Murder for Greenhorns

by Kresge, Robert

  A couple miles farther on, Monday thought he caught sight of a rider way off to his right. Looked like he and his horse were floating on a cloud. It seemed like the rider had seen him, then rode over a grassy rise on his little cloud. Monday rubbed his eyes. Maybe breaking that horse shook his brains loose.

  He followed the winding track for nearly half an hour, then descended into a little vale, darkened under gathering clouds. At the bottom, a creek ran south toward the Platte. A small ranch house, two sheds, and what looked like a bunkhouse stood along the creek bank among a few willows and cottonwoods. On the near side were a corral and what looked like a short corral away north of it. Maybe for calves. No stock in sight, though.

  As Monday rode into the ranch yard, a man holding a rifle stepped down from the porch. He was in his thirties, with thinning brown hair and a beard. He wore blue pants and braces over his faded red union suit. The woman on the porch next to him was younger, pale, and had short dark hair. She held her hands behind her, and Monday reckoned she might have a pistol. Dave Masterson had said these folks were less than hospitable. Let’s see how they react to the law.

  As he rode up, he took off his hat long enough to run his right hand through his hair. Then he rested the left hand with the hat briefly on his saddle horn. Behind the hat, he slipped off the thumb loop on his holster that held the hammer of his pistol.

  “That’s plenty far enough, Mister. What do you want on my land? You miss the turn to the ford back there?” He raised his rifle to firing position, talking down the barrel at Monday.

  Monday reined in and tipped his hat to the woman, putting both hands in plain view on the saddle horn, and looking down at the man.

  “Well, good afternoon to you, too. No, I ain’t lost, if you’re Victor Millbank. I’m Marshal Sam Taggart from Warbonnet, and I come out here special, just to talk to you.” He watched carefully; both the man and woman seemed taken aback and exchanged glances. He’d put too much into that sentence, and couldn’t tell whether they were reacting to the marshal part, to the name Taggart, or to the special nature of the visit.

  “I’ve just come from the Sundquists’ ranch. Bert helped me find your place. Mind if I get down, Mr. Millbank? You are Mr. Victor Millbank, aren’t you?” Since Millbank was slow to answer, Monday stepped down off Lightning and tied him to the rail at the horse trough in front of the house. As he turned toward Millbank, he was careful to let his vest fall open, showing the star on his shirt. He glanced at Mrs. Millbank. He had Lightning between him and that possible second gun. He hated to put his horse in danger.

  “I’m sorry, Marshal,” said Millbank, relaxing his grip on his rifle and lowering it. He didn’t offer to shake hands. “You took us by surprise. Sarah and me don’t get many visitors up here. And we don’t welcome any. You got business here, say it plain and be done with it.”

  Monday heard what sounded like bells behind the house. In a moment, a small, dark man with a black mustache came around the corner of the house. No gun, but he carried a big knife in his belt.

  “Got some hands up here with you to work your stock, Mr. Millbank? You must have a fair-sized herd. I saw some sections of grass cropped pretty close the last mile or so.”

  “Leave go, Marshal. My hands don’t take to havin’ company any more than we do. If you got business here or a writ to serve, spit it out. Then I’ll thank you to be on your way.” The Mexican stood near the corner of the house, stroked his mustache, and put his hand on his knife.

  “Buenos dias, senor,” Monday called. “Como esta?” The man looked at Millbank, then back at Monday.

  “He ain’t Mexican, Marshal, he’s Basque. He understands Spanish, but my hands prefer to speak their own language.”

  Monday took out the drawing. “This is a man who was killed south of here a couple days ago. I’m hoping some folks hereabouts might know him.” He watched the Millbanks’ expressions as they looked at the drawing, but couldn’t see any reaction. “What about your hands, Mr. Millbank? I’d like a chance to show it to them.”

  “That’s all right, Mr. Taggart,” Mrs. Millbank said, speaking for the first time. “Our hands don’t leave the spread much. They’re generally busy with the stock.”

  “Well, thank you, Ma’am, but if this man,” Monday tapped the drawing, “passed near here, they mighta seen him, or maybe seen the man who killed him.” With that, Monday spoke to the Basque, or whatever he was, and held out the drawing. The man took it, barely glanced at it, crumpled it up, and threw it at Monday’s feet. Monday bent slowly to retrieve it, keeping his hand on his pistol butt and his eyes on the other man.

  “I’ll take that as a ‘no,’ senor. From you and your compadres.” Turning to Millbank and his wife, he said, “I’m trying to figure out who killed this man and why. He was shot from ambush a day’s ride south of here on Monday morning.”

  “I don’t want to seem unneighborly,” Millbank said. “But none of us been off this ranch in the last three days. We never seen the man in that drawing.”

  Monday gave up and settled for directions to the first farm, down by the ford. He stepped back into his stirrup and remounted. If he learned more about Millbank’s spread down in Warbonnet, he might have to come back here. He’d return a little more cautious and lot more ready next time, cradling his rifle.

  Chapter 11

  Wednesday

  Warbonnet

  Kate smoothed her pink gingham dress and knocked at the back door of Webb’s General Store, glancing over her shoulder at the dark clouds overhead. At last, a chance to do some real investigating.

  Supper at seven, Mr. Webb had said. She’d met him this morning while securing some rags to dust and wash windows at the school. A pleasant gentleman with white hair and whiskers, he moved slowly and deliberately. He’d invited her to supper and said he’d arrange it with his daughter. Webb and the Odoms lived over the store.

  Len Odom greeted her at the door. Perhaps “greet” wasn’t the precise word. He seemed sour, not at all pleased to see her. She’d wanted to meet all those who lived in Warbonnet and everyone seemed to want to have her to dinner. Newcomers from the East were rare and people welcomed her news of the outside world. She’d also accepted invitations from the Hausers, the Torricellis, and the Crandalls.

  Matthias Webb rose to meet her when they entered the parlor at the top of the stairs. He used a cane that Kate hadn’t noticed in the store. That might mean he seldom rode a horse. When she’d checked on Valentine at Fitch’s barn, she hadn’t seen any big black horses stabled there. How would townsfolk keep a horse, unless they boarded it with Joe?

  “Ahhh, Miss Shaw. So good of you to come. And so good of father to have asked you,” Jane said, coming into the parlor. “I just have to set out water glasses. Len, would you help me?” They left together and Kate turned her attention to Mr. Webb.

  “I hope I’m not inconveniencing Mrs. Odom. Your invitation was on such short notice.”

  “Not at all, Miss Shaw. We killed a chicken for supper yesterday and Jane turned the remainder into chicken and dumplings. And she makes splendid pies.” Webb settled into a chair by the back window. Kate noticed the parlor had no stove for heat. The old man caught her glance.

  “We hardly use this room in the winter. Gets cold in Wyoming. I feel it in my bones most acutely.” Kate could hear a pump working in the kitchen. Running water on the second floor. That must have cost a pretty penny. But Webb’s store likely made enough that he could afford it.

  “It gets very cold in Buffalo, too. Did you know Niagara Falls freezes over almost every winter? Not many people would believe that.”

  “I think I saw a Currier and Ives engraving of such a scene. But I didn’t need to. If our new schoolteacher says it’s so, then what’s good enough for the education of the young must be good enough for me, too.” He grinned beneath his white mustache. Kate liked him.

  Jane returned and called them to supper. As they sat down, Mr. Webb picked up an unopened bottle of wine and til
ted it in Kate’s direction.

  “We get some bottles of wine up from Cheyenne, Miss Shaw, and save them for special occasions. This is certainly one. Would you like some?”

  Kate’s mind raced. Wine was never served in her home when she was a child. She was being treated like an adult, not like the student she’d been all her life. What could it hurt? Then she looked out of the corner of her eye. Jane was looking at her intently. Uh-oh.

  “No thank you, Mr. Webb. Not for me. School teachers ought not to consume liquor in any form,” she said, reciting one of the list points from memory. She noticed Jane was looking down and wouldn’t meet her eye. Bull’s eye on her first try?

  “We have to avoid unseemly behavior, you know, like playing billiards or getting shaved in a barber shop.” Oh, that was arch of her, but she couldn’t resist. Mr. Webb and Odom frowned at her peculiar statement, but Kate would bet she’d skewered Jane and found the person who’d pinned that list to her door. Her first mystery solved.

  There wasn’t much conversation during the chicken and dumplings. Dumplings and chicken would be more accurate. Perhaps Mr. Webb’s invitation had caught Jane with a short pantry. Kate figured it was her duty to repay her hosts in some way, so she carried most of the conversation as they adjourned to the parlor. They were avid for news from the East and she did her best to fill them in. It was more than a week since she’d seen the Chicago papers. She regretted not bringing any with her.

  “We’d heard the Robert E. Lee beat the Natchez in that big steamboat race on the 10th, Miss Shaw,” Mr. Webb said. “Len and I had a bet going, but the Laramie paper Roy brought up didn’t say what the winning margin was. Do you recall?”

  Kate was pleased to be asked. “Six and a half hours.” Odom looked less than pleased.

  At one point, Kate noted a rifle leaning against one corner of the room. She asked Len if they kept it in case of robbers in the store below.

  “Well, yes.” It was Jane who answered, rather than the men. “We normally keep it downstairs in case of robbers. Len wanted to hang it up, but we’ve no mantel in here and I refused to let him pound nails through my wallpaper.” Kate complimented her on the pattern, although she’d never seen real flowers in that shade of mauve.

  “I understand the marshal’s looking for a particular rifle that was used to murder that poor cowboy,” Mr. Webb said. “Surely, you’re not interested in Len’s repeater?”

  “No, sir. I think the marshal’s looking for a bigger rifle than that. I’m just learning about firearms, but I believe that’s a Henry, like his own.” She said nothing about the telescopic sight on the murder weapon. Best to hold some things back, locked in her chest of secrets.

  “Well, that’s good,” said Odom. “That rifle story’s been making the rounds since yesterday. Anyone with a rifle might feel under suspicion. I understand the marshal’s also looking for a big black horse. Not only don’t we have a horse, but no one we know has a black one, either.” He seemed a bit smug, perhaps because he was too short for a big horse.

  “He’s also hoping to find whether anyone was out of town Sunday and Monday. The marshal determined that the killer rode back to Warbonnet.”

  Jane gasped and exchanged a quick glance with her husband. Rain began to beat against the parlor windows.

  “Well, I can vouch for Len here,” Mr. Webb said. “He went to the weekly hymn sing Sunday morning with Jane and me. He was gone for most of Sunday afternoon on a futile deer hunt, but he must’ve returned home Sunday evening. He was here when I woke up from my nap. And he was in the store all day Monday. As for me,” he tapped his cane. “My arthritis has kept me off horses for years.”

  Odom didn’t look pleased with the alibi Mr. Webb offered. Was he upset because his hunt was unproductive or for another reason? Kate thanked Jane again for the loan of her black dress. She’d laundered it yesterday and returned it when she called at the store this morning. Jane was gracious enough to offer to cull her closet and see if she had anything else Kate could use until her trunk arrived. Kate couldn’t afford to turn down temporary charity and thanked Jane for whatever she might find.

  After coffee and pie, Odom hauled out an umbrella and escorted Kate down the street. She wondered how to ask him about his absence on Sunday.

  “I’ll be surprised if our new marshal is any good at riding a desk and chair, Miss Shaw.” Odom pushed his glasses up on his nose.

  “Being a peace officer probably involves lots of leg work. But why do you think he’d have any trouble with office work?”

  “I watched him walk down to the doctor’s yesterday. He walked a little bowlegged, like he’d done more work on horseback than he had on his own legs. More like the cowboys I saw in Kansas. And when he bought a can of beans, he called it an ‘airtight.’ Cowboys use that word, Miss Shaw, not people like us.”

  “Is that so? Did you have much experience with cowboys in Kansas? I understand they’re plentiful in some railhead towns.” Now that he’d confessed a Kansas background, Kate was curious. So far, only Martha admitted to having lived in Kansas. Kate still thought Taggart might have been killed by someone who knew him in Kansas or Colorado.

  “Umm, Ellsworth, Miss Shaw. I learned to clerk in a store there. I saw a lot of cowboys. When I saw Marshal Taggart for the first time, he was coming out of the Alamo Saloon. About nine in the morning, as I recall.” He seemed delighted to treat his news as a juicy secret. He pushed up his glasses again.

  “Well, when I met the marshal at the doctor’s office that morning, he didn’t seem to have been drinking.” But she wondered. Monday said he didn’t drink anything but a beer now and then, but hadn’t he said he drank up his wages on his first cattle drive?

  “At any rate, I’m glad you’re such a careful observer of doings in this town. I’m sure Marshal Taggart will want to talk with you when he returns. Good night, sir, and once again, my thanks to your wife and to Mr. Webb.”

  As she went in, Kate was swept by sudden doubt. If Len Odom was starting to see through Monday’s story already, perhaps others could, too. Even if he didn’t mean any harm, his misgivings might pierce their little masquerade too soon. If that happened, Monday’s ability to investigate would evaporate, and the murderer would get away with his crime.

  Chapter 12

  Thursday

  Farms and Mines

  Monday woke early to the sound of roosters arguing, but this time in the warmth of a real bed, and to the smell of coffee. No Sam Taggart’s ghost this morning, nor that grumpy Becky Masterson. The Oberdorfs were as welcoming as the Millbanks had been hostile. He enjoyed Tess Oberdorf’s breakfast and wondered what Kate was doing this morning.

  Jim and Tess had no secrets to protect and only one treasure that he could see. Their pride and joy was their eldest daughter, fourteen-year-old Mary, who had huge eyes and long curly black hair. Monday wondered as he rode toward the river if she and young Andy Sundquist knew each other, then laughed aloud. Matchmaking should be the schoolteacher’s job.

  The Oberdorfs had been very accommodating. Jim’s Sharps rifle wasn’t what Monday was looking for and his two farm horses were brown, not black. They’d expressed proper shock at his account of the murder, but hadn’t reacted either to the name Taggart or to the drawing. And they’d given him good directions to the farm of Dan Weir.

  After Lightning splashed out of Sloan’s Ford onto the south side of the Platte, Monday turned him east. About a half hour along the Oregon Trail, drying out from last night’s rain, he came to a snug whitewashed house on a rise. The house was connected to a good-sized shed by a white picket-fenced yard, where chickens and goats moved in and out of the shade of small trees. He heard pigs somewhere. More of the young trees were on the other side of the yard, growing in regular rows like they were corn or something. Monday had never seen the like.

  A dog barked at his approach, and a boy came out to see who was coming. He was followed a moment later by his mother, a noticeably pregnant blond woman of about thirty
who eyed Monday warily.

  “Mornin’, stranger. What brings you here? Ain’t nothin’ farther up this way but the mines, and you don’t look like no miner.”

  “Morning, Ma’am, son,” Monday said, tipping his hat. “Might you be Mrs. Weir? I’m the new marshal in Warbonnet. I spent last night at the Oberdorfs’. They send you their hellos.”

  That seemed to break the ice. As Monday got down, the boy took his reins and led Lightning to a hitch rail by the porch.

  “Yes, I’m Anna Weir. This here’s Aaron. He don’t say much, but I reckon his pa and I don’t let him get too many words in edgewise. Will you come in, Marshal? My Dan’s out turning some new furrows on the south side. We’re hoping to try winter wheat this fall. We mostly grow potatoes, beans, corn, and squash, but Minnesota farmers have had good luck with winter wheat, so we bought a couple sacks of seed.”

  She seemed to remember that she’d asked him a question a while back. She wound down like a clock, then perked up and gestured him up to the porch. “How ’bout coffee and one o’ this mornin’s biscuits? Ain’t nothin’ else right now, and it’ll be a while ’til dinner.”

  They went in and were joined by Aaron, who brought out checkers. Monday sipped his coffee while the boy set everything up. The first game, Aaron beat him handily. The boy didn’t speak at all. Monday cocked an eyebrow at Mrs. Weir while Aaron set up the board again, but she was busy with an iron. Monday didn’t break the spell of silence and quietly played the boy again. He lasted longer, but the result was the same.