PROLOGUE
For Marshal Ben Dalton, the dream is always the same.
It is a bright, warm day, cloudless, with the sweet scent of lantana and honeysuckle wafting in a gentle breeze. Wearing overalls and a floppy hat pulled low on his brow, he is in his father’s wagon, delivering a load of cooking wood to the café. As his mule, LuLu, lazily pulls him through town, he passes the Aberdene churchyard where a noonday social is under way. There is energetic singing, laughter, and wooden tables laden with dishes of food and jars of sweet tea provided by the women of the church. Children play games of tag, giggling as they chase after one another. A happy old dog barks and joins in their fun.
But all he really sees is her. She stands out in the crowd, wearing a flowing white dress that seems to glow, her long blond hair, all waves and curls, falling over her shoulders, her eyes as blue as the sky. In the dream, she always smiles and waves as he passes.
And then he is wakened, sometimes by the gray dawn that peeks through a window, sometimes by a rooster’s crow or the bellow of his milk cow, signaling to him it is time to fetch his bucket and head to the barn.
Or, occasionally, it comes in the dark of night with the urgent calling of his name.
Marshal . . . Marshal Dalton . . . you up and got your pants on? We got us a problem . . . needs tending right away.” It was the high-pitched voice of his young deputy, Rolly Blair, whom he had assigned late-night watch duty so he might sleep in his own bed for a change instead of on one of the jail cell cots.
Blair was already through the front door of the small farmhouse by the time his boss was stepping into his britches.
“You fix us some coffee while I get myself dressed,” Dalton grumbled, pointing toward the glowing embers that remained in the fireplace. “This better be important.”
He doubted it was. In the two years since Blair had begun working for him, the marshal had grown to expect that not all of his deputy’s “emergencies” were as urgent as his tone of voice might suggest. Ben Dalton passed it off as youthful energy and enthusiasm that he couldn’t help but admire. He had a vague recollection of once being that way himself.
Aberdene was a quiet little town where lawbreaking and threats to the well-being of the townspeople were rare. Such had been the case in the years since Dalton returned home from the North-South war and began wearing his badge. Oh, there were always drunken Saturday night fights at the Clear Water Saloon to break up; there was that Christmas Eve night when lightning struck the feedstore and set the roof afire, and the brief disappearance of a couple of young schoolboys who frightened the wits out of their parents by choosing to spend a day skinny-dipping at Loving Creek instead of sitting in class, reading and doing arithmetic. But Dalton could count on one hand the times a rancher’s horse or farmer’s cow had been stolen, a life had been threatened, or a business had been broken into. Aside from the time he had single-handedly aborted the robbery of the bank by three young and woefully inept Confederate deserters, his career enforcing law and order had been considerably short on excitement or high drama.
All of which suited him just fine. He had secretly resigned himself to the fact that he and a stagnant daily routine were for now and evermore on a first-name basis.
Truth be known, Ben Dalton really wasn’t much of a town marshal. Still, he was generally liked by most. Folks always nodded and smiled when he took his slow walks along Aberdene’s main street, making his presence known two or three times a day. He had never been the subject of scandal or whispered gossip, even when Maizy Benton named her first child after him.
What had happened was her labor pains had come during one of the worst winter storms in the county’s history. Neither the doctor nor the midwife could get into town, so her husband had managed to trudge the half mile to the marshal’s office, seeking help. Then, in his frostbitten and anxious state, the soon-to-be father fainted dead away. Dalton dragged him to a cot in one of the cells, covered him with blankets, then braved the ice storm and arrived to the painful screams of Mrs. Benton. It was left to the marshal to help deliver a healthy seven-pound boy. “He’ll be called Ben,” the exhausted and thankful mother had whispered to him as she clutched her newborn to her breast.
Dalton was sipping at the coffee the deputy had handed him before he finally asked for details of the current emergency.
“Ol’ lady Akins, she finally got fed up with her no-good husband coming home in the middle of the night, knock-kneed drunk. She met him on the front porch with her shotgun.”
“Kill him?”
“Naw, she only used birdshot. Ruined his shirt and caused some bleeding to his shoulder. Might near put one of his eyes out. After it was over, she hitched up the buckboard and took him into town to Doc Baker’s office, where he was tended to.”
“So, what is it you figure we’re supposed to do, arrest her and lock her up with those drunk cowboys we got sobering up?”
“Well, I don’t know. You’re the marshal.”
“You talk to her husband?”
“He says he don’t want to press charges and that he’s done promised his wife that he’ll never take another drink. They were bawling and hugging on one another when I left to come out here.”
“So, maybe this is one of those sad stories with a happy ending we shouldn’t be interfering with,” Dalton said. “In fact, maybe I’ll just sit and have me some more coffee, then go milk my cow. Want to stay for breakfast?”
The deputy shrugged, his excitement deflated. “Might as well,” he said.
For several days thereafter, the story of Midge Akins shooting her husband, Buck, was the talk of Aberdene. The ladies of the church collectively agreed that Midge, a fine Christian woman, had been driven plumb to distraction and had finally done what she had to. They were organizing an around-the-clock prayer chain for her and putting together a petition urging Marshal Dalton not to charge her with any crime.
At the saloon, Buck Akins, sober and well on the mend, was too embarrassed to even show his face. The patrons enjoyed a good laugh when the story was told, then retold, often with a little something extra added. Even the marshal had to smile when he overheard someone suggest that the day would come when the incident would be recalled as “the Shootout at Akins Farm,” and jokingly wondered if one of those big-city writers who produce dime novels might find the tale of interest.
His smile, however, would later vanish when a strange telegram was delivered to his office.
The face in his dream was calling out for help.