away someday and how lonely Jack and she would be.
And, in it all, Ellen found herself unable not to smile. Jack, ever the fan of Richard Boone’s immortal black-clad gunfighter, had instructed David and Clarence, “Whatever you do, if there really is a Hotel Carlton in San Francisco, get me a piece of hotel stationery or something. Okay, guys?”
David and Clarence, who had once obtained a Texas Ranger badge made from a Mexican peso and framed it with fake Texas Ranger identity papers as a gift for Jack, enthusiastically agreed to humor him this time as well.
Titus Blake swung down off the same big chestnut mare on which he’d ridden into Atlas when he’d come to assume the job of town marshal. Ellen remembered that day very well; Blake’s arrival had meant that Jack would no longer be filling in as the only peace officer in Atlas. She had never been fond of the idea of Jack being a cop (although Jack and she had several good friends in law enforcement in the future they’d left behind); Jack being the town marshal—a cop by another name—had been fraught with the potential to shatter their life together.
When Titus Blake rode down Atlas’ wide, dusty Main Street that first time, there’d been little gear on his saddle, merely a canteen, a rifle scabbard and a pair of saddle bags that had looked all but empty. The second horse he’d had in tow wore a pack saddle with what, she’d assumed at the time, were all of Titus Blake’s worldly possessions.
This time there was no packhorse. Blake’s saddlebags bulged, and a bedroll covered by a faded yellow slicker was lashed to the saddle as well. The rifle scabbard was there, its mouth just beneath the right saddlebag, the butt of a lever-action Winchester poking out from inside it. A shotgun with double barrels and exposed hammers was secured in a second scabbard on the left side of the saddle, near the horn. Ellen remembered Jack calling such a firearm a “Greener.”
Titus Blake looked ready for a gunfight and not some showdown at high noon with a lone gunman. But for the moment, all he did was remove his high-crowned, broad-brimmed gray Stetson and ask, “Miz Naile, Jack home?”
Ellen Naile inquired, “What seems to be the problem, marshal?”
“Ain’t for no woman’s ears, ma’am, lessen your husband thinks it’s proper. But I can say this. I need his help.”
“Come inside,” Ellen said without further hesitation.
“Ma’am?”
“Yes?” She turned around and looked at Titus Blake. “What is it?”
“Reckon I should remove my spurs?”
Ellen Naile could never remember the names for different styles of spurs, whether they were “jingle bobs” or whatever, but the marshal’s spurs had big rowels with spikes. “If you’re careful, Marshal, I don’t think they’ll be a problem.”
“If you say so, Miz Naile.”
Ellen forced herself to smile. Exaggerated politeness to women generally pissed her off. Ellen Naile opened the front door and went inside, Titus Blake’s spurs jingling after her. “You can leave your hat on that table, if you’d like.”
“Thank you kindly, ma’am.”
Ellen led him into the parlor off to the left of the short entrance hallway, the civilized side of the hearth to her right. The hearth in the kitchen, on the other side of the wall, shared a common chimney with this one. Sometimes, pleasant kitchen smells wafted their way into the room and imparted a cozy atmosphere she would have never thought she would enjoy, but did.
“Would you care for a drink, Marshal?”
“Right kind of you, Miz Naile, but I ain’t got a lot of time.”
Ellen took that as meaning he wished she’d shut up and go get her husband. “Please, take that chair by window. It’s quite comfortable.”
“Standin’ is just fine, Miz Naile.”
She nodded to Marshal Blake, gathered her skirts and walked out of the room and down the side hall, stopping at the door on her right. Very faintly, she could hear something that sounded like a car chase, punctuated by gunfire. She opened the door quite quickly and just wide enough to slip through, closing it even more rapidly behind her. Jack was listening to a CD, but wearing headphones while cleaning a revolver partially disassembled on the smallish table in front of him. It was the audio from the Mel Gibson videotape that Lizzie was watching on television that Ellen was afraid Marshal Blake might hear. How could she ever explain the sounds of gunfire, incidental music and high-speed “horseless carriages” coming from inside her house?