“You’re a day too late, Matthews. Miss Ford hired me to help out here.” Jeff didn’t feel an urgent need to reveal just how that had come about.
The smirk on the other man’s face turned into a malevolent glower. “The hell she did. You? You’re just a sorry-assed wreck.” He pushed past Jeff and climbed the front porch stairs. “We’ll just see who’s doin’ the work here. It sure ain’t gonna be you.” Matthews pounded on the front door. Palpable unreasoning fury rolled off him waves that were just as obvious as the body odor he exuded. He was like a vicious dog that barked at anything that moved or came near.
Anger, an emotion that Jeff had long ago abandoned with the rest of his feelings, stirred inside him. He shot up the steps behind Matthews and grabbed the man’s arm hard enough to spin him around. “Leave the woman out of this. If you wanted the job so much you should have been here when you promised.”
Matthews’ glower evolved into a snarl, revealing his brown pegs of teeth. “I’ll hear it from her own mouth! You get your hands off me, you goddamn—”
At that moment, Althea opened the door, and found both Jeff and Cooper Matthews standing there. The tension on the front porch was heavy and thick. “What’s going on out—?”
With a tremendous yank, Matthews pulled his arm out of Jeff’s grip. “Tell him, this bastard that murdered my boy,” he demanded, a maniacal look in his eyes. “You hired me to do the work here and he’s got to git. Tell him!”
No one had ever spoken to Althea like that. In the life she’d known, voices were never raised, anger was never expressed. In fact, no feelings were expressed. Amos Ford had considered emotional outbursts, angry, happy, or sad, to be the sign of a weak character. Well, there had been just that one time he’d gotten angry, with a fury she would remember till her last day on earth, a rage even more frightening than Matthews—
Althea looked desperately to Jeff, hoping he would intervene, but it seemed that even he waited to hear her decision, as if she might choose Cooper Matthews over him.
Her heart thundering with fear, she laced her hands together to hide their trembling. She wished she could slam the door and put both men on the other side of it. But Althea Ford was no coward, she told herself. “Mr. Matthews, I did hire you but you didn’t keep to our agreement. So I went into town and made other arrangements. Mr. Hicks is going to do the work for me.”
Jeff stood aside, clearing the path to the steps. “All right, you heard her. Now you’re leaving.”
Matthews didn’t budge. Instead, his expression grew even wilder, and he unleashed his rage on Althea. “You want a trigger-happy murderer workin’ here? You might be standin’ in your kitchen one mornin’ and he’ll pick you off like a bird settin’ on a fencepost. Just like that—” He snapped his dirty fingers. “Just like he did my poor Wes. And with no more feelin’ either.”
Althea backed up, truly terrified not only by the malevolence she saw in his face, but by the picture he painted.
Jeff grabbed the back of Cooper’s collar. He steered the handyman down the steps and over to the gate. Though she shivered with terror, once again Althea sensed a ghost of Jeff’s old authority. He seemed like one of the steely-eyed lawmen Ned Buntline wrote about in his famous dime novels—confident and in command.
And just as cold.
~~*~*~*~~
“You get back on your horse, Matthews, and don’t ever come around here again.” Jeff gave the man a light shove toward his horse, but what he really wanted to do was throttle him.
Cooper Matthews adjusted one of the straps on his overalls, and glared at Jeff. “You don’t tell me what to do, Hicks, no mor’n that female or anybody else does. I ain’t forgot what you did to Wes—
“I haven’t forgotten what you did to him, either.”
“I ain’t the one who put that bullet in his chest.” He leaned in closer to Jeff and poked him in the shoulder with an index finger. It took everything Jeff could muster to keep from snapping that finger off. “I’ll tell you something, though. I’m gonna get even with you, for Wes and for those times you threw me in that stinkin’ hole of a jail. And I’m gonna get even for today.”
“Just get out of here, Matthews.” Jeff didn’t want to stand here in the road and argue with him. He felt that anger coming to life in his heart again, a sleeping giant that he didn’t want disturbed.
“I ain’t sayin’ when or how—” Cooper glanced back at Althea where she stood watching from the porch, her hands clasped tightly at her waist. “And it might not even be you I get my revenge on.” He untied his bony nag from the fence and swung a leg over its slatted sides. “This ain’t finished yet between us.” He gave the horse a kick and it shambled down the road back toward town.
Jeff watched him to make sure he didn’t turn around and come back. No, it wasn’t finished, and now Althea might be in danger, too. Matthews had a grudge against him that he wasn’t going to give up. And it wouldn’t be satisfied until one of them was dead.
~~*~*~*~~
Worried about Olivia, Althea went upstairs to see if the noisy scene on the porch had upset her. But when she reached her sister’s room she found her propped up against her pillows, reading and looking very much like the blond doll sitting on Olivia’s chest of drawers.
“What on earth was that racket outside?” Olivia asked. “It woke me up.”
“It’s all over now, dear, don’t worry. Cooper Matthews and Mr. Hicks had a little—altercation—but Cooper has gone.”
Olivia sat up a little straighter. “Didn’t you say it was his son that Mr. Jefferson shot?”
“Hicks, Olivia. It’s Mr. Hicks. Yes, I guess there’s bad blood between them.”
“Yes, I’m sure there would be, wouldn’t there? I imagine that Mr. Matthews might even want revenge. At least that’s what I heard him say.” She paused for a moment, as if lost in thought. “Oh, well . . . ” Olivia shrugged her narrow shoulders and went back to her book.
For her part, Althea’s legs felt so rubbery and unsteady, she feared she might fall head-first down the stairs. She gripped the railing more tightly and descended with careful steps. Cooper Matthews—oh, God, he was more horrible and despicable than she’d realized. She was so glad that she hadn’t had to hire him after all. And yet . . .
And yet something he’d said stuck in her mind. She shouldn’t give it credence, or even think about it. She tried to push it away, but it sat there in her thoughts whispering to her. Murderer. The best thing—right thing—to do would be to dismiss what Matthews had said. Doubt nagged at her, though, and she realized the doubt had been there from the first moment Jeff Hicks had arrived at her door.
She went to the window in the parlor and peered through the lace curtain at Jeff. He stood next to the fence, one hand gripping a the top of a picket, while he stared at something far down the road.
Was it her imagination, or was he beginning to look healthier already? The sun fell across his nicked face, turning his eyes the color of pale jade. She wouldn’t have thought that a couple of decent meals and a day without alcohol could make a man look so good.
One thing was certain—the attractive man she remembered seeing on the street in town was beginning to emerge again. And while Sheriff Mason had said there was nothing to fear from Jeff Hicks, doubt nibbled at her confidence.
What did she know about him, really? He’d been the sheriff in Decker Prairie, he’d killed a boy, and he’d started drinking. That was all she knew, but was there more to those events? The fact that Will Mason had assured her of Jeff’s trustworthiness didn’t answer the questions in her mind. The only way to do that was to ask the man himself. She thought he owed her that much, anyway, given that she and her sister were here alone.
Althea crossed the parlor and went to the front door, determined to talk to Jeff before her courage deserted her. On the front porch, a pile of rose clippings lay where he’d left them.
“Mr. Hicks?” Althea approached Jeff where he stood next to the fence, watching. Ju
st watching.
After a moment, he faced her and she saw something piercing and direct in his eyes that made her back up a step. “I suppose you want to know what Matthews was talking about. I mean about me killing his son.”
His bluntness caught her off guard; it was as if he’d read her mind. “I heard something about it.”
“What did you hear?”
Almost sorry that she had come out here, Althea stopped herself from twisting her apron around her fingers. She felt as uncomfortable discussing this as she would talking about her mother’s death. “That you caught the boy breaking into a store in town and you shot him.” What more could there be to a story like that? she wondered.
Jeff nodded and let his gaze wander to the mountains on the distant east edge of the valley. “Wickwire’s. He broke into Wickwire’s.” The afternoon sun highlighted the fine, strong bones of his face, his broad brow, his mouth that was generous without being too full. “I always felt a little sorry for Wes. Cooper had been walloping the hell of out him ever since the boy’s ma, Elly, died. Sometimes I think death was the only way she could escape the beatings Cooper gave her.”
“Dear God,” Althea interjected softly. She could well imagine that with his low regard for all women, Cooper Matthews would think nothing of hitting his wife.
Jeff kicked at a grass tussock by a fence post. “After Wesley came to the jailhouse a couple of times looking for his father, he took to hanging around. Nobody saw to it that he went to school or learned anything, and I realized that there was a pretty smart kid hiding under the bruised face and dirty hair. He just needed someone to give him more encouragement and less punishment. Since his father wasn’t doing that, I sort of fell into the job.”
“You did?” A very dark picture was beginning to form in Althea’s mind, one of heartache and cruel regret.
“Yeah, I guess I started to think of him as my son. I talked to the schoolmarm about helping Wes. She had to work with him after regular class hours because he was so far behind most of her other students. She didn’t have any other twelve-year-olds who couldn’t read. But like I said, he was bright and he wanted to learn, so he caught on pretty fast.”
He went on in a soft voice, telling her how the boy would sometimes come by the office in the afternoon. Jeff would listen to Wesley read or cipher. “I was proud of him. But Cooper didn’t give a damn about what the kid had accomplished, and he didn’t like him going to school. He told Wes he didn’t want a son who knew more than he did. Cooper still knocked him around when he got drunk and the boy couldn’t duck fast enough, or hide soon enough.
“One evening, I had one foot in the stirrup, just about to ride home for the night. Sally—I had dinner waiting for me, and I didn’t want to be late. But I heard the sound of glass breaking down the street and I had to see about it. That’s what the town paid me for.”
Decker Prairie was quiet. Dusk had fallen and everyone had gone home. Jeff checked the darkened storefronts and offices along the street, peering through each window. When he got to Wickwire’s, he saw that the door glass had been broken near the lock. The door itself was slightly ajar and he knew someone was in there. With his revolver drawn, slowly, quietly, he crept in and found a man rifling the cash box.
“He had his back to me and it was dark, so I didn’t recognize him right away. Wes had grown a lot in the past couple of years, too, so I didn’t realize that it was just a fourteen-year-old boy standing there.”
Now Althea did twist her apron in her fingers, and the lump in her throat felt as if she’d swallowed a rock.
In a quiet voice Jeff told the intruder to turn around, slowly, and no one would get hurt. When Wes turned, Jeff saw the gun in his hand, but he barely recognized his face. Both eyes were black and the left side of his face was so swollen and bruised, he looked as if he wore a grotesque mask.
“He dared me to stop him. Cooper had beaten him again—this time bad enough to break some bones in his face.”
Althea lowered her eyes. She felt scalding tears gather behind her lids and she couldn’t bear to look at Jeff’s impassive expression while he told her this awful story. Her heart ached for the battered child she’d never even known.
“He said he was leaving then, that night, and he needed money to get away. He couldn’t stay with his father another minute. If I tried to stop him, he’d shoot me. I did everything I could think of to get him to put down that gun and surrender. I promised to get him another place to stay, to protect him from Cooper—”
Glancing up at him, Althea broke in, “Why didn’t you just arrest his father?” How could Jeff let the man continue his torment of his own son?
Jeff’s eyes held a peculiar, dead expression. “If a man mistreats an animal—a horse, a mule, whatever—there’s a law on the books against that, and he can be arrested for it. But he can beat his wife or children, and no law can touch him. Not around here anyway, and not in a lot of other jurisdictions. The idea is that a man’s possessions, including his wife and kids, are beyond the reach of the law and he can discipline them as he sees fit.”
“But that’s horrible! What kind of law is that?”
Jeff shrugged. “A common one. The world is a hard place.”
“And that’s that? Couldn’t you save that young man?” Althea was dumbfounded. But then, she’d lived a life isolated from many of the daily events of Decker Prairie, much less the world.
He smiled, but there was no warmth in it. “Well, ma’am, I tried. Wes refused all of my offers. He wanted to go far away, some place where his father wouldn’t find him. He said he’d kill me if I tried to stop him, and he raised his gun even higher. I’d seen that trapped, desperate look in a man’s eyes before—I should have known he meant what he said. But I still thought I could reason with him, and I tried again. He pulled the trigger and the bullet grazed my chin.”
“Oh, no!” Althea realized that a narrow, bright pink scar crossed the side of his chin; his beard had hidden it until this morning, and he had so many razor nicks on his face she hadn’t noticed it until this moment.
“He cocked the pistol again and kept it aimed at me. That’s when I figured he was going to kill me and I guess my instinct to survive took over. It all happened so fast . . . so damned fast. I fired once and hit that boy square in the heart. He was dead before he hit the floor. It was self-defense, plain and simple.” He shook his head in wonder, then he met her eyes straight on and Althea thought she saw a glitter of tears before he looked away. “But if you think it was murder, I guess that’s all right. I’ve thought so too, every day and night since.”
She started to reach out to touch Jeff’s arm, but held back, uncertain. “Mr. Hicks, I’m so sorry.” Her voice was tight and whispery with remorse for him. “You didn’t murder that poor boy.”
He turned his head and quickly swiped the back of his broad hand across his eyes. “It’s in the past now, ma’am. At least for Wes it is, and there’s no changing it. Believe me, I wish I could. I’d trade places with him in a heartbeat.”
~~*~*~*~~
Later that afternoon, Althea stood in the kitchen getting a chicken ready for the oven. She sprinkled a touch of pepper over the bird and the little potatoes surrounding it in a blue enamel pot. The weather had turned hot, and she paused to touch the back of her wrist to her damp forehead. It had been a hellish day, long and emotionally trying. In the parlor, Olivia played a slow, mournful rendition of “Greensleeves,” and it seemed to fit Althea’s mood.
Althea had always believed that life was either black or white. There were no shades of gray, and no room for compromise. A man was either good or bad, guilty or innocent. Those had been her father’s unyielding views, and by her upbringing he’d made them hers too. If a person was guilty of a deed, that was the end of it. Extenuating circumstances or explanations didn’t improve matters—they were only excuses.
But Jeff hadn’t made excuses for himself. He’d simply told her what had ultimately led him to Wickwire’s the nigh
t Wes had chosen to break in. Although she still didn’t approve of him squandering his life, now she had a little better understanding of why Jeff had started drinking. Sometimes Althea believed that if she had been a man, she might have taken to drinking too. She’d once heard there was temporary oblivion to be found in alcohol.
In her mind’s eye, she could still see him standing there in the road as he told her about the death of Wesley Matthews. He was dressed little better than a beggar, and though his voice had been devoid of emotion, he’d moved her to tears. Althea knew she shouldn’t care one way or the other about Jeff Hicks. He was here to do a job—he worked for her.
But in listening to his story, she realized that perhaps not everything was black and white.
Maybe life had some gray places, too.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Jeff sat on the hay-stuffed tick in the lean-to and poked a roast potato around his plate. It wasn’t that the potato didn’t taste good. It most likely did, and the chicken it had been cooked with was probably good too. It was seasoned with just the right touch—he smelled a little sage and some pepper. No one could say that Althea Ford wasn’t a good cook. And although he should have been hungry enough to eat two chickens, he hadn’t taken one bite. His mind wasn’t on his stomach or his plate.
His scratched arms felt like they were on fire, but he wasn’t even thinking about them.
Jeff wanted a drink.
Well, no, if he was going to be honest with himself, one drink wouldn’t do it. He wanted a whole goddamned bottle, wanted it the way he’d yearned for Sally, back when their love was strong and whole. He closed his eyes for a moment, the fork in his loosened grip clacking on the edge of the plate he balanced on his lap.
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