“What sort of things?”
“I don’t know. Town things. Lawyers, that sort of thing. Or maybe she’ll have to stay put for court or something. Seems like the law would have caught those men by now.”
“I sure hope so,” James said. He shook his head. “It’s a shame about Cole. I really liked him.”
“Me, too. He was perfect for Mary.”
James nodded sadly.
George knew his little brother had really looked up to Cole. Heck, George looked up to him, too.
For James, however, it had been more than just looking up to him. Cole had been larger than life in James’s eyes, heroic.
But that was all over now.
Those men had killed Cole and burned the house, and now poor Mary would have to come home and start over.
One part of George was excited. He felt bad for that and wouldn’t tell anyone, not even James, whom he normally told almost everything.It felt wrong to be excited in the wake of such a tragedy, but he loved his sister and was happy that she would be home with them again.
Mary was the best person he had ever known.
Sure, she could be a little bossy at times, but that was just because she worked hard and saw things clearly and wanted the best for everyone.
Besides, George was older now. He’d only been sixteen when she’d left the farm. Now, he was seventeen, and he’d worked hard, showing Pa what he was made of.
Things between him and Mary would be different now. Oh, she might try to boss him here and there, but she’d soon learn that her little brother wasn’t so little anymore. He’d become a man.
This trip, going to get Mary, was a real opportunity to show her that. His new maturity would comfort her. She’d be pleased by James, too, who had also grown up a lot.
Things were going to be all right.
At that moment, a man in a nice black coat entered the train and seized George’s attention. The man was a little over average height and very lean, perhaps thirty years old, with a dark mustache, which like everything else about the man, looked neat and precise.
But what really drew George’s attention as the man walked past them to take a seat at the back of the train, was the silver badge on the black coat—and the words printed on that badge:U.S. Marshal.
James had seen it, too. “You know who that is?” he asked excitedly.
George nodded, grinning again. “Marshal Mayfield.”
U.S. Marshal Clayton Mayfield was very famous. He hunted down the worst criminals. No outlaw stood a chance against him.
A bunch of men had tried Mayfield, and he’d put them all down in the dirt.
He was George’s biggest hero. James’s, too.
And here he was on the very same train they were riding.
The boys turned and craned their necks with excitement.
Mayfield looked at them, and they whipped back around and hunched there, whispering together.
“What’s he even doing here?” James wondered.
“He goes where he pleases,” George said. “Where he’s needed. And woe to any man he gets after.”
James nodded. “You reckon…”
“What?”
