The Lone Sheriff

His eyes—a dark, inky blue—flicked to hers for an instant, then dropped to the boots he’d stretched out and crossed in front of him. “Not much, no.”

She pursed her lips. “Tell me something, Sheriff.”

He did not answer.

“Why are you so unfriendly?”

The sheriff gave an almost imperceptible jerk, and then he turned those eyes on her. Now they looked angry. Almost feral.

After a long silence he started talking, his voice so low she could hardly hear him. “Don’t really like most people.”

“But whyever not? What has happened to make you so...well, surly?”

“I watched a friend die in my place,” he gritted. “After that, I didn’t like being close to anyone.”

Maddie blinked. “Who was he?”

He looked past her, out the train window, and she watched his gaze grow unfocused.

“She.”

“She? Your...?” Maddie hesitated. He was so rough around the edges she doubted he’d ever been married. A lover, perhaps? She was keen to know, but it would be highly improper to ask. She said nothing, just noted the tightness around his mouth.

“She, uh, died for something I did.”

“Why, that is perfectly awful! How old were you then?”

He shrugged. “’Bout ten, I guess. I never knew for sure what my age was.”

Maddie’s throat felt so raw she could scarcely speak. She closed her eyes. How he must have hated himself. She would not be surprised if he still did. She shut her mouth tight. What could she say to ease a scar like that? Nothing.

He recrossed his legs. “Heard enough?”

“More than enough,” she breathed. It explained everything, his brusque manner, his hard exterior, the unreachable part of himself he kept shuttered.

He slipped the sling off his arm, flexed his wrist, and waggled each of his fingers individually. Some of them, she noticed, seemed reluctant to move.

“Does that hurt?”

“Hell, yes, it hurts.”

“Then why—”

“Because I’m gonna need a steady gun hand and a trigger finger that works, that’s why.”

Go ahead, she thought. Grumble and roar all you want. She was not going to let herself be intimidated by him.

He said nothing for the next hour, just worked his wrist and his fingers back and forth, his lips thinned over his teeth. Perspiration stood out on the part of his forehead she could see; his black hair straggled over the rest.

The uniformed conductor stuck his head into the car. “Next stop Riverton,” he yelled.

Two passengers boarded, an old man, bent nearly double and a young woman, probably his daughter, who held on to one of his scrawny arms. She settled him four seats behind.

The sheriff gave them a quick once-over, then reattached his sling and pulled a small bottle from inside his vest.

“Pain medicine,” he said to no one in particular.

“What you drink is your business, Sheriff.”

He gave her a long, unblinking look. “Damn right.”

Maddie laughed out loud, then clapped her hand over her mouth. Jericho swigged a mouthful from the bottle, corked it and stowed it in his vest pocket.

“Now, Mrs. O’Donnell, What about you?”

“Me! What about me?”

The ghost of a smile touched his mouth. “What happened to you that makes you so sure of yourself and so stubborn?”

“N-nothing. It just comes naturally. My upbringing, I suppose.”

“Ladyfied and spoiled, I’d guess.”

Maddie bit her lip. “Well, let’s just say rich and protected. Actually, overprotected. My mother was English, very high society. My father was Irish and very well-off. A banker.”

“Figures,” Jericho muttered.

“I married young to get away from them, really. He was also a banker. After a while—a very short while—I realized my husband was only interested in my money and he only wanted a wife for a showpiece. So I became just that—a china doll with pretty dresses. It didn’t take long before I wanted a real life.”

He snorted. “What the hell is a ‘real life’?”

She thought for a long minute. “I am not sure exactly. Someone who loves me for myself. Real friends, not society matrons. At least I know what it is not—finishing schools and servants and a closet full of expensive clothes.”

He took care not to look at her, staring again out the window at the passing wheat fields. “Seems to me, Mrs. O’Donnell, that you’re gonna feel kinda lost out here in the West. Ought to be back in the big city, where you belong.”

She turned toward him. “I suppose I do feel lost, in a way. The West is so...well, big. Things—towns—are so far apart.”

“Yeah, that spooks a lot of Easterners.”

“But I do not feel lost when I am on an assignment for Mr. Pinkerton. Then I know exactly who I am. It makes me feel...worthwhile.”

She pulled a ball of pink cotton thread from her travel bag and began to crochet. Her fingers shook the tiniest bit.

Jericho leaned back and closed his eyes. Nothing more worth saying, or asking, he figured. He must have dozed for hours and suddenly the train screeched to a stop. A glance through the window told him they were not in a train station; they were out in the middle of nowhere.

Hell’s bells, here it came.

Left-handed, Jericho dragged his Colt out of the holster, thumbed back the hammer and started for the mail car. A swish of petticoats at his heels told him Maddie was right behind him.