Sheep's Clothing Read Free Page A

well as most,” I admitted, “but I know the people well enough.”
    He nodded. “Tell me about the people, then, and what ya know about the land.”
    I told him of the woods to the north, which legend held were haunted by the spirit of a woman who froze to death while trying to find her children. To the east was mainly farmland, which he indicated seeing on his way in. To the west was grazing for sheep and cattle. To the south one could find the entrance to the Medicine Cavern.
    “Why do ya call it the Medicine Cavern?” Cowrie asked.
    “From what I’ve heard,” I explained, “The man who founded this town took shelter in a cave while headed west. It was raining hard, and his children were very sick, but after staying a night in the cave the children felt all better. Upon questioning, the elder of the two revealed that his throat had been dry, so he drank water from a lake he found further in. He found it so cool and sweet that he brought some back for his brother, who also drank it. So the man decided to put down roots here, and sank a well into the Cavern so other people who came here could drink from it. It wasn’t long before other people came to live near the well… and Salvation was born.”
    “Ya believe that story?”
    I shrugged. “It’s a nice legend, but I’m not sure about the truth of it. I’m a bit old to believe in fairy tales.”
    “Legends have their beginnins somewhere,” he pointed out with a smirk.
    “Well, the people certainly have put their faith in the water, to be sure, and they tend on the whole to be healthier and stronger than most city folk I’ve seen—but this is the frontier. You’d have to be made of stern stuff to survive out here.”
    He shrugged noncommittally. “Tell me more about the people, then.”
    I told him what I knew of the local people. Most folks in Salvation had a couple of jobs that went together—for example, the blacksmith was also the farrier, and the brother of the animal doctor. Most of the women above the age of twelve knew how to cook. Michael ‘Pack’ Packard owned a field just outside of town where he grew corn and wheat, and his wife Angela kept chickens and was a superb baker, churning out the best cornbread and meat pies I have ever tasted. James ‘Gib’ Gibson, the brewer, was wed to Marybell ‘May’ Gibson, who ran the Lucky Lady, Salvation’s watering hole and inn, where travelers could stop off and rest before heading on to parts further west or east.
    William Baker kept cattle, and at this time of year he could be counted upon to supply some of the best steaks I’ve ever tasted, and some of the finest leather goods in his part of the country. And, as mentioned before, Kyle Cook kept sheep, which produced wool for the blankets that Miss Sarah wove.
    He stopped me in my monologue after I mentioned the Lucky Lady. “Tell me more about that place,” he said. “Popular?”
    “As popular as might be expected,” I replied, “It’s the only inn for a couple days’ travel in any direction—and it’s a good place to restock for people headed west. After Salvation, it’s about six days to the next town, or three if you’re headed back east.” I paused. “Unless your man’s a good hunter, he’s likely to stop there.”
    He frowned. “Oh, he’s a damn good hunter,” he murmured, mainly to himself, it seemed. He scowled. “But I aim to outfox him. For every hunter, there’s always one better at it.”
    I cleared the dishes from the breakfast table. Hunting men was not exactly how I would spend my time, but clearly he intended to rid the frontier of a dangerous man. Whatever his quarry’s crimes were, he would certainly answer to God for them.
    I washed up and packed my medical bag for my usual morning rounds. As an afterthought, I also fetched the shard of metal that I’d dug out of Wolf’s side the previous night and stuck it in my pocket. Wolf glanced up at me as I made sure everything was in its place.
    “If you’ll