Paper Sheriff (17 page)

Reese turned his horse and neither of them spoke till they had reached the flats.

“What do we do now, Reese?”

“Why, just what we planned. Ride north to Armisteads' and put up for the night. We've got part of what we came for.”

After Reese and Jen had left, Callie set about readying the cabin for closing. She stripped the beds of their blankets, rolled them into a tight bundle, then went over to the wall. A length of baling wire anchored to the middle of a ceiling beam had been pulled out of the way and fastened to a nail on the wall. She unwound the wire and let it dangle as she moved over again to the blankets, preparing to hang them away from the mice. This time she lifted the blanket roll under her arm, grasped the baling wire and awkwardly began to wrap the wire around the middle of the roll. Suddenly she felt the heavy blanket roll lifted; she gave a startled cry and whirled around to find Orville Hoad standing so close to her that she bumped him when turning.

“Oh, Uncle Orv, you near scared me to death! I didn't hear you come in.”

Orv smiled, showing his yellowed teeth. “You wasn't supposed to.”

“When did you get here?”

“I've been here most of the night. Now fix me some breakfast, girl.”

“Then you know about Reese and that lawyer bitch?”

“Yep. Them new curtains of yours are kind of thin.”

“Did you hear us fight?”

“I heard you. She never talked loud enough for me to hear her, but I got the gist. Now hurry up and feed me, Callie.”

Callie moved out into the kitchen, and as she rekindled the dying fire and set about making Orv's breakfast, he slacked onto one of the stump stools and regarded her.

“Why did they come here?”

“County business, that bitch said.”

“Callie, I don't rightly like that word in your mouth.”

“Well, that's what she is,” Callie said sharply.

“You don't really believe that county business, do you?”

Callie looked at him. “Of course not. They're looking for our beef. Is it gone?”

“It better be gone,” Orv said with quiet menace.

“They rode south, anyway.”

“I'm betting that was for you to see.”

Callie brought a plate of meat and fried grits over to the table and set it before Orville. He removed a wad of tobacco from his mouth, set it on the table for later consumption and began to wolf down the food before him. Callie poured coffee for them both and then took a stump seat across from him. She looked at him more closely now and said, “You've been in a fight.”

Orv nodded and spoke around the food in his mouth. “Not a real fight, just a fun fight.”

When the edge was off his hunger, Orv wiped his plate clean with a chunk of bread, then reached out for his still usable cut of tobacco and settled it uncomfortably in his mouth.

“What county business?” he asked.

Callie took a moment to backtrack and then said, “Oh. Well, that—” she remembered, “—lawyer woman is helping the assessor.”

“Assess what?”

“Some new store and stage stop up on the Pass.”

“They were there yesterday?”

Callie frowned, trying to remember. Finally she said, “I can't be sure, but I don't reckon, Uncle Orv. They'd have talked about it.”

“Still, they rode south. The stage station's north. So's Copper Canyon.”

“I just don't know,” Callie said, for once helpless.

Orv shoved his plate away, folded his big hands on the table top and, rhythmically chewing his tobacco, contemplated them. If Reese scouted Copper Canyon yesterday and found sign of the rustled herd, what would he do? Likely he would bring the Truro girl down here.

But surely this morning he would have turned that lawyer woman over to Ames Tolliver and the chuck wagon for her escort back to Bale. Then he would have returned to Copper Canyon, picked up the trail of the herd over the mountains. But he hadn't. He'd ridden out south with the woman, and in no great hurry. That meant he hadn't scouted Copper Canyon yet. Likely that would come today on his way to the new stage station. Why go south then? That was easy, Orv thought. If he didn't tell Callie that he was scouting for rustled cattle, wouldn't he keep on trying to fool her, like riding off in the direction opposite where he meant to go?

Now Orv reasoned even more closely. What would Reese do if he came across sign of the cattle? Follow them surely. But with that woman along? Not likely. If he suspicioned there'd be trouble, and he was looking for it, then he wouldn't want to be burdened with her. What would he do with her? Not turn her loose in Copper Canyon to find her way home alone.

Orv spoke abruptly now. “Did Reese know you were going home today, Callie?”

Callie, watching him closely, said, “Yes, I told him. Shouldn't I of?”

Orv didn't answer. That meant that if she and Reese parted company, Reese would have to find shelter and food for her.

Now Orv gave a grunt of satisfaction. The new stage station was the closest place to Copper Canyon, and that woman had to see it besides. Now Orv rose, moved to the door and politely spat outside, then came back to his stool. He had to find out one more thing, just in case, and while it wasn't an easy subject to bring up, it was necessary. Callie had refilled his cup with coffee, and now Orv spooned sugar into it and stirred it with his finger. Then he asked in a quiet voice, “Callie, d'you like the idea of Reese ramming around with that woman?”

“Like a sheep ram, you mean?”

Orv laughed and said, “I could mean that, yes.”

Callie said, “No, I don't like it, Uncle Orv.”

“To come down to it, Reese don't pay you much mind, does he?”

Callie flushed but her glance didn't waver. “Not much,” she agreed.

“Still, you're a pretty girl and young and you like young 'uns, don't you?” At Callie's nod, Orv went on, “I know a dozen boys that would marry a pretty, rich widow, come to think of it.”

“Widow? I'm not a widow.”

“But you might be,” Orv said quietly. “Sometimes a curious sheriff don't live long.” He paused. “Would you hate being a widow, Callie? You wouldn't be one for long, you know.”

He watched Callie thinking about this and her face reflected her thoughts. He could almost see her thinking that Reese was no husband, that he was after another woman, that he wouldn't give her children because he wouldn't bed her. In every way save one he was useless to her. The exception was that he was a good provider. Without Reese but with his provision for her, a new and different life with another man would be possible.

Callie finally said, “I wouldn't hate it much, Uncle Orv. Not if I wasn't one for long.”

“You wouldn't miss him?”

Callie answered bitterly, “I miss him every day, so why should I miss him any more if he's gone?”

They heard a sound outside and Ames Tolliver appeared in the doorway. His thick glasses exaggerated the impatience in his expression. “Hello, Orv,” he said. “Anything I can carry out, Miz Branham?”

Orv rose. He had his answer and now said, “You go along, Callie. I'll clean up and wire the door shut.”

Callie looked around the room and then said, “Nothing to carry, Ames.” Now she looked at Orv and gave him a friendly smile. “When will I see you, Uncle Orv?”

“Hard to tell,” Orv said. “Goodbye, Callie.”

When they were gone, Orv threw the coffee grounds out, put the two cups and his plate, knife, fork and spoon in the full water bucket, put on his filthy hat, pulled the door to and wired it to the staple, then headed for the corral where his horse was tied. He was glad he'd talked with Callie, and for more reasons than one. The fact that she wouldn't really miss her Hoad-hating husband was a comfort and also a permission. He did not want to hurt Callie in any way and now he knew if what was possible became necessary, she could accept it.

He waited until the chuck wagon disappeared into the timber, then he rode south across the park and entered the timber where he had seen Jen and Reese enter an hour ago. It didn't take him long to pick up the tracks of their horses in the humus of pine needles tufted with sparse grass.

It was easy to follow their trail through the timber where their horses had scuffed the soft carpet of humus. Predictably Reese had hunted for an animal trail and, finding it, had followed it. When the trail crossed a clay bank, Orv dismounted and carefully studied the tracks of the horses. He noted that the horse Jen was riding had a pigeon-toed front foot; the pigeon toe threw the weight on the outside so that the shoe made a deeper impression on the outside than on the inside. Orv was a good and careful tracker and that was all he needed.

He moved off the trail then, out of sight of it, and parallelled it, sensing the grade the animals had kept to in making the trail. Every half hour or so, he dropped down and confirmed that Reese and Jen still kept to the trail. Then he would climb again to the higher timber. This tactic allowed him to spot the park and the seep where Reese and Jen nooned. Reasoning that if a woman was along with him, Reese would bring food, and that here was the place and the time of day to stop, he dismounted, moved down until he could see all the park and saw them and their horses.

He was fairly certain now that they were headed for Copper Canyon, so he returned to his horse, mounted and rode on, keeping away from any trails. In the early afternoon he looked down on the trail they would take in climbing the bench into the canyon. He put his horse back deep into the timber and returned to his lookout point. A kind of fatalism was in him now. He was familiar with Reese's tenacity and admired him for it. Hadn't Reese hunted down the witness whose testimony could have hanged him? If Reese came to Copper Canyon he would see the sign, read it correctly and follow the herd eventually. It wouldn't matter to Reese if the herd was out of his county. A word from him to the Sheriff of Moffitt County and the herd would be impounded and the Hoad boys arrested. That, of course, could not be allowed to happen.

A half hour after he had taken up his station he saw Reese and Jen break into the open below him and start the climb to the line shack and at sight of them he accepted the inevitable. Reese, of course, would read the sign, spot the exit trail and then take care of his woman. Accordingly, Orv went back to his horse and dropped down to cross the trail behind them and then, below it, still keeping off any trail, he headed for Armistead's stage station, arriving there in the late afternoon.

When the station was in sight below him, Orv reined in at a break in the timber and regarded it. Armistead had a good thing here, Orv thought. The old cabin of the relay station was his house and he used the old log barn and corrals for his horses. A new, two-storey log building lay just off the road. A store-saloon occupied most of the ground floor while a dining room filled the rest of it. By the evenly spaced windows of the second storey, Orv guessed that these were the rooms for travelers. When the winter storms of the high country held a stage snow-bound, sometimes for days, Armistead had food and shelter and whisky for them. By lying over here the stage could gain a half day either way when the weather allowed travel again.

Orv put his horse down through the timber and came on to the road at a dead run, forced into it by the steepness of the slope. At the tie-rail, which held a couple of ponies, Orv dismounted by the watering trough, ground-haltered his horse and let him start to drink his fill. He crossed the porch and went into the store-saloon. To the right of the big double doors was a counter, behind which were shelves of canned goods and staples. To the left was a rough plank bar at which a couple of riders were drinking. Armistead himself, a bald and mournful looking man who looked like a country preacher, sold Orv a quart of whisky from his stock on the back bar. Orv opened it right there, had a drink from the bottle, then said, “Need some grub.”

Armistead went over to the grocery side and assembled a loaf of bread baked that morning by his wife, some jerky and two plugs of tobacco while Orv, taking a swallow of whisky occasionally, watched him. Orv asked for a gunny sack holding two measures of oats, and when he got it and after paying for it, he put his things, including the third-empty quart of whisky, into the sack atop the oats and went out. Mounting his horse he climbed back to the spot where he had first surveyed the store.

After unsaddling his horse Orv took off his hat, filled it with oats and let his horse feed out of it while he sat beside him and uncorked the whisky. It was half-gone and he drank more. His horse was picketed and dusk was nearing when Jen and Reese came up the road and halted before the store. Reese dismounted, went inside and presently came out with Armistead. They spoke to Jen who then dismounted and Reese untied her blanket roll and his own. With Armistead leading, they moved up the uncovered outside stairway to the second storey and went inside.

I wouldn't mind that, I wouldn't mind it at all,
Orv thought lecherously.

Reese and Jen were the only two at breakfast the next morning and had the big room with its long trestle table to themselves. Mrs. Armistead, a lanky and surly woman with greying hair drawn so tightly in a knot that it raised her eyebrows, served their food, left the coffee pot on the table and retreated to her kitchen.

Jen felt aggrieved this morning. Last night after supper she had asked Reese where they would go tomorrow.

“I know where you're going,” Reese had said. “I'm not sure where I'll wind up though.”

“Where am I going?” Jen had asked, surprised.

“You're taking the stage back to Bale.”

“You sound pretty damn proprietary.”

“I feel that way, or I wouldn't send you back to Bale.”

Jen remembered, smiling in forgiveness. “But where are you going?”

I'm going to ride over to the Hendricks Canyon. That's across the mountains from Copper. I'll pick up the trail of that herd and find it.”