Abe wouldn’t know, but he nodded and muttered, “If you say so, ma’am.” He seemed to have lost all his sense of authority the second he stepped over the Mortons’ threshold. This was no way for a Deputy U.S. Marshal—one with twenty years of experience and over seventy-five arrests to his credit, no less—to behave!
He stood up, his hat still in his hands. “I’d best be getting back to town, if that’s all right with you, ma’am.”
She laughed. “Don’t call me ma’am, son. You can call me Mother Morton if your mother is still living, or just Mother if she’s passed.”
Abe managed a smile. “Mother Morton, then.”
“Excellent! Now, that wasn’t so hard, was it?”
Grinning, he shook his head. “No, ma’am, not hard at all. A real pleasure, in fact.”
She put her hand on his arm. “Come along with me, then, Abraham,” she said, ushering him away from the front door and deeper into the house, toward the cellar steps. “I want to send a little something along to Electa with you.”
20
Abe rode back to Fury during the beginning of the storm, galloping for the final third in hopes of beating the worst of it. He cantered into town and to the livery in time to see the sky gone black and feel the wind whipping his clothes. His hat had blown clean off somewhere outside of town, but he hadn’t had the heart or the time to look for it. It was likely sailing over the Colorado River by this time.
The wagon train was still and silent, and folks had tied themselves inside their Conestogas to avoid the worst of the coming damage.
He passed through the gates and pulled into the livery, and walked his horse up and down the aisle countless times until he was satisfied that it was cooled off sufficiently, and then he put the gelding in its stall and grained and watered it. “Some storm, huh, Boy?” he asked, stroking the horse’s dark-blue roan neck. “Well, guess I’d best get over and tell Electa the good news!” he added, brightening.
He gave his horse a final pat, turned up his collar, put his shoulder to the door, and shoved his way outside into what had become a raging torrent.
He immediately wished he was back inside with his horse. The air was full of flying, stinging pebbles and bits of plants, and he couldn’t even tell which direction it was coming from, it whirled so quickly! He felt, more than saw, his way up the street to the schoolhouse, then struggled a bit with the door.
Once in the cloakroom, where Electa kept spare books and school supplies and the cleaning equipment, he slumped on a bench and shook detritus from his hair. At least he’d just had it cut the other day, so the damage to the floor wasn’t too bad. But enough twigs and grit went flying that he took a quick look in the mirror to make sure he didn’t look like the ghost of Pecos Pete—or worse—before he went in to see his beloved Electa.
When he had himself brushed off the best he could, he cracked open the door to the schoolhouse proper, and took a peek inside. Electa and Jenny were at opposite ends of the blackboard, Electa writing out complicated mathematical problems at her end, and Jenny writing out simpler problems on the other, probably for the younger children.
He quietly stepped inside and took a seat along the back wall, behind the students. There weren’t many kids, probably twelve or fourteen, but there were enough of them to keep two women on their toes. The two biggest boys passed something between them, and he immediately stood and took a step forward.
He held out his hand and stared the boy in the eyes. The boy, who appeared to have been kept back a couple of years somewhere along the way, made a face, hissed, “Shit!” and handed over a pocketknife.
“Don’t swear,” Abe said, momentarily forgetting where he was.
“Marshal Todd!”
He looked up to find Electa smiling at him. “Miss Morton,” he said. “I wonder if I might have a word with you?”
“Certainly,” she replied, and added, “Children, will those of you to the left of the center aisle begin working on these problems, and those to the right start work on those that Miss Fury has just written out? I’ll be right outside, Miss Fury.”
“Certainly, Miss Morton,” Jenny replied, as a beaming Electa walked back toward Abe.
He couldn’t help himself. He was beaming, too.
Jason was in his office, and all he could think was, “Lord, not again!” He hadn’t even caulked the doors or windows or floor yet!
It was three in the afternoon but it was nearly as dark as midnight, and this time the rain had come in with the wind, both of them hurrying and flurrying in rapid, nonsensical, lopsided circles that could be as big as a house or as small as his thumb, and all of it carrying the desert into Fury with it.
The mild winters and the pleasant year-round evenings aside, he sometimes hated Arizona. It was a tricky place. Every which way you turned, the weather was out to make a jackass out of you, to make you look foolish. Or worse, to kill you just as surely as it had killed that fellow out in the wagon train, the one with the cactus in his back. What was his name? Frank something. Frank . . . Saulk, that was it, Frank Saulk. They’d been planning to bury him today, along with poor Ward. Practically the entire town was planning on turning out for the funerals. Well, practically the entire town would have to stay home, now.
Until tomorrow, anyway.
Jason couldn’t say that he was looking forward to it. Tomorrow or its proceedings, either one.
He’d had the bad luck to be standing out on the walk, talking to Father Micah, when Abe came riding into town and tucked himself up in the livery, and he was surprised that he hadn’t shown up at the office by now. He wondered if Abe had stopped off at the schoolhouse again. Was he paying court to Miss Electa? It certainly wasn’t to Jenny, that he knew. Jenny wouldn’t have—and couldn’t have—kept that a secret for more than two seconds. But a fellow didn’t get all shaved and barbered and doused in witch hazel to go see a bunch of kids, though, that was for sure.
