The Man from Stone Creek. Linda Lael Miller

town marshal.”

      The statement snagged Sam’s attention. It’s been five years, Maddie had said back at the mercantile when he’d offered his condolences on the death of the man she’d planned to marry. He wanted to ask Terran, straight-out, if his guess was right, but he couldn’t think of a way to do it without prying into what amounted to family business.

      “How did it happen?” Sam inquired, grasping the tub and lowering it to the ground.

      Terran stood, tight-fisted, in the empty wagon bed, staring down at Sam. His expression was flat, giving away nothing of his thoughts. “Warren was walking Maddie home from a social at the church that night,” he recalled, his voice so quiet that Sam had to strain to hear it. “Somebody shot him from the roof of the telegraph office. Maddie had blood all over her dress when they brought her home.”

      Sam closed his eyes against the image, though violence of that kind was nothing new to him, and if the boy had been standing on the ground he’d have laid a reassuring hand on his shoulder. “Did they ever run the shootist to ground?” he asked.

      Terran shook his head, kept his eyes averted. Sam caught the glint of tears despite that effort. “He’d tangled with Rex Donagher the day before, Warren had, and some folks thought Rex was the one did it, but things never went any further than that.”

      “The town never replaced Debney? Got themselves a new lawman?”

      Terran gave a bitter snort at that. “If there’s a prisoner—and that ain’t often—old Charlie Wilcox usually stands guard. If he’s sober enough, anyhow.”

      Charlie Wilcox, Sam recalled, from his conversation with Bird out in front of the Rattlesnake Saloon that afternoon, was evidently the town drunk. Nothing much to recommend him, it seemed, save that he was the owner of a loyal horse.

      Sam pulled a penny from his vest pocket—he’d left his suit coat inside the schoolhouse when he saw the need to chop wood—and extended the coin to Terran. “Thanks,” he said.

      Terran blinked. “What’s that for?”

      “Delivering my goods,” Sam replied.

      Terran’s gaze strayed to the Colt .45 on Sam’s hip, and his eyes widened. He advanced a step to take the penny. “Obliged,” he said, but he was looking at the revolver, not the penny.

      “You any good with that gun?” he ventured to ask.

      Sam let one corner of his mouth tilt upward. “Just use it for shooting snakes, mostly,” he lied.

      Terran closed his hand tightly around the penny. Met Sam’s eyes. “I never knew a schoolmaster to pack a .45 before,” he said. “Mr. Singleton sure didn’t.”

      “Mr. Singleton,” Sam answered, “is a whole different kind of man than I am.”

      “We didn’t mean to hurt him,” Terran said.

      Sam nodded. “I believe that,” he allowed. “But a prank can go wrong, mighty fast, even when nobody intends for it to happen. And there are ways to do a man injury that don’t leave any marks on his hide.”

      Terran’s cheeks blazed, making his freckles stand out in bold relief. He hitched up his pants and then stood with his feet spread and his hands on his hips. “You mean to mete out punishment, Mr. O’Ballivan?”

      Sam shook his head. “Not unless it’s called for, Mr. Chancelor,” he replied. He gave a sparing smile. “And I don’t reckon any of you will take a notion to try putting me down the well.”

      Terran tried to look solemn, but it was a lost cause. He grinned. “No, sir,” he said, “I don’t reckon we will.”

      Sam put out his hand, waited.

      The boy hesitated, then took it, and they shook on the bargain.

      Terran was the first to speak. “Maddie says you aren’t like any schoolteacher she’s ever seen,” he confided.

      Sam chuckled and shut the tailgate. “Is that right?”

      Terran hesitated a moment, as if he might say something more, but then he scrambled over the back of the wagon seat to take up the reins again. Looking back at Sam over one scrawny shoulder, he gave another grin. “She don’t appreciate having to take her supper at the Donaghers’s tomorrow night, neither.”

      “Why’d she agree to go, then?” Sam asked, honestly puzzled, as the boy cranked the brake lever forward.

      “Said she was roped into it,” Terran answered. Then, blithely, he added, “Maddie reckons as how if you’re stupid enough to step right into a scorpions’ nest, she’d better go along and see that you don’t get stung.”

      “Kind of her to look out for me,” Sam said dryly.

      Terran swung the wagon around in a wide circle in the grass, and when he pulled up alongside Sam, his expression had turned somber. “She looked out for Warren, too,” he said, “and they still killed him.”

      Sam didn’t know what to say to that, so he didn’t say anything at all.

      “See you tomorrow,” Terran told him.

      Sam saluted and watched with his thumbs hooked in his gun belt as the boy drove back toward the road. Once Maddie Chancelor’s little brother was out of sight, he went back, took up his ax again and chopped the rest of the wood with more force than the job truly required.

      * * *

      MUNGO DONAGHER SURVEYED his bride as she dashed from one end of the ranch house kitchen to the other, grabbing down china plates from the cupboard and inspecting them for God-knew-what. She didn’t bother with cooking—they had Anna Deerhorn to do that, along with the cleaning and other household work—but ever since she’d invited the schoolmaster out for a meal, she’d been in a fine dither of preparation.

      “If I didn’t know better,” Mungo said sourly, “I’d think you were taken with that O’Ballivan feller.”

      Undine stopped her china-studying and turned to look at him, her eyes wide with innocent affront. “What a dreadful thing to say, Mungo Donagher,” she protested, putting one hand to her glossy black hair and pressing the other to her throat. “There’s only one man for me, and that’s you.”

      Mungo knew he was being a damned fool, but he went ahead and believed her anyhow. It would have been hard not to, the way she was looking at him with those big purple eyes of hers. Lord, but she was a pretty thing, and lively in private, too.

      He put out his arms, and she came to him with just the briefest hesitation and the smallest sigh. He ignored that, and held her close against him, filling his nostrils with the lemony scent of her hair.

      Just then the side door swung open and his youngest, Ben, burst through from outside, clutching a speckled pup in both arms.

      “Get that dog out of this house,” Mungo commanded, loosening his hold on Undine and pretending he didn’t notice how quickly she drew back.

      The boy swallowed. His eyes were red-rimmed, and the way he was breathing, fast and shallow, usually signaled one of his fits. “Garrett and Landry,” he gasped, “they said they was gonna drown him in the crick!”

      “It’d be a favor to me if they did,” Mungo growled. “Save me feeding him.”

      Ben held the mutt closer. “Please, Pa,” he pleaded, gasping a little as he parceled out his words. “He’s a good dog, and he’s got a name, too. It’s Neptune.”

      “Neptune,” Mungo muttered. “That’s a damn sissy name if I ever heard one.”

      Undine shifted, so she was standing just back of Ben. “Let him have the pup, Mungo,” she said quietly. “It’s not so much to ask.”

      Undine had a soft spot when it came to critters. Wanted one of those silly little dogs, small enough to ride in a reticule. She’d seen women