A man in a buggy pulled to the hitch rail and climbed down, but the boy made him get back in at gunpoint.
Buck saw this through the window but he was still so distracted that he didn’t immediately grasp what it meant. Then he let out a curse honed to a fine, venomous edge and yanked open the door.
The boy spun on his heel and Buck shot the nickeled .45 out of his hand.
With the hand tucked under his arm the boy started to run. Buck took five long steps and got him by the coat.
“What’re you up to?” he said.
“Nothin’.”
“What’s this about?” Buck asked the man in the buggy.
“I dunno. Just pulled a pistol on me and told me to stay away from this store.”
Buck turned to the boy.
“Who hired you to keep people out of my store?”
“Nobody.”
“Don’t lie to me.”
The boy grew sullen, said nothing.
“You want me to cuff it out of you?”
“You hurt my hand,” the boy said, and held it up. There wasn’t a scratch on it.
Buck drew back his arm.
The boy whimpered. “Wait,” he said.
“Well?”
“It wasn’t nobody hired me, exactly. But Uncle Ed said ...”
“Said what?”
“Said we don’t need no rustler-lovin’ storekeepers in town.”
“Uncle Ed who?”
“Ed McFee.”
“Snake Ed McFee?” Buck’s eyes went glimmery hard.
“Yeah.”
Across the street Snake Ed leaned against an awning pole with his arms folded, watching.
“Him?” Buck asked, aiming a thumb.
“Yeah.”
Buck’s jaw muscles worked. The man in the buggy backed his horse, drove away hurriedly.
“You’re a McFee?”
Buck’s tone frightened the boy—as well it might considering what Buck was tempted to do to him.
“No,” he said shakily. “It’s Smithly, Fred Smithly.”
Buck’s mouth tightened. He gave a shove and a kick and Fred Smithly landed on his butt in the mud seven or eight feet from the sidewalk.
“I see your face again I’ll shoot it off,” Buck said.
Across the street Snake Ed shouldered clear of the awning pole.
Buck waited.
But Snake Ed only spat in the mud and sauntered away.
~*~
Twenty minutes later the door burst open and in waddled Marshal Olinger, his belly swaying from side to side, his dull little eyes worked up to an inflamed sort of meanness.
“Maxwell,” Olinger said, “I don’t take to gunplay in my town.”
“That so,” said Buck.
“That’s so. So I’m warning you.”
“Snake Ed seems to like gunplay pretty well. Ain’t noticed you doing nothing about that.”
“I ought to plug you for sassin’ me.” Olinger fingered the handle of his gun, but he didn’t haul it out. “Now you listen, Maxwell. In my town if you got a problem with some rowdy young pup you tell me and I take care of it. That clear? There’s no call to be shootin’ off firearms inside city limits. I don’t allow it. I guess this once I’ll let it go. But goddamnit, folks don’t like all this here shootin’. You mighta kilt somebody.”
“You want to cut down on the hazard to citizens, corral Snake Ed.”
“I ain’t discussin’ him, I’m, discussin’ you. I’m givin’ you fair warnin’. Happens again, it’ll be your ass, Maxwell. You hear me?”
“I hear you talking, but you ain’t saying much worth listening to. When do you figure to arrest Snake Ed for holding up this store?”
“What holdup?” Olinger was suddenly defensive.
“The one done in broad daylight in front of witnesses. Two witnesses have been shot. And somebody shot Skeetland, took the two thousand I paid him. Snake Ed come riding back from that direction about the right length of time afterward if he hauled the money to Casper.”
“That’s all nothin’ but a buncha guesswork,” Olinger said. “Snake Ed never done none of those things.”
“What about the dead farmer I showed you in the street?”
Olinger waved a hand impatiently. “That was just a rustlin’ granger and we got too many of them around these parts interferin’ with everything, plowing the ground, makin’ trouble. Don’t you fret over him. He warn’t worth nothin’.”
“Except to his wife. But I’ll tell you what is worth something to me. That church money Snake Ed got in the holdup. Because I’m responsible for it. Now, you can do something about getting it back, or I will.”
“What do you mean, you will?” demanded Olinger hotly. “You ain’t the law in this town. You ain’t got no ’thority to ’vestigate no holdup nor nothin’ like that. You warn’t even here when it happened. You just stay out of official business, you got that?”
“You don’t like me mixing in, do your job, Olinger.”
“I don’t like you, I’ll kick your butt out of town.”
“Snake Ed’s is the butt to kick.” Buck felt tired. “You want me to lend you a hand, I will.”
“I don’t need your help for nothin’,” Olinger said. “I’m goin’ to tell you this just oncet more. I ain’t some dog for you to wipe your boots on. You don’t tell me how to run my town, or how to ’vestigate anything. I decide what needs ’vestigatin’, when it needs ’vestigatin’, and who I’m going to ’vestigate. That’s it. Now, you mind what I told you about drawin’ your hogleg in my town. I’ll be goin’ now.”
And he waddled like an overweight bulldog to the door, went out slamming it.
Buck just stood there shaking his head.
~*~
He managed to hire, at exorbitant expense, a team of poorly mules from the livery, and got two cord of firewood onto the wagon parked in the shed. Then he went in to clean himself up as best he could before setting off for the Parkers’ ranch.
He shaved for the second time that day, with infinite care, then looked over Skeetland’s entire stock of suits before settling on one. He combed his coarse, unruly hair twice, using some patent slickening, and sized himself up doubtfully in the mirror. The last time he’d been this damp in the palms was years ago down in Texas riding outlaw steers on a dare.
He had hardly gotten clear of town when it occurred to him that Mrs. Parker’s invitation probably had more to do with getting his help unloading the stove than with reeling in a suitor for Mary Ellen. Well, wouldn’t he look ridiculous showing up dressed like a courting pheasant.
The sun dropped through some clouds over the mountains west and cast a splendor of glory up the sky and across the land, but Buck hardly noticed. The white knuckles of Mary Ellen’s clasped hands were casting too many mysteries and shadows across his soul.
About an hour’s drive out, as the sun was sinking behind a saddleback and the colors in the sky and creek were deepening, Buck pulled into the yard. Mary Ellen, water bucket in hand, turned to look at him, set the bucket down as he pulled the mules to a halt near her.
She was hatless this time; he thought she wore the same dress. She looked up as though the sun were behind him, yet the last ray of it was actually behind her making a golden halo of her stray hair.
He touched his hat. “Evening, Miss Parker,” he said.
“Good evening, Mr. Maxwell.” Her voice was low but it had power to tug at some part inside him he hadn’t known existed. “Papa said you should drive around to the shed next to the kitchen door. That’s where we put our wood. He said he will help you unload.”
“All right. Hope I’m not too late.”
“Oh no, Mr. Maxwell. Supper should be ready by the time you have unloaded the wood.”
Buck couldn’t think of anything else to say, so touched his hat again and spoke to the mules. Mary Ellen picked up her water bucket and went along in her careful, deliberate way toward the house. Grace, he thought wonderingly. That was Mary Ellen.
The neat, solidly constructed buildings were laid out sensibly. Not only was the woodshed right at the kitchen door, but the barn and other outbuildings were nearby yet easy to maneuver around. The chicken coop was just past the woodshed, and the kitchen garden plot next to that. Allen Parker stepped out of the barn as Buck pulled up at the woodshed door.
“How much is that?” Parker asked, looking the load over.
“Two cord.”
“Looks like good measure. Just toss them sticks to me one at a time and I’ll stack ’em.”
It went quickly.
“I guess the wife likes the stove,” Parker said after an interval. “She had Bob and me put it in as soon’s we got home.”
“Did she,” Buck said, musing on what this meant about Mrs. Parker’s motives. “But she should. It’s one of the best stoves made, and she got it at about two dollars over cost.”
“Martha’s a Yankee,” Parker said. “I never seen the man could best her in a trade.”
The sticks flew and chunked into the pile in regular rhythm for a minute or two. Then Parker asked, “You deal in cattle?”
“No.”
“Maybe that’s smart, considerin’.”
“Considering what?”
“Well, the big cattlemen would be sure to make trouble for you. I been hearin’ a rumor that the cattlemen has hired Texas gunslingers to do vigilance committee work—meaning drive off the farmers and homesteaders and us small-time cattle outfits. They say Snake Ed’s going to run it. Which figures. Don’t say nothin’ about it to Martha or Mary Ellen. It’d only make ’em fret. But Bob and me—Bob’s my hired man—we plan to keep a sharp lookout with them kinds of folks around.”
“How many are there?”
“Some say five or six, some say more. They got bunks out to the Lazy L.”
“That so,” Buck said, thinking of Calpet.
“I see you’re wearing a gun. I’d keep one handy, if I were you, but not in plain sight—might be provoking. Especially to Snake Ed.”
“Snake Ed’s pretty provoking himself,” Buck said.
“Don’t fool with him. He’s dangerous.”
“Guess Olinger must think so.”
“Oh, that ain’t it. Olinger’s a cattlemen’s man all the way. Why, what business have you had with him?”
Buck told him about Fred Smithly and his conversation with Olinger afterward.
Parker looked serious. “You’re lucky you’re here to tell about it. Snake Ed has killed men for stepping into the saloon ahead of him. You want to lay low and stay out of his sight all you can.”
“Why don’t the town hire a real marshal instead of Olinger?”
“Council is cattlemen.”
“With all these settlers out here?”
“Nobody wants to take a chance of getting shot.”
“What about the county sheriff?”
“Almost as bad as Snake Ed. We hate him but we got no say-so over him.”
“You know anything about this church committee?”
Parker stacked five sticks before answering. “I heard in town that they’re going to take your store. Don’t seem right to me—and some of that money’s mine.”
“Maybe you could tell them that.”
“I could. Don’t know as it would do any good.”
“I’d be obliged.”
They stacked the last few pieces of wood. Then Parker came out of the dimness of the shed and put a big hand on the rear wheel of the wagon, looked Buck square in the eye for several seconds.
“All right,” he said.