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Bullets and Silver

Elkhorn, Colorado, June 1878

Doc Burnett’s house was the only one on the street with a porch, and Caleb Marlowe’s friend made good use of it on warm evenings. He had a couple of rockers out there. There was also a table big enough for a chess board, used when Caleb was in town and the weather was fair.  At the end of the porch, he even had a comfortable bench with a woven seat and back. Doc found it in a catalog and had it shipped out from the Shakers back in Ohio.

Sheriff Zeke Vernon, walking beside him, nodded toward the house. “It’s more of a home, I reckon, now that he’s got his daughter living there.”

“If you say so.”

“Would you say that color he’s painted it looks more the shade of a yellow warbler or a goldfinch?”

“What the devil are you talking about?”

“Just thinking that if I was ten years younger, I’d be thinking about building myself a house just like that one.”

“Painted the same color?”

“Tell the truth, Marlowe, I’ve always been sorta partial to a white house, but that don’t matter none. What matters is what’s inside. A good woman, a few mop-headed children, a yellow dog.”

“I got a yellow dog. Can’t beat a yellow dog.”

“Dang, I ain’t talking about no dogs. A man needs family, Marlowe.”

Zeke was an old bachelor.

“Like you have?” Caleb asked.

“A fella would be a mule-headed fool if he thought I got things right.”

“I’m fine enough as I am.”

“Who do you think you’re fooling? Tell me there ain’t something between you and that pretty daughter of Doc’s.”

“All that time you spent digging silver has affected your brain, Zeke. There’s nothing going on there.”

“Pshaw! Do you deny that when you come down from Devil’s Claw, you two didn’t go riding off to that miner’s cabin to inform the widow, all cozy-like?”

“Hell, no!”

“I coulda swore you was holding hands afore you even got around the bend.”

“There was no hand-holding. Did somebody drag you away from a bottle this morning when the shooting started?”

“All I’m saying is that gal was fluttering her eyes at you so hard, I thought her pretty head was gonna lift clear off her shoulders.”

“You have gone plum crazy.”

“And one of them fellers with us thought he heard wedding bells coming all the way from Elkhorn.”

Caleb snorted, but it didn’t sound convincing, even in his own ears. He shook his head and glanced toward Doc’s house, wondering if Sheila was at home now.

He’d sure as hell not admit it to this old coot, but Caleb had been trying to ignore the jumble of feelings Sheila Burnett stirred up in him. He couldn’t quite fit her into any type of woman he knew.

When she arrived, no one knew it, but her father was being held by outlaws in the mountainous wilderness out beyond Devil’s Claw pass. Right off, Caleb took her for an impulsive, high-strung city girl of questionable intelligence. He didn’t think she’d last a week in the rough Colorado mining town, considering she’d followed a bunch of rustlers onto his ranch in the dark of night. She’d shown no understanding of the rough and violent ways of the frontier. She’d also taken exception to the fact of life that a man had to protect his property, often with his gun in hand.

Sheila had showed more spunk than he expected, however, when she too had been dragged off into the mountains by the men who had Doc. Left alone on foot in the middle of nowhere with almost nothing for protection against both wild animals and murderous road agents, she’d shown good sense and a lot of strength. She’d survived that ordeal and even helped free her father.

But she was an ornery thing. As waspish as she was pretty. And that was going some.

Whatever or whoever she was, however, Sheila deserved more than him.

“Ain’t that third rocker up there new?” Zeke asked.

“I believe it is.”

“There you have it.” He slapped Caleb on the arm. “It’s the prospective son-in-law’s chair. Is that a C she’s carved on the back?”

The sheriff looked off innocently into the distance, and Caleb seriously considered taking that rifle away from him and giving him a beating with it.

But he was right about the new chair, at least. The last time Caleb dropped by, there had only been two rockers out on that porch. Doc acquired the third one only since Sheila arrived unannounced from back East.

Since their adventure with them outlaws up in the mountains, Doc had confided in him that she’d left New York to escape a marriage arranged for her by her grandfather. It was, apparently, an effort to secure family fortunes. But Sheila had a fire in her belly and rebellion in her soul. She was not about to be traded away like a prime breeding filly, and definitely not to a much older man, Doc told him. His headstrong daughter had no plans of going back East.

If Caleb’s life were different, and if he had any desire to settle—really settle—Sheila Burnett held charms that he couldn’t deny. But he had no such plans.

And he kept telling himself that.

He and Zeke scraped the street from their boots and climbed the steps onto the porch. Before they could knock, the door swung open, and the young woman herself was standing in front of them. And damn, she was fine looking.

“Good day to you, Miss Burnett,” Zeke said, yanking his stovepipe off his head. Caleb thought for a second that the hairy little sheriff was about to bow to her.

If Doc’s daughter had been caught up in the fashions of the day back in New York, she’d decided on a different style out here. Gone were the frills and the bows, the long-waisted, form-fitting dresses, and the ridiculous little hats with silk flowers.

While Zeke was clucking at her like a mother hen, Caleb ran his eye over her. She wore her golden-brown hair in a long, thick braid down her back. Over a white, open-necked blouse, she wore a woolen vest of the same deep blue color of her eyes. Beneath the black skirt, she was wearing black house slippers embroidered with blue and white flowers that Caleb couldn’t identify. Maybe no one could. He’d noticed that when she went out, she covered her head with either a black, wide-brimmed hat or a floppy cloth thing like the Scotch wore.

His gaze settled on her face. Though she was paying attention to Zeke, Caleb could tell she was watching him out of the corner of her eye. Finally, she looked straight at him.

“Miss Burnett,” he said, touching the brim of his hat.

“Mr. Marlowe,” she replied. “Won’t you gentlemen come in? My father was expecting an official visit.”

“Yes, miss,” Zeke replied, going past her. “The judge sent us.”

As Caleb approached her, he lowered his voice. “Still here, I see. Doc ain’t shipped you back.”

“I’m still here,” she replied, eyeing him coolly. “And I see you’re still doing what you do best. How many men have you killed today, Marlowe?”

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