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and pulled a thick schedule book from a shelf below the counter. With an exaggerated sigh, he thumbed through it quickly and scanned the pages headed “Wyoming Territory.”
    “Egbert, Hillsdale, Busted Heel, Archer, Cheyenne.” He leaned forward and shouted again. “Where?”
    “Brokena Shoe.” Rosa spoke through clenched teeth and wished for the first time ever that Guido was standing behind her.
    The man threw back his head and howled with laughter.
    “Lady, the only place I can find that might remotely be the place you want is this flyspeck on the map called Busted Heel.” He pointed to the words she tried to read upside down. “I guess the closest your husband could come to that in Eye-talian is ‘Broken Shoe.’ You want a ticket?”
    “To where?”
    He began shouting again. “To ... Busted ... Heel!”
    Rosa nodded, too angry to speak, and within moments the transaction had been made. The man had been more than insulting, the entire experience so wearing that Rosa had felt tears threaten. She longed to tell him that for all she cared, his stupid Union Pacific train could drive straight into the ocean once she disembarked.
    Now she had reached the place called Busted Heel, which might or might not turn out to be the town of Broken Shoe that Giovanni had instructed her to find. As the train pulled into the station, her heart tripped faster as she realized that tonight she would sleep in a real bed. Beside Giovanni.
    “You supposed to be the marshal o’ this dirt hole?”
    Kase hadn’t heard anyone approach, nor had he heard the door open. The fact that he could have been a dead man by now did little to reassure him that the owner of the gruff voice did not mean to kill him. Sprawled out in his chair, his hands locked behind his head, Kase had his back to both the door and the intruder. His feet were propped up on the windowsill. There was no way he could reach for the Colt strapped to his thigh without the man in the doorway noticing, so he left his hands right where they were.
    Resigned to the fact that his next move might just be his last, Kase drew a long, deep breath, lowered both feet slowly to the floor, and swiveled his chair, none too swiftly, toward the unexpected caller. As he turned, Kase became all too aware of the slow, steady beat of his heart, the breath that filled his lungs, and the still, hot July air that pressed down on him in the confined space of his office.
    But when he recognized the unexpected caller, he relaxed and remained sprawled in the chair. “Yeah, I’m the marshal of this ‘dirt hole.’ What I want to know is what you’re doing here?”
    The one-eyed man stepped forward and closed the door behind him with a sun-stained brown hand.
    “You might say I was just passin’ through and heard this place had some young, two-bit marshal that couldn’t tell a skunk from a house cat, so I came to have me a look-see.”
    “Or I might say that you were sent up here to find me. Mightn’t I?” A frown marred Kase’s strong features.
    The old man looked around, searching for a place to spit, and then thought better of it. “Ya might,” he agreed with a nod.
    Kase stood and walked around the table. He extended a hand in greeting. “It’s been a long time, Zach.”
    Zach Elliot reached out and pumped Kase’s hand with a firm, steady handshake. “The last time I seen you, you was thirteen.”
    “How come you don’t look any older?” Kase asked.
    “Hell, boy, I was born old.”
    “I believe you were.” Kase nodded in agreement as he assessed his old friend’s appearance. Zach looked much the same as he’d been twenty years ago; even then, his strawlike hair had been snow white. The thick, shaggy mustache that hid his upper lip was the same shade except for the tobacco stains near the corners of his mouth. Where Zach’s left eye should have been there was a patch of scar tissue. The trail of a knife wound traced a path through the wrinkles of his weather-beaten skin to