A Fine Day to Travel

Propped back in his chair watching the rain fall into the darkness, Floyd glanced up at Mattie's window on the second floor of the building across the street. He wondered if she was asleep, or by herself. Probably by herself, because most of the cowhands about didn't want to spent what it cost to have a woman for the whole night. And she was kind of picky, too. Just having the money wasn't enough with her sometimes. Floyd Gundersen felt his age on this rainy night. His joints ached and his heartbeat thudded in his head. He had forty-one hard years on him, a right smart for a marshal in his part of the country. He had been shot three times and he had killed nine men in his sixteen years as a lawman. All his killingsâ€"and all his woundsâ€"had been in the line of duty, and he prided himself on the fact that he had never killed a man that didn't need killing.