Who Murdered Tulsa Rose?

by Gary Clifton

Table of Contents

Table of Contents
parts: 1, 2, 3

conclusion

Bear and Elizabeth, Charlie leading, started for the Circle Z, Liz still leading the pack horse. The route took them directly past Brannigan’s ranch. When they stopped by for coffee and to water the horses, Brannigan had recovered somewhat. They told him they were on route to question Post.

“Liz, Bear, I don’t want to hear any more about my wife chasing cutthroats. I’ll have Emilio hitch a buggy. Liz, I need you here to mind Tad a lot more than I need to see you come back with bullet holes. I’m goin’ with Bear and you’re not.”

“But, Henry Paul,” she implored, “you’re in no shape—”

“I’ll be fine in the buggy, Liz. Now I’m gonna have Emilio unsaddle your mare and that’s the end of it.”

Taken aback by her soft-spoken husband’s insistent tone, Elizabeth nodded.

As dusk approached, Brannigan, Bear, and Charlie paraded through the main gate of the Circle Z. Two hard-scrabble, mounted cowboys stopped to stare.

Willard Post rode up on a chestnut mare. Brannigan ordered Charlie to stay.

“Heard you-all killed that murderin’ bastard. Good work.”

Bear pointed his chin toward the sprawling ranch house. “Didn’t kill him. He’s back in jail. Post, we need to talk.”

Post sullenly led them into the spacious house.

Bear asked, “Were you ever in Rose’s crib, Post?”

“Well, hell, after my wife run off, man needs a little relief. I mighta called on her two, three times. Months ago.”

“You weren’t in her room the night she was murdered?”

“Well, hell no.”

Brannigan stepped to the door and whistled Charlie into the house. Charlie stopped abruptly in front of Post and growled softly.

“Charlie says you’re lyin’, Post. He smells crime scene and blood. Sniff him out. Charlie.”

Charlie gave Post’s boots the once over, then barked recognition. Post went for the Colt at his waist. Bear slapped the pistol out of his hand and shoved the rancher to the floor. He put a foot in Post’s stomach and pulled off both his hand-tooled boots.

Charlie vigorously nosed both boots, then settled on the left one.

Bear turned it sole up. “Blood. Post, the sole pattern is identical to the bloody print left just inside Rose’s doorway. You wanna stay with the story you hadn’t been there in months? Charlie was following both you and Hadley up the north road.”

Post, still on his back, stammered, “I didn’t...”

“Post,” Bear said angrily, “poor old Lafayette Hadley was in love with Rose who I now see you visited regularly. You decided to get him out of the way, figuring some way any woman you want is your personal property. So you sent another of your hands into town to start a ruckus and kill him. Lafe turned the tables and you damned near got him hanged. Rose was a bar girl. You could have shared. Instead, you either bullied or paid witnesses to lie at Hadley’s murder trial.”

“You can’t prove crap.”

Bear tipped back his derby. “Well, Post, I saw last night when you struggled to release the hand brake on your buggy, the iron handle had been replaced with a broomstick. Wanna bet your life the metal pipe left at Rose’s death scene bears the same label as the buggy you were drivin’? That and your boot print in Rose’s blood oughta be enough for Judge Mayfield to hang your useless carcass.”

Post’s expression said Bear was on the money.

Bear continued relentlesly. “What would you bet if we search this house, especially the bedroom you shared with your wife, and we find plenty of wiped-up bloodstains? And I’d wager you paid some of the broke-down cowboys you keep around here to bury her out there in the territory somewhere.”

The screen door behind them swung open, and the two cowhands they’d passed in the yard pushed inside. Both wore Colts and assumed the “ready position,” hands close to their six-shooters. “You take our boss, you gotta go through us,” one, a small, dark man, with a week’s growth of beard, spat.

Charlie growled deep in his throat. Both cowboys yanked at their pistols. Neither seemed to notice Brannigan already held his Colt at his side. He jerked it to chest level and shot the cowboy nearest to him, blowing the man out through the closed screen door.

Bear pulled his Colt and put a round in the second gunman’s chest. The deafening roar of simultaneous pistol shots ended before Charlie’s growl reached maximum. The room was clogged with thick, black gunpowder smoke. Both cowboys were dead.

Bear holstered his pistol and looked up. “They may not be the only two would-be gunfighters on the place. We’d best be careful.”

He knelt, cuffed the cursing Willard Post and redrew his Colt. Reloading the cartridge he’d just used, he said, “Post, we get any ruff-duff from another gunfighter playing cowboy, you get one in your ear.”

Post, terrified, said, “Don’t shoot me, Marshal. Only other hand I got is old Cookie in the bunkhouse.”

Bear, his face holding a sanguine expression which surprised the normally unflappable Brannigan, said sharply, “Charlie!”

Charlie sprang, his front paws on Post’s chest, barking spittle viciously into the prostrate man’s face. Post had no way of knowing Charlie wouldn’t bite unless commanded to do so.

“You kill Rose... and your wife?”

“Hell no.”

Bear said, “Charlie doesn’t believe you. In fact, he’s about to tear off your face.”

“Yes, for God’s sake, call him off. Yeah. I killed ’em, killed ’em both. Both greedy bitches. Sluts needed punishment.”

“By coincidence, you went to see Rose just when Lafe decided to break jail and come see his girl,” Bear said through gritted teeth. “Except she’d already told you to get lost. You had a little temper tantrum and beat her to death with your buggy brake handle. Lafayette Hadley walked in. You chose to run rather than attack Lafe.”

Post, distraught, stared up at Bear and Brannigan. “I’ll have you dead if I get the chance. I got rights. You made me confess under threat of a vicious animal.”

Bear, kneeling over Post, looked up at Brannigan.

“Not that I saw, Post,” said Brannigan.

“You kill your wife for any particular reason or just by being a bullying ass?” Brannigan asked.

Post made no reply.

* * *

A soft footfall on the front porch heightened the tension. A bent old man appeared. “Don’t shoot, officers. I’m Cookie. I’m unarmed.”

While Charlie and a limping Brannigan, Colt in hand, made certain Post stayed where he lay, Bear sweated Cookie on the front porch. Randall Ray Frye was 69 years old, had worked for Post’s Circle Z for eight years, and appeared harmless.

“Did Post kill his wife, Cookie?” Bear asked.

“Damn sure did, and she’s buried along a barb wire fence line about four miles south. Don’t shoot me and I can lead you to the grave. He beat her to death, then had them two low-lifes layin’ dead there help plant her. Now I suppose I’m gonna go to jail.”

“Well, sir,” Bear said, “we already got a prisoner on the floor in there who can refill the cell of Lafayette Hadley, an innocent man. Looks more to me you might just inherit the Circle Z under the Texas Law of Abandoned Property. We’ll help you at the First Bank of Uvalde. Now show Marshal Smith to Mrs. Post’s grave.”

Bear stepped into the living room. Brannigan motioned Bear aside, out of earshot of Post, still on the floor.

“Bear, you know the days of gunning toughs and squeezing out confessions are soon to be a thing of the past.”

Bear looked at him thoughtfully. “I see that. I see that. But I ain’t gonna let this murderin’ animal loose.”

Brannigan patted Cookie on a shoulder. “Cookie, hitch up a wagon. We can haul Mrs. Post’s remains and these two cowboys back to Uvalde for funeralizin’.”

Bear said, “We’re gonna need a couple of shovels, and a lantern, too.”

The old man scurried out the front door.

Post struggled on the floor, shrieking a symphony of profanity.

“Bear,” Brannigan said, “we need to get this case closed. Whatever we do, we can’t tell Elizabeth all the details.”

Bear stared hard at him as he boosted the handcuffed prisoner to his feet. “Say again?”

“I said this country’s changing and we gotta do the same.”

“Well, Henry Paul, I’m thinkin’ I liked things better when our wives stayed in the kitchen.”

“Those days, I’m afraid, Bear, are fast gonna be history.”

“You think?”

“Yeah, it’s called independence, and we’re gonna have to do some fancy adjusting.”

“Henry Paul, surely it’s never gonna get that bad.”