Dorothy Garlock (30 page)

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Authors: The Searching Hearts

BOOK: Dorothy Garlock
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“No! What’s more, I don’t care if I never see her again!” Tucker flung at him.
“Goddammit!” he swore as he put his heels to the horse.
“What could all that be about?” Laura asked.
“I don’t know. I suppose Cora Lee has wandered off.”
“I don’t think it’s very nice of her to keep us waiting.”
“There are all kinds of people out here, Laura, and many of them are not nice.” There was a cynical edge to her voice.
“I can only think of a few, Tucky. ’Most everyone is nice to me.”
“That’s because—”
“I’m blind,” she interrupted.
“That isn’t what I was going to say and you know it,” Tucker snapped. “Everyone is nice to you because you’re good and sweet and nice to them!”
It was getting lighter. The morning sun streaked the sky. Tucker leaned out to see if the lead wagon was getting ready to pull out. All she could see was
Lottie standing with her hands on her hips. As she watched, Lucas rode up, dismounted, and tied his horse to the wheel of the grub wagon. Soon Lottie was banging on the iron pot.
“Come on, Laura. The great man is going to make a speech.”
“Oh, Tucky. Don’t poke fun so.”
The group that gathered at the wagon was at first irritated, then concerned.
“We can’t find Cora Lee Watson,” Lucas told them bluntly. “Her things are still in the wagon. I don’t think she would have gone off on her own without taking extra clothes. If any of you have seen her this morning, speak up.” He waited and no one spoke. “All right. This is what we’ll do. We’ll turn the stock loose inside the circled wagons for you women to watch, and the mounted men will spread out and look for Cora Lee.”
Tucker took Laura back to the wagon as the drovers herded the horses and mules into the enclosure. She felt empty and apprehensive, and the words she had spit out at Lucas came back to haunt her. She hadn’t meant them literally.
Lucas was worried. He strongly suspected that he and Buck were the last ones to see Cora Lee. He couldn’t get her words or the dejected slump of her shoulders as she’d walked away from them out of his mind. He gathered the men together and directed them to fan out and ride in a widening circle around the camp.
The sun was well on its way across the sky when
Lucas saw Buck coming in and rode out to meet him. Buck’s horse was lathered, its sides heaving from a long run. He had waited miles up the trail for the train to catch up, and when there was no sign of it after a reasonable time, he had put the spurs to Dolorido. He hauled up on the reins, bringing the spirited sorrel to a rearing halt.
“What’s wrong? Why aren’t you moving?”
“One of the women is missing,” Lucas answered.
“Which one?” Buck demanded sharply.
“Cora Lee. She hasn’t been seen since last night.”
Silently thanking God that it wasn’t Laura, he directed his attention to the problem at hand. “Did you check the stage station?”
“She isn’t there. My God, Buck, we may have been the last to see her.”
Buck swore and wiped the sweat from his face with his sleeve. His dark eyes searched the landscape, then came back to Lucas’s set face.
“That woman smelled of trouble,” he commented.
“Do you think she would have just walked off into the desert?” Lucas suggested.
“No tellin’ what a woman like her would do, but I don’t think so. If she was goin’ to leave, she’d ’ve taken a horse. Is one missin’?”
“No,” Lucas grimly confirmed.
Buck sat quietly for a moment. He watched the women guarding the stock, the restless mules hitched to the wagons, the small spiral of smoke rising up from a newly made fire. Finally he said, “Look there.”
Lucas followed his pointed finger and saw the buzzard circling lower and lower in the sky. “Oh no. Do you think . . . ?”
“There’s only one way to find out.”
They found her, almost a mile away, under a small clump of bushes. The buzzard flew into the bushes and then away as they approached. The sight was sickening. Cora lee lay sprawled, her head at an odd angle, her mouth agape, her eyes already picked out by the buzzard.
The men slowly got off their horses. Lucas felt ill. He went to the body and placed his hat over her face. Buck searched the ground around her. It was slightly sandy, and the wind had erased any sign of anyone else having been there.
“She either walked or was carried here. No horse been here lately,” Buck observed. “Looks like she was shoved under the bushes. That would account for her head bein’ all lopsided.”
“Someone killed her,” Lucas murmured.
“She sure as hell didn’t walk out here, crawl under the bushes, and die,” Buck commented drily.
“Who would have done it?” he asked disbelievingly. Lucas’s eyes pinned Buck’s. “Last night she wanted me to take her, but I wouldn’t have touched her with a ten-foot pole. I’ve never had a woman come on to me so strong. Not even a whore in Socorro acted the way she did.”
“I’ve heard of women like her. I’ll say this because it might ease you some: she came on to me,
once, too. I think it was somethin’ she couldn’t help. Somethin’ like a sickness.”
“I hate to take her back this way.”
“Yup, but it’s got to be done.”
Lucas bent over the crumpled body and buttoned the front of her dress all the way up to her throat. A spasm of guilt shook him. Her words kept going through his mind:
I love you. I’ve never said that to another soul.
He took off his shirt and wrapped it around her head and upper body.
“I’ll get on my horse. Hand her up.”
Lucas rode down the trail with Cora Lee’s body cradled in his arms. The women, gathered in a group, waited silently at his approach. He rode into their midst.
“She’s dead,” he announced. In the shocked silence that followed, anger flooded him. Who would do this? Parcher? Collins? The new men he hired on at Fort Stockton? Taylor? The Negro boy, Poppy? The only ones he could be absolutely sure of were Buck and Rafe and Mustang. Rafe had been with Marie—or had he sneaked out in the night? He found himself forced to question all possibilities.
“Will some of you women take care of her?”
For a moment there was silence, then Marie said, “Take her to her wagon, Mr. Steele. I’ll take care of her.”
“I’ll help.” This came from Lottie, and there were sighs of relief among the rest of the women.
“Mustang, ride over and tell the man at the stage station what happened and find out if there are any
graves nearby. We’ll bury her near someone if we can.” He surveyed the group before him with cold, interrogating eyes. “You women get yourselves ready for burying,” he ordered crisply. “And you men—I want every one of you to go fifty paces beyond the freight wagon and wait for me.”
Buck and Lucas rode to the end of Cora Lee’s wagon. Buck let down the tailgate and climbed up. He took the body from Lucas, who immediately rode off, and placed it on the straw mattress.
“Ma’am, it’s not a pretty sight,” he said to Marie Hook, who waited there. “Buzzards,” he added in the way of explanation.
“Thank you for telling me, Mr. Garrett. I’ll be all right.”
Buck left her there and went to tend to the loose stock.
The rest of the men were waiting for Lucas at the spot he’d designated. Storming up to them on his black horse, he immediately accused: “That girl was murdered! I know goddamn well she didn’t just walk out there and die!”
Collins began to sputter.
“Quiet!” Lucas shouted, his fury bitter in his mouth. He felt incredibly weary, but his anger goaded him on, “You, Collins! You’re so anxious to talk, we’ll start with you.”
“Wh—what’d ya mean?”
“Just what I said, you fool! You had an early watch, then what did you do?”
“Ya got no call to talk to me like that, but I’ll tell ya anyways. I took my ol’ woman to bed.”
“Will she swear to that?” Lucas shot back.
“She better, or I’ll beat the livin’ daylights outta ’er.” He snickered, but no one else laughed.
“Parcher?”
“Why’re you pickin’ us out, Steele?” Frank’s lips were curled in a sneer. “I don’t have to tell ya nothin’, but I will. I stood my guard, then rode over and played cards with the stage keeper.”
“All night?” he pressed.
“Most of it.”
“Valdez?” he directed to one of the new men.
“
Señor
Buck say to me and Chata to watch men who trail behind. We go,
señor.
”
“Gazares?” he asked another.
“We with Cutler,
señor.
We watch, we sleep.”
Lucas called on each man in turn, and each spoke up with a logical alibi. Finally Lucas dismissed them and admitted to himself he was making no headway. Hell . . . he didn’t even know what had killed the girl!
Cora Lee’s grave was dug beside those of two cholera victims from an earlier train. Lucas carried her there dressed in her best gown and a fancy fringed shawl. Lacking a coffin, she was wrapped in a blanket Marie Hook had taken from her own trunk.
Tucker and Laura, dressed in their best out of respect for the dead, stood on the edge of the group surrounding the grave. Rafe led the singing. Tucker was surprised how many of the women knew the words to the hymns. They sang out as if it were
something they could do for Cora Lee. Mr. Taylor, attired in a dark suit and sweating profusely in the hot sun, read the Scripture.
During the reading Tucker became conscious of Frank Parcher standing close behind her. She moved as far away from him as she could without dragging Laura with her. He followed. She was forced to stand and suffer his hand against her back. When the singing started again, he leaned closer and whispered in her ear: “Gonna be a heap o’ horny men a missin’ the little split.”
Stung with embarrassment and indignation that he would make such a remark at the girl’s burial, Tucker bridled. The unfeeling swine! She gritted her teeth and envisioned him in the grave instead of Cora Lee. Her control was about to give way when Frank moved. The next instant Buck was beside Laura, looking over Laura’s head toward Tucker. Had he seen Frank speak to her? Was that the reason he’d moved up beside them?
The service ended, and the women went back to the wagons. In spite of the fact that Cora Lee had made no effort to get to know them, had exchanged but a few words with most of them, there was not a word of criticism spoken against her, even though most of the women were aware of her nightly wanderings. It was pity they were feeling for her, pity and guilt for not having made a greater effort to understand her.
Now that the burying was over, the question in everyone’s mind was how did she die? Shock had
temporarily kept fear at bay, but now the shock was wearing off and the realization that one among them was dead was making itself felt. In their wagon, folding and putting away their clothes, Laura voiced what Tucker had been asking herself.
“It’s scary, Tucker. Who do you think killed her?”
“I wish I knew.”
Tucker was totally drained. She felt as though her body had been pummeled and her mouth washed out with sand. She didn’t dare voice what was floating around in her mind. I don’t know who killed her. I don’t want to know for sure. There’s one man capable of killing like that, and I don’t dare accuse him. Had Cora Lee crossed Frank in some way? Was he playing the same game with her that he’s playing with me?
* * *
The sun was directly overhead when Lucas rode down the line to speak to Marie Hook. She was in the wagon she and Billy had shared for a while with Cora Lee. Lucas dismounted, and she climbed down to stand beside him.
“I’ll drive the wagon. Billy will stay with Mr. Blanchet. I’ve explained to him that Mr. Blanchet may come down with a sickness and what he is to watch for. He’s a sensible boy.”
“I wanted to talk to you about that, Doctor Hook. If you’d rather stay with Rafe, I’ll get one of the drovers to drive this wagon.”
“It would be too obvious, Mr. Steele. It’s best we do it this way. We have three days after today before
we can be reasonably sure Mr. Blanchet will be all right.”
“It’s a lot to put on Billy.”
“Being the son of a woman doctor, Billy has had to grow up fast. I can rely on him.”
“Thank you for helping with Cora Lee. Do you know what killed her?”
“Yes, I know.” Marie’s dark eyes swept a circle around them. She waited a few seconds, as if to brace herself for what she would say. When she spoke her voice was objective and well-regulated. “This will be harder for you to hear than for me to say, Mr. Steele. Men, as a rule, shy away from this type of conversation with a woman. But bear in mind that I am a doctor. In Scotland we were conditioned to deal with almost every situation imaginable. I assure you I am not in the least embarrassed by what I must say.”
“Say it, Doctor.”

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