Crucifixion River Read online

  I seemed to recall a roadhouse and a ferry crossing somewhere along this road. But how much distance away escaped my memory. Not too far, else the Sacramento stage would have remained in River Bend instead of pulling out shortly before my own departure. Even now, it couldn’t be more than half an hour ahead.

  The wind blew up stronger, lashed my face with stinging wet. I ducked my head and wiped my cheeks. Smooth, hairless cheeks they were-I’d yet to need to shave them more than once a week. Baby face. More times than I could count I’d been referred to by that name, and pleased to hear it. A baby face was an asset in both business and romance. Many a customer and many a lass had succumbed to my looks and the shy manner I had learned to adopt.

  Thought of lasses past and lasses to come brought a smile and a brightening of my mood. Naturally optimistic fellow, that’s me, always looking on the bright side. Survival was a given in any troublesome situation, after all, and this one no different than any other. A minor setback in River Bend, a minor setback on the open road. Never fear! Providence had served me well and would continue to do so.

  And it did, not more than twenty minutes later.

  By then the downpour was torrential. I could scarcely see more than a few rods past the mare’s nose and the road was nearly awash. The wagon slewed around a bend in the road, and there, by grab, was salvation dead ahead.

  Roadhouse, livery barn, ferry barge. And beyond the wide slough, all but hidden now by rain and misty cloud, a continuation of the road that would lead, eventually, to Stockton and points south. Ah, but not this night. Not for Nell and me, and not for the driver and passengers in the Concord coach drawn up before the roadhouse. There would be no crossings until the frenzy of the storm abated and the slough waters calmed. I had been on enough delta ferries to determine that from the look of the wind-lashed slough waters and the cable strung above them.

  Well, no matter. Sanctuary from the storm was the important thing-a dry stall and hay for Nell, a warm fire and hot food for Ben Shock’s son. Heigh-ho! There might even be a dollar or three to be made from the ferryman’s family and the stage passengers.

  Annabelle Murdock

  I leaned against the buckboard, blinking away angry tears and saying words no young lady should utter.

  Lady? I thought bitterly. When had I had an opportunity to learn and polish ladylike skills in this godforsaken delta? Now it might even be the death of me. At seventeen, before I’d ever have the chance to experience all the good things life had to offer in such places as San Francisco.

  I’d tarried late at the River Bend general store, lingering over fancy dress fabrics that I couldn’t buy and might never wear, reluctant as always to return to Crucifixion Crossing. The storm had come more quickly than anybody’d expected, and by the time I left town, the rain had started. Now it was pouring down something fierce. And as if that wasn’t bad enough, a few minutes ago the front wheel hub had loosened and then jammed and the wheel had nearly come off. The spindle nut was jammed so tightly I couldn’t loosen it with the wrench from the toolbox. If no one came along soon, I’d have no choice but to walk home-more than five miles, with the storm worsening by the minute.

  I raised my arms to the sky and shouted: “I hate it here! I hate my life!” Maudie, our tired old bay mare, turned her wet head and gave me a sorrowful look. “I hate you, too!” I yelled at her. And then I burst out crying.

  I was still sobbing, beating on the nut with the wrench like a demented person, when the man on horseback appeared around the bend behind me. Rescued! I was never so glad to see anybody in my life, even if he was a complete stranger.

  He reined up and called out: “Miss? Are you all right?”

  “Yes. It’s the wheel.” I banged on the hub again. “I can’t get the spindle nut free to tighten it.”

  “Let me see what I can do.” Quickly he dismounted and came up next to me to have a look. “If you’ll let me have that wrench, I think I can do the job.”

  And he did. In less than ten minutes he had the nut tight again so the wheel no longer wobbled. I smiled at him, my best smile. He was a good-looking man with a bushy mustache and bright blue eyes. And he had nice manners, almost courtly. Old, though. Older than Dad. He must have been at least forty. His name, he said, was Boone Nesbitt.

  I told him mine and said: “I can’t thank you enough for your help, Mister Nesbitt.”

  “My pleasure. We’re both heading in the same direction, Miss Murdock. Would you mind if I rode along with you? That wheel should hold, but in this weather…”

  “I’d be grateful if you would.”

  He tied his piebald horse to the buckboard and climbed up next to me on the seat. I let him take the reins. Usually I can do anything a man can, even work the ferry winch, but I was wet and miserable, and, if he wanted to drive, I was more than willing to let him.

  “You live at Twelve-Mile Slough, is that right?” he asked after we were under way.

  “How’d you know?”

  “The storekeeper in River Bend. He’s a talkative gent.”

  “What else did he tell you?”

  “That your father is ferrymaster there. T.J. Murdock.”

  “That’s right.”

  “The same T.J. Murdock who writes sketches and articles for San Francisco newspapers and magazines?”

  “You mean you’ve read some of them?” I was surprised. My father’s little pieces didn’t pay very much or bring much attention, but he enjoyed writing them. More than I enjoyed reading them, although I pretended to him that I thought they were wonderful.

  “Several,” Mr. Nesbitt said. “I remember one in particular, about the religious community that once established itself nearby. Crucifixion River, it was called.”

  “Yes. People around here call our crossing Crucifixion instead of Twelve-Mile, and I wish they didn’t.”

  “Why is that?”

  “We never had anything to do with those people. And now that they’re long gone…it’s really a hateful place.”

  “Their settlement, you mean?”

  “Ghost camp. No one goes there anymore.”

  “How long have you and your family operated the ferry?”

  “Oh…a long time. I was a little girl when we came to the delta.”

  “Came from where?”

  I remembered Dad’s warning about saying too much to anyone about our past. “Um…Kansas.”

  “Do you like it here, Miss Murdock?”

  “No, I hate it.”

  “Why is that?”

  “I have no friends and there’s nothing to do except help with the ferry and read and sew and do chores.”

  “No school chums?”

  “The nearest good school is in Isleton. My mother schooled me at home, but that’s done now. I’m grown up. And before long I’m going away to where there are people, gaiety, excitement.”

  “And where would that be?”

  “San Francisco, to begin with.”

  “I live in San Francisco,” he said.

  “Do you? Truly? What’s it like there?”

  “Not as wonderful as you might think.”

  Well, I didn’t believe that. He was old, so his view of the city was bound to be different from mine. “I’ll find out for myself one day soon,” I said. “Where are you bound, Mister Nesbitt? Stockton?”

  “No. Not that far.”

  “Are you a drummer?”

  He laughed, guiding Maudie through a potholed section of the levee road. The rain was really coming down now and I was soaked to the skin. I wondered if I’d ever be warm again.

  “No. I have business in the area.”

  “What kind of business, if you don’t mind my asking?”

  “I’d rather not say. It’s of a personal nature.”

  “Well, I’m glad you came along when you did. I was just about to start walking and that can be more dangerous than riding. If there’s a break in one of the levees…but there won’t be, not unless the storm gets really bad. The only
thing is, I don’t think Dad will be able to operate the ferry…probably not until morning. You’ll have to spend the night with us, Mister Nesbitt. I hope you won’t mind.”

  “No, I won’t mind,” he said, solemn now for some reason. “I won’t mind at all.”

  Joe Hoover

  When Rachel found it was storming too hard for the ferry to run, I had a hell of a time keeping her calmed down. The ferryman, Murdock, and the stage driver were huddled up under the front overhang of the roadhouse and the Devane woman had gone inside with Mrs. Murdock. Rachel wanted to get out of the coach, but I wouldn’t let her do it yet. I was afraid she’d do something wild, maybe go running off like a spooked horse, if I didn’t keep her close.

  “We can’t stay here tonight, Joe. We can’t…we can’t!”

  “Nothing else we can do. Keep your head, for God’s sake.”

  “He’ll find us. He’s out looking by now, you know he is…”

  “He won’t find us.”

  “He will. You don’t know Luke like I do. It’s bad enough for his woman to run off, but the money…”

  “Keep still about the money.” I could feel the weight of it in the buckskin pouch at my belt-more than $3,000 in greenbacks and gold specie. More money than I’d ever seen or was likely to see in my life. It scared me to have it, but what scared me more was wanting to keep it.

  “I shouldn’t have taken it,” Rachel said.

  “No, you shouldn’t. If I’d known what you were going to do…”

  “I didn’t plan it, I just…did it, that’s all. We wouldn’t get far without money and you don’t have any of your own.”

  “Don’t throw that in my face. Can I help it if I’m nothing more than a cowhand?”

  “I didn’t mean it that way, I just meant…oh, God, I don’t know what I meant. I’m scared, Joe.”

  “Hold onto your nerve. We’ll be all right.”

  “If he finds us, he’ll kill us.”

  I didn’t say anything.

  “We shouldn’t have left the horses in Isleton, taken the stage. If we’d kept riding, we’d be on Middle Island by now, we’d be on the steamer to San Francisco…”

  She broke off, gasping, as the stage door popped open. It was only Murdock. Rachel twisted away from me, but if Murdock noticed how closely we’d been sitting, he didn’t let on. All he said was: “Better come inside, folks.”

  Rachel said with the scare plain in her voice: “Isn’t there any way we can cross? If there’s a lull…?”

  “I’m afraid not. If it keeps storming this hard, you’ll likely have to spend the night here.”

  To stop her from saying anything more, I crowded her off the seat. Murdock helped her down. She let out a little cry when he took her arm-he must’ve grabbed hold in one of the places she was bruised.

  The stage driver called out: “Somebody coming, Murdock!”

  He wheeled around. I was out of the coach by then and I peered up at the levee road. It was like trying to look through a thick silver curtain, but I could make out the shape of a big slab-sided wagon with a single horse in the trace.

  “That’s not Annabelle,” Murdock said. He sounded worried.

  “Peddler’s wagon, looks like,” the stage driver said.

  I quit paying attention. If Luke Kraft showed, it’d be on horseback, not in a wagon. And if he did come, what then? I guessed I’d find out how much I cared for Rachel and how much I wanted that $3,000-and what kind of man I was when push came to shove.

  I took Rachel’s arm and we ran across to the roadhouse. It was only a few yards but we were both wet when we got inside. Worst storm I’d seen since I drifted up to the delta from Stockton three years ago. And it couldn’t’ve come at a worse time.

  I kept thinking we should’ve waited, made a plan, instead of running off the way we had. But Rachel couldn’t stand any more of Kraft’s abuse, and, truth was, I hadn’t been so sure I’d go through with it if we didn’t do it right away. I loved her, right enough, but Luke Kraft was the man I worked for, an important man in this country-big ranch, plenty of influence-and he had a mean streak in him wide as a mother lode. He’d come after us surely, or hire men to do it. Crazy to get myself jammed up this way over a woman. Only I couldn’t help it. Once I saw those bruises, once she let me do more than look at them on her body, I was a goner. And now I was in too deep to back out even if I was of a mind to.

  We stood just inside the door, dripping. The common room was big and warm, storm shutters up across its front windows. There was a food and liquor buffet on one side, a long trestle table and chairs on the other, and some pieces of horsehide furniture grouped in front of the blaze in a big stone fireplace. There wouldn’t be more than a couple of guest bedrooms in back, and those for the women, so this was likely where we’d ride out the storm. Well, I’d spent nights in worse places in my twenty-four years.

  The room’s heat felt good after the long, cold stage ride. Mrs. Murdock fetched us towels and mugs of hot coffee. The Devane woman was sitting in one of the chairs, drying herself. I got Rachel down in the chair next to her, close to the fire. She still moved stiffly, sore from Kraft’s last beating, and the other two women noticed it. I could see them wondering. The Devane woman had figured out Rachel and me were more than cousins-I’d seen it in her face on the stage. The look she gave me now was sharp enough to cut a fence post in two. I tried to tell her with my eyes and face that she was slicing up the wrong man, but she looked the other way. Troubles of her own, that one, I thought.

  She wasn’t the only one. Mrs. Murdock came in, crossed to the window next to the door, pulled the muslin aside, and looked out. The tight set of her face said she was fretting about something, but it wasn’t the same kind of scare that was in Rachel.

  Nobody had much to say until the door opened a few minutes later and the wind blew Murdock in. With him was a tall, smiley bird in a black slicker. When he unbuttoned it, I saw that he had a banjo slung underneath. That didn’t make me like him any better. If there’s one thing I can’t abide, it’s banjo playing.

  Mrs. Murdock had come hurrying over. “Thomas…”

  “It’s all right,” he said. “She’s coming. I just spied the wagon.”

  “Oh, thank God!”

  “Our daughter,” Murdock said to the rest of us. “Late getting back from River Bend.”

  His wife threw on oilskins and the two of them hurried out into the storm. The smiley bird moved over by the fire. He had a rake’s eye for a pretty face and a well-turned ankle-I could see that in the bold way he sized up Rachel and the Devane woman. I didn’t like the way he looked at Rachel. Hell, I hadn’t liked the look of him the second I laid eyes on him.

  He introduced himself in an oily voice. “James Shock. Fine wares, patent medicines, knives sharpened free of charge.”

  “Peddler,” I said.

  “Traveling merchant, brother, if you please. At your service, Mister…?”

  “Hoover. Save your pitch. I’m not buying.”

  “Perhaps one of the ladies…?”

  Neither Rachel nor the Devane woman paid him any mind.

  He shrugged, still smiley. I could feel the weight of that money as I sat down next to Rachel. She laid her hand on my arm and I let her keep it there; the hell with what any of the others thought.

  Outside, the wind yammered and rattled boards and metal and whistled in the chimney flue. The rain on the roof made a continuous thundering sound, like a train in a tunnel. I didn’t mind it so much now. I figured the longer it kept up like that, the safer we were. Not even that son-of-a-bitch, Luke Kraft, was going anywhere far in a storm like this one.

  Rachel Kraft

  There was a hot fire in the fireplace, but I couldn’t get warm. My teeth chattered and I shivered and clutched Joe’s arm tighter. Mrs. Murdock had brought a mug of coffee, but there was a roiling in the pit of my stomach that wouldn’t permit me to drink it.

  The common room was well lighted by oil lamps and candles in wall sco
nces, but it still seemed full of shadows. Puffs of ash drifted out of the fireplace whenever the wind blew down its chimney. After my outburst to Joe when we arrived, I could barely speak; my throat felt as if it were rusted. I looked around, wishing we were somewhere else far away and wondered what I had gotten myself into. Then I fingered the bruise on my collar bone, another on my arm, and reminded myself of what I was getting out of.

  I didn’t like the way that peddler, Shock, was looking at me, a bold stare that made me feel as though he were picturing what I looked like without my clothing. But then, he was looking at Caroline Devane in the same way. I dismissed him as the type of conceited man who viewed women-all women-as potential conquests.

  Outside the wind howled, and from somewhere close by I heard a dripping sound. Probably the roof of this ramshackle old building leaked. Now that we were inside I didn’t mind the storm so much, because I hoped-prayed to God-that, if Luke was already looking for us, the weather would force him to take shelter, keep him away from here until we could cross to Middle Island. But by now Luke would have discovered that the $3,000 was gone, and, if there was anything that angered him and made him determined to exact revenge, it was having his possessions taken from him. His money and his wife-in that order.

  I shifted a little on the chair, and the pain in my ribs made me wince. Out of the corner of my eye I saw that Caroline Devane had noticed. She had a keen eye, had seen that I moved stiffly, and guessed the truth. She’d been giving Joe hard looks, and I wanted to cry out that it wasn’t him, it was cold, hard, unyielding Luke Kraft, and, if he found us, he would kill us.

  Luke. My husband. A monster. Sweet before and after our marriage until two years had passed and I’d produced no son for him. No daughter, either, but that didn’t matter. Big Luke Kraft, lord of 2,000 acres of prime delta ranch land, had an infertile wife and no son to inherit his empire. And in his anger he beat me, once broke my arm, another time tore out a patch of my hair and laughed about it, saying that it was just like scalping a damned Indian.