Mississippi

by J. B. Richard

  “I see you found your friend.”

  Mississippi turned. Doc leaned against the doorframe.

  “Will he make it?”

  “Maybe.” Doc shrugged. “Jessa would like to see you.”

  Mississippi hightailed it toward the stairs.

  Doc grabbed his arm before he could slip past. “She’s in a delicate condition. Don’t do anything to upset her or overexcite her.”

  What did Doc mean by delicate condition? “Is she dying?” He hated to ask and feared the answer.

  Doc exploded with laughter. “No, boy, she ain’t dying. She’ll be fine, but she needs to take it easy.”

  He found Jessa sitting on a stuffed settee in the parlor. She smiled when he walked in. There was color to her cheeks, although she was still a little pale. She seemed smaller to him. Her face was gaunt, and her eyes appeared tired. He wanted to hear how Topper had lost her life and how Jessa had survived, but he didn’t want to stress her by having her relive that ordeal. She seemed battered, the same as soldiers he’d seen dragging themselves home from war. Doc was right. She needed rest.

  “Stop your fretting. I might be green around the gills right now, but I am happy.” Jessa’s smile beamed with joy.

  What in heavens was she talking about? She looked like death. He now had a target on his back as big as Porter’s, and he’d nearly been caught trying to get her there. He couldn’t imagine any news that would put a smile on his face. She patted the settee for him to sit.

  Doc came down the stairs and crossed the room to the window where he could watch the street.

  Jessa rested a hand on Mississippi’s. Doc peeked around the blind every few minutes, which made Mississippi nervous, but each time he held back from asking if Doc saw anyone. The house was probably being watched. Sheriff Curry had seemed sure that Doc was hiding someone inside. There might be more than one lawman waiting. Mississippi would have to slip out before sunup.

  “Mississippi.” Jessa turned his chin so they faced one another. “I’m with child.”

  What did she just say? Her eyes were full of tears, but that happy smile was toothy and bright. Had he heard right? She was having his baby. He turned a dumb stare at Doc, who confirmed it with a single nod. Mississippi swept Jessa up into his arms and spun a few times. She giggled, and he couldn’t stop kissing her face.

  “Quiet down, you two.” Doc pointed sharply for Mississippi to set Jessa on her feet.

  His hands fumbled as he aided her to sit.

  She laughed. “I ain’t helpless.”

  He couldn’t believe it. A baby. His baby. But she couldn’t be that far along. He hoped this good news wasn’t a mistake, that Doc had not misinterpreted the symptoms. Mississippi sure would be disheartened.

  “You’re sure we’re gonna have us a baby?” He wanted it confirmed in the worst way and gave her hand a loving little squeeze.

  Doc turned and stared incredulously at him, a stern air about him. Apparently, he didn’t like his word or diagnosis being questioned. “Boy, I’ve delivered hundreds of babies in my lifetime. I’m all too familiar with the signs and symptoms of a mother-to-be. I’ve been a doctor for nearly forty years, so Jessa ain’t the first woman I’ve treated with the morning sickness.” Doc shook his head as though by asking, Mississippi had insulted him.

  Until now, Mississippi had thought wealth came in the form of cold, hard cash. The past days’ events rushed into his mind and put a chill on his excitement. There was no just walking away from what he’d done. He was as guilty as Clint or any of the other boys who’d robbed that bank. They’d killed men in their effort to become rich on the backs of others. That had been their way since just after the war.

  He couldn’t forget being a wanted man. Jessa’s face glowed, and he regretted those bad decisions that brought them here to this time and place. Him on the run. Hunted by both the law and the gang he once rode with. All around, he was an outcast. That wouldn’t do for his son. He somehow knew it’d be a boy.

  His happy thoughts sobered.

  Jessa entwined her fingers in his. “Thought you was happy.”

  How could he be? “I love you,” was what he actually said.

  Knowing that he couldn’t hang around, couldn’t be there every day to see his boy speak his first word or take that first step, ride a horse, or teach him to shoot, to grow into a man. He doubted he would even be around to watch his child come into this world. If he didn’t get hanged, then he’d be running, and that was no life for an expectant mother. Neither was him only coming around when he could. She would worry, and that was no way to raise a son. He wanted that dream of a life with her and their baby. A family way of being. A home, a place to put down roots. When he was young, he’d had that kind of life with his folks. It was the thing he wanted to give her most and couldn’t, but there was something he could give her and the baby.

  He pulled a folded piece of paper out of his vest pocket and handed it to her.

  She blushed. “You know I can’t read.”

  “It’s a deed. Five hundred acres of prime farmland.”

  She meekly took it. “I don’t understand. Won’t you be with us?”

  She wasn’t seeing outside the white picket fence of the family she dreamed of them having together. If he could have, he would’ve walked her down to the jailhouse and pointed at the picture of himself tacked on the wall, clarifying for her.

  “I can’t get rid of my past. It will catch up to me.” He had been granted this day by grace only. Tomorrow wasn’t promised to any of them. He had lessened his odds by living the way he did. “My day will come, and I don’t want ya there to see it.”

  “No.” She shook her head. “We’ll run away.”

  “Woman, you listen. You’re staying right here where Doc can take good care of ya.” He laid a hand to her belly. “This is what’s most important.” He then turned toward Doc. “You got something I can write with?” Mississippi penned her name on the deed. “Doc, you sign too, for a witness.”

  The doctor hesitated. “Is that stolen?”

  “Inheritance, after my pa passed.”

  Doc read it over, then signed his name.

  Mississippi headed for the rear door. If he could, he would clear the air with Clint. Sam Curry was trouble enough. Plus Sheriff Pike. Now, with the baby, Mississippi’s mind wouldn’t be far from Jessa. Too easily distracted. That could get him shot.

  He had almost forgotten about Topper. With his hand on the knob, he turned and looked at Jessa. Tear streaks smudged both her cheeks. She didn’t want him to go and he wanted to stay, but this wasn’t their time and that time might never come.

  “What happened to Topper?”

  Jessa leaned into Doc’s shoulder and cried harder than rain during a storm. Doc patted her back. “Apaches ravaged her. During her attempted escape, she fell into the Devil’s Cauldron and broke her neck.”

  It was a very sad thing, Topper’s death. Mississippi then thought of poor Porter and how he would take that awful news. Someone should tell him, and Mississippi being Port’s only pal—guess that grim job fell to him. “I’ll let Porter know if I run into him.”

  Jessa’s head snapped up. “Clint shot him. I fetched Doc. But the sinkhole was empty when we got there. He was gone. Clint got half the money. The other fifty thousand is still buried out there.”

  Mississippi couldn’t care less about that money. He never doubted Clint would kill Porter if given a chance. It was just hard to believe. Porter wasn’t one to be caught off guard, and he was too good with a gun for Clint to call him out head on. But losing Topper and the gruesome way she had died most likely had Port’s head in a whirl with grief, giving Clint the upper hand.

  Doc nodded.

  It appeared Porter had been eaten by the ground, as the old Indian lore suggested. Horse shit! Port was somewhere, and he was hurt bad by the sounds of it. Mississippi aimed to find him. Then he would go face down Clint. Mississippi slipped out the door into the dark with Jessa’s cries
following behind him. He hoped to see her again too.

  His eyes quickly adjusted to the night. Was Sheriff Curry watching for him to leave the house? The barn would be the perfect spot to wait. Any man on the run would need a horse, and his horse happened to be in Doc’s barn. He crept around the side to the rear. No noise out of the ordinary warned him of danger. All seemed quiet, but he wouldn’t underestimate Curry. He threw open the door, then ducked to the side of the doorframe, his back flat against the outside wall. He had expected a shot to be fired. The barn was silent except for the horses chewing hay.

  He didn’t trust it. His gut was squeezed tight, sensing trouble. Sheriff Curry wasn’t green and had probably seen that trick before. Mississippi tossed his hat in the doorway. The sheriff would expect him to step inside after no reaction that first time. Mississippi wasn’t green either. A shot fired. Lead slammed into the door. Splinters of wood flew.

  Mississippi stepped inside the barn as he squeezed the trigger, returning fire. He had seen the flash from Curry’s gunpowder. Mississippi’s aim wasn’t to kill. He had no stomach for it. His woman and unborn child were but twenty-five feet away inside the house. This wasn’t the man he wanted to be. He had never set out to be a killer, a feared gunman, a hunted outlaw. Repentance was in him, but there was no earthly way of wiping the slate clean. Sheriff Curry would send him straight to hell if he got the chance.

  Curry groaned. In the pale moonlight near a window, he grabbed his shoulder. That wouldn’t keep him from following Mississippi. He thumped Curry on the head with the butt of his pistol. Curry’s knees buckled, and he dropped like a sack of rocks. The shots had brought the sound of running footsteps and shouts—Curry’s deputies and Sheriff Pike.

  Mississippi threw his saddle on Peppy and lit a shuck. When Curry woke, no doubt, he would be angry. By a hair, Mississippi had slipped through. Curry might then bang on Doc’s door and demand answers. If he searched the place, he’d find Butch. Jessa was also there, and Curry could cause them both trouble. And her in such delicate condition. Mississippi hated that he couldn’t be there to protect her.

  CHAPTER 9

  His horse raced out of town toward the Blacklog mountain range. Mississippi’s shirt tail flapped in the wind. Lots of deep, dark country to hide in. Sheriff Pike had probably found Curry and gathered all his deputies for a posse by now. If they weren’t following, then that meant they, and likely Pike, were probably questioning Doc and maybe Jessa. By nature, Curry was a surly fella. Perhaps he would get rough with one or both of them. Mississippi hoped not.

  Doc had protected Jessa so far, and there was no reason to think he’d do otherwise, especially now that she was with child and his patient. He would choose his words wisely so as not to incriminate himself or Jessa. Both lawmen had seen her with Mississippi. They might use her as bait. Doc was no match for either sheriff when it came to fists or guns. He wasn’t so much the fighting type. He was a thinking man. It took smarts to be a doctor. A master of books and theories, such talk that was over the layman’s head. Very few out there in the wilds had the same education as a doctor. There was something to say about a man who could talk his way out of trouble. Doc might not have the same gravel in his step as Pike or Curry, but he did have backbone. He’d shoved that rifle in Curry’s face right quick. Jessa was in good hands, and that eased Mississippi’s mind some.

  He turned his horse up into the mountains, slowing his pace. The last thing he needed was for the gelding to break a leg. Pike or Curry would likely pick up his trail in the morning if they weren’t trying to track in the dark. He let the gelding have his head, finding his way up through the rocks and trees, nudging him only to keep him in the heavy black shadows, and going in the general direction Doc and Jessa had described. Mississippi would return to the sinkhole, then try and locate any sign of Porter.

  There was moonlight, though it was pale. If a posse was following, they wouldn’t spot him too easily in the black spaces. He would keep off the open ground if he could. Even in the black of night, movement could be detected, and men on the hunt would have heightened senses.

  At the top, Mississippi let Peppy breathe. The gelding was surefooted and long-winded, able to go all day when asked. He’d been ridden hard lately, and his panting was a sign of being tired. The sinkhole was at least an eight-mile ride from there and none of the ground that lay between was easy on a horse.

  Mississippi’s stomach rumbled. He hadn’t eaten in some time and was tired. Come light, that posse would be riding fast, so he needed to keep going. Rest wouldn’t find him tonight, maybe not until he found Porter, then found a place they could hole up for a spell. Port could heal, and maybe that posse would give up after chasing nothing but wind.

  A mile or two later while riding down toward the long, dark valley between the mountains, Mississippi suddenly felt stuck, as though he’d found himself inside a dark room without any outlet by which to see or escape. There wasn’t a speck of light winking down between the treetops. With the angle at which his horse was trotting, Mississippi knew he hadn’t reached the bottom of the basin. Were there other sinkholes that they could fall into if he wasn’t careful? Maybe he’d ridden farther than he thought and was much closer to that big hole than his senses were picking up on.

  It was too black. His bearings were all thrown off. Peppy could have changed direction and he wouldn’t know it. Dark like this, he could run straight into the posse, the Apache, or that damn big hole and not know until it was too late. He pulled up reins. It was just too risky. Back at Doc’s, there were two special people that he wanted to stay alive for. Maybe somehow he could get out of this mess with his hide intact.

  He rested against a tree and let Peppy take a breather until gold tones streaked the early morning sky. Mississippi was on his horse and moving. In the dirt were the tracks of the wagon that had carried Doc and Jessa to and from the pit. Some other old prints marked the ground. Man-size moccasin tracks—Indians—and Clint and Rascal had been there just as Jessa had said. Not that he had doubted her.

  It made him realize with certainty that the next time he saw Clint, their friendship—or partnership—would be severed. There would be no patching things up as he’d thought when he left Doc’s place. Clint had shot toward Jessa—and unknowingly right at Mississippi’s unborn child—while trying to kill Port. Diving into that hole was the only reason Jessa was still breathing. She would’ve been the next to get a bullet in the gut. That infuriated Mississippi. But a dead witness couldn’t talk, and that was exactly what Clint had probably been thinking.

  Port had branded himself a traitor the moment he left the gang, so Clint would have shot on sight. Mississippi didn’t cotton to that way of settling a difference, but strangely, he understood it. He’d hoped Clint would show some leniency, but he wasn’t overly surprised by him actually putting a bullet in Porter. Shooting at a woman, though, that was about as low as a man could get, even for an outlaw. There were certain lines that shouldn’t be crossed, and Clint had made a grave mistake by shooting at Mississippi’s woman.

  Mississippi yanked up on the reins. It wasn’t the big sinkhole, not the one that Jessa and Porter had fallen into, that caught his attention. Ten yards away under a mighty tall spruce, someone had been digging. Dirt was mounded to the side, but not much. He stepped down, looking over the footprints on the ground. Jessa’s small moccasin track. Port, Clint. Their boot prints were there next to where the money must’ve been hidden. Before Mississippi left Doc’s, Jessa had said half the money was still here.

  Huh… He swatted a fly and thought for moment. This must be the spot where Clint got his hands on half of the money, fifty thousand. A shell casing lay on the ground not far away. Mississippi would bet it used to be loaded with the bullet that was now in Porter’s gut.

  Rascal and Jay were probably already counting out their share. They would know he would be coming to the cabin to collect his. But Mississippi didn’t want any of it, not a dime. He would be there all right, but not
for the money.

  Something inwardly snapped back into place. What they had done was wrong. He’d always known it, yet somehow he’d excused it away, made it out in his mind to be less than it was. Why shouldn’t he take from those who were weaker? He had felt unstoppable at times, the fear of getting hanged pushed aside by the jollies of plunder. He could not recollect the exact time he had turned into such a shallow vagrant. A lowlife. A rat, really. He hadn’t grown up that way. His pa had kept him growing straight. Waled his ass with a willow sprout if he stepped toward crooked.

  What a piss-poor example Mississippi was for his son. Not the kind of man to be admired or that he would want his son to look up to.

  That was all about to change.

  Mississippi swung into the saddle. It took a few minutes before he found the second, much smaller sinkhole, the hole that Jessa had escaped through. Circling the gelding, he thought a scratch in the dirt that didn’t look natural, as if it were made from an animal, might be a sign of Porter. Another mile through the trees and nearing the stream that broke the roots between the Blacklog Mountain and Shade Mountain, he came across another scuff mark. Was it a boot track? It wasn’t a horse print. Though, he’d seen horse tracks, all unshod. Hell, it might not be Porter, but a damn Indian instead, but it was all Mississippi had to go on.

  Ahead of him, a barn owl hooted. He reined in. That call was a close match. Except barn owls mostly came awake at night. It wasn’t half past noon. A second hoot fluttered in the air. Only, it sounded like a dying bird, closely followed by lots of giggles. Then three Indian boys about waist tall with raven-black hair bumbled out of the brush seventy-five yards in front. They were using sticks like spears and poking at one another, the short, chubby one getting the most prodding. They were too busy with their game to notice him. One of them was wearing Porter’s hat and kept pushing it up over his eyes to see. A sinking feeling washed over Mississippi.