The Man from Stone Creek

Maddie put up a hand to silence him. In the sparse moonlight, he saw that she was amused, not insulted, and his relief was profound. She stooped, all of a sudden, and swept the little yellow dog up into her arms. Smiled, instead of making a face, when the pup gave her cheek a tentative lap.

Something shifted inside Sam, watching her. Made him wonder what she’d look like holding a baby. He took an unconscious step backward. “I’d best unhitch this team for you,” he said. He didn’t see a barn, but there was plenty of grass for the horses, and a trough.

“No need,” she answered, still cuddling the pup. “Terran can do it.”

With that, she gave a shrill whistle through her teeth.

Sam grinned, in spite of himself. He’d always admired people who could whistle like that, and he’d never run across the talent in a woman before. There were lots of things about Maddie Chancelor, he suspected, that he’d never come across before.

Before he could ask how she’d acquired the skill, the back door of the mercantile slammed open and Terran bounded out. Catching sight of the pup in his sister’s arms, he stopped short.

“That’s Neptune,” he said. “What’s he doing here?”

“I’m not sure,” Maddie answered, stroking the dog’s back in a way that made Sam widen his stance slightly. “We just found him in the back of the wagon. Unhitch the team and see that they get a little grain, please.”

Terran nodded, but he approached and put out a hand to touch Neptune’s wriggly little body. “I reckon Ben was worried one of his brothers would drown him in the creek,” he speculated. He looked up at Maddie with hope clearly visible in his eyes, even in that poor light. “Can we keep him?”

“You know we can’t,” Maddie said with some regret. “Mr. James would have a fit.”

Terran looked so dejected that Sam almost reached out and ruffled his hair, the way a man does when he wants to reassure a boy. He refrained, because the truce between him and Terran was new, like a naked and fragile bird just hatched from the egg.

“I guess I could take him back to the schoolhouse,” he said with considerable reluctance. Sam was trying to break the habit of taking in lost critters; he’d left them scattered all over the Arizona Territory and half of Texas and New Mexico, as well, always in a good home, and at some point, it had to stop. “Just until we get the straight of the matter. I’ll ask Ben about it Monday, before school takes up.”

Maddie smiled a little and shoved the dog into his arms. “That’s a splendid idea,” she said.

Terran gazed at Neptune with a longing that made Sam feel bruised on the inside, then sighed and went to work releasing the harness fittings.

Sam stood there for a long moment, as confounded as if he were suddenly thirteen again, while the pup chewed on the collar of his one good suit coat. “What am I supposed to feed him?” he asked.

Maddie indulged in another smile. “You’re a schoolmaster,” she said. “You’ll reason it out.” With that, she gave a little curtsy—there was something of mockery in it—and raised her chin a notch. “Good night, Mr. O’Ballivan. And thank you for a very...interesting evening.”

Before he could shuffle the pup and tug at his hat brim, she was gone, disappearing into the mercantile through the same door Terran had just come out of.

While Sam was still standing there, oddly befuddled, Terran finished his work, hung the harnesses on a fence post and dusted his hands together. “He’d probably favor some jerked venison, being a dog,” the boy said. He ran into the store and came out again, quick as the proverbial wink, and held out two hands full of dried meat, obviously purloined from a crock or a bin in the mercantile.

Sam had to shuffle again, to take the jerky. He stuffed it into his pockets and looked up just as Maddie’s shadow moved back from a second-floor window. “Obliged,” he said.

“You need something else?” Terran asked reasonably.

Sam told his feet to move, but they didn’t comply right away. “No,” he said, still looking up at that lighted window, where Maddie had been standing only moments before. “I’ll be going now.”

Terran waited for him to follow through. “You taken a shine to my sister?” he asked when Sam stood stock-still for another minute or so.

That broke the spell. “No,” Sam lied, and thrust himself into motion. He felt Terran’s gaze on his back as he walked away.

Back at the schoolhouse, he went inside, set the pup on the floor, lit a lantern and assessed the situation while Neptune gnawed on a strip of dried meat from his pocket. Coming to no ready conclusion, he checked on the nameless horse, out there in the grass-scented darkness, found it sound, and returned to his quarters, which suddenly seemed lonely, even with Neptune curled up in front of the cold stove.

“I don’t have any good reason to keep a dog,” he said solemnly.

Neptune laid his muzzle on his paws, closed his eyes and fell asleep.

Sam kicked off his boots, shrugged out of his suit coat and loosened his collar. He unbuckled his gun belt, set the .45 within easy reach on the bedside stand. His eyes wandered to the stacks of books, teetering in piles and taking up most of the tabletop. He crossed to the middle of the room, selected a favorite, sat in the solitary wooden chair and flipped through the thin leaves, but his mind wouldn’t settle on the familiar words. It kept straying, like a calf separated from the herd, to the mercantile on the main street of town and thence to the woman he’d glimpsed at that upstairs window.

Like as not, Maddie was getting ready to turn in right about now. Taking off her clothes, putting on a nightgown, maybe letting down her hair. He wondered if it reached to her waist, and if she plaited it before getting into bed.

Sam’s throat constricted, and his groin ached.

He slammed The Odyssey shut, rousing the pup from its slumbers, and set the volume aside, to rest beside his .45.

Neptune let out a little whimper of concern.

“It’s all right, boy,” he told the dog. It was a pitiful thing, when a man was glad for the company of a pup that had been foisted off on him.