by John Legg
“Whatever you make’ll be all right by me.” She tried to smile but couldn’t accomplish it. “Just make sure it’s hot and there’s plenty of it.”
Sarah nodded and left. She stopped in the hall, thinking. Then she walked to Daisy’s room. “That poor girl’s been through an awful lot, Daisy,” Sarah said. “And I’m worried about leaving her alone, now that she’s up and about. Why don’t you go over there and sit with her?”
“All right,” Daisy said, with a distinct lack of enthusiasm. She had her own demons to wrestle with, and didn’t really want to nursemaid someone else. Then she realized that Merry had probably had a worse time than she had at the hands of the outlaws, considering that Merry was a wife, not a whore, when she was taken.
“Don’t let on that I don’t want her in there alone,” Sarah said. “If she asks, tell her you wanted to check on her—and Sheriff Culpepper.”
Daisy nodded and smiled. “Especially since the last part’s true.”
“He don’t look good,” Sarah said with a frown. “I wouldn’t expect too much if I was you.”
Moments later, Daisy knocked on Merry’s door and then poked her head inside. “Mind if I come in?” she asked pleasantly.
“No, please do,” Merry said from where she was sitting on the bed.
Daisy entered and petted Bear fondly for a few moments. Then she got a chair and pulled it up close to Merry’s bed.
The two sat in silence for a little, neither knowing what to say. Finally, though, Merry asked, “How do you know Jody? You did ask about him right as I got here, didn’t you?”
Daisy nodded. “Yep, I asked.” She took some moments, biting her lower lip to keep from bursting into tears. “Jody and me were gonna get married,” she managed to choke out.
Merry’s eyes filled with water. “No!” she gasped. “That can’t be.”
“It’s true,” Daisy said, still fighting off the tears.
“But how...? I didn’t know...”
“How could you not know?” Daisy countered. “Sheriff Culpepper knew when he went back to Silverton the last...” She paused. Then, “Oh, my God, that was when you was taken away by Coakley and the others, wasn’t it?”
“It must’ve been,” Merry agreed, wiping away the tears. “Tell me what happened to you.”
“Did Jonas...Sheriff Culpepper...tell you anything about me?” Daisy asked hesitantly.
Merry thought about it a moment. “You’re the girl Jonas rescued from those outlaws, aren’t you?”
“Yep. From Ellsworth and his men.” She paused, nervous again. “He tell you anything else about me?”
“No. But I figured you had yourself a mighty bad time,” Merry said sympathetically. “Judgin’ by what I went through.” She shivered involuntarily.
“Nothin’ else?”
“No, not really. Only that he brought you to some little town—this one, I know now—and left you to try to find a new life.”
“That he did. He even lied for me, makin’ me out a better person that I am.”
“Oh, no, he wouldn’t need to do that,” Merry protested. “Yes, he would,” Daisy said. She lowered her eyes in shame. “You see, Miz Culpepper, I...I wasn’t exactly innocent of men before I was taken off by Ellsworth’s men.”
“You were married before?” Merry asked, surprised.
“No. No.” Daisy shook her head, her loose hair swinging back and forth, obscuring the pinkness of her face. “I...I...worked in a...I was a...” She stopped and drew in a long breath and then eased it out. She brought her face up until she was looking straight at Merry. “I worked in a fancy house.” Merry was shocked and sat silently, trying to comprehend that this young woman, as pert and pretty as any Merry had ever seen, and just as demure, had been a prostitute. “I don’t believe you,” she finally said.
“It’s true, though,” Daisy said almost defiantly.
Merry was revolted, but then she thought about what she had suffered at the hands of Coakley and his men. Daisy had undergone the same at the hand of Ellsworth’s outlaw gang. That she had made money by selling her body to whatever man wanted it didn’t seem to matter much all of a sudden. They were kindred spirits, and Merry decided that Daisy must’ve had a good reason—and probably a heartbreaking one—for having entered the profession she had. And even if she didn’t, Daisy certainly had changed since she’d been Ellsworth’s prisoner. If she had planned to marry Jody, she must’ve been making a new life for herself. Unless Jody didn’t know.
“Well, Miz Culpepper,” Daisy said, rising, “I’m sorry to’ve imposed on you. I can see you want me to go, so I’ll...” Merry reached out and grabbed one of Daisy’s hands. “You sit right back down here, Miss...Miss what?”
“Greenwalt.”
Merry tugged a little on Daisy’s hand. “Well, you just sit right back down here, Miss Greenwalt. Us girls got some talkin’ to do.”
“You sure?” Daisy asked uncertainly.
“Yes.” Merry licked her lips. “I got one thing to ask first, though. I just got to know—did Jody know about you...your past?”
Daisy nodded.
Merry seemed relieved. “Sit. Please, Daisy.” When Daisy had done so, Merry said, “Now, tell me the rest.”
“There’s not much to tell. When Sheriff Culpepper and Jody come through here that one time, me and Jody met. I’ve never felt like that about any man before. He said he felt the same about me. I told him about my...well, you now, just so that he’d know and couldn’t hold it against me later if he found out. You sure you want to hear all this?” she suddenly asked.
“Yep.”
“Jody come back a few weeks later and asked me to be his wife. He said Sheriff Culpepper...”
“You’re a friend, Daisy, you can call him Jonas.”
Daisy smiled a little. “He said Jonas had gone back to Silverton, and that him and I were gonna go there just as soon as I was ready and get married there. We were making arrangements to leave when Jody got a wire from Jonas tellin’ him to stay put. He rode in a couple days later, near done in. He told me and Jody that you’d been taken by Coakley. They rode out the next day. That’s the last time I... I... saw...” Daisy began to weep, her shoulders shivering.
Merry moved closer to Daisy and patted her leg. She didn’t know what to say. She wanted to tell Daisy that everything would be all right, but it wouldn’t, and they both knew it.
Finally Daisy’s tears dribbled to a halt. “I’m a mess,” she said, nose stuffed from crying. She found a rag and blew her nose, but it didn’t make her feel any better.
“You ain’t half as bad a mess as I am,” Merry said sourly. She ran her fingers through her hair.
“Your hair looks fine,” Daisy said.
Merry got up and went to Culpepper’s saddlebags, which someone had stuck in a corner of the room. She dug in them for a bit, until she found what she wanted. She turned and held the photograph out toward Daisy. “That’s what it looked like “before Coakley cut...hacked...” She bit back tears and anger.
Daisy took the photograph and looked at it, then back to Merry. “The bastards,” she said flatly.
Merry looked shocked for a minute, then giggled, then laughed outright. Daisy laughed, too, and they suddenly hugged each other in newfound friendship and sympathy.
Merry was just putting the photograph away when Sarah came in with a tray of food. She placed it on the bed and left again, but returned in moments with another tray. Once more she left, and came back with a chair. She sat.
Merry shrugged and began eating. Sarah poured coffee for all three of them and she and Daisy sipped at it while Merry ate.
“You know what happened to me now,” Daisy said. “Why don’t you tell Sarah and me what happened to you?”
Merry did while still eating. “There’s not too much to tell. Coakley was raisin’ Cain in Silverton, and Jonas’s deputy, Jimmy Cahill, was watchin’ over me as best he could. He got word that Coakley was comin’ for me and he hurried to the house
, minutes before they got there. Eight of them hit the house, and Jimmy...Jimmy...tried...” Merry stopped eating and talking so that she could cry. She felt so forlorn.
Finally she composed herself again and went on. “Jimmy didn’t have much of a chance. He got one or two before he went down and Coakley grabbed me. Outside, Marshal Hennessy got another one before Coakley’s men gunned him down, too. Then we were racin’ out of town. A few days later we got to Westville, I think they called that little place, where Coakley and his men...” She stopped from shame this time.
“It’s all right, child... Merry,” Sarah said quietly. “It weren’t your fault, no matter what some folks might have to say about it.”
Merry nodded, and brushed away some tears. “Then Jonas and Jody—and Bear, too—found me. I don’t know how many they killed, but I counted four. I figure the other three got away. Jonas was shot right in front of my eyes. When I finally got free and went to look for something to use to help him, I...I found Jody. He...”
“Don’t say no more,” Daisy said with a cracking voice.
Merry nodded, joining her new friend in crying.
Sarah sat there wishing more than anything that she could help these two fine young women. But there was nothing she could do. They would have to get over their pain in their own way and time.
Merry finally thought she could continue. “I managed, somehow, to get Jody buried, then build that crude litter and get Jonas on it. Then I rode straight here, with Bear showin’ me the way.”
“Jonas would’ve never made it without you,” Sarah said firmly. “And speaking of such things,” she added, “I ain’t sayin’ bad things of Doc Parmenter, but I don’t think he’s as good a physician as you’ll find in Silverton. I’d suggest we try to get Jonas to Silverton somehow.”
Merry thought about that a bit, then nodded. “There’s a wire in town?” When Sarah nodded, Merry said, “Take me to it, Miz Stanton.”
Chapter Thirty-Three
Culpepper awoke slowly, groggily. He was afraid to move. The last thing he could remember was the searing heat of the ball as it smashed into him and burrowed deep into his back. He figured he was dead, but then figured that there shouldn’t be this much pain. And he didn’t think his own bedroom would be in heaven. Or in hell, either, for that matter. That posed another problem. He was in his own room, of that much he was sure. How he’d gotten here from far-off Westville was perplexing. Then he realized that Jody must have gotten him here.
With extreme care, Culpepper moved his head a little, toward the right. Everything seemed to be in its usual place. He turned to the other side, and decided he was either in hell or having a nightmare. Merry—his beautiful Merry—was dozing in a chair. But her hair was a ragged, short mop, instead of the flowing cascade of beauty. Then it filtered back to him: he had seen that when he had burst into the room where Merry had been kept prisoner. There had been no time to ask about it then, of course, and then he was shot.
Bear came over and licked happily at Culpepper’s face, tail going a mile a minute. The dog’s excitement made Merry suddenly pop awake. She saw him and her eyes widened. “Jonas?” she asked in a whisper, pushing up from the chair.
Culpepper tried to speak but was having a lot of trouble, since his mouth was so dry. “Water,” he managed to croak.
Without saying anything, Merry helped Culpepper up until he was propped against the headboard of the bed. Then, hands trembling, she poured some water from the pitcher to a glass and helped him drink it down.
“How’s that?” she asked, when he had indicated he was finished.
“Better.” Culpepper breathed deep and winced as pain stabbed into his back.
“You had us worried,” Merry said, the fact evident in her voice and on her face.
“I suppose I did,” Culpepper agreed, nodding a little. “How long I been out?”
“Near on two weeks now.”
“That long, eh? Things’re calm?”
Merry nodded, trying to keep herself from crying again. Having Culpepper come awake like this was almost too much to have hoped for. It seemed unreal now that it had happened. “Where’s Jody? I want to talk to him.”
“He’s dead, Jonas,” Merry whispered, taking one of Culpepper’s hands in hers.
Culpepper’s face clouded with grief and anger. “What happened?”
“You sure you want to hear this now?”
“Yes.” The word was flat and ugly.
Merry explained it, up until she got him to San Miguel. When she was done, Culpepper looked at her with new respect and compassion in his eyes. She had done all that for him, and while she was in such dire straits herself. “You are somethin’,” he whispered. Then he looked perplexed amid his sadness. “But how’d I get here?”
“Miz Stanton thought the doctorin’ here in Silverton’d be better than in San Miguel, so I arranged to get you back here.”
“Not alone?”
“No, I had help.”
“Who? How?”
“I wired Mister Pennrose.”
“What’n the world for?” Culpepper asked, growing a touch angry.
“You’re the sheriff of San Juan County. He’s the head of the County Board. I figured he owed you. If I was wrong, he’d’ve told me, and I’d’ve made other plans. But he wired back and told me to sit right where I was, that he’d have some men come help.”
“Did he?”
“He sure did. A few days later, a hundred of his men, all heavily armed, arrived in San Miguel with two wagons. He even came himself. The next mornin’, with you and me in one wagon, and Daisy and Mister and Miz Stanton in.
“Daisy and the Stantons’re here?”
“Yep. They’re your friends and wanted to see you get well. We got here a couple of days ago. They’ve been here most of the time. Right now they’re off gettin’ somethin’ to eat at Moldovan’s—Mister Pennrose is payin’.”
“Well, I’ll be damned,” Culpepper said. Then he smiled a little. “You’re the best damn thing could ever happen to a man.”
“You don’t hate me?” she asked, fear icily gripping her heart.
“Why would I hate you?” he asked, surprised.
“Because of what those animals did to me.”
Culpepper shrugged, and winced with the pain again. “That wasn’t any of your doin’. You didn’t have no say in the matter.” If he thought about it a little, he might get disgusted with her, but he would not allow himself to do that. She had undergone too much because of him; done too much for him. He’d be damned before he turned her out now.
“And this?” Merry asked, touching her hair.
“They do that to you, too?”
She nodded nervously.
“It’ll grow back.” Culpepper smiled at her. He was enraged at what they had done to her, at all the forms of abuse they had heaped on her. But he didn’t want her to see that yet.
“I’ll be a hundred years old before it grows back as long as it was.”
“And I’ll measure each and every week of that time, too,” he said.
“You sure, Jonas? I’ll understand if you...”
Culpepper placed a thick finger against her soft lips. “Enough, Merry. I’m tired and painin’ too much to argue with you. I love you, and that’s all there is to it. You’re stuck with me, and there ain’t no use in you fightin’ it.”
Merry wept with joy then, loving him more now than she ever had. And her heart felt big enough with pride to burst.
Culpepper let her go on for a bit, then whispered for her to stop. When she sat back, he asked, suddenly feeling some urgency, “How many bodies of Coakley and his men did you find in that cabin?”
“Four. Wiley, that one who shot you, one in the back room, where I found Jody, and one by your horses.”
“That means three got away?”
Merry nodded.
“Durn.”
“What’s wrong?” Merry asked, suddenly worried. “Coakley’ll not forget this, and he’
ll not forget who did it to him. He’ll be comin’ for me if he thinks I’m alive, or for you if he figures I’m dead. He’ll be here as soon as he recruits more men. That could be anytime now. We’ve got to get you—and Daisy and the Stantons—out of here as soon as possible.”
“No, Jonas,” Merry said firmly. “You’ve got to rest and get better.”
“But...”
“Listen to me, my love,” Merry insisted. “We’re safe and protected here. Mister Pennrose has two dozen armed men around the house at all times. He has more stationed over at the office with Buster. And he’s got several dozen more at his beck and call, if Coakley shows up.”
Culpepper looked at her skeptically.
“We’ll be all right. Now, are you hungry?”
“Yep.”
“Doctor McQuiston said that if you came awake...”
“If?” Culpepper asked, laughing, but instantly regretting it as pain bounced around his back and chest.
“Yes, if,” Merry said firmly. “Anyway, since you did, he said I can give you some soup. That sound all right?”
“I’d rather have me a giant-sized beefsteak.”
“Well, you’ll have soup and like it.”
“Yes’m.”
Culpepper made excellent progress in the following weeks, enough to astound Dr. McQuiston, who soon quit coming around.
“There’s nothing more I can do for you, Jonas,” he pronounced. “You have your friends here to help you. Now it’s just a matter of getting your weight and strength back.”
And he did, more swiftly than any of them—except perhaps Merry—would’ve thought possible. After two weeks, he was up and around, doing little jobs, walking through town, eating heartily. He grew annoyed with people always wanting to do things for him, and it became an effort to tell them pleasantly that he was quite capable of doing for himself. He wanted to roar at them.
Underlying his annoyance at his friends, and underlying the pain that lingered in his wound, was a festering, all-abiding hatred for Ned Coakley and anyone who dealt with him. His hate was strong enough to cover men like Mack Ellsworth, too, since if Ellsworth had not raided the train in Culpepper’s jurisdiction, Jody would still be alive, and Merry would never have been debased by Coakley’s men.