Paper Sheriff (7 page)

Her father, who had done little these past few days save rustle wood for the branding fire, sat down first as befitted the patriarch of the Hoad clan. His working clothes still retained an unsoiled, store-bought newness about them. Orville, however, was dirty and unshaven and he smelled, but his lean beard-stubbled face and his hawk nose and his arrogant pale eyes held an authority that her father's face entirely lacked. He, Callie knew, was the driving force in the family, the one who held it together in prideful cohesiveness. He had the guile, the gentleness to his own blood and the disdain for all other men which all the Hoads admired and copied.

Big John was the last to be seated, a man so huge that sitting down he was almost as tall as Callie standing. He had his father's blade of a nose and his mother's straight hair, black as any Indian's. His heavy face held the innocent benignity of an almost simple-minded child but, remembering his boyhood fights with her brother Buddy, Callie knew that he was as savage as any panther when temper took him. He too was dirty and unshaven and so much in need of a haircut that his hat, which he now took off, rode his mop of Indian hair like a woman's bonnet.

Orville looked at him and grinned, revealing his sharp, tobacco-stained teeth. He shifted a cud of plug tobacco into his other cheek, spat on the floor and said, “My God, Big John. Get Callie to cut your hair tonight before she leaves tomorrow. Another week and you won't be able to get a hat on.”

“I didn't bring scissors or clippers, Uncle Orville.”

“Well, take my hunting knife like I used to take on him when he was a kid.”

Callie nodded and came over and sat down.

“Callie,” Orville began. “What you going to tell Reese where you've been?”

“Visiting Aunt Amy,” Callie said. “We'll stop by on the way home and fix the story with her.”

Orville nodded and looked at his son. “Big John, I don't reckon anybody will stop by here while you're alone. If they do, treat them good. They get nosey about the cattle, just say it's the first bunch bought up in Texas by the Hoad Land & Cattle Company. You don't know where they come from, you're just working for wages for your cousin Callie.”

Orville turned his head and spat again. “Callie, ain't no sense in telling Reese about these cattle. If he finds out, tell him the Bashear boys traded for them in Texas. Tell him they come cheap because they was Government bought beef headed for an Indian reservation. The agent sold them to the Bashears and kept the money. He was going to blame his short count on a Canadian river flash flood that caught his herd by surprise. You got the bill of sale and you got the Bashear boys to back up the story.”

“Amy's boys was always good traders. Reese knows that,” Ty said.

Orville nodded. “Callie, you'll be the first to know if Reese hears about that stampede on the National.”

“I don't reckon,” Callie contradicted. “He won't tell me anything.”

“Still, keep your ears open. Like I told all the boys, soon's we can move these cattle, me and my boys will drive them over into Moffitt County. After I sell, I'll open an account in the bank at Moffitt. No use letting the bank here know how much money we're making.” Now he pushed himself to his feet. “Me, I'm hitting the blankets.” He drew his hunting knife from his sheath and tossed it on the table in front of Callie. “Get to work on Big John, Callie. Just go careful around the ears. They're so damn big, they're hard to miss.”

Reese was doing some hated bookwork in his court-house office that morning when he became certain that he was being watched. When he turned his head he saw a man almost as big as himself standing silently in the doorway. The stranger wore ancient chaps over his work-worn levis, his half-boots had dried mud on them and his button-less vest was as weather-faded as his shirt and battered Stetson. He seemed a man in his middle thirties whose lean and homely face hadn't seen a razor in weeks. His nose, once broken, was badly mended and this fact, together with his bold and friendly blue eyes, gave an observer a feeling that he had fought much and would fight much more and was not especially concerned with the odds against him.

“You're Sheriff Branham and I'm Will Reston. Want a little parley with you.”

Reese gestured toward the chair and Reston, unmistakably a Texan, tramped across the room and slacked into the chair. He made no effort to shake hands.

“What can I do for you?” Reese asked quietly.

“Don't rightly know yet.” He looked around the room and his glance halted on a wall map. He rose now, saying, “Let's start with this here map now. Would you kindly look at it with me.”

Reese rose and joined him at the map which was of Sutton County. Reston raised a finger and placed it roughly four inches off the righthand side of the map and said, “The National would be about here, d'you reckon?” When Reese nodded, Reston went on moving his finger an inch up the wall. “The Little Muddy would be about here, looks like.”

Reese now touched the map and said, “The head waters start in the brakes here.”

“Well, I come to the right place then,” Reston said mildly. He turned and went back to his chair. Reese came back and sat down and now Reston with a stiff thumb pushed his hat up off his forehead. “Four, five days—no—nights ago my herd was stampeded off the National.”

“Lightning?” Reese asked.

“No, sir, gunfire. One of my night herders was stomped to doll rags. The herd was scattered for fifteen miles.”

“The National doesn't cross Sutton County, Reston.”

“I know that, but the herd was stampeded toward your county, right at the brakes.”

“And you're missing some beef, I take it.”

“We lost a couple of dozen killed but that don't add up to over two hundred.”

“Can you give me anything to go on?” Reese asked. “See anybody? Hear 'em talk?”

“No. Only thing I can give you to go on is my brand. R-Cross on the left hip.”

“And you think they're in Sutton County?”

“All I know is that they were headed this way,” Reston said. “It rained the whole damn day and night too and a stolen cow makes the same tracks as a cow that ain't stolen. When we finally run into stuff with local brands, we quit looking.”

Reese nodded. “What do you want me to do, Reston?”

“I don't know your people and you do,” Reston said mildly. “You lost much stock here?”

“Once in a while we run across a fresh hide. We figure it's likely some miner from one of the mines up in the Wheelers is too lazy to hunt his own buckskin. Nobody misses many cattle, so there's your answer. Folks around here are average honest, maybe better than average.”

“Many herds on the National raided?”

“You'd know more about that than I would, being a drover,” Reese answered. “I understand they had some trouble but that was further south and the trouble was Indian.”

Reston grunted. “Still is.” Now he put his hands on his knees, about to rise. “Don't reckon I give you much to go on, but, damn! I hate a thief.” He pushed himself erect now and said, “If any of my stuff shows up, just write me at Big Island, Texas.”

Reese rose and they shook hands. After Reston had gone Reese wrote down his name, address and brand on a slip of paper which he tucked in one of the desk pigeon holes. Then, leaning back in his chair, he looked out the window. If Reston is right, this was disturbing news—but was he right? Reese had heard of stampedes where a third of the stampeded herd had simply vanished. Some drovers would accept a two hundred head loss as one of the accepted hazards met along the hundred miles of trail, but apparently Reston wasn't one of them. With nothing more than Reston's story to go on, there was little he himself could do except look out for R-Cross branded cattle. That number wouldn't be easy to hide. If they were here, they would show. It was a worrisome thing too, Reese thought. When a county got a bad name with drovers, it could mean real trouble. An angry trail crew could wreck a town if it thought the town was in league against it.

The only thing he could do was wait and then he thought wryly,
I'm getting pretty good at that.

It was Buddy Hoad who first spotted the R-Cross branded bay pony at the Best Bet tie-rail and the shock of seeing it stopped him cold in his tracks on the boardwalk. This was the brand he and the other Hoads had just got through venting on two hundred stolen cattle. Now it appeared on the left hip of a rangy bay tied in front of the Bale saloon and Buddy felt a moment of panic. He looked at the horses racked on either side of the bay and saw with a vast relief that the others horses had local brands, which meant that the bay's owner was probably alone.

Buddy's next move was instinctive. He turned and retraced his steps past the blacksmith's shop and Silberman's Emporium and shouldered his way through the batwing doors of Maceys Saloon, where he had left his Uncle Orville only a minute ago. Maceys was a small saloon and shabby, with a bar on the left. Tim Macey had married one of Amy Bashear's daughters, so he was counted a Hoad. Bald and short, a soft and surly man of forty, he was now filling pint bottles from a gallon jug behind the bar. Orville was giving him a lazy attention and Buddy moved in beside him. “Uncle Orv, you better come with me,” Buddy said quietly.

Something in Buddy's voice made Orville look at him abruptly. “All right,” Orville said mildly.

He followed Buddy out of the saloon and caught up with him as they passed the blacksmith's shop.

“See that bay past the break in the tie-rail?”

“What about him?”

“Look at his brand.”

The two men moved and when Orville saw the brand, he, like Buddy had before him, halted abruptly. “Well now,” he said softly, swivelling his glance from the horse to the Best Bet's half doors. Without speaking to Buddy, he pushed into the saloon bar just inside the door. The big room held a couple of men drinking at one of the card tables and a half dozen at the bar full down its length. Orville knew every man in the room and now he traveled half the length of the bar, Buddy trailing him. He halted. The bartender left his other customers and came up to them. He was a bony man, red-eyed from drink, and his white apron at this hour of the morning was still unsoiled.

“Perry, see that bay out at the break in the tie-rail?”

Perry leaned over so he could see beyond the open bat-wings. “Yeah,” he said then. “Looks like he's forgot to eat.”

“Who owns him?” Orville asked.

Perry straightened up. “Some Texas trail hand. He come in earlier, asked the sheriff's name, bought himself a drink, then headed for the court-house.”

“Did he now?” Orville said softly.

He turned and went out and again Buddy trailed him. Pausing on the boardwalk just to the right of the door, Orville half sat down on the sill of the many-paned window. Slowly, almost thoughtfully, he stroked the ridge of his narrow, hawk nose. Finally, Buddy watching had to speak. “What d'you think, Uncle Orv?”

“I think we're in trouble, Buddy, but I don't know what kind of trouble.”

“If he seen any of us or had anything Reese could use, Reese would be on to us right now.”

“Maybe not. Maybe Reese would wait until he got the goods on us. But us, we can't wait.”

A look of exasperation emphasised the arrogance in Buddy's face. “What d'you mean, we can't wait? We got to wait, don't we? We don't walk up to Reese and say, ‘You looking for us?'”

“We can't wait,” Orville repeated. “In half an hour or so this R-Cross rider will be heading back to catch up with his herd on the National. Or, even worse, he could start snooping.”

“What you trying to tell me, Uncle Orv?”

Orville looked up at him, his pale eyes bright with anger. “I don't rightly know myself,” he said flatly. “We ain't got the time to call everybody together. We got maybe a half hour like I said to figure what we do about this R-Cross rider.”

“But what
can
we do?” Buddy asked, the exasperation still in his voice.

“You figure it out,” Orville said harshly. “I just got out of a court-room. I don't aim to get in it again and have a witness say, ‘Yes, that's the man, that's his voice, that's his looks'.”

“But you ain't sure he saw us or could identify us,” Buddy protested.

“You want to take a chance he didn't?” Orville asked softly.

“But ain't he already told Reese all he knows?”

“If he hadn't been a witness to something, he wouldn't be here, would he?”

Buddy had no answer to that and he watched his uncle carefully. If Uncle Orville said they couldn't let this witness go, that meant just one thing and he didn't like to think about it. Finally, Buddy said one word, a question. “Here?”

“No, not here.”

“How?”

“We'll see.” They heard footsteps on the plankwalk at the far corner of the Best Bet, and Orville slowly turned his head. A tall man in rough range clothes was approaching them. He passed them, heading for the R-Cross branded bay. Now, Orville pushed himself to his feet and walked over to the break in the tie-rail and moved into the street just as Reston stepped into his saddle.

“Been waiting for you,” Orville said pleasantly. “Saw your R-Cross brand.”

Reston lowered his hands, crossed them on the saddle horn and looked down at this lanky, pale-eyed stranger. His glance shifted to Buddy and seeing the family resemblance, he assumed this was a son. Neither of them looked truculent, but they did look curious.

“It's a Texas brand,” Reston said.

Orville nodded. “Seen it before.”

Reston regarded him carefully. “Now that ain't likely, but where did you see it?”

“I got a place over east, borderin' the brakes. Me and my boy got a cow outfit over there. Yesterday—no, day before it was—I seen some R-Cross branded steers mixed with mine. It ain't a local brand and I couldn't figure it out. Then I seen your brand just now and figured I'd wait and tell you.”