by J. Birch
“But what about the bruises?” Tracker asked. “Both Hank and Sally were choked by a pair of hands, you said so yourself.”
“Ah,” the Doc said, raising his finger. He re-opened the cabinet and retrieved a fat book with a dark blue cover. He placed it on the examination table. “This is where it gets interesting.” He opened it and started flipping through pages of plant illustrations. Finally, he stopped and tapped his finger on the drawing of a long, thin weed. It looked vaguely like golden rod, but with dozens of thorns sprouting from its stalk.
“Singultus planta,” the Doc said. “Gasp Weed, a plant that grows under the muck in swamp lands. See these thorns? When brewed into a tea, these thorns have the power to slow a fever. However, if a man should prick his fingers with one, he chokes and dies within minutes. In some areas of the country, Gasp Weeds are known as Corpse Bloomers. This is due to the odd blotches they leave on the necks of their victims. These blotches are often mistaken for bruises.”
Tracker stared at the illustration. “So, you’re saying that Sally and Hank’s bruises are the after effects of poison?”
“It’s a possibility.”
“But this isn’t what I dug out of the mud.”
“That’s right, but plants can have cousins, just like you or I. My cousin Cecil doesn’t resemble me, but he’s a doctor. This berry could be a relative of the Gasp Weed. And if both plants sprout in the mud, and both plants are poisonous—”
“Then our plant may produce similar markings,” Tracker said. His mind reeled at the thought. “Doc,” he said. “Did Jack Devlin seem like the type who would know about poison?”
Doc chuckled. “Oh, Lord no. I suspect that boy barely knows his right from his left.”
“Any man can kill with his bare hands,” Tracker said. “But not every man can poison someone and do it well. If it’s not Jack Devlin, then our man is smart, reads a great deal about the sciences, and has easy access to both Hank and Sally…” Tracker looked at the Doc. “It must be Andy. He’s lived beside the creek his whole life. With his interest in the sciences, he could have easily discovered the poisonous properties in those berries. And, the most damning of all, he lives in the same house as Sally and Hank.”
“But circumstance is not fact,” the Doc pointed out. “And you can’t arrest a man on circumstance alone.”
“Why else would he pay for Jimmy’s funeral?” Tracker said. “To hide the evidence. The stink didn’t matter because the odor of the berries was close enough to the odor of a dead body to fool everyone, including us. But if someone would have seen those identical bruises on Jimmy’s neck, it would have raised suspicions about his death, and maybe the others as well.”
“But that still wouldn’t prove Andy’s guilt,” the Doc said. “In order to tie him to the murders, he’d have to volunteer a confession.”
“You’re right,” Tracker said. “What we need first is proof of poison. We find that and we’ll know that Jack Devlin is innocent. Then I’ll speak with Andy. Believe me, Doc, if he’s guilty, he’ll confess.”
“That’s an interesting proposition,” the Doc said. “But I’m afraid we’ll never know if our berries leave a mark. Jimmy is already buried.”
“Well…” Tracker said. “I do own a shovel.”
“Oh,” the Doc said, touching his fingers to his lips. “Oh Tom, you’re not suggesting— you ghoul!”
“We need to prove that Devlin could not have committed those murders,” Tracker said. “Both Hank and Sally were killed while Devlin was still in town, but Jimmy died long after he’d fled. If we can find the same blotches on his neck that we found on Hank and Sally, we can prove it was poison and not strangulation.”
“Oh, that poor boy,” the Doc said.
“I’m not worried about Jimmy,” Tracker said. “I’m worried about Sylvia. We’ll have to ask permission to dig him up.”
The Doc pulled his handkerchief from his pocket. Dabbing at his forehead, he said, “She’ll slaughter us for sure.”
“Not if she doesn’t find out,” Tracker said. “I’ll ask Tate.”
“Tate?” The Doc said. “The man can barely speak without his wife’s permission.”
“He’s got more gumption than that,” Tracker said. “I’ve seen it.”
“But you’ll never get him alone,” the Doc said. “Sylvia is always by his side.”
“Not tomorrow,” Tracker said. “Tomorrow she visits Caroline to see about the baby. That’s when I’ll ask. It’ll be fine.”
Leaning on the examination table, the Doc said, “Somehow I doubt that.”
Chapter Thirty-Three
For supper, Emily slaughtered a chicken and served it up with boiled potatoes and fresh carrots from the garden. Charlie laughed and nearly choked as Emily recounted how she had to shoo Jack from the house for doing too much work.
“If you stay much longer, we’ll have nothing left to do,” she said. “The house will be mended, the barn re-built, the chickens will have no eggs left to give, and the cow will be skinny from over milking!”
Jack smiled and worked on his food. He liked to hear her laugh. It was soft as a chime but bright as firelight. Or at least he thought so. In truth, it was probably as ordinary as any other laugh, although it came from no ordinary girl.
He stole looks at her while she talked to Charlie. Troy Plymouth, he decided, was about the luckiest man in the world.
After supper, Jack and Charlie moved out onto the porch for a smoke. Jack carried his chair outside, while Charlie decided on the rocker. “Nothing like a good smoke,” he said, sitting down. He admired his pipe. “Shame you don’t have one.”
Jack shrugged, although it would’ve been nice to pile some good smoke atop good food.
“Well I surely am sorry about that,” Charlie said, holding out his hand. Jack didn’t follow, but shook his hand anyway and felt something hard in his palm. Looking down, he saw the bowl of a pipe. Its stem was tucked under Charlie’s sleeve cuff.
“What’s this?” Jack asked.
“With you doing all the chores, I got bored,” Charlie said. “So I whittled you a pipe.”
“My own pipe?” Jack said.
It was cherry wood by the looks of it, with a long stem and a good sized bowl. Tiny nicks scarred the surface. It wasn’t smooth like the ones you’d buy in a dry goods store, but that made it better somehow. “Mine,” he said.
“It’s never good to smoke alone,” Charlie said, handing him the tobacco pouch. Pinching some tobacco, Jack stuffed it into the bowl, then placed the stem between his teeth.
His pipe, made for him. No one had ever made him anything before.
“Huh,” Charlie said, patting his trousers.
“What is it?”
“I forgot a match.”
Just then, Emily stepped onto the porch with a stick lit from the fireplace. She touched the flame to the bowl. Charlie inhaled, exhaled, got it going, and thanked her. She turned to Jack.
“Go on,” she said.
Jack leaned forward as the flame lowered into the pipe. He inhaled, the smoke filling his mouth. Then he exhaled and watched it linger above him. His arms and legs released their soreness. He sighed, feeling heavy from the food and light from the smoke.
Emily went back inside. A moment later, she snuck out with a chair, a lantern, and a fiddle. Charlie was looking at Samson in the corral. Moving behind Jack, she gently placed the fiddle beside the rocking chair. When Jack opened his mouth to inquire about it, she touched a finger to her lips and sat next to him. She smelled of smoke, flour, and a floral scent he couldn’t place.
“You’re doing fine with the chores,” Charlie said, still looking at the corral. “I can tell you were raised on a farm.”
“Thanks,” Jack said.
Emily shifted in her seat, her toes next to his boot. “What did your pa grow?” she asked.
“Wheat,” Jack said. “Also a few pigs and chickens.”
She smiled at him, her eyes large and dark in t
he dusk.
“Good money in wheat?” Charlie asked.
“Not really.”
Emily stiffened and rubbed her arms against the evening chill. Jack wished he had his coat to give to her, but it was inside the house. It probably stunk anyway.
As Charlie removed the stem from his mouth, he noticed the fiddle propped beside him.
“No,” he said.
“Nonsense,” Emily protested.
“Not now.”
“One song,” she said. “Something to go with the sunset.”
Jack hadn’t noticed it until that moment. The sky was smeared in orange and purple, looking as if a child had dragged its fingers across a freshly painted canvas. Emily gazed at it, the colors settling on her cheeks. “Heaven’s lifting her skirt,” she said.
Jack snorted.
Charlie laughed so hard his pipe tumbled from his mouth and he had to swat at the ashes on his trousers. “Sounds like something a fella would say after too much whiskey,” he said. “As you can see, my sister learned her words from the hired help we used to take on.”
“Oh, just play,” she said. “You owe me that much for making me a fool in front of Mr. Devlin.”
“He was laughing, too!”
“Not your horsy laugh.”
“Fair enough,” Charlie said, and lifted the fiddle and bow. “But it’s been a long time since I’ve played, and my shoulder still aches.”
“That’s not the arm you fiddle with and you know it,” Emily said.
“Come on,” Jack urged him. “In those Badlands you said you wanted to come home to your family and your fiddle. Well, now you got both.”
Charlie plucked a string, making a soft pling sound. He smoothed his thumb over the horsehair bow.
“It’s been rosined,” Emily said.
Charlie handed his pipe to Jack. He placed the fiddle under his chin, raised the bow, and started to play.
And the fiddle wept. It wept as if Charlie’s heart bled into the instrument. He squeezed his eyes shut, a look of anguish on his face as the strings wailed, built to a scream, and then plunged into a growl.
He stopped. “No good.”
Jack and Emily both opened their mouths to protest, when he added, “Unless you both help me with a dance.”
“Us?” Jack said. He glanced at Emily but lost his nerve. He stared at his boots.
“Go on,” Charlie said, poking him with the bow.
Jack didn’t dance—not properly anyway. He’d only danced a few times in his entire life and that was mostly stumbling and stepping on toes. He was about to explain this to Charlie when Emily slipped her hand into his palm. It was small, red about the knuckles from kneading dough, and light as a bird.
“His shoulder does ache him,” she said. “It’s the least we can do.”
“Come on,” Charlie said, giving Jack another poke.
“Ow,” Jack said. “But I can’t—”
Emily stood and pulled him off the porch.
The sun had dipped below the horizon, but the lantern illuminated a patch of grass large enough for them to stand in. As they faced each other, she slipped her fingers between his and clasped his hand. Then she placed his other hand on her hip.
“You’ve danced some?” Jack asked, trying like hell to ignore the pounding of his heart.
“Some,” she said, gazing into his eyes. “And you?”
“Only a few turns with my sister when we was young.”
“Move closer,” she said.
Jack inched a toe closer.
“Closer, Mr. Devlin,” she said.
“You two ready?” Charlie asked.
“As ready as we can be,” Emily said.
Charlie touched the bow to the strings and started to play. Emily swayed to the gentle lull of the music. The melody dipped into a low, solemn moan, and she drew closer. The scent of her hair filled Jack’s nostrils. Her hip, thinly veiled under the soft cotton of her dress, moved under his fingertips. She closed her eyes. Turning, they swept out of the lantern light and into the darkness. She pressed her body to him. They revolved slowly, their feet scratching the grass.
Suddenly, the fiddle howled and they gripped each other tightly. It was an angry, terrified sound.
Then it stopped.
They clung to each other in the silence. Jack could feel Emily’s heart pounding in her chest. She said, “I—,” and was interrupted by a great, racking sob. Turning, they saw Charlie stand from the rocking chair and drop his fiddle.
“Charlie!” she shouted. She broke away from Jack and chased her brother into the house.
Jack stood in the dark, shivering.
Chapter Thirty-Four
The hotel restaurant glowed like a star. Sunlight blasted through the windows, glanced off the bar mirror and filled the room with light. Tracker sat at a corner table adorned with a white tablecloth, a white deck of cards, and a lamp. The lamp, fitted with new chimney glass and a fresh cotton wick, burned brightly.
Adjusting the cuffs of his white suit, Tracker looked around the restaurant. He never realized it was so large. Other tables, each with their own tablecloth, cards, and lamps, stretched endlessly into the distance and melted into a single swell of light. Staring at it, he wondered if they’d ever had a full seating, and if Sylvia could cook that much pot roast.
Dismissing the thought, Tracker picked up his cards. If he wanted to win this hand, he had to concentrate. It didn’t look promising with only one white eagle and two black coyotes. Sure, he could play his spare coyote, but one of the others would call him on it.
On his right, Sally absent mindedly stroked the bruises under her eye. She was naked save for a stained bed sheet draped over her shoulders. Glancing at Tracker, she said, “I know what you’re up to, Sheriff.”
“What’s that?”
She smiled coyly. “I don’t got much but one eagle, so if I call Old Man you could slap a pair of coyotes on me.”
“He don’t have any black coyotes, you nit,” Hank Dupois said, sitting on the far side of the table. The scratches on his cheek glistened as he sneered at Sally. He wore a black vest over a dusty white shirt. Dirt tumbled from the buttons as he breathed.
“And I suppose you got the monopoly on coyotes,” Ed Weld said, sitting across from Tracker. He wore a shirt blackened from a glut of old blood. A deputy’s badge sat on his chest.
“I ain’t saying nothing,” Hank said, tilting his cards away from the others.
Ed shook his head and looked at Tracker. “He’s a real piece of work, ain’t he?” Blood leaked from the bullet hole in his forehead.
“Well Sheriff?” Sally said impatiently. “What’s it gonna be?”
Tracker didn’t want to play the eagle, but if she held a black coyote then both their coyotes would cancel each other out. Still, he didn’t like the scheming look on Hank’s face.
“Make your move, Sheriff,” he said. He lifted his flask, tried to take a drink, and upended it. “Damn. Empty.”
“All right,” Tracker said. “I’ll—”
“Hold your horses,” Hank said. “The drinks are here.”
A tray was set on the table. It contained a silver flask, a small bottle of what looked like laudanum, and a cup of coffee. Jimmy Platter removed the drinks and set them on the table. A vine slithered out of his collar and wrapped around his neck.
“How much do I owe you?” Tracker asked.
Jimmy’s mouth was crammed with berries.
Tracker gasped and woke up. He threw back the covers, sat on the edge of the bed, and placed his hand on his chest. He breathed.
In, out.
In, out.
Another blasted nightmare.
Chapter Thirty-Five
“Jack?”
Jack opened his eyes. Charlie stood over him.
“Good morning,” Charlie said. “It’s not yet daybreak, but I couldn’t stay in bed any longer.”
Jack sat up and looked around. He was sitting at the supper table. “I guess I nev
er made it to bed,” he said.
After Charlie ran into the house, Emily had chased after him and pressed him for an explanation. Charlie insisted he was tired and just needed sleep. She didn’t believe him, but he refused to discuss it further. He climbed the ladder to the loft and went to bed, and she ran into her room and shut the door. Jack, not knowing what to do with himself, brought the fiddle inside and sat at the supper table.
He still felt dizzy from the dance. He didn’t know what to make of it. Did he fancy her? And was she sweet on him? The way they’d moved together…
He’d leaned forward on the table and closed his eyes. He replayed the dance in his mind over and over until he must have fallen asleep.
“You have an f-hole on your face,” Charlie said.
Jack blinked. “A what?”
Charlie tapped one of the curved wooden slits on his fiddle. “Must have slept on top of it.”
“Oh,” Jack said, rubbing his cheek.
“Emily not up yet?”
“No.”
“I’ll brew us some coffee.” Charlie built a fire for them and set a pot of water on the swing crane. “I’m not much good at cooking.”
“Coffee’s fine.”
They sat at the table and drank in silence. Charlie didn’t mention the previous night, and he didn’t have to. Jack knew what had happened. The wail of the fiddle had drawn out the memory of shooting Cole. Music was devious like that.
…with the light brown hair…
Outside, the Morning Blue vanished. Sunlight crept over the supper table and spilled onto the floor. Jack gazed out the window.
“I love this land,” Charlie said.
Jack nodded. “It has promise.”
“I love it,” Charlie continued, “but there’s no use keeping it. In two days, Emily will be married and living with Plymouth. I can’t work it myself.”
“Maybe Plymouth will let you stay in the house,” Jack said.