Playing Catch-Up

by Guthrie, A. B. ;

  They were just sounds without meaning, heard above a rumble that might be in my head. It had teeth and claws in it.

  Then, it seemed to me, I sat in a chair, and a mist clouded my eyes and a woman’s face swam in it.

  “Was he sick, Omar?”

  “No’m.”

  “Sit up, Jason. He’s red in the face, Omar. Help hold him. Now, Jason, look me in the eyes.” Her eyes were enormous. I tried to look at her through the pain in my head. She was putting something on the side of my skull. I got a hand up and felt cloth.

  “Sheriff,” I think I said. “Sheriff.”

  “I’ll telephone. Don’t worry. Now don’t you go to sleep yet. You have to sit up for a while. Omar, help him.” A hand was soft on my forehead.

  Then I was in bed, and pain clouded my brain, and the hand kept trying to soothe me, and a voice was saying over and over, “You’ll be all right. You’ll be all right. Hear me, Jason?”

  Next, there were two men in the room, and one of them raised me to look, and I remember he said, “Couldn’t have done better myself, Miss. One hell of a headache he’s having, I’ll bet. Keep talking to him after I leave. Here’s some pills with directions.”

  Then the voice again. “Don’t go clear to sleep. Not yet. Hear me, Jason? Hear me?”

  When I came to, more or less, the sun was shining. It was Anita Dutton who entered the room, Anita, the girl I had courted and lost and would always want. “Oh you’re awake,” she said. “Good morning. How are you now?”

  “All right,” I answered, though I wasn’t. “I have to report.”

  “The sheriff was here last night. So was Doc Yak. They ordered rest.” She put a glass of water on a bedside table, first offering it to me. Then she began straightening the covers.

  “But I have to get out,” I said.

  My one-time girl friend, forever in memory. But, cold as the Arctic, she had shut the door on me after I found it was her dotty old grandfather who had killed a man by senile mistake. I hadn’t seen her since. The grandfather had died in custodial care. Already, I thought, she was remembering. No more hands on my head. No more soft words.

  “I’m damn sorry to bother you,” I told her. “God knows I didn’t mean to.”

  “It’s a person’s duty to help. I was glad to do it. Now lie still.”

  When Charleston and Doc Yak appeared, I was sitting up in bed. Charleston’s first anxious look turned into a grin. “By the gods, Jason, you’re a tough man. How you feeling? Feel like reporting?”

  Doc Yak broke in, “Goddamn you, Charleston. Can’t wait to let me examine the patient.” He looked me in the eyes, took my blood pressure and temperature, and said, his mouth twisted, “I’m afraid he’ll live.”

  Omar Test, Anita’s man of all work, the one who had found me by the roadside, peeked in to say, “Glad you’re better, Mr. Beard. Excuse me. Got chores to do.”

  So, as best I could remember, I gave Charleston my report.

  He said, “We found your car under that old, condemned bridge. I’ve had a man on watch in case they tried to run. They’re still there. Now we’ll bring those jokers in.”

  “Not yet, please,” I asked him. “Make it tomorrow. I want to be on hand.”

  Charleston scratched his head. “I’ll have to keep a man on lookout. That’s stretching it thin.”

  “But it’s my case.” I don’t know why I insisted on returning to that forlorn camper and its shoddy inhabitants. Pride, maybe, or a return to the scene of the crime.

  “What say, Doc?” Charleston asked.

  “By tomorrow he’ll be half-assed ready, the damn fool.” Doc always showed affection through abuse. He gave me a shot, said to Anita, “He could stand a bowl of soup.”

  “There’s my mother,” I said to Charleston.

  “Don’t worry. I’ll see her. I’ll reassure her.” Trying to reassure my mother would be like trying to placate a she-bear.

  I ate the soup and fell asleep again, feeling wretched and unwelcome.

  The sun was down when Anita came in with scrambled eggs, toast and coffee. “Afterwards take a pill for a good night’s sleep.”

  I followed orders.

  In the morning my headache was gone. The only sign of hurt was a bandage on my temple. I got out of bed and dressed.

  When I walked into the kitchen, Anita, standing at the stove, said, “Up to some breakfast?”

  I was.

  And I was wanting to get out, away from the house, away from Anita, away from the bad memories I had awakened.

  I asked, “Did Mr. Charleston say when he was coming back?”

  “I hear him pulling up now.”

  I stammered my thanks to Anita. Before I got to the car, she called me back, half-closed the door on us, and kissed me. “That’s forgiveness,” she said.

  7

  Ike Doolittle was in the car with Charleston. He threw a keen glance at me and said, “Ever see such a bright face?” Then he began quoting, “‘Lasca used to ride on a mouse-gray mustang close by my side.’”

  Grinning, Charleston chimed in, “‘She would hunger that I might eat. Would take the bitter and leave me the sweet.’”

  They were choosing what they considered appropriate lines from a piece of verse I remembered. For an instant I was back in boyhood and heard my father reading it to me. In my mind were the concluding words to a number of stanzas. To put an end to this foolish kidding I said, “‘In Texas, down by the Rio Grande.’” As a clincher I added, “Author, Frank Desprez.”

  That seemed to be that.

  “Seriously, Jase,” Charleston said, “you are to stay in the car. Take no part in the arrests. I put them off just so you could be present, present but not active.”

  “I’m almost as good as new.”

  “But not good enough. You heard me.”

  “Yes, sir. But if they have any sense, they’ll be long gone.”

  “They’re still there. I just heard from Ken Cole. He’s on watch. I said he could take today off, so’s to get settled in his new quarters, but when I mentioned this bird-dogging, he took it up like an English setter after grouse. He’s to follow them and report if they take off.”

  I should have known better than to suggest Charleston had been careless.

  The morning was bright, offering renewal of old promises. In the west the mountains reared, stone-blue except for a few patches of last winter’s snow. The breeze blew the perfume of warming fields. I sat back, rich with recovery and climate.

  Charleston didn’t take the short cut, if he knew it. He was satisfied with a slow ride while his nose breathed in the good air. It took almost an hour to reach Chicken Coulee, where Charleston and Doolittle got out of the car. Doolittle stayed close to the side of it. Charleston stood for a minute, then said, “So that’s how he’s been getting around.”

  He had a better eye for detail than I. It took me a little while to spot a motorcycle half-hidden by a pile of wood.

  Mefford emerged from the camper. The breeze caught a strand of his long hair and blew it forward across his beard. I was put in mind of a clump of slough grass. His woman came to the step, dressed in a cast-off man’s shirt and ragged jeans.

  Charleston and Mefford approached each other. Charleston said, “I’m the sheriff, Mefford, and I’m taking you in.” I doubt Mefford saw Doolittle, still staying on the far side of the car, and thought he had just one man to deal with.

  That one was enough. As Mefford bulled forward, Charleston stepped to meet him. In one flash of movement he brought a blackjack from his hip pocket and hit Mefford on the side of the head. Mefford went down without a word. I knew the blackjack was stuffed with sand, which made it lethal enough.

  At the side of my vision I saw the woman scramble from the camper. She had a frying pan in her hand. Doolittle took care of her. He dodged under the swing of the pan, caught the woman around the ankles, yanked her feet from under her and set her on her butt with a thump that jarred the pan from her hand. I heard Doolit
tle say, “Awful sorry to upset you, ma’am.”

  She answered, getting up, “You’re quicker than a damn weasel. No need for the bracelets, Mr. Law. I’ll come along.”

  Charleston was putting handcuffs on Mefford when Ken Cole drove up. “Just in time to miss the action,” he said, coming from his car. “But I saw it pretty good, looking through a glass from the hill yonder.”

  “Put her in the car,” Charleston said to Doolittle. “Ken and Jase can watch her. Then take a look in the camper. I have the warrant.”

  The woman came over willingly enough. In the car she said to me, “Looks like I fetched you a good one.”

  Charleston was half-dragging, half-lifting Mefford toward the car when Doolittle came out of the camper. “Don’t have to believe it, but it’s tidy inside,” he said. “No sign of a calf hide.”

  Mefford had come to himself when we reached the sheriff’s office. “Lock her up, Ike,” Charleston said. “We’ll hear from Mefford first.”

  We got settled in the office, Mefford on one side of the desk facing Charleston, me at the end of it taking notes, Doolittle watching from a seat in the corner. Mefford’s hands had been freed from cuffs. Charleston cleared his throat, then said, “What do you have to say for yourself, Mefford? Do you want an attorney?”

  Mefford answered, “Kiss my ass. You’ve half-killed me. Ain’t that enough?”

  “Get some aspirin, Doolittle.”

  Doolittle came back with two pills and a glass of water. Mefford knocked the glass from his hand. Ken Cole poked his head in and withdrew.

  “Go ahead and suffer then,” Charleston told Mefford. “It’s all one to us.”

  “Kiss my ass.”

  Charleston dislikes back talk and vulgarity even more. He half rose, shot a hand out and got a hold on the man’s beard. He shook Mefford’s head until I was dizzy. He sat back then. “Now we’ll talk. Your case is open and shut. Assault and battery. Resisting an officer. Theft of an automobile. I can think of other charges. Attempted murder, for instance.”

  Mefford pointed at me. “He tackled me first. I was just fightin’ him off.”

  “And leaving him for dead and stealing a car. Don’t make me laugh.”

  Charleston wasn’t laughing. He went on, “I’ll get to something even more serious. You had a fight in a sporting house.”

  “Where?”

  “You know where. Madame Simone’s.”

  “Who says?”

  “I have a witness who’ll identify you.”

  “Since when is a fight in a whorehouse so serious?”

  “There was a girl you wanted, one Laura Jane Smitson.”

  “Where’s the harm in that?” Mefford straightened as if to declare himself. “She thought she was too good for me, the little high-flown bitch. She was selling it, and my money’s as good as the next man’s.”

  “And later on she was found strangled and raped. After the fight you lay in wait for her, Mefford.”

  “For Christ’s sake.” Mefford gave a grunt that was half laugh. “Me? Prove it.”

  “That’s what we aim to do. Where were you when she was killed?”

  “Round and about. Drivin’ away from the whorehouse. What else?”

  “No. You waylaid her.”

  “Any more fairy stories?”

  Charleston turned away from him and said, “Take him back and lock him up, Doolittle. But be careful.”

  “I just hope he tries something.”

  “And then bring the woman in.”

  She came in, a woman showing sharp angles through her ragged outfit, and sat down. Her eyes, red-rimmed, were as sad as a hangover. On one cheek a bruise was fading.

  “Do you want an attorney, Mrs. Mefford?” Charleston asked her.

  “What for? You got us dead to rights.”

  “You are Mrs. Mefford?”

  “You can call me that. It ain’t so, though. My name’s Gracie Jones.”

  “I see. How long have you been living with him?”

  “Off and on, quite a while.”

  “You don’t deny hitting my deputy with a frying pan?”

  “Ain’t his head enough proof?”

  “Why did you hit him?”

  “Why, for God’s sake! Mefford would have kilt me if I hadn’t come to help him. He’s got a mean streak.”

  “Why do you go on living with him?”

  “What else? What else?” she cried out. “A damn wreck, that’s me, wore out and old and no good.” She thrust out her knobby hands, showing skinny forearms. “No good for anything else.” In her tones was the resignation to total defeat. Of a sudden tears came to her inflamed eyes.

  Charleston shifted uneasily. Crying women upset him. After a pause he asked, “Why does he keep you?”

  “Ask him. All I know is he doesn’t like to cook or tidy up. Maybe that’s why. Nothin’ else goes on, I can tell you.”

  “Do you know whether or not he rustled a couple of calves?”

  “I wouldn’t put it past him, but I don’t know. He just brings in meat and tells me to cook it.” She had taken a wrinkled handkerchief from her pocket and wiped her eyes. “Half the time I don’t know where he is. He just takes off, for an hour or a day or maybe longer.”

  “You know we’re investigating a murder case, the death of that girl near Overthrust?”

  “I heerd about it.”

  “Where was Mefford that night?”

  “Don’t look up no date and time. I don’t know where he was. He don’t tell me. Gone, is all.”

  “What I can’t understand, Mrs. Mefford, is why you and he didn’t make tracks after you’d left Mr. Beard, here, for dead?”

  “You don’t know Mefford. I told him we ought to make ourselves scarce. I told him we were in trouble. But would he move? No. He said no son of a bitch, law or not, was pushing him around. He’s balky as a spoiled mule. Not too bright in the head, either. Pretty dumb if you ask me. Crazy dumb.”

  “But you two get along?”

  “Depends on what you mean. We get along fair for a spell, then something happens to roil him and he takes it out on me.”

  “Beats you up?”

  “Plenty. Pret’ near kills me.”

  “And you stand for it?”

  “What else?” she said again with old hopelessness in her eyes.

  As if he had come to the end of his string, Charleston asked, “I suppose you drive?”

  “Don’t every civilized person? Sure, bike or trailer, I can drive ’em.”

  Charleston rose from his chair. “You’ll have to appear at the next term of court. It has to be jail until then, unless you make bond.”

  “Make bond? Put up bail money, and him owin’ on the camper and bike. Make bond in a pig’s eye.”

  “Then that’s all, I think. Doolittle, will you take Mrs. Mefford back?”

  She threw out her work-worn hands. “Please, not in the same cell as Mefford. Separate us. Things goin’ against him, and he’ll turn on me.”

  After she had gone, Charleston said, “That’s one happy relationship.”

  8

  Two days went by, and nothing happened except for an occasional headache, milder now but still there. I had run out of leads. It did no good to review what little I did know. I said to Charleston, “I’m just a drag. I’ll take my turn with the other boys, serving papers, taking calls, whatever comes up. I’m not earning my pay.”

  “You’ll do nothing of the sort,” he answered. “You still look peaked. How often do I have to tell you to stay out of the office? Take a week off if need be. That’s small pay for the knock on your head.”

  Without thinking, I put a hand to my temple. The bandage was off. Just a bit of stuck-on gauze remained.

  “I’m about to lose hope on this case,” I told him.

  “That’s because you’re under par. Keep counting on a break. You never know. Now get out.”

  I drove out to call on Anita, whose image kept dodging into my mind. She welcomed me and s
erved coffee and cookies. Our talk was friendly enough, and I didn’t push, though all the time wanting her in my arms. Our new relationship, I felt sure, was fragile as a spider web. One wrong move, and she would run for a corner.

  While we were talking, Omar Test entered. To me he said, “Howdy, Mr. Beard. Hope you are feeling better.” He turned to Anita. “I think I’d better go to the north field, Miss Anita, and see how the cows and calves are doing.”

  She nodded, and he went out the door. Then she said, “I’ll be forever indebted to you for finding Omar for me.” It had been a long time since I’d found him, but it was true that I had. She continued, “Omar may not be the brightest man in the county, but he’s as good a husbandman as any. He loves animals and likes to see growing things. So I’m thankful to you.” She smiled into my eyes.

  All I could find to say was, “Just be glad it worked out all right.”

  That was as close as we came to getting together.

  At home I sat in the kitchen while Mother fussed over supper. Between stirring and forking and looking into the oven, she said, “I saw old Mr. Ralston today. I swear I don’t know how he makes it to the post office, old as he is. Must be ninety. He wants to see you, Jason. He’s lonely and out of things. It wouldn’t hurt you to give him a half hour or so. Now would it?”

  After supper I set out. It was one of those long June evenings with the solstice near at hand. In the west the sun was shooting fire at clouds drifting like ships. Somewhere a meadowlark sang.

  Mr. Ralston lived alone on a side street in a small, old house with a front porch facing east. He was seated there in an easy chair, his cane close at hand. As he tried to get up, I waved him down and shook his withered hand. His lids drooped over keen eyes. He hadn’t shaved this day, and white bristle stubbled his cheeks and chin. I imagined shaving was a chore for him even with electric clippers.

  “Sit down, Jase,” he said and fell silent in the manner of old-timers whose present is mixed with the past.

  “I’m back in the sheriff’s office,” I told him.

  He nodded and after another pause, just remembering, said, “We used to call the likes of you heel flies. That was a while ago. Had ’em on my heels for that matter.”