He thought about the article, the timing of Sullivan hitting the Blake farm, everything.
He could be here anytime, any minute.
He went back over to the entrance of the mine and hollered to the others.
Waiting for them, he considered drinking more of Turpin’s whiskey, but it was like drinking kerosene, so he just poured half of it into the weeds. That way, Turpin would think he’d drunk it.
Let him chew on that.
He’d deal with Turpin later.
First, he had to get ready to welcome Conn Sullivan.
32
That morning, Mary paused at her work and went to town to pick up a few things and to send her father a telegram and let him know George and James would be staying to help her for a while.
She hoped she didn’t run into that Marshal Mayfield.
She didn’t like him.
He was taking his sweet time getting after the murderers, and he had something against Conn.
His attack on Conn’s character didn’t affect her one bit. She had faith in her brother-in-law, certainly a lot more faith than she had in a lawman who talked about justice but gave bad men days to ride wherever they wanted.
But his words had clearly impacted George, who probably set to working on James as soon as she was out of earshot.
The idea that Conn might have caused all this was utter nonsense. Sadly, the world was full of Tooles, and they’d had the bad luck to run across one.
But Mayfield had planted seeds of doubt in George, who now seemed to half-believe that Conn had caused everything.
“How well do you really know him?” he’d demanded after she’d asked the marshal to leave.
“It doesn’t matter,” she’d countered. “I knew Cole, didn’t I? And he told me plenty about his brother.”
“But even Cole hadn’t seen Conn for a long time.”
George kept pushing until she told him to stop. Even then, even after she explained how things were, she could tell he was holding onto his doubts, nursing them, letting them grow.
There were a lot of people in Fairplay today. Several folks waved to her.
It was strange, all these strangers recognizing her.
She waved back and rolled on.
She parked the wagon and crossed the street, heading for the telegraph office.
Before she could go inside, however, she was stopped by Mr. Winston, the reporter who’d interviewed her forThe Fairplay Flume. “Good morning, Mrs. Sullivan. Any word from Conn Sullivan?”
“Nothing yet, Mr. Winston.”
“Well, please let me know if you do hear anything. Our readers are invested in your story.”
“All right. Good morning, Mr. Winston.”
She went inside the telegraph office, and the man behind the counter greeted her by name and asked how she was holding up.
“I am doing what I can, sir,” she said. “I would like to send a telegram, please.”
