Silver Creek - G.L. Snodgrass Page 0,28

the way he’d looked, the sheriff wouldn’t be talking for a while, if ever.”

“You got a moment?” Strumph said to him as he held him back then motioned three other men over. “This is Seaver, who runs the General Store.” Luke shook the hand of a small portly man. “And this is Frank Tuthill, owns the Bank.”

“We’ve met,” Luke said as he held out his hand to shake the banker’s hand as he wondered why these men were taking the time to meet with him at a time like this.

He needed to know what the sheriff knew.

“And finally, John Jamison,” Strumph continued. “Our mayor, owns the High Line mine. Basically, the four of us are the town council. Along with Bill Cowels from the hotel, but he’s out of town.”

Again, Luke shook the man’s hand as his stomach tightened. He didn’t like where this was going.

The mayor studied him for a moment then said, “Reed talked to us about you. He thought you’d make a good deputy. He said any man who could face down Troy Cooper was a man to take seriously.”

Luke grimaced inside. “I ain’t exactly in the deputy business.”

Jamison continued to stare at him. “Well, you are now. We need someone like you. This town is getting too rough. Had one of my miners killed two weeks ago in a drunken brawl. Another got beaten last night to within an inch of his life. Stages getting robbed and farmers murdered. It ain’t right.”

“And now a sheriff shot down in broad daylight. It’s bad for business,” Seaver, the store merchant said.

“This is all our fault,” Strumph, the blacksmith, said as he looked to where the men had carried the sheriff into the McAdam’s shop. “We pressed Sheriff Reed to start cleaning things up. He went up against Mark Felton and came off the worse.”

“I’m sorry gentlemen,” Luke began. “But like I told the sheriff …”

“Mr. Parker,” Jamison interrupted. “Everyone knows the Feltons were messed up in this Tom Johnson business. People been talking how you been banging at the brush, hoping to flush something. Well, this is your chance to really cause a ruckus. With the law behind you.”

Luke paused for a moment. Was the man right? Was this the best way to find Tom’s killer and get Becky her ranch back? He looked down at the pool of blood soaking into the dusty street. He’d liked Sheriff Reed. The man had been upfront and honest with him. It was wrong for him to be cut down this way. All for doing what the people wanted.

“I couldn’t promise long term,” he told them. “That Oregon territory is calling at me. Once I get Becky her ranch back, I’ll be headed that way.”

“Fair enough,” Jamison said. “We’ll take what we can get.”

“And you lot will back my play?” Luke asked them, staring each in the eye. “I might have to break a few heads. It won’t be completely civilized.”

The men smiled. Strumph actually laughed, “Mr. Parker. We ain’t even been a state but for a few years. We got standoffish Mormons east of us, the Shoshone north of us, and the Apache to the south. Then you add, one of the driest deserts in the world to the west of us. This place ain’t exactly civilized. But it is time it became so. Sometimes it takes a wolf to clear out a bunch of coyotes. It is only after they’ve been gotten rid of can we settle down to something that comes close to civilization.”

Luke laughed to himself. Basically, they’d told him that once he was done, they hoped he move on down the trail. They wouldn’t want a man like him hanging around reminding them of what he had to do to clean up their town. It was like the army. The country had needed them, then cast them aside when the fight was over. That was all right by him though, at least in his book. He wasn’t staying here long term.

“Very well,” he said. He knew he was making a mistake, but this might be the only way to learn anything. Maybe someone might be willing to talk to the law when they wouldn’t to some drifting cowboy.

The men sighed with relief. “Let’s go over to the jail,” Jamison said. “Swear you in and get you a badge.”

“Where’s Felton?” Luke asked.

Each man looked at the other and shrugged. “I guess you’ll have to track him down?” Jamison said. “But when you do, I want him arrested