Jodi Thomas (4 page)

“That’s right.” Bailee spoke slowly, as if beginning to believe the sheriff might have permanently fogged up his mind with the stink of his own pipe tobacco. “We murdered him a day’s ride from here. He was a big man and he said his name was Zeb Whitaker.” She pulled the blanket the sheriff had given her around her thin shoulders.

“And are you sorry?” Harman scratched his bald head and tried not to swear in front of the women. He hadn’t had a good night’s sleep in a week, and tonight had lost all promise. “Are you truly sorry?”

The three looked at one another. “No,” they answered in unison.

“Does that mean we hang?” added Lacy, the youngest one. “ ’Cause if we do, I’m thinking I’m beginning to feel real sorry.”

The sheriff leaned back in his chair. “Zebadiah was one of the worst, lowdown, no-good drifters in these parts. He did everything short of murder, and, if the truth were known, he probably did that in the dead of night, leaving no witnesses to his crime. But still, it ain’t right to kill a man, ladies. Surely you know that.”

“We know,” Lacy said. “If we promise not to do it again, can we go?”

The sheriff gave her his meanest look. “You’re startin’ to bother me, girl.”

“I have that effect on most folks,” Lacy answered honestly. “My momma used to say I was a curse waiting to happen. It must be true, ’cause she up and died on my tenth birthday, and my pa left the day I was born, and ever’ cat I ever had died for no reason....”

Harman Riley raised one eyebrow and glared at her, stopping her as suddenly as if he’d tapped her on the head with his pipe. She reminded him of one of those toy tops you twist and wind up, then when you let go you think it’ll never stop.

Lacy made the sign of the cross awkwardly over her chest, obviously just learning the habit. “But I swear, Sheriff, I didn’t put a curse or the evil eye or nothing on that man. I just hit him as hard as I could with a board Bailee calls ‘the weapon.’ I guess it’s ‘the murder weapon’ now. Anyway, I killed him flat out. There he lay, them gold coins spread around him in the dirt. I thought about burying him, but I figured we should leave him alone. We’d done enough to him.”

Sheriff Riley rubbed his forehead. He hadn’t heard so much confessing since he found out MayBell Howard over at the saloon was pregnant. There was such a shortage of wives out here, every man in the county wanted to make an honest woman out of her.

“Gold coins?” The sheriff looked at Bailee as though he suddenly realized the story was pure fiction. All three women struck him as squirrely, but Bailee seemed closest to the ground. “Did you take his money?”

Bailee looked surprised he’d even asked. “We’re not thieves ... only murderers.”

Riley needed a drink. He’d spent enough time with the women to make him remember why he’d left Tennessee. One female in the house is heaven, two tolerable, but three will drive a man to drink every time. “No robbery. That’s a blessing,” he mumbled. “We kill a man, or woman, twice around here for stealing.”

None of the women seemed to understand his attempt at humor.

“Look, ladies, I’m going to have to lock you up until we get this straightened out. I don’t believe for one second that you three killed Big Zeb Whitaker, but until I find out the truth, I have to hold you for questioning.”

He stood and motioned them toward the only cell, a large one, built to divide the office almost in half. Usually, when it was empty, like tonight, Harman would sleep there. The bed in the jail was better than the one over at the boardinghouse. But tonight he hadn’t had time to think of sleeping. As soon as he got them settled in behind bars, he had to find someone dumb enough to ride out and look for a body.

The youngest, Lacy Dillavou, began to cry, making the sheriff put down his pipe and rub his whole face as he opened the cell. “It’s not so bad,” he said. “I’ll have Mrs. Abernathy bring a meal over for you and water so you can wash up.”

Lacy cried louder as she walked into the cell.

“Lots of water,” Sarah added as she looked around the cell as though she thought she was renting it and not being arrested. “Enough so we all can have a bath.”

He frowned, remembering that bathing was one of the pestering habits his wife tried to spread.

“And I could probably round up a few blankets to put up around the bars to offer some privacy.” Riley smiled, proud of himself for being so thoughtful.

But Lacy continued to cry.

The older one, Bailee, comforted her friend as they sat on Harman’s cot. “It might help, Sheriff, if you could send over a pie. That would probably cheer her up. We haven’t had anything but beans for weeks.”

“And milk,” Lacy gulped between sobs. “Milk always makes me feel better.”

Sheriff Riley grabbed his hat. “I’ll be right back. Mrs. Abernathy will have to make do for tonight, but she’ll have biscuits and gravy ready for you all at dawn.” He waited, hoping he’d cheered the young one up a little.

She did stop yelling, which was an improvement.

He took two steps toward the door and stopped. “Anything else?”

Bailee stood and faced him. “Yes, leave the cell unlocked so we can get our things out of the wagon. And we’ll need soap and towels if you can manage them.”

Harman nodded. Even if they thought of escaping, where would the three of them go with oxen? “All right. Anything else?” He took another step toward the door.

“Can someone take care of our animals?” asked Sarah, the usually silent one.

She was as close to an angel as Harman figured he’d ever see, so he nodded. “Anything else?”

All three women looked at him. He was through the door before they could ask for more. As it was, he wasn’t sure he could remember everything. If he hadn’t already let his no-good deputy go off to his nightly drinking, Harman would have asked Wheeler to run the errands.

An hour later Riley was ready to saddle up and head into Indian Country for some peace. The women unloaded half their wagon into his jail. In fact, they’d made it look downright homey.

Mrs. Abernathy had brought a tray of bread and butter, complaining loudly that it was far too late to ask her to deliver food so they would just have to take what she had. She did, however, take her six bits in payment.

To make matters worse, half the men in town had been by to offer their support as either witnesses to how Zeb deserved to die, or as jurors should there be a trial. They all stood at the door hoping to get a look, as if the women were freaks at a tent show. Riley finally had to answer the door with his Colt in one hand to discourage visitors.

Adding to Riley’s misery was the problem that all three women cleaned up to be fine-looking ladies. Bailee with her black hair, green eyes, and matter-of-fact ways. Lacy, young, impulsive, with warm brown hair and a body that promised heaven. And Sarah. Shy, frail Sarah. If she ever turned those light blue eyes on a man, she’d melt even a stone heart.

There wasn’t a man in the state who’d find them guilty. The jury would be more likely to fine Zeb a death fee for dying in front of them.

Riley had his hands full, for above all, he couldn’t let them go without at least a fine. After all, killing was illegal, even in Texas. They’d already told him they didn’t have more than a few coins between them. He couldn’t keep them in jail. Judging from the way they ate tonight, he wouldn’t be able to feed them for more than a week.

He had to think of something, and he had to think fast.

L
ONG AFTER LACY AND SARAH FELL ASLEEP, BAILEE stood at the jail’s barred window and watched shadows move across the muddy rut this town called Main Street.

To say she’d hit bottom would be an understatement. She’d sunk to what must be the lowest level of hell ... a town called Cedar Point. She could almost smile and remember the morning she left home, without a single person to bid her farewell, as being the bright point during the past few months. Even being kicked off the wagon train didn’t seem so bad compared to her present predicament.

Overlooking the fact this town hadn’t discovered soap or paint, the dust seemed never to settle. Not even on rainy days. Bailee guessed the few respectable citizens she’d seen, the ones not staggering, had never been inside a barbershop. Zeb Whitaker, whom she thought part animal, must have felt among his own kind here.

Her grandmother always used to say, “Look at the bright side.” Bailee thought hard. When they found Big Zeb’s body tomorrow, at least she’d be hanged in clean clothes. The sheriff, true to his word, offered plenty of water to his prisoners. Bailee saw no need in rationing the small amount of soap she carried in the wagon. It would only go to waste if left among these folks. So, she’d used all her soap and half of what the sheriff brought her before she’d felt clean.

A year ago she’d been organizing small dinner parties for her father, waiting for Francis Tarleton to send for her, and learning to quilt. Tonight, she was in the ugliest town in existence, and she had committed more murders than she’d completed quilts.

Bailee saw the North Star between the dark outline of two shacks. She couldn’t help wondering how her life had lost all direction. At some point she’d opened the wrong door and fallen into the root cellar. She felt she could write a dime novel,
One Year’s Journey of Destruction.

She watched as a drunk wandered across the pale light between the buildings. He staggered a few steps and tumbled into the mud, as if it were his feather bed.

“Good night,” she whispered, thinking he’d probably sleep better than she would.

“Did you say something, miss?” the sheriff asked from half a room away.

“No,” Bailee whispered as she moved to the bars separating their cell from his office. She glanced at Sarah and Lacy, but knew they were so tired, shouting wouldn’t wake them tonight. Sarah had tried to be strong, had stayed awake longer than she had since her husband died. The day drained her so completely, Bailee swore she’d seen the woman asleep on her feet more than once before they got the beds made.

Lacy cried herself to sleep like a child, sobbing until exhaustion took over. But the nightmare of the day only kept Bailee awake.

“I can’t sleep,” she admitted to the sheriff. “I keep wondering what will happen to us.”

Harman scratched his short beard. “Hanging, I suppose. But don’t you worry, miss. I can tell you’re a proper lady. I’ll tie a rope around your knees so your skirt doesn’t go up when you drop.”

Bailee looked up at the old man. He was as strange as the town. Did he really think he was making her feel better with the comment?

“Hanging’s better than going to prison,” he added. “Texas ain’t got much of a place for women. I hear the only way out of the women’s wing is in a box or to be transferred to the state asylum. And that state asylum is worse than any prison North or South.”

That’s it, she thought. The sheriff was starting early on his mission to drive her insane, just in case a jury decided not to hang her for the murder. Maybe, in some strange way, he thought she’d go quieter if she were driven mad first.

The old man stood and walked slowly over to the cell. He chewed on the tip of his pipe while he sucked air through his teeth. Varying ages of tobacco stains spotted his shirt, but his leather vest appeared fairly clean. The star pinned to it looked worn thin from being polished. He was a man who wore his position proudly.

“I’ve heard said,” he began, “that if the screaming and crying don’t get to you at the state prison, the feeling of bugs crawling across you in the blackness of night will.” Harman Riley leaned closer. “You ain’t afraid of bugs, are you, miss?”

Bailee almost wished she had her board. Then, a moment after the thought of clubbing Harman registered, she decided she must be some kind of mass murderer. She was no better than a female Jack the Ripper. Killing someone was crossing her mind far too often of late.

“You know.” The sheriff pointed the gnawed end of his pipe toward her. “I’ve been thinking there might be a way out for you three girls, but it would take guts, and you’d all three have to agree to it.”

“It’s not something illegal, is it?” Bailee decided she shouldn’t care. Even if it was, they could only hang her once.

“No. It’s legal. All on the up and up, or I wouldn’t even suggest it.”

“I’m listening.” Whatever he had in mind couldn’t be as bad as hearing her neck snap or lying awake in some prison waiting for the bugs to parade across her flesh.

“Since you three confessed and all, I might could get the judge to see it as more self-defense, like you three claim. But of course, since it was three against one, he would have to at least fine all of you a large sum.”

Bailee frowned. “Even if I sold my wagon and team, I couldn’t raise much money. A hundred at best. And even if we had enough to pay the fine, we’d have no money to live on and no wagon to travel.” The thought of staying in this town seemed another level of hell she hadn’t thought of yet.

“But someone, say a father, a brother or ... a husband could pay your fine for you.” The old man smiled. His teeth reminded her of piano keys, almost every other one black.

Bailee didn’t see his logic. “Sarah is the only one who had a husband and he died. Lacy’s all alone and so am I. No fathers. No brothers. No husbands.”

“But there could be.” He moved closer. “If the three of you are willing to marry, I know a hundred men in these parts who’d step up and pay the fine.”

Bailee listened in disbelief. “You’d sell us?”

“Never.” Harman acted insulted. “If we had more than three show up with the money in hand, we’d do it fair and square. I’d have the men put their names in a hat and each of you ladies could draw for your man. You’d do the picking, not me.”

“But we wouldn’t even know them.”

“A man never knows a woman until he lives with her. I grew up with my wife living not a mile down the road from me, and I can tell you there were a great many things I didn’t know about her until after we’d tied the knot. After a few years, reasons why we never should have married seemed to pop up daily.” He scratched his way across his thin hair. “Time came when I couldn’t even remember one reason we got together, and, from the way she complained, she couldn’t, either.