Blood Duel (26 page)

The sun was barely risen when Adolphina reluctantly rose, donned her robe, and padded down the stairs to the store. Her husband was not there. She went to the front window and saw men loitering in front of the saloon.

“It figures,” Adolphina said aloud. Leave it to men to come up with an excuse to drink. She turned and shuffled down the hall to the kitchen. She was surprised the lamp was lit. She was even more surprised to smell the aroma of coffee and food. But neither matched the surprise she felt when a pistol barrel was flourished in her face.

“Not so much as a peep, lady. I am Jeeter Frost and you will do as I tell you.”

Adolphina had never seen the man-killer, but she had heard him described. She was not the least bit intimidated. “What are you doing in my house?” she demanded.

“Having breakfast,” said a spindly woman by the stove. “Would you care to join us, Mrs. Luce?”

“Who are you?” Adolphina snapped. “Are you with this brute?”

“That I am,” Ernestine Frost said sweetly. “Here. Let me pour you a cup of coffee and I will enlighten you.”

Adolphina listened in horror to the schoolmarm’s tale. How anyone in her right mind could wed a nasty speck of bile like Jeeter Frost was beyond her. The only conclusion she could come to was that the poor woman was delusional. Or desperate. Adolphina could understand the latter. There had been a time when
she had feared she was fated to go through life unattached. She was no blushing romantic. When she looked in the mirror she saw a big ox of a woman, and few men liked to marry oxen. Then along came Chester, who had never been with a woman in his life but took it into his silly little head that she was the one for him.

Adolphina never could figure out why. Chester could do better. Not a smarter woman, certainly, but better looking. Yet he courted her. She had pretended not to be interested, which only increased his ardor, such as it was, all the while assessing his prospects. As a lover he made a great lump of clay. He not only did not know what to do; he was scared to death to do the little he knew. She’d had to encourage him, which, granted, did not take much. It never did with men. A woman batted an eye and a man was all over her. A pretty woman, at any rate.

As a businessman Chester was so-so. He had a head for accounts and numbers, but not necessarily a sharp head. His best asset was, ironically, his sunny disposition. Chester was friendly with everybody. He always had a ready smile, a nice comment. Ideal traits for, say, a politician.

It was Adolphina who goaded him into his political career by filling his head with visions of the greatness that awaited him if he would do as she wanted. He gave in. He always gave in. But all had not gone as she planned. Instead of flourishing as Dodge City flourished, Coffin Varnish withered on the municipal vine. Forcing her to work doubly hard to catapult Chester to higher office.

Now, sitting there listening to the schoolteacher
prattle on, Adolphina had another of her marvelous inspirations.

“So you see,” Ernestine said, bringing her story to a close, “Jeeter and I are very much in love. He did not kidnap me. I want you to tell people that after we go. I want everyone to know.”

“Amazing. Simply amazing,” Adolphina declared.

“Love is like that,” Ernestine said.

“No. I meant it is amazing that a wonderful woman like you has taken up with a slug like him.”

“Hey, now,” Jeeter Frost said.

Ernestine shared her husband’s reaction. “There was no call for that unseemly remark, Mrs. Luce.”

“Oh, don’t get me wrong, dearie,” Adolphina said. “I am sure you adore him. I adore my husband, too. But let’s face it. Neither is worth much.”

“Hey, now,” Jeeter Frost said again.

Adolphina ignored him. In a very short while he would be of no consequence. She was going to dress and get the small revolver her husband kept in the nightstand. She would disarm the killer and hold him for her husband to turn over to the posse so Chester would get the credit. Word would spread of how he saved the schoolmarm. Were he to run for higher office, he would be a shoo-in. She became aware that the schoolmarm was talking to her.

“Do you hear me?”

“I am sorry, dearie,” Adolphina said. “I was distracted. What did you say?”

“I do not appreciate your insults. My husband might not be much in your eyes, but he is everything in mine.”

“They say love is blind and they are right.” Adolphina patted the other woman’s hand. “You are
living proof. But don’t take what I say personally. I have your best interests at heart.”

Jeeter had been over by the door watching down the hall, but now he stepped to the cabinet that contained the pots and pans and selected a large frying pan.

“You confuse me, Mrs. Luce,” Ernestine said.

“Only because you are new to this,” Adolphina told her. “You are thinking with your heart and not your head. If you were thinking with your head, you would realize your husband is not much of a catch and you would be better served if you were shed of him.”

Ernestine gasped. “How can you say that?”

Adolphina was only trying to spare the woman’s feelings for when Frost was taken into custody. “Be honest with yourself and with me. If your husband were a pickle, he would be at the bottom of the barrel.”

By then Jeeter was next to the kitchen table. “Pickle this,” he said, and swung the frying pan. It connected with the side of the big woman’s head with a satisfying
thunk
and she folded over the table.

“Jeeter, no!” Ernestine squealed. “What did you do that for?”

“If people don’t want to be hit over the head with frying pans, they shouldn’t call other people pickles.”

“Is she dead?”

Adolphina groaned.

“No,” Jeeter said, and hit her again. He did not use all his strength, as much as he wanted to.

“Oh, Jeeter,” Ernestine said softly.

“I didn’t kill the sow.” Jeeter set the pan on the counter. He clasped his wife’s hands, pulled her out of the chair, and embraced her. “I won’t let anyone, man or woman, try to break us apart.”

“She was only trying to—” Ernestine stopped and stared at the slumped form on the table. Spittle was dribbling from a corner of her mouth. “To be honest, I don’t know why she was being so mean.”

“From now on, no one speaks ill of you,” Jeeter said. “Not where I can hear. Not if they want to stay healthy.”

“My protector,” Ernestine said.

Winifred Curry was not in the best of tempers. He made money selling liquor. He did not make money selling coffee. Coffee he supplied for free, and so far the posse had downed two pots and Undersheriff Glickman had just asked him to make another.

“It is for a good cause,” Chester said when Win swore.

“I don’t see you making any,” Win criticized. “And what good cause would that be?”

“We are helping the minions of law and order.”

“We?” Win said. “When you make a batch, then you can say we. For now it is me, myself, and I, and I wish they were drinking whiskey and not Arbuckle’s.” He went through the door in the back into his living quarters.

Chester Luce grinned and walked over to the table occupied by the undersheriff, the journalist, and the old scout. “Mind if I join you gentlemen?” he asked, pulling out an empty chair.

“Why did your friend have that sour face when I asked him to make more coffee?” Seamus asked.

“We woke him too early,” Chester said. “He is always a grouch when he does not get his sleep.”

“I could use some,” Lafferty said, and yawned. “The coffee isn’t helping as much as I hoped.”

Seamus glanced at Coombs. “How are you holding up, Jack? You sure do fidget a lot.”

“I am wide awake.”

“You don’t sound happy about it.”

“I am awake and sober,” Jack Coombs said. “There is nothing to be happy about.”

Seamus masked a smile by taking a swallow of coffee. He had observed how the tracker kept gazing at the shelves behind the bar and licking his lips. “That’s right. You are not used to being sober, are you?”

“Don’t remind me.”

“The sun will be up soon,” Seamus said. “Then you can start tracking. A few hours in the heat and dust and you will forget all about whether you are sober or not.”

“I suppose,” Coombs said, with about as much enthusiasm as if he had been told he was to have a spike driven through his knee.

“I hope we can take Frost alive,” Lafferty said. “An interview with him would be carried by every newspaper in the country.”

Chester asked, “Is that all he is to you? A story?”

“That is all anyone is to me,” Lafferty said. “Dead or alive he is news, but alive I can milk it more.”

“How about you?” Chester asked Glickman. “What is he to you?”

“A pain in the ass,” Seamus said.

Jack Coombs was gazing at the long row of bottles again, his expression a mix of longing and pain. “It was downright dumb of him to kidnap the schoolmarm. It is the first dumb thing I ever heard tell of him doing.”

“You don’t call killing people dumb?” Lafferty asked.

“Not if they give cause,” Coombs said. “In the old days we did not make the fuss over it that folks make today. Sometimes it had to be done and that was all there was to it.”

“In the old days there was no law,” Chester mentioned.

“You say that as if it was bad,” Jack Coombs said. “But the less law there is, the more freedom you have. I miss those old days. The days when a man could do what he wanted without a tin star looking over his shoulder.”

“You mean drink?” Seamus said. “A man has always been able to drink as much as he wants.”

“I could use one now,” Lafferty said. “But we might have a lot of riding to do and I don’t ride well when I have had liquor.”

“I will treat myself to a bottle when this is over,” Seamus said. “There is nothing quite like the warm feeling you get when whiskey goes down your throat.”

“Quit talking drink,” Jack Coombs said.

“Sometimes I will have rye or scotch, but neither holds a candle to the best whiskey,” Seamus went on. “I could sip on a bottle all day and all night and not miss eating food.” He almost laughed when the old scout trembled and wiped a sleeve across his mouth. “Yes, sir. Good whiskey is better than a good woman or just about anything else any day.”

“Is there such a thing as a good woman?” Chester responded without thinking.

“You should know,” Lafferty said. “You are the only one at this table who is married.”

“There are good women, then,” Chester said. He stared at the bottles. “Hell, I could use a drink right now myself.”

Seamus rose and went around the bar. He selected his favorite label of whiskey, forked several glasses with his fingers, and returned to the table. Setting one of the glasses in front of the mayor, he proceeded to open the bottle so he could pour.

“What are you doing?”

“You said you wanted a drink.”

“I said I could use one,” Chester said. But when the glass was half-full, he raised it to his lips and gratefully sipped. “Mmmm. Nice.”

Seamus poured one for Lafferty and one for himself and made it a point to set the bottle near Jack Coombs. He swallowed and made a show of smacking his lips. “This here is fine whiskey.”

“I suppose one wouldn’t hurt me,” Lafferty said, and indulged. “You are right,” he told Seamus. “It goes down smooth.”

Just then Winifred Curry hurried from the back and over to their table. “I am plumb out of coffee,” he said to Chester. “You will have to get a can from your store.”

“Me?” Chester said.

“Who else?” Win smiled. “It is for a good cause. You are helping the minions of law and order. Isn’t that right, Sheriff Glickman?”

“What? Oh, sure,” Seamus said. He was only half listening. His main interest was in Jack Coombs.

The old scout was chugging whiskey straight from the bottle.

Chester Luce was not smiling as he started to cross the street from the saloon to his store. He could count on one hand the number of times in his life he had given something away for free. Chester would be damned if he would provide free coffee for the posse. He would get a can of Arbuckle’s, but he would present Glickman with a voucher and demand payment. If the amount on the voucher was more than the amount he paid for the can, well, that was commerce.

The bell over the door tinkled. Chester debated on waking Adolphina and decided against it. Asleep, she could not cause him trouble. With luck she would stay in bed until noon and by then the leather slapper and his lady friend would be long gone.

Chester moved down the center aisle. He came to the shelf with the Arbuckle cans and kept walking. He would check on his uninvited guests in case they needed anything. Better to keep them happy and content until they left, he reasoned.

The kitchen door was closed. Chester knocked and opened it. Smiling, he began, “Is every—” Then he stopped, frozen in astonishment at the sight of his wife
sprawled half across the table with blood trickling from a gash in her temple. “Adolphina?”

In a rush of insight Chester divined what had happened. His wife had woken up and come down to the kitchen. She had stumbled on the killer and the schoolmarm, and the killer had killed her.

“Dear God!” Chester blurted. Sorrow seized him, sorrow so potent his head swam and he had to put a hand on the table to stay on his feet. “Adolphina!” he cried. He could not bear to look at her. Turning, he stumbled from the kitchen and sagged against the hall wall.

As strange as it seemed to other people, he had cared for that woman. She had not been much to look at. She had the temperament of a bull. But she had a shrewd head on her broad shoulders and she had stuck by him through good times and rough, and he had, by God, cared for her.

A bleat of sadness escaped him. Although he resented her bossiness, he had relied on her guidance. He could always count on her to have their mutual best interest in mind.

Belatedly, Chester realized her killer and the schoolmarm were gone. Snuck off, no doubt, intending to slink out of town before their foul deed was discovered. Not while he drew breath! Straightening, he hastened down the hall and through the store to the front door. He started to open it, and paused. He must collect his thoughts and do it right. He would rush into the saloon. He would say he had stumbled on Jeeter Frost and the schoolmarm in his store, and seen Frost kill his wife with his own eyes. The posse would be quick to spread out and search for them.