Latigo 3, page 13
Helen swallowed; then it all spilled out of her. “I love John’s children as if they were my own. And John knew this ...”
“The Lord saw fit to take the children’s mother but He should have watched out for John to see he wasn’t led astray by the likes of you.”
“I was a good wife to John.” A hay wagon with a full load pulled by a plodding team of work horses came slowly along the street. “I am going to be married, Martha. I would like you to meet my betrothed. He is a fine young man.”
“Betrothed is a strange word for you to utter. When you’ve had so many.”
“Ask anyone, Martha ... I was a good wife to John ...”
“With my poor brother hardly cold in his grave you took that Edgerton man into your bed.”
“He came to my bed unasked. He ... he tried to rape me.”
Martha gave a bark of laughter. “Rape! And they arrested you and charged you with his murder and sentenced you to hang.”
Helen shuddered at the memory; how close it had come to her execution. Had it not been for Cole and his gambler friend, Duke Sateen ...
“I wasn’t guilty, Martha.”
“Mrs. Bascom, if you don’t mind.”
“It was proved that someone else killed Sam Edgerton later that same night.”
“But you stabbed the poor man.”
“I see you know it by heart.” Helen looked the older woman in the eye. How unlike her brother John. John had been compassionate, this sister cold granite.
“It was all in the newspaper. I saved it. Should I get it and refresh your memory? Obviously you never told John you had been a prostitute. He would have been horrified.”
“I told him,” Helen said. “I insisted on it.”
“I don’t believe you. My brother would never have subjected his children to such an evil influence, had he known the truth about you.”
“I love Terry and Ruth.” Helen’s mouth shook, and she fought tears she loathed displaying before this formidable female. “And they love me. Please, I can give them love, and Jeremy knows them and is fond ...”
“The answer is no.” Martha Bascom glared. “I want one thing settled today. You are not to write me or the children again. And you must never try to see them.”
“On his deathbed John asked me to raise his children.”
“Liar!”
“I resent that.” Helen had a young girl’s mouth, glistening now from the tears that, unbidden, spilled down her cheeks. She angrily brushed them aside, setting her small teeth to still her trembling lips. “I am not lying,” she said when she had her voice under control. “Jeremy and I can give the children a good life, one filled with love and laughter. Please, won’t you give me this chance?”
“The children don’t want to see you ever again. They realize you’re a wicked person!”
You’ve filled their head with it, she wanted to say, but held herself in. “John wanted me to raise Terry and Ruth ...”
Martha Bascom’s hazel eyes snapped with triumph. “If my brother was so anxious for you to have his children, why didn’t he put it in writing?”
“He’d had these bad spells off and on, and he thought it was just another in a series. He didn’t realize—and neither did I—that the last one was to be the worst. By the time he realized he was dying, he was too weak to hold a pen.”
“They should have hanged you even if someone else did kill that Edgerton man. To punish you for bringing so much evil into the world.” Martha Bascom jerked to her feet, the stem face twisted in anger.
Helen, on her feet, tried again, despite the rage and hurt just under the surface. But Martha refused to listen.
“I have spoken to the sheriff,” Martha Bascom said coldly. “Should you try to see the children or contact them in any way, he will lock you up for thirty days.”
“Oh, no ...!”
“There is a section of Basin City set aside for women of your profession. Whenever one of them steps over the line the punishment is swift.”
“I am not in that profession!”
“Once a tart, always a tart. I couldn’t sleep, nor could my husband, knowing my late brother’s children were being raised by a whore!” Martha flung herself at the front door and paused there, panting. “Remember what I said about the sheriff!” Then she disappeared inside. The door slammed.
Helen’s steps dragged as she headed for the buggy. Once she paused, looking back, hoping against hope for a glimpse of Terry and Ruth at the window. All she could see through her tears was the blurred outline of an empty window. Angrily she brushed her tears aside and climbed into the buggy.
Jeremy’s beaver hat was tipped back. There was a sick look in his eyes. “She didn’t bother to keep her voice down.”
“You heard it all, then.”
Jeremy didn’t speak all the way back to the livery barn, where he turned in the rented buggy and horse. Next door, in the empty lot, the dead body of Armando Hogar had been taken away. All that remained to remind one of the violence was trampled snow and a stain on the ground that might have been spilled from a wine cask.
Skirts dragging unnoticed across clumps of weeds brushed by winter, Helen walked with Jeremy over vacant lots, toward the Basin City railroad station. Finally Helen spoke. “She’s put the brand on me, and there’s no use trying to pretend otherwise, I guess.”
A pained look touched Jeremy Van Horn’s serious young face. “It ... it can’t be helped.”
“Sometimes I almost wish that Cole ...” She broke off, shivering as the macabre thought crowded her mind.
“What about Cole?” Jeremy asked.
“He saved my life two times. Once in the mountains, once at the gulch. Maybe it’s a pity he bothered.”
“That’s a terrible thing to say. Cole saved me too, don’t forget. When two bandits were going to rob and murder me. Keep your chin up, Helen. Look the world in the eye.”
“It worked when I was married to John. But at the trial all the ugliness came out. I’m afraid the world will never let me forget. And it’ll hurt you, Jeremy. That’s what worries me.”
“You don’t ever have to worry about me,” he said with false heartiness.
On the train, rocking up the side of the mountain, he said, “Maybe we better go away. I’ll sell out my interest in the store and ...” He rubbed the side of his face. “Maybe we’ll be safe someplace like the Argentine.”
She was slumped in the seat, listening to the clickety-click of the wheels, the chuff-chuff of the locomotive. At least on leaving Basin City she had been spared another glimpse of Max. It was another worry, for Jeremy more than for herself. Now that she had no hope of ever gaining custody of John’s children, the spark had gone out of her small body. With the children, her life at long last had seemed to have a purpose. Without them she was a shell.
“Know what I think?” she said finally.
“What?” Jeremy sounded despondent.
“Cole was always trying to get you to go back to Ohio. He said the West was no place for you.”
“But that was when I was nothing but a tenderfoot.”
“Go back to Ohio and pick up the pieces of your life.”
“That would be running away.”
“No, it wouldn’t. Too much has happened to you too quickly.”
There was a long silence between them. Finally, as they neared El Dorado Gulch, Jeremy said, “Well, maybe I should go back to Ohio for a spell and look through all that stuff Mother left behind.”
“Yes, it is best.”
“I’ll write, though.”
She didn’t respond to that. She stared out the coach window at a giant cliff of granite, studded with dwarf cedars. She wondered at the lack of hurt, or was it too deeply buried? And why no tears? Or were they all drained out of her?
Back in Basin City Claudius Max had watched the train depart. He said to Jud Bowden, the gunman, “You got a good look at her face?”
Bowden nodded his head. “A purty little thing.”
“Just remember her, is all. If I hire you, there’s another job to do first. Much more important. Cole Cantrell.”
They adjourned to Max’s office, in the Python Building. It was austere, nothing like the elaborate headquarters in New York, with its murals depicting the victories of Caesar’s legions. Here there was a black safe, some bookshelves, a large oaken table used as a desk, and two chairs. On the desk was a bust of Julius Caesar that Max was stroking now as he studied the loose-jointed gun-hand lounging in a leather chair.
“How did you kill Hogar? Obviously a trick. I’ve heard of you, Bowden, before this. And you’ve interested me.”
Jud Bowden had a hard, leathery look about him although he probably was no more than thirty. His face was browned from the sun, and his long nose jutted like a ridge of granite. His eyes were cat-yellow. His slit of a mouth smiled.
“Trick? I’ve got no tricks. I just figure to outsmart the bastard I aim to kill. Like today, I got tired of Armando shouting what he was going to do to me if we ever met up face to face. So I made sure we did.”
“They say he never even got his gun out.”
Bowden chuckled. “He did. But barely.”
Max, bulking behind the desk in an oversize chair of padded leather, said, “My Praetorian guard has failed me!” Bowden gave a slight shrug of one shoulder. He didn’t know what Max meant by Praetorian guard but he did know that the gargantuan figure before him owned the Centurion-Pacific Railroad. And he also understood power.
“Therefore I need new blood,” Max continued. “Bowden, if we work together I’ll want you to swear you will never reveal what I tell you. And that includes what I said about that little prostitute you saw get on the train. If you do talk, it will be your finish. I have the power to crush anyone.”
“Yeah, I know what you mean,” Bowden said with a smile.
“Now, about this man Cantrell. He’s bedeviled me, killed my best men. Yet you think you can take him?”
“I learned early in this game to wait till things are just right before making my move. Maybe some of your men moved too fast.”
“I’ve hired good men before. But they couldn’t match Cantrell’s gun speed.”
“That’s because you never had me. Till now.”
“Sure of yourself, aren’t you, Mr. Bowden?”
“In my business you got to be sure.”
“What do you want out of this, Bowden?”
“A thousand dollars in gold to start. A good job with Python when Cantrell’s dead.”
Claudius Max eyed the big ivory-butted .45 at Bowden’s hip. Then he studied Bowden’s eyes. In the sunlight streaming through the alley window it was like staring down two long tunnels with a death’s head at the end.
Max shouted for his clerk and ordered the pale and trembling Lackman to put a thousand dollars into a leather bag.
“Only one stipulation, Bowden,” Max said when the frightened clerk had departed to the outer office, “bring me Cantrell’s body. I want to see his face.”
“His head would be easier to carry. I can put it in a gunny sack.”
Max gave a whoop of laughter and slapped one of his great soft hands against the desk top. “Bowden, I like you.” Then he leaned forward, the round face grim. “Take your time but make sure of Cantrell. He’s living at Hayfork Ranch, about twenty-five miles north and east of here.”
“I’ll get him.”
“Do it and you’ve got a job for life. With a substantial salary and an occasional bonus.”
“Yeah, be nice if you got that fella Lackman to put it in writing. An’ you sign it. So there won’t be any mistake, huh?” Max licked his lips. If he hadn’t realized it before, he did now: Jud Bowden was one tough son of a bitch.
Chapter Sixteen
FOR THREE NIGHTS in a row Cole dreamed of Dark Star, the image of the Crow medicine woman so vivid that he could feel the satiny dark flesh and see her beautiful smile. In the final dream she beckoned to him, the large dark eyes haunted with worry.
A feeling of doom awakened him, his heart pounding. Icy sweat sheathed his back.
Amanda stirred sleepily. “What is it, Cole?”
“Dreaming of the Crow camp. Somebody there is in trouble.”
“That Indian sweetheart?” she asked, trying to laugh, but the steel was in her voice. And when he made no reply she said, “You put too much stock in dreams.”
“The Indian side of me pays attention to such things.”
“I was also dreaming. I had the most wonderful speech written for you to give at the cattlemen’s association meeting.”
“I’m not giving any speeches.”
“Oh, but you are, my darling. First a senator, then one day governor. Then possibly even Washington.”
“Me having a life buttoned up in a town suit, and giving speeches that’ll put everybody to sleep?”
“Not the speeches I write for you.”
He lay on his left side, his back to her, but her hand moved expertly and found him. He responded to her warm fingers, thinking, why not? It’ll help take my mind off that feeling of doom among my Crow friends. He was thinking in Crow.
Rolling over, he lifted the wide lace edge of her pink nightdress and bunched it to her neck. In the half light of that hushed hour before the sun pries open the eastern horizon, he saw her glowing eyes, the half-smile.
This part of it he would miss, the warmth of the strong body, her ardor that seemed limitless. Only complete exhaustion determined when she would finally give up the battle waged most nights in her spacious bed.
A month ago Cole had hired a foreman, for he had begun to feel as if he had been laced up in fresh cowhide that was slowly shrinking. Eventually he would be crushed. He had put out feelers for someone dependable who knew the cattle business. Luckily he found a tall Texan with curly brown hair and beard, in his early thirties, who had come up from the Brasada with a herd of cattle and was at loose ends.
Cole had a talk with the lanky drover, found he had no particular interest in returning to Texas and made him a proposition.
His name was Jesse Hart, and he listened attentively while Cole explained. “Mrs. Cutler needs to get the ranch in shape so she can sell and go back to her home in Richmond. I need somebody I can count on.”
“If the lady is willin’, it’s fine with me,” Hart said.
The lady wasn’t willing. She was indignant. “You’re up to something, Cole!” she charged.
“There’s Indian trouble. I feel it. I might have to leave for a spell ...”
“That spell will never come.”
The excuse he needed came a month later. A letter from Major Mackley, of Fort Savage, offering him a job as army scout.
“ ... with your knowledge of the Indian, I am sure between the two of us we can prevent the bloodshed so many feel is inevitable ...”
In the big parlor Cole showed Amanda the letter. She read it and threw it onto the Oriental carpet at the foot of the staircase. “No! You can’t do it, Cole!”
“I’m not cut out for harness, and that’s how you want a man, Amanda. I’ve got too much Indian in me to ever have a bit in my teeth and some woman hauling in on the reins.”
“You put it so crudely. I’m in love with you; doesn’t that count for anything?”
“I like you, Amanda. We’ve been through a lot together. But you’ve got your freedom. For the first time in your life you’re beholden to nobody. Go back to Richmond and find a man to marry ...
“I would never go back to that place. You damn Yankees blew it all to hell ...” Tears welled in the large eyes, and she captured his hand in both of hers and tugged. “Come upstairs, and I’ll make you forget all about Fort Savage.”
He pulled free. “It’s something I’ve got to do.”
“Oh, Cole, why are you so stubborn?”
He didn’t answer. He only shrugged, kissed her cheek and went out. At the bunkhouse he shook hands with the crew and then told Jesse Hart that he was in charge.
The Texan grinned through his curly brown beard and glanced at the big house in the cottonwoods. “In charge sounds kinda nice, Cole.”
Cole smiled. “It’s all up to you, Jesse. Cattle and ... the rest of it.”
Cole stopped off in Scalplock on his way north, because he’d heard that his friend Duke Sateen was dealing at the Shamrock. He passed the Scalplock General Store and up the steep hill behind it, the town marshal’s office and then the livery barn.
At the Shamrock he asked a bald barkeep with long sideburns what time Duke Sateen came to work.
“Duke’s over yonderly”—gesturing with a long thumb. “Playin’ cards with the new madam.”
Cole went next door to Annie’s. Two girls lounging in the parlor jumped to their feet and looked expectant. When he told them the purpose of his visit, they were disappointed.
One of the girls, slim, dark-haired, went over and knocked on a door. “A man named Cantrell wants to see Mr. Sateen.”
“Send him in,” said a feminine voice that certainly wasn’t Annie Bolton’s rumble as he remembered it. It was his first time in Annie’s, but he had used to see Annie on the street and occasionally had a drink with her next door, at the Shamrock.
Duke Sateen, grinning through the dark beard, filled the doorway. “Ever’ time ah hear that name Cantrell ah get an icy feelin’ around my neck where that Union sergeant had his hang rope.”
“Duke, it’s good to see you. Just wanted to say hello before I push on.”
“I’ve been trying to teach the little lady the fine points of mah favorite game, poker.”
Sateen stood aside, and seated at a small table, wearing a satin dress a shade lighter than her brown hair, was Helen.
She got up and came to him and put out a slim hand. “Cole.” The brown eyes started to fill, but she quickly regained control.
Sateen said, “Ah’ll be at the Shamrock, Cole. Reckon you-all have things to talk about.”
When Sateen had departed and the door was closed, Cole sank to the chair Sateen had occupied. “My one final good deed in that hellish war was to keep my sergeant from hanging Duke as a spy.”
