you could cut the tension with a knife, when Betsy poked her head in the door.
"Sheriff-Hi, Nell, Ripley. Sheriff, Bill and Ed Sutter are starting to mix it up out in from of the hotel. It looks like it could get messy."
"I'll take care of it."
"No." Zack got up at Ripley's statement. "We'll take care of it."
The Sutter brothers vacillated between staunch family loyally and hating each other like poison. Since they were both bullheaded and built like the same animal, he thought it best not to let Ripley get into a two-on-one situation. He gave Nell a brief glance as he walked outside. "You'll have to wait."
So cold, she thought, rubbing her arms. It was hard to accept ice from a man who had such warmth. He wasn't going to make this easy. Oddly enough, even after the worst of it the evening before, she'd convinced herself that he would.
He would let her talk. He would sympathize, understand, hold her.
Standing alone in the station house, Nell watched that little fantasy crack in two and disappear.
Here she was, swallowing her pride, risking her peace of mind and well-being, and all he could do was spare her a single icy look.
Well, then, maybe she should just let bad enough alone.
Stung, she pulled open the door. Two steps out and she could not only see the commotion up the street, she could hear it. Freezing in place, she hugged herself and watched it play out.
One big man with short-cropped hair belly-slammed another big man with short-cropped hair. Curses were flying. An interested crowd was gathering at a safe distance, and some of them appeared to be taking sides by hooting and calling out names.
Zack and Ripley were already wading in, muscling the men apart. Nell couldn't hear what they were saying, but while it quieted the crowd, it didn't appear to have much impact on the Sutter brothers.
They were all but snapping at each other's faces.
Nell cringed, closed in when she saw the first fist strike. There was a lot of shouting now, and she heard it like the pounding of the surf. A lot of motion that seemed lost in a fast blur.
Zack had one man's arm, Ripley the other's. Both had their handcuffs out. Bumping, shoving. Curses and clipped warnings.
Then one brother swung viciously at the other, missed his mark and plowed his fist into Zack's face.
She watched Zack's head snap back, heard the crowd gasp as one voice. Everyone went so still, it seemed like a film stopped in a freeze-frame.
She was already rushing across the street as motion and voices started again.
"Well, goddamn it, Ed, you're under arrest." Zack snapped the cuffs in place as Ripley did the same. "And for good measure, the same goes for you, Bill.
Couple of hotheaded peckerbrains. You people go on about your business now," he ordered as he muscled Ed around.
He caught sight of Nell, standing on the sidewalk like a deer caught in the headlights, and cursed again.
"Come on, Sheriff, you know I wasn't aiming at you."
"Doesn't matter a damn to me who you were aiming at." Not when he tasted blood in his mouth. "You just assaulted an officer."
"He started it."
"Like hell," Bill shot back as Ripley walked him briskly along. "But I'm sure as hell going to finish it when I get the chance."
"You and what army?"
"Just shut up," Ripley ordere'd. "Couple of forty-year-old delinquents."
"Ed's the one who punched him. What're you hauling me in for?"
"You're a damn public nuisance. If the two of you want to butt heads, do it in the privacy of one of your homes and keep it off the streets."
"You're not going to put us in jail." Calmer now as he saw his fate, Ed turned his head to appeal. "Come on now, Zack, you know my wife'll skin me if you lock me up. It was just family business, after all."
"Not when it's on my street, and not when it involves my goddamn face." His jaw throbbed like a bitch. He marched Ed straight into the station house and back to one of the two tiny holding cells. "You're going to have some time to cool off before I get around to calling your wife. Whether she cares enough to come down and make your bail is up to her."
"Same goes," Ripley told Bill cheerfully as she uncuffed him and nudged him into a cell.
Once the cell doors were shut and locked, she dusted her hands. "I'll write up the report. I type