Paper Sheriff

by Short, Luke;

  As Stape finished Reese was sitting straight up in bed, his mouth open a little, a look of utter incredulity on his freshly shaven face. Now Reese looked at Jen, then back to Stape.

  “You’re sure he didn’t move? You’re sure it was Jim Daley?”

  “I never said that it was Daley. I said it was a man with a shirt like he was wearing this morning. As for him moving, he surely didn’t. That rifle went off twice not six feet from him. He never looked at us nor at Hoad.”

  Reese cursed softly with bitter anger, and then he looked at Jen. “Orv’s on his way out of the country by now.”

  “I don’t reckon,” Stape said simply. “I think my three partners have got him bottled up in his house.”

  A look of animal pleasure came into Reese’s face now. He swept the bed clothes from him and said, “Jen, get out of here so I can dress. Stapleton, ride down to the livery and hire a rig for me and bring it back here.”

  Jen had her mouth open to speak as Reese came out of the bed and reached for the crutch leaning against the wall by the bedpost. Then she didn’t speak, only rose, went over to the closet and took down Reese’s washed and mended trousers and his shirt. She returned with his clothes, boots and hat. Stapleton had already left the room.

  Reese said, “Ask Mrs. Parkinson to round up Doc’s pistol and rifle. And shells for both, remember.”

  “You’re sure he’s got them?”

  “I’m sure. Now hurry, Jen.” As Reese struggled awkwardly to dress himself, he felt a quiet, total fury boil up within him. For some reason, and it must have been a good one, Jim Daley had disobeyed his instructions and confronted Orv, who had murdered him. There was only one shot, Stapleton said. That meant Orv had surprised Jim who was not easy to surprise, especially by any Hoad. The thought of Jim Daley dead brought a genuine anguish to Reese. Jim had been a cross-grained, solitary and womanless man, but to his selected friends he was kind and even foolishly generous. As a law man he had no peer, and only his rough tongue made his election impossible to achieve. Now he was dead, probably shot in the back, at the hands of a man who shouldn’t even be called a man.

  Dressed, Reese hobbled out of the room, crossed Doc’s office and went into the living room. Reese saw immediately the weapons lying on the big leather sofa, and he lurched across the room toward them as Jen and Mrs. Parkinson watched him.

  “Doc’s not going to like this, Reese,” Mrs. Parkinson said.

  “I don’t like it either,” Reese said roughly. At the sofa he reached down for the loaded shell belt holding the holstered gun and strapped it on. The pistol was new with a stiff action. The carbine, however, was old and used and by it was a leather shell bag which, by its heft, told Reese was almost full. A near shapeless Stetson which was Doc’s hunting hat and a black rubber raincoat made up the rest of the equipment.

  With Jen’s help Reese shrugged into the raincoat. Then she picked up her own raincoat from a chair. She said quietly, “You know I’m going with you, Reese.”

  “You are not,” Reese said flatly.

  “Then after you leave, I’ll get a horse from the livery and follow you.”

  Reese looked at her searchingly. “I believe you would,” he said slowly.

  “I promise you I will. I’ve earned this, Reese.”

  Reese sighed audibly. “You’ve earned more, but why do you want to see this?”

  “To gloat,” Jen said honestly.

  Reese said curtly, “All right.”

  “You’re being a goose, Jen,” Mrs. Parkinson said kindly.

  “No, I’m just human is all.”

  There was a knock on the door. Reese said, “That’s likely Stapleton, Jen. Let’s go.”

  Outside the buggy and horse were waiting in the lowering dusk. Without assistance Reese made the buggy seat. Jen lifted his injured leg inside, climbed in the buggy herself and pulled a rain apron over them. Stapleton untied his horse from the buggy and mounted, and the three of them headed out of town in the misting rain.

  It was mostly a silent drive with the rain drumming on the top. All of them were wondering what they would find at Orville Hoad’s.

  Breaking the long silence, Jen said, “Reese, I’ve got to ask you this since she won’t tell me.” She paused. “Did Callie come to see you this afternoon?”

  “No. She probably didn’t know about the shooting, Jen.”

  “She knew,” Jen said quietly. “I sent a stable boy out to tell her this morning. He saw her and delivered the message.”

  “It doesn’t matter.”

  “Especially to her,” Jen said bitterly.

  It was full dark as they approached the lightless shack of Orville Hoad’s. They picked up the sound of sporadic gunfire long before they could make out the tall cottonwoods around the house.

  The darkness was almost total, made so by the sifting rain, so that they rode up to the gate and still could not see the house. Stape moved away from them and called into the night, “Pace, you around?”

  A gunshot from the cottonwoods broke the silence, and on the heels of it a voice called out, “Stape, over here.” Then he added anxiously, “You got help?”

  “The Sheriff,” Stape said laconically. Now Reese pulled in behind Stape’s horse and stopped when it did. Stape and Pace moved up to the buggy and halted.

  “This here’s Pace, Sheriff. Anybody make a break from the house, Pace?”

  “Not this side. But Wilsey back in the barn’s been shooting. So has Harvey.”

  “How many are in there?” Reese asked.

  “They been shooting from four sides of the house at the same time, so at least four.”

  “Any talk back and forth?”

  “No. Just shooting. Not so much from them lately either.”

  “Shoot at anyone who tries to leave, Pace.”

  “That’s what I’m hoping for.”

  “Stapleton, lead me to your other partners.”

  Again Stape put his horse in motion, following the fence and turning when it did. They were in the cottonwoods now, and this time they were picked up by Harvey. “Stape, sing out.”

  “It’s me and the Sheriff,” Stape called. In a moment Harvey appeared by the fence, and Reese asked again if anyone had tried for a break.

  “Two of them,” Harvey said. “One’s down out there now. The other was knocked down, but he made it back. Now I got to get back, Sheriff.” They heard him move off into the night, heard the sound of his footsteps stop, then return. “They got mighty quiet in there, Sheriff. D’you think they’re planning a rush for their horses?”

  “Maybe they’re low on ammunition.”

  “Maybe. But at first they were shooting like they was making it in there.” Again they heard him move off.

  Reese said, “Now take me to the last man.”

  Stape now passed the fence, circled around and pulled up behind the log barn. Stape went inside, calling, “Wilsey. It’s me, Stape. Wilsey, sing out.”

  Then Reese and Jen heard two men talking and afterwards Stape appeared beside the buggy. “Why don’t you drive it inside, Sheriff. Wilsey don’t want to leave his post. I’ll open the door.”

  Reese waited until he heard Stape’s call, and then he turned the horse toward the barn, trusting him to find the door in the blackness.

  Once inside Reese wrapped the reins around the whip stock, then by feel loaded the carbine. Afterwards, in the pitch blackness, Jen helped him down. Then Stape led them toward the door in the front of the barn. Stape said over his shoulder, “Wilsey brought in all their horses through a side door after it got dark. They’re off to the right so watch it.”

  Afterward they reached Wilsey who was standing just back of the door, whose other half was open. “Keep behind me, Sheriff,” Wilsey warned. “I’ve been shooting from up by the loading door, but they may figure I’ve shifted.”

  “One man down?” Reese asked.

  “One down and one hurt.”

  “How many are in there?” Reese asked.

&n
bsp; “One loner, a big woman, made the seventh, counting Hoad.”

  That would be Minnie, Reese thought. She would have rounded up the boys and probably Ty and Buddy. Reese considered now. Orv would know that he was being besieged by four men, no more. Of his own seven men, one might be dead, another wounded. That would leave his five, counting Minnie, against the four. One of the four, Wilsey, stood between him and the horses the Hoads needed. Twice the Hoads had made a try for the barn and lost. Orv, as always, wouldn’t accept this defeat but what did he plan? If he waited until daylight his plight would be worse, since he would think that one of the R-Cross riders would alert the town and he would face a posse after daylight. Surely then, alone or with all the others, he would rush the wagon shed and adjoining corral for the horses necessary to his escape. He would not know that as of now there were three riflemen in the barn instead of one. Accordingly it would be foolish for Reese to reveal his own presence by trying to persuade Orv to surrender. Still, wasn’t that his duty?

  His thoughts were interrupted by Wilsey. “Stape, you take the door here. I’ll head up the loft to the loading door.” He vanished and they heard him climb the wooden ladder to the hayloft. Jen said then, “What are you thinking, Reese?”

  “That if I keep my mouth shut they’ll think there’s only one man here. They might take a chance and rush it.”

  “You’ll kill some of them,” Jen said quietly.

  “So I’d better call out to Orv and tell him fifty men are on their way. I’d better tell him—”

  Wilsey yelled from above, “Here they come, Stape!” and he began to shoot. Harvey back of the bunkhouse joined in. Stape now kneeled down and started shooting around the door. Reese spun Jen roughly back against the log wall.

  It sounded to Reese as if all the Hoads were shooting for a fusillade poured into the barn from the barn lot. From the angle at which Stape was shooting Reese guessed that all the Hoads were headed for the adjoining wagon shed, where they had left their horses that Wilsey cunningly had led through the side door from the wagon shed into the barn. From outside now came howls of rage or pain, Reese couldn’t tell which. He picked up a vicious cursing that came from the wagon shed. Now Reese drew his six-gun, hobbled away from Jen and faced where he guessed the side door from the wagon shed was. It opened now with a crash, and Reese shot chest high at only the sound of footfalls charging through the door. On the heel of his shot came a great grunting, strangled cough and he heard Wilsey call, “Hold it! Hold it!”

  From the barn lot came Buddy’s shrill cry, “We quit! We quit, don’t shoot! We quit!”

  Reese heard Wilsey yell, “Throw down your guns. Come up to the barn door.”

  Reese reached in his pocket, drew out a match and wiped it alight on his crutch. By its light he saw Orville Hoad face down on the dirt floor some eight feet inside the barn. Reese looked about him now, saw a lantern hanging from a stall timber and hobbling over to it, he took it down, sprung the chimney and lighted its wick.

  Stape had risen now and stepped out into the night. Reese’s glance shifted to Jen. The fright was fading from her face, Reese saw. Now, his pistol long since holstered, he lurched toward the door, the lantern in his hand. As he stepped out into the night he held the lantern high. He could make out three forms lying in the barn lot. His glance shifted to the door where he saw Ty and Buddy leaning against it. Buddy was cradling his arm by the palm of his other hand, and his head was hung. Ty only stared down at the mud.

  Wilsey now called down from the loft door, “Them three out there ain’t moved, Sheriff, but don’t be surprised if I have to shoot.”

  Reese felt Jen come up beside him, and now he turned and headed into the barn lot toward the prone slickered figures. Just within range of the lantern light he could see Harvey, rifle dangling from his hand, coming toward him. The first figure was that of Wash Plunket, lying face up and lifeless. Beyond him was Big John, his face so deeply buried in the mud that he could not be alive.

  Now Reese moved to the third body, and when he approached he felt a wild and dreadful premonition. He lunged desperately to close the distance, and then he halted, holding the lantern high.

  It was Callie, her sightless eyes unblinking in the slow rain.

  He tried to kneel and could not, but Jen knelt for him, touching Callie’s face first, then lifting her arm and feeling the wrist for the pulse. Then she looked up at Reese and shook her head in negation.

  Reese stared dumbly at Callie, trying to comprehend this. The rain hissed softly on the lantern glass and Reese was aware that someone had come up beside him.

  “Christ! A woman! My God, I didn’t know! I was sound shootin’.”

  “You couldn’t know,” Reese said, never taking his glance from Callie’s thin, child’s face. It was oddly serene in death, he thought, as if she were relieved that her quarrel with him and with her own world was blessedly over.

  He was aware now that Minnie had come out of the house and was approaching. When she halted before him she asked, “Where’s Orv?”

  “Dead.” Now Reese gestured with the lantern toward Callie. “Why did you let her go?”

  “Because she held a gun on me.”

  He was aware now that Jen was shrugging out of her raincoat, and he watched as she spread it over Callie, covering her face. It was a kind gesture, a last gesture from the woman he could now marry.

  About the Author

  Luke Short is the pen name of Frederick Dilley Glidden (1908–1975), the bestselling, award-winning author of over fifty classic western novels and hundreds of short stories. Renowned for their action-packed story lines, multidimensional characters, and vibrant dialogue, Glidden’s novels sold over thirty million copies. Ten of his novels, including Blood on the Moon, Coroner Creek, and Ramrod, were adapted for the screen. Glidden was the winner of a special Western Heritage Trustees Award and the Levi Strauss Golden Saddleman Award from the Western Writers of America.

  Born in Kewanee, Illinois, Glidden graduated in 1930 from the University of Missouri where he studied journalism. After working for several newspapers, he became a trapper in Canada and, later, an archaeologist’s assistant in New Mexico. His first story, “Six-Gun Lawyer,” was published in Cowboy Stories magazine in 1935 under the name F. D. Glidden. At the suggestion of his publisher, he used the pseudonym Luke Short, not realizing it was the name of a real gunman and gambler who was a friend of Doc Holliday and Wyatt Earp. In addition to his prolific writing career, Glidden worked for the Office of Strategic Services during World War II. He moved to Aspen, Colorado, in 1946, and became an active member of the Aspen Town Council, where he initiated the zoning laws that helped preserve the town.

  All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this ebook or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Copyright © 1966 by Frederick D. Glidden

  Cover design by Andy Ross

  ISBN: 978-1-5040-4087-7

  This edition published in 2016 by Open Road Integrated Media, Inc.

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  Short, Luke;, Paper Sheriff