by Lauran Paine
Logan softly shook his head. “They weren’t old friends, Deputy. They were a couple of tinhorn renegades from down south, card cheats, back-shooters, two-bit horse thieves.”
Perc’s attention turned sharp. “Outlaws?” he said. “You recognized them as wanted men?”
Logan didn’t answer right away. He eased his chair down off the wall, leaned to place his empty beer glass upon a vacant nearby table, and stood up. “I couldn’t swear about how bad they’re wanted, Deputy. All I know is that I’ve seen ’em before down south, and the word was they were real undesirables. What else did they tell Champion? That I was a bad one?”
“Something like that, Sam.”
Logan stood in thought, and Perc gazed up at him from his seated position. Sam Logan was a hard man to figure, he didn’t look mean or treacherous. He even had little smiling wrinkles up around his shrewd blue eyes, and yet there was that mother-of-pearl .45 on his hip to remind Perc and everyone else how lethal he was with guns.
Logan raised his eyes, settled them upon Perc, and gravely nodded. “See you around, Deputy,” he said, turned and started on across the room. Perc watched him reach the roadside doors and shoulder through, out into the night. He let off a quiet sigh and also arose. That much was done; Logan would be moving on soon, which was all he’d wished to make sure of. Now he’d go have that talk with old Jonah Reeves—or John Reed, or whatever his cussed name was. As he started forward, Everett came around the bar and cut in front of him. Old Ev’s sly, wrinkled-up, prune-like features were sharply inquisitive.
“You didn’t tell him, did you?” he asked.
Perc said: “I didn’t have to, Ev, he already knew. Seems he recognized those two boys from Arizona at the same time they recognized him.”
“Well, but if you mentioned me, he’d liable to …”
“He said for you and the others around town not to worry. He also said he’s pulling out in a few days.”
Champion’s face relaxed, losing its inquisitive sharpness. “Fine, Perc. That’s just fine. Now, go get rid of that other misfit and things’ll be right back to normal, won’t they?”
Perc didn’t answer and walked on out of the place. It was a pleasant warm night with a weak moon and a high rash of brilliant stars scattered like diamond dust across a purple tapestry. There were little groups of men standing here and there along the walkways, smoking and casually gossiping. All in all it was a very peaceful scene. He could see the lamplight coming from the rear of Jonah’s wagon over yonder behind the public corral. It reassured him because he hadn’t been certain the old cuss and his daughter didn’t retire early. There surely wasn’t much in Ballester to appeal to those two after sundown. He stepped down and started across the wide roadway. It must be hard on a woman like Abigail, he mused, being cooped up in a wagon with an old fanatic like Jonah. Whether he was a preacher or an outlaw, one thing was sure—he was narrowly set in his ways, and right or wrong they’d get almighty boring to a girl after a few months. Besides, she was too handsome to be cooped up like that all the time. She was the kind of a woman who’d like beauty and music and moonlight walks on balmy summer nights.
He was almost through the vacant lot beside Ab’s barn before his thoughts came back down to the prosaic business at hand. What brought them down so suddenly was a blurry shadow over near the wagon. He halted, watched it a moment, decided it was Abigail because it was shorter than a man would ordinarily be, and when it faded out in the layers of gloom, he moved on again. He didn’t try to intercept her, but went instead to the rear of the rig and knocked lightly on the door.
When the panel opened, he was looking straight up into Abigail’s face. He blinked at her, stepped back, and threw a look up where that blurry shadow had been. Of course it was no longer visible.
“Can I help you, Deputy?” she called softly to him.
He stepped back again and removed his hat. “If your pappy’s not asleep, I’d like a word with him, ma’am.”
She started to step aside for Perc to enter the wagon. Behind her loomed up the massively bear-like silhouette of her father. He was holding aloft a little reading lamp. “Who is it?” he rumbled, and when Abigail said it was Mister Whittaker, the deputy sheriff, Jonah shouldered around her and overflowed past the opened door holding down his lamp to see Perc’s face. “Ahhh,” he mumbled, handed Abigail the lamp, and came on through the door, down the little set of steps into the night, and closed the door behind him. “Good evening, Deputy,” he rumbled. “What can I do for you?”
“Take a little walk with me,” said Perc, conscious of Abigail on the other side of that door.
“Be right happy to. Where’ll we walk?”
“Just down the alley a piece, Parson.”
They strolled along, one of them tall and solidly made, the other one shorter, nearly twice as broad, and sort of rolling as he moved along. They got down near the back alley exit of Ab Fuller’s barn and Perc stopped. It was gloomy out here but it was also deserted.
Perc turned, met the piercing eyes of the older, bearded man, and said quietly: “John Reed.”
Parson Reeves stared and said nothing for a long time. He eventually twisted to peer back up toward the wagon, seemed satisfied they were far enough from it, then looked elsewhere around the alley and seemed satisfied about that, too. “I appreciate your thoughtfulness,” he rumbled in a low, grave tone of voice. “I sort of had you pegged as a considerate man, Deputy. All right, I’m John Reed.”
“Why this get-up as a parson, Mister Reed?” asked Perc.
“It’s no get-up, Deputy. I saw the error of my ways in prison. That was after Abigail’s husband died in a dirty little Mex town in a gunfight leaving my girl alone. I took to the Bible trail. That’s all there is to it. There are hundreds of young men in the West who need someone like me, not just any kind of a preacher, but my kind. When I was a young feller, I ran into a lot of those ministers with their cussed collars on backward and they didn’t know what they were talking about … mentioning evil and evil-doers. But, Deputy, I know. I’ve been through it all. I know what I’m talking about.”
“I see,” murmured Perc, watching the older man and wondering if he was that good of an actor.
“Maybe you do,” went on John Reed. “But I sort of doubt it, son. I spent the first forty years of my life steeped in iniquity. I figure to spend what’s left to me making amends, and if I can prevent just one wild young buckaroo from riding the same downward trail I took, I’ll have done my duty as His servant. Just one man, Deputy.”
“About Miss Abigail’s husband, Parson …?” said Perc, deliberately letting his voice trail off.
“I stood up for them,” rumbled the older man, dropping his eyes. “Married my own daughter to a bank robber and worse. It sticks in my throat, Deputy. But like I told you, I was a man sunk deep in iniquity. Then he robbed a Wells, Fargo safe and had to run for it. I was in prison when she wrote me he’d been killed in some filthy dive down in Mexico and she was working at a laundry down near Tempe in Arizona. That clinched it for me, my own little motherless girl left alone to sweat out her life at labor because of me and my evilness.”
Perc heard the gruffness creep into that rumbling bass voice and felt mean for having pushed Reed into this baring of his soul. And yet he had another unpleasant task still to perform. “Parson, it’ll only be a matter of time before everyone hereabouts finds out who you are. I doubt like the devil that you’ll ever be able to preach a sermon in this town or take up an offering.”
“Yes. What you’re saying, Deputy, is that you figure it’d be better all around if I hitched up and drove on.”
“Yes,” murmured Perc, feeling even meaner.
“Well. Thanks for being civil, Deputy. Since I’ve been on the Bible trail not many lawmen’ve been as decent as you have.” Reed lifted his head. “And I know about how your thoughts are running because I’ve come ont
o this same thing before. You’re wondering if old John Reed isn’t as big a fraud now as a parson as he was a hell-roaring outlaw.”
Perc didn’t deny that but neither did he confirm it. All he said was: “A local range man recognized you in the saloon last Sunday. He figured you were up to something here in Ballester.”
“Sure he did, Deputy, and who can blame him? I made my bed of thorns and I don’t deny I ought to have to lie in it. That’s part of my punishment.” Reed raised his mighty arms and tilted back his head, his beard stood out, and coldly impersonal starlight shone down across his battered old face. “But for how long, oh, Lord,” he groaned. “For how long?”
Perc shifted his stance and looked swiftly around. He felt embarrassed. The alleyway was empty.
Reed dropped his arms and lowered his head. He studied Whittaker’s face a long time, then inclined his head. “I’ll do as you say. We’ll hitch up in a few days and move on. But I hate to do it, Deputy, because, believe me, there’s a heap more iniquity in this town than you know … than you got any idea about.” He paused and a faint, crafty light shone in his pale stare. “I’ll leave next Monday or Tuesday. Will that be all right?”
Perc shifted his feet again. The old cuss was going to hang around until next Sunday. He turned this over in his mind and doggedly said: “Mister Reed, no more saloon-chousing come Sunday. I told Miss Abigail I’d lock you up if you did that again.”
“Aye. She told me, Deputy. She told me of you helping fill the water barrel at the creek. You made a decent impression on her and she’s a girl that’s got reason to be skeptical of men.”
“Well, I meant it, Mister Reed. I sure don’t want you to think I’m throwing my weight around behind this badge because that’s not it at all. But Ballester’s been a peaceful, orderly place up until recently, and I’d like for it to be that way again, so … you stay out of Ev Champion’s place. All right?”
“All right, Deputy. But it goes against the grain. Saloons and the Sabbath don’t mix.”
“Nevertheless …”
“You have my word, Deputy,” Reed rumbled, and held out a hand as thick and broad as a bear’s paw. “I’m beholden to you, too. John Reed never forgets a favor.”
They shook, and the older man turned and shuffled back up toward his wagon. Perc stood a while, watching and feeling both hopeful and skeptical, then he fell to wondering about that elusive blurry shadow he’d seen earlier skulking around the wagon. Of one thing he was certain—that hadn’t been Abigail.
Chapter Seven
It was getting late so he walked down to the jailhouse to lock the door before heading on over to the boarding house. He had no prisoners—hadn’t had in fact for over a month now—but he did have a wall rack of rifles and shotguns in there not to mention some files and other things, so he made a habit of locking up every night before heading for home.
It was dark under the warped wooden awning that shaded the front of the jailhouse. He hooked the big padlock and turned to cast a look up and down the roadway. There weren’t many lights still glowing—up at the Slipper of course brightness still glowed, and across the road on the same side as the jailhouse, at Fuller’s livery barn there was more light, but otherwise, except for a rare soft glow here and there, the town was dark.
Usually he made a circuit of the tie racks. Sometimes careless or callous men left horses hitched at the racks all night. When that happened, he hunted up the owners, routed them out, and made them go down and take their animals over to the livery barn. But tonight the only critters standing patiently at the racks were up in front of Ev’s bar and cowboys never forgot their mounts, so they could go on home.
But he didn’t. For some reason he did not clearly understand he stood down there in front of the jailhouse and made a cigarette, lit it, and stood with the thing drooping from his lips. He had an odd feeling, a sort of uneasy sensation. He’d first developed it when talking with Sam Logan. It was as though, as John Reed had quietly said, there was something going on around Ballester he didn’t know about.
He went back over both those conversations word for word to the best of his recollection, and all this did was strengthen that feeling. It was a little like waiting for a hidden bomb to detonate.
“Nerves,” he muttered aloud. “It’s been a long day, a long ride out to Snowshoe and back. Just nerves.”
He removed the cigarette and gazed at its sullenly red little glowing tip. Something passing through darkness off on his right made a faint, sharp impression on his senses. He went right on eyeing the smoke, waiting for that little wispy movement to be repeated, drawing himself up very carefully for swift movement.
“Mister Whittaker …?”
He turned, recognizing the huskiness of the voice even before he sighted her face and figure through the gloom. She had her hair swept severely back and parted at the center. Her dress was of some dark and rusty material that fitted close up above, pinched in flat to the waist, then flared. It blended perfectly with the night.
“Yes’m,” he said, dropping the smoke and grinding it out to gain a moment’s respite from the near start he’d had.
“I wanted to talk to you. I’m sorry if I startled you.”
He raised his head. She was closer now and gazing straight up at him. He made a small, crooked smile at her. “You’ve got good eyesight if you can see that well in the dark, Miss Abigail.” He began turning back toward the jailhouse door. “We can talk inside, if you wish.”
“No, please … can’t we just walk southward to the edge of town?”
“Sure, ma’am,” he said, and turned to move off at her side. For a while she said no more. He was conscious of the soft rustle of her skirt. He was also conscious of her closeness and of the fragrance of her hair. Where she finally paused, it was far enough southward so that only a very faint echo of the sounds coming from Champion’s saloon were audible. There were a few residences down here, all dark and quiet now.
“Mister Whittaker … my father told me.”
He stood waiting and watching. He could have guessed old John Reed would have confided in her. He even wished a trifle wistfully he might also confide in her.
“At the creek, Mister Whittaker, you said you’d give him a chance if I promised you he wouldn’t fight any more.” She half turned and lifted her eyes. “Aren’t you going to keep your word?”
“Miss Abigail, things happen. Things change. I’m not going back on my word, though. He doesn’t have to pull out until next week. In fact, ma’am, I didn’t tell him he had to go … he told me.”
“But you meant that we had to. It’s the same thing.” She drew in a big breath. “Mister Whittaker, he’s been getting run out of towns for several years now. He’s not a young man and what he wants more than anything else is just to settle somewhere. To stop moving. To preach his sermons and have a small house somewhere and … do good things.”
Perc looked back up the roadway where the orange squares of light lay low in roadway dust. He looked down again. “It’s not me, ma’am, it’s the town.”
“It’s always the town, Mister Whittaker, it’s never the law or the lawmen,” she replied a little ruefully.
“Well, I’m only a deputy sheriff. I’ve told folks he was harmless. Then today I found out who he really is, and that’s what changed things.”
“Yes, of course it has. You can’t trust John Reed.”
“No ma’am. Not I. Maybe I could trust him. I could sure trust you and if you said he wasn’t the same John Reed, that’d be plenty good for me. But not for the town. They’ll find out who he really is within a day or two, then it wouldn’t matter how he’s reformed, they’d only recall all the other stuff about him.”
She turned and paced along again. He hesitated a moment before trudging along after her. They were near the southernmost end of town now, beyond the homes and down among some dilapidated abandoned old shac
ks. He reached forth to halt her where the plank walk ended, brought her around, and said: “Abigail, one thing I don’t believe is that he just happened to hit on Ballester as the place to put down his roots. I can’t exactly explain that, but last Sunday he said some things at the Golden Slipper that gave the first inkling it wasn’t just coincidence he came to my town. Again tonight, when we talked in the alleyway, there was something behind his words again.”
“And so you’ve deduced that he’s here to blow a safe or rob your bank.”
“Ma’am, we don’t have a bank and the only two safes in town never have any money in them.”
“Then what is it, Mister Whittaker?”
“I don’t know, and that’s what’s got me wondering.”
They stood for a long moment, gazing at one another. She finally turned her back to him and stood quietly looking far down the star-washed night. The range southward ran on endlessly toward some far-away mountains, invisible now because of the weak moonlight. The air was redolent of the acrid odors of lupine and chaparral and buckbrush. It was a strong scent but a good one.
“He could do good for your town,” she murmured finally. “He probably told you that all he wants is to keep men from making the same mistakes he made when he was younger.”
“He also told me about your husband, and I’m sorry about that.”
She faced around. “There’s no need for you to be. The day we were married he left and I never saw him again. Mister Whittaker … I never loved him. He was my father’s riding pardner, that’s all.”
Perc cleared his throat and rummaged for something to say. “Well, I reckon we’ve got a few scars, ma’am. I’m sorry about you folks leaving. I guess I’m sort of selfishly sorry.”
Her liquid soft eyes widened a little. “Selfishly sorry?” she murmured. “I don’t understand.”
