Chief Deputy Marshall Tom Quick of the Muskogee District, Indian Territory, sat in a rocking chair on the upstairs porch of the courthouse. He loved to sit there in the evening with his boots propped up on the railing, and watch the comings and goings on Okmulgee Street. He had seen a lot of things come and go in the twenty-three years he'd been a lawman in the Indian Territory. He'd seen Muskogee when it was nothing but a wide spot in the road. And the folks that were running it these days, he'd seen them when they were still making messes in their knee-pants. Some said that Tom Quick was too old for the job these days, that all he did was sit on that porch and ramble on about the past glory of the marshalls. How quickly they could forget. They'd already forgotten how he'd rounded up Zip Wyatt's gang. How he was in on the killing of Ike Black. And they didn't even recall him running those worthless Caseys to ground.Once he had known every outlaw in the territory on sight. Now he sat on the upstairs porch and watched for kids stealing apples from the greengrocer across the street.As he sat, rocking and thinking, his boots tapping out an unknown melody, something caught his eye.
