*****Part 14

"How much farther, love?" Buck asked as they walked along a narrow path along-side the river. He looked over his shoulder, barely able to make out the top of the distant building. He hoped they stopped soon, and wished that he had taken the horses.

"Just a little farther upstream," Sadie encouraged feeling Buck's reluctance. "We'll have plenty of privacy." She had to get him farther away from town.

Buck glanced toward the west noticing the dark clouds slowly moving in. "Let's hope we don't get rained on."

"Oh don't worry. It's just the early spring rains they're usually fast moving," Sadie explained. "You're not afraid of gettin' a little wet?"

Buck chuckled. "Now I seem to remember a certain someone who needed coaxin' into the pond back home."

"Well that was different. Ifmy pa had seen us, he'd have shot you, especially since we both were butt naked."

The two laughed at the remembrance as they continued to stroll down the path, the breeze carrying the scent of rain as it blew through the meadow of wildflowers.

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Ezra moved outside the jail as the afternoon cooled. The dark ominous clouds doing nothing to alleviate his growing anxiety. Lightning flickered down from the sky, mixing within dark clouds that were fast approaching the edge of town. He hoped that Buck and Sadie managed to find cover or return before the storm.

Ezra stood and looked toward a large dust cloud that erupted at the other end town. His eyes narrowed as the cloud neared and he could make out individual riders. He checked his guns as the hair on the back of his neck prickled. Ezra glanced up and down the street hoping to see Buck, but no one was in sight.

Two dangerous-looking men purposefully led the nondescript group into town and down the street.

"Gentlemen," Ezra greeted as the motley band pulled up in front of him. He eyed the man he believed to be the ringleader. A tall man with a dark, narrow face and black eyes set like stones on either side of a hatchet nose.

"What can I do for you?" Ezra kept his voice steady, even as his heart stampeded in his chest.

"The name's Rutt Mendoza." The tall man smiled in mock politeness. He gestured over to his right at a younger man who pulled up alongside his horse. "This here is my little brother, Enrique,and some of our friends." He returned his withering gaze to Ezra.

Ezra's eyes darted over the contingent of about twenty harden desperadoes, and he had no doubt that these men were anything but good citizens coming for a visit. His mind was already trying to think up a strategy to stay alive. He had grown use to having six other men backing him and found it difficult to come up with a suitable tactic that didn't have him ending up in a pine box.

"Hear tell there's new law here." There was the slightest hint of a smile in Rutt's heavily accented voice.

"That would be correct," Ezra replied, smoothly laying a hand on his holstered Colt.

"You that law?" Rutt asked leaning forward in his saddle his eyes darkening.

"I am temporarily employed as peacekeeper," Ezra smoothly answered.

"The deuce you say...you dress like a gambler," a voice called out from the back.

"Yes, law enforcement is sort of a sideline of mine," Ezra explained, hoping to stall for time. Rutt's glare and the twenty men behind him caused a prudent amount of fear to course through the sharp gambler's veins, but Ezra had been intimidated by the best and was fairly impervious to Rutt's silent threats.

The outlaw sat back in his saddle as he realized intimidationwas having little effect on this one. Usuallyhe drove most men into incoherent states of fear by just looking at them.

"A reb gambler, pretending to be a lawman," Enrique laughed, his companions breaking out into laughter as well.

Rutt threw up a hand and his men immediately went silent. He grinned wide, revealing long teeth, almost predatory. "Well, well, everything I hate in one neat little package."

tbc