Heresy

by Melissa Lenhardt

  When Garet didn’t answer right away, Hattie moved to the door.

  “Wait.”

  “That’s what I thought,” Hattie said.

  Joan let in Rhodes and Newt, who ran to Garet and threw his arms around her waist. She was shocked and grimaced with pain, but soon returned the boy’s embrace.

  “Thank God you’re here, Newt. I have a hankering for some brown trout.”

  “When we get near a river, I’ll get you some. How are you feeling? Are you healed?”

  “Almost. Seeing you is the best medicine I could have.”

  When Garet looked over in Rhodes’s direction, she straightened. No amount of bravado could disguise her illness. I thought I saw her chin quiver, but when she spoke, her voice had a teasing tone to it.

  “Well, well, as I live and breathe. Look who’s turned outlaw,” she said.

  “Righting a wrong, is all.”

  “I appreciate it,” Jehu said. He stepped forward and shook Luke’s hand. “Thanks, Sheriff.”

  “Don’t mention it. You ladies did a fine job. Can’t even really say I’m surprised. But it was a sight seeing you in action.”

  “Don’t be thinking you can join our gang,” Stella said. “Women only. And Newt.”

  “Where’s Spooner, Luke?” Garet asked.

  “Why?”

  “I need to know where to take the money we’re going to steal.”

  A chorus of voices filled the air: some whoops, a few What the hells and a You just don’t quit, do you. I have no idea who said what. For my part, I said, “What the hell.”

  “There’s no way the company will be ready for a heist, not with everything that’s gone on. The company is probably in disarray with Callum’s death.”

  “Did you kill him?” Luke asked.

  The room fell silent, and everyone turned to Garet. She smiled and said, “There’s only one rule: no killing.”

  “You didn’t answer the question.”

  “I’m offended you even asked it. What kind of woman do you think I am?”

  Luke broke out laughing. “The killing kind.” He took off his hat, wiped his brow, and cleared his throat. “Someone killed the men who were bringing your dead body to Denver. No way Grace or Ruby have it in them—”

  “Don’t bet on it,” Ruby said.

  “—and Hattie was in irons. That leaves you.”

  Garet pursed her lips as if considering and held Luke’s gaze. She looked at Newt and hesitated, but when she started speaking, there was no remorse in her strong voice.

  “In Black Hawk, when I was recovering, Callum showed up.” She walked forward as she talked. “He’d killed a young cowboy who helped me escape his ranch. Zeke was his name. We were hiding at Zeke’s mom’s house. That’s how he found me. When I was visiting my ranch and we were alone one night, he threatened to violate me. He could have overpowered me easily. I was in the middle of a pain flare and was weaker than I was letting on. He wanted to, I could tell, and if he hadn’t had a houseful of guests he probably would have. So he didn’t come all the way to Black Hawk to hold my hand and wish me well into the great beyond. He came to watch me die and to make sure I knew he would make my family pay.” Garet turned to Hattie. “You were right. About everything.” Hattie nodded slowly.

  Garet’s voice was quiet, so we all had to strain to hear her. “It was Sunday, I was bored, and I couldn’t get the big safe in Callum’s office out of my mind. So I borrowed the doc’s stethoscope and went to crack that safe. It was late, I didn’t expect him to be there, but when he was, I didn’t hesitate to put a hole in the center of his chest.”

  “What was in the safe?” Hattie asked.

  Ruby and I exchanged a shocked expression. What was in the safe? That was Hattie’s question?

  “Nothing of monetary value. Ledgers, papers.”

  “Then you killed him for nothing,” Joan said.

  She rounded on Joan. “I killed him because he threatened Hattie. He wasn’t going to let any of you be, and I couldn’t let that stand. No. That would not fucking stand. So yes, I killed that bastard and enjoyed watching him die, hearing his death rattle. I don’t regret it for one second. Callum being in that office merely saved me the trouble of hunting him down to do it.”

  Everyone in the room save Hattie wore shocked expressions. Not at what she’d done, I think every one of us would have done the same, but that she seemed to relish it, take pleasure in it. Newt’s eyes were as wide as dinner plates, and I think he switched from boy to man in that moment, hearing the things we said. There was no fear in that room, but astonishment and, in some quarters, grudging admiration.

  Garet held up her hands to Rhodes. “So, how about it, Sheriff? You going to turn me in?”

  Hattie moved between her friend and the sheriff and put her hand on her gun. “You’ll have to go through me first.” Everyone else in the room tensed up and put their hands on their weapons.

  “No need to bow up, Hattie. Out of my jurisdiction. Hell, I fear for my life being in the same room as you all.”

  “That’s probably wise,” Hattie said.

  “You’re never going to forgive me.”

  “I wouldn’t tell you even if I did,” Hattie said.

  “Where’s Spooner, Luke?” Garet said.

  “Why, are you going to kill him, too?”

  “Not unless I have to.”

  “Garet …”

  “Shut up, Luke,” Garet said. “We appreciate your help breaking Jehu out, but none of this is your fight, and none of this is your place to judge, or to offer your opinion. If you want to help us get Spooner out of the Hole for good, we could use you. If not, there’s the door.”

  Luke studied Garet with narrowed eyes. He clicked his tongue, leaned against the door, and said, “You’re just itching to get rid of me, aren’t you? Well, it ain’t gonna work. Not this time, Duchess. What’s your plan?”

  “Rob the bank, just like we originally planned, and lead the posse straight to the Hole.”

  “Dorcas knows you’ve tried to blame Spooner for your jobs before,” I said. “She’ll know it’s you.”

  “Even though I’m dead?”

  “Dorcas isn’t as easily fooled as Callum. I guarantee you the first name that came into her head when she found Callum murdered was Margaret Parker. She was on the platform today with the sheriff. Dorcas suspected you of all the heists, with very little evidence, I might add. She sent me on the stage instead of the train, because she knew it was a better mark. I’m not trying to tell you what to do or not do, but if Dorcas is leading the chase, I think you’re taking a pretty big risk.”

  “No one’s caught us yet,” Stella said.

  “Because no man thinks you’re a worthy opponent,” Ruby said, surprising everyone. “They think you’ll do the obvious thing, because women don’t know better. They can’t give you credit for being cleverer than them because that would be an admission that they’ve been bested by women.”

  “Every newspaper and sheriff I asked about you before the stage job dismissed the idea outright. Dorcas knows it’s you, and that gives her an edge.”

  “Let’s just go back to the ranch,” Jehu said. “Drive Spooner off and get on with our lives.”

  “The only way to get rid of Spooner and his guys for good is to kill them all. You willing to do that?” Hattie asked.

  Jehu shook his head, turned away from everyone, and stared out the window.

  “Ought-Not, Jack, and Domino are nice,” Newt said. “I heard them talking, they aren’t helping Spooner in this bet. They don’t want to outlaw anymore.”

  “They’re safe if they’re not against us,” Hattie said.

  Garet started pacing, which was difficult in the crowded room. “No. I’m not going to let some bloody man reap the benefits of our hard work again.” She stopped and shook her head. “After everything you all went through to get free of what or whomever was holding you down, there’s no way I’m leaving this earth without making sure none of
you get trapped in a life you don’t want. I wish I had more time.”

  “We can’t ever go back, can we?” Jehu asked, his back still to us.

  “To where, baby?” Hattie asked.

  “You know where. If we go back, we’ll be lucky if Spooner turns us in. He’ll probably kill us.”

  “I won’t let that happen,” Rhodes said.

  “I’m not going back to the cooler,” Jehu said, “and I’m not killing anyone. But I want to make that son of a bitch Spooner pay for having me thrown in jail. He knew about me, and he did it anyways. Did you tell him, Joan?”

  “Why would Joan tell Spooner anything?” Stella said.

  “For someone who likes to think they’re observant, you’re a blind woman when it comes to your sister,” Jehu said. “Spooner’s been fucking her ever since Garet and Hattie left.”

  Stella lunged for Jehu, who stepped forward to meet her. Hattie got in front of Jehu, Luke grabbed Stella, picking her up off the floor, and Ruby went to Joan and stood a little in front of her, as if protecting her. Stella’s arms and legs were windmilling and she was yelling for Jehu to take it back. Garet slapped her hand over Stella’s mouth and told her to shut up. “In case you haven’t noticed, this place is lousy with curly wolves. If you want to bring them down on us, keep up your caterwauling.”

  Newt watched it all with a stunned expression on his face. Joan reached out and said his name, but Newt turned around and walked out the door. Ruby said she’d watch him, and she left, too.

  Stella glared at Jehu.

  “Why are you mad at him?” Hattie said. “He’s just the messenger.”

  “Is it true?” Stella asked Joan.

  The poor girl was crying too hard to answer, so she just nodded.

  “I’m gonna kill that bastard.”

  Joan found her voice at that threat. “No, you’re not. He said we’d get married.”

  No one could look at Joan, the embarrassment was too great. Garet went up to her and put her hands on her shoulders. “Joanie, sweetheart. Spooner isn’t the marrying kind. Even if he did marry you, he’d never be faithful. Jed doesn’t have that in him.”

  “I’m having his baby.”

  “Oh, Lord,” Hattie said under her breath.

  “Now I’m definitely killing the bastard.”

  “No, you aren’t, Stella Elbee. I won’t allow it,” Joan said.

  “I’d like to see you stop me.”

  “OK, OK,” Garet said, putting her hands out to separate the sisters. Luke was still leaning against the door, but now he had a smirk on his face. “We aren’t killing Spooner, and you’re not marrying him.”

  “If he’ll have me I will.”

  “Fine. You go to Spooner and you tell him you’ve got his bastard in your belly and see what he says.”

  “Don’t talk to my sister that way,” Stella said.

  “You know what, I’ve had it with you two. Hattie, hand me my gun.”

  “Enough, all of you,” Jehu said. “I just spent the last week in a jail, not able to shit or piss for fear of people mocking me or beating me. I’m tired, I’m hungry, and I am not sure if I’ll ever not be thirsty again. So would you all just please get the hell out of here so I can lay down with my wife and feel like a whole person again? Is that too goddamn much to ask?”

  That shocked everyone into silence, even the bickering sisters. Though I haven’t been around the gang for long, I’d seen enough to know Jehu was a man of few words, or at least that when he did have words, he said them in private. And I’d never heard him swear. After what he’d been through, I guess I can’t blame him. The way Hattie looked at Jehu in that moment … I hope to have someone look at me that way one day.

  She shooed everyone out the door, and the five of us joined Ruby and Newt in the hall.

  “This is awkward,” Garet said. “That’s my room, after all.”

  Ruby suggested we would stand out less as a group if we split up to different boardinghouses. Newt wanted to come with me and Ruby. We left with the promise to return after breakfast in the morning, that is, if Joan and Stella don’t kill each other first. When I turned the corner for the stairs, I saw Garet knock on the door and go back into the room.

  32

  Margaret Parker’s Journal

  Tuesday, August 28, 1877

  Denver, Colorado

  I hope you got a good night’s sleep last night, Grace, because I didn’t, for various reasons. Hattie, Jehu, and I stayed up late, planning the job. Luke sat in the room, one leg crossed over the other, his Stetson using his foot as a hat rack. I expected him to try to take charge, but he didn’t. He offered a suggestion here and there, which we almost always used, but he remained the taciturn man I’d always known.

  I hope you aren’t offended we didn’t include you. It isn’t because we don’t trust you, or Ruby for that matter. We don’t trust Joan not to tell our plans to Spooner. She’s stupid and in love and would most likely do anything to convince Jed of her loyalty. Stella is always a wild card and works better the less she knows. Of course, letting Newt in on the plan is ridiculous.

  Jehu’s plan is simple, and he held firm when I wanted to try to complicate it by hitting multiple Connolly businesses and leading the resulting posse into the Hole to catch Spooner. We are going to Timberline, stealing thirty or forty horses (we can’t drive our whole herd through Lodore Canyon), scattering the remainder across the valley, and setting fire to the house and outbuildings. I think Spooner and his gang are too lazy to rebuild the ranch, or even round up the horses. But so what if they do? They won’t be benefiting from our hard work, and that’s all I care about.

  Jehu and Hattie can start over somewhere, the sisters with them. Again. Unless, of course, Spooner declares his undying love for Joan. Ruby can go back to the Blue Diamond with Opal, and you can go start your detective agency somewhere. I’ll forge a recommendation from Dorcas Connolly for you. I hear San Francisco is a bustling town with a fair amount of nefarious goings-on.

  As for me, I’m going to the Grand Canyon to die. If there happen to be a couple of ripe banks to rob along the way, I might just try my hand at going it alone. Though I’m not sure Luke will give me that chance.

  He snores, by the way. Like a locomotive.

  After Jehu kicked us out of their room, there was nothing for it but to share the room Luke had taken at the hotel next door. We’ve been lovers for months, and, back in the Hole, he proposed to me in a very unromantic way. He claims to love me, that he has since the moment we met, and if he hadn’t told me after we lay together, I wouldn’t have believed him. But it’s easy to love a dead woman. There will be no long-term commitment on his part, and he is a tender and considerate lover. Best of both worlds.

  He said he would stand by me, stay with me, to the bitter end. I’m not entirely sure how I feel about that. I kept my distance for a year because I didn’t want to be that woman who jumped from man to man depending on who was near at the time. But Luke wore me down. He charmed me, if you can believe it. Now I’m dying and there’s no future. I told him that Ruby would make him a good wife, and at one time I thought they might make a life together, but I don’t think so anymore. They’ve barely looked at or talked to each other lately. I suspect she has another future in mind than being married to a pickle farmer in the middle of nowhere.

  Someone is awake and beckoning me, enticing me with the thought this may be the last time we share a real bed. I intend to take advantage of his eagerness while I am still well enough to enjoy it myself.

  Judge me as you will.

  33

  WPA Slave Narrative Collection

  Interview with Henrietta Lee

  September 17, 1936 cont

  We made if off the train and to Garet’s boardinghouse in Denver. We’d solved the Jehu problem, so now we were back to the original problem: Spooner. He had taken over the Heresy Ranch, and Garet was bound and determined to root him out of there. We planned to leave Denver the next day, in groups
of two since we weren’t sure that Dorcas didn’t have Pinkertons on the lookout for us.

  “I wish I could say we had a nice little homecoming in that dingy little room, but we didn’t. When Luke and Garet finally left, Jehu crumbled right in front of my eyes. But I was there to catch him, I sure was. I led him to the bed and held him while he cried and told me about the terror he lived with those days he was in jail. My heart shattered into a million pieces and I wanted him to stop talking, oh, how I wanted him to. It dredged up my past, the terror I felt every time the master rode his horse by me in the cane fields, the way he looked at me, knowing what he was going to do to me that night.

  “Jehu had always felt comfortable in his disguise. He was a good teamster, and there wasn’t ever a need for anyone to see him undressed. In jail, that possibility became a reality, and it had taken some ingenuity on his part to avoid being seen relieving himself the first couple of days. He stopped eating and drinking to limit the need, but the fear was always there, because there was nothing he could do about not growing facial hair. He kept his face averted as best he could and smudged dirt across his cheeks and lips in hopes of fooling them.

  “He made me swear on his life that I wouldn’t ever pull another job. It was the straight and narrow for us, or he would have to go out on his own. I didn’t hesitate. I promised on his life and my own, and I kept that promise. For sixty years I’ve kept that promise.

  “He cried when I made love to him that night. I offered to stop, but he said no, that I was the only person who had ever loved him for himself, for everything he was, and that no one or nothing was going to ever take that away from us. We spoke vows to each other that night, and from then on we considered ourselves married, even if society and the government didn’t. When we woke, we made love again, and I told him he was the best man I’d ever known. I told him that every day for the rest of his life, every morning when we woke up, and even now, alone in bed, those are the first words out of my mouth of a morning.”