Claudia Dain (9 page)

"We've had our share of murders around here, Malcolm, and the marshal and I decided it would be best if we kept it quiet, so as not to alarm folks needlessly."

"It's hardly needless if people are dying!"

"You don't understand, Malcolm," Lane said, "these killings are spread all over the country, months apart."

"And all women?" the doctor asked.

"All young women," Jack supplied.

Malcolm Can studied Jack coldly for a moment before asking, "You're from Texas, aren't you?"

"Sometimes," Jack answered, returning the look without blinking.

"Now, Malcolm," Lane said, "Jack's been hunting this man longer than I have. The killings started in Texas, best we can figure. We're all working to find the man responsible for this."

"You don't seem to be succeeding," Malcolm said, glancing across the floor to the bunk that supported Mary Hopkins.

"Take me to her place so I can talk to her aunt," Jack said. "Maybe she'll have something to tell us. I've been chasing empty clues for months and need to talk to someone who can maybe give me a description."

"It's not difficult to find," the doctor bit out, clearly wanting to avoid such close and extended proximity with Jack Skull. "East bank of Lyon Creek, just below West Branch."

"I need someone who can introduce me to the aunt, someone she trusts, so that she'll talk."

Carr found it hard to argue against that; no one would willingly talk to Jack Skull. They made plans to leave ten minutes later; the doc wanted to close his office and Jack wanted to get a drink.

He went to the same saloon, the Mustang, and ordered a beer from the same man. He was still talkative.

"Heard about the girl, of course."

"Of course," Jack said before he took a long swallow of the brew.

"Pretty thing, by all accounts, and hair as black as coal. Shame a poor girl like that had to end up dead out on the prairie."

"Her name's Mary," Jack said, wiping his mouth with the back of his sun-browned hand. "Mary Hopkins."

"Pretty name, too. Lots of Marys in these parts. Popular name, being from the Bible and all. My mother's name is Martha. Funny, when you think about it, Mary and Martha? You know the story, Martha always working at her house and Mary sitting around, idle. Just like my ma, never still, always sweeping or washing or ironing or canning or sewing, but never still. And now this Mary—"

"Yeah." Jack cut him off. Mary Hopkins was about as still as a woman could be. "You know Mary Hopkins?"

"Nah," the bartender said easily, "don't leave town much and she's not from around here."

"How do you know?"

"Bob Walton mentioned it, after he brushed coattails with Doc Carr. Heard she's from Lyon Creek way."

If there was one thing Jack had figured out, it was that there were no secrets in Abilene.

"You ever been down there?" Jack asked. Anyone could have done it, especially a man with a mother who was so busy tending to her house that she'd have little time left to pour on her son.

"If you're going to accuse me, you might as well know my name. It's Shaughn O'Shaughnessy and no, I've never been to Lyon Creek. Never been to much of anywhere. Too busy running the bar."

He didn't seem offended by the unspoken accusation. Jack smiled and took another long swallow. A man couldn't afford to be touchy when he owned a saloon; he'd have to learn to get along with all kinds.

"As long as we're exchanging names, mine's Jack. Scullard."

It may have been the first time Jack had told Shaughn something he didn't already know.

"Scullard?"

"Yeah. Pass that around, if you've a mind."

"Jack Scullard. Seems familiar," Shaughn mused.

"Glad to hear it," Jack said, letting himself smile a bit. Maybe he was making a bit of progress in this town.

"What part of Texas claims you again?"

Jack finished off his beer before answering, "The big part."

O'Shaughnessy licked the edges of his drooping mustache and pondered, quiet for a time. The saloon was quiet; even the old man in the corner had stopped mumbling in his sleep. The first flies of the season buzzed with angry spring energy through the dark room, searching for a place to light.

The Mustang was not a large saloon, the floors were wide plank, the walls sanded board planks, and the bar dark stained pine; the heavy woodiness of the place was relieved only by a beveled mirror behind the bar. It was a fine mirror, framed in gilt wood, carved and ornate, and over four feet long. Jack could see himself clearly in that mirror. He could just about see the whole room. There was a single large window on line with the bar and two glass doors, open now, since the weather was so friendly. It was through those open doors that he saw her walk by, bustle as busy as ever.

A train whistle blew high and long and a long curl of dark hair flew back over her shoulder as she picked up her pace.

"What is it with that gal and trains?" he muttered.

O'Shaughnessy's tongue snapped back inside his mouth to hide behind his teeth. Seemed the man would talk about anything, anything except the little Samaritan who smelled of wildflowers.

"She got a name?" Jack asked, pushing his glass away from him. "I don't think there's any warrant out on her; this isn't business," Jack joked lightly.

"Then it'd be personal? You don't need to know nothing personal about that gal."

Shaughn O'Shaughnessy clearly had his limits and that gal was one of them.

"Then let's make it business," Jack said, sick of the dodge and wanting a simple answer. "She ever leave town? Ever take that train she's always meeting?"

Shaughn blanched a bit, the red running away from his cheeks to bury itself in his neck. Jack Skull with a burr in his boot was no fun to mess with.

"She stays put, like me, even more. Never left Abilene that I've ever heard." Jack just stared at him, considering, waiting, until Shaughn said, "She's a good girl of good family and all her family's here, in Abilene."

"Her name?"

"Anne. Anne Ross."

Jack smiled and pulled his hat down low. "No, no bounty on an Anne Ross. Thanks for your help."

Shaughn didn't answer, he just threw his rag down on the bar hard enough to make it slap and then wiped so hard he got a splinter in his palm.

Doc Carr stuck his head in the door just then and Jack walked out to meet him. Their horses were hitched in front of the sheriff's, Joe looking eager enough for all that he'd already been ridden a distance that morning. Carr looked nowhere near as eager as Joe did. They all knew why.

Lane stood chuckling on the boardwalk in front of his office as they rode off; Jack ignored him. Malcolm Carr turned in his saddle to scowl. Neither one had any effect on Lane's good humor.

Jack turned once to look back toward the train. Anne Ross stood there, trim and straight, a pillar of immovable expectation in the midst of arrivals and departures. Jack shook his head at the sight she made and then turned his face south, toward Lyons Creek.

* * *

They found the place late that afternoon, when the dipping sun cast their mounts in long shadow. Carr led in, since his was the familiar face and they didn't want a bullet shot into the dust to be the first howdy they heard in that isolated place.

But no shot rang out. No one answered the doc's call of greeting. No sound came from inside the squat sod house that hunkered down within sound of Lyons Creek's babble. A few scrawny chickens scratched in the raw dirt around the gaping door; there was no dog to give warning. All was quiet in that late, slanting afternoon light, a house was never meant to be so quiet. Jack felt the muscles in his stomach clench at the heavy quiet of the place and he licked his lips to cover the rolling beginnings of nausea. He never could stand the heavy press of quiet when there should be the sounds of living. Jack fingered his gun, stroking the heft of his grip, finding comfort. Carr led in, but Jack pulled his six-gun free of the holster, ready to shoot anything that didn't look exactly right.

The first thing that hit him was the smell. Wool socks gone wet, a horse blanket that hadn't been shaken in a month, a hat changed color from sweat; those were the flashes he had of what could make that smell. And it was dark. The only light came from the open door and that was a yellow bolt across a black dirt floor, lighting only itself and not casting the room in anything but heavy shadow. It took a few seconds for his eyes to adjust and when they did, he saw her. Sprawled in the dirt next to what passed for a bed. She lay on her face, her skirts hiked up to her knees. She was snoring.

"There she is," the doc informed him with a pointed finger.

"She seems real broken up that her niece's gone missing," Jack mumbled.

"She cares more for the bottle than she ever did for that poor girl," Malcolm said, turning the woman over.

Jack studied her for a moment. She had the look of a drunkard, the bloating and the gauntness and the ashen color. And the filth.

"There's blood," he said, bending down, touching his fingers to it to make sure.

Carr hoisted the woman onto the bed and examined her. "She's broken off a tooth, probably when she fell on her face. There's some blood on her lip."

Jack looked around and found the tooth embedded in the side slat of the bed. "Here it is. Don't guess she'll miss it since she drinks her meals." He threw the broken tooth in the cold ash of the fireplace.

"Mary," the doc called. "Wake up."

"Her name's Mary, too?" Jack asked. "Not much of a family legacy."

The doc slapped drunken Mary on the cheeks lightly as he said, "She had a daughter once, named her Mary." Mary was not responding. Doc Carr dripped some cool water from the bucket onto her throat; that started her stirring. "Died in childbed."

Jack made up his mind right there that if he ever had a daughter, he wouldn't be naming her Mary.

Mary groaned a bit and then coughed. A new smell was added to the mix: sour whiskey. Jack waited while Carr got her full awake and then he moved out of the shadows to stand in the yellow bolt of sun, longer now than it had been. Mary was still too drunk to care that there were two men in her home when before there'd been none, and one of those men a hard-looking stranger.

"We've come about your girl, Mary," the doc said.

A few blinks and another wet cough was her chief response.

"Mary's gone."

"Gone where?" she rasped out, her voice hoarse with disuse.

"Gone dead," Jack said, pulling her gaze to him.

"Dead how?"

"Dead murdered," Jack answered, more than a little disgusted at her reaction. He'd seen people show more emotion at the news of a missing cat than this woman showed for blood kin.

"Hmmm." She scratched herself. "Drink?"

Doc Carr handed her a ladleful of water. She rinsed her mouth and spat. The water lay in a puddle on her floor before sinking in to leave a dark brown spot just shy of the block of sunlight. This woman liked her chosen place in the dark.

"How long has your niece been gone?" Jack asked, stepping through the light until he stood next to her bed.

"I dunno," she said, scratching her head, the sound of it rough under her nails. "Where'd you find her? Not here?"

Doc Carr got up from the edge of the bed and walked slowly to the open doorway. It looked like he had just about had his fill of Aunt Mary and her devoted care of her niece. Jack had seen and heard worse, though rarely from family.

"She was out on the prairie, north and west of here. She wasn't alone," Jack said. "She been keeping company with anyone?"

Mary slouched against the wall behind her bed, chewing on a dirty fingernail. Finally she shrugged. "She bragged on havin' a beau and couldn't stop telling me how sweet lookin' he was. She was far gone on him."

"Who was he?"

Another shrug. "I didn't ask. She's of an age to find her own man."

Jack studied her with a ripple of revulsion. Blood kin and she didn't even have a care as to the girl's welfare.

"Did you ever see him? Could you describe him?"

Mary smiled, the hole where her tooth had been a newly opened cave in a crooked smile. "Sure I saw him. Little Mary couldn't stand not having me see the man who was courtin' her. Course, it was a fair distance and it wasn't a clean look, but I saw him."

Doc Carr turned back into the room, listening.

"What did he look like?"

"Why, he was sweet lookin' right enough." She licked her thin, cracked lips and gave him a slow wink. "Like you, honey."

Chapter 8

"If she was saying that the man looks like me, it's not a lot to go on," Jack said the next morning to Sheriff Lane.

Doc Carr, who'd been talking to Lane when Jack showed up, didn't say a word. No, his expression said it clear enough.
Unless the man is you.

Charles Lane smiled at the doctor and lit a slim cigar. He took a quick pull and studied Jack Skull through the curling gray smoke. He was a good-looking man, hard but well favored. Tall and lean, like all who spent their days in the saddle, he was burned golden brown by months in the relentless sun. Longish brown hair hung down to his collar. Jack's features were refined, precise, and were only kept from being pretty by the deeply etched lines bracketing his mouth and the hard stare of his clear blue eyes. Jack was wrong; it was something to go on. Not many men had his look.