Broken Wings

26

"Looks like you owe me four dollars, Cyrus," Thomas said with a snide little look at Hazel that evaporated when Shepard took a menacing step in his direction.

Sheriff Douglas stood, his chair scraping across the floor as his hand settled atop the holstered pistol at his right hip. "Devereaux..." he barked in warning.

Shepard clenched his jaw, fighting the desire to throw caution to the wind, and let Thomas know precisely what he thought of him with several well-placed punches to his already mangled face. But doing so would most assuredly end up with the Sheriff tossing him in jail.

He glanced at Hazel and gave her hand a reassuring squeeze, then turned his attention to the room. "Any of you men the preacher Barnabas Dunlap?"

Nobody spoke a word, but they didn't need to when every last eye in the room unconsciously settled on the plain, weak-chinned man sitting directly across from Thomas.

Shepard grunted. He'd seen the lanky dark-haired man playing cards nearly every night over the past week but never would have suspected him to be a man of the cloth.

"You," he called out, his gaze focused on Barnabas.

The Reverend remained silent and hunched his thin shoulders in a posture that brought rolled-up pill bugs to mind. His cropped mud-brown hair was ruthlessly flattened against his sizeable round head except for two unruly cowlicks at the front, resembling antennae, and glistened with excessive amounts of hair pomade.

He wore casual, faded attire—looking more like a tired cowboy in-between brands instead of a clergyman's typical vestments. Gold-rimmed spectacles perched atop a long, thin nose caught the glare of the lamps when he slowly swiveled in his chair and met Shepard's expectant gaze.

Barnabas studied Shepard with a dispassionate look before turning to Hazel and softening in an unmistakable expression of sympathy. "What do you want?"

Shepard forced his lips to bend in what he hoped would pass for a polite smile, needing the man to agree with his request. "We'd like to be married. Tonight."

"NO," Thomas cried out, springing to his feet with a look of outrage twisting his face.

"Uh," Barnabas flicked a worried glance at Sheriff Douglas.

At the Sheriff's abrupt shake of the head, the Reverend cleared his throat, making his adam's apple spasm as he turned away from Shepard. "It'll have to wait till tomorrow; I'm in the middle of a game."

Shepard opened his mouth to speak, his brow lowering in a frown of disbelief. But before he managed anything other than a choked, half-formed sound of protest, he was interrupted by Sheriff Douglas.

"They won't be here tomorrow, Reverend."

"That's news to me," Shepard said, fighting for control of his temper and wanting more than anything to wipe the smug look off the Sheriff's face. "Who said we're leaving? We love it here."

"I did."

"Why? Correct me if I'm wrong, but last night you said we had until Marshal Strickland could sit a horse. You know something about his condition that I don't?"

"Thomas Carr has brought certain events and allegations against you to my attention tonight, and I've decided, you, Miss Jones, and that poorly friend of yours have worn out your welcome."

Douglas motioned to Lawrence Howard and Olive and Dorcas and sauntered toward the main entrance in a show of dismissal, "You three have until first light tomorrow."

Shepard watched them all file by with Douglas and Howard leading the way as though they were royalty, "Or what?"

Olive and Dorcas held a side of the batwing door open for Howard and the Sheriff to pass through. But before stepping out onto the covered boardwalk, the Sheriff glanced over his shoulder, briefly meeting Shepard's gaze as his lips curled in a threatening smile. "Before breakfast."