Ride the High Lonesome

by Rosanne Bittner

  “But you might not be able to trust them. You might get out of town and they could kill you and take your horse and your money.”

  “I’m a pretty good judge of men, Kate. You know that by now. You have to stop worrying.”

  The wagon bounced and rocked through mud and over large stones. Horses tied to hitching posts lined the main street. They passed numerous businesses, including a millinery. Luke had to slow the wagon once when two brawling men came barging out of a saloon and into the street, falling together right in front of the wagon. A crowd followed, including a couple of women in dresses cut so low their breasts practically spilled out of them. As most watched the fight, a couple of drunk men came closer to the wagon to look Kate over.

  “Hey, mister, is she for sale?” one of them asked Luke. He reached up to put a hand on Kate’s leg. In an instant, Luke pulled his revolver and cocked it, aiming it at the intruder.

  “Get your hand off her or I’ll blow your head off!”

  Kate shrunk a little closer to Luke.

  “Sorry, mister. I just figured—”

  “You figured wrong. This is a respectable lady on her way to Oregon. I intend to make sure she gets there safely!”

  The man backed off, and the fight moved to the other side of the street. Luke holstered his gun and whipped the horse into motion again. “I guess I don’t need to tell you not to go out at night,” he told Kate.

  “You certainly don’t.” Kate closed her eyes and put a hand to her forehead. “Luke, how can I spend a whole winter here?”

  “It’s not as bad as you think. By morning, most of the drunks will be passed out and you can go wherever you need to go in complete safety.”

  “And where will you sleep?”

  Luke grinned a little. “Big Jim has a couple of little cabins out behind the stables that he rents out. One is empty. The man says it has a pot-belly stove that I can use for heating and cooking. It has a cot and a small table and one chair. That’s good enough for me.”

  So, they would be separated that way all winter. At least he hadn’t said he’d be sleeping above the saloons, and not alone. Kate had grown so used to traveling and camping with him that she hated the thought of being apart now. And she worried that the more they were apart, the more sure he would be that he should move on without her come spring. “But Big Jim smells so bad,” she argued. “If that place smells like him, you will smell like him.”

  “He lives in the stables. I’ll probably have to clean the cabin up a little, but he said he never sleeps in there. He’d rather make money renting it out. I’m sure it’s okay.”

  It seemed he had everything planned already. Please don’t leave me! Kate wanted to shout. What am I doing here? What will happen now? You’re leaving in the morning. Will you keep riding and never come back? What did she really know about the man after all? Yes, he was good and kind and generous and a wonderful lover. But he was as unsettled as the wind. Maybe it wouldn’t bother him at all to leave her now. He seemed relieved to be in Lander and around other men.

  Luke pulled the wagon in front of a clapboard two-story house painted white. A small picket fence surrounded it, and the door was painted blue. A sign out front read Nora’s Place. Luke turned to Kate and took her hand.

  “Look, it’s important for a woman to keep a good reputation in places like this, Kate. That’s why we’ll be sleeping on opposite ends of town. The men around here will need to understand I’m just someone you hired to get you to Oregon after your wagon train was attacked and destroyed. Once men understand you are a decent woman and not here to work in the saloons, they will leave you alone and I won’t have to worry so much about you. Maybe you could even get a job teaching a few kids to read, or at one of the supply stores or the millinery. There are usually some good people in places like this—those who run businesses or farm or ranch outside of town. You’ll be okay.”

  Kate couldn’t help having to blink back tears. “But we’ve been taking care of each other all this time. I know the understanding has always been that we’d lay up for the winter and go our separate ways, but now that it’s becoming more real, I feel like I’m right back where I was…no one but me.”

  “Kate, except for the next couple of days, I’ll be right here in town,” Luke assured her, “at least long enough that you will make friends and learn who you can trust. You can send someone for me any time, day or night. But we have to stay apart, for your own protection. Besides that, we both need time to think and to know what we really want.”

  And I’m not young enough for you, am I? Kate thought. I’m just a woman you’ve befriended…a woman you care about and respect…but I’m not wife material. I’m just a lonely widow who needed a man’s touch. Kate quickly wiped away more stubborn tears over his remark, At least long enough for you to make friends. That meant he did intend to leave Lander, at least for the winter. She quickly wiped away the tears. “I think I’m just overtired,” she told Luke. “I hope I do get a room, because I think while you’re gone the next couple of days, I’ll do nothing but sleep.”

  “As well you should.” Luke looked around before putting an arm around her and kissing her cheek. “I’m not abandoning you, Kate. I’ll check on you as soon as I get back. In the meantime, I’m sure Nora will be glad for your company. She can show you where to shop and where that bathhouse is. Maybe you can even help her with cleaning and laundry. You just need something to keep you busy the next five months or so. I’ll do the same. We both knew it would end up this way.”

  Kate nodded again. Why was parting so much easier for a man? Maybe because men were so self-sufficient and needed no protection. They were their own protection.

  “We had better see about a room and unload my things,” she told Luke. She wanted nothing more than to throw her arms around him and beg him to sleep with her tonight…but everything had changed, and the longer they were here and leading separate lives, the more they would pull away from each other and go their separate ways. It was already happening. I love you, Luke Bowden. I will always love you.

  Twenty-seven

  The last thing Luke wanted to do was get back on the trail. He felt sick at leaving Kate behind in a strange, wild town full of strange, wild people. He’d never been so confused over his own feelings in his life. He’d been so sure of how much he’d loved Bonnie. Coming home to find her married to his brother was the most devastating event of his life, even worse than all the killings during the war, the bullet wounds he’d suffered then, and now the one in his side, which was hurting more than it should.

  He’d not gone to the doctor first as he’d promised Kate. He’d been too damn tired and just went to the stables to sleep. Now he worried about the tenderness in his side this morning. For Kate’s sake, he’d wanted to head to the cabin extra early and get those men buried soon enough to make it back to Lander by nightfall. He wanted to be close by Kate these first few days in case she needed him for anything, so there was no time to see a doctor before leaving.

  He rode with Big Jim and a young man called Blaze. Big Jim liked the kid and had asked him to come with him and Luke. Blaze was maybe twenty and an orphan who’d gotten into trouble back in Philadelphia and came west “for the hell of it.” He was good-looking and likeable but a little cocky.

  Luke lit a cigarette. “I want to thank you two for helping me,” he said aloud after inhaling. “I’m still worried about the two men who got away. They might not want to let this go.”

  “Well, if they come to Lander, you’ll find men who’ll back you up,” Big Jim told him. “Like that Jake Harkner did when you went after them that hung you. We might all be a bunch of no-goods, but most in town won’t be happy about them men trying to defile that nice lady you brung into town.”

  I defiled her enough myself, Luke thought, guilt burning through him. Shit, what if I got her pregnant? I made her no promises, and she didn’t ask for any. That’
s what bothered him most. Kate Winters wasn’t like most other women. Most would figure a man owed them something for what had happened between them: money, property, a wedding ring, something. Kate had asked for nothing.

  The events that had led them to be together seemed so impossible…the timing of it…the way they just seemed to fall into step with each other. Comfortable, that’s what it was. Too comfortable for strangers, their lovemaking too natural, too intimate, and too beautiful.

  “I reckon if them men show up in Lander, we’ll have us a hanging,” Big Jim said, interrupting Luke’s thoughts.

  “Suits me just fine,” Luke told him. Strange, how a man could kill ten others in war, but in time of peace he could hang for killing just one man…or for stealing a horse. He wondered how these men…and Kate…would feel if they knew he’d accidentally killed a kid in the war—a boy only about ten years old. That was the main thing that kept him running…from himself and from memories. He had no right to ever be happy. Ever. Even when he had plans to head for California and raise cattle, he meant to do it alone, not with a woman or a friend or anyone else. After killing that kid and then losing Bonnie, he had no incentive for marriage or happiness or children of his own. He wanted to believe that what happened with Kate was just long-neglected manly needs and nothing more. And he wanted to believe that Kate’s reaction was simply that of a lonely widow who had no one to care about her. She surely didn’t know her own mind. He needed to convince her that she shouldn’t depend on a man like him. She deserved better.

  “Pretty country,” Blaze commented.

  Luke kept the cigarette between his lips. “Big,” he answered. He studied the scattered boulders he and Kate had passed on their way to Lander. Had he really just ridden through here yesterday with her? Everything that had happened to him since the day she’d cut him down from that tree seemed unreal now. In country like this it was hard for a man—or woman—to stay in touch with reality, which was all the more reason not to take any of it too seriously. He felt as though he was living in a land of “in between”…in between the Civil War and Bonnie and where he was supposed to go from here. He used to think he was in control of his life, but right now he seemed to have no control at all.

  “How far we got to go?” Big Jim asked.

  A sharp pain moved through Luke’s side. He winced from it but said nothing to the other two men. “Half a day, maybe. This is the third time I’ve been through here in just a few days. There’s a cabin a few miles ahead. That’s where the bodies are.”

  “How’d those men get the drop on you?” Blaze asked.

  I’d just finished a full night of having sex and was worn out, Luke thought. “We were extra tired,” he answered aloud. “We went through an awful lot after that hanging, and Mrs. Winters was recovering from a badly infected leg and I’d been doing most of the work. She got the wound in her leg from fending off a man who attacked her while I was in Lander that first time, when I was looking for those men who hanged me. So the poor woman had a bad time of it. When we found that cabin on our way here, we just sort of collapsed and slept too hard. Before that we stayed in a cave, not very comfortable for a woman. She’s not used to this life, this land, the ruthlessness of some men. It’s all been real hard on her.” He drew deeply on the cigarette and almost groaned aloud from pain in his side again.

  They rode on in silence, Luke wondering what Kate was doing now. Was she helping Nora? Was she at the bathhouse? Or was she still sleeping, like she’d said she might do? Last night in a tiny cabin behind the stables he’d slept alone, wishing Kate was in his bed.

  “How come that gunslinger, Jake Harkner, helped you against those men who hanged you?” Blaze asked.

  Luke shrugged. “I guess because he recognizes honesty in a man and he believed my story,” he answered, beginning to sweat from hiding his pain.

  “What’s the man like? I heard he’s unbeatable with a gun.”

  “Seemed nice enough. He has a wife and kids, believe it or not, but he’s wanted back east, so it’s hard for him to be with his family.”

  Blaze raised his chin confidently. “A reputation with a gun wouldn’t bother me one bit,” he told Luke.

  Luke cast him a scolding glance. “Kid, if you want to dig your own grave, go ahead,” he said to the young man. “I much prefer not getting into that situation at all, but sometimes it can’t be helped. As for me, I’m actually better with a rifle than a six-gun. That’s how I killed the men who hanged me, and how I killed those we’re riding out to bury.”

  “I prefer my six-gun,” Blaze answered arrogantly. “I wonder how fast that Jake Harkner is.”

  Luke had to grin at the boy’s stupidity. “You go against a man like that and you won’t live to see twenty-one,” he said. “When Harkner shot that man up in the balcony behind me, I never saw him draw. If you want to push up daisies, you just try your hand at a man like that. Otherwise, you’d best keep practicing for a long, long time. Men like Harkner have an instinct most men don’t, and he doesn’t even need to aim. He just thinks about where he wants the bullet to go, and it goes there—know what I mean?”

  Blaze frowned. “I guess.”

  Luke winced with pain again. Just talking was beginning to be an effort.

  “You and Mrs. Winters really goin’ your separate ways come spring?” Big Jim asked.

  Luke felt a tug at his heart over the man’s question. “That’s the plan,” he answered. “Kate has family in Oregon. After I take her there, I’m headed for northern California—good land there for ranching and farming.” He crushed out his cigarette against a canteen and threw down the stub. “Let’s get this over with.” He urged Red into a faster gait.

  A couple of hours later they camped again, ate, rested, then continued their journey, reaching the cabin around mid-afternoon. Luke could smell the bloated bodies on a south wind before he even reached them. The crazy weather had warmed up again, but there was a hint of cold in the wind. “Wish I could help you boys, but my side is hurting more,” he told the other two. “I’ll add to your pay by buying you a meal and drinks when we get back to Lander. I’d like to get back by tonight, but now I’m not so sure. My side is hurting pretty bad. I might need to rest overnight—depends on how fast we can get these men buried.”

  They drew their horses closer to the bodies, and all three riders curled their noses, although Luke was surprised Big Jim could smell the dead men above the man’s own odor. Big Jim and Blaze dismounted and took short-handled shovels from where they’d tied them to their gear. They started digging one big hole for all three bodies, while Luke dismounted and fished around in the dead men’s pockets for identification. He felt ill at the stench, but he felt it was important to prove these men’s identities and also prove he’d not robbed them of anything. He wished they had suffered more before they died. They deserved a slow death for what they tried to do to Kate.

  As he glanced up at the cabin and its broken windows and door, memories of what he and Kate had shared there brought on doubts and indecision over what he should do about their situation. If Bonnie hadn’t destroyed his ability to trust women, it would be a little easier to decide what to do about his present confused emotions.

  Blaze and Big Jim kept digging for nearly an hour, glad the ground was still warm and fairly easy to dig out once they got through the thick sod. Once in a while a large rock got in the way, bringing on a string of cursing from both men. Luke kept the papers he’d found on the men and looked them over. The big man had a card in his pocket on which someone had printed Mark Heller. The younger man actually carried a birth certificate that read Johnny Reed, and the third man had a receipt in his pocket for a new gun that had been sold to a Ben Lake. He told their names to Big Jim and Blaze. “Either of you know any of these men?”

  Big Jim shrugged. “Well, their bodies are so bloated and blue, I can’t recognize any of them on sight, especially the big one. H
alf his face is gone, but I’ve heard of a Mark Heller,” he answered. “Ben Lake, too.”

  Luke took hope in Big Jim’s answer. “I don’t trust the two who got away not to make more trouble if they see me again,” he told Big Jim. “Where are they from? Did you see them often?”

  “Not often,” Big Jim answered. He stuck his shovel into a pile of dirt. “But I think they work at a ranch west of Lander called the Lazy T. Ranch hands come and go, though. They might never go back that way again. You said you found their tracks before you left here, and that they headed south, not north.”

  “That doesn’t mean they won’t still head back to that ranch some other way so they could avoid me,” Luke said. “They must have realized we were headed north for Lander, and they didn’t want to run into me. They were both injured, and they knew I’d be out for blood.”

  “You goin’ after them?” Blaze asked him.

  “I’m thinking I will. I don’t want to worry all winter about running into them by surprise in Lander or worry they will catch sight of Kate Winters again and maybe bring her harm out of spite. When a fly lands on you, you don’t stand there and let it bite. You kill it.”

  Blaze grinned. “Smart thinking. You have my help if you need it.”

  “Thanks.” Luke shoved the identification papers belonging to the dead men into his saddlebags. He stood back while Blaze and Big Jim dragged the bodies to the open grave and shoved them into it. “We’ll carve their names into some wood and find a way to nail it up over the grave,” Luke said. “None of them deserves a respectful burial, but I was raised to believe someone should speak over another man’s grave.”

  Blaze and Big Jim grimaced at the smell as they started filling in the hole. Luke tried to remember how many men he’d killed since he’d marched off to war and left Bonnie behind. He likely had no chance of making it to heaven now, especially since killing had become easier for him.