They were almost to a side street that would take them into Dodge when a rider came out of it and spurred his mount in their direction.
In the pale starlight the badge on his vest was plainly visible.
Chapter 20
Seamus Glickman had forgotten all about the sheriff wanting him to pay a visit to the schoolmarm. The shenanigans in Coffin Varnish were to blame. He was reminded when Sheriff Hinkle came up to him in Tulley’s and said, “I just had another report of a strange gent hanging around the schoolhouse. What did you find out when you went out there?”
Seamus was tempted to lie but didn’t. “I never got around to it,” he admitted.
George Hinkle frowned. “I am not a stickler for orders and the like, but when I ask to have something done, I expect it done. Ride out there right now and talk to the schoolmarm.”
“This late?”
“I have seen the light on out there even later some nights. Miss Prescott is dedicated to her work.”
Seamus thought of the spindly, almost severe figure he had glimpsed on a few occasions. “Do you really think she keeps a man under those petticoats?”
“No, I do not. But some of the parents are talking and won’t stop wagging their tongues until they hear from us that the schoolmarm is not making a mockery of public morals.”
“And I thought having to shoot stray dogs wasn’t fit work for a lawman,” Seamus observed. “Now we are virtue inspectors.”
Sheriff Hinkle laughed. “That is what I like most about this job. One minute we are arresting a cowboy for disturbing the peace, and the next we are shooing pigs off the street.”
“You can have the pigs, and you can have our schoolmarm.”
“Be nice to her. Your visit is official.”
“You know me, George,” Seamus said. “I smile and am polite even when the person I am being polite to is a jackass. Or, in her case, a broomstick no man with any appreciation for womanhood would care to fondle.”
“I will be in the office,” Sheriff Hinkle said. “Report to me as soon as you get back.”
“Yes, sir.”
Now here Seamus was, riding out of Dodge City by a side street to go question the schoolmarm. He had half a mind not to do it and say he had. As far as he was concerned, the law had no business meddling in the private lives of people. What Ernestine Prescott did in the privacy of her bedroom was her affair and no one else’s. That a few busybodies had complained only showed that some folks were too damn willing to impose their notion of what was right on others.
His horse nickered, and Seamus looked up. A man and a woman were approaching on foot. Just as he set eyes on them, the woman pulled the man to her and turned so her back was to the road. They did not look around as he came up to them.
Seamus drew rein. A dove and a cowboy, he assumed, and said gruffly, “Enough of that. You know better. In a saloon, yes. In a hotel, yes. But not out here where everyone can see.”
“Sorry,” the woman said, still embracing the man. “We were carried away.”
“Get carried away in private,” Seamus said, and clucked to his mount. Light glowed in the schoolhouse window, so Hinkle had been right about the schoolmarm. Dismounting, he walked up to the door and knocked. When there was no response, he knocked louder, and when that failed to bring her to the door, he worked the latch and poked his head inside.
“Miss Prescott? Sorry to disturb you.”
Seamus sighed. She wasn’t there. The schoolhouse was empty. That she had gone off and left the lamp on suggested she would return. He was about to go in and wait for her when his sorrel whinnied and was answered by another horse from somewhere behind the schoolhouse.
Puzzled, Seamus took a few steps back. “Miss Prescott?” he called out. His reply was another whinny.
Suddenly Seamus thought he understood. The schoolmarm’s gentleman caller was there, out back with the schoolmarm. For once the gossip had been true. Grinning, he hastened around the corner. The man might ride off, and Seamus wanted to see who it was. He hoped the man was married. Wouldn’t that be something? He chuckled to himself. The scandal would be sensational.
But all Seamus found was a horse. A gruella, its reins dangling. He scanned the prairie, then cupped a hand to his mouth. “Miss Prescott? Are you here?” Apparently not, since there was no answer. Seamus started to head for the front of school, then stopped and stared at the mouse dun.
A gruella. A vague sense that the horse was somehow important came over him. Something pricked at his mind, a memory, words someone had said, something that had stuck with him.
“A gruella,” Seamus said aloud. He tried and tried but could not remember. Shrugging, he was almost to the side of the schoolhouse when it came to him in a rush of vivid memory. Coffin Varnish. The shootings of the Blights and Edison Farnsworth. Seamus had asked everyone what they saw and heard, and the saloon owner, Win Curry, offhandedly mentioned that he had been in front of the saloon when Jeeter Frost rode up on—
