“Nonetheless, Laura, if you’d been found guilty and gone to prison, your life would’ve been destroyed.”
“And you’ve been reminding me of that ever since the day you met me. Ever since the day you and my father decided to send me to another prison-living with you.”
He slapped her.
A cry followed. Not hers. His. Her words had probably hurt him far more than his slap had hurt her. She’d get over the slap. He’d never get over the words.
“I shouldn’t have said that, Paul. I’m sorry.”
“I’m sorry I slapped you. I never should’ve-”
“I know you’re only trying to help me, Paul, but-”
“You didn’t remember the other one either. You honestly didn’t remember. When you stabbed the other one. The doctors had some kind of fancy word for it. But all I know is that you couldn’t face what you’d done. And so you just blocked it from your mind. And that’s what’s happening here, Laura. You may not be able to see it. But I can. And I’ve got to protect you. That’s all your father ever asked me to do. To protect you; to keep you safe from other people and-yourself.”
“God.” She laughed. But this was a soft laugh. “Being pretty is a curse. People think I’m making that up when I say it. But all my life men have treated me like a little doll they want to collect and put on the shelf and show off to their friends. Even my father was that way. Always wanting to show his men friends how pretty and delicate I was. And what I really was was a tomboy. That’s what I was really like. I loved playing rough with my brothers. And building birdhouses in the woods. And jumping naked into the lake near our house. I hated all those piano recitals and little plays they used to make me put on. I always swore that when I got to be an adult-”
“Did Steve Reynolds let you be a tomboy?” Webley’s voice was tight. He obviously held no fondness for this Steve Reynolds.
“Are you kidding? He was the worst of all. He wanted me for sex and to put me on display. Then he didn’t even want me for sex anymore. He had several mistresses. I think he got bored with having a wife who was as boring as I was. And God, was I boring. I did just what he wanted me to-I really did love him-and it turned out that we both hated what I’d turned myself into.”
“And then you killed him.”
“It was self-defense.”
“Laura, listen. That was what your father’s lawyers convinced the judge of. That it was self-defense. But you actually don’t remember what happened. I’m convinced of that and so were your doctors. But if you’re ever put on trial for killing Stanton-”
“I didn’t kill Stanton-”
“If you’re ever put on trial for killing Stanton, that old trial back East will be dredged up. And how will it look then?”
“I didn’t kill him.”
“All right, Laura. Let’s say I believe that. But put yourself on the jury. You’ll have to admit you were in his hotel room the night Stanton was murdered. You’ll have to admit that you had blood on your clothes. You’ll have to admit that you were very angry with him. You’ll have to admit-”
She then uttered a word most women in these parts don’t use very often. Then she said, “Poor Callie.”
“It’s either poor Callie or poor Laura. One of you will have to be blamed for killing Stanton. Are you willing to throw away your life?”
“How’ll you ever get her to admit that she killed him, Paul?”
“I still haven’t figured that out yet.”
“You’re not going to hurt her? You promise?” Laura said.
“I promise.”
“I didn’t kill him.”
A rustle of garments. An embrace. “Promise me you won’t hurt her, Paul.”
Garments rustling again. Another embrace.
I was so caught up in listening-no theatrical had ever been half as fascinating-that I didn’t hear him. I just felt the aggravating stab of his six-shooter in my back.
He had a very formal voice; it matched his demeanor very well.
“I believe Master Paul will be wanting to speak to you, sir.”
“Since when do butlers carry guns?”
He said quite crisply, “I do what’s necessary to protect the master, sir.”
He stepped around me and knocked on the door behind which Laura and Paul were talking.
TWENTY-TWO
"GO AWAY," WEBLEY said from the other side of the door.
“It seems you have an uninvited guest, sir.”
“What the hell are you talking about, Greaves?”
“The former town marshal, sir. He somehow got into the house and has been eavesdropping on the conversation between you and your wife.”
The door seemed to implode. And in its frame, looking fierce as a gladiator, was Webley. I no longer saw
him
as an ineffectual little man who paid you back through subterfuge. Any man can be dangerous-hell, any woman, too-when they reach a certain level of rage. And he’d certainly reached that level.
He came at me swinging. I leaned to the side. His first punch missed. But not his second. He was smaller and not as fast, but he clipped me hard in the ribs and it hurt.
“This isn’t going to do any good,” I said.
“Maybe not for you.”
He had to literally jump up to get me in the face, but jump
up he did. His fist caught me on the side of the mouth and drew instant blood.
I held my temper. I cared only about one thing. Finding Callie. A fistfight wasn’t going to help me do it.
Laura shouted, “Paul! This is stupid! You’re making a fool of yourself!”
“This is my house and you don’t belong here!” Everybody feels that their own home is sacred. You probably feel a lot more like that when your home happens to be a mansion.
He came at me again, but this time I defended myself. He was an inch off the floor when I knocked him back into the den, a huge room with book-lined walls, an ornamental Victorian fireplace mantel, and a wall of awards and plaques all certifying that the man in this room with its heavy furnishings, vast standing globe, and walls of books and floor covered with genuine Persian rugs-was every bit as important as he thought he was.
I got him in a neck lock and flung him against his desk. I was on top of him before he could find his feet. I took him by the hair and threw him into a leather armchair.
“Stay there.”
“You don’t order me around in my house.”
“Sure I do. I’ve got every right as a citizen to arrest you.”
“The hell you have.”
“I heard what your wife said, Webley. Where’s Callie?”
I sounded a lot cooler than I felt. What I wanted to do was tear his face off. But that wouldn’t get me Callie. Only patience and steady pressure would get me Callie. If she was still alive.
“Tell him,” Laura said. Then to me: “I didn’t have anything to do with this, Morgan.”
She wore a form-fitting emerald-colored green dress that had a certain regal cut to it. The Queen would soon be receiving her in the grand ballroom, no doubt. I was sick of them both-sick of all the Webley s in the world, and sick of all their Lauras-all their power, all their cunning, all their selfishness. I had to hold myself back from working them over with my pistol.
“Where is she, Webley?”
“I didn’t hurt her.”
“I want to see that for myself.”
“I imagine he’ll let you, sir.”
I’d forgotten the butler. He moved with a kind of arthritic dignity, standing over his fallen master, who was sprawled in the leather chair. He handed Webley the six-shooter and said, “Byrum and Aikins are on the way from the bunk-house. I signaled them.”
“Thank you, Greaves.”
At any other time, I would have been interested in their signaling system. But right now all I cared about was Callie.
“You’re forcing my hand, Marshal,” Webley said, composing himself in the chair, pointing his weapon directly at me.
“Yeah. And I’ll bet you’ll hate to kill me, too.”
“I didn’t ask you to come here tonight.”
“No, you just kidnapped my wife.”
“You love your wife, and I love my wife,” he said reasonably enough. “You’d do just what I’m doing to save her. You know you would.”
“If Laura’s as dangerous as you say, this is going to happen again, Webley. And you know it. People like Laura-it goes on, Webley. It repeats and repeats and repeats. That’s why they have to stay in sanitariums and asylums. You think you can change her, Webley. But you can’t. She probably thinks she can change herself. But she can’t do it either. She is what she is.”
Laura, ever beautiful, ever delicate and dignified, stepped in front of me and said, “I hate to disappoint you, Morgan, but I’m sure I didn’t kill Stanton.”
“By saying you’re sure you didn’t-what you mean is you’re
not
sure, Laura.” I turned back to Webley. “I want my wife, Webley. Now.”
He stood up and said, “Come in, men.”
Neither Byrum nor Aikins were outsized in any way. But they had handled and handled well so many dangerous situations in their years as cowboys that they walked into the room with the quiet confidence only experience can give you.
Webley didn’t need to speak to them. They’d no doubt been in situations like this before. All he did was nod to Byrum.
Byrum took his gun from his holster and stepped over to me. He pointed to the gun in my own holster. We didn’t speak either. I handed it over.
Aikins was the one doing the dirty work. He stood at an angle to me. He used his Colt. He got me hard on the side of my skull. I can’t tell you anything more about that particular moment except that patterns began forming in the darkness in front of my eyes. And then there was this pain that traversed the top of my skull and ran all the way down the left side of my head and neck and right into my shoulder. And then I was falling. Somebody said something. But I had no idea what it was. And that was just about it except that, vaguely, I felt worse when my head slammed against the floor. Not even the expensive Persian rug could buffer the pain.
TWENTY-THREE
COLD. DARK. BUMPY Pain from full bladder. Pain from lying wrong on my right shoulder. Pain from being struck by Aikins and then my head trying to split the hardwood floor apart.
Cold. Dark. Bumpy.
Jingle of traces. Squeak of wagon wheels. Snort of horses.
I was in the bed of a buckboard. My wrists and ankles were bound tight with rawhide strips. I was gagged.
The moon and the stars looked chill and autumnlike for such a warm night. I couldn’t smell fall coming. But I could see it in the somber moods. There were Indian tribes that believed they could tell the seasons by noticing the subtle variations in the surface of the moon. I had a pretty good idea of the message it was sending me.
I leaned up, fighting my bonds, to see who was on the wagon seat. Aikins and Webley. Aikins driving.
We were heading north, into the territory where the last serious gold strikes had gone bust about ten years earlier. All that was left was an enormous boot hill and a ghost town filled with empty buildings that criminals hid out in sometimes. The only other residents were rats and stray dogs and the occasional coyote.
A good place to keep a prisoner, a ghost town. Leave a couple of guards with her, nobody would bother her. Keep her bound and gagged the way I was, she wouldn’t even have a chance of screaming for help.
Poor Callie. I knew about where she was now. And I could also figure out what they wanted her to do. And as soon as she did it- Well, there were two of us to kill now. Ordinarily, Webley probably wouldn’t have had the will for something like this. But as he’d said, when your wife’s life was at stake-
The buckboard jounced and bounced and bumped and thumped. Aikins and Webley talked every once in a while, but in voices so low it was as if they were afraid they might awaken me or something.
We were heading into a draw, the mountain slopes steep and ragged on either side. Streamlike music played its cool clear song. Usually such natural sights would have pleased me. But all I could think about was Callie. I didn’t necessarily believe Webley’s word that she was still alive.
I began to recognize the place as soon as the buckboard reached the rutted main street. The ghost town of Harbor. It had had two booms-one sparked by placer gold and another, following the tapping out of that placer gold, in quartz mining. The problem being that quartz mining was wasteful and expensive. So that boom, too, tapped out. It always amazed me how quickly boomtowns became ghost towns. Harbor went from a prostitute-filled, three-hotel gambling den of nearly eight thousand to what it was now-a graveyard of deserted and dying false fronts and the remnants of the quartz work.
As we passed down the street, I gazed up at the dark dead eyes of the hotel rooms. Lively parties had been held in all of them, no doubt. Now they looked out upon decay and destruction.
The buckboard clattered to a stop.
Aikins jumped down, came around, and dragged me out of the wagon bed. I could take mincing little steps, my ankles bound the way they were. He poked the barrel of a shotgun into my back and pushed me up the steps of a two-story building fronted by a fading sign that said REGAL HOTEL. There was nothing regal about it, at least not these days.
Inside, Aikins grabbed a lantern, got it going. Rich yellow light repelled shadow and let me see what a hotel looked like after dogs, cats, rats, coyotes, and maybe even a puma or two had had their way with it for many long years. The floor was covered with fecal droppings of many kinds. The little furniture that was left was similarly covered. The cushion backing of a once-fancy love seat had been clawed, stuffing like innards spilling out. The place was pretty damned chilly. It smelled of rotting wood and basement mildew.