Stranger in Thunder Basin (Leisure Historical Fiction)

by John D. Nesbitt

  Now he avoided looking in that direction, and when he heard a sound from across the street, he ignored it. The sound came again, and he had a sense that it was being directed at him. When he turned, he saw that he was straight across the street from the house and that Mr. Jensen was standing in the doorway calling to him.

  He kept walking, and the man called again. This time when Ed looked across, the lawyer motioned with his arm. Ed changed his course and went over to see what the man wanted.

  Pausing at the sidewalk, he gave Mr. Jensen an inquisitive look and called out, “What is it?”

  “Come on up here,” said the lawyer. “I’ve got a couple of words to convey to you, and I don’t want to shout them into the street.”

  Ed crossed the small front yard of dry grass and went up the steps. As the lawyer now seemed to be waiting on him, he said, “Well, go ahead.”

  “Just a few words,” Mr. Jensen began. “As you might imagine, Mrs. Corrigan was somewhat disturbed by your visit.”

  Ed shrugged. “I’m sorry for any of that, and I told her so.”

  “Perhaps you don’t get my meaning, or I don’t make myself clear. She was upset.”

  “Well, I was disappointed. I came quite a ways, and I’m leaving with very little. So even if Mrs. Corrigan doesn’t want to tell me anything—and, as I told her, I don’t blame her—I’m going to do what I need to do.”

  “That’s just it.” The lawyer’s voice was firm. “Won’t you just let sleeping dogs lie?”

  “Like I told you earlier, this is a matter of personal importance to me.”

  “And you think it isn’t to her? Don’t you see how inconsiderate it would be if you don’t just let things be?”

  Ed shook his head. “Actually, I don’t. What you’re suggesting might be convenient for Mrs. Corrigan, but it doesn’t work well for me.”

  The lawyer huffed. “If you won’t listen to me, perhaps you’ll listen to her.”

  Ed picked up the word. “I’d be pleased to listen.” “Well, won’t you come in, then, and sit down again. I’ll see if I can bring her.”

  After a couple of minutes, Mrs. Corrigan came into the room, wearing the same dress as before and not looking much different as far as her facial expression went. Ed, who was still standing, nodded to her, and at her invitation the two of them sat down.

  Her eyes, gray now, did not stay on him for long but seemed to be watching her hands as she spoke. “I didn’t think our earlier conversation ended in a very satisfactory way.”

  “I felt I came out of it rather short, but I thought that was the way you wanted it, so I left it at that.”

  She tipped her head to one side but did not look up. “I don’t blame you for wanting to know things.”

  “I’m in a situation where I have to.”

  “I thought it was something I could keep at a distance, like before, but I can see that—” She held her hand before her eyes and began sobbing.

  Ed was surprised to see her break down so quickly. He wanted to rise from his chair to comfort her, but he didn’t know her well enough, this woman whose way of life seemed so different from his and whose attorney was just a few feet away. “It’s all right, ma’am,” he began. “It’s something that happened a long time ago. It can’t be changed. I was just tryin’ to decide what I had to do next.”

  Now the tears fell. “I don’t blame you for resenting any of it.”

  “Well, I—”

  “And I can see that this is a chance to make my peace.”

  Ed frowned, thinking that they were almost talking at cross-purposes, but as she sobbed again, moisture came to his eyes and he felt a lump in his throat. He had not been around women who cried, or any women to speak of. He swallowed and said, “It’s good if you can do that.”

  Now her gray eyes, brimming with tears, raised to meet his. “You may have thought I was trying to protect that man, but it was nothing of the sort. I was just trying to protect myself—hide from myself, really. And when it comes to this, I can’t. I know it’s too late, in more ways than one, to be a mother to you, but I want to say I’m sorry.”

  The truth washed over him as he sat face-to-face with the woman whose tears had moved him before he knew who she was. He faltered for words as never before. “Well, I—”

  “If you’re bitter, or, as I said, resentful, I can’t blame you.” She dabbed at her eyes with a handkerchief she held crushed in her hand.

  Words no longer resisted him. “Not at all. Not toward you. As far as that goes, I haven’t had any complaint. Growing up without a mother was just life as I knew it. The people who raised me never said anything about it, and Mrs. Dawes—well, she had her own kids, and I was just someone she and her husband took in to help with the work. But I came through it.”

  She blinked her eyes and attempted a half smile. Her cheeks were moist, but tears no longer flowed. “For what it’s worth,” she began, “I’ve always had the knowledge, always lived in the shadow of knowing, that I had, um, left a little boy to find his way in the world. It hasn’t rested easy with me. Quite to the contrary, it’s been a source of lasting guilt, as well it should be. I’ve never married again—Corrigan is my maiden name—and I’ve never had any other children.” She looked at him with clear eyes.

  He nodded.

  “The life you see me in now is one of my own choosing. As you have no doubt gathered, I try to retreat from the world. I know I can’t hide from the truth, as I indicated a few minutes ago, but with the help of Mr. Jensen I’ve thrown up my fortifications and ask that the world leave me alone. In this case, though, I’m glad to make my peace.”

  “It’s more than I expected.”

  “And like I said, I think it’s late in the development of things to try to be the mother I’m not—or failed to be.”

  Ed felt his eyes moisten again. “Don’t be too harsh on yourself.” Then his own words surprised him as he said them. “If there’s anything to forgive, I do that freely.”

  “Thank you,” she said. “It’s very generous of you.” He shrugged. “It’s just the way I feel.”

  “Well, it’s a good impulse.” Her eyes had a faraway look as they brushed across him. “Maybe it comes from good nature.”

  “I guess I don’t have it in me to hold a grudge against a woman.”

  “I wouldn’t blame you if you did, but it’s better in the long run not to cling to bitter feelings if you can keep from doing it.” She dabbed at her eyes again with the handkerchief, then sniffed as she raised her head and put on a smile. “That may be a very good place to leave things.”

  Ed felt a wave of surprise, the faintest swimming of the room around him, and he realized that the big moment of their meeting had passed and he couldn’t see a way to go back and fit in other questions. “I guess so,” he answered.

  She rose from her chair and gave him her hand. “I don’t know if we’ll ever see each other again. As I said before, I don’t see much point in trying to be what I’m not, or haven’t been.”

  “I don’t know either. I want to thank you for being willing to talk to me, though.”

  “Thank you for your understanding.”

  In a moment he was out in the sunlight again, realizing once more how little time had lapsed. The knowledge of who Mrs. Corrigan was had swept him over, and he had lost sense of time and purpose. Before he knew it, his time was up and he was out on the street again. He realized he couldn’t go back knocking on the door, but he wished he had found a way to ask about Jake Bishop.

  That was all right, he told himself. The unspoken agreement was that with as much as she had been willing to tell him, he would not pursue further questions about her ex-husband’s doings—at least he would not pursue them with her. But he was sure that he was better armed now than before—better armed, he hoped, and not handcuffed. If Mort Ramsey had ordered the killing of Jake Bishop, then Ed needed to bring him down. Ed had a theory about how and why things might have worked the way they did, but if Leah Corrigan
was his mother, Mort Ramsey could, though he hated to think it, be his father. Leah Corrigan had not stated whether the man was or wasn’t, and her manner of speaking implied that he wasn’t, but it was still a hideous possibility. It gave Ed plenty to brood on for the long ride back to Litch. Not least among his questions was one that did not have a factual answer: how deep did the laws of blood run? How wrong would it be to lift his hand against a man who had that relation with him?

  The sun was warm on his back and cast the horse’s shadow out front as Ed rode west from Ashton. He was leaving earlier than he expected, but it was late enough in the day that he would not make it to Litch. He passed through Glenrose without giving the town much thought, but when he heard ringing blows from the blacksmith shop, he recalled the triangle made out of an old crowbar.

  Past Glenrose, into the afternoon sun, he lapsed into his brooding again and did not come out of it until he recognized the stretch of road leading up to the Barrow, the landmark for the road north to the Tompkins Ranch.

  Knowing he could not travel all the way to Litch to-night, and thinking he could cover the twelve miles north before darkness fell, he decided to go that way. The boys would put him up for the night, and he could keep his ears open for any news that might have come down from Thunder Basin.

  Supper was on the table in the bunk house when Ed walked in. Reuben, Jory, and Homer all showed surprise and insisted he “sit down and grab a spoon.” The other four hands, all unknown to Ed, nodded at the introduction and went on eating stew.

  Ed remained standing by the door as Reuben got up to go to the kitchen.

  “You’d better stay the night,” said Homer. “I ’magine you already know that. If you want, you can put your horse away while Reuben scrapes the bottom of the pot.”

  “That sounds fine.” Ed knew the routine well enough, and within ten minutes he was back in the bunk house, setting his bag and bedroll on a cot.

  “What news?” asked Jory, as Ed settled into his seat.

  “Oh, not much. I don’t know what you’ve heard, but I’m not workin’ up in Thunder Basin anymore.”

  “Hadn’t heard that.”

  Ed paused before digging into his stew. “Not much to tell. I had a disagreement with Bridge, so I wore out my welcome.”

  “No one has lasted there very long,” Homer put in. “Except Bridge and that other one.”

  “Cooley.”

  “Yeah, him.”

  The table went quiet as the others let Ed eat his supper. The four new hands drifted to their bunks. Jory brushed off the table with his hand, as if he was getting ready for a game of cards or dominoes.

  “Have you got another place in mind?” Homer asked. “Or are you just lookin’?”

  “You could say I’m just lookin’. Askin’ around. I had to go over to the other side of Glenrose, and now I’m on my way back to Litch. Thought I’d stop in.”

  “Glad you did.” Homer took out the makin’s and went about rolling a cigarette. He paused and made a small gesture toward Jory, who spoke next.

  “Mutual friend of ours dropped by. Asked for you.”

  Ed rested his spoon. “Someone from Arkansas?” “Yep.”

  “I wonder what he wanted.”

  “He didn’t say. You know how he is, though. All smiles and best of friends.”

  “He and I aren’t exactly on good terms right now. We had a little set-to the other day. I doubt that he mentioned it.”

  “No, not at all.”

  “When did he come by?” Ed went back to eating his stew.

  “Just earlier this afternoon. If we’d known you were comin’ by, we could have told him to wait.” Jory showed his smile.

  “I can get by for a while longer without seeing him. On the other hand, I wonder why he’s lookin’ for me.”

  “Maybe he knows you’re not workin’ out there anymore, and he wants to offer you a job.”

  “That would be just about it.”

  Ed rode into Litch in the early afternoon. The place looked as slow and uneventful as ever. A couple of horses stood hipshot in front of the Rimfire Saloon, a ranch wagon was pulled alongside the mercantile, and a buggy was just pulling away from the butcher shop. The shadows had not begun to move much, and the population was keeping indoors in the heat of the day.

  Ed watered the buckskin at a trough in front of the livery stable and put him up inside, where he could have oats and a rest. Walking to the west in order to avoid going past the saloon, he traveled the few blocks to Tyrel Flood’s shack.

  When he knocked on the door this time, the old man himself opened it, looking both disheveled and fierce. His brown-and-yellow eyes glared through the spectacles. “You’d better come in,” he said.

  Ed crossed into the living room. “What’s happened?”

  “They’ve beat the hell out of Cam Shepard, that’s what.” Tyrel tapped his way back to his wooden armchair and sat down.

  “Who has?” Ed stayed on his feet in the middle of the room.

  “He’s not talkin’ at all, but it seems as if it was that big lunkhead who works for Ramses.”

  “My God, that’s hardly a fair fight. Was Ramsey there?”

  Tyrel gave an angry nod. “Yeah, the son of a bitch. Sit down, won’t you?”

  As Ed sat in his usual chair, Tyrel lifted his glass and took a drink.

  Frowning, Ed resumed the topic. “What would they want to do that for?”

  “Damned if I know.”

  “Where did it happen, and when?”

  “Right out here on the street, not a block away, when he was on his way back to supper.”

  “He’d been here?”

  “Yeah, he came over about this time of day, and we had a few drinks.”

  “Did he ask you about the business I was on?”

  “Damn little. For the most part, we just drank and made small talk, throwin’ stones at the rest of the world. Then when he left, they came by in a wagon. They stopped him, and the big one beat the hell out of him.”

  “He didn’t say what they wanted?”

  “He hasn’t said anything. Someone else saw it, and that’s how they knew to take him back to his room. Happened just down the street, and I didn’t see a damn bit of it.”

  Ed shook his head. “This doesn’t sound good at all, and I might have been the cause of it in a roundabout way.”

  Tyrel looked at him over the top of the glass. “You want some of this?”

  “No, thanks.”

  “Then go ahead.”

  “Well, after I talked to you the other day, I went to see him like you suggested. A little later that day, we went to the saloon, and we talked about what I had on my mind. We didn’t talk about it very much. But the bartender was there, and a couple of riders who were late gettin’ back to work at the King Diamond came in. Either those two or the barkeep could have said somethin’ about him talkin’ to me.”

  “Is that somethin’ to beat a man halfway to death for? A poor old drunk who can’t fight back? Why didn’t they wait for you to get back and give it to you? Not that I’d want ’em to, but that would be more like a man.”

  “Oh, I agree. But they weren’t expectin’ me back. Not to the ranch.”

  Tyrel stared at him. “Did you get fired?”

  “That’s what I told the cook, and that’s what I told the two boys when I saw ’em in the saloon, but the truth is I left there because I had it out with Bridge.”

  “Had it out. In what way?”

  “Well, let’s just say he won’t ever be able to contradict me on any of it.”

  Tyrel pursed his lips. “Son of a bitch. So they must have found him and come after you.”

  Ed nodded slowly. “Must have.”

  Tyrel stared off into empty space for a minute and then spoke. “Then where in the hell have you been all this time?”

  Ed paused. “It’s a little bit of a story. You might want to fill your glass.”

  “I can fill it any time. Go ahead.”


  “Well, Cam gave me the name of a woman who used to be married to Ramsey. Lives over in Ashton.”

  “I heard there used to be a wife, but I didn’t know who she was or where she lived.”

  “By the way, when I was out at the ranch, he talked about bringing a new bride there. Do you know anything about that?”

  Tyrel blew out a puff of air. “He’s been sayin’ that for so long, he must have got to believin’ it himself.”

  “Huh. I wondered. Anyway, back to the story. I went over to Ashton to talk to this woman. That’s where I’ve been for two and a half days, most of it travel.”

  The old man shifted in his seat. “And what did you find out? Or is it fair of me to ask?”

  “I don’t mind.” Ed paused again, thinking how he wanted to proceed. “At first, she didn’t want to talk about details any more than anyone else—meanin’ you and Cam, and meanin’ no offense.”

  “That’s all right. Go ahead.”

  “She said she was done with Ramsey long ago, and she didn’t want to talk about anything.”

  “Can’t blame her.” Tyrel waited, and after a minute he said, “And then what? You said ‘At first.’ I’m guessin’ she went ahead and told you somethin’.”

  Ed sat up straight. “Well, she did. But I think that if I go ahead and tell you, I deserve to hear what you know.”

  “You tell me, I tell you.”

  “That’s right.”

  “Well, it sounds like the fat’s in the fire, from what happened to Cam and at the ranch before that. So go on.”

  “She told me she was my mother.”

  “Son of a bitch.” Tyrel opened his eyes and hung his head forward as he gulped. “She told you that?”

  “Actually, I think she thought I already knew, and she thought that was why I was lookin’ her up.”

  “That must have been a long ordeal.”

  “You’d think so, but it wasn’t. She wanted to have her say, which was that she was sorry, but she didn’t want to go into any of it. So I ended comin’ back with more questions than I started out with.”