CHAPTER FIFTY-SIX
“Pete Doan said the town paid for Chance Hurd’s burial,” Dan Caine said. “Apart from the two chicken thieves who planted him, I was the only mourner.”
“You mourned him?” Clint Cooley said.
“No. But I was there,” Dan said. “For a spell it looked like rain.”
“It didn’t rain,” Cooley said.
“No, it didn’t.”
The day was far gone, and the two men sat in the sheriff’s office. Dan wore his deputy’s star.
“I’m heading out tomorrow,” Cooley said. “Going back to New Orleans. After all that’s happened, I figure my luck has changed.”
“I appreciate what you did for me, Clint,” Dan said. “You and the others. Fish Lee and Professor Latchford and Miss Prunella . . . I’ll never forget their sacrifice.”
Cooley waved a negligent hand. “I was glad to be of help, and like you I’ll always remember our dead.” He smiled. “On a happier note, Jenny Calthrop got a letter by the Patterson stage. The army surgeon who saved your life is coming with his daughter to Thunder Creek to take her back to Fort Concho. Estella Sweet told me Jenny is very excited about starting her new life. And talking about Estella, she and Holt Peters are walking out together and talking marriage. Young Holt gave up on his plan to become a drover and signed on with Mike Sweet as an apprentice blacksmith.” He smiled. “Estella and Holt make a handsome couple.”
“Yes, they do,” Dan said. “I’m happy for them and for Jenny. She went through it. By the way, the Kiowa left early this morning. He rode up to the window, gave me a wave, and then was gone. I didn’t get a chance to thank him. Or pay him, either.”
“The Kiowa will do all right,” Cooley said.
“I sure hope so,” Dan said. “Pete Doan has kinfolk all over the country, including Florida, and he gave the Kiowa the name of a businessman cousin of his in Pensacola. Doan gave the Kiowa a letter of introduction and he says his kin will help him find his wife.”
“Then let’s hope he does,” Cooley said, “The Indian played a man’s part in the Sierra del Carmen. I set store by him.”
Dan got busy with the makings of a smoke and said, “I hope you’re a big success in New Orleans, Clint. I really mean that,” Dan said.
“Well, first I aim to get reacquainted with a certain countess I loved and left, and secondly pay homage to a voodoo priestess named Elena Maria Brussette and ask her to cast a spell on me.”
“What kind of spell?” Dan said, lighting his cigarette. “And I’ve no idea what a voodoo priestess is.”
“Elena Maria Brussette is a kind of witch,” Cooley said. “She’ll cast a spell on me for gambling luck, that is if she’s forgiven and forgotten that I shot one of her lovers in the Silver Hat Club on Christmas Eve about four or five years back. I didn’t kill him, but I put him on his back for a while.”
Dan shook his head and smiled. “Clint, sometimes you have some mighty strange notions.”
“New Orleans is a mighty strange place,” Cooley said. “Maybe that’s why I love her so much.” He rose to his feet and said, “I’m not one for long goodbyes, so I’ll quit right here.” He stuck out his hand and Dan took it.
Cooley stepped to the door and then stopped and said, “What about you, Dan, will you stay on as the law in Thunder Creek? Hey, did they ever give you your back pay?”
“No. Apparently Doan gave it to Hurd and he spent it. Didn’t do him much good, did it?” Dan said. “Like you, I’m moving on, Clint. There’s nothing to keep me here but bad memories. I’ll ride out just as soon as the town finds another sheriff.” He patted the head of the calico cat that intently studied him with its golden gaze. “Well, me and the Calthrop cat,” he said.
Cooley said, “If you need a grubstake . . .”
Dan reached into his pocket and produced a gold coin. “This is the British sovereign the Sheik gave me. It will see me through.”
“Where will you go?” Cooley said.
Dan Caine waved a vague hand to the east.
“Yonder,” he said.