“You need only conduct Lloyd’s. He was shot in the head. Phil was hit in the shoulder and will live.”
“And Gertrude?” I asked, thinking of Daisy.
“From what I understand, a bullet missed her by a whisker. One of the LT hands was in town a while ago. He says she is in a rage.”
“At who?” As if I couldn’t guess.
“You haven’t heard the rest,” Calista said. “After the shooting, the cowboys spread out to find the culprit and discovered the body of Clell Butcher in a gully not far from the house. He had been stabbed.”
“My word,” I exclaimed. “Who did it?”
“That is what they and everyone else would like to know. It’s a mystery. If Clell shot the Tanners, then who killed him?”
“What about the other Butchers? Were any of them involved?” I half hoped the cowboys had caught Ty and relieved me of the responsibility of having to take care of him myself.
“Not that anyone can prove,” Calista answered. “Some of the hands thought they heard a horse gallop off.” She paused. “It gets stranger. They found tracks under the window, in a flower bed. Tracks of a man, and paw prints.”
I feigned surprise. “Paws?”
“That’s what they say,” Calista confirmed with a bob of her head. “Big paw prints, too. Some of the cowboys think they are dog prints, but others say the tracks are those of a wolf.”
“Maybe they’re coyote prints,” I suggested.
“I’m no tracker, but supposedly there is a difference and these were definitely not made by any coyote.”
“How peculiar.”
Calista gazed out the window. “The whole town is buzzing like stirred-up bees. Most everyone figures the Butchers had a hand in it, but they can’t figure out how Clell got himself murdered. None of the LT hands claim credit.”
I saw several cowboys rein up out front. “What will the LT do?”
“Ask them,” Calista said with a jerk of her thumb. “Knowing Gerty, I wouldn’t want to be a Butcher. It will be all-out war now.”
Sunlight spilled across the floor as the door was flung wide and in jangled two of the cowboys. One was a stocky slab of muscle who wore a Colt in cross-draw fashion. The other was a rangy bundle of sinew and bones with salt-and-pepper gristle. They ignored the other patrons and came straight toward my table.
“Reverend Storm, Miss Modine,” the slab said, politely doffing his hat. “Sorry to intrude.”
“That’s all right, Jim,” Calista said.
“Mrs. Tanner sent us, ma’am,” the rangy cowboy explained. “She would be obliged if the parson, here, would plant her husband tomorrow at noon.”
“I would be honored,” I said.
Calista focused on the rangy one. “What is the latest, Chester? Have you found Lloyd’s killer?”
“No, ma’am. Not yet.” Chester realized he still had his hat on and yanked it off. “We’re all for riding to the Dark Sister and wiping those varmints out, but Mrs. Tanner won’t hear of it.”
“That’s not like her,” Calista said.
Jim agreed. “It sure ain’t. Especially as mad as she is. We think maybe she’s leaving it for the Texas Rangers to handle.”
“You shouldn’t ought to have sent for them, ma’am,” Chester chided. “You’ve gone and hobbled us, is what you’ve done.”
“That wasn’t my intention,” Calista defended herself. “But you must admit this has gotten out of hand. Murders every time we turn around. Men
“I reckon I can speak for every puncher on the LT when I say I’d rather chuck my own lead, thank you very much,” Chester said testily. “It’s bothersome to have lawdogs meddle.”
“I’m sorry, but I would do the same had I to do it over again,” Calista declared. “This isn’t just about the LT. It involves the whole community.”
The cowboys were disposed to debate the point, but I was hungry and nipped the argument in the bud with, “Tell Mrs. Tanner I will be out at the LT by eleven tomorrow morning.”
“You can tell her yourself, if you’d like, Parson,” Chester said. “She’s over to the undertaker’s seeing about the coffin for Mr. Tanner.”
For some reason that troubled me. Why had Gertrude sent the two cowboys to ask me to conduct the service for her husband when she could just as well have asked me herself? “I believe I will go have a talk with her,” I announced, rising.
“What about your breakfast?” Calista asked.
“It can wait.”
Chester and Jim accompanied me to Ira Jackson’s. Jackson was the best carpenter in Whiskey Flats, and as a result, whenever anyone needed a coffin, they came to him. He wasn’t a real undertaker, but he was all they had.
Half a dozen cowboys lounged out front, waiting for their mistress. Gertrude emerged as I approached, saw me, and frowned. “I didn’t say you were to bring him back with you,” she said to Chester.
“He came on his own account, ma’am.”
“I am sorry about your loss—” I began, and was peeved when she held up her hand to silence me, then motioned for me to walk with her. As soon as we were out of earshot of her hands, she stopped and faced me.
“Tell me again why I hired you?” Gertrude did not wait for me to reply but went on with, “Ah, yes. Now I remember. I hired you to dispose of the Butchers. I trust you will forgive me for my next comment, but you have done an abominably poor job.”
“You can’t blame your husband’s death on me.”
“Can’t I?” Gertrude snapped. “If you were half as competent as I was led to believe, the job would be done by now.” She was so mad, she practically hissed. “Not only are seven of those wretches still breathing, but the Texas Rangers will show up soon to spoil everything.”
Her emotional state could be blamed on the loss of her husband, but I still did not like her attitude. “I’ll finish it before the Rangers get here. I promise.”
Gertrude’s features pinched together like she had sucked on a lemon. “You have one day and one day only. If by this time tomorrow you have not done as I hired you to do, you may consider our arrangement no longer in force.”
“I don’t like being rushed.”
“Frankly, Mr. Lucius Stark, I don’t give a tinker’s damn what you like or don’t like. Your incompetence has created complications I can do without.” Gertrude sniffed and started to turn. “Twenty-four hours. Not a minute more.”
“You don’t want to hear who killed Lloyd?”
“Tyrel, obviously.”
I was impressed. “How did you know?”
“Tyrel and Clell were inseparable. They went everywhere together. What you were doing there, and why you killed one and not the other, is beyond me.”
So she had figured that out, too. “I was trying to stop them.”
Gertrude gave me a strange look. “You failed rather spectacularly, didn’t you? Retaining your services was a mistake. You have clearly underestimated the Butchers, and you have severely underestimated me. That will cost you, Mr. Stark. That will cost you dearly.” Her spine as stiff as a ramrod, she marched off.
Leaving me with the gut feeling I had just been threatened.
Chapter 12
Enough was enough. One thing after another had kept me from finishing up and getting the hell out of there.
