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bad you ain’t a lady,” Terran remarked, admiring the tub. “You could give Violet Perkins a sudsing.”
    Sam hoisted the box containing his coffee, sugar, canned goods and toiletries. “There are worse things,” he observed, “than smelling bad.”
    â€œThat depends,” Terran replied, sliding back another box, “on whether or not you’re downwind from her.”
    Holding back a smile, Sam set the first crate on the ground and reached for the second. “Is it true that Violet’s father was hanged for a horse thief?”
    Terran paused to meet his gaze. “Somebody lynched him, that’s for sure,” he answered solemnly. “Maddie thinks it was the Donagher brothers.”
    â€œI take it there’s no law in this town,” Sam ventured. He’d seen a jailhouse, walking back from the store the day before, but the windows had been shuttered and except for an old yellow dog sunning himself on the wooden sidewalk in front of the door, there had been no sign of habitation.
    Terran shrugged, then squared his shoulders to move the copper tub. “Not since Warren Debney was gunned down five years ago,” he said. “He was the town marshal.”
    The statement snagged Sam’s attention. It’s been five years, Maddie had said back at the mercantile when he’d offered his condolences on the death of the man she’d planned to marry. He wanted to ask Terran, straight-out, if his guess was right, but he couldn’t think of a way to do it without prying into what amounted to family business.
    â€œHow did it happen?” Sam inquired, grasping the tub and lowering it to the ground.
    Terran stood, tight-fisted, in the empty wagon bed, staring down at Sam. His expression was flat, giving away nothing of his thoughts. “Warren was walking Maddie home from a social at the church that night,” he recalled, his voice so quiet that Sam had to strain to hear it. “Somebody shot him from the roof of the telegraph office. Maddie had blood all over her dress when they brought her home.”
    Sam closed his eyes against the image, though violence of that kind was nothing new to him, and if the boy had been standing on the ground he’d have laid a reassuring hand on his shoulder. “Did they ever run the shootist to ground?” he asked.
    Terran shook his head, kept his eyes averted. Sam caught the glint of tears despite that effort. “He’d tangled with Rex Donagher the day before, Warren had, and some folks thought Rex was the one did it, but things never went any further than that.”
    â€œThe town never replaced Debney? Got themselves a new lawman?”
    Terran gave a bitter snort at that. “If there’s a prisoner—and that ain’t often—old Charlie Wilcox usually stands guard. If he’s sober enough, anyhow.”
    CharlieWilcox, Sam recalled, from his conversation with Bird out in front of the Rattlesnake Saloon that afternoon, was evidently the town drunk. Nothing much to recommend him, it seemed, save that he was the owner of a loyal horse.
    Sam pulled a penny from his vest pocket—he’d left his suit coat inside the schoolhouse when he saw the need to chop wood—and extended the coin to Terran. “Thanks,” he said.
    Terran blinked. “What’s that for?”
    â€œDelivering my goods,” Sam replied.
    Terran’s gaze strayed to the Colt .45 on Sam’s hip, and his eyes widened. He advanced a step to take the penny. “Obliged,” he said, but he was looking at the revolver, not the penny.
    â€œYou any good with that gun?” he ventured to ask.
    Sam let one corner of his mouth tilt upward. “Just use it for shooting snakes, mostly,” he lied.
    Terran closed his hand tightly around the penny. Met Sam’s eyes. “I never knew a schoolmaster to pack a .45 before,” he said. “Mr. Singleton sure