However, Clayton did get an invitation from Ben St. John, the banker, to discuss his financial affairs and his forthcoming nuptials to Miss Emma Kelly.
After singling Clayton out from the crowd, the fat man pontificated on marriage and money matters.
“Marriage is a big step, Mr. Clayton, and the one way to ensure happiness is to be financially secure,” he said. “As the immortal Mr. Wilkins Micawber says, ‘Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure nineteen pounds six, result happiness. Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure twenty pounds ought and six, result misery.’ ”
St. John’s eyes met Clayton’s, but could not stay there, sliding away like black slugs. He looked at Clayton’s chin and beamed. “Do you catch my meaning, sir?”
“Yes, I do,” Clayton said.
“Then come see me at the bank. I assure you, we can put you on a path to prosperity that will enhance your marital bliss.”
St. John put his hand on Clayton’s shoulder. “Shall we say ten o’clock tomorrow morning?”
“I’ll be there,” Clayton said.
He’d disliked the man on sight, and the suspicion lingered in him that St. John might be the one.
He could be Lissome Terry.
Chapter 54
It fell to Moses Anderson to remove the bodies from the Southwell Ranch and clean up the house. He and his helpers were just finishing up when Cage Clayton rode into the yard on an inspection and swung out of the saddle.
“Bodies are all gone, Mr. Clayton,” the black man said. “I took them into town earlier this morning.” Anderson wiped his hands with a rag, a talking man glad of an audience. “The undertaker says they’re all too far gone for him to make them pretty, so he’s just gonna box ’em and bury ’em. Buryin’ is tomorrow and the mayor will be there and a lot of other folks. Mayor’s laid on a barrel of beer for the wake an’ a hog on a spit and it’s shapin’ up to be a shindig. Yes, sir, a real hootenanny.”
He shrugged. “ ’Course, black folks ain’t invited.”
Clayton smiled. “Neither am I.”
“Well, Mr. Clayton, that’s a real shame, an’ after the way you killed them Apaches an’ all.”
There was an expectant look on Anderson’s face, but Clayton didn’t want to dwell on the subject.
“You get all the blood out of the house, Moses?”
“Sure did. She’s as clean as a whistle.”
Clayton waited awhile, then eased into his questions.
“Moses, you’ve lived in Bighorn Point for a long time, huh?”
“Sure have. Man and boy, I bin there, ’cept I went up the trail a couple of times.”
“How well do you know Ben St. John?”
Clayton watched as shutters closed in Anderson’s eyes.
“Not much. He don’t like colored folks.”
Clayton continued to look into Anderson’s face without speaking.
Uneasy now, the black man said, “Folks here’bouts say he’s a mean one. Foreclosing on people and takin’ their property, thowin’ them out on the street, an’ all. But he goes to church and sits in a pew with him and his wife’s name on a little brass plate and what he’s done don’t seem to trouble his conscience none.”
A man standing by one of the wagons yelled, “Moses, we’re all through here.”
“Be right with you,” Anderson said.
“St. John ever kill a man?” Clayton said.
The black man shook his head. “Not that I ever heard.” He looked over at the wagons that were ready to pull out. “I gotta go now, Mr. Clayton.”
“Wait, Moses. Is he faithful to his wife?”
The man stared into space. “I don’t know.”
“You’ve got something to tell me, Moses, and I want to hear it. The more I learn about St. John, the better.”
“You think he’s the man you came to Bighorn Point to kill?”
“He could be.”
Anderson took a step closer. “He’s sparkin’ a little black gal.”
“I thought he didn’t like coloreds.”
“He don’t. But that little black gal’s got a thing between her legs he likes jus’ fine.”
“What’s her name?”
“Minnie.”
The name rang a bell. “She was Lee Southwell’s maid.”
“Was. That’s right. Now she swamps the saloon and does some whorin’ on the side. Ben St. John is her best customer, steadylike.”
Clayton nodded. “He’s not the man he seems to be. Like he leads a double life.”
“He likes women, that’s for sure, and the more of a whore she is, the better he likes her.”
“How come the town knows nothing about this?”
“St. John is a secretive man. And a couple of women who bragged in the saloon about servicin’ him ain’t with us no more.”
“He killed them?”
“All I know is, they ain’t around, and that’s all I’m sayin’ on the subject, Mr. Clayton.”
Anderson stepped away. “I got to go now. My woman expects me back to town.” He gave a white grin. “Collard greens, ham, and cawn bread for supper.”
Moses Anderson waved as he led his two wagons from the front of the house.
It was the last time Cage Clayton saw him alive.
Chapter 55
After the wagons left, Clayton stepped into the ranch house and into silence.
Only a grandfather clock in the hallway made a sound, remorselessly ticking away time.
Clayton shivered. Damn clock made him think of death and Judgment Day.
Moses Anderson had done a good job. There was not a trace of blood left in the dining room or the kitchen, and he’d opened windows to clear the smell of decay. Someone, probably Anderson, had placed a vase of wildflowers in the kitchen window, and a vagrant bee buzzed around the blossoms.
The flowers did little to cheer the place.
Clayton walked to the dining room and stood beside the table. The room was oppressive, hot, weighing on him as though he were wearing a damp greatcoat. He felt eyes, watching, waiting, wondering why he was there.
And that spooked Clayton badly. The whole damned place did.
Determined to see this tour to the end, he walked into the parlor, furnished in an overly ornate style in the fashion of the time.
Above the fireplace, draped in black crepe, hung a picture of the gallant Custer. The great man stared belligerently across the room at the opposite wall where an oil painting of Lee was flanked by one of Parker Southwell, dressed in the gray and gold splendor of a Confederate colonel.
Tick . . . tick . . . tick . . .
The clock in the hall reminded Clayton that this was a house of the dead and he was not welcome here, not now, not ever.
Clayton had never lost the cowboy’s superstitious fear of ha’nts and the restless dead and now it plagued him.
There was the time when one of his hands had been struck by lightning and his hat lay on the range for three years. No one would touch it or go near it, the cowboys riding a mile out of their way to avoid the thing.
Finally a great wind rose and took the hat away and everybody, including Clayton, was relieved.
He felt the same way about this house as he had the hat.
He went from room to room, smelled Lee’s perfume in her bedroom, the gun oil, leather, and cigar tang of Parker’s study.
Shad Vestal’s clothes were still spread out, untouched, on the bed. Moses Anderson had been up the trail and he shared the cowboy’s superstitions. He’d left the duds where they lay.
And that’s what Clayton wanted to do with this house . . . leave it where it lay.
He returned to the parlor and poured himself a drink from a decanter that Moses hadn’t cleared away, then built a smoke.