Dorothy Garlock (39 page)

“I … never—”

“Goddammit, you did! Stop your damn lying or I’ll mop the floor with you even if you are old … and fat! I was there. I heard you tell Lester to kill Marvin Carter and so did my wife.”

“You … misunderstood—”

“Bullshit! You were out there looking for Boone. You’d had orders to kill him for fear he’d start up and be competition to Remus. You’d decided to kill my wife and get her out of the way. You asked Benny if he was too chicken to kill the girl.”

Potter began to shake. The skin on his face was deathly white beneath the red blotches. Corbin continued to hold him up with his hand fastened to his shirt.

“They … would have killed me. I didn’t want to hurt anybody.”

“You are the lowest piece of humanity I’ve ever come across, and I’ve seen plenty of the sorry side of life.” Corbin stiffened his arm and threw him. Potter landed sprawled in a chair. “I could kill you for the hell you’ve put my wife through, for what you forced her to witness.”

“Don’t kill him … yet.” Boone stepped in front of Corbin. “I want to work him over with these for what his friends did to Spinner.” With his hand covered with the brass knuckles, he nudged Potter’s chin.

Potter cringed. “Where did you … get—”

“The knuckles?” McGiboney asked. “He got them from your friend Hogg, who else?”

“That stupid bastard! I told him to get rid of …”

“Of what, Potter? We know he had Donovan killed. Did you have a hand in that too?”

“No! It was his job.”

“Did he do it himself?”

“He hired some fellows down south of here. When they came to collect, they brought the knuckles. I’ve never hurt anyone.” Potter now only seemed interested in saving his own hide and continued to babble. “I never wanted to get mixed up with that kind of lowlife. Hogg told me I didn’t have to do anything, just keep my eyes open and report to him.”

Marshals McGiboney and Sanford exchanged glances. McGiboney gestured and Sanford followed him to the front of the store.

“Have we heard all we need to know?” Sanford asked.

“More than enough. With Appleby testifying, he’ll be sent up for a good long while. Appleby’s a damn good man. I’d like to have him working with me.”

“Do you want me to go along with you to get Hogg?”

“I’ll take my two deputies. Tell that wild man Boone to be careful with those brass knuckles. We don’t want any broken noses.”

“We don’t?” Marshal Sanford took his hat off and scratched his head. “Hell, McGiboney, you take the fun out of everything.”

Fifteen minutes later, Sanford unlocked the door of the drugstore. McGiboney and his deputies came in with a handcuffed Luther Hogg.

“I demand to know what’s going on. What will folks think seeing me like this? I have a position to uphold in this town.” He held up his cuffed hands.

“You should have thought of that before you got mixed up with Remus.”

“Dammit, I told you that I didn’t know anyone by that name. I have a store to run, and this is a busy day.”

“Ease up,” McGiboney said calmly. “Your wife is there. She can handle it. Come on back. We have a friend of yours here who wants to see you.”

Luther Hogg stopped as soon as he entered the back room and saw Potter huddled in a chair. The man who stood over him wearing the brass knuckles was systematically pounding them into the palm of his other hand.

“You smart-mouth know-it-all! I told you to get rid of those knuckles,” Potter shouted angrily. “This is your fault … all of it.”

“You weak little worm! You’ve spilled your guts!”

Hogg made a dive for Potter and came up against Boone. With one hand Boone pushed him back, with the other he swung. He struck Hogg square in the mouth with the brass knuckles. The force of the blow would have felled a horse. Hogg flew back and crashed into the wall. Blood spurting from his mouth and nose shot out over his face and shirt. Uprooted teeth hung from his broken, bloody mouth. He slowly sank to the floor.

“That was for a damn good man who never did anything more than sell a little bootleg whiskey.” Boone walked over and spit on the man on the floor. He looked up at the federal man. “Hell. I wanted more than one shot at him.”

“The one you got in was a good one.” McGiboney shook his head and squatted down to look at the unconscious man. “He’ll never again be eatin’ corn on the cob or beefsteak. Not that he’d be getting that where he’s going.”

“Guess this winds it up,” Sanford said. “What are you going to do with these two?”

“Take them to St. Louis in the morning. They can spend the night in jail here. My deputies will take turns watching them. I’ve heard that the sheriff here is none too reliable.”

“That’s an understatement,” Corbin muttered. “I’d like to get back to my wife if we’re no longer needed here.”

“We’ll be getting in touch.” McGiboney stuck out his hand. “If you want a job, look me up.”

“Thanks, but I’m thinking of getting into the newspaper business and using my training as a journalist. It’s not quite so hard on the nerves.”

“Good luck.” McGiboney turned to Boone. “Do I have to put your name on the Feds’ wanted list?”

“Not unless ya want ta give me a job. I’m handy with brass knuckles.”

“I can see that.” McGiboney shook Boone’s hand.

Luther Hogg was moaning on the floor and Potter was crying when Corbin left the room. The sight of the two of them sickened him. Now he had the chore of telling his sweet wife that her father was dead. He wasn’t looking forward to it.

It was late afternoon.

“I want to go home, Corbin.”

“All right, honey. We’ll have to wait for Jack to come back with the truck. He took Boone and Tess to the same preacher who married us.”

“They were getting married today?”

“They would rather have been married on a happier day, but it was necessary. Boone wanted the right to keep her with him in case the Carters decided to come and take her.”

Corbin hadn’t told Annabel about her father until they were alone in the hotel room. After seeing the brass knuckles, she had been halfway prepared for the news. Yet she had cried until she was exhausted. Afterward she had lain on the bed with Corbin holding her for a long while.

“What are we going to do, Corbin?” She sat up and pushed her hair back from her tear-wet face.

“Honey, there isn’t any rush for us to do anything right away. We can go out to the farm if that’s what you want. I need to get a car. It’s unhandy not having one. I’ve had one for several years and I’m spoiled.”

Annabel got up from the bed, opened her violin case and took out the violin. She pulled the felt lining loose to reveal a layer of hundred-dollar bills—at least ten of them.

“Papa put the money in here in case I’d need it. Take what you need for a car.”

“No, honey.” Corbin carefully replaced the lining and then the instrument. “Marshal Sanford said he’d see if the state would replace my car. Meanwhile, I have money to buy one. In a few days I’ll look around and see what I can find.”

Knowing that she grieved for her father and that there was not much he could do but wrap his arms around her and kiss her, he did that now. He sat down on the bed and pulled her down on his lap.

“I’m glad you’re here with me,” she whispered.

“Where else would I be, sweetheart? I’m your husband.”

He took her hand to his mouth and kissed the string he had so proudly tied on her finger.

“I love you.”

Her arms looped around his neck, her eyes level with his. She touched his jaw and the scar that notched his eyebrow. Her lips were soft and sweet when they caressed his.

“I love you too.”

Chapter
29

T
HE TOWN OF HENDERSON WAS ROCKED by the news that two of their leading citizens were crooks and had been taken to the federal prison to await trial. It had come out that Annabel’s father had been bootlegging, but that was petty compared to murder: his and that of Marvin Carter.

After it became known that Spinner had been beaten badly by the hit men from Chicago, a collection was taken up to help with his medical expenses.

Annabel and Corbin returned to the Donovan farm. Jack took Boone and Tess to the hills, where they would spend the first few days of their married life in Spinner’s cabin. When he returned, for the lack of something to do, he worked in the garden he had planted earlier.

Grieving for her father, Annabel moved about the house, quietly showing little emotion except at night when she was in her husband’s arms. Basking in his love, she nestled close to his chest as he found her deepest warmth and crooned soft words of love and reassurance to her. Then, arching helplessly against his hardness, she would strain toward that something new and wild and wonderful.

They made several trips to town to see Spinner; and on the first one, Corbin made arrangements for an Oldsmobile to be sent up from St. Louis. He explained to Annabel that the Olds was a good, heavy car, one that would last them for a long time, and he wanted her to learn to drive it.

Another time they met Calvin Carter, who had come to take Leroy home. The only words that were exchanged were when Calvin slapped money in Corbin’s hand.

“That feller that married Tessie paid for Leroy. Tell him we Carters ain’t takin’ no charity from the likes a him.”

“Are you sure you don’t want to tell him yourself? He’s your brother-in-law now.”

“Sh-it! What kind a man’d marry a whore?”

On the way back to the farm, Annabel showed more life than she had for days.

“The Carters are so ignorant they wouldn’t know a bee from a bull’s foot. Wouldn’t you think they’d believe their own sister over that awful man who raped her? If Boone catches up with him, he’ll not leave him with the equipment to rape another girl.”

“Ouch!” Corbin exclaimed, then grinned at her. “Calvin has his own code of what’s right and wrong. It would be better if Boone and Tess moved away from here. Tess’s relatives are never going to accept her.”

“I want to leave here, Corbin.”

“Where do you want to go, honey?”

“Not to a city.”

“What do you think about moving to Fertile? It’s a nice town and needs a newspaper. I know a man in Springfield who has worked for years at the
Gazette.
He knows the business in and out and would like to go out on his own. He was a good friend of my father. When I was there we talked about starting a small semiweekly paper somewhere. He’ll go partners with us if we say the word.”

“Do we have the money?”

“I have money left to me by my father. If it isn’t enough, I can get a loan at the bank in Fertile.”

“Would the money from the farm be enough?”

“I want you to save that, honey. We’ll use it only if we should get down and destitute.”

Over the course of the next few weeks, preparations were made to move. The bank had been put in charge of selling the farm when Boone and Tess declared that they did not want to live near the Carters. They decided that when Spinner was up and around and able to take care of himself, they would take one of the trucks, go to Minnesota and visit Boone’s sister.

Later, Boone said, they’d decide where they wanted to settle down, and it might very well be near their friends in Fertile. Annabel whooped with delight and threw her arms first around Tess, then around Boone.

Jack and Corbin loaded the truck and the car with everything Annabel wanted to take to their new home. The rest was left for Boone and Tess if they wanted it.

Jack was reluctant to leave Henderson without his baseball glove, but he was eager to get home. He would drive the truck, following Corbin and Annabel in the car. Somewhere between Henderson and Fertile they would spend the night.

At dawn, three weeks from the day Annabel and Corbin were married, they left the house on the hill to begin their new life in Fertile. At the end of the lane Annabel looked back.

“’Bye, house. ‘Bye, Papa. I’ll never forget you.” Tears filled her eyes and she held tightly to Corbin’s hand.

It was hard for her to let go of her father. She didn’t have a grave to put flowers on. Corbin had taken her down to the river. She had stood on its bank and said her good-bye. Her memory of her papa would be his smile and his kiss on that bright sunny day when he had driven down the lane to the road and had not come back.

Jack’s eyes drank in all the familiar sights as they neared his hometown of Fertile. Corbin had sent a wire to Jethro Jones, Jack’s father, giving an approximate time of their arrival. Jack’s excitement built as they passed through town, then passed the ball diamond where he’d had the lucky hit against the traveling league who had come to play the home-town team. When they crossed the railroad tracks and started up the rocky hill to the farm, Jack couldn’t keep the smile off his face.

It was so damned good to be home.

Even Corbin had the feeling of coming home when he saw the Jones family gathered on the porch and in the yard awaiting the return of one of their own. He stopped the car behind the truck and he and Annabel watched the family rush out to meet Jack.

Amid tears and hugs and slaps on the back, he was welcomed home. Watching from the car, Corbin tried to identify the family members for Annabel.

“The pregnant girl is his sister Julie. She was the hub of the family while the kids were growing up. She’s married to Evan Johnson, the big blond fellow carrying the boy. They live on an adjoining farm.

“Jack’s father is the one wiping his eyes with his handkerchief and the lady beside him is his wife, Eudora. Julie took over the house after their mother died. Jethro didn’t remarry until a few years ago. The kids all welcomed Eudora into the family.

“That little tyke with her arms wrapped around Jack’s legs is Joy, the youngest Jones. Julie is the only mother she has ever known, and she lives with Julie and Evan. And there’s Jill. She’s the pretty girl in the blue dress. She’s about seventeen now, I think. She graduated from high school this year. She’s a little younger than Jack but I don’t know how much.

“I don’t see Joe. He’s a couple years younger than Julie. He might still be in Oklahoma. And there’s Jason. He’s the tall kid in the white shirt. Lordy, he’s growing like a weed. He’s darn near as tall as Jill. He has a misshapen foot that gave him some problems when he was younger. Evan, Julie’s husband, found a place in Kansas City that makes special shoes. He wears them, and that has helped him a lot. He hardly limps now.