Crazy Woman Creek (19 page)

Lenora started to open her mouth to object. She paid little heed to rumors. In her parents’ social circle in New York, rumors came and rumors went. It was what people did for entertainment. But Betsy’s words were so alarming and the look on her face so serious that they stopped her retort as crisply as a curling iron.

“What I’m about to tell you could harm your baby too, Lenora, might cause people to think you’re unfit to be a mother. Might make them feel justified in taking that baby away from you once it’s drawn its first breath.”

Betsy had Lenora’s undivided attention.

“There was talk, at the beginning I mean, when James went missing, that you were touched in the head.”

Lenora gave a little gasp, her mouth opening wide with shock. Betsy released her grip on her wrists, sat up a little straighter, and waited, letting that arrow strike its target neatly.

“Some days I’ve worried about that myself,” quipped Lenora, trying to turn the tense moment into a joke. Her friend did not return the smile, which was unusual for Betsy, always the clown. Lenora sobered quickly.

“With grief. Touched with grief. Some people thought you were insane to believe that he was still alive.”

“I had—have—no reason to believe otherwise!” Why did she always have to explain this to people, over and over again?

“Be that as it may, some people still think that, Lenora.”

Lenora was dumbstruck. How could people reach such a morbid conclusion about James with so little evidence? No, with no evidence at all!

“But I—
”

“There’s more, Lenora. Please let me finish.”

Lenora nodded mutely.

“The deputy.”

Lenora cast her eyes downward at the bed clothes, bracing for what she knew was coming. She felt a rush of blood to her face.

“I don’t know
what the nature of your relationship with the young deputy is, Lenora, but I’m sure it’s pure.”

Lenora looked up and met Betsy’s eyes. She hoped her friend spoke honestly. She hated to think that secretly Betsy judged her. She had done nothing wrong. However, when it came to the deputy, recently her mind had wandered to places she never thought it would go, but no one but herself and God knew about that. Being that James had chosen a quarter-section for its proximity to the creek and not its nearness to town, Lenora had few enough friends in Wyoming Territory, and Betsy
was one of the dearest. If she cut herself off from Lenora because of a silly story, it would be a tragedy, a lonely state of affairs indeed.

“Thank you,” said Lenora, quietly.

“But people love a salty story, Lenora.” She stopped and let her words sink in.

Lenora’s breath caught in her throat and her heart beat loudly in her chest. She swallowed, a big I’m-almost-afraid-to-ask swallow. She asked anyway. “What, exactly, have you heard?”

“Some seem to think that the handsome deputy is involved in the disappearance of your husband.”

Lenora shook her head and rolled her eyes. “That’s ridiculous,” she said, a hint of anger in her voice.

As if on cue, a milk cow in the barn let out a belligerent moo, protesting in sympathy with Lenora.

“He arrived in town the same time James went missing,” said Betsy, as if that explained everything.

“That’s a fact,” said Lenora, becoming agitated. “But it’s a fact that has absolutely nothing to do with James’ disappearance. Pumpkins turn orange in autumn, but that doesn’t mean that orange pumpkins cause squirrels to hide acorns or geese to fly south.”

“I’m just telling you what I’ve heard. Please try not to get upset, Lenora. You know none of it
is true.” Then, as if to soothe, she said, “I know none of it is true.”

God bless the dear woman.

“What’s all this got to do with my baby?” asked Lenora. But before the words were out of her mouth, the answer exploded in her head like a sizzling bolt of lightning. How could she be so dim witted? So slow to grasp the obvious? Once word got around town that she was expecting,
because of the timing of both men’s movements, some would be convinced that the baby was Deputy Davies’ and not James’, and she would have no way to prove them wrong. Unless James returned alive, able to speak for them both, she would live under a cloud of suspicion the rest of her life. And her baby would be shunned as a bastard, the fruit of an adulterous relationship.

“They’ll think the baby is the deputy’s,” said Lenora, putting her hand to her mouth, awestruck, the horror of that truth sinking in. But no, that was too wild, too unbelievable to grasp. “Surely you exaggerate, Betsy,” said Lenora, “It can’t be all that bad.”

Betsy somberly nodded.

“I don’t know what to say,” said Lenora. “What’s to say?” she continued, stupidly.

“You know what else?” Betsy’s eyes lit up suddenly then, as if she had a juicy story.

“You’ve already told me the worst, so surely anything else you have to say is good news,” said Lenora, morosely. “However, your eyes tell me it’s
going to be funny.” But secretly Lenora worried that it could be worse. A seed of despair had been sown in her soul. It would be hard to believe any good news after what she’d just heard from Betsy.

“Perhaps a little funny,” she said, “A little mirth is good for the soul,” She gave Lenora a cagey grin.

“Go ahead,” said Lenora, “Don’t keep me waiting. I’m in desperate need of whatever amusement I can glean from this nightmare.” She leaned her head back against the wooden headboard, closed her eyes dramatically, bracing herself against more outrageous gossip.

“They’re now referring to the creek that borders your property as ‘Crazy Woman Creek.’”

That did it. Lenora clutched her stomach and broke into laughter, long peals of wonderfully satisfying, tension busting howls, accompanied by much shaking and streams of salty tears. Betsy joined in then, falling back on the bed, howling right along with Lenora. They were still making a ruckus, shaking and wiping their eyes on their sleeves when Reverend Thomas appeared at the bedroom door. Lenora saw him before his wife did.

“Reverend Thomas?” she managed to choke out, at once ashamed that she was carrying on like a maniac so close on the heels of the death of her beloved Ulysses. How could she help it? She was a hopeless loon. Ask anyone in Buffalo.

“If you ladies can collect yourselves a moment,” drawled the minister, “a Sam Wright is on the porch. Says Mrs. Rose summoned him about a job.”

Luke’s shooting hand slid silently, automatically to the butt of his sidearm, assuring himself that it was in position, ready to defend. He was used to seeing farmers and ranchers with their teams and wagons making their way from their land to town, often accompanied by bonneted wives and a passel of excited children. But a lone rider on a horse, coming from the direction of the Rose ranch, put him on alert. He stiffened his posture in the saddle and squinted to bring the horse and rider into focus, but they were still too far away to identify.

He cast about in his mind
, trying to think of a logical scenario to explain why a solitary gentleman would be visiting Mrs. Rose. The sight of the offender and his horse irritated Luke. He was doing his best to act and think with moral rectitude, a conscious response to his growing fondness for the Widow Rose. It irked him to think that some yokel was breaking the rules, jumping into the contest before him. To his obsessed state of mind, the interloper had to be a competing suitor. Whoever the lout was, it was too late in the morning for him to be a Good Samaritan come to help with the chores; and it was too early in the day to be Ben Slocomb. No man had any business visiting Mrs. Rose, except perhaps Reverend Thomas or Dr. Biggerstaff. But out of a sense of propriety, neither of those two gentlemen would come calling absent the company of his wife.

Between Luke and the unknown rider lay a quarter of a mile of treeless prairie scrub, splotchy tufts of green-gray brush grass clinging to the dry red earth, rimmed by low, pointed hills. The day was clear, the sky cloudless, making visibility good but still not good enough for Luke to make out the identity of the man or his horse. Luke’s jaw was set, stiff with tension. He kept his horse moving rather than halting it to get a better look. He preferred to create the impression of dispassionate interest. After all, he reminded himself, he was the deputy. Even outside town limits, he was in charge. It was the other rider who should be nervous.

The stranger’s horse seemed to be in no hurry, and after a few minutes, Luke saw why. As it drew closer, he recognized the ancient dappled gray gelding as the same one that kept losing its besotted rider in town weeks back. After a space, Luke halted his horse to meet up with Sam Wright. The ranch hand pulled on his reins to slow his steed, then he pushed his too-large black hat—likely a cast off, gauging from its faulty fit and decrepit appearance—back on his head.

“Morning, Deputy.”

Sam grinned broadly, exposing an upper mouthful of crowded, overlapping, yellow teeth. His tongue darted in and out of a wide hole where four lower front teeth had long ago abandoned ship, giving his mouth a look of busyness that drew attention toward his lips and teeth and away from his bloodshot eyes. His grizzled face reflected a certain aversion for the blade, and his stained shirt and pants he had surely slept in, likely every night for the last month.

Only ten seconds in the ranch hand’s unkempt presence made Luke feel foolish for letting his thoughts be led in circles by a thread of jealousy. It was hard to imagine that this sorry looking
ranch hand was ever accused of any crime that stemmed from a relationship with a woman. Luke would bet a month’s pay that no female in her right mind either side of the Mississippi would willingly take an interest in Sam Wright, drunk or sober. Perhaps, thought Luke, trying to be charitable, the mangy mossback had been easier on the eyes before he took to liquor. Or perhaps it was a case of misidentification—the wrong Samuel Wright. The message from Fort Laramie detailed a Sam Wright in his early forties. From the sallow color, gray stubble, and crows’ feet this Sam looked more like sixty.

“Morning, Sam. You’re far from town. Must have heard that Mrs. Rose is looking for help.”

“Yeah, she in a bad way back there,” said Sam, gesturing with his hand toward the Rose ranch, which was only a feint gray smudge in the distance.

“I heard she was under the weather.”

“I never seen her,” said Sam. “They tell me she in bed. Resting.”

“Who’s they?”

“Parson.” Sam thought a minute, knitting his eyebrows as if it were difficult to dredge up events that occurred less than thirty minutes prior. “And his wife.”

“Reverend Thomas?”

“Eh?” said Sam, his tongue hanging, dog like, out the space between his lower teeth. He seemed to have missed the train of thought, which was now chugging down the tracks without him.

Luke looked at the unshaven, trail-worn, sun-weathered ranch hand, his mouth hanging open stupidly, and marveled that anyone anywhere could actually think Sam Wright clever enough to slither his way out of a murder investigation. The man was as dumb as a stump and only slightly more useful. Ranchers used him for chores because he was reliable—when he was sober, about one hour out of every twenty-four—but mostly they hired him because he was cheap.

Sam seemed to wake up suddenly. “Yeah, them. Parson and his wife. They looking after Miz Rose a spell.”

“You going to be helping out Mrs. Rose then? With morning chores?”

“A while.”

“Did the Thomases say how long they are going to be staying with Mrs. Rose?” As harmless as he seemed to be in his current state of befuddlement, it bothered Luke to think that Sam would soon be spending even a brief amount of time on the ranch every day, alone with Mrs. Rose. He was a man who had been suspected of deadly violence on more than one occasion. Luke was too experienced in dealing with dangerous criminals to be deceived by appearances to the contrary.

“Eh,” Sam paused to think, the question apparently falling on the near side of difficulty. “Parson and his wife are helping her out.”

“Yes, Sam, I heard you. But do you know for how long?”

Sam hung his head and put a tobacco stained finger to his mouth, deep in thought. Finally he looked up, his face bright with an idea. “You got a smoke you can spare for a hard-working man, deputy? I’m clean out of tobacco.” Sam patted his empty shirt pocket dramatically and made a ridiculous, sad face.

“No, no tobacco,” said Luke, sighing to himself.

Sam looked genuinely crestfallen. In the silence that followed, Luke glanced downward, taking in the size and style of the ranch hand’s costly boots. They were newish, the toffee leather still smooth, not scuffed from rocks and prairie brush, the tooling and stitching exquisite.

“Those your boots?” Luke asked, cocking his head toward Sam’s feet.

Sam looked at his feet as though he needed to remind himself of what item, exactly, was attached to the lower part of his legs. He studied them a few seconds and then looked up. “I’m wearing ‘em, ain’t I?”

“That doesn’t necessarily mean they’re yours,” said Luke, evenly.

“I didn’t steal ‘em, if that’s what you mean.”