Shooting For Justice by G. Tilman (top 100 novels txt) 📗

thought her husband was poisoning her. Sarah jumped right on it. One of Morse’s most famous cases was to be another poisoning. The co-founder of Stanford University, Jane Stanford, was poisoned in 1906. Harry investigated the first attempt. Mrs. Stanford succumbed to strychnine poisoning in Honolulu six months later.

As she got into the Morse cases, she felt at home. It was more like the variety of Pinkerton cases on which she had cut her teeth. Yet, without the questionable tactics of union and strike busting.

The Morse agency was on retainer to many insurance companies. Those cases paralleled the claims cases she and Pope had investigated for Wells Fargo. In her first month, she closed seven cases. Morse was ecstatic. Closure meant cash flow and moving on to other retainers, then final payments.

Morse continued his friendship and assisting Wells Fargo with cases he selected after careful evaluation. The era of gratis work because of friendship or an interesting case seemed to have passed.

Pope had worried he would get bored with the sheriff’s job. Having a guest house shot up, seeing John Wilkes Booth, and breaking up a large smuggling ring in which he saw a ship chase and fight…all in his first few weeks as Marin sheriff. He would have never guessed such goings-on. They held him in good stead. He knew over time he may miss the long trails.

With Wyoming and Washington back-to-back, Pope and Sarah rode some distant trails. Maybe enough.

Pope had to admit he liked coming home at night. Home to one of the most beautiful women he had ever seen. Being near Israel Pope almost daily. It was like the “old days” but better.

There had been a downside to the various papers’ commentary on Pope in response to the Tevis speech and its omissions. While Morse saw a surge in new cases, Pope felt he was gaining unwanted notoriety. In 1883, there were a lot of wannabe gunsels roaming the Western United States. Notoriety with people like Kid Taos in one of the cases he and Sarah had worked in Cheyenne.

He thought he was fast because of the people with whom he picked gunfights. Pope found out after he took him down, he usually went up against drunks.

Kid Taos did not stand a chance against someone like Pope. Or Kane. Or any of the legends who tamed places like Dodge City. People like Masterson, Earp, or Tilghman, who was still marshal. They were real gunfighters, not make-believe ones.

Pope worried the publicity would draw them to San Rafael to show they were faster than him.

He spoke to the family at dinner about this. Millie did not have experience to contribute, other than her normal wisdom and ability to take things down to their basic elements.

Sarah said, “If I heard any other man alive suggest he was so fast, he would draw would-be gunfighters, I’d think it was pure male ego. In John’s case, I am afraid he is exactly right. I wish he was not, for once.”

“I been around some real hairy characters. Some were so scary nobody would take them on. Hugh Glass comes to mind. In the 1830’s about exactly fifty years ago, he was mauled by a bear. He crawled a couple hundred miles, eating worms and grubs and anything he could find. Now, there was a man with bark on! Nobody messed with him.”

“What ever happened to him?” Millie asked.

“Ha! An Indian shot an arrow in his back and killed him a year later in 1833, I believe!

“But, to get back to the discussion at hand, I think my boy has a valid point. A lawman wants to be respected, but not notorious. Notorious draws in a kind of fool we did not have to contend with in my day.”

He turned to Pope.

“Sonny, you can outdraw about any man alive. But there’s one out there you can’t. And even the ones you can, get lucky sometimes. You can have a misfire, have the sun in your eyes, go up against a man with a shotgun like Sarah’s cocked in hand. Get back shot. Anything.

“But here’s the thing. I suspect most of these yahoos are in Texas, Arizona, Montana and the like. They will spend their time dreaming about taking you or Bat, or Earp, or even Hardin down. I just doubt they’ll have the sense or money to come all the way up here. If one does, you’ll handle him like the rest who tried you. I just don’t see a bunch of them parading up to Northern California where they are out of their element. These fellas are not train riders. They are more like grub line riders!”

“Thanks, Grandpa. As always, you add sense to everybody else’s first thoughts. Dangerous people have been part of my life since ten. As sheriff, why should I worry? It comes with the trail I ride.”

They went on eating the venison loin roasted with potatoes, carrots and onions Sarah prepared in the morning and let cook all day in a black iron pot hanging over the coals on the swing iron.

“Now, we have some worries put aside by Israel, Millie fixed one of her famous pies,” Sarah said. She served an apple pie and refreshed everyone’s coffee.

“Millie, will you help me with my baking on this little stove? I think I can do alright cooking meals over the fire in the fireplace, but the baking is beyond me,” she asked. Millie nodded and smiled. The two husbands smiled too. Two women baking desserts was better than just one.

Life went on for sheriff and detective alike in Marin County.

By early December, a colder than normal spell hit. Temperatures were in the upper thirties and rain prevailed.

Pope and Sarah rode in together, kissed and went on to their respective offices.

He hung his heavy canvas ranch coat on the coat rack, followed by his suit jacket and Stetson. He sat his carbine in the rack and poured his third cup of coffee for the day. Sitting