Crazy Woman Creek Read online

  “I’m not a mule, Deputy Davies. If my situation becomes dire, I shall not hesitate to seek help from family. But up to this point, I have things well in hand.”

  “No one would ever compare you to a mule, Mrs. Rose.” A purebred filly, perhaps, but never a mule.

  “And you, Deputy,” said Lenora, starting to walk again and changing the subject, but this time keeping her arm to herself, “Did your parents dissuade you from leaving the family ranch at Fort Laramie?”

  “I waited till Pa didn’t need me anymore. Matthew and Mark, my older brothers, are still bachelors, and they seemed happy to stay on. My younger brothers were around to help too, so Pa was taken care of.”

  “Matthew and Mark? Don’t tell me: the brother born after you is John.” Lenora chuckled. “What about the other three?”

  “When my ma ran out of gospel books, she turned to the Old Testament. Amos and Aaron, the twins. Then Seth, the youngest.”

  “Your mother was religious.”

  “I don’t rightly remember much about my ma. I suppose so. The only book we had was the Bible. And Ma’s ladies’ magazines.”

  “Those were the only forms of literature your family had in the house?”

  “It was enough.”

  “What did you discuss at meal times if you had no books?”

  Luke thought about the question a few seconds before answering. “Our day. The livestock. Pa would read the scriptures. Of course, for a few years there our minds were taken up with the war. Supper talk was filled with troop movements. Battles and the like.”

  “At our house the war took our focus away from pretty much everything else the entire four years. But I was quite little then,” added Lenora, "I didn't understand most of the conversations about battles or why they mattered."

  “Well, most of our battle conversations,” said Luke, in a slow drawl, “were along the lines of, ‘Paaaaw, Luke ate all the taters again!’”

  They both laughed.

  “Your father never remarried?”

  Luke shook his head, remembering sadly how his pa struggled to keep an air of civility about the homestead after Ma died. The dirty house, the scruffy way he and his brothers looked all the time without a woman to supervise the care of their hair and clothes. “Seven wild Indians make a tribe. Pa never met a woman desperate enough.”

  Olathe’s was a hundred feet away. Luke dreaded having to end the light conversation and perform the unpleasant and historically rancorous chore of questioning Mrs. Rose. Though he had to get on with his duty, he didn’t care to embarrass her in front of Mr. Olathe. He lightly touched her arm. “We can stop here.” He turned and faced her.

  “Why?”

  “Mrs. Rose, I have to ask you a few more questions. I’m thinking you’d prefer to talk here than at Olathe’s.”

  Lenora’s face fell.

  Luke sighed gustily and forced himself to continue. “You seem certain Mr. Rose did not drown.”

  Lenora stared at the ground and nodded dejectedly.

  “You speak of him like he’s still alive.”

  “I’ve told you, I have no evidence otherwise.”

  “Mrs. Rose,” said Luke, waiting for her to lift her head and look at him. When she didn’t respond, he gently touched her chin and tilted it upward to force her to meet his eyes. “Why, Mrs. Rose,” he repeated, looking into her eyes, his finger still at her chin, “Why is his horse, left tied to a tree for three days without food or water, exposed to the rain and cold, why is that not enough evidence for you that your husband died out there, that night, in the storm?” Luke let his hand fall to his side and waited.

  Lenora met his eyes but did not speak. Luke saw there something other than the anger and resentment he’d seen before. He saw terror. Uncharacteristically, she said nothing.

  “Do you really think that your husband would abandon his horse, an exceptional horse, one he prized, to die on the banks of the North-East Creek?”

  Lenora bowed her head again and looked at the ground. Again she did not answer.

  “I can’t believe that James Rose was such a man.”

  “Then what do you believe, Deputy Davies?”

  “You’re the one under investigation, Mrs. Rose. I ask the questions.”

  Her head shot up. “You think I killed my husband,” she said, backing away from him a step. Her eyes flashed with outrage and her whole body stiffened.

  “I didn’t say that.”

  “But that’s what you think, isn’t it?”

  “If a body isn’t found soon floating in the North-East Creek, a lot of people around here will think that.” Luke’s tone was deliberately slow and calm as he tried to defuse the situation.

  “You think I killed him and hid his body somewhere.” Lenora’s voice rose slightly.

  “Mrs. Rose, no one said that. I’m just trying to fill all these holes to protect you from the wrath of a vengeful jury.”

  “Really?”

  “You were the last person to see your husband alive. People think what they think.” Luke hadn’t wanted the conversation to go like this. He wished they could have stuck to ranches and family and books. But for her sake, he had to be blunt.

  “I have not asked for your protection, Deputy Davies, nor do I require it.”

  Luke grimaced inwardly. He had overstepped the professional boundaries of his position. He had failed to be discreet in his dealings with Mrs. Rose. He would guard against this in the future. But she was wrong about one thing: She did need protection, though it was futile to argue with her about it. This woman had a huge need to prove her independence.

  “There’s holes in your story, ma’am,” said Luke, striving mightily to keep his voice calm so that she wouldn’t take off in a huff. He needed answers, and he didn’t care to end their time together as before in another angry exchange.

  “Are you finished with your questions?” Lenora’s tone was terse now, her torso trembling with anger.

  “No, I—”

  “Alright. I’ll tell you what I did with my husband’s body.”

  Luke’s eyebrows shot up. He hoped from the bottom of his soul that this was not a confession, that he misunderstood what she had just said. He did not want to arrest Mrs. Rose.

  “May I have my package, Deputy Davies?” she said, her hand extended toward her purchases.

  Luke handed her the bundle, pushing down an anxious thought as he did that she might be planning to whack him over the head with it. But she didn’t. Instead, she stood opposite him, a strange look of determination mixed with rage etched into her flawless face. She paused before speaking and drew a deep breath.

  “I murdered my husband.”

  Luke was speechless, unbelieving what he was hearing, though Lenora looked sufficiently serious to merit a valid confession. She continued, her eyes flashing with anger and contempt.

  “I smashed his brains with an anvil while he slept. Then, when I was certain he was dead, I skinned him and cut him up into a thousand pieces. Most of those I canned and stored down cellar. The rest I baked into a double-crust pie and ate for supper.”

  That scallywag of a woman.

  “He was delicious.”

  Then Lenora turned, and with not so much as a by-your-leave, made a few large and angry strides, and in a moment was through the wide open door of Olathe’s Feed and Livery.

  Chapter Eight

  White rays of sunshine streaming through Lenora’s bedroom window were more demanding than any alarm clock. In response she pulled the quilts over her head in a recalcitrant snit.

  She would stay in bed until she died.

  Why get up? James had not returned, and Sheriff Morris had brought her no good news. No news at all, in fact, though the sheriff had said he would send word. She had anxiously awaited the sound of approaching horse hooves while she slogged through her daily chores in the house and around the barn. But none came.

  How futile ranching seemed without James. What was the point? Together they had built some
thing worthwhile, they were growing a dream. A livelihood. A legacy. A life. But now the onerous and dirty chores that fell to her alone were only motions to be performed, meaningless tasks she must do to fill the time, to keep the animals fed and milked and safe. Even the thought of breaking soil for her annual vegetable garden gave her no joy as it usually did. Her daffodil silk lay untouched. She would lay out the pattern and cut out her new dress—someday.

  She was tired all the time. She hardly slept at night and food had no taste. Her appetite had disappeared with James. Her corset was growing loose.

  Blackness settled over Lenora’s soul. She felt cursed. Maybe James was so angry at her that he had deserted her once and for all. Maybe God was angry with her for the things she’d said to James the night he vanished. Maybe He had killed her husband to teach her a lesson.

  Or was James injured somewhere on the vast prairie, waiting for help that did not come? Was he alive? Was he dead? Maybe she would never learn what happened to him or where he went on that tragic and rainy night after he left Beauty tied to a tree on the banks of the North-East Creek. Maybe she would spend the rest of her life on this torture rack of the unknown, her mind pulled in every direction until she thought she would scream from the strain.

  Maybe she had already lost her mind. She certainly was not acting herself lately, telling Deputy Davies that cockamamie cannibal story. What evil spirit had possessed her to speak such outrage?

  Well who cared anyway? She was sick of the deputy’s repetitive questions and Mr. Morehouse’s assumptions and Sheriff Morris’ accusations. She was sick of all of them, and she was angry at the frustrating black hole of oblivion she had fallen into. If James was lost then all was lost, and what she said or did made no difference. Without James, she could fall no farther.

  Or perhaps not. With burning shame she remembered how she had let Deputy Davies touch his fingers to her chin without protest. And worse than worse, in a moment of truth, she acknowledged to herself that she had liked it, the feeling of his gentle caress, the warm look of concern she saw in his eyes.

  Perhaps his concern was genuine?

  But how could she deny the memory of her dear James by exhibiting such brazen behavior? She was no trollop. Until James stepped through the front door of their ranch house by his own power or until his body was returned to her, she was still a married woman. She should not notice another man’s good looks, and she certainly should not take wanton pleasure in another man’s touch, no matter how dire her marital circumstances appeared, no matter how innocent the contact.

  The mooing of a milk cow waiting to be relieved of its burden interrupted Lenora’s sad reverie and served as another reminder that James was not here. She must get up. Now.

  Hellfire and damnation, she did not want to endure another day of this entombment!

  Angrily Lenora yanked at the bedding. As she did, James’ rifle fell with a clatter to the bare wood floor, waking Ulysses, whose frenzied barking filled the little room before he was on all fours. She had forgotten her new nightly routine of moving the rifle from its place above the door to her bed, insurance against another visit from the faceless trespasser in heavy boots.

  “Stop it, Ulysses!” Dumb dog. “Stop it!”

  Reluctantly Ulysses stopped barking, but not before Lenora grabbed James’ leather belt from a drawer and whacked the panicked animal across his snout. Ulysses yelped in pain, which made Lenora wince. The bullmastiff look stricken, whimpering while settling himself at the foot of the bed—a safe distance from his mistress—where he cowered while eyeing Lenora, who had slumped down onto the edge of the bed, bare feet on the floor, the belt still in her hand, utterly dejected.

  At first she had failed to tell Deputy Davies about the footsteps outside her bedroom wall because she didn’t want him snooping around her ranch more than necessary to conduct his investigation. But now she was resolute in her plan to keep silent about the incident and deal with it herself lest another encounter with the handsome deputy create needless temptation. As for the irksome sheriff, she would do everything in her power to avoid ever talking to him again.

  Besides, the intruder had not returned. Perhaps there had never been an intruder. Perhaps, in her overly distraught, sleep deprived mind, she had imagined the entire scenario. Or, God forbid, perhaps she was haunted by an evil specter in her own particular valley of the shadow of death.

  Lenora sat on the edge of the bed, breathing hard, appalled at her cussing and black thoughts and feeling profoundly guilty for her wicked treatment of her loyal pet. She was falling apart, and she did not want to go on. She must unburden her secret to someone, soon.

  “I’m sorry, Ulysses,” she said, looking at the timid, soulful eyes of her dog. “Forgive me?”

  Ulysses whimpered but stayed where he was. Finally Lenora got up from the bed and walked over to him, sat down on the floor and wrapped her arms around the trembling animal.

  “I’m sorry, Ulysses,” she said. “I’m so sorry.” She held onto the dog for several minutes, until the animal stopped trembling and started licking her face. After she knew Ulysses was calm, she released her hold and leaned back against the cool, hard bedroom wall. For a long time she sat there staring at the ceiling, stroking Ulysses’ back and half listening to the animals in the barn hollering to be fed, unable to find it within herself to get up off the bedroom floor to face another meaningless day.

  After a long while she pushed herself up and stood, but not before she promised herself that, James or no James, she would be in church next Sunday.

  #

  Luke tried to be discreet as he kept one eye on his hymnal and the other on the church’s narrow entryway, waiting for Mrs. Rose to appear. Service had begun, the pump organ was in motion, and though it was unseasonably warm, all voices were raised with fervor to sing “The All-Seeing God” from Divine and Moral Songs. Still there was no sign of Mrs. Rose.

  Almighty God, thy piercing eye

  Strikes through the shades of night,

  And our most secret actions lie

  All open to thy sight.

  Luke swept his eyes around the whitewashed sanctuary again, convinced that he must have missed the thick bun of coffee-colored hair that so captivated him. Mrs. Rose did not strike him as the type who would stay home from service without good reason. As he turned his head slightly over one shoulder, his eyes locked with those of a girl about sixteen standing with her mother in the pew behind his, her face framed prettily by a beribboned rose bonnet. She blushed coquettishly, eyes smiling over the top of her hymnal. Luke snapped his head back to his own hymnal and returned to singing.

  There’s not a sin that we commit,

  Nor wicked word we say,

  But in thy dreadful book ‘tis writ

  Against the judgment day.

  Then a flash through an open window, a woman on a buckboard pulled by a familiar brown Morgan. Above the singing Luke could not hear Mrs. Rose setting the brake or tethering Beast to graze during the two-hour service, but he imagined it clearly in his mind’s eye.

  And must the crimes that I have done

  Be read and publish’d there;

  Be all exposed before the sun,

  While men and angels hear?

  After a few minutes every head in the room turned to watch Lenora walk down a side aisle, alone, on Luke’s side of the sanctuary as she searched for an empty seat. A married couple a few rows in front of him scooted down the pew to make room for her.

  Mrs. Rose looked charming today, distinguishing herself from the somber flock of black crows on the front row by appearing in a modest, long-sleeve, pale yellow bustled dress with three layers of frills on the overskirt and a matching bonnet. But then, Mrs. Rose looked charming in everything she wore, though Luke wondered how a woman survived frivolous layers of heat-capturing petticoats in a stuffy building like this one. Although service had hardly started, already he’d been tempted more than once to loosen the collar of his stiff white Sunday shirt. The
sanctuary was crowded, and the numerous warm bodies made the heat more oppressive. All the Gothic-style windows on both sides of the sanctuary were pushed open for ventilation, but no breeze cooperated to provide a respite from the heat.

  They sang several hymns. Then Reverend Thomas took the pulpit, instructed everyone to open their bibles, and began to preach about eternity. Luke tried and failed to follow the message, which became a low buzz in the back of his head. His mind was on Mrs. Rose. She was beautiful even from the back.

  Not long into the Reverend’s message, women began pulling fans from their reticules, snapping them open and wagging them back and forth to create personal breezes in distinctly feminine style. Luke wiped his forehead with a handkerchief. Other men did the same. Somewhere in the rear of the sanctuary a small child fussed, whining on and off in an irritating way. Finally Luke heard the sound of someone carrying the child through the entryway. A door opened and closed but was stingy about leaving a breeze. The muffled whines of the child grew fainter then disappeared. Luke quit listening to the Reverend Thomas altogether. It was too hot to think about Hell.

  Then he saw Lenora slump sideways, languidly fall forward, and with a soft thump and a swish of petticoats, hit the floor. Reverend Thomas’ extravagantly long beard stopped bobbing and the sanctuary suddenly hushed. Luke was on his feet in an instant, rushing to Lenora's pew, clearing the crowd around her. He crouched on the floor near her body and felt her wrist for a pulse.

  “She's not breathing. She needs air,” he said, urging worshippers to step aside. “Mrs. Rose!” he said, softly fingering her cheek. “Mrs. Rose!” She didn’t respond. “We have to get her outside,” Luke said to the gawking crowd that surrounded them, "where it's cooler."

  Luke quickly untied the bow under Lenora’s chin and pulled her bonnet away from her head. He put his right arm under her knees and with his left he cradled her head and shoulders. With the entire assembly looking on, he carried her through the entryway and out the front door of the little white church. He paused at the top of the steps, unwilling to lay her on the dirty ground. She was dressed too fine. The yard around the church was trampled, more dried mud than grass. Lenora remained unconscious in Luke’s arms while he cast about, trying to decide where to set her down.