Jeeter Frost did not like how the old man looked at him. He did not like that a lawman had seen them on their way there. He could use a drink, could use a drink badly. To his annoyance, he was sweating like a stuck pig, and worried he was about to make the worst mistake of his life. He cared for Ernestine so much, he was afraid of shackling her with himself. But if it was what she wanted, then by God he would go through with it. “You heard the lady,” he growled. “What difference does the hour make?”
“None, really,” Horace admitted. “But this is sort of sudden, is it not?” He addressed the schoolmarm.
“Yes, it is,” Ernestine said. “So please. Can we get on with it?”
Horace adjusted his spectacles and then his robe. He was stalling. “There are formalities to observe, you know. A form to fill out. A fee to pay. Usually people fill out the form and come back in a few days.”
“We don’t have a few days,” Jeeter said. “Just get on with whatever you have to do.”
“No need to be cross with me, mister,” Horace said. He was old but he would not kowtow to anyone, particularly runts with an attitude.
“Don’t rile me, old man,” Jeeter warned.
Ernestine gave his hand a hard squeeze. “None of that kind of talk, if you please. This is a special occasion. I want to have fond memories of it.”
Horace sensed fear in her tone. Something was going on here, something out of the normal. He looked at her more closely and saw that she was nervous, too, which was not like her at all. The few times he had spoken to her, she had been a portrait of calm and serenity. “Is everything all right, Miss Prescott?”
“Of course, Mr. Dundleman,” Ernestine said. “But it is not every day a woman is wed.”
“No, it is not,” Horace agreed. “All the more reason for the woman to be positive she wants to say I do.”
“I am positive.”
But she did not sound positive to Horace, and as he led them into the parlor he racked his mind for a way to delay joining them as husband and wife. Only for a day or so. He fumbled with the lamp, got it lit, and turned it up so the parlor flooded with bright light. Only then did he see the Colt Lightning on the groom’s hip. Only then did he get a good look at the groom’s features.
“Something wrong?” Jeeter Frost demanded. The old geezer was staring at him as if he had risen from a grave.
“No, no, nothing at all,” Horace said. “It is just unusual, is all, for a man to drag a woman in here in the middle of the night to get hitched.”
“It’s hardly the middle of the night,” Jeeter said. He was losing his patience with the old man. “And as for the dragging, I do as I damn well please, or as she damn well pleases.”
Ernestine pouted. “I won’t ask you again. Be polite, for my sake if for no other reason.”
“Just so the old buzzard gets it over with,” Jeeter said.
Horace stepped to his desk and opened the top drawer. The forms were in a neat pile on the right. “You must fill one of these out. It asks your name, your age, a few other things.”
“You are a nosy old coot,” Jeeter said. The form intimidated him. He had learned the alphabet, but he wrote letters as slow as molasses.
“Not me, mister,” Horace said. “It is for the government, for their records, so everything is nice and official.”
“Official be hanged,” Jeeter groused.
Ernestine sighed. “You will not desist, will you? You push and push when there is no cause. I am here with you, aren’t I? You need not be so forceful.”
Horace wondered what she meant by that. He sat in his chair and fiddled with his robe. “I don’t suppose you would let me go get dressed?”
“No,” Jeeter said.
“I will fill in the form,” Ernestine offered. She took pride in her precise handwriting. When she was done she slid the form toward Dundleman. “We do not have a ring. Is that all right?”
“It is not essential,” Horace said, running his gaze down the paper. He read the groom’s name. He read it twice, and a lightning bolt seared him from head to toe. Struggling to keep his voice level, he said, “So you are to become Mrs. Jeeter Frost?”
“Do you have a problem with that?” Jeeter demanded.
“No, sir,” Horace lied. “There is no problem at all.”
Chapter 21
Seamus Glickman took his time returning to the sheriff’s office. He stopped at the Long Branch for a drink.
Front Street was bedlam, as always at that hour. People, horses, wagons, buckboards, carriages, dogs and pigs and poultry, mingled and mixed in a perpetual whirl. Animals were not supposed to run loose, but hardly anyone kept theirs leashed or penned. The town council had imposed fines, but people still couldn’t be bothered. They saw it as their God-given right to let their pigs do their business in the middle of the street.
Seamus bellied up to the bar and smacked the counter to get the bartender’s attention. He sipped the whiskey brought to him and let the sights and sounds of the saloon wash over him. The games of chance, poker and faro and roulette, the babble of voices and laughter, the thick cigar smoke, and the perfume of the doves—this was his element.
