Epilogue

Harry Baxter was a font of information. It took a week of recuperation before he could move his jaw well enough to be intelligible and although Roy couldn't legally divulge all the details, it seems that Harry Baxter had been depositing money for the Forest Investment Group that came from their San Francisco activities in prostitution and the drug trade out of China. The purpose of his buying ownership in the mine was to prevent any further investigation into the Horseshoe Mine. It seems the Forest Group was highly diversified, buying and selling young Chinese girls to anyone who had the money, mostly brothel owners who like to "resell" young virgins. And most Chinese females were small in stature and could pass for much less than their years. But after being used for so many years, they aged and would be tossed out to try to find some way to survive in the strange land.

The young Chinese girls had been sold by their parents who were desperate for money as China was going through another change, the Taiping Rebellion which seemed never-ending, and were led to believe that their daughters would become wives to rich Americans. I doubted that few actually believed it when they sold their daughters, but it helped assuage the conscience of a parent who found daughters worthless in their society.

The Forest Group also supplied opium to the various purveyors of the substance, the owners of the opium dens. Although not illegal, the opium users were becoming a problem, needing more and more money to purchase a night sleeping on a filthy cot and smoking the substance. In the parts of town, crime was rampant. And the constables would often find a thin, grasshopper-like corpse in an alley, obviously a victim of opium overdose.

Roy turned the whole matter over to federal investigators who quickly arrived in Virginia City since the bank was involved. It seemed that since the new government had been established, the federal agencies were taking over more and more, expanding their grip on what used to be handled by the territory or the state but besides the downside of having no control, I could also see benefits. The world was changing quickly. Roy said he was relieved not to have to deal with the emerging crimes and charges, but I think he was insulted when the federal investigators cut him out and carried on in secrecy.

It had been a month since Asher had been taken and the investigation into the Horseshoe Mine was still ongoing—all except what had happened to Reese Murray. Just the day before, Roy and I were there when the body was recovered.

Roy had handled the removal of the tons of rock and I had supervised the replacement of the buckled and snapped shoring; It was slow-going but the dynamite charge hadn't been as strong as the perpetrators had intended. I found unexploded charges; it seemed the first rocks and debris had smothered the fuse. The government engineer who "supervised" us in excavating the cave-in, much to my resentment of his arrogant, high-handed manner, had concluded that dynamite had been used to bring down the ceiling of stone; said he had found debris that indicated it. I held up the unexploded dynamite, the four sticks bound with twine and stated I had reached the same conclusion. He asked me if that bundle couldn't be from previous blast, intimating I had been sloppy in expanding the mine. It was all I could do to keep from telling him to shove the bundle up his ass with a lit fuse. But he told me that he knew what he was doing; explosives were his specialty. I shrugged it off although my fist itched. Although I had to agree with the engineer's conclusion, I doubted his "proof". I had found the indisputable proof and that was enough for me.

Once the partially decomposed body of Reese Murray was pulled from the mine, anyone could see from the crushed skull fragments that a bullet had passed through the brain and shattered the skull even though the hair still clung in patches. Fitting the shards together was like putting together a puzzle and in his back room, Paul Martin made the skull almost whole again. He pieced together the skeleton on his surgical table and the mass of crushed and broken bones told the story of a man being practically pulverized.

Lorelei Baxter wanted to bury the bones of her long-dead husband, but she would be unable to until the investigation and the trial was over. After his partial recovery, Baxter was sitting in one of Roy's jail cells waiting to be transported to San Francisco as a federal witness against the men who were the Forest Investment Group. He planned to testify that he knew about the murder of Murray and that he had tipped the group off to my renewed investigation and excavation of the Horseshoe Mine that would have revealed the murder of Murray and caused even more trouble. I had to be stopped and threatening my family was the initial attempt to shut me up and make me go away.

And Lorelei Baxter visited her husband every day, bringing him dinner and sitting with him while he ate. She gave all appearances of a loving and devoted wife. I considered that perhaps she did love Baxter and he, her, as Roy said the Baxters kissed upon her arrival and upon her departure and Harry Baxter hated to see his wife leave, actually wept one time according to Roy.

Asher, Miriam and I were still at the Ponderosa; I didn't want them alone at our house while I was gone during the day. Not until the whole goddamn mess was ended would I feel comfortable with leaving them alone. And I wasn't sure I'd be comfortable even then.

And Miriam was just beginning to swell with our child. Asher took the news well, unlike what I'd feared. I explained that he would soon have a brother or sister; he hoped for a boy. "Then I'll have a brother like Willis and Jessie—right, Pa?"

"That's right, son. You'll be the oldest too like I'm the oldest brother to Hoss and Joe."

Asher seemed to like the idea of having someone subordinate, someone he could order about, so I tried to play up the companionship aspect, talking about all the things he would be able to teach his new brother or sister.

"Like fishing," I said. "You'll be able to show how to bait a hook and pull in a fish. And when you get older, you'll be able to help with the horses and cattle nd your little brother will be filling the wood box." And Asher grinned. He was excited and could hardly wait for the newest Cartwright to be born. I had leaned on the child being male—for Asher's sake. I secretly hoped for a girl.

As for Miriam and me, the breach between us took time to heal. She never raised the subject of my suspicion that she had anything to do with Asher's abduction again; I think she understood my stare of mind at the time. But the fact that I didn't buckle under the threat of future harm may have caused her to think she and Asher meant less to me than my pride. But it wasn't pride that made me go after Baxter and the others—it was the need to maintain a balance in life. I couldn't live the rest of my days in fear of reprisal.

And when I came home that evening after beating Baxter, my hand bandaged, Miriam almost gave me sympathy. Almost—but she didn't. All she said was that I was fortunate I had only had my hand broken. But in the washhouse, as I tried to shave with my left hand while I soaked in the tub, she came in and silently shaved me, my head back on the curved rim of the tub and my throat exposed. I swallowed deeply a few times watching her face as she pulled the razor over my throat. And when we went to bed that night, my hand throbbed and I couldn't sleep. Miriam silently left the bed—I was sure she'd had enough of my restlessness and gone to sleep elsewhere—but came back with a laudanum pill which I took. And just before I lost my grip and slipped into the pain-free, dark depths of the drug, I felt Miriam's lips on my throat and her hand slip down to arouse me, to ready me. I was on the edge, fighting to stay aware as I felt her wet softness as she moved on top of me, felt her velvet smoothness envelop me and then the swelling and bursting of all that was pent-up inside me, all the pain, all the fear, all the anger that I had carried, she took inside herself. And then I faded away.

Although we never discussed that night, she and I knew that she had sought me out to please her, that she had a carnal side beyond just being the passive partner. A peace came between us with the understanding that we were now partners and had created a child between us. The child to come sealed the agreement that Asher had started.

After Asher had been tucked in and Pa would go off to bed at night, I would read or work on the ranch books and Miriam would mend Asher's dungarees or socks and the silence between us was comfortable. One night she was letting out the waists of a few dresses. I admired her beauty. Miriam had become rounder, lush, even more desirable as she filled out.

It was the night before Harry Baxter was to be picked up by federal agents and taken under guard to testify in San Francisco.

"After the trial, I think we can move back to our house," I said. I waited for her response.

Finally she said, "How long do you think the trial will take?" Miriam didn't look up, just continued stitching.

"A few weeks—maybe a month."

"What do you think will happen to Baxter?"

"I'm not sure. I don't know if he'll be allowed or even want to come back here. He may be hidden away by the government as part of the deal he made but I'm not privy to that—neither is Roy Coffee. Lorelei Baxter may be without any husband."

"Some husbands are best shed."

I felt the remark was odd. Especially since she said it to me. I could understand a chatting group of women in a quilting bee laughing and complaining about their husbands but I didn't expect the remark from her. I watched her, her face as pure as the Madonna as she deftly moved the needle through the fabric.

"Miriam," I said, "look at me."

She put her work in her lap and looked at me. The firelight illuminated her face and as it flickered and changed, so did the planes and curves of her face, disguising her expression.

"You've never talked about Clifford."

"Why would I?"

"Just…did you love him?" I waited and she picked up the fabric pooled in her lap and over one side of the chair, and started to sew again.

"At first I did—I loved him very much. He told me of the wonderful life we would have together, how happy we would be. And he was good to me. But the land he bought—he knew nothing about buying land and it was a mistake that swallowed all our money. He then became angry about everything—everything, no matter how small or petty. And when things didn't work out, when crops wouldn't grow or the rain didn't come or the clock stopped because I forgot to wind it, well, he took it out on me. I was glad when he signed up for the army; he'd be gone and if her was a casualty of war, there'd be a government draft for me. But Clifford returned and he was himself again—maybe eve worse. The first night back, he slapped me because I didn't have much food in the house. I wasn't sorry when he died. It was a relief.

"So to answer your question, Adam, no. By the time Clifford died, I didn't love him." We said nothing more about her dead husband.

The next afternoon, I took Miriam into town. I wanted to find out if the federal agents had yet taken Harry Baxter. Miriam was to see Doctor Martin. She was almost in her 4th month and I told her it would be a good idea just to have him assure us that all was well.

We were in the buckboard when I saw Roy rushing back to his office. He looked worried, upset.

"Roy!" I called out. I pulled the buckboard over to the side of the street and set the brake, leaping down and moving around the front to meet Roy.

"Mornin', Mrs. Cartwright," Roy said tipping his hat to Miranda. "Good to see you and congratulations on the coming happy event."

"Thank you." Miriam smiled graciously. She looked particularly beautiful that morning and I had taken her, luxuriating in her body with all its changes and delights.

"Roy," I said, stopping him from more conversation. Roy loved to pass the time with a lovely woman and Miriam fit that mold. "Have they come for Baxter yet?"

"Yeah, but not the government agents—Dr. Martin and the undertaker did."

"What? What happened?" I was glad that I hadn't yet taken Miriam to Paul's office; I had no idea what might be going on there.

"Well," Roy said as he leaned in, "Mrs. Baxter brought him dinner like she has every single night he's been in my jail. And it smelled so good I was tempted to ask her for a small bowl. Pinto beans with chunks of ham and home-made bread. The whole office smelled like a good, homey restaurant.

"Well, it got late and I finally told her she had to leave and she asked if she could come back in the morning to say goodbye but I told her it'd be better if she said goodbye now; things tomorrow would be too rushed. So she hugged him and he was pathetic. That man began to cry. You'd think it'd be her crying, possibly losing another husband and all and having him risk his life as a witness against such men. But it was him sobbing like a baby.

"Anyway, about an hour or so after, Baxter started cramping, thought the beans he'd eaten were giving him the cramps but it wasn't that. Soon he was groaning and saying he needs the doctor. I just brushed it off until he vomited. I didn't want to clean any of it up so I fetched Paul and by the time we got back, he'd started vomiting blood. He was howling like a poisoned coyote—high pitched wails. And then he started…" Roy looked up at Miriam who had turned her head as if she wasn't listening.

Roy lowered his voice. "He started shitting blood as well—bleeding from both ends. I've never seen nothing like it. We couldn't get him to Paul's laboratory so we just moved him to another cot and Paul told me not to clean anything up; it might be contagious—some type of influenza-but by the time Baxter died, Paul decided he must have been poisoned and it had to be Mrs. Baxter who did it. Was no other body around that day and I knew it wasn't me."

"Lorelei poisoned him? But why would she…." And then I knew why. He had been part of the men who had killed Reese, who had killed her husband. I guess she wanted to see him dead at her hands.

"I don't know, Adam. But I got to go see her and ask her for the rest of the beans and ham. If she's thrown it out, well, I'm going to have to scrape it off the ground. Paul wants to examine it."

"Good luck, Roy. But Lorelei may be too clever to be caught. Women amaze us all the time, don't they?"

I took Miriam home and headed back to town. It seemed that Lorelei still had half a pot of beans and ham son the stove and willingly handed it to Roy, but not before she tearfully spooned herself a bowl of cold beans and sat down and ate it in front of him, suffering no ill effects while she and Roy talked. He told me that she wept bitterly when he told her that Harry had died, although he doubted the sincerity of her "crocodile tears". Nevertheless, Paul could find nothing in the concoction that was poison. So Roy had to drop any further investigation.

That evening Miriam had cooked dinner for us all; Hop Sing was staying the night in town as a relative's daughter was giving birth and family was armed with red envelopes of money and good luck food. So after a meal of Miriam's bean soup, she and I sat in the calm of the evening on the porch and while she patched the knee of a pair of Asher's dungarees, I apprised her of the investigation into Harry Baxter's death—actually the fact that there wouldn't be one.

"And although both Roy and Paul Martin are certain he was poisoned; they just can't figure out how she did it. It wasn't a laudanum overdose; seems like cholera but he couldn't have caught it in the jail. They're baffled."

I glanced at Miriam. She remained composed but I thought I detected a small smile about her lips.

"What is it, Miriam?"

"Thera are simple ways of ridding oneself of a husband that all women know, ways that can't be proved or detected."

"Oh?" I felt the hairs on the back of my neck stand up. "Such as…"

"A few bad mushroom in the gravy. Laudanum slipped into the evening cup of coffee; when the husband falls sleeps, the wife just presses a pillow against his face until he suffocates."

"Lorelei couldn't have done any of that? When she left, Baxter was alive and well. Besides, she ate some of the same food—ham and beans-that she'd brought Harry right in front of Roy and she was fine—no ill effects."

"Men are so unimaginative." Miriam shook her head. "A few boiled castor beans in Harry's serving would do it." She continued to darn Asher's dungarees. "Asher's growing so fast, he needs more clothes already. And his boots are too small; he says they hurt. We need to go to town and buy another pair for him."

Miriam was calm but a chill ran through me. Castor beans. A few cooked castor beans would do it, would kill a man within a few hours. I drew in my breath. Clifford had died shortly after returning from war—from a bloody flux. It was suspected to be cholera from the bad water on their property, that the outhouse refuse had leeched into the water. But Miriam never became ill.

And Clifford's favorite dish had been Miriam's bean soup, my favorite meal, as well. I swore to myself then and there, that I would never underestimate Miriam again—or any other woman in my life. They may seem helpless and frail, but in actuality, a wife controlled all aspects of her husband's life—and their world.

I considered I would make an effort to be a better husband to Miriam and a better father to Asher and the child to come and not because I feared Miriam would poison me. But I did know from then on, I'd be a little uneasy every time I was served up bean soup.

~ Finis ~