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the underside of his jawline. As Kase took in the beaked nose that twisted slightly to the left and the face shadowed by stubble, he fought against his feelings of hostility toward his old mentor. He was sure Caleb had sent Zach Elliot to talk him into going home.
    Zach pulled his hand out of Kase’s firm grip and pushed his turned-up shirtsleeves toward his elbows. Kase turned away, returned to his own side of the desk, and pulled open the bottom drawer. “I was just about to eat,” Kase said as he fished through the drawer. He pulled out a can of beans and straightened up again. “Want to join me?”
    “Cold beans?”
    “You getting picky in your old age?” Kase wanted to know.
    “Not me. An’ sixty-five ain’t nobody’s old age. I was jes’ thinkin’ ‘bout the kind of grub you must o’ had livin’ up there in Caleb’s mansion.” Zach walked to the corner of the room where he spit into the trash can, then lifted a bentwood chair and pulled it up to the front of the desk. Avoiding any comment on Boston, Kase sat down opposite him and shuffled through the top drawer for a can opener.
    The marshal tossed a handful of papers out of the drawer, adding them to the confusion on top of the desk.
    “This what you’re a rootin’ for?” Zach slipped his hand beneath the pile closest to him and withdrew a wickedly sharp blade Kase used to open his daily ration of cold beans.
    “Thanks.” Realizing he would need another bowl, Kase set down the can and started to rise.
    “I’ll eat outta the can,” Zach volunteered, guessing the younger man’s intentions.
    Kase sat back down. The drawer was opened again, and this time Kase pulled out a bowl and two spoons.
    “Ain’t this the limit?” Zach watched while Kase unceremoniously dumped cold beans into the bowl.
    “You want to eat or not?”
    “I ain’t sure at this point.” Zach shook his head.
    The meal was soon divided, and Kase eased back in his chair. They ate in silence until Kase set his empty bowl on the edge of the desk and looked across at Zach.
    “If Caleb sent you to talk me into going back, you can let him know I’m not interested.”
    Zach held the empty bean can in one hand as he licked the spoon clean, then laid it on the desk. He leaned back, crossed a moccasined foot over his knee, and folded his arms across his chest. Zach stared at Kase with his faded brown eye.
    “You growed taller, boy. Nastier, too. But I could still knock you from here to Sunday, kid.”
    “You think so?” Kase stared across the desk at the man who had taught him to ride when he was six and how to shoot a gun when he was not much older. Zach had a devil of a time convincing Analisa Storm that a ten-year-old needed to learn to handle a gun. “If the boy’s gonna live out west he ought to know how not to blow his damn-fool head off,” Zach had argued. By the time the Storms moved back to Boston, Kase was more proficient with a Colt than most grown men.
    Pulling a wad of tobacco out of the pocket of his dust-coated Levi’s, Zach tore off a plug and wedged it between his cheek and gum.
    “Your ma’s a might worried about ya, boy.” The only sign of a change in Zach’s expression was a crook of his brow. He seemed determined to take Kase’s sullenness seriously.
    Kase’s gaze was drawn once more to the wood-framed window set akilter in the right wall of the jail. His stomach tensed. An expert at slipping into stubborn silence, he still could not control his inner turmoil. He could do without this.
    “It wouldn’t harm you none to write to her, let her know you’re still alive.”
    Kase could not hide the resentment in his tone. “How’d you find me?”
    Zach shifted the tobacco and spit into the bean tin. “Didn’t even have to look. The Rawlins fella that hired ya wrote and tol’ your pa that he was as happy as a flea in a doghouse that he’d run into you in Kansas City. Then”—he spat again— “your pa sent a letter out to me, askin’ quite