Crazy Woman Creek

Crazy

Woman

Creek

© 2013
Virginia Hull Welch

Contents

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

Chapter Twenty-Three

Chapter Twenty-Four

Chapter Twenty-Five

Chapter Twenty-Six

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Chapter Twenty-Eight

About the Author

This book is a work of fiction.
Buffalo, Wyoming and Crazy Woman Creek are real places, but names, characters, and incidents are products of the writer’s imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, or organizations is entirely coincidental.

Buffalo, Wyoming Territory, March 22, 1880

“James is missing, Sheriff Morris.”

Lenora Rose stood primly across from the desk, her grim face belying
how flabbergasted she was as she watched Cyrus Morris stop fiddling with his pocket knife, look up and stare a few seconds at the impeccably dressed young woman, and then wordlessly drag his worn leather boots from his desk to the floor with an irreverent thud. With no attempt at discretion, he looked her over from her frilly hat to flounced-topped toe, screwed up the corner of his mouth in disdain, and leaned to one side to direct his comment not to her but to his counterpart across the room.

“Luke, get the lady a chair,” he said, still sizing up Lenora.

The deputy nodded and in a moment set a hard-back chair in front of her. “Ma’am,” he said, nodding politely.

Lenora registered only a tall blur of denim, leather, and faded cotton before the younger man returned to stand behind his desk.

“Have a seat Mrs. Rose,” said Sheriff Morris.

The sheriff’s order was bland enough, but his tone of weary resignation, as if he were greatly put upon, having to chase down and drag home runaway husbands several times a week, made Lenora woozy. His contempt for the fairer sex was well known throughout the Territory, but Lenora hadn’t expected crass. This was going to be more difficult than she had thought, but she needed his help so she sat down, creating as she did a waterfall of chocolate velvet billows that spilled around the chair and across the floor. Now that two pairs of eyes were trained on her, she was glad she had taken the time to steam press her best winter dress, which had been stored in the oversized trunk she had brought from New York. Her life might be falling apart, but at least she looked presentable. Then again, the clothes-as-confidence tactic that normally sustained her suddenly made her feel terribly conspicuous in this citadel of guns and tobacco. She clutched her matching beaded reticule more tightly to calm her hammering heart.

“Mrs. Rose,” said the sheriff, sounding bored and motioning toward the deputy while rummaging noisily in his desk drawer, “this is Deputy Luke Davies.” Sheriff Morris pulled a sheet of paper and a fountain pen from the drawer. “He’s new.”

Lenora turned toward the deputy. “How do you do?” she said, expecting no reply. She did not recognize the deputy from around the Territory. But she did remember that James had told her
months back that Buffalo was preparing to hire a second lawman sometime this year. The sheriff’s office had been enlarged for his coming; the sweet fragrance of fresh lumber met Lenora’s nose the moment she stepped into the sparsely furnished room. She smiled a half-smile. Deputy Davies nodded politely a second time, made a semblance of a smile, and sat down.

Just then a moisture bubble inside a piece of wood hissed sharply through the door of the wood stove next to the sheriff’s desk. Someone had recently put coffee on to boil. The gray speckled graniteware was beginning to make inviting little percolating sounds.

“Now, Mrs. Rose, what do you mean by ‘missing’?” Sheriff Morris leaned back in his chair with his arms across his chest.

Lenora was taken aback by the barely veiled skepticism that undergirded the sheriff’s inquiry. Missing meant missing. It wasn’t as if she was too simple minded to interpret the seriousness of the events of the last forty-eight hours. Bizarrely, as she was thinking this she noted a brass cuspidor to the side of the sheriff’s desk. She was glad she was seated at an angle that prevented a view of its
odious contents. Her stomach was queasy enough without having to avert her eyes from an open bucket of spit.

“I mean he didn’t come home. All night. He left the ranch on Saturday evening on horseback. I thought he’d be back by the time I put out the lamp, or perhaps by morning, but he never arrived.”

“So you think something has happened to him, huh?” said the sheriff. He picked up the fountain pen and began making squiggly marks on the sheet of paper.

Lenora glanced at his work. Doodling. The man was doodling.
“I think it’s possible.” Wasn’t that a logical conclusion?

“Did you ask around to your neighbors?”

“No. I thought—”

“Was he drunk?” Sheriff Morris leaned forward a bit, elbows on his desk, his large, rough fingers resting under a ragged gray mustache. He stared into Lenora’s eyes as if his glare alone would root out the truth.

Lenora shrunk back a little in her chair. “You know James never imbibes.” Sheriff Morris’ insinuation stung, but Lenora wouldn’t allow herself to dissolve into a sloppy mess of nose-blowing, handkerchief-dabbing weeping womanhood. If she did, she surely she would irritate Sheriff Morris more than she already had. He was her only hope. She willed herself to stay calm.

“Where did he say he was going?”

“My husband chose not to reveal that information to me.” The facts, just the bare facts.

“You mean to tell me that he jumped on his horse and rode away, in the damned dark, without giving you any idea where he was headed?”

Sheriff Morris’s irritation fouled the air like an unpleasant body odor at a social gathering, unsettling Lenora despite her rehearsals on the long wagon ride to town meant to help her keep her poise. Hastily she unbuttoned the pearl clasp on her glove and reached into her bag for a handkerchief. She dabbed her eyes quickly and discreetly, hoping to draw little attention to her increasing distress; but of course, it was too late for that now.

And as if her lack of composure were not bad enough, there was the problem of the deputy, whose presence only served to heighten her humiliation. The law office was too cramped to allow privacy. She could not see him, but she could feel him still watching her, his eyes following her as continuously as her own shadow since she had stepped through the door, observing her every movement, absorbing her every tortured word.

Between the two lawmen, Lenora felt as though she were on the witness stand and had just delivered damning testimony about James’ disappearance to a jury of her peers. One of them, to be sure, had already cast his vote to throw her in the hoosegow at best or condemn her to the gallows at worst. How the other would vote she was not sure. Nevertheless, she felt an absurd compulsion to trace her fingers around her throat to assure herself that her neck was still free of anything more constricting than her collar. Finding only the familiar ruffle of white lace she had sewn herself, she stiffened her back and continued with renewed spirit.

“A husband is under no obligation to reveal to his wife all his business,” she said, searching for a timeworn route to reason the sheriff could understand. “My husband is not just my husband, Sheriff Morris. He’s my friend. But even I don’t know what he was thinking when he left Saturday night.”

“Did he take food and water with him?

“He left in haste. He packed no provisions.”

“Was he armed?”

“He left his Sharps behind.”

“No rifle? He went out at night unarmed?”

“He may have taken his revolver. I didn’t think to check the house for it.”

Sheriff Morris glared at Lenora a few seconds. “Sounds like he was in a real bad hurry.” Then he halted his questions and stared at Lenora, dissecting her story with his eyes.

The
coffee pot rattled. Deputy Davies’ chair scraped the wood floor behind her. He walked to the stove and wordlessly grabbed a flour sack towel from where it hung on a nail and used it to push the coffee pot to a cooler part of the stove top. Like nearly all men she’d seen in the Territory, he was fit from a life of physical work, but he was much taller and broader than James. Lenora noted, somewhat absently, that he had lots of wavy brown hair, spare facial whiskers, and wore no wedding ring. Without a doubt a lot of girlish hearts had set to fluttering and swooning around Buffalo when Deputy Davies first rode into town.

She shook herself. How could she notice such things about another man considering the grave business that had brought her to town? The strain of James’ disappearance was making her as mad as a March hare.

Deputy Davies returned to his chair, out of Lenora’s sight. No one seemed interested in coffee right now.