by Logan, Jake
Anger flared. She’d loved Jack! He hadn’t even told her any details about the silver strike before heading out to Santa Fe and his death. It wouldn’t have mattered to her if Jack had never found so much as a speck of silver, but knowing that he had and that this was his legacy made her stiffen with resolve.
She had never thought much on being rich, but that silver claim was her and Randolph’s way out of poverty so grinding she had to turn tricks just to keep food on the table.
“Or maybe I’ll be so rich I can buy all the whores in Silver City,” Frank said, watching to see how much this riled her. “But I’d have two bits left over to buy your favors.”
“You’d leave us alone if I get you the deed?”
Frank’s eyes widened in surprise, then narrowed as he studied her carefully for any hint that she’d lied to him.
“That’s the deal.”
“I have the deed hidden.”
“I’ll go with you.”
“I’ll get it myself and meet you tomorrow night. It’s not easy to reach, and I . . . I don’t want anyone else knowing I’m giving it to you.”
“You’re cuttin’ Slocum out?” This caused Frank to laugh heartily. “That’s rich. The only reason he’s been bangin’ you is to get the deed. You know that, don’t you, whore?”
“Tomorrow night. Right here. I’ll—”
“I’ll let you know where to meet up. It’ll be outside town so you won’t try settin’ no trap for me. And I want—”
The gunshot ripped through the still night air. Frank’s eyes widened again in surprise. When they closed, it was in death. He slumped forward, his dead weight forcing Marianne against the wall. She eased him to the ground, but the shot had smashed into the middle of his back, blasting his spine to splinters.
She reached for the rifle to defend herself.
“I don’t want to shoot you, Miz Lomax, but I will. Drop the rifle.”
Dangerous Dan Tucker had the drop on her. From the expression on his face, it wouldn’t take much for him to draw back on the trigger of the six-gun in his steady hand. She dropped the rifle and wrapped her arms around herself, squeezing tightly to keep from crying in frustration.
24
“There’s no call to hold her,” Slocum said, about ready to throw down on Dan Tucker, take the cell keys from him, and release Marianne. She sat slumped in the back cell. The blanket she had used before to ensure privacy lay on the floor, neatly folded. Slocum wondered who had done that. Probably Sheriff Whitehill, since Dangerous Dan lived up to his name. Getting him to bathe required an act of Congress. Folding a blanket for a prisoner on his own lay far beyond his comprehension.
“Whitehill would skin me alive, Slocum. I can’t let her go traipsin’ around town, not after I found her with that rifle in her hand. It had been fired, Frank is dead, she was holdin’ the weapon. What else can I do?”
“When’s the sheriff due back? He’ll see what you didn’t. Frank was shot from some distance. There wasn’t any burn mark on his coat, like there would be if Marianne had jammed the rifle smack dab against his back.”
“Might be she was away from him when she shot him,” Tucker said doggedly.
“How much time was there between the shot and you finding her with Frank at her feet?”
“A couple seconds,” Tucker said. An expression of understanding spread over his face. “I see. Ain’t no way she coulda fired into Frank from a ways off, then hustled around to where I’d found ’em.”
“You heard what she said. Frank had the rifle and used it to pin her against the wall. Somebody else shot him in the back.”
“Who’d do a thing like that?”
Slocum almost volunteered that he would have, given the chance, but managed to hold his tongue. Tucker looked for an easy solution to the crime. He’d found Marianne with a dead man at her feet. After all the logic had been squeezed and pulled and finely presented to the deputy, Slocum wasn’t about to give him someone else to blame for the crime. Tucker owed him for getting him out of the deadly jam in Colorado, but Slocum didn’t want to push so far that the deputy had to arrest him in spite of the honor debt.
“You know Frank. He had enemies out the ass,” Slocum said.
“He admitted to killing Carstairs,” Marianne said, coming out of her shock at being locked up once more. “And he killed Jack, too. He was a mean son of a bitch.”
“Don’t go usin’ language like that,” Tucker said. “You’re a lady.”
Marianne laughed harshly. “Folks hereabouts call me a whore to my face.”
“Ain’t the way Sheriff Whitehill thinks about you.”
Slocum swung about when the jailhouse door opened. His hand was halfway to his six-shooter when he checked the move and tried to cover his reaction by hooking his thumb over his belt buckle.
“Evening, Sheriff,” he said. “Good to see you back in Silver City.”
Whitehill looked past Slocum to the back cell, where Marianne hung on the bars, looking as forlorn as a lost puppy dog.
“I can’t leave this damn town for a day without everythin’ comin’ unraveled,” he said with a heavy sigh. “So tell me what went on.”
Between Tucker and Slocum, with choice pleas from Marianne interspersed, the story of Frank’s murder came out. Whitehill sat perched on the edge of his desk listening in disbelief.
“Just when I think I’ve heard it all, you come up with a new wrinkle,” Whitehill said. He scratched his chin, then moved around the desk, shooing Tucker away from the chair. He collapsed into it, the vision of exhaustion. Seeing Slocum staring, he said, “I rode straight through from Santa Fe.”
“What did you find, Sheriff?” Slocum asked.
“A goddamn wasted trip, that’s what it was. I followed the tracks laid down by Bedrich and Frank, put together the evidence, and was comin’ back to arrest Frank for Texas Jack’s killing. I had witnesses, even got that varmint Holst to explain how them icebergs of his are formed outta snow and ice chips. All for naught.”
“Frank’s dead,” Slocum agreed.
“If you know he killed Jack, does that mean you’re letting me out, Harvey?” Marianne sounded eager, yet just a touch wistful. Tears ran down her cheeks.
“Between the two of you, men are dyin’ left and right. Texas Jack, Frank, Carstairs, and the only crime I solved was Jim Frank killin’ Texas Jack.”
“But Frank admitted to me he killed Jack and Carstairs,” Marianne cried.
“Real convenient,” Whitehill said. “The dead man killed the other two dead men. So who killed Frank?”
“His partner,” Slocum said, remembering how he had rescued Randolph after Frank had kidnapped him. “There was another man.”
“Why’d he up and kill his partner if this mysterious deed of Texas Jack’s ain’t been found yet?” Whitehill looked hard at Marianne, who shrugged.
Slocum was glad he didn’t get the same penetrating stare directed at him. Even with his best poker face, he would have betrayed himself as knowing where the deed had been hidden.
“I was going to try again to find the deed,” Marianne said, “and give it to Frank so he wouldn’t shoot at Randolph anymore. He promised he’d take it and let us be.”
“Liar,” Whitehill said gruffly. “Once he verified the location of the strike, he would have killed both you and Randolph.”
Slocum had come to the same conclusion. Frank had never shown himself to be shy about murdering anyone who got in his way. Marianne and Randolph would have been able to testify against him. It was easier to leave them both in a shallow grave than worry they might cause him legal trouble.
“If you’re not going to let me go,” Marianne said, “could you look in on Randolph? He’s still gimping about on his busted leg.”
“How’d that happen?” Whitehill perked up. “Nothing serious, is it?”
&nbs
p; “I set his leg,” Slocum said. “He and Billy were in a mine explosion.”
Whitehill closed his eyes and looked a dozen years older.
“I should never have come back. If I’d kept on ridin’, I coulda been in Colorado by now.” He opened his eyes and pointed at Slocum. “You come with me. We’ll talk this out with the boy. Might be he knows more about the shootin’ than he’s lettin’ on.”
Slocum started to protest, but Marianne shook her head and made shooing motions. She wanted him to find her son and be certain he was all right. How many times could a young boy endure having his ma thrown in jail for murder?
“He’s over at the hotel,” Slocum said.
Whitehill heaved himself to his feet, brushed off some trail dust, and then said to Tucker, “You watch her real good. If she gets outta jail ’fore I get back, I’ll have your badge—and your hide.”
“Don’t worry none, Sheriff,” Dangerous Dan said. “She’s not goin’ nowhere on my watch.”
Slocum and Whitehill left, the dark silhouette of the jail at their backs.
• • •
Marianne sat on the cot, her legs drawn up so she could rest her head on her knees and shut out the reality of the cell and the whole damned stinking world. Nothing had gone right. She almost wished she had killed Frank. That would have been satisfying after he had kidnapped her son and then taken a shot at him. More than this, it would have been something solid. She felt as if she had turned into a feather caught on the wind, blown this way and that, influencing nothing, a captive of invisible forces beyond her control.
She held back tears. That wouldn’t be right to cry.
“What would John do?” she muttered to herself. Somehow it helped her keep calm trying to decide what Slocum would do in a similar situation. He was unflappable and always did the right thing as needed. His honor guided him and made him the bulwark against everything crashing into her. If only she could be more like him . . .
“I want the deed.”
She looked up, startled. She peered around the corner of the blanket dangling down to give her some privacy. Dan Tucker sat at the desk, leaning back in the chair and gently snoring. The words must have been part of a dream she was having, though Marianne was certain she hadn’t nodded off.
“I got your kid. He dies if you don’t hand over the deed.”
She jumped to her feet and looked up at the high window. Bars securely set in the adobe prevented even a wisp of hope at escaping that way, but moving outside the jail she saw a shadow.
“I’m locked up, in case you hadn’t noticed,” she said.
“I got your son, and he’ll die a slow death if you don’t give me the deed to Bedrich’s strike.”
She stood on the cot and could barely peer out through the bars. The man outside moved into deeper shadows to keep from being seen.
“You killed Frank,” she accused.
“He tried to double-cross me. You know I ain’t kiddin’ when I say Randolph dies if you don’t give me what I want.”
“Who are you?”
The muffled laugh mocked her. The man wore a dark canvas duster that erased his body. His face hid behind a bandanna pulled up so only his eyes peered out, but she couldn’t get a good look at them. He tugged repeatedly at his hat brim to hide even this small chance for recognition.
“I’m the man with a gallon of blood on my hands. I don’t mind addin’ to it neither.”
“I don’t have the deed.”
“Randolph dies in one hour. Bring me the deed out at the old stock pond, the one where your kid and that little bastard Billy play.”
“I know it,” she said, “but that doesn’t help me any. I’m locked up!”
“The deed. Inside one hour.” The shadowy figure reached into a pocket and pulled out a small pistol, wrapped it in cloth, and tossed it through the bars next to Marianne’s face.
In spite of herself, she jumped when it thudded to the cell floor with a sound that had to awaken the dead.
“Wait!”
She called out to the night air and nothing more. The man had hightailed it. She heard the thunder of a galloping horse receding into the still night, going in the direction of the stock tank on the outskirts of Silver City. Futilely, she shook the bars, then looked at her palms. Rust had flaked off and turned her hands brown. Tiny bits of decaying metal had scratched her, causing a pain that was both distant and overwhelming. Marianne stepped back off the cot and dropped to hands and knees on the floor.
She grabbed the cloth-wrapped bundle and opened it to find a derringer inside. The small pistol lay on the cell floor accusingly. Idly wiping the blood beading in her hands on the cloth, she let her mind run wild.
Randolph’s life in exchange for the deed. And she had figured out where to find it. Texas Jack hadn’t told her, but he might as well have carved it into her back. There had been so many other distractions she hadn’t realized he hid it in front of her.
The thought of being rich faded fast as she scooped up the derringer and cocked it. An hour wasn’t long, and she didn’t doubt the threat was real. Randolph would die if she didn’t hand over the deed. Texas Jack had already died, Carstairs and Frank as well. Killing a boy for what had to be a fabulous mother lode of silver was nothing in comparison to the risks already taken.
“Deputy,” she called. “There’s something wrong back here. A snake! There’s a rattler in my cell!” She screeched shrilly as she hid the pistol in the folds of her skirt. “I don’t want to get snake bit!”
Dangerous Dan snapped awake, muttered something, then leaped to his feet, hand going to his six-shooter.
“What’s that you’re sayin’? A snake inside the jail?”
“There, under the cot. Hear it? It’s mad and rattling up a storm!”
“I don’t hear anything,” Tucker said. “Step away from the cell door.”
Heart racing, Marianne did as she was ordered. Her chance to escape was slim, but odds turned in her favor as Tucker opened the door, drew his six-shooter, and bent to peer under the cot. She pressed the derringer’s cold metal barrel against the back of his neck.
“I don’t want to hurt you none,” she said, “but the man who killed Frank has taken Randolph. If I don’t go fetch my son, he’s going to die within an hour.”
“Marianne, you’re makin’ a powerful big mistake. If you don’t let the sheriff help you, get Slocum. He’s a good man in a tight spot.”
“There’s no time.” She reached around and plucked the gun from Dangerous Dan’s fingers, then backed from the cell.
Kicking it shut, she hastily turned the key in the lock and flung the key ring in the direction of the sheriff’s desk. The metallic clang caused her to jump.
“You can’t deal with vermin like this by yourself,” Tucker said. “I’ll help you, Whitehill be damned! I know you didn’t shoot Frank, and so does the sheriff.”
“Then why’d he lock me up?”
“Haven’t you figured out he’s got feelings for you? Whoever killed Frank likely wants you dead, too. This is Whitehill’s way of protecting you.”
She looked at the derringer she held in her hand so tightly her knuckles turned white. If Frank’s killer could pass her a gun, he could have shot her. But then he wouldn’t get the deed. As long as she held it, both she and Randolph were safe.
But when she turned it over was another matter. Slocum would be a help. So would Harvey Whitehill. She had seen the way the sheriff looked at her and it came as no surprise what Tucker said. For all that, she thought the deputy wouldn’t mind sidling up to her either.
“I don’t have time to leave a note letting the sheriff know it wasn’t your fault that I had a gun and got the drop on you. You tell him.”
“Don’t matter a pile of matchsticks to me if he fires me. You’re gonna get yourself killed, Marianne!”
; She had no more time to debate her escape. She rushed out, saw Tucker’s horse around at the side of the jailhouse, and stepped up into the saddle. After riding bareback so often recently, it felt strange having the curved leather under her. It felt even stranger not having Slocum’s arms circling her waist to hold the reins.
Marianne didn’t take the road out of town. She headed, instead, for the livery stables where Slocum kept his pony. As she trotted toward the dark, looming barn, apprehension grew. She wanted Slocum to be there, to take the burden from her shoulders. It felt so good, so right, being in his arms all safe and protected. At the same time, Randolph was her son and whatever danger had to be faced was hers and hers alone.
She slid from the saddle and fumbled at the latch on the barn door. So much noise made her close her eyes for a moment to focus. Did she want to get caught and hand over the responsibility for Randolph to someone else? Anyone else? Even Sheriff Whitehill would be a boon right now, even if he hardly believed her stories of not killing Carstairs and Frank.
The latch yielded and allowed her to slip inside. A few horses stirred. A mule kicked at its stall, then sank back into sleep when she didn’t make any more commotion. On silent feet she went to the stack of canvas at the far end of the stalls where Slocum had dumped the tent. She picked up the canvas and ran her fingers over it, remembering the times she and Jack had spent under it, making love.
And the most recent time with John Slocum.
She cast it aside and fumbled in the dark until she found the thick tent pole. Holding it up allowed a vagrant beam of light coming through a window to show her the wood plug in the bottom of the pole. Her fingernails broke as she finally found purchase and slowly drew the plug out to reveal a hollowed interior. This was why Jack had been so diligent about carving the tent pole. He had done more than skin off the bark. The cavity whittled out was stuffed with paper. Hardly daring to believe it was this easy, she worked out the roll of paper and examined it.
Her lips moved as she read the names, saw the date, and finally located the description of Texas Jack Bedrich’s silver strike. This deed wasn’t legal because its original in the assay office had been destroyed, but with it an enterprising thief could register at the land office in Santa Fe as if Bedrich had never found the silver.