Alicia Camano was peeling potatoes in the kitchen when she heard footsteps on the front veranda. The patio door squeaked open. She called out, asking if it was Lauren home from school. Amos came through from the lounge looking distinctly ill. She checked her wristwatch. "You're home early."

     Camano slumped onto a chair. "I feel awful. Reckon I have a chill."

     "What - in this weather?"

     "Well, maybe not. It could be something I ate. Anyway, the sheriff has sent me home and says I can take tomorrow off if necessary."

     Alicia remembered seeing Amos like this before: the sunken eyes, bloated face, perspiring brow, quivering hands. She knew the symptoms were stress related. "Maybe I should call Doc Bailey."

     Camano waved a dismissive hand. "No, don't bother. I have tablets somewhere that he prescribed when I last had a bad head - and I sure have one now."

     "Those tablets were from years ago. I threw the rest of them away last year: they were out of date."

     Camano rose slowly, groaning. "I'll go rest on the bed."

     "Shall I pour peach juice for you?"

     "No thanks, I'll just lie down."

     Alicia waited until he had retired, then picked up the telephone and called Doc Bailey.


Lennox had a couple of hours to wait before collecting Lucy and Rita at five o'clock. He asked Duffy the way to Klondike Lane. "Go past the school," said Duffy, "the lane is a winding cut through the trees and the long grass on your left. There are a few homesteads along the track after you have passed the Page holding, the Scanlon farm is about a half mile further on. You cannot miss it. The Scanlon name is in front of you, painted on the side of an old covered wagon.

     Lennox paid his bill. "I hear Lucy has lost her dad," he said.

     Duffy nodded. "Yeah, he died a year back, nice guy, left a wife and Lucy." Duffy collected crockery from the tables - it was closing time. He wondered why this stranger in black was hanging around town. Was it really to trace two youngsters from the past? There was nothing in Julienne for a traveller, but Duffy sensed Lennox was a man you did not question - unless, that is, you were Sheriff Ethan Jones, a strict, stubborn sheriff who detested strangers.


     Returning to the Pontiac, Lennox drove slowly past the school and eased along Klondike Lane. Tall grass brushed against the auto's windows. As Duffy had said, scarred and bleached wooden homesteads were scattered in the crop fields. He came upon the Scanlon farm gate, indicated by the Scanlon name painted in a now flaking white across the withered boards of an ancient covered wagon. It was exactly as Duffy had said. There was room for Lennox to turn at the gate and drive back to Julienne. Several hens squawked as he reversed, then changed his mind and decided to park under a huge spruce.

     The Scanlon home lay well back from the lane. There was no sign of Mrs Scanlon. Lennox sat back, Stetson over face, and dozed. Amy came to mind. Strawberry blond-haired young woman, sky-blue headband, with a fine boyfriend - everything to live for, yet she disappeared as cleanly as if she had never existed. Lennox picked up Amy's photograph and studied it. Somebody certainly knew what had happened to her, but who was that somebody? He thought of Johnny Benson. The search seemed to have forgotten about him - maybe because his folks had moved away from Bordville. Lennox wondered if he were drifting off track, for surely the area to search was along the west coast - starting with Seattle. The Kingdom folk had stated that after Amy and Johnny had visited the Kingdom they had returned to the main highway using the High Cut Pass to head for Allenby. There were no reports of them reaching Allenby on this occasion. So where had they gone? Pa Hayden had suggested they might have travelled south on the river but doing that would take them away from Seattle. Lennox made a mental note to ask Webster to check with the rivermen who worked the barges and the hired boats on the Medo river.


Doctor Alexander Bailey was adamant Mrs Camano was right to call him out. Amos was suffering stress. "Let him rest," Bailey said. "I've given him a mild sedative. The tablets are at his bedside. The instructions are on the bottle. They are the same as I prescribed some years ago. He should be okay within twenty-four hours."

     Daughter Lauren did not take Doctor Bailey's conclusion lightly; as an only child, she loved her parents and asked Mum what was wrong with Dad. Tall, willowy, Alicia, of Mexican descent, said it was the heat, but she wondered if it was anything to do with the robbery.

     Lauren trod lightly up the stairs, peered through the part-open door, saw Dad, eyes closed, resting on a double bed. He moved slightly when she reached bedside. She sat next him and kissed his cheek. It was damp. "Dad," she whispered. He groaned but did not answer: the sedative had taken effect.


Sheriff Jones found himself surprisingly lonely without Camano. They had been partners for years, for more years then Jones cared to remember. He recalled the first day they had arrived together in Julienne - a sweltering day in August. The town had not changed much in those years; just the same timber buildings along High Street with smaller properties built along adjoining streets. Jones reasoned the only real change was the level of the street dust blown by the mountain breeze, sometimes dragging the dirt into swirling spirals that cavorted along as though dancers on a wild west stage. He recalled the Julienne townsfolk awaiting their arrival: Sheriff Joe Alonzo and his deputy had reached the end of their service, and the County powers, after much quibbling had ruled that Jones and Camano should police Julienne. Jones remembered the first days of take over. They were awkward days, for Sheriff Alonzo and Deputy Smithers had left town the following morning, and Jones found himself with a town to police, and not knowing whom the good folks were and whom the bad were. At first, the Camano family were unsettled in this, the first year of their marriage, but the arrival of their only child, Lauren, two years later, helped them acclimatize.

     Children's laughter nudged Jones from his reverie. He stood up from his veranda chair and hitched his belt. He glimpsed Sandra Asquith approaching, walking her minute King Charles spaniel on its leash. She would be heading to visit a nearby friend to talk of dogs. Sandra Asquith, almost six feet tall, slender, late forties, beautifully dressed as though living in the 20s, was carrying a tiny blue and grey coloured parasol, more for style rather than protection from the powerful sun. Jones fervently wished for rain.  "How are we today, Mrs Asquith?"

     Sandra smiled. "I'm fine, sheriff. What do you think of Pixie, my lovely spaniel?"

     "He looks good, ma'am, and you are an absolute picture yourself."

     "Why, thank you, sheriff," she gushed, giving the parasol a delighted twist. "I see Olivia has a dog now. It is very large. Does it have pedigree?"

     "Not that I know of." Jones came down the veranda steps. "Although I do believe it is a distant relation to a llama."

     "Good Lord! Is it really? I must look that up in my canine catalogue."

     Jones raised his Stetson. "I do hope you find the right breed, ma'am. Now, if you will excuse me, I have work to do."

     Mrs Asquith watched him stroll along the sidewalk. She pouted. Imagine having the relative of a llama living in your house. It was positively revolting.


Jones did not walk far beyond Rick's Bar: it was too damned hot, and anyway, there was nobody to staff the office. As if to challenge his patience, one of his office telephones rang. "To hell with that," he muttered. "This is one sheriff who is not ruled by somebody on the other end of a telephone cable. I don't give a damn who is calling - it's probably a wrong number anyways." He frowned at his boots. Maybe it was a call about Tommy, plus that mouthy partner of his. But why should he be thinking of them? They were just two bad guys on the run. Although preferring to do nothing, Jones admonished himself at the missed opportunity of two arrests.

     A silver Pontiac came into view from Klondike Lane. Jones glowered as the Pontiac passed him and stopped outside his office. Lennox got out, and Jones, remembering how John Wayne walked in western films, pulled down his Stetson and ambled to the office steps. "Okay, Mr Lennox, I take it you've come to tell me you're leaving town."

     Lennox shook his head. "No, not yet, I have business here."

     "What sort of business?"

     "Have we met before? I'm talking of years ago."

     "Not that I recall."

     "When I first arrived, sheriff, you came into the bar and you said I looked familiar. I'm saying the same thing to you, sheriff. You look familiar to me. I'm sure we met some years back."

     "I doubt that. I ain't seen you anywhere - not ever."

     "Are you sure of that?"

     "I'm sure. To me, you're a stranger. We have never met, so stop wasting my time."

     Lennox moved back to the Pontiac. "Okay, I take your word for it. By the way, I'm collecting Lucy from the bar and Rita from Marriott's at five and I'm taking them home. That doesn't bother you?"

     Jones shook his head. "Nothing bothers me, mister. However, I never figured you to be a one-man taxi service." He waited until Lennox had driven off and parked outside Rick's Bar before going into the office, pondering his next move. Maybe he was reading more into Lennox being in Julienne than he should, but maybe, just maybe, Lennox was really a New York cop, for he was asking questions just as a cop  would ask. But Jones could not believe just how much Lennox resembled a man from the past - and that man, Billy Radford, was definitely not a cop. 

     Minutes later the telephone rang, Jones put his hand on the instrument: feeling the ringing vibrations running up his arm. He let it ring several times before
answering. "Hello, Sheriff Jones speaking."

     Sheriff Webster's voice on the line sent a warning shudder down his back. He scribbled the message on a paper notepad, nodded, said "okay", and hung up, then looked at what he had written. - Ganford Raynes arriving tomorrow from Allenby.

     Jones pursed his lips. Who the hell was Ganford Raynes?