left. If something bad has happened to her, you’re wasting your time talking to me. You ought to be out beating the bushes, looking for her.”
Driscoll surged to his feet. “Or maybe we’ll beat the truth out of you.” Hands fisted, he made a lunge for Thatcher and took a wild swing.
Sheriff Amos shot out of his chair. “Dammit, Gabe. Sit down, or it’ll be you I’m locking up.”
The mayor took hold of the doctor’s arm and dragged him back to his seat. “Can’t say as I blame you, Gabe,” he said, casting a glare in Thatcher’s direction. “It’s clear he’s lying.”
Thatcher didn’t give a damn about that blowhard’s opinion. The distraught husband was another matter entirely. “I’m telling you the truth, Dr. Driscoll. What call would I have had to repay Mrs. Driscoll’s kindness by hurting her?”
The mayor answered for him. “I think you took advantage of her kindness and got her to open the door of her house to you tonight.”
“I didn’t,” Thatcher said, but he addressed the denial to the sheriff, not to the mayor.
Harold came stalking across the room. When Thatcher saw what he was bringing with him, his stomach sank. It was a set of postcards that he had brought home from France. Harold had removed the string that bound them.
Smirking at Thatcher, he passed the cards to Sheriff Amos. “Found these in the bottom of his bag.”
Each of the cards featured a photograph of a half-naked woman in a provocative pose. The sheriff fanned through them without comment or reaction, then formed a neat stack of them and set it facedown on the nearby desk.
Thatcher didn’t offer any apology or explanation for them. Was there a man in the room who wouldn’t enjoy taking a peek?
The sheriff leaned back in his chair and tugged at the corner of his mustache while he studied Thatcher. Thatcher wished he knew what was going through the lawman’s mind. Apparently, so did the mayor. Above the loud ticking of the wall clock’s brass pendulum, he prompted him. “Bill?”
Seeming to be in no hurry to respond, the sheriff waited another fifteen seconds, then indicated the torn shoulder seam on Thatcher’s coat. “How’d that happen?”
“One of the men on the train made a grab for me.”
“You really believe he jumped off a freight train, Bill?”
That from the mayor, whom the sheriff again ignored. He said, “You could’ve broken your fool neck. Why didn’t you stay on the train and fight it out?”
Thatcher glanced around. All of them were poised, waiting for an answer. He addressed the sheriff. “I did.”
“Did what?”
“Fought it out.”
“Three against one?”
“Wasn’t my choice.”
The sheriff reached for his hand and turned it palm up. “How’d you get that cut?”
“One of the men came at me with a knife. I was defending myself.”
“Against Mrs. Driscoll,” the mayor said.
The sheriff didn’t acknowledge the remark. “Back there in your room, you came at us like a vandal.”
“I told you. I woke up with a shotgun to my head. I reacted.”
“Violently,” the mayor said.
The sheriff kept his attention on Thatcher. “Three against one. Five against one. Where’d you learn to fight like that?”
“A bunkhouse.”
“He’s obviously a dangerous individual, Bill.”
“I’m not a danger to a woman,” Thatcher fired back at the mayor. “Sure as hell not one in the family way.”
The doctor choked back a sob and held his fist against his mouth to contain others.
Thatcher looked directly at the sheriff. “Look, hopping the freight? Guilty. I was just trying to get home, and the army didn’t pay me enough to get there. I wasn’t looking to fight the men on the train, but they would have killed me if I hadn’t fought back. Fought y’all because I’ve been to war and temporarily mistook you for the enemy.
“The last time I saw Mrs. Driscoll was midafternoon as she was bidding me goodbye. That’s the God’s truth. I would never raise a hand to a woman or harm one in any way if I could help it.”
He flashed to how he’d startled Laurel Plummer as she was hanging out her wash, but decided not to mention that encounter. Approaching two women who were strangers to him, on the same day, might compound their suspicions.
“What did you do after leaving the Driscolls’ house?” the sheriff asked.
Thatcher told him about renting the room, then seeking out Mr. Barker. “He hired me.”
“As a mechanic?”
“No. He’s paying me to train a horse.”
The mayor guffawed. “That horse in the paddock behind Barker’s place?”