“You’re not causing any trouble are you, Betsy?” Sheriff Taney marched forward with his arms folded across his chest.
Betsy noticed things that most people didn’t. Maybe it was the way a person flinched when you approached them from the side, the way they chewed the inside of their cheek when worried, or the way they kept their face shuttered so you couldn’t guess what they were ruminating on. Sheriff Taney had never been a young man in Betsy’s lifetime, but he’d always been robust, able to keep up with her peers. That was until he lost Miles Bullard. Overnight he’d aged, grown more taciturn.
But this morning, he seemed energetic. He held himself tighter, more alert. There was a spark that hadn’t been there before, and she was relieved. She’d wondered how the deputy’s arrival would affect him. Evidently, Sheriff Taney was enjoying his reprieve.
She smiled the way old men expect young ladies to smile when being teased. “Trouble? I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Spying and such.”
She followed him around the barrier to join the doctor and the mayor. “There’s no spying to do. Not lately.”
“I can’t believe you wouldn’t be stalking that Texan. Seeing what he’s up to,” Sheriff Taney said. “Mark my words, he’s hiding something. I can sense a man on the run, and he’s got hounds nipping at his heels, sure as shooting.”
She had to agree with his assessment. Deputy Puckett did seem to be hiding something.
“I haven’t noticed anything suspicious,” she said, “but I can’t claim to know him overly well.” But she had seen plenty of misdeeds under Sheriff Taney’s watch. Funny he was so concerned with lawbreakers now.
Those shutters that sometimes closed on a person’s face, they slammed shut. “I guess we owe him the chance to prove himself,” Sheriff Taney said. He patted her on the shoulder as he walked toward Mayor Walters. “The fruit will bear witness.”
Mayor Walters sat on a stool by the stove and cradled his right hand. His sleeve had been rolled up to his elbow. Betsy couldn’t say exactly what the nature of his ailment was, but he seemed more concerned about whatever was boiling in the pot.
“Mayor Walters,” she said, “Sissy said you needed help back here today. I just came to offer—”
“I can’t do anything until I get this splinter out,” he said.
“I told you, it’ll just take a second,” Doctor Hopkins said. “It’s not that deep.”
“It’s not your hide we’re talking about, either,” the mayor said. Then to Betsy, “The shelves are nearly empty, and I have new shipments piled up back here that haven’t been inventoried, but I won’t feel like doing it today. Come back tomorrow.”
“Yes, sir.” She was only too happy to get shy of there. But what the sheriff said next stopped her in her tracks.
“What did you need to see me about, Doctor Hopkins?”
Betsy ground her teeth. She’d hide outside in a blizzard to hear this conversation. She wasn’t about to walk away now.
Chapter 13
With tongs, Hopkins pulled a pair of tweezers and a large needle out from the boiling water.
“What are you doing?” Walters said. “Branding me?”
“I’m letting it cool,” Doctor Hopkins said. “Relax.”
Sheriff Taney looked as nervous as the mayor. “You said you wanted to talk to me. I’m of no mind to sit in on a medical procedure. . . .”
“I can talk while I do this.” With a rag protecting his hand, Hopkins took the tweezers and waved them through the air to cool them. “It’s about a bundle of switches I found on my porch yesterday. It’s probably just a prank, unless Miles Bullard’s back in town.”
Now that was a worthy thought. No one had seen Bullard since summer, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t come back.
“Ouch!” Sweat was popping out of the mayor’s forehead like a pan of popcorn over the fire.
“I haven’t even touched you yet,” the doctor said.
Sheriff Taney bristled. “Let me get this straight. You find the Bald Knobbers’ calling card on your porch, and you want to blame their enemy, Miles Bullard?”
“I have no bone to pick with the Bald Knobbers,” Hopkins said. “Why would they want to scare me?”
“Maybe because you gave Bullard shelter after he shot one of them.”
True, Bullard was captured at Hopkins’s place, but Betsy had never thought to blame the doctor for treating him. Neither had Katie Ellen, and Stony had been her pa. Doctor Hopkins hadn’t tried to hide him or anything.
“This is going to hurt,” the mayor whined.
“Put your hand up here and stop bellyaching.” Doctor Hopkins dropped a cloth on the table and situated Walters’s hand, palm up. Then he bent over with the needle ready. “I’m not frightened about the switches,” he said. “Just wish I knew what I’m supposed to do about it. If it’s a warning, I’m listening.”
“I’d ask Fowler,” Sheriff Taney said. “There’s no one else who leaves twig bundles behind.”
“Ahhh . . .” The mayor’s voice rose in pitch.