“Been waitin’ on you,” Jason said, in place of a greeting. “What’s goin’ on with Davis?”
“Got me,” replied the newly shorn Todd, who smelled too strongly of witch hazel. “I couldn’t find ’im, so I went to the barber instead.”
“Well, his horse is still at the stable.”
Todd scratched the back of his neck, probably at some stray hairs. “Well, I guess he’s disappeared, then.” He looked up the street, past Jason. “Where else is there?”
Jason thought for a second, then said, “The wagon train?”
“Worth a little hunt,” said Todd.
But when they got up by the gate, Todd didn’t turn to go outside. Instead, he said, “Hang on a second,” and walked forward, toward the schoolhouse. Or at least, what passed for a schoolhouse in Fury.
“You’re not goin’ to find him in there!” Jason yelled at his back.
“Not lookin’ for him,” Abe Todd bellowed, then stepped inside the little schoolhouse. The door closed behind him.
“You want somethin’ done right, I guess you gotta do it yourself,” Jason muttered with a frown, and strode on through the gates, out to where the wagons lined the wall.
Ezra Welk hadn’t wasted any time once he rode into Fury. He found the livery and put up his horse, then grabbed a beer at Abigail’s, which he found was practically deserted. But she gave him directions to the boardinghouse, where he was presently ensconced. Sitting in a chair beside the window, he looked out over the street below.
There was a marshal’s office—no way to tell if it was federal or local from here, anyway—and while he watched, a Catholic priest went in for a few minutes, then came out smiling and practically jigging his way up the street. And then the law came out. Local, by the looks of him. Young, too, probably green as grass.
Ezra snorted. He didn’t have anything to worry about here in Fury.
Fury. Now, that was a funny name for a town. Maybe there’d been some kind of battle here, some big whoop-up. It had to have been fought furiously, though, to earn the name, and you would’ve thought he’d have heard about it, even over in California.
Well, it was just another question to ask over at the saloon. There was one right at the end of the street, and it looked (and sounded) quite a bit more lively than Abigail’s place had been. He watched while the so-called marshal made his way out of the saloon and ambled up the street, and only then did he stand up, light himself a new smoke, and make his way downstairs and outside, to the street.
Not a third of the way down the line, Jason ran into Doctor Morelli, who looked sour and pale.
“What’s wrong?” Jason asked.
Morelli shook his head. “It’s a day for death, Jason. I have a feeling that Frank Saulk will be dead before the sun sets.”
Jason hadn’t a clue whom he was speaking about, so Morelli added, “The fellow who was hit by the saguaro?”
Now he remembered. He nodded. “Yeah. He gone septic?”
Morelli nodded. “And he’s getting worse as fast as I’ve ever seen. He’ll leave that wife and those children behind to fend for themselves. It’s a shame, a real shame.”
Solemnly, Jason nodded. “Sure is. You seen Sampson Davis today, Doc?”
The physician said, “No, I haven’t. Why?”
“No reason.” He looked down the line. “Well, got to move. See you later.”
Morelli waving him on, he set off. But by the time he reached the last wagon, there was still no Davis in evidence. Where the hell had he got to, Jason wondered as, frowning, he made his way back up to the gate. A man didn’t just disappear like that. Especially such a big man as Sampson Davis.
By the time he’d walked clear back to the office, checking in every public building along the way, he still hadn’t turned anything up. He was angry with Marshal Todd, mad at Sampson Davis, incensed by the town fathers and their damned water tower, and pretty much fit to be tied with the whole town and its situation.
“I should’ve just gone,” he muttered as he shoved his desk to one side in passing. “I should have just left ’em to take care of the Indians by themselves. They didn’t need me. They never did.” He slumped down into his chair. “I never should have turned Cleo around and come back.”
He closed his eyes and images flooded into his head, images of what should have been: him having a laugh with some boys outside the school library, him checking the grade sheets and finding nothing but “A’s” beside his name, him applying for a position and shaking hands with the president of the company, him getting married. But the girl he pictured, the woman who became his wife, was Megan MacDonald. And when they rode home after the wedding, it was to Fury and the little house on Second Street, where he lived now.
He gave up. Fury had taken root in his fantasies, and there was no killing it, no stopping it now.
Thoroughly cowed by himself, he put his head down on the desk and tried to will himself dead, but it didn’t work. Instead, he suddenly sat bolt upright.
He knew where Sampson Davis was.
He’d thought Davis would be back at the boardinghouse, shut up in his room with no one the wiser, but he was wrong. Not only did Mrs. Kendall say she hadn’t seen him, but when she let him up to check the room, it was so empty of Davis that the place practically echoed.
He had run into the final wall, and hard.
But when he went back outside after that humiliating little hunt, Abe Todd practically ran smack into him on the sidewalk.
“Where’ve you been?” he asked, a little more huffily than he would have liked.
“Out lookin’ for you,” Abe replied. “Where you been?”
“Outside, siftin’ through the wagons, lookin’ for Davis.”
“No luck?”
“Nope.”
Abe shifted his weight from one leg to the other. “Well, come with me, then.”
He started on down the walk, with Jason tagging at his heels like a pet dog.
He reminded himself of the dog, Hannibal, who, most of the time, had been given free rein of the town these past few days. He didn’t like it, and he made himself catch up with Abe, then matched him, stride for stride.
“Where we goin’?” he asked.
“Saloon.”
Jason put on the brakes and Abe stopped, too, looking curiously at him. He said, “What?”
“I’m not off duty, yet.”
Abe laughed. “Hell, Jason, I ain’t askin’ you there for a drink! We’re just takin’ a look-see.”
“I was in there earlier. He’s not there,” Jason insisted.
“People move around.”
“Oh, all right,” Jason said in disgust, and started walking again.
Davis was in the saloon, all right, sitting at a back corner table all alone, and slogging down whiskeys like they were sarsaparillas. A glance up to the second-floor balcony showed Rafe’s door was closed, which Jason profoundly hoped meant that Rafe was locked up inside it.
“Don’t worry,” said Abe when he followed Jason’s line of vision. “I told him to stay put in there.”
“Like you think he’ll listen.”
“He listened.” And then he steered Jason back to an empty table. “I’m gonna go have a few words with your friend, Davis.” He quirked his mouth while he checked Jason’s position. “You got a clear line’a fire from that chair?”
Jason checked, and nodded.
“Keep an eye peeled.” Abe took off for Davis’s table.
Jason watched while Abe approached and pulled out a chair across from Davis, his back to the room, as if he owned the place in general and Davis’s table in particular. He couldn’t make out Davis’s face, but something told him that Davis wasn’t too happy with the situation.
Abe leaned forward and started to talk, and the words, while Jason couldn’t hear them, appeared to be delivered in a sharp, no-nonsense manner.