The Poacher's Daughter

by Michael Zimmer

  As for Shorty, he remained as reticent as ever. He listened and commented and smiled, but he never shared anything from his own past, nor elaborated on things he’d already revealed. One night, lying in their bunk after making love, she tried to get him to talk about his wife, but he’d clammed up like an airtight as soon as her name was mentioned, and later got up to sit beside the fire until the early hours of morning, brooding into the flames and drinking whiskey from the bottle Wiley had left them.

  They didn’t speak of the widow in Miles City who whored a little on the side, either, although Rose sensed she was often on Shorty’s mind—the widow and Wiley, who would probably be waiting for them in Miles City with some pony herd already scouted. The prospect of returning to their thieving ways of last autumn frightened Rose; she was no longer content to ride with outlaws, fiddle-footed and daring. She wanted to go home, to rebuild the cabin the vigilantes had burned, salvage what remained of her garden, and, if Shorty was willing, maybe raise some cattle or horses.

  All that would be jeopardized if Wiley talked Shorty into another raid. In Rose’s opinion, wanderlust was the failing of far too many men. It had been her pap’s undoing, as well as her brothers’ and Muggy’s, and in time she was certain it would be Shorty’s undoing, if he didn’t pull out now, before it was too late.

  When the extra horses pounded up, Rose stepped in front of them, waving her lariat to turn them into the corral. Albert ran with them, kicking up his heels like a colt. It made Rose laugh to see him so frisky, for he was getting up in years.

  She was latching the gate as Shorty swung down. They’d spent the previous day pressing their hides into bales and sorting their gear. They had over two hundred pelts, even after Wiley had sneaked off with his divvy. Split between the three pack horses, it would make for some bulky loads, but nothing they couldn’t handle if they left the heavier gear behind.

  It only took a couple of hours to rig out the horses, and it was still early when Rose climbed into the Mother Hubbard’s cradle. She glanced wistfully at the cabin. “I’m going to miss this place,” she told Shorty.

  “You wouldn’t miss it tomorrow night,” he predicted. “That cabin’s going to be knee-deep in ice water before another day passes.”

  “I’ll always remember it, though, even if we never come back.”

  “Oh, we’ll be back,” he replied absently, stepping into his own saddle. “Wiley has a map inside his head that’s better than anything I’ve ever seen on paper. He won’t forget this place.” He booted his mount, taking the lead with two of the pack horses in tow.

  Watching him ride away, Rose felt a heaviness in her chest. She supposed she’d known all along that Shorty wasn’t thinking about settling down to raise cattle or horses. She should have broached the subject earlier perhaps, before the weather started to break, but she hadn’t, and now she feared it was too late.

  It was eight days to Miles City, what with the snow still drifted deep on the northern slopes and the creeks running full. It would have been closer to go to Billings or Junction City, but Shorty was convinced Wiley would be waiting for them in Miles City, and Rose never spoke against it. She never mentioned rebuilding the cabin, either, and tried not even to think about white picket fences and flower gardens and the smell of a man—of leather and tobacco smoke and horses—after a hard day’s work.

  Her continued silence puzzled her, for every morning when she awoke in Shorty’s arms, she vowed to bring it up that day, that very morning. But she never did, and the hours slipped away as Miles City crept closer.

  Rose didn’t know what she would feel when they topped the last rise before Miles City and saw the town sprawled below them. To her surprise, she actually found herself looking forward to reentering civilization again. It had been a harsh winter, and even with Shorty’s company, it had been kind of lonesome.

  They went to Broadwater and Hubbell’s first and sold their catch. Because each pelt had to be graded separately for quality, it took a couple of hours. When they finished, Bob Hubbell deducted the costs of the outfit they’d purchased on credit the previous fall, then wrote out a draft for $417. Rose nearly fell over when she heard the final tally. In her mind’s eye she could envision the improvements that could be made to her place on the Yellowstone with that kind of money. But Shorty barely glanced at the draft before shoving it into his pocket. “Is Wiley around?” he asked Hubbell.

  “He was. He brought in nearly three hundred dollars’ worth of pelts on his own. Said you’d be in later with the rest.”

  “Where’s he staying?”

  “The Silver Star and Alice’s, is what I’ve heard. I couldn’t say if he’s still there.”

  Shorty thanked him, and he and Rose went out the back way to where their horses were tethered. Pausing on the loading dock, Shorty started a cigarette. He looked uncomfortable, and Rose couldn’t help wondering if he was thinking of Wiley, or of the widow woman who lived over on the other side of town.

  “We’ll have to sit down with some paper and add everything up,” he said finally, striking a match. “What Wiley brought in and what Bob just paid us, plus the extra horses, which I figure we ought to sell. We’ll split what’s left, then subtract your outfit from your share. It’s too much to do in my head, but you ought to come out with a fair stake.”

  “That’d be good,” Rose said, but her tone had grown cautious. “Uh, what about us?” she asked.

  Shorty looked away, taking a drag off his cigarette. “What about us?”

  “Dang it, Shorty.”

  He exhaled loudly. “I don’t know,” he said, keeping his gaze averted. “Let’s go talk to Wiley before we make any decisions.”

  Rose felt a sudden swell of anger. “What’s Wiley got to do with it?”

  “We’re partners, me ’n’ him.”

  “I thought we was partners. I don’t crawl into just any man’s blankets.”

  “I know you don’t, Rose. I just ain’t sure how I feel about it yet.”

  “Meanin’ now that you’re back in town with your widow woman handy?”

  “It ain’t that.”

  “It’d better not be, because one of these days she’s gonna be gone or married, and it might be her husband comin’ to the door when you knock, totin’ a shotgun.”

  “There ain’t a time I come to Miles City that I don’t wonder about that,” he admitted. “Truth is, I ain’t so sure I’d care if she married someone else. You’re a good woman, Rose, and you deserve a hell of a lot better than a horse thief like me, but I see you done latched onto me, and, to tell you the truth, I ain’t so sure I mind.”

  “What!” Her voice rose to a squawk. “I latched onto you?” She laughed derisively, but down deep she recognized the place where the pain and tears resided, where the ache twisted deep as the thrust of a saber. “You god-damn’ dumb waddy. You got wool for brains and horse apples for sense if you think I latched onto you. If we ain’t partners right down the middle ….”

  “Now, don’t go flying off the handle.”

  “I’ll by God fly off any damn’ handle I take a notion to fly off of, Shorty Tibbs, and the hell with you and what you think.” She turned away, not wanting him to see the hurt in her eyes, and jumped off the loading dock. Shorty called after her, but she flung him an obscene gesture instead and got on her horse.

  “Rose, don’t be like that.”

  “Don’t be like what?” she snapped, pulling Albert around.

  “Like a woman,” he said, red-faced.

  “I am a woman, you son-of-a-bitch,” she cried, then slammed her heels against Albert’s ribs, riding out of the alley at a trot.

  She turned west on Main, and, if the street hadn’t been so sloppy with mud, she would have kicked the gelding into a run. She rode a couple of blocks at a swift jog, then slowed to a walk. “God damn him,” she muttered. “God damn Shorty Tibbs.”

>   An alley opened on her right and she reined into it. She told herself she was in search of better footing for Albert, but deep down she knew that was a lie. Pulling up a few minutes later, she eyed the rear of the Silver Star reflectively. It occurred to her that she might’ve been hasty in leaving Shorty without collecting at least some of her share of the wolf money, but she’d be damned if she’d go back now. She had a couple of dollars left from last year, and swore to make do with that or do without.

  She supposed she’d expected it to be like last time, when she’d almost immediately recognized half a dozen familiar faces, but the only person she knew today was the saloon’s bartender, Tom. Everyone else was a stranger, and they were all looking at her in a way that made her keenly aware of how dirty and bedraggled she must appear, how out of place she was here. She paused at the door, then hitched self-consciously at her cartridge belt and walked to the bar. Tom came down the sober side, wiping a beer mug with a damp towel. “Hello, Rose,” he said without much enthusiasm.

  “How, Tom.”

  “What’ll you have?”

  “A whiskey for openers, beer for sippin’.”

  He returned with the drinks in short order, but when she reached for her money, he waved it away. “It’s on the house,” he said. “For old times’ sake.”

  “Old times’ sake?” She glanced around the room, puzzled by his subdued behavior, the quiet atmosphere of the establishment. “Where’s Wiley?” she asked.

  “I don’t know,” Tom replied, lowering his voice. “I haven’t seen him.” His gaze slid down the bar to where a couple of somber-looking gents in dark suits were standing stiffly in front of their beers. “The clientele has changed around here the last couple of days,” he added pointedly.

  “Who’re they?” Rose asked.

  Tom shook his head. “I won’t get involved in this.”

  “Regulators,” she breathed with sudden understanding. “Is that who they are?”

  “Rose, you’re welcome in here any time. I mean that. But I just serve the drinks. I’m not going to get caught in the middle of anything else.” He picked up the towel he’d dropped earlier and moved off.

  Rose stood quietly, unsure how she should react. Then she said—“The hell with this.”—and downed her whiskey in a single swallow. The amber liquid scorched a fiery path across her throat before it settled in her stomach like a cozy campfire. She sniffed and rubbed her nose, then chased away the whiskey’s fumes with a sip of cold beer.

  She felt better after that. It was quiet and comfortable inside the dimly lit saloon, free of the crisp, early spring breezes. After finishing her second beer, Rose noticed she was starting to feel sleepy, as she often did when coming into a warm building out of the cold. She was aware of the attention the two men Tom had pointed out were affording her, however, and knew it would pay to remain wary in such company.

  She kept glancing at the front doors, half expecting Shorty to come ambling through them at any moment and half dreading that he would, but he never appeared. Meanwhile, the afternoon shadows lengthened, the light at the windows dimmed, and the crowd inside the Silver Star grew larger, although not necessarily more boisterous, as she remembered from last year.

  Rose was almost through her third beer when melancholy struck. It normally did when she boozed alone. Some people drank to feel good; others, like her pap, drank to forget. But it had never worked either way for her. Liquor just made her feel drab and weepy. Caught in her own gloom, she failed to notice the two men approaching her until they stepped up to the bar at her elbow.

  “Rose Edwards?” the taller of the two inquired.

  She looked up with a startled expression and said, under her breath: “Dang.”

  “My name is John Stroudmire, and this is my associate, Theo Haus. We were hoping to ask you a few questions.”

  “Naw,” she replied, turning her shoulder to him.

  “Pardon me?”

  “No, go away!” In the bar mirror she saw the look of annoyance that crossed Haus’s face, but Stroudmire’s demeanor remained unchanged.

  “We’re looking for a companion of yours … Wiley Collins,” Stroudmire persisted. “We were hoping you could tell us where we might find him.”

  “Never heard of him,” Rose said.

  “Bull,” Haus returned loudly. “You were seen coming out of the alley beside Broadwater’s last year with Collins and a sawed-off runt called Shorty Tibbs. We got an eyewitness to that.”

  “Mister Haus,” Stroudmire rebuked softly.

  “God dammit, she was seen!”

  “I’ll handle this,” Stroudmire said firmly.

  A look of disgust puckered Haus’s face, but he pulled in his horns. Stroudmire said: “We know you were traveling with Collins and Tibbs last fall, and that you likely wintered with them. You were involved in a gun battle at a rustlers’ outpost on the Missouri River last October, and, for the past several years, you’ve run a boarding house for travelers along the Outlaw Trail.”

  “Boarding house, my ass,” Haus interjected. “Whorehouse is more like it.”

  A change came over Stroudmire’s face, a flicker of something so subtle Rose wasn’t sure she could have even described it—but it was there, nonetheless, and a chill ran down her spine to see it.

  “Mister Haus, will you wait for me outside?” Stroudmire said coolly.

  “Huh?”

  Stroudmire turned slightly, although he still refused to look directly at his partner. “Outside,” he repeated, hard as stone.

  Haus’s eyes narrowed. “You want me to …?”

  “I want you to wait outside. That’ll be all I require for the moment.”

  Haus paused as if to take the measure of Stroudmire’s words, and then he slapped the top of the bar with an open hand, growling—“You’re going to push me too far one of these days, John.”—and stalked away.

  Stroudmire waited until his partner had exited the saloon, although he kept his eyes on Rose. Staring back, she was struck by the similarity between Stroudmire’s stark expression and the emotionless pit of a rattlesnake’s gaze, and it dawned on her suddenly that she was afraid, more afraid, perhaps, than she’d been of the vigilantes who’d hanged Muggy.

  “You are known to have consorted with various hardcases,” Stroudmire continued mildly, “including notorious cattle and horse thieves operating within the Yellowstone Basin. You are known to have fed and sheltered these men on numerous occasions, and to have profited from your dealings with them. Recently you appear to have joined with them in their lawlessness. You are the daughter of an alcoholic named Daniel Ames and the widow of one Robert Edwards, a known cardsharp and petty thief. Now, will you tell me where Wiley Collins is holed up, or will I have to use other methods to extract that information?”

  “How’d you know that?” Rose asked huskily. “How’d you know Muggy’s real name, and all that other stuff?”

  “I’ll have my answer, Missus Edwards.”

  A shiver ran down her spine. “Was it Joe Bean. Was that who told you?” She shook her head. “Dang, I never would’ve figured he’d turn on his own. Not that far.”

  “My patience is wearing thin,” Stroudmire warned. “I’m here under legal authority to apprehend Collins and Tibbs. If you have knowledge of their whereabouts and withhold that ….”

  “No, you ain’t,” Rose cut in, her voice shaky with fright. “There ain’t nothin’ legal about hangin’ a man in the middle of the night, like they done Sam, nor in sneakin’ around in the shadows like some degenerate.” She licked her lips, wondering if she’d pushed it too far, but Stroudmire’s reaction surprised her.

  “You have pluck, Missus Edwards. I was told that you did.”

  “You ought to leave me be,” she said. “I got nothin’ to say to you.”

  “Oh, I think you do. I think once we start ….”


  “Lucy!”

  They both spun swiftly as the name was practically shouted at them from no more than ten feet away. Rose gasped, so intense had been the moment between her and this steely-eyed killer operating under the guise of a lawman. It took her a moment to recognize Nora Alder, swooping forward like a hawk on a mouse; when she did, there was such a rush of relief she had to tighten her grip on the bar to keep her knees from buckling.

  “Lucy, I’ve been looking all over for you,” Nora said, still in that too-loud voice. She grabbed Rose’s arm. “You’re late.”

  “Late. For what?”

  “Don’t be thick, Lucy,” Nora said, leaning heavily on the unfamiliar alias. She dug her fingers into the muscled flesh of Rose’s upper arm. “Come on, we’ve got to get you gussied up.”

  “Hold on,” Stroudmire said, scowling. “What is this business?”

  “This business is getting Lucy dressed for work,” Nora replied, constructing a slap-dash smile. “This is Lucy … Alder. She’s our newest gal, but we’ve got to get her dolled up first. If you’re interested, you can come by later.”

  Stroudmire’s color deepened at the suggestion. “So this is how you want to play it?” he said to Rose. “We can do that, but remember that I’ll be watching. Sooner or later, we’ll finish this conversation. Just the two of us.” With the promise made, he turned and strolled toward the door.

  They watched until he exited the saloon, then Nora looked at Rose. “Are you all right?”

  “Yeah, a little rattled is all.”

  “Stroudmire and Haus have been hanging around the Star for several days, making a bunch of noise over Collins and others.”

  “Shorty!” Rose exclaimed, pushing away from the bar.

  Nora pulled her back. “Alice has already sent someone after Shorty.”