These were Mayfield’s thoughts as he sipped his tea and read the rest of the paper, taking his time.
Never hurry, never worry.
He was a hunter. And the deadliest weapon of the hunter is patience.
But he did not dawdle. After tea, he left the café on three errands.
The first took him to the Fairplay livery, where he explained he needed to rent a durable steed and rode out on a big, white horse, heading south out of town on the second errand, which took him to the homestead of the victim, Conn Sullivan’s brother, where the widow and her recently arrived brothers were apparently trying to rebuild a home.
That’s what Mayfield had learned talking with folks in town, and as soon as he rode out the lane, he saw those reports had been true.
The woman and her brothers were hard at work cutting and dragging trees with a team of mules. Seeing Mayfield, they stopped and waited.
The boys waved, looking awed.
He’d noticed them on the train.
Their sister, on the other hand, did not look impressed. What she looked was irritated by the interruption.
She’s a good-looking woman despite her messy hair, dirty face, and attire—dungarees and a man’s work shirt.
Mayfield was surprised to see she wore a gunbelt and had a double-barrel shotgun slung over one shoulder.
These Sullivans were a hard lot.
“Ma’am,” Mayfield said, stopping a short distance away. “Men.”
“You’re Marshal Mayfield,” the younger boy blurted.
His brother elbowed him.
“That’s right, son. I am U.S. Marshal Clayton Mayfield, and I’m here to investigate the recent tragedy.”
“We thank you for coming, sir,” Mary Sullivan said, not looking thankful. For some reason, she looked wary, maybe even antagonistic, though she tried to conceal these feelings with a thin smile. “What can we do for you?”
He spent the next ten minutes interviewing her, having her tell what had happened here.
He could tell it was painful for her, but she held herself together and gave him complete answers, seeming to hold nothing back.
And yet her irritation held.
They went over the ground, visited the husband’s grave, and studied the tracks around the burned home and rebuilt corral, which held a few mules and a lone milk cow.
“We tried rounding up the cow last night,” the younger boy explained. “No luck. Then she just showed up this morning.”
“Looking for grain,” Mayfield said. “Hunting’s like that. You chase something too hard, you come up empty. Trick is to know what you’re after and what they want. Often as not, they’ll end up coming to you.”
“Is that your plan with Toole?” Mary Sullivan asked, letting some of her irritation slip into her voice. “Just wait for him to come to you?”
“You believe I should already be riding through the mountains?”
“That’s where they went.”
“Do you know where, exactly, they were headed?”
She shook her head. “I have no idea.”
Mayfield believed her.
