Kermit Sawyer came across the room and said to Cole, "Hell of a note, ain't it? When I was complaining about there not being any fireworks around here, I sure didn't mean for something like this to happen."
"Not your fault, Sawyer," Cole said to the Texan. "I reckon the seeds for this were planted a long time ago."
He heard the sound of the batwings being pushed open and turned around to see Nathan Smollett standing in the entrance of the saloon. The banker looked at the bodies and gulped audibly. "My God," Smollett said in a hushed voice. "I . . . I never dreamed . . . I was told there was some trouble over here, but I never dreamed . . ."
"What is it, Mr. Smollett?" Cole asked, breaking into the man's horrified reverie.
Smollett gave a shake of his head and tore his gaze away from Simone and Parker. "I. . . I just thought you'd like to know, Marshal. The ballots have all been counted, and the figures match up." The banker swallowed again, looked at Kent, and went on, "Congratulations, Doctor. You're the first mayor of Wind River."
* * *
Cole Tyler stepped out onto the boardwalk in front of the marshal's office and took a deep breath. It was amazing, he thought, how everything could change, yet still look the same. A casual visitor to Wind River would never know how different things were now than they had been a week ago.
The distant sound of hammering floated to Cole's ears. Jeremiah and some of the townspeople who had volunteered to help him were up on the knoll rebuilding the church. Closer at hand, wagons rolled by in the street, riders made their way along Grenville Avenue, and pedestrians strolled on the boardwalks. Life went on.
But not for Simone McKay.
She had been buried six days earlier, Jeremiah presiding over the service as Simone was laid to rest beside her husband. Cole felt a little uneasy about that for some reason, but it had seemed like the proper thing to do. There was plenty of gossip around town about what had happened inside the Pronghorn, but only those who had been there knew what had been said and how Simone had really died. There was an unspoken pact among them to keep the facts to themselves.
Even Michael Hatfield had resisted the temptation to print the true story in the newspaper. The Sentinel had belonged to Simone, and Michael had refused to dishonor her memory in its pages.
The problem with that, as Cole saw it, was that he wasn't sure if her memory deserved to be honored. She had been a cold-blooded killer; she had fooled everybody in town, including him, and had used all of them, manipulating them for her own purposes for over a year. Cole wasn't sure if he was ready to forgive and forget just yet.
He was brooding about that when the sound of a buggy-coming to a stop in front of the marshal's office broke into his bleak thoughts and made him look up. A grin suddenly tugged at his mouth, the first genuine smile on his face in over a week.
Judge Burl Sharp had arrived.
The circuit court judge was a burly, middle-aged man with a salt-and-pepper beard. Cole had known him for a long time, since before Sharp had been a jurist. In fact, the man had started out as a wagon train guide, back in the forties. He had taught himself the law, practiced for years as an attorney, and then been appointed to the territorial court by the governor. Despite the rough edges he still possessed from his earlier days, Sharp had a keen legal mind, and that was a good thing, Cole thought. It would take a smart fella to figure out the mess that Simone's death had left behind.
Sharp lifted a hand in greeting and called out, "Hello, Cole! Good to see you again!" Beside the big man on the seat of the buggy was his adopted daughter, the half-breed Indian girl known as Mockingbird, who traveled the circuit with him. The little girl, who was about eight years old, held out her arms to the marshal and said excitedly, "Uncle Cole!"
Cole stepped down off the boardwalk and moved to the side of the buggy, picking up Mockingbird and giving her a hug. He shook hands with Burl Sharp, then said, "I'm glad you're here, Judge. We've got a skillet full of snakes for you to untangle."
"That's what I'm here for," Sharp said heartily as he climbed down from the buggy. "Let's get to it."
* * *
The meeting took place inside the same building that had been used for the election. Chairs had been brought in so that all the people Judge Sharp had summoned could sit down while he announced his findings. This wasn't a formal session of the court, since there was no longer a murder trial for Sharp to preside over, but the people gathered here still had a solemn air about them.
Sharp sat at the table where the ballot box had been. He had a pair of reading glasses perched on the end of his nose and several pages of documents spread out in front of him. He looked up at the group and cleared his throat, obviously ready to begin.
Cole tried not to squirm in his chair. He hoped the judge didn't take too long about this. There were things he had to do.
"First of all," Sharp said in his booming voice, "I have decided not to reopen the matter of Andrew McKay's death. The case has been officially closed for more than a year, and I see no compelling reason to alter that."
Cole nodded, glad of the judge's decision. No matter what had happened in the past, McKay, Simone, Durand ,and Becky Lewis were all dead. Nothing was going to bring them back.
"The death of Hank Parker has been ruled self-defense by your local coroner, and I concur in that assessment," Sharp went on. "As for the tragic passing of Mrs. Simone McKay, a ruling of accidental death is unavoidable."
Cole agreed with that, too.
"Mr. Parker died intestate, so his holdings—primarily the establishment known as the Pronghorn Saloon—will be auctioned by the territory and sold to the highest bidder. Mrs. McKay, however, did leave a will, and the original partnership agreement between her husband and the late William Durand also comes into play." Sharp looked at Brenda Durand, who sat in the front row with her grandmother. "Miss Durand, I find that as the sole surviving heir of the original partners, ownership of the joint holdings of said partnership devolves to you. Congratulations, little lady. With a few exceptions, you own yourself a town."
Brenda blinked and tried to smile, but Cole thought she looked more scared than pleased. Quite a responsibility had just fallen on her young shoulders. He hoped she was up to the task. With her grandmother's help, maybe she would be.
Sharp went on, "There are a few codicils to this agreement that are rather irregular, but which I am going to allow anyway. Mrs. McKay wanted ownership of the properties on which the Wind River Cafe and the blacksmith shop stand to go to the operators of those businesses, Miss Rose Foster and Mr. Jeremiah Newton, respectively. Do you have any objection to that, Miss Durand?"
Brenda shook her head without hesitation, and Rose and Jeremiah, also seated in the front row, looked at each other and smiled.
"Now we come to the matter of Mrs. McKay's personal holdings, which are considerable. Mr. Hatfield?"
Michael looked up at the judge. He had been scribbling furiously on his pad of paper, trying to keep up with Sharp's rulings for the story he would write for the Sentinel. Michael had told Cole he wasn't sure what would happen to the paper, but he intended to keep publishing it until someone told him otherwise.
"Mr. Hatfield," Sharp continued, "Mrs. McKay's will specifies that you are the new owner of the Wind River Sentinel."
Michael gaped at the judge for a moment before finding his voice and saying, "Me? But . . . but I can't run the paper by myself "
"Mrs. McKay obviously believed you can," Sharp said dryly. "The newspaper is yours, Mr. Hatfield."
Cole leaned forward and clapped a hand on Michael's shoulder. "Don't worry, Michael," he said. "You'll do just fine."
Michael nodded but didn't look convinced of that.
Judge Sharp cleared his throat and said, "We've almost come to the conclusion."
Maybe so, Cole thought, but it wasn't soon enough to suit him. He had waited long enough. He stood up and said, "Begging your pardon, Judge, but since the mayor is here, can I conduct a little town business?"
Judson Kent was sitting a couple of chairs away from Cole. He looked up at the marshal with a frown of confusion and surprise on his face. Sharp didn't look pleased at the interruption, but he said, "Is this important, Marshal?"
"I think it is," Cole replied. He reached up and unpinned the badge from his buckskin shirt. "I'm resigning as the marshal of Wind River." He dropped the badge on the chair next to Kent.
Billy Casebolt had been standing at the back of the room, leaning against the wall beside the door with his arms crossed over his chest. Now he straightened abruptly, his eyes widening, and he exclaimed, "Resignin’!" You can't do that, Marshal!" His cry was echoed by several of the other people in the room.
"The hell I can't," Cole snapped. "I never intended for the job to be permanent. I stayed on here a lot longer than I ever figured I would. But now it's time to move on." He turned toward the doorway. Ulysses was at the hitch rack just outside, saddled up and ready to go.
"Wait just a moment," Kent said crisply. He stood up, the marshal's badge in his hand, and moved so that he was facing Cole squarely. "As the mayor of this community, Cole, I refuse to accept your resignation." His voice softened a little as he went on, "The town needs you, and I think you need Wind River. You've made a life here. Your friends are here."
Cole shook his head stubbornly. "Doesn't matter whether you accept my resignation or not. I'm leaving either way."
Judge Sharp spoke up, saying with a chuckle, "Well, it's not quite that simple, Cole."
Cole frowned and looked over his shoulder at the judge. "What do you mean? I don't reckon you've got any say in this, Judge."
"No, but the late Mrs. McKay does. She left you the hotel, the land development company, her house, and all the rest of her estate except the newspaper." Sharp chuckled again. "You're the first lawman I've ever seen who owned such a sizable chunk of the settlement he worked for."
Cole was thunderstruck. He couldn't have been more surprised if the heavens had fallen on him. He stared at Judge Sharp for a long moment, then finally said, "I . . . I never owned much in my life . . ."
"Well, you do now, my friend."
Judson Kent pressed the badge back into Cole's hand and smiled as he said, "You see, you can't quit. You can't just ride away from Wind River, Cole. It's your town, too."
Rose Foster stood up, moved to Cole's side, and put a hand on his arm. "It always has been, right from the first," she said quietly. "Please stay, Cole."
Billy Casebolt said, "I ain't deputyin' for anybody else, Marshal. If you ride off, I'll just have to go with you, and then Wind River'll be without any law at all."
"And I figure as long as you're around, Marshal, I'll have something to write about in the paper," Michael Hatfield put in.
Jeremiah reached out with a long arm and put his huge hand on Cole's shoulder. "I'll trust in the Lord that you'll make the right decision, Brother Cole."
Cole looked around at them, the people who had come to mean so much to him. Simone was gone, but they were still here. His friends . . . Even Brenda Durand caught his eye, smiled at him, and nodded.
For a long moment Cole was silent. Then he drew a deep breath and said, "Oh, hell—"
Before he could go on, there was a patter of footsteps on the boardwalk outside, and one of the townsmen stuck his head in the door. "Better come quick, Marshal!" the man said urgently. "Some of those boys from the Diamond S and the Latch Hook spread rode in at the same time, and I think there's going to be a gunfight!"
Cole reached out, plucked the marshal's badge out of Kent's hand, and pinned it on. "Looks like I'll be here for a while longer," he said as he turned toward the door. "Come on, Billy."
"Yes, sir!" Casebolt responded with a grin that threatened to split his grizzled face in half. The two men hurried out of the building, and Cole was grinning, too, even as he made sure his revolver was riding easy in its holster.
He was still the law in Wind River.
WIND RIVER SERIES:
The compelling frontier saga of a Wyoming town at the crossroads of destiny!
#1 WIND RIVER
No sooner does the very first train roll into Wind River than mayhem erupts, and a prominent citizen lies dead on the platform. Marshal Cole Tyler finds himself facing a ruthless killer as Wind River becomes a town with its own brand of justice.
# 2 THUNDER WAGON
Trouble is brewing in Wind River. The Irish and Chinese are up in arms, and the friendly Shoshone stand accused of stealing cattle. Marshal Cole Tyler sets out to track down the saboteurs-lighting a fuse that will set off a bloody massacre.
#3 WOLF SHADOW
A stranger brings a blizzard of trouble to Wind River. Two men are dead, and hell freezes over as Cole Tyler investigates the case. But as the bullets fly, Tyler learns it is one thing to stop the slaughter—and another to learn the truth.
#4 MEDICINE CREEK
Things don't stay peaceful for long in Wind River as an ancient Shoshone legend sparks a deadly rivalry. Cattlemen face off against each other—and the mysterious powers of Medicine Creek.
#5 DARK TRAIL
No one is laying out the welcome mat for the latest visitors to Wind River. These revenge-seeking New Orleans natives send bullets flying in a deadly showdown that could change the face of Wind River forever.
#6 JUDGMENT DAY
Not everyone is glad to see the railroad coming to Wind River. Caught in the middle of those for and those against, Marshal Cole Tyler must keep the peace even as events force him to choose sides in the battle for the future of the town.
#7 RANSOM VALLEY
The Wyoming Territory settlement of Wind River finds itself under attack by a gang of vicious outlaws. When the ruthless desperadoes take a beautiful young woman hostage, it's up to Marshal Cole Tyler and Texas cowboy Lon Rogers to pursue them and set her free . . . or die trying!
More to come
About the Authors
Lifelong Texans, James Reasoner and L.J. Washburn have been husband and wife, and professional writers for more than thirty years. In that time, they have authored several hundred novels and short stories in numerous genres.
James is best known for his Westerns, historical novels, and war novels, he is also the author of two mystery novels that have achieved cult classic status, TEXAS WIND and DUST DEVILS. Writing under his own name and various pseudonyms, his novels have garnered praise from Publishers Weekly, Booklist, and the Los Angeles Times, as well as appearing on the New York Times and USA Today bestseller lists. He recently won the Peacemaker award for his novel Redemption, Kansas. His website is www.jamesreasoner.com
Livia J. (L.J.) Washburn has been writing professionally for over 30 years. Washburn received the Private Eye Writers of America award and the American Mystery award for the first Lucas Hallam mystery, WILD NIGHT. Her story “Panhandle Freight” a Hallam story, in The Traditional West anthology, was nominated for a Peacemaker award. Her website is www.liviajwashburn.com
They live in the small Texas town they grew up in.
Westerns By James Reasoner with L.J. Washburn
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Judgement Day (Wind River Book 6) Page 21