by Edward Abbey
“I called four places,” the operator told him. “Was all I could find in the telephone book. Four places countin the Fairgrounds. Nobody was boardin any horses this week that wasn’t regular customers. One of these places told me to try Buddy Mack out in the Canyon so I called Mack and sure enough a man left two horses at his stables just three days ago and picked them up this morning.”
Johnson stood by the window watching the wind chase sand and scraps of paper, spin in eddies, raise skirts. “Two horses?” he said.
“Yeah—Tennessee walkin horses, Mack said.”
“What was the man like?”
“Mack said he was kinda sawed-off at each end and spread out in the middle, like a knocked-up Shetland pony. He had a red mustache.” Johnson said nothing, continued to stare out the window. The operator, allowing this information to soak in, went on: “He was wearin a polo shirt, white shorts, black knee socks and a beret with a red bonbon on top. He hauled his horses in a aluminum trailer and pulled it with a green Cadillac with California plates. Mack said he pulled off in the direction of the Mississippi River.”
“Did Mack tell you what he was drinkin last night?”
“No, he didn’t.” The operator grinned. “But he said that now he did recall that this fella had a kind of sinister look in his eye and that he wouldn’t let his two horses associate with Mack’s horses. And he sprayed the stalls before he put his horses in. And he had his own nigger with him to groom the horses and shovel shit. Mack said the nigger had a Oxford accent and wore plus four minus shoes.”
Johnson brooded over the windy streetscene before him; he stood there for a long time, silent, occasionally scratching himself. The clock in the window of Koeber’s Department Store said fifteen minutes still twelve. “Any word from Glynn yet?” Johnson said, staring out the window.
The operator lowered his comic book. “Not a word,” he said. “He must’ve stopped at a bar somewhere to get directions.”
Johnson raised the window sash, spat his wad of gum out into the hedge below, closed the window and turned and picked his dust-colored Stetson off the hatrack. “I’ll be back in about an hour,” he said. “If Glynn calls in while I’m out tell him to stay right where he is till I get back. Unless he’s already got our man.”
“Okay, Morey.” The operator reached for his lunch-bag.
“Tell him not to bother anybody till I tell him what to do.”
“Sure, Morey.” The operator began unwrapping the wax paper from around a ham-and-Swiss-cheese sandwich. When the door closed behind Sheriff Johnson he spread the comic book out on his knees and started to eat. The name of the comic book was TRUE CRIME STORIES.
Johnson did not return in an hour—it was nearly two hours. He came slowly into the office, parked his hat on the rack without looking, and forged heavily, like an abandoned barge, across the room and into his berth behind the desk. There he settled, sinking in thought, obscured in the solemn atmosphere of a man engaged in prolonged, difficult and crucial introspection. The radio operator, whose face revealed signs of a moderate internal agitation, and who obviously contained news, did not dare to interrupt him. But after several minutes had passed, Johnson raised his massive head and quite suddenly fired a question at the operator: “Well?”
The operator almost flinched. “It’s Floyd,” he said. “He thinks he’s on the trail of something.”
“Let me talk to him.” Johnson rose slowly from his chair and crossed to the radio bench.
The operator, his earphones in place, flicked on a switch and spoke into the microphone: “CS-1 calling CS-4. CS-1 calling CS-4. Come in, CS-4. Over.” He flipped the speaker switch.
The black screen vibrated and from the interior of the loudspeaker floated the strangely transmuted voice of Deputy Glynn: “This is CS-4, this is CS-4. When the hell do I get off for lunch? I’m sick of fig newtons. Where’s Johnson? Over.”
Johnson reached for the microphone. “Floyd,” he said, “this is Johnson. Where are you and what’ve you found? Over.”
The voice in the speaker: “Izzat you, Morey? Hi. I’m out at this Paul M. Bondi’s place. I’m parked in his backyard. There’s nobody here right now. The house ain’t locked; I’ve searched it. It looks like a woman and a kid is livin in it now—must be Bondi’s wife and kid. No sign of the cowboy guy in the house—except there’s three dirty dishes in the sink and three forks and two cups and a glass. But I found somethin outside: bootprints. Somebody’s been walkin around here with cowboy boots on. A full-grown man, I mean. Wasn’t this Burns guy supposed to be wearin boots? How long do I have to stay out here? Morey? Over.”
“Look, Floyd,” Johnson said to the microphone, “is there a horse around there? Or any sign of a horse? Or a barn or a pasture? Over.”
“I don’t see no horse now but I sure stepped in the sign of one not ten minutes ago. You think this guy has a horse?”
“Is there a barn out there?”
“No. Just a little shed full of hay, and a corral with two goats. No place big enough for a horse except the corral or the house. Why, do you think this guy is on a horse? Over.”
“Maybe. Are there neighbors around there?”
“Not many but there’s some. You think he’s hidin in one of the neighbor’s houses?”
“No. Now listen, Floyd: go around to those neighbors and ask them if they’ve seen anything unusual lately. Ask them if they’ve seen a man on horseback in the last two or three days. Ask everyone within half a mile of the place until you get some information. Do you get me? Over.”
“Okay, Morey. Anything else? Over.”
“That’s all. Over and out.”
The radio operator closed the speaker switch and lifted his earphones. Johnson set the microphone down on the table, sniffed moodily, staring at the blank wall beyond the operator’s head, then went back to his chair and sat down to wait. To wait, to scratch, to reflect and trouble himself.
The little red jewel on the receiver panel started to flash. The operator lowered his earphones, knocked down a toggle switch and listened; after a moment he reached for his pencil and started taking notes.
“Is that Glynn?” said Johnson. The operator shook his head. Johnson turned back to his hands and troubles. He heard a jet plane scream by far overhead and felt a twinge of envy. He might have… He tried to think of something else. What was it his wife wanted?
The radio operator turned toward him. “Morey?” Johnson did not look up. The operator said: “They got one of the Navajos.”
Johnson sighed and rubbed his ear.
“State Police found em,” the operator said. “They was chasin this pickup out west of Grants. When they stopped it two squaws jumped out of the back and started running across the boondock. They shot one in the leg and the other got away. These two Navajos was dressed up like squaws.”
“Okay,” said Johnson.
“Thought you might like to know,” the operator said. He waited, opened his mouth again—“One down, two to go.” Johnson made no reply. After a moment the operator turned back to his comic book.
They waited for twenty-five minutes. Then the message came from Glynn. “This is CS-1, this is CS-1,” the operator was saying; “come in, CS-4. Over.” He switched on the speaker, while Johnson rose ponderously and hauled himself toward the microphone.
Through a haze of static came Glynn’s voice, sifted and tinny: “Hello CS-1, this is CS-4. I found out some thin. Is Johnson listening? I found out somethin very interesting. Over.”
“This is Johnson,” the sheriff said. “Go ahead, Floyd. Over.”
“None of the people around Bondi’s house would tell me anything,” the radio voice said, “but a little way down the street there’s a little grocery store run by a man named Hedges. He says that the day before yesterday, around noon, he saw a man on a chestnut mare ride around the corner from the west, go down the dirt road and turn into Bondi’s lane. He says that about three, four hours later he saw the same man walk past going toward tow
n. And he says that the mare was in the goat corral all day yesterday. He says that he didn’t see or hear any horse this morning; he doesn’t know what happened to the horse. What’ll I do now? Over.”
“What did the man look like, Floyd? Over.”
“Hedges says the man was tall and skinny, he had an ugly face and he looked vicious and dangerous. Says he wore a black hat. Over.”
“I see.” Johnson sighed and said nothing for a minute or so. Then: “Floyd—you must be out on the edge of things there, huh? No houses north or east of Bondi’s place, are there? How about it?”
“There’s nothin at all east of here. No road, no houses. There’s a few more houses along the road goin north. Pretty scattered. Over.”
“All right, Floyd, you check those houses to the north you haven’t already been to and find out if anybody saw or heard a man go by on horseback sometime this morning. Maybe before daylight. And if you don’t get any information that way here’s what I want you to do: I want you to go back to Bondi’s place, get out of your car, go to that corral and see if you can find tracks going off east toward the mountains. How’s the dust blowin out there? Over.”
“It’s pretty windy but there’s not too much dust in the air yet.”
“Fine, You look for those tracks. You know what hoofprints look like, Floyd. If you don’t find a trail right away you keep walkin in half circles, bigger and bigger, until you do. You think you can do that? Over.”
“Sure, Morey. If he took that horse anywhere east of the city I’ll find the tracks, don’t you worry. Okay?”
“That’s all, Floyd. Over and out.” Johnson set the microphone down on the table and went to the window again and stared out, hands clasped behind his back. There was nothing to see out there, of course, nothing new—the hardware store, the First National Bank on whose barren wall someone had scrawled JESUS SAVES, the office building, the passing cars and human bodies, the streetlights, the street itself—all of this had long ago lost any but the most perfunctory interest for his eyes. He looked at them without seeing them; he looked at the street as into a mirror.
The telephone. The mechanical wrangle of the telephone drilled into his consciousness: grudgingly he turned and went back to his desk. He picked up the receiver: “Yes?”
His secretary said: “U.S. Marshal’s office, sir.”
“All right, put em on.”
“That you, Morey? This is Daugherty. Say, you’ve got a Federal prisoner in your establishment by the name of Bondi, haven’t you? I hope you still have him.”
Johnson frowned, then answered slowly: “He’s still here. You want him now?”
“That’s’ right. I’ve got orders to pack him off to Leavenworth. I’m sending a man over in the morning to pick him up. Is he in good shape for shipment?”
“He’s all right.”
“Fine. I’ll have a man over there in the morning, about nine o’clock. You’ll have Bondi’s papers ready and everything, won’t you?”
“Yes.”
“Thanks, Morey. I’ll be seeing you. So long now.”
“So long.” Johnson hung up.
The radio operator glanced up from his comic book. “Was that the Marshal?”
Johnson grunted. He stood for a while by his desk, vacant-eyed, scratching his ribs; his shirttail was coming out. Then he spoke to the operator. “You go upstairs,” he said: “Tell this fella Bondi if he wants to make any phone calls he can do it this afternoon. Tell him he’s leaving in the morning. And tell him he can have visitors this afternoon if he wants any. Between three and four—no earlier, no later, I’ll watch the radio.”
The operator put down his comic book and slowly, reluctantly, got up out of his chair. “It ain’t visitors’ day,” he mumbled.
“Don’t fret over it,” Johnson said.
“Sure, Morey. Okay, Morey.” The radio operator went out.
Johnson sat down, waiting and scratching. The public telephone rang again. He let it ring several times, then picked it up. “Yes?”
“Mrs. Johnson calling, sir.”
He closed his eyes and slid far down Into his chair. “Okay,” he said.
The brittle, galvanized voice of his wife: “Morlin? Is that you, Morlin?”
“Yes. What do you want?”
“You don’t sound right, Morlin. Are you sick?”
“What do you want?”
“I just wanted to remind you to pick up Elinor and to get an extension cord before you come home. You haven’t forgotten, have you? Remember: Elinor, five-thirty—”
“—school, extension cord.”
“That’s right, Morlin. Goodby, dear.”
He hung up, sighed deeply and slid farther down in his chair, picking at his nose. He hoisted his feet to the desktop, crossed them, and backed his squawking swivel chair solidly against the wall under the picture of President Harry S Truman. He sat motionless for some time, bulky and noiseless and self-absorbed as a praying monk.
The radio operator returned. “I told him,” he said. “They’re lettin him make a call now.” He resumed his seat by the radio equipment.
“How did he look?” said Johnson.
“How did he look?”
“That’s right; does he look all right?”
“Oh.” The operator considered. “Sure, he looks all right—no marks on him. He walks good enough. Only thing wrong with him was, he didn’t look very happy.”
“He didn’t say anything about Gutierrez? No complaints?”
“He hardly said a word, Morey. He was hardly even polite.”
Johnson asked no more questions. He folded his hands on his stomach and stared at the toes of his boots. His secretary came in and picked up the letters and papers in the box on his desk. “Where’s Hernandez?” Johnson said to her: “I haven’t seen him all day.”
“Mr. Hernandez left early this morning,” the girl said. “He’s investigating a knife incident. Somebody got it last night.”
“Where was this? I didn’t even hear about it.”
“Lead Hill.” The girl returned to her outer office. Johnson stared at his boots and thoughtfully rubbed his nose.
“Did you hear about Old Heavy?” the operator said. “Somebody called him out on a knife job once.”
“Who’s Old Heavy?”
“Wallis—the coroner they got out in Lead Hill.” The operator paused, watching Johnson for a sign of interest. There was none but he went on: “Old Heavy got called out one day to look at this knife job. He drove to the place and there was this dead Mex layin face down in the middle of the street with a knife in his back. Old Heavy didn’t even get out of his car: ‘Suicide,’ he said, and turned around and drove home.” The operator smiled eagerly at Johnson but there was no response. “Didn’t even get out of the car,” the operator repeated, lost in admiration.
Johnson made no answer, relapsing again into the profound state of abstraction which had enveloped him most of the afternoon. He was interrupted several times by telephone calls from indignant citizens wanting to know what he was doing about the escape of the Anarcho-Red and the two Indian sex-fiends; but after each interruption he seemed only to sink deeper into his morose cerebrations. He still scratched himself, but infrequently.
The red eye twinkled on the radio panel. The operator closed his comic book—a new one—and went into action. In a few moments the spectral voice of Deputy Glynn was issuing from the loudspeaker, while Johnson listened gravely, his big red left hand clutching the neck of the microphone. Glynn was saying, in his faltering but earnest manner: “…. Nobody saw or heard a horse at all. No sign of a horse along the road. In either direction. So like you said I went back to Bondi’s goat corral and looked around. Plenty of hoofprints there. I looked all around like you said, Morey, and pretty soon I found a trail. Goin straight from the back porch of the house toward the big mother ditch. I followed the trail to the ditch and across a little wooden bridge and to a field. The ground’s so hard and dry there I couldn’t make out
much from there on. But I did find where somebody cut a hole in the barbed wire fence at the edge of the mesa. A new cut—no rust on the ends of the wires. I think this must be our man, Morey, if you’re sure he’s ridin a horse. Whatteya want me to do now? Over.”
“What direction do the tracks go in, Floyd? East?”
“Yeah, that’s right, they go east.”
“Toward the mountains?”
“Yeah… straight toward the mountains. Say—you think that’s where he’s hidin, Morey? Want me to drive out there?”
Johnson scratched his chin; his chin and jaw were gray with the resurgent roots of whiskers. “What time is it?” he said to the operator.
The operator looked at his wristwatch. “Almost four-thirty,” he said.
Johnson spoke into the microphone. “Come on home, Floyd, we’ll go out there with a search party in the morning. That’s too big an area for one man to cover, even you. Come on in and get something to eat Do you hear me? Over.”
“Okay, Morey, I hear you. I’ll be there in twenty minutes. Over.”
“Over and out.” Johnson went back to his desk and sat down. He scratched his neck, while the radio operator waited for him to speak.
The operator waited for several minutes and then, impatient, spoke first himself: “Ain’t you gonna send anybody out there to look around, Morey? He might get away.”
Johnson did not answer immediately. Then he said: “If Burns has gone out there to the mountains it’s because he wants to hide for a few days, which means he’ll still be there tomorrow. If he hasn’t gone to the mountains there’s no use lookin for him there.” The operator was silent. Johnson said: “You might put in a few more calls, though. Call the Forest Ranger at El Sangre station and ask him to check on any campfires not burning in an authorized campground. After you do that radio the relay station up on the rim and ask them to tell us if they see a campfire down below in one of the inner canyons. That’s about all, I guess.” The operator scribbled notes, while Johnson went on: “You might ask the State Police to send a plane out that way this evening, if they get a chance. And tell them we’ll need a plane and maybe some other help in the morning. You got all that?”
