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seemed to talk about that more’en other places when he had him a couple drinks in him and started braggin ‘bout his outlaw days. I think he had a thing fer one of the Bassett girls down there.”
    “Well, thank you Mr. Ketchum,” said Barnes with an air of finality. “That is where we can begin our search.”
    Ketchum adjusted his Stetson over his eyes and rose to leave. “Yuh could get off at Evanston or Rock Springs. Those are the biggest towns that the railroad goes through around Brown’s Park. I’d get a hold of Marshal Parker in Rock Springs. He’d be your best bet for gettin’ yah set up tah go in there.”
    “I’ll contact him immediately,” Bill Stewart assured him as he rose and opened the door for the loquacious cowboy. He paused in the doorway still pondering the situation. “I don’t think old Harry S. Parker is fool enough to go chargin’ into Brown’s Park himself, but he might put you on to somebody can help yah.”
    “Well, thank you again, Mr. Ketchum,” said Bill Stewart closing the door.
    Police Chief Barnes sat at the end of the table with his arms folded. Mike McGhan sat and tapped his fingers on the worn, coffee-stained surface. There was an awkward silence until Bill Stewart finally sat down.
    “Interesting fellow,” said Stewart amicably. “He seemed to have a lot of insight into the situation.”
    “Mike,” Barnes began softly. “You’re the only one that knows Sean Daugherty well enough to identify him. We need you to go west and help them find this man and bring him back to justice.”
    The only one that knows him well enough
, Mike thought.
Bring him back to justice
. Barnes could really lay it on when he wanted to. He looked out the room’s solitary dirty window at the desolate Bridgeport neighborhood outside. If it had been some scrubwoman that had been murdered, would Barnes be sending him halfway across the country to find her killer?
    “When do I leave?” Mike said abruptly.
    “There’s a train leaving at eight tomorrow,” replied Chief Barnes. “Theodore Carver has assured me that he will contact the governor of Wyoming himself to assure everything will be provided for you to bring his wife’s killer back to Illinois to stand trial.”
    “Everything,” said Mike with a wry smile. “I guess a guy can’t ask fer more than that. I want me partner Henry Bockelman tuh go with me.”
    “Oh, I wish I could spare him but he’s being assigned to the Dr. Cronin murder case,” Barnes replied with his polished election-year smile. “The press is asking for results and I have to have at least one of my two best detectives on the case. Of course, if Dr. Cronin’s killer has not been found by the time you return, you will also be assigned to the case.”
    “Of course,” replied Mike, returning Barnes’ politician smile. He chose not to argue the point. It might not be a bad idea to have Bockelman still here in Chicago watching over things while he was gone.

CHAPTER 5
TEXAS NEAR THE RIO GRANDE

    “Gonna be a warm one today, Pablo,” sounded out the lanky man as he entered the cantina, the swinging doors flapping like a bat in his wake. He removed his hat and slapped it against his leg to knock off the trail dust.
    “Si, Sheriff Tom,” agreed the Mexican bartender looking up from the glasses he was washing in brownish water. “She’s pretty warm for March, I guess.”
    The tall lawman ran his hand through his gray hair and placed his hat back on his head at a jaunty angle. He turned to the shorter sullen-looking young man with the dark complexion who was languishing against the bar a few feet away. “How’s this weather set with you, Billy?”
    The young man looked up suspiciously from the empty glass he was rolling back and forth in his hands.
    “Weather don’t matter that much to me anymore, Sheriff Langston. I found inside work now.” He self-consciously tried to adjust his ill-fitting new suit.
    “That’s what I heard,” said the Sheriff.