Arizona Embrace (28 page)

“What did Queenie do to you?”

“What makes you think Queenie did anything to me?”

“She’s the only woman besides your mother you’ve ever mentioned. One of them is responsible for the way you feel, and it clearly isn’t your mother.”

“I don’t want to talk about Queenie.”

Then go take care of the horses. I’ll see about something to eat while you’re gone.”

Trinity took so long with the horses Victoria had dinner ready when he returned. They ate in an uneasy silence, unanswered questions hanging in the air.

“What happened?” Trinity asked.

“What do you mean?”

“The night Jeb was killed? What happened?”

“But I thought-”

“Forget everything I said. Just tell me what happened.”

Victoria hardly knew what to say. She had relived that night so many times, and she still didn’t have any answers.

“My father came to Texas from Alabama right after the war. I don’t really know why, but I think it had something to do with the fact he wouldn’t fight for the South. My mother died when I was born, so there was nothing to hold him. We were happy in Texas. Daddy loved the ranch, and I liked the freedom from all my aunts.

“Everything would have been fine except Daddy got sick. That’s when he made up his mind I ought to marry Jeb Blazer. Judge Blazer was the richest man in the county, and Jeb was his only son. Judge Blazer and Daddy were drinking buddies. They liked the same kind of whiskey. Anyway, they made an agreement between them and I went along.

“We weren’t supposed to be married until I turned eighteen, but Daddy died when I was seventeen. I went to live with the Judge. Daddy had arranged that, too. The Judge said it wasn’t right for an unmarried girl to five in a house with three men who weren’t related to her. Myra thought I should be allowed to wait until I was eighteen, but the Judge wouldn’t hear of it. That was the only time I ever heard them argue.

“By this time I had had a chance to see Jeb up close. My enchantment with him was wearing off. He was never unkind to me, but he didn’t seem interested in me or any of the things I enjoyed. I got along much better with Kirby.”

“What’s he like?”

“He’s Myra’s son by her first husband. He was extremely handsome, but he was just a kid. Anyway, the Judge set the date, and Jeb and I were married. If he thought marriage would settle Jeb, he was wrong. Jeb actually got worse. He spent our wedding night, and every night after that, with his friends. He would spend the next day sleeping it off and then go out again after supper.

The night he was killed, he was having a party at the house. He didn’t want me to be part of it, but I came down anyway. The more he drank, the ruder he became. When I wouldn’t go back to my room, he said Myra always stayed in her room. Why couldn’t I behave like a lady, too! He, said that to me in front of his friends.

“Some of them tried to laugh it off. Others ignored it. I tried to reason with him, but he stalked off. I know now I shouldn’t have followed him, but I was upset. I had been married only seven days and hadn’t spent an hour alone with my husband. Instead of making him sympathize with me, it made him furious.

“He shouted at me and said he didn’t love me. He said a lot more that I’d rather not remember,” Victoria said, her voice unsteady. “Finally, I couldn’t listen to any more, so I turned to go back to the house. I had gone about a dozen steps when Chalk Gillet came around the corner of the house.

“Just as our eyes met, I heard a gunshot. I turned back in time to see Jeb stagger and start to fall. I ran to him, tried to hold him up, but he was too heavy. He fell to the ground taking me with him. I tried to move him, to sit him up, but I couldn’t. He must have been dead already.

“I looked around for Chalk, thinking he would help me, but he was gone. That’s when I saw the gun lying on the ground next to me. I don’t know how it got there or when. I can only assume the killer tossed it down while I was bending over Jeb. There was a lot of noise coming from the house, there was a band and a lot of fun and high jinks with the dancing so there could have been other things I didn’t hear, like someone moving about in the bushes.”

“There were bushes in the yard?”

“Lots of them. The Judge was born in Alabama, too. That’s why he and Daddy were so close. He thought Texas was too brown, so he had trees and shrubs planted everywhere. It took a man hours every day during the summer to water them. Anyway, I foolishly picked up the gun. I don’t know why. I suppose I picked it up because I couldn’t understand what it was doing there. Unfortunately, the Judge and Kirby found me kneeling over Jeb’s body with the gun in my hands.”

“What about Chalk Gillet?

“Nobody ever saw him again. I don’t know what happened, but if he’s alive, he knows I didn’t kill Jeb. I was looking straight into his eyes when the gun went off.”

“Wasn’t it strange for him to disappear like that?”

“Not particularly. Chalk wandered in just like you. Kirby said he’d asked for his pay that afternoon saying he’d been in one place too long.”

“Why should Kirby know that?”

“Kirby adored the judge. He followed him everywhere. He liked everything the Judge liked, did everything the Judge did. As young as he was, he sometimes acted as part foreman, part manager. Somebody had to since Jeb couldn’t, or wouldn’t, stay sober long enough to remember whether we were rounding up to count and brand calves or rounding up steers to sell.”

“And you have no idea who might have killed Jeb?”

“No.”

“Who stood to gain?”

“I guess Myra and Kirby, but they’re the only ones who believed in my innocence. Besides, the Judge is a relatively young man. He could go on living for twenty or thirty more years. There’s also no assurance he won’t give his money to some relative.”

“What about your money?”

“What do you mean?”

“Who gets your money?”

“Jeb if I died, but I didn’t.”

“Where is it now?”

The Judge still controls it, I guess.”

“And if you can’t go back to Texas to claim it, the Judge gets to keep it. So Kirby stands to get two inheritances if he can wait long enough.”

“It couldn’t have been Kirby. He was inside the house when the shot was fired.”

Trinity had been unaware of a small surge of hope until he felt it die away. He had to get a hold on himself. He wanted to believe Victoria’s story so badly he was ready to blame anybody, even a boy.

“I’m not surprised the Judge didn’t believe you. The only thing worse than being caught with the murder weapon in your hand is being seen when you actually fire the gun.”

“I know, but if you could find Chalk, I could prove I didn’t kill Jeb.”

Victoria stood up and yawned. “I can see Red’s fire from here. He’s awfully young to be out here by himself. Maybe you ought to check on him in the morning. I’d hate for anything to happen to him.”

“Un-huh,” Trinity grunted, deep in his own thoughts. He had never heard a more flimsy story, but the fact it was so weak and full of holes made him tend to believe it. Anyone with half a brain would come up with a much better story man that. And Victoria was much more than half smart.

But it was her words from earlier in the day which kept ringing in his brain. If she meant what she said to her uncle, if her willingness to go to Texas wasn’t a ruse to get him off guard, then she wasn’t the kind of woman to kill her husband.

The problem was Trinity didn’t know what kind of woman she was.

One thing he did know, though. He wouldn’t take her back to Texas to die.

Chapter Fifteen

Victoria barely said a word for the next two days. Trinity wanted to know more about Jeb Blazer’s death, but she wouldn’t talk about it again. She wouldn’t talk about anything.

He didn’t tie her up any more. It had nothing to do with the healing abrasions on her wrists or the fact she did all the cooking and was always ready to break camp no matter how early he woke her. He didn’t tie her up because he didn’t want to.

He liked Victoria. He had finally admitted that to himself. It didn’t do any good to keep telling himself he had no place for a woman in his life, or that it was stupid to become involved with anyone under these circumstances.

Actually his feelings were stronger than mere like. He hadn’t fallen in love with her, though there were times when he told himself he was acting crazy enough to do just that. It probably came closer to a combination of lust and fascination, not the kind of thing you’d want to confess to a woman like Victoria.

He imagined she would respond nobly to a declaration of love. If she couldn’t return his passion, she would probably attempt to spare his feelings. She had made it clear to Red she considered him a brother, and he still adored her. But an admission that he both lusted after her and was fascinated by the complexity of her character would probably earn him another set of scratches.

His fingertips touched the still-raised welts on his cheek. He would probably bear the scars until his dying day.

He watched as she prepared to serve the food, and he felt his body tighten. It was becoming more and more difficult to remain in camp with her and not do or say something that would let her know he practically had to sit on his hands to keep from touching her.

Even when he had thought her a cold-blooded murderess, he had battled the strong pull of physical attraction. Now that his feelings had made a one hundred and eighty degree change, he found it nearly impossible to think of anything else.

But, how do you tell a woman you’ve changed your mind? How do you tell her you’ve gone from thinking her a murderess who deserves to be hanged to seeing her as a beautiful woman you want to make love to?

She’d tear him to ribbons if he said that. And he’d deserve it.

Then how could he apologize for the way he felt about her in the beginning? He had changed the way he treated her and she had greeted that with stony silence. He had started to believe in her innocence, but she wouldn’t talk about the murder. He’d tried to talk about her father, the ranch, her home in Alabama, and a dozen other things over the last two days, and she had responded with monosyllables, grunts, or silence.

Telling her he believed her and would do everything in his power to prove her innocence hadn’t breached the wall she had erected around herself. Now that she had decided to go back and had gotten his promise to look for Chalk Gillet, she seemed to have lost all interest in what was going to happen to her. She had retreated into some part of her mind where he couldn’t follow.

Ironically, he finally believed she was innocent. She didn’t act guilty. She never had, but it was her attitude which convinced him. Victoria was a fighter, not one to give up on life. She wouldn’t be able to face her return to Bandera with such calm unless she knew she was innocent, unless she had complete confidence Trinity would be able to find Gillet.

Trinity didn’t know if Gillet was still alive, but if he was, Trinity swore he’d find him. Jury verdict or no jury verdict, Victoria wasn’t going to hang.

“He shouldn’t be out there by himself.” They had finished dinner. Victoria sat staring at the small pinpoint of a distant campfire. “Anything could happen to him and we’d never know.”

“He’s all right as long as we can see his campfire each evening.”

“I was sure he’d have given up and gone back to Mountain Valley by now.” Victoria was sincerely worried.

“Boys like Red don’t give up, not at his age. Right now following us is the most important thing in his life.”

“Were you ever like that?”

Had he ever been like Red? So green and tender, so full of the juices of life? After years on the trail spent learning to trust no one, believe in nothing, letting no one get close, it seemed incredible he could ever have been so young, so full of enthusiasm, so ready to believe passionately, to act on faith alone, so willing to offer his life at the altar of love.

What lay inside him now? A desert of distrust, deceit, and destruction. No matter how he looked at it, he destroyed lives. He had appointed himself judge and jury, and he had allowed no appeals from his decisions.

Quite suddenly Trinity was disgusted with himself. He still believed in his motives, believed his job had to be done, but he didn’t want to be the one to do it. It had cost him too much. It had burned out the inner core of his soul. He would give almost anything to be that young boy again, but it was too late.

“Once.”

“Was it Queenie?”

Trinity sighed and felt the wall which guarded his past begin to give way.

“Yes.”

“Was she very beautiful?”

“She was the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen. And the most evil.”

Trinity looked up, but Victoria wasn’t watching him. She was studying a small tear in her blouse. The tension inside him relaxed. He couldn’t stand sympathy. Interest, boredom, even anger, but if she had shown the slightest sign of sympathy he would have closed his mouth and never said another word.

“I was sixteen, just like you had been, but I had even less sense. I thought I was somebody special, that there had never been a young man like me. I had reached most of my height, but I wasn’t as skinny as most sixteen year olds. I had some bone and muscle, and the young girls flocked around me like I was catnip.