by Martha Hix
No reply was forthcoming, and Mariah feared they were keeping something from her.
George Turner, a homely fellow with bushy brows, stepped over to pat Mariah’s shoulder, and said to his mother, “I’m gonna take him on over to Doc Metcalfe’s.”
“You mean he’s not dead?” Mariah moved to administer aid, but George’s voice stopped her.
“He’s dead all right,” he said. “Been that way for hours.” His hand brushing across his forehead, he spit a wad of tobacco onto the street. “Doc Metcalfe’s the coroner, too. He’ll wanna look Jaye over.”
“So do I.” Mariah, saying an inner prayer, pulled away from the older woman and picked up her skirts to crawl into the back of the buckboard.
“Don’t!” George and Birdie warned in unison, but she paid them no heed.
The boards creaked under her weight. Her hand shaking, she lifted the shroud. Nausea waved through her. Joseph lay on his side, his wedding suit tainted with blood, his stiff body doubled over. An unseeing eye was rounded as if in horror, and his mouth hung open. Ants, feasting and scurrying, were all over the fingers that had obviously clawed at his neck. The insects were all over ... Joseph Jaye had been strangled with barbed wire.
Mariah’s free hand went to her lips. “Who did this to him?”
“Someone, I reckon, who didn’t like that stuff.” George pointed to the twist of wire. “It could’ve been anybody, seeing how nobody around these parts cottons to devil’s rope.”
“Now, Son! Now’s not the time–”
“ ‘Nobody’ being the ranchers?” Mariah interrupted, and George gave a grudging nod in reply.
She had no wish to pursue an argument over the rights of farmers, not now. Instead, she drew the canvas over Joseph’s inert body. He had not deserved to die such a horrible death.
She jumped to the ground, and her determined chin lifted. “Whoever is responsible won’t get away with it.”
George and his mother exchanged glances.
“Let it be,” Birdie said.
Mariah was taken aback. “How can you say that? A man has been murdered!”
“Mariah, I’m fond of you. You’re a right nice gal, and ...” Once more Birdie glanced at her stock-raiser son, then back at the young woman. “I wouldn’t hurt your feelings for the world, but . . .”
“There’s no need to spare me, Birdie. If you’ve got something to say, say it.”
“Something like this was bound to happen.”
“I can’t believe you’re not horrified. You, of all people!” Mariah cut in, unable to quell herself.
George stepped in front of her. “Joe Jaye stirred up a lot of trouble around here. Trick’em is better off without his sort.”
Holding on to the belief she was wrong about her elderly friend, Mariah pushed him aside. “Does he speak for you, too, Birdie?”
Her lined old face paled, and she could not meet Mariah’s eyes. “Life was tough for me and my husband during and after the war. Everything we owned in Mississippi was lost to our foolhardy cause, or to the Yankees later. We were hungry when we heard about the cattle in Texas that was to be had for the rounding up. Ranching saved me and my husband.”
Though Mariah sympathized with the woman’s story, she didn’t see how the past had anything to do with the present. “You didn’t answer my question. Is Trick’em better off without Joseph Jaye?”
“Yes, I’m sorry to admit.” She lifted her hand to let it fall impotently at her side. “We ranching folk ... If you could only understand–”
“This isn’t a matter of farming or ranching. This is a matter of right and wrong.”
“Who’s to say what is right?” George asked. “This is cow country, Mariah, and our town is thriving from the Western Trail. Farmers and their ways have no place here.”
“I don’t agree.”
“You’re new in Trick’em, so you can’t know all the facts.” George tucked a new wad of tobacco into his left cheek. “Among other things, devil’s rope cuts into cattle same as it cut into Jaye there.”
“It cuts cattle, not kills them,” she corrected.
“Cuts ’em and they get sick. You ever seen a cow eat up with screw worm infection?” He jacked up a brow. “Naw, don’t reckon you have. I have. We have a right to protect our herds.”
“There’s no comparison between livestock and human life.”
“Mr. Jaye didn’t do right by you,” Birdie reiterated. “Why should you care who murdered him?”
“My personal feelings have nothing to do with the issue. This is a matter of justice. My father is a lawman, and he taught his children to respect the law,” she said honestly. Despite the problems she’d had with Logan McGuire, she respected many things about him. His nature was to uphold the law. Was there anything more admirable?
Neither George nor his mother responded to her statement, and Mariah flattened her lips. Appalled and disgusted at their stand, as well as being aggrieved over the loss of Birdie’s friendship, she climbed onto the buckboard’s driver seat.
“Rest assured, I will not give up until I see Joseph’s murderer swinging from the gallows! I’m going for the sheriff.”
Sheriff Wilburn Taft couldn’t have cared less about solving Joseph’s murder, Mariah discovered. Nor was he interested in the other senseless murders of the previous night. Her former fiance wasn’t the only nester who had lost his life. Five more farmers had breathed their last breaths, but their deaths had been by gunshot rather than by a vicious twist of sharp wire.
There was, nonetheless, a similarity between the six men. The other grangers had followed Joseph’s example by stringing barbed wire around the land they were homesteading. No doubt in her mind, Mariah was certain local ranchers were responsible and Sheriff Taft was allied to them.
Spuds O’Brien and his sons were among the dead. And because their bodies were found on Crosswind property, not far from where Mariah had seen them stringing wire, she was forced to wonder if Whit had had a hand in their murders. But she did a quick assessment of the situation and deduced the finger pointed too obviously at him.
Wanting to be absolutely certain of her conclusion, she visited the site; naturally Sheriff Taft was “too busy” to accompany her. No traces of a struggle, not even blood, were on the hard-packed ground. However, there were definite signs the bodies had been dragged to the location. The O’Briens had died elsewhere.
She was relieved, believing in Whit’s innocence, though she didn’t want to study the reasons why she cared.
By noon of the day Joseph and the others had been found, news spread of the killings, and the remaining farmers retaliated, gunning down five cattlemen known to be opposed to fencing.
Their actions were not taken sitting down by the citizens of Trick’em and vicinity who believed in the open range, in the superiority of ranching over farming, and that “rustlers” no doubt were responsible for the farmers’ deaths. The cowmen were augmented in their revenge by a dozen drovers, the latter having been camped at the edge of town when the fencing war broke out. The chaos didn’t diminish over the next few days.
Cattle were slaughtered, and the meager creeks flowed red with their blood, but the farmers soon paid for their actions. Wire cutters became de rigueur for cattlemen. The Land Office was burned to the ground, its manager run out of town. Six farm families were burned off their homesteads, and two ranchers lost their lives in gun battles on the streets of Trick’em. Newspaper editors from as far away as Chicago sent reporters to cover the story.
After he refused water rights to Painted Rock cattle, A. W. Lamkin suffered a loss, but a mild one by comparison to the others. His calico mule was butchered and his fields were trampled. Despite ill health, he joined the other squatters in revolt. Beside herself, and with her pioneer spirit broken, Patsy Lamkin told Mariah, “I’ve had enough. We’re leaving as soon as I can get us packed.”
She understood Patsy’s concerns. As soon as justice was served, Mariah intended to leave, too. This
was a hellish place.
Whit had had hell, too. He took losses of cattle and horses, she learned from A. W. She sympathized with Whit, even though he hadn’t made his presence known since the night of Joseph’s murder. Nor had he attended the funeral.
No matter how many times she tried to tell herself, “I don’t need Whit–not one whit,” she still loved him. Always she had considered him a fair man in dealings with others, but her faith was tested when A. W. informed her Whit Reagor rode against the farmers.
Disheartened, she busied herself in finding Joseph’s killer. Her inquiries of Sheriff Taft were treated as if they were nothing more than a bother.
A week after the hell had broken loose, she entered the sheriffs office for the tenth time. Dust and stale smells prevailed in the adobe building, which encompassed a square room with iron bars crossing half the area and a room to the side serving as the defender of justice’s living quarters.
Sheriff Taft, spare and dissipated, sat whittling at his nicked and battered desk. A near-empty bottle of rye was within his grasp.
“Do you have any clues to Joseph Jaye’s murder?” she asked.
Taft yawned. “Wouldn’t say that.”
“Well?”
“Rustlers.”
“I’m not buying that for a moment, Sheriff. He owned nary a cow.”
Picking his blackened teeth with the carving knife, Taft lifted a shoulder. “That Mex he had living out there prob’ly killed him.
“Pablo Martinez? I don’t think so.”
“He runned off. Same night as yar man got his.”
Earlier this day, when Mariah had called on Gail, she’d voiced this same suspicion. But even Gail, who sided with the cattlemen, had mentioned Pablo’s nonviolent attitude. Mariah suspected the Martinezes had left the farm to protest of her behavior with Whit.
She refused to think about the day Pablo had caught her in Whit’s embrace, and responded to Taft’s remarks. “Granted, Pablo had the opportunity and means, but you’re forgetting the first element of crime. Motive.
“It wouldn’t hurt, of course,” she continued, “for you to send someone after the Martinezes. Quite possibly they’ll be able to shed light on the case.”
“Lordy, Lordy, ain’t ya pure Scotland Yard?” Taft placed his wood project down, propped his feet up on the desk, and uncorked his libation. “Ain’t ya got nothing better to do, missy, than to try and run this office?”
She propped her fists on her hips. “I’m tired of your attitude. Dashed tired of it. You’d allow every person in this county to be murdered, and what would you be doing? Whittling or drinking!”
He enjoyed a slug of his rye. “It’s getting late. What say I take ya over to the café and buy ya a big plate of supper? Jackie Jo’s fried chicken be lip-smacking good.”
Supper! She whipped around, facing the jail’s shamefully empty cell, then confronted the slothful Taft again. “Doesn’t your conscience hurt when you accept your salary?”
“Can’t say as it does.” The crevices of his face deepened in a frown. “Anyways, this fencing thing’s gonna solve itself. Nobody around here wants me to get involved, and I’m not gonna. And if ya don’t like it, missy, pack yar bags and get on back to wherever ya came from.”
“I’m not budging from this town until justice is served.” How she was going to make ends meet was a good question unless she dipped into Joseph’s money ... and that didn’t seem right.
“Mighty big talk.” He sneered. “ ’Course, with all the talk around town about yar gunning abilities, ya think ya’re right smart stuff, don’t ya?”
“I’m not here for your approval, Sheriff Taft. I’m here to appeal to your sense of decency. You made an oath when you took office. Why don’t you live up to it?”
“Ya don’t like the way I wear my star, pin it on yarself.”
Somebody needed to be sheriff, but a lady peacekeeper? Who’d ever heard of such a thing?
“Whatever I do, Sheriff, I will be doing something.” Exactly what, she wasn’t sure.
She took her leave and headed for Joseph’s farm, where she’d taken up residence. A hot bath did little to ease her aching muscles or to clear her baffled mind. There had to be someone she could turn to as an ally. Who?
Her head ached, as did every bone in her body. She tried to eat a dish of canned beans, but pushed the fare away and perched Gus on her shoulder. “Well, Gussie, what am I going to do?” She ran the pad of a forefinger along his beak. “Who can I turn to?”
“Toooo, toooo.”
“No, who. Who?”
Three sharp raps of the knocker she had installed by the makeshift door stopped her questions.
“Miss McGuire? This is Chadwick T. Nussbaumer, and I must speak with you on a matter of the utmost importance.”
Both with relief and disappointment, she allowed his entrance. Nussbaumer sported a pencil-thin mustache and a brimmed hat. He was nattily dressed in creased trousers and flannel waistcoat, and carried a thin leather valise.
The local solicitor was also mayor of Trick’em, and Mariah saw an opportunity. As the town’s leading official, surely he was aware of the urgent need for law and order. Perhaps he could use his power and civic position to force Sheriff Taft out of his ineptitude.
After she made welcoming banter, deposited Gus in his cage, and prepared a cup of tea for her unexpected visitor, she joined him at the table. “Mr. Nussbaumer, how do you feel about this range war?”
“It will wear itself out.”
“But how many people will lose their lives before that happens?” she asked.
“I’ve no idea. Moreover, I learned a long time ago to stay out of other people’s business.”
Another brick wall, Mariah thought, trying to school her feeling of disappointment.
“May I get down to business, Miss McGuire?” He extracted a folded piece of parchment from his valise and flourished the document. “Before his unfortunate demise, Mr. Jaye solicited my services, which I was, of course, pleased to provide.” He unfolded the parchment. “You, Miss Mariah Rose McGuire, are the sole beneficiary of the late Joseph Arthur Harold Jaye’s last will and testament.”
“Mr. Nussbaumer, I can’t accept Mr. Jaye’s legacy. It was I who called the marriage off.”
“If you decline the inheritance, his estate will revert by law to his father, the Earl of Desmont. I do not believe that was Mr. Jaye’s wish.”
Uncertain of the right course, she sat silent.
“I can appreciate your hesitation, but may I be candid with you?” At her nod, he continued. “Mr. Jaye called on me last September, which, I don’t have to remind you, was over a half year ago. He had some concerns about his safety, and he wanted you to be provided for. I believe his words were, ‘No matter what happens, I want her to have what is mine.’ ”
If the will had been drawn during the last day of Joseph’s life, would the beneficiary have been different? Well, he hadn’t changed the will, and he had been determined to marry Mariah, not the gold hairpin’s owner, and that stood for something.
Now he rested in a cold grave and, thanks to Sheriff Taft’s disinterest, his murderer was walking free. Beyond that, she had to be practical. She was without funds and a legal abode. The farm, where for all intents and purposes she had been squatting, would be hers if she accepted the legacy. Joseph’s remaining cash could be used in her quest for justice–for Joseph’s death as well as the others. It was only right his estate be used for this purpose.
Nussbaumer leaned forward. “Shall I enter the will for probate?”
“Yes, thank you.”
Knowing she now had a certain amount of security, Mariah felt her spirit rising, her body aches lessening. Today, Sheriff Taft had scoffed away her inquiries, but tonight was going to be different. She’d let him know he wasn’t dealing with just anybody and now that she was to be a landowner, she would have some clout. She would advise Sheriff Taft that if he didn’t start handling his duties in a competent fashion,
he’d simply have to step aside for some man who would!
She rose to refill Gus’s food and water cups. “Mr. Nussbaumer, would you mind if I accompany you into town?”
“Not at all, ma’am.”
Nussbaumer on his swift gelding, Mariah sidesaddle on Susie the buckskin mare, they rode through the moonlit night. He said his goodbyes at the edge of Trick’em and headed for home. Without further ado, Mariah continued on to the sheriffs office and learned he was at Maudie’s Saloon, sharing a drink with Whit Reagor.
Never had she entered a public house, but the thought of doing so didn’t trouble her. What did trouble her was the thought of facing Whit Reagor. Would she be strong enough to ignore him?
Chapter Seventeen
His back to the wall as he tried to relax in a corner of Maudie’s Saloon, Whit took not only a sip of aged bourbon but also a slow look around. A general air of confidence filled the cattlemen’s haunt, wrought no doubt from the inroads cowmen were making in the range war.
The tinny piano blared forth; the smoke-clogged air was alive with a fast-tempoed tune. Dancing girls wearing bright satins and plumes sidled up to the scores of rowdy cowpokes, some standing at the long bar, others sitting at the twenty-odd tables.
To Whit’s left, five men were engaged in a game of five-card stud. One of the players was Slim Culpepper, who had hit town a couple of hours earlier to take over as Crosswind’s top hand. With most of his men on the trail to Dodge, Whit needed all the hands he could get, and Slim had been born to the saddle.
General topics weren’t paramount in Whit’s thoughts, though. As usual, he was thinking about Mariah. At first he had let her be, figuring she needed to get her mind straight, what with calling off her wedding and being so annoyed with him.
Then Joe had died. Whit had been out on the range trying to get his mind straight about Mariah when word reached him about the funeral. By the time he got to town, Joe was six feet under and Mariah was back at the farm... or so he had been told. Strange. Why had she gone back to Joe’s place?
A woman, a good-looking one, walked toward him. “Are you Sheriff Taft?” she asked.