A Hard Ride Home (9 page)

"Had a touch of gut rot," Emmett mumbled. "It's better now," he added hurriedly, not keen on being sent off with one of Milton's noxious remedies.

"I see." Milton glanced pointedly at Emmett's swollen, split lip. He gave him a close, slow shave and trimmed the curly fringe of red hair that had been hanging down into his eyes. "Be careful now," he said as Emmett wrote a note to pay him for his services when his wages arrived.

"I will, Doc," Emmett said, wondering who Milton was concerned about, and for.

*~*~*

When Emmett got to the Weeping Willow, Rose and Beatrice made a fuss over his clean jaw, touching his face and stroking the back of his neck.

"Ladies," he said, unable to fend them both off. He'd have needed seven arms to hold back all their determined groping and grooming. "I have business with mister… with Jesse." He didn't know Jesse's surname. It didn't seem right, all things considered, and the notion didn't do a thing to improve the creeping sensation of illness in his belly.

Evelyn crossed the room in a storm of skirts and plucked the girls away like a bitch taking her pups by the scruff. "Any business with Jesse comes through me, and I don't recall any arrangements."

"'sides, he's sleeping," Beatrice said sourly, before ducking away from a glare from Evelyn and trudging up the stairs. "Been sleeping all day," she muttered.

Left alone in the empty saloon with Evelyn, Emmett looked up at the door to the upstairs rooms and the cramped stairway that led to Jesse's little bedroom. "Please, Evelyn. I just want to speak to him."

"He's likely asleep, like Miss Beatrice said." Evelyn sighed and adjusted the deep neckline of her dress.

"This time of day?"

"He's not well."

Emmett caught her hand. "What I did wasn't right. Let me make amends."

"For him or for you, Emmett? You sure you aren't just looking to wash your sins away before you can face your father's?" Evelyn asked, freeing her hand with a sharp, angry twist.

"I'm fond of him." Emmett blurted it out before he could take it back. "It's eatin' me up."

Evelyn stared, breathing hard. She recovered with a small sneer and fussed with a lace fan she pulled out of some fold in her dress. "Fine. You can call on him, but if you rile that boy up, I swear, Emmett. I'll ban you from this establishment, sheriff or not. I've got more than enough to look after without you causing theatrics 'round here."

"Now?" Emmett asked, relief only lasting for a quick breath before he started wondering what exactly he intended to say to Jesse.

"Yes. Go on now," Evelyn said, giving him a push. "And don't you humor those ninnies upstairs. Keep your hat on and your head down."

"Yes ma'am," he said, tipping his hat to her before braving the gauntlet of petticoats on the way to Jesse's room.

Jesse didn't answer when he knocked quietly on the door. It was slightly ajar, just enough that Emmett didn't feel too guilty giving it a push and peering inside. The room looked exactly as it had before, cluttered but carefully so, the way riverbeds looked like God had painstakingly placed each smooth rock to make it just right.

His boots made the floorboards creak and groan, but Jesse didn't stir where he lay on his back on the small bed, his fingers curled loosely in the blanket that twisted around his body.

The room had a sharp, medicinal scent, but it didn't smell like illness or rot. Jesse didn't seem unwell save for the muddy-looking color of the skin that ringed his eyes and the two-day-old stubble that made him look older.

"I'll come by another time," Emmett murmured, unable to bring himself to disturb a sleep that deep. He turned to leave and spotted a letter on Jesse's bedside table.

Before good sense took over, he bent to pick it up, and scanned the childish, scrawled handwriting.

Ma,

I am well. I miss you and check the post for your letters with regularity. We will be departing on a cattle drive next month when the rains let up and the river pass opens. Mayor Grady says I can take Tiger. You remember I told you about him. He only listens to me so he isn't no good to anyone else when I'm gone off on the drive.

Silver Creek is a quiet town yet. I come down once a week to buy provisions for the Mayor. General Store has real silk. I will send you a package. Yellow or red?

We got papers from the city with advertisements for a real play. Have attached a clipping.

"Sheriff," a voice said quietly from the doorway, startling him. He set down the letter hurriedly, nearly overturning a small amber bottle with a cork stopper.

Emmett removed his hat and swallowed. "Miss Delia. I was—"

"Snooping." She crossed her skinny arms.

"I read," he nodded, walking up to her and keeping his voice low. "Why does he say all those things? He's no cowboy."

"He rides! He'd run cattle or go on to the city. He'd leave if your daddy would let him."

Emmett pushed the door shut and leaned over Delia, speaking slowly to keep his voice even and quiet. "What do you mean if he'd let him?"

Delia glanced at the bed and back at Emmett, her eyes wet and afraid, but her jaw set stubbornly. "You really don't know nothing?"

"Tell me what you mean."

"Your daddy snatched him up when Willie's gang first moved into these parts. He makes him—"

"That was years ago," Emmett said, grabbing her arm. "You mean to say—" He couldn't voice it. The arithmetic made his belly clench up. "He's been here all that time?"

"The mayor fancies him the best. He keeps Jesse's ma in Fairhaven, safe from Willie long as Jesse stays sweet on him." Delia looked down, her voice dropping to a whisper. "He's a bad man, Sheriff. If Jesse don't mind him, he'll kill her, he will."

"I know." Emmett let her go and leaned into the wall, his skin prickling up all over. This was different from the deception and treachery Evelyn had warned him about; a kind of bad he couldn't wrap his hands around. "What about you? And the other girls. Are you being held here against your will? Does Evelyn—"

"It's not like that. Some girls got their reasons, or debt, or just got nowhere else to go. Miss Devaux treats us nice and don't let no one rough us up. 'Cept… well, the mayor and Jesse. He—"

"That's enough," Emmett said, gut-sick. "I understand."

"Will you help, Sheriff?" Delia asked, tears spilling down her face.

"Yes, yes of course." Emmett drew a slow, careful breath. "Why is he sleeping like that? What's wrong with him?" He gestured at the bed, where Jesse hadn't stirred despite their hushed conversation.

Delia wiped her face with both hands and sniffled. "Miss Elsie gave him a nip of laudanum in treacle."

"For pain? Is he hurt?"

"For nerves. Missus says nothing a few day's rest can't heal up. The mayor scared him good."

Emmett walked across the room and crouched beside the bed, close enough to smell the sweet puffs of Jesse's breath. His hands shook when he reached to adjust the blanket over him.

"I didn't do right by you," he murmured, placing his palm on Jesse's chest. He didn't like seeing him still and quiet. He'd feel better if Jesse woke and tried to pummel him. When Jesse was still like this, lips parted slackly, breath easy and slow, Emmett couldn't make sense of anything. He certainly couldn't recall why he'd wanted, so badly, to hurt him.

What was worse was that he still wanted him. Even when Jesse was just sleeping, not looking like a whore at all, not flirting or inviting it. He wanted to lock the door and kiss Jesse's soft lips and nose through his hair and the thought of it made him feel ill. He wouldn't hurt this man the way his father had. Never again.

Word traveled in Silver Creek as if flies were buzzing around carrying gossip along from ear to ear. Folks started talking about the mayor coming into town and how he didn't speak a word to his own son. Folks started calling on Emmett as the kind of man who might be able to stand up to his father.

Charley Green was the first to come to Emmett directly, walking right into the jailhouse to say he'd like to know who he needed to take arms against to get his family out of debt and his sister out of the Weeping Willow.

"I suppose I took to being your deputy, Sheriff Grady. Brief as it was," Charley said with a reserved smile.

Emmett swore him in then and there, and asked who else could be trusted.

"You can trust the man who's been courting my sister," Charley said, scratching the back of his neck. "She'd marry him if she could, and I think he'd fight a hundred men for the honor. He's only been 'round Silver Creek for a few years, and he doesn't have ties to the mayor."

So Emmett called on him and soon deputized Ira Durn, a farmer with a small plot of land near the creek bend. A short man with a waning hairline and wire-rimmed glasses, Ira wasn't what Emmett expected when he pictured a farmer. But the man's hands were strong and rough and while he was soft-spoken, he was sure in what he said. While they got properly acquainted over some of Elsie's fried chicken, Emmett learned that Ira had found the Weeping Willow's serving girl, Delia, outside a burned-out homestead when she was hardly more than knee high to a lamb and had brought her back to Sara and Evelyn, knowing they'd set her to work and not on the line.

"She's not cut out for that work," Ira said, setting down a bone. "So, Miss Sara, she's teaching her embroidery."

Ira went on to explain more about lace and frippery than Emmett had ever heard in his whole life, but Emmett figured that was what being sweet on a seamstress did to a man.

After supper, Emmett tried to enlist Roscoe, but he refused on account of needing to look after the whores.

"I mean that sincerely," Roscoe said, shuffling his feet.

The next day, they gathered at the Weeping Willow, using one of the storerooms in the back to talk about Warren Grady's hold on every gang of thieves and bandits along the western borders of Silver Creek.

Now that Emmett had gotten over the shock of his father being an outlaw, it was a backwards sort of relief. Warren hadn't discouraged Emmett from taking up as sheriff out of disdain or a notion that Emmett wasn't fit to be lawman in Silver Creek. Warren had simply wanted to carry on without the interference of a Grady wearing a badge.

Evelyn rolled her eyes when Emmett confessed his relief to her in the quiet room as they waited for the others.

"He's never been worth the time you spend trying to be a man in his eyes," she said.

Emmett snorted, finding himself at a loss for words.

He wondered at that. He wondered if Warren had been rotten to the core all his life. He wondered at the pale marble gravestone his father had sent for from clear across the country, and the single photograph he'd seen of his father and mother. He wondered at the broad, childish smile that had made Warren look like a boy.

*~*~*

They sat around a table by lamplight, mapping out what they knew about the bandit camps outside of Silver Creek and Warren Grady's political allies in the neighboring towns. It was a quiet, sober affair. Warren controlled a broad area with fear and manipulation. Nearly every townsperson and nearby farmer owed the mayor a debt, but no one had paperwork or property to show for it. When monies were due, Warren sent his man Curtis into town with a handful of lowlifes eager to dole out a beating to those who couldn't pay.

Evelyn brought them coffee and bread and stood in the corner listening while Ira explained what he knew about the patterns of the bandits stealing harvest and livestock from the farms and ranches on the outskirts of Silver Creek.

Ira paused as Evelyn leaned across the table. "I don't mean offense, Sheriff, but can she be trusted?" he asked.

"You've waited a little long to ask, haven't you, Mr. Durn?" Evelyn asked, expression cold. Despite the late hour, she was still made up, dressed in black satin like she was at a funeral.

"Miss Devaux is my half-sister," Emmett said. "I'd trust her with my life."

"She has dealings with the mayor," Ira said carefully.

Emmett looked around the room pointedly. "Near everyone here has some dealings with the mayor."

"Are you questioning my business practices, Mr. Durn?" Evelyn asked, looking at Ira directly, using the tone that made men feel like they were about to have their knuckles rapped soundly.

"Of course not, ma'am. Miss Green speaks highly of you. Says you care for the girls, and you're sharp with figures."

"We're not here to discuss my merits," Evelyn said, her voice like a blade.

Of anyone in town, Evelyn had the most information about Warren and his powerful allies. Her girls had entertained at gatherings and meetings up at the big house, and she'd cobbled together as much as she could from what they'd overheard.

"Insurance," she explained, drawing a little book out of a pocket hidden in the folds of her dress. She'd been keeping notes for three years.

They were studying her scrawled dossiers when Jesse slipped in, hanging along the wall like a ghost. Emmett looked up at him, but Jesse wouldn't meet his eye. He stared at an empty spot on the floor, his jaw shadowed with stubble.

"My last four deliveries haven't come through," Charley said. "Last boy who came into the shop said they were down to a handful of cartridges on his pa's ranch. Can't even hunt properly."

Emmett straightened. "Those men last month… they were firing like it was New Year's Eve. There's no way they had a shortage."

"Warren has Willie's gang heading off every ammunition delivery between here and Snake River," Jesse said softly, crossing his arms and looking at his feet. "He's… There's a stockpile in an old silver mine. I saw a map once, it was—in the library up at the big house."

Charley's voice went thin and angry. "And you didn't tell anyone?"

Emmett raised his hand. "Wait now, let him speak. The mayor's made threats," he started, trailing off when Jesse's posture went rigid. "It wasn't safe for him to."

Charley frowned and nodded tightly, like he understood just what Emmett meant. "Can you remember the way to the mine?"