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THE SHERIFF
By
Eryn Blackwell
© copyright November 2006, Eryn Blackwell
Cover art by Jenny Dixon, © copyright November 2006
New Concepts Publishing
Lake Park, GA 31636
www.newconceptspublishing.com
This is a work of fiction. All characters, events, and places are of the author’s imagination and not to be confused with fact. Any resemblance to living persons or events is merely coincidence.
Chapter One
Giddings, Texas, 1887
Greydon Jefferies stared down at the dead body at his feet. Damn and double damn.
He took off his black hat and swiped his forearm over his brow. Texas weather was unpredictable at best, and at worst, felt like Hell’s Kitchen. August in the settling central part of the state was on the latter end.
“Looks like one of Cooper’s boys,” Murphy, his deputy said, spitting a long brown stream of tobacco to the side.
Flies buzzed around the body that had obviously lain out all night behind the town corrals.
Giddings, Texas was a stop-over for many people. New immigrants coming up from the coast, newly arrived in the great state of Texas, passed through on their way to the capital, to Fort Worth, to Abilene, or San Antonio. Giddings was mostly a passing through for any and all. Few stayed over and a few, obviously, had no choice.
“Cooper’s gonna be pissed, Sheriff. You know him. He’ll blame it on Strippen’s gang and then all hell’s gonna break loose.”
Greydon ignored his deputy’s words.
“Why do you think he’s with Cooper? Any idea who he is?”
“Nope. Just saw him with two of Cooper’s a few days ago.”
“So, for all we know,” he said, looking over his shoulder at the slowly dawning street through the buildings at the edge of the alley, “he could have ...”
“Fallen off his horse and hit his head?”
Greydon raised a brow at his young and not brightest deputy. “Murphy, no one falls off their horse and gets a bullet in the chest.”
“Guess not, Sheriff.”
Greydon sighed and shook his head. “Just say he was shot after the saloon closed. Who the hell knows.”
“They won’t buy it.”
“You know for a fact he was with Cooper?”
Murphy shrugged.
Greydon turned and looked down, noticing for the first time the footprint next to the building where he stood. It wasn’t a large print. Small in fact, too small for a man, or any man he knew. He looked at Murphy’s boot, noticed his own was wide. Who the hell was he kidding?
“Any of Maggie’s girls out here last night?” he asked, looking across the alley to the local whorehouse.
Murphy looked up. “I don’t know, probably. Why?”
“He wasn’t one of Cooper’s, Murphy. He was playing big over at Shoey’s last night. I left before the game ended. Guess I should have stayed a bit longer. He’s only a gambler passing through. We’ll figure out who he is sooner or later.”
Murphy frowned. “Okay, but why ya’ worried about a woman, Sheriff?”
Greydon kept his ideas to himself. He looked at the footprint, perfect, narrow and small. From the angle ... huh. He ran the situation through his mind. Perhaps she had merely stood here before the storm. No, it had already been raining from the looks of the impression, which was deeper due to the mud. Yet, there wasn’t another footprint. Had she eradicated the prints, or did the rain wash them away? The only reason he assumed this one hadn’t been washed away, was because it was directly against the wall, at a slight incline away from the eaves.
A woman.
A friend or a foe?
He stood and sniffed, glad the rain had cooled things off. Well, it was his job to try and keep law and order in this town. He’d do it.
His stomach growled.
Time to head over to Miss Lorella’s.
At the thought of the woman, her long dark hair falling out of its braid as always, her wide full lips smiling, his stomach wasn’t the only thing that took notice of where he was--or rather wasn’t.
One day very soon, he’d be in Miss Lorella’s bed.
That was one woman he wanted. And one he would have.
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