Ears turned away from the bars as the bolt of the second lock scraped into its slot, and Brant started toward the outer office. Danner felt a momentary pity for the old peace officer as he followed him out of the cell block. Age had reduced the sheriff to a shell of his one-time fighting greatness. Now he existed as scarcely more than a jailhouse janitor and clerk. Dropping into a chair at his battered and cluttered desk,
Brant looked up at Danner. His drooping gray mustache slanted down at about the same angle as his thin shoulders.
"You got Ears pretty riled, Jeff."
"He's all mouth," Danner replied. "Sam's the dangerous one of the pair."
Absently Danner flipped his hat back on his head. An ancient clock on the wall ticked loudly. Danner noted it was eight-thirty; seventy-two hours since he had started for Richfield with his two prisoners—seventy-two hours since he had been asleep.
Brant toyed with a pencil stub. "Want me to draw up the complaint?"
Wearily, Danner nodded, slumping on the edge of the desk and watching the oldster. Never a big man, Brant seemed pathetically frail now. His fighting prowess had been fading when Danner first became special agent for the Richfield Railroad four years before, back in 1877. Yet Danner had been drawn to the sheriff, finding in him a kindred soul. Men who lived by a gun seldom made friends among ranchers, merchants and farmers.
"What's the charge?" Brant mumbled.
"Grand theft—one case of Winchester rifles."
"Nothing about the Spaulding robbery?"
Danner shook his head.
The old man stared at him closely for a long moment before he moistened the tip of the pencil on his tongue, then began filling out the complaint form.
While Brant labored at his writing, Danner looked out the front window toward the depot on the north side of the dusty street. At the west end of the depot stood the home office building of the Richfield Railroad. A long wooden platform stretched from the front door of the office alongside the depot.
A four-up team pulling a heavy grain wagon plodded eastward along the street, obscuring Danner's view for a moment. The comforting sounds of an anvil came from the railroad workshop north of the depot on the far side of the yard. A dozen twin strands of track separated the depot from the workshop and roundhouse.
Danner wondered if the Great Plains Central would keep the workshop and roundhouse here after it absorbed the Richfield line. In the month since Colonel Richfield's death and the two weeks since his daughter had agreed to the merger with the Great Plains Central, Danner had often wondered the same thing. Now he guessed it really didn't matter much. The sheriff finished his writing and pushed the complaints closer to Danner.
"Sign 'em, Jeff, and I'll take 'em over to the County Attorney."
Danner eased off the desk and bent over it long enough to sign both complaints. Then he tossed the pencil on the desk top and started toward the door.
"See you around, Dan."
"Sure, son."
Outside, Danner squinted against the morning sunlight, then turned away from the glare and angled toward the depot. No one was near the courthouse now. Danner began to relax for the first time since entering Richfield. The town had been a powder keg for him since the murder of the three older Dooley brothers. Sooner or later someone was going to set off an explosion.
Danner dodged four riders galloping westward, then waited in the middle of the street for an eastbound buckboard to pass by. The overall-clad granger in the buckboard nodded to Danner without warmth. At least he nodded, Danner reflected. That was something. But then, the Dooleys were riders, so the grangers didn't resent him quite as much as did the stockmen.
Danner moved on to the wooden steps leading up to the platform, then started toward the office as the depot clerk-telegrapher, Billy McDaniel, stepped out of the depot. McDaniel carried a telegram in his right hand and a smile on his big mouth. The big Irishman towered fully four inches above Danner's six-foot frame, and weighed at least thirty pounds more than Danner's hundred and eighty pounds. Now he nodded to Danner.
"Morning, Jeff. They are coming in on the nine-twenty this morning."
"They who?" Danner fell in alongside McDaniel and they walked toward the door to the office building at the far end of the platform.
"The Great Plains Central people. They'll sign the papers today and the merger will become effective immediately."
Danner accepted the news in silence, wondering what kind of man would replace Colonel Richfield as manager of the line. They reached the door of the office building and Danner paused to dust off his trail-stained Levi's, acutely conscious of his beard stubble and scuffed boots. Something else to displease Melinda, he mused. And there wouldn't be time to get cleaned up before the GPC people arrived. He considered removing his gunbelt before going inside, since Melinda objected to it, but he shrugged the idea aside.
As McDaniel reached for the door it was opened from the inside. A man about Danner's size, but a little older than his thirty years, paused in the doorway. His eyes widened with surprise, then darted furtively right and left. A thin and dapper mustache twitched at the right corner of his mouth as Danner moved in close to him.
"What are you doing on railroad property, Carp?" Danner demanded.
"I came to see Miss Richfield on business." Carp backed into the office, away from Danner.
"We don't allow sneak thieves here, Carp." Danner balled up his hands. "I told you that when you were fired six months ago. And I warned you what would happen if—"
Carp's arms came up defensively, palms forward. Fear worked about his mouth. "Now, now, Danner, Miss Richfield—"
"Mr. Danner!" The voice lashed out at him from the doorway to the inner office and he glanced up to see Melinda Richfield glaring at him, her dark eyes flashing with a tight anger.
Unclenching his fists, Danner forced off the exasperation her frequent tirades always brought to him. When he spoke, his voice was soft and even.
"Carp was ordered—by your father and by me —to stay off of railroad property."
Melinda moved to the center of the room, near Carp. "My father has been dead for four weeks. I'm running this line now—at least I am until it's merged with the Great Plains Central."
Danner's face grew warm. Staring at Carp, he jerked his thumb toward the outer door.
"Get out."
Carp looked around at Melinda for a moment; then he hurried out without another word.
With a swish of her skirt, Melinda whirled and stamped into her office. Danner and McDaniel followed her. She went to a double window on the south side of the room, showing Danner her displeasure with a rigid back. Wearily Danner slumped into an overstuffed chair, holding his silence. McDaniel stood by the end of the desk, twisting uncomfortably as he looked first at Melinda then at Danner. Finally the silence became too much for McDaniel.
"Miss Richfield, I just wanted to tell you about the Great Plains Central people arriving on the nine-twenty," McDaniel muttered. He didn't understand the friction and it made him uncomfortable.
The continued silence made McDaniel more ill at ease. He licked his lips. "Guess I best get back to work," he muttered.
The tight bun of dark hair at the nape of Melinda's neck moved slightly as she nodded wordlessly. McDaniel nodded at Danner and lumbered from the room.
Something about the unforgiving set of Melinda's shoulders reminded Danner of her father. The old Colonel had been stiff-necked, too, though seldom toward Danner. When Melinda returned from school in the east three months ago, she had been gay and friendly. But the Colonel's death had turned her hard and suspicious, especially toward Danner. A tight-fitting and fashionable dress of dark blue emphasized her diminutive shapeliness. Dark hair pulled back severely straight to a bun seemed to match her coldness. Yet the over-all effect disturbed Danner.