Silver Creek - G.L. Snodgrass Page 0,58
his shoulders. “Don’t forget, once we get this settled. I still got to track down who killed your uncle?”
She sighed heavily across from him. “Luke, I don’t care. Not anymore. Not if it means risking you.”
“Becky …” he started.
“No,” she interrupted, “I’ve thought about it. I want to go to Oregon. With you. There is nothing here for me. Not anymore. We could just ride out. Take Jake with us.”
As he bit into a chicken leg, Luke shook his head. “I can’t walk away.”
“Why?” she demanded. He noticed that her face was becoming red, almost splotchy. Obviously, she was getting angry.
“Because …”
“Don’t talk to me like I’m a little girl,” she snapped. He could tell she wasn’t pleased with him and looking to start a fight. That was the thing about Becky. He could fight with her and never fear losing her. Not really.
“Because,” he repeated, “if a man starts walking away from the hard things. Soon enough he finds himself walking away from the easy. And before you know it. He won’t stand and face noth’en.”
She growled under her breath as she stared at him. She took in a deep breath, obviously preparing to lay into him and his stupidity when a yell from the street interrupted them. The yell was followed by the clomp of charging horses and the jingle of a team being driven hard.
“The stage,” she gasped as she turned and hurried to the door.
Luke followed and watched over the top of her head as Slim Winters pulled back on the reins and brought his stage in to stop directly in front of the stage office in a cloud of dust that tickled the back of Luke’s throat.
Chester Polk tipped his hat from up in the shotgun position then, looked down the street to Helen’s restaurant, his eye searching.
“It looks like they got through without a problem,” he said to Becky.
She remained frozen as she watched the passengers disembark from the far side then come around the back of the stage and wait for their bags to be unloaded.
Three men. Each dressed in black broadcloth, a tall thin one in a gray hat, a short portly one with a black hat. The third man, smaller, with spectacles, glanced over to the jail, then turned and said something to the other two men. None of them wore a gun. At least not where he could see.
Jake stepped out of Helen’s restaurant and across the street to join Luke and Becky.
“I don’t see no Marshall in that lot,” Jake said as he shook his head.
Becky gasped then turned and stared up at Luke, her eyes accusing him of being wrong.
“Sheriff,” the man in the gold-rimmed spectacles said as he walked across the dusty street, the two other men close behind him. “Judge Simmons,” he said as he held out his hand.
Luke shook the man’s hand as he studied him closely. Did this man have any idea what kind of snake pit he’d wandered into? And without a marshal nearby. Exactly how intelligent were the judges around here?
“This is Mr. Braum, and Mr. Chambers, Attorneys at law,” the judge said as a way of introduction.
“I’ll be prosecuting,” Braum, the portly one, said.
“Are you sure?” Chambers asked. “I thought it was my turn.”
“No,” Braum said. “You had both the Boulton and the Smith cases in Reno. It’s my turn.”
Chambers shrugged his shoulders then turned to Luke, “Can you show me the prisoner. I suppose I should get his side of the story.”
Luke nodded for Jake to show the man back to the cell.
“This is Miss Rebecca Johnson,” Luke said to the judge and the lawyer.
Both men shook her hand, with Braum giving her a smile that set Luke’s nerves on edge. He noticed however that Becky didn’t return it. Instead, she asked, “Isn’t there a U.S. Marshall with you?”
Judge Simmons shook his head. “We’re a new state, no longer a territory. This case sounds as if it is pretty much a state issue.”
“What about a state Marshall?” Rebecca asked.
The judge shrugged. “We ain’t got around to getting them yet. If the man is convicted, he’ll serve his time at the state’s new penitentiary in Carson City. You lot will have to get him there.”
Luke’s stomach fell. He’d sent inquiries about Travers to the federal authorities. He’d never thought to send them to the state people. Now, there was no marshal to take this problem off his hands.
Becky rolled her eyes then shot Luke a look of said ‘I told you