by Deborah Camp
“She appears to have most of the men in here entranced.”
“Oh, yes! She has every randy buck in the county vying for her attention. Truthfully, I think she’s too much for most of these clodhoppers.” He made a dismissive gesture. “Don’t let what she said bother you any. She’s loyal to old Otis, that’s all.”
“He’s well liked in town?”
“Yes and no. Otis Gentry is a good man, but he’s gone soft on the Pullmans and people don’t like that.” He leaned back in his chair as a small, birdlike woman approached them. “Good morning, Agnes. I’ll have my usual.”
The aging server placed her hands on her narrow hips. She wore a gray dress and a bright red bib apron over it. “Gravy and biscuits with sausage,” she said, then looked at Dalton. “And what about you, handsome?”
Dalton smiled. “Flapjacks with a side of bacon.”
She winked at him. “Blueberry flapjacks. They’re so good they’ll make your stomach purr like a kitten.” With a cackle, she spun about and made her way to the swinging door that presumably led to the kitchen.
“That’s Agnes Chappelle. She’s worked here since before the war broke out. Lost her two sons in it and her mister died ten years back.” He drank some coffee and smacked his lips appreciatively. “Don’t you worry, Marshal Moon. It’s a friendly town and most folks are glad you’re here.”
“When’s the next council meeting?”
“Thursday night at the Freemason’s Lodge on Bugle Street.”
“I’d like to attend and tell the council how I work and what to expect. Folks might be glad I showed up now, but it won’t stay that way. You should be prepared for confusion, anger, and resentment. Before things get better around here, there will be stomping and cussing and threats flying every which way.” He shrugged. “That’s how it goes.”
“That’s what I figured. The meeting is at seven. I’ll be glad to give you the floor so you can have your say.” His round face split into a wide grin. “Aside from you stirring up a hornet’s nest everywhere you go, I imagine your work must be right exciting. Bet you have pretty gals swarming around you. We have some fine looking unattached females here in Far Creek. They’ll be finding ways to make your acquaintance soon enough.”
Dalton smiled, but added nothing to the subject of women. He didn’t pine for female company, it was true, but it was just as true that he was careful not to get too attached to anyone. His life was a rolling stone. “It can be exciting, yes, and dangerous.”
“How’d you get so fast with your gun?”
He fashioned a half-smile and gave the answer he’d given countless times to that question, “Practice, good eyesight, and ice in my veins.” He drank some coffee. It was strong, just as he liked it. “Tell me about Pullman.”
“Junior makes his own rules and expects us all to live by them. If we don’t, he finds ways to make us suffer.”
“I heard something about that. He’s never been charged or arrested?”
“No. Junior is careful not to get caught, you see. His hold on this town has gotten worse and worse. Looks like Trey is following in his footsteps.”
“Trey,” Dalton repeated.
“That’s right. Nicolas Pullman the Third. He goes by Trey.”
“Ah.” Dalton nodded. “That’s why his father is still called Junior.”
“Senior was hard to get along with, but Junior tops him. When he was younger, Junior was a blowhard and a bully, but now he’s a tyrant and a menace.”
Dalton bobbed a shoulder in a callous shrug. “It’s like my pa used to say, ‘Give a man enough inches and he’ll become a ruler.’”
The Pullman Ranch was immense, covering several thousand acres of good, flat, grazing land. Pullman’s land began roughly eight miles from town, making it one of Far Creek’s closer neighbors. His cattle looked fat and profitable. Dalton spotted wranglers working the herds and they all gave him good, long looks as he rode by. He figured one or two had spurred their horses ahead to alert the boss of his imminent arrival.
On the ride to the ranch house, Dalton went over what he wanted to say, how he’d approach the man, and how much guff he’d take if Pullman was half the bastard he figured he’d be. When he’d mentioned to Otis Gentry that he was riding out that morning to meet Pullman, Gentry’s lined face had paled and he’d become visibly agitated. He’d even tried to dissuade Dalton from confronting the man.
“Junior don’t like for folks to come visiting without an invitation,” Otis had cautioned. “I’d wait until he comes calling on you. He’ll be in town in a few days and I’m sure he’ll stop in to make your acquaintance.”
He’d noted the worry and fear in the deputy’s eyes and words. Gentry reminded Dalton of a snake-bit horse. Pullman was the snake and Gentry had learned to watch out for him and stay well clear of him. But Dalton had no fear of snakes like Junior Pullman. He wanted to get a jump on Pullman, especially after yesterday speaking with two railroad agents.
Morey Steiner and Edward Shoal had nothing encouraging to report about Junior Pullman. They said the man had been openly hostile to them and had ordered them to stay off his land.
“He’s a first-class ass,” Shoal had asserted.
“There’s no reasoning with him,” Steiner had added, his eyes growing large behind his spectacles. “You do what he says or hit the road before he shoots you out of the saddle.”
“He drew on you?” Dalton had asked, surprised.
“No, but he threatened to,” Steiner had answered. “And I sure wouldn’t put it past him.”
“Me, either,” Shoal had added, wiping his shiny forehead with his handkerchief as if recalling the confrontation had made him break out in sweat again. “He’s got this town so buttoned up, he could get away with murder.”
“Not anymore,” Dalton had assured them. “I’ve already spoken to your bosses at the railroad and I’ve told them that I’ll do what’s necessary to keep the peace while you railroad scouts are here. You report to me any trouble you have with Pullman or anyone else and I’ll take care of it.”
“It’s not like we haven’t run into surly types before,” Shoal had said. “We’re either celebrated or booed when we come to a new place. Once in a while landowners kick up dust, but once we explain that we’re scouting and not making any decisions about anything, they back off. Pullman came at us like he was ready to blow our heads off before we could even say ‘howdy.’”
“Like I said, report any problems to me.”
They’d given him dubious looks, but had shaken his hand in gratitude. Their reticence to believe that he could handle Pullman had piqued his curiosity even more and he’d decided to meet Junior as soon as possible. Might as well get it over with and take the measure of the man himself. He’d stood up to men who had no conscience, no faith in anything but themselves, and no regret for any blood they’d spilled. He figured that he wouldn’t be surprised by anything Pullman did or said. Junior Pullman might think he was the meanest, scariest, most dangerous man in these parts, but Dalton was fairly certain he’d butted heads with worse specimens, and not just as a marshal, but as a soldier, too. The war had created many hard-hearted, cheating, lying, murdering marauders who were roaming about still wreaking havoc in people’s lives.
The ranch house came into view – a sprawling structure with a long front porch. Chickens clucked near the front steps, carefully picking around a slumbering, orange cat. Clothes lines full of flapping sheets and men’s white shirts stood off to the right, and to the left were a well house and windmill. He slowed Soldier to a slow walk as they grew nearer. When they were a yard or two away, the black screen door opened and a balding man dressed in dark pants, shiny boots, and a blazingly white shirt with the sleeves rolled up to his elbows emerged. His smile was more of a smirk. He held a rifle in his right hand.
“You lost, pilgrim?” he asked, squinting one eye. His voice was deceptively soft and cordial.
“No, sir. I’m Dalton Moon. Are you Mr. Pullman?�
� he asked, knowing the answer.
“I am. You’re interrupting my day.” He hefted the rifle, but didn’t aim it. Just held it loosely at his side. “If you’re here to introduce yourself, you’ve done it. You can git now.”
Dalton didn’t like the way the man kept smirking like everything was funny to him or that he thought himself an amusing wit and everyone was the butt of his jokes.
“I suppose you’ve heard that I’m the marshal in Far Creek now.”
Pullman looked down at the toes of his boots and chuckled. “What’s wrong with the one they got? Where does that town council get the money to pay for a marshal and a deputy.” He squinted at Dalton again. “Guess I’ll have to look into that. Don’t seem right somehow.”
Dalton shook his head a little. He had no doubt that Pullman knew that the town business owners had agreed to chip in money every month to pay his wages. Obviously, that didn’t sit well with him. “You take a keen interest in the goings on in Far Creek, do you?”
The skin around Pullman’s thin lips tightened. “I do when it suits me.”
From the corner of his eye, Dalton saw a woman at the side of the house, but she darted back out of sight. She peeked around the corner, careful not to be seen by Pullman. Soldier shifted and his ears swiveled. Dalton sensed that several men on horseback had come up slowly and quietly to spread out behind him. Not too close, but close enough to make Soldier scrape his front hooves on the ground in agitation.
“Why’d you come here? Shouldn’t you be in town doing your job, whatever it is?” Pullman asked, still smirking.
“Your ranch hands have been making a nuisance of themselves when they’re in Far Creek. I wanted to make it clear that they’ll pay for their transgressions from now on.” He stared hard at Pullman, watching as his smirk changed into a sneer. Resting his hand on the back of his saddle, he twisted around enough to face the riders behind him. “Anybody who destroys property or causes injury to another person will go to jail and appear in court before the circuit judge.” He swung his attention back to Pullman and noticed that the woman was still standing at the edge of the porch, watching.
Pullman lifted his left hand and motioned for her. “Come here, honey lamb. Meet the new town marshal. Be careful not to break any laws, Carmella love, or he’ll throw your pretty self into his big, bad jail!”
The men behind Dalton snickered as the woman stepped onto the porch and slipped her hand in Junior’s. She was a black-haired, doe-eyed, beauty in her forties. Tall and shapely, she stood shoulder-to-shoulder with Pullman. Dalton could see Spanish blood in her chiseled cheekbones and coffee-colored skin.
“This here is the missus,” Pullman said, eyeing her with pride. “She’s beautiful, isn’t she? And she’s mine. Isn’t that right, Carmella?”
“Si, Junior.”
With a gloating glint in his eyes, Junior motioned with his rifle. “You go on back to town, Marshal Moon. We don’t tolerate trespassers on the Pullman Ranch, so don’t come calling again unless you’ve been extended an invite. This is the only warning you’ll get.” He chuckled as if he found Dalton amusing. Turning, he escorted his wife ahead of him into the house. The door slammed shut behind him.
Dalton stared at the door for almost a full minute as his heartbeats drummed in his ears. He thinks he’s invincible, which makes him even more dangerous. Junior Pullman had gotten away with so much throughout his life that he answered to no laws except for his own. He used his smirking countenance like a weapon to make men want to take a swing at him so that he could have an excuse to retaliate, even kill them.
Reining Soldier around, he tapped him into a trot as he eyed the men on horseback who had arrived to back up their boss. They were ready to do whatever was necessary the moment Pullman gave them the signal. Damned fools, following a man who would sell them out in the blink of an eye. He wondered if any of them were Trey. Did Trey work alongside them or did he stick close to his father?
He used the ride back to sort through the various ways he would handle whatever trouble the Pullman bunch might kick up. He was less than a mile from town when the flash of red among the trees alongside the road caught his attention. Soldier nickered, letting him know that he’d seen something, too. Someone or something thrashed about in the leaf litter, hidden by the big trees that were crowned with red and gold leaves. Suddenly, a horse and rider burst into view, the horse snorting and pawing at the soft ground before it gained footing on the more solid surface of the road.
The horse was impressive – a white mare with reddish-brown splotches and a white mane and tail. It was dressed out in a black bridle edged in silver. The woman riding it wore a bright red cape over a riding habit of royal blue with a deep flounce on the skirt. A tan hat with a big white feather decorating one side of it perched rakishly on her head. When she looked up so that he could see her face, Dalton sucked in a breath.
“Well, hello there, Little Red Riding Hood,” he said, smiling at Lacy Tyrell’s startled expression and flushed cheeks. He leaned sideways to peer past her. “Were you running from a big, bad wolf?”
She pulled strands of her blond hair from the corner of her mouth where they had been caught. “I seem to have run into one,” she replied without missing a beat. She touched the wicker basket hooked to her saddle. “I’m picking pears and quince to make jellies and jams. And I like to take Cry Baby out for a ride a couple of times a week. It’s good for both of us.”
“Cry Baby?”
Patting the mare’s neck, she nodded. “This is Cry Baby. See? She has tears running down her sweet face.”
He angled closer to see the brown, tear-shaped spots dripping from the animal’s eyes and along its muzzle. “So she does. And she doesn’t mind being called a cry baby?”
“No. I call her Baby most of the time and she likes that.” She stroked the horse’s forelock. “She’s my sweetheart.”
Dalton’s temperature hiked as he watched her delicate fingers comb through the mare’s mane. The soft huskiness of her voice when she’d said baby and sweetheart created an ache in his chest. She could kill a man’s good sense and reasoning with those weapons.
“Your gelding is quite handsome,” she said. “What’s his name?”
“Soldier.”
“Did you have him during the war?”
“No. I bought him at an auction afterward.”
“Were you injured in the war? Is that where you got that scar?”
He touched the place on his face that had drawn her attention. Sickle-shaped, the thin scar ran from the corner of his left brow to just below his eyelashes. “Yes. A chunk of shrapnel struck me there. It was nothing much. But it did land me in a Rebel prison.”
“Oh?” Her blue eyes widened with alarm. “How horrible for you.”
“I was fortunate that it was at the very end of the war. I was there for less than a month before they had to turn us all loose.”
She shook her head in a gentle rebuke. “One doesn’t often hear a man speak about getting wounded and imprisoned as fortunate occurrences.”
“That is the craziness of war, ma’am.”
For a few moments, their gazes held and time slowed. A beam of sunlight found her face, making her eyes sparkle like jewels. She moistened her lips with the tip of her tongue and Dalton thought his heart might burst from his chest.
“I suppose you may call me Lacy,” she said, in a near whisper as her lashes swept down to hide her eyes from him.
“I suppose you may call me Marshal or Sir.”
Her sable lashes lifted and her eyes sparked with blue fire that made him laugh.
“I’m joshing with you. Call me Dalton.”
She banked the fire in her eyes. “Very well, Marshal Dalton.” Her sly grin made his blood heat. “Where have you been?”
“The Pullman Ranch.”
Her grin disappeared. “Why? Is something wrong?”
“No. I wanted to meet Junior Pullman. He appears to be the fly in the ointment around here.�
� He motioned at the road, indicating that they should ride on together. She flicked the reins and the paint pranced forward. Soldier matched the mare’s pace.
“So, you met Junior? What did you think of him?”
“Not much.” He glanced sideways at her. “He’s pompous, for sure, and he didn’t welcome me with a wide smile and firm handshake.”
She chortled at that. “No, he wouldn’t. I’m surprised he didn’t shoot at you.”
“He’s not that foolish.”
“He can be vicious and vindictive. You should tread carefully around him.”
“Isn’t that how he became such a tyrant? People have tiptoed around him and his wranglers, giving them free rein to do whatever they want?”
“You’re disparaging my uncle now, aren’t you?”
“I don’t believe I even mentioned his name.”
She puffed out a sigh and stared straight ahead. “Lately, a few of the Pullman men have gotten drunk and acted like fools, but it’s not as if they are bloodthirsty heathens. We know every last one of them. They get bored, come into town, and kick up their heels. A couple of them take it too far sometimes.”
“They shot out some store windows.”
“Yes.”
“Glass isn’t cheap. And someone could have been standing by those windows and been maimed or killed. They should have been made to pay for the glass they broke, at the very least.”
“You’re probably right.”
“I am right.” He relished a moment of pleasure when her chin angled up at a stubborn tilt.
“Uncle Otis told Pullman about the damage and he said he’d speak to the men,” she said, her tone smugly defensive. “They haven’t caused any trouble since then.”
“It’s all put to rest, is it? Pullman threatened two railroad agents yesterday.”
She threw a fretful glance at him, obviously concerned by the news.
“I’ve run up against men like Pullman before. They’re like scarecrows in cornfields. They think they’re so big and bad that nobody will dare try to take anything they deem as theirs. Your uncle is a good man, but Pullman has put the scare in him.”