Ladies Don’t Run Darlin’
Mr. Albright stood in the Buffalo Saloon only minutes after he and Dogwood stood eye to eye on the hotel terrace. He wanted nothing more than to erase his son sitting there lifeless with a whiskey in his hand, a kiss on his face, and a lone bullet for his revolver. Dogwood watched his once joyful demeanor at Dogwood’s appearance in the hotel turn to a grief that overtook him. Grief strangled Mr. Albright as he stood there, wanting to be in the place of his son. Mr. Albright suddenly turned to Dogwood and Sam, who stood a few feet behind Dogwood in the doorjamb.
“Who would want my boy?” Mr. Albright asked firmly, taking the gold pinky ring off his son’s hand. That is how Dogwood had known how important the strangled boy who sat in the chair was earlier that night. That emblem he had seen at many a parties as it was the Albright family crest.
“Once I know, you’ll know,” Dogwood said reassuringly. But Mr. Albright wanted answers now, coming up and grabbing Dogwood by the scruff of the neck to force him back against a wall. Dogwood would only fight and draw his gun when provoked and this occasion was no different. He easily removed Mr. Albright’s hands, suddenly pushing him into the wooden slats of the upper room with a loud crack. The wood shook as he held Mr. Albright down with one knee. Mr. Albright’s eyes grew wide as he struggled against Dogwood.
“You ain’t gonna do that again, I reckon,” Dogwood said evenly but with a warning lacing his voice. Dogwood stood up and allowed Mr. Albright to stand. He caught his breath and shook his head at his son who lay lifeless in the chair.
“You’ve got until noon tomorrow and I’m movin’ him.”
“You will not touch my crime scene, Vincent,” Dogwood warned once more. He didn’t like to warn a man a third time. A third time meant he was warning with his gun and a possible jailhouse stay.
“You ain’t in Cripple Creek, Marshall,” Mr. Albright came up close to his face where the smell of whiskey wafted into Dogwood’s nostrils.
“Good thing the law rides everywhere I am,” Dogwood left Mr. Albright there with those words and nodded to Sam to leave before another scene was made.
After the news broke of the two men who were murdered, Dogwood sat at a restaurant stirring his coffee the following Tuesday. His eggs were always over easy. In his profession, easiness was hard to come by so he wanted something in his life to be easy. His green eyes skirted the town as he sipped his coffee. He sat at a white table in the front of a restaurant of the small hotel he was now staying with Henry and him at odds. Sam was still asleep and after sniffing out the trail into the early hours of morning each day they had been in Denver, Dogwood let him sleep.
Dogwood thumbed his hands against the paper, Mr. Albright’s son’s death stamped on the front page with the headline, “Fur no more?”. Dogwood had known Mr. Albright’s anger and grief would lead him to the front page. Mr. Albright applied pressure with the press in his hopes that it would also pressure Dogwood into answers. Dogwood liked answers as much as the next man. But if there weren’t any answers nearby, he wouldn’t offer them for no reason. He was never interested in pacifying men’s griefs as he already had born his own enough times. The first stage of grief was anger. Anger was always a strange animal, bringing out the worst in men since Cain and Abel.
The waitress came by and poured Dogwood another coffee with a smile on her rosy cheeks. He nodded thankfully and drew his eyes back toward the town. As he did so, a familiar pair of blue eyes sat across from him.
“I ain’t here for Henry,” Holly said plainly, holding her hand up to stop Dogwood.
“Alright,” Dogwood nodded and took another sip of his coffee. The strength from it permeated him as he waited for Holly to speak. The waitress offered Holly a cup of coffee and she shook her head no politely.
“I know someone.”
“That don’t surprise me,” Dogwood stated, thinking how loose of a woman his son’s wife had become. Holly’s nostrils flared but she continued despite Dogwood’s mild condescension of her.
“17th street,” Holly pulled a scrap of paper from her skirt pocket and slid it across the table to Dogwood. He glanced down at it and when he looked back up, the bell was clanging behind her out the front door. Dogwood sat a few minutes more before rising as Sam approached. His eyes were heavy and he looked worse for wear despite being twenty years younger than Dogwood. Sam yawned and then downed Dogwood’s cup of coffee before following him out the front door. Though Sam’s stomach was aching, Dogwood’s nose was up and his ear was to the ground. So there was no time to waste and no time for breakfast.
Finally, they approached a fine red brick house with a Mansard roof along a similarly housed street. Each house was ornate and had a fence on the front. Dogwood slung his reins against the fence post and Sam did the same, gingerly tying up the horses. Dogwood’s boots graced the brick path as his boots stomped up the brick steps. He rapped on the door but after a few minutes decided no one was home. He looked around and then gazed into the drawing room, which he found empty.
“Dogwood?” Sam offered as Dogwood pulled himself from the window. He tucked the scrap of paper Holly gave him into his front vest pocket.
“Yeah?”
“I have an idea,” Sam suggested and at this, Dogwood followed Sam towards his horse to lead the way. Sam rarely offered to take charge. So when he did, his idea better be sound or he wouldn’t be able to suggest things twice. Ten minutes later, Dogwood slung his reins behind Sam’s. Outside the street bustled with people as Dogwood glanced behind him and then followed Sam into a fine dining room of a small hotel. As he did so, a bunch of ladies were gathered around a long table chatting in the front restaurant.
“May I help you?” The woman closest to them offered politely, her soft blue eyes surveying Sam.
“Are you Penny Yearling?”
“Who is askin’?” the woman asked as her blue eyes trailed from his shiny badge to his spotless shoes.
“Marshall Dogwood and Deputy Buchanan.”
“Why I think she stepped out for some air,” the woman said as a door swung open to the right of them.
“Does she usually come here?” Sam asked as he engaged with the woman who was the head of the breakfast with about twenty ladies. Fisher and Sam had stumbled upon this hotel and stayed the night where the painted ladies were a different breed. They didn’t take men to back rooms or do anything of the sort. They danced, they played piano, and they took no riff raff. They sometimes made more money pairing off to dance in a single night than an honest man made in a year. So Sam figured this was where a painted lady might be, especially if she lived at the house they had just left.
“She’s usually here until ten but she had to leave early…” The woman trailed off into a long conversation about Penny and her lovely breakfasts. Dogwood was not paying attention however as his green eyes skirted to where he had heard the door open.
His eyes finally focused on a woman in a deep green dress that bustled to the front of the hotel and out onto the wooden planks of the storefronts. She weaved through people and Dogwood’s eyes continued to follow her as she did.
“Gotta go,” Dogwood said as he darted away from Sam and the woman in deep conversation.
“Thank you,” Sam said quickly as he rushed off after Dogwood. He left the lady standing there midsentence.
“But…” She fell short as Dogwood’s boots clacked against the planks of the walkup to the storefronts.
The woman in green wasn’t looking behind her. She was busy scurrying into the street and hustling across a buggy that nearly hit her. The buggy stopped and hollered her name but Dogwood could not make out her name. She nodded and waved, moving away from the buggy and onto the other side of the street. Dogwood’s boots kicked up the dirt of the dusty street with Sam at his heels. Suddenly the woman made a beeline to the right alleyway and onto the adjacent street. She still did not look behind her and with that, Dogwood followed her more closely to gain ground in case she made a mad dash.
Her hazel eyes glanced left and right as she again crossed the street to seventeenth. Sam was panting as Dogwood quickened his pace to match the woman’s. He was also trying to mask the rapping of his boots against the cobblestone street. Seventeenth was a busier and more expensive street so it had cobblestones.
After a ten minute brisk walk, the woman entered the gate of the red brick house Dogwood and Sam had knocked without answer not even an hour prior. As she was about to shut her gate, Dogwood appeared at its front. His breath wasn’t heavy but Sam’s was as Sam strode up quickly beside him. He almost knocked Dogwood over as he halted.
“Were you runnin’?” Sam gasped and then tried to calm his breathing. Dogwood looked over at him and rolled his eyes. The woman straightened her green dress and hat that was pinned against her auburn hair as she shut the gate.
“Ladies don’t run, darlin’… unless they’re bein’ chased,” Penny winked.
“Where is your husband, Mrs. Yearling?” Dogwood asked, allowing the gate to stand between them.
“There ain’t no man in this house, Marshall.”
“Then where on earth did you get your ring?” He pulled her hand quickly across the gate to reveal the gold ring on her engagement finger which had the Albright family crest. She narrowed her eyes at his grip and her nostrils flared.
“Until I know more,” Dogwood got his cuffs off his belt, “we’re takin’ you to the jailhouse.”
“Ladies don’t go to jail,” Penny extracted herself before Dogwood could cuff her and bolted towards her barn in a trail of auburn hair.
She hurried onto her horse and flung open her barn doors as Dogwood and Sam rushed into her front yard to stop her. But she was too quick. She fled past Dogwood and Sam while they stood with identical shell shocked looks on their faces. Her horse’s hooves clopped against the cobblestone path as she bolted down Seventeenth Street and into the morning sunshine with dust in her wake.