Liz Ireland - Millie And The Fugitive

Even so, Jesse didn’t want to think the worst of his old friend. All along, he’d sworn that Darnell wasn’t a bad character. But Sam didn’t believe it for a moment.

He was going to find Darnell Weems and, come hell or high water, he would squeeze a confession out of him. There had to be a reason behind Salina’s murder. And whether Jesse liked it or not, Sam intended to prove it was his friend’s doing. Or else die trying.

Chapter Three

Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s wife. Bob Jitter remembered those words from when he was a kid. Back then he hadn’t known what coveting was all about, but he did now. Yes, sir, he sure did.

Jitter hung back in the cabin’s small kitchen and watched the newlyweds fight. Watching and coveting was about all there was to do around the place these days. Darnell’s cattle had up and died, the little garden they’d cultivated in the spring had dried up by July. If it weren’t for Darnell’s wife, Tess, Jitter was sure he would have left. Though he considered Darnell a friend, as well as his employer, that didn’t change the fact that there was little around the place for him to do. But ever since Darnell had brought his bride home at the beginning of summer, Jitter had found himself stuck on the old place as surely as if he were knee-deep in mud.

“C’mon, Jitter, back me up here,” Darnell said, turning away from his wife to plead with his friend in the corner.

“I ain’t sayin’ nothin’,” Jitter replied. A person would have to be a fool to go up against Tess. Maybe an even bigger fool to marry her. But she had the looks and a figure men were apt to make fools of themselves over — himself included, he feared.

Many was the night he lay dreaming about her, dreaming about what if she weren’t another man’s wife. Probably she wouldn’t spare him a second glance. But at least then he’d have a right to his dreams, to conjuring up the image of himself winding that long, silky blond hair through his fingers, and staring into those icy blue eyes. She was only a few inches shorter than his own six feet, and every inch of her soft, womanly curves. He doubted he had ever come so close to a woman so beautiful, yet she was completely out of his reach.

Once, she had been in his reach. Jitter and Tess had checked into a Buffalo Gap hotel together as man and wife, “Mr. and Mrs. Darnell Weems,” while Darnell went to take care of his old partner. Of course, his being in the hotel with Tess had been pretense, an alibi, but as he sat up all night in a chair, watching Tess as she lay across the big double bed, her blond hair flowing on the pillow, the temptation had been achingly real.

“What kind of man are you?” Tess shouted across the room at her husband, startling Jitter out of his guilty thoughts. Her blue eyes flashed with contempt at the slightly hunch-shouldered man standing across from her.

“I done what you wanted, Tess,” Darnell argued.

“Don’t try clearing your conscience by heaping your sins on my head, Darnell Weems.”

“But you was the one who said that if we’d have got Jesse’s land in Chariton instead of this patch of dust in Little Bend, we’d be a lot better off.”

“I’m sure you would have figured that out sooner or later,” Tess replied snidely.

But Jitter wasn’t so sure. It was Tess who, as a disgruntled new bride, had made the discovery that the deed to their land was actually in both Darnell’s and Jesse Winter’s names. At first she had only wanted to ensure that Jesse didn’t come snatch the land out from under her in the event of Darnell’s untimely demise. But after hearing the story of how Darnell and Jesse had won two parcels of land on either side of the state from a man who signed over the deeds in their names, and then flipped a coin to see who would get which, Tess had hatched an even better plan. Because if the deed to Jesse Winter’s land still bore two names, then Darnell — and she, too — would have a legitimate claim to it in the event of Jesse Winter’s untimely demise. Which she had soon convinced Darnell to arrange.

“You said you would be happy if’n I did what you wanted,” Darnell said, hurt. “But you ain’t happy. I’m beginning to think you ain’t never been happy.”

“Not since I laid eyes on you, I haven’t!” she replied in a fury. “You bungle everything you put your hand to. You couldn’t even kill the right person.”

Darnell’s shoulders tensed. “But I told you, I just saw a body in bed and assumed...” His voice trailed off helplessly as something inside him seemed to deflate. “And then... then it was too late.”

“You should have waited until Jesse got back.”

“But I couldn’t. I’d just done murder, Tess. You know what that means?”

She crossed her arms and sent him a withering stare. “In for a penny, in for a pound, I always say.”

“But she was just laying there, bleeding. His wife. I just sat there thinkin’, what if it had been different. What if that had been you, hon?”

“Then I hope whoever had gone to the trouble of snuffing me out would have the sense to wait around for the right victim to come along.”

Darnell, his rusty-haired good looks marred by his hangdog expression, ceded the point. “Well, I didn’t.”

“And now you won’t even listen to reason. We can go get that land, Darnell. Good land. You said yourself he ain’t got no relatives, ’cept his brother, who’s going to jail, too. You’re his partner, and you won that land together. You got as much right to the place as anybody. More. Your name’s on the deed. Just because you flipped some fool coin, that doesn’t mean anything.”

“But I murdered his wife, Tess.”

“Stop saying that!” Tess paced back and forth, her long legs crossing the room with few steps, and looked back up at her husband periodically in annoyance. “Worrying about that is making you sick, weak. Jitter and I spent the night in that hotel, so there couldn’t be any problems. Buck up!”

“It ain’t so easy,” he snapped back.

She stopped her pacing and turned on him, her fists planted firmly on her hips. “Well, it ain’t so easy for me, either, sitting here and watching a golden opportunity pass us by. I didn’t marry you so’s I could be poorer than I ever was, you know. I thought you were somebody that was going places.”

“It’s just been a bad year, that’s all,” he said, his tone full of resentment.

“Well, it’s not gonna get any better with you sittin’ around on your duff all day, too afraid to go and get what should have been yours in the first place.”

“You can’t expect me to just waltz into Chariton to see my old friend hang, Tess.”

“You were happy enough to waltz in when you were aimin’ on murdering him.” The truth finally shut Darnell up, and Tess took advantage of the moment to ram her argument home. She walked over to him, sidling up real close, and meekly took his hands. “Oh, Darnell,” she said, her voice pleasingly appeasing, “I just want what’s best for both of us. You know how I want a family.”

Darnell scuffed one foot against Tess’s immaculate kitchen floor. “Aw, I know.”

“But I can’t see us having a family out here,” she said, staring at him with those blue eyes of hers. She could make them go all gooey when she wanted to.

Times like these, Jitter could understand clearly how Darnell could have been hoodwinked into marrying a woman who had nothing but contempt for him. He had to give Tess credit for being the slyest thing he’d come across this side of a sidewinder. And she was a hell of a lot prettier.

“If we wait to make our claim, the land will be sold,” she insisted gently.

“There’s other land.”

“Not land that should have been yours to begin with.”

“It’s a bad idea, goin’ back there.”

The two of them stood toe-to-toe, almost nose-to-nose. Darnell had the advantage in height. But when Tess’s eyes started misting up, that slight edge was overshadowed.

She took a step back and wiped a tear from the corner of her eye. “I guess you just don’t want me to be happy,” she said in a wounded tone.

Darnell released a raw sigh. “Aw, hon. Of course I do. Didn’t I marry you? Didn’t I add on this nice kitchen for you? Nothin’s more important in the world to me than you.”

“That was months ago,” she said, squeezing another teardrop out. This one she allowed to fall dramatically down her pale cheek. Jitter could almost feel its warm progress down her soft skin. “You sure don’t act like you love me anymore, Darnell.”

That little tear was Darnell’s undoing. He stepped forward and gathered his wife into his arms and kissed the blond hair at the crown of her head. As the two embraced, Jitter felt his breath hitch in his throat, and his gut wrenched so uncomfortably that he had to look away. But not for long.

“I do, you know I do,” Darnell said soothingly. “I just don’t want to risk too much at once.”

She sniffed, all the while running a long-nailed hand up and down Darnell’s back. Jitter shivered.

“But we gotta take risks sometime,” she said, “if we’re gonna get ahead. Don’t you think so, Darnell?”

He hesitated—or maybe he was just a little bit distracted by that hand skimming his spine. Finally, he caved in. “I guess you’re right.”

She hugged him more tightly. “Oh, I’m not even sure I want to go, anyway,” she said. “I don’t have a nice thing to wear — we’ll never fit into polite society with me lookin’ like an old shoe.”

Now that Darnell was licked, he was all smiles. “Sweetheart, I’m gonna sell everything left here that could raise money, and before we go back east, we’ll stop in Little Bend and buy you the nicest dress there.”

She beamed up at him. “Oh, Darnell, you’re so good to me!”

Darnell bent down and kissed her on the lips, long and hard. The two remained in an embrace until Tess pulled back, flashing her husband a delectable smile.

Finally, Darnell glanced around, remembering that someone else was in the room. “You okay, Jitter? You look all pale and clammy.”

Jitter shook his head. He didn’t care how mean she was. He would have done anything to trade places with Darnell at that moment. Good thing he could still call to mind scraps of his Bible learning. Thou shalt not... shalt not...

From the top of a long grassy hill, Sam looked down at a rough log building. A sign out front, above the door, announced it to be a store — but it couldn’t be much of one, given its size and its location. Yet the place was bound to have something that would make the next few days a little more bearable. He was beginning to feel as worn out and empty as his hostage looked. And with any luck, he could be in and out before the proprietor even took notice of him.

With any luck... That was a good one! When was the last time he’d felt lucky? Moments before making the acquaintance of Millicent Lively, that was when.

He sneaked a glance at her now, trying to detect whether her expression was at all smug. She was getting what she wanted, after all. But no, her face was perfectly serene, devoid of any outward show of triumph. She stood, her thin shoulders straight, her head erect, looking directly down at the little building. Her yellow dress was dust-covered and raggedy, yet he hadn’t been completely successful in disguising it; bright patches still showed through.

“I guess I’ll tie you up back here,” he said.

She turned on him, her eyes round. “Tie me up? Why?”

“So you won’t gallop away when I’m gone.”

“But I want to go with you!”