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“Good timing, Lord Barnes,” Wayne said. “We were about to close up for a short lunch break. Care to join us?”
“I’ve eaten, but would be happy to sit with you.”
“Follow me,” Clive said as we walked to the back of the store where the brothers shared a small office.
While Wayne unpacked stacks of sandwiches and set them on the desk, Clive offered me a glass of whiskey. I politely declined. “It’s a little early for me.”
They didn’t waste any time with more niceties and launched into their reason for asking me here. “I don’t know if it means anything, but Kellam was in the saloon after Cole was killed. Drunk, as usual,” Clive said.
“Running his mouth,” Wayne said.
“About?” I asked.
Wayne unwrapped his sandwich as if it were a Christmas present. “He said he overheard Carter and some of those old men that hang around his shop playing checkers all day talking about how they were going to make sure the Cole kids didn’t show up at school.”
“He said they were getting a group together to go out and talk to Cole,” Clive said. “Set him straight that they best keep to themselves or there would be trouble.”
“What else did he say?” I asked.
“That was about it,” Clive said. “We told him he should go to the sheriff and report what he’d heard. But you know how it is with drunks. You can’t reason with them.”
“True enough,” I said.
“He doesn’t look after that daughter of his,” Clive said. “Poor little thing’s in here all the time begging for scraps.”
“She came in last week and asked if we had anything for her,” Wayne said. “She was limping and holding herself real careful, like she was hurt. I think that bastard beats her.”
Clive swallowed a bite of sandwich before continuing. “I asked if her pa had any luck hunting and she said he tried but never could get anything.”
“A drunk fool like that isn’t going to be able to hit a jackrabbit,” Wayne said.
“Anyway, we told this to the sheriff already,” Clive said.
“But we thought we better tell you, too,” Wayne said.
“We didn’t get the feeling the sheriff cared too much one way or the other,” Clive said.
I stood and prepared to go. “Thanks, gentlemen. I appreciate it.”
“Let us know if you need anything,” Clive said.
“Anything at all,” Wayne said. “As long as this stays between us. We don’t need any trouble.”
“You have my word.”
I found Sheriff Lancaster playing cards at the saloon. We made eye contact, and he gave me a slight nod. “Give me a second, Barnes.”
“Sure.”
I took a stool at the counter and made small talk with Murphy while I waited.
A few minutes later, Lancaster cursed and threw down his cards. “Too rich for me.” He stood and grabbed his cowboy hat from the rack and nodded toward the door. Outside, he tilted his head toward the sky and sniffed, like a dog on a hunt, then walked through the alley to the back of the building. I had no choice but to follow him. Lancaster wasn’t one to take direction. He’d made it quite clear my English title meant nothing to him. Nor did the fact that I owned every building in town.
Most likely from years on a horse, the sheriff walked bowlegged. His lanky, skinny frame didn’t seem inclined to move fast as he took a cigarette from his denim pants pocket and stuck it in his mouth. I wondered what he’d be like in a shoot-out. Did he draw his gun in the lazy way he walked? If so, I hoped we didn’t have any shoot-outs on his watch.
Murphy had shoveled the snow around the back side of the building as well as the front, making it a good place to talk. Lancaster leaned against the brick wall and lowered his hat, shielding his eyes from my view. With a white handlebar mustache and a face with more crevices than the volcanic rock formations I’d seen during my visits south, he was as crusty as they came.
“What do you want?” He struck a match against the brick and lit his cigarette.
