“Hello, Billy!” said Varney when he opened the door. “Come in and have a cup!”

“No, sir, but thankee,” said the young man. “Got to get back. I’ve been sent from Sheriff Lancer. He said to give this to Mr. Corbett.” He opened the cylinder and handed a roll of parchment paper to Varney, who knew that Matthew at the moment was sitting at the bedside of his fellow constable. “Official business, y’know,” said Billy.

“I’ll see that he gets it. The good day has been a blessing, I hope?”

“Fine, sir. And for you and the missus?”

“Oh, yes. As always. Sure you don’t want a cup to warm you on the way back?”

“I’m sure, sir. Just out and home again, I promised the folks.”

“All right, then. Do give greetings to the family.”

“Yes sir, I will.” Billy started off with the cylinder in his hand and then turned back toward Varney before the door could close. “Oh … sir … I meant to say … a message from Sheriff Lancer to Mr. Corbett.”

“What might that be?”

“Merry Christmas,” said Billy, and then he went to his horse.

In the small hours of the following morning, Matthew was jarred awake by another nightmare, this one of a feeling of impending doom and the visions of indistinct faces moving in and out like dark smears against a darker background. He got up from the cotton sleeping pad on the floor at the foot of Firebaugh’s bed, where Firebaugh was sleeping as peacefully as a monk who had never known a conflict in his sheltered life. As Ann Varney had most graciously offered to wash both Matthew’s and Julian’s clothing—yet had not offered the same for the clothes of the triple murderer Matthew was charged to guard—Matthew put on the banyan robe that had been given to him from the innkeeper’s closet and quietly left the room for a breath of cold air to clear his head of phantoms.

He paused outside the room to pick up the lantern that was burning with a low wick on a nearby table and that was when he saw the open door to Julian’s room. Peering in and holding the lamp up, he saw that Julian’s bed was empty.

A noise alerted him. He walked into the parlor, where Julian stood with a blanket wrapped around himself, using a poker to stir embers in the hearth.

“I woke up cold,” Julian said, with a quick glance at Matthew. “Drafty in that damned room. Did I miss Christmas Day?”

“By a few hours,” Matthew answered.

“I always enjoyed Christmas Day.” Julian continued to poke at the embers. At the back of the hearth a few small tongues of flame began to lick at a piece of charred wood. “One can enjoy the day without belief in God, you know.”

“I imagine so.”