:: PARIS, WYOMING ::
Chapter One
Dana Scully was so mad she could spit. She knew that CGB Spender, Colonel Spender, was one of the more powerful men in the state. She knew he was great friends with territorial governor Blevins. Forcing her temper down, her smile never reached her eyes. "Colonel, surely you understand, the land they are grazing on is free range."
Spender leaned back in his plush leather chair and coolly studied her in the same manner he would use to inspect a questionable steer he was about to purchase. Exhaling a grey plume of smoke from the ever-present cigarette between his fingers, he returned her false grin with one of his renowned sneers. "Now, Miss Scully."
"Sheriff Scully," she ground out.
"Your pardon, I just find it hard to reconcile someone with your youth and beauty…" at her scornful glare he jerked his lips up in an unapologetic smile. "…ah yes, well. As I was saying, SHERIFF Scully, if it were cattle grazing there, I would have no arguments. But they are sheep, madam!" He let his voice raise just a notch. "Dirty, filthy sheep. They foul the water, they ruin the grass so cows can’t graze there and the smell!"
Scully sighed deeply. "Regardless…Colonel, Dick Langley and Jimmy Bond have the right to use the land. Tell your men to stop harassing them."
Spender took a drag from his cigarette, exhaled and put his hand to his chest. "My men? Sheriff, you wound me. My hands are only protecting my land."
Scully had had enough. Standing up, she reached for her Stetson and duster. Choosing her words carefully, she finally asked softly, "They have so little, Spender, and you have so much. Why?"
Spender stood and walked to the fireplace where he flicked the remains of his cigarette before pulling another one from a fine porcelain box from the mantle. After he had lit it he turned back to her and in a smooth conversational tone explained. "I came to this land right after the war with my wife and son. I worked night and day to eke out a living. I fought the Cheyenne and Sioux and any other damn Indian that tried to hurt me or mine. I lost my wife to Typhoid. I’ve stayed up 72 hours straight watching my cattle and I can’t count the number of times I’ve been down in my mine working side by side with my men. If you think for one damn minute, missy, that I’m going to let some sheep herder, sodbuster, or some slip of a girl with a star pinned to her…bosom… tell me what I can or cannot do, MISS Scully, you are sadly mistaken."
Dana clenched her teeth and managed, "How about the US Marshall?"
Spender snorted. "Sheriff, your father understood how things worked out here. I’m sorry you don’t. But who do you think the Marshall is going to believe?"
"My father understood a lot, Spender. It didn’t keep him from being shot in the back." Turning on her heel she marched out to the front door; violently pushing it open, she nearly knocked Jeffery Spender on his ass.
"Hey! W-w-watch it," he cried indignantly.
"Go to hell, Jeffery."
She mounted Diablo and taking some of her frustration out on the animal, roughly kicked its sides and they galloped off down the dusty lane. It was mid-September and the rain had been sparse this year and the dust flew up behind them. She rode under the main gate with its huge brand at the apex, the large X inside the circle known throughout the territory.
She rode nearly an hour away from town to reach them. They had taken to grazing the sheep near the foothills and Scully knew that this was not prime grazing land for Spender. The man’s arrogance and stubbornness were beyond belief. She spotted Jimmy first. Hailing him from a quarter mile away, the youth turned with a big goofy looking grin on his face. "Sheriff! Dickie, Sheriff Dana’s here. I told you she would do something."
Scully scanned the vista and saw a movement from behind one of the rocky outcroppings. Long blond hair stuck out from underneath the tattered Confederate cap. "Miss Dana! Did you explain to Mr. Spender we don’t mean no harm?"
Dana wearily got down from her horse and walked over to join the two. When she reached them, she made a concerted effort not to wrinkle her nose, but she had to agree with Spender about one thing, damn those things did stink. She knew that Krycek had banned them both from the Black Nugget because of complaints from other customers and even her mother, while generous with her portions would make them eat out back, not allowing them in the hotel’s dining room.
She shook her head sadly, "Sorry boys. Lord knows, I tried, but he’s a stubborn old bastard."
Langley whined. "But Sheriff, its open range. He can’t keep us off it." Jimmy pouted more at the sound of Langley’s voice than at the concept. Never the brightest of children when they were growing up, Dana doubted that Jimmy was much smarter than Emily.
She sighed. "Langley there’s little I can do. You said yourself that they haven’t hurt anything, just scared the sheep and kept you hoppin. Can’t you find someplace else?"
Langley stamped his foot angrily. "Why should we. Can’t you protect us?"
She shook her head. "No. I’m sorry, but this really isn’t my jurisdiction. And, there’s just Doggett and me. You know that I can’t leave the town unprotected. I’m sorry, there’s really nothing I can do."
Langley looked off toward the west where the sun was about halfway down the sky, "Until one of us gets killed."
Scully closed her eyes, "I’m sorry." She remounted Diablo and headed back to town.
:: Chapter 2::
Tired and sweaty, Dana let the roan set his own pace back into town. What a wasted afternoon. She thought gloomily about her inability to help the two sheepherders. But, she couldn’t send Doggett out here to stand watch over two men, not when she had a whole town to protect. With the miners and the railroad workers swelling the town’s population each night by almost half again, she wasn’t sure she could do a good job anymore with just one deputy. Of course Bill would sneer and say, "half the time, Pop didn’t have a deputy, we can’t afford anyone else, Sis."
She rode past the new sign proclaiming, "Welcome to Paris – Population 150." Her brother, William Scully, Jr., newly elected mayor of their small town, was so proud of that damn sign. The paint was fresh and bright, much the same way he saw the town. Dana herself had a bit more pragmatic view of her home. But then, Bill had married his childhood sweetheart, fathered two precocious children and pretty much accomplished everything he set out to do. Dana had made a few detours on her journey through life, but up until now, Colonel Spender notwithstanding things had been fairly calm for a while. Except, now they appeared to be heating up. She remembered the bulletins she and John Doggett had received this week regarding the spat of train and stagecoach robberies in the area.
Riding past her small office and jail she saw Doggett talking earnestly to Daniel Pendrell and his wife Kim. She kept her head lowered and turned away, though she knew that if either of the Pendrells looked up, she would have to stop. She liked the general store owner and his wife, really she did but they were both on her brother’s committee to rid the town of its unsavory element. Dana had no compunction against ridding the town of it’s saloon, but she knew that if they actually succeeded, there would be hell to pay from the rangers, cowboys, miners and others that came to town to unwind. In fact the thought of unwinding suddenly sounded like an excellent idea. She stopped Diablo in front of the Black Nugget and wearily got down. Stretching, she worked the kinks out of her back and neck. Looking around quickly she rubbed her backside through the heavy white duster before stepping up to the swinging doors.
It was a little after 5:00, but the saloon was already fairly crowded. There were several gangs of railroad workers standing around the roulette wheel watching the spinning colors with rapt attention. She spied several of the girls plying their trade, though this early there were few takers and the girls busied themselves with fetching drinks and rubbing the shoulders of likely prospects. As she made her way to the bar she kept her eyes away from the poker table near the stairs leading up to the whore’s rooms. Even though she had come to terms with her late husband’s death years ago, it still pained her to see where he had died, over a stupid pair of jacks.
Dana Scully had married Jack Willis rather later in life than her mother had liked and they had been happy for about six months. Quite a bit older than his bride, Jack was a successful lawyer in the territory and everyone who knew him said he would go far; everyone that didn’t know of Jack’s one overriding compulsion, that is. Cards and gambling. While he seldom drank and never availed himself of the services of Pheobe or her girls, he did love to stop by for a few hands of stud poker each night. Dana, so new to married life hadn’t minded – much. She had just discovered that she was pregnant and was waiting for him to come home to share the good news, when her father and Bill had shown up on her doorstep and told her how a card sharp had cheated Jack and Jack had called him on it. It didn’t matter than the Jack had been right, that the Ace of Hearts had been found up the gambler’s sleeve. Jack was still dead. And it hadn’t mattered one whit that they had hung his killer from the scaffold only 3 weeks later. Jack left her the small house at the edge of town, but with the baby on the way, she had moved back home with her parents. Emily was born healthy and beautiful, and while she still had feelings for Jack, she had been Dana Scully a whole lot longer than Dana Willis and when people started calling her Scully again, she had soon grown tired of correcting them.
Several men made room for her at the bar and Melvin Frohike was there immediately with an incredibly clean glass. Reaching under the bar for a bottle of the "the good stuff" he poured her a generous shot. "Good evening, Sheriff. You are looking particularly lovely tonight."
Dana snorted. "Thanks, Melvin. You’re an awful liar, but thanks." Melvin Frohike had proclaimed his love for her on more than one occasion and while she knew it was mostly show she also realized that the little man had feelings for her that she really didn’t want to explore. It was real shame that he had to work for such a snake like Krycek, but there was little to be done about it. There wasn’t a lot of work in town that an ex-miner with bad lungs could do.
She sipped her drink and scanned the room through the reflection of the large silvered mirror behind the oak bar. She had become used to watching the room from the reflection and somehow could actually study the table where Alex Krycek held court every night, dealing the poker games himself. He had tried to make time with her, but she had rebuffed him firmly. "I’ve had my fill of gamblers for this and any other lifetimes I might have Alex." He still occasionally tried and there were times when she longed to feel a man’s hands on her again, but she had Emily to think of; Emily who was going to be 7 in just a few months. Emily, who was waiting patiently for her mother to come home and read to her and put her to bed with a kiss like she always did.
Scully saw that Jeffery had recovered from their encounter at the Circle X and sat next to Alex, dividing his concentration between staring at his hand and staring at her back. Fortunately, the mirror, while shiny and blemish free, distorted the reflection the farther away from it you were so Jeffery couldn’t be sure whether she was looking at him or at any one of several spots in the room. John Byers, the editor of the Paris Gazette was sitting with his back to the room, his cards held firmly to his vest. John was honest as the day was long and as suspicious as a rich 80 year-old grandmother with an 18 year-old granddaughter to marry off. John was unbiased when it came to reporting the territorial news and was one of the few newspapermen in the west who refused to print inflammatory editorials against the Irish miners or the Chinese railroad workers. Of course, he was also completely smitten with Soo Ling, a Chinese herbalist and the closest thing to a doctor that the town had.
Scully finally let her eyes rest on the last occupant at the table. Even sitting down, she could tell he was tall. Very broad shouldered and dressed in a sharp grey suit and a red brocade vest, a wide brimmed hat pushed back on his forehead, she knew immediately that he was a professional gambler. He had a better position than poor Jeffery and his eyes locked onto hers for a brief moment before returning to his hand. She watched as one by one the others folded until it was between Jeffery Spender and the man in the grey hat. Finally she saw Jeffery throw down his hand with a look of triumph on his face only to see it dissolve into the sulky mask that everyone in town had learn to dread when the stranger showed his hand. Standing up so suddenly that his chair fell backwards, Scully heard Jeffrey’s high-pitched whine. "That’s not fair, you…" Before he could finish, the stranger’s gun was out of his holster and resting on the table.
Scully turned and without even thinking about it her own gun was in her hand. She strolled over to the table and nailed Alex with a jaundiced eye. "Kinda early for this, isn’t it Alex?" She looked down at the grey-suited gambler. "Pretty fast."
The stranger looked at her with surprise and not a little anger. Looking around the table he snarled. "You folks hire little girls to guard your saloons?" Byers’ eyes grew large, Jeffery snickered, but Alex never took his eyes off of her.
Scully glared down at the man, but when Jeffrey twitched, she turned her attention and her gun on him. "Did he cheat, Alex?" She asked softly, unsure what would give her greater pleasure, running a card shark out of town or embarrassing Jeffery.
Evidently, Alex decided in favor of embarrassment because he drawled, "Nah, Dana. Mr. Skinner here is just really very good at cards." Turning his glare at the younger man he growled menacingly, "Isn’t that right, Jeffery?"
Jeffery Spender looked from Krycek to the stranger and then at Dana. He gulped and nodded. Dana sighed, "Go home, Jeffery and don’t come back tonight." Jeffery sulkily turned away and slunk out the double swinging doors. Dana turned to look at the room. "Shows over, drink up." Turning back to the stranger, she holstered her weapon. "Put your gun away, mister."
Skinner stood up and holstered his Colt. Taking his hat off he bowed. "Walter Skinner, at your service, ma’am." She felt a shock go threw her. She had no idea that she had ever been attracted to bald men, but he was completely bald on top, the remaining fringe, neatly groomed and brown. He looked up and smiled lazily. "Tell me darlin, do I call you, Dana like Mr. Krycek here?"
Running her hand underneath the lapel of her coat so he could see the shiny gold star she ground out, "No. You can call me Sheriff." Turning her attention to the owner of the Black Nugget she snarled. "Alex, I’m going home to have my supper and put Emily to bed. You think you can keep a lid on this place? You don’t want me to side with Brother Bill, now do you?"
Alex gulped good-naturedly. "Heavens no, Da…Sheriff. You get on home and give little Emily a big kiss for me."
Scully shook her head in disgust but turned and walked out the door, looking up and down the street carefully before stepping onto the sidewalk. She didn’t like Jeffery, never had and she strongly suspected that he might have had something to do with her father’s death; the death that had left the town with only his part-time deputy to take his place. William Scully, Sr. had taught all of his children to shoot, but Dana had taken to it the most naturally and by the time they were out of school she could out shoot most anyone, including her brothers and Jeffery Spender. Her mother had made her drop out of the shooting contests when she was 18, not because she didn’t think that it was lady-like but because, "Dana, honey, let someone else have a chance, sweetheart."
Walter Skinner sat back in his chair astounded. "Sheriff? A little girl like that?"
Alex Krycek studied the dazed look on Skinner’s face. Catching the eye of one of the girls he motioned her over. "Diane, honey, get Walt here another drink."
"Walter." Skinner corrected him. "You gonna deal or what?"
Three hours later, Alex threw up his hands in disgust. "Damn, boy. You’re good. Or I’m cold tonight. But, I know damn good and well you ain’t cheatin. Hell, they’re my cards and I’ve been watchin you like a hawk. Diane, honey, why don’t you see if you can tire out my friend here." Picking up the cards he stood and stretched. "I’m goin’ for a walk, but I expect a chance to win my money back tomorrow, Skinner."
Skinner finally paid attention to the woman who had been hanging on his right shoulder ever since the lady sheriff had left the saloon. Talk, dark-haired, she kinda reminded him of Sharon. He closed his eyes and pushed down the memories. Standing, he finished his drink and taking her by the hand let her lead him upstairs.