Early's Fall

by Jerry Peterson

  Early and Bolton eased over to the trailer.

  “Heard about your hands and the bank bandit,” she said as she flicked ash from her cigar.

  “Bet that got a laugh around your office.”

  Bolton covered a snicker. “Jimmy, it sure did. . . . That bedroll.”

  “Yeah, calico. That's Pop's. He's been toting that everywhere since he come back home.”

  “He got family?”

  “A wife who doesn't want him. Guess I'll buy the funeral.”

  “You could let the county do it.”

  “Pop deserves better than the potter's field.”

  Tolliver flopped the bedroll down on the trailer. “Hate to break up your gab fest,” he said.

  “It's all right.” Early motioned at the leather laces that secured the ends of the bundle. “Let's see what he's got.”

  The deputy's nimble fingers danced around the knot at one end of the bedroll and then the other. He laid the laces aside and unrolled the blanket to reveal a straight razor, a shaving mug, toothbrush, a comb with some teeth broken out, and a wad of bills. Tolliver picked up the money. He counted it. “All fives it seems . . . two hundred sixty, two hundred sixty-five, two hundred seventy dollars, if a couple bills didn't stick together.”

  Early rubbed his chin with the back of his hand. “Pop said he had enough money to buy a grave. Guess he did.”

  “Where'd he get it?”

  “Said a job out in Denver.”

  “Yeah, right.” The deputy stuffed the wad in Early's shirt pocket. “I'm not gonna be responsible for this.”

  Early motioned at a smaller bundle, something wrapped in a red bandana.

  Tolliver picked it up. He turned the bundle over and let the ends of the handkerchief fall away. “What the heck are these?”

  Bolton squinted through the smoke from her cigar. “Figurines, looks like two're broken. Hummels. I buy myself one every Christmas. Have a pretty fair collection.”

  Tolliver glanced at Early. “You thinking what I'm thinking?”

  “If you're thinking these are Judith Smitts's, how the hell did Pop get them?”

  “Killed her, maybe?”

  CHAPTER 14

  * * *

  August 27—Saturday Afternoon

  The Hummels

  Early opened his mailbox after Tolliver let him off back at his house in Keats. He pawed out a newspaper, a letter, and three magazines.

  “Kansas Sheriff's Digest, oughtta be a fair read,” he said of the magazine on top of the modest load cradled in his wounded hands. Early carried the mail around the side of the house to the kitchen door. The kitchen door . . . He wondered why carpenters bothered putting front doors on small-town and farm houses. Nobody ever used them.

  Early wedged the screen open, got his butt inside and pushed, letting himself into the cool. The shades had been pulled, to keep the sun and the baking heat of the day out?

  “Thel?”

  “Bedroom. I'm worn out.”

  “What is it, only three, four in the afternoon?” Early asked as he made his way into the gloom of his house's sleeping quarters.

  “I weeded the garden. Too hot. I shouldn't've done that.”

  Early laid the mail on the dresser. “Can I get you something?”

  “You're hardly able.”

  “Well, I saw the sun tea on the porch. If we got ice in the icebox, I can get it cold for you.”

  “Be nice,” Thelma said, her voice leaden with exhaustion.

  Early didn't feel much better, but he rambled back out into the kitchen. He got out a jelly glass and went to the porch, humming an aimless tune as he did. There Early set the saucer off the top of the Mason jar of amber liquid. He daubed the tea ball in it up and down before he set the ball—dripping—on the saucer. Using his hands like the grips of pliers, Early lifted the jar. He spilled some of its contents onto the porch rail and down onto a patch of rain-starved grass as he filled the grocery-store glass.

  When Early got the assemblage back in order, he worked his way into the kitchen. Still humming, he turned on the radio . . .

  . . . thermometer outside the window of Your Friendly Neighbor reads ninety-three degrees . . .

  “Lord, who needs that,” he muttered and turned the radio off. Early went to the Frigidaire. He brought out an ice tray and banged it against the side of the sink until half the cubes fell out. Some he scooped into the jelly glass, the rest into the tray that went back in the Frigidaire.

  Early hummed on into the bedroom, the jelly glass squeezed between his hands, tea splashes slopping onto his bandages and the linoleum as he went.

  “Here ya are, hon.”

  Thelma recoiled when cold tea dripped on her. She rose to an elbow and took the glass as Early sat down on the edge of the bed. “I suppose I'm going to have to mop the floor,” she said.

  “Hhmm?”

  “Don't you notice anything?”

  “What?”

  Thelma swallowed some of the contents. “Mint,” she said of the tea, “from my herb garden. You want a taste?”

  She held out the glass. Early took it in that pliers-grip of his hands. He lifted the glass to his lips and drank down the contents—drained the glass except for the ice cubes—then set the glass on the night stand.

  “Jimmy, you got your head on?”

  “Huh?”

  “The tea.”

  “You want some more?” he asked.

  “You're hopeless. . . . Come on, talk to me. What is it?”

  “It's in my shirt. You'll have to get it.”

  Thelma curled around her husband. She unbuttoned his shirt at the bulge above his belt and removed a bandana-wrapped bundle.

  “What is this?” she asked. Thelma turned on the lamp on the night table, then looked at what her fingers had unwrapped. “Broken pieces? Wait a minute, there's a good one in here. . . . Jimmy, these are Judith's. Where'd you get them?”

  “They were in Pop Irv's bedroll.”

  “Where'd he get them?”

  “I don't know. He's only talking to the angels now.”

  “Could he have taken them?”

  “You mean, could he have killed Judith? There wasn't a mean, vindictive, or envious bone in Pop.”

  “You sure you're not being blind on this, because he was a friend?”

  Early did not answer.

  “Could he have gone in the house after?”

  “And seen that blood and mess? Pop would have told me.”

  “What else is there?”

  “Hon, I don't know.”

  CHAPTER 15

  * * *

  September 15—Thursday Morning

  The Journey

  Early studied his hands. He could almost ball them, but not quite. He picked at the scabbing beginning to peel away. Another week, he thought, maybe two weeks. At least he didn't have to wear the bandages anymore.

  Gladys, Early's blue-haired secretary, interrupted by dropping a stack of file folders on his desk.

  He gazed at them, pained, then at her.

  “First one has three tax-sale orders you have to sign, next one subpoenas the judge wants served.”

  “Give 'em to Hutch. I'm going to get out of here for a couple days.”

  Gladys rested the knuckles of her hand on her massive hip. “Well, you didn't check with me.”

  “I don't have to. I'm the sheriff.”

  “My point exactly. There's a whole lot of things in that stack you got to tend to.” Gladys's jaw jutted out and the wattles beneath her chin shook.

  “There's nothing in that stack Hutch can't do.”

  “How do you know? You haven't even looked.”

  “My God, woman, Hutch's John Henry will work on any of those papers as well as mine. He's got the same authority I have.”

  “And if he makes a mistake?”

  “Who's to say I wouldn't?”

  “Well, we certainly agree on that. You've messed up some.”

  “Thank you, Gladys, you sure
ly know how to build my spirits.”

  She backed away, toward the door. “So where you going?”

  “Kansas City.”

  “When were you going to tell me?”

  “I wasn't.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because you put me through this every time I have to leave the county.”

  “But your job is here.”

  Early leaned back in his oak swivel chair, its springs squalling, the chair worn from having served the bottoms of three previous sheriffs. “My job is wherever my job takes me.”

  “This got something to do with that Smitts woman?”

  “Two points for your side.”

  “What about your wife?”

  “What about her?”

  “Jimmy, she's what, four, five months pregnant with your first child? Who's going to look in on her? . . . You didn't think of that, did you?”

  Early pulled his pasteboard suitcase from the backseat of his Jeep, then strolled on to the platform of Manhattan's Union-Pacific depot.

  Fritz Hollister met him with a ticket. “Round trip to the big KC. I left the return open and charged the whole mess to the county.”

  Early stuffed the ticket in his shirt pocket.

  “See your hands are some better,” Hollister said.

  Early flexed his fingers. “Good enough I can take care of myself.”

  “So you can do your sheriff business all right?”

  “Yes. Guess I can.”

  An air horn sounded three times in the distance. The stationmaster pointed west along the tracks, toward where they disappeared around Bluemont Hill. A sleek silver and red locomotive, and a sister trailing it, nosed around, the twins pulling an express car and a dozen passenger coaches.

  “You're in for a treat, Cactus. Two diesels on The Portland Rose today.”

  “Where's my steamer?”

  “Gone the way of the your dad's Model T, to the scrap yard. Diesels, we got 'em coming on the line fast now.”

  “Progress, I suppose.”

  “Oh, it is, Cactus.” Hollister waved to the engineer as the lead locomotive rolled past, the train slowing to a stop. A mail truck backed up to the open door of the express car, and a man inside threw out bags of mail.

  A dozen people boiled out of the depot with suitcases and handbags. They milled around the steps of the first passenger car, filling time while a gaggle of passengers came down and off.

  When the new group could go up, the chief conductor stepped away. He shot a look up the platform and down, then bellowed, “All aboard, Topeka, Kansas City, Saint Louis, and Chicago! All aboard!”

  “That's me,” Early said.

  “Anybody asks,” Hollister said, “where'll you be staying?”

  “The Muehelbach.”

  “That's pretty good. You pay yer dues to the DP?”

  “Pardon?”

  “The Democrat party. President Truman's going to be there tonight, speaking at some kind of shindig. Oh, that's right, you're one of those ‘R’ people, aren't you?” Hollister chortled. He slapped Early's back as he pushed him on toward the conductor.

  Early showed his ticket before he clambered up the steps and inside. When he saw all the seats occupied, he pushed down the aisle toward the second car, stepping around a child chasing after a teddy bear that had gotten away from him. The second car held the same story—no vacant seats—so Early shuffled on to the third. The dining car.

  He felt the train move as he went on, grinning sheepishly at a crew of waiters in pressed white jackets eyeing him while they set tables with silverware and china embossed with the Union-Pacific logo. Early glanced at his watch.

  “Excuse me,” he said to the nearest waiter. He peered at the brass nameplate above the man's jacket pocket. “Tony, it's not quite noon, I know, but suppose I could get a sandwich and beat the rush?”

  The black man, a bit thicker than Early and moving with grace, pulled out a chair. He motioned Early into it. “And what may I get for you, sir?”

  “What do you recommend?”

  “If it's a sandwich, the chef makes a turkey BLT that's mighty outstanding.”

  “Can I get sweet tea with that?”

  “Absolutely, sir.”

  “By the way, wouldn't happen to be a newspaper around, would there?”

  “Denver Post, yessir. It's yesterday's.” The waiter bobbed away to return a moment later, holding out a paper folded in quarters. “Pretty interesting front-page story on that Berlin airlift thing, if that interests you.”

  Early unfolded the paper as the waiter moved away to the galley. There it was, the headline, BERLIN AIRLIFT ENDS, and a secondary headline, MORE THAN 2 MILLION TONS OF SUPPLIES FLOWN IN. Early scanned through the story, stopping at the recap of something called Operation Easter Parade, the day, a half-year earlier, when American and British cargo planes landed in Berlin at the rate of one a minute. Early let out a low whistle when he contemplated that, then turned inside, to the sports pages.

  Another headline caught his attention, NEWCOMBE WINS 17TH, DODGERS SWEEP TOWARD PENNANT. In a companion story, a columnist speculated on a Red Sox/Dodgers World Series, but concluded a Yankees/Cardinals matchup wasn't out of the question.

  The waiter set a sandwich plate and a glass of tea to the side of Early. When he noticed, he closed his paper.

  “That Berlin thing,” Early asked, “Tony, were you in the war?”

  The waiter folded his hands in front of him. “Yessir, Navy. Steward on the battleship Missouri. You, sir?”

  “A mud soldier in Europe.”

  “You get to Berlin, sir?”

  “The Elbe. The high-ups called it quits and gave Berlin to the Russians. You get to Tokyo?”

  “Tokyo Bay, yessir. Saw General MacArthur collect the Japs' signatures on the surrender.”

  Early grinned. “That had to be something.”

  “Certainly was. You'll have to excuse me, other people are coming into the car.”

  Early pulled the sandwich plate in front of him, the sandwich a mammoth thing on rye bread with roast turkey slices, bacon, and slabs of tomato hanging over the sides. And the aroma, it made Early's mouth water. He bit in and chewed, and returned to the Post's front page, to a lesser story about Israel petitioning the United Nations for membership.

  Early, eating and reading, ignored the other diners swirling around him, only becoming aware of them when the waiter stopped at his table.

  “Excuse me, sir, we're about full up. Would it be all right if I seated someone here with you?” he asked.

  Early touched his napkin to his lips. “Tell you what, I'm finished. Why don't I let you give the table to someone else and I'll go back to one of the passenger cars?”

  The waiter placed the lunch ticket next to the tea glass. Early glanced at it, then covered the ticket with two one-dollar bills. As he walked away with his suitcase, the waiter called him back.

  “You got change coming, sir.”

  “Tony, it's yours,” Early said.

  “Well, thank you. Thank you, sir.”

  Only when Early entered the fifth car did he find a plethora of empty seats. He selected one on the aisle halfway down, put his suitcase on the seat to the side, and settled in. Where was that seatback thing? The release?

  Early felt around. He found it and let his seatback recline to where he found himself yawning when he laid back on it. Early set his cattleman's hat aside and closed his eyes.

  He felt a tapping at his knee and opened an eye, the rhythmic clicking of the train's steel wheels reminding him where he was. A blurry shape took form before Early as he opened his other eye. “What the hell?”

  A cowboy, seated across from him, raised the barrel of a Forty-Five in a let-us-have-silence gesture. “Just you and me, sheriff. Everybody else in the car, they've gone to lunch.”

  “Sonny?”

  “None other.”

  Early jerked toward him, but something stopped his left arm—a handcuff manacling his wrist to
the arm of the seat.

  Estes made a clucking sound. “Now, sheriff, that's got to be embarrassing. Those are your handcuffs, from yer suitcase where I found this here pistol. Mighty nice gun.” Estes waggled it at Early. “When you sleep, man, you surely do sleep. Snore something nasty.”

  Early grabbed for Estes with his free hand, but the cowboy spun out of his seat, away from Early, beyond his reach.

  “What the hell you want?” Early spit the words out.

  “Nothing really, other than to let you know what a pleasant surprise it was to find you here. I'd like to stay and chat, but people are going to be coming back to the car soon.” Estes placed the Colt on a seat two rows away, then made work of taking something from his shirt pocket. He dangled it for Early to see before he put it down beside the gun. “The handcuff key. Yer gonna need it to get loose.”

  “Sonny—”

  Early had hardly got the name beyond his lips when Estes dashed toward the front of the rail car. He rammed open the side door and dove out. Early watched him through the windows, watched Estes arc out beyond the side of a bridge and down. He grabbed for the emergency cord, triggering the train's air brakes. The wheels locked up in a ruckus of squealing, flinging Early forward, the handcuff near yanking his arm off, steel screeching on steel for the longest time, until all forward motion and sound ceased.

  A conductor, an average man in all respects except for his massive mustache, appeared at the head of the car. He clung to the frame of the doorway. “You all right in here, mister?”

  Early, on the floor in the aisle, jerked at the handcuff. “Does it look like it? I'm the guy who pulled the cord. Sheriff of Riley County.”

  The conductor trotted up. “What you doing all handcuffed up like that?”

  “This bank robber from back home got the drop on me while I was sleeping. He threw the cuff key on the seat up there.” Early motioned toward it. “Get it and my gun.”

  “Not here,” the conductor said.

  “Maybe slid off. Look on the floor.”

  The conductor got down on one knee. He spotted both several rows ahead and crawled after them. When he came back, Early took the key. He fumbled it into the lock and twisted on the key until the cuff fell away.