Paper Sheriff

by Short, Luke;

  “No. Your heart isn’t in it anyway.”

  They fell silent then and Reese gazed moodily at the street. He was remembering the day Reston came in. Unlike most of the riders who had business in the Sheriff’s office, Reston hadn’t tied his horse out of the sun under the horse shed. He might have tied it at the front tie-rail before the court-house entrance which would be a natural thing to do if a man didn’t know the location of the Sheriff’S office in the court-house. Somebody there was bound to have seen the horse and remarked it, since the brand would be a strange one to anyone in Bale. Jen hadn’t seen the bullet wound and he decided not to tell her about it either.

  Now Reese picked up his hat, rose and said, “I’ll stop by your house after I close up, Jen.”

  Jen rose too. “I’ll have everything listed, Reese, when you come by.”

  They parted and Reese headed directly for the court-house. Somebody in the court offices on the first and second floors fronting the street must have seen Reston’s horse at the tie-rail. As he tramped through the hot noon, he reckoned the day and the hour when Reston had visited him. The court-house bunch had just returned from dinner now. They were, Reese had learned, a loyal group, made so by politics, and also a gossipy one. Still, in the next half hour, Reese could find no one who remembered seeing the R-Cross bay on the morning of the date he mentioned. The county clerk, Abe Frohm, remembered a tall man in chaps enquiring for the Sheriff’s office, but he hadn’t bothered to look out and identify his horse and brand.

  Back in his office Reese found Jim Daley at the desk and he slacked into the chair facing him. He told of Con Fraley’s arrival at the Bale House with what could be Will Reston’s horse, and he finished by saying quietly, “He’s got a cut on his wither that looks like it came from a bullet.”

  Daley’s square face, tight with the effort to hide the pain of his strained back, looked even grimmer at this news. “Did the bullet cut line up with the saddle?”

  “If a man had been riding him, the bullet would have hit him in the right thigh before it went through his leg to cut the bay. But there was no blood on the saddle or stirrup, Jim.”

  Daley frowned. “He could have been drove out of the saddle.”

  “Not when you see the saddle. These trail hands like a big swell, and this had it. It would have anchored him like it was meant to.”

  Daley nodded thoughtfully.

  Reese went on, “Somebody in town had to see that horse the day Reston was here. Nobody in the court-house did, but somebody had to.” Now he pushed himself erect. “Come on down to the feed stable with me, Jim, and get a look at the bay so you can describe him. Then you start at the Bale House and I’ll start at the other end of Grant Street. Ask in every store if anyone remembers seeing Reston on that horse.”

  “A strange brand is always picked up in a town this size,” Daley said. Now he wrenched himself out of his chair, grimacing in pain. Picking up his hat, he said, “Now describe me Reston.”

  On their way to the livery, Reese gave a description to Jim of Reston and what he was wearing. At the livery itself, Reese hunted up the saddle and put it on the bay that was in the feed corral with a half dozen other horses. Daley agreed with him that the bullet would have caught the rider in the thigh. They carefully searched the stirrup leathers for any sign of blood stains and found none. Afterwards they parted, but only after Reese quizzed Miller’s hostlers. It seemed reasonable that Reston would have put up his horse for graining while he went about his business, but that hadn’t happened. Then, store to store, one side of the street to the other, Reese worked his way down the street as far as the blacksmith’s shop where he found Daley talking with Art Michaels and his helper. Reese walked in on the tail-end of the conversation, the gist of which was no, neither of them had seen or handled the bay branded R-Cross.

  Outside they halted and Reese said, “I didn’t turn up a thing. How about you?”

  “Nothing—except, maybe, a little something.”

  Reese scowled. “Like what?”

  “Well, Perry Owens was back of the bar at the Best Bet that morning. He remembered Reston from the description, said he loafed around for a half hour and killed a couple of beers. He didn’t talk to anybody and never opened his mouth except to ask for another beer.”

  “Well, what’s the something, Jim?” Reese asked impatiently.

  Jim shook his head. “I don’t know. I just got the feeling, Reese, that Perry’s telling the truth, but not all of it.”

  “Why do you?”

  “Well, he remembered Reston real quick. He looked at me square with them bloodshot eyes of his while he talked about Reston, but when I asked him about the horse, he wouldn’t look at me. He said he watched Reston leave and thought he rode a grey, but he couldn’t be sure.” Daley paused and shook his head. “If he admits seeing Reston go out and mount up, he’d sure as hell remember the color of the horse. He’d be sure it was a grey, wouldn’t he? He wouldn’t guess it was a grey.”

  Reese nodded. “Did he know why you were asking?”

  “He pretended he didn’t, but likely he did,” Jim said grimly. “I reckon the minute I opened my mouth in the Bale House bar the news started to spread. It took me a half hour to reach the Best Bet, so he’d of heard.”

  Reese considered this a moment, wondering why Perry Owens wouldn’t want to link Reston with his horse. Why would he lie or evade or pretend he couldn’t positively link them? Now Reese said, “Let’s go see Perry again.”

  Together they tramped up the boardwalk to the Best Bet and went inside. It was a slack hour and the only customers were a foursome of store clerks playing hearts at a back table. Perry Owens, with nothing better to do and no customers to attend to, was boredly watching the game. When Reese and Jim walked up to the bar, he left the game, came around the end of the bar and up to them. The apron that hung from his bony hips was already dirty and beer-slopped from the morning’s trade, and the yellow-toothed smile he gave them as he halted before them was strained.

  “Perry, give that apron to your swamper and come up the street with us,” Reese said.

  Perry’s bloodshot eyes widened. “Where to?”

  “You’ll see. Maybe jail.”

  “Now wait a minute—,” Perry began.

  “Come along,” Reese said curtly.

  Perry hesitated, then turned back down the bar, unknotting his apron as he walked. He paused in the door of the back room, called something to his swamper, put his apron on the bar and came up to join Reese and Jim. Once on the boardwalk and turned down the street, Perry, seeing the direction they were heading, said, “What’s this, Reese?”

  “I want to see if you’re colorblind, Perry. If you are, I’m allowed to hold you for forty-eight hours, then I’ll have to let you loose. But I’ll be back to see if you’re still colorblind, and if you still are, I’ll hold you another forty-eight hours.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Perry said morosely.

  “I think you do,” Reese answered.

  They turned in at the feed stable, walked its runway and halted at the horse corral. Reston’s bay stood by himself, shunned as a stranger by the dozen livery horses that were old friends.

  Reese pointed to him and said, “What color would you call that long horse, Perry?”

  “Why, bay. What else could he be?”

  “Go face him to us, Jim, will you?”

  Daley stepped through the gate, moved over to the bay and shouldered him in the neck until he faced Perry and Reese.

  “That’s the angle you’d have seen him from. Now have you seen him before?”

  “My God, how can I remember?” Perry said irritably. “I probably look at a thousand bay horses a year.”

  “I think you remember him,” Reese said quietly. “You changed his color to grey, but you weren’t positive enough about it, Perry. You told Jim you guessed Reston rode a grey, but you know damn well he didn’t.”

  Perry shrugged. “Well, if somebody e
lse identified him as that rider’s horse, then I guess I made a mistake.”

  “Don’t guess any more, Perry,” Reese said gently. “You guessed wrong once already.” He paused. “Is that the horse Reston rode out on?”

  “I don’t know,” Perry wailed. “Why? How am I to know what color horse every customer rides?”

  “You said he was grey,” Reese said and his voice held a quality of granite. “That means you looked at his horse. If you hadn’t, all you had to do was say you never say his horse, but you said you saw it and you said it was grey. You’re lying, Perry. Why?”

  By this time Jim had come up to the corral posts and was listening. Perry looked from Reese to Jim and back again to Reese, and now his face was flushed with both shame and anger.

  “All right, goddam it!” he burst out. “I’ll tell you. Yes, that’s his horse. The reason I lied was because I seen Orville and Buddy Hoad talking with him, standing there by his horse. I figured that some trouble’s come up about this horse and that rider. I don’t want to tie no Hoad into it, so I lied.”

  “Why don’t you want to tie a Hoad into it?” Reese asked.

  “You got to ask me that?” Perry said angrily. “Hell, you get a Hoad mad at you, anyone of his damn family would kill you. Look at Flowers. You think I want that?” Then he added bitterly, “You’re a Hoad yourself by marriage. I want no part of the whole pack of you, even if you’re Sheriff.”

  Reese looked at Daley now, and Jim avoided his eyes. What was it Jim had said? ‘The Hoads ain’t easy to like’.

  “Why’d you say there was some trouble about Reston and his horse?”

  “If there ain’t any, you wouldn’t be asking me to tie ’em together, would you?”

  “No,” Reese agreed. “Now tell me everything about Reston that happened that morning.”

  “I told you,” Perry said shortly, impatiently. “Orville and Buddy come into the bar and asked whose bay that was. I said I didn’t know—just some puncher come in, bought a beer and left. They went outside and waited and pretty soon this man come along and mounted up. Then Buddy and Orville talked with him a few minutes. Afterwards they left and like I said, he come in and had two beers. Then he rode off.”

  “All right, Perry, back to your booze. And thanks.”

  Even Perry’s back looked righteously indignant as he headed back through the runway.

  Reese and Jim looked at each other, and the older man’s face held a faint embarrassment.

  “What d’you think of it?” Reese asked him.

  Jim shook his head. “Not much. Orville Hoad’s got a right to speak to a stranger, just like you and me do. Because Perry’s scared of the Hoads don’t change that, does it?”

  “No,” Reese agreed. “Still, why did Orville and Buddy ask Perry about Reston and then wait for him?”

  “Same answer, Reese. They were curious about the brand.”

  “Too curious?” Reese asked quietly.

  Jim sighed. “I don’t know how you judge that.”

  Now they left the corral and headed back toward the court-house.

  It was Daley then who spoke first. “You think something’s happened to Reston, Reese?”

  “If he doesn’t show up pretty soon, I’ll think so.”

  “If his horse throwed him, he could have caught another or bought another from one of those spreads out by the brakes. Maybe he figured the hell with it and rode off to catch up with his herd.”

  “If you’d met Reston you wouldn’t think that,” Reese said dryly.

  They parted at the court-house; Daley went inside, and Reese went back to the horse shed and saddled his grey. There was something ominous here, but he couldn’t pin it down. Jim had been right when he said that Orville, and by implication Buddy too, had a perfect right to strike up an acquaintance with a stranger. Any stranger passing through Bale could bring news of the outside other world into their isolated one, and he was welcome for his gossip.

  He mounted and headed up the back street toward the boarding-house where Jen was working, yet his uneasiness never ceased nagging at him. Why did it have to be Orville and Buddy who were seen talking with Reston? Why did they inquire about the owner of the R-Cross branded horse, and why were they willing to wait until he returned to his horse? That was more than idle curiosity, Reese judged.

  He found the boarding-house locked, which meant that Jen had finished, and now he felt a strange relief. He would send Jim Daley to fetch the list for him, for he had other things in mind for the remainder of the afternoon. Back at the court-house he stopped only long enough to ask Jim to pick up the appraisal from Jen and then headed out of town, riding south for an hour in the blazing sun. At Orville Hoad’s place he learned from Minnie that Orville and the three boys were out. She thought, but wasn’t sure, that they were on a scout for some range in the Wheelers, she told him. Reese left word with her for Orville to drop in the court-house as soon as he could. Closing the sagging wire gate, Reese mounted again, already knowing what he was going to do.

  3

  He made directly for Ty Hoad’s Hatchet Ranch. This, he reflected, was a mean country and the heat made it meaner. The whole range had lost the green of the last rain, and now its tan monotony shivered in the heat. Grazing cattle in the distance seemed to be moving up and down through the heat waves. Even Ty Hoad’s barren Hatchet Ranch danced in the distance as he approached it.

  Ty’s two Mexican hands were at long last doing something about the sagging corral, he noted. As he rode past them he saluted lazily and they returned his greeting with an even lazier wave. He found some shade for his horse on the far side of the shack and left him there. When he rounded the corner of the house he found Buddy standing in the unshaded doorway. His pale hair was rumpled, his eyes puffy. Reese guessed that his coming had roused Buddy from a nap.

  “You and Pa are both crazy to be out in this heat,” Buddy greeted him. “He’s headed for your place, and you’re here. Didn’t you meet him?” He stepped aside and Reese entered the mean single room. It was airless and stank of unwashed clothes and fried food. Buddy moved past him, heading for the cot and leaving the lone chair for Reese.

  “No, I came from Orville’s,” Reese said.

  Buddy veered over to a wall shelf and lifted down a crockery jug and Reese knew he was about to receive the invariable Hoad welcome, which consisted of a gagging drink of moonshine.

  “Have a drink and set,” Buddy said, as he lifted the jug down. “Pa’ll be home before dark.”

  Reese slacked into the single straight-backed chair, saying mildly, “It’s you I want to see, Buddy.”

  Buddy nodded, came over and extended the jug. Reese shook his head and said, “It’s too hot for it, Buddy.”

  Now Buddy moved to the cot with his jug and sat down and tilted up a drink from it. Watching him, Reese felt a quiet, strong dislike for him, and he wondered guiltily if it was because, except for his size, Buddy was so like Callie in his actions and appearance.

  When Buddy caught his breath, he observed, “It must be important as hell, whatever it is you come for, Reese.”

  “Not likely. Just information.” Reese tilted his chair back against the wall and fumbled for the pipe and cut plug in his shirt pocket. As he talked now he drew out his knife and cut off a bit of the plug and shredded it in his palms before loading it into his pipe.

  “Buddy, you remember Tuesday of last week when you and Orville were in town?”

  “Was it Tuesday? I lose track,” Buddy said easily.

  “Remember talking to a man in front of the Best Bet, a stranger?”

  “Riding an R-Cross branded bay?”

  Reese stifled his surprise at Buddy’s candid answer. “He’s the one,” he said.

  “Nice fellow,” Buddy observed.

  “How d’you and Orville happen to talk to him?”

  “Why, hell, I don’t know,” Buddy said carelessly. Then he said, “Yes, I do. Uncle Orv spotted the brand and remembered where it come from.” />
  “Where was that?”

  “I think Uncle Orv said Big Spring—no, Big Island—Texas.”

  “How did Orv know that brand?”

  Now Buddy leaned forward on the cot, placing his elbows on his knees. He looked at the floor, frowning and it was the first time his glance had left Reese’s. Was it evasiveness? Reese wondered.

  “Let’s see,” Buddy said thoughtfully. “Aunt Amy Bashear’s boys make a trip down there a couple of times a year with two or three big wagons. They load ’em with ground sheets and tents and raw canvas. They’ll hit these back country cow camps and trade for cows. Uncle Orv went with ’em once, and they travelled that Big Island country. Uncle Orv remembered the R-Cross brand, and he waited to find out from this pilgrim what the news was from down there.”

  When Buddy looked up now Reese was lighting his pipe but watching him over the burning match.

  “You ride all the way out here to ask me that?” Buddy asked curiously.

  “Looks like it.”

  “Why?” Buddy asked.

  “His horse wandered in Con Fraley’s place and Con brought him in. He’d been creased by a bullet.”

  Again Buddy’s glance slid away, but he made a good attempt at framing a look of puzzlement. Had his face paled a little, Reese wondered. The whisky should have flushed it.

  “Well, well,” Buddy said idly. “What d’you make of that?”

  “Nothing much—yet,” Reese said. Then he added, “Did he tell you why he was in Bale?”

  Buddy frowned and took a long time answering, as if he were trying to remember. “Said his trail herd got stampeded by that last storm, said he was looking for strays.”

  That sounded reasonable, Reese thought and asked, “What else did he talk about?”

  “The Big Island country mostly. Families that Uncle Orv knew. Didn’t mean nothing to me and I didn’t really listen.”

  Reese observed now that Buddy was sweating. His upper lip was silver with perspiration. Still, it was an inferno in this room, and even though he hadn’t had a drink of whisky, Reese felt drenched. “Anything else?” he asked.