The girl sighed over the noise and frowned again. “Well, the sheriff’s not here. You’ll need to wait.”
“Thank you, ma’am. Can you tell me how long he’ll be?”
The girl looked up for the first time, rankled her nose, then closed her eyes. “Their hands united like a raven in flight, where she had at one time descended into an aureole of luminous light. There—that’s all I needed to do, reverse the words.” She opened her eyes again. “Now, what were you asking?”
I tapped my foot. “You got too many beats in your last line.”
“No I don’t.”
“Sure you do. Count it out.”
“It’s perfect the way it is.”
“Look, lady,” I said, “if you’re so smart, how come you asked for my help in the first place?”
“Look mister—” The girl folded her arms. “I don’t know you, but if you don’t like my poetry, then you’re no friend of mine.” She pointed to a hard-backed seat against the far wall. “You can sit over there. The sheriff will be here when he gets here.” She paused, glared, and added, “Will there be anything else?”
I glared back at her. “You’re plumb full of sassafras, aren’t you?” I judged her to be eighteen. Maybe nineteen. Without waiting for her to answer, I walked to the chair, sat down, and set my left boot on my right knee.
Just then the front door opened and a man I reckoned to be the sheriff walked in. He was mustached, tall and barrel-chested, and wore a black three-piece suit with a thin matching black bow tie. His hands were big, his face jowly but muscular, and he wore a white Stetson tilted rakishly to one side.
“Any calls?” he asked.
The young woman shook her head. “All was quiet on the Western Front. Deuce Gibbons passed out cold and hit his head in cell three, but I called the doc, who says he’s okay. Oh—and this fella’s in a hurry to see you.” She nodded toward me with a scowl.
“Cup of coffee first. Have him follow me in.” He motioned to one of the closed office doors.
The young woman looked my direction and gave a half snicker. “You want coffee too? Help yourself.”
“Not when it’s mixed with arsenic,” I muttered, and followed the sheriff inside his office.
“Close the door.” He motioned to a chair. “Why you here?”
I set the gunnysack on his desk and sat down.
He untied the top, stared inside, smelled the bills, and let out a low whistle. He closed the bag up, sat back in his chair, and draped his left arm on the cabinet behind him, his right arm on his knee near his revolver where I couldn’t see the fingers. For a moment he grinned, studying my face. Then his smile faded and his eyes became stern.
“You listen to me good, boy. From here on out I’m asking the questions. You will not say another word unless I tell you to speak. You got that?”
I nodded.
A knock came at the door and the young woman poked her head inside. “Sheriff, what rhymes with horizon, as in They watched the sun set as it disappeared on the horizon …”
The sheriff studied the girl a moment. “Prison. Hellion. Rebellion. Brazen. Emblazon. Liaison. Raisin. Crimson.” He scratched his head. “Bunion … Does that help? Oh wait—” He motioned to the gunnysack. “Take this out of sight and count it for me, will ya?”
The girl smiled at him, took the sack, and closed the door behind her.
“Now—” He returned his attention to me. “I’ve been a lawman for a lot of years, and the way I figure it, there are only two reasons why a man walks into a jailhouse with a sack full of money, which creates a powerful dilemma for me. One, the man has found the money and is returning it for a reward. Since I’ve never seen you around town, and the reward money hasn’t been posted in the newspapers yet, I’d be hard-pressed to understand where a man such as yourself heard about any reward. That primes me to think you fall into the second category.” His voice trailed off and we sat in silence at least two full minutes. All the time he studied my face.
Another knock sounded on the door and the young woman appeared. “Total comes to $18,549. You need anything else, Sheriff? Another cup of coffee?”
“Nah—thanks.” He nodded toward the door. The girl disappeared again. The sheriff opened a folder on a desk, checked a figure, then closed the folder and sat in quietness again, studying me intently. At least five more minutes passed. We could hear the prisoners shouting through the walls.
“Sir.” I broke silence. “You mentioned a second reason, sir?”
The sheriff flushed and slammed his hand on the cabinet. “You will not speak unless spoken to!”
I nodded.
The red drained from his face and he leaned back again, although I could tell he was still tense. “First question: where’d you serve, son?”
“Sir, Dog Company, 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment, 101st Airborne, sir.”
The sheriff nodded but remained otherwise expressionless. “506th, eh? One of Colonel Sink’s boys. Name and rank?”
“Sergeant Zearl Slater, sir. Actually … uh … my last rank was private.”
“Zearl?” The sheriff’s eyebrows raised. “Your name is Zearl?”
“Sir, it was the name my father gave me, but, yeah, everybody calls me Rowdy.”
“Well, Private Rowdy Slater who used to be a sergeant—” he drummed the fingers of his left hand on the cabinet. “Don’t move.” He hit a buzzer near his desk phone. The young woman appeared again. “Get Martha on the switchboard,” he said. “Have her connect you to West Point. Let ’em know who’s calling and that I want to speak with Five-Oh-Sink—they’ll connect you. He’s now assistant division commander of the 101st last I heard.”
The girl nodded and went to her desk. Three minutes later she stuck her head back inside the door. “Colonel Robert Sink is on the line.”
“Bob!” the sheriff said. “Halligan Barker out in Texas. Yeah—I know, far too long.” He laughed. “Look, Bob, we’ll catch up on small talk another time. Right now I’ve got a fella in my office says he was one of your boys. What can you tell me about Zearl Slater? Dog Company.” The sheriff went silent as he listened. A few times he nodded. A few times he said, “Is that so?” All the while he kept his eyes on me. He wasn’t smiling. “Thanks, Bob,” he said at last and hung up the phone.
I shifted uncomfortably in my chair.
“So you spent time in military prison.”
“Sir, yes sir.” My voice was low.
“Why?”
“A bar fight in Mourmelon, sir. I got drunk and busted a guy’s head in. Turns out he was a major.”
“How long he spend in the hospital?”
“Long enough to give me six months.”
“Anything else I should know about that?”
“Sir, that’s about it, sir.”
The sheriff pursed his lips. “Ever wounded?”
“Took a bullet in my side during Operation Market Garden. Passed clean through and I was able to rejoin my unit soon.”
“Anything else about that story?”
“Sir, that’s about it, sir.”
The sheriff took a sip of coffee and cleared his throat again. “According to my talk with the colonel, there are a few details you’re leaving out, Private Rowdy Slater, which brings me to reason number two why a man would walk into a jailhouse with a sack full of money. It’s because the man committed the crime himself, is now remorseful, and wants to change his ways.”
I opened my mouth, but the sheriff abruptly held up his hand. “Keep your mouth shut, boy. That’s an order.” The man’s eyes were firmly set.
I nodded.
He leaned forward in his chair. “What the colonel said was that the major you busted in the head had it coming. Seemed he got fresh with a French civilian, a married woman, and you stepped in and defended her honor. The major swung wide, fell down like a sack of horse hockey, and hit his head against the bar—that’s the only reason he got hurt so bad. Four paratroopers, a tank commander, and the bartender all s
igned affidavits at your court martial swearing that’s how it happened. But because of your past record of carousing, the judge advocate thought it best to teach you a lesson. Is that how you remember the story?”
I swallowed. “That’s what they say, sir.”
The sheriff was on a roll. “Colonel Sink also informed me that after you got wounded back in Holland, you had a golden ticket home if you wanted it, but you broke out of the hospital and rejoined your unit. You weren’t even healed yet, but you chose to keep doing your duty because you didn’t want to leave your brothers alone on the line. When a man doesn’t tell such things about himself, then that tells me something about the man’s character. Understand what I’m saying Private Slater?”
“I don’t think so, sir. Not exactly.”
The sheriff wouldn’t stop. “The colonel furthermore informed me you helped silence the guns at Brecourt Manor. That action saved a heap of men’s lives down on the Normandy beaches. You received the Bronze Star for valor, and in Carentan you pulled three wounded men to safety while a German sniper rained down a hailstorm of lead. After the men were safe, you went back and took out the sniper. You killed at least twenty-three enemy due to your sharpshooting ability, and twenty of those occurred in the most harrowing and dangerous battle situations. So my conclusion is you’re a scrupled man who doesn’t fear death, although you’ve made some mistakes, Private Rowdy Slater, and that’s what brings me back to my dilemma. Any clue what that might be? Answer if you know.”
“Sir, no sir.”
The sheriff inhaled sharply and held his breath until I thought he was going to explode. Then he released it and the words rushed out of him angrily. “It means next election I lose votes. If you found the stolen money, then the bankers’ committee needs to pay you a reward, which makes them aggravated and they campaign against me next November. But if you stole the money in the first place and returned it because your conscience grew heavy, then I send you to the Texas Department of Criminal Justice, and those boys hate it when an attempted murder of a public safety officer is involved—which is how they’ll see it because the bank guard got walloped over the head.” He paused just long enough to breathe. “The state factors in your prior criminal record, and then they get itchy to send you to Huntsville. Other states send you to the chair only for capital murder, but in Texas we fry you for a whole host of felonies, providing you don’t get lynched first. Big case like this costs big taxpayer money, and that means I get an angry call from the governor who riles up folks to campaign against me. You’d think folks would be happy because the money’s been found, but that’s the hard-luck life of the sheriff in Cut Eye. You tracking with me? Powerful folks get aggravated and I lose votes, and then Mayor Oris Floyd pushes through the man he wants into office, and I most definitely do not want that to happen! Savvy what I’m saying? Answer me, boy. Do you?”
I swallowed dryly and nodded.
“So here’s how this is going to work.” The sheriff moved his right hand to his hip, looked me straight in the eyes, and unlatched his holster. “In a minute you and I are going to take a drive. My secretary’s going to come along as a witness because my deputy is so straightlaced he won’t understand why a man of justice needs to take this sort of action. And since I don’t know for sure whether you’re a criminal or a hero, I’m going to be polite to an American citizen and pose it as a question—are you coming or not?—and since I’m the man with his hand on the gun, that means you’re gonna say yes.”
FOUR
The backseat of the sheriff’s car smelled like old winos. I wasn’t handcuffed, but the doors were locked. The sheriff drove and the secretary sat in the passenger’s seat.
We headed east on Main, turned south onto Highway 2, and followed it past the baseball fields where we turned right onto Lost Truck Road and drove for another mile. The sheriff slowed the car and turned left onto a rutted dirt road overgrown by bushes. In half a mile the road ended.
“Get out,” he said.
Wasn’t nobody around. The sun was hitting its afternoon stride and the sky was cloudless, the air hot. A trail lay before us bordered by tall grass, and the sheriff motioned for me to walk ahead of him. His secretary followed, still with a scowl on her face. The sheriff brought up the rear.
Within two hundred yards we reached the river, although this looked more like a fork off the main branch. A swath of land flattened out halfway across the flowing water and a pool had formed in the eddy on the other side. Pine trees and high grasses ringed most of the pool. If my heart hadn’t been pounding in my chest, I would have looked upon the area as scenic. We stopped by the water’s edge. The sheriff’s right hand hovered near his holster, and the three of us shivered in silence a few minutes; at least that’s the way my nerves felt. Finally the sheriff spoke.
“You know how Cut Eye sprung into existence, boy? Answer if you know.”
I shook my head.
He glanced around at the pond and sniffed. “It’s because men on Highway 2 needed a watering hole between destinations. You’re no stranger to watering holes, I guess, so you know what kind of business it is that money-loving men put on top of taverns.” He glanced at his secretary, then glanced away.
I kept silent and studied the pond. It appeared deep enough, cold and quiet, and I wondered if they’d ever find my body once the sheriff finished with me.
“That’s right, boy, all other businesses in my town sprung from the first watering hole and the place of ill repute that still sits on top today,” the sheriff said. “My town is founded on a lack of scruples, I admit, and it’s grown up hard and fast with iniquity ever in mind. These days, two miles northeast of Cut Eye, there’s a branch of the Murray Company that runs a plant for gas-fired floor furnaces. It’s honest work, heavy labor, and fairly mindless. Couple hundred fellas from Cut Eye work there, although mostly women did during the war, and the rest of my town is populated by ranchers, oilmen, drifters, and other rough-hewn men. Every mother’s son is looking to fight and drink and spend his money on a good time, and those roustabouts are exactly what I deal with every day in my line of work—men making my life hard as sheriff. You were born in a small town, yes, Private Slater?”
“Yes sir. Denim. About two hundred and thirty miles from here.”
“I know where it lies. Your folks still living?”
“No sir, both dead.”
“Any other kin?”
I collected my thoughts before answering. “A niece, sir. Uh … age four. She’s an orphan too, boards with a family in Rancho Springs. She needs—”
“That’s all I need to know.” The sheriff’s voice was brusque and he tapped me on the shoulder. It felt like a shove. “Strip to your briefs and wade to your waist in the pond.”
I glanced at the secretary. My heart was nearly pounding through the lining of my chest now. Her face remained motionless, her eyes focused at the sky.
“Go on,” the sheriff said. “There’s an easy way and a hard way. Your choice.”
I took off my jacket and shirt, my boots, socks, and pants. My dog tags jangled in the wind. Don’t know why I still wore them. Maybe I always felt naked without. The pond water was mountain cold as I waded forward, and my skin rippled with goose pimples. No sense looking back. No sense trying to intimidate a man with a revolver when all you got is your stare.
“Far enough,” the sheriff called. “Turn around and look at me.”
I obeyed. His hand still wisped against his revolver but he hadn’t yet drawn. For a moment I considered making a run for it. I knew I wouldn’t get far.
“You grew up in a small town, Private Slater—so you were taught to fear Jesus. That the case? Answer.”
“Sir, I went to Sunday school as a child.”
“So you fear God today, even though you’ve led a wayward life? Answer.”
“I guess so, sir. As of yesterday—”
“Your mouth is shut!” the sheriff shouted. “We ain’t here for testimony.”
The s
ecretary watched me now. All this time she hadn’t uttered a word, but now she tapped the sheriff on the arm and said, “I’d like to say something before it occurs.”
He nodded.
The secretary took two steps forward on the beach and raised her head slightly. Her nose looked too far in the air for my asking.
“One of my inspirations, the great poetess Ella Wheeler Wilcox, spoke of a burial for her dead,” the secretary began. “Missus Wilcox didn’t have a shroud or coffin, no prayers uttered or tears shed. Only a picture turned against the wall. In moments where life and death is pictured, I prefer Psalm 23—‘Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil’ …” Her voice trailed off. A small, reddish dabbling duck flew in and skidded onto the pond between me and the shore.
The sheriff grunted at her finish and called my direction, “Dunk yourself then, Private. We don’t have all day.”
I stared confounded at the man. “Sir?”
“You heard right. Get your hair wet. I don’t think it’s official unless your hair’s wet. I’d come out there and do it myself, but I fought the flu this winter. The girl would do it, but I don’t condone mixed bathing. Go on. Get yourself under.”
I kept my eyes on the sheriff, sunk myself down in the water, and stood up again.
“Back to shore now,” the sheriff called. “Plenty of work to do.” He turned to his secretary and gave her a pat on the shoulder. “Sit in the car for a bit, will ya, sweetie. Write another of your poems. No sense you being here for the rest of this.”
She nodded, smiled at him, and headed back up the trail.
Everything became clear in an instant and I waded back to shore in a huff. My nervousness fled. I saw straight through the sheriff and his cowardly ways, and my blood bristled. Three yards south of him, I squared off, the cold river water dripping off my body. His hand was still a flea speck away from his holster.
Feast for Thieves Page 3
