But when he got there, she was actually laughing!
He grabbed her by the shoulders and said, “You could have been killed if Rafe hadn’t pushed you out of the way! Don’t you know to look both ways before you cross a street? Have you lost your senses?” And then he suddenly hugged her to him so tightly that before he knew it, she was struggling and he realized she couldn’t breathe.
He loosened his grip and allowed her to push away. When she caught her breath again and finished coughing, she said, “Does this mean that if I don’t succeed in killing myself, you’ll do it for me?”
He laughed so loudly that one of the Milcher kids opened the church door and peeked out. “Precisely, precisely!” And then he remembered the kitten, probably because of just seeing the Milcher kid. “Jenny, I’ve got a present for you, but it won’t be ready for six or eight weeks,” he declared impulsively.
Jenny clapped her hands as best she could with an armload of papers. “What, Jason? What is it?”
He smiled slyly. “I call it Dusty.”
“Dusty? What’s a ‘dusty’?”
“Yeah,” said Rafe, who Jason had completely forgotten was there. “What is a ‘dusty’?”
Jason stared at him for a moment, and then relaxed back into a smile. The man had just saved his sister’s life, after all! He said, “A ‘dusty’ is the name of something small and white and fluffy and incredibly sweet—just like you, Jenny—that was born just a few nights ago.”
Jenny squealed, and Jason noticed that when she did, Rafe made a pained face. That was good. Jenny wasn’t paying any attention, though. She cried, “The Milchers! You got one of those new kitties for me, didn’t you, Jason?” He nodded, and she added, “Oh, I could just hug you!”
“Best wait until you deliver those papers to Miss Morton!” he joked.
Jenny laughed, as gaily as if she hadn’t just been nearly killed. There was a kitten in the picture now, and everything was right with the world. Jason had guessed as much.
“Well, congratulations, Miss Jenny!” exclaimed Rafe. He looked as happy for her as she did for herself.
“Hadn’t you best run those papers up to Miss Morton?” Jason asked.
“Oh! Oh, gosh, I almost forgot!” She blinked rapidly, turned to Rafe and said, “Thank you so much! Come to dinner tonight!” Then she fairly ran up the street. Well, as close as a lady could come to running. When she stopped outside the schoolroom door, she paused, turned, and tossed a kiss to Jason, who made a show of catching it and then pressing it to his heart.
He and Rafe stood there a minute, until Jason thought to get out of the street. Davis could be anywhere. He said, “Let’s get outta the line of fire.”
“Your office or mine?” Rafe asked, and that half-crooked smile was back on his face again.
“Yours, I think,” Jason said with no humor. This was no time for jokes.
He saw the runaway team being led back around the corner at the end of town, and shouted, “Everything all right, Jed?”
Jed Dawson hollered back, “Yeah. Your sister okay?”
“Yup. Doing fine!”
Jed crossed himself, then called, “Praise the Lord!”
“Whatever,” muttered Jason as they stepped up on the boardwalk and he followed Rafe inside the saloon.
It was a lot more lively than it had been the first time Jason had been in that day, and he tagged after Rafe, who led him to an empty table.
“This’n all right?”
Jason allowed that it was, and the men sat down.
After the libations arrived and both men were comfortable, Jason asked the question.
“Why is Sampson Davis after you?”
Rafe looked him square in the eye and said, “Because I shot his no-account brother-in-law. I only shot him in the shoulder. Wasn’t my fault it went septic and he died. And I shot him because he murdered my daddy over some gold shares Daddy had, just outright murdered him in cold blood. At least I had the gumption to call him out into the street to answer for it in a fair fight! So now I got Sampson Davis doggin’ me everywhere I go. The whole damn family should’a stayed back East.”
Rafe took a long drink of his beer, as if the telling out of his story had exhausted him. Jason, surprised but finally educated, followed suit.
Frankly, it wasn’t what Jason would call a murder. He wondered if it was one of the ones listed on Rafe’s poster, and he asked him.
“Yeah,” came the answer. “California’s real nit-picky about that stuff. You want another beer?”
Jason looked down at his glass, which he had emptied, much to his surprise. “Yeah,” he said.
Rafe looked over at the bar, somehow caught Sam’s attention, and held up two fingers. Sam nodded, and before they knew it, a blond girl in a fancy green silk dress was sliding the drinks onto the table.
Jason started to dig into his pocket, but Rafe stopped him. “It’s on me. My office, after all.” He smiled, full faced this time. “By the by, in case you’re wonderin’, my name’s spelt R-a-l-p-h. My mamma was from England and Daddy was from Ireland, and Rafe is how they pronounce it over there. Don’t ask me why,” he added with a wave of his hand. “I got no idea.”
Jason thought back to what he knew about England, and said, “Yeah, those English got their ways about ’em. They call B-e-l-v-o-i-r ‘Beaver’—that’s a castle I read about once—and Grosvenor ‘Gruvner. ’” Bemused, he shook his head and took another drink of beer.
“And Cholmondeley, they call ‘Chumly.’” Rafe laughed, and then Jason, after swallowing his gulp of beer, joined in.
He had a feeling that everything was going to be all right. For the moment, anyhow.
6
That afternoon, after a scanty lunch consisting of bread and water, Reverend Milcher sat upstairs at his desk (which, by some miracle, had managed to escape the flames several years back), lost in thought.
He had to figure out what to do to bring the people in, to bring them to God! Didn’t they know that their mortal souls depended on it? Hadn’t he preached enough fire and brimstone on the journey from Kansas City out to their current residence in the wilderness of Fury?
He put his head in his hands and prayed, once again, for guidance. Nothing came of it, however, and he dropped his chin to his chest and sighed deeply. He became aware of a deep, soft, rumbling sound, and realized it was the cat—Louise was her name, he thought—nursing her kittens in a box beneath his desk. His initial anger quickly fled, though, once he saw her and the pile of gray, tabby, and white that was the kittens.
It struck him that she was caring for her brood in the same manner that he had promised the Lord he would look after His people. There was joy in her heart just to have them near her, and joy in their hearts that she was close, so warm and comforting. And it occurred to him that he needed to minister to his flock’s needs and wants like a mother cat.
“I need to be more mannalike and less lecturing,” he muttered. “More comfort and fewer claws. My message needs less barbs, and perhaps my demeanor could be softer, as well.”
Just then, there came an enormous clap of thunder that nearly startled him from his seat. As it was, he fell to his knees and clasped his hands before him. “Is that You, great and holy God? Have You given me a sign?” he asked with trembling lips.
The “answer” came in a second, distant clap of thunder. It was not as loud or as jarring as the first, but it was enough for him. He lay prostrate on the floor, arms outstretched, his face in the rag rug, muttering, “Thank You, Lord, thank You. Praise be to Your name . . .”
He would be softer, he vowed, more kindly and less prickly. He would be a friend to his parishioners, not a judge.
Up north, Ward Wanamaker and Milton Griggs, Fury’s blacksmith, were nearly back to town. Ward had ridden north at dawn and arrived at the Morton place at around noon, his horse having thrown a shoe on the way up there. Milton fixed it for him, and was thrilled to hear that he was needed in town.