by S. K. Salzer
Billy spent the warm-weather months riding from ranch to ranch on Sugarfoot’s successor, a piebald paint named Heck. Billy’s skills were much in demand, for he was able to gentle even the wildest, meanest horse in a single afternoon and never injured the animal, or turned him into a man-hater, in the process. People said he was successful because of his Indian blood, because only red men had such ancient understanding of four-leggeds, but whatever the reason he had a reputation as a man of merit, a man who could be trusted. For the first time in his life, Billy felt his future held promise, not simply days to mark off on a calendar. Billy Sun had money in the bank, a place to call home, and he was in love.
* * *
The killings started the next spring, though the first one took place outside of Johnson County, so it wasn’t immediately recognized at the beginning for what it was, the opening salvo of the Johnson County War. The victim was Tom Waggoner, the German rancher who kept horses in the north, near Newcastle. For a long time Billy refused to work for him. It was a far ride up to Newcastle, and there were no ranches where Billy could stop and pick up extra work along the way. But the main reason Billy said no was because of the man himself. Waggoner brought a darkness with him, an aura of gloom and misfortune. People avoided him, and laughter stopped whenever he joined a circle. He was unclean in his personal habits and carried an earthy, animal scent like the smell of the grave.
Eventually, however, Billy agreed to break Waggoner’s horses, but only when the German agreed to pay seven dollars a head. Even for that kind of money, Billy did not like going there. Waggoner did not take pride in the look of his place. He lived in a filthy, two-room cabin with a dirt floor and no furniture other than empty wooden crates and boxes. His common-law wife was a small, frightened-looking woman, who struck Billy as not right in the head, with three dirty children including a newborn. The woman and her babies were pitiful to look at, so Billy tried not to.
Despite his lack of personal charm, German Tom Waggoner had one thing and that was plenty of horses. How he got them Billy didn’t know, and he wanted to keep it that way. Most bore Waggoner’s mark, but some—if Billy looked close—appeared to wear a brand that might have been blotched or had new elements added. As with the woman and her babies, Billy made it a point not to look too close.
He rode to Newcastle in late May for a job that had been arranged the previous fall. When Billy arrived at the ranch he saw right off things weren’t right. The cabin door was hanging crossways on its leather hinges, and one of the children was sitting bare-assed in the dirt, bawling.
“Tom?” he called. “It’s Billy Sun. I’m here to work your horses.”
No answer. He looked around the dusty yard. There was a water barrel beside the house, a child’s wagon with only three wheels, an empty chair rocking in the wind. Though it was nearly noon, Billy saw no sign of industry, no sign of the simple-minded woman, no sign of Tom. The wailing child appeared to be alone.
He dismounted and walked toward the house, his gun at the ready. Stopping beside the open door, he peered into the darkened room. “Tom?” He heard a scuttling, like a desperate animal in its hole, and saw a shadow flit across the window on the far wall. “Who’s there? Show yourself!”
He pressed his back against the side of the house and waited. Finally he heard a strangled sob and the woman shot out the door. She made straight for the child and took him in her skinny arms, holding him close. Immediately the boy stopped wailing. Billy smiled. A boy loves his mother, no matter what. The woman turned to Billy with wild eyes.
“Where’s Tom?” he said. “What happened here?”
She shook her head but said nothing. Her eyes cut to the door. Looking in, Billy saw the other two children, including the newborn, lying motionless on the earthen floor. He hoped they were sleeping.
“What happened?” he said again. “Can you talk?” He realized he had never heard Tom’s woman say a word. “Where is Tom?”
She held the child and rocked side to side. Billy had just about decided she was mute when she said, “They took him.”
“Who took him? When?”
“Them—three men with black hoods. They took Tom two days ago. He didn’t want to go with them, but they made him.” Once she started, the words came rushing out. She walked to Billy and, though still holding the child, grabbed his arm with a bony hand. “Tom told me to wait, he said he’d come back but he ain’t, and we’re hungry. We ain’t got nothing to eat. Will you find Tom for us, mister? Please!”
Billy looked at the low, sage-studded hills and felt the hair lift on the back of his neck. About a half-mile over one of those rises was the valley where Tom kept his herd. That’s what this is about, Billy thought, the horses. He was sure of it, the same way he was sure Tom Waggoner would not be coming back. He was out there somewhere, hanging from a tree or rotting in a shallow grave.
“Will you, mister? Will you find Tom?”
The woman’s plaintive voice pulled Billy from his thoughts. He looked at her; her running eyes and nose left muddy tracks on her face. Had he ever seen a more pitiful creature? Billy wanted nothing more than to climb onto his horse’s back and put miles between himself and this hellish place.
“I’ll look for him,” he said. “Do you and your children have a place to go? Is there anyone who can stay with you?” Billy knew the answer before he asked the question. People like Tom’s woman never had a place to go. She looked at him with blank eyes and shook her head. Billy walked to his horse and emptied the contents of his saddlebags—jerky, crackers, canned peaches, coffee, a can of condensed milk—and offered them to her. “It’s all I have,” he said. She put the child on the ground with great gentleness, took the armload of food, and ran into the house where the other children were beginning to stir. At least they weren’t dead, Billy thought, but then again, maybe they would have been better off in the world behind this one . . .
* * *
Billy had a good idea where he would find Tom, or what was left of him, and even if he didn’t all he had to do was follow the trail left by the three horsemen. One set of prints was deeper than the others; this would have been the horse carrying Tom and one of his killers. Another animal, Billy noticed, was “barefoot,” or unshod. He followed the trail north two miles, heading for the sheltered valley where Waggoner’s horses were. There was good pasture there and a pole corral with a snubbing post in the middle.
He was unprepared for the sight that met his eyes when he crested the last hill. The last time he worked for Tom, he owned maybe two hundred head. Now Billy was looking at close to one thousand horses. Some were mustangs fresh off the range, but most clearly were finished, saddle-ready animals that were not bothered when Billy rode among them. He saw a variety of brands and some he recognized, including the U.S. mark. Billy had long suspected Tom was a rustler, and here was proof. He’d heard whispers that Waggoner’s ranch served as a way station for highwaymen working out of Montana Territory and Nebraska, but Billy had no idea the scale of it. Tom must’ve had money—hell, with this many horses he must’ve been rolling in it—so what the blazes did he do with it all? Billy shook his head. If German Tom wanted to live in filth, that was his choice, but what kind of man made his woman and children live that way, too?
Gray clouds sailed in, obscuring the sun, and a cool wind blew down from the mountains. Billy turned Heck’s head toward the creek that ran the length of the valley. The summer before it had gone dry, but now it was full, overflowing its banks. Waggoner’s meadow was lovely as a park with lush green grass and a bumper crop of coneflowers, red clover, and white, yellow goatsbeard, bluebottles, dandelions, and devil’s paintbrush orange as pumpkins. Heck picked his way daintily through the wet, marshy ground as they moved along the valley floor. The place was so beautiful and the air so pure, Billy did not want to believe anything bad had happened here, but he knew different. They rounded the shoulder of a low hill and there was German Tom, good and dead, hanging from the stout branch of a cottonwood.
Heck wanted nothing to do with the strange, stinking fruit and refused to go farther. Because he and the horse were still getting to know each other, Billy figured it wasn’t worth a fight. He slid to the ground and walked forward, jumping when an enormous black crow flapped up out of the tall grass below the body, where it had been feeding on Tom’s droppings. The smell got worse the closer he got. Billy covered his mouth and nose with his handkerchief, but it didn’t help.
Tom’s face was black and so swollen he was scarcely recognizable as a human being. His neck was grotesquely stretched so that his feet, small for a big man, almost touched the ground. The rope cut deep into the rotting flesh, and Tom’s eyeballs protruded obscenely from their sockets. German Tom had died hard and slow. Billy didn’t like the man, but even so it was hard to picture him ending that way, twisting in the desperate throes of asphyxiation, while his killers watched. And they did watch. Billy found the place where they sat their horses, side by side. One had enjoyed a smoke as Tom twisted; there was the burned end of a cigarette on the ground by the feet of the barefoot horse.
It started to rain. Fat drops fell like tiny bombs, leaving perfect craters in the dusty soil. Heck was jumpy and wanting to quit the place and Billy didn’t blame him; he felt the same. He cut Tom down and stretched his decaying body on the ground, but he would not bury him. He didn’t owe him that.
“Don’t worry, boy,” he said to Heck as he settled in the saddle. “This ain’t our trouble and I will not make it so.” But even as he spoke the words, Billy knew the trouble would come to him and all of Johnson County, and it was just getting started.
Lorna
Christmas, 1890
Lorna sat at the dressing table while Odalie stood behind her, brushing her hair. Music played below, mingled with the murmur of voices. Their eyes met in the mirror.
“Always remember,” Odalie said, “the moment you walk through the door, you are the most beautiful woman in the room. No man will look at anyone else, only you.”
“What if you’re in the room?” Lorna said. “Who will they look at then?”
Odalie laughed. “Sugar, I guess we’ll have to wait until I’m feeling better and then we’ll see, won’t we? But it won’t be tonight. Tonight is all yours.” She put down the brush and braided Lorna’s shining hair into a long coil, twisted it into a simple chignon, and pinned it in place. She was careful to leave a few tendrils loose, to curl about Lorna’s face and soften her features. “There,” she said, stepping back to admire her handiwork. “Lorna, I can truly say you are an absolute vision, an angel descended from heaven. The dress is perfect, mauve suits you, my darling; it brightens your complexion and highlights your eyes. Pinch your cheeks so.” She demonstrated and Lorna did the same, bringing a becoming pinkness to her skin. “Do this from time to time throughout the evening, when no one’s looking, of course.”
“Of course.”
“Now,” Odalie continued, “for your jewels.” She opened the dresser’s top drawer and took out a large enameled box, pale green in color and decorated with cabochons of garnet and turquoise. Lorna’s eyes widened as Odalie lifted the lid and withdrew a rope of lustrous pearls, all perfectly round and of a generous size. The strand was long enough to twice encircle the girl’s slender neck, its clasp an opened rose of solid gold with a brilliant diamond in the center.
“So beautiful,” Lorna whispered, touching them. The pearls were smooth and cool against her olive skin, silvery in their luster. “Are they real?”
Odalie laughed. “What do you think, honey? Of course they’re real. But if you want proof, rub them across your teeth. Feel that grittiness? Imitations are smooth. You can always tell the difference.” After fastening the necklace around Lorna’s neck, Odalie reached again into the enamel treasure box and selected a pair of diamond and pearl earbobs, which she held to Lorna’s ears. “Perfect. These, too.”
Lorna slipped the thin gold wires through the tiny holes in the lobes of her ears—Odalie had pierced them with a sewing needle, after first numbing the skin with ice—then stood to regard herself in the mirror. She smiled at her reflection. Was this sophisticated woman looking back at her really Lorna Dixon? It was all so wonderful: the brocade dress of mauve silk, the gleaming pearls, the way Odalie had slightly darkened Lorna’s eyebrows with a kohl pencil to make her pale eyes more dramatic, the Parisian scent she dabbed behind her ears and on the underside of her wrists—who could believe that such simple things could change skinny Lorna Dixon with the scabby knees to the woman in the mirror? Oh, if only Billy could see me now. Her cheeks colored without pinching.
Odalie smiled to see the pride and excitement in the girl’s face. “Are you happy, Lorna? Are you excited for your debut?”
“Oh, yes!” Lorna turned to the older woman and threw her arms around her in an impulsive embrace. “Thank you for this, Odalie, for all of it. I’m so very grateful, but I don’t understand why you’ve done this for me. Why did you?”
Odalie, still in her dressing gown, returned the girl’s embrace. “Why, I told you, honey, I saw potential in you. I couldn’t sit back and watch such a lovely young woman go to waste in this . . . this,” she waved her hand, “this desert. And I must say, I was right. Everyone will be astonished when they see you tonight—I’m just sorry I won’t be there to see your father’s face.” She laughed. “Oh, how I would love that. Won’t he be surprised?” She glanced at the clock on the mantelpiece. “It’s time to go down. Have a good time, sugar, enjoy yourself, but remember to be careful with the punch. Chang makes it strong. I’ve hold him a hundred times and he won’t listen because Richard likes it that way. You may have one glass, but one glass only. Nothing—well, almost nothing—is more ruinous to a woman’s reputation than drunkenness.”
Lorna nodded. “I won’t drink any punch. I don’t need it.” She kissed Odalie lightly on the cheek and walked to the door, then turned. “Is there any chance Billy will be here? All the ranchers think well of him; he’s finished their horses.”
“Billy Sun? Goodness, no. Why would you think so?”
Lorna dropped her eyes. “I was just wondering. . . I haven’t seen him for a long time, that’s all.”
Odalie stepped close to Lorna and took her hands. “Sugar, forget him. Haven’t you been listening to what I’ve been telling you about Peter Dudley, or Lord Stanton’s son, Robert, and his cousin, Will? They are educated young men with property and, yes, money, and they will be here tonight. You will dazzle them!” She squeezed Lorna’s hands. “You would have a brilliant future with any one of those fellows, and if you don’t like one of them there’s plenty more where they come from! Not in Wyoming, maybe, but in New York, New Orleans, London, the real world! Forget you ever knew Billy Sun. He’s goodlooking, I grant you that, and a fine horseman. I doubt any of those boys I mentioned could even come close to him on that score—but, sugar, he’s a cowboy and an Indian to boot! No, the world is your oyster now, Lorna. You are a beautiful young woman, and there is no more powerful creature in God’s great world. It’s a gift from Mother Nature, her little joke—why, a beautiful woman can turn the strongest, most important man into a complete fool if she wants to—but it’s a power that fades quickly, no matter how one tries to preserve it. So, take advantage of this gift you have and use it! Do not sell yourself short. No cowboys, sugar. No Billy Sun.” She released Lorna’s hands and gave her a gentle push. “Now go downstairs. I need my rest. I’m going to take a sleeping powder, but I’ll want to hear all about your great triumph in the morning.”
* * *
The evening unfolded just as Odalie said it would. Peter Dudley and the Stanton cousins, three handsome young men—Will Stanton, especially—followed Lorna around like puppies, and even their fathers pursued her with hungry eyes as she moved about the room. She caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror above the sideboard and was pleased with her reflection, especially the way Odalie’s diamond earbobs sparkled in the candlelight.
When her fa
ther arrived, Lorna laughed aloud at the astonishment on his face.
“How beautiful you are,” Dixon said, bending to kiss his daughter on the cheek. “I hardly recognized you. It’s amazing, really. You look like a different person.”
Lorna laughed. “I’m not. Odalie has taught me how to dress, how to do my hair, but I’m still Lorna. Where is Cal? I was hoping to see both of you tonight.”
“He’s home with Mrs. MacGill. She hasn’t been feeling well. I’m getting worried about her. She keeps getting weaker and weaker, and I can’t figure out what’s wrong. But enough of that. How was London?”
“All right,” Lorna said. “I’m glad to have seen it, but the city was filthy, the streets, the air, all of it. Two weeks were quite enough. I loved the ocean crossing though. I wasn’t sick once, not for a moment, not even during a storm. The voyage was my favorite part of the trip.”
Dixon smiled. “Your mother was the same. When we went overseas I spent two days in the cabin, hanging over a bowl and wishing I was dead, but Rose loved every minute of it.” He drifted a moment, remembering her hair blowing in the sea air and the bronze kiss of the sun on the bridge of her nose and cheekbones. “We visited London in sixty-nine—did I ever tell you that?—and Scotland, too. We spent hours wandering the medieval streets of Edinburgh’s Old Town.” He paused, regarding his daughter with an odd expression.