Early's Fall

by Jerry Peterson

  Early came hustling away from his Jeep to find Mose Dickerson sitting on the liars' bench near the steps that led down to the sheriff's basement office in the courthouse, Dickerson bobbing his foot, his face clouded.

  “You're gonna catch it when you go in there, Jimmy,” the constable said. “Yer sweet wife's waitin', an' yer late.”

  “Thanks for bringing her in.”

  “Brought your suit too. That's what friends are for.”

  Early tiptoed down the three steps. He eased the door open. When he didn't see Thelma—only Alice at the dispatch radio and Gladys, the secretary he had inherited from his predecessor—he stepped inside, a finger to his lips. He made silent strides across the lobby area of the office, the dispatcher, her ear near the radio monitor, doing her best to ignore him. But the secretary rubbed one index finger over the other in a shame-shame manner.

  “That you, Jimmy?” came Thelma's voice from Early's side office.

  He cringed. Early gave up all pretense at stealth and stepped out, speaking to the blue-haired secretary as he went by, “I'll remember this come the time you want a day off.”

  He went on into his office. “Thel, I'm sorry, but Lester Irving came back to town. I was trying to patch things up between him and his wife.”

  “You're always thinking of somebody else.” She took his blue-serge trousers off a hanger. “Come on, get out of those tans.”

  “Change in front of God and Gladys?” Early asked as he sat on his desk. He stripped off a boot.

  “I can close the door, Mister Modest.”

  “No, they've all seen my hairy legs.”

  Laughter burst from the women in the outer office. “Right,” Alice said, snorting, a hand over her microphone. “Jimmy's chasing this drunk along Thirteenth Street for the police chief and they cut through this yard—”

  “No, let me tell it,” Gladys said, slapping her desk. “Jimmy said the owner's dog went for the drunk, missed him, and turned on your husband, Missus E, got a mouthful of pant leg and ripped his pants off.”

  “Oh, yuck, yuck, yuck. Close the door.” Early kicked his boots aside as Thelma passed by. He dropped his tans and pulled on the blue serge. Early hauled his shirt off over his head rather than go through the business of unbuttoning, then thrust his arms into the white shirt Thelma held for him. She stuffed the back in his pants while he got the front . . . buckled his belt, buttons, necktie. Early got one boot and hopped about the office as he pulled it on, then the other.

  “I'll put the coat on at the church,” he said, grabbing for it and his hat.

  “Your hair.”

  “Hats are so we old boys don't have to do hair.”

  He whisked through the door, Thelma after him.

  “Halfway presentable,” Gladys said to her associate.

  Alice waved him on. “We know where you'll be.”

  Early, on the run, threw the door open. As he burst outside, with Thelma working hard to keep up, Dickerson rose. “Take my car?” he asked.

  “My Jeep,” Early said as he bent around the corner for the back parking lot. “I got a siren.”

  They packed in, Dickerson scrambling over the passenger seat to the back, then Thelma, Early at the wheel. He slammed the Jeep into reverse, threw gravel as he whipped around, and more gravel when he found first gear.

  Early bolted the vehicle onto the side street. He headed north toward Bluemont, snapping on the siren and weaving around cars pulling to the side of the street.

  “Jimmy, do you have to?” Thelma asked as she clung to the seat to keep from being thrown out.

  “You said we're late.”

  Four blocks on and Early skidded the Jeep around a corner onto Bluemont Street and raced away toward Aggieville and the grand limestone edifice beyond that was Saint Mark's Lutheran. He slowed for the S turn, then stepped down on the accelerator, whipping around a hardware truck. At Twenty-First Street, Early snapped the siren off. He scanned ahead for a free parking place in front of the church.

  Nothing.

  Early swerved the Jeep up onto the sidewalk. He nipped the vehicle between two maple trees and slid the Jeep to a stop near the steps that rose up to the church's great oak and brass doors.

  “How's this?” he asked as he hopped out.

  “You don't mind,” Dickerson said, bug-eyed in the backseat, “next time I'll drive.”

  Early helped his wife down, then the constable. And the trio trotted up the steps, Early pulling on his suitcoat.

  A somber man in black—Sherm Brown, the undertaker—opened the door for them. “Sheriff,” he whispered, “they're about finished in there.”

  “Sorry about being late.”

  Brown handed each a folded paper. “Little information about the deceased.”

  The three moved on inside. As Early came abreast of the back row, a man seated on the right beckoned to him. He patted the pew.

  Early motioned Thelma in, then followed. He reached across to shake hands as he sat down. “Granny,” he whispered.

  The man in the yarmulke nodded. “I lobbied for the temple, but I lost.”

  “One place is as good as the other for a funeral, I expect.”

  Granny Weichselbaum gave a quick turn of his hand as if to say, “Ehh.”

  Thelma pointed up to Early's hat.

  He raked it off and parked it on his knee.

  At the front, in the pulpit, Saint Mark's pastor—known as the great bear of the Flint Hills—glanced up from his Bible. “Tragic,” he said to the sea of faces before him, “a death for one so young. But that's the way we see it, we small beings limited in our view of things. But in God's view, it's merely a coming home, a coming home to Him, a coming home to Heaven. That we should celebrate.”

  He turned away, toward his organist. She struck the first chord for “In the Sweet By and By.” People throughout the sanctuary shuffled to their feet. Many opened hymnals, but the Baptists among them, like Early, sang the words from memory.

  Far to the front, the pallbearers moved up to the bronze casket. They lifted it to their shoulders and began the long, stately walk to the back of the church, the husband of the dead teacher and his friend stepping in behind, the husband carrying a child—his son. Next came an elderly couple Early did not recognize, then the great bear, Reverend Ellsworth, a dominating presence.

  After the four verses and the four-part harmony amen, the organist continued playing but at a subdued volume. Brown and his son, Randy, came in from the outside, to the back row. They motioned for the people there to process out. Dickerson stepped into the aisle, then Early and Thelma, and Weichselbaum and others from the Leonardville area. They went out into the midafternoon sun and down the steps.

  “Your hair,” Thelma said.

  Early ran a hand back over his spiky thatch. When it refused to cooperate with his finger combing, he slapped his cattleman's hat over it.

  At the Jeep, Weichselbaum tugged at Early's sleeve. “Parking on the sidewalk, are we?”

  “What can I tell you?”

  “You were late, I know, but it doesn't show you in the best light, you the county's chief law-and-order man.”

  Early gestured toward the old couple getting into the second car behind the hearse. “You know who they are?”

  “Judith's parents.”

  “Bill's family get in?”

  “Haven't seen them.”

  A man in city-police blues, graying at the temples, pushed through the stream flowing from the church. “Cactus,” he said, “I could arrest you for parking where you have.”

  “Guess you could, chief.” Early held out his hands. “Want to cuff me?”

  “Tell you what, I'll let you earn forgiveness.”

  “How's that?”

  “I got my squad car up front. I'll lead the procession to the cemetery. Why don't you fall in at the end, complete the honor guard?”

  Early touched the brim of his hat in salute. He turned to Weichselbaum as the police chief pushed back into what was
now a flood. “Want to ride with us?”

  “Can't think of better friends,” Granny said.

  Early motioned for Weichselbaum and Dickerson to take the backseats. He then settled Thelma in the front. When Early came around to his side of the Jeep, he went to fishing under his seat. From somewhere beneath it he recovered a bubble light and planted it in the middle of his Jeep's hood, a wire trailing back and over the windshield. Early plugged the wire into the cigarette lighter. That brought the bubble light to life, the motor that turned it grinding away.

  He backed the Jeep up the sidewalk and off into the intersection. Early stopped catawampus in the middle and flipped on his four-ways before he strolled around to direct the traffic coming up from Aggieville.

  Hutch Tolliver made a show when he pulled that duty. He would roll his hands to get drivers to speed up, then throw both to the side to get them to turn where he wanted. When Tolliver wanted them to stop, he would leap in the air with one hand out. Early, in contrast, leaned against the back of his Jeep, the heel of one boot hooked on the bumper. He gave a small “come here” with one index finger and, with the other, would casually point off to the side street.

  “Granny,” he said over his shoulder, “no luck negotiating the rabbi into the service?”

  “You don't win much with the great bear. 'Tis his church after all.” He brought a Star of David from his inside pocket, the star made of pot metal and mounted on a stake of the same material. “I'll put this at the head of the grave. It's enough.”

  “How'd her parents take it?”

  “Badly. They haven't been able to pry more than three words out of Bill.”

  “He's pretty bad hurt himself.”

  A pickup, a pre-war Dodge, brakes squalling, stopped in front of Early. The driver leaned out. “Sheriff?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Kin I go up that way?” he asked, waving off to the south. “I got groceries to deliver.”

  Early thumbed in that direction. When the pickup cleared the intersection, he beckoned the next car and pointed off north. “They staying at the hotel?”

  “Seemed awful cold, alone there among strangers,” Weichselbaum said. “So I have them at my place. That way, we can hold our own service. Cry together.”

  “Granny, you got a good heart.”

  Dickerson twisted around. “Jimmy, the funeral procession's starting to move.”

  Early gave a Hutch hand-roll to the final car and sent it onto the side street. By the time he slipped in behind the steering wheel, the last vehicle coming out of the church lot turned toward town, not away in the direction of the procession. Early let out the clutch and rolled on.

  He followed the procession to the end of the church block, then left and left again as the long line of cars and pickups made its way back toward Eighteenth Street, a cross street that would take the procession south to where Poyntz became Sunset and led up to the cemetery. Early gave a small wave to several kids he knew biking along the sidewalk.

  At Sunset, the procession wound its way up Sunset Hill, toward the city cemetery, the cemetery on one of the few promontories around Manhattan that had soil deep enough for graves to be dug without the workmen having to bring out the dynamite to blast rock.

  Drivers turned their vehicles off onto the grass that bordered the cemetery's boulevard and the side lane that led to Judith Smitts's grave. Early, last in the procession, parked the farthest out, something that didn't bother him for he didn't mind walking, although his rancher father was of the opinion that if God had meant man to walk, He would have given him four legs.

  Thelma curled her hand around Early's arm as they strolled along. “You know, husband mine, someday we're going to be buried here.”

  “I hope you're not in a hurry.”

  “Hardly. But it is nice up here, isn't it? No trees. You can see for miles.”

  “Nice if the prairie wind doesn't blow you away.”

  “There isn't any today.”

  The quartet cut across lots, stepping around graves of the long dead in the older section of the cemetery to get to where the more recently dead rested, to where an open grave waited for its occupant.

  “You thought where you want to be buried?” Thelma asked.

  “Gawd no.”

  “Why not?”

  “I came through a war darn lucky to be alive. I'd like to enjoy my time some.”

  “But we have to plan.”

  “For something forty years, fifty years away?”

  “I love you, James Early.”

  “Well, that's a comfort.”

  “Still and all, we have to plan.”

  They slowed as they came up on those clustered around the funeral party. The great bear raised a hand. “Brothers and sisters in Jesus,” he said, “the time has come to place the body of our sister in Christ, Judith Smitts, in the ground for its final rest, knowing full well that her spirit, her soul, has already been swept up to heaven, to be with the Father. Please pray with me.”

  Early and Dickerson pulled off their hats as those around them bowed.

  Ellsworth's voice rang above the assembly. “Dear God, we came from dust and we return to dust, our time here but a moment. For most of that moment for Judith Smitts it was good and we praise You for that. Now comfort Bill. Care for their child and keep him safe from the hurt of these days. Comfort Judith's parents, Lord, comfort us all for none of us likes to give up a wife, a daughter, a friend. Yet we must, but we have her memory to hold dear until such time as we see her again when You call us all home. Amen.”

  A number in the crowd murmured amen. Then some began to shift about, most queuing up to pass by the grave, to shake hands with Bill Smitts, to say what words they could muster to Judith's parents. Before Early's group could move, another man stepped in.

  “Trooper Dan,” Early said in greeting. “You look tolerable in a suit.”

  “You too, Cactus. Didn't see you at the church.”

  “We got there for the last hymn. Before you ask, it's a long story.”

  Plemmons pointed across the way to a man in a black suit holding back from the crowd, keeping to himself. “What do you think?”

  “Regulation haircut. You don't suppose?”

  “Maybe we should ask.”

  Early turned to his wife. “Thel, looks like we've got to do us some work. Why don't you go with Granny through the receiving line. We'll catch up.”

  She squeezed his hand. “Do you really have to?”

  “We better.” Early backed away, turning. He strolled off flanked by Plemmons and Dickerson, Dickerson doing his hop-step limp. The man in their sights—tall, straight, but less than square shouldered, as if he were tired—did not appear to notice them, for he stared off to the west.

  Plemmons slipped Early a scrap of paper as they walked. “The colonels on the post, last year to present. Four of them have moved on.”

  “Helpful. . . . Excuse me, colonel?” Early asked as he came up behind the man.

  He turned slightly. “Pardon?”

  “Colonel Taggert, isn't it? Out at the post?”

  “Do I know you?”

  “Jim Early, sheriff of Riley County. Mind if I ask why you're at this funeral, colonel?”

  “Missus Smitts taught at the post school for a year. My boy was in her class. My wife had died, and she helped him work through it. I came to pay my respects.”

  Early glanced around. “Your boy here?”

  “No. He's with my parents for the summer, in Texas. He doesn't know.”

  “Be hard to tell him.”

  “Yes, it will be.”

  “Was there something more between you and Missus Smitts than just parent and teacher?”

  “Pardon?”

  Plemmons brought his hand out of his pocket. He held up a button. “Colonel, this yours?”

  The man took the button. He examined it and handed it back. “It's regulation, but I doubt it's mine.”

  “You sure?”

  “I had to ge
t all my uniforms ready for inspection last week. All the buttons, all the ribbons were there. What's this about?”

  Early glanced down at the toes of his boots, then up into the man's eyes. “Colonel, you're mentioned in Judith Smitts' diary.”

  The tan on the man's face faded. “You'll have to excuse me, this conversation has ended,” he said and pushed around the trio of lawmen. He moved away toward a black Ford.

  “Ooo, touched a nerve,” Plemmons said. “How'd you know he was Taggert?”

  “I didn't and I don't. That's just one of the names on your list.”

  “Clever.”

  “Now don't get excited. He didn't acknowledge the name, but he didn't say he wasn't Taggert. Want to go out to the post in the morning?”

  CHAPTER 8

  * * *

  August 19—Friday Evening

  Comfort

  Early yelped and grabbed for the railing, Thelma scrabbling, reaching for him.

  “You all right?” she asked.

  “Damn step just went through.” Early spit over the side of the stairway as he hauled himself upright.

  A light came on overhead, and a door opened. Granny Weichselbaum leaned out. “Somebody out there?”

  “Just your company, Gran,” Early said as he massaged his shin. “One of your steps busted.”

  “Oh Lord, Esther's been after me to fix that.”

  “I can understand why.”

  Weichselbaum hustled out onto the landing. He reached down and caught Early's hand. “I'm sorry about this. We never use the outside stairs, just the stairs in the store.”

  “I'll remember that the next time we come calling.” Early stepped across the void where a stair tread had been. When clear, he reached back for Thelma. “Can you make it, girl?”

  “Better than you.” She pulled against his hand and made a hop that carried her up two steps to safety.

  “Let's get you inside,” Granny said. He held the door for his guests, and Early limped by, Thelma after him.

  “You sure you're all right?” she asked, the concern etched in her face apparent in the stronger light from the clothier's apartment.