“Thirty,” Jason corrected. “And thirty’s not that old if you’re still somebody’s kid. You got any more’a that cake?”
She sliced off another piece and practically threw it at him. “How can you eat cake at a time like this?”
“It’s good cake. And what do you mean, ‘a time like this’?”
“When your only sister is about to have to take on teaching the whole school—by herself! They’ll move to Prescott, you know. They’ll be gone and I’ll be left with Cyrano Jones and Junior Krebbs and that whole crowd. ’Course, they’ll be graduating in June and out on the town and they’ll be yours to deal with, but there are others coming up that are going to be just as difficult if not worse, and—”
She put her hands up to her eyes, covering them, and he saw a single tear trickle through her fingers. “What am I gonna do, Jason?”
“You’ll go on like we all do, Jenny.” He knew it wasn’t comforting, but it was the best he could come up with, considering the circumstances.
“You’re no help at all!” she shouted and ran from the room.
As her bedroom door slammed behind her, he muttered, “Yeah, I know,” and then he pulled his cake toward him and dug in. It really was good cake.
Later, on the porch, he considered that Jenny was just being selfish, or perhaps jealous. Or maybe she was really, truly scared of teaching the class on her own. In the end, he supposed it didn’t matter. If Miss Morton left town, Jenny was stuck.
To tell the truth, Jason wasn’t crazy about the idea, either. Some of those boys that they taught were big galoots, sullen and brutish, and far beyond the normal age for school, having been held back a few times. And Jenny was small, almost tiny. If one of them got her cornered . . .
He stubbed out his cigarette to take his mind off of it, but it didn’t work. He was still brooding when he went into the house. He stopped in the kitchen to eat yet another piece of cake, and it was while he was thus occupied that his sister came down the hall.
“Jason?” she said. “I’m sorry. I don’t mean to act like a baby or a sore loser. I wish Miss Morton all the best, I really do. This is a silly time for me to be thinking about myself.” She turned to go back down the hall, then suddenly spun back. “Are you eating
Jason swallowed, then said, “But it’s good!”
She shook her finger at him. “Nobody likes a fat marshal.” And then she turned again and went back to her room.
Jason watched her retreat, then stared down at the cake, and gave a thoughtful gaze at his belly. Muttering, “I’ve got a
That night, long after Ward had made his final rounds and Jason was fast asleep, Deputy U.S. Marshal Abraham Todd sat in the far corner of his room, smoking. He’d given up counting them a long time ago, but he knew he was almost out of papers.
He wished he could get Jason interested in taking the position of Deputy U.S. Marshal. It would surely solve a passel of problems for him. ’Course, that meant they’d get dumped on Jason, but Jason was better at this than he thought, and he had himself a mighty good deputy in Ward Wanamaker. Good enough that he’d considered asking Ward to join up if he couldn’t convince Jason.
When he got married—oh, Electa, his lovely Electa!—he was thinking about resigning. The job wasn’t fair to a wife. He’d have to spend so much time away from home, and there was always the chance that he could be killed. . . .
But then, the job had been his life up until now. Maybe he couldn’t just drop it that easily, for thinking about it and actually doing it were two different things.
He took a final drag off his smoke and stubbed it out in the ashtray, then methodically began to roll another. It was the next to the last paper, he noticed.
He began to daydream about Electa again, about having someone to come home to, someone to cook for him and darn his socks, and most of all, to bear his children. He was nearing forty-five, and felt like he was pushing his luck, for someone in his line of work. Electa was smart and Electa was pretty. A right handsome woman, his pa would have said.
And Electa had the bearing and the air of authority. He’d seen her with those kids. Hell, some of them were big enough and mean enough that they spooked him! But she had them in her hip pocket. A person didn’t learn that, they had to come by it naturally.
Just that air of hers, that command, had convinced him that she was the woman for him.
He decided that he’d ride out to her father’s ranch in the morning and ask his permission to marry his daughter, just like Electa had requested. It never crossed his mind that Mr. Morton would say no. Electa was so ripe she was going to burst if somebody didn’t marry her, and quick.
There were two Morton families, she’d told him, and her parents lived in the first house he’d come to, if he followed the trail. It seemed simple enough.
He stubbed out the smoke and, rising, hauled his carcass over to the bed and lay down, a silly smile plastered over his weary face.
18
At about four-thirty in the morning, Jason was awakened by a spate of gunshots coming from the east. Down by the jail, he thought, and muttered, “Crap!”
He sprang up from the bed, tugged on his clothes, and ran from the house and up the street to the sound of hoofbeats fading into the distance, headed south.
“Ward!” he called as he kept running, down toward the office. “Ward!”
