The Law and Miss Penny Read Online Free Page B

up beside the stove, plopped her muddy body down on the canvas floor, and then stretched out to warm herself.
    Hobbling to the center of the room, Zack hung a lantern from a strap dangling down for that purpose, and lit it. Then he turned to his family, his concern reflected in his haggard features, and said, "I'd be handing both you gals some mighty tall talk if I didn't admit that I'm a mite worried about keeping the marshal around. Now that we got the poor fellah cleaned up and into one of his own flannel shirts, maybe we ought to wait for the weather to clear and just dump him at the side of the road somewheres along the way."
    Mariah laughed. "And waste all those big muscles? Didn't you notice the size of that man's shoulders?"
    "Ayuh, and I plainly did, young lady. That's exactly what I'm a-worried about. That young fellah could squash the lot of us flatter than one of the missus's griddle cakes with just a short thump of his fist."
    Oda, who was fanning the fire, cast a sleepy-eyed gaze in her husband's direction and furrowed her brow, but kept her comments to herself.
    "It'll be all right, Dad," Mariah said, referring to him with a rarely used term. She tried never to call Zack or Oda by anything other than their given names due to the confusion it could cause during a show. "Really it will, and besides—I've thought of one more way we could use him." She hadn't figured on mentioning her further plans for the lawman, but now it seemed prudent to do so. She leaned in close to both Zack and Oda, making sure their "guest" wouldn't overhear. "I'm about ready to test a few new recipes. I thought I'd let the marshal be the first to try them."
    Zack rolled his eyes, and Oda groaned.
    "It's not such a crazy idea. Some of the new things I'm working on require a different kind of testing, that's all." She paused, wondering how to explain herself without actually mentioning the secret nostrum she'd been developing of late. One mention of the term "love potion," and her very protective father would send her recipe and her plans for the future up in smoke.
    She would have to nudge him a little by dangling one of his fondest dreams under his nose. "I want to keep what I'm working on a secret a while longer, if you don't mind, but I can tell you part of my plans. If this nostrum turns out to be as special as I think it is, we'll finally see one of our products advertised in the pages of Godey's Lady's Book —maybe even in the Bloomingdale Brothers' Catalog along with Lydia E. Pinkham's Vegetable Compound."
    Zack's whistle was long and low. As before, Oda only groaned.
    Sure that her father's endorsement was no longer a problem, Mariah turned to her mother. "It isn't so hard to believe that this nostrum will be popular enough to wind up in a national magazine. Lydia Pinkham must have started out with something like that, and look how big her company got. What's wrong with using the marshal a little to help us on our way—or have you taken a shine to the man?"
    "Humph! That'll be the day." Oda turned to her husband. "I'm with Mariah. We might as well get our money's worth out of the man for as long as we can."
    Zack rubbed the sparse whiskers on his chin, as he pondered this. "All right then, but Mariah, listen up. You can't let yourself forget who he is and what he might do should you poison him or something. He is a U.S. marshal, you know, and one day, he's bound to remember that."
    Mariah laughed. "Don't worry—even though I'd like to, I promise I won't poison him. Besides, how can testing my new products on an injured man be against the law? I'm only trying to cure him."
    "I hope he sees it that way when he wakes up. Which reminds me—when he does come around, I think we ought to tell him who he really is. I'm not sure calling the man Cain Law instead of the name his dear mother gave him is gonna bode so well for us once his memory returns."
    "But we can't do that. Don't you see?" Afraid the lawman might wake up and overhear