The Sheriffs of Savage Wells Read online

  © 2016 Sarah M. Eden

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means without permission in writing from the publisher, ­Shadow ­Mountain®, at ­[email protected] or P. O. Box 30178, Salt Lake City, Utah 84130. The views expressed herein are the responsibility of the author and do not necessarily represent the position of ­Shadow ­Mountain.

  Visit us at ShadowMountain.com

  This is a work of fiction. Characters and events in this book are products of the author’s imagination or are represented fictitiously.

  Library of Congress ­Cataloging-­in-­Publication ­Data

  Names: Eden, Sarah M., author.

  Title: The sheriffs of Savage Wells / Sarah M. Eden.

  Description: Salt Lake City, Utah : Shadow Mountain, [2016] | ©2016

  Identifiers: LCCN 2016003430 (print) | LCCN 2016005425 (ebook) | ISBN 9781629722191 (paperbound) | ISBN 9781629734538 (ebook)

  Subjects: LCSH: Sheriffs—Wyoming—History—19th century—Fiction. | Policewomen—Wyoming—History—19th century—Fiction. | LCGFT: Historical fiction. | Romance fiction.

  Classification: LCC PS3605.D45365 S54 2016 (print) | LCC PS3605.D45365 (ebook) | DDC 813/.6—dc23

  LC record available at http://lccn.loc.gov/2016003430

  Printed in the United States of America

  Publishers Printing, Salt Lake City, UT

  10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  Book design © 2016 Shadow Mountain

  Art Direction: Richard Erickson

  Design: Heather G. Ward

  Cover photo: Butch Adams Photography, Urban Talent Management and Atmosphere1/shutterstock.com

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  by Julianne Donaldson

  The Heir to Edenbrooke: A Prequel Novelette

  by Julianne Donaldson (eBook only)

  To Sleep

  Our relationship suffered in the writing of this book,

  and I’d like to make amends…

  as soon as I finish writing the next one.

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Acknowledgments

  Discussion Questions

  About the Author

  Wyoming Territory, 1875

  Sheriff Cade O’Brien was heartily sick of shooting people. Time and again, he’d rounded up a band of outlaws and the imbeciles had refused to come peaceably. Why was the criminal element so blasted stupid? It wasn’t as though his reputation hadn’t preceded him. He had a revolver named after him, for land’s sakes.

  He’d spent the past ten years putting holes in the potato-brained lawbreakers of the West and reckoned he’d earned a rest. So when a telegram had been sent out across several western territories announcing that the tiny town of Savage Wells was looking to hire a sheriff at an impressive wage, Cade gathered up his meager belongings, his equally meager savings, and his overused gun, and headed out.

  The telegram had instructed all interested candidates to report to the jailhouse at a particular time on a particular day. Cade arrived a little ahead of the appointed hour, wanting to take in the lay of the land. He wasn’t worried about being beat out for the job. Rather, he wanted time to decide if the job was for him.

  He arrived in Savage Wells on a cloudless September afternoon expecting to see a tiny town. But buildings lined either side of an L-shaped street with fields sprawled out in all directions. He’d passed quite a few ranches on his ride in. The signs on each building were large and clear, the storefronts well kept. Mercantile. Blacksmith. Barber. The town even had a combined hotel and restaurant. He might be bored but he’d not go hungry.

  Spotting the jailhouse, he rode in that direction. He adjusted his hat to sit a little lower on his head. He hooked his right thumb over his gun belt, keeping the reins in his left hand. He knew perfectly well the picture he and his white stallion, Fintan, made and the impact it had. Most of his confrontations were won before he even opened his mouth.

  Not many people were about. Those who were, smiled and waved to each other. A few had stopped to jaw a piece. The conversations were animated, but friendly. No one shoved anyone else. No weapons were brandished. It was quiet. Peaceful. A town that wasn’t throwing itself into the fire day after day would take a great deal of getting used to.

  Reaching his destination, he dismounted in one fluid movement and tied Fintan’s reins to the hitching post. He stood a moment, eyeing the jailhouse with its covered porch and front windows. In a great many towns the glass would’ve been shot out so often they’d have quit bothering to replace it.

  A man stood near the closed door, a pair of wire-rimmed spectacles perched low on his nose and black sleeve protectors over his white shirt. “You must be here about the job of sheriff.”

  Cade had been a lawman long enough to have the appearance of one. No one ever needed to ask. He gave a single, curt nod. “Anyone else here yet?”

  “Oh, yes, yes.” The man glanced about, head darting from one side to the other, as he patted at his various pockets. “Mr. Rice, just over there, with the blue bandana around his neck.” He motioned toward the post at the far end of the overhang. “Two more men are waiting alongside the building. Two.” He pulled off his spectacles and wiped the lenses with a white linen handkerchief. “But there should be more. A few more. A few.” He returned his spectacles to his face. “Good, good.” He adjusted the brown bowler on his head, then went back to patting his pockets.

  Was the pocket-patting a nervous habit or had he misplaced something?

  He returned his gaze to Cade, though he continued to fidget. “I am
Mayor Brimble.” He held out his hand, pulled it back quickly to wipe something off his fingers, then stuck it out once more.

  Scatterbrained mayors tended to run scatterbrained towns. That didn’t bode particularly well.

  Out of the corner of his eye, Cade spied a young lad—twelve years old, he reckoned—standing at Fintan’s head, eyeing a bit too closely the horse and the packs it held. Without turning his head fully in that direction, Cade pointed his finger at the boy. “Leave him be, boy. He has a devil of a temper.”

  The boy’s eyes opened wide. “I wasn’t gonna hurt him, mister.”

  “It ain’t you hurting him that I’m worried about.”

  “Yes, sir.” And he backed away.

  Cade returned his attention to the mayor, who was watching him with much the same awed expression as had the boy on the street.

  “There’s no point standing about twiddling our thumbs,” Cade told the mayor. “We must be near time to begin.”

  “Yes, yes.” Mayor Brimble patted his pockets once more but didn’t find whatever he was looking for.

  A man on horseback came up alongside the jail. He tipped his sweat-stained hat back, eyeing them. “Is this the spot for the sheriff job?”

  “Yes, yes, yes.”

  Cade hoped the mayor didn’t make a habit of repeating himself all the time. It was likely to grow tiresome.

  “I’ve not seen a saloon or a bawdy house since arriving.” Cade had never known a town that didn’t have both, often several of each. Most of the trouble he’d encountered as a sheriff had begun at one or the other of those establishments.

  The mayor puffed out his chest. “We’ve never allowed either in Savage Wells.”

  Now that did bode well.

  Another man sauntered over, his swagger setting him apart from the families and townspeople. Clearly he was another candidate. Yet another arrived a moment later.

  Cade looked at the men awaiting the mayor’s instructions. To a man, they looked rough and hardened, comfortable with their weapons. For some it would no doubt prove to be a bluff to cover their own nerves. They’d be weeded out fast enough.

  The mayor rocked forward and backward, smiling as though everything was right in the world and he wasn’t in any particular hurry. Cade leaned against the front wall of the jailhouse. If the mayor meant to go about this at a pace slower than molasses on a cold winter’s day, Cade could accommodate him. Nothing in the peaceful scene laid out in front of him indicated a looming crisis.

  A fence post of a man made his way from the barbershop in long, hurried strides.

  “Mr. Irving,” the mayor said, introducing the newcomer to the would-be sheriffs. “He is our barber and on the town council.”

  Mr. Irving nodded, but didn’t speak.

  “And”—Mayor Brimble motioned to a second man approaching from the mercantile—“Mr. Holmes, our merchant, is also on the council. And Dr. MacNamara rounds out our numbers.”

  The town had a doctor. That was a good thing. Crimes happened even in quiet towns. Cade would rather not kill anyone, but a few too many well-meaning folks had turned a minor gunshot wound into a fatal injury with their amateur doctoring.

  “Here comes the doctor now.” Mayor Brimble motioned behind Cade.

  He turned. He never let anyone sneak up behind him.

  Dr. MacNamara couldn’t have been any older than Cade, probably not even thirty years old. The town’s man of medicine was a puppy. And a city puppy at that. His togs weren’t the rough fabric and simple cut of home-sewn fashions. Men from the Eastern cities generally weren’t prepared for the realities of the West. He’d probably faint dead away at the sight of a bullet hole.

  The doctor nodded to the other candidates. Being closest to Cade, he held out his hand. He didn’t seem unnerved by Cade, something few could honestly say.

  A good firm grip. He might have been young for a doctor, but at least he wasn’t a pamby. “You’re the doctor, I’m told.”

  “That’s what I’m told as well.” Dr. MacNamara’s dark eyes danced with mirth. He turned to the others. “Are we all assembled?”

  “Yes, yes.” Mayor Brimble waved the candidates closer. “We’re pleased you’ve seen fit to apply for this job. We’re in need of a new sheriff and had hoped to appeal to the very best candidates.”

  In need of a new sheriff. Turnover wasn’t usually a good sign. “What happened to your last sheriff?”

  “He was far too fond of wood,” Dr. MacNamara said, a mischievous twinkle in his eye.

  Cade folded his arms across his chest and eyed the council members in turn. His stern, impatient glare had never failed to make people spill whatever secret he needed to know.

  “He left for Oregon,” the mayor explained. “He wanted to be a lumber­jack. It was all he ever talked about. Trees. Wood. Lumberjacking. He was hardly paying any attention the last few months he was here. Didn’t even always come down to the jail to work.”

  “Probably best he left then,” Cade said. “Most sheriffs leave their posts in a pine box. Seems he did fine for himself.”

  The other sheriffing hopefuls didn’t so much as blink at the reminder of the dangers of the job. They were made of sterner stuff than they seemed to be.

  “So why the generous pay?” Mr. Rice spoke up, his blue kerchief fluttering around his neck in the stiff breeze. “A town as quiet as this don’t really need a sheriff good enough to demand that price.”

  He made exactly the point Cade was mulling over.

  “We don’t need one yet. But we have every reason to believe we will.”

  Now that was intriguing. Something was looming on Savage Wells’s horizon, but the council wasn’t saying just what. A peaceful place but with a mystery lingering in the air; Cade liked it already.

  The mayor patted at his pockets, brow pulled low and deep. The doctor apparently knew what to do. He pulled a folded bit of paper from the pocket of his sharply cut waistcoat along with a small nub of a pencil and held it at the ready.

  “Good, good.” The mayor nodded triumphantly. “Now, if you men will tell us your names, we’ll get started.”

  The doctor looked at Cade expectantly.

  “Cade O’Brien.”

  An immediate hush fell over the other men. Every pair of eyes pulled wide. More than one mouth dropped open. Cade simply stood there, waiting for their shock to wear off. He’d built enough of a reputation out West to recognize the reaction; it’d pass soon enough.

  As if on cue, the silence disappeared as quickly as it had descended and something near chaos erupted in its place. Four of the six men simply threw their hands up and declared themselves out of the running.

  “I ain’t got a chance against Cade O’Brien,” one said, fixing his hat more firmly on his head.

  One by one, they passed Cade, dipping their hats or shaking his hand, and declaring it an honor to meet him. The town council looked a bit awed at both him and the exodus he’d caused.

  In the end, only Sweaty Hat and Blue Kerchief remained. His respect for the two men increased on the spot. Not everyone was willing to keep at a fight that had suddenly turned lopsided.

  “Anyone else?” the mayor asked.

  “One more,” a feminine voice declared.

  Cade turned around.

  A woman approached, her nearly black hair pulled into a tidy bun. Deep brown eyes, a pleasant face—she was a beauty, for sure. Her eyes met his for a moment. She looked him up and down but didn’t seem terribly impressed. The final candidate’s wife, perhaps? Or sister?

  The question faded, however. Hanging low on her hips was a gun belt, a pistol in the holster. He’d known a few women who wore guns, but none who wore it as naturally as she did, or as menacingly.

  “One final name for your list of candidates,” she said to the doctor, her voice firm and commanding. “Miss Paisley B
ell.”

  Paisley had learned to appear comfortable under scrutiny. She didn’t allow herself to squirm or fret while her declaration sunk into the men around her. She’d kept the sheriff’s office running the past few months while their previous lawman had been off dreaming of trees. She’d kept on top of the town’s troubles, even rounded up a gang of cattle rustlers. But the town had congratulated the old sheriff on a job well done, and he’d thanked them without mentioning her role in any of it.

  When he’d left two weeks ago, she had taken over running the office. She’d made a good temporary sheriff and would be a fine permanent one. And it was time the town realized that.

  The mayor’s mouth moved silently as he searched for a response. He finally settled on, “This is decidedly odd.”

  Paisley shrugged. “‘Decidedly Odd’ is my nickname in this town.”

  Gideon rolled his eyes at her, the way he had for two years now. They picked at each other the way a pair of siblings might. “No one thinks you’re odd,” he said.

  The broad-shouldered, golden-haired stranger chimed in. “They likely will now.”

  She’d seen him take note of her gun belt as she’d first approached, but, other than a brief flicker of surprise, he didn’t seem particularly shocked by it. A pistol and a lace-edged, flower-print dress weren’t generally seen in combination.

  His hand hung leisurely near his holster, his thumb hooked casually over his own gun belt. There was a familiarity to it all that spoke volumes of his acquaintance with his weapon. Nothing in his posture was the least bit uncomfortable, neither did he appear to feel threatened.

  He was the only candidate who gave her pause. The other two lacked his air of authority. Even the town council lacked it. The position of sheriff was more or less his for the taking, except she didn’t mean to simply hand it to him. She’d found something she was good at, something she loved doing, and she’d fight for it.

  “Are you in earnest, Miss Bell?” the mayor asked.

  She held his uncertain gaze. “Completely.” Without looking at Gideon, she said, in the steely, confident tone that generally made people sit up and listen to her, “Write down my name, Gid.”