“And if she weren’t?”
Placido Geist shrugged.
“The proof is in the pudding,” he said. “The old man could have forbidden the match, but he didn’t. It speaks for itself.”
Spengler subsided. He would’ve gone on, volunteering instructive examples of many an honest rustic led to grief by some adventuress, like a calf to the gelding, but Placido Geist seemed to have lost interest. In this Spengler misread his man, as his speculations opened up the very train of argument the bounty hunter had avoided.
Who profits? he’d wondered. One possibility was all too plain. Sally’s daughter might have risen in the world and left her past behind her, perhaps marrying a man of property and reputation. But if that past were exposed, she risked losing all her gains. It was simple enough. Erase the evidence and the past became a blank book. She could write her own history, could make it eventful or unremarkable, whatever she desired, with no one to correct or accuse her, none to bear witness. If that meant murder, to burn yesterday’s soiled pages to ashes and secure the present against mischief or reversal, then murder would be readily done. No longer a victim of circumstance but still hostage to fortune, she was only protecting her investment.
Rose Pym had never lacked for invention. She’d invented herself, after all. Marriage, she soon discovered, needed a steady diet of sham, or hers did anyway, so it didn’t matter practically whether others had made a better bargain. She contrived a pregnancy early, which strengthened her position, but even before the boy Desmond was born, she found an ally in Old Ansel, who was by no means blind to his grandson’s faults. The old man respected ambition, and recognizing it in Rose, he encouraged her to take on more of his own burden, reposing in her both his confidence and his authority. She was saddened by his death, as it meant she had to exercise that authority over both the ranch and her husband. While he was alive, the old man had kept Young Ansel’s excesses in check, but with his grandfather dead, the new patron demanded a submission from his retainers that the old man had earned and he had not. Like most weaklings Ansel was a bully, and Rose knew the hands spoke of her husband behind his back with contempt. They called him borracho — drunkard — and made fun of his pretensions. Rose understood ridicule was dangerous. It made for bad discipline. She saw the men grow insolent and mutinous and knew their disdain for Ansel could rub off on her. She determined to win them over, realizing she’d set herself no easy task.
Leaving the infant Desmond in the care of his wet nurse, she embarked on her new enterprise. It meant rising early, wearing men’s clothing, riding out in all seasons and in all weather, just as Old Ansel had done, making it her business to learn the men and equipment, the terrain, and the animals.
The great herds of beef no longer grazed on open range, but the fenced pasturage was enormous. She often slept in the saddle or on the ground and went days without a bath. She drank thick, scalding coffee at line camps, swallowed dust on the trail, went wet in sudden storms, and never complained for herself, always taking time to listen to complaints from the working cowboys. They humored her at first, thinking she only amused herself, and then came grudgingly to admire her interest and stamina.
Rose was careful not to undermine her husband, but inside six months it was common knowledge who held the reins. Ansel was tolerated, his habitual drunkenness blunting any interference with actual ranching, and the outfit recovered its self-respect. Rose signed the contracts and managed the accounts, and she was regarded privately as Old Ansel’s real legatee.
She had good reason to be proud, but she knew better than to court complacency. And despite her precautions, when true hazard presented itself, it came on her blind side.
“Well, the worm turns,” a voice said familiarly.
She’d just stepped off the raised sidewalk and was about to mount the buckboard. He spoke from a little behind her and to the left. She glanced over her shoulder into the street. He had his back to the sun, and it took her a moment to recognize him. It was Trotter.
He lifted his hat and smiled at her politely, showing off his manners, but she didn’t doubt the courtesy was ironic.
“I heard you’d done well for yourself,” he said, moving slightly closer so as to speak quietly but not close enough to give offense. “I see I heard right.” She could smell his mail-order cologne, thick and sweet, and the faint odor of naphtha on his woolen suit.
“Cat got your tongue?” he inquired provokingly.
Rose looked up at him with a steady and alert gaze, neither fearful nor shy. If anything, she was disappointed in him. This was no chance encounter.
Trotter dropped his eyes, at a loss. He’d obviously rehearsed himself, but he seemed to have forgotten his lines. She waited for him to gather his faculties. “The thought of tar and feathers doesn’t improve a man’s disposition,” he told her.
“It might work wonders for your appearance,” she said.
“You did me an injury,” he said, with a flash of temper.
“You seem none the worse for wear.”
Trotter stifled his anger. “I’ve a proposition I’d like to put to you,” he said.
“I can well imagine,” Rose said, her amusement bitter.
“Is there a place we could discuss it?”
“I have no wish to be seen with you,” she said.
“You’re making this disagreeable.”
“How would it be otherwise?” she asked him. “Fine words butter no parsnips. Name your price and be done with it.”
Her directness took him by surprise. He wanted to twist the knife a little. Rose wasn’t having any. “I’m not going to stand out in the street, damn you,” she said, fiercely. “Speak up or give way.”
Trotter had been of two minds whether to approach her at all, but her intransigence decided him. He was not to be discarded like a failed suitor, he insisted, nor would he be satisfied with a token payment. He demanded a stipend, a set reward on a fixed schedule, mortgaging his silence.
Rose heard him out and agreed.
They came to an understanding that the money would be delivered by hand and in secret. Trotter was pleased with himself. He thought it a handsome accommodation, of mutual benefit. He said so.
Rose refused his pleasantries. This was no occasion for social graces. She felt an urge to throw up.
Trotter looked up the street. With the railroad bringing in trade and disposable goods, Bent Grass was no longer a sleepy prairie cowtown but a place of opportunity, keeping pace with the changing times. Soon the rutted roadway would give way to pavement, the wooden storefronts to brick, the gas fixtures to electric. “This is a likely spot to slake a claim,” Trotter remarked to Rose. “We could have both chosen less happily.” He smiled like a conspirator.
She swallowed her rising gorge.
“Don’t be a nuisance,” she said. “You’re unwelcome here, make no mistake. Whatever our commerce, we’ll conclude it at a distance.”
“I wouldn’t leave it too long,” he advised her.
“No,” Rose told him. “I’ll send someone.”
And send someone she did.
“How many killings?” the judge asked.
“Who can say? Two that we know of, or anyway suspect. There might be a half dozen more.” Placido Geist studied his whisky morosely, turning the glass between his hands. “Not that it matters much. There’s little chance we can bring the murderer to book.”
On his infrequent trips to Austin, Placido Geist always took the time to visit with Judge Lamar. They enjoyed each other’s company and yarned together over a whisky or a game of chess. Placido Geist had told the story, and twice the judge had gone to the sideboard to refill their glasses. Now that the meat of the tale was told, Lamar was chewing on the bones. Versed in the rules of evidence, he found the other man’s argument unpersuasive legally, but experience told him the bounty hunter wouldn’t chase a false scent.