Chapter Three
Jess knew it wasn't an overnight trip to Billings, yet he still pushed as if it were. By day three, Jess realized he was putting hooves against ground a bit too hard when his mount threw a shoe. Touching every tendon and massaging from hoof to haunch, Jess knew his companion was fine, but he had to listen to the woodpecker that had taken up residence in his brain. The tap of truth wasn't going to let up until he sought proper shelter for this night.
The trail had been taken enough times to know where the nearest towns were located. There always seemed to be a blacksmith in every community, but even though the closest was an hour's ride to the west at Ridgewood, Jess was going to leave it alone. Fairly rough around each edge, the lone boardwalk boasted a couple of saloons and a hotel that didn't have any keys for its doors. Jess wasn't exactly in the mood for the kind of men that set up camp in such a place. It would take most of the day, but Carson would be better suited for him. At least Jess had the hope, the rest would remain to be seen.
Walking the last mile in, Jess stepped into Carson's livery stable, the darkness lowering his lashes to flutter against his skin until his blues made the adjustment.
A tongue that must have been wrapped around a fair-sized chunk of tobacco called from the building's rear. "Boarding, buying or selling, Mister?"
"Boarding, and an eye to make sure my mount ain't holding back some pain."
The man that matched the voice stepped forward, running a hand over the dirt-crusted back of Jess' horse. "You do look like you've ridden a ways. Put him in the third stall to your right. I'll be there in a minute."
"Thanks." Jess nodded, and then let his throat make a tone that dipped into his lower register that was meant only for his horse to hear. Getting the proper response from his mount, the whicker sounded behind his head. But then he heard another just like it. Stopping, Jess turned to the stall to his right. He had chosen the right town after all, for there was no mistaking Slim's horse looking at him. Jess wished that he could bust out a hearty, "Hallelujah!" But instead his heart crashed to the floor.
In one stride he was in front of the livery owner. "Where'd you get that horse?"
"He was brought in," the man answered, his voice void of any liar's lilt. "That one there's for sale."
"For sale?" Jess inched even closer to the man, but it wouldn't be much farther. They both were running out of room as the wall was looming close. "How can he be for sale?"
The shoulders rose with just the slightest bit of a nervous shake. "It's just what I say it is. Twenty-five and you can have him."
"I ain't gonna buy him because he ain't for sale."
"That's not the way I hear it." With one more step his back was against the stable's wall, and his only choice was to receive the stare that bore into him. Even through his blink the livery owner saw the rising anger across from him. He had to try and appease it. "Maybe you just have the wrong horse. There are lots of mounts that color with a blaze in the territory."
"Look, I know this horse as well as I know my own. This horse belongs to my partner."
"Not anymore."
"What do you mean by that?"
"Just going by what the sheriff said."
"The sheriff?" Jess' fingers dug into the man's shirt, the clutch producing an instant sputtering of his lips. "Look, Mister. No more with the tiptoes, I want it straight! Where'd you get that horse?"
Any man that had ever worn Jess' hands this tight made the futile attempt to get away. Like all the others, this man failed and his voice went up to a screech. "Let me go! I don't know anything else, I swear!"
"Talk or you'll wish you wore a pair of wings, because I'm gonna toss you a mile!"
"Hold it!" The exclaim held a mighty dose of authority. And a scattergun to go with it.
Wondering how close his fingers were to circling a pair of bars instead, Jess slowly released his hands from the man and took a step back. His eyes remaining at a close balance between the sheriff's star and the iron that he held, Jess kept his right away from the handle at his hip. Even in the worst of moods Jess wasn't about to draw on a lawman that had a sure-fire drop on him.
"Name's Sheriff Gregory." The man tilted his head as he gave Jess a scrutinizing glare. "And you're…?"
"Jess Harper."
"Now what's this all about, Chuck?"
Jess felt his lips turn down when the sheriff's question was directed to the livery attendant first. Naturally. After all, he was a part of this town. Jess wasn't.
Chuck shrugged and then put his finger toward Jess. "Not much to tell. He came in here to board his mount, then got all hot-headed because of that one there. I didn't do anything wrong."
"Except lie your fool head off," Jess barked loud enough to make his voice kick back off of the rear wall.
A step forward and that outstretched finger came too close to jabbing Jess' chest. "I don't like being called names, Mister."
"Too bad, because I'm gonna say it again. You're a liar!" He lunged, but this time Chuck had more to offer than a couple of words. He came back with a fist that connected to Jess' nose. His own hand was ready to spring a leak on Chuck's face, but he wasn't going to get a chance to reach for the jaw.
A strong hand on his shoulder, Jess was spun, and for the second time in a matter of minutes, he was staring at a badge. As Jess gave a sharp inhale, a strange sensation wiggled up and down his spine that he was rather close to viewing this man a lot longer than a couple of seconds. In jail.
Backing up, both hands went up. "Sorry, Sheriff."
"Ease off, Harper, and I mean it! If you have a problem in this town you bring it to me, you don't take it out on its civilians."
"I'm sorry," Jess repeated, his eyes softening with sincerity's true emotion. But it wasn't strong enough to slow the hard breaths pushing in and out of his chest. "I reckon I've been out on the trail too long."
"I highly doubt that's what has got your nose all bent, so I'll ask you, what's this all about?"
"That horse belongs to my partner, Slim Sherman. This man here says that ain't so."
The sheriff's gaze sat on the horse for several seconds before landing back on Jess. "Well, it might've, yeah. But not anymore."
"What do you mean? Slim lose him or something?"
"No. It's the other way around. The horse lost him. Sherman's dead."
Had Jess just taken a bullet to the chest? He thought his body had sunk all the way to the floor. But no. He was upright. He could tell by the way his eyes were attached to the sheriff's. But something had to have hit the ground. Jess' hand went across his belly and up to his chest, the hollow sensation underneath enough to pull his eyes to the hay-strewn floor. It was his heart, his gut, perhaps every drop of his blood that had crashed to his feet. Slim was dead? No. It couldn't be. No!
"Where?" Or had he first asked, "How?"
Either way, the sheriff replied. "He was shot, although why whoever did it put more than one bullet in him, I couldn't figure out. The one in the heart would've been sufficient. But then again, it was the same for Sheriff Ratcliff. Multiple gunshot holes. I found them both at Mrs. Whitman's place, about twenty, no closer to thirty miles from here. She and her son were also killed. I probably wouldn't have known if Mrs. Whitman's cousin hadn't sent me out on what I thought at the time was a wild goose chase. I might listen closer to a spinster's strange request next time."
He didn't know how long the sheriff had kept talking. It felt like an eternity. Maybe it was. Everything beyond his eyes and ears faded away when the description of Slim's death was put in front of him. But when the focus around Jess cleared, the ache was strong. And it had the kind of caliber that could take his own life away if he didn't breathe. His brain gave the command to inhale, but even while the necessary air found a rhythm the pain didn't let up. It increased.
Sheriff Gregory crossed his arms over his chest. "Your sour attitude finally looks abated."
He felt slapped, harder than what Chuck had given him, but at the reminder of how this encounter started, Jess' body wilted further when the prongs of guilt raked over his skin. "Sheriff, about what I did, I…"
"I'll make an allowance for your grief, a thin one, mind you, but an allowance it is. But if you break even the tiniest of laws after this, you'll be in a jail cell so long you'll trip over your beard when I finally let you out."
He couldn't nod, couldn't speak, but he did sniff and the blood trickling out of his nose halted for a couple of seconds as it drew upward. "I. I'm gonna. Need more than one word."
Sheriff Gregory nodded. "Come with me, Harper. My office. And before your hackles draw up to spikes again, this has nothing to do with lock and key."
Jess followed with a slow gait. Each step that hit the boardwalk Jess' mind belted out several rebuttals to what had already been relayed to him. The sheriff's wrong. He has to be. Slim ain't dead. He can't be. And then with the next thought, Jess nearly slowed to a complete halt. What if he is?
Jess' fist pounded into his thigh. Vengeance, that's what!
"Harper, you coming?"
The sheriff's voice pulling Jess far enough away from the torment from his mind, he caught up to the lawman standing in front of the sign that bore his name, propping the door open by his boot. As Jess walked inside, the cells were the first part of the structure that he saw. He thought it strange how the rows of bars seemed to stretch higher than the ceiling. The sheriff had made it clear he wasn't going deeper inside to where a particular clank would arouse every kind of panic in his system, but why did Jess suddenly have the feeling that he was headed for a similar set of bars?
"Have a seat."
Jess looked at what was offered and shook his head. Unlike most hard seats, this one boasted a cushion, but even if it was a plush settee with a couple of silken pillows he would have declined. There was no way Jess could be stilled with this kind of worry strangling him. Jess' feet were already beginning the back-and-forth pace when Sheriff Gregory's hand waved a couple of articles in front of him.
"Here. I took the wallet from the dead man, and then there were these papers in the saddlebags."
Jess' hesitation was born from dread, showing in the pinched expression on his face and the hands that stayed locked to his sides. Part of him didn't want to know anymore, but he had to. Jess was owed the truth, and if Slim couldn't give it to him, Jess had to take it however it was given. Even if he hated every word. And even if he turned into a killer afterward.
His fingers stretching outward, the wallet went into his clasp. Jess eased the familiar leather flap open, rubbing each crease that he had known would be there. It was dry where money was concerned. He knew that Slim would have been carrying the amount that Avery had paid for the two yearlings and likely a couple of more bills alongside, but its emptiness of cash didn't mean much. Killers were also known as thieves. But as it were, Jess didn't need the cash, there or in the killer's hand, as evidence. Slim's name was written in his own writing on more than one sheet that fell from an inside fold. And then there were the pages from the saddlebags. Jess already knew what they were going to say, yet he had to look anyway.
Tucking the wallet under his waistband, Jess' eyes absorb the various documents. The top piece was probably the most poignant. The date was marked ten days earlier with Slim's signature underneath Ned Avery's. But then again, everything had Slim's name on it. Everything was important, because of what it meant. It was all Slim's, and Sheriff Gregory had taken it from a dead man.
His eyes felt hot, yet they refused to drain. Not yet. This wasn't permanent. It couldn't be.
Jess' throat could barely croak. "Anything else?"
"Well, there was the newspaper."
It was in print? Why did that feel worse than the lawman's spoken story?
"It's been chilly in the mornings so I've lit several fires since then. I might've already used it for fuel," Sheriff Gregory said as he stooped over a large stack next to the stove. "Wait. Here it is."
The lawman tapped his finger over the headline, yet Jess didn't need the added point. He had already read it, now his tongue just needed to sound out the repeat. "Four killed in a mass murder."
"Yeah." Sheriff Gregory turned the page over to scan it again as if he had already forgotten what it had said. "Sheriff Homer Ratcliff, Alice and Nat Whitman, and Slim Sherman."
The breath in his lungs hurt, even more as it went out with his words. "And Slim Sherman."
"I'm sorry, Harper."
"You said you saw him," Jess said quickly, wanting to create a doubt inside of him no matter how small, anything that could convince his grieving heart to turn the opposite direction because Slim really was alive. "Any way you could describe Sherman to me?"
"He'd been dead more than a couple days so I admit to not wanting to take a full look. Sandy hair, tall. Assuming his name's a match for his shape, it'd fit. Muscular, though. I'd imagine he probably was a good man to have on your side, which is fitting considering this last part. He wore a brown shirt with a deputy's star on his vest."
"Deputy's star? He's a rancher." But while his tongue released the obvious truth, Jess' mind was screaming otherwise. Wasn't Mort just saying to him a few days earlier that Slim was one of the few that the Laramie sheriff trusted with his town's care? Since Slim wore a deputy's star for Mort, certainly Slim would wear one for another. Jess sighed. "I guess you could say he's both."
"Was here, anyway, or at least for Sheriff Ratcliff. He was out of Eagle Point if you didn't know."
No. He didn't know. He only knew that Slim was out of a ranch twelve miles east of Laramie. And now he was buried on someone else's land.
"Does this Sheriff Ratcliff have a regular deputy?"
"Not that I'm aware of. Most of us lawmen that work in small towns only seek out volunteers when an extra star is needed."
"Yeah. And Slim would do that, all right," Jess said, the fight inside starting to wane as belief began to take its place.
The sheriff eyed him carefully. "Is all of this enough for you?"
It was. Gregory's own account, the newspaper article, the wallet, the papers, and the mount over at the livery was more than enough. Slim was dead.
Needing to avoid the concerned stare, Jess looked down at the floor. "There ain't any kinda clue who did it?"
Sheriff Gregory's hand waved over the wall of posters. "Take your pick."
Jess' eyes crawled over the names and faces, his heart screaming at each one to leap off of the page if the one he read was the man. But he felt nothing. Except rage. And the kind of emotion that Jess had buried when he was fifteen. It was bubbling up, more rapidly than how a pot of potatoes sent its foam over the sides if left in heat's center too long. If it got past his chest, he was going to explode. Maybe he was willing to let it, but not in front of the sheriff. Not in front of anyone.
Jess' steps were already going toward the door.
"Harper, I really am sorry you had to find out about your partner like this. If you need anything here in Carson, just let me know."
He bit the inside of his cheek, hard, trying to use pain to mask his pain. "Thanks, Sheriff. But I reckon I'll be on my way. But I wanna take my partner's horse with me."
"Understand." Gregory nodded, but before Jess could escape through the door, he caught Jess' sleeve with his hand. "Oh, and you don't have to pay for him. Just tell Chuck I said he's yours. That'll be enough."
"I appreciate it." He really did, because Jess might have had some coins in his shirt pocket, twenty-five dollar signs it certainly wasn't.
It didn't surprise him that he got a surly look from Chuck when he stopped into the livery. Jess said nothing other than what Gregory had relayed, and considering all he got in response was a grunt and without a further reprimand on how he treated animals, Jess figured his horse was fit to be ridden. Getting on his mount, Jess reached for the trailing line, pulling Slim's horse after him.
At the edge of Carson's main street, he stopped.
Where would he turn? This stretch of road he was looking upon didn't seem to be a proper start. Kind of like it was in between two prominent dots on a map. He had been given loose directions to where Slim had been killed and Jess shifted his frame in the saddle to that northern point. That place, as lonely as it could possibly be, would be his true beginning. But Jess wouldn't take the first step of pursuit until he paid proper respects over Slim's grave. And then he wouldn't stop, wouldn't rest until a man that had no name was put into his own permanent piece of ground.
The hooves quieted their pace by late afternoon, but Jess didn't stop until dark. Taking better care of the two animals than himself, Jess didn't even bother to lay his bedroll down. Nor would a fire be built. He could have said anger's heat was burning his insides enough that he didn't need an outward blaze, but his gooseflesh would be able to argue. The truth was that Jess wanted to remain in the dark. Like his emotions were permanently stuck in.
Sitting down where a rotting log was his only cushion, Jess' sigh was released like he was pushing out a lifetime's worth of burdens. Yet no amount of air could take away the tension on his back, or the ache in his middle, a sensation that had been a part of him since the earliest hour of Slim's delay.
Somehow he had known all along, Jess just didn't know what to call it. Maybe it should have been raining over his head like a thunderstorm gone mad, but Jess didn't recognize that kind of menacing nag because it had never screamed into his ear before. He knew death, nearly tasted it himself, but this was a first experience for Jess. Losing someone you more than just cared about. You loved.
The devil could have been cackling like a hyena at him right about now, taunting that he had forgotten the worst day of his entire life. He hadn't. Jess would never forget what Frank Bannister had done. Heck, not only were the images burned into his mind, the scent of fire, smoke and death was too. But there was a difference. Happening with unequaled ferocity, there had been no time to listen to a foreboding whisper inside of his head when his blood-family was killed.
With Slim, the dread was able to build itself up into the tallest mountain the earth ever boasted. He had tried to climb it to look out across the vast valley and find his partner somewhere below, whole and sound, but Jess couldn't make it to the top. It shook him as if the kind of earthquake that gave birth to the world was making a repeat, and as the violence around him escalated, Jess could hang on no longer. Every stone crumbling, the entire mountain had fallen with him. And its booming echo had no end. Slim was dead.
For a long time Jess sat still, staring into the nothingness that was around him, but what he really was seeing, was home. The Sherman ranch. He had never meant to stop there longer than ask for directions. He had never meant to follow Slim to supper. But it was obvious that someone else meant him to. Perhaps their bond had been created long before Jess trespassed and once together, it didn't take long to strengthen.
Jess took a deep breath to feel for its existence. The bond was still there. Not even death could break it. But it certainly was the core of his pain.
"Slim." Jess couldn't help but say his partner's name aloud.
Jess felt the tear slip past his eyelid and he immediately slapped it away from his cheek. He was tougher than this, a man that had purposely hardened himself to never reach this kind of emotion ever again. Yet another was falling, because Jess also had thought he would never create a lasting relationship with anyone ever again. He had. With Slim. But why did Jess allow a friendship to turn into a brotherhood when he knew how much it hurt to let go? It hurt too much to be the one left behind. It was a strangling hurt, a tortuous hurt, a forever hurt. And oh, how he hated it!
"Dadgummit! Why?" Yet even as Jess screamed into the dark, he knew the question wasn't aimed at why he had chosen to open his heart despite the eternal ache of loss that lived there, Jess was crying out to find an explanation why Slim was killed.
Crying out in more than one way.
Jess bit his lip as the inhale sounded too much like a sob. He didn't cry when it his life went up in smoke. Why were his eyes smarting now? His sleeve went over his nose, forcing what was bottled up to stay behind the cork. It wasn't going to work. Where the tears could have burst from his eyes, another part of his body exploded, bringing Jess up to his feet and his eyes boring into the dark before him. But that wasn't the only thing.
Jess' gun came out of his holster, the fastest it had ever come into his hand, pointed and cocked. And then with a blast that didn't have a break between the other, all six bullets were released.
He stood still, except for his chest that violently heaved, breathing in the gun's smoke that swirled around him, making the fire inside of him even hotter. But then Jess felt the crack. It must have been his heart. The blow dropped his iron straight to the ground. It also was bending his knees, and he wasn't going to stop it. He wasn't going to try.
Wrapping his arms around his upper half, Jess' knees hit the dirt. And he rocked, the sway matching the throbbing inside of his gut. They might not have come out of his throat, but these were his sobs. He had to take short hitches of breath otherwise he would have been consumed by them, suffocated by his own grief.
But then slowly, slowly with each tear that trickled down his face, dripping into the dirt beneath him came the partners of grief, named Fury and Revenge. And even though these two relatives would never replace his sorrow, they could stifle it. He rather welcomed them both into his being.
The vow had been printed into his brain and repeated through each grueling hour. Now it reached a new level. His spoken word.
Looking out into the unknown with wet lashes, Jess clenched his fist. "I'll get that man, Slim. I don't know who he is or where he is, but I promise you I'll get him if I have to hunt him down for the rest of my life. I'll get him!"