Crazy Woman Creek (20 page)

“No one’s accusing you of theft, Sam. I just want to know where you picked up the fancy foot gear. In those you’re mighty overdressed for mucking stalls.”

“I earned ‘em,” said Sam, stiffening with indignation. “Fellow couldn’t pay me. I been looking out for his stock a few weeks, so he give me these boots. I earned ‘em fair and square.”

“I see.” Luke studied the boots long enough to commit their general appearance to memory, then shifted in his saddle, took off his hat, and ran his fingers through his damp hair, hoping for a breeze, even a warm one, to cool his sweaty scalp. Summer was full upon the land. He tried to ignore the burning sensation the unyielding sun projected on
his exposed skin. His backside hurt, his mouth was sticky with thirst, and his canteen was dry. Only a few birds cut through the sky during this warm period of the day. Prairie critters had the sense to seek what shade they could or crawl below ground till the cool evening breezes came up to make things bearable. It was uncomfortable interrogating Sam under the unrepentant sun, but the elusive Sam Wright was here, and at least for the moment, he was sober. Luke regarded the ranch hand’s words, and then decided to change the direction of his questioning.

“You ever work for James Rose?”

Sam blinked. Luke saw his pupils grow wide in a flash of recognition as ephemeral as a campfire spark. Luke knew he had put his finger on something that caused an emotional response inside Sam, and he wondered what it was. He put on his poker face so as not to give away his thoughts.

“He ever hire you to work at his ranch?” Luke repeated when Sam did not answer.

As if he had just awakened from a short nap, Sam snorted disdainfully, shook his head, and chuckled quietly to himself. As he did another warm breeze picked up a powerful scent and delivered it to Luke, a sour whiff of toxic morning breath, the worst he had ever experienced. He held his own breath a moment, unwilling to inhale.

“You’re new, deputy,” sputtered Sam, still chuckling. “You didn’t know James Rose.”

“No, I didn’t,” said Luke, striving mightily to keep impatience out of his tone. “Educate me.”

Sam shook his ahead again. “Big city boy
.” He spat the words. “Thought he was better than the rest of us. Fancy clothes. Always swinging his gold watch in your face.” Sam waved his leathery hand back and forth to demonstrate. “Even his steers had to be better than everyone else’s. Wouldn’t buy from locals. Not Mister Biggety Britches. He sent to Chicago for those Brah, Brah ...” Sam searched for the word.

“Brahman.”

“Yeah, the Brahman. Nothing but a bunch of flapdoodle. Poppycock and flapdoodle, all of it.” Sam’s mouth drooled as he worked himself into a palaver. He swiped at his mouth with his sleeve.

“What do you mean?”

“He was a macaroni! Fool macaroni! Didn’t know nothing about raising steer. If it hadn’t been for the neighbors helpin’ out he would have lost his fancy ranch first winter out here.”

“He came all the way from New York and didn’t know how to ranch?” asked Luke.

“Hell no! Just showed up in Buffalo one day, flashing his wad of greenbacks all over town, buying himself the nicest piece of dirt in the Territory. Showing off that pretty wife of his too, in her clicky-clack shoes and frilly dresses. Ain’t another woman in these parts that dresses as pretty as Miz Rose.”

Luke only nodded, all too conscious that some were already talking about him and Mrs. Rose. Better to say nothing about the way she dressed.

“Good riddance. To him, I mean. Not her. Where he is now he ain’t impressing nobody, no how.”

Luke pondered Sam’s last comment. What, exactly, did he mean? Did Sam know where James Rose was now? Did he mean in this life or the next? How could
he speak of the whereabouts of a missing man with such certainty? Luke was tempted to push for answers but decided to let the questions rest and come back to them later. He didn’t have sufficient evidence to lock up Sam, and right now the man was talking. If Luke pushed too far Sam might clam up, or worse, flee the Territory.

“So you knew him? You worked for him?” said Luke.

“Nah. Never worked for him.”

“Why’s that?”

“The fool didn’t want no help.”

“You tried to get work on the Rose ranch?”

“I knocked on his door couple times. Asked for work. But he always shooed me away. Not friendly like, either. Treated everybody worse than a chicken-thieving wolf. It wasn’t like I was no beggar. I wanted work. I ain’t never asked for no hand-out.”

“What about Jennings
and Pendergrass? They ever try to get work on the Rose ranch?”

Sam swore vehemently and jerked in his saddle. “Peapod? Maybe. Not sure.”

“What about Jennings?”

Sam swore again. Luke noted his agitation but
gave nothing away while he waited for an answer. Sam had clammed up again.

“What about Jennings?” Luke
finally demanded.

“I don’t know nothing about Jennings. What he does with his time is his business.”

Luke regarded Sam coolly as he debated how hard to press for an answer. He had little to pin on these three clowns, and being free men, they could ride out of town whenever they wanted, taking their guilt with them undetected. The lack of hard evidence in this case frustrated him.

“People didn’t like
Rose much, huh?” said Luke.

“If you can find a soul in town will talk good of James Rose,” said Sam, laughing again, “I’ll buy us both a drink.”

Laughter caused Sam to cough, a wet, phlegmy eruption that originated deep in his chest. He fished in his pants pocket and pulled out a grimy hanky, wiped his mouth, and stuffed the hanky back into his pocket. Luke waited for him to finish. He seemed to want to talk. Best let him.

“What do you know of his wife?”

“Miz Rose?” Sam shook his head. “Nothing like her husband. Sweet woman. Once, when Mr. Rose chased me off the property, when he ain’t lookin’, she brung me a plate of biscuits and gravy. Hot coffee too.” Sam smiled at the memory.

“Can you think of anyone who is angry enough at James Rose to want him dead?”

“Eh?” Sam’s tongue was hanging out his mouth again.

Luke tried not to stare.

“Dead,” repeated Sam. He paused to think, scratching his jaw as if doing so would warm up frozen brain juices, get them flowing.

Why was this clown having difficulty understanding a four-letter word? Certain topics, Luke noted wryly, greased the old coot’s flapper, while others gave him lockjaw. But Luke had the good sense to wait. Perhaps eventually he would pull some useful information out of this inscrutable prairie dog.

“No, not dead, exactly,” said Sam.

“Then what, exactly?”

Sam screwed up his face as if thinking was painful. “I’m thinkin’ most folk is just jealous of his stuff.”

Luke remembered the impeccably maintained house and barn, the many well-built, useful out buildings, the prize livestock, the abundant grazing land, all bordered by the widest, longest flowing creek in the north-east section of the Territory. Even more vividly he remembered the fetching face and shapely form of the unlucky rancher’s young widow. Longing rose within him. He wished he could be the one to treasure her now, to protect her.
Now that she was feeling poorly, the temptation to sell the ranch and return to her kin in the East would be overwhelming for her. It was his biggest fear.

“Jealous enough to kill?” asked Luke.

“You’re the deputy,” said Sam, turning petulant. “That’s for you to chew on.” He pulled the reins sharply to the right, indicating his desire to end the questions and get moving. “I gotta get to town, Deputy Davies. It’s hot as Hades out here.” He took off his floppy hat to reveal thinning gray hair plastered to his head with sweat. Histrionically he began fanning himself with the hat, as if Luke wasn’t aware of how hot it was seated on horseback under a Wyoming summer sun.

Luke figured he’d gotten all he could from Sam anyway, and he was determined to check on Mrs. Rose and ride back to town before nightfall. He nodded and pulled at his own reins.

“Deputy,” said Sam, slapping his hat down on his head before they parted. He pointed to Luke’s canteen. “You got anything more medicinal than creek water in there?”

Luke shook his head. “Sorry, Sam. Dry as a Quaker picnic.”

“Me too,” said Sam, poignantly. “Me too.”

#

The sound of an approaching rider sent the Reverend Thomas outside to investigate. Luke tipped his hat in greeting and dismounted, relieved to be out of the saddle and to see someone trustworthy looking out for Mrs. Rose and her ranch. He noted Ulysses’ absence. Probably pushing his cold snout down a rabbit hole somewhere, thought Luke. The men shook hands.

“What brings you out this way, Deputy?” said Reverend Thomas, a warm smile on his face.

“Just checking on things,” said Luke, intentionally vague about what or who those things were.

“Glad you’re here, Deputy. Your timing couldn’t be better.”

Luke gave the Reverend a quizzical look.

“We’ll talk after your horse is looked after,” said the Reverend, lowering his voice, “in the house.”

“Mrs. Rose alright?” Luke wondered at the conspiratorial tone the Reverend used. Luke had heard she’d taken sick, but he had no idea what was ailing her and was too polite to inquire of the people most likely to know. He had learned only that it was serious enough to require the nursing services of another woman.

“Mrs. Rose is going to be fine. Just needs to rest. But I’d prefer to include her in our conversation.”

Luke nodded. His interest was always piqued when it came to Mrs. Rose’s affairs, but he was patient.

“Why don’t you get your horse some water and feed in the barn, then come into the house for a
bite yourself. I’ll tell Betsy you’ll be joining us for dinner.”

Luke was agreeable. Reverend Thomas returned to the house while Luke led his horse to the barn. After his animal was well watered and munching contentedly on fresh hay, Luke made a once over of the barn’s gloomy interior, his eyes sweeping dark corners and the section of the hay loft visible from the ground. Everything was in order, tack hanging on the wall where it always was, stalls cleaned of debris, Beauty and Beast well groomed and in good health. Ben Slocomb was doing a good job. 

But there was a haunting, sepulchral feel about the place that made Luke edgy. Something wasn’t right. A strange prescience made the hair on the back of his neck prickle, a sense that something invisible but very real and very evil hovered in the barn. No, not necessarily the barn, he realized with sudden clarity. He had sensed it when he first rode onto the Rose property. Luke stood statue still a moment, muscles taut, ears and eyes on high alert, listening and looking for anything unusual. A thought came to him that it might be a good idea to climb the ladder leading to the hay loft to survey the entire barn from the height of the loft instead of the limited vantage point of the barn floor. It had not occurred to him to do this the day before when he checked the property. But yesterday he hadn’t had the willies.

He walked to the ladder and began to climb. He stopped halfway up and listened. Nothing. He continued to climb until his eyes were even with the floor of the loft. Just then a barn swallow, startled by Luke’s intrusion, flapped noisily, swooped from his perch high above the hay loft, and flew directly over Luke’s head into the broad light of the open barn door.

Luke watched the swallow until it was beyond the edge of the barn door and then he paused a second to listen again. No sound. He climbed two more rungs of the ladder until his chest was even with the loft floor. It was even darker in the loft than on the barn floor, and it took a few seconds for his eyes to adjust. He scanned all about, looking for anything out of the ordinary. Everything seemed as he expected: the loft was dark and musty with grain dust, but there was an unusually large number of dung flies and an odd, sickish smell hung in the air.

Then he saw a low depression at the far end of the loft, like an eddy created by water slipping quickly down a funnel. Above the depression was an indeterminate dark blotch on the barn wall, its color and content obscured by the gloom. He climbed a few more rungs, hoisted himself into the loft, and walked the few steps to the depression to investigate, rustling dry hay as he stepped.

About two feet from the wall Luke jumped back, repulsed by what he saw. Ulysses’ lifeless head lay in the depression in the hay, his teeth still bared in death. As Luke’s eyes grew accustomed to the dimness, it became obvious that the long, dark streaks on the wall were dried blood. A spray of blood formed a rough ring in the hay around the animal’s head. Clearly someone had stood on the barn floor and flung the head upward into the loft, where it had struck the barn wall with force and then fallen back into the hay, fouling it and leaving a gruesome find for an unsuspecting visitor. Flies buzzed about the head.

Doubtless this was what Reverend Thomas wanted to speak with him about. Luke made another quick scan of the loft but, other than the area near the discarded head, the hay had not been disturbed since it had been stored there many months earlier. Seeing nothing that would help him unravel the mystery of the missing James Rose or the murder of his dog, Luke determined to clean up the mess in the loft after dinner.