CHAPTER XX
THE SHERIFF PURGES TOWN OF BADGER
The sheriff, rather crestfallen, was obliged to return to Badger withoutMoffatt. Having lost all trace of him, he was suspicious that thegunfighter would strike unexpectedly from another direction; perhaps inBadger itself, relying on Johnson's absence. His acquaintance withMoffatt had been short, but sufficient to persuade Lafe that he was mostto be feared when nobody knew his whereabouts.
Arrived in town and refreshed, Lafe went straight to Dutch Annie. Nobodyin the community was especially predisposed toward Moffatt except a fewhangers-on at the Fashion who had enjoyed his largess, and a lady knownas Picnic Kate. Picnic Kate lived with Dutch Annie. Her name suffices todescribe her, and as persons who have no nice friends are unworthy ourconsideration, I will let her case rest there. However, the sheriff hada shrewd notion that if anybody knew, or was apt to learn, anythingconcerning Moffatt, Picnic was the individual.
"I ain't saw him since him and you had that run-in up at the Fashion,"said Kate.
The sheriff was convinced she was lying, but merely nodded.
Hetty welcomed him back with some shyness. It puzzled Johnson until herecalled the date, and then he looked troubled.
"Hetty," said he, "we've got to put off the wedding again. We can't bemarried yet."
"Why not?"
The sheriff gave a short laugh. "I don't want you a widow as soon asyou're a wife."
"What's the matter, Lafe? What do you talk that way for? A widow?"
"Moffatt's somewhere around here, I'll swear," said the sheriff. "JeffThomas sent me a letter to-day--here, look. He says Steve swears he'llget me."
"Well?"
They were standing in the front room of the Widow Brown's. Lafe sat downand tried to talk naturally, preferring not to take cognizance of theprobing of Hetty's eyes.
"You see, hon, Steve is the last of the ol' tough bunch. I'll get him.It'll only take a few days--something's sure to break right away--don'tlook so scared, hon--we'll be married in a month, I bet you."
Hetty looked down at him like a queen of tragedy in a ten-twenty-thirtytent show performance. She said slowly: "No, we won't. I've got afeeling we won't ever be married."
"Pshaw!" said Johnson. "Don't talk like that."
"But I feel like that."
"Women always get ideas like that of yours in their heads. If somebodylooks cross at a feller, they can see a funeral with all his friendssending Gates Ajar wreaths. No, ma'am. I ain't ready for mine yetawhile."
"Why don't you throw it all up?" she asked abruptly.
"You mean my job? Resign? Quit being sheriff?"
"Yes, I do. Oh, you're bound to get killed some day. And for heaven'ssake, what is there in it? If things go right--well, that's what they'resupposed to do, anyhow. But if things go wrong, you get blamed." Hettyspun around to the window when she saw Lafe's expression of amazement.She gazed out at the ugly, huddled nakedness of Badger, and there wasloathing in her eyes.
"The place ain't fit for a human to live in."
"You won't have to stay here long, hon," the sheriff reminded her.
"But anything's apt to happen before that. We've put it off twicealready."
"Once," Lafe corrected.
He rose and stood before her. She kept her face averted, but did notwithdraw her hand when he took it. At last he said: "You'd have me quit?You'd have me back down when they--all these here people--done put me injust because they thought I was the best man to clean up this hereplace? I don't believe it. Not for a minute, Hetty. It ain't like you."
"Gunmen aren't the only toughs in this town," she said darkly.
"I don't take you, ma'am. Oh, you mean--them?" He pointed to theoutskirts of Badger, to the red, tinned roof of Dutch Annie's abode.
"Yes, I do," said Hetty, flushing.
The subject was dropped for the time and they fell to discussingfurniture for the house in Hope Canon. Then, as he bade her good-night,Lafe remarked in a casual voice, as though the step were routine: "I'lldo that, too."
"Do what?"
"Clear out that crowd. There'll be an awful howl all around town, butI'll do it."
He had gone a hundred yards when she called him back.
"Oh, Lafe."
"What is it?" he asked, returning.
"That poor creature--Sarah--you remember Jackson?"
"I thought we agreed not to say nothing about that feller."
"Yes, but--well, I might--you'll look after her, won't you, Lafe?"
"Sure. They'll be all right. Don't you worry. Good-night."
He was very serious as he took his way homeward. What he planned to doamounted to a moral revolution in Badger, and there would assuredly bean outcry and a tremendous to-do. True, the town had been purged before.Once, in the hottest of the hot weather, driven to frenzy by BrotherDucey's exhortations--he was a genius in choosing the purgatorial monthsfor his vivid pictures of a living hell--a crowd of citizens had rushedfrom the meeting, and, surging across the sand-flats to theestablishment of Dutch Annie's predecessor, had ousted the merry sistersin the dark of the night. But, as is usual in such cases, reaction fromtheir zeal was swift and far-reaching. Dutch Annie came and flourished;and when the citizens of Badger elected Johnson sheriff, no mention ofthis cancer in the body social was made in the program of reform.
Lafe now reflected on these things from a new view-point. His conclusionwas: "It ain't decent. Hetty's got the rights of this, I reckon."
To many aspects of their Border life, he had given scant thought. Wheremuch that ought to be viewed with horror is tolerated as an establishedfactor in communal life by law-abiding people, a man tends to becomecomplaisant of laxity. Many evils existing in Badger had never struckthe sheriff as such, simply because they had always been; but he waslearning. Little glimpses of Hetty's healthy outlook on things shook hisown code of conduct to its spine and filled him with a species of awe.
"Let 'em roar," he said firmly. "It'll be a mighty fine wedding presentfor her. Besides, it'll make Steve wild."
The sheriff was an execrable politician, else he would have proceededdifferently. Had he possessed the sagacity of a ward leader, how hewould have corralled the reform vote by going at his task with beatingof drums and a fanfare of announcements. Lafe took quite another method.He paid a call, in a spirit approaching friendliness, and after somevehement protests, he departed with a promise extracted.
Dutch Annie was as good as her word. Next day a little company ofpilgrims boarded the stage, bound for the railway. They looked sadlyworn in the glare of sunlight, in spite of extravagant efforts with therouge pot and the powder rag, but they put a brave face on the situationand exchanged badinage with a few choice spirits gathered to witness thedeparture.
"Well, so long, Lafe," said Dutch Annie, who was a just woman, accordingto her lights. "It was right mean, but I reckon you had to do it. Andyou've acted the gen'l'man, which is more'n I can say for a lot ofloafers in this here town."
Sellers cracked his long whip, the mules lurched against their collarsand the stage rattled away. This was the last that Badger ever saw ofDutch Annie.
So quietly had the feat been accomplished that the town really did notawake to the fact until they had gone. Then criticism broke out.
"I suppose you'd call it the right thing, looked at in a large way,Lafe," ventured the landlord of the Cowboys' Rest in mild protest. "It'smore religious, in course. But you'd ought to have thunk of some of theboys."
Others assumed a violent tone, but these excoriations were deliveredwhere the sheriff did not hear them. Consequently they hurt neither himnor those who made them. They held that he had exceeded his duties andpowers; his job was to do what was bidden in the by-laws to preserveorder, not to regulate the private morals of everybody in the town. Manalive, first thing one knew, Johnson would be breaking up card play, andit wouldn't be safe for a man to shake dice with a barkeep for thedrinks. Jake Taylor, who had once been a miner, and who had now joinedthe leisure classes
through inclination rather than fortune, talkedfreely of the referendum and recall.
The sheriff was fully aware of what was being said. Yet it gave him anew sense of power to feel, also, back of his act, the support of thebetter element. They arrayed themselves with him unostentatiously, forfear of ruptures that might work harm to business. Nevertheless, he knewtheir support could be counted on. Indeed, Turner and other substantialmen of the place hastened to assure the sheriff that he had done a bravething. Not a word of it did he breathe to Hetty, but when he called forher to go walking the following night, she was waiting for him at thegate, and when Johnson saw her smile of understanding and confidence, heknew he would not repent, whatever might befall.
"No news of Steve yet," he told her.
"Oh, Lafe, do be careful. They tell such dreadful things about him. Mrs.Brown says he could hit a two-bit piece at a hundred yards."
"Don't. Let's be cheerful," said the sheriff, and laughed. "It'll onlybe a few days, hon. I'll get him all right."
"Well," said Hetty, with a sigh of content, clinging to his arm,"there's one comfort. If anything ever did happen to you, I'd know it,if you were in Jericho."
"How?" he asked, much diverted.
"Why, you booby, I could feel it. Isn't it strange, Lafe? I feel as ifwe'd known each other all our lives. We must have been made for eachother."
"That's right queer," said the sheriff solemnly. "I often get thatfeeling myself."
As I have a suspicion that other loving young people have talked likethis before, enough of it.
The Sheriff of Badger: A Tale of the Southwest Borderland Page 20
