Claudia Dain (8 page)

Jack approached her politely, almost wanting to ask her pardon for the way he had to touch her. Smoothing down her skirts, he lifted her by her outstretched arms, holding her for a moment in a stiff embrace until he could get her body positioned over Joe. Joe made no complaint. There was no blood smell.

He covered her with his bedroll spread out, but skeins of her black hair fell down to almost brush against the ground. She was a pretty girl. But then, they were all pretty girls.

Another one dead, and so soon.

Jack mounted carefully, not wanting to disturb her. He'd come looking for a horse thief and found a body. Jack pulled down on his hat until his face was in full shadow. Another death; he should have known. He'd seen a comet just last night. Comets were omens of disaster.

* * *

It was as still as death in Abilene that afternoon when he rode in, almost as still as the girl lying over his saddle. Her hair swung in tempo with Joe's gait. It was the only thing about her that moved; there was no life left in her. Nothing but that dark fall of swinging hair.

The folks in Abilene were no more happy to see her than they were to see him.

"This time he's killed one. And a woman, too."

"No shame, that's what. He'd do anything for money."

"No pride either."

Jack ignored them and tied up at the sheriff’s. Joe, at least, wasn't giving him any trouble. He left the girl and checked the office. Lane was out. Given the mood of the growing crowd, that was bad.

"What could she have done that he'd have to kill her?"

Jack turned and walked back to his horse, scanning the onlookers as he did. There were about twenty of them, not counting the kids, and more coming from down the street. Lane wasn't among them. Lane would have looked like a haloed angel about then.

"What was she wanted for?" someone asked. Jack searched the crowd and pinned the voice to the face. It was Powell, the man who wouldn't let his horses out of the stable.

"She wasn't wanted for anything, least that I know of," Jack said.

"Does that mean he just killed her for the fun of it?" a child asked his ma, only to be pulled behind her skirts and held there.

"I didn't kill her. I found her and brought her in. Can anyone here identify her?"

"You mean he killed her and doesn't even know who she is?"

Jack heard an angry whisper and a muffled slap; poor kid probably got a quick one on the tail.

"Don't you normally know the names of the folks you hunt?" asked a man in a well-pressed coat. He didn't seem to be carrying, but that could be misleading. There was always room in a pocket for a small pistol.

"Yes, I do," Jack said, keeping his voice level and calm. "I don't know who this woman is. I'd like to find out."

"Now, folks, let's get this woman off that horse and give her a respectful burial before anything else," a man said.

Jack studied him. He was a bear of a man, barrel-chested and dark bearded, his brown eyes ringed with heavy brows and lashes so that he resembled a huge raccoon.

"Now, Reverend, that's fine but we've got a woman here who's been kilt and the man who did it is standing plain as a stump for all to see."

"Mr. Hill, that's an assumption and a man doesn't deserve to hang on an assumption. Besides, we don't even know how she died."

"We know she's dead and he's a man who wouldn't take much pushing to get it done," another citizen said, his florid complexion flushing with emotion.

"Don't forget, Reverend, he pushed a man off of a moving train!"

"Sue Ann, that's not the way I heard it," Reverend Holt admonished.

"That's not the way it happened."

Jack turned at that voice. He knew her voice, knew the feel of her breath on his face and the scent of her skin. He turned and saw her at the rim of the crowd that had formed around him. Jack willed her to keep her distance and stay out of the trouble he could see galloping toward him like a herd of mavericks.

"No, it ain't," Jack said, cutting her off as she took a breath to continue, silencing her. "And that has nothing to do with this. This girl was out on the prairie, alone, and she deserves a name to go with her burial."

"I agree," said a familiar voice.

Jack allowed himself a deep breath. Sheriff Lane moved through the crowd, the folks making way for him. Lane might think him just as guilty of murder as the others, but he wouldn't be leading the way to the scaffold. Not without a trial, anyway. Lane was a cautious man who didn't jump too quick to a spot until he was certain the spot would hold his weight.

Lane lifted the blanket and took a gentle hold of the girl's dark hair. The bruise on her neck stood out boldly in the strong afternoon light, purple and red and black, and her face was dark red and puffy with congealed blood. Even with all that, she had been a pretty gal and young.

"Lord God, he strangled her!"

Sheriff Lane lowered her head and dropped the blanket down to cover her. They shared a look then and Lane heaved a sigh. The killings would no longer be a secret, a secret kept to protect the quiet lives of the people of Abilene.

"Who is she?" Jack asked in an undertone.

"I don't know, not from here," Lane answered softly.

"What are you waiting for, Sheriff? Lock him up!"

Sheriff Lane looked at Isaiah Hill, owner of the boot shop, and made himself chuckle. "What'd you think, Isaiah? You think this man killed this gal out on the prairie and then dragged her in here just so he could get arrested?" Lane looked Jack up and down, smiling as he did. "You think he'd bring in his own victim, just to find out her name?"

"He would if he was smart and wanted to throw us off," Hill mumbled, sticking to his theory.

"Do I look smart?" Jack said with a small smile.

There were a few titters at that and the crowd started to break up, with the help of both Reverend Holt and Sheriff Lane. It was painfully obvious that the people of Abilene didn't think he looked too smart. At the moment, he didn't think it was a good idea to get insulted about it.

"I'll be ready to do the service whenever she's ready,"

Holt said. "Thank you, Mr. Skull, for bringing her to us. We'll see she gets a good burial."

"The name's Scullard, Reverend, and thanks for your help."

The reverend looked surprised at the name and then nodded and went on down the street toward the church. There were a few hangers-on, mostly kids, and the Samaritan. Her blue eyes were huge and her freckles stood out against the white of her skin; Jack looked askance at the girl draped over his saddle and then back at the Samaritan. She looked ready to faint.

"Where'd you find her?" Lane asked.

Jack could hardly hear him; he could only stare at the girl who stood so still in the face of ugly death. She shouldn't have to see something like that, something so brutal, so final. Wasn't there anyone to take her home?

"Go on, ma'am," he said, his voice hardly above a whisper.

She looked at him then and he watched her take a shaky breath that made her bosom rise underneath all that ruffled lace. She looked at him as if he were the last horse for fifty miles of hard walking, as if she wanted him to grab her and take her away from Abilene and the dead girl who lay across his horse.

Yeah, as if any decent woman would mess with him. Not unless she was either desperate for a man or a half-wit, and even then she'd have to be drunk. This gal wasn't any of that.

"Go on," he urged.

She slowly left then, one step at a time, until she was walking away from the death he had brought with him. She never should have seen anything like it, not in her life. Death and murder, those were his companions, and he worked real hard to keep honest folk away from such filth, even if it did leave him shoved to the edge of polite society. An outcast, by choice and disposition. Jack heaved a sigh and turned to face Lane.

"The gals in that family are a potion," Lane smiled.

"There's more than one?"

"Her ma and her aunt; her grandma you can leave out."

"I'll leave them all out."

Lane nodded in easy agreement. It wouldn't do to have a bounty hunter running after Anne; she was too innocent for his kind and too sweet for them all.

"Out on the prairie you said?" he asked, getting back to it.

"Yeah, out toward Council Grove, near the railroad markers. There was a trail this time, but it played out after a mile or two. Wind kicked up."

The two men carefully untied the girl from her perch, Joe waiting patiently to be relieved of his burden. Keeping the blanket arranged around her, they carried her into the sheriff's office. The dark was soothing after the harsh light on the street.

"That's north of the last one," the sheriff said, laying the girl down on an empty bunk in an empty cell. Jessup watched from behind his bars and said nothing.

"Yeah," Jack said. He took the blanket and arranged it around the girl with all the consideration of a lover until she was well covered and insured of her privacy.

"How far south do you make Council Grove from Abilene?"

Jack left the girl in her cell and walked back to the sheriff's desk. He sat down on his chair and waited for Lane to pour him a drink. When his glass was full, he drained it, without waiting for Lane. Lane was not offended.

"About twenty-five miles."

Death was twenty-five miles from Abilene, and coming.

Chapter 7

Doc Carr came before anyone had to go hunting for him. He'd heard all about the murder from at least three sources and was slipping on his coat by the time the third walked through his door. Walking to the sheriff's, he heard it again a few more times, once from a child of six who lisped it out with ghoulish delight.

Jack Skull was universally deemed responsible. Malcolm Carr was not disposed to disagree. He'd known more bounty hunters than he wished to and found them all disreputable and violent to a man. Jack Skull had the worst reputation by far. He had no desire to stand face-to-face with Jack Skull. No decent man would.

What he thought was clear when he opened the door to Lane's office and raked Jack with a gaze as sharp as any scalpel. Lane swallowed a smile. Jack lowered his hat brim and leaned against the rough wood wall of the jail-house. It didn't matter to him if the doc liked him or not; he was here because of the girl. If anyone might know who she was, it would be the only doctor for fifty square miles.

Doc Carr flipped back the blanket and got down on his knees to get a closer look. Black hair swept out from the confines of the blanket to tangle on the floor; a rope of hair had wound itself around her throat and across her breasts like a fancy necklace. The doctor eased the strands away from the wound that had killed her.

He rubbed his hands over her head, down her arms, around her ribs.

"No sign of any other injury; no breaks that I can tell." Carr stood to face Lane. "You don't need me to tell you how she died. It's plain enough."

"Yeah. Looks like he used a cord of some kind, doesn't it?" Lane asked. "You make it out to be rope or something smoother, like leather?"

The doctor got back on his knees and studied the raw bruise on the slender throat. "Too even for rope. Leather. Maybe a driving whip; too slender for a bullwhip. I don't know," he sighed, getting to his feet. "Could be lots of things. I've never seen a wound quite like it. The double line of bruising, I don't know what to make of that. Not many men would kill a woman this way." He looked at Jack as he said it. It was as plain a statement as an indictment.

Jack didn't answer the look. What the doc thought didn't much matter.

"You know her?" Jack asked.

"I know her," Carr answered, looking hard at Jack and then shifting his gaze to Lane. "She's part Cherokee, from her grandmother. Lives with her aunt out on Lyons Creek; not much out there."

"Wouldn't her aunt be hunting her? She's been gone awhile," Lane said.

"Probably not. Spends most hours drunk as she can get. That's how I know about her, the girl had to fetch me to tend her aunt's broken arm when she got tripped up in her skirts."

"That how you know her? As 'girl'?" Jack was angry, his anger pressed down and squeezing out like apples being pressed for cider. The girl deserved the dignity of her name.

Doc Carr looked at him briefly and then back down at the dark-haired girl; he covered her with the blanket as he answered.

"Her name's Mary. Mary Hopkins."

"We'll see Reverend Holt gets her well buried," Lane said, urging them out of the room.

They went gladly enough; only Jessup was left to keep her company in the darkness of her death. Jessup would have been happier if they had taken her with them. He was of no mind to keep company with a dead woman. But Jessup had no say in the matter.

"How does she compare with the others you've seen?" Lane asked Jack. That brought Carr up short and he looked hard at Jack.

"The same," Jack said. "Just the same."

"Yeah, that's what I was wondering."

"Others?" Carr cut in. "What others?"

"There's a trail of bodies from here to Texas," Jack said.