Blood at Bear Lake (5 page)

“Can I help you, ma'am?”

“Yes, please.” And—incredibly—when he reached through the bars, she handed him not the tray, as he expected, but the key ring. “Can you reach through and unlock that for me, please?”

He did so easily enough, then stepped back and swung the door open.

“Thank you.” She came in and carefully set the tray on the foot of the bunk, turning her back to Joe when she did so. He still had the jail keys in his hand. “There,” she said when she straightened upright. “If there is anything else you need, call out. My name is Christine, by the way. I'm the marshal's wife.”

“Pleased t' meet you, Miz Wilcox.” Joe bobbed his head.

“Likewise, Mr. Moss.” She smiled, then gathered her skirts. “I will leave you alone now so you can enjoy your dinner in peace.”

“Yes, ma'am. Thank you.”

Christine started for the cell door, but Joe stopped her, saying, “You might want t' take these with you, ma'am.” He held out the key ring.

The lady shrugged her thin shoulders and giggled, then took the key ring and departed, carefully locking the cell door behind her.

Joe was puzzled. But not so much so that he failed to smile when he lifted the dish towel and saw what the marshal's lady had brought for his supper.

If all jail meals were this good, he might just arrange to get himself arrested more often.

11

WILCOX ENTERED THE cell block with a cat-that-ate-the-canary look about him. He was carrying the cell keys and a pair of handcuffs. “You and me need to take a little walk, Moss,” he said as he unlocked the cell door.

Joe picked up the tray Mrs. Wilcox left behind—he had damn near polished it getting the last remnants of tasty gravy—and held it in both hands while the marshal rigged the cuffs rather loosely on Joe's wrists. “What about . . . ?” He gestured with the tray.

“Oops. I almost forgot.” Wilcox took the tray in one hand, and with the other ushered Joe into the marshal's office. He set the tray aside and motioned toward the front door.

It was black night out there. With no windows in the cell block, Joe had lost track of the time. He had not thought it was so late, but obviously had been wrong about that.

“Where're we going, Marshal?”

“You'll see. It's right over there. Where all the lights are, do you see?”

“Yes, but . . .”

“Just go along here. You won't be sorry.”

Wilcox certainly did not
act
like he was leading the goat to the slaughter. If anything, he seemed downright tickled with himself. Joe grunted and decided to “go along” just as the man asked. For the moment anyway.

The building with all the lights proved to be the meeting place for some sort of lodge, Joe guessed from the odd symbols and ornaments ranged around the walls. The place was one large long room, and it was virtually filled with townspeople, mostly men, but with a few women in the crowd as well.

At its head, there was a tall desk and in front of it a lectern. Chairs had been set to one side of the desk. Six of them. In the chairs were six plump gents wearing boiled shirts and fluffy neckties.

“Shit,” Joe mumbled. He turned to the marshal and whispered, “They're a jury, ain't they?”

“Well, um, yes, Moss. They are indeed a jury of your peers.”

“You cocksucker. You fooled me by bein' so easy. If I'd known what you was up to it woulda took you, the judge, and every one o' those sons o' bitches to pry me outa that cell and get me over here.”

“I would appreciate it if you wouldn't use language like that. There are some ladies nearby who might overhear.”

“Damn you,” Joe said with considerable venom.

“Calm down and shut up. We have a trial to conduct here.” The marshal reinforced his admonition by pulling a revolver out of his belt. Joe's own revolver, Joe noticed.

“Damn you,” Joe repeated. But he allowed himself to be led to the lectern facing the big desk.

While he walked, however, he was looking around, thinking and planning. If he could just slip one hand free of the steel bracelets . . .

12

DAMN TRIAL WAS over before Joe had a chance to figure out how he was going to get away. It turned out there were only two witnesses. One was the man who had first walked into the livery barn and found Joe standing over the dead man. The second was Marshal Wilcox.

“Every man here likely did business with Sam Farnsworth some time or another. You likely paid him with a dime or a quarter or even a handful of pennies. All Sam ever dealt in was small money, then every week or so he would turn the coins in for currency. Well, yesterday I checked with the bank to see if Sam had changed his coins that morning. He hadn't. And Moss here didn't have no pocketful of coins neither. He had a tidy amount of folding money, but not much in the way of coins.”

Wilcox dropped his chin and folded his arms. He looked from one end of the row of jurors to the other, then spoke again. “Do you know what that tells me?
This man is innocent
. We have wrongly accused him, and I say we have to vote him innocent in this duly constituted court of law. We have to turn him loose with apology.”

Joe blinked, not at all sure he correctly heard what it was that he just in fact did hear.

The judge banged the desk with his gavel. The prosecutor called for a show of hands of all those who thought Joe was guilty. Not a single hand went up.

“Innocent?” the prosecutor said.

All six hands were lifted.

Wilcox grinned and turned to Joe. “That makes it legal. You've been exonerated proper and can't be charged with that crime again. Even if you confessed to it now, you couldn't be charged.”

“Well, that ain't gonna happen for the simple reason I didn't do it.” Joe shook his head. “But damn, Marshal, you coulda told me what was happening beforehand. I was some worried up till I realized what you was up to there.”

“Sorry.” Wilcox grinned. “But it was more fun this way.”

“You was putting on a show for the whole town, wasn't you?”

The marshal shrugged. “Partly maybe. Another reason is that I wanted the real killers to start sweating. Now they know they didn't get clean away. And worried men make mistakes.”

“Marshal, it's been my experience that it's mostly stupid men who do stupid crimes t' begin with. I suggest you look at the dumber end o' the scale when you go to looking for the killers.”

“I know I am in no position to ask you for favors, Moss, but I am going to ask anyway.”

“You can ask. Don't know as I'll agree to whatever it is you're asking for, though.”

“The thing is,” the marshal said, “you are the only witness we have to Sam's murder.”

“I never saw . . .”

“I know, I know, you didn't actually see. But you say you did hear voices. You might recognize something that you don't even realize you know. The thing is, Moss, I would like for you to pin a deputy's badge on your chest and help me ferret out whoever killed Sam.

“And while I happen to know that you don't really need the money, the job pays a dollar and a half a day.”

“An' keep?” Joe asked. He smiled. “Does your wife's good cooking come along with the deal?”

“If that's what it takes to get your cooperation, then yes, it does.”

Joe fingered his chin. He wanted to find Fiona. But it was still possible that she was on her way here right now and simply had not yet made it.

Before he went sashaying off into the hills looking under every bush in the faint hope of finding her, it only made sense that he wait and give Fiona time to get here if this indeed was where she was bound.

He nodded. “I'll take the job, Marshal. For now. I'll leave when I reckon I need to.”

“That's fair enough,” Wilcox said. “Call me Tolbert if you like, Joe. Now come with me over to the jail. We'll get your weapons out of the locker and put that star on your shirt.”

“Uh, Tolbert?”

“Yes, what is it, Joe?”

Joe extended his hands toward the marshal. They still were shackled with the handcuffs.

Wilcox grinned and smacked himself in the forehead. Then he dug into his pocket for the key that would open the manacles.

Joe thought he might possibly—just barely possibly— have been able to slip the cuffs and make an escape from there.

But he was glad he hadn't had to try, especially with what looked like an entire town full of armed men on hand if he did make a break for it. No, sir, he was mighty glad.

13

JOE ACCOMPANIED TOLBERT Wilcox to the marshal's home, a small house set two blocks off the main street of Lake's Crossing. Christine Wilcox met them at the door. She took her husband's hat and gun belt and hung them on a peg by the front door where they would be handy to grab in a hurry if need be.

Joe took the hint and draped his belt and hat there, too. But he kept his bowie and tomahawk in his sash. He would have felt naked without those. Besides, how do you hang a tomahawk on a wooden peg anyway?

“Would you like pie and coffee?” she offered.

“Just the coffee,” Tolbert said. “We'll take it in the front room. We need to talk some business here, Christine.”

“I'll bring it straightaway,” she responded, obviously taking the hint that the menfolk would not be socializing and her presence was not really welcome. “Gentlemen.” She pointed toward a small room that was filled nearly to overflowing with a sofa and two huge, deep upholstered armchairs, all of it in matching dark blue fabric.

“Thank you, ma'am.”

Christine disappeared toward the back of the house. Joe waited for Tolbert to settle into his favored armchair, this one with a lamp on a stand that placed it over his left shoulder. The lamp was lighted and a reflector angled to Tolbert's liking. There was also a low side table placed nearby with a glass humidor and supply of matches beside it.

“Do you smoke, Joe?”

“Yes, I do.”

“Feel free to light up. This tobacco isn't bad. A little old, but I haven't allowed it to dry out.” That was a problem lately. With war raging back East, the usual flow of tobacco from the Southern states was cut off, and both the quality and quantity of the available West Indian tobacco was lacking. Tolbert selected a pipe from among several waiting on a stand beside the humidor.

Joe thanked the man and dug his own pipe out of his possibles pouch. He filled it with Tolbert's tobacco and helped himself to a match. By the time he had his pipe drawing nicely—Tolbert was right about the tobacco being a cut above the usual—Christine was there with coffee. She set the cups down and silently withdrew.

“In a way,” Tolbert mused, “I almost wish we had gone ahead and convicted you of Sam's murder, Joe.”

“But I really didn't . . .”

“Oh, I know you didn't do it. That isn't what I meant. The thing that's worrying me now, Joe, is that your innocence means that this community still has a murderer running around loose somewhere.”

“Two,” Joe said.

“Two what?”

“Two murderers.”

“You're sure about that?”

Joe nodded and puffed on his pipe. “Positive. I heard two voices, and they weren't one guy talking to himself. There was two of them as robbed an' killed that man.”

Tolbert grunted and sat in silence for a moment. Joe sipped at the steaming hot coffee. It was a little bitter with age from sitting on the stove too long, but he had surely drunk worse.

“You have to help me find them,” Tolbert said after a brief silence. “We can't let Sam's murderers slip away. I suppose the first thing I should do is to see can I figure out has anyone suddenly left town without saying anything about it ahead of time.” He puffed on his pipe. “Most folks around here are friendly. They don't have anything to hide. Nothing real serious anyway. They would've mentioned it if a trip was planned.”

Tolbert laid his pipe aside, crossed his legs, and laced his hands over his knee. “For right now, though, Joe, I'd like you to tell me, nice and slow, every least detail you can remember about those murderers. Everything you heard and everything you saw. Everything. Can you do that? Will you?”

“Gladly,” Joe said. He set in to do exactly that.

14

JOE SPENT THE night in a cluttered toolshed, a lean-to attached to the back of Wilcox's house. Christine apologized for the rough surroundings, but Joe grinned and waved off her apologies. “You should oughta see some o' the places I've slept. But then come to think of it, it's better that a nice lady like you don't know.”

He slept well—and free—and as usual woke well before dawn. The Wilcoxes apparently were not such early risers, so Joe pumped a basin full of cold water and washed on the back porch. He slicked his hair back with his hands, checked the set of his Colt revolver and the tomahawk and bowie, then wandered into town in search of a café that was open at the early hour. Preferably one with a handsome lady handling the orders.

Joe was married—Lordy, what a strange thought that was; he did not know if he would ever get over the magic of it—and he would never stray. But there was nothing wrong with a man liking to just
look
.

He found a likely place two blocks down and three over from the marshal's house. Yellow lamplight streamed from the street-side windows, giving the café a cheery look about it.

Until Joe walked inside, that is.

Cheery? Not damn likely.

There were only two customers and a fat, greasy cook inside the place. The cook was sweating from the heat of his stove, and both customers were huddled over their plates like they thought someone was going to come along and snatch their food away.