A Wanted Man by Linda Lael Miller

name, ain’t it? Rhodes?”
    “Yep,” Rowdy said.
    “You can’t just go around makin’ laws and expectin’ the rest of us to abide by ’em,” Jolene protested, drawing herself up in righteous indignation.
    “I imagine the town council will support it,” Rowdy replied.
    “If that don’t beat all,” Jolene marveled. “Ol’Quincy was a piece of work—I had to pay him fifty cents a week just to stay clear of my place—but I figure you just might be worse.”
    Rowdy smiled. “I won’t be staying clear of your place,” he said. “I might even sit in on a hand of poker now and then.”
    Jolene narrowed her eyes. “You gonna put any kind of nick in my pocketbook, Mr. Rowdy Rhodes-Ordinance?”
    “Nope,” Rowdy said.
    A slow grin spread across Jolene’s pockmarked, sallow face. “Well, now,” she said. “Looks like we’re all in for a time of it.”
    “Looks that way,” Rowdy agreed affably. He cocked a thumb over his right shoulder. “Who do I talk to about buying the place on the other side of the back fence?”
    Jolene told him, and half an hour later, he was a man of property.

5
    P A’D SADDLED UP and gone off someplace, in the middle of the night. Bent over a book at his desk in the back of the big schoolroom, Gideon couldn’t take in the words he was supposed to be reading. He just kept remembering.
    He’d awakened out of a sound sleep, hearing noises he thought were coming from the shed out behind the saloon, gotten up out of his bed, pulled on his clothes and boots, and headed out there to investigate.
    And there was Pa, dressed to ride a distance, fastening his rifle scabbard to the saddle. His gelding, Samson, snorted and tossed his big head, eager to be away.
    “You go on back inside, Gideon,” Pa’d said. He wore his round-brimmed hat, and there was a bandana tied loosely around his neck. Under his long coat, he wore a gun belt, with a holster on either side. The pearl handle of one of his .45s flashed in the gloom as he swung up onto the horse.
    “Let me go along, Pa,” Gideon had said, at the edge of pleading. “I can get a horse over at the livery stable—”
    “You stay here and look after Ruby,” Pa replied. He’d clamped an unlit cheroot between his strong, white teeth, and he shifted it from one side of his mouth to the other, looking as though he might ride Gideon down if he didn’t get out of the way.
    If there’d ever been a woman who didn’t need looking after, it was Ruby Hollister. She kept a loaded shotgun behind the bar, and everybody in Flagstaff knew she wouldn’t hesitate to use it. No, sir. She would not be requiring Gideon’s protection.
    “At least tell me where you’re off to, Pa,” Gideon had argued.
    “That’s none of your never-mind,” Pa had answered, narrowing his chilly blue eyes with impatience. “Now, step aside.”
    Gideon stood his ground for a long moment, but in the end, he couldn’t prevail against his pa’s hard stare. “When’ll you be back?” he’d asked.
    Pa hadn’t said anything in response. He’d just nudged the gelding into motion with the heels of his boots—not the fancy ones he usually wore, Gideon noticed, but the light, supple kind, made for moving fast, but soled for hard going.
    Gideon had moved out of the shed doorway, lest he be trampled, and Pa had bent low over the saddle to avoid knocking his head as he passed through.
    He’d vanished into the darkness, the hooves of his horse beating on the hard dirt, the sound growing fainter as he gained the road.
    When the cold of that winter night finally penetrated Gideon’s awareness, he’d gone inside. Shed his boots and lay down on top of his bed in his clothes, staring up at the ceiling, knowing he wasn’t going to sleep.
    At breakfast, Ruby had been pale and unusually fidgety.
    Gideon had been bursting with questions, but he hadn’t dared put a one of them to her. When Ruby didn’t want to talk, the devil and ten red-hot pitchforks couldn’t make her do