The Sheriffs of Savage Wells Page 2

“A woman?” The man with the blue kerchief sputtered. “What kind of a daft town is this?” Someone needed to explain to him that speaking loudly under his breath defeated the purpose.

  “We’re not here to make a spectacle,” the authoritative one declared. “Let’s move things inside, shall we?”

  The town council obeyed him immediately. This was not an encouraging sign.

  The three other candidates stopped only a few steps into the jailhouse, staring at the veritable rainbow of ribbons hanging off every cell bar and the spools on shelves and tabletops scattered throughout the place. Paisley, on the other hand, was accustomed to the sight. She took advantage of their distraction and crossed to the sheriff’s desk. She stood firm and confident, making certain they all could see how at ease she was in that position. She settled one hand comfortably on her gun belt, slung low on her hips.

  The sound of footfalls announced the approach of Paisley’s biggest competition. “Why the ribbons?” he asked her. He wasn’t one for small talk, that was certain.

  He might demand answers, but she didn’t have to give them to him straight. “It brightens up the place.”

  “A jail ain’t supposed to be bright.” He shook his head as he looked away. He took in every corner of the room. She swore she could see him making future plans for the place.

  Did he expect her to simply nod and shuffle off? Her father had been out of work for two years. Their savings were gone. She’d sold furniture and some personal belongings to newly arrived ranchers to help make ends meet, but there was very little left. She needed a job, and she’d found one that suited her. The odds were stacked high against her, she knew that, but she’d never been one to shy away from a seemingly lost cause.

  “We haven’t actually met,” she said, pulling the stranger’s sharp blue gaze back to her. “Do you have a name?”

  “Cade O’Brien,” he answered in clipped tones. “Call me Cade.”

  “Paisley,” she said. “But you can call me Sheriff Bell.”

  “Don’t hold your breath, Miss Bell.” He looked away once more.

  She needed to regain some hold on the situation. Knowing the council for the hemmers and hawers that they were, she set her sights in that direction. “You’d best get on with it, Mayor Brimble. How is this meant to play out?”

  “You really do mean to go ahead?” The mayor looked as unconvinced as ever. “It’s odd. Very odd.”

  “You weren’t complaining these past two weeks when I filled the gap left by Sheriff Garrison’s departure. And you didn’t shout and holler about how odd it was when I stepped in for the previous three months when his lumberjack hopes were distracting him from his duties.” The town knew she’d been assisting him, they simply hadn’t been told just how much she’d done; Sheriff Garrison had been present enough in mind to make certain of that.

  Mr. Holmes spoke up for the first time. He only seldom voiced his thoughts. The other member, the barber, Mr. Irving, never spoke at all. He was as silent, and as animated, as the grave.

  “But that was temporary,” Mr. Holmes said. “Just something to fill in the gap. We need a real sheriff.”

  “I’m here to show you I can be both.” She raised an eyebrow in challenge. Her candidacy was every bit as unprecedented as they’d said, but she knew enough of their wishy-washy nature to know they could be persuaded to at least let her try. “Your advertisement for the position didn’t say women weren’t allowed to apply.”

  “It was implied,” Mayor Brimble insisted.

  “Let the woman have a go,” Cade said, tossing the declaration out as casually as if he’d been commenting on the weather. “If she feels she’s qualified, she ought to be allowed to prove it.”

  That was unexpectedly supportive, and yet undeniably dismissive at the same time.

  “And she does have some experience, which may not be true for the other two men here.” That tag-on comment explained a great deal. Cade O’Brien, for all his show of being unimpressed and unsurprised by her appearance and aspirations, was using her to cut at the other candidates. She was to be a tool, then? A weapon? He’d learn differently soon enough.

  “What of you, Cade O’Brien?” she asked. “Do you have any experience?”

  “A bit,” he answered dryly.

  The one in desperate need of a new hat chimed in on the spot. “A bit?” He nearly choked on the words. “Sheriff O’Brien’s been a lawman for ten years.”

  Well, bully for Mr. O’Brien. “If I happen upon a ‘Ten Years of Sheriffing’ medal, I’ll be sure to pass it on to him.”

  Cade didn’t respond to the bit of humor. He was either being difficult or was something of a grump.

  “It’s more than just being a sheriff,” Sweaty Hat continued. “He’s practically been running the West. He’s cleaned up and cleared out more towns than most of us will ever even visit. Rumors of him showing up are enough to send criminals running for their lives. The US Marshals have been begging him to join up for years. Every sheriff on the telegraph system has heard of all the things he’s managed and, though it’ll make my chances slimmer to tell you as much, he’s a legend.”

  Paisley was already at a disadvantage as a woman, but going up against a man who inspired that level of near-worship was a rather enormous obstacle. But it did raise the question: Why did a man with his qualifications want a job in a sleepy town like Savage Wells?

  “As flattering as all this is,” Cade drawled, “I’d rather move ahead.” He turned toward the mayor. “As Miss Bell asked a moment ago, how’s this supposed to play out?”

  “Yes. Of course.” He nodded a few times the way he always did when collecting his thoughts. “We don’t want to take too much time making a decision.”

  That would be a change for the town council.

  “But we also don’t want to be hasty.” He met the eyes of the other men in quick succession. “Over the next two weeks, we’d like you to take turns being sheriff for a day. That way you can see if the job suits you, and we can see if you suit us.”

  It was a sensible plan, more or less. Savage Wells was so quiet, Paisley doubted anything would occur to showcase their skills or abilities. Still, that might work to her advantage. Men accustomed to the fast pace of a violent town were more likely to grow antsy and bored, whereas she’d be right at home.

  They all agreed to the plan, and Cade, unsurprisingly, was elected to be first to take his turn. The mayor pointed them all in the direction of the hotel atop the restaurant and mentioned that Mrs. Kirkpatrick up the road rented rooms to boarders if that better suited what they wanted for the next fortnight. Hat and Kerchief—she really ought to learn their names—left to secure accommodations. Gideon and the mayor took up a quiet conversation. The other council members left.

  Cade, however, remained, his gaze firmly on her. “You’re meaning to go head-to-head with me?” He looked at her as though she were plumb out of her mind.

  “With all three of you men.” She wanted this job, and she meant to give it her best shot. “It’s either this competition or a shoot-out on the street.”

  “I don’t shoot women,” he said.

  “And I don’t shoot peacocks, so I guess a gunfight between us is out of the question.” She offered an overly sweet smile.

  “Saints preserve my sanity,” he muttered.

  “May the best sheriff win,” she said.

  “I will.”

  Paisley Bell was a fine-looking woman, there was no denying that. But she was also a pill. Truth be told, Cade felt bad for her. The town might’ve been willing to let her fill in a sheriffing gap for a fortnight, but likely if she tried for the job permanently, she’d only be humiliated in the end.

  He’d been a bit surprised by the council’s two-week trying-on period. He’d not had to prove himself since his very first sheriffing post. Cleaning up the cesspool that was Coalsville in Colo
rado Territory had earned him a reputation in every corner of the West. From that point on, he’d ridden in to town for each new job, shot, arrested, or run off criminals as needed, and moved on.

  He’d almost walked out of Savage Wells, leaving the others to fight for the chance to be blessedly bored in that ribbon-infested jailhouse, but the salary was more than he’d expected a small town would be able to pay. It would provide a comfortable living, that was for sure. And it wasn’t as though he couldn’t use two weeks of time away from the demands of the law. Besides all that, Paisley Bell was too intriguing for him to simply walk away.

  Cade watched her stride to the windows of the jailhouse, her head held high, back straight as a redwood tree, chin at a defiant angle.

  Why did she want the job so badly? She had to know her chances were slimmer than a cornstalk in the dry season. Still she was sticking to her guns. He’d enjoy finding out what made her tick.

  But first things first. “Dr. MacNamara,” he called out. “Would you point me in the direction of the stables?”

  “Call me Gideon,” the doctor insisted. “And I’ll take you to the ­stables myself, and then on to Mrs. Kirkpatrick’s or the hotel, wherever it is you mean to lay your head.” He had a very educated way of speaking, this doctor. Although book-learning in a man of medicine wasn’t a bad thing.

  “And point out the barbershop, as well,” Paisley said. “The man needs a haircut.”

  He and Gideon stepped out into the cool, early evening air. The quiet of the street didn’t relieve the tension building in Cade’s shoulders. “That Miss Bell’s about as stubborn as a Kilkenny cat,” he muttered.

  Gideon chuckled. “She is very stubborn. She is also a fine woman.”

  “The wind blows that way, does it?” Cade untied Fintan’s reins from the hitching post.

  “She is a good friend—the best I have here, in fact—but nothing beyond.”

  Cade rubbed Fintan’s nose in greeting. “A good enough friend that you’d do her dirty work for her?” It was best to know one’s enemies from one’s allies.

  “Paisley doesn’t do things that way. No one around here does.”

  Cade adjusted his hat a touch lower on his head. “I can’t say I’ve ever lived in a town that didn’t have its share of villainy under the surface.”

  “Then Savage Wells will either be heaven to you or a descent into the purgatory of boredom.”

  Heaven. Definitely heaven.

  He followed Gideon up the road, stopping regularly for introductions. Gideon told the various townspeople that Cade was a lawman newly arrived to try on the sheriff badge and see if it stayed pinned on. Everyone seemed intrigued by that and whispered about it amongst themselves as they walked on.

  Cade and Gideon reached the corner of the L-shaped street.

  “Hold up a moment.” Cade wouldn’t be able to see this part of town from the jailhouse. He had best make himself familiar with it now. “What’s on this end of town?”

  “Across the street and down a bit is the schoolhouse, if you want to brush up on your reading or ’ciphering.”

  “I’ve not spent a single day in school,” Cade said, unashamed. He might not have been formally educated, but he knew a lot of the world.

  “What’s your attendance record at church?” Gideon asked. “The school doubles as the church on Sundays.”

  “I’ve been known to drop in now and then.”

  He eyed the open expanse of land, liking that he could see for miles. Ne’er-do-wells weren’t likely to sneak in to town from this end; they’d be seen long before they arrived.

  “The preacher’s house sits up behind the school,” Gideon said. “The preacher and his wife are friendly. The schoolteacher, who lives with them, is very energetic, sometimes exhaustingly so.”

  “But they’re peaceable?” That mattered most at the moment.

  “Unless you consider gossip an act of violence.”

  Seemed that this part of Savage Wells was sparse and quiet. That would simplify things.

  “The stables and blacksmith’s forge are directly ahead of us,” Gideon said. “There are no other establishments on this side of the bend in the road.”

  “Your stableman knows what he’s about? Takes good care of the animals?”

  Cade wouldn’t trust Fintan to just anyone. The animal had seen him through hard times. Fintan had been the only constant in his life in recent years.

  “The stableman and the blacksmith are brothers,” Gideon said. “They’re more fond of animals than they are of people.”

  That was both reassuring and a bit disturbing.

  The stable’s interior was dim. The smell of animals and hay hung strong in the air, but the place didn’t reek with the odor of unkempt stalls or neglected duties. Cade began to feel more at ease about the arrangement.

  A man in thick denims and a threadbare gray shirt came out of a nearby stall. He looked them both over before his eyes settled on Fintan. His expression changed from curious to worshipful on the instant.

  “Jeb.” Gideon held out his hand. “This is Cade O’Brien, and—”

  The man shook Gideon’s hand absentmindedly, staring at the horse with his mouth agape.

  “He’s a beauty, to be sure.”

  Jeb walked directly past Cade without so much a glance in his direction and stood in reverent awe in front of Fintan. “Good carriage. Excellent muscle tone. Clearly this animal’s been well cared for. Who had the keeping of him before you brought him here?”

  “A stabler in Cordova,” Cade said. “Dr. MacNamara says you’re qualified. Tell me now if I’ve been misled.”

  Jeb poked his head out of the stables and shouted in the direction of the smithy. “Eben. Come see this prize stallion we’ve got here. Prettier’n a turnip, he is!”

  “Turnips being particularly pretty,” Gideon said under his breath.

  “What’s his name?” Jeb asked.

  “Fintan,” Cade answered. “It’s an old Irish name.” His grandfather’s, in fact.

  “Well, your name’s about as Irish as a priest.” Jeb ran a gentle hand over Fintan’s mane. “If you’d given the horse a Russian name or Spanish or some such thing, now that’d be odd.”

  A moment later a man wearing a blacksmith’s leather apron arrived, a look of eager anticipation on his soot-smudged face. He could have been Jeb’s twin if not for his enormous build. The two spoke in amazed whispers about Fintan’s carriage and withers and made guesses about his lineage. Cade thought he saw tears of joy hovering in the men’s eyes.

  “I’m worryin’ they might kidnap m’ horse,” he whispered to Gideon.

  “They won’t, though they might build a shrine to it.”

  Jeb and Eben peppered him with questions. How long had he had Fintan? What was his pedigree? They knew his breed without asking, very accurately guessed his age, and estimated correctly how many hands he was. The two clearly knew horses. Cade’s anxiety disappeared as they spoke.

  He worked out the cost of stabling and set out his expectations. They spared only the briefest of glances for Cade.

  “How fast can you saddle a horse?” Cade asked. A sheriff needed speed after all.

  “Fast as a cat up a tree.” Jeb’s chest swelled with pride.

  “I’ll hold you to that,” Cade warned, letting his serious expression indicate he was in earnest.

  “I’ll not let you down,” Jeb promised. “You’re here trying for the sheriff job, are you?”

  A quick nod was sufficient.

  Jeb’s eyes darted to Gideon. “We heard Paisley put her name on the list.”

  Word sure spread fast in Savage Wells.

  “It’s true,” Gideon answered. “She is one of our candidates.”

  Eben folded his massive blacksmith’s arms across his burly chest. The man was built like a wall. “S
he sure is one for getting odd notions in her head. She’s a good ’un, though.”

  “She most definitely is,” Gideon said.

  Cade rubbed Fintan’s nose, then ran his hand down its mane. “I’ll check on you in the morning, ol’ boy.”

  Jeb led Fintan to his stall.

  “What else do you need to see to?” Gideon asked once they’d stepped back out onto the street again.

  “Mostly, I need to learn where everything is in this town. That’ll go a long way toward telling me when someone is wandering about where they ought not be.” He’d prevented more than a few crimes that way.

  They stopped once more, standing with their backs to the smithy, the stables, and the school.

  “Here’s the bank.” Gideon motioned to the building that anchored the corner of the bend on Main Street. “The management changed in recent years, but it is still very well run and efficient.”

  The bank was on the same side of the street as the jailhouse. That would make keeping an eye on it more difficult. A town with a bank would always need an alert sheriff. He’d drop in on the bank manager later, see what security measures were being taken.

  “Directly across the street is the restaurant and hotel.” Gideon vaguely motioned in that direction. “Calvin Cooper runs both. He hails from Ohio but pretends he’s English. For some reason he thinks that gives him cachet as a chef. I, however, have been to England and know better.”

  “You don’t care for English food?”

  “I’m not even sure it is food.” Gideon made a dramatic show of being sick in his mouth. He finished his bit of playacting and took up his role as town guide again. “Next to the hotel is the post and telegraph office, which doubles as the stage depot. If you ever have business in there, give yourself an extra thirty minutes or so for our esteemed mayor to pull himself together.”

  Cade kept an eye on the people and businesses that made up Savage Wells’s main street. The place was unnervingly quiet. That’d take some getting used to.

  “The building beside the post office is the barber shop. Mr. Irving gives great shaves and haircuts, but he’s utterly silent. I still don’t know how he was elected to the town council.”