Free Crazy Woman Creek by Virginia Welch Page B

won’t be necessary. My husband will be found. And depending on his condition, at that time I will decide whether my folks—and Mr. Rose’s—should be notified. If I contact them now it will only give credence to their fears about my going west.”
    “Are you concerned about alarming them, or are you worried they’ll hightail it to the Territory and insist you go back to New York?”
    Lenora stopped walking, removed her arm from the deputy’s, and turned to face him. Her eyes flashed with annoyance. “You, sir, are scandalously intrepid in your approach to this investigation.”
    Luke stopped walking as well. “I don’t know what intrepid means, but I can read the look on your face.”
    “Oh?”
    “You don’t want your folks to know you’ve been left alone to run your ranch.”
    “I’m not a mule, Deputy Davies. If my situation becomes dire, I shall not hesitate to seek help from family. But up to this point, I have things well in hand.”
    “No one would ever compare you to a mule, Mrs. Rose.” A purebred filly, perhaps, but never a mule.
    “And you, Deputy,” said Lenora, starting to walk again and changing the subject, but this time keeping her arm to herself, “Did your parents dissuade you from leaving the family ranch at Fort Laramie?”
    “I waited till Pa didn’t need me anymore. Matthew and Mark, my older brothers, are still bachelors, and they seemed happy to stay on. My younger brothers were around to help too, so Pa was taken care of.”
    “Matthew and Mark? Don’t tell me: the brother born after you is John.” Lenora chuckled. “What about the other three?”
    “When my ma ran out of gospel books, she turned to the Old Testament. Amos and Aaron, the twins. Then Seth, the youngest.”
    “Your mother was religious.”
    “I don’t rightly remember much about my ma. I suppose so. The only book we had was the Bible. And Ma’s ladies’ magazines.”
    “Those were the only forms of literature your family had in the house?”
    “It was enough.”
    “What did you discuss at meal times if you had no books?”
    Luke thought about the question a few seconds before answering. “Our day. The livestock. Pa would read the scriptures. Of course, for a few years there our minds were taken up with the war. Supper talk was filled with troop movements. Battles and the like.”
    “At our house the war took our focus away from pretty much everything else the entire four years. But I was quite little then,” added Lenora, "I didn't understand most of the conversations about battles or why they mattered."
    “Well, most of our battle conversations,” said Luke, in a slow drawl, “were along the lines of, ‘Paaaaw, Luke ate all the taters again!’”
    They both laughed.
    “Your father never remarried?”
    Luke shook his head, remembering sadly how his pa struggled to keep an air of civility about the homestead after Ma died. The dirty house, the scruffy way he and his brothers looked all the time without a woman to supervise the care of their hair and clothes. “Seven wild Indians make a tribe. Pa never met a woman desperate enough.”
    Olathe’s was a hundred feet away. Luke dreaded having to end the light conversation and perform the unpleasant and historically rancorous chore of questioning Mrs. Rose. Though he had to get on with his duty, he didn’t care to embarrass her in front of Mr. Olathe. He lightly touched her arm. “We can stop here.” He turned and faced her.
    “Why?”
    “Mrs. Rose, I have to ask you a few more questions. I’m thinking you’d prefer to talk here than at Olathe’s.”
    Lenora’s face fell.
    Luke sighed gustily and forced himself to continue. “You seem certain Mr. Rose did not drown.”
    Lenora stared at the ground and nodded dejectedly.
    “You speak of him like he’s still alive.”
    “I’ve told you, I have no evidence otherwise.”
    “Mrs. Rose,” said Luke, waiting for her to lift her head and look at him. When she didn’t respond, he gently