The kitchen door was closed. Chester knocked and opened it. Smiling, he began, “Is every—” Then he stopped, frozen in astonishment at the sight of his wife sprawled half across the table with blood trickling from a gash in her temple. “Adolphina?”
In a rush of insight Chester divined what had happened. His wife had woken up and come down to the kitchen. She had stumbled on the killer and the schoolmarm, and the killer had killed her.
“Dear God!” Chester blurted. Sorrow seized him, sorrow so potent his head swam and he had to put a hand on the table to stay on his feet. “Adolphina!” he cried. He could not bear to look at her. Turning, he stumbled from the kitchen and sagged against the hall wall.
As strange as it seemed to other people, he had cared for that woman. She had not been much to look at. She had the temperament of a bull. But she had a shrewd head on her broad shoulders and she had stuck by him through good times and rough, and he had, by God, cared for her.
A bleat of sadness escaped him. Although he resented her bossiness, he had relied on her guidance. He could always count on her to have their mutual best interest in mind.
Belatedly, Chester realized her killer and the schoolmarm were gone. Snuck off, no doubt, intending to slink out of town before their foul deed was discovered. Not while he drew breath! Straightening, he hastened down the hall and through the store to the front door. He started to open it, and paused. He must collect his thoughts and do it right. He would rush into the saloon. He would say he had stumbled on Jeeter Frost and the schoolmarm in his store, and seen Frost kill his wife with his own eyes. The posse would be quick to spread out and search for them.
Chester hoped they killed Frost. Or, better yet, took him alive so he could hang. Frost would deny murdering Adolphina, but it would be Frost’s word against his. The schoolmarm might side with Frost, but Chester would say she was not in the room when Adolphina was killed, and anyway, no one would believe her once they found out she had run off with Frost and not been abducted.
Chester opened the door and bolted out, only to stop short.
Four riders had drawn rein near the posse’s horses and were staring at the bodies wrapped in blankets. To the east the sky was brightening, and Chester could see the four were lanky and dirty and had bulging Adam’s apples. Scruffy sorts, bristling with weapons. More riffraff passing through, he judged.
“Hold on there, mister,” said the oldest of the four in a distinct Southern drawl. “We would like a word with you.”
“I am in a hurry,” Chester said.
“You can take the time to be civil,” the man said, an edge to his tone. “Who might you be?”
Chester introduced himself, stating proudly, “I am the mayor of Coffin Varnish, and I have urgent business in the saloon.”
“I am Abe Haslett. These are my brothers, Jefferson, Quince, and Josephus.” The three nodded in turn. “We have business, too. With you. But it can wait.”
“Before you scoot off,” Jefferson Haslett said, “do you mind tellin’ us who these dead folks were?”
“I was told they are the Larn brothers,” Chester replied, and was taken aback by their shock.
“The devil you say!” Abe Haslett declared.
“The Larns!” Jefferson exclaimed.
“How in hell?” asked the youngest, Josephus.
“Who could’ve done it?” wondered the last, Quince.
Chester thought he understood. Glickman had mentioned something about the Larns being from the South. These Hasletts were from the South, probably their friends. “Did you know them?”
Abe Haslett nodded, his gaze glued to the bodies. “I should say we did. Their families and ours go back a long ways.”
“Whoever killed them has deprived us,” Jefferson said.
“I am sorry to hear that,” Chester said. “Now, if you will excuse me.” He could imagine them getting worked up, and he did not want to be the brunt of their anger. Skirting their mounts, he was almost to the batwings when they opened and out stepped Lawrence Fisch, the son of the president of the First Bank of Dodge City.
“Who are those fellows you were talking to?” Fisch asked.
“Friends of the Larns,” Chester said. “Good friends, as upset as they got when I broke the news.”
“You don’t say?”
“Southerners,” Chester added, and went to go on by, but Fisch was blocking the doorway.
“Just what we need. More Southern trash. My father does not think much of Southerners and neither do I.”
“What’s that about the South, sonny?”
Chester had not heard Abe Haslett dismount and come up behind him. The man moved as quietly as a cat. He did not like the glint in Haslett’s dark eyes, but young Fisch did not seem to notice.
“My father says you are a bunch of poor losers,” the banker’s son said. “He was in the South right after the war.”
“This pa of yours,” Abe said. “He is a Yankee, I take it?”
“He was born and raised in Indiana,” Lawrence Fisch said. “He did not fight in the war, though. He was and has always been a businessman.”
“I fought in the war,” Abe said. “I wore the gray with pride.”
