“The stompin’ part of it I like. With Lassiter’s face under my boot heels.” Then a frown ridged a pockmarked stretch of flesh between his eyes. “But what’ll Bo say about Lassiter gittin’ kilt?”
“I told you. Bo will be out of town. And after the deed’s done, it’s too late to worry. Wouldn’t you say?”
“All I know is I like the part about Lassiter bein’ dead.”
“Of course you and Marsh may have to clear out for a spell. It’ll soon blow over and you’ll have plenty of money.”
“Yeah . . . .”
“In six months hardly anyone will even remember that Lassiter was smashed to a pulp on the floor of the Farrell Freight Lines warehouse. How does two thousand dollars sound to you, Art?”
“Jeezus! Two thousand dollars?”
“All yours. And two thousand for Marsh.”
“Who’s this Marsh?”
“Works up at the Glory Mine. Lassiter’s crew jumped him like they did you. You’ll meet him. Now I want you to stay away from whiskey and eat lots of beefsteak and potatoes and run a few miles every day. Do you understand?”
“Well . . . yeah.” Blackshear drained his glass and held it up for Farrell to see. “Guess this’ll be my last till it gits over with. How soon we do it?”
“Soon.” Farrell was excited. “I’ll get Lassiter to town, one way or another.” He started to laugh as he pictured Melody Vanderson as the perfect bait for his trap. Then he turned and stared up at the elaborately carved silver buckle of Lassiter’s belt. He had bribed Miegs, the undertaker, to remove it from the body everyone assumed to be Lassiter’s; Farrell had wanted it as a reminder of his triumph over an old enemy.
Of course even now he could call Lassiter out and play the game of “may the best man win.” But after downing the Texas Kid recently, he had come to the conclusion that he was too valuable a commodity to risk in foolish ventures. Not when there were others to do the job for him. The Texas Kid had been incredibly fast. Almost too much so.
On the day Lassiter left the Bitterroot Mine for the long trip downgrade to Aspen City, Kane Farrell was in the town’s saloon a block from the rather squalid headquarters of the Northguard Freight Company. He called one of the local drifters over to his table, gave the man a silver dollar and an envelope he was to deliver. Then he sat back to wait, feeling excitement as his plan got under way.
At the freight office, Vanderson was yawning. He was alone. His eyes were reddened from lack of sleep, the brown hair rumpled. He was at the desk, trying to figure out how much the company would make out of the Bitterroot business. A shabbily dressed man shuffled in. The man handed him an envelope and departed.
Vanderson tore open the envelope and read the few hurried lines written in a fine hand. Then he glanced at the closed door of the sleeping quarters. Melody was sleeping late because they had sat up long past midnight, drinking coffee and arguing. He sensed he was gradually wearing her down. And this was necessary, he believed. For she had to be definitely on his side by the time Lassiter got back. All along, Vanderson had tried to convince her that his going away some weeks ago had been for the benefit of their marriage. No, he hadn’t run out on her; he wanted that understood. And he just wasn’t a letter writer, not until he had good news. And when he finally had it, he thought seeing her in person would be better than a letter. After all, he had brought her money, hadn’t he? Money earned by sweat and aching muscle.
Last night, at least, had been a milestone. While still pleading his cause, and Melody so sleepy she could hardly keep her eyes open, he managed to slip into her bed before she realized it. She tried to order him out and when that failed, began to plead with him.
But he kept talking and manuevering. Finally she seemed convinced when he stressed her wifely duties.
Really forced instead of convinced, if he wanted to be honest about it, she had suffered in silence through the rest of it.
But she would come around completely before long. Last night had been a chink in the dam of her resistance. Each night would be that much easier until finally she looked forward to it. As he was sure she had when they were first married. Or at least she had seemed to.
All this had been streaming pleasantly through his head as he toyed with a column of figures that would reveal the approximate profit from the Bitterroot haul. He was even considering a return to her blankets that morning, to wake her up in proper married fashion. That was when the drifter came shuffling in with the note from Kane Farrell.
Vanderson swore. He didn’t want to see Farrell, damn it, not when he needed to concentrate on things here at home. But he didn’t dare refuse. Farrell knew too much about him. For instance, the night Bert Oliver had been trimmed out of five thousand dollars. After convincing Farrell that he had worked big games before, Farrell gave him his chance. Of course, if Farrell tried to implicate him, he would be exposing his own hand in the cheating. But Vanderson had been around long enough to know that the big thieves usually squirmed out of trouble. It was the small fry who spent miserable years on a prison rock pile.
The small saloon smelled of unwashed flesh and stale beer. Farrell sat at a table, looking as if he resented the odors. The bottle at his elbow was not the usual Colonel’s Choice. Farrell was immaculately dressed in a knee-length leather coat and navy pants. He waved him to a chair, then leaned across the stained table and quietly told him what he wanted done.
Vanderson tugged at his mustache thoughtfully when Farrell was finished. “How can I be sure to get her to town on any certain date?”
“You’re her husband, need I point out. Don’t ask her, order her. Don’t let that fluff of pale hair and pink cheeks put a ring in your nose.”
Vanderson reddened. “I’m head of my own household . . . .”
“Then I’ll expect her in town on the twentieth. At my place. Get her there in mid-afternoon.”
“I tell you, Farrell, I’d rather not be a party to this . . . .”
Farrell gave him a look of disgust. “My friend, may I remind you of certain . . . forgeries?”
It took Vanderson a moment to realize what Farrell meant. Then it hit him like a blow to the stomach. He had forgotten about being talked into forging a sheepman’s name on a bill of sale a few months back. It was for a thousand head. Farrell had taken most of the profit from the scheme, Vanderson recalled bitterly.
He was about to bristle and say that Farrell was equally guilty. But something in the man’s superior smile, the knowing eyes, was a reminder that the forgeries had been committed by the hand of Vance Vanderson. Farrell had remained in the background and had no apparent connection with the dirty business.
“I’ll have Melody at your place on the twentieth,” he said lamely.
“Good. It’s the first step in getting Lassiter into our little trap.”
“Lassiter!” Vanderson’s face drained. “What is this all about?”
“I assume Lassiter doesn’t know you’re back yet.”
“Haven’t seen him.”
“But you’d like to be rid of him.”
“God yes. I’ve dreaded facing up to him.”
“If you listen carefully, you’ll never be troubled by him again. Either you or your wife.”
Something in Farrell’s green eyes caused the back of Vanderson’s neck to chill. Was Farrell trying to tell him that during his absence Lassiter had moved in? Moved in all the way? Was that what Farrell’s knowing smile meant, the wise look in the green eyes? Vanderson swallowed and, thinking of Lassiter, slid a hand onto the comforting grips of the revolver worn under his coat.
Roma whirled, her skirts sailing out. Then she began a series of high kicks to the beat of Rex’s tom-tom. Holding her skirts in such a way that the males in the audience had their view restricted to the lacy edge of pantaloons.
The town was Dry Bar, high in the mountains, with the usual circle of gawkers come to see the medicine show. Doc, slender and ornately costumed as he assumed a mandarin in far off Cathay would be, gave
his speech from the small platform on the highly decorated wagon.
After sales were made, they started on their way. Roma was anxious to reach Bluegate as soon as possible. Doc thought a town of that size should give them several days of work. Also, Doc hoped she wouldn’t be disappointed should she meet up with that fellow Lassiter again. From the first, even as badly wounded as he was, Doc had decided that Lassiter was a hardcase with a life of his own. A life not likely to be shared with a woman. At least not for any length of time. He knew that was what Roma was counting on. She would like marriage, but if not, she was smart enough to accept companionship instead.
Rex was curled up in the second wagon, driven by Roma, reading from a well-thumbed copy of the Iliad. How many times had Rex read it? Uncounted times. And the books by other Greeks and the plays of Shakespeare. Doc had found Rex at a precarious point in his life. As a tragedian in a travelling Shakespeare company, he became mixed up with a woman in Santa Fe. She happened to be married. Her fiery-tempered husband used a knife. The scars on Rex didn’t show when he had on his clothes.
“My wounded pigeons,” Doc referred to the two members of his company, Rex and Roma.
He had found Roma stumbling along a prairie road. She was swollen in various places from a beating with a horse whip. Angrily she showed them her wounds. Her gypsy family had betrothed her to a man she didn’t like. When she refused him, her brother beat her and she ran away.
“Only a few more days and we’ll be in Bluegate,” Roma called happily to Rex. But he was asleep, the book he had been reading in his lap.
She calculated the days in her mind. They would arrive on the twenty-first of the month. At times when she first joined the company, as Doc liked to refer to it, and things had gone badly, she would comfort Doc or Rex in her tent. She failed to see anything wicked about bringing pleasure to another human being. But after meeting Lassiter, everything changed. For the first time in her young life she knew love. Doc and Rex understood and left her alone.
Her black eyes glowed as she contemplated her reunion with Lassiter. By now he had probably settled the business he had come back to finish. He had never told her very much, but a lot of it she had learned from his ravings when he was so ill from his wound.
Doc and Rex would have to go on without her. She and Lassiter would probably live out their lives in Bluegate. She liked the sound of it. She was a very contented young woman. She hummed a Romany song as she drove the team.
Chapter Sixteen
The moment Lassiter and the wagons rolled into Aspen City after the long haul down the mountain from the Bitterroot Mine, he saw a familiar figure waving a hand and smiling broadly. Lassiter gave Vance Vanderson a spare nod.
“The best news I ever heard in my life was that you’re alive, not dead,”Vanderson enthused.
Lassiter looked down at the proferred hand, then into the hazel eyes that seemed bright with sincerity. “The last time I remember seeing you, you were running for your life to the back of a mine tunnel.”
“And I was yelling every step of the way for you to follow and we’d make a stand.”
“You did that?” Lassiter asked mildly.
“Sure I did. I thought you were behind me all the time.”
Lassiter gave him a hard smile, then saw Melody hurrying from the office to join them. For her sake, he shook Vanderson’s hand.
“I was off trying to earn money enough to help keep Melody going,” Vanderson said. “Melody, tell Lassiter how much I brought home to you.”
Melody smoothed her dress as to give herself time to think, then said, “It was around five hundred dollars.” Lassiter was unimpressed. He wondered where the man had gotten his hands on that much money. Not by the sweat of his brow, he would bet.
Later he got Melody aside and gave her the bank draft. She was surprised at the amount.
Dad Hornbeck prepared roast venison for the evening meal. Melody and her husband were invited to eat with the crew. They crowded into the room adjoining the barn and sat on benches at two long tables.
Melody sat at the head of the table where Lassiter was eating. She wanted to know all about the long trip. However, Lassiter minimized the night attack by the Farrell men and his later encounter with Art Blackshear at Montclair. But Bert Oliver wasn’t satisfied to leave it at that. The garrulous southerner told it all. Lassiter wanted to kick him under the table, but was sitting too far away. He didn’t want Melody to start worrying.
While Oliver was talking, Lassiter noticed that Vanderson squirmed in his seat. Probably out of boredom.
When the meal was finished, Vanderson spoke solemnly to Lassiter, saying how he intended to cooperate. “You just name what you want done and I’ll do it.”
“I’ll remember.” Lassiter’s smile was for Melody’s benefit. Despite their success with the Bitterroot business, he sensed she was unhappy. She seemed ill at ease and dark shadows were noticeable under her gray eyes. All because her goddamn wayward husband had decided to come home.
Finally Vanderson walked around the table to stand next to Melody’s chair. “If you boys’ll excuse us, I think my wife and I will retire now.” He reached down to take Melody by an elbow. He drew her up from the chair. “Come, my dear,” he urged.
She complimented Hornbeck on the supper he had cooked for them, but the old man only shrugged. He seemed embarrassed by her obvious distress.
Lassiter felt sorry for her, too. Vanderson was making such a show of taking her to bed. Wearing a confident smile, his eyes bright with triumph, as if to say, “You boys don’t have what I’ve got.”
Melody was white-faced.
In the bedroom she turned on him. “Did you have to make such a spectacle out of us retiring for the night?”
“What in the world is wrong with that. I’m sure they all know what husband and wife do behind closed doors.”
“Why couldn’t you have waited until they left the room?”
“Maybe I just wanted to let them know that you belong to me. They should keep their hands off.”
“I belong to nobody.”
Her vehemence surprised him. So he decided to back off. “I didn’t mean you actually belong to me. . . .” “Vance, I feel that you’re up to something. I don’t know what it is, but I assume I’ll find out soon.”
“How can you even think such a thing?”
“Probably trying to figure some way to steal Northguard out from under me.”
“My God, I’m only trying to be nice, to make up for those horrible weeks I was away from you.”
As she stared at him she wondered at her unstable mind, the day she had impulsively agreed to marry him. That day he had slipped into the big house in Bluegate, before Farrell had taken it over, apparently concerned solely with her welfare. He had just learned, so he claimed, that her late Uncle Josh borrowed heavily from Kane Farrell and that the note was suddenly due.
“Yes, I know,” she had replied sadly.
“I understand you’re going to move your freight line to Aspen City.” That was when he came close and took her hands. On that morning it seemed that his was the only comforting presence, and this following the horror of a meeting with Farrell. There had been shouting and tears.
“Where else can I go but Aspen City?” she asked Vance.
“I’ll help you move. Together we’ll make a success out of the company and Mr. Kane Farrell be damned.”
“Together?”
“It’s a rather backhanded way of asking you to marry me.”
It startled rather than filled her with joy. He seemed a decent young man. And who else did she have? Lassiter dead and Uncle Herm apparently rooted permanently down in Rimrock.
Who else could she turn to but Vance Vanderson? She felt strongly that Farrell wouldn’t back off after taking the grand house, the stable, and the warehouse her Uncle Josh had built. No, he would harrass her every step of the way. Although she had made brave talk, following Lassiter’s death, that she could run the company herself, othe
rs told her differently so often that she had begun to believe it.
She had written Uncle Herm time and again at the hospital in Rimrock and had received only a few garbled sentences in return. Finally, she wrote to the doctor who replied that Herman Falconer, having lost a leg, was drinking himself into an early grave because of it. And no, there was nothing anyone could do about it.
Impulsively and desperately, she had whispered, “I’ll marry you, Vance.”
When he hooked a forefinger under her chin to force her to meet his lips, she almost backed away. The pressure of his lips sent no rockets roaring through her, did not make her tremble and her heart soar. It was just . . . nothing.
Now, standing with the backs of her knees against the bed, she knew that marrying him had been a terrible mistake. In the first place, she instinctively knew he didn’t love her. And she certainly didn’t love him.
As he removed his jacket and hung it over the back of a chair, she could see that he planned a repetition of recent nights.
“You’re not sleeping here tonight.” She saw him stiffen and squint at her.
“My dear, I thought we removed the last obstacle to our happiness here in this room. I enjoyed myself and assumed you did also.”
“Sleep in the lean-to with the men.”
“I’d be the laughingstock of the town. My own wife throwing me out of our bedroom.”
Under his steady gaze and that small smile under the mustache, she felt her defenses start to crumble. But she straightened her shoulders, determined not to give in to him. “I might as well tell you now as later. I want a . . .
“Divorce,” he finished for her. Which she confirmed with a vigorous nod of her head, no longer able to trust her voice.
“It’s Lassiter who put that idea into your head.”
“Not at all,” she responded quickly. Too quickly, she wondered, for his eyes had taken on a strange glow.
A Grave for Lassiter Page 12