thought she loved Sam. What was going to happen there?
How did Sam feel about her?
These were all questions that could be answered only after this was all over—if they were all around to ask and answer them.
Sam took over at 4 A.M. He went through many of the same motions Jubal had before him. Coffee, solitaire, the window; he even spent a few minutes looking at Coffin, thinking the same thoughts.
Finally he settled behind the desk, his feet propped up.
His gun was holstered and his rifle across his lap.
He thought about Evan, as Jubal had. He wondered if he and Jubal were thinking the same things. They probably were. After all, they were brothers, weren’t they? Sure, they and Evan, three brothers who hadn’t seen each other—
Sam stopped and dropped his feet to the floor. He was sure that Jubal had already gone through this. There was no point in his mulling it over again.
He walked around the room a few times, then set up the checkerboard and started playing a game against himself. When he got tired of that he finally got around to thinking about Serena.
She was a fine girl who would make some man a finewife. Maybe she would have made Evan a fine wife. As far as Sam went, there wasn’t room in his life for a wife, fine or otherwise…but if there were…
He watched the boarded-up windows, waiting for the first hint of daylight. Burkett and his men might come with the light, or they might wait until later.
Sam wondered how long they’d be able to hold out against Burkett’s superior numbers. With all the supplies they had inside, Burkett could still outwait them. He wouldn’t have the time to do that, though, so he’d have to find a way to force them out.
Fire came to Sam’s mind first, and then explosives.
He wondered how long it would take Burkett to think of one or both of them.
“What’s for breakfast?” Jubal asked, sitting up and rubbing his hands over his face.
“What else?” Sam asked. He was standing at the potbellied stove. He turned and grinned at his brother.
“Beans. Want ’em hot?”
“Ah, warm’s okay.”
While Sam dished out the beans Jubal poured water into a bowl and washed his face. When he was done he accepted the cup of beans from Sam.
“Coffin still asleep?”
“I guess,” Sam said. “I’ll give him some beans if there’s any left.”
Sam walked over to where Jubal was sitting on his cot and handed him a cup of coffee.
“I found extra cups last night.”
“Good, we can eat and drink at the same time. We’re living in style.”
“Yeah,” Sam said, settling himself behind the desk.
“Tell me, Sam,” Jubal said, “what were you thinkin’ about last night, while I was asleep?”
“Oh, probably the same things you were thinkin’ about.
Mostly about Evan.”
“Yeah, Evan,” Jubal said, shaking his head. “I was thinkin’ about you, too…I mean, about us.”
“Yeah?”
“Where you gonna go after this, Sam?”
“I don’t know,” Sam said. “I don’t usually know where I’m headin’ next.”
“What about your future? Don’t you have any goals?”
“Goals,” Sam repeated. “Now there’s a word I haven’t thought about in a long time. No, Jube, I’m afraid I’m plumb outta goals at my age. I guess it’d be nice if I was just left alone for the next twenty years, if I didn’t have anybody tryin’ to kill me, or if I didn’t have to kill anyone else. I guess those’re my goals.”
“They’re not bad goals.”
“What about you? What’re your goals?”
“I don’t rightly know.”
“You’re only twenty-four, Jube,” Sam said. “You’ve gotta have goals.”
“What was your goal when you were twenty-four?”
“I don’t know…probably something stupid like wanting to be the fastest gun in the West.”
“You accomplished that.”
“Maybe I did,” Sam said, “but when I got there it didn’t mean anythin’ to me any more. I hope you’re smarter at twenty-four than I was.”
“Well, I think I’m smarter than I was before I went up on that hangman’s scaffold.”
“I hope so.”
“Did you think about Serena last night?”
Sam shifted uncomfortably in his seat and said, “Some.”
“She’s a nice woman, huh?”
“Real nice.”
“Make a fine wife, huh?”
“You gonna ask her?”
“Hey, no, not me! I thought maybe you.”
“Not me, Jube,” Sam said. “There’s no room in my life for a woman. You’re young, though. Why wouldn’t you ask her?”
“She’s older than me.”
“So?”
“How’d we get on this subject?”
Sam smiled at his brother’s discomfort and said, “You brought it up.”
Jubal put his spoon in his cup and laid it on the floor with a clatter.
“She wouldn’t have me.”
“Why not?”
“Ah, she’d probably be comparing me to you and Evan all the time.”
“I don’t think so,” Sam said. “Maybe when this is all over you should stay around a while, let her get to know you better.”
“Stay here?” Jubal asked. “In Vengeance Creek?”
“Why not?”
“Sam, I left here.”
“Well, do yourself a favor,” Sam said. “Look at your reason for leaving, and see if you still want to go.”
“Hey!” Coffin shouted from his cell. “Do I get some breakfast?”
Sam got up, walked over to the can of beans on the stove, and looked inside.
“Yeah,” he said, “he gets breakfast.”
“What’s that?” Jubal said sometime later.
“Sounds like horses,” Sam said, “a lot of them.”
They each went to a window and looked out the gun-port in the shutters. Lincoln Burkett was riding downMain Street with about thirty men or more. They were riding at a leisurely pace, seemingly without a care in the world. The tip-off was when they rode past the jail each man turned his head and looked at it.
Sam found it interesting that Lincoln Burkett was the only man who didn’t look. He already knew they were there.
“It’s gonna start,” Sam said. “Any minute now.”
Chapter Twenty-two
Burkett sent some of his men to look the town over. One of the men, Bud Poke, came back and said he had found Tom Kelly.
