'Hit a man!' Sam said aloud, shocked at his thoughts. He glanced heavenward, seeking some advice.
None came.
'Is that what it will come down to?' he asked the sand hills. 'Man killing?' Only the wind sighed as it moved endlessly across the rolling plains.
Sam drove for a time, crisscrossing ranges. He was stopped just after intersecting with a range road that would take him back to Whitfield.
The cowboy who blocked the road with his jeep was not friendly. 'This is Rocking-Chair Range, Balon. Stay off.'
Sam, suddenly angry, got out of his truck to face the cowboy. 'I've known Paul Merlin for years,' Sam said, not realizing he was balling his fists. 'I've fished with him. If Paul wants me off his range, let him tell me.'
The cowboy was a small, wiry man, his face burned the shade of old leather. But his eyes were strange— dead-looking. The cowboy stood his ground.
'I've told you what I was told to tell you, Balon. Now, git! We don't need your kind around here.'
'My kind! I'm a minister, man. What do you mean?'
'That'll do, Davy,' the words came from behind Sam.
Sam turned to look at Paul Merlin. He did not know where the man had come from, and Sam Balon was not an easy man to sneak up on.
'Paul,' Sam spoke a greeting.
'Balon,' the rancher spoke the word harshly. 'You're not welcome here. Leave now!'
'Paul, I—'
'Get out!'
Something about Paul was out of kilter. Sam realized this as he studied the face. His eyes, like the cowboy's, were dead-looking, the voice flat.
'All right, Paul,' Sam said. 'I'll leave. Tell your hand to move his jeep.'
'Go around it.'
Sam resisted a quick impulse to give the rancher a short right cross to the mouth. 'Very well, Paul,' he fought back his temper. 'As you wish.'
Sam listened to the men laugh at him as he backed out and around the jeep, almost getting stuck in a ditch. Sam did not know what was going on around this part of Fork County, but he sure intended to find out—soon.
He drove straight to the
'Sam!' Wade said, surprise on his face as he answered the knocking on the front door of the newspaper building. He looked at the truck. 'You trade cars?'
'Yesterday.'
'I like it.' The editor smiled, taking in his minister's casual dress and the unshaved stubble on his face. 'You going fishing, Sam?'
'Hunting might be a better word, Wade. Can you spare me a few minutes of your time? I need to talk with you.'
'For you, Sam—anytime. All the time you want. Hunting? I didn't know you hunted.' He paused in his locking of the door after Sam was inside. 'There is no hunting season open around here, Sam.'
'The season on this animal never closes,' Sam said dryly.
Wade gave him an odd look as they walked into his office. But he said nothing about whatever his minister might be hunting in the middle of summer.
'Sit down, Sam,' he pointed to a chair facing his desk. 'I just made a pot of coffee. You take yours black, don't you?'
'Black as sin,' Sam smiled, but there was no mirth in his grin; no humor in his eyes.
Wade picked up on his minister's seriousness. Something is very wrong, he thought. Has Miles's alarm drifted over to Sam? I won't open the ball, though. I'll let him tell me.
Pouring them coffee, Wade stole a glance at Sam. The man never ceases to amaze me—never ceases to bring out the curiosity in me.
Sam was the only minister Wade had ever known with a combat background, although Sam never talked about his time in Korea with UNPIK. Whatever in the hell UNPIK was! He doesn't look like a minister. Big man. Barrel chested; thick, powerful wrists. Big hands, flat knuckles. Tattoo on his arm. Boxed in college, some say. I can believe it, looking at the size of those arms.
To lighten the mood of the moment, Wade abruptly asked a question he'd been wanting to ask for years. 'How many fights did you have, Sam?'
Sam grinned boyishly. 'I had too many, Wade. I enjoyed boxing, even though I felt it best to quit when I went into active ministry. Your next question will be, how many fights did I win? I won all of them.' He tapped his head. 'Thick skull; hard to knock down,' his grin widened. 'My trainer was appalled when he learned I was a theology major. He couldn't quite correlate boxing with the Bible. Thought it wrong somehow.'
'You were a minister while you were in the service?'
'Yes. But the guys didn't know it. Let me clarify that. I had my degree, but I had not yet held a church. I wasn't sure until after the war—or sometime during it—that I really wanted to be a preacher.'
The speculation of whatever it was lurking around Whitfield entered Sam's mind, fading his grin. He did not
