“I stopped in at the hardware store to see if Lewis had seen him.With his store being close to Rogers’s livery, I figured he might have seen something when the sheriff and his men fetched their horses.”
“And…?”
“Lewis ain’t seen nothing.But his wife had plenty to say.”
The judge motioned impatiently for Fredericks to continue.
“Mrs.Lewis says she stopped at Doc Burnett’s house this morning.You know, to check on the daughter.”
“This had better be relevant,” Patterson warned.
“She’s gone missing too.The daughter, that is.”
At that, something cold tightened in the judge’s gut.A missing doctor was troublesome.A missing young woman with connections to Doc Burnett—and now to Caleb Marlowe—was something else entirely.
“Now, coming from the East Coast,” Zeke put in, “she definitely could be up at the church.”
The judge ignored him, and Frissy again shook his head.“She…Mrs.Lewis, I mean, says she looked in at Doc’s house again at noon.The girl still wasn’t there.And when she checked Doc’s things, it looks like someone went through his cabinets and took some stuff.Medicine and such.”
“Why would Doc’s daughter go off with his medicine?”
“Maybe she didn’t go off on her own,” Zeke suggested.
“What do you mean?”
“Well, Doc’s off somewheres.If he’s tending to someone, maybe run out of his medicine.So he sends someone after getting his things, and that someone finds the daughter there.”
Frissy bobbed his head.“The only thing making sense to me is that the sheriff’s gone after Doc Burnett’s daughter.”
“How would he know the daughter’s gone missing?Did Mrs.Lewis tell him?”
“No, Judge.She says I’m the first one she told.”
“Did the girl scream bloody murder as they dragged her by the sheriff’s office?”
“I don’t think so.”
Zeke butted in.“But like I said, maybe she didn’t get dragged off, at all.”
Patterson felt his temper beginning to slip.He waved Zeke off and continued to question Frissy.“Did you speak to Rogers at the livery?Did she take Doc’s horse?”
“Malachi ain’t around either.Nor his boy, Gabriel.Just some little whelp who said Malachi was out looking for something around town.He wouldn’t say what, though.I reckoned it was better not to wait, so I came back here instead.”
“You go back to the livery and get some answers,” the judge barked.“I want to know what Malachi and his son know.If she took a horse, and when.If anyone was with her.If the sheriff asked about her.Everything.Do you hear me?”
Frissy moved with surprising speed considering his size.The door closed behind him a moment later.
Patterson wasn’t happy with all these complications.Nothing was getting accomplished.In fact, the situation was getting worse.
These damned road agents who were robbing the stagecoaches were creating havoc.The governor was getting it with both barrels from Wells Fargo, and the arrogant bastard wasn’t being shy about turning the guns on Patterson.And with all he had in the works for this coming summer and the dignitaries who’d be arriving in Elkhorn, he couldn’t allow this lawlessness to continue.
The fact that nobody was showing any success in catching these outlaws was as aggravating as it was surprising.Road agents rarely had a brain to speak of.With the right people on their trail, they always got caught.This outfit that had been robbing only the Wells Fargo stages was different.And that was troubling.But now he had Marlowe to take care of them.
If anyone could track a ghost through those mountains, it was Caleb Marlowe.Patterson disliked relying on another man’s talents so completely, but necessity made uncomfortable partners of them all.
His mind turned to the sheriff.What in the blazes was he doing?From the moment he handed Horner the tin star, he didn’t trust the man.But they needed someone wearing the badge in Elkhorn.And it was not too comforting that he was the only candidate to present himself.
“Did you see anyone else on your way back to Elkhorn?”he asked Zeke.“Like Sheriff Horner, for instance?”
