A Man for Temperance (Wagon Wheel) Read Online Free

Leaning down, he undid the rope, recoiled it, and put it over his saddle horn. Turning the stallion, he started out of town.
    But when he got even with the Dancing Pony, he saw Al Sharpless standing outside, grinning at him. Sharpless was a big, bruising man who considered himself the toughest man in the territory. It galled Brennan that Sharpless had hit him with a pool cue and brought him down. For a moment the temptation was strong to get off his horse and go whip the man, but he saw Meek standing down the street, watching his movements carefully. He nodded at Sharpless and said, “I’ll be seeing you later, Mr. Sharpless. We’ll have a few things to talk about.”
    “Come on in any time, drunk. We never close,” Sharpless laughed.
    “Which way to perdition, Marshal?” Brennan asked as he came even with Meek, leaning against the wall of the apothecary stall.
    “Go straight down that road for four miles, take a left, and just keep going until you see it on the right. A big log cabin. It’ll be neat, which is different from most around here.”
    “Sure appreciate your kindness and courtesy.”
    “You just mind your manners. You treat that woman right, or I’ll put you where the dog won’t bite you.”
    Once again Brennan was challenged. The marshal was a burly, strong-looking man, well known as a terrible roughhouse and saloon fighter as well as a deadly shot with rifle and six-gun. Brennan studied him, and the eyes of the two men met. Joe Meek had the gift of mind reading, it seemed, for he said, “You don’t want to take me on, boy. You just go on out and do your plowing. In a couple of months, you can get out of here and go your own way. Don’t make me come after you.”
    “Wouldn’t think of it, Marshal.” Brennan turned his horse down the middle of the road, but his mind was still on Meek. Why, I could whip him if I had it to do. He’s big, but he’s bound to be slow. If I had to, I could take a pool cue to him like Sharpless took to me. Always a way to whip a man if a fellow knows just the right way.
    As he cleared the town, Brennan passed the wagon train that was made up there. He carefully studied the children and the settlers. As always, when he saw families like this, he felt sadness. He had been a loner all his life, but the sight of a family touched a nerve in him that he could not understand. Since he had never known the joys of home life, it was mostly a dream. Watching the children play ring-around-the-rosy, he was tempted to stop. But he was a man who didn’t waste time on dreams that could never come true. Kicking Judas in the side, he said, “Come on, you handsome devil, get me out of here!”
    Judas snorted, tried to turn his head to bite Brennan’s leg, and was jerked roughly back into place. To get his revenge, he broke into a dead run. Brennan laughed and said, “Go on. Run yourself to death. See if I care.”
    * * *
     
    THE HOUSE WAS BUILT with logs, all exactly the same size. They were fitted together so tightly that the house needed practically no chinking. Many of the cabins in Walla Walla were roughly built with the corners fitting so badly the mud used for chinking fell out and the wind whistled through. But as Temperance moved about the kitchen, a sudden memory came to her. She remembered her father and the other men of thegroup taking great pains with all of the cabins. They were the finest cabins in the settlement—snug, strongly built, and able to survive anything except a fire.
    Temperance looked at the tintype in the oval frame on the wall. It featured her father and her mother looking deadly serious, her father sitting, her mother standing beside him with her right hand on his left shoulder. Something tightened in her throat, and she moved closer remembering them. I wonder why they never smiled for pictures? You’d think they were miserable. She knew that was the way portraits were made, a totally serious business. She turned back to check the dinner, which was