“Regardless of what you think of his heroics, you are to have nothing more to do with him. Do you understand me?”
“I understand,” Cynthia said.
“Good. Now, eat quickly. I want to go out and get a good look at the land I’m going to buy, and I expect that will take the rest of the morning.”
At the other end of town, Sheriff Williams sat at the desk in his office processing the papers that had authorized payment of the bounty for the three would-be stagecoach robbers.
“One thousand, five hundred dollars,” he said aloud.
“What?” The response came from Norman Keith, who was serving three days for public drunkenness.
It wasn’t the sheriff’s policy to arrest everyone who got drunk, but Keith had a habit of getting drunk and urinating in public, thus becoming a regular in the Phoenix jail.
“I said one thousand, five hundred dollars,” Sheriff Williams repeated. “That’s how much bounty we just paid to Pinkie’s widow and that Jensen fella for killin’ the three stagecoach robbers. That’s a lot of money.”
“I agree, fifteen hundred dollars is a lot of money. But consider this, Sheriff. When one engages armed robbers to earn it, one should certainly be allowed to keep the fruits of such a hazardous enterprise,” Keith said.
“I don’t know. I have to do that—that hazardous enterprise you were talking about—all the time because it’s my job,” Sheriff Williams said. “And I only get thirty dollars a month for doin’ it.” He pulled his pistol, looked at it for a moment, then spun the cylinder. “I suppose I could always quit being a sheriff and become a bounty hunter,” he said.
Keith laughed.
“What are you laughing at?”
“I’m laughing at the notion of you being a bounty hunter,” he said. “Come on, Bob, could you see your wife letting you do that? You aren’t a bounty hunter, you’re a sheriff. And I’ll admit that you are a pretty good sheriff, but that’s all you will ever be.”
Williams laughed as well. “Oh, my, and comin’ from the town drunk, I reckon I should be all worried about that,” he said.
“I guess you got me there,” Kieth said. “Only, just remember, I haven’t always been a drunk.”
Norman Keith was right, he hadn’t always been a drunk. At one time he was an English professor at Tempe Normal, but a fire in his campus home had taken the life of his wife and two small children. Unable to cope with the grief, Keith had abandoned academia and begun drinking.
At the Sundown Corral and Equipage Company, Ken Hendel stood waiting beside the rig he had rented for Jay Peerless Bixby. When he saw them coming up the street from the restaurant, he stepped out to meet them.
“I have the buckboard here for you, Mr. Bixby.”
“Were you able to talk them down any more?” Bixby asked.
“No, sir. It cost us a dollar-fifty.”
“Very well, if we have to pay it we have to pay it,” Bixby said. Without regard to Cynthia, Bixby climbed into the buckboard. Hendel offered his hand to help Cynthia into her seat.
“Thank you, Mr. Hendel,” Cynthia said.
“Have you made the arrangement with the bank yet?” Bixby asked.
“I was there this morning. They are expecting the transfer of money on today’s stagecoach.”
“Well, stay on it,” Bixby said, snapping the reins against the team.
“Yes, sir,” Hendel said, stepping back quickly to avoid having his toes run over by the carriage.
Chapter Twenty-one
It was nearly noon when a bedraggled and exhausted Dewey Calhoun pushed open the door of the sheriff’s office.
“Sheriff Williams! Sheriff Williams!” he called.
“I’m Sheriff Williams, what can I do for you?”
“It’s Injuns, Sheriff,” Dewey said. “I think they killed Mr. Malcolm.”
“Are you talking about Pete Malcolm, the man that runs a freight service out of Picket Post?” Keith asked.
“Yes, sir, that’s the one I’m talkin’ about.”
“Do you know him, Keith?”
“Yes,” Keith said. “You know him, too, Bob. He’s the one hauled in most of the material that was used to build the college.”
“Oh, yes, I remember him.”
“He’s a good man,” Keith said.
“Yes, sir, he was a good man. But more’n likely, he got hisself kilt savin’ me,” Dewey said.
“You say it was Injuns that killed him?” Williams asked. “Where did this happen?”
