can’t just go around makin’ laws and expectin’ the rest of us to abide by ’em,” Jolene protested, drawing herself up in righteous indignation.
“I imagine the town council will support it,” Rowdy replied.
“If that don’t beat all,” Jolene marveled. “Ol’ Quincy was a piece of work—I had to pay him fifty cents a week just to stay clear of my place—but I figure you just might be worse.”
Rowdy smiled. “I won’t be staying clear of your place,” he said. “I might even sit in on a hand of poker now and then.”
Jolene narrowed her eyes. “You gonna put any kind of nick in my pocketbook, Mr. Rowdy Rhodes-Ordinance?”
“Nope,” Rowdy said.
A slow grin spread across Jolene’s pockmarked, sallow face. “Well, now,” she said. “Looks like we’re all in for a time of it.”
“Looks that way,” Rowdy agreed affably. He cocked a thumb over his right shoulder. “Who do I talk to about buying the place on the other side of the back fence?”
Jolene told him, and half an hour later, he was a man of property.
5
PA’D SADDLED UP and gone off someplace, in the middle of the night. Bent over a book at his desk in the back of the big schoolroom, Gideon couldn’t take in the words he was supposed to be reading. He just kept remembering.
He’d awakened out of a sound sleep, hearing noises he thought were coming from the shed out behind the saloon, gotten up out of his bed, pulled on his clothes and boots, and headed out there to investigate.
And there was Pa, dressed to ride a distance, fastening his rifle scabbard to the saddle. His gelding, Samson, snorted and tossed his big head, eager to be away.
“You go on back inside, Gideon,” Pa’d said. He wore his round-brimmed hat, and there was a bandana tied loosely around his neck. Under his long coat, he wore a gun belt, with a holster on either side. The pearl handle of one of his .45s flashed in the gloom as he swung up onto the horse.
“Let me go along, Pa,” Gideon had said, at the edge of pleading. “I can get a horse over at the livery stable—”
“You stay here and look after Ruby,” Pa replied. He’d clamped an unlit cheroot between his strong, white teeth, and he shifted it from one side of his mouth to the other, looking as though he might ride Gideon down if he didn’t get out of the way.
If there’d ever been a woman who didn’t need looking after, it was Ruby Hollister. She kept a loaded shotgun behind the bar, and everybody in Flagstaff knew she wouldn’t hesitate to use it. No, sir. She would not be requiring Gideon’s protection.
“At least tell me where you’re off to, Pa,” Gideon had argued.
“That’s none of your never-mind,” Pa had answered, narrowing his chilly blue eyes with impatience. “Now, step aside.”
Gideon stood his ground for a long moment, but in the end, he couldn’t prevail against his pa’s hard stare. “When’ll you be back?” he’d asked.
Pa hadn’t said anything in response. He’d just nudged the gelding into motion with the heels of his boots—not the fancy ones he usually wore, Gideon noticed, but the light, supple kind, made for moving fast, but soled for hard going.
Gideon had moved out of the shed doorway, lest he be trampled, and Pa had bent low over the saddle to avoid knocking his head as he passed through.
He’d vanished into the darkness, the hooves of his horse beating on the hard dirt, the sound growing fainter as he gained the road.
When the cold of that winter night finally penetrated Gideon’s awareness, he’d gone inside. Shed his boots and lain down on top of his bed in his clothes, staring up at the ceiling, knowing he wasn’t going to sleep.
At breakfast, Ruby had been pale and unusually fidgety.
Gideon had been bursting with questions, but he hadn’t dared put a one of them to her. When Ruby didn’t want to talk, the devil and ten red-hot pitchforks couldn’t make her do it.
Now, sitting in the schoolroom, he felt restless, as though there were something else he ought to be doing, and wasn’t.
He thought about Rowdy, the brother he barely knew.
You ever need any help, you’ll find me boarding at Mrs. Porter’s, over in Stone Creek.
A hand came to rest on Gideon’s shoulder just as he was recalling that conversation for the hundredth time, nearly scaring him right out of his hide. He wasn’t commonly the jumpy sort, and it embarrassed him mightily, the way he’d started. He felt his neck and face go warm.
“You’re not concentrating, Gideon,” Miss Langston said good-naturedly, smiling down at him. She was about a thousand years old, short and square of build, a phenomenon that had confounded him until Ruby had explained the mysteries of a lady’s corset. “It’s too early for spring fever, but I’ll vow, you’re already afflicted.”
Gideon tried to smile, because he liked Miss Langston. She was briskly cordial, and never made sly remarks about Ruby or his pa, like a lot of folks did. And she’d attended Rose’s funeral, too, he remembered. Cried into a starched hanky with lace trim around the edges.
“I’ve got some trouble at home,” he confided, keeping his voice down so he wouldn’t have to fight later, out in the schoolyard. He’d never lost a one of those battles, but, as his pa liked to say, there was no shortage of idiots in the world. There was always somebody ready to take him on.
Pa’d had things to say about that, too.
Pa.
“You’d best go and see to things there, then,” Miss Langston said, kindly and quietly. When he hesitated, she prodded him with, “You’re excused, Gideon.”
He fairly knocked his chair over backward, getting to his feet.
You ever need help—
Did he need help? He didn’t know.
He couldn’t have explained why he felt so nervous and scared. Something was bad wrong, though. He was sure of it. The knowledge stung in his blood and buzzed in his brain.
He ignored the quizzical stares of the other pupils—they ranged from tiny girls in pigtails to farm boys strong as the mules they rode to town—and shot out of the schoolhouse, down the steps, across the yard. He vaulted over the picket fence and sprinted for the livery stable four streets over.
* * *
ROWDY PLACED AN ORDER down at the sawmill, bought a hammer, a keg of nails, and some other tools at the mercantile, paid extra to have them delivered, Pardner tagging along behind him. Then, figuring he ought to do some marshaling, since he was getting paid for it, he walked the length of Center Street, speaking quietly to folks as he passed, touching the brim of his hat to the ladies.
He looked in at the bank and the telegraph
