Leaning back against a bench to the right, Ginny gazed at the small black chips jumping small red chips or vice versa. Then the other chips died or were piled on top of each other. A dreadfully simplistic game.
Digging into her satchel, she pulled out her brown notebook. Some old case work and several theories on the plum preserve case filled the first half of the pages. She flipped to the back page.
In block letters, the words eliminate Cal Westwood topped the page with a score board underneath. Point one for her, intoxicating Cal, albeit accidentally. Point two for her, planting Fluffy in his boarding house. Point three for her, convincing Cherry to set her cap at Cal. Point four, getting him involved with Mrs. Clinton and The Temperance League. No, make that point five. Being on the bad side of Mrs. Clinton and The Temperance League definitely counted as two points.
Ginny moved her finger to Cal’s side of the grid. Point one for Cal, convincing Uncle Zak that gang cases were too dangerous for her. Point two for Cal, since he’d wormed his way into their home so he could provoke her in the mornings and evenings as well as all day long. The score sat at five to two. But was Uncle Zak convinced she was the better candidate for sheriff?
The bench shifted as Uncle Zak crashed down next to her. “Got to get off this leg.” Twisting, he hitched his foot up on the edge of an abandoned table.
“Are you all done with work, then?”
“Just waiting on Cal.”
Cal. Now that was a name to make any heart turn red-hot irritated. Only, he had trained in law enforcement, and she hadn’t, and he acted like that was the end-all be-all of sheriff preparedness. Taking one last bite, she offered Uncle Zak the last half of her raspberry ice cream. He smiled and accepted.
“Uncle Zak.”
He glanced at the checkers players on the other side of the general store front. “Yes, honey.”
She dug back into the bench. “Did you go to academy before becoming sheriff?”
“Academy?” He laughed. “I learned to keep people safe without book knowledge. Not that those newfangled academies aren’t excellent. Why, just look at Cal. But you don’t need an academy to pull a trigger or wear a badge.”
Good. She settled back in the bench. Because she wasn’t completely convinced that even she could talk her way into an academy, and she wouldn’t want that fact to jeopardize her spot as next town sheriff. “Where did you learn strategy and law enforcement?”
From the south side of town, Cal strode up the street. His shirtsleeves were rolled up to his elbows and he still wore chaps.
Ginny narrowed her eyes. Just where had he been riding? Also, why didn’t they make chaps for petticoats? It was completely inequitable. He looked stunning in chaps. Rugged, tough, lawman-like. How was she ever to win the sheriff election with him looking the part?
He didn’t swagger as he walked, but that confident Texan stride with two colt revolvers at his hips came pretty close.
No, no, no! Ginny flung herself back against the bench. She only prayed he didn’t know how to shoot those revolvers well. Otherwise she’d have an uphill battle on her hands to win the election.
One of the men at the checkers table called out to Cal. “Come on over. Show us what a Texan can do.”
With a glance at Uncle Zak, Cal slid into the checkers table across from Mr. Clinton.
Shifting his leg again, Uncle Zak took a bite of the iced cream. “Law enforcement training, hmm…I got my first rifle from my pa when I was just six. Learned shooting while freeing the ranch of coons.”
“What about strategy?” She kept one eye peeled in Cal’s direction just in case. His black checkers hopped Mr. Clinton’s red ones at a surprising rate. Cal leaned in over the table.
“There’s strategy all around you in life if you just stop to look.” Uncle Zak raised his spoon.
“Yes?” Twisting on the bench, she adjusted her view so she could see Uncle Zak and Cal without the falling sun assaulting her eyes.
Now Mr. Clinton had lost and one of the men playing checkers slapped Cal on the back. The man’s voice was gravelly. “No one’s beat John since last June. Where’d you learn to play?”
With a smile, Cal leaned back against splintery wood. “Won first in my town’s Law Enforcement Checkers Competition.”
“Take the farmers. They look at the sun and the creeks and the almanac to know when to plant and when to harvest,” Uncle Zak recaptured her attention. “As a lawman, you have to read people like that. Know which ones you can trust, which ones just need some help through a bad time, and which ones are trouble.”
“Oh.” She scrunched her brow together. That sounded doable.
“The Bible’s got a lot of law officer strategy, too. Look at Gideon and his scare strategy with those Midianites. Or what about Jehu and his brilliant ruse to kill that king?” Uncle Zak dropped his leg from the table.
Quite true. She should brush up on her 1 and 2 Kings knowledge, only every time she flipped open a Bible the Psalms and Proverbs looked so much more inviting.
“It’s also got negative examples like in 2 Samuel 10 when David sent those messengers, and the foreign ruler cut their clothes and shaved half their beards. Ended up getting himself killed by King David. Never treat a messenger like that.”
A breeze blew in from the mountains, flapping the pages of her notebook. She stuffed it back into her satchel. “It could be a good idea sometimes.”
The last spoonful of ice cream disappeared from Uncle Zak’s bowl. “Like when?”
“Maybe if you wanted to alienate the criminals? Stir up division between messenger and leader.”
Setting down the bowl, he tilted his head. “Well, the Israelites weren’t exactly going to turn against their king.”
“A gang messenger might turn against the gang leader.” Picking up the satchel, she tucked it on her lap. If Cal was quite done beating people at checkers, it was high time she got home.
“True.”
“What if you were trying to get the messenger so scared that he wouldn’t pay attention when you tracked him back to his criminal lair?” Her gaze shifted to the checkers table again. Cal was prying himself away, but with a slowness painful to watch. That tray of cinnamon rolls she’d been planning on making tonight might have to wait if they didn’t head back soon.
“It’s a possibility.” Uncle Zak drew his brows together.
A black-haired man with scrubby sideburns started down the street. Laying eyes on her and Uncle Zak, he scurried down an alley, or the closest thing to an alley Gilman had: the backyard of Miss Lilac’s house.
“Who was that?” Cal stood next to her. He eyed the scuttling stranger with suspicion.
She eyed Cal suspiciously right back. “That’s just Charles.”
“Where’s he live?” Cal nudged the grip of his beautiful revolver.
“Charles is not a suspect.” Coveting was wrong. Ginny repeated the words under her breath, but oh what a beautiful revolver Cal had.
“Then why does he turn tail at the sight of the law?” The sinking sunlight caught Cal’s star, flashing light.
“Just a personal matter with Uncle Zak, nothing illegal.” Ginny’s stomach twisted up from trying too hard not to covet. Someday that star would be hers.
Scooping up the ice cream bowl, Uncle Zak set it on Peter’s washing tray. “Ready to go?”
“Yeah.” Gaze still on Charles’s disappearing back, Cal nodded.
~*~
Cal stood in Sheriff Thompson’s office.
“How did the posse work out?” Sheriff Thompson’s desk chair creaked as he leaned back.
Posse? As in the one man he found to ride to the hills with him? Now that Peter was in, Robert backed out. Cal pointed to the bars behind the sheriff. “Rather not say in front of him.”
Sheriff Thompson glanced back to the bar-lined wall and Silas behind it. “Oh, yes.” Scooping up a deck of playing cards from the worn wood of his desk, Sheriff Thompson clomped over to the jail door. “Sorry I didn�
�t get a chance to play you that round of rummy. Law enforcement’s busy these days.”
With one grimy hand, Silas rubbed at the moistness in his eye.
“Maybe tomorrow.” The sheriff inserted the key in the lock.
Silas’ face brightened. “Tomorrow’s good. Maybe this time I’ll beat you.”
The door hinges creaked as Sheriff Thompson opened the door wide for Silas. “If you want to win, you’d better do like I’ve been telling you and stay further away from those mind-addling spirits.”
His gaze on the floor, Silas stuck his hands into the holes in his baggy gray pants. “I know, Sheriff, but it’s jist so hard.”
“Get along now. I’ve got business to attend to.” Sheriff Thompson motioned Cal to take the seat across the desk. “So, posse?”
After Silas’ back had safely disappeared through the front door, Cal leaned forward. “We didn’t find much in the foothills, but just north of the mine we happened upon an abandoned camp site, embers still dry. It was probably deserted the day after last week’s rain at the latest.”
A calculating expression on his face, the sheriff tapped the wood of his desk. “Could have been anybody. Ranchers. Loafers.”
Cal nodded. “I also found this.” He held up a canteen with an etched longhorn on it. “This is a gang symbol.”
“A gang symbol of what? It looks like a tic-tac-toe board.”
“Granted this gang member was not the artist of the group. But it’s a longhorn, and that’s the Silverman gang’s symbol.”
The sheriff raised one hand, palm up. “The man could have just ranched long horns.”
“Do you etch sheriff’s offices on your canteen?”
Sheriff Thompson put his hands behind his head and settled into his seat. “True. So if that was a gang campsite, what do you suggest we do about it?”
“Wait. We don’t have the location of their new site, and going in half-cocked is a good way to get your townsfolk killed.”
“Not to mention yourself.” A little crease of a smile crinkled around Sheriff Thompson’s lips.
Cal shrugged. “I’m a lawman.”
“We like to keep our lawmen alive around here.”
Mrs. Clinton sure didn’t. She’d kill a lawman just by talking to him, which reminded him, Temperance League tonight. He stifled a groan.
“Speaking of which, I appreciate how you’ve taken the time to connect with the town. Everyone here’s taken a liking to you.”
They liked him? What did they do to people they disliked? Cal turned his face away to hide his open-mouthed stare.
“How about you? What do you think of the town?”
Hands on his knees, Cal weighed his words one sand grain at a time. “It’s…very…”
“Why, what am I saying? You’ve been working so hard I bet you’ve scarcely had a chance to see the town.” The sheriff shifted forward in his seat. “Our Fourth of July picnic is coming up in two weeks. That will be the perfect time to get the local flavor. Who are you taking to the picnic?”
Taking? Preferably nobody. But that didn’t seem to be an option in the town of Gilman.
“You should ask Ginny. She’d love to show you around the picnic grounds, introduce you to folks.”
Yeah. She’d love to lace his lemonade with strychnine. “I don’t know, Sheriff.” Cal stood.
“Don’t know what? Have you already asked someone else?”
Cherry’s bouncing black curls and eerie giggle came to mind. Had he asked her? He didn’t think he had, even on that one night when he’d been intoxicated by Ginny’s poison. The events of that night were a bit fuzzy in his brain, but he had some faith in his own common sense. Even in the midst of a coma he doubted he’d be stupid enough to ask Cherry to anything. But somehow, she’d gotten the impression he had. More to the point, so had Mrs. Clinton.
“Um, possibly, sir.” Cal coughed.
“If it doesn’t work out, you go right along and ask Ginny. You both need the time off work to think of social activities, all right?”
Cal tried to think of a tactful way to express his distaste for the sheriff’s nearest female relative. The sheriff waited expectantly.
Cal looked to the floor. On the right corner wall, a spider kidnapped a fly.
“What do you say?”
One glance to the window revealed a scrawny cactus that had crept into the grass surrounding the office.
“Uh, sure.” As much as he loathed Ginny, he didn’t care to explain that to her uncle.
Now he really had to go with Cherry, if only to live past the Fourth of July.
~*~
Leaning over his desk, Cal peered at the telegram from Houston. Found Bloody Joe’s counterfeiting operation stop. Site abandoned stop. Intercepted map of silver mine in your area stop. Also found your name listed stop. Your identity may be compromised stop.
The early evening sun streamed in from the window behind, baking his desk. He fingered the edge of the telegram. Nothing he hadn’t guessed at already in this telegram except for the possible identity leak. Ever since the Silverman gang had sworn revenge on the Houston gang division, the force had taken care to keep their identities a secret. If Bloody Joe knew who he was, he would send men to kill him. Cal gripped his pistol.
Would Houston send out reinforcements if needed? With the luck he’d been having forming a posse, reinforcements would certainly be welcome. But no, this wasn’t Texan jurisdiction.
He scowled. Everywhere should be Texan jurisdiction; it would make America a better place.
“You’re late.”
Cal’s gaze shot up from the desk. In the doorway stood Ginny Thompson. The sun shined on her straw bonnet as she tapped the floor with her boot.
“Late for what?”
Her brown eyelashes swept up from her eyes. Her lashes fell on the shorter side, more determined than dreamy. “The Temperance League.”
Right. He slammed back in his chair and surveyed the faint pink that colored Ginny’s cheeks. For a few sweet hours, he’d actually managed to forget.
“You have to come. Uncle Zak said so, and he’s your professional superior.”
Yes, because Mr. Clinton was crucial to the case and thus Mrs. Clinton was, too. As for superior, Texas Rangers outranked sheriffs of Podunk towns hands down.
If he told her that he was a member of the most prestigious law enforcement agency in the nation, would that make those scornful green eyes find a shade of respect? Perhaps make those taut red lips loosen into a smile as the news had done to many other young women whenever a Texas Ranger passed through a town. He clamped his jaw shut. Ginny Thompson’s admiration was not something he needed.
She strode forward, high-heeled boots making clickety-clack sounds on the hardwood. Placing both hands firmly on the back of his chair, she tugged it. “Now.”
If Ginny Thompson had this much time to plague his world, she clearly did not have enough to do. Would that she’d get a hobby or…perhaps he could make the Temperance League just as unpleasant for her as it was for him.
~*~
Cal walked under the pine doorframe of the schoolhouse. Inside, a considerably less Arabian-night aura reigned.
“You came!” Squirming through a score of elderly ladies, Cherry bobbed up beside him, black hair bouncing.
“Now, Cherry, give the man some breathing room,” Miss Lilac said from her seat in the corner. A black veil hung askew from her hat, and the fabric along with her crocheted gloves gave a Dickens novel appearance to the outfit.
“Order in the meeting. Order I say!” Mrs. Clinton hit the Temperance League gong, which had reappeared since Sunday service along with a gavel that seemed even larger and more ostentatious than last meeting.
He slipped into one of the double desks in the back. His knees scrunched against the back of a bustle protruding from the desk in front of him. Women packed the room, which was full enough to make even the evening breeze stuffy. His gaze moved over in time to see Cherry settling on the midd
le of the bench. If she had stuck to her side, he would have had at least two inches of personal space. Hereafter, when he attended Gilman gatherings, he would choose a single seat.
“Mr. Westwood!” Mrs. Clinton’s voice rose to a range suited to cattle herding. “I have now called your name three times. I shall not say it again.”
If only he believed that…
His gaze rose to the stage. “Here, ma’am.”
“Obviously. I might point out that punctuality is a virtue. Not that you have any to spare.”
The pouches around Mrs. Clinton’s neck tightened with severity, but if he grimaced every time Mrs. Clinton said something absurd, his face would be permanently frozen that way by the time he got out of Gilman.
Folding her hands on the podium, Mrs. Clinton looked down at him. “Tell us about your progress this week.”
“Um…” He searched the recesses of his brain. “Twenty-four hours after I drank your tonic, I was able to hold down food again.”
Mrs. Clinton wrinkled her face. “I guess I didn’t make it strong enough.” She turned to Miss Lilac. “Record in the Temperance League minutes that we need to create a stronger formula.” Then she moved her disapproving gaze back to him. “What else?”
Cal inched half off his side of the bench so he could at least breathe without accidentally jabbing an elbow into Cherry’s bosom. “Nothing.”
“Just as I expected. You obviously need someone to hold you accountable.” She scanned the audience. “Yes, Ginny?”
Swiveling in his seat, he narrowly avoided Cherry’s flounced skirt, only to be bombarded by the sight of Ginny’s tanned hand raised high above the group of eager faces.
“I would like to volunteer to hold Mr. Westwood accountable, Mrs. Clinton.”
His head fell into his hands, elbows striking the desk with the force of the movement. No, this couldn’t be happening. If only the gang had come to the Utah territory instead of Colorado, he would have had multiple shots at winning over the silver mine proprietor’s wife.
“That sounds like an excellent idea, Ginny. You shall bring bi-weekly reports to the league and be prepared to share a five-to-ten-minute summarization of Mr. Westwood’s progress, or lack thereof, next meeting.”
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