mind and then my thoughts kinda slid sideways, you know, like they do when I’m doing one thing and my attention is stolen clean away by something else.”

  “I’m not sure that’s precisely how that happens, but go on. Clearly you had a lot on your mind.”

  “I did, and I was doing some considerably hard thinking with it. That’s how I got distracted by Mr. Eli Barber. See? I started considering his grudge, the long-standing nature of it, just like you said, and that’s when I remembered something that no one talked about when we were sitting around the table last night.”

  “And what’s that?” Willa asked, watching Annalea in the mirror. Her daughter
didn’t notice; all of her attention was focused on managing the braid and trying to talk at the same time. That made Willa smile. Annalea could not sing while she was playing the piano either. “What did you remember?”

  Annalea plucked the red ribbon Willa held up for her and quickly tied off the braid. She admired it before letting it fall down the center of Willa’s back. “I remembered the horse. No one said a word about it.”

  “You’re right.” Willa’s stomach rumbled, and she knew it was the call of the fried eggs and bacon. She did not think she could indulge Annalea’s flights of fancy much longer. She would have to bolt for the kitchen. “What about the horse?”

  “It reminded me of Galahad. He was about the same size and just as black. It was dark, I know, but Zach and Cutter each had the lantern at different times, and I’m set on the fact that he was as black as Gal.”

  “All right. That could be helpful, knowing Easterbrook was riding a black horse, probably a gelding and not a mare if he was as big as Galahad. Did you mention this to anyone else this morning?”

  “No. I was conjugating while they were talking. I didn’t have it quite clear then.”

  “I think you mean you were cogitating.”

  “Probably was doing that, too.”

  “Then I think we should let them know when they’re around again.” She started to rise, but Annalea dropped a firm hand on her shoulder that meant for her stay where she was. Willa’s eyebrows lifted because nothing else could. “What is it?”

  “The most important thing of all,” Annalea said. “Mr. Easterbrook was riding a branded horse. I saw it clearly in the lantern light, and just as I know the horse was as black as Gal, I also know he had the Big Bar brand on his left shoulder. Everyone else was looking at Mr. Easterbrook, but I must have been looking at him and his horse. Hardly knew it myself until I got to conjuring it.”

  Willa hoped to heaven that her daughter had not conjured it, so she let that pass. “Big Bar? You’re sure, Annalea?”