Crazy Woman Creek (9 page)

“I was six.”

“Deputy Davies, you speak with a touch of southern. Where do your people hail from?”

“I was born in Tennessee. My ma’s folks lived there. Pa and Ma had a sheep and cattle ranch.”

They stepped off the boardwalk onto Main Street, and Luke took Lenora’s arm as he guided them across. He helped her step up onto the opposite boardwalk, tipping his hat to fellow shoppers they passed.

“How did you come to be in Wyoming Territory?” said Lenora.

“Pa was lonesome a long while after Ma died. One day he decided it would be better for all of us to be near his folks, just outside Fort Laramie. Eight years ago he sold the ranch and moved us seven boys back here.”

“Seven boys? Your father never had to hire help.”

“Nope.”

“Why didn’t you stay on the ranch?”

“Good question.” Luke paused to think before answering. “I guess I was looking for excitement, a change.”

“I remember feeling that way about coming here,” said Lenora.

“I bet your folks had a hard time letting you go,” said Luke.

“My mother took it the worst. I have no siblings, and Mother had a whole life planned for me. I assure you, Mother’s castles in the air didn’t include a cattle ranch in Wyoming Territory.”

Luke glanced at the delicate woman on his arm and wondered how young she was. From the smoothness of her cheeks and her elaborate way of dress, she couldn’t have been much out of her teens. It must have been very difficult indeed for her parents to put her on a wagon bound for the many dangers of the untamed West, so far from civilization.

“Have you written them about your husband’s disappearance?”

Lenora took a deep breath and pursed her lips. “I have not.”

Luke gave her a studied look. “You’re alone here Mrs. Rose.”

“Yes, that is true. But I see no reason to distress them so early in the search.”

“I understand your thinking, but the earlier you contact them, the earlier they can help you. I could arrange for a message to reach them. Fort McKinney has telegraph.”

“I appreciate your concern, Deputy Davies, but that won’t be necessary. My husband will be found. And depending on his condition, at that time I will decide whether my folks—and Mr. Rose’s—should be notified. If I contact them now it will only give credence to their fears about my going west.”

“Are you concerned about alarming them, or are you worried they’ll hightail it to the Territory and insist you go back to New York?”

Lenora stopped walking, removed her arm from the deputy’s, and turned to face him. Her eyes flashed with annoyance. “You, sir, are scandalously intrepid in your approach to this investigation.”

Luke stopped walking as well. “I don’t know what intrepid means, but I can read the look on your face.”

“Oh?”

“You don’t want your folks to know you’ve been left alone to run your ranch.”

“I’m not a mule, Deputy Davies. If my situation becomes dire, I shall not hesitate to seek help from family. But up to this point, I have things well in hand.”

“No one would ever compare you to a mule, Mrs. Rose.”
A purebred filly, perhaps, but never a mule.

“And you, Deputy,” said Lenora, starting to walk again and changing the subject, but this time keeping her arm to herself, “Did your parents dissuade you from leaving the family ranch at Fort Laramie?”

“I waited till Pa didn’t need me anymore. Matthew and Mark, my older brothers, are still bachelors, and they seemed happy to stay on. My younger brothers were around to help too, so Pa was taken care of.”

“Matthew and Mark? Don’t tell me: the brother born after you is John.” Lenora chuckled. “What about the other three?”

“When my ma ran out of gospel books, she turned to the Old Testament. Amos and Aaron, the twins. Then Seth, the youngest.”

“Your mother was religious.”

“I don’t rightly remember much about my ma. I suppose so. The only book we had was the Bible. And Ma’s ladies’ magazines.”

“Those were the only forms of literature your family had in the house?”

“It was enough.”

“What did you discuss at meal times if you had no books?”

Luke thought about the question a few seconds before answering. “Our day. The livestock. Pa would read the scriptures. Of course, for a few years there our minds were taken up with the war. Supper talk was filled with troop movements. Battles and the like.”

“At our house the war took our focus away from pretty much everything else the entire four years. But I was quite little then,” added Lenora, "I didn't understand most of the conversations about battles or why they mattered."

“Well, most of our battle conversations,” said Luke, in a slow drawl, “were along the lines of, ‘Paaaaw, Luke ate all the taters again!’”

They both laughed.

“Your father never remarried?”

Luke shook his head, remembering sadly how his pa struggled to keep an air of civility about the homestead after Ma died. The dirty house, the scruffy way he and his brothers looked all the time without a woman to supervise the care of their hair and clothes. “Seven wild Indians make a tribe. Pa never met a woman desperate enough.”

Olathe’s was a hundred feet away. Luke dreaded having to end the light conversation and perform the unpleasant and historically rancorous chore of questioning Mrs. Rose. Though he had to get on with his duty, he didn’t care to embarrass her in front of Mr. Olathe. He lightly touched her arm. “We can stop here.” He turned and faced her.

“Why?”

“Mrs. Rose, I have to ask you a few more questions. I’m thinking you’d prefer to talk here than at Olathe’s.”

Lenora’s face fell.

Luke sighed gustily and forced himself to continue. “You seem certain Mr. Rose did not drown.”

Lenora stared at the ground and nodded dejectedly.

“You speak of him like he’s still alive.”

“I’ve told you, I have no evidence otherwise.”

“Mrs. Rose,” said Luke, waiting for her to lift her head and look at him. When she didn’t respond, he gently touched her chin and tilted it upward to force her to meet his eyes. “Why, Mrs. Rose,” he repeated, looking into her eyes, his finger still at her chin, “Why is his horse, left tied to a tree for three days without food or water, exposed to the rain and cold, why is that not enough evidence for you that your husband died out there, that night, in the storm?” Luke let his hand fall to his side and waited.

Lenora met his eyes but did not speak. Luke saw there something other than the anger and resentment he’d seen before. He saw terror. Uncharacteristically, she said nothing.

“Do you really think that your husband would abandon his horse, an exceptional horse, one he prized, to die on the banks of the North-East Creek?”

Lenora bowed her head again and looked at the ground. Again she did not answer.

“I can’t believe that James Rose was such a man.”

“Then what do you believe, Deputy Davies?”

“You’re the one under investigation, Mrs. Rose. I ask the questions.”

Her head shot up. “You think I killed my husband,” she said, backing away from him a step. Her eyes flashed with outrage and her whole body stiffened.

“I didn’t say that.”

“But that’s what you think, isn’t it?”

“If a body isn’t found soon floating in the North-East Creek, a lot of people around here will think that.” Luke’s tone was deliberately slow and calm as he tried to defuse the situation.

“You think I killed him and hid his body somewhere.” Lenora’s voice rose slightly.

“Mrs. Rose, no one said that. I’m just trying to fill all these holes to protect you from the wrath of a vengeful jury.”

“Really?”

“You were the last person to see your husband alive. People think what they think.” Luke hadn’t wanted the conversation to go like this. He wished they could have stuck to ranches and family and books. But for her sake, he had to be blunt.

“I have not asked for your protection, Deputy Davies, nor do I require it.”

Luke grimaced inwardly. He had overstepped the professional boundaries of his position. He had failed to be discreet in his dealings with Mrs. Rose. He would guard against this in the future. But she was wrong about one thing: She
did
need protection, though it was futile to argue with her about it. This woman had a huge need to prove her independence. 

“There’s holes in your story, ma’am,”
said Luke, striving mightily to keep his voice calm so that she wouldn’t take off in a huff. He needed answers, and he didn’t care to end their time together as before in another angry exchange.

“Are you finished with your questions?” Lenora’s tone was terse now, her torso trembling with anger.

“No, I—”

“Alright. I’ll tell you what I did with my husband’s body.”

Luke’s eyebrows shot up. He hoped from the bottom of his soul that this was not a confession, that he misunderstood what she had just said. He did not want to arrest Mrs. Rose.

“May I have my package, Deputy Davies?” she said, her hand extended toward her purchases.

Luke handed her the bundle, pushing down an anxious thought as he did that she might be planning to whack him over the head with it. But she didn’t. Instead, she stood opposite him, a strange look of determination mixed with rage etched into her flawless face. She paused before speaking and drew a deep breath.

“I murdered my husband.”

Luke was speechless, unbelieving what he was hearing, though Lenora looked sufficiently serious to merit a valid confession. She continued, her eyes flashing with anger and contempt.

“I smashed his
brains with an anvil while he slept. Then, when I was certain he was dead, I skinned him and cut him up into a thousand pieces. Most of those I canned and stored down cellar. The rest I baked into a double-crust pie and ate for supper.”

That scallywag of a woman.

“He was delicious.”

Then Lenora turned, and with not so much as a by-your-leave, made a few large and angry strides, and in a moment was through the wide open door of Olathe’s Feed and Livery.

White rays of sunshine streaming through Lenora’s bedroom window were more demanding than any alarm clock. In response she pulled the quilts over her head in a recalcitrant snit.

She would stay in bed until she died.

Why get up? James had not returned, and Sheriff Morris had brought her no good news. No news at all, in fact, though the sheriff had said he would send word. She had anxiously awaited the sound of approaching horse hooves while she slogged through her daily chores in the house and around the barn. But none came.

How futile ranching seemed without James. What was the point? Together they had built something worthwhile, they were growing a dream. A livelihood. A legacy. A life. But now the onerous and dirty chores that fell to her alone were only motions to be performed, meaningless tasks she must do to fill the time, to keep the animals fed and milked and safe. Even the thought of breaking soil for her annual vegetable garden gave her no joy as it usually did. Her daffodil silk lay untouched. She would lay out the pattern and cut out her new dress—someday.

She was tired all the time. She hardly slept at night and food had no taste. Her appetite had disappeared with James. Her corset was growing loose.

Blackness settled over Lenora’s soul. She felt cursed. Maybe James was so angry at her that he had deserted her once and for all. Maybe God was angry with her for the things she’d said to James the night he vanished. Maybe He had killed her husband to teach her a lesson.

Or was James injured somewhere on the vast prairie, waiting for help that did not come? Was he alive? Was he dead? Maybe she would never learn what happened to him or where he went on that tragic and rainy night after he left Beauty tied to a tree on the banks of the North-East Creek. Maybe she would spend the rest of her life on this torture rack of the unknown, her mind pulled in every direction until she thought she would scream from the strain.

Maybe she had already lost her mind. She certainly was not acting herself lately, telling Deputy Davies that cockamamie cannibal story. What evil spirit had possessed her to speak such outrage?

Well who cared anyway? She was sick of the deputy’s repetitive questions and Mr. Morehouse’s assumptions and Sheriff Morris’ accusations. She was sick of all of them, and she was angry at the frustrating black hole of oblivion she had fallen into. If James was lost then all was lost, and what she said or did made no difference. Without James, she could fall no farther.

Or perhaps not. With burning shame she remembered how she had let Deputy Davies touch his fingers to her chin without protest. And worse than worse, in a moment of truth, she acknowledged to herself that she had liked it, the feeling of his gentle caress, the warm look of concern she saw in his eyes.

Perhaps his concern was genuine?

But how could she deny the memory of her dear James by exhibiting such brazen behavior? She was no trollop. Until James stepped through the front door of their ranch house by his own power or until his body was returned to her, she was still a married woman. She should not notice another man’s good looks, and she certainly should not take wanton pleasure in another man’s touch, no matter how dire her marital circumstances appeared, no matter how innocent the contact.