Free Trouble in Disguise: 5 (Eclipse Heat) by Gem Sivad Page B

squinted at the slant of the sun. “I imagine Deacon is getting up about now.” She sighed. “Wish I was eating the chef’s ham omelet instead of gnawing on a cold biscuit.”
    She remounted, dug two of the same from her saddlebag and tossed one to Ketchum, then made a face at him. “As soon as we cash in that promissory note, we’ll treat ourselves.” I’ll buy myself a big chunk of honeycomb to eat during the holidays.
    * * * * *
     
    It was already evening when Miri rode into Eclipse. She stopped at the livery stable and rented a stall for Possum. After she’d groomed, grained and watered her gelding she headed for the sheriff’s office, eager to tell Sheriff Potter about catching Ned Jackson. The bank was closed and it would be ten in the morning before she could deposit her note. Hiram was in his office and welcomed her inside, but it didn’t take much of a conversation with him to ruin her day.
    “Fella at the bank brought this over. He figured I’d see you before you made a trip over there.” The sheriff delivered the bad news in the form of a telegram from the Fort Worth sheriff. “Payment to Beauregard voided. Prisoner released.”
    Miri felt ill. She’d devoted all summer to the hunt, passing on a lot of easier quarry for the bigger prize Jackson offered. Worse yet, she’d invested funds in the butler’s disguise. Instead of being flush with money at year’s end, she was nearly broke with no way to recoup her loss other than immediately hitting the trail again.
    “Let me take a look at what’s in your stack of posters, Sheriff Potter.” She hid her distress, playing it off as just another one of the ups and downs of bounty hunting.
    But he steered her to a chair and handed her a cup of coffee. She wanted to howl in disbelief. She pulled out the promissory note and read it again. Everything had been fine up to the time she’d left.
    There had been no doubt in her mind that she’d nabbed the right man. Her prisoner was the counterfeiter. Now he was loose again. She sighed and set the cup down.
    Hiram picked it up and put it back in her hand. “One night won’t make a difference,” he told her. It would and they both knew it. Jackson would be long gone and wearing a new identity when he surfaced again.
    “I guess I have some repairs I could do.” She had a crumpled white shirt with a button missing. “Might you have some thread and a needle?”
    Hiram seemed glad she was staying and hustled to get the sewing tools. “I’ve only got this white spool of thread,” he apologized.
    “Guess my luck is improving already because that’s just what I need.” She smiled gamely, glad he didn’t ask what had happened to the button.
    “The jail’s empty and no one’s using the cots. Stay here tonight if you want. Unless someone has a prisoner to deliver, and that’s not likely, you should be undisturbed until morning. If someone wants me, I’ll be at the hotel.”
    He gave her the cell keys and left. She barred the door and removed the layers of clothing she wore, using the pail of water in the corner to wash up before she brushed off Calvin’s Hutchinson suit and sewed on the button Deacon had cut from the shirt.
    “There, good as new,” she told it and patted the front. Maybe she could sell the suit at a dry-goods store. It had cost too much to let it lay fallow.
    She washed the white shirt, trying not to remember why she loved it and why it was practical to sell it with the suit. By the time she’d hung up her laundry, Miri was bone tired. She’d been on strict mental alert for weeks. Her time at the Pleasure Dome had been particularly difficult since Calvin had been a new identity for her to master.
    She sighed. At least the role of Calvin had been a change. She’d studied the clerk at Osgood’s when she’d purchased her suit and copied his accent and mannerisms. It had worked and voila, she had another character in her repertoire.
    Miri’s knack for mimicking voices and such