She poked him in the ribs and giggled. 'Did you really take up with a soiled dove named Hannah?'
'Oh, hell, no!' Frank chuckled. A few seconds later he said with a straight face, 'Her name was Agnes.'
This time Viv laughed aloud and grabbed Frank's arm. 'And she died in your arms after stepping in front of a bullet that was meant for you?'
'Slowest bullet since the invention of guns, I reckon. Took that writer a whole page to get that bullet from one side of the room to the other.'
'You read them, Frank?'
'Parts of some of them. I haven't read any of the newer ones.'
'I have a confession to make.'
'Oh?'
'The man who writes those novels was a good friend of my husband. He lives in Boston. He used to come over to the house quite often for croquet and dinner.'
'Ummm. Is that so? How difficult was it for you to keep a straight face?'
'Terribly difficult.'
Their conversation ground to an abrupt halt when they met a gaggle of ladies coming out of Willis's General Store. The ladies had to stop and chat for a few minutes with Vivian and oohh and aahh about her dress and hat. Frank stepped over to one side, rolled a cigarette, and smoked and waited for the impromptu hen party to end.
When the gossiping was over and the town's ladies had sashayed on their way, Viv smiled at Frank. 'Sorry about that, Frank.'
'It's all right. What in the world did you ladies talk about?'
'You, mostly.'
'Me!'
'Yes. They wanted to know how I knew you.'
'And what did you tell them?'
'The same thing I told Conrad: that I knew you years ago when you were a young cowboy.'
'Conrad doesn't believe that.'
'You know something?'
'What?'
'Those ladies didn't, either.'
* * * *
By nightfall, thanks in no small part to the ladies who had chatted with Viv earlier, it was the talk of the town that Mrs. Vivian L. Browning, president of Henson Enterprises, was seeing the town marshal, Frank Morgan. Tongues were wagging in every store, home, saloon, and bawdy house.
Frank and Jerry saw that the prisoners were fed and locked down, and then made their early evening rounds.
'There is the first wagon coming in,' Jerry said, looking up the street. 'They must have traveled all night after hearing the news off the wire.'
'There'll be a hundred more by week's end,' Frank opined. 'We're going to have our hands full.'
The sign on the side of the gaily painted wagon read:
DR. RUFUS J. MARTIN
DENTIST EXTRAORDINAIRE
'What the hell does 'extraordinaire' mean?' Jerry asked.
'Extra special, I suppose, would be one definition.'
'What's so special about gettin' a tooth pulled?'
Frank did not reply to the question. His gaze was on a man riding slowly up the street. His duster was caked with trail dirt, and his horse plodded wearily. Rider and horse had come a long way.
Jerry had followed Frank's eyes. 'You know that man, Frank?'
'Yes. That's Robert Mallory. Big Bob. From out of the Cherokee Strip.'
'I've heard of him. He's a bad one, isn't he?'
'One of the worst. He's an ambusher, a paid assassin. He's probably got three dozen kills on his tally sheet ... at least. From California to Missouri. Most of them back-shot. He rides into an area, someone is found dead, he rides out.'
'He's never been charged?'
'No proof that he ever did anything. Dead men don't talk, Jerry.'
'But I've heard he's a gunfighter.'
