Supper at the marshal’s house was every bit as good as lunch had been, if not better, and after Hannah refused Sam’s offer to help clean up, he and Coleman went out to sit on the porch and enjoy the evening air as they had done the previous night. The main difference was that Matt had been with them, then. Sam couldn’t help but wonder what his blood brother was doing out there at the Harlow place. He hoped Matt was all right.
“I got that letter to Governer St. John started,” Coleman said as he filled his pipe. “Left it on the desk in the office, if you’d care to take a look at it when you go back down there.”
“Sure, I’d be glad to,” Sam said with a nod. “Would you like me to make evening rounds?”
Coleman scratched a match into life on the sole of his boot and held the flame to the bowl of his pipe. When he had puffed until the tobacco was burning to suit him, he shook the match out and dropped it onto the porch.
“I’d sure appreciate that, son,” he said. “To tell you the truth, once I’ve had supper, it’s hard for me to rattle these old hocks of mine into much motion again.”
“Then don’t worry about it,” Sam told him. “I’ll make sure the town’s locked up tight.”
“Much obliged to you. Once you’ve done that, you can head back to the office and turn in. If those cousins of Cimarron Kane that we’ve got locked up make too much racket for you to sleep, toss a bucket of water on ’em. Maybe that’ll cool ’em off.”
“It probably won’t come to that,” Sam said. “They carry on so much they’re bound to be getting tired by now. Anyway, I just don’t pay any attention to them.”
“That’s smart.”
Earlier, while Sam and Coleman were both at the marshal’s office and jail, the owner of the local cafe had brought meals over for the prisoners. They didn’t get much to eat—the town’s budget wouldn’t allow for that, according to the tight-fisted town councilmen—but the prisoners were fed well enough that they wouldn’t starve while they were locked up.
Having the three of them in jail was yet another worry. Sam knew that he and Coleman couldn’t forget about the possibility that Cimarron Kane and some of his hard-bitten relatives might come into town and try to spring Dud, Nelse, and Wiley Kane. As Sam thought about that, he was glad that he had agreed to pin on the deputy’s badge. Caught between two sets of troubles—the Kanes on one side, Porter and the other special lawmen on the other— Coleman would have had a hard job dealing with both.
He’d feel better about things if Matt were here, too, Sam mused, but he was practical enough to deal with a situation the way it was, not the way he wished it might be.
Hannah came out onto the porch and sat down next to her father. Sam was on the steps with the shaggy little mutt Lobo nuzzling his hand.
“It’s a beautiful evening,” Hannah said as she began to move the rocking chair back and forth a little.
“Sure is,” her father agreed.
“That was a wonderful meal, Hannah,” Sam told her.
“Thank you. I do my best.”
The small talk continued for a while. Then Sam stood up and stretched. “I guess I’d better get going.”
“Sam’s going to make the evening rounds so I won’t have to,” Coleman explained.
“Good,” Hannah said. “You work too hard, Dad. It’s about time you took life a little easier.”
She seemed to think that he was going to stay on here permanently, Sam thought, even though he had told her earlier in the day that wasn’t going to happen. Maybe she thought she could change his mind.
Maybe she could, he told himself suddenly. He and Matt had never discussed what they would do when the time came for them to finally settle down. Sam had sort of assumed they would return to their ranches in Montana.
But it didn’t have to be that way. He could sell his ranch to Matt. If the two spreads were combined, the result would be one of the biggest and best ranches on the northern plains. Sam could stay here and marry Hannah, maybe take over as marshal when Coleman hung up his gun and retired…
Sam’s jaw tightened. He was human. He couldn’t stop such thoughts from stealing into his brain, but he didn’t have to go along with them, either. He needed to concentrate on now, not the future, and right now he wanted to find out if there was any truth to what that prisoner had said about Porter planning to murder them.
“I’ll see you in the morning, Marshal,” he said. “Good night, Hannah.”
“Good night, Sam.” Her voice was soft and sweet, no denying it. The sort of voice a man could enjoy hearing every day for the rest of his life.
Sam shook that thought out of his head as he went down the walk to the street.
He made the rounds of Cottonwood’s business district, rattling doorknobs on the buildings that were already locked up for the night, as well as checking in at the ones that were still open, like the cafe, Pete Hilliard’s mercantile, and the livery stable.
Ike Loomis regarded him nervously. “I heard you was a deputy now, Two Wolves,” he said. “That gonna cause a problem?”
Sam knew the man was worried about what he’d told the blood brothers the night before. He put Loomis’s mind at ease by saying, “Anything I learned last night was before I pinned on a badge. I don’t see what one thing has to do with the other.”
Loomis heaved a sigh. “Mighty decent of you to look at it that way, son. I wouldn’t want Marsh Coleman put in a bad spot.”
“Neither would I.” Sam knew he was bending the law by ignoring Loomis’s hidden saloon, but he honestly didn’t see what good it would do to reveal the secret. Anyway, it was possible that Coleman was already aware of the saloon and was turning a blind eye to it on purpose.
“You know,” Loomis said, “if you was to ever…naw, never mind.”
