Crazy Woman Creek (28 page)

“I can find out from Sheriff Clarke. He’s familiar with Stillman’s circuit.”

Luke was so worked up it didn’t dawn on him that Cyrus had just offered his assistance. “And she asked me to help,” he said. “It’s the least I can do to see that she doesn’t lose her ranch. She’s already lost her husband, Cyrus. You know it as well as I do. The declaration won’t bring him back from the dead. It just gives her the legal right to stay on her property. That’s all this is about.”

Sheriff Morris
grunted.

“Look, Cyrus,” said Luke, his voice rising, “if you’re looking for a burlesque show, go to Belles
’. I’m just doing my job, and I’m doing it as professionally as I know how. I don’t know what happened to James Rose, if he’s alive or dead. I suspect he’s dead, but I don’t know where his body is. If I could release the poor woman from the torment of not knowing by bringing his body back to her I would, and I’ll keep trying to do that.” Luke leaned forward over Sheriff Morris’ desk and bored into him with eyes of fury. “And as for her condition, I haven’t so much as touched his grieving widow’s pinky finger with a straw broom.”

Sheriff Morris looked taken aback at his deputy’s hard words. “I suppose she has the kid’s welfare to consider,” he conceded, though to Luke’s ears the way he said it didn’t make him sound any more gracious.

Their accusatory exchange smoldered in the atmosphere of the small office long after the heated words were uttered. Luke needed to get out outside to diffuse his anger. Riding always helped. “Let’s ride out to the church when we finish our coffee. Take a look. There’s several hours of sunlight yet. Maybe we’ll find something,” he said. “And when we’re done there, we probably should visit the parsonage and arrange an interview with Reverend Thomas.” Luke dreaded the thought of questioning a Christian brother about the disappearance of James Rose, but he had to do his job.

Sheriff Morris sighed gustily and grimaced. Luke recognized the skepticism in the sigh and the disapproval in the grimace but ignored them. When it came to finding James Rose, Cyrus was skeptical and disapproving of every effort. Luke couldn’t bother reacting anymore.
He banged down his cup suddenly, stood up, crossed the room, and grabbed his hat.

“I’m going whether you go or not,”
he said, energized by the thought of renewing the search for Rose’s body. “No one will be able to say I didn’t look under every rock for James Rose,” he muttered, more for his own hearing than the sheriff’s. “But first I gotta get something to eat. It’s late, but maybe the Occidental is still serving lunch. I forgot to have Mrs. Byrne pack me something this morning. I won’t be at the hotel long.”

“Get something for Wright, too. I forgot to get a plate for him,” said the sheriff, reaching into his pocket for his tobacco pouch.

It wasn’t the first time Cyrus had forgotten to bring a ration to their prisoner, who was housed in the cramped and dreary hoosegow, a separate building behind the sheriff’s office just big enough for one occupant. Alarmed at Cyrus’ confession, Luke wondered how long it had been since Sam had eaten or drunk anything. It was summer. The man needed water several times a day, and it fell to the lawman in the office at mealtimes to tend to his physical needs. In Buffalo that meant Cyrus was nearly always in charge of that chore. Luke felt bad that he hadn’t followed behind Cyrus this morning, that he hadn’t looked in on Sam to make sure he had a meal and something to drink. Buffalo was too small to have a regular inmate population, so it didn’t have established policies about such things, but that only made it all the more inexcusable to fail to feed the one and only inmate they had. It wasn’t like they had too many jailbirds to keep track of.

“I will,” said Luke, reaching for his hat.

As soon as Luke had shut the door, Sheriff Morris opened his bottom desk drawer and pulled out his magazine.

#

Lenora had spent too much time in town. She had other shopping to do beside her business at Aeschelman’s, and she was hungry too, but both would have to wait. With her basket clutched tightly against her body and her reticule swinging against one hip, she hurried to Olathe’s to fetch her horses and wagon and return to the ranch before nightfall. She knew why James had chosen the parcel he had, with its enviable access to the North-East Creek and lush pasture land, but now that it was she and not him having to make the run to town regularly for supplies, she rued his decision to settle them so far from town. In their youthful zeal for a ranch of their own, they had never entertained even a shadow of a thought that tragedy could strike so soon, even before the ranch was legally theirs. Her present distress was not James’ fault; nevertheless she pushed down an unreasonable sense of irritation with him. He may have not meant to abandon her, but she was, in fact, abandoned.

Main Street was quiet. The only people Lenora saw were three little girls playing in the yard of a house near the end of Main Street close by Olathe’s Livery. They were town children, and Lenora did not recognize any of them, not even from church. The girls were jumping rope as she approached, two girls holding each end of the rope while the third girl, clutching her skirts to her body, her long braids swinging up and down, jumped to a bouncy tune they all sang. As she drew closer to them Lenora was horrified to hear their
words:

Old Man Rose went out one night.

With his wife had a terrible fight.

Found his body face down in the creek.

Horse tied up and feeling weak.

Who killed Old Man Rose?

Oh who killed Old Man Rose?

Town can’t tell but deputy knows

Why she went to town to buy new clothes.

Rose is dead and his wife won’t speak.

Gonna have a baby at Crazy Woman Creek.

Who killed Old Man Rose?

Oh who killed Old Man Rose?

Lenora felt panic roll over her with the cold, destructive power of a tidal wave. Should she stop and ask them where they’d heard such hideous lyrics? Did she really want to know? What mean-spirited person wrote those awful words? From the mouths of children, but surely inspired by who-knows-who, some wicked, gossiping adult in this unfriendly town.

Once she was directly in front of the
girls, she couldn’t bring herself to keep walking. She stood frozen on the dirt path in front of the house, watching and listening to make sure she’d heard right. Seeing they were being observed by an adult, the two girls holding the rope smiled politely, utterly without guile, and one of them waved hello. All three kept on singing their ugly song.

They don’t know who I am!
And James’ body hasn’t been found! But rather than get involved in a conversation that could lead to the discovery of her identity, Lenora smiled back and continued to Olathe’s as if she hadn’t a care in the world.

Luke ate a hot lunch of beef stew and yeast rolls and butter. If he hadn’t been so diligently banking his paltry deputy’s wages, he’d have eaten at the hotel every day. The boardinghouse served plain fare, but it was cheap. When he finished eating and had paid for his meal, he ordered a plate of the same for Sam Wright and charged it to the sheriff’s account.

He left the Occidental Hotel carrying in one hand the tray of still-warm food covered with a white cloth napkin and in the other a tin cup filled with cool water. He walked behind the sheriff’s office to the single-cell, single-window jailhouse. After balancing the cup on the edge of the plate while fumbling with the key ring with his one available hand, he finally managed to open the heavy door and enter the dark, overly warm room—hardly more than a box—that the city fathers had built to house the accused. As he did the noxious odor of unwashed body hit his nostrils.

Sam was awake in the cell, lying listlessly on a dirty bunk, his knees curled up like a child, shirtless, his eyes vacant. He was dirty and unshaven. The skin on his thin, wrinkled torso was glistening with sweat, which trickled between sparse gray chest hairs. On his feet were the fancy tooled boots, which looked even more incongruous on the half-dressed old man than they had when Luke met him, fully clothed, on the
way to Mrs. Rose’s ranch weeks earlier.

Seeing Sam’s declining physical state, no matter what bloody crime he was accused of, made Luke ashamed that a fellow human being in his care had gone without, especially someone so pathetic. Soul to soul, Sam was a man just as much as he was, made in His image. It was hard not to look at Sam, though, and wonder again what had brought him to such decrepit condition. Luke promised himself that from now on he would check on Sam several times a day, even though that was Cyrus’ responsibility. It was the only decent thing to do.

“About time,” said Sam, rising from his bunk at the sight of the plate and cup in Luke’s hands. Luke bent low and pushed the food and water through a shallow opening at the bottom of the cell door. Despite his weak state, Sam didn’t hesitate to bend down to retrieve them. Luke could smell the rot in Sam’s teeth as he neared the bars. Sam wobbled as he stood up again, grabbed a cell bar to steady himself, and then fell back on his bunk and started eating.

“There’s laws against starving an inmate!” he groused between bites of buttered roll. “I ain’t drunk
nothin’ neither, not since yesterday morning! And I don’t mean liquor, deputy.”

“Sorry, Sam,” said Luke, who was standing upright again. “I’ll look in on you more regularly from here on out.”

“Hmpfh!” grunted Sam, his mouth full of stew. “You’d like me dead. Make you a hero in the eyes of that pretty Rose woman.”

“Shut up, Sam,” said Luke, quickly forgetting any pity he’d managed to dredge up for the smelly sot. A muscle in Luke’s jaw started to twitch. “I brought you the grub. I’ll bring you more water before dinnertime.”

“I didn’t kill her dog!” Sam shoved another spoonful of stew into his mouth and swallowed it without chewing.

“A jury will decide that.”

“You got no proof.”

Luke didn’t answer. No use arguing with an old man who’d lost half a brain to the pickling effects of alcohol; the other half was likely defective from birth. Luke turned and started to leave. It was unprofessional for a law enforcement officer to fraternize with an inmate, and this inmate in particular unnerved him.

“You were on her property too!” shouted Sam, standing up now in his agitation and leaning on the cell bars for support. “What will the jury think of that, deputy? No one can prove that you didn’t chop up that dog, just like they can’t prove I did it. Maybe you wanted to scare the hell out of her so she’d come running back to your office for protection. Big, powerful Deputy Davies, savior of buxom widows!”

Luke was so annoyed at what he was hearing he wanted to slam Sam’s ugly head against the bars. He turned back to him, contemplating how to answer his outrageous charges while somehow managing to strive for control, to try and blunt the sharp spears of his anger. It would be so easy to put this disgusting human being to death. What good had he ever done for
anyone? He’d terrified a young widow and murdered her only remaining companion, an innocent, trusting dog. Probably wanted to ingratiate himself with Mrs. Rose to convince her to hire him as a live-in foreman. Then he’d have his way with her. Worthless bag of bones. Hard to understand why God allowed him to take up space on his green earth.

“You got more reason to kill that dog than I do,” spat Sam, growing bold after seeing that he had the deputy’s attention. His tone was a tat softer than it had been at first though, likely a defensive reflex brought on by the murderous look in Luke’s eyes.

“I didn’t have any reason to kill Ulysses. He was an innocent animal. But you,” Luke said, breathing heavily and clenching his fists to keep them from doing something unforgivable, “are a different matter. Now eat your dinner and pray to God I didn’t poison it.”

Sam glanced suspiciously at the plate in his hand. Luke turned then and left the jailhouse, taking care to lock the outer door behind him securely. He strode to the front of the sheriff’s office, poked his head in the door, and abruptly told Cyrus he was ready to go. Then he and Sheriff Morris saddled their horses and started toward Ebenezer Church on the outskirts of Buffalo.

Nothing struck the lawmen as unusual as their horses stepped onto the hard packed, well-trodden earth that surrounded Ebenezer Johnson Christian Church. Luke and Sheriff Morris rode their horses to the church steps first, because that was their ultimate destination. But they saw only bare and weathered gray wood planks, nothing worth their ride from town, so they decided to search the entire area on horseback. If that didn’t net them a clue, they would dismount and investigate on foot.

All was as quiet as expected for midweek; services were held only on Sundays. The horse stables behind the church were empty. The only sign of life in the vicinity was a family of sandy brown Mountain Plover that had built a nest in short, brown grasses behind the stables. The small, black-beaked birds with the skinny black legs and white breasts had set up housekeeping in that particular area of the church property because it was dry and sheltered, but mostly they were drawn by the dainties served in the dining hall—flies and other insects hovered around the stables. When the lawmen rounded the corner of the building, the family of five ground birds scattered as one into the clear, late afternoon sky.