“Even fake a note saying your father has been seen alive?”
She gave him a level, unflinching look and said, “Yes, Custis, I would do that. I didn’t. But you know that I would.”
He nodded, knowing it was the truth.
“You don’t know Gary, Custis, but he is … wonderful. How can I explain it to you. He has rattled around as much as I have. Never a place to really call home. He was orphaned when he was little and passed around from one relative to another. Farmers, mostly. He says he came to hate farms. All the drudgery and effort and then the weather turns wrong or the locusts come or there is hail or no rain or too much rain or cold nights or days too hot. Always something wrong.”
Longarm said nothing, but the truth was that Gary Lee Bell’s feelings on that subject were very much the same as Longarm’s. He admired the stubborn, hopeful persistence that a farming man must have. But he’d long ago sworn that he would never again walk behind the ass end of a mule nor hang onto the handles of a moldboard plow.
“Later,” Maddy went on, “he went from one job to another. None of it meant anything to him. Those jobs were just ways to survive. Then … he came to work for Daddy, helping muck out the drift Daddy was working on. Gary isn’t handsome, you know. Not the same way you are. But he’s sweet. And so gentle. I can’t tell you … when he looks at me, Custis, there is, like, almost like a light that’s in his eyes. And a softness, all warm and tender. Just for me. Like I’m the only person in the whole world that’s important to him. When he looks at me like that I get all squiggly and warm inside and I want to hold onto him and protect him. Does that sound funny? I mean, I know it’s supposed to be the boy who protects the girl and all that. But whenever I look at Gary I want to be the one to hold him and keep him warm and safe. You know?”
He didn’t. And didn’t try to answer.
“Gary and me talked.” She smiled, still looking up toward the stars. “Can you believe that? Me? Talking? Custis, you may not believe this either, but I think Gary and me talked more than we screwed. And you can believe we screwed plenty. I … I guess you’d say that I taught him how to do that. Oh, he’d been with whores sometimes. But he’d never had a regular girlfriend before. He didn’t know much except to crawl on top and root around until something felt good.” She laughed. “He’s a good learner, though. I taught him plenty. Including some of the things you showed me back there in Telluride.” She looked at Longarm. “Do you mind me telling you that?”
“No, I don’t mind,” he said gently. And discovered when he said it that it was true.
“One of the things we found out we both wanted was a home. A real home where we could stay in one place. Good times or bad we’d stay right there and see things through. I mean, that’s what marriage is all about, isn’t it? Seeing things through? Together?”
“Yeah. Yeah, Maddy, I suppose maybe that’s true.”
“I thought … until they charged Gary with murder, Custis, I thought I’d finally found everything I needed in this whole stinking world.”
He was startled to see that despite the calm tone of her voice her cheeks were streaked with tear tracks. Apparently she had been weeping for quite some time now.
“Even after Daddy left—disappeared, I suppose I should say; everyone else certainly does—even after Daddy left I was really and truly happy for the first time in my whole life. I had Gary and we had our baby on the way, and we had the cabin to live in. We didn’t have much money. Daddy never has been very good at picking claims. Just bad luck, I suppose. But that didn’t matter. We didn’t need much. A little color now and then … we worked the mine together, Custis. Just the two of us. I spun the drill and Gary swung the singlejack, and we could take out enough to keep us in powder for tomorrow and flour for today. We didn’t have to have anything more than that. And we had a home. Do you see, Custis? We had us a home, Gary and me. Then somebody found that dead Indian, and it all fell apart.”
Maddy shivered and, staring intently up at the stars while tears streamed down her face, added, “God, Custis, I’m so scared I can’t hardly stand it. I’m gonna lose Gary, and I love him so much. And even if the governor stays the execution I’m gonna lose him, Custis. He doesn’t know about this baby that I’m carrying, and I can’t tell him about it, I just can’t. I can’t let him go to the gallows for something he didn’t do and … and with this haunting him too. How could I have been so stupid, Custis? Can you answer that one question for me? Can you?”
But of course he could not. He was discovering, it seemed, that there was more to young Madelyn Bell than he’d thought.
And more than he’d really wanted to know.
Longarm reached for another cheroot and cleared his throat somewhat too loudly. “Let’s go see this Tyler Overton fellow an’ see what he can tell me ‘bout the skull they say is your pa’s.”
Chapter 16
There probably was not a “proper” house in the whole of Talking Water, but Lawyer Tyler Overton’s came close to it. His home, while built of aspen like most of the structures, was meticulously pegged and chinked and—wonder of wonders—even painted. Well, whitewashed actually. But Longarm figured in a place like Talking Water whitewash ought to count as paint. The walls were that peculiarly flat, chalky finish common to whitewash, while the door and shutters had been painted—the real stuff this time—in some contrasting dark color. Since it was night, Longarm could not tell for sure just what color the trim was, but it looked mighty nice anyway.
Underneath each of the front-facing windows there was a dirt-filled flower box that still had the dry and barren remnants of last summer’s flowers poking forlornly through a mantle of fresh snow.
All in all, Longarm was impressed with Maddy’s lawyer.
Then the door was opened in response to Maddy’s knock, and Longarm realized that it probably wasn’t Tyler that he should be impressed by when it came to the amount of care that had been given to this remote homestead.
The door was opened by a young woman. A very visibly pregnant young woman actually.
Maddy was a few months along with Overton’s baby. His wife looked to be damn near nine months gone with hers.
Tyler, it appeared, was a sure enough breeder. The man’s judgment might be called into question but not his abilities.
“I hate to bother you so late, Doris, but could we speak with your husband, please?” Maddy was asking. “This gentleman is Deputy United States Marshal Custis Long, Doris. He thinks he may be able to help us with Gary’s case, but he needs to speak with Tyler.”
“Of course, Mrs. Bell. Please come in and have a seat. I’ll tell Mr. Overton you are here.”
Mrs. Bell. Mr. Overton. The lady of the house was formal. And timid. Her voice was thin and there was something—sadness? or was he only imagining that?—in it that made Longarm think Doris Overton was one of those plain and awkward women who would call their husbands “mister” even in the privacy of the bedroom.
Maddy went inside and helped herself to a seat. It was clear she was familiar with the place. Longarm took a little longer, carefully wiping his boots on a rag rug laid across the entryway and then removing his Stetson before stepping into the house. A primly unsmiling Mrs. Overton took his hat and hung it on a deerhorn rack secured to the front wall before she disappeared behind a blanket suspended over a doorway leading into the north end of the cabin. Longarm could hear a grunt and then a low and not particularly happy murmuring before finally there was the sound of feet hitting the floor and some creaking of springs. Lawyer Overton, it seemed, had been abed. And likely would have preferred to stay that way.
Several minutes passed before Overton made an appearance. When he did, however, he was fully dressed, to include vest and carefully knotted tie, although he had not put on his suit coat.