Michelle Tanner Going West
Copyright© 2025 by Ron Lewis
Chapter 8: Bone Picker
The group in the marshal’s office heard the gunfire. The twins, Helen and Hannah, paced about the small office worried, wanting to run down and help their father. The twins’ affection for Hamilton was as deep as if he were real family, which was odd, considering he had functioned as their father for only two months. There was no thought of what would become of them if he died, only that Pops needed them, but the old Indian refused to let the girls leave.
Henry stood blocking the door, his back turned to the entry as Buffalo Head lectured the small collection of girls. The door burst open behind him, and Hannover sprang into the room. Gun clutched in his hand, he struck the barrel across the back of Henry’s head, sending the old Indian crashing to the floor. Helen instinctively jerked a rifle from the rack, but Two Tongues was quicker and snapped off a shot. As the shot struck her, Helen dropped to the floor. The Henry rifle dropped from her hand, tumbling to the floorboards. Hannah rushed toward her, or perhaps the firearm.
“Hold it, child!” Hannover shouted.
Turning toward Daniel Hannover, Hannah glared at him.
“You’re the lassie I seen walking with the big marshal this morning, or she is,” he snarled, pointing toward the girl clutching her side on the floor.
He turned to Sarah, “Come here, missy.”
Sarah stood her ground. At her defiance, Daniel Hannover pulled the hammer back and pointed the gun at Hannah. He then repeated himself, “Come here, or I’ll shoot her, then the old man.” Sarah moved to him, where he grabbed her roughly by her upper arm and dragged her outside.
“Get your butt in the saddle on the gray horse. You’re that Gal-boy’s charge. I have need of you.” Sarah did as the man ordered, to save him shooting up more of her friends and family. Daniel Hannover climbed onto his own horse, then taking the reins of the gray, he spurred his animal. The two rode out of town, heading northwest away from the muddy road over the soggy, uneven sod. Hannover drove the horses at breakneck speed. Stopping a short distance outside town, he tied the girl’s wrists together with a strip of leather, then he again pushed the horses at breakneck speed.
While the Cheyenne and Arapaho ascribed the appellation ‘Two Tongues’ to Daniel Hannover for his double dealings with those peoples, the Lakota Sioux and the Crow had another moniker for the rascal. A darker name with a hideous meaning attached to it. Their descriptive designation for the man sent shivers down squaws’ spines... ‘Bone Picker.’ This was the handle attributed to him for his habit of raping, murdering, and cannibalizing the women of those tribes. Often, these terrible acts were perpetrated in front of their incapacitated braves. His final act was to beat the man near to death before eating meat from the cooked flesh of his wife ... all the while, his shrill cackling laugh resonating in the Brave’s ears. The men were then left alive to tell the shocking story to their tribes.
The air of the Colorado plains still hung thick with moisture following the downpour, wetting clothing and cooling the skin of the wearer. Sarah glared at the man, trying in vain to free her hands bound with leather strips while clinging to the saddle horn. Her anger at the man boiled. She didn’t like holding onto the horn, but the seat was too big, and her feet didn’t even reach the stirrups. Deprived of the reins, she clung to her mount with her knees, but riding at breakneck speed in the dead of night was unsafe; therefore, she clutched the saddle horn like a tenderfoot.
Without warning, Hannover slowed the beasts to a walk. Running his fingers through his hair, wet with thick humidity, he turned to the girl. The whites of his eyes shone with an eerie yellow. While the color of his eyes eluded her, she knew they were light blue, perhaps, or even gray. Tears streaked down his cheeks as he faced her. His skin was a leathery dark tan from years of exposure to the sun; pockmarked flesh bristled with small hairs from several days without a shave. A hard-looking man with a hateful gaze, Bone Picker glared at Sarah.
“I want to kill you,” he allowed, then continued, “can’t do that. He told me to keep you alive as insurance.”
“Who told you?”
“Don’t matter ... he ... left me,” he said, momentarily confused. “They all lit out ... every last rat of them is gone,” he told her, kneading his forehead as he spoke. “Yeah, rats jumping off a sinking ship, that’s it. I can’t remember a time when I been alone with just me.”
“You’re not alone, I’m here,” she told him. “You’re that cannibal feller, Hannover, ain’t you?”
“Ain’t is an improper contraction, young lady. But you’re right as rain there. I’m Bone Picker.” Daniel Hannover’s voice softened, almost sounding like a father chastising a favorite child. “I have gotten in the habit of slaughtering the queen’s English. I’ve been in the wilderness far too long. Mother wouldn’t be proud of me.”
“I think your grammar is the least of your wrongs to bring her shame,” Sarah challenged in a soft voice. Though terrified of the man and what her fate may be at his hands, Sarah refused to show him her fear.
“By God,” he said, shaking his head as an odd smile curled on his lips. “I believe you may have hit the nail.” His bearing continued to change, his facial expression softened, and his posture relaxed. A pack of coyotes howled in the distance, their distressing wails baying somewhere off to their left, unseen in the distance. And then nearer to them, a lone howl echoed as if in reply. “My brothers are near. Brother wolf close by, and my kin, the coyote clan, further from us. That wolf is a loner like me. A lone wolf is the most dangerous kind of predator.” His hand again ran through his tangled hair. Hannover had not grabbed his hat and wasn’t used to a bare head. “Never had silence in my head, not in all my born days. Not one minute of peace from them passengers, in my whole life.”
“I don’t know what you mean.”
“Yes ... sir-ree, this is new,” he told her. “I have this crowd of men that congregate inside my head.” He looked at her again, and something again changed in his countenance. “Those straps hurting your wrists?” The unfamiliar tone in his own voice caught him by surprise. What was it? Could it be compassion? Yes, he felt concern. Daniel ‘Bone Picker’ Hannover worried with this waif’s discomfort? How odd, he thought.
“No.”
“Are you sure? If you promise to stay with me—not to run off—I’m willing to cut them off,” Hannover offered.
“Do you still want to kill me?”
“Well, to be honest, even without my companions the dark desires are there. Sure, I want to do you harm. I want to spark you first, then murder you and cook you up to a tender perfection after the deed. That part of me ... that hasn’t changed.”
“Then no, I won’t promise anything. I’ll run away first chance I get,” Sarah proclaimed, a bold ring in her voice effectively covering the fear inside.
“Don’t blame you,” Daniel said. “I’m surprised at your honesty, but little girl, I need you alive, so try not to run. It goes against my best interest to harm you. Tell you what, I’ll give you my word, I’ll not hurt you.”
“Don’t trust your word. No, sir, Mr. Bone Picker, your word means naught. I won’t promise you nothing,” Sarah said, soft and low. She looked out and tried to find the animals howling in the distance, but it was far too dark after the storm covered what little daylight was left.
“Anything. You won’t promise me anything. Sounds better that way—I gave you your chance to lie,” Hannover told her, somewhat bothered that she hadn’t.
“I don’t lie,” Sarah explained.
“Suit yourself.” He straightened in the saddle, then spurred his horse. The pair moved at a fast pace but not a full trot. “I wonder if they will come back?” he said. “Strange, but I find myself ... hoping ... not.” Daniel Hannover talked to the girl like they were old friends. “I like the quiet in my head.”
“When I was a youngin”—he paused—”when I was a young fellow, not much older than you, I met a girl with hair not unlike yours. Soft and light brown. She had the most lovely brown eyes, and being eighteen, she’d burst into full bloom. The girl’s daddy was my father’s stableman, and she teased the men that worked at the estate. She teased me as well. Unlike you, she was a heartless woman...” Breaking off his story, he brought the horses once again to a full run. “Got to make tracks, darling.”
Buffalo Head finished stitching up Meeker’s chest wound. Smiling down at his friend, he patted him on his smooth, shaved face and turned to the other doctor, who was eyeing the Indian with awe.
“By God, Doctor Buffalo Head, you should be a human doctor, not a vet.”
Shaking his head, Henry picked up the forceps and looked at the bullet he’d removed. He laid the slug, still in the jaws of the forceps, on the scarred wooden top of the side table.
“Done some doctoring when I had to, but no, that would never be allowed. This wound’s identical to the one that killed Sarah’s mom. I thought I’d gotten everything on that one, but missed a bleeder. Betting we got her right this time, though. But you keep a sharp eye on him, doc. I’ll clean up Helen for you, then you can do the stitching. I need to see me a man about a new gun. I’m going with Hawk and Shell.” With that, the two doctors lifted the window sashes and let the cool night air in the room. Buffalo Head walked to the door. “I want you to keep someone with him, just in case. Man, that fresh air’s just what I need.”
“Yeah, the ether’s getting at me too,” the doctor said. “I think Meeker will be fine, but we’ll keep an eye on him.” He then added, “Macy’s luck sure held as well. That bullet careening off the hammer of his gun slowed her down,” the doctor said.
“Yes, sir, all that blubbery fat and hard muscle kept it out of his gut. Feel sorry for Hawk’s friend, Kingston, though.” Henry said, lowering his eyes and head in a silent prayer. He put his hat on his head and returned his gaze to the doctor.
“Drowned in his own blood. Damn ghastly way to die,” the doctor replied as he watched Buffalo Head wash the blood from his hands. “Doctor Buffalo Head, I repeat, you should be working on humans all the time.” Henry took a towel and dried his hands, turned to the other doctor with a faint smile, and shook his head.
“Doctor Burger, no one wants a Redskin cutting on them,” Henry said, a wry smile passing his lips. “They’d be a worrying about their scalps too much to let me work on them.” Leaving the room, Buffalo Head left the town doctor alone with Meeker, who began to stir. Nathan’s eyes fluttered, then smacking his lips, Meeker ran his tongue around in his mouth and over his teeth.
“It’s the ether,” a craggy voice proclaimed. “Gives you cottonmouth.”
Meeker struggled to regain his senses. His chest hurt, the back of his head throbbed and the world swam around him. Meeker remembered the flash from the barrel of the gun, the impact of bullet splitting his chest, an explosion on the back of his head. Had someone shot him from behind? Did he have a bullet in his brain like that half-wit Simpson?
“You’re a right lucky man,” the doctor said, Nathan could see a bullet jaws of long forceps that the doctor waved around in front of him. The doctor dropped the ball and forceps onto the dresser top, the man picked up a cup of water. holding the cup to Meeker’s Nate greedily drank down some of the fluid, but the doctor stopped him from drinking too much, too fast.
“Missed your heart by just a shade and then stopped. Lucky man indeed. Lucky you had that Injun vet with you. Finest hands for surgery I’ve ever seen.”
“I don’t feel lucky. Where’s Macy, the Indian lad, and that other feller, ayuh?” Meeker tried to rise, the room tumbled around him and he fell back into the bed.
“Stop that, you’ll rip her open, damn fool. Hamilton’s in the next room, arguing with his daughter, the fiery, more rambunctious child. The Indian feller and Miss Tanner are makin’ ready to go after that Hannover fella. Buffalo Head is preparing young Helen for me to operate on—”
“What?” Meeker interrupted the doctor, his mind swam around trying to make sense of it. What’s this fool telling him? The children hadn’t been at the gunbattle.
“She also got herself shot last night,” he told Meeker quietly.
Meeker tried to stand, his chest felt as it would burst. The doctor held him down. “Lie back down there,” the old man ordered, his voice raised. “‘Tain’t serious on her. Just have to sew her up a smidge. The ball just nicked her side. Just lie there, get better, and stop fighting me.”
There was too much to take in, nothing made sense to Nate. Doing a quick head count of all the participants he realized they were short one man.
“And Kingston?” Meeker asked.
“Kingston is dead. His Indian friend asks us to salt him down in a pine box.”
“Friend?”
“Yeah, what don’t you understand?” the doctor snorted.
“I didn’t get the impression they were friends,” Meeker snapped back at the physician. Slowly Meeker’s mind cleared, the events of the night before started to fit with the world he awoke to, the new reality.
“Oh, I gathered that they were doing some playacting.” Three loud raps came at the door. “Enter,” the doctor called.
“Hey, Nate,” Michelle peeked around the door. “How you doing?” Hat in hand, Michelle entered the room. “Thought you were a goner for a time. Glad I was wrong.”
“I feel like Star thumped me in the chest with a hoof. The back of my head hurts like the blazes as well,” he said, rubbing the lump with his hand. How the hell did he get the lump there?
“Yeah, you banged that wall behind you when you went down after getting shot. You’re right lucky.”
“Everyone seems to think so.” Meeker knew, Shell held something back, something worse, what was it? “So, what aren’t ya telling me?”
Michelle rolled her hat in her hand, resisting the desire to look Meeker in the eye. A frown crept over her, her head bowed down, her green eyes gleamed.
“He took Sarah.”
Meeker cursed, then tried once more to haul himself out of bed, falling back. The pain exploded. Putting his hands to the mattress, Nathan let out a loud groan. Meeker tried to rise again, but his effort was fruitless. Collapsing back down, gasping for air, he looked at Michelle. “You get your ass in the saddle and fetch our girl back to us,” he ordered. “Kill the bastard if you must. But by God, you retrieve Sarah and bring her back to safety.”
“Yes, sir, boss. Hawk, Buffalo Head, and I will head out at first light. Got maybe thirty minutes left. Macy’s having a hard time making the scamp child stay here.” Michelle Tanner stood fixed to the spot, wanting to hug him, knowing she might not have the chance later. “I promise you this, on my mother’s grave, I’ll bring Sarah back. And I guarantee you, I’ll bring Bone Picker in so he can face the rope,” Michelle vowed.
“Alive or dead, I don’t care about him, but that child you must save,” Meeker demanded. “I don’t care about my vengeance. I want Sarah safe.” Meeker hoisted himself up, and, finally sitting up, he winced. The pain screamed at him, and he slid back until his back rested against the headboard.
“Shell, our sick bird needs money. He needs it to buy his way out of this mess, or to pay his way to somewhere else. Ole Bone Picker needs full buckets of money this time—so, I know where he’s going. If you’re trailing him, he won’t kill Sarah. So, don’t go hiding the fact you’re tracking him. Ride hard enough to make dust clouds if there is any dry ground after this rain. Rattle him every chance, but when he gets to the Puter Canyon, that’s when the game gets serious.” Meeker’s head fell back on the bedhead, as he again tried to catch his breath.
“How can he possibly get money there?” Michelle questioned. “Not much gold and not many miners there from what I hear.” Nathan Meeker faced her again, resting on one elbow.
“Right easy,” he allowed, “look for a stream flowing right out of the rock. It only looks that way; when you get right in your view, you can see that they’re two separate rocks and the water flows between them. It’s a right tight passageway, maybe four or five feet wide, and you gotta ride in the water. There’s carvings—an elk on one rock, a buffalo on the other. They’re crude drawings made by a miner. A miner that Hannover killed.” Meeker collapsed back to the bedhead, panting.
He struggled to breathe, holding Michelle’s hand with his right hand as she knelt on the floor next to him. His eyes were glassy, almost unseeing, wracked with pain. Biting his lower lip, he turned his head to her.
“There’s a narrow valley the other side of them rocks. Ayuh, two hundred feet after you clear those rocks. On the west side of the valley, halfway up to the peak there is a dugout cabin. You’ll find him there...” He stopped, breathing heavily, then continued. “He’ll hole up and pick you off one at a time. Then and only then, Bone Picker will turn his attention to Sarah. He’ll do worse than kill her before he does slaughter her and...” Meeker’s voice trailed off, unable to finish the statement. Looking away from Michelle, he studied the wallpaper of the hotel room.
“After he’s done his worst, Daniel will start picking up rocks,” Meeker explained, having somewhat caught his breath. “Damnedest thing you will ever see. Big chunks of dull yellow rocks with crystal crap stuck to them. All over the valley, the sides of them mountains are strewn with nuggets as big as your fist. A man might spend a lifetime picking them up, and still, there’d be more. Not just chunks as big as your fist, small pebbles that’ll glisten bright yellow in the sun. Polished by the rain, I reckon. Sometimes, when the sun hits ‘um just right, the slopes glimmer from all the gold dust and flakes.” Rubbing the back of his head, he continued speaking, still not looking at Michelle.
“You’ll feel the burning when you see it. That’s a part of our darker nature to covet the damn stuff. Down deep inside you’ll feel a fever. Hot, hateful, and greedy, ayuh, I know firsthand.” Meeker again turned to his friend, a tear running down the wrinkled, sun-worn landscape of his face. “Fight that damn fire, Shell, that yeller fever. You catch our bad man, get our girl back, and skedaddle out of that place. Two of the three partners that found that place killed each other over that valley of gold. Hannover did the last one in after he led him to the place. I only found the place because of them drawings on the rocks. They looked wrong, sort of out of place. It made me look closer, and then I realized the water wasn’t a spring feeding a creek, but a stream flowing between the rocks.”
“Even the best of men get infected by gold. It burns their souls. Don’t take none of it, not even one small piece. It’s all cursed. Just get him, bring him back. Let him face the rope ... or you can kill his ass where you find him. Leave that place and hope no one ever finds it again. Indians are the only people I know who aren’t affected by the fever. Don’t think you need to worry about Buffalo Head. Now Hawk might be a different story. Hawk’s part white. That gold ... might affect him.”
Within the hour, Michelle Tanner, Henry Buffalo Head, and Wounded Hawk were in hot pursuit of Daniel ‘Bone Picker’ Hannover. The thick clouds hung over the landscape, but no more rain fell. The fury of the storm had burned out a few minutes before all hell erupted in Benham. Buffalo Head scanned the horizon, reaching down from time to time to touch the butt of his new rifle, a Spencer repeater in .56-56 caliber.
Hawk thought of his sister and brother-in-law and how long justice had waited for the scales to be balanced. Michelle worried for Sarah, knowing in her heart that life just wasn’t fair. She promised herself if the bastard harmed a hair on young Sarah’s head...
At times, Hannover rode the horses hard and fast, then for a while he would reduce their speed to a canter, or bring the animals to a slow walk. Every few hours he would stop the beasts and let them rest, allowing them to eat some grass and drink water from pools in the dips and depression in the land. The rain had picked up again, falling at intervals and then stopping. When they rested the equines, Danial Hannover would talk, telling the girl of his past deeds.
“I remember one couple I murdered for the Judge. Shot the man twice and tied up the bas ... feller. Then shot his wife twice, all nonlethal areas, then I progressed to...” Hannover stopped talking, then with glassy eyes full of memories, looked over at Sarah.
“Why do you tell me this stuff from your past?” she asked him, her voice controlled, though the anger was trying to break the surface. “Do you think I care how many women you have eaten? Are you trying to make me like you—or hate you? I tried to work up some pity for you, but I can’t—you’re no different than a mad dog. Yeah, like a mad dog someone needs to put down. You’re vicious ... evil.”
Sarah gazed at him, unable to comprehend the man before her, shaking her head. Her eyes soft and moist, she looked away and wiped the tears with hands that were still tied with leather thongs. Turning back to Bone Picker, the Culbertson girl let out a huff and then sucked her lungs full of air.
Throwing his head back, Bone Picker laughed hard until tears rolled down his cheeks. Standing, he walked away from her, still chuckling. But not the evil, malicious chortle most had heard from the man. This was a joyous laughter few had ever witnessed from the fellow. He removed a canteen from the saddle horn of the gray horse and drank deep. Wiping the opening with the sleeve of his coat, he then walked back to the girl, still chuckling.
“You cover your fear well. Not a single fraidy bone in your body stops you from speakin’ yer mind,” he proclaimed, extending the canteen to the girl. Sarah took it and repeated the cleaning of the opening before raising it to her mouth to drink in the clear fluid. “By God, you remind me of someone. Can’t quite place who,” he lied to the girl, for she reminded him of his mother in her open honesty.
“You don’t have to be mean.” She screwed up her courage. “You like hurting people, but you don’t have to do it.” Taking the canteen from her, he shoved the cork back into the mouth of the container and returned it to the gray horse’s saddle. Leading the pony back to her, he stood there looking at her for a moment.
“I couldn’t explain my needs even if we had all of the time. Speaking of time ... time to go, little girl,” he told her. Sarah rose and walked to the animal, then lifted her hands to the horn. It was difficult mounting with hands tied. “Stick your hands out here,” he said, brandishing his Arkansas toothpick. With some reluctance, she beheld the knife, but still held her hands out toward him. Putting the blade under the thick leather thread, he pulled it up and cut the restraint. She considered thanking him, but changed her mind. He did not deserve any thanks for taking her against her will in this manner. Sarah climbed up in the saddle, finding it much easier now. Taking the reins, she looked back to the southeast, contemplating running away.
“Don’t do it,” he cautioned her.
Sarah looked at him, her lips curled into a smile. “No need. See what I see,” she said pointing a finger to the horizon. Barely visible were figures on horses. “That’ll be Shell and Mr. Meeker and one of the others.”
“Meeker’s dead,” he told her. “I killed him last night. He went down hard, so no question about it, Marshal Meeker’s worm-food.”
Sarah’s heart pounded as her mind whirled. Meeker ... dead? No, it can’t be true! Her heart jumped, and she wanted to shout. Sarah made up her mind that he had lied to her. It wasn’t possible that this ... beast ... could kill Sleeps with Bears ... no-sir-ree, not him.
He looked at the riders in the distance, imagining he could see the red hair of the woman. “More than an hour behind us ... if it’s them at all.” Climbing up on his own horse, he moved his animal next to the girl’s beast, “Time to ride hard, little girl.”
Looking back one last time, he saw the riders turn west. “It’s not your Gal-boy,” he breathed out in a hushed voice. Sarah saw him relax, then Hannover took the rope tied to her horse’s bridle. “Nonetheless, we ride hard for an hour.”
Small beads of sweat broke over his forehead as Daniel felt the first twangs of withdrawal pull at him. He had a need of the thick poisonous vapors to fill his lungs, a yearning for the venomous painkiller to rush through his veins and dull his senses.
“This’ll probably make you feel better,” Bone Picker called to her before they rode off. “My end shall not be a pleasant one. I have lied to myself...” Trailing off, Hannover looked away from the girl. “Staked out on an anthill by the Indians, or gutted by someone like Meeker. At the hands of a judge, strung up for everyone to see, dancing a little jig. Maybe your gal-boy will fill me full of holes. My end will be violent, bloody, and well deserved. You see, I have realized I am not the God I supposed I was. So, little girl, I got nothing to lose by slitting your throat.” Turning his head back to Sarah, he gave her a hard look. “Do not test me.”
A sharp pain surged through his guts, and he bent over, catching his breath. Straightening, Hannover hauled himself into his saddle.
“I make it about three hours ago,” Buffalo Head said, sitting on his horse looking at Hawk. “The three that went west are cowboys or miners; our quarry is the tracks of those still riding northwest.”
“You can see that from here?” Hawk knelt on the ground, studying the marks in the grass and dirt. “It took me a closer examination to arrive at the same conclusion,” Wounded Hawk said, standing up. He examined the old man as if looking for the secret in his face. “How the hell do you do that?”
The old man smiled and simply shrugged his shoulders.
“Practice,” Michelle told Hawk, full of respect for the old Indian.
“We’re not closing on them very fast,” Hawk said, climbing on his dapple-gray horse. “I hope he doesn’t hurt your kid.”
“He won’t, if my guess is right,” Henry told them.
“Yeah, why?” Hawk asked.
“He left most of the opium back there in town after he lit out so fast. I found more than twenty balls of the stuff,” he explained. “If he doesn’t have any, or much ... well, he is in for a bad time. I figure he uses at least three of them orbs a day. Didn’t find a pipe, so he has that ... but if he doesn’t have much with him, he will need help getting through it. The place stunk of it, so, I think he was on it when he left.”
“He could have more with him,” Michelle said.
“Could ... might not,” Henry said. “Might be he has what he had in his pockets. Yeah, I think Bone Picker is in for a rough time, and he’ll need Sarah to nurse him.”
“Well, she won’t do it,” Michelle said.
The old man turned to her, his usually placid face appearing haggard, and nodded his head. “Yes, she will. It’s the Christian thing to do.”
“You’re right...” Shell agreed. “Our girl couldn’t refuse to help anyone in need.”
“There’s no way he makes the Poudre Canyon in a day. So, we catch him writhing in pain at a campsite tonight, or tomorrow night.”
“He could have more,” Henry said. “Even with only a few tar balls, if he is cautious, smokes just enough to ease the pain, he might just make it to his hideout. So, we need to move on.” Spurring his paint pony, he moved ahead. The others followed a short distance behind the old man. Michelle told Hawk the story of their journey west as they followed the trail left by the fugitive and his captive. Hawk listened intently and shared his and Kingston’s story of how they met and became friends on the New York City Police force, their army days, and the hunt for Hannover. He even told her of Kingston’s desire they own a ranch.
Michelle smiled, despite her concern for Sarah. The more she heard of Hawk, the more she was glad to have him along for this ride.
Meeker lay on the cot in the first cell of Benham jail while big ole Macy Hamilton lay on the other bunk of the cell. Helen lay near her father, on another bunk in the second cell, while Hannah moved among the wounded trio. Hamilton looked at his girl, smiling.
“Make a right good nurse,” Hamilton allowed.
“I’m a better deputy,” Hannah told him, tapping the grips of her Colt revolver tucked into her blue ducking pants. “Me and the colonel are keeping the peace,” she beamed, pleased with herself for being able to assist her father.
“Don’t be too anxious to use that thing,” Meeker said. “I know you have more than a mite of experience. Darling, with that hog leg, you can do deeds you can’t never take back. Them cannons ain’t the solution to every problem. You’re young, child, and I don’t want you to taste bitter regret.”
“The onliest reason I’m here and not chasing that bugger that shot y’all is to keep the peace and take care of Pops,” Hannah said, then huffed and turned from them. Walking out of the cells, she moved to a chair near the cells and plopped into it.