Part 12

I probably should have left things the way I found them. What did it matter if Jezebel had two husbands, three husbands or forty? Lom had been a happy man and I couldn't really blame Jezebel for leaving Mason even if he had never raised a hand to her. But I knew why I had insisted that Jezebel tell Lom about Mason—I was jealous. I wanted her, desired her and she had married Lom Caswell and the thought of their finding delights in each other's arms, well, my nature is such that I wanted revenge. Oh, I know that I could hide behind the fact that Jezebel had deceived all of us, that she was manipulative and selfish and flouted the law and conned Lom, but I knew that it was because I wasn't slipping it to her and someone else was and that she had used me for her own means. Yes, I had been conned, used and it infuriated me. I'm a vindictive bastard.

I pondered it while I sat in the drawing room car, the scenery flying by. The car was hot although it must have been more comfortable that the regular car with the passengers crowded in more narrow seats and the air full of the stench of sweating bodies and the food that most passengers had packed for their trip declining the courtesy and the cost of the dining car. The porter though brought us glasses of iced water and we could purchase newspapers, candies and oranges from the boys walking up and down the aisle hawking them. I offered to buy something for Jezebel but she declined with a brusque, "No, thank you."

I did have concerns every night about the sleeping car into which we would be turned for the night. After all, we had a long journey ahead of us and I couldn't see Jezebel sleeping in the seat as they did in the regular passenger car, rumpling her clothing and having to contort her body in order to sleep so I had paid extra for both the roomy day car and the berths. But then, having Jezebel separate from me, sleeping behind some curtain drawn around a berth, well, I wondered if during some night we wouldn't make a whistle stop and Jezebel would silently debark while I slept under the crisp linens. But, I told myself, what if she did? It was nothing to me. Or at least I tried to convince myself it wasn't important. Jezebel wasn't actually a criminal, per se, and I wasn't a deputy bringing her in to hang for a string of murders.

Every once in a while glancing at Jezebel sitting beside me in the drawing room car, I would be struck by her beauty as if I was seeing her for the first time. She wore a simple dark-blue traveling suit and a small hat decorated with cherries and lace, her dark hair in a braided knot at the nape of her neck. She should have come to me, I decided—not taken off for parts unknown after Mason beat her. I would have given her sanctuary on the Ponderosa, helped her find a lawyer. Hell, I would have paid for the lawyer just to have the chance of marrying Jezebel myself, of making her Mrs. Adam Cartwright.

On our way to the train station, her Gladstone bag and portmanteau at our feet in the rented buggy, Jezebel told me—after I asked, that is—that when she had decided to finally leave Mason, she had packed the Gladstone and taken out on foot. She had walked hours in the dark of night and about an hour after daybreak, a farmer came along and gave her a ride to Carson City and a heel of bread from his lunch packed by his wife. Jezebel then caught the stage and eventually made her way by train to New Orleans. She had forty dollars in Virginia City script and managed to find a hotel room after depositing the money in the bank where Lom worked. Her voice broke when she mentioned Lom's name and she had to look out the train window, pausing until she could speak again. But all that she had to say was that she had been happy and after a few months, she had decided that Mason would never find her—no one would. She left it unsaid that I had found her and with my discovery, her life had come crashing down.

In the two and a half days we had traveled, Jezebel and I had barely spoken. I didn't blame her for hating me but it made me uncomfortable that she did. I had asked her early on if she had loved Lom. Jezebel had gazed blankly ahead and then she said in a broken voice, "He was good to me. He loved me and for that, I loved him."

That was the worst thing she could have said to me. I honestly felt if I spoke, I would have cried. What a cruel bastard I was. I regretted having forced her to tell Lom about Mason and tried to justify my behavior over and over as I have said. But I would look at her sad, beautiful face and hate myself.

We finally reached the terminus at Kansas City and had to switch to a coach for a few miles until we reached Cheyenne's depot. There were freight trains carrying coal and ore out of Kansas City but no passenger trains although track was being laid, some of it with Ponderosa lumber. So I helped a weary Jezebel off the train and informed her that we would be staying overnight and catching the coach out in the morning.

I was familiar with Kansas City as I had traveled back and forth from distant cities many a time so I flagged a hack that was lined up at the terminal to take us to the Broadstreet hotel. It wasn't the best hotel in the city but it was far from the worst. The rooms were clean, the linens vermin free and I didn't cost much more for a room with a bath. I was looking forward to a hot bath and a good meal and changing into fresh clothes.

I had put one hand on the small of Jezebel's back to guide her into the hotel but she turned and shrugged it off so I walked ahead while Jezebel silently followed me into the lobby. I signed us in as Mr. and Mrs. Adam Cartwright.

"Well, Mr. Cartwright, we hope your stay will be pleasant for you and your wife." He snapped his fingers and a boy came over. "Take their luggage please." The boy struggled and I told him that I would carry my own luggage, a carpet bag, and he looked relieved.

It was only after the boy carried our luggage up and I had tipped him and closed the door behind him that Jezebel turned to me and spoke. "You are conniving, aren't you? Mr. and Mrs. Adam Cartwright? Really, Adam." She looked at the double bed and then walked to the mirror above the vanity and unpinned her hat and took it off. She turned to face me again. "This is what you wanted the whole time, isn't it? What are you going to do? Plow me until I can't walk? You must have imagined this scenario many times over as we traveled together. You could have had me in New Orleans but that wouldn't have been enough for you, would it? You're as bad as Mason, as bad as my father, treating me just as a body to be given away at the whim of a man."

I had taken off my hat and thrown it on an upholstered chair that stood in the corner. While Jezebel had talked, I had taken off my jacket and loosened my tie.

"No. You see that chair in the corner? That's where I'll sleep. Don't worry, Jezebel, I won't touch you but I do have an ulterior motive; I don't trust you and if you had your own room well, you'd just leave, wouldn't you?"

"What if I did? What would it matter to you? What do you care? I'm not going back to Mason, even if he would want me back which, of course, he won't. Are you going to have me arrested for bigamy? Have me prosecuted? Will they hang me or lock me in prison? I wouldn't be surprised if my marriage to Lom is already annulled by now; he was a bit upset, after all. And what will I do if I'm not sent to prison, if there is no prosecution? I have no money—Aunt Handy saw to that—where will I stay? Nothing lies ahead for me, Adam. Nothing but misery and I have you to thank." She pulled off her jacket and lay on the bed, curling up, her back to me and I stood and looked at her narrow back, so vulnerable.

I gathered my clean clothes and my shaving bag. "I'm having a bath." I was running the water in the bathing room when I remembered. I went out and walked over to where I had placed the key. I locked us in and took the key with me to enjoy the warm water of a cleansing bath.

We ate silently in the hotel restaurant. Jezebel said that she would wait until after dinner to have her bath so we had gone down and both ordered the chicken and dumplings. The fare in the restaurant was homey and filling and I had cherry pie for dessert. Jezebel had picked at her food, barely eating any of it.

Earlier, while I bathed, I considered what she had said. Would she be prosecuted in Nevada? I have to admit that I had never seriously considered it. There had been no children from her marriage, no financial motivation. Jezebel had only wanted to live a pleasant life and Lom had offered it. But his Aunt Handy did detest Jezebel and I hadn't realized how very much until that morning when I went to the Caswell house to pick up Jezebel.

I had arrived at Lom's house to fetch Jezebel about 10 in the morning and his Aunt Handy opened the door to me. Jezebel was quietly sitting on the sofa with her luggage at her feet. She had looked up at me and it was obvious that she had been crying; her face was splotchy and her eyes were swollen.

"Take her," Aunt Handy had said. "See that the law deals with her in Virginia City."

"Mrs. Caswell, Jezebel did what she did to save…she didn't marry Lom to hurt him."

"We don't care, Lom and I. Just take her away and I have to tell you, she has no money on her—we've given her none-let the whore earn it on her back. But here, this is to defray the traveling costs." She reached into her apron pocket and handed me four silver dollars. "Get her out of here. I never want to look on her again. I told Lom from the very beginning that she was bad. I could see it but he never could—didn't want to see it. But a woman knows another woman."

Jezebel stood up and lifted her bags but I quickly took them from her. She glanced at me and then looked away. As Jezebel passed Lom's Aunt Handy, the woman spat after her and hissed, "Whore." I followed Jezebel out and helped her into the buggy and she said nothing to me or even looked at me. As I've said before, I didn't blame her for hating me and I felt such deep regret for what I had done.

"I'm sorry, Jezebel, so sorry," I said as she sat stiffly beside me. And she took to weeping again as we passed through the narrow streets of New Orleans on our way to the depot.