J
IM MALLORY WAS INSIDE, behind worn steel bars, breathing the dry rasp of cow dust and dehydration. And then he was out. Just like that. The creak of an iron hinge nudged him from sleep, and even as he rolled heavy legs from wooden bunk to stone floor, the prison gate swung away from his cell. Outside, a cow lowed. A horse nickered. Careful, wary, Jim Mallory let his weight settle into his boots, counting out a full minute before making another move. When he stepped out of the jail cell into the abandoned law office, dawn hit him square in the face, and he was careful to avoid the bright open door to the street lest Merle Judd or one of his cronies take note. Mallory looked around the room. Tried to figure it. The night before, he was locked in tight. Now he was out. His eyes slid toward the cranky key ring on Judd’s old beat-up desk then back to the open door where the steady clop of a horse sounded soft and low, and the smell of morning dew and summer crick wa-
ter drifted in to tickle the scruffy back of Mallory’s parched throat. He didn’t trust the lure of that door. Didn’t trust freedom offered up without a fight. A challenge? A set up. Mallory strained his hearing, listening for the heavy tread of his warden’s boots on his way back along the crusty boardwalk. At first, only the rush of Wyoming wind came from the drug out string of ramshackle buildings outside. Then a cow made a loud chuffing sound, and Mallory wondered about the herd. Sweet Smoke was a miner’s ghost camp. How was Judd’s crew managing to keep them fed and watered. Most likely, they weren’t. Mallory thought about his own treatment, how he’d been locked up in the old place for three days. Since Saturday with only a few crusts of bread and stagnant water. Back in Sawdust City, Linda would be wondering where he was. She’d be waiting. The whole damn town would be waiting.
