Black Saddle Season 3, Episode 1 CLIENT: SCOTT

by Pikkadylli

Latigo's newest physician is ordered escorted to Santa Fe by Clay, Gib & Nora, but they have a headon collision with Gib's past. Can Clay defend his friend against murder charges in a court judged by the person accusing Gib?

AUTHOR'S NOTE From 1959 to 1960, there were two seasons of a half-hour, black & white Western called Black Saddle. It starred a very young Peter Breck (a.k.a. Nick Barkley of The Big Valley), along with Russell Johnson (a.k.a. "the Professor" of Gilligan's Island) and Anna Lisa, a pretty blond actress who was a popular guest star on 1960's TV shows for a while.

Black Saddle was a show ahead of its time because it combined the legal/mystery aspects of Perry Mason with the aspects of a traditional Western like Gunsmoke...but squeezed it all into a half-hour format.

The producers of this TV series were Four Star...the production company that was later responsible for bringing The Big Valley to the airwaves. This is the main reason you are seeing this story in the section for The Big Valley—I don't want this to get lost amongst the "Miscellaneous" stories.

DISCLAIMER: The following is a fanfic—that is to say, it's an original story by me, but it uses existing characters and a setting that is the intellectual property of somebody else. I am not being financially reimbursed for having written the story; this fanfic is being presented for the purposes of entertaining myself and other people as well.

Obviously, as a fanfic, my story creates an alternate universe, but I'm basically setting this tale to right after the television series's last episode...in fact, it's the start to a fictional Season 3 of Black Saddle.

EPISODE 1 -- CLIENT: SCOTT by Pykkadilly

ACT ONE

MONDAY, FEBRUARY 2, 1874

CLAY CULHANE CLOSED the door to his office and turned around, intent upon hurrying down the street to the stage depot, where he was to meet Nora Travers. He was forced by his innate sense of courtesy to pause and tip his hat to Mrs. Ormsby, one of the matrons of Latigo, as she serenely glided by him on her way home from the general store. There were times when being a Southern gentleman was a bit of an inconvenience, but it couldn't be helped.

The young attorney set off as soon as Mrs. Ormsby had passed by, his long stride quickly eating up the distance between the location of his office and the stage depot south of it. His journey brought him past the office of Latigo's deputy marshal, who was doubtless already on his own way to join Nora at the depot. That thought put a frown on Clay's handsome face. Gibson Scott was the one other man in Latigo that the tall, dark lawyer considered any kind of competition for the pretty widow's affections, and the two men knew it even if they had never acknowledged it out loud. This was the reason that Clay was hurrying to the depot: he didn't want Gib to get the edge on him with Nora.

He spotted them as he rounded the corner and crossed the dirt road to the little office next to the livery, a scowl temporarily marring his good looks as he saw that Gib and Nora were deep in conversation...a conversation that brought laughter to the blond woman's lips. The Nordic woman's blue eyes sparkled and her face lit up for that moment, which—in turn—made the deputy marshal's expression reflect his appreciation of Nora's beauty.

Clay certainly didn't like seeing Gib get that edge, no, sir!

"Clay!" He heard Nora's accented voice call to him and saw that she was waving him over. There was a brief expression of annoyance that crossed the deputy's rugged face once Gib realized that the ex-gunfighter had finally arrived. It wasn't as satisfying as knowing he had made Nora laugh, but Clay was happy enough with the realization that Gib considered his presence a hindrance. The tall, dark man grinned as he strolled to a stop next to the attractive widow.

"Nora." Clay greeted warmly, tipping his hat and letting his hazel eyes take in the picture that Nora made in her gown of two-tone blue muslin. The color definitely made her eyes stand out. "I didn't miss the stage, now, did I?" The tall blond woman chuckled, which Clay was glad to see further annoyed Gib—he could tell because the rangy lawman moved his shoulders and pulled down on the hem of his vest in an effort to not show his annoyance on his face.

Clay's day was now going considerably better than it had begun.

"Oh, no." Nora told him. "Gib and I have been waiting here for almost ten minutes and it hasn't arrived yet. This is definitely not the stagecoach we wish to miss...not after all the work it was to get our guest to arrive." Both the barrister and the deputy marshal grimaced in remembrance of the sequence of events that had led up to the trio now awaiting the arrival of the stage from Santa Fe.

In August of 1873, Latigo had finally recovered its population enough so that it held an election to pick a mayor for the growing town. The man who had won that honor (through a majority of 124 votes to 67) was William Denholm, the owner of the Fallen Angel Saloon. The reason the people had picked someone to be a mayor was because of Latigo's latest resident physician, the fifth one to live in the area in less than two years' time. The previous four doctors had all died: Dr. MacAdam of natural causes, and the next three were all shot for one reason or another. Those deaths had made it very difficult to get any doctor to remain in the area, and the citizens of Latigo had counted themselves lucky that Dr. Simon Wendell had bothered to set out his shingle here.

The town considered itself lucky...until it became painfully (literally!) evident that Doc Wendell made more trips to the Fallen Angel than to any of his patients. The man was an alcoholic that nobody in town could trust to treat a paper cut, let alone any injuries or illnesses more serious than that. To date, Latigo had been lucky that there had been no life-threatening emergencies, but it was a matter of time before there would be, and so the town needed to have a mayor with the power to bribe some hapless physician into staying in the area. Thus was Denholm elected.

Elected, yes...but interested in doing anything besides running a profitable saloon...no. So, in his first and, to date, only mayoral decree, William Denholm immediately appointed someone else be put in charge of hiring on an official town doctor: Nora Travers. She had been appointed because none of the men present at the "town meeting" (a.k.a. Happy Hour at the Fallen Angel) had been stupid enough—er, ah...civic-minded enough—to acquiesce in accepting the duty. Clay had easily sidestepped the chore with a few well-chosen legal phrases, but he'd been forced to be the one to bear the news to Nora as he was one of the few sober enough to do so after that "meeting."

Nora, to her credit, didn't waste time bemoaning the extra work that this task would entail for her, but dove right into her work—and soon found out that there was not a single physician in the western half of the continent that was willing to come to Latigo as the physician for the town. Apparently word had spread of the life expectancy for doctors here and they had, to a man, decided that they would rather remain as poorly-paid medics wherever they were than to have a free house, open credit at the Latigo General Store and free livery services for five years if they would but agree to be the official town doctor for that period of time.

Eventually the businesswoman managed to contact and secured a physician from the Old States—Pennsylvania, to be precise. Clay himself had written up the contract that Nora forwarded to the doctor through her agent in Philadelphia and the document had been confirmed as having the notarized signature of "Dr. S. A. Kearney," as witnessed by that agent in that august metropolis as of January 10th, 1874, via a congratulatory telegram sent to Nora.

"It's not every day we get to greet a doctor from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania." Clay agreed with Nora now.

"And you're right—we sure don't want to miss this, seeing as how we sent Doc Wendell packing almost two weeks ago." added the sandy-haired marshal as he squinted steel blue eyes up the street to check whether the stagecoach was approaching just yet.

"Good riddance to him, I say." the blond woman opined, which made Clay's eyebrows elevate, for Nora was the type of person who usually looked for the best in a person. "Oh, don't look at me like that! I felt sorry for Dr. Wendell...until he bungled treating Melissa Hale. There was no excuse for that at all...except that he was too drunk to do it properly."

Indeed, it had been just that case that had prompted the mayoral election as well as the mandate to get a decent town doctor. Seven-year-old Melissa—or "Missy" as she was called by practically everyone—had broken her leg in a bad fall. Dr. Wendell had been drunk when he set it, so it didn't come as a surprise that the girl's leg turned out twisted as it now was. She used to be such a happy child, running along the streets of Latigo with her friends. The girl was now a shadow of her former self, unable to do more than barely hobble after her parents as the family made its way to church. It was quite heart-breaking to see.

"Can't help but agree that just about anybody else would be an improvement." Clay confirmed. Nora nodded.

"I made sure of the credentials for this doctor before even offering the contract." the businesswoman said firmly. "Dr. Kearney studied medicine at a college in Philadelphia for four years and then served a residency at a hospital in the same city for almost five! This doctor is a highly skilled professional."

"You know, Nora," Clay said as the thought occurred to him suddenly, "I wanted to ask you...what's this fellow's name? I mean...his initials are 'S.A.'...what does that stand for?" Nora paused, thinking about it.

"Well...to be honest, Clay..." she replied, "I only know the first initial...the name is Doctor Sam Kearney."

"I been doing some adding up..." Gib chimed in, looking a bit suspicious, "This Doc Sam sounds a little young to me...four years of studying and another five at a hospital...this man can't be more than...what...twenty-three...twenty-four years old..?"

"According to Mr. Ross, my agent in Pennsylvania," Nora admitted with a crafty sort of smile, "Dr. Kearney is going to be twenty-five this June."

"So...the doctor and his wife are going to be living in the house next to my office, eh?" Clay asked, blatantly fishing for information. Nora's sapphire eyes regarded him with an impish gleam.

"Dr. Kearney is single."

Both men with her exchanged worried glances—it was bad enough that they had each other to contend with over the Nordic woman's affections, now came the news that the town's doctor was going to be a young man...a young, unmarried man...who had the authority to see Nora...er, ah...that is—the females of the town—in various states of undress.

This was not good.

"It's the stage!" Nora announced excitedly. The eyes of both Gib and Clay swung northward to see the battered stagecoach come trundling down the street, pulled by a team of horses that looked as relieved as the driver to have finally reached Latigo. The vehicle rumbled to a stop in front of the depot, where Gib bit the bullet and opened the door to the coach, taking a quick look into the interior before stepping back to allow the driver—who had leaped down from his perch atop the conveyance—to tuck a block under the doorway.

"There's nobody in there." the deputy marshal announced, puzzled.

"Nobody?" Nora echoed, shocked. Gib shrugged.

"Well," he amended, "I didn't see any doctor, only—" The dusty driver handed a lady out of the coach, aiding her in stepping onto the block and, from there, to the ground. She, too, was a bit dusty, and she bent over her travel-stained gown, trying vainly to beat some of the dust off the royal blue gabardine—using only her right hand, as her left one held a large, somewhat bulky bag in it.

"Pardon me, miss," Clay addressed himself to the lone traveler, "Would you mind telling us if there had been a young man on this stage at all?" The woman kept her visual attention on attempting to right her dress, but she did respond to the lawyer's question.

"No, sir...there has been no other passenger on this stagecoach since the stop in Santa Fe." Her accent clearly defined her as a Yankee, Clay thought.

"Looks like the doctor jumped horses in Santa Fe, then." Gib said, disapproval in every syllable. The dark-haired counselor frowned in spite of rejoicing that there now seemed to be no problem of additional competition for the attention of Nora.

"We should wire Santa Fe to make sure that's what happened." Clay suggested. "If it does turn out that he's reneged, I can file a suit for breach of contract on behalf of the town."

While the men were discussing this, however, Nora stepped forward and spoke to the new lady.

"Welcome to Latigo!" she said warmly. "I'm Nora Travers!" The traveler finally gave up on her losing battle to smack some of the dust off her gown and straightened up. She was shorter than Nora; the blonder was almost five-feet-ten-inches, whereas the other lady—a brunette to judge by the errant curls that wisped out from under her bonnet—was perhaps five and a half feet tall at most. Her height, weight, build and even face were rather average...but her eyes were not. This young lady had eyes that struck a familiar chord with all three citizens of Latigo: her eyes were the same vibrant shade of turquoise that the Navajo tribe members adorned themselves with.

"Mrs. Travers...how nice to meet you." the newcomer said, her accompanying smile showing off dimples in both her cheeks as she held out her hand to shake Nora's.

"These are my friends...Clay Culhane—he's a local attorney, and Deputy Marshal Gibson Scott." Nora introduced the men with her to the brunette, who had proffered her hand. Gib clasped her hand first, shaking it as he tipped his hat. Clay—a bit annoyed that the marshal had been quicker on this type of draw—one-upped the other man by completely removing his hat, smiling, bowing over the brunette's hand and then placing a brief kiss on the young lady's fingers.

"Pleased to meet you, Mr. Culhane." the brunette's lips quirked at the display of gallantry.

"The pleasure—and the honor—are all mine, Miss..?" Clay prompted with an ingenuous blink of his hazel eyes. The newcomer looked at Nora, her finely-arched brows elevating.

"You didn't tell them?" she asked the other women.

"I...didn't get a chance to just yet." Nora replied humorously. "I should have thought you'd realized that when you heard about the possible law suit." Both females grinned and giggled. Gib eyed them both suspiciously.

"Is there something we should know—besides your name, Miss..?" the marshal also prompted. The lady from the stagecoach hefted her large handbag so that she now held the handle in both hands. When she did this, both Clay and Gib recognized the shape and purpose of the satchel and stared in shock as the woman clarified her name for them:

"It's not 'Miss'...it's 'Doctor'..." she said with an impish grin, "...I'm Doctor Samantha Kearney...'Sam' to my friends." The deputy marshal was, once again, the one to act first this time.

"But..." he pointed out in an incredulous voice, "...you're a...a...you're a woman."

"And you, sir, are no longer on my list of people who need to have their eyes examined." Samantha replied brightly. Nora chuckled and Gib was further annoyed when Clay's mouth twitched as well...however, the men shared a knowing look between them: a female doctor for Latigo?

This was not good.

SINCE THE POPULATION of Latigo numbered approximately four hundred people or so, the word about the new town doctor got around fast: Doctor Sam was a woman. By the time Nora had persuaded the men with them to grab the physician's luggage and walk everyone over to where the doctor's house/office was located within the town, there was already a buzzing crowd that followed the smaller group along to the little domicile nestled between the Latigo Bank and Clay's own office.

"My, what a friendly town!" the woman claiming to be a doctor said with a smile as Nora led her and the impromptu parade to the house that still had the sign that said: " Simon Wendell, M.D." The Nordic woman opened the door and ushered Samantha inside.

"This is where the previous physician was located." Nora explained. "It's what I like to call cozy—there are four rooms here on the ground floor. We are in your receiving room now...to the right is what would normally be the parlor but I'm sure you'd wish to use it as a private consulting room. In the back are a kitchen, which is bigger than most as it has the dining table in it. The other room, which would normally be your dining room, is set up for patients whom may be too sick or injured to remove from the premises." The tall blond waved a hand at the narrow set of stairs on the left side of the receiving room.

"Upstairs there are three rooms that may be used as bedrooms." Nora told the brunette. "The house, as per the contract, is yours after five years of service to the town. There is property that goes with that as well."

"This is just fine!" the lady doctor approved with a smile, removing her bonnet. When she did so, Samantha revealed that the sable-colored curls that had sifted out from beneath the chapeau were clipped short, instead of being the fashionably-long hair that women were encouraged to grow. Somehow, the short hair seemed to suit her personality, though.

"Gentlemen," she turned to Clay and Gib, "I want to thank you for your help in bringing my baggage to the house."

"It was our pleasure, ma'am." Gib said. Those turquoise eyes of hers bored steadily into the gunmetal of his own.

"That's 'Doctor', not 'ma'am'." she corrected him firmly. The deputy marshal paused.

"I have my duties to go back to...doctor." he acknowledged, tipping his hat and leaving. Clay doffed his own hat as well.

"I, too, have to get back to my office." the barrister said. "It was nice meeting you, Miss...eh...Doctor Kearney." The dark-maned man beat a hasty retreat.

"Are they typical of the town, Mrs. Travers?" the brunette asked, her smile fading into a thoughtful expression.

"I would say that their reaction to who you are is fairly typical, yes." the blond replied. "And, please—call me Nora."

"Thank you, Nora...I'm Sam...or Samantha, if that's too avante-garde for you."

"Sam it is, then." Nora nodded. "I just know we will be great friends."

NORA TRAVERS FELT that she and Doctor Sam would be great friends—however, the rest of Latigo didn't seem to feel that way. There was an emergency town meeting called for that very evening, and Nora hurried into the Fallen Angel Saloon to attend it. As was the usual procedure, the bar itself was closed down for the duration of the meeting. Nora made her way over to where Clay and Gib were seated.

"Do you have any idea what this is about?" the hotel owner asked. Both men gave her a glance that spoke volumes, but it was Clay that voiced the obvious:

"The mayor has taken exception to your choice for official town doctor." The Nordic woman looked sharply around the perimeter of the room: practically everyone else in the place was a man. Nora and two other women...saloon girls waiting over by the stairs until the meeting was over...where the only females present. Denholm stood by the bar and turned to face the crowd.

"Awright, lissen up!" the mayor/saloon owner ordered loudly. The buzzing of the crowd faded.

"We're all here to lay to rest your concerns about the doctor that's come to Latigo." Denholm announced. One of the men closest to him spoke right up.

"We're all concerned ya got a woman! An' everybody knows that a woman ain't no doctor!" he called out. There were many murmurs of rough assent.

"Let's just hear this from the horse's mouth,then, shall we?" the rotund mayor said, turning to aim a look Nora's way. "Mrs. Travers, it was your responsibility to get Latigo a real doctor—what do you have to say for yourself? How could you have failed the town so?" Nora's eyes flashed blue lightning and both Gib and Clay scowled at Denholm's choice of words.

"Mr. Denholm!" Nora chided hotly. "How can you say that I failed the town? I spent months writing letters all over the country to try to get a physician to come here—none of the candidates I made the town's offer to would accept because of the horrible record this town had for retaining its physicians! Even the doctors back East...in what we call 'the Old States'...they kept refusing Latigo's offer to them because of the town's deplorable reputation. My agent in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania...Mr. Roger Snyder...finally wired me that there was a fine young physician who was willing to become the official doctor for Latigo under the terms you, yourself, empowered—the use of the house and property that used to belong to Dr. Simon Wendell for the next five years, as well as open credit at the general store and free livery services for that same period of time, after which the house and property would be legally theirs. All that for the doctor who agreed to serve Latigo for those five years."

"Generous terms that should have attracted a doctor—a real doctor!" Denholm argued. "Not some...some flighty female who is obviously out to snare herself a rich husband and leave us high and dry for a doctor again!" There were angry noises of agreement from the audience again.

"But I tell you that Mr. Snyder investigated her!" Nora insisted. "He confirmed that she spent four years studying medicine at the Woman's Medical College of Pennsylvania, and another six years practicing at hospitals in that state as well. He had nothing bad to report about her at all."

"Except that she's a woman." Denholm countered, again stirring up a volume of muttered opinions and agreements to his argument. "Come now, Mrs. Travers, we all know that women are far too faint of heart to be effective physicians...Latigo is in need of a doctor who won't faint away at the first sign of trouble."

"Which means I'm supposed to collapse to the ground in a dainty swoon now..?" a voice from the door to the saloon said rather sardonically. The room suddenly grew hushed—the crowd's murmurings had stilled because Joe Spivy—a young handyman employed by Denholm—had come in, bringing with him Samantha Kearney, who had been the one to speak the ironic words.

"I thought my ears were burning." the brunette lady said as she walked over to where Denholm stood, looking the rotund man up and down. "You are the person that I was...ahem...'a-fetched for', I presume?" Her last words were obviously quoted from Joe Spivy's mode of speech.

"I'm William Denholm, the mayor of Latigo." the man confirmed a bit pompously. "Madam, I—"

"Doctor." Samantha corrected him immediately, her voice and face flinty. Denholm's face grew dark.

"That's just it, madam," he repeated the appellation, "We have only your word for it that you are, indeed, a doctor." The shorter female lifted an eyebrow.

"You doubt the word of your own appointed agent?" Samantha prompted, then nodded to where Nora sat. "Mrs. Travers made sure to have Mr. Snyder, the agent in Philadelphia, investigate that I was, indeed, a doctor in good standing at the time she was making inquiries on behalf of Latigo. Just ask her."

"Mrs. Travers explained to us her attempts to find a true physician." Denholm said condescendingly. "And I must accept the blame for our current predicament—I had delegated the task to a woman and I allowed her to botch the job up." Samantha's slightly-freckled face scowled.

"How dare you, sir!" she said angrily. "I have been learning medicine for over ten years--"

"See? Even she admits that she isn't a doctor!" Denholm said triumphantly. "She has said that she's still learning!"

"You pompous addle-pate!" roared a clearly-upset Samantha. "Anybody who claims that they know everything about anything, especially medicine, is a fool of the first order! I am a doctor, Mr. Denholm, with the diploma from a certified medical college to prove it, as well as letters of recommendation from the dean of that college and the directors of two Philadelphia hospitals!"

"We won't have you plying your trade in Latigo, madam!" Denholm insisted.

"You people have NO doctor in the area!" the female pointed out. "Won't you at least give me the chance to prove myself? Just a chance! Is that too much to ask?"

"That seems reasonable, mayor." Nora said, attempting to placate the irate man.

"Be quiet, woman!" Denholm dismissed the hotel owner out of hand. "Nobody is interested in your opinion!"

Henry Clay Culhane was bred as a Southern gentleman. He actually had been agreeing with the basic sentiments voiced by the mayor—a lady could not be a doctor, period. However, once Denholm had impugned the input of Nora Travers (as well as rather rudely telling the lady to shut up), Clay's sense of chivalry kicked in:

"How about my opinion, then?" Clay growled, standing up. "As a registered voter in the town of Latigo, I say that we ought to give Dr. Kearney a chance to prove herself." The hubbub that broke out over Clay's declaration caused the saloon owner/mayor to call loudly for order.

"I'm willing to put it to a vote, then." Denholm cried. "How many voters here want to give this woman the boot and get her out of town?" There was a show of hands, which Nora carefully counted...they numbered about half the men there.

"How many want to give the lady a chance to prove herself?" Clay asked aloud. Hands went up again, and Nora counted—it was the same number as those who wanted no part of Doctor Sam. The Nordic woman's eyebrows knit, then she turned to the deputy marshal.

"You didn't vote, Gib." Nora said. "Which shall it be? Does Doctor Sam go or stay...?"

ACT TWO

THE BUCKBOARD RATTLED along on the road to Santa Fe, its creaking and groaning the only sound that accompanied the clip-clop of the four horses making the trip to the main city of the territory. Two horses were pulling the vehicle, while the other two horses were separate, each of them bearing a rider. Riding the horses were Deputy Marshal Gibson Scott and Clay Culhane. Driving the buckboard was Nora Travers. Riding with her was Dr. Samantha Kearney.

"I suppose I can at least say truthfully that I wasn't run out of town on a rail." the brunette finally broke the icy silence she had maintained for the past six hours with her gallows humor. Nora glanced at the other woman, pain and remorse in her expression. Doctor Sam waved a hand.

"Please don't." she stopped whatever the blond was about to say and gave Nora a bit of a grimace. "I already realize that this is all out of your hands. I actually have nobody to blame but myself. Mother always told me that I should comport myself as a lady at all times—cultivating an air of civility and docility." Samantha's turquoise eyes sparkled and her heart-shaped face finally did relax into a smile. "I never did at all well with docility...and civility gets thrown under the wagon wheels at the first sign of idiocy I run into."

"And William Denholm was certainly an idiot." Nora agreed, sharing the other female's opinion.

"We are but following the will of the people." Samantha said, her voice, sharp with sarcasm, carrying quite clearly to the two male riders who were leading the way northeast. "Although I daresay there was a full moon on Sunday—the vote could simply have been a holdover from the lunacy it's supposed to induce." Her turquoise eyes glared daggers at the back of the blond rider ahead of them.

"I don't know about you, Gib," Clay said in a voice that only the marshal could hear, "But I do believe the lady is putting you into the same 'idiocy' category as Denholm." Gib gave the lawyer a sidelong glance that should have had Clay toppling lifeless from his mount, but the dark-haired man only grinned instead.

Clay and Gib were riding escort for Nora and Samantha because, of course, Gib's deciding vote had been to send the female physician packing. The minute he voted for Doctor Sam to go, Denholm triumphantly charged Gib with the task of removing Samantha from town the very next day, since the next stagecoach due through Latigo wasn't until next week, and Denholm wanted the troublesome female out of the area as soon as possible. The mayor also ordered that Nora act as a chaperon. Clay, realizing that this would mean that Nora would be alone with Gib on the trip back from Santa Fe, immediately volunteered to go along, "if only to represent the legal interests of Latigo."

Clay caught the mocking look on the lady doctor's face: she wasn't fooled one bit by his lip service. Nora, however, had been looking at Gib with extreme disappointment. The U.S. deputy marshal had been unable to meet her accusing glare, but, instead, strode out of the saloon with a poker face.

Clay still felt that Latigo was no place for a female physician...but there was a very big part of him that rankled at the way Samantha Kearney was being treated—after all, the truth of the matter was, indeed, that there had been no other takers of the very generous offer being proffered by Latigo for the position of town doctor. Denholm's argument that a lady doctor would only fold, faint or run away at the first sign of trouble didn't quite hold water, either—Doctor Sam had obviously known about Latigo's sorry record for the life expectancy of the physicians in this area, and yet she'd come thousands of miles west in spite of that.

No, Clay didn't think a woman could be the kind of a doctor a man could—but Doctor Sam still should have been allowed a chance to prove herself rather than be summarily packed off by the hidebound citizens of the town. The gunfighter-cum-counselor's hazel eyes slid to consider the lean blond man riding next to him. Given Gib's staunch defense of Nora's independence in the past, he was the last person in the world that Clay would have figured to vote against Samantha's chance at proving herself...and yet, that was exactly what the lawman had done.

All of Clay's instincts were telling him that he was missing something—he just wasn't sure what.

The group stopped at an area that had a water hole so that they could rest the horses and have a meal. Sam leaned over and whispered something to Nora, who gestured towards an area that had some obscuring sagebrush. The lady doctor nodded and removed herself while the blond quickly assembled the ingredients for the simple meal they would be eating.

"Fire's ready." Gib said tersely. Nora glanced at him briefly.

"Are you going to tell me why you voted against Samantha?" she asked him point-blank. The deputy marshal raised his steel blue eyes to steadily meet her own sapphire ones, and Nora could swear that she saw...something...in their gunmetal depths. Whatever the emotion had been, however, was fleeting and it disappeared before she could identify it.

"No." Gib replied. "I'll help Culhane with the horses." He turned and stalked back to where Clay was making sure that all of the horses were getting the water they wanted.

"Woman just can't leave well enough alone." muttered the lawman, checking over his mount—not that he needed to, as Gib already knew his horse hadn't picked up any burrs or parasites, but the man was smarting under the pressure from his friends to admit to his motives behind last night's vote.

"Some men can't leave well enough alone, either, Gib." Clay pointed out.

"Like you for instance, Culhane?" the blond marshal said a bit scathingly.

"Like me." the lawyer readily confessed. "I'm every bit as curious as to why you've acted like—" Whatever the rest of that sentence was going to be, they'd never know, as there was suddenly a blood-curdling scream from the direction that Sam had gone off in. Both men came running, drawing as they went, scrambling through the underbrush to burst upon a clearing where they saw Sam, who immediately launched herself at the closest man to her—in this case, Gib—throwing her arms around his neck in a panic.

"My God! That...that...that thing is eating my bag!" the brunette cried hysterically. Gib's head couldn't duck around the clingy woman well enough to see what she was referring to.

"Culhane! What's there?" he asked with asperity. The ex-gunfighter looked very carefully at where Sam's satchel lay on the ground, spotting the animal that was snuffling at it. Clay straightened up, holstering his gun with a grin.

"It's alright—it's an armadillo." the dark-haired man announced. Gib put his arms around Sam and turned them both so that he, too, could see the armored little beastie that had taken an interest in the doctor's bag. Clay knelt and brushed something off the leather exterior...something that the armadillo eagerly followed, waddling back into the depths of the nearby sagebrush.

"Seems to me like the critter was after some bugs hitching a ride on your satchel, doc." Clay told her, humor rife in his voice and his hazel eyes. "Armadillos don't really eat anything else. Odd that there's one of these this far west, but it can happen." Gib couldn't help himself, chuckling as he finally holstered his own weapon.

"All this fuss over an armadillo?" the blond man said ironically. The woman trembling in his arms stiffened, then suddenly shoved him away with unexpected strength, sending the lawman tripping over a rock behind him and landing, butt-first, in the water just as Nora finally joined the trio.

"Some of us aren't cognizant of the local...'critters,' marshal." Sam reminded him with an air of injured dignity. Gib stared at her as the brunette Easterner tossed her head and marched away, pausing only long enough to get her bag from Clay before breezing past a flustered Nora, who turned and followed her. Clay offered a hand up to the dripping deputy. Gib eyed the proffered hand before him with a jaundice usually reserved for convicted violent criminals, but then he grasped the barrister's hand and hauled himself up out of the water.

"Well, Culhane," the man with the sandy hair said acerbically, "You have just witnessed why it is that I voted to send Dr. Kearney back. There's no way that a genteel lady from the Old States could possibly make it out here. She's too civilized." Clay's eyebrows elevated.

"You think she's too soft, so that's why you voted against her?"

The phrase "too soft" evoked how the woman held felt against him, and the lawman pointedly thrust those thoughts away from him.

"Latigo would eat her alive—we've gone through five other doctors in less than two years!" Gib's tone was growing heated...a bit more heated than it probably should have, considering the fact that they all only met the woman in contention just yesterday.

"I think that you're sadly underestimating the lady." the tall, dark counselor replied evenly. "But I suppose it doesn't matter what I think—the town's forcing her back East, so I guess you should be happy that you've gotten what you wanted." Clay studied the long, lean form of the lawman as Gibson Scott froze in place for a moment. Then the deputy marshal grunted and strode away to where the horses were without a backward glance.

'This...' Clay thought to himself, '...could prove to be very interesting, indeed.'

SAMANTHA AMARYLLIS KEARNEY slumped dejectedly on the buckboard bench next to Nora as the quartet from Latigo continued their journey to Santa Fe after their meal break.

"An armadillo." she muttered. "How in the world was I supposed to know that...that...thing was an armadillo? I've never been farther west than Albany, New York before this trip." The blond woman with her sighed.

"You should not fret so, Samantha." Nora told her. "Naturally you couldn't tell what kind of animal it was. You should have seen me when I first arrived in New Mexico! I couldn't tell a road runner from a chicken, practically."

"A...road runner..?"

"It's a bird that—as the name would suggest—runs along the ground rather than fly." Nora explained. "So, you see—you are not the first to be startled by the local animals...nor will you be the last."

"No, I suppose you're right." admitted the doctor. "However...I guess this means that this...armadillo...will be my last..." She dropped her head into her hands. "I can't believe that I've been thrown out of town! Mother will be so scandalized!"

"There must be something we can come up with." Nora said out loud, though she privately thought that the odds for that were extremely long. She felt sure that Clay would have mentioned something, as his sense of justice would often take precedence over carrying out the will of the slimmest of majority votes. The Nordic woman could only hope that the tall, dark man's mind could come up with something before it was too late.

Clay was definitely turning over in his brain everything that had happened in the last twenty-four hours, especially Gib's revelation after that encounter with the armadillo. The more he thought about it, the more it seemed to the barrister that Doc Sam should be given a chance to prove herself before being sent packing...it just wasn't fair to not allow her the opportunity to show Latigo that she was a competent physician. Clay himself still thought that Gib had a point in that a lady doctor from a city in the Old States could not withstand the rigors of the West—but the same had been said of many of the pioneers who came out here and found their places in California, Arizona, Colorado and, of course, New Mexico.

A chance—just one chance was all that Samantha Kearney was asking. Clay Culhane pondered on, trying to find some legal loophole that just might give it to her.

Gibson Scott rode in silence, but his own mind was also at work. There was a debate going on: one part of his conscience called him a hypocrite, because he damn well knew that a natural-born healer was a healer, be they man or woman. He'd seen it in his own travels...hell, he'd seen it in the tent-hospitals during the War Between the States—many of the nurses were women and many of those women fixed up the wounded with techniques that surpassed the male doctors they were supposed to be subordinate to. Yes, this part of Gib's conscience was bitterly recriminating.

The other part of Gib's conscience was equally adamant, however: Samantha Kearney was a city woman from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania...she screamed at the sight of an armadillo! The rough-and-tumble West was no place for the delicate, genteel lady...and Latigo had killed off four out of five doctors in less than two years. He could not stand idly by and watch a lady doctor get herself killed, too—especially not one with a tongue that could cut a swathe through stone and eyes as vibrant as the turquoise set into the silver buckle Gib had been gifted by a local Navajo brave for saving his life.

The deputy marshal's nostrils flared and his mouth tightened. That kind of comparison was not within his rights to make, so he pushed those fanciful thoughts to the very back of his mind, firmly yanking a thick blanket of indifference over them and tucking that mental blanket firmly in. No, sir...no thoughts about that willful minx were going to pass through this lawman's mind!

THE CONVOY FROM Latigo found a likely spot to stop for the night and set up camp, a process that underscored Doc Sam's status as a complete greenhorn in the wilderness, as she didn't know what kind of fuel to gather for a fire, nor how to make a fire, nor even how to cook over that fire at all!

"How did you survive in Philadelphia if you can't cook?" Nora asked, staring. Samantha tossed her head, making the halo of curls surrounding it bounce.

"I had a woman who did all that...cooking and laundry and other such chores." she said crossly. "The only feminine skill I possess is sewing...because I learned to sew wounds during my studies." Then a smile stole across her face. "Well...I can also carve up any slab of meat you care to put on the table, too..."

"But you don't know how to cook that meat?" Nora prompted.

"No."

The blond woman suppressed a grin. Samantha took the canteens they were carrying.

"However, fetching water is something that I am capable of." the lady from Pennsylvania stated archly. "So I'll go do that."

"Thank you." Nora replied, smiling. The doctor went off to fill all the canteens just as the men returned to where the blond woman was making the evening meal and coffee for the group.

"This won't be too long." Nora said, looking up. "The horses are settled for the night?" Clay nodded.

"The buckboard's secured, too." he added.

"Where's the city gal going?" Gib asked roughly, squinting in the direction Sam had taken.

"She's getting water." Nora told him, setting the pan with the salt pork and beans in it on the fire to continue heating.

"Hopefully this time she won't spot a jackrabbit." the blond man commented impatiently.

"That's not fair." Nora defended the other woman. "How was Samantha to know what an armadillo looks like or what it actually eats? Everything here to her is new and different."

"Precisely why she needs to go back." Gib argued. "New Mexico isn't the place for the likes of her."

"It would kill her in an instant?" Clay prompted. The lawman nodded violently.

"That woman doesn't stand a chance against all the things that frontier life would throw at her." Gib insisted. "I'm amazed that she survived the trip out here—all alone without a man to look after her!" Nora blinked, now beginning to understand why her friend had voted against the lady doctor remaining in Latigo. She cocked her head to one side.

"But, Gib," the Nordic woman pointed out in a soft voice, "If Samantha remained in Latigo, she wouldn't be alone. Somebody like her would have many friends to help her." Both Clay and Nora watched the deputy marshal closely as he blinked, but the man's poker face shuttered into place too soon for either of them to tell if Nora's words had any effect on him.

"The town voted. It's done and we'll put her on the stage East." Gib said firmly. Nora's sapphire eyes turned to Clay.

"Please...isn't there some way that she can stay?" the woman appealed to him. "Latigo cannot be without a doctor for the time it would take to replace her."

"It's no use batting your big blue eyes at the lawyer, Nora." Gib practically snarled. "Ain't nothing he can do—the mayor of the town himself said for the woman to go." The widow blinked, startled at the tone that the normally easy-going lawman was using.

"That's enough, Gib." Clay snapped. "Just because you can't face the real reason why you're throwing Doc Sam back on the woodpile is no call to take it out on Nora." Again Gib became completely motionless, and—for a moment—Clay couldn't be sure that the marshal wasn't about to simply punch the counselor for speaking to him so. There was a brief tic that pulled Gib's mouth to one side.

"What the hell is taking that greenhorn so long with the water?" the blond man growled, then, muttering some curses under his breath, Gib walked away into the gathering gloom, leaving both Nora and Clay far more enlightened than the lawman would have wanted, as well as even more confused than either of them wished.

Gib practically stomped through the terrain, hellbent on grabbing Samantha and dragging her back to the fireside if necessary. How dare that lady doctor continue to prey on his conscience so—and how dare his friends take the brunette's side in this matter? He was the deputy marshal of Latigo, dammit—and he had a duty to not only uphold the law, but to protect people from harm...whether or not those people admitted they were possibly in danger.

"Oh, Gib..?"

The tall blond man halted in his progress, stunned at the sultry tone of the voice that addressed him from the water up ahead. It was the sound of all his innermost fantasies come true.

"Gib...darling...I need you."

Well...the innuendo in Samantha Kearney's voice certainly smacked of how much a woman could need a man—but the lawman in Gib ruthlessly shot down the sudden graphic images that her voice alone induced. The current facts, however, were that Dr. Kearney was being shipped back East thanks to Gib's vote in the Fallen Angel, and she had still been extremely angry and upset at him at their last stop. That meant that the only reason the brunette could possibly be addressing the marshal in such an intimate manner was that she was trying to warn him about something.

Gib drew his gun and carefully made his way to the water's edge. He saw Samantha standing there, facing in his direction—and a movement just behind her, which was obscured when she suddenly used her right elbow to sharply jab back.

"Gib—it's a trap!" Sam screamed. The next events happened practically simultaneously: Samantha was struck away from whoever was behind her; Gib fired at the mysterious figure; and the mystery person fired a gun back at Gib.

Samantha, Gib and the mystery person all fell to the ground.

MEANWHILE, BACK AT the fireside, Clay and Nora were finishing up preparing the meal that the quartet from Latigo were planning to eat before going to sleep.

"Well..." Nora broke the silence, "...that certainly explains why Gib would have acted so against his pragmatic nature: he wishes no harm to come to Dr. Kearney."

"Kinda sudden, though, isn't it?" Clay asked. "I mean...she only just arrived in Latigo yesterday. She even cut him down a bit with that remark about needing an eye examination." Nora gave the dark-haired man an oblique look.

"Some things just can't be easily explained." she said knowingly. Clay's eyebrows knit in consternation.

"Now what's that supposed to mean?" He hadn't felt this clueless since his desperate marriage proposal to Nora last year, when it seemed she was determined to sell Travers House and leave the territory. She rolled her sapphire eyes and leaned towards him, opening her mouth to say something.

That, once again, Clay was destined to never hear, as there was a feminine scream:

"Gib—it's a trap!" There was the sound of gunfire—two shots close enough together to almost sound like one. Clay's reflexes as a gunfighter had him on his feet and running toward the sound with his own pistol in hand almost before the sound faded away. He burst upon the scene by the side of the water: Gib on his right side, lying a few yards away from a stirring Samantha, who was closest to the water's edge, and a strange man lying on his back some feet to the doctor's right.

As his attention was first absorbed by taking in the details of the scene before him and then by Nora's hasty entrance to the area just behind him, Clay mentally kicked himself at the telltale sound of more guns being cocked and looked up to see three more men, pistols out.

"Drop the gun!" one of them, a rather bulky man with a scar under his right eye, ordered Clay. When the lawyer hesitated, the stranger slowly moved his pistol to aim it at Samantha.

"Drop it...or she dies."

"Don't do it!" the doctor told Clay, mutinously glaring at the man threatening her.

"Clay!" Nora gasped in horror. The Southern gentleman had no choice...he dropped his pistol. The men with the bulky male moved forward and made sure to divest the fallen marshal of his weapon as well as pick up Clay's gun. Nora moved to where Gib lay.

"Gib!" she gasped, helping turn him onto his back in order to assess where he was wounded. Blood seeped out over his left shoulder.

"I'm...okay, Nora." he said roughly. "Wound's...too high up...not really deadly."

"More's the pity!" a new voice, harsh and bitter, snarled. The quartet from Latigo turned to see the newcomer—a female with raven hair and the cold flames of hatred burning in the depths of her blue eyes. Both Gib and Clay recognized her instantly.

"Why would you set a trap to kill Gib?" Nora demanded, not knowing to whom she spoke. The young woman with the hate in her eyes laughed mockingly.

"Because he murdered my brother." she announced accusingly.

ACT THREE

THE WOMAN IN charge of the ambushers turned to the bulky man, who was, himself, checking on the gunman that Gib had fired upon. "How is he, Phil?"

"The lawdog's aim was better than Mark's." responded the man. "Been hit near the heart." Phil jumped to his feet, pulling his gun once more and aiming it at Gib. Nora felt Gib try to push her away from the possible shot, but his left arm was weakened by the injury. Clay's hands on her shoulders, however, pulled her away. The blond woman struggled to remain at her hurt friend's side, but Clay was stronger than she was.

"Wait! Let me see!" Samantha's voice rang out with authority. It stayed Phil's trigger finger for a moment. "I'm a doctor! I can help him."

"Ain't no such thing as a woman doctor!" one of the other gunmen scoffed. The vengeful female waved him silent.

"I read that there are some." she countered. "Surprised that one of 'em is actually way out here, though. Fine—look at Mark...fix him up. I promise I won't have that murderin' snake shot...yet."

Samantha moved to the side of Mark and examined him, yanking open the shirt he was wearing and frowning down on the sight of the wound.

"We need to get him back to camp." she said. "I have to get that bullet out and the wound cauterized or he'll lose too much blood and die." Even as she spoke, her hands went to the pockets of the jacket she was wearing, removing a handkerchief, which she pressed to the bleeding bullet hole.

"You there." the raven-maned woman nodded to Clay. "You help carry Mark." She glanced at Gib. "Can you walk?"

"I can make it." the marshal confirmed a bit hoarsely. The woman's lip curled, then she nodded to Nora.

"You help him back to your camp." the female ringleader said. "We'll bring Mark along with us. After the lady doc helps him, we can all get to know each other, good 'n' proper!"

Nora assisted Gib to his feet, with the man leaning heavily upon her as they struggled back to the campfire, followed by Clay helping Phil to carry Mark along. Samantha quickly grabbed her satchel, directing Phil and Clay as to where to lay her patient. She was completely professional, giving orders as to how the pair could assist her in removing the bullet and keeping the patient from harming himself while she did so. Sam also directed Nora to hold a folded bandanna to the wound in Gib's shoulder.

"So...if I may..." Sam spoke as she deftly performed her surgery, "...just who are you, miss...and how do you come to accuse a United States deputy marshal of murder..?" The jet-tressed woman tossed her head in Gib's direction.

"Ask him...he can tell ya." she answered truculently. Nora looked to the deputy, still pressing the bandage in place.

"This woman is Nedda Logan." Gib replied. "She's the sister of Bill Logan, who was wanted for robbery and murder in about three different territories...well, I believe that Nevada is actually a state now instead of being just a territory..."

"That don't matter now!" Nedda sniped shrilly. "The fact is he was helpless an' you killed him! In cold blood! And I hired me these men to make sure that justice is done! I'll see you dead for murderin' my brother!" The mercenaries with her all directed narrowed eyes at the wounded marshal, and Clay tried to calculate the odds of him getting over to any of them before they could try to shoot Gib dead.

"Well...there's the bullet..." Samantha's announcement cut through the palpable tension as she held aloft the tiny ball of lead for a moment before casually tossing it to the ground. "Now...let's seal up this wound to get it to stop bleeding..." She continued her work on the mercenary, and soon the doctor was done with Mark. Sam had the patient laid out next to where Gib was sitting with his back resting against his saddle, so that her two patients were side by side, with her between them. This way she felt she could better tend one or the other as needed. The healer turned towards the injured marshal, her long-fingered hands reaching for him to start her examination.

"Never you mind him, doc!" Nedda's voice gave Samantha pause. "He'll be dead soon enough—he don't need fixin' up." The female physician stood still for a moment, then continued her intended examination and treatment of the wounded lawman.

"I'm a doctor." Sam said firmly. "If a person is wounded, I do what I can for them."

"He's a murderer about to be executed!" Nedda insisted hotly.

"I refuse to believe that Gib murdered anybody—" Nora denied with every bit as much insistence that Nedda's voice held. "—even if that person was a wanted criminal like Bill Logan! He could not do that!" Clay's eyes flicked to where the emotional Nedda was sitting with her hands curling into themselves, the fists shaking with rage.

"You know, Miss Logan," Clay said suddenly, "We do have courts of law here in New Mexico Territory...why don't you just accuse Gib in court? That's how it's supposed to be done."

"I'm no fool!" Nedda dismissed the lawyer's contention. "He's a lawman—the courts are rigged in his favor! Him an' men like him are always gettin' off, free as birds. I want justice for my brother, not some flannel-mouthed lip service in a make-believe court!"

During the exchange between Nedda, Nora and Clay, Samantha moved closer to Gib and yanked open his shirt, eliciting a grunt of pain from him.

"Sorry...this likely going to hurt more before I'm done." the doctor apologized in advance, her eyes going to the bullet hole in his shoulder. She probed the wound as gently as possible. Gib, in an effort to distract himself from the painful procedure, let his gunmetal eyes rove the woman's face as she worked.

Samantha Kearney was not beautiful...not like Nora. Her face didn't have the peaches-and-cream complexion that Nora's boasted—she had a scattering of freckles peppering the bridge of her nose and her cheekbones. If one was going to be extremely nitpicky, her face wasn't a classic oval or the preferred rounded, cherub-like shape that Nora possessed, either. Samantha had a broad brow and wide eyes, with the rest of her face narrowing down to a pointed chin—a heart-shaped face, Gib seemed to recall reading of such a description once, and it suited this doctor. He frowned, for he could now see that the right side of her lip was swollen by the bruise that marred it and the right side of her jaw.

"He hit you." Gib said softly. Sam's turquoise eyes lifted to his face, seeing that his own gaze was settled pointedly on the swelling near her mouth.

"When you two shot at each other." she confirmed. "He struck me away from him." Gib frowned, then sucked in his breath at the lance of fire that emanated from his wound suddenly.

"Sorry." Sam apologized again. "I'd...prefer to remove the bullet, but you were correct—your wound is not immediately life-threatening." Gib's eyes met hers and he felt another kind of pull, one that seemed to draw him closer to the woman tending him. She seemed to be moving toward him, too—

"All right, then!!!" Nedda's strident voice startled the pair apart and they looked at where the vengeful woman was now standing face-to-face with Clay. "We'll have a trial of our own! You can try to defend that murderin' low-life...if you can convince me an' my men that he's innocent, then we'll just go on our way. But if we find him guilty, then that mangy lawdog is gettin' executed!" Clay and Nora exchanged glances and then returned to where the doctor and her patients were.

"I talked Miss Logan into giving you a trial." the tall, dark counselor informed them. "With herself as judge and her men as the jury." Gib grunted, rolling his eyes.

"At least you're not getting shot." Samantha pointed out. The deputy marshal grimaced.

"Great—I get to suffer another half-hour and then I get shot." he said in a dour voice.

"You didn't murder this woman's brother, did you?" the brunette asked him with an elevated eyebrow.

"No!"

"Then justice should prevail."

"This ain't about justice..." Gib rejoined wryly, "...it's about revenge."

"Have some faith in me, friend!" Clay chided the injured man. "After all, I'm the best attorney in Latigo."

"You're the only attorney in Latigo!" Gib shot back.

"Having some chance at convincing her is better than no chance at all, Gib." Nora opined. Samantha looked over at where Nedda was checking up on Mark. The distraught young woman had gone through the trouble of hiring a gang of mercenaries to go after a law enforcement agent of the federal government. Gib's pessimism was definitely well-founded—but Sam hoped it would ultimately prove wrong.

"ALRIGHT, MR. SHYSTER," Nedda said sardonically to Clay, "How do we do this? I wanna execute that lawdog as soon as possible." Clay rubbed his chin.

"Well...the procedure is that the prosecution lays out its case first." he explained.

"What's the prosecution?" Nedda asked.

"The prosecution is the attorney who is formally listing the charges and the arguments to prove those charges." Clay told her. "In this case...probably you. So the best way to go about this is for you to tell me exactly what it is that you recall about the events that led up to the...death of your brother." The jet-tressed woman narrowed her blue eyes.

"I'll tell you all about what happened on through to the murder." she replied in a hard voice, deliberately emphasizing the last word in the sentence. "Bill, Lee and me were on the road when Bill got thrown by his horse an' broke his arm real bad."

"Stop for a moment." Clay interrupted. "Please tell me who this 'Lee' is..?"

"Oh...he is...was...Lee Curry." Nedda answered. "Lee...Lee was my fiancé."

"Thank you. Now...Bill's arm got broken..?"

"Yes...bad—so's that bone was poking up outta his skin." Nedda described. Sam hissed in a breath. The other woman nodded her. "Yeah, that's right, doc...one of them kind o' breaks that you gotta see a doctor for...only we didn't dare—not with that bounty on Bill's head. We been travelin' about two weeks when we come across a wagon followin' the road to Albuquerque. We hailed it for some medicine, which the didn't have, but the driver come down and offered whiskey. The old man with the bottle looked at Bill and said he got the gangrene in there. He said as much that Bill was a walkin' dead man." Nedda looked away and Sam felt her heart go out to the young woman. Death via gangrene wasn't pleasant.

"The wagon was owned by Mr. Scales an' his old pa." Nedda testified. "I offered them fifty dollars to get Bill to Albuquerque. The marshal was with 'em, too...he helped get Bill into the wagon when Bill couldn't get on his horse. Marshal Scott said Lee ought to ride ahead—see if he couldn't fetch a doctor that could meet us halfway to Albuquerque. Lee rode off to go do that. I heard the Scaleses sayin' as how they wanted the reward for capturing my brother, but I went ahead and I asked the marshal if cuttin' off Bill's arm could save his life. He said he knew that could be done, sometimes...but that Bill looked too far gone for the marshal to do, seein' as how he wasn't a doctor. I asked if the doctor should come and pull Bill through, then would the marshal let us go? He told me no, Bill's still a wanted man." Her testimony faltered to a halt and there was color in her cheeks. Gib shifted uncomfortably. Seeing the man's discomfort was apparently enough for Nedda to continue.

"I...told Marshal Scott that I...I would...I would make it up to him, if he'd see his way clear to lettin' us go." the young woman said defiantly. "And he was interested, too...real interested." Sam, who was checking on Mark's wound, glanced over at Gib's face. He was staring straight at Nedda with absolutely no expression.

The doctor turned her attention back to the wounded mercenary. Mark was going to recover as long as the people caring for him didn't do anything monumentally stupid—but Samantha's thoughts were now on the question of how to help the people from Latigo out of this situation. She was fairly sure that the marshal didn't do what that poor overwrought woman was accusing him of...but she was the one with armed mercenaries, while and everyone with him didn't have weapons. Sam looked her patient up and down again—then spotted something that might give the Latigo quartet a fighting chance, if she could only get it to Gib somehow...

"But...?" Clay was prompting. Nedda's defiance segued into almost sullen defeat.

"He still refused, sayin' that Bill was a man wanted by the law and he was duty-bound to bring Bill in." Nedda's eyes bored into Gib's as she continued speaking: "Lee came back soon after that. The road to Albuquerque had got washed out by a flash flood and he said we'd have to take the longer way around...everyone with the wagon knew that Bill...that he was likely going to be dead before we could reach town. I...I went to be by myself...to think for a bit...when I heard a shot, so I came running...but Bill was alive. It had been Mr. Scales that had shot Lee down. I stayed by the wagon with my brother until the mornin'...I looked in on him an' he was just fine, so I went to go help with breakfast an' have some coffee. The marshal went into the wagon, though—an' thats when I heard 'em. Two shots. That was it. That was when he murdered my brother. He claimed that Bill drew on him and tried to kill him...but Bill was too weak to have done that." Nedda's eyes clapped onto Gib and she spoke through gritted teeth:

"Bill was fine before I left him, but that man shot my brother dead for the reward money!"

If this had been a regular courtroom, that particular testimony would likely have hung Clay's client right then.

"What happened after the shooting?" Clay asked.

"The marshal wouldn't let me in the wagon to see my brother." Nedda said bitterly. "He didn't want me to see exactly how he'd murdered Bill, so he set the Scaleses to keep me from going into the wagon. Right after murderin' Bill, the marshal took the body out of the wagon—and that's when I got to see my brother...lookin' almost like he'd fallen asleep during a Sunday sermon...I saw him put my brother on his horse and tie him down so's the..." At this point, Nedda's breath hitched and she looked the picture of misery, but the young woman forced herself to continue, addressing Gib directly as she stared unflinchingly into his gunmetal eyes. "...so's the corpse wouldn't slip off the horse. You rode right out with him. Neither of those two Scales could keep me from going into the wagon to see the scene of the crime right then, so I climbed in before either of them could...clean as a whistle it was...not a single bit of hair or bone or a drop of blood to prove that my brother had ever been there. Just his old blue blanket from home...the only thing of his that I had left of him." Sam's head turned and she listened as Nedda finished her testimony.

"The only thing I really know about is that, hours later, the marshal come back." the dark-haired woman said firmly. "You'll probably remember that part, Mr. Lawyer-man, because you came back from Albuquerque with him. The marshal came back and tried to ease his conscience by giving me the money he'd collected from the bounty on my brother, tellin' me some fairy story about how Bill was already dead when he shot him. I refused to take that...that...blood money—not even when he tried to get you to give to me, Mr. Attorney. I just got on my horse and left."

"Thank you, Miss Logan." Clay said with a nod, then turned to Gib. "Marshal Scott...can you tell me how you recollect that same period of time?" Gib sat up a bit.

"I was riding to Albuquerque when my horse pulled up lame." he said firmly. "I met a wagon on the road being driven by George Scales, who had his pa in the back. We were a few miles along when we met up with the Logans and Lee Curry. At the time I didn't really recognize any of them, but the Scales did and they told me so. We put Bill Logan in the wagon and I had Lee Curry ride ahead. Miss Logan discovered we knew about her brother's real identity and...made her offer to me, which I refused." Gib's lean face flushed and he cleared his throat.

"I am a United States deputy marshal. It was my sworn duty to uphold the law, which meant that I was bound to have to bring Bill Logan in, even if—as Miss Logan claimed to me—he hadn't been breaking any laws for over a year. He was wanted and it was my duty...and I told her so. Lee Curry returned with his news about our having to take the long way to Albuquerque, and that was when Bill Logan called me into the wagon...he wanted me to shoot him so that his sister could get the reward money."

"You LIAR!!!" Nedda screamed, leaping toward him—or, at least, trying to...Phil held her back, not wanting to give the lawman a chance to get his hands on the woman who wanted him dead.

"Miss Logan." Clay said sharply. "You've been able to tell the events as you recall them—now it's time for Marshal Scott to be given that same chance." At this point in time, Mark stirred a bit, groaning. Sam turned and tended to him as the trial continued.

"I told Logan that I couldn't possibly do what he asked, not even to help his sister." Gib testified. "I left him in the wagon, but Curry got the drop on me—he'd heard Logan's request and he didn't want me taking him in. George Scales got the drop on him, though, and shot Curry. Miss Logan came to see that her brother wasn't the one who got shot—he was still alive at the time. The next morning, I went to check on Logan...he was dead. I...got to thinking about what he'd wanted for his sister...I..." Gib took in a deep breath.

"I wanted to make sure that Nedda had one last gift from her brother." he admitted. "So...I took out his gun from his holster, fired it and then I fired my gun, too. I told everyone there that he had been pretending to sleep and pulled his gun on me, so that I fired in self-defense. I made sure that Miss Logan didn't go in the wagon, and I just...packed Logan's body onto the horse and took off to Albuquerque with him. Collected the bounty. Came back to camp and tried to give Miss Logan the money, but she didn't listen to me when I told her the truth and she didn't take the money. She wouldn't take it...not even from you, Culhane."

"And what happened to that money after Miss Logan left?" Clay asked almost softly.

"I tossed it onto the campfire." Gib answered steadily. "I didn't want it."

"What makes you think I wanted it, either?" Nedda yelled, her anguish still raw after all those months ago. "I told you then—I can't spend my brother's blood!" Clay pressed his lips together—it was obvious that the woman's emotions were still running high...this was her only brother that had died, after all.

"Well...we've heard the two different versions, Lawyer-man!" Nedda said angrily. "And you haven't been able to prove that the lawdog didn't murder my brother."

"But, in a court of law, the burden of proof is on the accuser, Miss Logan." Clay pointed out. "And you haven't been able to prove that Gib committed murder."

"This wasn't no court of law, mister," the raven-maned woman replied coldly, "It's my court of justice—and it was you who was supposed to prove that your marshal is innocent." She turned to the three men who were with her. "What do you say, as the jury? Is the marshal innocent...or guilty?" Clay exchanged worried glances with Nora and Gib. The "jury" were men on Nedda's payroll. There was no doubt as to how they would vote in order to get their pay.

ACT FOUR

"Excuse me."

The softly spoken words originated from Dr. Kearney, who was, once more, adjusting the bandage on Mark's chest.

"What?" Nedda snapped impatiently.

"Well," Samantha said calmly, "It's my experience that cases of differing opinion usually have to rely on physical or scientific evidence to prove which point-of-view is the truth. Is this not so, Mr. Culhane?" The woman turned languid turquoise eyes upon the attorney. Clay nodded.

"You're correct, doctor." he agreed. "The prosecution or the defense brings in expert testimony that supports their arguments and the jury has to decide if the experts make sense to them."

"I thought as much." Sam replied. "Since this particular case is one that has just such differing opinions, then I'd like to offer myself as an expert witness and offer scientific testimony."

"Scientific..?" Nedda echoed, then her face clouded. "You're with them!" She waved a hand at Clay, Gib and Nora. "Naturally you're gonna say something that will 'prove' the marshal's story right!"

"Don't assume things, Miss Logan," the female physician said in a frosty tone, "It only makes you look foolish. I am with these people, yes—but only because I've been kicked out of town and they happen to be my...keepers, ensuring that I get on the stage going East...not because we are all...bosom friends. So you may be assured that any testimony I offer will be based on nothing but the testimony that you and Marshal Scott have given. No more...no less."

"Wait a minute!" Gib objected. "Mine was the deciding vote that kicked you out of town—how can I be sure that you won't be trying to get even with me?" The brunette turned her head and smiled sweetly at the lawman.

"You can't."

"That's good enough for me." Nedda quickly agreed now that she knew Sam's story. Gib suppressed a groan, certain that his fate was sealed thanks to some greenhorn female who didn't know an armadillo when she saw one.

"Now..." the doctor said, glancing at Nedda and then at Clay, "...since Miss Logan is insisting that the defense is supposed to prove Marshal Scott's innocence, as opposed to her proving her charges, I must speak directly to Mr. Culhane so that he can confirm the testimony already given before I can render my medical opinion." Nedda scowled, but then nodded.

"Go on!" she said. "But no tricks, now!" The counselor's and the physician's withdrew a few yards and bent their heads together, speaking in urgent whispers until Clay straightened up with a jerk. He then turned around and cleared his throat.

"What I'm going to be doing is repeating the testimony that both Miss Logan and Marshal Scott have given already." the barrister explained. "Confirming this testimony means that Miss Logan will have to agree with each part—she must acknowledge each part to be the truth, or Dr. Kearney won't be able to use it for her expert testimony."

"Fine. Let's go." Nedda said impatiently.

"Marshal Scott's testimony is that he didn't murder Bill Logan," Clay repeated, "But fired his gun at Mr. Logan's body in order to make it appear as though he'd shot the fugitive while Mr. Logan was alive. Is this correct, Marshal Scott?"

"Yes." Gib said through clenched teeth. Sam turned to look at Nedda.

"Well, I'm saying that he's lying..." the woman insisted, "...but...I'll agree that what he just said IS his own opinion." Clay gave her a short bow of thanks.

"It is your testimony, Miss Logan, that you checked on your brother before breakfast," he said to her next, "You saw that he was alive and went to have some coffee when the shots were fired and, according to your opinion, Marshal Scott murdered your brother. Is this correct?"

"It surely is!" Nedda declared fiercely. Clay nodded his dark head.

"How did you check on your brother?" he asked. Nedda's brows drew together.

"Why, I...I looked in on him from the tail end of the wagon." she answered.

"You didn't go into the wagon? You didn't touch him to see how his temperature was from that nasty broken bone?"

"No...he was finally looking so peaceful that I didn't want to disturb his rest." Nedda said with a shake of her head. "Bill hadn't been getting a lot of sleep the past few nights."

"So you peeked in on him from the outside of the wagon, saw that he was sleeping and then went to have coffee?"

"Yes." Nedda nodded emphatically. Once more the lawyer nodded.

"Alright, then..." he continued, "You've testified that, after you heard the shots, you ran right to the wagon—you did this right away, yes?"

"Yes—I was there in seconds...in time to see that murderin' skunk climbing out of the wagon right after the deed was done!"

"You and those other two people with you...the Scaleses, right?"

"Yes."

"You didn't go into the wagon but your brother's body was removed and tied to his horse, and then the marshal rode off with him. This is all your testimony?"

"Yes. That's what happened." Nedda confirmed. Clay looked at Gib, who nodded his agreement.

"This all took...what..? Maybe ten or fifteen minutes to do? It wasn't done over hours and hours of time?" the attorney asked.

"No...it all happened in a short period of time." Nedda said, sneering at Gib. "The marshal couldn't wait to collect his blood money!"

"And then you went into the wagon where all you could find was your brother's blue blanket. This is what you've said, correct?"

"Yes, it's all correct!" Nedda snapped once more. "Fust, go get my saddlebags." The named man left and returned quickly, bringing a set of saddlebags that Nedda opened up. After a moment, she found and yanked out a beaten blue blanket. It was obviously not new, but it still retained its blue color. Sam came over, took the blanket and held it up, examining first one side and then the other, with Clay avidly eying it as well.

"This is Mr. Logan's blanket?" the counselor asked.

"Yes!" Nedda agreed.

"And it's still in the same condition in which you found it?"

"Yes!"

"Thank you." Samantha handed the blanket back to Nedda.

"Please tell me," Clay formulated his question carefully, "Since your brother was feeling very sick due to his injury, how did he prefer to sleep with his blanket?"

"Why..." the other woman paused, obviously dredging her brain for the answer, "...Bill...used to wrap himself up in his blanket and then put other blankets on top of that—he always felt better when he was inside his own personal blanket." Clay's hazel eyes swiveled around to meet the turquoise eyes of the doctor, who inclined her head in response.

"Then you're stating that your brother would have been wrapped up in his blanket when he was shot, correct?"

"Yes." Nedda said firmly.

"You agree to everything that has been said so far, Miss Logan?"

"Everything that I've said is the truth." Nedda insisted. "And I agreed to recognize that the marshal is sticking to his story about how my brother was already dead when he shot Bill." Clay bowed and then turned to Samantha.

"Doctor, what is your expert testimony?" he asked of the brunette.

"Based almost entirely on what Miss Logan has said," Dr. Kearney said calmly, "I must conclude that Marshal Scott's contention that he shot Bill Logan after the man was dead...is true."

"But how? How?" Nedda screamed. "I saw Bill myself—I saw him! He was asleep!"

"I'm sorry, Miss Logan." the doctor told her gently. "But, you saw a man with his eyes closed, finally at peace. You truly believed that he was having a peaceful sleep...but it is far more likely that he was dead when you looked at him...since you didn't actually go inside the wagon and touch him, you can't really prove he was only sleeping."

"But you can't prove that he wasn't asleep!" Nedda cried desperately.

"This is where the rest of your own testimony confirms what I'm saying." Samantha explained. "You see...when a person is shot, they bleed. A lot. We have only to look at your man Mark, here and at Marshal Scott, too...I had to remove the bullet and cauterize your man's wounds, or he would have bled to death. His heart would have continued to pump out blood until he died. Because I did what I did, however, the blood is remaining inside his body, helping it to recover from his wound." The doctor waved a hand at Gib.

"The marshal, here, has a bullet wound that isn't as serious—but it's still been bleeding." Sam told them. "His body has been working to heal itself and has managed, for the most part, to slow down the loss of blood. It can do that because his wound was not as bad as Mark's...and he is still alive so that his body can start repairing the damage." The brunette clasped her hands in front of her.

"In the case of your brother, if he had been alive when he was shot—he should have lost blood. Lots of blood. Blood should have been everywhere—on him, on his shirt, on his blanket...even soaked through to the bottom of the wagon. However, you, yourself, confirmed that when you saw his body being taken from the wagon, he looked as though he'd fallen asleep in church...and I highly doubt that your brother went to church wearing a shirt soaked in blood. You didn't mention seeing blood all over his shirt when you described him, either. That blanket you have is spotless—there is no blood on it that I can see. And you also said yourself that the inside of the wagon, when you went to fetch out that blanket, was 'as clean as a whistle'...again, no mention of a pool of blood or bloodstains."

"The marshal could have cleaned it up before I saw him or the inside of the wagon!" Nedda objected.

"It's possible..." Samantha conceded, "...but unlikely, because you also said that it only took a relatively short while for the marshal to get your brother's body out of the wagon and onto the horse. You also said that the Scaleses were with you outside the wagon while that was happening and that you beat them to inside the wagon in order to go get that blanket, which means that Marshal Scott didn't have the time to do it and the Scaleses didn't have the opportunity. I can tell you now—as an expert—that the blood that should have been in that wagon would have taken too much time and far too much water to completely clean it all up than was available at that time." Nedda's face scrunched up in concentration.

"When...when the marshal murdered my brother...the...the bullet could have instantly killed him!" she conjectured with an air of triumph.

"That could have happened," Sam nodded once more, "Except...even in those cases where death is instantaneous, you still have blood loss. Again—his blanket has no blood stains and you did say that it is in the same condition now as when you retrieved it from the wagon. Your testimony never mentioned any blood at all on his shirt, Miss Logan. I ask you now—and please be honest—was there blood on your brother's shirt when the marshal took his body to Albuquerque?"

Nedda Logan looked as though she were fighting a frightening internal battle; even Gib found himself aching for her, just as he had when she had first accused him of murdering her brother. However, in the end, the woman fell, sobbing, to her knees.

"No, no, no!!!" Nedda screamed the words. "No...there wasn't any blood on his shirt...that means...that means..."

"That means that Marshal Scott didn't murder your brother." Clay said softly but firmly. "He's been telling you the truth all this time—Bill Logan had asked Gib to get the reward money and give it to you. Logan wanted you get beyond his life as a criminal."

There was no sound but for the gut-wrenching sobs emanating from the young woman grieving for her only brother. Nora came forward and knelt, putting her arms around the weeping woman.

"There's just one thing left to do, then," Phil said heavily, then he drew his gun and leveled it at Clay, "We have to grab Mark and the doctor and hightail it outta here!" Clay was forced to stand where he was as Phil's pistol didn't waver from him.

"Ph-Phil..." Nedda made the effort to pull herself together, "...don't do this..!"

"Shut up!" the man snarled. "I ain't goin' to prison because you had a change of heart! We shot a lawdog on your say-so, an' now we gotta put miles between them and us! But I'm not goin' without someone to pull Mark through." He nodded at Clay.

"You help load Mark into the back of the buckboard." Phil ordered the attorney. Clay frowned, but did as ordered, since he had no real choice in the matter. Sam hovered over the still-unconscious Mark, annoying the ex-Texan with her touchy-feely manner over the injured man. Finally, however, she stepped back from the group of three men with her hands behind her back and allowed Mark to be carried off.

Gib, who had a ringside seat to the doctor's display, had also initially been annoyed at the way she had her hands all over Mark...but then he saw what she had succeeded in doing: Samantha had removed Mark's knife from his belt without anyone being the wiser, and was now holding it behind her back so that neither Phil nor the remaining mercenary could see it.

"You're next, Doc," Phil announced, "That town may not wantcha, but Mark is gonna need ya to nurse him through..." The husky man looked Sam up and down with a bit of a leer forming on his face. "...and I can think of other uses I can put ya to..."

"Oh!" the brunette gasped, stepping back—closer to Gib. "Don't be disgusting!" She took another step back and half-turned to face Phil before letting the knife slide from her fingers on the word "don't". Gib saw the blade land on the ground between where she stood and where he was reclining. Since Sam was near his feet, the blade was now partially hidden by the skirts of her gown...and just a few inches out of the reach of his right hand.

Phil, meanwhile, beckoned towards Samantha.

"Right over here, Doc!" he growled. "Don't make me ask again."

"Forget it!" the brunette said. "I'm not going anywhere with you!" Gib struggled to sit upright and lunged for the knife, his hand disappearing under the hem of Sam's skirt.

"Got it!" the marshal yelped, and Sam threw herself forward, face down, on the ground. Gib hauled his arm back and prayed that he could be effective with his off-hand...and threw the knife at Phil, whose attention was on the doctor at his feet. The blade sank deep into Phil's chest and he also tumbled forward—landing over Samantha.

Meanwhile, Clay and the other mercenary had just laid Mark in the back of the buckboard when there was a shout from Gib. Instantly, Clay jumped the man with him, struggling for control of the gun.

"OOOF!" the brunette grunted at the impact of Phil's body on top of her—but then saw his dropped pistol nearby. She grabbed it and craned her head around...Gib was behind her and she couldn't see him...Clay was struggling just at the edge of her line of sight and definitely out of her range to toss the gun to him. The third mercenary was turning towards Clay, and Sam's own angle to fire at him was very bad. However, there was Nora and Nedda nearby.

"Nora!" Sam called out, then tossed the pistol over to where the two women were still huddled together. Nora grabbed the gun and lifted it, pointing it at the third mercenary and firing. The man dropped his weapon at the unexpected burst of pain in his thigh and toppled over, clutching his leg.

Clay managed to punch his opponent in the face and wrest the gun away from him. The man surrendered.

And just like that, the trial of Gibson Scott was over.

ACT FIVE

SANTA FE WAS a young city in the New Mexico Territory, but it was a city, and cities tended to be blasé about events that would normally cause a stir in small towns like Latigo. However, when the buckboard and horses from Latigo finally arrived in Santa Fe, they did, indeed, cause a stir.

The buckboard itself had two injured men lying in the back: Mark the mercenary and his colleague whom was shot in the leg. There was a beautiful blond woman driving the buckboard and her immediate passenger was a blood-covered brunette—Nora and Samantha, respectively.

The five horses that accompanied the buckboard bore four riders and some cargo: the only uninjured mercenary, Clay, Gib (with his left arm in a sling), Nedda...and the body of Phil, tied over his own horse.

Sheriff Chuck Rogers was notified and he took all the mercenaries into custody, sending for the doctor they had available in the town. Then he listened to the story of the trial of Gibson Scott, shaking his head in amazement when the five people with him finished. The whole tale had been nearly unbelievable, from the part about Samantha being a lady doctor through to Gib managing to throw a knife with his right hand—a very tough proposition when the man not only was injured but left-handed to boot!

"Alright, then, Scott, it's up to you." the sheriff said, nodding to the deputy marshal. "I have more than enough cells here so that I can arrest Nedda Logan if you want me to." Gib looked over at Nedda.

"No, sheriff." he said, shaking his sandy head. "The whole thing has been a long, hard, sorry mess and I just want to end it."

"Thank you, Marshal Scott." Nedda said in a throaty voice. "I...I'm sorry I accused you—"

"I know." Gib interrupted the woman with a nod. "I'm hoping you can move on from here, right?"

"I'll be moving on, yes." Nedda agreed, rising from her seat. Gib shook his head.

"I meant that you'd be moving on...from the loss of your brother." he clarified. The jet-tressed young woman looked at him and sighed, then she bent and gave Gib a quick kiss on the lips, leaving the lawman blinking.

"I said, 'yes' and I meant it...both kinds of movin' on." She murmured a farewell and then left the sheriff's office, passing the doctor just coming in.

"Well, then, Scott," Sheriff Rogers got to his feet and beckoned the newly-arrived physician over, "We can get that bullet taken care of by a real doctor now." Samantha stiffened in her chair.

"Thanks, Rogers," Gib replied, "But I'm already under the care of—" Now it was Gib who was cut off by the brunette suddenly leaping to her feet and holding her hand out to the other practitioner of medicine.

"I'm Doctor Samantha Kearney." she introduced herself. The rangy redhead she was greeting took her hand and shook it automatically, adjusting the spectacles on his nose.

"Dr. Ben Forsythe." he replied.

"You must treat Marshal Scott." she said firmly. Gib blinked, opening his mouth to protest. The male physician peered into Sam's face, then nodded.

"Yes, you're right. I will." he agreed.

"I'll treat the prisoner with the leg wound." Sam offered.

"Fine by me." Dr. Forsythe replied with a nod. "I can check your handiwork later." The brunette picked up her bag.

"Sheriff...if you'll have a deputy show me to where that injured prisoner is, I can get right to work." Sam said firmly. Gib sputtered an objection, but the sheriff ordered his deputy to allow the lady doctor to go tend to the man with the bullet wound. Meanwhile, Dr. Forsythe had Gib taken to another room in the jail house and removed the bullet from his shoulder.

THE LOBBY OF the hotel was well-appointed and the sofa the two men occupied was very comfortably upholstered. The gentlemen themselves were well-groomed and in clean attire, although the uncharitable might deem their clothing less-than-formal. Still, the desk clerk could think of no good reason why the pair were fidgeting the way they were.

"Are you sure they're gonna meet us here?" the blond man asked his companion, shifting his left arm in its sling yet again (this made the dozenth time the man had done so in the period that he and the other one were waiting.)

"Nora said they'd be changing for dinner and then meet us here." the raven-maned man confirmed, his hazel eyes looking faintly amused. "What's gotten you so frothy?"

"I'm not frothy." the other man denied with a growl.

"If you say so." Silence reigned in the lobby.

"She wouldn't take the bullet out." Gib Scott said suddenly to his companion. "I...don't understand why she wouldn't."

"Maybe she was admitting that she wasn't that good a—" Clay started to say, only to be cut off.

"Don't give me that!" Gib snapped angrily. "She removed a bullet next to that bushwhacker's heart without so much as batting her long, silky eyelashes...but she refused to touch me, and my bullet wasn't near so hard to take out." The attorney turned his head, carefully inspecting the deputy marshal sitting next to him.

Clay had known Gib for about two years now—he considered the man a friend...a rival for Nora's attention, but still a friend. Clay liked to think he knew his friend well. As a friend, Clay noted something very much out-of-character for the no-frills, down-to-earth lawman: Gib had just waxed poetic about the lady doctor he was obviously rather irritated at. Gib had described Samantha's eyelashes in graphic detail...and he obviously wasn't aware he'd just done so. The ex-Texan felt a smile creep across his face as he just realized that his rival for Nora had subconsciously cleared the field for Clay.

"What are you grinning for?" Gib's voice broke into Clay's thoughts.

"Nothin'." the lawyer told him, making an effort to school his features into something less triumphant. Then he quickly supplied a theory that might further push the blond man out of the romantic running for Nora. "Maybe...maybe she knew she couldn't trust herself around you."

"Trust herself..?" echoed Gib. "What do you mean?"

"Well...from a lady's point of view, Gib...I'm sure you're aware that you're a fine figure of a man."

"I am?"

"From a lady's point of view."

"Oh." Gib was nonplussed. "But I still don't understand why she wouldn't do it."

The drawback of out-maneuvering a man who thought along very plain and simple lines, the clever attorney decided, was that the man himself could be a little too simple at times.

"Well...maybe Nora can find out and tell me." Gib thought out loud. Clay grunted and looked up at the staircase, wondering just what was keeping the ladies so long?

THE LADIES WERE helping each other with their evening gowns. Nora was wearing a black evening gown that she'd first trotted out to celebrate her then-intended sale of Travers house to Sam Davis. It was much too nice a dress to not wear again, and as Samantha had never seen it before, there was no reason for Nora to keep it back in Latigo—the blond had brought it along with her in order to send off the doctor in style.

"I wish there was some way to get it through their heads that we should keep you on as town doctor at least until we can get a replacement." Nora fretted as she buttoned up Samantha's own gown. "And after seeing how well you handled the injuries on the trip—why, there's no way in the world those short-sighted fools in Latigo wouldn't know that there can be no better person for the job!"

"Thank you for the vote of confidence, Nora." the brunette said with a sigh. "However, I've learned through bitter experience that it's extremely hard to change a mind once it's made up."

"Extremely hard...but not impossible." Nora insisted.

"No...not impossible...but they're not even allowing me the chance to try." Samantha's voice was heavy with regret. The Nordic woman finished fastening the last button.

"There, all done!"

The lady doctor took a long velvet ribbon and tied it around her neck so that its ends trailed down her back. Then she donned short white gloves trimmed in matching ribbon.

"That's it for me...let's go downstairs," Samantha said with a bit of a smirk, "I'm certain that both of your men are chomping at the bit with impatience."

"My men?" Nora echoed in surprise. "What makes you think they're my men?"

"They must be...you're the only woman in Latigo who had the gumption to be at that...so-called town meeting." the brunette replied. "From what little I've been able to observe, they couldn't help but be attracted to you." The blond eyed Samantha with an odd expression on her cherubic face.

"Do you really think so..?" Nora asked, something in her voice causing Sam's turquoise eyes to sharply glance at her.

"Yes. I do." the female physician said firmly, then crossed to the door, opening it. "Come, now, I'd like to spend as much time with you before I go. Your company is much too pleasant for me not to take advantage of it."

Nora wracked her brain as they walked down the hall and then the stairs to where Clay and Gib were waiting for them. She had been extremely surprised at Samantha's assertion that the two men from Latigo were attracted to her—after all, she was a widow. However, after her trip to San Francisco, Nora had been reminded that, even if she was a widow, she certainly wasn't dead yet. Both Clay and Gib had proposed to her after it became clear she was going to sell Travers House and return to San Francisco, but neither of the men had done so with the emotions she'd wanted to see from them.

Now came along Samantha, who seemed to see something different from the two men. Nora found herself hoping that the brunette was right, especially when it concerned—

"Clay!" Nora called as she stepped off the last stair. "Gib! Sorry to have kept you waiting." The pair sat and then stood up from their nearly slouched positions on the divan in the lobby. They looked up at the ladies leaving the staircase and—Nora was most delighted to see—stared with the most dumbfounded expressions in their eyes.

Nora was wearing her elegant black gown from the celebration at Travers House, only there were a few changes made: the flower that had been pinned to the bodice was, naturally, no longer there, but Nora's throat was now adorned with a collar of pearls from which hung a sapphire pendant...loaned to her for tonight by none other than Sam herself.

"You must wear it, Nora—" the doctor had insisted, "—with that gown and your eyes...the effect would be stunning!"

It seemed that the other woman had been correct, if their escorts' reactions were anything to judge by.

Samantha, herself, was wearing a gown of rosebud pink with white trim. Much like Nora's, the gown left her arms bare, but the styling of the top of the gown was much more daring—at least to Nora's mind, since the neckline and the tiny puff sleeves were fashioned as a straight, horizontal line across the top of the bosom, leaving Samantha's shoulders bare.

"This is hardly daring." the brunette had assured the businesswoman. "It's all the fashion in New York and London." Samantha went on to confirm that Nora's own gown, however, was quite smart still—especially against the Nordic woman's coloring.

And now to see that Samantha's assertions about the effect of how Nora was dressed would be upon the two men who were with them...Nora was determined to find a way to keep the lady doctor in Latigo! But, for now, this was going to be a social engagement between gentlemen and ladies.

"N-no apologies necessary, Nora." It was Gib who found his tongue first. "But, now that you mention it...we been waiting a mite long for some supper."

Dinner was more reserved than Nora wished, because Samantha seemed determined to keep the conversation to the mundane each time the blond woman tried to steer the subject towards setting up an appeal to Clay about Samantha's impending departure. Finally, Nora could stand it no longer.

"Clay...Gib...surely there's some way to make the town see reason!" the words suddenly burst forth from Nora. "It simply is not fair that Samantha isn't being given the opportunity to at least a trial period of some kind."

"It's no use, Nora," Gib told her, "Latigo's just too rough for a lady doctor—one who screams at an armadillo!" The lawman felt as well as saw the deadly look Sam lanced him with.

"The mayor made his decision, Nora," Clay answered reluctantly, "Frankly, I'm with you about allowing a trial period, but the mayor...or, rather, the town of Latigo...is my client, and I have to abide by the wisdom of his decision."

"Wisdom?" Samantha echoed with a sneer. "Where's the wisdom in letting an entire town suffer just because of the antiquated notion that lady doctors are too delicate to be effective healers? Yes, I screamed at an armadillo—I didn't even know what it was! I'll be completely honest: I'm afraid of snakes, too—just looking at a caduceus gives me the vapors...but I didn't let that stop me from coming to where I was needed. I don't know if your agent in Philadelphia told you this, Nora, but your request for a doctor had been passed around not only Philadelphia, but Boston and New York, too—and not one man was willing to come West to help your town out...not one! So I told Mr. Snyder that I would go—I even paid for the trip out of my own pocket rather than take the money being offered. All because a town was desperate for a doctor." She drew in her breath and leveled icy turquoise eyes at first Gib, then Clay as she continued.

"I am what I am—a doctor, and I'll never apologize for that, even if the entire world feels like condemning me for it simply because I'm a woman, too." The brunette looked down at the dessert that she'd taken only a few bites out of and then pushed the plate away, knowing that her stomach was now sour thanks to the knowledge of the injustice being done to her and, more importantly, to the town of Latigo. She suddenly got to her feet, prompting the gentlemen with her and Nora to hastily scramble to their feet in a less-than-graceful fashion.

"If you'll excuse me, I'm going back to my room." she said with a toss of her head.

"I'll escort you back." Clay replied before Gib could object, moving off with Samantha as the deputy marshal stared after them.

"Gib?" Nora said when the sandy-haired man stayed on his feet, even after the other pair of people were out of sight. "Gib?" The man blinked and then sat down again.

"Sorry." he said then proceeded to poke holes of all sorts in his piece of torte without really eating it as Nora attempted to talk to him. Finally the Nordic woman spoke his name sharply, startling him out of his funk.

"Gibson Scott, you haven't heard a word I've said." Nora accused him. For a moment Gib looked as though he was going to bluff his way around her, but he clenched his jaw and shook his head.

"No. I haven't." he admitted. "Nora...I'm beginning to think I was...wrong about that woman." The blond female tilted her head as she regarded the deputy marshal for a long moment.

"It's something, I suppose, that you've bothered to admit it." Nora replied. "However, this means nothing to me—the person you should tell is Dr. Kearney."

"Don't make a difference now." Gib said gruffly. "The mayor himself kicked her out of town. She's better off goin' back East."

"If you say so." the lady at the table said, deciding that it would be best to let the man stew overnight. Nora fully planned on discussing the topic tomorrow morning, however. After all, the next stagecoach going east wasn't due to leave Santa Fe until after noontime tomorrow. Plenty of time for Nora, Gib and Clay to come up with some way to help Samantha.

ACT SIX

CLAY WAS HARD-PUT to keep up with the rapidly-walking lady doctor as she strode angrily across the lobby and up the stairs. He was, however, determined to make sure Samantha didn't lock herself into her room until he spoke to her. The tall attorney saw his chance just as Sam reached the door to her room.

"Sam...Samantha..." he said, noting she was still determinedly unlocking her door, "Doctor Kearney!" That last one got her attention. Sam lifted her face and glared up at Clay.

"What do you want, Mr. Culhane?"

"I want you to listen to me for a moment." the raven-maned man told her firmly. "I'm sorry—very sorry—that the town of Latigo...specifically Mayor Denholm...has forced this on you. I, personally, don't agree with what's happening."

"You said that before." Samantha pointed out archly.

"Yes...and I, as the attorney representing the town, cannot go against their wishes." Clay admitted. "However, as the counsel for Latigo, I do have the power to act in Latigo's best interest. Because of that, I'm going to give you some legal advice."

"What would that be?"

"Fight this." Clay said succinctly. "Fight this, Samantha—you definitely have grounds to bring a suit for breach of contract." She blinked stunned turquoise eyes at him.

"Clay...how is urging me to sue the town of Latigo in the town's best interests?" the physician asked.

"Nora is right," Clay answered, "If you just leave, it's going to take far too long to get a replacement doctor. You confirmed what Nora had been telling us all this time: Latigo's reputation for being hard on its doctors makes it near-impossible to get one for the town. You are, by far, the best...the only...candidate that has come along and accepted the contract offered. I saw for myself how you react as a physician under pressure...it would not be in Latigo's best interests to simply let you go. The least the town can do is agree to a...a trial period."

"So...say I get an attorney...and I bring a law suit..." Samantha said slowly, eying the young lawyer, "...what would you, as the town's attorney, then do..?" Clay smiled, his hazel eyes twinkling.

"I would advise my client to settle out-of-court by agreeing to allow you a trial period of six months." The brunette moued, thinking over the proposition.

"I...have to think about it." the lady doctor told him. "I...was in a fight similar to this years ago in Philadelphia...I don't relish willingly throwing myself into another such battle again."

"Think about it, then." Clay agreed. "But, Samantha—please keep in mind that, as stubborn and bigoted as Mayor Denholm is being, Latigo really does need you." She drew in her breath, then turned to her door, made sure it was unlocked and went inside.

"Good night, Clay."

"Good night, Samantha."

THE NEXT MORNING Nora met Gib and Clay for breakfast.

"Where's Samantha?" Gib demanded. Nora and Clay exchanged knowing glances because the lawman most likely didn't realize that his tone was sounding rather possessive. The blond woman answered the question.

"I had a note from her when I woke up this morning...she apparently had some private business to conduct." Nora told him.

"But...that means she's out in the town...all by herself." Gib said, that tinge of annoyed concern still in his voice.

"Well...that's usually how people conduct 'private business', Gib." Clay pointed out, slicing a piece off his steak. "By themselves." The sandy-haired man lanced the barrister with a deadly look.

"Ladies don't go out by themselves...anything could happen."

"That may be true in Philadelphia, Gib," Nora conceded, "But this is Santa Fe, and Samantha probably felt that she didn't have much time, as the stage for Kansas City leaves about a quarter past noon." Gib subsided to finishing his breakfast, scowling. There had been things he'd wanted to say to that stubborn brunette, and now her impromptu actions were ruining his plans. He brooded for the rest of his meal, then got up and walked out while Nora and Clay were still finishing their breakfast.

"He's acting like a bear with a sore head." Clay noted out loud. The blond with him smiled slightly.

"You'd think he was angry at somebody for leaving him." she added, then she turned to the attorney. "Oh, Clay...isn't there anything that you can do? Anything at all?" The dark-haired man heaved a sigh.

"I already gave Samantha what advice I could about the situation, Nora." Clay told her. "I'm hoping that she fights this, but I can't blame her if she doesn't. It would be her versus the whole town."

"Well, not the whole town, Clay." the businesswoman reminded him. "After all, I'm proud to call her friend. I would be there for her."

"I know, Nora." he agreed. "I just hope Samantha realizes that, too."

"WHERE ON GOD'S green earth is she???" Gib bellowed. He, Nora and Clay had waited at the hotel, but Samantha did not return. Now it was noon and she was still gone. The deputy marshal was working himself into a fine froth, Clay thought as he watched Gib pace the confines of the lobby while Nora went to check on Samantha's room.

"Clay! Gib!" the Nordic woman called as she hurried down the stairs. "I found a maid who told me that Samantha removed her baggage this morning while we were having breakfast. She's left already!" Gib was exiting the hotel almost before Nora finished her last sentence. Clay and Nora hurried after him. Their destination: the stage depot.

The clerk at the depot was waving at the stage to Kansas City as it departed.

"You!" Gib barked at the skinny man, making the clerk jump nervously. "We're looking for a pretty brunette about this tall—" Gib's hand indicated Samantha's approximate height, "—toting a large handbag. Was she one of your customers?" The clerk thought for a moment.

"Pretty little brunette with a fancy kind of travelin' gown, carryin' a big ol' handbag?" he clarified. Gib frowned and nodded.

"Yes, sir...she took the stage outta here." the clerk confirmed. The deputy marshal stood absolutely still for a moment, then strode out the door. Nora and Clay looked at each other, their faces falling as they realized that the doctor had chosen the safety of her home back in the Old States rather than life on the frontier.

"I...I was so hoping..." Nora said sadly, shaking her golden head. Clay moved his shoulders, the pit of his stomach clenching a bit.

"I know...but Samantha did say that she wasn't relishing having to fight." the lawyer replied.

"Samantha?" the clerk repeated. Clay and Nora looked at him.

"Yes..." Nora replied. "The friend we were hoping to find is Samantha Kearney."

"Then, yep," the clerk nodded once more, "She took the morning stage outta here." Clay and Nora exchanged a puzzled look.

"The...morning stage?" Clay repeated. "But...the stage to Kansas City didn't leave this morning."

"No, sir, you're right." the clerk agreed. "The morning stage from here goes to Albuquerque, by way of Latigo and Algodones." The skinny man went over to the counter and began to shuffle papers around. The couple from Latigo exchanged looks of dawning awareness and then beaming smiles.

"Should we tell him, you think?" Clay asked.

"No." Nora insisted. "It's his fault she was voted out of town in the first place. He ought to suffer the pangs of his conscience." The idea of Gib suffering brought a new dimension to the attorney's grin as he escorted Nora out of the stage depot.

THERE WERE TIMES during the journey back to Latigo that Clay was rather tempted to either punch the deputy marshal in the head or tell the man that the lady doctor would be in Latigo waiting for them by the time they returned. Given how surly Gib had become, Clay was favoring punching him. If it weren't for Nora, the counselor thought, Gib would have been dining upon at least one knuckle sandwich rather than the beans he was pretending to eat.

By the time they rode into town, Clay was about as close to drawing on the deputy and shooting him in the seat of his pants as he could ever have been provoked.

As the buckboard passed in front of the Fallen Angel, however, the rotund form of Mayor Denholm rushed out of the saloon and the man flagged the riders to a stop.

"That woman! That woman!" Denholm wheezed, out of breath from the activity.

"Yes, that woman took the stage East, just like your ordered, mayor!" Gib snarled from atop his horse. The owner of the saloon scowled at the lawman.

"Maybe that's what you think, marshal," Denholm sniped back, "But that ain't so! She had the gall—the very gall!—to come ridin' in on the stage from Santa Fe this mornin'...and, pretty as you please, waves these...these papers in front of my face, sayin' as how she's hired herself an attorney an' she's gonna sue the town...for breach of contract!" Nora and Clay's knowing looks didn't escape Gib this time. He opened his mouth, closed it, and then turned to the mayor once more.

"What papers?"

"She didn't leave them with me—said that they're for the town attorney's eyes only!" Denholm said, turning to Clay. "Mr. Culhane—you gotta get her to drop this case! Latigo can't afford any lawsuit! You gotta do what it takes to make that woman stop what she's doing!"

"Well, Your Honor," Clay temporized, rubbing his chin, "I must point out that, in this case, it's likely to be in the town's best interest to simply honor the contract."

"No! Absolutely not!"

"I drew up the contract myself, Mayor Denholm," the lawyer pointed out, "And both parties agreed to it in good faith. It's rather unbreakable..." The rotund saloon owner blustered, and Clay continued quickly: "...however, I can probably get her to agree to a trial period instead. The town would basically be agreeing to have her be the official town doctor with all the other terms of the contract intact, only the time would be shortened from five years to six months. If, at the end of the trial period, Latigo has just cause to revoke the remainder of the contract, the town may do so without reprisal."

"Yes! Yes!" Denholm cried. "Get her to agree to that! Anything but a lawsuit!!!"

"I'll see what I can do." Clay told him, curbing the urge to smirk. Denholm took himself back inside the saloon, leaving Clay and Nora free to grin at each other and laugh.

"You knew what she was doing, didn't you, Culhane?" Gib's voice was deceptively mild.

"Clay and I both suspected it, Gib." Nora said quickly. "You left the stage depot in Santa Fe a little too soon, because the man there said that Samantha did, indeed, leave...but on the morning stage to Latigo." The lawman's mouth pulled to one side, then he reined his mount about and cantered towards the doctor's house. Clay dismounted, hitched his horse and helped Nora out of the buckboard so that they could follow as quickly as possible.

By the time they caught up to Gib, he was in the receiving room of the doctor's house, nose to nose with Samantha, who was wearing an apron over her dress. They were in the middle of an animated discussion.

"—dare you just come storming into my private consultation room without so much as knocking???" Samantha was saying rather emphatically. "You scared poor Mrs. Ormsby half to death!"

"I dared because you left Santa Fe without so much as a 'by your leave'!" he responded rather loudly.

"Oh, ex-cuse me, marshal," the doctor retorted, "I wasn't aware that I needed your official permission to leave Santa Fe!" Gib pushed a hand through his sandy hair.

"That's not what I meant!" he insisted, his volume growing. Samantha hissed and stamped her foot.

"You are in my house...my office!" the brunette told him in a low but steely voice. "You will keep your voice down...and you will have a seat and wait until I am through with my patient. Is that understood, marshal?" Clay and Nora stood, transfixed, as Gib's face worked for a moment.

"It's understood, doctor." he capitulated, practically biting the last word off.

"Fine! I'll be as quick as I can." Samantha told him, starting to turn. Spying Clay and Nora, she nodded and waved to the empty chairs around the receiving room. "Have a seat, if you please, I shall be out presently." Then the doctor opened the door to the examination room and, stepping through, closed it firmly behind her.

"Oh, Gib," Nora said, sitting down opposite her friend, "Don't tell me that you walked in on Dr. Kearney with Mrs. Ormsby?" The lawman didn't say anything, but the dull red color that flared in his face spoke volumes. Clay covered his mouth in an effort to keep from laughing out loud.

At that moment, the door to the private consultation room opened and out came the doctor and her matronly patient. Gib stood up automatically. Mrs. Ormsby stopped in front of him and looked the marshal up and down with a jaundiced eye.

"Young man," she said querulously, "If my husband were even ten years younger than he is, I would inform him of your conduct and he would call you out in a duel of honor. However, I'm in no hurry to be a widow...so I'll satisfy myself with this." So saying, the lady slapped Gib across the face. He blinked.

"Thank you..?" he said questioningly. Mrs. Ormsby sniffed, turned and left the building with an air of affronted dignity.

"You all realize that not one word of this is to be spoken about ever again?" Dr. Kearney officially asked the others, but her tone confirmed that she was ordering them not to say anything about it. Everyone else in the room agreed. Samantha turned to Gib once more.

"And, if you ever...ever...have to see me in such a hurry again...knock first!"

"I'll do that." the deputy marshal agreed. The brunette then turned to Clay, her severe expression relaxing in a smile.

"Well, counselor, are you here to see me as a patient...or as the town's attorney?" Samantha asked.

"The mayor told us about the papers you have concerning the lawsuit you intend to file on the town." Clay said, returning her smile. "I've gotten him to agree to a six-month trial period. What do you say, Samantha?" The doctor nodded, producing a sheaf of folded-up papers from her pocket.

"I agree, and, in the spirit of complete honesty," she added, holding out the papers to Clay, "I give you this." The lawyer took the papers and, unfolding them, started reading with an increasingly furrowed brow.

"What is it, Clay?" Nora asked.

"Absolute gibberish." Clay answered, quickly scanning the second page as well.

"No...it's actually Latin." Samantha said. "Before the stage to Latigo left the town, I spent about three hours looking all over Santa Fe for an attorney to take my case. Not a single one would...they all claimed that Latigo was within its rights to reject me simply because I'm a woman. So I wrote up a couple of pages of Latin phrases and waved them in front of the mayor's nose when I got here, telling him I'd seen an attorney and that I planned to sue the town for breach of contract. You know the rest." Nora laughed, and Clay grinned, but Gib gaped for a moment at Samantha's audacity.

"You mean...you lied to the mayor?" he demanded. The brunette eyed the deputy marshal, clearly irritated.

"No, I did not 'lie to the mayor'..." she insisted, adding in an afterthought, "...exactly. I did see an attorney in Santa Fe—I just hadn't hired one."

"But...but..." Gib sputtered. Clay held up a hand.

"Now, settle down, Gib." he told the lawman. "The heart of the matter is this: Samantha feels she deserves a chance to prove herself, and she's right—she does. The mayor, representing the town, has agreed to give her a chance. Both of them are happy with that deal, and so it's perfectly legal." He turned his hazel eyes to the doctor. "All you need to do now, Dr. Kearney, is to show Latigo that you're the best doctor this side of the Rio Grande."

"In six months? I can do that and arrange flowers for mid-morning tea." Samantha declared airily, then smiled.

"So...you'll be staying in Latigo, then?" Nora asked. The brunette nodded, her short curls bobbing as she did so.

"For as long Latigo will let me." Samantha said firmly.

FADE TO BLACK