The Man from Stone Creek by Linda Lael Miller Page A

please.”
    Terran nodded, but he approached and put out a hand to touch Neptune’s wriggly little body. “I reckon Ben was worried one of his brothers would drown him in the creek,” he speculated. He looked up at Maddie with hope clearly visible in his eyes, even in that poor light. “Can we keep him?”
    â€œYou know we can’t,” Maddie said with some regret. “Mr. James would have a fit.”
    Terran looked so dejected that Sam almost reached out and ruffled his hair, the way a man does when he wants to reassure a boy. He refrained, because the truce between him and Terran was new, like a naked and fragile bird just hatched from the egg.
    â€œI guess I could take him back to the schoolhouse,” he said with considerable reluctance. Sam was trying to break the habit of taking in lost critters; he’d left them scattered all over the Arizona Territory and half of Texas and New Mexico, as well, always in a good home, and at some point, it had to stop. “Just until we get the straight of the matter. I’ll ask Ben about it Monday, before school takes up.”
    Maddie smiled a little and shoved the dog into his arms. “That’s a splendid idea,” she said.
    Terran gazed at Neptune with a longing that made Sam feel bruised on the inside, then sighed and went to work releasing the harness fittings.
    Sam stood there for a long moment, as confounded as if he were suddenly thirteen again, while the pup chewed on the collar of his one good suit coat. “What am I supposed to feed him?” he asked.
    Maddie indulged in another smile. “You’re a schoolmaster,” she said. “You’ll reason it out.” With that, she gave a little curtsy—there was something of mockery in it—and raised her chin a notch. “Good night, Mr. O’Ballivan. And thank you for a very…interesting evening.”
    Before he could shuffle the pup and tug at his hat brim, she was gone, disappearing into the mercantile through the same door Terran had just come out of.
    While Sam was still standing there, oddly befuddled, Terran finished his work, hung the harnesses on a fence post and dusted his hands together. “He’d probably favor some jerked venison, being a dog,” the boy said. He ran into the store and came out again, quick as the proverbial wink, and held out two hands full of dried meat, obviously purloined from a crock or a bin in the mercantile.
    Sam had to shuffle again, to take the jerky. He stuffed it into his pockets and looked up just as Maddie’s shadow moved back from a second-floor window. “Obliged,” he said.
    â€œYou need something else?” Terran asked reasonably.
    Sam told his feet to move, but they didn’t comply right away. “No,” he said, still looking up at that lighted window, where Maddie had been standing only moments before. “I’ll be going now.”
    Terran waited for him to follow through. “You taken a shine to my sister?” he asked when Sam stood stock-still for another minute or so.
    That broke the spell. “No,” Sam lied, and thrust himself into motion. He felt Terran’s gaze on his back as he walked away.
    Back at the schoolhouse, he went inside, set the pup on the floor, lit a lantern and assessed the situation while Neptune gnawed on a strip of dried meat from his pocket. Coming to no ready conclusion, he checked on the nameless horse, out there in the grass-scented darkness, found it sound, and returned to his quarters, which suddenly seemed lonely, even with Neptune curled up in front of the cold stove.
    â€œI don’t have any good reason to keep a dog,” he said solemnly.
    Neptune laid his muzzle on his paws, closed his eyes and fell asleep.
    Sam kicked off his boots, shrugged out of his suit coat and loosened his collar. He unbuckled his gun belt, set the .45 within easy reach on the bedside stand. His eyes wandered to the stacks of