“Yeah, I reckon we’re alike,” he agreed now. “But some men burn out faster than others. Figure I’ve run the course.”
Thomas eyed him with a shrewd smile. “You know, it’s curious how being a lawdog gets in a man’s blood. I’d wager you’re not shed of it yet.”
“Would you?” Tilghman liked his easy humor, his open nature. “Well, Heck, that’s one bet you’re bound to lose. I’ve hung up my badge—for good.”
“You wouldn’t take offense if I brought it up now and again, would you? Just by way of testin’ the water.”
“You’ve got a streak of stubborn, don’t you?”
“Damnedest thing.” Thomas laughed. “I got the same notion about you.”
They parted with a warm handshake. Tilghman went down the stairs and disappeared into the street. Thomas stood there for a long moment, turning the conversation over in his head. Then he chuckled softly, nodding to himself.
Bill Tilghman was going to make a hell of a marshal.
CHAPTER 5
The day was bright as brass, without a cloud in the sky. A gentle breeze drifted in from the south, and huge white butterflies floated lazily on warm updrafts of air. High overhead a hawk hung suspended in the sky, a speck of feathers caught against the blaze of a noonday sun.
Tilghman shaded his eyes against the glare, watching the hawk. He was mounted on a dun mare, one of his string quartered in Guthrie. The mare cropped grass where they had paused on a knoll overlooking a wooded stream. The hawk floated away and his gaze swept out across the land. There was something familiar about it, a distant memory.
The valley was located in the Sac and Fox tribal reservation, some forty miles southeast of Guthrie. He’d departed town yesterday afternoon, camping overnight on the trail, and pushed on steadily through the morning. The purpose of his trip was to inspect the horse herds of the Sac and Fox, famed throughout Indian Territory for their high-bred stock. Swift ponies with the endurance of plains horses would add to the bloodline of his racing stable.
The land before him stretched onward in gently rolling prairies and wide valleys. Like a latticework of water, the Deep Fork of the North Canadian fed the tributaries of Dry Creek, Bell Cow, Quapaw, and the Kickapoo. The streams were bordered on either side by trees, and an occasional timbered woodland stood stark against the sunlit plains. The earth seemed to sway with wave upon wave of lush tall grass.
The morning’s ride had convinced Tilghman that the reservation was a wildlife paradise. While the buffalo herds were now gone, there was still an abundance of game. Great flocks of turkey swarmed over the woodlands; at dusk the timber along the creeks was loaded with roosting birds. Deer were plentiful, and grouse and plover were everywhere in the tall grass. Fat, lazy fish crowded the streams and river shallows, eager to take a hook baited with grasshopper. It was a land where no man need go hungry.
Summoned from long ago, Tilghman suddenly realized why the land appeared so familiar. From his boyhood on the farm in Kansas, he remembered these same rolling prairies and waves of grass. In his youth, he had hunted the woodlands and fields, and fished the creeks. He recalled returning home at sundown with his game bag stuffed full, and the savory smells in the kitchen as his mother cooked what he’d harvested from the wild. Those were good memories, fond memories, long ago of another life. Oddly, looking out from atop the knoll, he felt as though he’d somehow come home.
Tilghman shook it off, gently nudged the mare with his boot heels. His immediate destination was the reservation agency, where he intended to talk with the Indian agent. But as he rode across the prairie, unbidden thoughts intruded on the business at hand. Perhaps it was stumbling over old memories, made vivid in his mind’s eye by the haunting familiarity of the land. Whatever the source, unbidden or not, he was forced to admit something he’d avoided until now. There was a restlessness within him, some inner spark of discontent with the way things were. He felt as though he’d taken a wrong turn in the road.
All of which left him thoroughly confused. A month ago, after that first horse race, he had thought of himself as a man with the world on a downhill slide. Everything had fallen into place just as he’d planned, one piece dovetailing with the other in rapid order. Even now, the Turf Exchange and the racetrack were coining money faster than he and Sutton could count. He owned several properties, his business concerns were a resounding success, and he was on a first-name basis with the civic leaders of Guthrie, including the governor. So he had to wonder about this nagging sense of discontent. No ready answer presented itself, and that bothered him even more. He was a man who’d always known himself.
A short while later he rode into the agency compound. Headquarters was a whitewashed frame house with a shaded porch out front. The agent, Joseph Monroe, was a spare man with spectacles and a talkative nature. He invited Tilghman inside, where one part of the parlor served as an office. There, once they were seated, he waved off into the countryside.
“What brings you to the reservation, Mr. Tilghman?”
“Horses,” Tilghman remarked. “I hear the Sac and Fox breed good stock. I’m
