The Green Lace Corset, стр. 69
The women huddled behind the buckboard. Were they going to die?
It grew quiet, and Cliff joined them. Sally Sue rose, but he reached out and shook his head.
Another shot rang out. Cliff loaded, stood, and pulled the trigger, but the gun jammed. As he tried again and again, the shots from the hill grew louder, but his pistol still wouldn’t shoot. Sally Sue crawled on her stomach to where her rifle had fallen. She jumped up, took aim, and focused until a figure sprang out from behind a boulder. She pretended it was a bottle, held steady, inhaled, exhaled, and pulled the trigger.
The man screamed.
Her body shook. She sat next to Cliff and Elvira until her heartbeat began to ebb. She couldn’t believe she’d really shot at a man and hoped she hadn’t killed him.
Cliff held out his hand, and they waited a few minutes. “Okay.” He rose. “We should be safe now.”
Sally Sue helped Elvira up as he walked toward the mounded heap on the hill. “Stay back,” he told the women.
They followed him up the slope anyway. Cliff rolled over the body, and Elvira gasped. The scruffy man, in dirty buckskin, stared with open eyes. Blood seeped from a bullet hole that passed clean through the hat still on his head.
“Looks like his soul has passed,” Cliff said.
“If he had one.” Elvira smirked.
Sally Sue turned her head away from the second dead body she’d ever seen, only this one, she’d killed. “Cliff, it’s that mountain man who came to the cabin.”
“And he was also my husband.” Elvira closed his eyes with a swipe.
“I’m sorry.” Sally Sue took Elvira’s hand.
“Don’t be. He deserted me long ago. You done the world a favor. He was mean as a rabid dog—wild, wily, a scalawag, a scavenger. He deserved to die.” She looked at Sally Sue. “No sweet honey in him.”
“Guess I ought to bury him,” Cliff offered.
“Don’t bother.” Elvira growled. “Let the coyotes pick at him. Besides, Sheriff’s been after him for ages. He might wanna see the body.”
“You sure?” Sally Sue couldn’t imagine leaving someone out here like that, even a scalawag. “Let’s at least say a few words.”
Elvira nodded.
Cliff joined Sally Sue in the recitation of the 23rd Psalm: “The lord is my shepherd. I shall not want . . .”
As they walked back down the hill, Elvira asked, “Still offering to drop me off in town?”
“Sure can.” Cliff smiled sadly at her.
They pulled the buckboard upright. Cliff whistled for the horses and hooked them up.
“You go to church with your gal, and I’ll tell the sheriff what’s what,” Elvira said.
Cliff cleared his throat. “Are you sure? Shouldn’t I go with you?”
“Nah. I can handle it.”
“Wanna ride up front with my hubby?” Sally Sue asked Elvira.
“No, I’ll hunker down in the back.” Elvira stuck her hand out, and Cliff boosted her up.
“I’m going to ride back here to comfort our friend. She’s just become a widow, after all.” Sally Sue hopped in beside Elvira, settled in, and patted her hand. Even though he’d been a despicable scoundrel, Sally Sue felt horrible about killing him.
47
Sorry for your troubles.” Sally Sue put her arm around Elvira.
“Me too.”
Cliff clucked, and the buckboard began to bump along.
“Children?” Sally Sue asked.
“I had five. They all passed. One at a time. Last one died this winter. Ran out of vittles. I did my best to feed them.” Elvira sniffled.
Sally Sue handed her a hanky from her pocket. “I’m sure you did.”
Elvira dabbed her eyes and blew her nose. “Worked my tail off. Sold herbs, did mending, even worked as a cattle-ranch hand.”
“You did?” Imagine that, a woman working with livestock.
“Still do, but only during roundup season. It’s gonna be different this year, on account there’s a warrant out for Mr. Brigham Young’s arrest. He was forced to sell his shares and hastily exit the territory.”
“Why?”
“He’s one of those Mormon polygamists. Maybe now that my husband’s dead, I can track down Mr. Young and get him to wed me as one of his sister-wives. He takes real good care of them.”
“You’d do that?”
Elvira cackled.
They passed an oak grove. A herd of sheep grazed in a nearby meadow. Sally Sue thought she’d rather have sheep than cows on the ranch, as long as they didn’t have vermin.
“What did you do on the ranch?” Sally Sue asked.
“Castratin’.”
“What?” Sally Sue stared at her.
“Yep, been asked to do it for another outfit this season. They’ve got one hundred seventy head at the Arizona Cattle Company, and branding time’s coming up. I’m the best around here, with small hands perfectly suited for the duty.” Elvira wiggled her fingers.
She raised her voice: “I grip those balls, slice ’em off, toss ’em in a bucket. When boiled over a hot fire, they make good eatin’.”
Cliff turned around and gave her a smile. Sally Sue imagined holding a pair of bloody, hairy testicles in each palm. She should have been aghast but instead was spellbound.
Elvira studied Sally Sue’s hands. “Yours are perfect. Maybe I could teach you. My joint swelling has been kicking in. I don’t know how many more years I’ll be able to do it—rolling on the ground, wrestling around with them young bulls. Yep, yours are perfect for the task. Want to be my protégée?” She pronounced it with a hard “g.” “Money’s purty good.” She grinned. “I’ve got special tools to use. No one but me is allowed to touch them. I’ll pass them on to you.”
Sally Sue would like to make money. That wasn’t her cup of tea, though.
Canvas tents and shabby shacks dotted a hillside beside a mill next to a quiet lumberyard. A little while later, they passed the downtrodden ranch where they’d picked up the horses and buckboard. The windmill was lying on the ground.
As they drove into Flagstaff, Sally Sue’s heart raced with excitement. It had been months since she’d been