Clari Dees - The Marshal Meets His Match

“You can head home now, Shorty. Tell Barnaby and Ms. Maggie I made it to town in one piece,” she said dryly, nudging Sandy out of hiding.

Shorty touched the brim of his hat and turned his horse, a sheepish smile at being caught on his face.

Meri grinned at him. It had become a game to see if she could spot the rider tailing her. Some were better at staying hidden then others, but she knew someone was always within earshot on her “solitary” rides.

There had been Indian trouble in several areas of the newly formed state, but they hadn’t had a problem in this area for many years. She felt so safe on the ranch, she often forgot she lived in what Easterners called the “Wild” West and took off alone on Sandy. Her father allowed this, as she was always armed, but quietly arranged for additional protection. Meri suspected her father, himself, followed her from time to time and was one of the riders she felt but never saw or caught.

Faither.

Her throat ached with a sudden tightness as she remembered him lying so still, blood pooling on the bank floor. She couldn’t handle losing him, too.

Meri turned her head in the direction of the cemetery where her mother’s body lay. The burial ground sprawled along a high slope a little over a half a mile from the western edge of town, out of danger of any floodwaters from Little Creek.

Retrieving the happily grazing Abe, Meri detoured and headed that direction. She’d not been back to her mother’s grave since the funeral. She knew only the shell of the loving wife and mother was there, but the loss seemed so bitterly final there that Meri only wanted to avoid it. The cemetery represented nothing but death and heartache to her.

She missed her mother so much she physically ached sometimes. She missed her hugs, her laugh. She missed the way her mother would lovingly call her by her full name—America Catriona. She didn’t need a cold gray headstone to reinforce her loss.

Today, however, she forced herself to keep riding toward it. She should at least check on her mother’s plot. Then when Faither awoke, she’d be able to tell him she’d checked on the ranch and Mother.

Nearing the graveyard, she noticed movement between the tree line bordering the top edge of the cemetery and a ridiculously ornate crypt. Meri halted Sandy. The crypt was the local oddity, having been built by an eccentric miner who’d struck it rich. He’d resided around Little Creek long enough to see it completed before moving on to follow rumors of another gold strike and leaving the empty, imported-marble monstrosity looking disdainfully down upon meager creek-stone or wooden markers. Two marble lions guarded the door of the vault, but they proved inadequate protection against curiosity seekers and mischievous boys.

Meri fully expected to see a couple of those boys now, but instead, Mr. Samuels appeared around the side of it, head down, walking slowly. She felt her eyes widen in surprise. He hadn’t been out and about much since the theft at the bank, owing to his own head injury, and he must have walked because she didn’t see his buggy anywhere. Why was he wandering around up there anyway? His wife’s grave plot was down near the front of the cemetery not far from her mother’s plot. Had the blow to his head left him a little confused?

He glanced up, saw her and flinched as if startled. Meri lifted her hand to wave, but he ducked his head and scurried down the slope of the graveyard. Reaching his wife’s grave, he knelt, turning his back to her.

Meri felt for him. She understood how it was when someone intruded on your private grief and quietly turned the horses away from the cemetery with a sense of relief for the reprieve. She could always come back later when she wouldn’t be interrupting anyone, and she really needed to get the horses tended to and return to Faither. She’d been gone far too long already.

Several minutes later Meri dismounted in front of Dr. Kilburn’s and looped the reins around the hitching post. Taking her satchel off Abe, she saw a tall boy walking toward her. “Billy?”

“Yes, ma’am?”

“Are you available to run an errand for me?”

“Yup, I was keepin’ a lookout for ya. I’m to let Mrs. Van Deusen know when you get back here ’cause she’s gonna bring you a plate of supper, and she’ll give me my choice of candy next time I’m in the store.” Billy nodded, grinning. “I reckon I kin do that when I run your errand.”

Meri grinned in response to Billy’s freckled, friendly one. “Yes, I reckon you can. I’ll give you a nickel if you’ll walk Sandy and Abe over to Franks’s, and tell him I’ll come see him as soon as I can.”

“Yes, ma’am! I’ll take real good care of ’em! And Mrs. Van Deusen’ll bring you a real nice supper when I tell ’er you’re back.” Billy’s grin stretched even wider as Meri placed the promised nickel in the grimy outstretched hand.

“By the way, why is Mrs. Van Deusen bringing me supper?” Meri asked.

“On account a Mrs. Kilburn havin’ to sit with somebody who’s sick, I guess. Mrs. Van Deusen said she’d take care of you and Doc this evenin’.” Billy carefully untied Abe and Sandy.

Meri took her bag and slid her carbine out of the saddle scabbard, stepped back and watched as the lanky adolescent proudly led the two steeds down the middle of the road, whistling and calculating whether to spend or save the precious nickel.

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