Gasher Creek Part 32

"Sure is," Jack said.

Samson was aptly named, standing at least eighteen hands high and around two thousand pounds by Jack's estimate. His coat was a dusty brown, his mane black, his nose and underbelly splashed with white. His shoulders and rump bulged with muscle. Thick, white hair covered his hooves.

"It's called feather," Charlie pointed out. He led Jack around the corral, saying, "See how he stares at the prairie? That's his second favorite pastime."

"What's his first?"

"Trying to break free." Charlie ran his finger along the fence rail. Cracks spread along its surface in an odd, spider web pattern. A nearby post was cracked at its base. "He's tried to break out of this corral a dozen times or more, at least until Pa died. Emily told me he hasn't moved much since."

Samson stared down at Jack, his eyes the color of rosewood.

Back at the house, Emily stepped onto the porch and started sweeping. She saw them and waved.

Jack waved back.

Tapping his pipe bowl against the fence, Charlie said, "This morning, while you were still asleep, she asked me what I wanted to do with the land. I couldn't give her an answer. It seemed to trouble her."

"Why?" Jack said. "Either you own the land or her husband does. Either way, she won't lose it."

"I don't think that's why she's troubled," Charlie said. "I think she wants me to stay and work it."

"But you're heading back to Bear Hunt."

Charlie knelt and gave the post a tug. "I'm not sure about that anymore."

"Is this," Jack said, and waited until Emily went back into the house. "Is this because you shot Cole?"

Charlie hesitated, and then nodded.

"Well heck, isn't the Almighty supposed forgive a man all his wickedness?"

"Yeah, but when I shot him..."

"What?"

Charlie looked up at him. "I lost something," he said. "Something I'll never get back." He stood. "At first, all I could feel was shame. Evil as that man was, I felt sorry for shooting him. But then it got worse, because I realized that I wasn't sorry for what I'd done. He was going to shoot you, Jack, and I kept him from doing that. I broke one of G.o.d's oldest laws and I'd do it again. How can I preach the good word to my people when I won't obey?"

Back on the porch, Emily shouted: "You two! Stop bothering Samson and come in for supper."

"One moment!" Charlie called.

"You could stay," Jack said. "But it might be awful lonely without your sister."

"Somehow, I think that if I stay, she'll stay too."

Jack shook his head. "Not her. She's too smart to pa.s.s up a rich rancher, and he'd be a fool not to take her." He thought about her stepping about the house in her bare feet, the flour on her cheeks, humming to herself without a care. A man would have to be quite the fool.

"You think she's pretty?" Charlie asked.

"No," Jack said.

"It's okay if you do."

"I don't," he said, pus.h.i.+ng off the fence. "I couldn't."

You sick son of a b.i.t.c.h.

"Why, because she's a half-breed?" Charlie asked.

"No."

YOU SICK SON OF A b.i.t.c.h!.

"Let's go eat," Jack said. "I'm starving."

Chapter Thirty-Two.

"Psst."

It was evening. Tracker was almost free of the town when he noticed the Doc peeking his head around the side door of the waiting room.

"Psst, Tom," he said.

Tracker stopped. "Doc?" he said. "What's-"

"Shh," the Doc said. "When a man says psst that means shh."

"What?"

"Just come here," he said, waving him over. "I have something to show you."

Tracker sighed. He headed toward the Doc's, but he didn't want to go anywhere except home. He needed to wrap his head in a cold cloth and lay down. His head trembled from the construction of the new saloon. Normally, when the pounding of the hammers and the growl of the saws overwhelmed him, he could do his rounds and have a moment of peace. But all morning and afternoon he'd been confined to the office on account of George 'Two Shot' Texal.

When Tracker had arrived that morning, Texal was already in custody and locked in the cell. He was a short, wiry man with a bushy red beard and a foul smell. During the night, Texal had tried to shoot Ben in the back while he was out on his rounds.

"I didn't have time to come get you," Ben said. "It all happened in a wink. Luckily, I had an apple."

"An apple?" Tracker said.

Like most legends, Texal was a no good drunk. When he drew his gun and fired, he shot wide and hit a horse instead. The horse squealed, and Ben reacted. Turning, he plucked an apple from his pocket and threw it like a baseball. It struck ol' Two Shot between the eyes and dropped him like a sack of flour.

"Pete Cussel helped me carry him to the office," Ben said. He looked at Texal, still out cold in the cell. "Wasn't till I locked the bars did I realize what had happened." He paused. "I almost died, Sheriff."

"That's right," Tracker said.

"But real no fooling dead."

"It's not like a dime novel, is it?"

Ben shook his head. "No sir."

"You okay?"

"Yeah." He didn't look it.

"Head on home," Tracker said.

Ben nodded and stood. He crossed over to the front door and lifted his hat from the hook. He stared into it.

"Ben," Tracker said. "Ben?"

Ben blinked and looked at him. "Yes Sheriff?"

"I want you to think carefully about what happened tonight. And come this evening, if you don't want to do this anymore, you let me know."

Ben put his hat on. "I'll be here, Sheriff. You can count on me."

That night, he showed up early. Tracker couldn't help but be impressed. Most folks catch a glimpse of death and run the opposite way. It was a natural reaction. Perhaps that's why most folks don't become lawmen.

"Hurry," the Doc said, holding the door open.

Reaching the side steps, Tracker caught the stench and winced. Obviously, someone else had died. He entered the waiting room and held his coat sleeve to his nose. The Doc shut the door behind him and locked it.

Inside, the shutters blocked out the light.

"Follow me," the Doc whispered.

They moved into the examination room. Tracker coughed into his sleeve, his eyes watering from the funk of human rot. "Doc, just what in creation is going on?"

The Doc lit a candle and held it over the examination table. Tracker expected to see a body, but all he saw was the Doc's washbasin. The basin contained a small amount of thick, brown liquid.

"What does that smell like, Tom?" the Doc asked.

"A dead man."

Doc nodded. He opened his cabinet and pulled out a wooden tongue depressor. Reaching into the basin, he turned the tongue depressor and scooped up a bit of the liquid. It drizzled back into the bowl, slow and thick like honey. "But do you know what it is?"

"Of course I don't," Tracker said.

"Berries," the Doc said. "The berries you found in the creek."

Tracker moved closer. "These are rotten berries?"

"That's right."

Perhaps it was the fatigue of not sleeping properly, or simply that the throbbing in his head was blocking all rational thought, but Tracker didn't see what the Doc was getting at and told him so.

"Didn't you notice how Sally and Hank stunk to high Heaven?" the Doc said. "I surely did, and I'm used to the foul smells of the human body. The stink of a rotting corpse and the stink of these berries are similar, but not identical. Hank and Sally stunk of these berries."

"You're saying they were poisoned?"

"Yes," the Doc said, a twin candle flame reflected in his gla.s.ses. "I'm afraid I am."

Tracker thought back to the moment he entered Sally's room. He remembered the stink off her-powerful, but not unusual for a dead body. Hank's body also gave off an unG.o.dly rank, but Tracker had attributed that to both his size and his position under the window.

"But what about the bruises?" Tracker asked. "Both Hank and Sally were choked by a pair of hands, you said so yourself."

"Ah," the Doc said, raising his finger. He re-opened the cabinet and retrieved a fat book with a dark blue cover. He placed it on the examination table. "This is where it gets interesting." He opened it and started flipping through pages of plant ill.u.s.trations. Finally, he stopped and tapped his finger on the drawing of a long, thin weed. It looked vaguely like golden rod, but with dozens of thorns sprouting from its stalk.

"Singultus planta," the Doc said. "Gasp Weed, a plant that grows under the muck in swamp lands. See these thorns? When brewed into a tea, these thorns have the power to slow a fever. However, if a man should p.r.i.c.k his fingers with one, he chokes and dies within minutes. In some areas of the country, Gasp Weeds are known as Corpse Bloomers. This is due to the odd blotches they leave on the necks of their victims. These blotches are often mistaken for bruises."

Tracker stared at the ill.u.s.tration. "So, you're saying that Sally and Hank's bruises are the after effects of poison?"

"It's a possibility."

"But this isn't what I dug out of the mud."

"That's right, but plants can have cousins, just like you or I. My cousin Cecil doesn't resemble me, but he's a doctor. This berry could be a relative of the Gasp Weed. And if both plants sprout in the mud, and both plants are poisonous-"

"Then our plant may produce similar markings," Tracker said. His mind reeled at the thought. "Doc," he said. "Did Jack Devlin seem like the type who would know about poison?"

Doc chuckled. "Oh, Lord no. I suspect that boy barely knows his right from his left."

"Any man can kill with his bare hands," Tracker said. "But not every man can poison someone and do it well. If it's not Jack Devlin, then our man is smart, reads a great deal about the sciences, and has easy access to both Hank and Sally..." Tracker looked at the Doc. "It must be Andy. He's lived beside the creek his whole life. With his interest in the sciences, he could have easily discovered the poisonous properties in those berries. And, the most d.a.m.ning of all, he lives in the same house as Sally and Hank."

"But circ.u.mstance is not fact," the Doc pointed out. "And you can't arrest a man on circ.u.mstance alone."

"Why else would he pay for Jimmy's funeral?" Tracker said. "To hide the evidence. The stink didn't matter because the odor of the berries was close enough to the odor of a dead body to fool everyone, including us. But if someone would have seen those identical bruises on Jimmy's neck, it would have raised suspicions about his death, and maybe the others as well."

"But that still wouldn't prove Andy's guilt," the Doc said. "In order to tie him to the murders, he'd have to volunteer a confession."

"You're right," Tracker said. "What we need first is proof of poison. We find that and we'll know that Jack Devlin is innocent. Then I'll speak with Andy. Believe me, Doc, if he's guilty, he'll confess."

"That's an interesting proposition," the Doc said. "But I'm afraid we'll never know if our berries leave a mark. Jimmy is already buried."

"Well..." Tracker said. "I do own a shovel."

"Oh," the Doc said, touching his fingers to his lips. "Oh Tom, you're not suggesting- you ghoul!"

"We need to prove that Devlin could not have committed those murders," Tracker said. "Both Hank and Sally were killed while Devlin was still in town, but Jimmy died long after he'd fled. If we can find the same blotches on his neck that we found on Hank and Sally, we can prove it was poison and not strangulation."

"Oh, that poor boy," the Doc said.