A Town Called Fury

“I’ve chosen the best location for the mission—it will be more mission than church, I believe—and I need to discover who owns the lot. I’m told that you know everyone, and are therefore the person to ask.”

Jason leaned forward and crossed his arms on the desk. “And which parcel has appealed to you, Father?”

“The lot just down the street from your office, Marshal. Just two doors away.”

Jason lifted a brow. He didn’t mind the Church being so close to his office, but wondered that the father would want his mission that nearby. He said, “Nobody owns it.”

The father tilted his head. “No one?”

“Nobody’s claimed it yet.” Jason shrugged. There hadn’t been anybody proposing interest in that lot for a very long time, either.

“Can I claim it? In the Church’s name, of course,” the priest added quickly, with a wave of his hands.

“You’re as welcome to it as anyone, I suppose,” Jason said.

“Do I need to sign something?”

“Nope. Just build on it and it’s yours.”

Father Clayton beamed at him and clapped his hands together. “Marvelous! Just marvelous! You don’t know how welcome this news is, Marshal!” He nearly leapt to his feet.

Jason expected him to dance to the door if this was any indication, but he said, “And welcome to Fury, Father Clayton.”

“Please, call me Father Micah!” the effusive priest said. “That’s Micah with an ‘H’ on the end.”

“All right, Father Micah. Good luck!”

“No, thank you, Marshal. I mean, Jason!” He stopped stock-still, and Jason could practically see the wheels in his mind turning rapidly round and round. He asked, “Marshal Jason, or just Jason?”

“Just Jason, Father,” Jason said, standing. Nobody had been this tickled to grab land in town since they first built the place! He guessed he didn’t mind the Catholics moving in with an official presence down the street from him.

The father—Father Micah, he reminded himself—made his exit, and Jason sat back down. So the Holy Roman Empire now had a stake in Fury. Idly, he wondered if they’d be of any help with the Indians or Sampson Davis.

He snorted out a laugh, and then went back to work.

Jason didn’t discover until later that afternoon, where the town fathers planned to build their water tower.

“But you can’t!” he sputtered. “There’s a Catholic mission going in there!”

Salmon Kendall, who had given him the news, and who now stood across his desk, handing him the weekly newspaper, said, “But we’ve already decided, Jason.”

Boiling but trying not to show it, Jason came back with, “Salmon, all buildings to be erected have to be cleared through this office, and that means me.”

“You were drinking at the time.”

Jason just stared at him. Why couldn’t he back down, like a normal person? And where the hell was Marshal Todd? He’d been going to go up to the boardinghouse to have a word or two with Sampson Davis, and Jason had been waiting to hear something from him for several hours, but nothing, not a blessed peep.

“So anyhow,” Salmon went on, “we’re sendin’ a contingent up into the Bradshaws first thing in the morning. The Slade brothers have spent the entire afternoon getting the wagons ready, I’ve been to the mercantile and bought saws and awls and dried beans and such, as well as rope, from Solomon, and my wife’s been cooking all day so they don’t starve to death on their own grub. Just thought you’d want to know.” He dropped the paper on Jason’s desk.

The headline read, MARSHAL SHOOTS KILLER LURKING IN ALLEY! but Jason just glanced at it. He said, “Find another place to put up your water tower, Salmon.”

“’Fraid not. The site’s centrally located, it’s level, and that’s where we picked. The Catholics can put their mission anyplace. That end lot, by the saloon, for instance. Or on the next street over,” he added, poking a thumb over his shoulder, toward the office’s back door. “There’s plenty of room back there.”

Jason now found himself championing a cause he had no stake in, either way, but he said, “Dammit, Salmon! I gave my word—the word of the town—to the Father when I said he could have the lot. And I will not go back on it!”

That was the whole point, he realized. His word.

Well, tough.

Salmon, who was beginning to look a tad peeved, grudgingly let out air between pursed lips, then said, “I’ll have a word with the father, then?”

“Do what you want.” Jason picked up the paper.

Salmon left, and when he was gone, Jason just sat there, shaking his head. The paper dropped from his hand, and he asked the air, “What do you people want from me, anyway?”

But he already knew the answer. They wanted somebody to do the dirty jobs they couldn’t be troubled with, like handle the likes of Teddy Gunderson, or the perennially hysterical Matt MacDonald, or organizing them when they really were under attack. And the rest of the time, he guessed he could just go hang.

“Well, maybe I will,” he muttered to himself. “Maybe I’ll just ride on out of here and get myself back East, where I belong.”

But first, he had to check on Abe Todd. He hoped he wouldn’t find him shot dead, and chockful of Sampson Davis’s bullets. On the other hand, he mused as he stood up and walked to take his hat off the rack, it’d solve a