The slightly musty odor of old books comforted Greta Pedersen as she opened the library door.  She frowned, as her key was not needed.  As she chastised herself for leaving it unlocked the night before, she looked around to make sure everything was all right.  Minuscule particles of dust danced a slow motion waltz through the streaming sunlight that peeked in from the rows of windows along the front and back of the building.  Relishing the warmth of these familiar sights and smells, Greta shut herself within the only space she truly felt comfortable.  Considering the fact that she was more than an hour early, she went about her morning duties with a slow, deliberate, well-practiced ease.  She absorbed the warmth of the quiet and still cocoon.  Most would consider a librarian’s chores drudgery, but she found pleasure in any chore even remotely connected to her best friends, the books.  Actually, they were her only real friends.  They didn’t judge.  They didn’t ask why you weren’t married.  They didn’t remind you how unattractive you might be. 

Even as a child, Greta had never been particularly lovely, with her plain face and lank brown hair.  At best she could be described as mousy.  At worst she could be described as ugly.  The most common thing people called her, to her face anyway, was “plain”.  “Greta, honey, you’re such a plain girl.  You need to work harder in fetching yourself a husband.”  Of course there were always the people who thought they were comforting her, “Don’t you worry dear, plain girls do well as spinsters.  You’re practically built for it!  You’ll be okay!”  The fact that she wasn’t a striking beauty had never bothered her as much as it did others.  After all, really beautiful women made men stupid, and she didn’t tolerate stupid people well. The one thing that did bother her was the fact that she had never been particularly witty, with her disconnected sense of humor.  She had a habit of blurting out whatever came into her head.  Her father, a widower from the day she was born, didn’t push her to make friends because he preferred to be his only daughter’s favorite source of amusement.  She could hold her daddy’s hand in public, and know that he thought her the loveliest creature in the world, and that he was very proud to be with her.  Of course he had always come in second place, but he never seemed to mind that books took precedence over old dad.  He often mentioned his worry about how Greta would fare after he passed.

He had been right to worry.  She still wasn’t what anyone would call socially adept.  Now, two years without her beloved father, she still didn’t get along with those her own age.  She recognized the irony that when she was a child she preferred the company of adults, and now that she was an adult, she prized the company of children.  Though she enjoyed the children, and they also enjoyed her, she still felt as if she were a circular child’s block being shoved into a hole in the shape of a square.  She figured that she would never fit in anywhere.  After all, she never had. 

When she was in the throes of childhood misery, Greta was perpetually the butt of jokes that she did not comprehend, but which cut deep nonetheless.  Now as an adult nothing much had changed except for the names she was called, and the ages of those hurling the insults.   She had all the town’s children’s rapt attention every Saturday morning as she read them book after book of brilliant lovable characters.  But that was little consolation for the open ridicule she was rewarded with from most of the other folks in town.  To the women she was too plain to be what they referred to as “stylish”, and therefore she was unwanted.  To the men, she was too plain for a second look, and too smart to be talked down to.  So they just ignored her.  On top of that she was widely known to man and woman alike to be odd.  It was incomprehensible to her how anyone could prefer human company to that of books.  

On occasion when she tried to overcome her prejudices, and attract some friends, hoping for a male one, she was openly taunted.  Trying to add curl to her limp and dull hair, and pinch color into her ghost white cheeks was too much energy to waste on illiterate cretins, she was sure! 

On the rare occasions when the solitude would fester in her chest, leaving her with an overpowering ache, she would turn, once again, to the colorful people locked in her imagination who all had been born from books.  She did everything that she could to remind herself that she had all that she needed.  She was self sufficient, and that gave her freedom that other women couldn’t enjoy.  Most women her age had forfeited everything, freedom, wealth, and even their bodies to husbands.  She was the sole owner of a cozy cottage that her father, a retired literature professor, had bequeathed to her.  She firmly reminded herself, often, that she had a good life.  She did what she pleased, when she pleased.  If it struck her to dance a jig on the dinner table, well then, she could!  And she could do it without the complaints of anyone else!

Greta went about her dusting as she mentally prepared herself for her day.  It was Tuesday, so she needed to make a firm decision on a book to read Saturday morning, and she had to post it as well.  Abruptly, she was jarred out of her thoughts by a reverberating crash that came from a distant book lined shelf.  Greta’s head shot up, ears strained, body pulled taught like a bowstring.  She warred with herself on the proper response to the crash, and for a moment she just stood there stock-still, lost, irritated and frightened.  Another crash and the pitiful sound of paper shredding healed her paralysis.  Silently, she padded toward the back of the library.  She slid in between two rows of thickly populated shelves, and peered around as far as she could.  A motley mountain of her precious books was built around the demolished frame of the shelf.  Rage rolled over her at the site of shredded paper littering the floor.  It wasn't the soon coming cleaning jag she had to face that infuriated her so.  It was the sight of her helpless comrades lying in tatters.  Gathering her courage, she walked around her bookshelf barrier and edged her way around the destroyed novels.  As she neared the mess, the first thing that struck her was the thick reek of body odor.  The second was a huge beefy body slamming her into one of the standing shelves with enough force to knock over the structure and send her flying like some deranged goose atop the jumble.  The reeking intruder ran headlong for the door, not giving her another look.

Too stunned to move, Greta remained sprawled over the corpses of many a writer’s toil.  She pushed herself up to her elbows, and stared after the smelly blur that had destroyed her haven.  The clatter of the front door being forced open wrung an indignant, “What?” out of her.  Running on irrational outrage, she tottered crazily to the door.  Her ire deepened when she spied the front door.  It hung precariously from a single hinge.  It was still swaying from the assault on it.  The wretched screech of the over taxed hinge was the last insult.

“Why you burly, reeking, jackass!” Greta shrilled.

With a purposeful stride, she aimed directly to the Marshal’s office.   

Marshal Heney eyed the woman dubiously.  

“Books, you say?”

“Yes,” Greta hissed.  She had been standing there for over twenty minutes trying to pry the lawman out of his chair.  Apparently, the man’s fanny was permanently imbedded into the fiber of the wood!

“But nothin’ was stolen?”

“No,” she bit out through clenched teeth.

“So what is it, exactly that you ‘spect me to do?”

“Getting off of your derriere would be a nice start, Marshal Hiney…uh, Heney.”

Greta found herself pinned to the floor with the marshal’s icy glare.  Eyes narrowed, he brought up his legs to plunk ceremoniously on his desk.

“Sounds like your lib’ary needs a better lock.”

Aware of the obvious dismissal, Greta tilted her head, considered the Marshal for a moment like a big cat would it’s next meal.

“Sounds more like the town needs a better Marshal.”  With that, she turned on her heel, intent on her mission.

Sam Cain eyed the letter with a quirky grin.  Being Territorial marshal left you open for all sorts of demands and complaints, but this woman worried about her books was good for a giggle.  When a woman got a bee in her bonnet, why was it she always wanted to stir up a hornet’s nest?  He had to give the woman, what was her name, Greta, credit though.  It was a really eloquent and well thought out letter even if it was absolutely pointless.  He dropped the paper into a drawer, certain that it would not be the last time he heard from Greta Pedersen, or about what a lazy Marshal Lester Falls had.  At least that part, he knew, was reliable information.  He felt for the town, but the marshal had not proven to be ineffective even if he was a might lazy.  Sam didn’t have the manpower to go sending a new marshal or an investigator for a library anyhow.  Rising from his chair, he donned his hat and coat, and aimed home to Emma and a hot dinner.

Greta did her best to ignore Marshal Heney as he skulked in the corner, ignoring her rather flamboyant interpretation of Gulliver’s Travels. She was so incensed by his presence she was tempted to cut her reading short.  Looking back at her charges, their little faces proving their rapt attention on the story, she decided against it.  She couldn’t stand that oaf lurking about though.  He was staring at her as if she were a fly sorely in need of a boot heel.  What was his excuse for showing up anyway?  He had no children, and he certainly didn’t make it his habit to read.  Perhaps he’d made strides in finding out who broke into her library.  Oh yes, and perhaps she’d go home today only to find that her cat had not only taken up piano, but had mastered Mozart!  At least he had figured out how to extricate his hindquarters from the chair in his office.  Bully for him, she thought sourly.  Rolling her eyes dramatically, she glared at him.  His grin was anything but warm when he shrugged at her, and walked away.  She was going to have to write the territorial marshal again.  She wasn’t surprised that Heney was ignoring the fact that the library had been ransacked, but it was strange the way he’d been making time to pester her lately.  He didn’t ask questions about the man she saw, he didn’t ask how many books were destroyed, he didn’t even inquire as to whether or not they had been replaced yet, he just…lurked like some malevolent creature.  It was creepy, plain creepy.  He made the works of Edgar Allen Poe seem warm and fuzzy as compared to the inherent malevolence of his countenance.  She most certainly needed to write another letter to Mr. Cain.  Yes, she decided she would do just that.  She’d write again, as soon as she got home.  And she’d write him until she got something out of him!

 Shaking off the rain, Sam strolled through the post office to the counter.  He had about forty minutes before he had to meet Emma for lunch, and he wasn’t going to force a bad mood on himself by working that little chunk of time away.  He smiled his most charming smile to the lady behind the counter.  She was a wicked old hag that would refuse to give you your mail if she didn’t like you.  He had a mind to give her a good talking to, but Emma wouldn’t let him.  She insisted that you catch more bees with honey that vinegar…as if he wanted to catch bees anyhow.  So Sam always did his impression of Cody.  Instead of annoying her as it did most people, as Cody did most people, she seemed to enjoy it.  Strange one, she was.  

“Howdy, Miss Winterbourne.  I hope this weather ain’t making you too miserable.”

“It is indeed, Marshal Cain, with people coming in and out of here all day, letting the cold in, then demanding all sorts of things out of me.  It’s just a nuisance I tell you.”

Sam squelched the urge to tell her that it was her job to do the things people were demanding of her.  Instead he turned on the charm.

“I’m sorry to hear that ma’am, I sure do hope things get better for you.  Listen, I was wondering if I had any mail today.  You know how important it is for me to stay on top of those Wanted Flyers.”

Pursing her lips, she did a curt little spin, and grabbed up a stack of posters interspersed with envelopes.  Slapping them on the table with a thunk, she crossed her arms in that way all women had of letting a man know she was irritated with him.

“Thank you much, Ma’am.  You have a good day, now.”  With that, he was headed happily back into the freezing rain.  It was warmer in the weather than it was in Miss Winterbourne’s presence anyway.  No wonder she had never married.  If a man kissed her his lips would stick to her face, like a child’s tongue to an icicle.
 

Shoving his napkin and silverware aside, Sam made himself comfortable at the table.  He figured the restaurant was as good a place as any to kill a half-hour.  He deposited his pile of mail on top of the menu, and began sifting through it.  There was a wanted poster for Hal Griffith.  He was wanted dead or alive for killing a judge’s daughter.  There were a few letters.  One was from Kid.  Sam figured that would make Emma happy.  She still held reign over those boys as if she’d never left.  They had an extended family that stretched clean across the country, and nothing would suit Emma better than to have them all lassoed like a bunch of cattle, and delivered straight to her.  He dug through a few more Wanted Posters.  He eyed a gold theft suspect critically, trying to commit the name to memory, Percy Waylan.  He moved on to a horse thief, and did the same with his name.  Finally he came to another letter.  He didn’t recognize the name, but the light feminine hand intrigued him.  He just didn’t get letters from women often.  He mostly got news from the boys, or other men looking for work in his office or as a Marshal serving under him.  Slipping his finger beneath the flap of the envelope, he pulled it open.  It was from that librarian again.  He remembered her.  He ignored the pleasantries at the beginning, and went straight to the heart of it.  The Marshal was bothering her.  No, Sam corrected himself, frightening her.  Huffing, he scratched at his whiskers.  Well, it could be that she was a pretty gal, and the Marshal wanted a little attention, but it could also mean trouble.  He didn’t like to give things the time to fester into trouble.  Shuffling the papers around the table, he considered his options.  He really couldn’t spare a man.  He was short as it was.  He’d been begging Buck for years to come work for him, but the boy was stubborn.  He refused to leave Teaspoon alone to tend Rock Creek by himself.  Sam had reminded Buck half a dozen times that Barnett was still there to help Teaspoon, but Buck would just look at him with that one eyebrow raised, and say, “Like I said, I can’t leave Teaspoon here alone.”  He was a good kid though.  Sam gave himself a mental slap.  Buck was far from a kid.  He was a man now, as were the rest of Emma’s boys.  Sam chewed on his lip.  Buck was nothing if not loyal.  Maybe Sam could talk him into helping out just this once.
 

Chapter 2

Buck eyed the lanky man warily.  He stood five feet seven inches at most, and he looked to weigh about a hundred pounds, maybe.  Buck had personally seen his proficiency with steel though.  As they stood in the courthouse, swearing in the new deputy, Buck felt not only like a failure, but also like some antiquated piece of hardware that would serve better in the refuse pile.  Buck knew that there was so much more bothering him than the new deputy.  Norman Walker was not even on the top of his list, though he was close.  

Buck was floundering.  He didn’t live, he existed.  He took care of any job Teaspoon gave him.  He kept his little cabin in working order.  His horses were healthy and well cared for.  He had a deep and enduring relationship with his surrogate father, Teaspoon.  He even kept in touch with Emma and Sam, Lou and Kid, Jimmy, and Cody.  The latter two were hard to keep in touch with so those letters were a little sporadic, but still, he had friends.  He was a model citizen, but it wasn’t enough to be considered as such by most folk.  When he and Teaspoon patrolled the streets, the good people of Rock Creek called their hellos to Teaspoon and only Teaspoon.  It never failed that if he were the only deputy on duty in the jail, whomever it was that needed help would ask for Teaspoon or Barnett first.  More often than not, they would demand someone else to help them.  He’d been called “dirty injun” more times than he could count, and his emotional resources were running low.  

He felt like he should be used to things by now.  He’d been walking in this world, wearing white man’s clothes for a long, long time now.  But it still hurt.  Every single time, it hurt.  The scorn seemed magnified now, somehow.  He was restless; this life wasn’t really a happy one.  Sure, he had a decent job, earning decent money, but the so-called decent folk weren’t very decent.  They were uncivil in their kindest moments, and the irony was that he was the one they considered the savage.  He knew he was generalizing, but his mood was black as pitch.  He wanted peace.  He wanted respect, which he’d earned time and again without it paying off.  He wanted to feel good again.  He wanted happiness.  He craved it.  He wanted a family of his own, a wife who cared for him, children to love.  But he could see no light at the end of the tunnel.  He no longer believed he would ever receive those things he so passionately desired, and so truly deserved.  He garnered nothing any normal man would.  He was undeserving for he was not a man, but a savage.  

He’d stand there with a blank smile plastered on his face until the deputizing was done.  He’d shake Walker’s hand, congratulate him, and then walk out to brood.  Teaspoon had noticed Buck’s malaise of late.  He had often suggested that Buck “go to town” which was Teaspoon’s way of telling him to go to another town, knock boots with some painted lady, and come back magically happy.  He’d even attempted to do just that, but as he walked up the steps to the cathouse the hollow monster in his belly only grew stronger.  That void gaped wider and grew hungrier with every step he took toward the house of ill repute.  He’d lost his stomach for it, and turned back around at the front door only to hear some drunken saloon girl mumble, “Oh Lesley, thank God, he’s leaving!”  His money wasn’t good even to a whore.  His brown hands had dirtied it, and would dirty her.  He almost laughed at that irony, but he just didn’t have the energy these days.

 With congratulatory hoots and ample slaps on the back, the little ceremony was over.  Walker was now an official deputy.  Buck was now officially washed up.  He did as he planned. He shook the man’s hand, uttered a few hollow accolades, and headed for the door.  He had some heavy thinking to do.  He just couldn’t go on like this much longer.  He made it as far as his horse. With one foot in the stirrup he was poised to mount when Teaspoon caught up to him. 

“Buck!  What are you, hard of hearing, son?  I need to talk to you.”

“I’m sorry Teaspoon, I need to run.  What do you need?”

“I need a favor.”

It was always good to be needed.  Buck dropped his foot back to the ground.

“What do you need?”

“Well, it’s not me, you see.  It’s actually part of the reason I got us a new deputy.”  The older man paused.  He seemed to weigh his words.  “Sam needs you.  I got a telegram a few days ago.  You’ve been too surly to approach, but I decided to take my chances today.  I can’t waste more time.  He says there is a town that has a lazy Marshal, and he has no men to take a look-see.  The Marshal’s been bothering a librarian.  You might want to go in in-cog-nito,” Teaspoon enunciated each syllable of the word separately.  “If you know what I mean.  The only man he trusts to do it don’t work for him no how.  That’s why he had to ask for you specifically.”

Buck chewed on that for a moment, pushing down the irritation building in him.  So they were plotting now, were they?  

“Teaspoon, if you don’t want me to be a deputy anymore, you could just say so.”

“Buck,” Teaspoon growled.  Rolling his eyes with a dramatic flair, he cleared his throat, pursed his lips, and wheezed.  For another moment he simply stared at Buck.  As soon as the younger man began to fidget, he spoke again.  “I don’t know what it is that’s took hold on you, son, but it’s planting poison in your head.  You best fight your way out of this funk because it pains those here who care for you.  Now Sam asked for you, not b’cause I want to be rid of you, but b’cause he needs you.  He’s been after you for years to join him.  Now all you have to do is get your fool head back on straight, and stop reading something into nothing.  Are you going to go or not?”

With a resigned sigh, Buck nodded.  Teaspoon always knew what to say and how to say it to give the proper caliber kick in the pants.  A phantom smile actually fought its way to his face.  

“Where am I going?”  

“Lester Falls.”

“I might as well be going to the moon.”

“Oh don’t be dramatic.  You sound like Cody.  It ain’t that far.”

Duly chastised, Buck replied, “It’s not a stone throw either.”

“That might be a good thing.  It seems to me you could use a change of scenery.” 

“That I could,” Buck admitted.

“There’s a train later today.  It goes to Cypress Creek, to Sam’s.  He’ll send you on from there to Lester Falls.  You think you’ll be ready to be on that train?”  

“I’ll be there.”

With a sage nod of his gray head, Teaspoon turned toward the telegraph office.  “I’ll just go send word to Sam,” he told no one in particular.

“Teaspoon,” Buck called.

The older man turned, cocked out a foot, and slid his thumbs under his suspenders, waiting.

“That librarian pretty?”

Teaspoon spared a glance at the sky.  “Thank God almighty!  The spunk is finally coming back to him,” he said to the clouds.

Buck ignored Teaspoon’s show of dramatics.

Teaspoon pasted on a serious face again.  “Well, I don’t rightly know, but you will soon enough.”  He winked at Buck, straightened his hat, and turned back to the telegraph office.

The train ride was pretty good as far a train rides went.  He had a whole car to himself, not because no one would sit with him, but because Sam had commissioned a private car for him.  The old scoundrel knew he’d come!  Buck rested his head on the back of the plush seat.  He could definitely get used to this.  It seemed that all of the worries that dragged at him in Rock Creek were left there.  He felt fresh, like he might just have a future after all.

Buck stared at the secretary.  He swam through all of the nasty replies crawling in his head to find one that wouldn’t get him slapped.  “Yes, I’m sure he’s expecting me.”

“Who am I to say is calling on him, again?”

“Buck Cross.”  Buck ground his teeth together.  He refused to make a bad impression worse by choking the life out of Sam’s secretary.  After all, it wasn’t a crime to be stupid…unfortunately.

“And who are you to him?”

The woman was overstepping her boundaries by about a thousand miles.  She had treated him with distaste from the moment she could see the color of his skin.  She had even refused to shake his hand.  She also refused to believe that a man as important as Sam Cain would have anything to do with an Indian.  She had even gone so far as to ask him how he knew Sam was expecting a Buck Cross to come around some time that day.  He told her three times that it was because he was Buck Cross.  No matter how many times he said or even spelled his name she wouldn’t admit him into the office.  She was being nosy, rude, and flip.  On occasion he liked a flippant woman, but not when the woman in question was talking to him as if he were about as smart as a box of rocks.

 “I’m an old friend.  Could you please just tell him I’m here?”

“And who are you again?”

That was it.  Buck sidestepped her desk, and opened the door labeled, “Territorial Marshal Sam Cain” in bold black print.  He was through the door before she could scoot from beneath her desk.  As soon as he shut the door, Buck smirked at the gun in his face.  He’d expected it when barging into Sam’s office.  After all, old habits die hard, and Sam would always be a gun fighter no mater how long he’d been on this side of the badge.

“Well, I’ll be damned!”  Sam holstered his revolver, and shuffled around his desk with its mountain of papers to give Buck the patented, manly, handshake-hug.  That was when the secretary burst into the room blaring about how rude Buck had been.  She was met with two lightning fast draws aimed at her face.  She gave a lady like curse before falling to the floor in a dead faint.

Seeing Sam felt good.  Really good.  Buck was carrying a packet of papers that gave him power to dethrone the residing Marshal of Lester Falls if he saw fit.  They also decreed him the new Marshal if indeed Mr. Heney proved less than competent.  Buck had insisted that this post, if it were to be, was only until a new Marshal could be found.  Sam had assured him that he understood that, but Buck had suspicions that Sam would be in no hurry to replace him.  That made him feel good too. 

Buck walked nonchalantly, making it obvious that he was taking in new surroundings.  He was trying to look like some nobody just hanging around a new town.  He wouldn’t be mentioning just whom it was he was working for unless he had to.  

Lester Falls was built in a circle.  Where many towns had a main street or a town square, Lester Falls had a circle.  It was disorienting, and strange, but as the old timer who ran the hotel had just informed him, it was a community born out of a wagon train.  The wagons had formed a circle, and when the town was moved from wagons into tents it stayed that way.  Then even later when the town was built of wood and declared a settlement it retained its circular shape.  That was a lot of information to get from someone from whom you only asked directions to the library.  Buck found that he liked the old man who went only by Tom.  He didn’t even blink when Buck asked for a room.  He smiled, took Buck's money, and gave him a key.  Buck had left there with a bounce in his step, and hope in his heart.  He scanned the area where Tom told him to look.  He had to decide first of all if the librarian was crazy, overly excitable, or truly in jeopardy.
 

Chapter 3

It wasn’t a very large building for a library.  It looked to Buck more like a closet.  But the reassuring smell of old books met him as soon as he opened the door.  He inhaled deeply, catching another scent on the air.  It was faint, but there was light flowery feminine tang to the air.  He stepped further into the building, shut the door, and got an immediate sense of claustrophobia.  The small space was overpopulated with books including the small counter in the back corner.   It too was piled with books.  Buck heard a faint grunt, and turned to see where it was coming from.  He searched the room at his eye level, and still came up with nothing though the noise was persistent.

“Blasted thing!”  He heard ground out in a quiet feminine voice.  At this, Buck understood his mistake.  He should have been looking lower. 

Leaning around a shelf, he spotted a very small birdlike woman struggling with a window.  She might have been five feet at most.  She had brown hair that seemed glued to her skull as it was pulled back in a severe bun.  Her skin was pale, dull.  Her features were nothing noteworthy, nor was her figure.  She wasn’t ugly, but she was no raving beauty either.  She wore a simple brown skirt that fit like a potato sack, and a prim white blouse that was at least two sizes too big.  She was the epitome of the dowdy librarian, and it seemed he was about to meet her up close.  Striding smoothly to where the woman was waging war with the window, he leaned in next to her.   

Reaching for the same stubborn window Buck addressed the woman. “Need some help?”

Her reaction to him, though it should have been expected, surprised and hurt him.  Upon seeing him, the color of his skin he surmised, came a muffled cry.  He had to admit that she at least tried to cover it.

“Oh!”  She stood there, mute for a moment, shrinking into the wall.  “You scared me.  I didn’t hear the door.”        

Pushing down the renewed pain, Buck aimed to sound normal.  “You need some help with that window?”  

“Uh,” she hesitated.  “It’s stuffy in here.”

“Is that a yes?”

“Oh, sure…yeah, I mean yes.”  

She had yet to make a move away from the wall.  With a jerk, the window shot upward inviting in nicely chilled air.  His claustrophobia, at least, was cured immediately.  

“Thank you,” she said politely.  “Is there something I can help you find?”

She’d shifted topics too quickly.  Buck was still intent on the fact that she was scared of him, sliding along the wall as if she hoped she could become part of it.

“I just thought I’d take a look around.”

“Well, feel free.  If you have any questions just ask.”  A frail smile faltered across her homely face.

Disgusted, Buck walked to a nearby shelf and pretended to examine its contents, brooding all the way.  He was sent here to help this woman.  He was sure she was the librarian.  It was just a little obvious.  How was he supposed to help her when she was too frightened by his heritage to even carry on a simple conversation like a normal person? 
 

Greta didn’t like big men.  She never had.  Her own father had had a very slim build and had only been an inch or two taller than she.  She wasn’t used to being towered over, or surrounded by bulk.  She certainly didn’t like it any better after a month of having similar men hounding her to stop demanding that the Marshal do his job.  Imagine asking such a heinous thing of a person, to do their job!  The worse part was that she hated being made to feel childlike and ineffectual due to the smallness of her frame.  She had the sharp tongue of an oversized man, unfortunately she never knew that she was saying things that were rude or inappropriate.  She simply said what was on her mind, and didn’t understand folk’s angry or shocked reactions to her. This encounter was odd, though.  The other two men Heney had sent never feigned an interest in the books.  They just walked in, threatened her to stop whining about the break-in, saying that it was far in the past and should be easily forgotten.  Then they left with the promise of a return if she didn’t comply.  Greta watched the stranger.  He was huge.  His shoulders seemed to swallow up the aisle he was standing in.  He was crowding her whole library with the sheer size of him.  She hated that!  Big men were…scary, and this one was doing weird things to her.  She felt…well…funny.  Not funny haha, but funny odd.  Biting her lip, she decided that she was being a little over dramatic.  But he really was large…and dark…and something else she couldn’t put her finger on.  She hadn’t noticed the deep color of his skin before.  Maybe he wasn’t working for Heney.  Heney despised anyone who wasn’t white, and had no qualms about shouting it loud and clear.  She figured the only way she’d ever know was to talk to him.  Steeling herself, she walked over to him, her feeling of vulnerability growing with each step.  He loomed in front of her, big and male, two things that unsettled her best.  These things were foreign and as such disconcerting to her world- men and their bulk.  She had to see if he really was a henchman or a perfectly innocent man who wanted nothing more than a good book.

“Was there something specific you wanted to find?  Maybe I can help.  I know every book in here.”
 

Buck’s eyes stopped on the white knuckled grip of her hands as they latched onto the shelf next to him.  She looked like a drowning woman holding tight to a chunk of driftwood.  Trying to calm his temper, he reminded himself that she didn’t know him, and that if she did she wouldn’t be so frightened of him.
“I’m just looking for something with some adventure.”

“Oh!  Fiction?”

He nodded, lifting a brow.  All of a sudden, she came alive.  The mousy and plain exterior was abandoned.  Her pale cheeks started a slow glow.  The dowdy creature he saw before was changing into a vital being.  With a pang and a shock he noticed that her skin wasn’t dull.  It was like carved alabaster, luminescent and a work in perfection.  It had started shining like a star, bright and beguiling as soon as he’d mentioned the kind of book he liked.  Shaking his head at the oddity of his thoughts, he looked back down at her.

“I’m sorry, did you say something?”

“I asked if you’ve ever tried Alexandre Dumas.”

“I’ve never heard of him.”

“Well, if you like adventure, you’ll love him.  There is also a great deal of French history in his books.”  With a fluttering motion of her hand, she bade to him to follow her.  With unerring precision, she went to a specific shelf, and without pausing picked up two books.   “Very educational,” she added absently.

Squeezing in next to him in the small space, she held out the books for his inspection.  All of her wariness from before seemed to have dissipated.  Buck was a bit unsettled at just how small she was compared to him.  In his youth, he’d been wiry with no serious body mass.  That lasted until he took a job building a railroad, another perverse irony in his life.  The lean body of boyhood did not cut it in the highly challenging world of laying track.  He filled out by order of necessity, and Buck never did anything half way.  He turned into a hulking creature that could drag railroad ties with little or no help.  He was still a rather large man.  He was still relatively lean, but not wiry.  He had managed keep the width of shoulder and the thickness of his arms, and the fact that he was a bachelor with no good home cooking to glut himself on had left his hips narrow and his stomach rock solid.  He was proud of his physique, but he felt like a bull in a china store standing next to such a dainty woman.  She seemed to have overcome her fear of him though, so he focused in on what she was saying.   

 “This one is called The Three Musketeers.  It’s about three musketeers, obviously.  Anyway they are the king’s special army in France, and there is a young man who wants to join their ranks, and…  I’m sorry, you might want to actually read the book yourself.”  She shrugged disarmingly, shoving the first book at him.  She caressed the other one lovingly, as if it were a child.  “This one is The Count of Monte Cristo.  It’s about a man who is imprisoned unfairly.  Well, no that’s wrong.  It’s about revenge, but the man was jailed…”  Buck looked down at her to see why she stopped talking so animatedly.  She stared up at him, a pensive expression on her face.

“You’re not here to scare me, are you?” she asked.

Losing hold of his temper, Buck slammed the book down on a nearby shelf.
“No lady.  I’m not here to scare you.  I’m not here to rape, pillage, or plunder!”

“Why not?”

Buck stared at her incredulously.  Had she really just said that?

“I have better things to do,” he gritted out.

“Like what?”  

She seemed so earnest.  She seemed to not comprehend that the things she was saying to him could have been taken as an outright proposition.  He continued to stare at her, open-mouthed.  She didn’t seem to notice that he hadn’t answered.  She continued the conversation by herself.

“Yes, well I would hope you’d have better plans.  And please stop staring.  I’m not the kind of woman that earns a man’s stare.  You’re making me feel funny.”

Buck couldn’t think of a single thing to say.  He teetered on the edged of laughter.  Either she was crazy, or so socially inept as to make Buck look as suave as Jimmy was grumpy.  

“Staring is rude, and I try to never be rude.  I just seem to manage most times without trying.  But you’re making me uncomfortable on purpose, so please stop.”  

Buck could summon up no other reaction.  He burst out laughing.

She looked genuinely perplexed, and maybe a little hurt.  She was staring up at him with huge brown eyes.  There was still fear in them.  She was a stubborn one though.  She kept her ground, staring at him almost blankly.  
“You really don’t work for Heney, do you?”

The Marshal.  Things were starting to come together, to make at least a little sense.  Though having a coherent conversation with this woman was like trying to brush Ike’s hair.  

He went along.

“Who’s Hiney?”  With a ghost of a smile, she didn’t bother to correct him.

“No one.  I was just…nevermind.  Do they sound good?”

“What?”  Buck asked.  He was having trouble following her willy nilly conversation patterns.

“The books, and don’t treat them like that anymore.”

“What?”  Buck repeated.

“You threw The Musketeers down on the shelf.  Don’t do that.”

Buck fought the urge to laugh again.  He couldn’t decide if she were crazy, or just a little, well, different.  Picking up the book he’d discarded with tender care, he smiled at her.  It was his first genuine smile in a while, and it was strung from one ear to the other.

“That better?”

She nodded, still grinning slightly.  “I’m guessing you want to set up a new account.”

“Sure.  A man’s got to have something to do with his nights.”

“You mean besides rape, pillage, and plunder?” she asked with a tipsy grin.

Blushing profusely, Buck apologized, “I’m really sorry about that.  I can be oversensitive.  People tend to be…negative sometimes, and I just,” he paused, “assume the worst.”

“Oh, and here I thought you just wanted the pirate’s life.”  She winked at him, covered one of her eyes with a tiny delicate looking hand, and threw her voice.  “Aye matey?”

Buck chuckled softly.  “I guess I’d never make it as a pirate anyhow.  I don’t have a parrot or a wooden leg!” 

She started toward the desk in the back that was hidden beneath a mountain of books.  “What brings you to our little slice of dust?”

He was blushing!  He was actually flustered, really flustered.  He felt like he’d been caught with his pants down, and when he’d first set eyes on this dowdy little bird of a woman that would have been the furthest thing from his mind.  Now, he wasn’t so sure.  She was, what was it O’hare had called spunky women?  He searched his memories of the Irish railroad worker.  A corker!  She was a corker!  And now that he was really looking at her she wasn’t half so plain.  She had a softness to her, a sweetness that seeped under a man’s skin.  She was so small and fragile looking that she automatically tapped into the protective impulses inherent to Buck’s nature.  He decided to tell the truth, a variation of it at least.

“I’m just looking into things.”

“Are you thinking of settling here?”

Buck shrugged noncommittally.  “Do you recommend it?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“There isn’t anything here.  We are in a constant state of drought.  Men have trouble finding jobs.  Women die in childbirth because we have no doctor, and probably wouldn’t want a doctor stupid enough to want to stay here.  We’re in the middle of nothing but dust with no reliable transportation.  The town is far too small for a stage or railroad route to pass through.  Our library is the size of an outhouse, and people in these parts have about that much respect for the books.  The Marshal is a lazy bigot who doesn’t care what goes on in his town as long as nothing disturbs his daily naps.  No one has any privacy because the place is so small.”

“Then why do you stay here?”

“My house.  It’s just outside of town.  My father taught at a university about twenty miles east. When I got old enough to stay nights by myself he moved us there.  He liked this place.  He thought it was “cozy.”  So he spent his weeks at the university and his weekends here.  I have never had the pleasure of leaving.  He wasn’t here enough to dislike it.”

“But you stay.”

“I have a house.  I have a job.  I’m a property owner here because my father left it to me.  I don’t think I would be allowed to own land anywhere else.”

“Well, what about when you get married?  You could leave then.  You won’t own land by yourself anymore, but you’d get away from Lester Falls.  You could just move somewhere off, and share land with your husband.”

Her lips were a grim line.  She looked at him like she was angry, but he had no idea what he said that could have upset her.

“My cat can play Mozart.” 

Bewildered, Buck gaped at her.  “Did you say that your cat can play Mozart?”  Maybe she really was crazy, Buck thought grimly.

“Yes, my cat can play Mozart, and I’m going to get married.  In fact, I just may marry my cat!”

“Are you feeling all right?”

“Just dandy.  Why are you making fun of me?”

“Making fun of you?  I’m not, I-“

“You know, just because a girl isn’t particularly pretty doesn’t mean a man
 should make fun of her for it.  Then again maybe you aren’t getting enough air to your brain being that your head is in the clouds.  Besides, I’m tired of talking to your kneecaps.”  With a shocking switch in conversation she asked him for an address to keep on record.

 “I’m staying at the hotel.”

 “At Tom’s?”

 “Yes.”

 “Fine.”

“Name, last name first, first name last.”

“Cross, Buck,” he answered slowly.

She made a few notes, put some in a ledger on her desk and the others into pockets in the backs of the books.  

“Take good care of these.  They are my dear friends.  You must have them back in a week, and if you leave before then please don’t forget to drop them off.”

“Wait a minute!” Buck nearly shouted.  His temper was boiling closer and closer to the explosion point, though he wasn’t quite sure why he couldn’t seem to keep it in check.  After all he’d only been doing just that all of his life.  If anyone he knew well were to be asked, they would insist that Buck was easy going and definitely not a hot head.  But for some reason this spindly little woman was bringing out the Jimmy in him!   “What just happened?” he had to remind himself not to shout.  “I think you just insulted me, and I want to know why.”

“You did know that the books had to be returned?” she asked curtly.

“Well of course, but why…”  Did you say that you were tired of talking to me, Buck wanted to ask.  “Why the insults?” he finally managed without obeying his brain’s command to shake the problem out of her.

“You were making fun of me!  That means I can insult you if I want!  You… you…big oaf!”

“Big oaf?” he repeated.  “How was I making fun of you?  I’ve been nothing but nice to you, even when you made sure I knew you didn’t want me in here.”

“What?  I am a librarian!  I want everybody in here!  I want everybody in here reading!”

“You didn’t want an Indian in here.  You practically tried to burrow your way into the wall!  You were scared to death of me!”

“I wasn’t burrowing!  I was…I was scared!”

“Of an Indian,” Buck finished for her.

“No, you big mean brute!  I was scared you came to kill me like they said they would!”

Their voices were loud enough to be heard on the street, but no one came to the defense of the dowdy young woman who worked in the library.

“Wait a minute.  You thought I was going to kill you?”

“Well the others were strangers as well.  You were a stranger too.  It just stands to reason…  Why wouldn’t you be the one to come kill me?  Good grief, you could probably just step on me and be done with it!  They told me they’d send somebody if I kept on about the break in, and I haven’t stopped.”

“Someone threatened your life?”

“They all did.”

“Heney?”

“No, but he sent the others, I know he did.  He’s been creeping around here like death himself-”  She stopped dead.  “Wait a minute.  How do you know about Heney?”  he demanded.

“Just go on.”  It was an order that she didn’t seem to care to argue about.  Well at least the was one thing in his favor, Buck thought morosely.

“He’s been dogging my every move.  I think he was even trying to peek through my windows a few nights ago.  I wrote the territorial marshal several times, but I didn’t get an answer.  And now I’m babbling to you, looking even more pathetic.  So go ahead and make fun of me some more.  Then go away.  I have a headache now.”

He should have told her that he was the territorial marshal’s answer.  He should have been thinking about the situation, and how bad it had actually become.  He should have been thinking about getting in touch with Sam, but all he could think about was the possibility that she wasn’t disgusted by the color of his skin.  He stared hard at her for a moment.  

She met his gaze dead on, and made a sour face at him.

“I think I will marry Oscar,” she muttered to herself.  “I’ll wear his collar as a ring.”  She shoved at the books piled high on the circulation desk.

“You weren’t scared because I’m Indian?” Buck clarified, trying to retain his sanity after the strange conversation with the woman.  White woman didn’t really marry cats, did they?

“Well what does that have to do with the price of eggs in China?” she asked, planting her hands on her hips.

Shaking his head, trying to clear it Buck asked, “So what about this making fun of you?  I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Yes you do.  You all do.”

“All who?”

“Men.”

“I’m still lost.”

“Men usually are.”

Making a sound that sounded much like an over taxed pressure cooker, Buck made a concerted effort to keep his voice level.  He wasn’t successful. 

“Damn it!  What did I say to offend you?”  Buck never spoke this way to woman.  Never.  He was the calm one, the ever introspective, and level headed one in his group of peers.  Why he was so up in arms with this little slip of a girl was beyond him, but he had a very passionate response to her for some reason.  She made him want to yell, really yell.  She made him want to renounce all of those years of living almost silently in the corner, meek and trying to be white.  She made him want to grab a hold of her, shake some sense into her, and kiss her silly! Gritting his teeth he belittled his treasonous brain.   He’d just met her, she was plain, and odd, and most likely crazy.  He couldn’t want to kiss her, shouldn’t…did.   Shrugging in defeat, he decided that he didn’t really know who was truly the crazy one in the room.

“Cursing at me offends me too,” she said stubbornly.  “But the remark you made about a husband hurt my feelings.”

“Oh, for goodness sake, why?  Are you that obsessed with being sole owner of a chunk of land?”  Well why wouldn’t she be?  Every other white is! Buck reminded himself.

“Girls like me don’t get married, Mr….Mr…”

“Cross.  Buck Cross, remember?”  He pointed to her ledger where his name was written in her small precise handwriting.

“Obviously not!” she cried out.

“Let’s just both calm down.”

She ignored his suggestion completely.

“Women like me don’t get married, Mr. Cross.  We end up old maids with a hundred cats, and a penchant for talking to ourselves!  All I have to look forward to in my old age is watching the neighborhood children make bets on who is brave enough to knock on the “crazy old Pedersen lady’s” door, and owning that little chunk of land, as you call it.  Anyway, it is very ungentlemanly of you to point out that I’m an old maid.”

“That isn’t what I was doing.  You aren’t old anyway.  A little crazy maybe, but not old.”  She had to be crazy!  The woman had the skin of a newborn, smooth, and perfect.  No wrinkles there.  Why did she consider herself old?  Buck considered the adage that Teaspoon quoted quite frequently. Women went by a rule book that men weren't allowed to see, and couldn’t comprehend!

“You weren’t?”

“No.”

“You’re sure?”

“Pretty sure.”

She gave him a considering look.  “Okay.  I’m sorry for jumping to conclusions.  I guess I can be a little over sensitive too.”

“Apology accepted.  Now do you think you could give me your name?  I mean besides ‘crazy Pedersen lady’.”

“Oh!  I’m so sorry!  Greta.  I’m Greta Pedersen.”

“Nice to meet you Miss Pedersen.”  Buck proffered a hand, which she took.  Too late, he realized that offering his hand had been a bad idea.  A very bad idea.  The moment their flesh met flashes of fire roared through him.  He felt like an electrical storm had started in his body.  It raged through him, making his limbs go thick and slow seeming to move like some kind of molten rock.  He was aware that she had said something, but for the life of him he didn’t know what it was.

“I’m sorry?” he said shakily as he withdrew his hand.

“Greta.  I prefer Greta,” she repeated.  “I’m not big on formality.  I never do well in formal situations.”

“Buck then.  Call me Buck.”  He still wasn’t quite sure if he was making sense.  He wasn’t sure if he had since he’d met her.

“Well, Buck.  I hope you enjoy your books, and I’m sorry about the mix up.”

“Which one?”

Her skin flushed beautifully.  “All of them.”

Still off kilter, Buck managed to walk out of the library without falling over.  If he had the gall to fall on some of her books, she’d probably tear his arm off, and beat him to death with it.  Oddly, he enjoyed his peculiar thought and giggled at it.  Buck Cross walked back to his hotel room, a large, dark, imposing man, giggling like a giddy schoolgirl.  The day was only to get more bizarre.

Greta stared after Buck Cross.  Her arm still hung limp from her shoulder as if it had been whisked to the consistency of pudding.  The heat of Buck’s big body was still potent in the air, giving her an airy feel in her head.  Is that what all the fuss was about in so many books?  Is that why women tolerated men?  Because they felt…good.  Shaking her head at herself, she snorted.  Well she certainly was a little idiot.  One handshake and she almost swooned.  Closing her eyes, she committed to memory every nuance of Buck’s face.  The sharp angles of his face that melted softly into his mouth were enough to have her drooling like a starved animal at the sight of a fresh juicy steak.  Both the length and the silky shine of his hair made her jealous.  All of her life she’d gathered that women were the beautiful sex.  She’d never again take that for granted after meeting Buck Cross.  She swallowed hard as she recalled the way his coat hung on his wide shoulders, the way the line of his body rose in a distinct V shape as it ran up to his chest.  His chest…  Desperately trying to stop the lascivious thoughts from rolling through her head, she looked for something to do.  She latched onto one of the new replacement books that she had to process, and reminded herself that she had a pile of them to go through.  Work.  Yes, she had to box up the destroyed copies of the books as well. She was constantly getting books with stained or missing pages. She could use the destroyed books to replace them.  Work would be her lifesaver, and Buck Cross would be the death of her.  Hearts, she was sure, were not meant to beat half so fast!