Crazy Woman Creek (27 page)

“It’s his,” said Sheriff Morris, “or it looks just like it.”

“Dunn’s boy is going to be disappointed. I told him I’d return it to him if we couldn’t track down the owner.”

Sheriff Morris’ eyebrows shot up.

“I know, I know. It belongs to someone around here. Buffalo is a small place. I shouldn’t have given him false hope. But the kid was so brokenhearted.”

“What’s all this dirt?” said Sheriff Morris, peering at the watch. Without waiting for comment from Luke, the sheriff pulled out his pocket knife, snapped open its smallest steel blade, and began trying to pry open the back of the time piece. Luke walked over to watch. In no time the sheriff and Luke were looking at the rusted interior workings of James Rose’s pocket watch. Sheriff Morris tapped the watch lightly on the surface of his desk. A shower of fine, red-brown particles fell onto the desk.

“Look at this rust,” said the sheriff. “Rose wouldn’t let his fine piece ever get like this.”

“Is it rust or dirt?”

Sheriff Morris used his index finger and thumb to pinch a bit of the dust on his desk. He rubbed it between his fingers. “Both, I think.”

“That explains why it won’t keep time.”

“Where’d Dunn’s kid say he find this?”

“Church steps.”

“Hmm. He may have found it on the church steps but that’s not where it’s been for the last four months.” Sheriff Morris tapped the time piece lightly on his desk. Another shower of red-brown dust.

“That’s what I thought when I first opened it. Someone must have recently set it there. I’m in church every Sunday, and half the town attends Ebenezer. Someone would have seen it before now if Rose had dropped it there.”

“What do you make of it then?” asked the sheriff.

“A red herring

“A red what?”

“A smelly
red fish that stinks so bad it takes you off the scent of your trail.”

“You think someone put it on the church steps to throw us off?” Sheriff Morris snapped the watch shut and held it up in front of him by its chain, where it revolved slowly, turning from one side to the other. Across the room the coffee pot started to rattle. Luke walked over to the wood stove and pushed the pot a little farther from the heat.

“It’s possible. I can’t believe that someone found a valuable piece like that near the church then left it on the steps hoping the owner would retrieve it again on Sunday,” said Luke. “And there’s no blood on it. I checked. It was clean all over when the kid brought it in. Only the bits of dirt when you open it

“You think someone wanted us to find it?” asked the sheriff, handing the gleaming fob back to Luke.

“Someone wanted it found alright, but not necessarily by us.”

“Maybe they wanted the parson to find it.”

“I thought about that, but what’s Reverend Thomas got to do with this?” Luke didn’t wait for the sheriff to answer. “I don’t know why everything in this case has to be so cotton pickin’ mysterious. It’s not like we’re trailing Frank and Jesse James. James Rose was just a dumb rancher who didn’t have enough sense not to ride after dark. Finding his carcass should be easy.”

“You sound frustrated.”

“I am frustrated,” said Luke, “And disgusted. We should have found it by now. Dead or alive, without his horse he couldn’t have gotten very far.”

“Maybe someone knows something about the Reverend we don’t.”

A look of shock fell over Luke’s face. He stared at Sheriff Morris. “I hadn’t thought of that.”

“The only angels around here are fallen ones. Everybody’s got secret sins, Luke. Even the good parson.”

Luke disagreed with Cyrus’ cynical theology, but it would be unprofessional to dismiss Reverend Thomas as a suspect. Someone was trying to tell them something about the church or the Reverend or both. Someone had intentionally placed the gold watch where it was certain to be found. To dismiss the clue without further investigation because of its proximity to a man of the cloth would be a mistake.

After a while the coffee pot stopped perking, and the two little adjoining offices smelled deliciously of strong fresh coffee. Luke poured a cup for both of them and then dragged one of the visitor’s chairs over to the sheriff’s desk. It was quiet in the law office. The noisiest part of the day—when the afternoon stage arrived to unload passengers, cargo, and mail, and pick up more of the same—had come and gone and most shoppers had finished their business, loaded their wagons or saddle bags, and returned to their ranches. The men silently enjoyed their coffee a few minutes, thinking about the watch that sat on the sheriff’s desk while they sipped little sips to avoid being burned by the scalding black brew.

“Well, Sam Wright didn’t leave it there,” observed Sheriff Morris, looking at the watch and stating the obvious. “He’s been locked up since before last Sunday. If it had been on the church steps before or after service, someone would have seen it.”

“You getting anything from him?” said Luke.

“No. Sleeps all day. Can’t get much when he’s awake, neither. I think that boy was born with something missing,” said the sheriff, tapping the side of his head.

“What about the boots? He explained yet where he got ‘em?”

“He’s still sticking to his story about getting ‘em in exchange for helping some fellow west of here.”

“You get the rancher’s name?”

“No. Says he doesn’t remember,” said the sheriff.

Luke shook his head in disbelief.

Sheriff Morris blew on his coffee and took a noisy slurp. “He gave me a description of the ranch, though, and some landmarks to find it.”

“Good,” said Luke, though what he really felt was surprise. “Next thing I do is ride out there and talk to him—if he exists. Then I have to get those boots in front of Mrs. Rose.” He certainly would not ask Mrs. Rose to come to the jailhouse to determine if the boots Buffalo’s most dangerous man wore were the same ones Mr. Rose was wearing when he disappeared. That would upset her. But taking an inmate’s only shoes right off his feet had a distasteful quality. Then again, carrying a boot to Mrs. Rose’s ranch for her to identify gave Luke another excuse to see her. He resolved to make the trip as soon as he returned from interrogating the unnamed former owner of the boots. “Do you think Sam had anything to do with Rose’s disappearance?”

Sheriff Morris shrugged.

“Someone was sneaking around her property before she came to town to report him missing,”
Luke explained. “Could very well be that Sam killed Rose that Saturday night. If he had killed Rose, he knew Rose wouldn’t return to his ranch, and he knew Mrs. Rose would be alone. She told me someone was on the property the next night, the Sunday night after Rose went missing. She came to see us the day after that, a Monday.”

“Sam’s only dangerous when he’s sober,” said the sheriff. “That doesn’t leave him much time for murder.”

“You saw the letter from Sheriff Clarke,” said Luke.

“I saw it.”

“Well?”

“The last time Sam was accused of hurting someone was six years ago.”

“What if he’s been at it since then but hasn’t been caught?” said Luke.

“That’s possible,” said Sheriff Morris. “But I’m of a mind to think that hooch is running his life now. I don’t think he’s capable of anything more violent than uncorking a bottle of cheap whiskey.”

Luke wasn’t so sure, but he didn’t want to argue. “The prowling has stopped,” he said.

“You
seen Mrs. Rose?”

“Talked to her at Aeschelman’s this morning. She’s doing fine now that Sam’s locked up and can’t harass her anymore.”

“That crazy woman still lighting a candle in the window for her husband?”

Luke pursed his lips and silently prayed for grace. “She’s expecting his baby, Cyrus. Don’t you think her mind is on her husband more than ever? Hoping he’ll come home to be a father to their child?”

Sheriff Morris screwed up his face.

The truth of Luke’s own question left him with a hollow feeling. How did he get cast in the center of this drama anyway? He was just doing his job, yet he felt like he was eavesdropping on the private lives of others. At times like these he almost wished James Rose would show up alive, though he winced inwardly when the thought surfaced. The strain of not knowing if he was falling in love with a married woman or a widow was taking its toll. He needed to find Rose’s body soon or at least some hard evidence that the man was dead. He would wager that Rose was dead—he had believed him to be dead from the start. But the lack of a body always made room for doubt. It was this singular doubt that stole away Luke’s rest at night. He hated living in a netherworld. At times it seemed that fate was toying with his desires, dangling the lovely and vulnerable Mrs. Rose in front of him like a bone in front of a starving stray dog. He could look but not touch, want but not have. These frustrating circumstances made him angry, though at no one in particular. But his failure to find the body made him angry at himself.

All at once it dawned on Luke that Mrs. Rose must feel the agony of that in-between place far more than he did. Neither married nor widowed and expecting a child; she was the one who was suffering the most. Luke felt ashamed for thinking only of his own frustration and not her pain, which must be far more acute.

“She’s going to petition the judge at Fort McKinney to have her husband declared dead. She asked me to help her with the paperwork,” said Luke.

Sheriff Morris looked stunned. Luke saw the surprise in his face and felt compelled to explain.

“It doesn’t mean she believes he’s dead. She’s trying to save her ranch.”

“By killing him off?”

Luke pursed his lips and shot a threatening look at the sheriff. “It’s the Homestead Act,” explained Luke, striving for control. “The law recognizes only two reasons for not fulfilling your five-year commitment, death or abandonment. He’s been missing four months. Another two months and the government can claim he abandoned his land.”

“I see.”

“If that happens, his land passes to the government. But if a judge declares him dead, even without his body the land becomes hers. She has to live on it another eighteen months though to fulfill the five-year requirement.”

Sheriff Morris shook his head back and forth slowly. “Boy, you just jump into trouble with both feet, don’t you?”

Luke didn’t answer. He’d been thinking the very same thing since he had left Aeschelman’s, but Cyrus didn’t need to know that. The second the words had left his mouth, when he had agreed to help Mrs. Rose petition the judge, Luke had known he was stepping into very deep, very dark water. He felt uneasy about pursuing the very document that would put James Rose out of Mrs. Rose’s life and leave her free to remarry. Had he secretly desired this? The thought that he was guilty of such abject covetousness squeezed the breath out of him. She had asked him to help her; was he wrong to do so? Then again, he had offered his services to her more than once since her husband went missing—who else would she ask now that the help she needed was of a legal nature? Certainly not Cyrus.

Truthfully, he yearned to care for her, to pull her to himself and hold her, to comfort her, and deep inside he knew that no matter what people thought or said about his motives, he would help in any way he could. Tongues would wag. It might even threaten his position as deputy. But Mrs. Rose was alone in this town, she was expecting a child, and she was close to being put out of her home. Saying no was not an option.

Sheriff Morris leaned back in his chair and absently pulled on his mustache. “Let’s see,” he said, “the husband of the prettiest woman in town, childless but the owner of the choicest spread in the Territory, goes missing. His wife of four years is now expecting her first child. Brat is due exactly
nine months after she first visits the town’s law office to tell her sad tale to the new, young, very attentive bachelor deputy ... a Confederate.”

Luke’s jaw
froze with outrage, though almost everything the sheriff said was true, even the part about him being attentive. He wished he had been more discreet in his dealings with Mrs. Rose, but it was too late to worry about it now. As for being a southerner, Luke and the sheriff had gone over this ground before and Luke didn’t care to spar again. His mother was southern, his father was a Unionist. Luke just wanted to live in peace. Sheriff Morris continued.

“Four months pass and the rancher doesn’t come home. Body isn’t found. Now that same deputy is rushing off to Fort McKinney to have the missing husband of the very pretty, very available young wife declared dead.”

Luke, furious and frustrated, could only stare at his boss.

“Did I mention that the whole eastern edge of the woman’s ranch runs along Crazy Woman Creek?” Sheriff Morris’s eyes were full of mirth. “You make those trashy dime novels that women fill their heads with look like a McGuffey Reader.” Sheriff Morris chuckled to himself.

“You know full well I’m not rushing to have him declared dead,” said Luke, coming to his own defense. “As it is, there’s hardly time to file the petition and bring in witnesses or collect written testimony before the six-month statute expires. We have to have that much. We have no physical evidence to put in front of Judge Stillman.” Luke seethed but managed a veneer of control. “And we don’t even know if Judge Stillman is in Fort Laramie. I don’t know where his circuit puts him when he’s not in Buffalo. I only know he’s not scheduled to be here in town till the end of next month.”