The description didn’t fit with what he’d been told about his pa. “Everyone I’ve talked to has spoken poorly of him.”
The fire crackled in response, because Wes just stood there, as though he was carefully considering his words.
Then finally, “Well, I suppose he didn’t do much to endear himself to anyone. Especially Slim Deckert. When Billy heard he’d roughed up one of the girls over at Miss Betty’s, he went and beat the daylights out of him. No one understood why he’d take up for a woman like that, but Billy just muttered that he had a daughter her age, and that she had to be somebody’s daughter.”
Another story that didn’t mesh with either his view of his pa, or the stories he’d heard. Though the name intrigued him. Slim was the guy his pa supposedly cheated to get the mine he’d just looked at.
“How did that make him unpopular?”
Wes shrugged. “There’s two types of people in this town. One that wants to get rid of the women. They’d just as soon have them sent away and everything cleaned up nicely. The other type wants them so’s they can use them, if you know what I mean.”
The collar of the unfamiliar shirt felt tight around Joseph’s neck. Yes, he knew what Wes meant. Because clearly his pa had taken advantage of the latter.
“Billy, he wasn’t neither. He saw a man for who and what he was, and he didn’t make no pretense otherwise. Didn’t matter if a man wore fancy clothes or drove a nice rig. If the man was a snake, he called him a snake. The snakes around here didn’t like that none.”
Wes’s eyes narrowed as he motioned to Joseph to lean in more. “There’s plenty of folks who wanted your pa dead, and not for any of the reasons you’d think.”
Not a very helpful answer. “But was there silver?”
“I don’t know. No one knows for sure. Only Billy, and he’s dead now.”
So close to answers, yet none that he sought. “Is there anything you can tell me that would be helpful? I just looked at a mine he supposedly won in a card game from Slim.”
“I’ve heard that tale.” Wes shrugged. “And even though Lon, the dealer, supports Slim’s side of the story, I never bought it. Like I said, Billy was terrible at cards.”
Which only made everything all the more murky. And made his pa’s death all the more likely to have been murder. But it didn’t give him any answers.
“If anyone knows anything, it would be the kid,” Wes continued. “Billy doted on her. When her ma took ill, he cared for that little girl himself. Paid Miss Betty well to keep Lily and the child.”
Money he could have sent home. While part of Joseph admired that his pa did the honorable thing with his mistress and their child, the other part stung at the thought of his mother and siblings struggling. How was he supposed to forgive a man for letting one family starve while supporting the other?
“Why’d he keep them at that place? Surely he’d put them in a house or something like that.”
“For a while, they lived at his cabin. But when Lily got sick, she needed to be close to the doctor. None of the decent boardinghouses would have her, given her old profession. Besides, her friends were all at Miss Betty’s.”
It was strange to think that a person would be more comfortable in a house of ill repute than anywhere else. Especially with a child.
“Plus, if you ask me—” Wes lowered his voice again “—I heard talk of some men out to get Billy. I imagine he wanted to keep his family safe.”
“How do you know all this? And why doesn’t Frank know?”
“Billy was afraid of putting the preacher in danger. He figured he’d risked enough by giving him his papers to hold, but the preacher’s safe is the safest in town, other than at the bank. And Billy had his reasons for not wanting to go to the bank.”
“But that doesn’t answer my question. How do you know all this?”
“Because...” He lowered his voice even further.
“Oh, for land’s sakes, Wes. Just tell him already. I’m not some delicate flower you have to protect.”
Betsy came and stood in their midst. “I used to work at Miss Betty’s with Lily. Wes and I fell in love, but given my profession, we were afraid that if people knew, they wouldn’t do business with Wes anymore. So we pretended like I was new to town, and everyone believed it. Except Billy, who recognized me from his visits to Lily.”
She gave Wes a sharp glare. “Billy would sometimes bring Lily over to see me. None of the womenfolk here in town were all that friendly to me. I always imagined that they figured out who I really was, even though no one has ever said anything. It’s like no matter how hard I try, I can’t get the stain of my former job off me.”
The longing on her face wrenched Joseph’s heart in two. “You told me I should seek out Miss Annabelle. But I ask you, what do I have to offer a fine young lady like her? I’m not fit company, and if her pa knew what I used to do, he’d never allow it.”
Obviously Betsy didn’t know Frank all that well. “If that’s so, then why does he let her take care of Nugget?”
“She’s a child. She hasn’t done anything wrong. Not like me.”
The pain in the woman’s eyes made him realize that she had far more in common with Annabelle than she thought. He looked over at Wes, then back at Betsy. “Clearly you haven’t been to church enough. Because there you’d learn that all have sinned and fall short of the glory of
