So he’d noticed. “It’s not for me to boast, because ultimately my success lies in God’s hands, but I wouldn’t have come here if I didn’t think I could do the job, and I’d much rather have your support than have you oppose me.”
Sheriff Taney plucked a string on the banjo. The twanging sound seemed to climb right up Joel’s backbone and rattle beneath his molars. Ignoring him, the sheriff stood and bent over a beat-up banjo case. He tugged a piece of lining loose, then ran the moth-eaten red velvet through his fingers.
“Reckon I have time to fix this case now that I’ve been put out to pasture.”
“Sheriff, there are a lot of people in these parts who respect you. I’ve no mind to disabuse them of that sentiment. I’ll leave it up to you how you want to explain my coming. You could even say you took a well-deserved retirement so you could—”
“I’m telling everyone that you cost me my job. That the dirty politicians in the capital thought a green cowboy from Texas could do better by them than their own elected official. That’s what I’m saying. And mark my words, you coming won’t bring nothing but trouble.”
The branches rustled with the few leaves that were still hanging on until the first snow stripped them down. Joel understood Sheriff Taney’s anger, but still he’d pray that the sheriff would reconsider his attitude. Joel wasn’t his enemy, and Joel badly needed a friend.
“If you can feel good about that, then say what you will. For my part, I’m going to speak what I think will bring peace here instead of stirring up more trouble.”
Joel said his good-bye, but Taney only responded with a snarl on his weathered face. Joel wished Taney was willing to help him get established, but then again, had he expected the sheriff to appreciate his arrival?
Back on the path toward town, Joel marveled at how much he missed his parents. He’d never been away from home this long. Never this far, either. It was funny because he’d spent the best part of his growing-up years trying to distance himself from his suffocating, although well-meaning, mother. Earning respect as a deputy wasn’t easy when your ma still licked her hankie and cleaned your face on the boardwalk. He steered shy of her in public when he could, although he frequently stopped by his dad’s watch-making shop to visit. Just knowing they were around, that he could pass down their street, that Ma would always have a piece of pie to accompany her lamentations over his failure to settle down, was a comfort.
No such comfort here, but he knew they were remembering him in their prayers. Just to picture them sitting at the table, his father’s spectacles pushed up on his forehead, his mother wearing her apron, with their heads bowed over their dinner . . . he knew they were praying for him, and he held the thought dear. Why God hadn’t answered his prayers was another question, but he’d do what he could not to let his parents down. He’d do nothing to break the trust they—and the state of Missouri—had in him.
A shotgun blast startled his horse. Not only was the pony small, but gun-shy, too? Joel tilted his head to listen for the sound ricocheting off the mountains. After sorting through the echoes, he thought his first reaction was correct. It came from the valley by Bo Franklin’s house. After deciding that it wasn’t faster to pick up the horse and carry it, he jabbed it with his heels and tore toward the homestead, grateful as he ducked beneath a gnarly limb that the horse wasn’t taller, or he’d be sitting on the ground with a goose egg popping out of his forehead.
The sun was dipping behind the mountain, making for an early dusk, but there was plenty of light to see two men standing in the high patch of weeds in front of Franklin’s cabin. A trace of gunpowder scented the air as Joel got off his horse. By the failing light he could make out his new friend Bo holding his shotgun on a horned caller with hands outstretched.
“If you shoot me, you’ll rue the day.” The visitor’s words were muffled by the black sack over his head.
Joel’s fingertips caressed the handle of his own six-shooter as he approached. “What’s going on here, Bo?” One gun already drawn, and he’d bet all the cattle in Texas that the Bald Knobber was carrying.
“Found this jackanapes trespassing. With a bundle of sticks on my porch, there’s no doubt what he’s up to.”
Having had a bundle of sticks thrown at his own feet, Joel was more than curious. Sure enough, the offending article was resting where Bo claimed.
Keeping one eye on Bo, whose sweat was catching the last rays of weak sunlight, Joel gave the Bald Knobber his attention. “Do those sticks mean what I think they mean?”
The man’s shoulders went back and he stood a little taller. “Your friend Mr. Franklin has been stealing from Caesar Parrow’s traps. Those coonskins on his wall don’t belong to him.”
The barrel of Bo’s gun shook.
“That may be so,” Joel said, “but the remedy is to tell me about it. Not to throw sticks on his porch. What good does that do?”
“It means that they aim to come back and flog me if I don’t bless the ground they walk on,” Bo said. “That’s what that means.”