Sheila had no choice.She lowered herself until only her face was above the surface and prayed that the trunk was enough to hide her.
“…ain’t for you to be doing no deciding,” the sheriff snapped.They were standing on the bank directly above her.“I’m running this outfit.”
“Seems like I hear that everywhere I turn, Horner.”
“Then you’d best hear it, boy.”
As the water pulled at her clothes, Sheila listened, unwilling to breathe.
“Anything you say, Sheriff.”
She’d heard Dodger say almost the same thing to Wendell in the exact same tone.
“Dammit,” Horner said finally.He shouted to the other searchers.“Forget it.Ain’t no point wasting no more time here.”
“You’re right about that,” she heard Dodger say as they moved away.“That prissy bitch won’t make it through a night in these mountains.”
Sheila waited, trembling in the icy current, until their voices faded and only the roar of the river remained.Then, silently and fiercely, she made herself a promise.She would make it through the night.She would find her father.And if God was merciful, she would live long enough to tell Caleb Marlowe everything she had seen.
ChapterTwenty-Four
Judge Patterson pacedthe area behind the desk in his office and listened to Zeke relate the story about the ambush, Caleb Marlowe’s intervention on their behalf, and the attack on the itinerant preacher.
His man Fredericks came in again just as the miner was telling about the killing of the cougar, which, as the story was being told, grew to the size of a buffalo.The miner’s tale of Marlowe killing the cat with only a knife had held the big man as transfixed as a twelve-year-old at his first girlie show.
Two things ran through the judge’s mind.Maybe he did pick the right man to go after the Wells Fargo gang.And second, it was no surprise that Jacob Bell’s legendary knife had killed a mountain lion.He should have kept the damned thing.
And there was a third thought he did not care to examine too closely.Men like Caleb Marlowe were useful right up until the moment they stopped taking orders.
The judge motioned for Zeke to stop and addressed his man.
“Did you locate the sheriff?”
Fredericks, called Frissy by everyone except the judge, had proven his worth time and time again over the past few years.Huge in proportion to most other men, he was a former head cracker at a brothel in Denver.After killing a patron, Fredericks had come before the judge.Seeing that the man had a half a brain to go with his muscle, he’d taken him into his personal employ as a bodyguard, an enforcer, and whatever other job needed to be done.He was violent and quick-tempered, but he wasn’t a fool.And he followed orders to the letter.
“He ain’t at the jail, Judge.”
Zeke chuckled.“Today being the Sabbath, maybe Horner’s up at the church.”
Frissy’s shook his huge head.“He ain’t in town.”
Patterson had sent him off for the sheriff after Zeke arrived with two bodies, his wounded partner Everett, and the mauled minister.He wanted Horner to handle the arrangements with the undertaker.“He has to be in town.What about his deputies?What do they say?”
“There’s only one of them in town, and I cornered him drinking in the Belle.He says Horner rode out before dawn this morning with three other fellows.”
“Rode out?”Patterson barked.“Where to?”
“He didn’t kn?—”
“Thatworthless sonovabitch didn’t ask my permission to go anywhere.He knows my instructions.He’s not to leave town without letting me know.”
Frissy stood with his hands hanging at his sides, his head tilted, as attentive as a hunting dog waiting for his master’s command.
“What else did the deputy say?”
“Nothing.He didn’t know nothing more than that.”
Patterson was beginning to feel the heat rising under his starched collar.“Did you ask anyone else?”
