CHAPTER 39
Brice Rogers rested his hands on the little counter in front of the window in the Western Union office located inside the Big Rock railroad depot. That was the most convenient place for it since the singing wires followed the same route as the steel rails.
“You’re sure there’s nothing from the chief marshal in Denver?” Brice asked as he frowned.
On the other side of the opening, the telegrapher sat at the desk where his telegraph key rested. He wore a green visor, white shirt, dark vest, string tie, and sleeve garters. He shook his head in response to Brice’s question and said, “Sorry, Marshal. Were you expecting a wire from Chief Marshal Long?”
Brice sighed. “No, not really. I just had a hunch he might have a new assignment for me.”
“If I do get a message from him, I’ll send a boy to find you.”
Brice nodded, thanked the man, and turned away from the window. The depot lobby was practically deserted at the moment. A train had already come through today, and there wouldn’t be another until the evening.
Brice walked out to the street, where he paused, took off his hat, and raked his fingers through his hair. He sighed. For the first time since he’d pinned on a badge, he almost hoped some trouble would crop up. Anything to take his mind off the fact that Denny Jensen had left Big Rock two days earlier, bound for Montana . . . with Steve Markham.
Of course, she wasn’t alone with Markham, he reminded himself. Calvin Woods and a dozen other hands from the Sugarloaf had gone along on the trip to deliver those horses. Brice had heard all about it. Whatever the Jensens did was always news in Big Rock, since they were the leading family in the entire valley.
And it was none of his concern what Denny did. He had been trying very hard to convince himself of that. He’d been attracted to Denny from the very first time he’d met her, despite the fact that she could be mighty annoying a lot of the time. She was set in her ways, that was for damn sure, and had strong opinions on just about everything, including how she should act. She didn’t like anybody telling her what to do.
Brice supposed he couldn’t blame her for that, even though it went against the way most folks thought ladies should conduct themselves.
As Denny might say, she was no damn lady . . . except when it suited her to be one.
Brice clapped his hat back on his head and strode away from the depot. Standing there brooding wasn’t accomplishing a blasted thing.
Denny would still be gone.
After a minute, he realized his steps were carrying him toward Monte Carson’s office. He hadn’t spoken to the sheriff in a while, so when he reached the large, square stone building that housed not only Monte’s office but also Big Rock’s jail, he stopped and opened the door.
Monte glanced up from the old, scarred desk that sat in front of a gun rack holding a number of rifles and shotguns. The lawman had papers scattered on the desk, a pencil in his hand, and an irritated look on his face. He put the pencil down and sighed. “Come on in, Brice. I’m glad to see you. No offense, but almost any visitor would be a welcome distraction right now.”
“Paperwork, Sheriff?” Brice asked.
“That’s right. The bane of any star packer’s existence. Does the chief marshal make you fill out a paper for everything you do?”
Brice chuckled. “Not as bad as some I’ve heard about. When he was packing a deputy marshal’s badge, he hated all that rigamarole as much as anybody, or so the stories go. Still, he’s got to follow the rules, too.”
Monte leaned back in his chair and reached for his pipe. As he began filling it with tobacco from a soft leather pouch, he asked, “What brings you here today?”
“Boredom. I was just over at the telegraph office, checking to see if I had any wires from Denver.”
“Lester would have come looking for you if you did.”
“Yeah, I know. I just hoped there might be something for me to do that would get me out on the trail for a while.”
Monte scratched a match to life on the sole of his left boot, held the flame to the pipe, and puffed until he had it going. He blew out a little smoke and said, “Out on the trail away from Big Rock . . . and the Sugarloaf.”
Brice felt his face growing warm. “Maybe,” he admitted. “Anything wrong with that?”
“Oh, not as far as I’m concerned. I understand. I may be pretty far past the age when a gal can tie my guts up in knots, but I remember what that was like, I promise you.”
“My guts are just fine,” Brice insisted.
“Whatever you say.” Monte sat there puffing tranquilly on the pipe.
After a moment of awkward silence, Brice asked, “Got any new wanted posters? There might be some outlaw wanted on federal charges I could try to track down.”
Monte opened a desk drawer, pulled out a stack of papers, and placed them on the desk. “Help yourself. I didn’t know you were supposed to take off after any fugitives without specific orders, though.”
“Like I said, Marshal Long gives us some leeway.” Brice picked up the stack of reward dodgers and carried them over to an old sofa against the side wall. He sat down and started looking through them while Monte picked up his pencil again, sighed, and started writing on one of the papers on the desk in front of him. The pencil’s scratching was the only sound in the room for a few minutes.
When the door opened again both men looked up in relief.
Pearlie Fontaine, Smoke’s old friend and retired foreman, ambled into the office. “Howdy, Monte.” He glanced over at Brice. “Marshal. Didn’t expect to find you here.”
“You’re a sight for sore eyes, Pearlie,” Monte greeted him. They were old friends as well, having been acquainted with each other even before they first met Smoke. Both men had hired out their guns in those days, not really owlhoots but not far from it, and although they had usually fought on the same side of whatever dispute involved them, that hadn’t always been the case. Luckily for their friendship, they had never actually traded shots with each other.
“I don’t know if you’ll say that once you find out why I’m here,” said Pearlie.
“That sounds like trouble brewing,” Brice commented from the sofa. “Something wrong out at the Sugarloaf, Pearlie?” He frowned suddenly. “It’s not Mrs. Jensen, is it? I heard that she’s been sick and that Dr. Steward has been treating her.”
Pearlie shook his head and waved off the question. “Nope, I’m happy to say that Miss Sally’s steadily gettin’ better. The doc said she wasn’t hardly runnin’ any temperature this mornin’. I got somethin’ else on my mind.”
“Well, then, spit it out.” Monte grinned. “You don’t want to strain that brain of yours.”
“My thinkin’ matter is just fine, thank you most to death,” Pearlie snapped. “I want to look at your old ree-ward dodgers, Monte. You got a collection goin’ back a long time, don’t you?”
“Twenty years or more,” Monte said, nodding. “And before you go accusing me of being a pack rat, I know I ought to go through them and weed out the ones on fellas who are dead or spending the rest of their lives in prison. I just haven’t gotten around to it yet.”
“Uh-huh. Where are they?”
Monte pointed to a cabinet in the corner. “Right in there. Help yourself.”
Pearlie went to the cabinet and opened the doors. He let out a whistle when he saw the stacks and stacks of paper inside. “Are these in any kinda order?”
“Oldest on the bottom. You did say you wanted to look at old ones, right?”
“Yeah.” Pearlie bent, took a stack off the bottom shelf, and carried them to the desk.
“Reminiscing?” asked Monte as Pearlie began flipping through the wanted posters. “We probably rode with some of those fellas, back in the bad ol’ days.”
“Not exactly. You remember a polecat called the Santa Rosa Kid?”
It was Monte’s turn to whistle in surprise. “I don’t see how I could forget anybody like that. The Santa Rosa Kid was about as bad an hombre as I ever ran across.”
“You met him, personal-like?”
Monte shrugged. “We signed up for the same job. Rancher down along the Rio Grande in Texas wanted some Mexicans run off from land he’d decided was his. He didn’t care if they were burned out or hung from the branch of a cottonwood tree. The whole business put a bad taste in my mouth, but the Kid loved it. Used to brag about the Mex farmers he strung up . . . but only after he made those fellas watch what he did to their wives and daughters.” Monte’s face hardened into stone as he went on. “I remember him talking about one time when he took a knife to some little señorita . . .” He shook his head. “I gave the rancher back his money and rode on. It was either that or gun the Kid down like the hydrophobia skunk he was. Looking back on it, that’s what I should have done, and I’m sorry I didn’t.”
“Yeah, that was the Santa Rosa Kid, all right,” Pearlie agreed. “Sorriest son of a gun I ever knew. And the most vicious.” He turned over another of the wanted posters and drew in a sharp breath, then froze as he stared down at it. “Speak o’ the devil.”
“That didn’t take long,” said Monte. “Is he the one you were looking for?”
“Yeah. And I found him.” Pearlie tapped the poster. “Take a gander.”
Monte did so and immediately exclaimed, “I’ll be danged.”
Knowing that the normally soft-spoken sheriff had to be really shocked to react like that, Brice set aside the new wanted posters he had been looking through and stood up. He stepped over to the desk and stood beside Pearlie to look down at the reward dodger for the Santa Rosa Kid with its hand-drawn portrait of the murderous outlaw.
Brice felt as if a hard fist had just been sunk deep in his guts. Staring back up at him from the wanted poster was the spitting image of Steve Markham.