Paper Sheriff (10 page)

Ty said then, “Seems like it's up to Reese to make the first move.”

“If he makes any at all,” Orville replied with quiet confidence.

The Bale House stood catty-corner from the brick Bank, a frame, two-storey building that had a veranda running its length on Main Street, joined with the veranda that ran its depth along Grant Street. There must have been thirty chairs on the big, L-shaped, railed veranda. During the day, when the sun touched the Main Street section, or horse and wagon traffic stirred up too much dust, a man simply left his chair on the Main Street side and went around the corner to a chair on the Grant Street side. At night, of course, Main Street side was the favorite because it had two entrances into the hotel and one of them was the doorway into the quiet saloon. Rather than the court-house or the Best Bet or Maceys, the Bale House veranda was the place to loaf, to trade or to conduct formal business. In a way it took the place of the shaded plazas in the Spanish towns further south, except that the plazas permitted women to mingle and gossip there while no woman, unless accompanied by a man, ever sat on the Bale House veranda.

Today there was a woman sitting on the Grant Street veranda after the noonday meal and she was Jen Truro. She was accompanied by the required male, who was Reese Branham. Their presence together for dinner in the Bale House dining room had long ceased to attract attention, for it was well known by everyone that the Sheriff must work under the direction of the District Attorney or his Deputy.

Reese tossed his hat on to one of the empty barrel chairs, then sat down next to Jen. He wiped a match alight on the veranda floor boards and lit a crooked black after-dinner Cheroot.

On the days when Jen was particularly busy, she fixed a cold lunch for Sebastian, and this was one of those days. A Sheriff's Sale of a failed boarding house and its contents had to be appraised for the court, and Jen and Reese had spent the morning on this chore and would spend the afternoon. It was a hot day and breathless here in town. Perspiration stained the back and sides of Reese's starless cotton shirt, but Jen looked wonderfully cool in a primrose-colored cotton dress with green trim.

“Let's take our time getting back to that oven,” Reese said, then added resignedly, “Lord, the things a sheriff is supposed to do. Price sheets, and how do you price sheets? Are they well worn, little worn, or new?”

“How do you price a shuck mattress?” Jen countered.

They were watching the lazy noon wagon and horse traffic, when Reese saw a rider leading a saddled horse scan the Bale House veranda and then cut across the street to the tie-rail in front of it. He was Con Fraley, who with his childless wife ran a twenty-cow outfit over by the brakes that barely fed them. Con was a little man in shabby range clothes, who was born to failure and seemed to know it and not care. He dismounted now, wrapped the reins of his horse over the tie-rail, then tied the other horse by its lead rope alongside his own. He swung under the tie-rail now and mounted the steps and headed for Reese.

As he approached he wrenched off his battered hat, revealing a pale, bald skull. Halting before Reese, he said, “Figured to find you here, Sheriff.”

“What's on your mind, Con?” Reese asked.

Con turned to the two horses that he had just haltered and pointed with a thrust of his chin. “Found that gelding yesterday or I reckon he found me. He was with my horses down at the seep below the house. He was saddled just like he is now except the reins were trailing and out. It's a brand I don't know, so I can't return him.”

“What brand?”

“R-Cross, I read it.”

Reese swivelled his glance to Jen and saw her watching him. Now he rose and went down the steps, took the break in the tie-rail and walked over to the two horses. Con trailed him in silence.

Reese halted and looked over the bay. There was a cut along his right wither that obviously had been doctored recently. He went over to examine the three-inch raw furrow in the flesh. It was not ragged enough to have come from wire or brush, and Reese guessed immediately that a bullet had made it. Furthermore, the bullet had travelled from back to front for the frayed flesh around its exit pointed towards the bay's head.

“He had that cut when he come up to our place. Flies been after it, so I cleaned it up.”

Reese noted the short hoof-cut reins tied over the bay's neck. The saddle, old and worn, was free of stain and Reese realized suddenly that he was looking for blood stains that weren't there. He decided now that if Con hadn't guessed the cut was a bullet wound, he wasn't going to tell him.

He only said, “That's a Texas brand, Con. He's from a trail herd that's long gone.”

Con looked at him admiringly now. “How d'you know that?”

Reese looked down at him and smiled. “You pick up a lot of stray information in this office, Con.” He looked at the brand again and said, “I'm obliged to you for bringing him in. Drop him off at Millers, will you, Con, and tell them he's a County charge.”

Con nodded. “He looks poorly.”

“A few oats will fix that,” Reese said and turned back to the veranda. He stood beside his chair and watched Con ride off towards the feed stable, then he sat down.

“That man you said complained to you about being rustled, wasn't his brand R-Cross?” Jen asked.

Reese looked at her now. “Yes.”

“Is that his horse?”

Reese tossed his half-smoked stub out into the street and said, “That's what I'm going to find out, Jen. You're on your own this afternoon. Mind?”

“No. Your heart isn't in it anyway.”

They fell silent then and Reese gazed moodily at the street. He was remembering the day Reston came in. Unlike most of the riders who had business in the Sheriff's office, Reston hadn't tied his horse out of the sun under the horse shed. He might have tied it at the front tie-rail before the court-house entrance which would be a natural thing to do if a man didn't know the location of the Sheriff'S office in the court-house. Somebody there was bound to have seen the horse and remarked it, since the brand would be a strange one to anyone in Bale. Jen hadn't seen the bullet wound and he decided not to tell her about it either.

Now Reese picked up his hat, rose and said, “I'll stop by your house after I close up, Jen.”

Jen rose too. “I'll have everything listed, Reese, when you come by.”

They parted and Reese headed directly for the court-house. Somebody in the court offices on the first and second floors fronting the street must have seen Reston's horse at the tie-rail. As he tramped through the hot noon, he reckoned the day and the hour when Reston had visited him. The court-house bunch had just returned from dinner now. They were, Reese had learned, a loyal group, made so by politics, and also a gossipy one. Still, in the next half hour, Reese could find no one who remembered seeing the R-Cross bay on the morning of the date he mentioned. The county clerk, Abe Frohm, remembered a tall man in chaps enquiring for the Sheriff's office, but he hadn't bothered to look out and identify his horse and brand.

Back in his office Reese found Jim Daley at the desk and he slacked into the chair facing him. He told of Con Fraley's arrival at the Bale House with what could be Will Reston's horse, and he finished by saying quietly, “He's got a cut on his wither that looks like it came from a bullet.”

Daley's square face, tight with the effort to hide the pain of his strained back, looked even grimmer at this news. “Did the bullet cut line up with the saddle?”

“If a man had been riding him, the bullet would have hit him in the right thigh before it went through his leg to cut the bay. But there was no blood on the saddle or stirrup, Jim.”

Daley frowned. “He could have been drove out of the saddle.”

“Not when you see the saddle. These trail hands like a big swell, and this had it. It would have anchored him like it was meant to.”

Daley nodded thoughtfully.

Reese went on, “Somebody in town had to see that horse the day Reston was here. Nobody in the court-house did, but somebody had to.” Now he pushed himself erect. “Come on down to the feed stable with me, Jim, and get a look at the bay so you can describe him. Then you start at the Bale House and I'll start at the other end of Grant Street. Ask in every store if anyone remembers seeing Reston on that horse.”

“A strange brand is always picked up in a town this size,” Daley said. Now he wrenched himself out of his chair, grimacing in pain. Picking up his hat, he said, “Now describe me Reston.”

On their way to the livery, Reese gave a description to Jim of Reston and what he was wearing. At the livery itself, Reese hunted up the saddle and put it on the bay that was in the feed corral with a half dozen other horses. Daley agreed with him that the bullet would have caught the rider in the thigh. They carefully searched the stirrup leathers for any sign of blood stains and found none. Afterwards they parted, but only after Reese quizzed Miller's hostlers. It seemed reasonable that Reston would have put up his horse for graining while he went about his business, but that hadn't happened. Then, store to store, one side of the street to the other, Reese worked his way down the street as far as the blacksmith's shop where he found Daley talking with Art Michaels and his helper. Reese walked in on the tail-end of the conversation, the gist of which was no, neither of them had seen or handled the bay branded R-Cross.

Outside they halted and Reese said, “I didn't turn up a thing. How about you?”

“Nothing—except, maybe, a little something.”

Reese scowled. “Like what?”

“Well, Perry Owens was back of the bar at the Best Bet that morning. He remembered Reston from the description, said he loafed around for a half hour and killed a couple of beers. He didn't talk to anybody and never opened his mouth except to ask for another beer.”

“Well, what's the something, Jim?” Reese asked impatiently.

Jim shook his head. “I don't know. I just got the feeling, Reese, that Perry's telling the truth, but not all of it.”

“Why do you?”

“Well, he remembered Reston real quick. He looked at me square with them bloodshot eyes of his while he talked about Reston, but when I asked him about the horse, he wouldn't look at me. He said he watched Reston leave and thought he rode a grey, but he couldn't be sure.” Daley paused and shook his head. “If he admits seeing Reston go out and mount up, he'd sure as hell remember the color of the horse. He'd be sure it was a grey, wouldn't he? He wouldn't guess it was a grey.”

Reese nodded. “Did he know why you were asking?”

“He pretended he didn't, but likely he did,” Jim said grimly. “I reckon the minute I opened my mouth in the Bale House bar the news started to spread. It took me a half hour to reach the Best Bet, so he'd of heard.”

Reese considered this a moment, wondering why Perry Owens wouldn't want to link Reston with his horse. Why would he lie or evade or pretend he couldn't positively link them? Now Reese said, “Let's go see Perry again.”

Together they tramped up the boardwalk to the Best Bet and went inside. It was a slack hour and the only customers were a foursome of store clerks playing hearts at a back table. Perry Owens, with nothing better to do and no customers to attend to, was boredly watching the game. When Reese and Jim walked up to the bar, he left the game, came around the end of the bar and up to them. The apron that hung from his bony hips was already dirty and beer-slopped from the morning's trade, and the yellow-toothed smile he gave them as he halted before them was strained.

“Perry, give that apron to your swamper and come up the street with us,” Reese said.

Perry's bloodshot eyes widened. “Where to?”

“You'll see. Maybe jail.”

“Now wait a minute—,” Perry began.

“Come along,” Reese said curtly.

Perry hesitated, then turned back down the bar, unknotting his apron as he walked. He paused in the door of the back room, called something to his swamper, put his apron on the bar and came up to join Reese and Jim. Once on the boardwalk and turned down the street, Perry, seeing the direction they were heading, said, “What's this, Reese?”

“I want to see if you're color-blind, Perry. If you are, I'm allowed to hold you for forty-eight hours, then I'll have to let you loose. But I'll be back to see if you're still colorblind, and if you still are, I'll hold you another forty-eight hours.”

“I don't know what you're talking about,” Perry said morosely.

“I think you do,” Reese answered.

They turned in at the feed stable, walked its runway and halted at the horse corral. Reston's bay stood by himself, shunned as a stranger by the dozen livery horses that were old friends.

Reese pointed to him and said, “What color would you call that long horse, Perry?”

“Why, bay. What else could he be?”

“Go face him to us, Jim, will you?”

Daley stepped through the gate, moved over to the bay and shouldered him in the neck until he faced Perry and Reese.

“That's the angle you'd have seen him from. Now have you seen him before?”

“My God, how can I remember?” Perry said irritably. “I probably look at a thousand bay horses a year.”

“I think you remember him,” Reese said quietly. “You changed his color to grey, but you weren't positive enough about it, Perry. You told Jim you
guessed
Reston rode a grey, but you know damn well he didn't.”

Perry shrugged. “Well, if somebody else identified him as that rider's horse, then I guess I made a mistake.”

“Don't guess any more, Perry,” Reese said gently. “You guessed wrong once already.” He paused. “Is that the horse Reston rode out on?”

“I don't know,” Perry wailed. “Why? How am I to know what color horse every customer rides?”