The Devil You Know Page 8

  Happy stretched his arms wide and rolled his neck. His bones creaked and crackled. He let the chair drop to all four legs and got to his feet. Behind him the door opened. He looked over his shoulder and grinned.

  “Willa, you’re back. Good. We were just talking about you.”

  Chapter Four

  Willa unwound the scarf around her neck and unbuttoned her coat. She ignored Happy’s overture. If they truly had been talking about her, she didn’t want to know what had passed for conversation.

  “What are you doing here, Happy? I’m not sure Mr. McKenna is fit enough for your company.”

  “He ain’t thrown me out. I was leaving on my own.”

  She stood aside, cocked an eyebrow expectantly at him, and made an ushering gesture toward the door. He grinned back at Israel, and gave him a what-can-you-do shrug that made Willa think that maybe she should know what they had said about her. As Happy sauntered past, she breathed in deeply but not loudly. The air immediately around her father was fragrant with soap and hair tonic, not alcohol. That was interesting.

  “He hasn’t been drinking,” Israel said when Happy was gone.

  Willa’s chin lifted a notch. “What do you know about it?”

  Israel raised the hand that was partially trapped by the sling in an apologetic, surrendering fashion. “I don’t know anything.”

  “That’s what I thought.” She walked over to the chair Happy had pulled up to the bedside, but she did not sit down. Instead she stood behind it, bracing her arms against the back of it. “How is your head?”

  “Foggy.” He paused, thoughtful. “Although your father’s visit might account for it.”

  Willa did not smile. She held up three fingers. “How many?”

  “Three.”

  “First girl you asked to dance.”

  “Bea Winslow.”

  “Middle name.”

  “Court.”

  “Do you know where you are?”

  “Other than in a bunkhouse on Pancake land, I haven’t a blessed clue.”

  Willa nodded, satisfied. “I guess you needed that sleep. Doesn’t seem as if it did you any harm. Annalea says you didn’t puke, but she thought you might. Is she right?”

  “You can check the pot yourself.”

  It was not an answer to her question, but she let it go. He was a tad touchy about bodily functions, regardless of the reason she had to know about them. “I hear you walked as far as the corral. What about your knee? Is it any worse for wear?”

  He stretched his injured leg under the blankets and moved his foot side to side to test the range of motion in his knee. “No worse,” he said. “Still twinges.”

  “Do you think you can get up, walk around some? Annalea’s brewing a pot of white willow tea for you. I’ll take you up to the house and you can have a cup there. It will make the walk back more tolerable.” Before he gave her a proper answer, she pulled away the chair to make room for him to sit up.

  “You’re a bully,” Israel said.

  “Mm-hmm.”

  He sighed. “Looks as if I’m going.” He grasped one edge of the bunk with the hand he could properly use and pulled himself to a sitting position. He pressed the arm in the sling against his ribs and took a couple of shallow breaths before he shifted in place and brought his legs over the side. Willa had his shoes waiting for him and hunkered down to put them on. “I can do that,” he said stiffly.

  “I know.” She slipped the ankle boots on him anyway. “But it’s no slight on your manhood to let me help you.” She stood and offered him her arm. When he took it, she steadied him to his feet.

  “Afraid something will burst in my brain?” he asked.

  “What?”

  “Happy said because I took so many knocks to my head that something could still burst inside it. That’s why you helped me. You didn’t want me to bend over.”

  “It’s as good a reason as any, but mostly I just wanted to move us along.”

  “Is what Happy said true?”

  “You should really have a coat,” she said. “It is considerably colder than it was this morning, but I don’t suppose that anyone’s ever left a coat behind. We’ll wrap a—”

  “Is it true?”

  Willa blinked at the interruption. She turned her head to look at him, and when she did, his blue-gray eye bored into her. She had the odd moment to wonder what it would be like when he could fix her with two eyes before he repeated his question.

  “Yes, it’s true. It happened to Denzel Suggs a few days after he got kicked in the head by a stallion he had no business trying to break. I guess Happy didn’t tell you that Denzel never recovered his right mind after that. He was glassy-eyed, couldn’t walk a straight line, and only answered to his own name about half the time after my grandfather pulled him out of the corral. He improved some, and then he didn’t. Denzel dropped dead at Happy’s side, so I suppose he remembers it right.” She pointed a finger at Israel. “And I don’t believe any of it is relevant to your situation. Happy should have kept what he knew to himself.” She had the sense that that was probably true about a number things.

  Willa lowered her hand but continued to face him. “There’s no question that you were concussed, but it seems to me that most of what bothers a person after it happens is fading for you or already gone. If you have a hankering to worry about something, you might want to worry about whether you’ll ever get another girl to dance with you. You are not looking pretty.”

  “I was not worried. I was curious.”

  “Uh-huh.” With her free hand, she yanked a blanket off the bed and helped him get it around his shoulders. “Let’s go.”

  Israel did not move when she did. He held her back until she looked at him again, and then he said, “I guess you’re wondering if there is any pretty under this clutter.”

  “I wasn’t,” she said. “It’s not important.”

  “It’s a little bit important.”

  Willa’s chuckle tickled the back of her throat. “So I heard.”

  “Annalea,” he said under his breath.

  “Of course.” She tugged and this time he fell into step beside her. “Don’t ever think you can say something in front of her that she won’t commit to memory. She can’t help herself.”

  * * *

  Zach and Cutter returned at suppertime, but as they had already taken a meal in Jupiter’s only restaurant inside Jupiter’s only hotel, Zach offered to carry Israel’s food out to the bunkhouse while Cutter cared for their animals. Willa would have liked to hear right then what they’d learned, but she saw Annalea had her ears perked. Happy looked as if he might ask a question so Willa tapped his foot under the table. Only John Henry was uninterested, but then, he had a steak bone to occupy him.

  When supper was over and the dishes were washed, Willa marched Annalea off to bed. There were more protests than usual, but the outcome was the same, and Annalea was tucked in tight, just the way she liked. Willa read to her from Uncle Remus until her eyelids fluttered and her pink, bow-shaped lips moved sleepily around unintelligible words. She kissed Annalea on her perfectly smooth brow and whispered a prayer for pleasant dreams. Annalea did not stir when Willa turned down the lamp, or when she backed out of the room and every board creaked under her boots.

  Happy was not in the front room, but his flask was. He had left it behind, lying on its side next to the book he had been reading, or pretending to read, when she took Annalea to bed. Willa picked up the flask, shook it, and realized it was full. Returning it to its place, she made straightaway for the bunkhouse, wondering if he was sharing a bottle instead.

  They were all there sitting around the table when she arrived. Someone had thought to move it closer to the stove. Happy and Cutter were perched on stools, Zach reclined in a chair, and Israel sat at the foot of his bunk, his long legs stretched under the table, one elbow r
esting on top, the other in the sling resting protectively against his ribs.

  Relieved to see that there was no bottle on the table and none at Happy’s feet, she removed her coat and dropped it on the closest bed. “You haven’t started, have you?”

  “Waiting,” said Zach. He dragged the empty chair beside him away from the table. “Saved it for you.”

  She thanked him, thanked them all, and sat. She looked directly at Cutter. “I didn’t think I’d have to send Zach after you. What happened? What did you hear?” Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Israel McKenna lean forward. The wait for him must have seemed interminable. She raised an eyebrow when she saw the predominant Adam’s apple in Cutter’s neck bob once as he swallowed. “Well?”

  “I stopped at my ma’s first ’cause it’d strike her odd if she heard I was in town and didn’t take the time to see her. She’s sewing dresses for Mrs. Hardesty and her daughter and doing the smocking on a christening gown for Tabby Meredith’s new baby, and naturally I had to hear about that.”

  “Naturally,” Willa said dryly.

  “I gave Ma some money I’ve been saving to help her along, and then I asked, real casual like, if she heard about any new arrivals in town. I told her you were lookin’ to hire a man since Dave Huggins took ill and left.”

  “Impressive,” she said, and she meant it. She also was suspicious. “Did you come up with that on your own?”

  If Cutter contemplated lying, even for a moment, it wasn’t clear. Everyone saw his eyes dart in Happy’s direction.

  Unconcerned, Happy shrugged. “The boy needed guidance. I stopped him before he rode out this morning and then I went back to bed.”

  Willa stared at her father, openmouthed, and then looked around the table and saw a similarly slack-jawed expression on Zach’s face. That made her clamp her lips closed.

  Cutter went on. “But Ma said that except for Mr. and Mrs. Cuttlewhite returning from Denver, she hadn’t heard anything. She told me to check with Mrs. Abernathy because she had rooms to let and it seemed a cowman would go there to board instead of the Viceroy, the hotel being pricier and all.”

  Willa leaned into the table and stared hard into Cutter’s guileless eyes. “I swear, Cutter Hamill, you move your story along or I am going to put my foot so far up your behind that you’ll be able to chew on my toenails for breakfast.”

  The threat seemed reasonable to everyone at the table. They nodded, Cutter hardest of all.

  “Mrs. Abernathy didn’t have any new boarders so I checked at the Viceroy just in case. There was a fellow that came by to inquire about a room not long after the train arrived, but Mr. Stafford said the hotel was full up. He said the man didn’t leave a name and suggested I try the boardinghouse or the saloon. I asked him how I would recognize the man if he was hanging around the saloon because I sure was interested in making his acquaintance since you were looking to hire. Mr. Stafford sorta chuckled at that and told me he didn’t think the man would know one end of a horse from the other. That gave me some hope that it might be our man here.” He stole a look at Israel and said, “No offense.”

  “None taken.”

  “Stafford described a city fellow to me, someone wearing black except for a gray vest with silver threads. For some reason the vest made an impression, which was good because I remembered Mr. Roundbottom was wearing one like it.”

  “Now I’m offended,” said Israel.

  No one cared.

  Willa prompted Cutter. “So you went to the saloon.”

  “I did, but not until after I talked to the Cuttlewhites. Sure enough, Ma was right about them just returning from Denver, but they didn’t have a recollection of who got off at the station because they were the last to leave their car. The platform was deserted by then.”

  Willa sighed. “And the saloon?”

  “Right. Found out the man had been there. Had a drink. Was invited to sit for cards to make a fourth at poker but declined. Buster Rawlins was there, and he wanted to know why I was asking, so I told him what I told everyone else, namely that you were looking to hire. ’Course he wasn’t interested because he’s been with the Barbers for years and makes decent money, but he said he’d inquire around on your behalf.”

  Willa asked, “So there wasn’t any trouble in the saloon?”

  “No, ma’am. Best I can tell, the man just up and disappeared. Sheriff Brandywine said Jupiter’s been real quiet. He had his feet up on his desk when I walked in, and we had a cup of coffee together, which gave me time to look over the posters tacked behind his desk. I didn’t see Mr. McKenna’s name among them, and I had no expectation that I would recognize his picture from the face we’re looking at now.” He slipped another sidelong look at Israel. “No offense.”

  “Mm-hmm.”

  “The sheriff offered to let folks know that you’re hiring, same as Buster, but he was not hopeful. He thought everyone was pretty settled with their situations. He never saw the fellow I was asking after, but then he had not been called out on account of any ruckus. He figured the man left on the late train.”

  “Except I didn’t,” Israel said.

  Willa shook her head. “Don’t get ahead of yourself. We can’t be sure the man in the gray vest was you. You were wearing a jacket but no coat.”

  Cutter nodded. “And no hat. Stafford said the man was wearing a hat. A brand spanking new one that hadn’t been properly broken in. I guess that’s why he figured the man for a city fellow and not fit for ranch work.” The words had barely left his mouth and his expressive blue eyes were already clouding over with another thought. “Oh, and maybe because the man was carrying two bags.”

  Happy’s eyebrows lifted at this intelligence and he grinned at Israel. “Told you I had you pegged as a peddler.”

  Israel’s grunted, and the sound stayed deep in the back of his throat.

  Willa was compelled to point out: “There were no bags, no evidence of any contents that might have come from those bags, and therefore no reason to peg Mr. McKenna as any one particular thing yet.”

  “Whiskey drummer,” Happy said. “I had it in my mind that he’s a whiskey drummer.”

  Willa’s mouth took a wry twist. “Wishful thinking.”

  He shrugged. “Where there’s hope . . .”

  “Is there anything else?” Willa asked Cutter. “Anything you’re only now remembering.” She held up her hand when he opened his mouth to speak. “Just what’s relevant. It has to be relevant.”

  “Then no.” He ducked his head a fraction and lowered his eyes. Everything about his demeanor from his hunched shoulders to the way he was biting the inside of his cheek was a study in sheepishness. “I got nothing.”

  “Zach? There is a lot of time to fill in. Suppose you do that for us.”

  “Cutter did not give all his money to his ma. He had enough for a few drinks in the saloon and a roll with Louisa Keys upstairs. That’s where I found him. I’d say more but a pup needs a scold not a beating.”

  Cutter groaned softly and blushed to the roots of his wheat-colored hair.

  Zach was unsympathetic. “If you didn’t want anyone to know, you shouldn’t have stayed so long at the fair.”

  “I was asking Louisa questions same as I asked everyone else,” he said defensively.

  “Uh-huh. Did she know anything?”

  “No.”

  “That’s what I thought.” Zach turned back to Willa. “He needed some sobering up so I took him to the hotel for supper.” Here his gaze rolled over to Cutter again. “Which you will pay me for because there wasn’t a damn thing about it that was my treat.”

  Willa pressed her lips together, but it was only to smother her laughter.

  Happy slapped his thigh.

  Israel put three fingers to the side of his head and closed his eyes.

  There was silence, and then Willa’s gaze darted b
etween Cutter and Zach. “Did one or both of you recall that you were supposed to bring back clothing for Mr. McKenna?”

  “Israel,” he said, although there was no real insistence behind it.

  Willa’s focus never wavered from her ranch hands, but she spoke to Israel. “Why don’t you lie down?”

  He removed his hand from his temple. “Can’t. Might miss something.”

  Happy snickered. “Then if you’re not going to puke, you should probably open your eyes. At least the one you can see out of.”

  Israel needed just one open eye to slide a jaundiced look at Happy. That look was only slightly less cutting than he intended because he was white-knuckling the edge of the table at the same time.

  Willa continued to regard Cutter and Zach expectantly. “The clothes?”

  “In my saddlebag,” Cutter said. He added in a much smaller voice, “Which I left in the barn after I tended to the horses.”

  Zach put up his hands, palms out in a gesture that was meant to communicate no responsibility in the matter. “He said he had everything when I found him. I asked.”

  “Got everything at the mercantile,” said Cutter. “Mr. Christie had his hands full with Mrs. Hardesty and her daughter choosing china patterns so he was distracted when he was adding up the purchases. He had it right to the penny, of course, but he didn’t seem to notice that the clothes couldn’t have all been for me. I did not put it on your credit. Paid cash like you said, and I got out of there.”

  “And then,” said Zach, “he went to Liberty Saloon.”

  They all nodded as one, even fair-haired Cutter, who was flushing to the roots of his hair again.

  Willa asked the table at large, “So what do we know?”

  This was followed by a lengthy silence.

  She swiveled her head in Israel’s direction. “Anything you heard sound familiar? Like it might have happened to you?”

  He was a long time answering. “No,” he said finally. “None of it.”

  “You’re sure?”