“I told you,” she blurted irritably. “I got no idea.” Then she crossed her big arms across her enormous bosom and lifted her chin obstinately.
“Ma’am, I know this all comes as a shock to you, but I need your help,” Conn said, softening his tone. “My brother was a good man. Blake rode onto his place with a gang of men last night and killed my brother and burned his home.”
“Ben wouldn’t have done nothing like that,” Beulah said. “Maybe the men he rode with. Some of them seem pretty rough. But I know Ben wouldn’t do anything like that.”
Conn had never been rough with a woman and never would, but every fiber of his being wanted to grab Beulah by that frilly apron and smack some sense into her. She was holding back on them, protecting his brother’s killer.
But something shifted in him then, going sly as he realized he must act out of character in the name of justice.
Not by hitting a woman.
But by lying to her, another thing he never did.
“Ma’am, you might be right,” he lied. “In fact, from what I hear, Ben Blake isn’t a bad sort. Maybe he just got caught up with the wrong fellas. I want to hear his side of the story. If he is innocent, we’ll save him before some bounty hunter puts a bullet between his eyes.”
Beulah gasped at the notion and lifted a hand to her parted lips.
“If he just tells us who did the killing,” Conn said, continuing his lie, “we’ll put in a good word for him with the marshal.”
“You would do that?” Beulah said.
“Oh yeah,” Conn said, doubling down on his falsehood with a fake smile. “Ma’am, like I said, my brother was a good man, and I like to think I’m cut of the same cloth. Our daddy’s a pastor, and we’re both Godly men. I want justice for my brother, not unnecessary bloodshed.”
“Well, I guess…” Beulah stammered, seeming to freeze up again. Then she glanced out the window, and her face hardened. She shook her head. “I’m sorry, but I don’t know a thing.”
“You sure?” Conn said. “This is your last chance to save him.”
She blinked rapidly then shook her head. “I told you men. I don’t know nothing. Now, get out of my house!”
Conn touched the brim of his hat. “Sorry to trouble you, ma’am.”
Sheffield, however, lingered. His hard eyes stared at Beulah, his mouth invisible beneath the drooping black mustache. “You messed up, Beulah. Next time you see Blake, he’ll be tied to a horse.”
She gasped again, and they went out the way they’d come in.
“She knows something,” Sheffield grumbled as they started down the steps.
“Yeah,” Conn said, “but?—”
“You boys might try Pepper’s Gulch,” the old man said from his rocker.
Conn turned. “Sir?”
“I say you might try Pepper’s Gulch. That’s where Blake was before he came to Fairplay, and that’s where he pointed his horse when he rode out of here this morning.”
“You saw him?” Conn said.
“Sure, I saw him. I was sitting right here. You reach my age, sonny, you don’t do much sleeping.”
“And he rode south?”
“Yeah, southeast. Him and Beulah stood there in the hallway, smooching. She was just a blubbering. Enough to make a man’s gorge rise. Blake kept saying he’d come back, but you know he won’t. Only reason he acted sweet on her was to get a break on his room and board. Man’s a no-good low-down scoundrel.”
“Well, I sure do appreciate you telling us, sir,” Conn said.
“Happy to. He comes home the other night, drunk as a skunk. I’m sitting right here. I nodded at him. You know what he did? Slapped me right across the side of my head. Still can’t hear right out of my left ear. Got a steady ringing in there. I reckon he broke something inside. Forget Beulah’s lies. That’s the sort of man you’re dealing with. You catch him, give him some lead from old Tom Merrill.”
“I’ll do that, Mr. Merrill,” Conn said and went back up the steps to shake the man’s hand. He did so gently, feeling how the old timer’s knuckles were swollen with arthritis. “I appreciate your help. Pepper’s Gulch, you said?”
