The Crimson Trail

by Eric Red

  Joe Noose had stayed alive this long because he anticipated situations and how to react, and he did so now.

  If putting him in jail was Sheriff Roberts’s plan, his strategy would be to get Joe inside the sheriff’s office in a controlled space where the lawman would attempt to disarm him, and one way or other get him into the cell.

  As Noose walked in lockstep with Sheriff Roberts across the quiet street toward the sheriff’s office, inside of the building only darkness was visible through the open doorway and barred windows. Joe hoped this local sheriff wasn’t going to try and arrest him, because Noose had already decided he was not going to let himself be arrested today. That wasn’t going to happen. Whether some sheriff believed him or not, Joe Noose was a deputized marshal with the full weight of the U.S. Marshals Service behind him.

  He’d try to just wound the lawman if gunplay was unavoidable.

  Ever watchful, the bounty hunter saw the lawman’s left hand resting on the gun in his holster as he walked on the right—realizing the sheriff was a left-handed gun was important to know in the next few seconds.

  They stepped onto the porch and darkness and shadow fell across their heads and shoulders as they reached the doorway.

  “After you,” Roberts said with a gesture for Joe to go in first.

  Noose exchanged glances with Roberts; he couldn’t ask the lawman to go inside first now without raising his suspicions, knowing in the next few seconds a lot could happen. He knew how it would play out—

  When Noose entered, the sheriff would be behind him, able to get the drop when his back was turned, and Noose would hear the sound of a gun quickly drawn from its holster, then the order for him to raise his hands. Noose anticipated all of this and was ready for it, prepared to drop and roll, kicking his boots out into the peace officer’s shins, knocking the sheriff off balance, grabbing his left hand, twisting his gun wrist, and relieving him of his first weapon as he fell and snatching his second pistol from his holster when he hit the ground, punching him in the face once hard to knock him out, then handcuffing the unconscious sheriff inside his own cell. After that, Joe would have to figure out how to subdue the deputies back at the herd, but first things first—

  Joe Noose stepped inside the sheriff’s office.

  Sheriff Roberts came in behind him.

  The lawman’s footsteps went to the left with no sound of any gun being drawn, instead the mechanical clicking that Noose recognized as a standard Western Union telegraph system. Turning around, the bounty hunter saw Rawlins’s sheriff sitting behind the unit, putting on a set of headphones. Picking up a pencil, Roberts looked expectantly up at Noose. “Ready to telegraph the Jackson marshal? Walk me through your story again, Mr. Noose, and please keep it simple so I’m clear on what I need Bess Sugarland to verify.” With a relieved exhale, Joe Noose recapped his story and John Roberts took it down, tapping on the telegraph, sending a wire to the Jackson U.S. Marshal’s office.

  They waited for a return transmission for one hour, then two, then three.

  After the fourth hour, Joe began to worry; if the marshal or her deputy were on duty they would have wired back. Had something happened to Bess? Roberts, who also found it irregular, continued to telegraph Jackson every half hour, but as it got later and later, the result was sadly the same.

  There was no response from the U.S. Marshal’s office in Jackson.

  CHAPTER 18

  The house out at Puzzleface Ranch was quiet and still.

  Rachel stood by the mirror in her bedroom and brushed her long hair so it fell naturally over the side of her face with the scar, and what her hair didn’t cover, her high collar and the makeup she had just applied mostly did.

  In the living room, the women were gathered. Dr. Stonehill had again just finished changing the dressing on Beulah’s broken arm. Rachel came in from the kitchen with a tray of fresh tea in china cups and saucers. Millie and Vera were engaged in a lively discussion about the way the town of Jackson was growing, and how good it was that the women had formed a political force in the town council. Smiling at the safe and happy fraternity of ladies in her house, Rachel went over to the bookshelf and took down a leather-bound volume of Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen; it was four in the afternoon, the light through the curtains coloring and shadows congealing, the time when while the women had been under her roof, they had read aloud to one another for two hours before dinner. Somehow, though the concerns of Elizabeth Bennet and Fitzwilliam Darcy seemed mild compared to their own, the independent Lizzie’s success at romance by remaining true to herself was a tale that inspired them during these days of sanctuary and provided them all succor.

  In the back of her mind, Rachel vaguely remembered not locking the front door when the deputy had left, but by the time she heard the heavy footsteps in the hall and the ugly cock of the pistol it was too late.

  Millie screamed. When Rachel whirled, dropping the tray of tea and the cups in a shattering crash on the floor, she found herself face-to-face with Mose Farmer brandishing a Colt Dragoon. He had a drunken lopsided grin, and while he wasn’t pointing the revolver at the ladies he might as well have been, because everything about his aggressive demeanor was armed and dangerous.

  The women backed away deeper into the living room, but his hulking figure blocked the doorway, barring their escape. The only other way out was through the windows, and they’d never make it. Instantly, Rachel put herself between the man and the wives and doctor, but the husband was looking over her shoulder past her to his cringing wife.

  “What are you doing here, Mose?” Millie shrieked.

  “I’m here to take you home, honey,” he growled, holding out his arm with a beckoning gesture. “C’mon now, come here.”

  Millie backed farther away and Rachel positioned herself in front of her even as Vera, Beulah, and Dr. Jane tightened around Mose’s wife in a protective circle.

  “This is Puzzleface’s house and you’re trespassing on private property, Mr. Farmer,” Rachel said to Mose, holding his slippery, volatile, alcohol-fueled gaze. The Colt Dragoon was still pointed at the floor, but in his quaking hands the barrel began to inch up and rise in her general direction. “Leave now and there won’t be any trouble. You are trespassing on Puzzleface’s property.”

  “I’ll deal with that son of a bitch, directly.” Mose spat. “You just see if I don’t. But first, I’m taking my wife home where she belongs.”

  “I-I ain’t going with you, Mose,” Millie stammered.

  “Now you don’t mean that, honey. Come to old Mose.”

  Vera took a step forward, blocking Millie, and shook her finger scoldingly at the enraged husband. “Millie ain’t going with you, Mose Farmer, she’s staying right here with us, so you can just turn yourself around and take you and that gun of your’n back to Jackson!”

  The nasty laugh it elicited made the women tremble. “Oh, you’re all coming home. You too, Vera. You too, Beulah. Zachary is on his way, and so is Levi, and we is all heeled, so if this Puzzleface gets in our way we’ll shoot him dead. We know what he did. We know what he done to our wives. And it’s him against the three of us. It’s gonna be a reckoning, you women best believe that. We gonna make him pay!”

  “You’re talking murder!”

  “We’re your husbands and we’re defending our rights because you’re our wives!” Mose declared righteously.

  “Zachary wouldn’t dare.”

  “He’ll dare plenty. He gonna take his bullwhip to you, Vera, he told me so. Same goes for you, Beulah, when Levi gets here. So the best thing for all you ladies to do is keep those big mouths of yours shut before you get in more trouble than you already is. Sit down!”

  The man’s bellow of rage was so terrifying the four women did what he told them and sat, because he was waving his gun around now.

  “You’re our wives and we’re you’re lawfully wedded husbands, and you made the whole town laugh at us.”

  Rachel spoke softly and calmly. “Mose, you calm dow
n now.”

  He babbled to his frightened spouse, his hulking bulk filling the refined room like a bull in the china shop. “I’m taking you home, Millie, I’m taking you home and it’s all gonna be like it was. You’ll see. We’re going home just as soon as Levi and Zachary get here. They’re coming. They said they was. So we’re all just gonna sit and wait ’til they get here.”

  Mose Farmer brimmed with bravado, confident he had the backup of his two friends. But as the minutes passed, his glances toward the window and the empty ranch outside became more frequent and furtive. “We’re leaving as soon as Zack and Levi come, Millie, because I promised I’d keep an eye on their wives for ’em. We wait.”

  They waited.

  And waited.

  The hands of the clock passed the quarter hour and they waited as the hands passed the half hour and the light in the room dimmed as the sun sank past the windows and the room was bathed in the deep red hue of twilight that made the four women shiver because it was the shade of fresh blood.

  Still they waited.

  Mose Farmer couldn’t sit anymore. Jumping up, he clenched his pistol, pacing back and forth, his boots thumping the carpet in a restless drumbeat, the craving for another drink growing worse and worse, as before the huddled hostages’ eyes their captor unraveled as it dawned on him his two friends were not coming. The large man seemed to shrink in size, shriveling as even in his inebriated state he realized the only one of the three husbands who had committed actual crimes of trespassing, breaking and entering, and kidnapping was him. He was alone. Mose couldn’t understand it. “You cowards abandoned me.” He cussed the two men who were not here. “Left me twisting in the wind.”

  Night had fallen and outside the windows it was pitch-black.

  A sullen Mose Farmer came to a decision. “They ain’t showing. OK, Millie, I’m taking you home, and those chickenshits can deal with their own wives. Us, we’re leaving now. Just as soon as I shoot that dirty rotten son-of-a-bitch Puzzleface right between the eyes for screwing my wife.”

  The wives exchanged flabbergasted glances—they hadn’t realized their husbands could possibly have thought they were being unfaithful until right now, and Millie started to say something, but Mose waved her silent.

  “Puzzleface isn’t here,” Rachel said.

  “Who the hell are you, anyway? Another one of his harem? Whose wife are you?”

  “I’m his housekeeper.”

  “Then you know where Puzzleface is.”

  “He isn’t here, I tell you.”

  “Where is he?”

  “Puzzleface went to town.”

  “That’s a big fat lie. Just come from Jackson. We’d have seen him in town. He’s here. You’re the housekeeper, so you’re gonna take me to him. You ladies stay put. That goes for you, too, Millie. Fact, I’m puttin’ you in charge. I’m leaving for a few minutes with Rachel while she takes me to Puzzleface. I know you women got your lover boy stashed somewhere in this big house. Hell, can’t wait to meet him. Want to see what he’s got that I don’t, that all the wives want. Then I’m going to shoot that thing of his clean off. Right before I blow his brains out. And when I come back, I’m taking my wife home.” Mose grabbed Rachel by the hand and stepped out of the room, pulling her with him, holding the gun in her back with the other hand. He looked back inside the room at the four other women. “Any one of you tries to escape, I’ll kill the maid.” Shutting the door on their terrified faces, he locked it and pocketed the key. “Take me to Puzzleface.” The poke of the barrel of the cap-and-ball Colt Dragoon in the small of Rachel’s back made her jump, but got her moving. “Let’s go.”

  “I already told you I don’t know where he is.”

  “You’re lying.”

  “I swear Puzzleface is not here. Cross my heart and hope to die.”

  “Don’t bullshit a bullshitter. I know Puzzleface is in this house.”

  “Look for yourself. Check everywhere. Every room. You won’t find him. I guarantee it.”

  “What’s your name?”

  “Rachel.”

  “Pretty name.”

  “Don’t hurt me.”

  “I’m not going to hurt you, it’s the man you work for I’m after. After I kill Puzzleface I’ll take my wife and leave and nobody else needs to get hurt, least of all you.” Rachel bit her lip, stopping a crazy urge to laugh. “Take me to Puzzleface, Miss Rachel, I ain’t gonna ask you again, you’re his damn maid and you know where he is, so stop trying to protect him and tell me where he is!”

  Mose marched Rachel in front of him; she was grateful he couldn’t see her face, only the back of her head, because as her mind raced to figure out what to do, Rachel was certain her expressions gave away a million tells. How was she going to handle this? What was she going to do?

  Mose was looking for Puzzleface.

  Who was her.

  It was physically impossible for Rachel to make Puzzleface show up without getting into her male makeup and costume, which would mean getting away from Mose for a few minutes, and he wasn’t letting her out of his sight.

  She couldn’t be in two places at once.

  Or could she?

  As she led Mose Farmer room by room through the house, opening doors and closets, stalling for time, Rachel’s mind concocted a desperate scheme.

  “Puzzleface better show before I lose my patience, ’cause when that happens I lose my temper, and you don’t want me losing my temper. Ask Millie.”

  “She told me.”

  Behind her, Rachel heard Mose choke, coughing into his fist, as they moved through the house. It sounded like his wife telling on him unnerved him. “What did she say?”

  “You beat her. Said you broke her arm, and her jaw. She loves you even though you hate yourself. Says you argue. Blames herself for that. She says whenever you lose an argument with her you use your fists.”

  “It’s my temper. I can’t control myself.”

  “Millie knows. That’s why she ran away, and why she’s not coming back.”

  They kept walking down the hall, him keeping the Colt Dragoon jammed in her back, using his foot to open doors and look into the empty rooms, one after the other, but he was distracted. “She makes me hit her. She pushes me to it.”

  “That’s what my husband used to say,” Rachel said, staring straight ahead as she was force-marched. “It’s the same excuse husbands who hit their wives always make after they’ve beaten them, right before they tell those women they love them and promise they’ll never hit them again, and then hit their wives harder next time. Women who have nowhere else to go, and let themselves get beaten by men too weak and stupid to think with anything but their fists. I know how it feels to be beaten up every day in a marriage I was afraid to leave because I was alone. Millie felt she was alone. So did Vera and Beulah. We are not alone. And men like you can’t hurt us.”

  “What has any of that got to do with Puzzleface poking my wife? We’ve checked the whole damn house and—!”

  Mose swung around in circles, yelling into the house at the walls and ceiling and waving the huge pistol around, Rachel cowering, afraid it would accidentally go off. “Puzzleface! Show yourself! Puzzleface! You screwed my wife so I’m gonna take your life, you no-account sonofabitch—you hear me, Puzzleface!” Kicking the wall, Mose whirled on Rachel, his blood way up. “I ain’t leaving until I kill him.”

  “Why won’t you believe me when I say Puzzleface is not here? He didn’t screw your wife, Mose. He didn’t screw any of those women. I should know.”

  The man got an ugly suspicious glint in his eye as he regarded her sourly. “Why you coverin’ for Puzzleface, eh?” Mose approached her, his expression bitterly paranoid. “How much he pay you to cover for him, huh, Rachel? What else you do for Puzzleface, huh? You go rope other pretty ladies for him to bed? You pimp for him?”

  “What?”

  “You go out and find other men’s wives and bring ’em back here for Puzzleface to fornicate with, like those wives
in the other room, like my wife, my Millie?”

  “He didn’t screw your wife, Mose! He didn’t screw any of those women! He never laid a hand on them! Puzzleface would never do that! I should know.”

  He took a step closer, leaning in, nose to nose, tapping the gun barrel lightly against the front of her skull. “How do you know?”

  “I know.”

  “How do you know? Tell me, Rachel, can you see into a man’s soul? Can you see into Puzzleface’s soul?”

  “I know his soul as well as I know my own.”

  “You two must be mighty close then.”

  “Closer than you can imagine.”

  “I can imagine a lot. You bet I can. I can imagine you two are related, like he’s maybe your brother.” Mose tickled Rachel’s hair with the barrel of the revolver. “That’s it, ain’t it?” Rachel’s eyes darted left and right, to and fro, looking for a way out. “He’s your brother and you’re his sister, protecting him. I’d do the same for my brother. I always knew you two looked similar. I can see the family resemblance. Reckon you two could be twins.”

  “I am his maid, not his sis—”

  “Maid?” In a sudden unexpected spasm of violence, Mose grabbed Rachel around the throat from behind in a stranglehold, as his other hand brutally jammed the muzzle of the Colt Dragoon under her chin, jerking her head back so her face pressed against his, cheek to cheek, his mouth and lips to her ear as he whispered, “I’m gonna give you ’til I count to ten to tell me where Puzzleface is or I’m going to blow your pretty brains all over these fancy walls, and with your head shot off, and no maid, who’s gonna clean up the mess? Ready? Here we go. One . . . two . . . three . . .”

  His words spitting out a mouthful of murder, Mose had every intention of pulling the trigger when he finished his countdown.