Now Playing: The Silent Child
New to These Parts? To Start the Story From the Beginning, click
Episode Five concluded with:
“Thanks for the information, gentlemen.” Dehner
placed a couple of coins on the counter and took several pieces of rock candy
from a jar. He tried to hand one piece to Pixie but she didn’t respond at all.
Her hands remained at her side.
The detective felt baffled. What had the little
girl witnessed and why were there people out to kill her?
Episode Six
***
Dehner dropped Pixie off at Harper’s
Mercantile, then took a fast walk to the south end of Main Street and the
sheriff’s office. As he entered, Sheriff Clint Bolger was talking to a nervous
young man who kept working his hands and nodding his head. The tin on his shirt
was shiny and looked like he had polished it that morning.
“One more thing,” the sheriff seemed
to be coming to the end of a long list. “The ladies are having their weekly
luncheon at the church today. Reverend Connors is out of town. If Jesse Larson
shows up, get him out of there, but do it quiet like. If Jesse tries to go
back, put him in jail for the afternoon but give him a warning first. Remember,
you are dealing with Jesse Larson, not Jesse James.”
“Yes, Sheriff, I’ll remember
that.”
Bolger gave the detective a quick
glance. “Ah, Deputy Emory Logan, this here is Rance…”
“Dehner.” Rance shook the hand of a
man who was probably a year or two shy of twenty. His long oval face was topped
by sand colored hair which ended in a curl that bobbed over his forehead.
“We gotta be leavin’,” the sheriff
said. “Try to see that the town is still here when we get back, Emory.”
“Yes, Sheriff.” Emory’s voice
sounded contrite.
Detective instincts were not
required to notice that Clint Bolger was not happy with his deputy. Rance
waited until he and the sheriff had ridden out of town before asking, “Emory
Logan not working out too well?”
Bolger began to talk in the fast,
jerky manner of a man getting something off of his chest. “Emory is a good kid,
but he reads too many dime novels. He wants to be Wyatt Earp. Emory treats
jailing a drunken miner as if he had single handedly brought in the Dalton
gang. Now, he doesn’t rough up jaspers unless it’s necessary, and he’s not
trigger happy, I’ll give him that, but he needs to calm down …”
Clint continued to unload his
frustrations as the two men rode out to where Rance had encountered Pixie
earlier in the day. They had just passed the grove of trees where the little
girl had emerged when Dehner changed the subject. “I was carrying Pixie in this
direction when I was ambushed.”
Bolger nodded his head. “From what
the Harpers say, you was probably takin’ the kid home, even though you didn’t
know it at the time. The Thompsons probably have their ranch up ahead.”
Both men suddenly went silent,
stunned by what they saw.
“Looks like smoke,” Rance said.
“Yep. Right where the Thompson ranch
should be.”
Dehner and the sheriff spurred their
horses into a fast gallop. The ears of Dehner’s bay went back and his mane
began a wild dance. Landscape whizzed by. As their horses ate up the ground,
the men could see a large ranch house being consumed by fire.
Tomorrow: Episode Seven of The Silent
Child
