Paper Sheriff (4 page)

Truro had been a theatrically handsome man before his stroke—white-haired with matching, unstained moustaches under a strong, arching nose. Now his lean face held an odd upward twist of the mouth so that he always seemed to be faintly smiling. His useless left hand lay shrivelled on the arm of his wheelchair. He was dressed as if he had just come home from his law office in a dark suit and flowing black tie; well polished boots hid the fact that his left foot and leg were also shrunken. Oddly his skin, instead of holding an invalid's pallor, was so suntanned that it bespoke many outdoor hours seated in the health-giving sunlight. At Reese's approach his dark eyes lighted up with pleasure and he extended his right hand.

“Counsellor, I hope you and Jen celebrated tonight.”

“We did,” Truro said. He hesitated and then said abruptly, “We had a bottle of good wine.”

Reese was used to this hesitance which seemed to be the only impediment in Truro's speech. It was as if he had to wait to gather some inner strength to form the words. This, Reese knew, was what kept Truro out of the court-room rather than the fact that he would have to appear in a wheelchair.

Jen had come up beside him now and Reese glanced down at her. “Let me tell you some things she's probably too modest to mention.”

“Sit down, Reese, and stop talking about me. I wish I could wipe the whole trial from my mind.”

Reese sat down in an upholstered rocking chair close to Truro and began to tell him of this day in court. First on the stand was Orville Hoad; arrogant, supremely confident, he had answered Jen with a maddening condescension, time and again calling her Missie as if she was a little girl and then apologizing to the court for his slip of the tongue. He seemed cross about the fact that he had even been held for trial. It was a pure case of kill or be killed. Was he supposed to hunt up a witness before he shot in self-defense? he asked. If he had taken time to do that, there would be no trial at all because he would be dead. Jen, Reese said, had made no objection to his rambling, self-righteous account of what took place in the livery stable. Her only questions were to ask for more exact details of where each man stood and what each man said. When Hoad was excused he seemed surprised, perhaps at the gentle treatment he had received at Jen's hands.

After Orville, Reese said, he himself had been called to the stand. Under Jen's questioning he told of the search for the cowboy who had slept in the stable, a drifter, whose name when found turned out to be Shep Humphrey.

It was Humphrey's testimony, brought out skilfully by Jen, that shattered the court-room silence. The defense in the cross-examination could not attack Humphrey's character because until that moment they had not known he existed. Hoad's lawyer had tried to make a liar out of him and failed miserably. They tried to smear his character and failed in that too. Finally, in desperation, Hoad's lawyers asked that the trial be recessed so that they could investigate the character of the witness. Judge Heatherly refused, the witness was excused and the court recessed for the noon hour. When court convened in the afternoon, Jen gave the summation, Reese said. It was given without histrionics, but the cold, unassailable facts were reviewed. Because there were no extenuating circumstances the jury was asked to return a verdict of murder in the first degree.

Counsel for the defense in his summation could only hint that in the past some member of the numerous Hoad family had injured Shep Humphrey and this fantastic and untrue story was his method of getting even.

It took the jury only an hour to agree that they could not and never would be able to agree on Orville Hoad's guilt or innocence.

When Reese finished Sebastian looked at Jen with both pride and affection. He started to speak, hesitated again, then said, “Very clever, Jen, your handling of Orville on the stand. It sounds as if he expected to be cut down to size and was surprised that he wasn't. In any other court of law you'd have got your conviction.”

“Only if she had worn pants and grown a moustache,” Reese said dryly. “I don't think we'd like her that way, would we, Counsellor?”

They all laughed and now Jen rose from her chair and said, “I'll make some coffee for us,” before she turned and left the room. When she had gone, Truro opened his mouth to speak, paused, and then the words came. “I know the Hoads, Reese. They won't be easy on you from now on. In fact they'll be harder on you than if you weren't married to one of them.”

Reese shrugged, his dark face suddenly somber, and then he said with a wry attempt at humor, “You can say one thing for me, Counsellor. When I buy into something, I buy in all the way.”

“I wish you never had,” Truro said abruptly. “I blame myself mostly for the fact you did. If it hadn't been for this cursed stroke and Jen's equally cursed sense of duty, you wouldn't be tangled with the Hoads.”

“It's done,” Reese said quietly. “Done and damned.”

Jen came in with the coffee, interrupting their conversation about Judge Heatherly's chances of being nominated for a Senate seat. She joined in the discussion as they drank their coffee. Afterwards Jen declared it was bedtime for her father, the men shook hands and Jen wheeled her father down the corridor to his bedroom in back.

While she was gone, Reese slowly paced the living room, unconsciously making a game of stepping on the same patterns of the rug on each round. The problem of Callie was still sore in his mind. Following her outburst this evening, what could they expect in the future? Would it settle back into that grey tolerance the Hoad trial had shattered or would Callie nourish that vindictiveness she had revealed in their quarrel?

Jen returned and Reese stopped his pacing and watched her sit down. He hadn't known that she had been watching him from the corridor door for a full minute until she said, “You've been pacing this room like a tiger in a cage, Reese. Something troubling you?”

“Only the usual. Callie and I had a quarrel. She threw a glass of whisky in my face and I threw one in hers.” He grimaced. “It was pretty sorry.”

“Was I involved, Reese?” Jen asked curiously.

Reese nodded. “Whenever we quarrel, you're always involved. Callie can never understand that I have to work with the District Attorney's office and that that means you.”

“Does she think we're lovers?”

Reese hesitated. “I reckon,” he said slowly. “She puts herself in your place, Jen. She thinks that if she were you, we'd be lovers.” He added wryly, “Remember, I was her lover before I was her husband.”

Jen looked at him thoughtfully. “Well, we know we aren't lovers, Reese, much as we'd like to be. Then she can't hurt us.”

“Maybe she can't but watch out, Jen. I can't stop her imagining things. If she imagines you're trying to get me away from her, there'll be trouble, real trouble.”

“If I pretended to dislike you, would it help?”

“It's too late for that,” Reese said quietly. His faint smile held no humor in it as he said, “It's too late for everything, I guess.”

“Don't say that,” Jen said quietly. “Don't—”

A distant gunshot out in the town overrode what she was about to say. It was followed by two more shots, then three more.

Reese scooped up his hat from the chair as Jen rose. “That's more than two men shooting at each other, Reese.”

“Yes,” Reese said. He moved swiftly to the door, opened it, took the steps in one leap, yanked his grey's reins from the tie-ring and vaulted into the saddle. More shots came now and from the direction of the Best Bet Saloon.

Reese touched spurs to his grey, who immediately stretched into a gallop. The Best Bet was two blocks from Truro's house and, like it, in the middle of a block. When Reese reached the main street, he checked his horse down to a trot, then swung around the corner. Two shots came from the building beyond the Best Bet, apparently the blacksmith shop, and were answered by a gun flare from across the street. Someone, Reese saw, was forced up in the narrow area between O'Connors' Saddle Shop and the Hale Mercantile across the street in mid-block. Now more shots came from beyond the Best Bet and further down the street a couple of horses at the tie-rail in front of the saloon were rearing against their reins. The other horses on both sides were shying away from them and into neighboring mounts. Again the gun by the saddle shop answered. Some one bellowed, “Shove out Buddy, Jim, and we'll let you go.”

“If you hurt him, we'll kill you,” another voice shouted angrily.

The Hoads, Reese knew. If he could piece this together from the two calls shouted across the street, then Jim Daley had Callie's brother Buddy in custody and the Hoads were trying to free one of their own.

At sight of Reese the firing ceased and now he rode up to the saddle shop and called out, “You all right, Jim?”

“Yes, watch out. I'm coming out,” Daley answered.

“You stay there.”

“There are three of them, Reese. Orville's boys. I'll put Buddy in front of me.”

Reese repeated in a tone of iron, “You stay there.” Now he swivelled his head trying to pick out the Hoads. In the faint light cast by the lamps from the Best Bet he could make out the partly closed doors of the blacksmith's shop and the iron watering trough abutting the break in the tie-rail for the driveway into the building. Stepping out of his saddle now, he let the reins of his grey drop, thus positioning his horse so as to block effective firing at Jim Daley. As he moved toward the shop a murmuring of voices from inside the blacksmith shop came to him. He had no intention of exposing Jim Daley to those three, for this, he knew, was directed at him personally. As he strode slowly forward, he called, “Come out of there! Or I'll come in after you!”

Again he heard a muttered conversation behind the doors and he kept tramping slowly forward until he was almost abreast of the watering trough. The hulking figure rose from behind it where he had taken shelter. From the size of him, Reese knew this was Big John, Orville's oldest boy.

“That's far enough, Cousin,” Big John said, his voice thick with liquor. “Just backtrack to that horse and get out of here.”

“Or you'll do what?” Reese asked quietly.

Big John lurched a step closer. “Just blow your head off, that's all.”

Reese said coldly, “You're too drunk to blow out a candle, Big John, but try me on for size. I've got a dead Hoad owed me after today. It might as well be you.” Now he moved slowly, changing direction, walking toward Big John.

“Get him, June!” Big John called to his brother.

Obediently Junior Hoad called from inside the shop in a wild and high voice, “Back off, Reese. Back off, I say.”

Stubbornly Reese kept moving toward Big John. A scare shot flared from inside the blacksmith's shop and Reese heard the thud of a slug on the iron tank. While Big John was still startled, Reese lunged. His left hand came down on Big John's forearm and then he half-turned his own body, his arm pulling Big John's gun hand past him. Reese's shoulder caught Big John's chest in a savage drive that tipped the huge man off balance. He staggered a step backward and the rim of the watering trough caught him behind the knee. He fell into the trough, jack-knifed, his gun arm tearing loose from Reese's grip, and then over the sound of the splash Reese heard the dull thud of Big John's head hitting the far edge of the trough. That same moment his gun, pointed in the air and triggered by the reflex of the blow, went off harmlessly.

Reese wheeled now and took the three steps that brought him against the door of the blacksmith's shop. Drawing his gun, he flattened against the door, reached out his left hand and walked the sliding door back until the whole entrance was a gaping black hole. He looked now at Big John, who was sitting in the trough, knees hanging over, chin on chest, his mouth almost in the water. He was unconscious, Reese guessed, and that gave him an idea.

“Take a look at your big brother, June,” Reese called.

“Get him out of there,” Junior called in the same wild, high-pitched voice.

“He's drowning,” Reese called. “Come out and get him, both of you. Throw out your guns first.”

“You'll cut down on us!” a new voice said angrily. This was Emmett, the middle brother.

“On my own family?” Reese called mockingly. “Throw out your guns and get Big John out.”

There was only the slightest hesitation and then one gun arced out, followed immediately by the second. Reese waited then as the two Hoads ran past him toward the trough, and while they each took one of Big John's arms and hauled him out of the trough, Reese picked up their two guns from the street. Turning then he saw that Junior and Emmett had set Big John's slack body upright on the edge of the tank and were holding him there. As Reese moved toward them, he heard Junior say solemnly, “Hell, his head wasn't even under water.”

Reese couldn't see the expressions on their faces in the half-light, but he didn't have to. Junior, in his twenties, was lean and mean-looking and had the same blade of a nose as his father. Emmett, a year older than Junior's twenty, was a short chunk of a young man who was never without a wad of tobacco bulging in his downy cheek. Between the two of them they had never spent a day in school.

Reese turned now and called, “Jim, bring Buddy over.”

Seconds later Jim appeared, prodding Buddy ahead of him with his gun. The sight of them coming out of hiding was the signal for the patrons of the Best Bet to hit the boardwalk; a dozen of them tramped down to where Reese and the two Hoads were holding up Big John.

Jim Daley hauled up beside Reese and shoved Buddy, staggering drunk, toward his cousins.

“What started this?” Reese asked.

“They figured to wreck the Best Bet. Buddy was the worst, so I buffaloed him and hauled him out. Them three was going to take him away from me.”