Paper Sheriff (15 page)

Wash's face was bloodied now by a cut. He hunched his shoulder to rub off the blood on his shirt and then charged again. Orv kicked out at him and if Wash hadn't turned his thigh, the kick would have caught him square in the groin. His grunt signalled pain which in turn told Orv that Wash would find it hard to move very fast for a minute or so. He moved in slowly now, taking Wash's blows and slugging back savagely. To Jim Daley, he seemed utterly implacable, proud that the young man couldn't stop him and joyfully confident that he could cut the younger man down.

He did. His sledging fists drove past Wash's protecting arms time and again and their impact on Wash's body could be felt by the spectators through the quivering boardwalk. The watchers now sensed the kill coming and yelled encouragement to Orv. If he heard them, he didn't show it, only kept moving ahead with a senseless, blind stubbornness. Wash backed up a step and then another, his arms almost hugging his body. Orv shifted then from Wash's body to his face. The first blow he delivered after his change of tactics caught Wash on the jaw bone with a crunching thud that could be heard over the crowd's yelling.

Wash went down then, caroming off a spectator, and now Orv moved in swiftly and kicked him in the chest. It was a token kick, not meant to damage but to humiliate.

Jim Daley called out sharply, “No stomping, Orv! Hear now!” Daley swung under the tie-rail and moved up to Orv, who slowly turned to look at him.

“Why, he's my nephew,” Orv panted. “I wouldn't stomp him.” Orv's cheek was marked and his left ear was bleeding, but he only stood there smiling down at Wash, breathing deeply, gaining back his breath. Wash pushed himself to a sitting position now and said, “All right, Uncle Orv. Let's get us a drink.”

A couple of men helped him to his feet, and now Orv accepted his hat from one of the men watching, then lifted his arm and pointed to the watering trough up street. “Let's clean up first, Wash.”

Jim Daley asked soberly, “What was that all about, Orv?”

“Why, nothing at all,” Orv said quietly. “It was just for fun, Jim.”

Daley watched as Orv took Wash's arm and they headed through the dispersing crowd toward the water trough in front of the blacksmith's shop upstreet. It was just possible, he thought, that Orv was telling the truth. The Hoads were like that. They fought each other often, Reese had told him, and said his guess was that it was a kind of practice, a sort of training for the serious fights with outsiders.

Jim half-turned, about to resume his cruising, when caution touched him. It was a strange fact but true that one fight could precipitate another. Orv and Wash had their difference settled, but among the men watching the fight there were some who were enemies of others watching. Excited and goaded by the memory of the fight, they might elect this night to settle their own differences. A man was not much different from a dog, Jim reflected; often he had watched two dogs start a fight, attracting others. They, in turn roused by the fight, would attack each other for no reason whatsoever.

Accordingly, Jim moved into Macey's and moved up against the bar. He ordered a beer and then, because Macey could not afford a back bar mirror to reflect the room, he turned to survey the place, putting his elbows on the bar top. The talk he could hear was about the fight and what a tough old man Orville Hoad was. Other fights were recollected and discussed.

When Jim heard the bartender set down his glass, he turned and picked up the beer. As he drank he was aware that someone had come up beside him, but he paid the man no attention until a voice said, “You don't like us Hoads much, do you, Jim?”

Jim turned his head and saw young Willy Bashear standing beside him. Willy was a little drunk, Jim saw, and he hoped, remembering his sprung back, that this opening wouldn't herald the second fight of the evening.

“What makes you say that?” he asked.

Willy Bashear looked like a Hoad too with the hawk nose, the pale hair, the squirrel teeth and the mean blue eyes which seemed to be carried in the Hoad blood like an ineradicable stain. Willy was twenty-three, tall, dirtier than necessary and, like the rest of the Hoads, overfond of whisky.

“I heard what you said to that fella that asked you if you wasn't going to stop the fight.”

“If you heard it, why should I say it again?” Jim said.

“Why d'you say it?”

Jim carefully registered Willy's tone of voice. There was less of truculence in it than of curiosity. He said reasonably, “Well, we just got through trying one of you Hoads for murder. The night he was freed, three of you Hoad boys took me on when I tried to arrest one of you.” At Willy's nod he continued, “If you can do it, name me one family that has had more kin in the Sutton County jail than the Hoads. Tonight I come close to having grounds for throwing two more in. That answer your question?”

“Hell, Uncle Orv was just having fun. He told you.”

“I believe him,” Jim said and then added, “So help me. I doubt you could kill him with a broad-axe.”

Willy laughed and Jim knew immediately that Willy was not hunting trouble. Then he remembered something and he motioned to Tim Macey who was helping the night bartender behind the bar and who was watching him and Willy. As Macey moved toward them, Jim said, “Would you hold still for a drink, Willy?”

“Real still,” Willy answered pleasantly.

When Macey stopped before them Jim said, “I reckon we'll shift to the hard stuff, Tim.” Macey turned toward a bottle of whisky and two glasses from the back bar and set them before Jim who kept a glass and pushed the bottle and other glass in front of Willy. As Willy poured his drink, Jim said, “I'm glad I never met up with your Uncle Orv when I was younger. He just naturally gravels me, and I might have lost a few teeth.”

Willy smiled faintly. “You still could.”

“No, you're wrong,” Jim said quietly. “When me and Orv argue it won't be with words or fists.”

“He's pretty handy with a gun, too.”

“I believe you,” Jim said for the second time. Then, as if finished with discussing Orv Hoad, he asked, “You boys still trading?”

“Some.” Willy eyed him cautiously.

Suddenly Jim laughed, as if to himself. “You know, Willy, you ought to get your Uncle Orv to travel with you. He could plain scare a man into a trade.”

Willy laughed too, now. “I God, that's an idea.”

Jim looked at him. “You mean you never thought of it. You mean he's never traveled with you?”

“Never has. I guess we figured he had enough on his hands. We asked Uncle Ty, but he's had his bellyful of travel. Never thought of asking Uncle Orv, but we will.”

Jim thought,
Well, that shoots down Buddy's story to Reese.
Orv had never traveled with the Bashears, had probably never seen the Big Island country, so his quizzing of Reston about the folks down there was a lie. Undoubtedly Orv's reason for talking with Reston was to find out how much Reston knew about who had stampeded his herd. Finding out and deeming it dangerous, he had surely killed Reston. Again he felt a pity for Reese, and he wondered bleakly how Reese could ever be rid of this maniac family he had married into.

Now he pulled out some coins from his pocket, put them on the bar and said, “Have another, Willy. I got to move on.”

Willy thanked him politely. Jim turned and shouldered through the crowd and out on the boardwalk. For some reason the whisky sat cold in his stomach, and the night seemed darker than it had an hour ago.

5

On their first day Reese and Jen crossed the Plunkets' Circle P range and the Bashears' Chain Link range, keeping to the water courses from which cattle never strayed far. That night they put up at the Prescotts' where Jen, after a pleasant evening visiting, took the spare bed while Reese slept in the bunkhouse. They had seen no R-Cross cattle, but the day had put them closer against the Wheelers, so that half an hour from Prescotts' this morning they were climbing in deep timber. By that night they had crossed the summer range of Bill Macey, Tim Macey's brother, and the summer range of Orville Hoad's ranch and again had seen no R-Cross cattle.

That night they approached Reese's new line shack on Lime Creek and, as Reese had calculated, Ames Tolliver with two of the crew had finished their slow drive of a good part of the Slash Seven cattle to summer range. As Reese and Jen crossed the park through the scattered cows with their alert and curious calves, they saw that the lamps had been lighted in the line shack against the lowering dusk. The clatter of their shod horses crossing the rocky stream bed brought Ames Tolliver to the bunkhouse doorway.

Reese was momentarily puzzled. Why was a lamp burning in the room next to the old bunkhouse? Probably Ames had busied himself carpentering inside and had forgotten the lamp.

Across the Creek Jen reined in and surveyed the new building, still yellow and unweathered against the dark seasoned logs of the old bunkhouse.

“Why, Reese, you call this a line shack? It's a small house really.”

“When I quit sheriffing, this will be where we live most of the summer. A kitchen and bedroom are all we need.”

Ames had started toward them and Jen, riding astride, swung out of the saddle, her divided skirt billowing before her foot touched the ground. Reese was leaning forward, his right foot already free of the stirrup when the door to the end room opened, making a dragging sound on the puncheon floor that made him look up.

Callie stepped into the doorway.

Reese slacked back in the saddle, stunned into immobility.

It was Jen who found her wits first. “Why, Callie,” she called pleasantly. “Reese didn't tell me you'd be here.”

Callie stepped out into the dusk, walking toward them, and now Reese swung out of the saddle, trying and failing to hide his confusion. Why in God's name was Callie here? She couldn't have known that he and Jen planned to stop here, or even that they were together.

Callie was close enough now so that Reese could see the surprise and anger on her narrow little face. She halted, smiled thinly and said, “Hello, Jen. Reese couldn't have told you because he didn't know.”

The two women looked at each other, freshly appraising a situation that surprised them both. Callie's face as Reese read it held an angry wariness he had become accustomed to lately. Jen's face reflected her court-room training; it was composed and held a formal cordiality and only its faint flush, probably unnoticed by Callie, betrayed her embarrassment.

Reese said easily, “Curiosity always conquers, doesn't it?” To Jen he said, “Callie hadn't seen the line shack either.”

Callie looked at him and said with a quiet defiance, “A house has to have something in it, doesn't it?”

Reese turned then to Ames who had halted beside Callie. “How did it go, Ames?”

“A two-day loaf,” Ames said. Now he touched the brim of his hat, greeting Jen. “How are you, Miss Truro?”

“Tired and hungry,” Jen said cheerfully.

“Mrs. Branham will fix that,” Ames said. “She had us throw a couple of mattresses and some kitchen gear in the chuck wagon.” To Reese he said, “Take a look at how it's rigged, Reese. I'll turn your horses out.”

Callie said, “Yes, you'd be surprised what three men can do in a day, Reese. Come and look.”

The worst was over, Reese thought, but there were plenty of questions unanswered because as yet they were unasked. Callie turned and led Jen into the cabin while Reese followed. How was he going to explain Jen's presence to Callie? He wasn't going to explain anything, he decided abruptly. County business would cover it, and he knew that Jen would say nothing until he gave her her cue.

The room they entered was kitchen and living room. Reese saw immediately that in passing through Bale Callie had picked up a small new stove which was set up now in the rear corner. The rocking chair that sat under the cottonwood by the kitchen at Slash Seven now rested in the opposite corner. When Reese saw the deal table and its four stump seats he guessed that the chuck wagon had detoured far enough to pass the saw mill on the way here.

Jen made appropriate comments and then Callie showed them the other room. The crew had cut and peeled poles to make two bedframes, which were now nailed to each far corner. New rope laced securely to the frames held the two mattresses the chuck wagon had brought. There were even blankets and pillows on the beds. The two windows were installed and curtained.

As Callie was explaining where the dresser and the curtained closet would go, Reese looked at the two women. Callie was wearing one of his cast-off shirts and a pair of his discarded trousers, pants legs rolled up. In contrast to Jen, whose blouse and divided skirt had style of her own making, Callie looked like a small, tough little waif. Well, these were the women in his life, he thought. He possessed neither, and neither possessed him.

He waited until Callie had finished, then said, “You've fancied it up, Callie. If you do any more, we'll have to give it a name, like those Englishmen do up in Wyoming.”

“No. You have to be a remittance man to do that. A milord's naughty son.”

Callie looked at the two of them in puzzlement, not understanding their talk and resenting the fact that she didn't.

Reese said then, watching Jen, “What are you going to assess us, Jen?” Jen waited for more and then Reese said to Callie, “Jen's helping out the assessor, Callie.”

Jen caught it then and said, “Not really, Callie. It was an excuse to get away from the court-house. There's a new store and stage stop up here that I have to look at. It just happens that old Mr. Barnes hates to ride and I love it.”

Callie nodded indifferently, then said, “I'll get supper now on my new stove.”

They returned to the kitchen and Reese moved outside, leaving the two women together. He hadn't exactly lied about Jen helping out old Barnes. There was a new store and saloon and stage station up on the Pass road which Barnes had never seen and the County had never taxed. When Barnes had learned that Jen was going to take a few days off and ride in the Wheelers, he had asked her to appraise the store so that it could be entered on the tax rolls.