Chapter Twelve

The centerpiece getting a second rearranging, Daisy gave the tallest stem an extra snip before gently pushing the rose to be more level with those around it. It was lovely even before the adjustment, yet Daisy couldn't stop shifting the colors a bit more. Always wanting to make a good impression, everything from the food to the flowers needed to be just right. While she always tried to keep everything as bright and cheerful at mealtime, there had been little use in decorating for dinner when it was just the three of them. Today, with the stagecoach due right at the noon hour, she wouldn't just be feeding a man and boy, she could be feeding an entire coach worth of passengers. Some of them could even be fancy-cut city folk.

Finally satisfied, Daisy reached for the matches to add the final touch, a lit candle at each end of the table. "There. That ought to do it."

"You say something, Daisy?" Slim asked, coming out of the bedroom buttoning a clean shirt in place.

"Oh, just giving dinner a last look over," she answered with a slight shake of her head. "Slim, do you think there's enough on the table?"

His finger dipped low to swipe a taste of the full bowl of mashed potatoes. "You always know how to set it perfectly, Daisy."

"Not anymore. Not without…"

Catching her arm before Daisy could flee, Slim pulled her face into his shoulder. "It's all right, Daisy."

"No. I shouldn't keep crying like this," she said, wiping away tears that were quickly being replaced by more. "Especially when guests are due."

"There's nothing wrong with having a sparkle in your eyes, Daisy."

"You're a dear, Slim. If only it was just a simple spark, not a hundred tears. There, now. I think they're dry. At least for today."

Slim kissed the last one gone. "You can cry every day if you need to."

"Oh, no." Daisy shook her head, trying to smile. "Not quite. Well, almost anyway. I think I'd feel better if we only knew where he was."

Feeling the same, it was easy for Slim to nod, but if there was more to express of what burned his core, it would have to wait. The sound wasn't just reaching his ears from the top of the ridge. It was pulling up to the front door. "There's the stagecoach."

Hurrying away to get the coffee poured, Daisy flung one last worry over her shoulder. "You're sure the table looks all right?"

She never had reason to fret. Daisy's dress would be the only one seated at the table, but to her, the meal preparations didn't go to waste. There were three men passengers, plus Mose, the shotgun rider, and Slim taking their fill. And since the six plates were refilled and polished off twice, there was nothing to put back on the stove for when Mike came home from school.

Daisy gave her head a shake when the last boot clomped out of the house, but it was a satisfied gesture. It was good to see her food get rifled again. It hadn't gone off the table in such abandon since—oh, no! Her hand up to her mouth, Daisy stifled the sob that threatened to explode out of her heart.

"Oh, Jess, Jess! Where are you?"

Like she often did when her tears were flowing, Daisy pulled the kitchen curtain aside. The top of the ridge was always empty though. But with the yard still full, her eyes were quick to be diverted to the men that were boarding the coach. It would only be a minute more before the dust was kicked up. Seeing that enough to not need to watch again, Daisy let the curtain fall. But it would be more than a minute before the coach kicked up any kind of dust.

Mose's hands stuck to his pockets, he gave a shuffled step to where Slim stood alongside the lead horse. "Say, Slim."

"Something the matter, Mose? You look sort of shaken up."

"I feel it, too. You see, Slim, there's something, someone, rather, that I need to talk to you about, but I didn't wanna do it in front of Miss Daisy."

"Who's that?"

"A fella I saw up Sheridan way. His name's Rex Helfer."

"Sorry, Mose. Never heard of him."

"But you've heard of Jess Harper, haven't you?"

The chill went through his body so fast there was nothing Slim could do to stop the visible head-to-toe tremble. "Mose?"

"Now I can't say for certain, but this fella looks a lot like Jess."

"How can't you say for certain? You'd know Jess in a crowd. He's distinct. He's Jess!"

"Well this fella wasn't standing in a crowd. He was standing all alone. And like I said, he looks a lot like Jess."

Slim knew his voice would come out with a bite, but with his entire core screaming, it was a miracle he didn't raise a loud enough ruckus that the three passengers would turn his way. "How does he look like Jess?"

"I wish I woulda got a better view to see. We were staring at each other across the road."

"From across the road?" Slim asked, waiting for Mose's nod. "So you didn't get a good look? Then how can you say he looked like Jess?"

"Because he does! This fella's got dark hair, long though, as it sticks outta his hat in the back and on the sides and then there's his beard covering up most of his face. He was wearing different clothes though. A red shirt, fitting a little big around the chest."

"Oh Mose, that doesn't sound like Jess at all."

"A man can change his appearance, he can even change his clothes, but he can't change his eyes, can he?"

"No." He lowered his voice, slowed his words, but Slim's heart couldn't settle its pound. "A lot of men have blue eyes, Mose."

"I know. But Jess' eyes, they's got something that nobody else has, don't you agree?"

"I do. Did Rex have that Jess Harper spark?"

"Well, now, not all of it, that's for sure. But it was there."

Hope made this next part spring through Slim's lips. "This man, is he mute?"

"I don't know. Didn't say nothing to me. Kinda scurried away into the saloon."

"What about his hand?"

"Now that's the trickiest part. He was wearing a left-handed holster."

Slim's palm hit into his thigh. "I don't know, Mose. It doesn't sound convincing enough for me that Rex is Jess."

"You could go on up to Sheridan and find out for yourself. If anyone's gonna know the difference between Jess and somebody else, it's gonna be you."

"And what if Rex Helfer really is Rex Helfer? If I go traipsing up to Sheridan looking for Jess Harper and he turns out to be really named Rex Helfer, then my ride was wasted. I also can't forget about the ones that hurt Jess in the first place coming to call."

"Was a few weeks back, wasn't it?"

"Yeah, but I still haven't shaken the threat of them coming back here. I can't leave Daisy and Mike for that long."

"I'll tell you what. Every time I make my run up that way, I'll look for him and let you know what I see."

"Thanks, Mose."

The stagecoach rolling toward Laramie, Slim stepped into the house. Since she was right in front of him wiping down the table, it was impossible to not look at Daisy. It was even more impossible to not reach out to her and Slim gave her shoulder a squeeze as he walked by. Oh, how Slim wished that he could offer Daisy more than his touch! But he wouldn't tell her what Mose said about Rex Helfer. There was no way Slim would offer false hope, especially when he could see that her cheeks had been dampened by a new batch of tears, even more when Slim couldn't believe it himself.

Slim kept his sigh silenced, but he was a failure when it came to stifling his headshake. Too bad he couldn't shake what was inside away. Rex Helfer. It was an odd name, one that somehow already had the ability to stick into Slim's brain. But all he had to do was remind himself of Mose's description of the mystery man and his head would shake all the more. It wasn't Jess. The red shirt alone was evidence. Jess wore blue so much that Slim couldn't even picture Jess with any other color attached to his hide. While the image remained blank, there was some kind of clarity in Slim's inability to imagine Jess in red, right here in his ears. Slim could hear Jess' protest of looking like some gussied up Holiday package. He would have smiled if his heart hadn't made the hard repeat. It wasn't Jess.

Turning his eyes back toward Daisy, Slim heard another echo in the room. Her voice, so soft, so full of emotion. I think I'd feel better if we only knew where he was.

"Well, it's not Sheridan," Slim muttered under his breath.

His chest felt the inner pang of guilt that Daisy had caught his musing. While she turned toward him, lips parted as it to speak, maybe cry, there wasn't reason for a second blow to hit him. Her ears left Slim's mumble alone, for they were being filled with the same thing that Slim was hearing.

"Slim!" Daisy's screech was as shrill as when a mouse was running through her kitchen. The fear was there, but there was something else in the high note. The excitement couldn't be pretended away. Running to the window, Daisy looked up to the ridge, radiating with hope's greatest expectation. "Someone's coming!"

Maybe Daisy's heart was too hurt to feel properly, but Slim knew. There were too many hooves in a pound to be a single man. It wasn't Jess riding in. His steps heavy and slow, Slim cracked open the door and looked up, counting five riders. The chill down his spine was colder than the faces in his memory, all five of them. Slim hadn't forgotten that he killed one. The man was buried in the section of Laramie's graveyard that was reserved for the no-accounts of the west. But even though four would have been the expected number, seeing all five, the same amount that had attacked Jess, Slim knew who was coming.

Slamming the door shut, Slim grabbed his rifle. "Get in your bedroom, Daisy!"

"What's wrong?" She answered, her hope slashed away. "Who is it?"

"The same ones that were here before."

"Not Rip!"

Nodding, Slim put his hand on Daisy's shoulder. He wasn't necessarily pushing her toward a safer place, yet putting enough strength in his touch, it could have been defined the same. He wanted her out of harm's reach. But with that much artillery attached to some of the most brutal men in existence, was there a safe place? Not here, anyway.

The group getting closer, Slim kneeled on the couch, watching as the deadliest eyes began to glitter. Making a proper point with his iron, Slim debated shooting first. If there wasn't a guaranteed barrage coming at him in his response, Slim would have fired. Maybe he should have risked the onslaught, especially when the man on the other side of his rifle's eye was Rip.

For a moment Slim couldn't see the riders or hear their hooves clop against Sherman soil anymore. All he could see was Rip tearing apart Jess' flesh, searing a knife through his partner's hand. While Jess' throat was too injured to produce that final scream at the most brutal attack, Slim could still hear the agony all over again. Watching as Jess writhed, fearing that he was about to succumb to pitch darkness, it tortured Slim with the same ferocity as the first time he watched it.

But no, it wasn't the same. This time Slim was bearing a heated arm. He could fire, he could kill, or he could lower it to the floor.

"Drop it!"

The command behind him choosing the way his rifle would go, Slim turned his head far enough to view a thin man that had crept past his imaginings, right through the kitchen door. Too bad they hadn't sent the large one. Slim would have heard Buffalo's heavy stomp and then spinning to meet him, would have pulled the trigger.

"Now the other." Even after the pistol at Slim's side hit the ground, the wiry frame raised his six-gun to the level of Slim's head. "Where's the woman?"

"She's not here."

"I'll find out if you're lying, you know. But to make it easier on yourself, go ahead and call her out."

"No."

He pulled the trigger, splintering the windowpane behind Slim's head. "If you don't call her out, then the next bullet will blow that door over there off its hinges. Or maybe she's behind that next one."

Fear was enough to make the call leap out of Slim's throat. "Daisy, come here!"

Her door coming open a crack, Daisy allowed one eye to peer through. "Slim?"

"Come on out, Daisy."

The gun was still poised to fire, but surprisingly he had enough gentlemanly behavior to tip his hat. "That's right, Ma'am. Come right out into the open for all to see."

"All?"

He switched his gaze to Slim. "You didn't think this was going to be a one man show, did you?"

Slim shook his head. "Of course not. That's what your boss is famous for doing."

"You might be right, Friend." A chuckle was finished in his nose with a loud puff. "Hey, Rip! You were right! Both of our lures are home."

Slim flinched even before the hard boots hit the front porch. Lures? If bait is what he and Daisy were to them, they either knew where Jess was or they were trying to draw him out of hiding. This time Slim masked his flinch, but throughout every inch of his insides was an excruciating recoil. It just might be the only thing that would work.

Wanting to protect Daisy from whatever was coming, Slim started to step toward her trembling frame, but the thin man's gun kept him too far back to pull her close. There was only one more second passed before that single gun turned into four more. The front door being thrust open, Slim glared at the fattest intruder. If only Buffalo had matched his stare, but the large man had but one glare. He was going straight for Daisy.

Buffalo pushed her toward the wall with nothing more than his presence. "Say, Old Lady, ain't it close enough to noon that you should have dinner on? We're starving."

"The stagecoach was just here," Daisy answered with a rush of voice and flurry of her fingers around her collar. "The passengers ate all of it."

"Well, now, wasn't that rude of them?"

"I'm sorry. All I can offer is coffee."

"That I could make myself, Lady. I need food."

"Like I said, I'm sorry." Her face was already white, yet it blanched even further when Buffalo's hands dug into both arms. "You're hurting me!"

"Well, I'm hungry!"

Slim would have leapt through the gun pointed at him if its barrel wasn't pushing straight into his neck. "Leave her alone!"

The man on the other side of the bullet was eager to let it out with a touch of the trigger, but his low-level status prevented it. He looked toward his boss. "Want me to drop him, Rip?"

"Not yet, McKinley. I'd like to have a talk with Mr. Sherman first."

"Talk to him," Slim said, motioning toward Buffalo the moment the gun was no longer aligned with his pulse. "Tell him to get his filthy hands off Daisy!"

Rip shrugged. "You heard the man, he's hungry."

"You heard the lady. She said we're out of food."

Rip barely lit his face with a smirk. "All right, Toombs. Ease up on the woman. For now."

The heat in his core sizzled off of Slim's tongue. "What do you mean, 'for now'?"

"Just what I said. But like I said a minute before that, I'd like to talk to you first."

Slim stared at the man that he had killed a hundred times in his dreams. "What do you want?"

"Jess Harper."

"He's not here. And since you stopped in before, you should know that we're telling the truth."

"I know he's not here. But he will be."

Because of McKinley spilling the reason by calling them lures, Slim knew, but he wasn't going to reveal that knowledge to Rip. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"I have this notion about Harper. Actually I shouldn't take all of the credit. My new man here, Corbett, lent me this little tidbit."

"What notion?"

"That Harper cares more about you people than he does himself. That's why he left here in the first place. He's crippled with two times the fun."

"How'd you know about that?"

Rip nodded toward Corbett. "They're old chums, Corbett and Harper. Plus it helped that they were practically roommates in that Denver hospital you sent him to."

"You saw him?" Slim asked the newest member of Rip's gang.

"Saw his hand, heard the nothingness coming out of his throat. But I also know one more thing about him. He's scared."

The defense for his partner blew out of Slim's mouth. "You're wrong! Jess isn't afraid of anything."

"Oh, really?" The tickle behind Rip's mouth bent his lips upward, too high for anything that looked to be born from something sweet touching his tongue. "Then tell me why he's not here."

"I…" Slim's mouth slammed shut as abruptly as if the open door was given a kick.

"See?" Rip widened his mouth even further to laugh. "You can't even say it. Harper's scared stiffer than a body already tucked in his coffin. But I have to admit, his reason is commendable. He thinks a lot of you, Sherman. And the old lady. That's why he's gonna come running when he hears what's happened back home."

"You'll have more than Jess on your tail. There's law around here. Good law. Or haven't you heard about Sheriff Cory?"

"Yeah, I've heard, but never had reason to meet him. Doubt I'll need to."

"You will if you kill us."

Rip's hands seemed to float into the air. "Who said anything about killing you?"

Slim gave McKinley a nod. "He did."

"The silent ones are sometimes the most dangerous ones," Rip said, momentarily giving McKinley a hard stare before returning his dark shade back toward Slim. "All right, Sherman, so you know. But I'll tell you something you don't know. There's nothing you can do to stop it."

"Oh, I'll try, all right. Just like I fought back when you and your friends were here before. Sure I only killed one, but that number could easily multiply today. Maybe you'll go down first this time. In fact, that's the way I want it to be, Rip. I owe you something for what you did to Jess. I owe you some serious lead."

"And how do you figure you'll fire it? You ain't exactly holding iron."

"No," Slim said, barely casting a glance to the floor. "But it's not a far reach."

Rip followed the line of steely blue. "Then go for it."

"Slim!" Daisy's shriek put both palms into her cheeks. "Don't!"

"Your 'for now' is over, Toombs. Hold the nanny back. I don't want anything to get between me and Sherman."

"What about the others?" Slim asked, nodding toward the three guns still being held onto. "Are they in that anything that's between us?"

Making a sound that could have been mistaken for a cougar's purr, Rip breathed in the challenge that was standing in front of him. He hadn't planned on making a show out of this. Go in, talk it out, then shoot them. But having Sherman like this, spouting like an overdone coffeepot, a simple gunshot to the head wasn't going to cut it. Blast his ego, or better yet, blast Sherman with a hole the size of Rip's ego.

The wait not as long as it felt, Rip finally eased his gun into his holster and then commanded the others to do the same. "Package your irons, boys."

"So we're starting even," Slim said, suddenly feeling hungry. Ravenous even. Fortunately Slim didn't take it so far as to smack his lips beyond his words. "You and me."

"Slim, please! He'll kill you!"

He knew he shouldn't turn toward her tears, but Slim had to see her, assure her. "And if it's the other way around?"

"Then the others will kill you."

Slim shook his head. "Once I pull the trigger on Rip, all I have to do is turn around and I'll have them. And it'll be over. The entire bunch will be off to jail."

"You're too cocky, Sherman," said Rip, getting the blue eyes to sear back into his black. "Did you know cockiness is just another spelling for loser? A gunman has to have a clear head. That's something that you're severely lacking right now."

If his partner was coaching him in the fine arts of gunfighting, Jess might have said something similar. That hard truth wasn't going to stop Slim from reacting, though. Maybe it was the revenge inside of him, shouting louder than any kind of wisdom, no matter what kind of tongue was offering it. Maybe it was because Buffalo had his filthy hands on Daisy. Maybe it was something else altogether. Slim wouldn't try to guess the driving force of his hands, not when he was trying to reach the rifle near his feet, and kill the man that crippled Jess.

He made it. Both hands had the proper grip, but just as Slim raised it away from the floor, Rip's gun was pointing toward Slim's skull. At its firing he staggered, and looking through a curtain of blood, Slim wondered how he had ever stayed upright.

Light being stifled by more than pain, his boots against the floor was over. With a crash that added its own knockout punch to his head, Slim's body went down. There was nothing left in him to make an attempt at rising. He was out. Some would say that he was gone. The man that pulled the trigger declared him dead.

Rip kicked the crumpled body. "Well, that's that."

"Slim!" Daisy tried to take a step toward him, but was held back by Buffalo's hairy arms. "You let me go!"

Toombs shook his head. "Can't do that."

It was strange, it could have even been considered evil, but Daisy turned her soft eyes on Rip. She was pleading with him, using her entire body, her every tear to allow her to be released. She put everything she had inside of her wavering voice. "Please, Rip. Let me tend to him."

"No dead man needs coddling."

"But I must, please."

"The only thing Sherman needs is his grave," Rip said, and then spotting the table's centerpiece, he stooped low to breathe in the rosy aroma. "Mmm, sweet. But you know what it really is? It's the perfect touch for the base of the stone that says, 'Here lies Slim Sherman.' Oh wait, here lies Slim Sherman. Right here to be exact."

His hands taking hold of the vase, Rip reared his arms up over his head to gain momentum and then let the bouquet go. The flowers that had been fussed over and perfected by Daisy's hand smashed into the wall behind Slim's downed body, sending petals and water cascading to the floor. But where he could have smiled in satisfaction, Rip wasn't done. A dining chair taking the brunt of Rip's outward jut of his boot, it turned over backward. The next chair was handled even worse, getting smashed across the tabletop so hard that both pieces of furniture were reduced to a pile of splintered wood.

"Do a similar deed, boys," Rip said as he folded his arms across his chest. "Tear the place apart."

"No, you can't," cried Daisy, fighting to no avail with the man that held her. "Haven't you done enough?"

Rip shook his head. "Not yet."

Slim's blood continuing to pool onto the floor should have been enough to make Daisy's knees bend with faint, but even as the outlaws were turning her house into shambles, still she remained above oblivion's black floorboards. Her hands balled into fists at the tremendous crashing of dishes and cups, wincing even further as she listened to the shards of glass being crunched beneath more than one set of boots. She watched in terror as every lamp was hurtled into the fireplace, with each new thrust getting a louder explosion. Would the next blast burn the house down?

Somehow the embers didn't jump far enough to light the closest rug, but Daisy's eyelashes would never get a chance to flutter with any form of relief. Now they were tearing down curtains, overturning the couch, and the skinny fellow was using the butt end of Slim's rifle, breaking every windowpane with such violence that there wasn't even a single shard left inside each frame.

And then with the last tinkle of glass hitting the floor, came the eerie sound of silence. Their destruction was over. The men responsible assembling in the center of the room, Buffalo finally took his hands away from Daisy's flesh to join them. She looked around the room, her beloved home shattered, just like her heart.

"Whatever was the purpose of this?" Daisy asked, the shaking in her voice matching the rhythm of her knees.

"This will make Harper come," answered Rip, slowly and ominously walking through the shambles. "And this."

Rip's gun out of his holster, he centered the aim at Daisy's middle and dropped the hammer. Daisy's hands rose to cover her scream, but the bullet making its strike changed their direction. Clamping both palms over her blood, Daisy bent into the pain, somehow feeling the lead dig even deeper into her flesh. Trying to take a step, she gasped as a roll of darkness covered her, followed by flashes of light. Was she viewing heaven beyond that shore? Squinting into its brilliance, she was sure she could reach it. It wasn't all that far. Taking another step toward what beckoned her, suddenly the golden view shifted and Daisy looked down. Slim! She couldn't leave him, she couldn't let go.

Her hand stretching out toward his body, she saw the drops of blood raining from her fingers to create little splotches onto the floor. But there was more blood than this. Beyond where she stumbled was the puddle that belonged to Slim. She was a nurse, hardened by war's every horrific scene and even if she didn't have medical skill, she was a mother that had buried her son. She knew death when she saw it. Slim was gone. He had to be. Her lashes falling, Daisy searched for the paradise from a moment before. Now it was just darkness. Black and lonely, she didn't want to go, but Daisy was already falling into the abyss, she couldn't stop. With a painful cry that didn't come from her wound, but straight from her heart that depicted both love and loss, Daisy dropped to the floor.