“That’s awful young to have to run a whole town,” Abe said. He struck a match and lit his smoke.
“Tell me about it,” Jason replied. “I been doin’ it since we got here. All I wanted to do was go back East, to college, but they wouldn’t have it.”
“Who? The citizens?”
“Yeah.”
Abe chuckled softly. “Was that after the first Apache attack?”
Jason felt his brow wrinkle. “How’d you know about that?”
“Word gets ‘round, usually without much care for the details. But I heard stories about some little town where they held off Apache by makin’ a moat outta fire.”
Without enthusiasm—having told the story or listened to somebody else retell it on countless occasions—Jason said, “That was us, all right. We still keep a supply of tar handy, just in case. Get it regular, shipped out from those tar pits in California. The ones outside Los Angeles.”
“Your idea?”
“Yeah.” Jason dug into his pocket for his fixings bag. As he took it out and fiddled with the drawstring, he said, “You can still see some’a the scorch marks out south of town, right along where the wagon train’s parked. We filled the moat back in after a while, but the ground . . .”
“That was a damn fine idea, Jason.”
“Thanks.” He lit his smoke, took a puff, and said, “Desperate times call for desperate measures. Or words to that effect.”
He heard the door opening, and swiveled toward it. It was Jenny, carrying a tray. He stood up to help her, because the tray looked heavy.
“Thank you, Jason,” she said, smiling. “Thought you gents might be thirsty, so I brought you some limeade.”
Jason set the tray down on the small table they kept on the porch. “Limes? Where’d you get limes?” He’d got his hands on a sapling last year and planted it out back, in the corral, but it wasn’t yet big enough to bear fruit.
“The wagon train, silly.” She lifted the pitcher and poured out the first glass, which she handed to Abe. As she poured the second, then the third, she added, “I don’t know where we’d be without the wagon trains that come through. They bring us all sorts of wonderful things!” She handed a glass to Jason, then picked one up herself. “Mind if I join you?”
“Not at all!” said Abe, and motioned her toward the spare chair. Jason sat down after she did. Abe took a long drink. “Right good, Miss Jenny, right good!”
“Thank you, Marshal Todd,” she said offhandedly. And then, “Jason, will Rafe be all right? Don’t you need to go get him or something?”
Jason slowly shook his head. “He knows about Davis, and I sent a note up about Gunderson. If he’s smart, he’ll just stick to that room of his. And Sam said he’d take meals up. Don’t worry, he’s well looked after.”
“That’s right, Miss Jenny. He stays in that room, he’s dead safe.”
Jenny turned toward Abe. “That’s what I’m worried about. The dead part, that is.”
“Sorry. Guess I put it the wrong way.”
“No, you didn’t, Abe,” Jason said from his chair. “Rafe is gonna be fine. We just have to figure out how to get rid of Davis and Gunderson.”
Jenny pursed her lips and made a face. “Well, Jason, can’t you just throw them out of town? I mean, you’re the marshal!”
“That’s another thing I been meanin’ to talk to you about,” Abe began. “You ain’t a marshal, you know. Technical-like, you’re the sheriff of Fury. Technical speakin’, that is.”
“Only the U.S. Marshals can be marshals?” asked Jason. He’d been suspecting it for years. He took a drag on his smoke and said, hopefully, “This mean I don’t have a job anymore?” before he exhaled a cloud of smoke.
“Oh, don’t be a fool!” snapped Jenny. She stood up abruptly and announced, “I’m going to bed. Miss Electa Morton wants me in early.” And with that, she simply took her glass of limeade and went into the house.
“Is it just me, or is she getting’ snippy?” Jason muttered, mostly to himself.
But Abraham Todd had sharp ears, it seemed. He said, “She ain’t that bad. Who’s Miss Electa Morton, anyhow?”
Jason turned toward him again. “She’s our schoolmarm. Jenny’s her assistant.”
“Interestin’.”
It is? thought Jason, but made no comment. They sat there for a little while longer, Jason finishing his smoke and limeade while Abe finished off the rest of the pitcher, and then Jason led him into the house and down the back hall to the guest room.
It wasn’t much of a guest room, he supposed, being only eight feet by ten and without a bureau, but there was a cot and a chamber pot, and nobody had complained yet about the marshal’s hospitality.
Which reminded him: Was he now supposed to take on the title of sheriff, and repaint the sign and remold the badge?
The next morning, as he sat behind his desk, Jason was still considering this. Ward, who had gone on home after a quiet night, took a complaining Wash Keogh along with him. He’d decided not to chance the ten minutes he’d miss watching the saloon by simply walking Wash back to his lodgings, and so Wash had spent the night snoozing, as an unofficial prisoner.
It looked to Jason as if they weren’t going to get much help out of Wash, if he was half as angry with Ward as he put on. Then again, you never could tell with him. Jason was a pretty fair hand at reading folks, and he could tell that Wash was withholding something or other from them, but he wasn’t going to press him. Not right now, anyway.
He had left the house before Abe was up, figuring that the man had spent a long day on a hot and dusty trail the day before, and could probably use the extra sleep. But later today, when Abe came into the office, they were going to have a serious discussion about their plans for Davis and Gunderson.
He slid a quick glance across the street, but saw nothing, as usuaclass="underline" a fact which should have comforted him, but which only filled him with additional dread. He knew they had to be dealt with—and the sooner the better—but he wasn’t looking forward to it in the slightest. He had a feeling that whatever action they decided on, the reaction to it was going to end up messy. And that was an understatement. He worried about Ward and he worried about Wash and now Abe, too. And mostly, he worried about himself—not whether he’d die, that being a distinct possibility, but whether he would acquit himself in a manner that would do honor to his father’s name.
Oh, all right, and whether he’d be forever done with the chance to go to school, back East. That chance was slipping further away every day.
Halfway through the morning, before Abe had checked in at the marshal’s office, Teddy Gunderson was waiting in the alley next to the Milchers’ church, practicing his fast draw.
That was pretty damned fast, he told himself when he outdrew the shaggy dog that crossed the alley’s mouth. And I ain’t bein’ cocky about that, neither.
A man in his profession had to be both fast and accurate, if he wanted to survive. And he had a lot to survive for. That great big bounty on Lynch was going to be the end of his career as a gun, and the beginning of his career as . . . Theodore Gunderson, San Francisco Brahmin. He had started to think about it yesterday, and at first, it had been just in fun. But then he got to kind of liking the idea.
He could picture himself groomed up slick in a silk suit, real fancy, smoking an expensive cigar in one of those big mansions, at one of those big, high-tone parties up on Nob Hill. He figured he had everything but the money. And it was just down the street, at the saloon.
He’d known that lousy bartender was lying to him. He’d figured all along that Lynch was upstairs. But he was too smart to go barging up there and banging on doors, especially with what looked like the town lawman sitting right there at one of the barroom tables.