THE TRAIL OF AUNT JENNIFER

By

R. W. Edie

Copyright 2003 by R. W. Edie, Inc.

11 W. La Canoa, Green Valley, Arizona 85614

All Rights Reserved.

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     Jerk Greesom, a bounty hunter, has trailed Hub Cooley, a desperado wanted in Southern Utah for rape, bank robbery and general mayhem, to the town of Muriat, Nevada.  Cooley, not wanting to go back to Utah to get hung, has challenged Jerk to a gunfight.  Jerk shoots and kills Cooley, and now is faced with the ordeal of carrying the corps all the way back to Utah to collect the reward.  The town marshal is not happy with the way the shootout was conducted and wants Jerk out of town as soon as possible.  Jerk can see where the Marshal's desire for him to leave town as soon as possible could be to his advantage.  He tells the marshal that if he, the mayor, and the judge will sign an affidavit that they saw him kill Hub Cooley, he'll be out of town before the ink is dry on their signatures.  The marshal knows that Jerk is trying to get out of carrying Cooley's carcass back to Utah, but, in order to get him out of town, he reluctantly agrees to Jerk's request.

     Jerk hurries to Cornville, Utah to collect the reward money for Cooley.  Sheriff Peavey doesn't want to pay the reward because he doesn't think justice has been served.  Jerk pressures the sheriff into paying the reward, and then tells him a story about Cooley's demise which seems to satisfy the sheriff's need for proper justice.

     While Jerk is eating breakfast the next morning, a young boy named Jeremy Belson finds him.  The boy tells Jerk that his father wants to talk to him.  The boy's father, Lorenzo, wants Jerk to find one of his father's wives, Jennifer, who has run away.  He gives Jerk a picture of her for identification purposes.  Jerk learns that Jennifer is only seventeen--which makes her two years younger Lorenzo's, oldest daughter.  Jerk is reluctant to take the job, but the offer of two-thousand dollars in gold coin causes him to decide to find the runaway-wife.

     When Jennifer left, she took two of Belson's horses, Kentucky thoroughbreds.  Jerk allows he had better give his horse, Purvis, a good rest before he starts after her.  While he is waiting around, he develops a fascination for Jennifer Belson's picture.

     From then on, the trail of Jennifer Belson, the runaway wife, becomes a trail of confused emotions, danger and deception for Jerk Greesom.

CHAPTER ONE

     The two men stepped out into the street to face each other.  Little clouds of gray dust puffed up from around their boots as each man stalked for the best position.  The jingle of their spur rowels was the only sound, even the birds were silent.  Somewhere in the far distance a dog barked, but that particular sound would not be a distraction.  Each man adjusted the floppy brim of his dusty hat against the glare of the sun which was beating down from directly overhead.  The bleached wood of the building's false-fronts, like giant mirrors, reflected the sun's rays down on the combatants.  High noon was the conventional time when, supposedly, neither man would have the advantage of sun or shadow  it was also the hottest time of the day in the narrow, building-bordered street.

     The advantage of one man over the other, here, however, would not be determined by the sun or any other external element  it would be determined solely by the differences between the two men.  One man was a bounty hunter, young, hungry, unshaven, thin from days of deprivation spent in the saddle while he hunted his quarry.  He was a professional and he went about his business in a professional manner, quietly, calmly, without wasted effort or emotion  one more time.

     The other man, a low-mentality, over-weight ruffian wanted in Southern Utah for bank robbery, rape, and general mayhem, was a man not of the calling to be out there in the street.  He was not, by any stretch of the imagination, a stand-up gunfighter  his normal prey were the weak and helpless.

     Why Hubert Cooley had challenged Jerk Greesom was a mystery to everyone, including Jerk.  Jerk had offered to take Cooley back alive, but Hubert Cooley wanted no part of that suggestion, saying that if Jerk wanted to take him back, he would have to take him back dead  if he was man enough to do it.  Perhaps Cooley was aspiring to raise himself to a higher plane of rowdyism  out-gunning Jerk Greesom would be the high point of his career  if he won.  Even if he lost, Cooley could do no worse than cheat the hangman  rape was not a smiled upon social activity in Southern Utah.  Maybe he just had a death-wish, if so, he could have picked no better an executioner  at least this was the opinion of those who had heard of the challenge and were watching through partly open doors and around the edges of window frames.

     Jerk stuck his half-smoked cigar in a crack in the hitching rail.  The cigar was the first decent smoke he'd had in the two months he'd been chasing Cooley--he didn't want to waste it by throwing it on the ground.  He wasn't going to make enough on this reward to afford very many good cigars, or much of anything else for that matter, if he intended to put aside enough money so he could live among civilized people someplace where bullets didn't fly.  But, the reward for Cooley would be a little, and every little bit helped.  The smoke from the cigar spiraled upward in the still air; then seemed to follow him as he stepped into the middle of the street.

     "Why don't you give it up, Hub," Jerk called to his opponent, giving him another chance to reconsider.  "Unbuckle your gunbelt and let's just ride on out of here  ain't no sense in dyin' here on a hot afternoon."

     Hubert Cooley licked his drying lips and brushed the sweat from his forehead with his left hand.  "If you want to ride out of here  you unbuckle your gunbelt.  I promise not to shoot you in the back as you leave."

     Jerk allowed that Cooley would probably be good for his promise  but leaving empty handed was not what this business was about.  "Can't do it  they're waitin' for me to bring you in, up in Cornville.  Why don't you be smart, and you and I head on up that way  together  alive."

     "Go to hell, scalp-hunter, I ain't goin' back there."  Hub was trying to whip up some badly needed courage.

     "You'll be given a fair trial."  Jerk started to wish he had brought the cigar with him, evidently this was going to be a long-winded conversation.  "At least, you'll get as close to a fair trial as you're going to get anywhere  you ain't exactly innocent, you know."

     "I ain't never claimed to be innocent."

     "Then go back and face the music."

     Cooley shook his head.  "Let's say I go do back and stand trial  what happens after that?  I've seen the way them Mormon farmers hang a man.  They put a rope around his neck and raise him up offen' the ground far enough so's his toes are still touchin'  then, them and their wives and kids stand around and watch while he tries to keep from chokin'."  Cooley was starting to develop the shakes.  "No  I ain't goin' back  not alive anyway  it's you  or me  right here."

     Jerk, winced, massaged his own throat with his left hand while his right hand hung relaxed near his tied-down pistol.  "I reckon I understand how you feel  but going back would give you a few days longer to live."

     "Thinkin' about dyin'  like that  ain't a good way to live  if you take me back, it'll be belly down across my saddle  it's better to do it here."  Cooley crouched, his hand hovering over the butt of his gun.

     The few times in the past that Jerk had been shot hadn't been exactly painless, in fact, it had been down-right uncomfortable, but, on the other hand, he'd never been hung.  Maybe Cooley knew something that he didn't know.

     "Have you ever been hung, Hub?"

     "No!"

     "Have you ever been shot?"

     "No!"

     "Then how do you know which is worst?"

     "Damn you, Greesom, you're a hard-headed coyote  you're not taking me back alive!"  Cooley started grabbing for the butt of his pistol

     "Okay, Hub, have it your way."  Jerk's hand flashed toward his gun.  There was no use arguing with a man when his mind is already made up about when and how he wants to die.

     Jerk stopped and rested his hand lightly on the butt of his pistol while he watched Hub Cooley struggle with drawing his weapon out of its holster.  It was pathetic.  The man never would have made a gunfighter, his hands were more like those of a bear  paws.  The pistol hung in the holster and Hub needed to use both hands to pull it free.  He finally brought the weapon into an upward swinging arc, but the barrel was not pointed anywhere near Jerk's vicinity.

     Jerk knew that people were watching from doorways and windows, there were always the curious and blood-thirsty in a situation of this kind.  He swore to himself about being put in this position  he wanted to be fair with Hub, but there was no reason to allow the man to kill some innocent bystanders with wild shooting just because of a misplaced sense of chivalry.  He pulled his pistol and fired.  A puff of dust mushroomed from the front of Cooley's shirt where the bullet went in, then blood started to pour out the hole.

     Cooley, a look of surprised pain on his face, staggered backward from the impact of the bullet.  Jerk didn't know why the man should be surprised  he'd wanted to do it this way.  Cooley struggled to bring the pistol up, but it slipped out of his fingers and fell into the dirt.  Jerk's stomach turned over and he needed to tighten his grip on his own weapon to keep it from falling from his hand  killing a man was never pleasant.  Cooley gave a gurgling gasp and toppled over onto his back.

     Jerk could hear the sound of doors opening and closing, and people's voices as they approached.  It seemed to him that people were always in too much of a hurry to arrive someplace they didn't need to be  it could get them killed.  He flipped open the loading latch on his pistol and punched out the spent shell.  After replacing the used casing with a fresh one, and also filling the empty chamber with a fresh bullet, he walked to where the outlaw stared up at the sky with seemingly lifeless eyes.  At times like this Jerk wished he was a doctor  he had no way of knowing for sure whether the man was dead or not.  Cooley twitched.  Jerk thumbed back the hammer on the pistol and pumped six more bullets into the man's chest, spacing them at two inch intervals, just in case Hub's heart was not where it was supposed to be.  Jerk had been shot in the back once by a man he thought was dead  once was enough.  For a few seconds the echo of the shots bounced back and forth between the buildings in the narrow street, then quiet returned.

     Jerk started to reload his pistol, but found it uncomfortably hot to handle.  He felt badly about killing Hub, he preferred to take his prisoners in alive  there were already too many dead men along his back-trail.  Besides, Hub was kind of a low-grade desperado--Jerk didn't know if the five hundred dollar reward was enough compensation for having to smell him all the way back to Cornville.  But, if he wanted the manhunting to end, it had to be done that way --a little at a time.

     "Was that really necessary?" a man standing alongside of him asked.

     "What's that?"  Jerk asked, as he fumbled with the still smoking pistol.

     "Shooting a dead man," the man answered.

     "Are you a doctor?" Jerk asked.

     "No  but   ."

     "Then how do you know he was dead?"  Jerk finished reloading the pistol and dropped it into the holster.

     "I don't, but   ."

     "It may not have been necessary, but it was precautionary with all these people barging into the street."  Jerk looked at the speaker.  The man, pale and disturbed, wore a badge pinned to his vest.  He was probably the town marshall, Kincade, who Jerk had been warned would be of no help at all.  It was reputed that Kincade had cleaned up the town of Muriat by staying out of sight while the resident gunnys practiced their lead-slinging trade on each other until there was only one left.  The lone survivor had finally left town out of boredom.

     Jerk could hear other mutterings in the crowd ranging from "he should be arrested," to "he should be run out of town," to "he should be hung."  Jerk looked at the maker of the last statement  she had a schoolteacherish appearance about her  that figured  she'd probably never seen anybody hung.  He wondered what the good townspeople of Muriat would be saying if Hub, blind with pain, had pulled out a belly-gun and started making widows and orphans in the crowd of onlookers.

     However, the mutterings against him gave Jerk a sudden inspiration  if he played his cards right, he may not have to smell Cooley all the way back to Cornville.  He faced the marshal.  "Did any of the town's other dignitaries witness this fracas, besides you?"

     "Yeah, the Mayor and the Judge."  The marshal looked around for support.  "They didn't care for your display of callousness any better than I did."

     "Do you people dislike my methods enough to want to see me out of town as soon as possible?" Jerk asked.

     "That's a mild understatement."

     "If the three of you would sign an affidavit to the fact that one Hubert Cooley met his demise here  at my hands, I would be so appreciative that I would be out of your town before the ink was dry on your signatures."

     The marshall ground his teeth, he knew what Jerk was up to and would have taken a delight in telling him to go to hell and to carry Cooley with him when he left, but there were enough gentlepeople standing around who wanted to see Jerk gone that he didn't dare not to honor the bounty hunter's request.  "I'm sure it can be accomplished," he growled.

     "Good.  I'll show my appreciation by being ready to leave as soon as you bring me the papers."

     "Wait right here.  I'll be back as soon as possible," the marshal said.  He signaled to two other men who had a town-fatherly look about them.

     "I'm not goin' to wait here," Jerk responded, "It's too hot."

     The marshal frowned.  "You ain't welcome to wait anyplace else  I don't want another killin'."

     Jerk looked around.  "I'll wait in the saloon."

     The marshal glared at him.  "That won't do  there'll be another fight.  There's a whorehouse behind McPhearson's saloon  you can wait there.  But you keep that gun of yours holstered."

     Jerk knew the marshal was right  if he waited in the saloon he might have to kill somebody else before he could get out of town.  "Don't worry, Marshal Kincade, I'm no more interested in trouble than you are  maybe even less."  He stepped to the hitching rail, retrieved the remnants of his cigar and relit it.  He flipped the match into the dust of the street and walked to his horse without looking back, leaving the disposal of Hubert Cooley's remains to the townspeople of Muriat.  If this worked out, he would be five hundred dollars closer to hanging up his gun.

     Jerk led his horse into the alley alongside the saloon.  He had no intentions of waiting in a whorehouse.  It wasn't that he couldn't use some female companionship  he could, but that form of entertainment cost money and he was trying to accumulate money, not see how fast he could spend it.  What he was looking for was some shade.

     The overhead sun beat down into the alley, making it  just as hot as it had been in the street.  That was no good either.  Maybe the marshal was right  there would be shade in the whorehouse.  He would be glad when he could get out of town to where there was some breeze.

     He trudged on through the alley and dropped the bridle reins over the well-polished hitching rail.  He never tied Purvis to anything  the gray horse wouldn't leave, and, if Jerk needed to expedite his departure from a place where he wasn't welcome, he didn't want to have to fiddle around with knotted-up bridle reins.  The ground around the hitching rail had been pounded down until it was six inches lower than the surrounding territory  an indication that many horses had stood there for a good long time while they waited for their riders to conduct business inside.  Jerk's spur rowels scraped along the boardwalk as he walked up to the red-painted door beneath a red-painted sign with black letters reading "GIRLS."  This was not a good way to save his money, but he was not going to stand out in the hot street, or in a hotter alley.

     His knock on the door went unanswered so he hammered more vigorously.  A whorehouse should be open in the afternoon  not everybody had their evenings free for clandestine activities.

     The door opened a crack and the madam peeked out.  Jerk wrinkled his nose at the smell of cheap perfume.  The news of the gunfight must have spread fast  she didn't want to let him in.  "Go get your pole waxed someplace else  I don't want no trouble in here."  She was a sloppy looking bag with dyed hair, too much red lipstick, and too much fat.  She might have been pretty at one time  or at least cute, until cheap whiskey, laudanum, and disease had taken their toll.

     "I'm not looking for trouble  I'm looking for some shade."  Jerk was becoming indignant about the attitude in this town.  He'd removed a villainous citizen from their midst--they were treating him as though he was a ninety-day drought.

     "Gunfighters are always looking for trouble  go away." She tried to make it sound forceful but her voice cracked under the strain.

     "Look, lady, I've got to wait while the marshal does some paper work.  He said to wait here.  Now, if I'm not here, and he don't know where to find me, there's liable to be hell to pay."

     The madam's eyes became more round as she understood what Jerk was saying.  Fearful of letting him in, but more fearful of keeping him out, she finally let him in and quickly paraded her girls for him.

     The girls all seemed to be trying to push each other to the forefront.  They jockeyed for position behind one another and tried to appear as unappealing as possible   which didn't take much effort.  None of the girls were interested in Jerk's attentions, or his money, except one, a big blond with big breasts, and she was so ugly Jerk could hardly stand it.  Even so, she wasn't much uglier than the rest of them.  It was a hell of a note when an average looking twenty-five year old man needed to work this hard to buy himself a little shade and a woman, even an ugly woman  and these were all ugly, and they all smelled like whores.  Someday, when he retired, he would find himself a woman who looked and smelled like a woman.

     The girls all managed find one reason or another to escape--except the madam and the blond.  The madam intended on staying to make damned sure Jerk didn't start any gunfights, and the blond had found herself in the position of being Jerk's number one choice through the process of attrition.  Jerk looked at her.  The hair under her arms hung halfway to her elbows, her stomach stuck out, she had blue veins running up and down her legs, besides having pig eyes, a crooked nose, and being short about half of her front teeth.  Jerk almost felt sorry for her.  He fingered the money in his pocket and looked at the madam.  "Can we dicker?"

     A half hour later the marshal came in with the affidavits.

     Jerk stood in the foyer in his long-johns and read the papers the marshal had brought.  He had decided that he would try the madam as soon as the business with the marshal was finished  there should be more than one good hump in a town this size--if you could call the big blond good.

     "Is that satisfactory?" the marshal asked, after a minute or two of waiting.

     "It says what needs said," Jerk answered.  "As soon as I'm through here, I'll be on my way."  He noticed the look that passed between the marshal and the madam.  Jerk didn't try to keep a half-smile from showing  those two were meant for each other  they were both phonies.

     "There's one other thing," the marshal said.  "Who pays for the burying of the corpse?"

     Jerk looked up from reading the papers.  "I'm leaving his horse, saddle, and gun  I usually take the man's personal effects as part of my pay.  Those items should be more than enough to cover the kind of a funeral you're going to give him."

     The conversation had gone beyond what the marshal had rehearsed.  "I  uh, I  uh  I had something more like money in mind."

     "Money?  I ain't goin' to pay somebody money to plant him.  If the stuff of his I'm leavin' behind won't pay for his buryin', I'll wait around until morning and do the honors myself, and take the stuff with me."

     The marshal found himself back to the problem of making sure Jerk left town as soon as possible.  "I guess I can sell that stuff for enough to pay for his buryin'."

     Jerk relented.  "I don't want to put you out none.  I'll bury him myself  in the morning.  Besides that, this being sort of a cross-roads town, somebody else may come driftin' through here who needs rescued from the jaws of polite society."

     "No  no  that's all right  we'll take care of it  you just go ahead and get on out of here."

     Jerk folded up the papers.  "Thanks, Marshal, maybe we'll do business again someday."

     "I hope not."  After another look toward the madam, the marshal exited through the door.

     Jerk put the papers on top of his pile of clothes and then he looked for the madam.  She was just going into her room.  He started after her but when he arrived at the door it was locked.  He pounded on the door but received no answer.  To hell with it  she probably wasn't any good anyway, and besides, he'd spent about all the money he could afford on entertainment.  He started to pull on his boots when the big-breasted blond motioned to him from her door.  She had not bothered to get dressed after their romp, and she really needed to.  Jerk just shook his head.  "Sorry, Baby, I'm out of money."  He'd had about all the rejection and degradation he could stand for one day.  What he wanted was to get out of town.

     The blond grinned.  She was smoking one of those skinny little cigars.  She puckered her lips and blew a smoke ring, then stuck her finger through the middle of it.  "Com'on, buckaroo, this is on the house."

     Jerk had assumed she'd been putting on a good act before.  She'd wiggled and squirmed and giggled, and hollered, "Oh  God  Jerk," several times.  Maybe it wasn't an act.  He gathered up his stuff and started for the blonde’s room.

     The madam came out of her room, then, carrying a glass of whiskey.  She handed it to him.  "This is on the house, too.

     Jerk downed the whiskey and handed the glass back to her, thanking her, and headed on into the blonde’s room.  The madam, the marshal, and the rest of the townspeople could wait a while longer for him to leave  he needed a little more of an ego builder.

     Less than a minute later Jerk came back out the door, pulling on his shirt, the affidavits clamped in his teeth.

     The blond, half naked, was grabbing at him from behind.  "Come back here  you can't leave now!"  She caught the back of his long-johns.

     Jerk shrugged her off.  "Sorry, Baby, I haven't time for this."

     She grabbed the leg of the pants he was struggling to put on and pulled--spinning him around.  "Why?  It's free."

     Jerk pulled on the other leg.  "It's not free if it costs me five hundred dollars.  Let go of my britches!"

     The blond pulled with both hands.  Jerk maneuvered a chair between them and pulled her off balance.  She had to turn loose of the pants leg to prevent herself from falling face first on the floor and doing damage that she could ill afford.  "Jerk!"

     Jerk ignored her plea.  "Maybe we'll meet again someday."  He pulled on his pants as he exited through the door.

     Purvis was instantly awake, noticing Jerk's hurried departure.  He knew what to do  he'd been in these situations before.  As soon as Jerk was in the saddle, the gray horse spun away from the hitching rail, flattened his ears against his neck, pointed his nose straight out, and headed out of the alley at a dead-run.  Jerk, his shirt tail flapping in the wind, was still trying to button his pants.

     At the edge of town they turned east toward Utah and slowed to a trot while Jerk finished getting dressed.  He hated to disappoint the blond, but he didn't trust Kincade.  As he rode along, he noticed something familiar about the tracks on the road ahead of them.  He pulled Purvis to a stop and dismounted for a closer look.  He followed the tracks for about thirty feet, then swore.  He was looking at tracks made by the same sloppily done, home-made horseshoes that he'd been following for the last two months.  Somebody was ahead of him, headed toward Utah, riding Hub Cooley's horse.  Kincade.  And he was very likely carrying Hub Cooley's gun and Hub Cooley's clothes, and another set of affidavits swearing that he was the cause of Hub Cooley's demise.

     Jerk had left the blond just in time  if he had spent another half-hour, the marshal would have had an insurmountable head start.  He staggered a little as he turned back toward his horse.  He ran his hand along the top of the gray horse's neck.  "Purvis, old partner, it looks like we got ourselves a horse race."  His head was buzzing and he noticed he could no longer see the fingers of his hand.  "Damned bitch!"  His head spinning, he struggled into the saddle and shackled his belt to the saddle horn before he passed out.  He had thought the drink the madam handed him had tasted funny.  Now he knew what all the eye contact between her and the marshal was about.  He had a sinking feeling that he was about to lose the much-needed reward money for Hubert Cooley.

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