Herschel nodded.
“How will you arrest him down there?”
“I’ll have a deputy U.S. marshal badge.”
“That would solve the problem. Who would go with you?”
“You have more money to spend on expenses?”
“No.” McKay looked affronted by the mention of more money.
“Then I’ll go and hire any help I need down there.”
“I think the railroad would pay some of that.” McKay cupped his right elbow in his hand and squeezed his chin with the other, looking hard at the painting of George Washington on the wall.
“What I don’t use, I’d bring back.” Herschel clasped his hands together on top of the paper. “But I can’t say how much.”
“I’ll be back this afternoon.” McKay rushed off.
“What was his problem?” Phil asked from the doorway.
“Money, like usual.”
“Oh, here’s how things went in Conners’s court. The judge gave that stage robber Felton four years in Deer Lodge Prison. Them two cowboys that robbed the store got off with agreeing to get out of Montana. They ever come back, they’ll serve two years in prison.”
“Sounds all right. Now we can keep Smith in jail until his fall session.”
“He told Art that he’d hold a special session here if you got that whole gang since it was such a terrible crime.”
“Let’s hope that we do.”
“You reckon we will?”
“I have my way, we will.”
“Man, it would be nice to have them tried before they hold the county election conventions.” Phil smiled. “Sure be nice.”
“What would be nice?” Art asked, strolling into the office.
“Getting Ford and Travis,” Herschel said. “Thanks for all your work in court. Must have gone well. We have one of the gang in jail.”
“I already read that damn Stokes in the Herald.” Art shook his head in disgust. “Didn’t I see McKay also leaving the building? What’s he after?”
“My expenses to go after Ford in Nebraska.”
“Aw, hell, Phil, we’ll have to run this place again.”
They all laughed, and Herschel told them to take seats. “What else is happening?”
“I told Phil already,” Art began. “That Earl Mannon acted awfully nervous the whole time he was in town for jury duty. I never saw a fella that nervous wasn’t guilty of something.”
“I told Art that word’s out. One of those two outfits, either the Ralstons or the Mannons, lynched Billy Hanks.”
“What else?”
“There’s also rumors that Billy Hanks got one of them Ralston girls with child.”
Herschel sat back until the springs creaked. “What else?”
“Hanks was after Earl’s betrothed.”
Herschel scratched the back of his neck. He needed a haircut. “All hearsay and not admissible in court. But we need to know some answers.”
“Is one of the Ralston girls going to have a baby?” Art shook his head and gave him a frown. “I ain’t asking her.”
“We can have Marsha do that at the dance Saturday night.”
“We sure can.” Phil smiled, looking relieved that he didn’t have to do that job.
“I guess I need to talk to Barbara Ann Kelly,” Herschel said, and gazed out the window at the bright blue sky, tenting and untenting his fingertips.
Art made a face like he was about to blow up, then said, “Judge Watson’s decision that the shooting was in self-defense ain’t helped things.”
“Some of them think Berry Kirk is the avenger for the cowboys’ side?” Herschel asked.
Both of his deputies nodded.
“Bad enough that there’s horse rustling, not related to Hanks, going on up in the northwest part of the county. Barley and I intended to make a raid on them. All this has put it off for the moment.”
“Know who the rustlers are?” Art asked.
Herschel shrugged. “More out-of-work cowboys would be my guess.”
“Plenty of them on their way here now,” Phil said with a shake of his head. “And word is they’re bringing fifty thousand more cattle up from Texas for these ranges.”
“Yeah,” Art said. “Even shipping some by rail and then driving them over from the end of the tracks.”
“Ain’t they learned their lesson yet?” Herschel asked.
Art scowled at them and shook his head. “Another winter like the last one and they can all go broke.”
“That’s for sure. I’m giving Mayor McKay some time to get me the expense money to go after Ford. Meanwhile, I’ll take the stage over and see Art’s friend Otter Washington at Miles City. He’s the U.S. marshal now and can get me a deputy marshal’s badge.”
“He’ll fix you up,” Art said.
“Figured so. Guess we all have work to do.”
“I’ve got a lead on that bald-faced horse,” Art said. “I thought I’d go down on the Crow Reservation today and see if I can locate it.”
“Good idea. I’d like to have him back for that crotchety old man Squires.”
Phil agreed and their meeting broke up. “Oh, yes, I have the jail expenses and the circuit court costs for you to go over before I turn them in,” Phil added.
Herschel closed his eyes and dropped his chin. “I better look them over next then.” What else did a sheriff have to do? Was there a woman involved in the Hanks lynching? Maybe there was an answer out there. The weekend would tell something about it.
Phil brought in the report. Herschel took the papers and looked at the columns of costs. At times, he wished he had been a bookkeeper instead of a cowboy. He’d be better equipped to handle the job if he’d had that kind of experience. He’d just gotten to the third item on the list when he heard a commotion in the outer office. Phil was arguing with someone.
He rose and went to the doorway.
“I demand to see the sheriff!” Stokes shouted as Phil physically blocked him from going past his desk.
“What do you want?” Herschel knew the scowl on his own face must have been black. It felt red—red-hot. “Get in here.”
Stokes shrugged, raised his chin, jerked down his green-checkered suit’s coattail, and slipped past the angry-looking Phil. “So there.”
“I ain’t through with you, either,” Phil said.
Herschel wanted to smile. Phil’s actions reminded him of the first time a guard dog pup raised his hackles at an adversary. That boy might make a real lawman yet.
With his right hand, Herschel scratched the side of his head and looked at the flushed face of the Herald’s star reporter. “What is all this about?”
“I’m here to ask you about progress on the Hanks lynching. Any leads—” He fumbled in his coat pocket for a stub of pencil and his pad. With a lick of the lead point, he was ready to write.
“Under investigation by this office.”
“No new leads? Nothing? Word on the street is that you deliberately were out of town so this Berry Kirk wouldn’t be vigorously prosecuted in the shooting.”
“That’s the prosecutor’s job, not the sheriff’s.”
“Yes, but the word is if you had been there and given your full support to the case, the results would have been different.”
Herschel walked to the window. He’d never offered Stokes a seat. This was to be a lesson in endurance for him. Traffic in the street looked busy. An eighteen-hitch oxen team’s freight outfit with two wagons threaded the ruts.
“I doubt Judge Watson based his decision on my not being there.”
“Ralston had a knife?”
“I’m satisfied that he did.”
“The word on the street—”
“What street?” Herschel half-turned and frowned at him.
“All over Billings.”
“Well, what are they saying, since I don’t hear them?”
“That Berry was hired to kill him for his involvement in the lynching.”
“How much was he paid?”
“How would I know?”
“You’re hearing things I’m not. They must be telling you the price on Ralston’s head. Why didn’t these people come forward and testify at the hearing? Hearsay is not evidence. The prosecutor needed hard evidence and testimony.”
“Casey Ford?” Stokes sounded ready to move on.
“He’s riding south.”
“Never to return to Montana?”
“If he knows what’s good for him, he won’t ever come closer than Cheyenne.”
“Do you have a vendetta with this man?”
“Are you asking me if I have a personal grudge against Ford?”
Stokes nodded, looking as if he was ready to write something important down.
“Casey Ford is a two-bit outlaw who killed a man and woman in cold blood and has been in on several robberies. I want him to face a judge and get his deserves. That’s my job.”
“But each time you go after him, you only get an accomplice, and then Ford strikes again. How can society believe he won’t strike again?”
“They can’t. I guess they better keep their doors bolted and a gun handy until he is behind bars, since you have compared him to Jesse James in your articles.”
“Mayor McKay says that this rash of crime could make the railroad go around Billings and avoid the town.”
“I think he said that exaggerated news stories about our local crime going out to the rest of the country would do that.”
“How do you intend to bring Ford to justice?” Stokes had ignored what Herschel said.
“We have plans.”
“We? Who’s that?” Stokes looked around the room.
“I have some hardworking deputies and they cover lots of miles and territory. The apprehension of Casey Ford is number one on their list.”
“But if he’s in Wyoming, as you say . . .”
“Wyoming?” He frowned at the reporter.
“You said for him not to come north of Cheyenne. How will you know when he does?”
“A little bluebird is going to fly up here and land on my windowsill and tell me so. That’s all I have time for.” He about laughed aloud; he could see the next headline. “Sheriff Uses Blue Birds for Passenger Pigeons.” With his hand he waved Stokes to the door, knowing full well he’d never get rid of him that easily. “Go on. I have work to do.”
“But—”
“I have work to do.”
Stokes made it to the door. “If Berry was hired to kill Tucker Ralston, do you think he’ll kill any of the other Ralston men?”
“Why don’t you go interview him?”
Stokes’s blue eyes opened wide. “Why—why, he might kill me.”
Seated at his desk with his nose in the figures, Herschel nodded and never looked up. What would Berry charge for doing that?
TWENTY
A SMALL deputy U.S. marshal badge pinned under his suit coat, Herschel returned to Billings by the afternoon stage. His twenty-four-hour trip to Miles City had been a busy one. The federal deputy position would give him some authority when he went after Ford. Not a matter of if, but when. Ford would surface somewhere, he’d hear about it and go arrest him. That outlaw better sleep in his boots so he was ready to run in them.
Herschel intended to make his nights short. Besides, after U.S. Marshal Washington filled out the papers, Ford was wanted for obstructing and robbing the mail, a federal offense.
Phil was still in the office when Herschel returned. Phil looked up and nodded. “Barley sent a note today. I figured you’d need to know about it.”
He took it and opened the folded paper.
Herschel,
Hoss thieves have taken over a dozen good horses from the area. The tracks go north. I am following them while they are fresh.
Barley Benton
It was in a woman’s handwriting. No doubt Heart, who’d been educated, had written it for him. Herschel hated the fact Barley was going alone. He’d better cancel all his plans, get up early, and track him down.
“I’ll go up there and help him in the morning. You and Art handle things. Art back yet?”
Phil nodded.
“Did he find the bald-faced horse?”
His deputy shook his head.
“You need to get out of here?” Herschel asked.
“Yes, Ida is cooking me supper tonight.”
“I wouldn’t miss her cooking, either. Tell her I said hi. She like the nanny job?” He scanned his own desk for anything he might need to check on.
“Yes, well enough, I guess.”
“Get out of here. Art get any leads on the stolen horse?”
“No,” Phil said. “The horse was gone out of the country from what he learned.”
He picked up the newspaper. YELLOWSTONE COUNTY SHERIFF MUM, the headline said. “Sheriff Herschel Baker could only allude to bluebirds bringing him messages when questioned about the large number of unsolved crimes in his territory,” the article said. He’d not missed it far.
“That sumbitch,” Phil swore.
“Haven’t you left?” He looked up and frowned at his man, then smiled. “I must be beginning to have some fortune-telling talents. I saw that coming when I ran him off.”
“I’m like Art. Stokes is getting under my skin.”
“Go on. Have a nice evening. We can’t stop him.”
“I had my way, I’d poke him in that big nose.”
“No. We can’t do that.”
“See you,” Phil said and left.
Nothing on his desk looked urgent, and soon he strode the blocks for home. Looking forward to an evening with the girls and Marsha.
“Father’s home,” Marsha called out, and his stepdaughters came from three directions to tackle him. He distributed the small nickel presents to them, then went in the kitchen and hugged his wife. There were times like these when he wondered if the whole situation was real. He felt ten feet tall. The smell of supper cooking filled the kitchen and she laughed. “Your favorite, of course, beef pie. Did anyone ever make it on the trail drives for you?”
He shook his head and kissed her on the top of the head. “Trail cooks fried steaks in tallow and boiled lots of beans. I was with an outfit once with a boy and that fella got more sand in his beans every day than I did swimming a flooding river.”
“Oh,” Kate said, hugging her arms. “Was that gritty on your teeth?”
“Yes.”
“Father, Mr. Tipton came by yesterday and left us a small bay horse. He said if it was all right with you, we could ride it until he needs it again.”
Three sets of blue eyes waited for his answer.
“Did he buck any of you off?”
Kate dropped her chin. “No. How did you know we rode him?”
“Who would take candy out of the jar?”
“We would,” came the chorus, and all three hugged him and began babbling all at once about how nice Brownie was.
“Time to eat,” Marsha said, opening the oven, and everyone hurried to get everything ready.
“When do you leave again?” she asked.
“In the morning. Barley has some horse thieves he’s gone after. I need to go help him.”
She nodded and gave him a look.
“Something wrong?”
“Oh, no. We’re fine, aren’t we, girls?”
“Yes,” they all said, looking up from chores.
After supper, he played the harmonica and the girls danced. Marsha leaned against him on the porch swing, and by the time the crickets started their night song, he’d worn the girls out dancing. They sprawled on the porch floor and laughed at his comment that they would one day waltz with princes.
“It’s always good when you come back,” Nina said.
“You mean we appreciate him,” Marsha said, correcting her.
“Sure, but it’s good when he comes home, too.”
In surrender she sent them to wash up and go to bed. After a barrage of kisses and thanks, they fled inside and in the growing shadows of twi
light, Herschel and Marsha were alone.
“Something wrong?” he asked with her tucked under his arm.
“Yes. I couldn’t talk around the girls, but I am afraid our baby may not go to term.”
“You need to stay in bed?” He looked hard at her.
“No. It happened once before to me. My granny told me everyone conceived wasn’t intended for this world.”
He rubbed his palms on the tops of his pants. “What can I do?”
“Nothing. I just wanted to warn you.”
He turned and squeezed her. “Hey, I want you and the girls and that’s fine with me.”
“I know. Just hold me,” she said, and began to sob. With a knot in his throat that he couldn’t swallow, he held her tight and they rocked until the full moon began to rise.
It was a horse-thief moon that reminded him that under such light, horse takers moved on with their ill-gotten animals. When he was a boy growing up in Palo Pinto County, Texas, during the fall full moons, settlers lived in fear expecting Comanche raiding parties to sweep down from the north, raid their ranches, steal horses, kidnap women and young boys.
He’d seen the painted faces and hard murderous eyes from the security of a mesquite thicket. The file rode past not twenty feet from a trembling youth of eleven sprawled tight on the sticker-covered ground, hoping and praying hard that they didn’t discover him. He never forgot how their ear-cropped ponies danced on their bare hooves under the decorated saddles. And the bells, he would never forget the musical jingle the small Mexican bells made that adorned their gear on that cool afternoon.
Under a layer of red dust, their short, bare, red legs showed in the sunlight when he chanced to peek through the leaves. Such sights made his stomach cramp harder. But they also awed him, these people were real horsemen. Each rider was so much a part of their steed, he considered them molded on those horses since they’d been born. But the wind carried a strong musk of horse manure, death, and carrion from the riders. A bathless society from a waterless land.
Later that night, when the full moon set, a half-starved, weak-kneed Herschel reached his neighbor’s place. His family was there and safe in Horton’s two-story rock dwelling where they had held off several charges from the war party. Hugging Herschel, his mother shed tears that felt like ice through his thin shirt.
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