Shadow of a dead man, p.13
Shadow of a Dead Man, page 13
“Sorry to wake you so early, pard,” Johnny said, running his hand down the stallion’s long, sleek snout. “We got a little sage to fog, I’m afraid. Might be pullin’ out for good. Well, no mights about it. I reckon you an’ me are off to explore another territory. What do you say, boy? It’s prob’ly time we did a little sightseein’. To push back the horizon a bit, as ole Joe used to put it.”
But about as far as his foster father, old Joe Greenway, ever got from his sprawling Maggie Creek Ranch between Reno and Virginia City was a quick trip to Sacramento or San Francisco with his half-Basque segundo, Marcel. They’d visit the Barbary Coast parlor houses and saloons for a rowdy weekend of ribald fun and to drink with their California stockmen pals. Joe, who lost his wife roughly ten years before Johnny had entered his life, had said he knew it was time to bleed off some sap when his dreams got too “pestered” for a proper night’s rest.
Joe and Marcel had taken Johnny along when Johnny had turned sixteen, and memories of the trip still brought a warm flush to Johnny’s cheeks and ears, just thinking of that first time with a French doxie named Claudette. The talents that “lady” had exhibited still pestered his own sleep from time to time . . .
Ghost nuzzled Johnny affectionately and sniffed his coat pockets for treats. Johnny slipped the mount a couple of sugar cubes then threw his saddle blanket and saddle onto the cream’s back. Ghost stomped and switched his tail, whickered a time or two.
The stallion was eager to hit the trail. Johnny wished he could feel the same enthusiasm. The truth was, his head was awash with bleak emotions. For one thing, his heart ached for the woman he loved. For another, his fury at Garth Starrett was a wild, raging beast inside him.
There was no good reason for Starrett to harbor a grudge against Johnny. He’d just been doing his job. Now, the “incident” on the ranch had been none of Starrett’s doing. That had been Starrett’s men. It was Johnny’s own fault for riding out there unarmed, especially after all of those men’s friends he’d sent up the river, turning large rocks into small rocks for years at a stretch.
They were just having fun, giving Johnny the reckoning they’d thought he deserved. That came with the territory. Johnny realized that. He’d always taken his licks, and he’d taken those though they’d damn near killed him.
Starrett was another matter. If he really was forming a catch party for Johnny, a so-called legal one, with the intention of stringing him up because of what had happened to Rance, Garth Starrett was a dead man. And so were as many of Starrett’s men as Johnny could take before they rode him down. Which they no doubt would do.
He’d been a fighting man long enough to recognize long odds when they were stacked up before him, and he recognized them now. It was fun to think about the far future and further adventures in some other state or territory, but the truth was that, deep down, Johnny knew he was near the end of the line.
He led Ghost out of the stable and mounted up. He looked around again, listening carefully. The stars were still bright but he could see the first lightening of dawn in the east. Time to move out. He didn’t want to involve Mean Mike or Silent Thursday. Neither was a young man anymore, and they wouldn’t have a chance against Starrett’s men. Besides, they had no dog in the fight beyond their friendship with Johnny. This was his battle. Not theirs.
Besides, Sheila needed them.
He booted Ghost past the cabin and into the clearing beyond it. Soon he was traversing the crease between ridges, where the darkness closed in around him. Then he was back to the Paiute River. He crossed the river and climbed a butte on the far side of the wide, shallow water reflecting the stars’ glow.
He tied Ghost in a hollow at the crest of the butte, well hidden from the trail below, then moved back down the butte until he’d found a nest in rocks and brush about three quarters of the way up from the bottom. From here, he had a good view of the trail that led out from Hallelujah Junction, following the gradually meandering course of the river.
He settled in for the wait.
The breeze caressed him with its icy hands, making him shiver. The few remaining leaves on the aspens lining both sides of the river made scratching sounds.
The water chortled quietly over rocks. Somewhere far behind him a rabbit screamed as a hawk or other night bird dropped from the sky for a quick meal before sunrise. The rabbit screamed again . . . and again, its terror stark and vivid, until Johnny winced and just wished the damn hawk would finish the poor thing off. He was in no mood to listen to nature’s cold brutality though he knew that brutality all too well.
He hunkered down in his chill nest and watched the stars fade. The sky pearled. When the first lemon rays of the sun touched the top of the butte above him, he heard the faint rataplan of riders.
He gave a grim smile and said, “Right on time.”
He unsheathed the Twins, held one in each hand, caressing the eyelash triggers with his index fingers, the hammers with his thumbs.
The thuds grew louder until the men appeared, coming around a bend in the trail on the far side of the river—two riders, then three and four, then four and five . . . until the whole group riding stirrup to stirrup and tail to tail was laid out below Johnny and on the opposite side of the river and the nearly bare aspens lining it.
A hasty count told him there were nearly twenty men down there. Two of Starrett’s men rode point. Garth Starrett himself and Jonah Flagg were the second two riders. The rest of the men were from the Three-Bar-Cross . . .
No.
Just then Johnny saw something flash on a coat lapel. A badge. He scrutinized the man wearing the badge—a chunky, dark-haired gent wearing a Boss of the Plains cream hat and a cinnamon bear fur coat, a ribbon tie whipping in the wind around his neck. He rode high in the saddle, leaning forward, holding his reins in one hand up high against his chest. His other gloved hand was draped over the ivory-gripped Colt Lightning that Johnny remembered he carried, identical to the hideout he carried in a holster strapped to the small of his back.
That would be Jack Whaley, the deputy U.S. marshal who had jurisdiction over this neck of eastern California and western Nevada. Johnny had worked with the man on several occasions and hadn’t liked him. He was a blustering lout. Whaley had always been in the pocket of the highest bidder, which was usually a wealthy rancher. Obviously, Starrett had called him in to give his charade at least the appearance of legitimacy.
Riding beside Whaley, on his far side from Johnny, was another deputy U.S. marshal—Beech Skinner. The lean gent with a red, dragoon-style mustache in stark contrast to his round, pale face rode with one hand holding his crisp gray bowler hat on his head. He wore a heavy black wool dress coat with a mink fur collar. A stag-butted pistol bristled on his right hip, in a shiny black leather holster, a flap of the coat drawn up behind the pistol’s grips, making an easy draw when the time came.
Johnny grinned, chuckled. “Two federals straight up from Carson City. Now, that’s about as official as a vigilante committee is gonna get!”
He rose from his nest, raised the Twins high in the air above his head, and triggered a wad skyward. As the rocketing blast filled the canyon below, echoing off the ridges on both sides of the stream, he triggered the second Twin, adding another crashing report to the heels of the first.
The posse riders, directly across the stream from Johnny now, all hauled back on their horse’s reins, bringing the mounts to skidding halts. They reached for pistols or rifles and looked around wildly, trying to follow the echoing reports to their source.
“There!” one of the riders said, pointing with his rifle.
Johnny grinned. When he had the attention of all of his pursuers, he turned full around, giving his back to the posse. He unbuckled his cartridge belt, lowered his pants, and bent forward.
CHAPTER 17
“Sheila, you haven’t eaten a thing on your plate!” exclaimed Verna Godfrey. “What’s the matter, my dear? Are you sick?”
The stout woman in a plain gingham dress, her liberally gray-streaked brown hair pulled into its customary bun, had just entered the kitchen from outside, breathless from fetching a pail of split firewood from the woodshed in the house’s backyard. A gust of wind blew dead leaves into the kitchen around Verna’s stout ankles, and she hurried to close the door, chuffing her disdain at the mess. As she passed the table, holding the large wooden pail by its handle with both of her plump, pale hands, she cast Sheila a curious look.
“Your color looks all right. Do you feel feverish?” she asked, setting the pail down near the black Hartford range.
Mrs. Godfrey had come with the house, so to speak. She’d been Sheila’s father’s housekeeper for several years, and Sheila had kept her on after her father had died over a year ago, to cook and clean and generally manage the house, which, because of her work schedule, Sheila had little time for.
She was glad to have the middle-aged woman—who lived just down the street and came over every morning at six o’clock sharp and left every afternoon at three o’clock just as sharp—working for her. Verna was a workhorse who kept the house spotless and was a good cook, besides. There were some mornings, however, when Sheila would have preferred to have the house to herself.
This was one of those mornings.
She hadn’t realized she’d taken only a small bite or two of her fried eggs and none of her ham or toast, which Verna had set on the table precisely at seven o’clock, as she did every morning. Poking at a yolk with her fork, Sheila said, “I feel fine. Just not very hungry this morning, is all. I’m sorry, Verna. I think I’ll just finish my coffee and head to work. I have a full schedule today, as usual.”
She set her fork down and lifted her china coffee cup to her lips. Before she could take a sip, Verna moved quickly around behind her—Sheila was always surprised at how fast Verna could move, given her large size—and clamped her hand to Sheila’s forehead. “Hmmm . . . no, you don’t feel warm.”
“I’m fine, Verna. Honest, I am.”
Sheila sipped her coffee. Verna moved around to the other side of the table, pulled out a chair, and sank into it. She leaned forward, resting her heavy bosoms on the oilcloth, and reached across the table to take Sheila’s left hand in both of her own.
She squeezed and patted the hand, giving a sympathetic smile. “It’s your young man, isn’t it?”
Sheila’s eyes widened in surprise.
Verna’s smile turned a tad shrewd, her soft blue eyes glinting in the light from the lamp hanging over the table. The sun had not yet found the deep valley in which Hallelujah Junction resided. At this time of the year, it wouldn’t for another half hour. “You can’t hide much from Verna Godfrey. Not that I’m a snoop or a gossip. No, sir—I can’t stand the sort. At the first blab of gossip I hear in the grocery store or the post office, I turn around and close my ears!”
Sheila thought she did a serviceable job at not snorting a laugh at the obvious fib.
“I have, however,” Verna continued, keeping her voice low, as though someone might be listening from another room, “recognized the signs of a man having been here a few times over the past couple of months.”
Sheila’s cheeks warmed. She hadn’t gone out of her way to keep anything of her intimate life scoured from her house. She hadn’t flaunted it, however, either. She was a single young woman, and her entertaining a man here in the house without a chaperone was, according to the rules of polite society, an indulgence that would get most women shunned.
Not the men, of course. Only the women.
But Sheila did not kowtow to society’s double standards for women. At least, not here in her own house. This was her home. She would do what she wanted here, and if that meant entertaining a man she wasn’t married to, she would do just that. And she had. And she didn’t feel one bit guilty.
Well, maybe a little, she thought now, sitting across the table from her middle-aged and traditional housekeeper, who quickly added, “I am not judging you, my dear. Judge not lest thee be judged!” Her smile grew a little crooked, and a naughty glint entered her gaze as she added, “A handsome young devil like that young man of yours, so tall and dark, with those brooding hawk’s eyes of his, would make me keep a light burning in my own window after dark!”
Sheila felt her lower jaw drop. “You know about John . . . I mean, Mr. Greenway?” she cried.
Verna gave an ironic chuff. “I know all about Johnny Greenway! Now, I’m no gossip, mind you. Certainly not! How you or anyone else chooses to live your life is none of my business. That said, I’ve happened to look out my window a time or two, early in the morning—just by chance, mind you!—and seen your Mr. Greenway walking down the street from the direction of your house.” Verna sat back in her chair and said beside the hand she raised to her mouth, “A definite spring in his step, too, I couldn’t help noticing!”
She winked, slapped the table, and sent a laugh booming toward the ceiling.
Sheila’s flush grew redder, burned even hotter. She didn’t know why she was so surprised that Verna knew. She and Johnny had had more than a working relationship for some time, and there was no way they could have kept it a secret. Not in a small town like Hallelujah Junction. Especially when Sheila had insisted they take no great pains to conceal it. Her pride as well as her innate stubbornness and rebelliousness had prevented her from doing so. It had even caused her to insist that when Johnny left her house he do it by the front, as opposed to the back, door, even though most times he’d left while it was still dark outside.
Oh well. It was over now. She needn’t worry about being tarred and feathered any longer.
“Oh dear!” Verna exclaimed, reaching across the table again to take Sheila’s hand in both of hers, squeezing. “I’m sorry . . . I shouldn’t have . . . oh, please don’t cry, honey!”
“No!” Sheila pulled her hand out of Verna’s clutch and wiped away the two tears rolling down her cheeks, one beneath each eye. “I’m not crying. I’m, uh . . . I’m just . . .” Embarrassment now mixed with her shame. Here’s the tough lady banker crying at her kitchen table over a man!
“What happened?” Verna’s voice was gentle now, deeply sympathetic, her head canted slightly to one side. “You can tell me, dear.”
“It’s just that . . . well . . . it’s over. That’s all there is to it.” Sheila pinched away another tear and placed her hands flat against the table, squaring her shoulders and drawing a deep, calming breath. “You’re right, Verna. There was something between us. Emphasis on the was. Apparently, I didn’t understand the depth . . . or the shallowness . . . of Shotgun Johnny’s feelings.”
“A wild one, eh?”
“You could say that, yes.”
“Oh, that’s been well known for years in these parts. My husband, Gordy, and I came here when Hallelujah Junction was only four shacks along the river. Ours became the fifth! We couldn’t have children, Gordy and I, so we could afford to get caught up in the gold fever. Anyway . . . Shotgun Johnny Greenway was the U.S. marshal in these parts back then. He wore those two sawed-off double-bores on his thighs, and he cleaned up this neck of the mountains right well, he did! Claim jumpers and rustlers didn’t stand a chance against him.”
Verna gave an insinuating yet sympathetic smile. “And neither did the ladies, hah!” She shook her head in disgust.
“Yes, even after he was married . . .” Sheila immediately regretted saying it. Not that Johnny’s betrayal of his wife was a secret, but it was a burden of shame he carried heavily on his shoulders. That betrayal had been what he and his wife, Lisa, had been arguing about the night the men had broken into their house in Carson City and murdered Lisa and their son, David.
Sheila was deeply ashamed of herself for bringing it up. Johnny might not have been what she’d thought he was, but he didn’t deserve her dragging his name through the mud. Enough people had already done that.
“Heard about that, did you?” Verna said. “He’s a wild one, that Johnny Greenway. Raised in the mountains by Basques then taken in by old Joe Greenway when his family was murdered. He didn’t have a chance, with a history like that. And then living with a wild old codger like Joe and his just-as-wild Basque segundo, Marcel.” Verna paused. “I suppose, though, given how he was raised, he turned out about as good as could be expected. I mean, at least he’s not in prison though some say he should be. You know—for hunting down and killing the men who—”
She stopped when Sheila slid her chair back quickly and rose. “If you’ll excuse me, Verna. I’m gonna head off to the bank, get a jump on the day.”
“I’m just saying, Sheila, that—”
“You’re just saying that, given Johnny’s history, I should have known what I was getting myself into. Yes, you’re right. And I’m fine, Verna. Really. My pride is a little sore, but I’ll get over it.” Sheila walked around the table and placed a hand on the woman’s thick, fleshy shoulder, gave it an affectionate squeeze. “I do appreciate your concern. But I’m fine.”
“No, you’re not fine. You were in love with him, and now, for whatever reason, the cad has hurt you.” It was Verna’s turn to cloud up and begin to rain, as Johnny would have put it. “And I just feel so bad for you, dear. You, of all people—such a smart and beautiful young woman—deserve such great happiness. You deserve a good and kind man, not some wild man of the mountains who’ll break your heart as quick as a peg pony can turn on a dime!”
Sheila sniffed back her own tears. “Thank you, Verna. But I don’t need a man to make me happy. My work fulfills me better than any man ever could. And, speaking of work . . .” She shrugged into her wool coat and grabbed her leather satchel off a chair. “I need to get over to the bank.”
“I’ll have a roast in the oven for you, with plenty of potatoes, onions, and carrots.” Verna smiled through the sheen of tears in her eyes. “Just how you like it!”
