“
Don’t you have something better to
do?” Jeff finally asked, throwing down the fork. He couldn’t make
himself look up into those hard, shadowed eyes. “I’m not planning
to try an escape, if that’s what you’re worried about. Farley
caught me in his henhouse fair and square.”
Will pushed himself away from the bricks and
uncrossed his arms. “Hell, that isn’t why I’m keeping you here. If
you were any other man, you’d have gotten a sharp talking-to and
that would have been the end of it. And you know it.”
Now Jeff looked up, wary. “So, what’s your
grudge against me, Mason?”
Will shook his head. “I don’t have a grudge
against you, Jeff. But you do raise my dander more than most men.
You’re drunk half the time and sleeping it off the other half.
Cooper Matthews was already the town drunk before you decided to
join in. We don’t need two of them in Decker Prairie.”
Hearing himself compared to Matthews, Jeff
felt hot blood rise to his face, partly from shame but mostly from
anger. It seemed like all of his troubles could be traced to that
bastard. He put the unfinished tray on the floor and stood. “I mind
my own business. What do you care how I spend my time? You’re a
lawman, not a preacher recruiting souls.”
“
I hate to see a man lie down and
wallow in self pity, that’s all. Are you going to spend the rest of
your life feeling sorry for yourself? Do nothing more than an odd
job here and there for whiskey money? Your hands shake so bad, I’ll
bet if I gave you a pistol you wouldn’t be able to hit the side of
a barn. There was a time when no one could hold a candle to your
aim.”
Smarting from his last comment, Jeff looked
at Will Mason’s holstered Colt and then turned his eyes away from
the sheriff’s granite stare. Jeff couldn’t tolerate the idea of
even holding a gun again. The last time he’d tried, when he’d still
worn that silver star on his shirt, the tremor in his hands had
been worse than now. If his own life depended upon it—and from his
viewpoint, that was little reason—Jeff knew he couldn’t fire a
pistol again. Not to defend himself or anyone else. The knowledge
was somehow emasculating, and was a notion that Will seemed to
share.
“
Being good with a gun never made
anyone a man,” Jeff muttered, more uncomfortable than
ever.
“
And sleeping it off in someone’s barn
does?” Will’s gaze did not waver.
“
Don’t go flapping your gums until
you’ve walked in my boots for a while. Things look a whole lot
different from here.”
“
I remember what happened that night at
Wickwire’s. It was bum luck, but you don’t have to throw everything
away trying to forget it.”
Will’s words hit a little too close to the
truth and made Jeff feel even more weary than he had before. “Look,
just leave me be, Will. It’s none of your business what I do as
long as it isn’t against the law.” Turning, he went back to the cot
and lay down with his hands locked beneath his head.
Will shrugged, then walked to the door. “I
guess you crossed that line this morning, didn’t you?”
~~*~*~*~~
The sun angled through the high, barred
window above Jeff and caught him in a bright rectangle that threw
striped shadows across his torso. He lay on his back, watching a
spider weave an intricate web in the corner overhead. The hours
dragged on, yet Will Mason hadn’t returned. Maybe Mason was
sticking with his plan to leave Jeff alone to think. It was the
last thing Jeff wanted to do, but the thoughts came anyway.
He’d tried to sleep, but his mind had jumped
around from memory to memory as if he’d had a whole pot of coffee
instead of one lukewarm cup. With the sun setting against the other
side of the wall, it grew warm in the cell. The heat gave a ripe
edge to the stink of his own unwashed clothes and body, and the
spot where the egg had broken under his shirt was glued stiffly to
his skin. Yeah, Will’s earlier description of him was probably not
far from the truth. Jeff most likely did look like something a dog
had puked up.
He didn’t care. Absently, he put a hand to
his jaw and felt the coarse stubble growing there. He had never
been a vain man, and his appearance was just another of the details
that no longer mattered to him. His world had become very narrow
and simple. His aim was to get from one day to the next, and to
find forgetfulness in a drink.
His thoughts continued down the roads of his
past until drowsiness moved upon him. Everything—his marriage, the
man he’d once been—it all seemed so long ago.
Jeff turned toward the brick wall and drew
his arms and legs close to his chest. Sally had been gone for more
than a year now.
That was just as well.
~~*~*~*~~
At his feet, Wesley Matthews lay with a
bleeding hole in his chest. Blood, there was so much blood. Jeff
knew he could save him if he could just reach him. But he was still
paralyzed and couldn’t move no matter how hard he tried.
Jeff came awake with a jerk. Dreaming . . .
he’d been dreaming again. His shirt and the old tick beneath him
were drenched with sweat. His eyes focused on Will Mason, who stood
in the open doorway to his cell, holding the keys.
“
Come on, Jeff. There’s some work that
needs doing.”
CHAPTER THREE
Will Mason pulled on the reins of the
delivery wagon he’d borrowed from Eli Wickwire. Their harness and
bridles jingling, the horses in the doubletree stopped at the
entrance to a road that led to a yellow farmhouse with green
shutters. The back of the wagon was loaded with tools, and on the
seat next to him Jefferson Hicks rode in silence.
A brilliant noonday sun glared out of the
blue sky and pounded down on Jeff’s head. He squinted against the
brightness. He wasn’t accustomed to being out at this hour of the
day anymore.
“
Okay, there she is,” Will said,
pointing at the house with the end of one rein.
Jeff peered at the place. Surrounded by
unplowed fields punctuated with stands of old oak and fir, it
didn’t look like anyone lived there. Blackberry brambles grew like
tangles of barbed wire, engulfing part of a well house, and forming
a thorny crown around the stovepipe of an old smokehouse. The
property was so run down it had to be deserted. “This is a joke,
right? You’re going to dump me here at this abandoned house and
make me walk back to town.” He wasn’t used to stringing so many
words together. There weren’t many people he talked to these
days.
Will pushed back his hat and snorted. “Nope.
It’s not abandoned, and I’m not joking. Miss Althea Ford needs some
help around the place, and I think you’re the man for the job.”
Jeff peered at the house again. “Who’s Miss
Althea?”
“
You remember Althea Ford. She lives
here with her ailing sister. Their father, old man Amos Ford, died
about three-four years ago.”
Jeff remembered the name and something about
a pair of odd, reclusive sisters but nothing more, and he’d never
met either of them. He looked again at the wild shrubbery and
decrepit house. “Jesus, Will, how much do you expect me to do here?
I took one lousy egg from Farley, not his whole damned farm!”
Will fixed him with a stern look. “Look, the
lady said she needs help and I guess even a fool can see that she
does. You never really struck me as the lazy type.”
Stung, Jeff muttered, “I’m not lazy—I just
don’t give a damn. And I don’t think there’s anything you can do to
me to change that.”
Will slapped the reins on the horses’ backs
and the wagon lurched forward. As he turned into the road that led
to the house, he replied, “That’s your problem, not mine. I don’t
need you to give a damn. As for Miss Althea, she only needs your
labor. That’ll be enough.”
“
Why don’t you just release me? Then I
can go about my business and you won’t have to trouble yourself
with keeping me busy.”
“
You know that if I decide to, I have
the legal authority to hold you for thirty days for what you did.
You can help out here or you can go back to the cell in town and
think some more.”
Jeff frowned. That wasn’t much of an
alternative. Yeah, he knew Will could keep him. He just couldn’t
figure out why he bothered. He didn’t remember the sheriff’s job
being so boring that he needed to hunt around for diversions. He
hadn’t lied when he said he didn’t care. Nothing much mattered to
him anymore, and what once had mattered was fainter in his mind
than winter shadows now. But he supposed that spending the day
outdoors in the clean May air beat the hell out of being trapped in
the jailhouse with his thoughts and memories for company.
“
Since when is it the sheriff’s job to
provide a handyman for the local spinsters?” he asked.
Will held the reins loosely in his hands,
letting the horses pull them along at a slow pace. “Miss Althea
came to the office looking for Cooper Matthews. He promised to be
here this morning and he didn’t show up. So you’re taking his
place.”
Jeff stiffened at the name. “Matthews—how did
he get involved?”
“
She was desperate.” He gestured at the
surrounding landscape. “You can see why.”
Yes, he could. Nearing the house, Jeff took
note of the silver-gray barn that had waist-high grass and weeds
growing in front of its doors. Maybe someone really did live here,
but he’d bet a dollar that neither of those sisters had set foot in
that barn for years. On the house, some of the shutters hung
slightly askew and the whole thing needed painting. An ancient farm
wagon stood disintegrating in the tall grass, its iron wheel rims
rusted and some of the spokes broken. Everywhere he looked—the
land, the outbuildings—something needed fixing. Jeff was no
stranger to hard work. He’d done his share at the ranch and house
when Sally still— But, damn, there was enough here to keep a man
busy for months.
“
God, I wouldn’t even know where to
begin,” he said, feeling overwhelmed and more than little put
upon.
“
Don’t worry, Althea Ford will tell you
exactly what to do,” Will replied with a slight smile as he
maneuvered the wagon around to the back porch.
Jeff eyed him suspiciously; he thought he
heard the hint of satisfied laughter behind his words. He could
picture her now, Miss Althea. A dry, creaking old maid wrapped up
in the depths of a big black shawl, and her white hair nailed to
her head in a tight bun. She was probably a little dotty, too,
living here with her equally dry and dotty sister.
Will set the wagon brake and wound the reins
around the handle. “Looks like you might need the tools we brought.
It’s hard to say what they have here.”
Jeff jumped down from the seat and looked
around, feeling like a prisoner being put to work on a chain gang.
He reached into the back of the wagon and lifted out the shovel,
hammer, hoe, and other gear Will had collected for him. If only
that one stringy chicken hadn’t started squalling the other
morning, he would have slipped out of Farley’s henhouse undetected,
and he wouldn’t be faced with the chore before him now.
Will led the way to the back door on the one
clear path Jeff could see near the house. When Will knocked, Jeff,
keeping his eyes on the worn porch flooring, again pictured a
hunched woman as dried up as last year’s corn husks.
He heard the door open.
“
Miss Althea, I hope we’re not late.”
Will’s tone was as pinched and respectful as a
schoolboy’s.
Oh, brother, Jeff thought, short of rolling
his eyes.
“
I can certainly overlook fifteen
minutes, Sheriff.”
The feminine voice was young and clear, Jeff
realized, and he let his eyes venture as far as the hem of her
apron.
Will continued. “I couldn’t find Cooper and I
gave my word that I’d have a man out here. It looks like you’ve got
enough work to keep him busy.”
Jeff inched his gaze up higher. The line of
her dark blue skirt draped over the modest flare of her hips,
ebbing to a small waist that accentuated her full breasts.
She faltered. “Yes, well— Yes, I’ve had some
trouble getting anyone to come out here as I mentioned. I’m afraid
things have declined to a pretty bad state.”
Jeff lifted his eyes to discover a
straight-backed, softly rounded woman in her middle twenties. The
sight of her hit him with an impact that startled him. He’d seen
her outside the saloon yesterday. He remembered that—he’d almost
asked her for money when she’d passed him. But he’d been so taken
by the sight of her, his pride had frozen the words in his throat.
Her hair, rather than white, was a thick, rich auburn that framed
her heart-shaped face with red and amber highlights. She wore it
pulled into a knot at the back of her head, but soft vagrant
tendrils had escaped here and there.
In vivid contrast with her surroundings, she
was tidy and unrumpled, and beautiful in a way that many women were
not: she didn’t realize her beauty. How he knew that he had no
idea. But those big blue-gray eyes of hers— They looked as if they
could see into his very soul and read the shame written there, all
the doubt and failure and cowardice.
Jeff dropped his gaze to the floorboards
again, feeling a flush work its way up his neck and over his face.
He couldn’t remember the last time he’d done more than rinse his
clothes out in a rain barrel or the branch that ran in back of the
Liberal Saloon. And baths had become occasional rather than regular
events. He reached up to flatten out his hair with his palm, then
caught himself. Maybe she hadn’t noticed. He had never been as
conscious of his own appearance as he was right now, but hell, how
was he supposed to look? He’d spent a day and a night in jail, and
he’d been drafted to do a job that no one else would take. Little
wonder. There was enough work here to overwhelm three men and a
small boy.