The Mayor's lady friend? He doesn't respond to the sheriff straight away. He needs to think about what he's just been told. So Emily is Humby's girl. Of all the people in this town he could have picked to strike up a conversation with, he chooses the Mayor's girl. That's the Mayor that makes everyone look uncomfortable every time someone mentions his name. The sheriff must have been given the task of warning him off her. Part of him said that Emily might be worth the risk of staying in town, but this revelation changes that.
'Did I step out of line there? I really wasn't aware that Miss Nixon was already spoken for.'
The sheriff laughs. His eyes still have a disconcerting empty look, even when he laughs.
'Not a problem Tanner, not a problem.' He finds the repeated use of his name disconcerting as he realizes that he's never introduced himself and has no idea what the sheriff is called. 'Like I said, it was a difficult situation, and you dealt with it well. I saw that and I thought to myself, I could do with a man like that working for me. That's what I thought.'
This guy is good. One surprise after another. Keep them off balance. And he certainly felt off balance. Why would the sheriff want him to work for him? Should he say that he plans to leave town immediately. No, that's a trump card he'll save to play later.
'You want me to work for you?'
'Exactly. Or rather, to work for the town, for me and the Mayor.'
He tries to get some sense of what is going on in the sheriff's head, but the eyes are blank and empty. The sheriff spins the cylinder of the reassembled but unloaded revolver and pulls the trigger on an empty chamber with the gun pointed at Logan's heart.
'There was an incident a couple of days ago. You might have heard about it. A man who lives a little out of the town had his house blown up. It seems someone chucked some dynamite in there. Luckily nobody was hurt in the explosion, the man in question was here in the town at the time. Some deputies and me, we rode out to take a look. One of those deputies didn't come back.'
There is another pause. A wait for some sort of reaction perhaps. More clever little surprises. He is convinced he heard that tale whispered in La Rosa but assumed it was exaggerated gossip. After all, he knows that although he'd trained his rifle on the deputies from a distance he didn't fire on any of them. The story can't be true. So why is he telling it?
'So as you can see,' the sheriff continues, 'I have a vacancy for a deputy.'
He is certain it's a ruse. He just can't work out what's really going on.
'You're a little reluctant I can see, but that's a good thing. I'd be a bit troubled if you were to snatch at the offer of a job that's opened up because the last man doing it got killed on the job. That's why I wanted a man like you that can handle himself.'
Logan nods but still can't see where this is going. The sheriff is still not looking up through most of the conversation, slowly and carefully reloading the newly cleaned gun.
'Let me explain to you how the job works, it might help.
'I have a team of deputies. There are a dozen. Well, eleven right now I guess. You might think that sounds like quite a few and that you haven't seen that many around. There's a reason for it though. Walkers Creek is a peaceful town. I take it as a personal duty to make sure that it stays that way. People aren't comfortable seeing trouble taking place in their own streets. It makes them nervous. Nervous people carry guns and shoot before they think.
'You won't see any of that here because I make sure that any trouble is kept well out of town. Mostly my deputies aren't hereabouts, they're in the hills and valleys around keeping watch on the roads and on the comings and goings of strangers, of people like you. Nobody gets into Walkers Creek without our knowing their every movement on their way here.'
He pauses and puts the now loaded gun down on the table, barrel still pointing at Logan.
'So you see, I know exactly what happened to my missing deputy. My eyes and ears are everywhere.'
Logan is feeling very uncomfortable. He took a great deal of care in placing the dynamite to be certain that he wasn't seen. He didn't take so much care once he'd blown the little cabin though. Had he been seen riding away? Why is the sheriff telling him but then not arresting him?
'I know what happened to McLaren's house too. I know you'd be interested in finding out who was responsible for it. That's why I want you to work for me.'
A job offer instead of a jail cell. He starts to shake his head.
'What I mean to say is that I know,' the sheriff looks up and stares into Logan's eyes, 'I know that you'd be interested, not so much in who actually did these things, but interested in who was responsible for them. Do you follow me?'
A sprat to catch a mackerel. Nice ploy. He will play along, promise to help find out what he can and then vanish from the town before they realize.
'Here's your badge.' The sheriff tosses a small shiny star across to him. 'To start with I expect you'll need some help so I've asked Wilson here to work with you for a bit.'
One of the deputies that had collected him from the saloon steps into the room. He is dressed head to toe in black, his spurs clinking, a long barreled revolver slapping against his leg. Clearly he was listening at the door the whole time.
'He'll be your shadow for now. Keep you out of mischief.'
Keep me in Walkers Creek, he thinks. So that makes things a lot more complicated. If he wants to get out of town he'll need to give this Wilson the slip. And the only reason he might want to stay in town, collecting the money, is also going to be out of the question unless he finds some other way to detain the deputy.
CHAPTER TEN
Emily sets her feet and takes careful aim with the little derringer. She pulls the trigger and the gun roars and spews a cloud of smoke. The bottle stays intact. Again.
She doesn't like the idea of being watched by the sheriff's deputies. She senses they are there all the while but that could just be her imagination. She hadn't sensed their presence before the encounter on the road. Now she continually feels there is someone watching her.
She reloads the gun.
'Are you okay Miss?' The gunfire has attracted the attention of one of her cowboys who was tending to the horses in the corral.
'I'm fine thanks Louis. Just a little bit of target practice.'
'Do you want me to help? To set the targets back up for you when you hit them?'
She laughs emptily. 'That's very kind of you, but I don't think that will be necessary.' Not necessary because she can't hit the targets, even from this embarrassingly short distance.
The lad turns to leave and she fires again, knocking down a tin from the low wall where she has arrayed tins and bottles as targets. Louis applauds her success as he heads back to the corral. Nice shot. What a shame she was aiming for a bottle at the other end of the wall. This little gun is next to useless. Unless she has it pressed up against someone's guts she's more likely to miss than to hit.
She tucks the derringer into its holster and pulls out her father's old pistol instead. It is a prettier gun, but also a much heavier gun with a longer barrel. It should be much more accurate.
'Be careful with that.' Her father would have said.
'It's okay father, I know what I'm doing.'
'Really? You seem to have forgotten everything I taught you. Didn't I show you how to hold it in two hands so you could steady the weight better?'
She pulls the trigger and a puff of dust kicks up in front of the wall.
'You're jerking at the trigger. Squeeze it.'
'Yes father, I remember.'
'If you can't even hit a bottle with it from this distance then you shouldn't really be carrying it at all. Maybe I should have given both of them to your brother. You won't live long shooting at people and missing. You'll do better not to shoot at all.'