office a short time later. He had said a bittersweet good-bye to Mary, who told him her last name was Baxter and confirmed that she was, indeed, a widow, her husband having passed on five years earlier.
âYou have to promise me, Mr. Jensen, that if you ever ride through Bent Creek again, youâll stop and have another meal with me,â she had said to him before he left the café.
âYou have my solemn word on that, Mrs. Baxter,â he had told her. âBut you may not be here by then. Surely some man will have come along by then whoâs smart enough to marry a woman like you.â
âSome may want to,â she had said with a faint smile, âbut none of the eligible bachelors around here interest me in the least, and Iâm not going to marry just any saddle tramp who comes drifting through.â
âThatâs their loss,â Luke had said, lifting his coffee cup to her and then drinking the last of the strong, black brew.
He wasnât the sort of man who wallowed in regrets, but he was sorry to leave the Keystone Café.
He forgot about that when he heard an ugly murmur of voices up ahead and looked toward the marshalâs office. He walked faster as he spotted a group of men gathered in front of the stone building. That was hardly ever a good thing.
The office door was closed. One man stepped up, hammered a fist on it, and called, âYou might as well open up, Chet. We heard youâve got a woman-killer in there, and we intend to see that justice is done!â
No response came from inside. Luke hoped that Marshal Donovan was still in there and hadnât slipped out the back. His instincts told him the lawman wouldnât abandon a prisoner to a mob, even a prisoner that he didnât particularly want, but Luke didnât know the man well enough to be certain.
The man who had knocked on the door pounded on it again, and the other men began to shout for Donovan to open up. They were so caught up in what they were doing that they didnât notice Luke approaching them from behind.
Enough light spilled through the windows of the marshalâs office for him to see that several members of the mob were armed with rifles and shotguns. He didnât spot any handguns, but some of the men might be wearing them under their coats. There were ten men in the group, which meant the odds against him would be pretty high if it came down to a fight to protect Judd Tyler.
Just thinking about that put a bitter, sour taste on his tongue. Luke didnât want to risk his life on behalf of such a vile human being . . . but he might not have any choice.
He had his right hand on the butt of one of the Remingtons when someone inside the office jerked the door open. Chet Donovanâs bulky figure appeared in the doorway, the twin barrels of his Greener jutting out in front of him. The townsmen flinched back from the shotgun, as anybody in his right mind would do when threatened by a weapon like that.
âYou men back off!â Donovan ordered. âHave you all gone loco? How long have I been the marshal here in Bent Creek? Well, how long?â
âNigh on to seven years, Chet,â one of the men answered in a surly voice.
âThatâs right, and in those seven years, have you ever known me to allow a lynchinâ?â
âYou never had a varmint like that fella Tyler in your jail before!â another man said. âThe talkâs all over town about him. He killed a girl up in Montana!â
âA preacherâs daughter!â a third man added.
Donovan said, âThatâs what heâs accused of, and thatâs what heâll answer for . . . up in Montana where he done the crime! He hasnât done anything in Bent Creek but stable his horse and sleep in the hotel.â
âTheyâre liable to let him go up there.â
âWhat in the hell makes you think that?â Donovan asked with a frown.
âItâs a long way
Major Dick Winters, Colonel Cole C. Kingseed