Chapter 6
Nathaniel leaned against the door frame of the dual stable and carriage house.
The structure and the corral next to it was only a short distance from the cabin.
Watching his sister guide the buggy past the boarding house and then head east down Main Street, he couldn’t get a number of thoughts and questions about Chloe Whitfield out of his mind.
It had become rather clear to him that she’d led a difficult life and didn’t seem to know what she wanted or where she was going.
What also confused him, to no small degree, was his almost immediate attraction to her. That attraction was not just due to a pretty face. There was something about the woman that tugged at something deep inside him. He felt something that he’d never felt before. In fact—
“She seems a little lost, doesn’t she, Nathaniel?”
He glanced at his mother, who’d approached so quietly from the house he hadn’t heard nor noticed her standing slightly behind him.
Chagrined that he hadn’t been paying attention to his surroundings, he turned.
She looked at him with a slight, knowing smile and lifted eyebrow.
He shook his head and frowned, his gaze returning to the disappearing buggy, sensing the direction of her thoughts.
“Please don’t,” he murmured. His mother, the matchmaker, or one who tried heartily to be when it came to her grown children.
“She’s pretty, isn’t she?”
He nodded. Perhaps he was being too mistrustful.
He hadn’t always been this way. Once upon a time he’d been friendly and trusting of everyone until they gave him a reason not to be.
Now it was the other way around and had been since he’d been betrayed.
That mistake might have led to his father’s death.
“I’m glad she’s up and about. I was beginning to worry about her. ”
“Why?”
He didn’t answer her question but turned to his mother once more, her head barely reaching his shoulder. It wasn’t the first time he’d noted the gray wisps in her hair and the fine lines at the corners of her eyes.
A sudden sense of nostalgia overtook him; the sound of his mother’s laughter, which he hadn’t heard more than once or twice since his father had been murdered.
He missed the easy banter than had flown between his parents or their voices raised in song at church, the quiet murmur of their voices at night in their room after they all went to bed.
No, he wasn’t the only one who’d changed since his father’s death. He said nothing but again turned back toward Main Street, the departing buggy leaving behind a slowly settling cloud of dust.
“Chloe hasn’t had an easy life,” she murmured.
So she’d noticed too, but he asked anyway. “Why do you think so?”
Dalia looked up at him, a wisp of a smile curving her lips. “Women’s intuition.” She turned to head back to the house. “I’ll be busy today.” She glanced over her shoulder. “You come for supper tonight.”
As she returned to the house he heaved a sigh and started on his rounds.
Women’s intuition. He’d heard that often enough from Lillian as well.
They acted as if men didn’t have a brain in their head sometimes.
Grumbling, he headed for Main Street and the mercantile at the corner of Main and First. “It’s all just guessing. ”
“What’s just guessing?”
As he rounded the corner he found Spencer Talbot outside his store on the short boardwalk that surrounded the front and sides of the structure, broom in hand and watching him with a curious smile. “Morning, Spencer.”
“Mornin’ yourself, Sheriff.” He gestured with his chin. “See you got yourself a new boarder.” He frowned. “‘Bout time those other two left, always comin’ in here and jawin’ ‘bout what I have and what I don’t.”
Nathaniel grinned. “They’re harmless, Spence.”
“Probably,” he grumbled. “But they’re a nuisance anyway.”
“Well, they’ll be gone awhile.” Nathaniel didn’t like to talk too much about his mother’s boarders with ever curious townspeople.
By now, everyone in town would know that his mother had taken in a female boarder, the same one who’d been on the stagecoach that Roger and Hank had been driving when they were shot and killed by outlaws.
“I heard she was injured.” Spencer gestured in the direction Lillian’s buggy had gone. “Looks all right to me though.”
“She’s feeling better this morning,” Nathaniel said.
Perhaps it was a good thing that Lillian was taking her over to the orphanage for a little while.
It would do Chloe good to be out and about with some fresh air.
He turned to Spencer, thinking it never hurt to ask. “Have you seen her around here before?”
“Nope. I could ask Maddie though. She remembers everybody that’s ever come into the store, or at least you’d think so.”
Nathaniel offered a grin. “She does have a good memory.”
“That she does.” Spencer leaned on the broomstick. “I hear Roger and Hank are being transported for burial up in Lawton, where they’re from.”
Nathaniel glanced at him in surprise. Even though he’d known the two men for years, he hadn’t known they were from Oklahoma. Then again, most people in this part of Texas had come from somewhere else. Yet such knowledge was another part of the job, his father had told him more than once.
Know your people but don’t get too involved in their lives. It just makes your job more difficult. Treat them fair and square until they give you a reason to treat them otherwise.
“I’ll write a note of condolence to send along with their coffins.”
The outlaws who’d attacked the stagecoach had gotten away, their trail disappearing into the grasslands of the high plains surrounding them.
Since the end of the Indian Wars, the number of outlaws and outlaw gangs roaming the plains had grown threefold.
Sparsely populated towns and villages as well as isolated farms and ranches spread over an open and endless landscape made for easy pickings.
“… you hear me, Sheriff?”
He glanced at Spencer once more. “Sorry. What’d you say?”
“Asked if the wife and I would see you at church this coming Sunday.” He shifted the broom in his hands. “Haven’t seen you in the past couple of Sundays.”
“Wasn’t around,” Nathaniel replied. “Was over toward Amarillo and then south a bit.”
“Got a bead on one of those outlaw gangs hanging around? You think the gang you were chasin’ over there is the same one that attacked the stagecoach here?”
“I wish I knew, Spencer,” Nathaniel sighed.
He gave the man a nod and moved on, a slow anger burning in his chest. He stepped off the boardwalk and crossed First Street, passing the hardware store and the doctor’s office.
Doc Fillmore didn’t seem to be in. When he was out on rounds in the area he hung a sign on his door that said ‘Out on business. Be back when I get back.’
Nathaniel shook his head and glanced at the bank across the street. A young couple had just walked inside and he heard Orval’s booming voice of welcome. Further along east Main Street, he smelled wood smoke and spied a small plume of it rising from the chimney of the blacksmith shop.
Moments later, he heard Amos Shepherd rhythmically banging at something on his anvil. Since the arrival of new families in town, Amos had been busier than ever molding horseshoes, tools, wagon parts, and hardware for households and such.
On the far eastern edge of town, he stopped to glance toward the livery stables on the north side of the street, the blacksmith lay on the south side. Beyond the smithy and to the south, he spied the roof of the saloon further south.
He turned back to look at the growing town of Cedar Bluff. This was his town, and these were his people, all relying on him to keep them safe, and yet just days ago, two stage drivers had been murdered less than a handful of miles away.
Why?
He took a worn path meandering through the open field between the bank and smithy, passing the saloon and heading toward the south end of Main Street.
A newer structure had recently been built there, with fresh whitewashed siding and a sign announcing a combination barber and dental office run by Jared Ackerman.
At that moment the man stepped outside, bent down, and placed a rock in front of the door to hold it open.
“Nice breeze today,” Nathaniel said as he approached.
“Yes indeed, Sheriff!” he replied a little louder than necessary. The middle aged man was a bit hard of hearing. “Come in for a haircut? Looks like you could use one, and a shave.”
Nathaniel hid a smile. Jared was always trying to drum up business. He did fairly well barbering for a small town like Cedar Bluff, and although he wasn’t a school trained dentist, he did all right when it came to pulling teeth.
“Not this morning, Jared,” he replied. “Just doing my rounds.”
“Come on in for a second,” Jared said gesturing with his thumb. “I got somethin’ I need to tell you.”
Nathaniel hesitated. To be honest, Nathaniel didn’t like that place anymore, even though he’d been going in once every couple of months for a decent haircut and a professional shave.
While his sister did a fair job cutting hair, and he shaved himself nearly every morning, there were times when he yearned for a relaxing haircut and shave, face lathered and eyes closed.
Since Jared had gotten the chair, he came less often.
The last time, just weeks ago, he’d taken one look at it and made Jared cover it with a cloth.
As he entered the clapboard structure, Nathaniel couldn’t help but glance at the far corner of the room where the odd-looking contraption stood.
Jared called it a dental chair. It gave Nathaniel the willies.
Something about it just didn’t sit right with him.
It was a heavy piece of cast-iron, its seat and back padded with deep red brocade upholstery.
It had arms, but the chair also sprouted a number of hinges and mechanisms that allowed the chair to be maneuvered into different positions.