The Assassin slept late. He awoke to hear the Ute woman bumping around in the kitchen. She was humming and he could smell pork cooking.
Betty could have gotten up, found a butcher knife, and put an end to me, he thought. She could have killed me in my sleep. Cut my throat or done anything she wanted. But she’s cooking us breakfast and damned but isn’t it nice to hear a woman humming in the kitchen again.
Smith crawled out of bed and washed the sleep from his eyes. He was astounded that the Ute woman would be up and around. She had to be in considerable pain. But then again, he recalled that his father had once told him that some people had an enormous capacity for blocking out pain. They could just put it out of their minds and go about their business. Others, however, were always moaning and groaning over even the slightest discomfort.
Smith pulled on his clothes, thinking about how he and the woman had not made love but had lain close in each other’s arms. It had been very good just like that, and he had slept better than he had since losing his family.
“Hey,” he called, standing in the doorway. “You’re not supposed to be up and about!”
“My leg feels a lot better this morning,” she told him with a smile. “And I was hungry.”
“So am I,” he said, marching over to drop down at the kitchen table. “Maybe, if you cooked some extra, I could take it along for my next few meals.”
“I’ve thought of that,” she said. “I want to go with YOU.”
“No.”
“I’m coming,” she said without equivocation. “I know those people. I can help you.”
“I don’t need any help.”
“You do this time.”
“You can hobble around in this kitchen, but you can’t ride a horse.”
“Did you see the buggy in the barn?” she asked, coming over to pour him a cup of coffee. “We could take that.”
“Yesterday, you hated me. I saw it in your eyes. And you said that I was crazy.”
“You are only a little crazy.”
“Then you should stay here.”
“And spend the rest of my life wondering what happened to you? I don’t like that idea.”
“You just can’t come,” he said. “This ranch, who does it belong to now?”
“To me.”
“Good! Then stay here and settle in. Find an honest husband. One who doesn’t kill a lot of men and who will make you happy.”
“Last night, you made me happy,” she said, limping over to sit down beside him. “I saw something in you that I like.”
“You saw me kill Red. It was pretty ugly, Betty. That’s a side of me that not many have seen and lived to tell about.”
“Maybe we could come back here and live.”
He laughed, but it was a cold, hard laugh without humor. “Have you forgotten that there are two dead men in your yard and another that is hog-tied in the barn? What do you think he’s going to do if I let him go?”
“I don’t know. Randy is a good boy. He likes me.”
“Not enough to hide my murder.”
Smith reached out and took her hands. “It’s just no good, Betty. I don’t know why you were here and what happened to us last night. How you went from hate to … to something completely opposite. But I can’t stay here at your Bar S Ranch. There will be federal officers after me and they may be here today.”
When she said nothing, he added, “If you really want to help me, send them off on a wild-goose chase.”
“You need me to be with you when you face those brothers!”
“After six months have passed, I’ll write to you. You can come to see me.”
“You won’t live six months! Not if you go after those men by yourself.”
Smith drank some coffee. “Let me think on this a little while. I’ll bury Red and that other one out in the trees somewhere and cover their graves with leaves and pine needles. After that, we’ll talk some more. Okay?”
She nodded. “You need to eat something.”
“Yes,” he said, “I do.”
“And after you bury them, you check on Randy. He’s not a bad boy.”
“I know.”
“And then we can go back to bed,” she told him. “We will make love this time.”
“In broad daylight?”
“Yes.” Betty touched his cheek, then ran her fingers down to his scarred neck. “And after we do that, you will decide that we should go away together.”
Smith didn’t have the heart to refuse her. “All right,” he said, “we’ll do it your way and see what happens.”
“Good!” She jumped up, and soon had a big plate of pancakes and pork chops before him. Then she filled a plate for herself, and together they ate enough for five hardworking men.
Chapter 14
By the time that Longarm tracked The Assassin to the Bar S Ranch in South Park, the man had already left two men in the town’s little cemetery and the Ute woman named Betty had simply disappeared.
“He seemed like a nice enough fella,” Tom Blanton, who owned the little cafe, said. “Of course, with those red burn scars down on his neck and all, he did stand out some.
“What about the rest of his face?” Longarm asked. “Had that also been disfigured?”
“Not at all. When he was here, he wore a bandanna wrapped up close under his chin, sort of like a cowboy will do in bad riding weather. He’s a handsome kinda fella and sure had me fooled. I can’t tell you how bad I feel about giving him directions so he could ride out and kill Red and one of his hired hands.”
Longarm listened with great interest as Tom explained how The Assassin had pistol-whipped a kid named Randy. Then he said, “I’d like to talk to Randy, if possible.”
“Sure, he’s staying at the hotel. He should go to Denver or Santa Fe and see a doctor.”
“Why?”
“Well, he’s not doing so good,” the man said with a worried expression. “He really took a vicious blow to the head and he still seems a little dazed. Randy tells me that he’s having some really fierce headaches.”
“He probably had a concussion,” Longarm said. “I’ve had a couple of them myself.”
“You have?”
“That’s right. The skull gets cracked and the brain bruised. The aftereffects, namely headaches, can plague a man for months, but he’ll generally have a full recovery.”
“You ought to tell Randy that. He’s real down and afraid he’ll never be able to work again.”
“I’ll go see him,” Longarm promised. “Maybe he’ll recall something important.”
“Maybe,” Tom said, “but I wouldn’t count on it. He’s in rough shape. Lost weight and seems … well, he used to be a pretty happy kid.”
“What did he do for Red Skoal?”
“General ranch work.”
Longarm found it difficult to believe that anyone working for Red would not have been involved in theft of some kind, but there wasn’t any point in saying that to this man. So after his meal, he went over to the hotel and looked up young Randy Thomas, who was sitting in the lobby attempting to read a week-old newspaper. After the introductions, Longarm sat down with the kid and studied him closely.
“They say that you took a bad blow to the head and are having headaches.”
“I am,” Randy admitted. “It’s been more’n a week now and I still feel real bad. Don’t know if I’ll ever get back to my old self.”
“I expect that you get dizzy too,” Longarm said, “especially when you stand up too fast.”
“I do!” Randy frowned. “How’d you know that?”
“I’ve had a few hard knocks to the head myself. And I wanted to tell you that you will fully recover. When you are hit that hard, the doctors tell me you either suffer permanent brain damage and usually die, or you fully recover. You’re definitely going to recover.”
The kid brightened. “I sure am glad to hear that. I was just thinking that I might be all washed up with no way to support myself.”