Better Off Without Her (Book One of the Western Serial Killer series)

by Hestand, Rita

  "I expected you to wait for me…" John T. said.

  She pushed him away then and rolled over. "I didn't know if you would come back…"

  "I told you I would, didn't I?" John T. demanded coming too close, feeling her soft back and the gentle roll of her breast against the mattress turned him on again. He had to think, had to stop. It was hard when all he wanted was to have her.

  She looked up at him, pulling the sheet between them. "Lots of men say they'll come after you. And they don't. This is a job…"

  "Is that all it meant to you?" John T. asked.

  "Well, no…but…what do you want from me…." She gasped."This is my living. It keeps a roof over my head. You didn't leave me a pile of money somewhere to go support myself with, did you?"

  "I want your love…is that so hard to understand? When I left I knew you would wait for me. Now I find you didn't. Didn't it mean anything…?"

  "Well sure it did honey, but…"

  "But what? You couldn't wait…." He rasped, as though he couldn't believe it.

  She pulled herself up in the bed and covered herself. "I don't have any place to go, John T. No place. I have to earn a livin'. My folks, they're dead. My sister she went and married a drunk that beats her all the time. My brothers they run off I got nobody to take care of me." She cried.

  "Is this how you want to live, for the rest of your life?" John T. stood up and walked about as though he were fully dressed and making sense.

  "It's not so bad. I get a nice room, and as long as I take a cowboy every now and then the bartender don't fuss." She said softly.

  "Man, I guess I am nine kinds of a fool." John T. frowned at her.

  "Don't be mad honey. We can still have a good time…," she cooed.

  "I loved you Sarah…" John T. hollered.

  "I love you too honey…" she said with a smile that sent hot quakes through his body.

  Despite her words, he still wanted her. He began to dress and shove his clothes back on as though it were the hardest thing he'd ever done.

  "Don't you want me," she purred against his ear, as her breast needled his side.

  "No ma'am, I don't think I do…" John T. said and grabbed his hat. "Good luck Sarah. I hope someday you get what you do want…"

  "John T….don't be mad honey…." But he was gone.

  ***

  Wesley saw John T. coming toward him and did his best to bite back a smile. He knew what had happened, could have told him so but John T. was a friend and he wouldn't ad to the hurt he was feeling right about now. Because he was a friend he wanted to go up to the lady and tell her what a fine lad she had and threw away.

  "Want a beer?" Wesley asked as John T. came to stand in front of their table.

  "Yep, I think I do." John T. decided not able to look at either of them just yet.

  Wesley signaled the bartender and he brought three beers to the table. Wesley paid for them and John T. gulped it down.

  Rascal watched the two of them, but said nothing.

  Finally after a long silence Wesley asked. "I could have told you, but it's something a man has to learn for himself. There's a good whore and a bad whore…."

  John T. turned red, but said nothing, then slowly nodded. "Yeah…"

  ***

  "You sure this is the place?" Rascal asked as they reined their horses in and tied them to the

  small hitching post. The house was still, no racket came from within. The place looked deserted.

  "It's the place alright." Wesley nodded.

  The yard was empty, only dust blew against the old clap-board house, but a door squeaked and a long barrel lurked at them.

  "You see that?" John T. asked as he strolled up beside Wesley quietly.

  "I see, let me handle this…" Wesley whispered. "Hey in there, we come friendly like. Lookin' fer Sheriff Hardy, Sheriff Ben Hardy…."

  "Who's askin?'" a soft, low voice called. It was a woman!

  "The name's Wesley Collins, this here's John T., and the other there is Rascal."

  "That don't explain nothin'. What do ya want with my Pa?"

  "Sheriff Hardy is your Pa?" John T. couldn't control his mouth.

  "That's right," the girl stepped out on the porch, her gun held steady. "What do you want with him?" Dark eyes skittered from one man to the other. The girl was short and lean, but she held a powerful rifle that no one argued with.

  "Just some information…." Wesley insisted.

  "Well you won't get none…" she answered with a snap.

  "Ah…now, look. We don't mean any harm; look…we'll put our guns down and come peaceable." Wesley demonstrated and the others copied him.

  The girl watched him, and finally relaxed the gun. She bit at her lower lip, pushed away her hat and a brown cloud of hair flowed easily over her shoulders and back. She was small and delicate looking, except for the gun, John T. thought. Her eyes were dark as a moonlit night, and her brows knitted into a big unwelcoming frown.

  "My Pa's dead." She said dully, her gun going to her side now in resignation. Her voice spoke of tears she'd shed.

  "Dead?" Wesley stared at her in disbelief. "But I sent him a telegram just a few days ago."

  "Just yesterday. He'd cornered some half-crazy man in the hotel. The man…he killed a woman over there, and Pa went to arrest him."

  Wesley eyed her closely. "This man…did you know his name?"

  "'Course I know…Pa knew who he was. Everybody in town has heard of him…," the girl admitted.

  "Frank?" Wesley mumbled.

  "How'd you know?" The girl's eyes rounded on Wesley.

  "We're after him, too." Wesley explained.

  "If we could come in a take a load off, it would be easier to talk about it." Rascal wiped the sweat from his brow with his sleeve.

  "I guess it's alright. I got Pa laid out for the funeral." She exclaimed softly.

  "When's the funeral?" John T. asked.

  "Tomorrow…" she said softly her eyes going over John T. a little longer than the others.

  After they sat down, she got up, as though sitting gave her an itch to move."I'll fix us some coffee."

  "Yes ma'am, that would be nice," Rascal nodded.

  She glanced at them, and saw they were weathered weary and tired. "I got some biscuits and gravy if you've a mind to eat…"

  "That's right neighborly of you…miss…what's your name?" Wesley asked.

  "Pepper….Pepper Hardy." She said dully.

  "That's a right strange name…" John T. added.

  She glanced at him, up and down. "And you'd be John T. what's the T. stand for?"

  John T. squirmed, hardly anyone ever asked that question, and he wasn't proud of it either, "Terrance…."

  "Yeah…well, John T. is better I guess," she almost smiled.

  "So why you lookin' for this Frank fella." She asked from the kitchen.

  "Same reason your daddy was, he's a woman killer." Wesley informed her coming to stand beside her in the kitchen.

  "Did he kill someone important to you?" she asked her eyes going over them again.

  "Very important, Rascal's wife, John T.'s mother." Wesley explained.

  She nodded, and after putting the coffee on the wood burning stove she came back into the other room, her eyes straying to her father who was laid out on the table. All three of them glanced at him. Wesley walked over, and nodded. "That's Hardy alright. Never thought I'd see him laid out like this though."

  "What information did you want?" She asked, staring straight into Wesley's eyes as though she suddenly trusted him.

  "Look, we aim to catch this character, but we don't aim to give him the chance to kill us. We are gonna kill him dead. That's fact. We don't plan on giving the man a chance to explain, or talk. We're out to shoot him down. But we gotta know the story behind all this. We must know what makes this man tick, so to speak. And we ain't got time to hunt down a live witness." Wesley said. "Do you know anything about him? Anything that might help us. Did your dad speak of him…?" />
  She firmed her lips, and nodded, "I reckon if you're going to catch him…that's true enough. And…I know the whole story…but it ain't somethin' you want to tell your kids…It's bad…"

  "Then would you tell us…" John T. rasped huskily as he stared into her face.

  "It ain't pretty." She murmured her eyes going around the room and landing on John T...

  "We didn't figure on it bein'…" Wesley nodded. "Go on, tell it all…"

  She put together some biscuits and handed each of them a saucer with gravy.

  "Let me get the coffee, it's a long story. I want to make sure I don't leave anything out. I suppose it would be important. My Pa told me about the man a long time ago, not in detail, but he began talking of him a long time ago. He said things. Things I couldn't forget. He hadn't spoke of him in years, until the other day. He got a telegram from the Sheriff down in Riodoso that Frank's Uncle was headed this way, supposedly to talk to Pa. Pa's face…it went white as a sheet when he read it. It was like someone dug up a ghost or somethin'. He wouldn't tell me of it, at first, but I found the telegram late that night when he'd drank himself to a stupor. Before he passed out, we talked long and hard about Victor Frank. I told Pa this was not a job for one man, but he argued that it was just one man."

  Wesley nodded. "His uncle played a part in this too…go on…."

  She went into the kitchen, poured four cups of coffee, and brought them on a silver serving tray. The men all grabbed the coffee and sat back.

  "It all began up in the Panhandle somewhere. It wasn't a town at that time, just some folks who settled there and tried to make ends meet. Mr. Frank, his father had been a buffalo hunter for years, until he made enough to settle down up there. People were makin' good money on the hides, and it began a trade business. He bought this place with a shack on it and settled his family in. Dorothy was his wife's name. Pa said she was a sweet thing, so little and young when they first came. He often wondered what she saw in a man like Frank. He was a lot older than she was, for one thing. Dorothy, she'd bake pies for everyone and was right handy with sewin' too. Friendly too. Everyone loved her. 'Course Mr. Frank was tolerated because he had come into money. However, he got to be real respected like by the town's people. How I don't know, I guess money talks though. Either that, or everyone was scared of him too. Then, Dorothy was with child. She was so little, so frail. Mr. Frank boasted of it in town, he had been very proud of his Dorothy she could do no wrong in his eyes and things looked good. That is… well…until she died giving birth to the baby. Victor Frank."

  They all looked up and stared at each other.

  "No one saw much of Victor though. He wasn't christened, he didn't go to school. It was like he hadn't been born. And Mr. Frank got all riled when folks asked about him, until they quit asking. No one thought much of it. 'Cept he didn't go to school, and some of the towns women went out once to get him, but Mr. Frank was adamant that his son didn't need teaching, and he'd teach him all he needed to know. So, they left it alone. They only got a peep at the boy through the window, but said he looked sad. And his face…well…it was a mess. It was all over town about the boy not goin' to school. The ladies especially were concerned, but no one would do anything about it, because Mr. Frank was a man of money and if he chose to take his money elsewhere, the settlement might up and fade away."

  Pepper glanced around at the men. She had their full attention. An emotional war crossed her face before she was able to speak. She eyed them wordlessly for a moment taking them in.

  "Go on…you are doin' jest fine," Wesley encouraged her.

  "I'll probably leave things out, but I'm trying to remember as much as Pa told me, because he rehashed it all, the day before he died. It suddenly seemed important that someone knew about Victor Frank. I never heard such a story in my life. Never want to hear another one like it." Taking a deep breath, she tried to stop her trembling. She held her hands for a moment.

  She glanced at the men whom she held spellbound.

  "Well, years passed, and then one day a drummer came to town sellin' stuff and he was tellin' my Pa about the Frank place. Said he smelled somethin' awful…that it smelled like…death!" Her face went pale.

  Wesley's eyes narrowed on her, "Go on, honey, you are doin' fine."

  Pepper took a deep breath and by her expression everyone knew the rest of the story had to be gruesome. She held her audience with a short silence, cleared her throat and began again."Pa knew he had to go out there. I could tell he wasn't anxious to go, but he said it was his sworn duty to uphold the law, and that he had to investigate it. Mr. Frank could be quite intimidating when he wanted to. But Pa always did his duty. So he went. When he got there, no one answered the door, but Pa…he smelled that death too…"

  She glanced at them again, "So he opened the door, and the stench was so strong he had to run out. He tied his bandana around his nose and went inside again. Determined to see for himself what the cause of it was. He found Victor Frank sitting at the kitchen table, smiling. He found Mr. Frank strung up like a hog, his face cut up, his body whipped, and cut all over. The man had died slowly Pa said. He bled to death. Least that's what the doc confirmed later.

  "Pa brought Victor in, Victor didn't object, he just kept smilin' all the way to town. He locked the boy up; he was like fifteen at the time. Just a big gangly looking kid. A big kid, but still a kid. Pa, said it was a hard thing to witness and even harder to bring the kid in. Not because he fought it, but because he didn't. Just a big dumb kid, Pa said. Pa kinda felt sorry for him, but we couldn't take any chances with him killin' his Pa like that. He had to lock him up; else the town would have had a fit."

  Wesley shook his head. "Did he say anything…as to why?"

  The girl cringed and this time the tremble was quite visible. She nodded, "Oh yeah, Pa got it all out of him. He had a way of getting' to the truth of things. People just naturally trusted him, and Victor was no exception. He sat and played cards with the boy all night in the jail until the boy began to open up and tell him things. Said the boy was tickled pink to play cards and that he must have taught him how to play three or four different games. The boy was not intelligent, said he was kinda simple in the head. Still, he learned the card games all right. Anyway, as the boy began to open up, Pa, he turned a few shades of gray listenin'. It was awful. So painfully awful." Pepper shook her head, unable to hold their gazes any longer. She looked off and let a tear slide down her cheek silently. . She cleared here throat and glanced at all of them again.

  "What was?" Wesley asked.

  "The story." She gulped some coffee down and stared at them. "The boy had been severely mistreated…by his Pa. You see, Mr. Frank blamed Victor for his wife's dying. So every year, on his birthday, he'd take Victor and string him up, just like Victor had done him. The first few years he wasn't quite as mean, and he didn't have any company to laugh with him then. So he just beat and starved him for the first five or six years. His Uncle came and stayed with them, and his Uncle came up with ways to entertain them on his birthday. They began to cut Victor's face up, little by little. They'd hang him upside down, and cut on him. Like he was a piece of beef. Then as he aged, they took a leather strap to him and beat him. He showed Pa his back and legs, Pa said he'd never seen a kid so banged up in his life and he really felt bad for Victor. Victor said he puked most every day, they starved him one day fed him the next and then when….Oh God…even I can't tell it all…"

  She stopped for a minute as tears sprang to her eyes. Genuine tears. She shook her head, grabbed her mouth, and was silent for a few minutes. Then after looking from one to the other she managed to continue. They had to have the entire story, and somehow she had to tell it. For some reason she reached for John T.'s hand and squeezed it tight. It felt warm, alive, and a little sweaty. John T. didn't object. "They made him eat rats alive, and he told Pa he was glad to get them….as he was starved."

  The three men sat with their mouths open, their eyes bulging, and their color not so good
.

  "Then there at the last it became worse….they….oh God….I can't say it…. "She turned away and dropped her coffee. It spilled onto the floor and Wesley got up to wipe it up, but Pepper didn't move. She just sat there staring into John T.'s eyes and her mouth moved again.

  Wesley and John T. both stood and went to her side. "Please try to go on."

  "This ain't somethin' you talk about in mixed company. It's powerful hard to do. I may not be a grand lady, but this is….so sinister, so evil…you might not believe it. But…on his fourteenth birthday, they— castrated him…."

  Wesley and John T. both went white; Rascal bowed his head and prayed aloud.

  "The last thing they did was cut his ring finger off, assuring him, he'd never marry. He'd been told all his life, he wasn't worth the ground he stood on. He obviously never heard a kind word from his father or Uncle. He'd been blamed for his mother's death. And then to castrate him and intimidate him further by telling him he'd never marry…."

  "Good grief…." John T. grimaced. "How could anyone…." He stood up and walked around the room. "How could anyone….I mean anyone be that disgustingly mean?"

  "My thoughts exactly," she murmured, her tears flowing down her cheek as she spoke.

  "I didn't expect it to be this bad, girl, I'm sorry…." Wesley began.

  "Once you find him, you won't forget him, his face…is so messed up, and his voice…is so…high…pitched he sounds like a mountain lion. He's really a victim of his own circumstances. He can't help what has happened to him. He can't help that he was raised by madmen."

  She shook now. "And knowin' all this you can't help but feel for the man too. He must have gone crazy over the years with their constant torture. He's never known anything but pain and suffering….It's no wonder he ain't right."

  "If that's true…how does he survive among other people…like when he rides into a town?"John T. flopped down in the rocking chair, his mind going over this news with such confused emotions.

  "At the time no one knew…still don't. But he did survive. My guess is he learned to copy behavior. Whether good or bad."