Paper Sheriff (13 page)

Orville didn't answer immediately, and Buddy and his father were silent, deferring to him. Finally he said, “I reckon you're right, Callie girl. We could have made that drive in a month like you say.” He paused. “But, dang it, I hate running.”

“You hate running more than you like money?” Callie asked tartly. “More than you like jail?”

“There'll be no more jail for me,” Orville said quietly, in a tone of voice that implied that this was not only a foolish question, but an unnecessary one.

Ty spoke up now. “Move the cattle, Orv—unless you want Reese to brace you.”

“Oh, that'll come anyway,” Orville said placidly.

“How'd you figure that, Uncle Orv?” Buddy asked.

“Why, he hit me. We'll meet.”

Ty said quietly, “But it shouldn't be over this, Orv.”

“No,” Orville agreed. Now he swivelled his head to address Buddy. “You'd better start for Copper Canyon now, Buddy. Tomorrow you and the boys get the cattle moving. Push 'em hard to the County Line. That's the Divide. Once you're across, take your time. Send Big John down to Moffitt. I'll be there.”

I won,
Callie thought elatedly.
I'm gonng to keep
on winning too.

Next morning the Sheriff's Sale of the boarding-house and its contents was held on the court-house steps before a dozen of the town's loafers and only one serious bidder. Mrs. O'Rourke, a scrappy, handsome, healthy widow, bid in at the lowest price the commissioners had agreed to accept and there were no other bidders. It was over almost before it began. Reese escorted Mrs. O'Rourke to his office, made out a check for the sum bid, watched while Mary Coughlin O'Rourke laboriously printed out her name, gave her the key to the house and the inventory of contents, wished her good luck and afterwards sat down to wait for Jim Daley, whom he had left in conversation with one of the spectators.

After the events of yesterday he wondered what this day would bring, and he hoped fervently that it would bring Will Reston. If Reston's bay had wound up at Con Fraley's, it was reasonable to assume that he had come out of the bordering brakes. If Reston could walk, surely he would have made one of the ranches close to the brakes. Surely too his first move would be to come to this office or send word for the Sheriff to come to him. If he was hurt and unable to walk, then he would surely die. It would take fifty men fifty days to search thoroughly the wild waterless canyons and caves and rimrock of that country. The County had no funds to pay for this broad search, and he had no right to ask for volunteers to give up the rest of the summer on the hunt for a man whom death perhaps had already silenced and whom the carrion birds would long since have disposed of. A live Reston, or word of him, must come to him, hopefully today, certainly by tomorrow. If he didn't come, then what? He didn't know.

Jim Daley, who had come straight from home to the court-house steps, had had no chance to speak with Reese, and now when he came in, he went directly to the chair beside the desk and eased into it.

“How's the back this morning, Jim?”

“You don't hear me whistling, do you?” Jim said wryly. Abruptly then he came to the point. “You find Orv or Buddy?”

“Buddy,” Reese said. He told Jim of their reason for accosting Reston.

When he'd finished, Daley said, “Sounds harmless enough. Man sees a brand from a country he knows, he'd want to talk with the owner.”

“Yes, but why did it have to be Orv Hoad?” Reese asked.

“Couldn't have been much of a visit for Orv. Perry said he asked for a beer twice and those were the only words he—”

Daley stopped speaking as Reese rose with such force that the swivel chair skidded back a few feet.

Now Reese hammered once on his desk with his fisted hand and said, “Jim, we missed it! It was there all the time and we missed it!”

“Missed what?” Jim asked blankly.

“Perry said Reston was mounted when Orv and Buddy came up to him. That means he was ready to ride out. After talking with Orv and Buddy he got down and killed half an hour over two beers. Why? It had to be something Buddy and Orv told him that kept him there for that half hour.”

“Sure,” Daley said softly. “We're idiots.”

“Didn't Perry say that after he finished his second beer he rode out alone?” When Daley nodded, Reese said, “What could they have said that hung him up for half an hour? I can guess that one, Jim.”

Daley was silent, waiting.

“Buddy and Orv were going to show him something. He had a half hour to kill, and then he rode out alone. I'll bet my bottom dollar it was to meet them somewhere.”

The two men looked at each other, and then Reese reached back for his chair, drew it up to the desk and sat down. “Think I'm right?” he asked.

Jim nodded. “You figure Buddy and Orv didn't want to be seen with him?”

“Talking with him, yes. That didn't matter. But riding with him, no. That would be remembered.”

“What d'you figure they told him, Reese?”

“I know Reston told 'em about his cattle being stampeded because Buddy said he did. It had to be about those cattle, Jim. That was what. Reston was here for. The only thing that could have held him for half an hour was a lead from Buddy and Orv on his missing cattle. Give me another reason why he'd wait.”

Jim scowled for a long moment, then finally said, “I can't.” He hesitated and added, “And if I can't, then you won't like what I think it points to.”

Reese sighed and said, “No, I won't. But say it.”

Now Jim Daley rose, moved out behind Reese and slowly started to circle the room, looking at the floor and thinking. Reese swivelled his chair to watch him.

When he had thought it out, Jim halted and looked at Reese. “You said Reston told Buddy about his cattle being stampeded. If he told him that, then he most likely told them the reason he was in Bale—to talk to you. I think Orv got spooky then.” He paused and when he spoke again, it was with a reluctance that was transparent in the expression on his square, tough face. “I think Orv and Buddy either stole Reston's cattle or knew who did. I think they killed him. If they'd got his horse too, we'd never have given Reston a second thought, would we? We didn't believe there was any rustling in Sutton County, did we?”

“No to both your questions, Jim.”

“Well, here's another then. Now d'you think there's rustling in Sutton County?”

Reese only nodded.

“The Hoads?” Jim asked.

Reese nodded again and Jim said quietly, gently, “I feel sorry for you, man.”

Reese, without any expression at all on his face, swivelled his chair around, tilted back in it and looked out at the horse shed and at the fleecy summer clouds in the far distance above it. Should he tell Jim about Callie and the Hoad Land & Cattle Company? And should he tell him his fears and his suspicion that this might be a front for the Hoad rustling ring? And what better person to head it than the wife of the County Sheriff? He felt a wild protest well up in him. No, this was too much to bear at this moment. Later, when he had got proof of his suspicions and had learned to live with that proof, he would tell Jim everything, but not now, not now.

Jim came over now and started to slack into the chair by the desk. When he caught sight of Reese's strained and anguished face he straightened up instead and said, “I want to double check on that half hour wait with Perry, Reese.”

Reese nodded. “Find out who else was in the Best Bet that morning, Jim. Make Perry remember.”

Daley nodded, crossed the room, picked his hat off its hook and went out.

To prove a murder, you have to have a body, Reese told himself, and they would find no body unless Orv or Buddy told them where it was. That was unlikely, so they could never be held on that charge. But the rustling charge was something else. Two hundred head of cattle couldn't be hidden forever, and when they were found, they had to be accounted for. And if they were accounted for, his wife would stand trial along with whatever Hoads could be involved.

The thought of this was intolerable, and Reese rose. If he were to stay sane through this nightmare, he had to talk it out with somebody. He knew only two people he could do this with. Now he moved over to his hat, went down the corridor and climbed the stairs. Jen's door was closed, which meant she was not in the office this morning. Retracing his steps, he left by the court-house rear door, went over to the shed, mounted his horse, half-circled the court-house and headed for the Truros.

At the Truro house Reese tied his horse in the shade of one of the big cottonwoods, moved through the gate, then took the brick walk that veered around the house and led to the back porch where Sebastian Truro spent his mornings. As he neared the porch, he heard the voices of two women chatting, one of them Jen's. He halted then, wondering if he should interrupt, but urgency pushed him on. If this was some neighbor visiting, his appearance might send her on her way. He rounded the corner of the house, and the sound of his bootheels on the brick silenced the conversation.

Sitting in his accustomed spot after his hour of morning sunshine was Sebastian Truro in shirtsleeves. Beside him in a rocking chair was an elderly woman whose small straw hat covered her white hair. Jen, in a house dress of a light tan color, had her chair pulled up beside her. The surprise on Reese's face as he swept off his hat brought a chuckle from the woman.

“Yes, it's me, Reese.”

“Mrs. Crawford, how are you? Nobody told me about this,” Reese said as he stepped on to the low, unrailed porch and extended his hand. Amelia Crawford was Sebastian Truro's older sister, whose husband's ranch was located almost on the State line to the north. Her visits, Reese knew, were welcomed and enjoyed by Sebastian and Jen.

Jen said, “How could we tell you, Reese? Even we didn't know.”

Mrs. Crawford's hand was frail and lost in Reese's. She was a tiny woman with dark, bright eyes in a thin, chipper face, and when she cocked her head, as she did now, she always reminded Reese of a brassy little street sparrow who was watching to make sure it would not be stepped on.

“Sam had to go to Kansas City for two weeks, so I just packed up and left,” Amelia Crawford said. “If I'd written a letter asking if I could come, it would have taken four days to get here, and Jen's answer would have taken another four.” She chuckled again. “Eight from fourteen leaves six; two days' travel each way leaves two. Heavens, that isn't time enough to muss up a bed.”

“You always were a good
carpe diemer
,” Sebastian said.

“What does that mean?” Amelia asked.

“Something I made up, Sis,” he said fondly. “
Carpe diem
means Seize the Day, and you always were quite a day-seizer—if there's such a thing.”

“I am at that, and I'm about to seize this one,” Amelia said. She stood up now, looked searchingly at Reese and said, “How've you been, Reese?”

“Just the same.”

Amelia patted his arm then and said quietly, “Just stay that way.” Now she turned to Sebastian. “What was the name of that tobacco again?”

“You'll forget it,” Sebastian said. “Just tell them at Silberman's that you want the tobacco Sebastian Truro smokes.”

Seeing Reese's look of puzzlement, Jen said, “Aunt Amelia's going shopping in our big city, Reese. She wants to go alone, and I think she's up to some foolishness.”

“Well, I'm not going to buy any Bibles, if that's what you mean. I won't be long, dears.” She stepped past Reese and off the porch and vanished around the house.

“When did she get here?” Reese asked.

“Last night's stage,” Jen said. “She woke us up, and we talked till all hours.” Then she added, “Sit down, Reese. Want some coffee?”

Reese sat down in the chair Amelia Crawford had vacated. He thanked Jen but said no, he didn't. He was aware then that both Sebastian and Jen were looking at him with a mild concern. He knew that he needed a shave and that he was probably scowling. Why, he wondered, should he burden either of them with his troubles, although technically they were the County's and Court's troubles too? It seemed cruel to mar the pleasure of Amelia Crawford's visit, and Reese searched his mind for something harmless to explain his visit. He could find nothing. His mind was too full of this.

“From the way you look, I'd say something's come up,” Jen said soberly.

“Something has,” Reese agreed. He looked from Jen to her father, who was watching him with friendly concern. “Counsellor, what would you say if I told you I think there's a rustling ring in the County, that the ring is made up of the Hoads and their kin, and that they've already killed two men?”

Sebastian hesitated and his lip twisted to force out the coming words. “I'd ask what grounds you have for thinking this,” he said.

Jen said nothing, but a fleeting anguish came and went in her eyes.

Quietly but savagely, starting with the delivery by Con Fraley of Reston's horse, Reese told of questioning Buddy and accepting his story. He spared no details of his quarrel with Callie over the Hoad Land & Cattle Company. He was fair to her, but the bare facts of her immediate flight to Hatchet were damning. Then he explained in detail his concern over Reston's disappearance and his conviction, since they'd had no word of or from him, that he had been murdered.

Then, in wry derision, he related how Jim Daley's remark about Reston's taciturnity gave an overwhelming importance to a fact they had known but had ignored—Reston's half hour wait in the Best Bet. He explained the logic of his reasoning—that Buddy and Orville could only have talked to Reston about the missing cattle, and that it was they whom Reston went out to meet after his idle half hour.

He put it all together then in theory. Buddy and Orville had killed Reston in the belief once he was out of the way his complaint would be forgotten. It was only theory too that the Hoad Land & Cattle Company headed by Callie would be the disposing agent of the stolen cattle.