by E. R. Slade
“I’ll be coming to get it if it don’t appear,” Buck said.
“It’ll be here. I’ll bring it myself.”
“Better come prepared to haul away your dead.”
“I’ll do that. We got a deal?”
“We got a deal.”
Hovell nodded, took one last tired look at the crowd, and then swung his horse around and rode away.
~*~
True to his word, Hovell arrived in the middle of the next afternoon driving a spring wagon. He handed over three sacks of money wordlessly. Buck sent a man to get Hastings, and set another to emptying the guns out of the wagon.
When Hastings appeared, Buck handed him the church money. “Looks like we got nothin’ more to argue about,” he said.
“If you get on the Council I’m sure we’ll find something.”
While Hastings started counting, Buck went out to help Hovell load the seven dead gunmen.
“Obliged,” said Hovell, when the last coffin was in the wagon.
“I’ve been in this Territory long enough to know how you feel,” Buck said.
“They say you was ramrod of the Box TC. Bighorn country.”
“Yep. But after the big die-up there weren’t no more outfit.”
“What made you decide to buy a blamed hardware store?”
“Wanted a quiet life.”
Hovell nodded. “Took more’n a quiet life to tame this country.”
“I know.”
“These folks don’t.”
“I know.”
“Your brand’s back in the book.”
“Obliged.”
Hovell climbed onto the wagon seat, nodded at Buck and drove away, going north. Buck figured he planned to bury the men on his ranch.
When Hastings came out of the store, money in hand, smiling, saying, “I’ve got to admit you’re the most amazing man I’ve ever met,” Buck hardly heard him. He was thinking of how little difference there really was between himself and Hovell, how easily it might have been him going home to bury a way of life that change was leaving behind.
~*~
Dressed in a new suit the tailor had delivered only this morning, with a new Stetson to top it off, and minus his gun belt, Buck went to the livery and rented the best buggy and the better of the black carriage horses. He drove south to the Parker ranch, arriving just at sunset.
It felt odd to be driving a buggy after having made the trip so often in the freight wagon. But there was no more wood to deliver and he had plans for tonight.
Mary Ellen appeared on the porch in the prettiest dress he’d ever seen. It looked new. They had supper, talking of this and that, and then her mother said she wasn’t nearly finished with a blanket she was making for a neighbor’s baby and she was anxious to get it done. She shooed them out.
Buck and Mary Ellen went onto the porch.
“It’s nice night,” Buck said, feeling awkward already. He muttered something about going for a ride in the buggy.
“That would be lovely,” she said, and they walked out to the barn. Buck hitched up the horse and helped Mary Ellen in.
He drove out onto a low hill and stopped.
“It feels like there are stars all around us,” she said softly. “Even in the creek.”
Buck turned to her, looked down into her eyes, and his mouth filled with words turned edgewise like a mouthful of knife blades. Heat rose up his neck. He’d come here bent on one essential purpose, but now that it was time to speak he couldn’t.
She smiled up at him. “Hello, Mr. Maxwell,” she said.
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