Crucifixion River - By Marcia Muller & Bill Pronzini Page 0,3

of day. A slip of the hand, an angry citizen crying—“Cheat!”—a hard-hearted sheriff, and here I was, out on the lonely road again in the midst of a storm. Instead of a dry livery and a warm meal in that swamp town’s only eating house, Nell and I were forced to weather the weather, as it were—where and under what precarious conditions we’d yet to find out. Pity the poor traveling merchant!

The rain came busting down in side-slanting sheets, finding its way inside my slicker and chilling me to the marrow. Late afternoon and the sky was black as sin and the daylight all but blotted out by the deluge. The wagon lurched as Nell slogged on. Careful driving from now on, I reminded myself, to forestall an accidental plunge down the embankment to certain death. On both sides of the levee road, slough water boiled and bubbled up over the banks like soup in a witch’s cauldron. If the storm grew much worse, the road would be swamped. It wouldn’t do to be stranded out here at the mercy of the elements.

My luck had been running fine until River Bend and the sharp-eyed citizen and that hard-nosed sheriff. There were store boats plying this delta country, but not so many that a wagon seller couldn’t make a decent living for himself. Farmers and their wives in need of clasp knives and pocket watches, writing paper and bottles of ink, saddle blankets, good maguey rope, bottles of liniment and cough syrup and female complaint medicine, needles and thread, pots and pans, spices and seasonings, yards of calico and gingham. Town citizens, too, eager to buy when their local mercantiles ran out of the goods I carried in this old red and green, slab-sided wagon with the fresh-painted words on each side:

James Shock—Fine Wares, Patent Medicines, Knives Sharpened Free of Charge

And here and there, now and then, a few dollars to be promoted by other means. Yes, and a lonely wife or a comely young miss with a yearning for sachets and perfumes and silver Indian jewlery, and an eye for a bold young banjo-strumming traveling man.

Oh, it was a good life most of the time. Freedom. New places and new sights, and seldom the same ones twice. Even a touch of danger, and not only from the elements. For an itinerant merchant was prey to thieves who sought his money and penniless scoundrels who attempted to pilfer his wares. Not that any of them had ever succeeded in relieving Ben Shock’s son of what belonged to him, no siree. The nickel-plated revolver I carried under my coat, and the Greener loaded with shells of ounce-and-a-half shot beneath the wagon seat, had seen their share of action since I inherited the wagon from my old man six years ago. And would again, I had no doubt.

The wagon bucked and skidded again, and I drew hard on the reins and braced myself on the rain-slick seat. “Steady, Nell!” I called out to the old dappled gray. She’d been a fine horse in her day, but that day was nearly past. I would have to replace her soon, before she fell over dead in the trace—as the old man had fallen over dead while mixing up a batch of worm medicine that afternoon in Carson City. It was a sad thing to watch animals and folks grow old. I was glad to be young and hale. Yes, and, if I had my druthers, that was how I would die.

But not today, and not from the fury of a gullywasher.

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