“
Hicks, Olivia. It’s Mr. Hicks. Yes, I
guess there’s bad blood between them.”
“
Yes, I’m sure there would be, wouldn’t
there? I imagine that Mr. Matthews might even want revenge. At
least that’s what I heard him say.” She paused for a moment, as if
lost in thought. “Oh, well . . . ” Olivia
shrugged her narrow shoulders and went back to her book.
For her part, Althea’s legs felt so rubbery
and unsteady, she feared she might fall head-first down the stairs.
She gripped the railing more tightly and descended with careful
steps. Cooper Matthews—oh, God, he was more horrible and despicable
than she’d realized. She was so glad that she hadn’t had to hire
him after all. And yet . . .
And yet something he’d said stuck in her
mind. She shouldn’t give it credence, or even think about it. She
tried to push it away, but it sat there in her thoughts whispering
to her. Murderer. The best thing—right thing—to do would be to
dismiss what Matthews had said. Doubt nagged at her, though, and
she realized the doubt had been there from the first moment Jeff
Hicks had arrived at her door.
She went to the window in the parlor and
peered through the lace curtain at Jeff. He stood next to the
fence, one hand gripping a the top of a picket, while he stared at
something far down the road.
Was it her imagination, or was he beginning
to look healthier already? The sun fell across his nicked face,
turning his eyes the color of pale jade. She wouldn’t have thought
that a couple of decent meals and a day without alcohol could make
a man look so good.
One thing was certain—the attractive man she
remembered seeing on the street in town was beginning to emerge
again. And while Sheriff Mason had said there was nothing to fear
from Jeff Hicks, doubt nibbled at her confidence.
What did she know about him, really? He’d
been the sheriff in Decker Prairie, he’d killed a boy, and he’d
started drinking. That was all she knew, but was there more to
those events? The fact that Will Mason had assured her of Jeff’s
trustworthiness didn’t answer the questions in her mind. The only
way to do that was to ask the man himself. She thought he owed her
that much, anyway, given that she and her sister were here
alone.
Althea crossed the parlor and went to the
front door, determined to talk to Jeff before her courage deserted
her. On the front porch, a pile of rose clippings lay where he’d
left them.
“
Mr. Hicks?” Althea approached Jeff
where he stood next to the fence, watching. Just
watching.
After a moment, he faced her and she saw
something piercing and direct in his eyes that made her back up a
step. “I suppose you want to know what Matthews was talking about.
I mean about me killing his son.”
His bluntness caught her off guard; it was as
if he’d read her mind. “I heard something about it.”
“
What did you hear?”
Almost sorry that she had come out here,
Althea stopped herself from twisting her apron around her fingers.
She felt as uncomfortable discussing this as she would talking
about her mother’s death. “That you caught the boy breaking into a
store in town and you shot him.” What more could there be to a
story like that? she wondered.
Jeff nodded and let his gaze wander to the
mountains on the distant east edge of the valley. “Wickwire’s. He
broke into Wickwire’s.” The afternoon sun highlighted the fine,
strong bones of his face, his broad brow, his mouth that was
generous without being too full. “I always felt a little sorry for
Wes. Cooper had been walloping the hell of out him ever since the
boy’s ma, Elly, died. Sometimes I think death was the only way she
could escape the beatings Cooper gave her.”
“
Dear God,” Althea interjected softly.
She could well imagine that with his low regard for all women,
Cooper Matthews would think nothing of hitting his wife.
Jeff kicked at a grass tussock by a fence
post. “After Wesley came to the jailhouse a couple of times looking
for his father, he took to hanging around. Nobody saw to it that he
went to school or learned anything, and I realized that there was a
pretty smart kid hiding under the bruised face and dirty hair. He
just needed someone to give him more encouragement and less
punishment. Since his father wasn’t doing that, I sort of fell into
the job.”
“
You did?” A very dark picture was
beginning to form in Althea’s mind, one of heartache and cruel
regret.
“
Yeah, I guess I started to think of
him as my son. I talked to the schoolmarm about helping Wes. She
had to work with him after regular class hours because he was so
far behind most of her other students. She didn’t have any other
twelve-year-olds who couldn’t read. But like I said, he was bright
and he wanted to learn, so he caught on pretty fast.”
He went on in a soft voice, telling her how
the boy would sometimes come by the office in the afternoon. Jeff
would listen to Wesley read or cipher. “I was proud of him. But
Cooper didn’t give a damn about what the kid had accomplished, and
he didn’t like him going to school. He told Wes he didn’t want a
son who knew more than he did. Cooper still knocked him around when
he got drunk and the boy couldn’t duck fast enough, or hide soon
enough.
“
One evening, I had one foot in the
stirrup, just about to ride home for the night. Sally—I had dinner
waiting for me, and I didn’t want to be late. But I heard the sound
of glass breaking down the street and I had to see about it. That’s
what the town paid me for.”
Decker Prairie was quiet. Dusk had fallen and
everyone had gone home. Jeff checked the darkened storefronts and
offices along the street, peering through each window. When he got
to Wickwire’s, he saw that the door glass had been broken near the
lock. The door itself was slightly ajar and he knew someone was in
there. With his revolver drawn, slowly, quietly, he crept in and
found a man rifling the cash box.
“
He had his back to me and it was dark,
so I didn’t recognize him right away. Wes had grown a lot in the
past couple of years, too, so I didn’t realize that it was just a
fourteen-year-old boy standing there.”
Now Althea did twist her apron in her
fingers, and the lump in her throat felt as if she’d swallowed a
rock.
In a quiet voice Jeff told the intruder to
turn around, slowly, and no one would get hurt. When Wes turned,
Jeff saw the gun in his hand, but he barely recognized his face.
Both eyes were black and the left side of his face was so swollen
and bruised, he looked as if he wore a grotesque mask.
“
He dared me to stop him. Cooper had
beaten him again—this time bad enough to break some bones in his
face.”
Althea lowered her eyes. She felt scalding
tears gather behind her lids and she couldn’t bear to look at
Jeff’s impassive expression while he told her this awful story. Her
heart ached for the battered child she’d never even known.
“
He said he was leaving then, that
night, and he needed money to get away. He couldn’t stay with his
father another minute. If I tried to stop him, he’d shoot me. I did
everything I could think of to get him to put down that gun and
surrender. I promised to get him another place to stay, to protect
him from Cooper—”
Glancing up at him, Althea broke in, “Why
didn’t you just arrest his father?” How could Jeff let the man
continue his torment of his own son?
Jeff’s eyes held a peculiar, dead expression.
“If a man mistreats an animal—a horse, a mule, whatever—there’s a
law on the books against that, and he can be arrested for it. But
he can beat his wife or children, and no law can touch him. Not
around here anyway, and not in a lot of other jurisdictions. The
idea is that a man’s possessions, including his wife and kids, are
beyond the reach of the law and he can discipline them as he sees
fit.”
“
But that’s horrible! What kind of law
is that?”
Jeff shrugged. “A common one. The world is a
hard place.”
“
And that’s that? Couldn’t you save
that young man?” Althea was dumbfounded. But then, she’d lived a
life isolated from many of the daily events of Decker Prairie, much
less the world.
He smiled, but there was no warmth in it.
“Well, ma’am, I tried. Wes refused all of my offers. He wanted to
go far away, some place where his father wouldn’t find him. He said
he’d kill me if I tried to stop him, and he raised his gun even
higher. I’d seen that trapped, desperate look in a man’s eyes
before—I should have known he meant what he said. But I still
thought I could reason with him, and I tried again. He pulled the
trigger and the bullet grazed my chin.”
“
Oh, no!” Althea realized that a
narrow, bright pink scar crossed the side of his chin; his beard
had hidden it until this morning, and he had so many razor nicks on
his face she hadn’t noticed it until this moment.
“
He cocked the pistol again and kept it
aimed at me. That’s when I figured he was going to kill me and I
guess my instinct to survive took over. It all happened so
fast . . . so damned fast. I fired once and hit
that boy square in the heart. He was dead before he hit the floor.
It was self-defense, plain and simple.” He shook his head in
wonder, then he met her eyes straight on and Althea thought she saw
a glitter of tears before he looked away. “But if you think it was
murder, I guess that’s all right. I’ve thought so too, every day
and night since.”
She started to reach out to touch Jeff’s arm,
but held back, uncertain. “Mr. Hicks, I’m so sorry.” Her voice was
tight and whispery with remorse for him. “You didn’t murder that
poor boy.”
He turned his head and quickly swiped the
back of his broad hand across his eyes. “It’s in the past now,
ma’am. At least for Wes it is, and there’s no changing it. Believe
me, I wish I could. I’d trade places with him in a heartbeat.”
~~*~*~*~~
Later that afternoon, Althea stood in the
kitchen getting a chicken ready for the oven. She sprinkled a touch
of pepper over the bird and the little potatoes surrounding it in a
blue enamel pot. The weather had turned hot, and she paused to
touch the back of her wrist to her damp forehead. It had been a
hellish day, long and emotionally trying. In the parlor, Olivia
played a slow, mournful rendition of “Greensleeves,” and it seemed
to fit Althea’s mood.
Althea had always believed that life was
either black or white. There were no shades of gray, and no room
for compromise. A man was either good or bad, guilty or innocent.
Those had been her father’s unyielding views, and by her upbringing
he’d made them hers too. If a person was guilty of a deed, that was
the end of it. Extenuating circumstances or explanations didn’t
improve matters—they were only excuses.
But Jeff hadn’t made excuses for himself.
He’d simply told her what had ultimately led him to Wickwire’s the
night Wes had chosen to break in. Although she still didn’t approve
of him squandering his life, now she had a little better
understanding of why Jeff had started drinking. Sometimes Althea
believed that if she had been a man, she might have taken to
drinking too. She’d once heard there was temporary oblivion to be
found in alcohol.
In her mind’s eye, she could still see him
standing there in the road as he told her about the death of Wesley
Matthews. He was dressed little better than a beggar, and though
his voice had been devoid of emotion, he’d moved her to tears.
Althea knew she shouldn’t care one way or the other about Jeff
Hicks. He was here to do a job—he worked for her.
But in listening to his story, she realized
that perhaps not everything was black and white.
Maybe life had some gray places, too.
CHAPTER
SEVEN
Jeff sat on the hay-stuffed tick in the
lean-to and poked a roast potato around his plate. It wasn’t that
the potato didn’t taste good. It most likely did, and the chicken
it had been cooked with was probably good too. It was seasoned with
just the right touch—he smelled a little sage and some pepper. No
one could say that Althea Ford wasn’t a good cook. And although he
should have been hungry enough to eat two chickens, he hadn’t taken
one bite. His mind wasn’t on his stomach or his plate.
His scratched arms felt like they were on
fire, but he wasn’t even thinking about them.
Jeff wanted a drink.
Well, no, if he was going to be honest with
himself, one drink wouldn’t do it. He wanted a whole goddamned
bottle, wanted it the way he’d yearned for Sally, back when their
love was strong and whole. He closed his eyes for a moment, the
fork in his loosened grip clacking on the edge of the plate he
balanced on his lap.
There was the smell of the whiskey, sharp and
full, as he lifted the glass to his mouth. The first swallow would
roll to the back of his throat where it would burn with a kindly
fire and fill his head with its vapor. The drinks that followed
would burn less, but would bring a merciful gray blur that would
draw a curtain between himself and the image of Cooper Matthews,
rabid and yelling murderer at him on the Fords’ front porch. But
more importantly, the whiskey would blunt the picture in his mind
of Althea’s chalky, stunned face when she’d heard Matthews’
ranting.
It had bothered her enough to come outside
and question Jeff. Then he’d felt compelled to tell her most of the
story, at least the worst part of it. And it had bothered him to
have to tell her about it. Not just the telling of it and the
remembering, although that had been hard.
What he’d worried about most was losing
Althea’s respect. He chuckled wryly to himself. Hell, he didn’t
even have it to begin with, and he had no idea why it mattered to
him, one way or the other. But it did.