Silver Creek - G.L. Snodgrass Page 0,20

screen door opened. A young woman stepped out and gasped when she saw Carver’s face.

A fiery redhead, Luke thought as he admired the view. Probably eighteen or so with all the right parts in all the right positions. Felton’s sister? he wondered. The one the sheriff had mentioned? She looked like her brother except for the red hair and fair skin.

“What happened to you?” she demanded as she placed her hands on her hips, staring at Carver like he was mud on her boot.

The cowboy blushed as he removed his hat and shrugged. “I zigged when I should of zagged.”

The girl shook her head and was about to chastise him when she looked up and saw Luke sitting on his horse, leaning forward on the saddle horn.

“Ma’am,” he said as he tipped his hat.

Carver scrambled to explain. “This is Luke Parker, he’d like to talk to Mr. Felton.”

The girl’s eyes blazed at the mention of Luke’s name. What was it about these people that they couldn’t stop talking about him?

She studied him for a long moment until something changed in her expression. As if she liked what she was looking at. “You shouldn’t be here,” she said to him, more a warning than a demand, almost as if she actually cared.

Luke shrugged. “I’ve been too many places I wasn’t welcome. A man can get used to it.”

She sighed then shot Carver an angry look before going back inside. The cowboy looked back at him and shook his head. Luke wondered if he was more upset at his boss being mad or the girl being disappointed in him.

A moment later the door opened when a tall man with wideset shoulders stepped out onto the veranda, his sister directly behind him. Luke was surprised to see him wearing a gold brocade vest over a starched white shirt. What looked like a Navy colt on his hip. Tailored pants, and shiny boots. A look you might expect in San Francisco. Or Chicago. Not out here in the middle of the Nevada desert.

“Mr. Felton,” Luke began. “I’m …”

“I know who you are,” Felton growled. Then he looked past Luke to behind him.

Luke felt a shiver run down his spine as he casually glanced over his shoulder to find two cowboys walking towards him. Mark Felton and Troy Cooper.

Very Carefully he pushed off the pommel without dropping his hand to be near his gun.

Joshua Felton frowned then shook his head. “We don’t shoot men in the back,” he told Luke.

Luke studied him for a long moment. “Somebody did it to Tom Johnson and I plan on finding out who.”

Felton shrugged as Cooper and his brother joined him up on the porch. The three of them facing him, silently letting him know he couldn’t get all three of them before they got him.

“If you do,” Joshua Felton said. “Let me know and I’ll help you string him up.”

He could see it in Mark Felton’s eyes as the man’s fingers flexed. He so wanted to go for his gun. Luke wondered if the closeness of his sister was holding him back. With three against one, he wouldn’t stand a chance. Next to the younger Felton, Cooper scowled at him from beneath a creased forehead. Evaluating. Trying to learn.

This was the dangerous one, Luke reminded himself until he saw the look in Joshua’s Felton’s eyes. It was a cold analysis. Like the eyes of a wolf looking over the heard before picking out his next victim.

Luke felt the tension rise as everyone waited for someone to make a move and open the event. But the silence was interrupted when the girl stepped forward and smiled up at him. “Please excuse my brother. I am Sarah Felton. Would you like to come in? The noon meals should be ready soon.”

He smiled inside at the anger that flashed on the face of her older brothers.

“Thank you, Ma’am,” he said as he tipped his hat. “But I won’t be bothering you. I’ve learned most of what I needed. Just one more thing. Why did you buy the farm? Mr. Felton I mean it ain’t like you needed the land.”

Felton froze as he stared up at Luke then said, “The beauty of this country is that I don’t have to explain myself to someone like you.”

Luke smiled but kept quiet, hoping for more.

Felton’s eyebrows rose as he tried to understand but Luke kept quiet. He’d learned long ago that talking just gave people ammunition.

“Even if you discover the killer,” Joshua Felton continued,