The Genuine Article (The Sheriff Chick Charleston Mysteries Book 2) Page 11

  The lodge room always filled me with admiration. The walls were of logs, close-fitted, barked, maybe stained a little and sealed. The furniture—chairs, sofas and tables—were all handmade, of a design and quality never available in any store. The hardware was a home product, too. Its black contrasted with the native tones of the wood. Guy Jamison was more than a dude rancher: he was an artist.

  Almost as soon as we sat down, Mrs. Jamison came in with a coffee tray. She was a small woman, close on middle age, whose energy, I knew, exceeded her size by about ten to one. Noticing that I had looked around, Jamison said, “Grandpa sleeps a lot.”

  Over coffee we talked of the dude season, of cows and grass and markets and the prospect for crops. Charleston seemed content to ignore the subject of first interest. Before lunch Jamison mixed drinks for us. It was then that he said, “Fall’s fixing fence on the south field. He took his lunch with him. He’ll be through by three o’clock or thereabouts.”

  “No great hurry,” Charleston answered.

  “It’s none of my business, but I don’t know why you want to see him?”

  “To find if he can help us in naming a murderer. We’ve questioned everyone else, everyone we could think of.”

  “I understand, but I would bet you don’t turn up anything. He’s a good man. Hard worker. Tidy, too. He has quarters here, you know, and even my wife can’t find fault with the way he keeps house.”

  “Has he spent much time here?”

  “He’s here when I want him. Of course I haven’t had much work for him. Too early. Be a week or so before the first dudes arrive.”

  “It’s the Breedtown angle,” Charleston said. “On his visits there he might have learned something, something he doesn’t know is significant.”

  “Maybe. I doubt it. His interest is in that old squaw and what she can tell him. You ought to see the notes he’s taken about Indian ways and beliefs. Piled up, they’re knee-high. If you get him started, he’ll chew your ears off. He’s a religious boy, you know. Educated, to boot.”

  Mrs. Jamison came from the kitchen to say lunch was ready. The dining area was just off the lodge room. It had a fireplace in it, chairs and a sideboard. The table was long enough to seat twenty or thirty guests. We ate at one end of it.

  You can figure on good meals at dude ranches. The guests would quit coming otherwise. I knew that, season after season, the Jamisons had repeaters. This day we ate tenderloin steaks, homemade rolls, plain boiled cabbage boiled just enough and a fruit salad. Dessert? Why, sure thing. It was nutcake with whipped cream.

  After coffee Charleston lit a cigar and Jamison fashioned a cigarette, using Bull Durham. The talk was relaxed, easy, not to any point much. Each of us carried his plate to the kitchen, Mrs. Jamison protesting.

  “Maybe you’d like to walk around for a while,” Jamison suggested. “Waiting gets tiresome. But, if you want to, I’ll ride over and get Fall now.”

  “Don’t do that,” Charleston said.

  So we took a tour, looking into cabins, at each item of improvement. We strolled to the corral and took note of the horses.

  “Mixed breed,” Jamison said. “Mostly quarter horses crossed with Tennessee Walker. They’re best for the mountains, I’ve found. They step right out and don’t tire like some. Fall or I will bring in the whole bunch before long.”

  Just to show interest, I asked, “How many do you have?”

  “About sixty, counting some pack mules. Fall knows how to handle mules. He used to work with burros, you know. Claims they can outpack and outwear horses or mules, either one. He thinks I ought to buy some.”

  “They’re mighty small,” Charleston said.

  “That’s what I tell him. He may be right about strength and all, but he’s not used to packing on trails like ours. Hell, they’d high-center on deadfall.”

  We walked back to the house and had a beer, and before long Fall showed up. Obviously he had taken time to freshen up. His shoulder-length hair was combed, and his shirt and pants just back from the washer. He shook hands and said it was a pleasure to see us.

  After a few bits of conversation Jamison excused himself, saying, “I’ll leave you to talk while I tend to some things.” What he was tending to was good manners.

  Fall said, “I’ll help you later.”

  “No need today. Tomorrow maybe you can finish the fencing?”

  “I’ll do that.”

  With Jamison gone, I butted my chair back a little way from Charleston and Fall and tried not to make a show of my notebook.

  Charleston began formally. “Mr. Fall, you may be able to help us. We hope so.”

  “Certainly. In any manner I can.”

  “It’s about the two murders, of course. First, F. Y. Grimsley and then Eagle Charlie. By the way, did you know Grimsley?”

  “Only to see him. We never met. We never talked to each other.”

  “I was pretty sure of that. It’s about Eagle Charlie that we think you might help us. You did know him?”

  “I talked to him a time or two and saw him off and on. We weren’t close, ever.”

  “You visited Breedtown pretty often. Right?”

  The sun, sinking toward the mountains, got returning flashes from Fall’s red hair. “I suppose you could call it often. I’ve been there several times. Mrs. Gray Wolf interests me.”

  “In what way?”

  “She’s a repository of her tribe’s almost-lost beliefs, one of the last ones. You may know I’m doing research?”

  “So I’ve heard.”

  “I’ve interviewed the oldest members of other tribes, both men and women, here and south of here. I may have enough material for a book.” Eagerness came into his voice. “Would you like to see some of my notes?”

  “I would, but I’m afraid we haven’t time for that now.” Charleston took a couple of cigars from his pocket and offered Fall one. It was declined. “Did Mrs. Gray Wolf talk directly to you?”

  “Never in our interviews. She could do it, I think, but she wouldn’t. She’s returned to her past, rejecting assimilation and any degree of it. I rather admire her.”

  I rather admired Fall’s language. He never learned it wrangling dudes.

  “You talked through an interpreter, then?” Charleston said.

  “Yes, of course. Through Mrs. Charlie, who is versed in both tongues.”

  Some ornery impulse prompted me to say “She’s quite a dish.”

  Fall gave me a look. “If that’s what you call human beings of the opposite sex.”

  I was squelched into silence.

  Charleston came in with “Let’s digress a minute. I’m interested in your research, the purposes of it. I don’t mean to diminish your studies. I just want to know more about them.”

  He had opened the gate. Fall surged through it. “I’d like to tell you, Mr. Charleston, all that I can in the time we have. So. It is both astonishing and heartening that the sense of God abides, it seems, in all men, red, white and other colors, though of the latter I can’t speak with certain knowledge. Certainly it’s true of the tribes I know. There are differences from Christian doctrine, of course, but the mystery of God, the divine mystery, is everywhere, not only in the universe but in the minds of men. There is no disputing it. That will be my theme.”

  “An overall sense of divinity, even among those we call savages or pagans? I wouldn’t argue the point. But what about superstitions foreign to our thinking?”

  “You find them, I grant. Childish things, though, not so deeply felt, not so embracing, as the sense we are speaking of. It took Jesus Christ to awaken and activate our brooding knowledge. It is for us, those so blessed as to know Him, to teach what He taught us.”

  Fall took a breath and proceeded, if anything more earnest and intent than before. Despite myself, I was impressed by his convictions and his ability to state them. “There, I am sure, the missionaries have failed or at most only partly succeeded. They should have known and acknowledged the universal and fundamenta
l belief in God. Instead, they introduced God as a foreign deity, a presence and power imposed from outside by outsiders. Yet He was there, the recognition of Him was there all the time. He was their own.”

  Charleston studied the words and studied the speaker. Rather abruptly, I thought, he asked, “Why do you wrangle dudes?”

  Fall let himself smile, now that he was diverted. He made a little wave with an open hand. “What better way to keep close to your subject and still make money to live on? I’m not making a career of it.”

  Charleston said, “That’s answer enough. Now, Mr. Fall, to get to our problem. Does your experience at Breedtown bring you to suspect anybody? Was anything said, anything done to your knowledge, anything that might give us a clue?”

  Fall shook his head. His tone was regretful. “I’m afraid not.”

  I broke in with “Old Woman Gray Wolf hated Eagle Charlie, didn’t she?”

  “I guess she didn’t like him, but she wouldn’t have murdered him. Of that I’m sure. She is a Christian lady, Indian but Christian and a lady. I promise you that.”

  “Was she acquainted with Grimsley?”

  “You’ll have to ask her. I don’t know.”

  “Have you any reason to suspect Luke McGluke?”

  “Heavens, no. That poor man.” Fall turned to me. “His fight with you, his use of a rock, that was all a mistake. He was frightened out of what wits he has.”

  “So we discovered,” Charleston said. “So you know nothing that might help us?”

  “I told you before, I don’t have a hint. I’m suspicious of no one. You must consider, though, that my interest hasn’t been in crime. It is in the beliefs, the aspirations of man. In that single purpose I may have failed to note what you might think important.”

  Charleston smiled and said, “A sheriff’s work hardly permits that single line. We’ll go now, but thank you.”

  We rose and went to the door. Neither of our hosts was in sight, outside or in, so we had to postpone our thanks to them.

  While we had been talking, the weather had turned. A cold wind shrilled down the canyon, as if to remind us not to take the climate for granted. Going to the car, we had to hang on to our hats.

  On the way home I asked Charleston, “Nothing there I could see. You?”

  “I forgot to ask where he was educated.”

  “Is that important?”

  “Not a damn bit,” Charleston answered and fell silent.

  Chapter Sixteen

  That night the wind died and rain came.

  Rain? We called it a cloudburst. The annual precipitation in our country averages out under fourteen inches. A three-day rain may measure no more than an inch and a fraction, and here, in five hours, four inches pelted down before nature decided to slack off and merely soak roots, not wash gullies.

  The pounding on the roof woke me up. I couldn’t tell what time it was, looking through the window. What I saw through the blurred pane was an obscuring sheet like a waterfall.

  I shaved and put on my clothes and went to the kitchen. My father and mother were already up. The room smelled of fresh coffee and frying bacon.

  “You’re surely not working today, Jase,” my father said.

  “I’m afraid so. Anyhow, who can sleep when a rain like this beats the roof?”

  “We couldn’t,” Mother put in, while she broke an egg in the pan.

  Father, seated at the table, tried to see out the window. He said, “All aboard for Mount Ararat.” He turned to me. “I’ll drive you to work when you’re ready, Jase. But Mr. Charleston ought to provide you a car.”

  “No, Dad. He’s scrupulous about charging mileage, about private use.”

  “Good thing on the whole.”

  We had plenty of time over breakfast. The morning had lightened a little, as if the sun was up there somewhere. I was putting on a yellow slicker, complete with hood, when a horn sounded outside. Charleston was there, waiting for me. I opened the car door and said, “Good taxicab service.”

  “Almost missed my fare,” Charleston told me with a smile. “Two bridges about to wash out. I brought Geet in and dropped her off at the apartment. Didn’t want her marooned.” He sobered. “With all that snow in the mountains, it could be a sure-enough flood.”

  Gewald was already in the office when we entered, dripping. He was polite enough to say “Good morning.”

  As we took off our slickers and hung them up, Charleston answered, “Good and wet.”

  “I don’t let the weather deter me. Can’t. It’s a full-time business, enforcement is.”

  Charleston eased himself into a chair, and I took mine. “Never cry uncle, that’s our motto,” Charleston said. His eyes, not his mouth, smiled at me.

  “I’m going to Breedtown for those two women.” Gewald’s gaze was inquiring, as if he hoped for an offer of help. Charleston didn’t volunteer. Neither did I.

  “Go ahead and try, if you’re bound to,” Charleston informed him, “but you’ll never make it.”

  Gewald found it hard to believe. “How can you be sure about that?”

  “Part of the road is gravel and dirt, or it was. Now it’s hub-deep mud. There’s a stream to cross, too, a dinky stream in dry weather. By this time it’s likely a torrent.”

  Gewald seemed convinced if still doubtful. “There’s other fish still to fry.” He rose, took his slicker and rain hat off a hook and put them on. They were black. He went out.

  Charleston took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “Dedication, Jase. That’s his name. That’s where we fall down. Not enough purpose.”

  “Mine’s kind of drowned out today. From the look of things it won’t make shore very soon.”

  Charleston nodded agreeably, lifted the phone and spoke to Jimmy. “Still out of commission, huh?”

  After he put the phone back, he said, “Jimmy’s been trying to ring the Chuck Cleaver ranch, last night and this morning, as I asked him to. No luck. All the country phones are out of order, mine included. What I want to know is, is Dave Becker back.” He looked with distaste on a clutter of papers on his desk. “I have to get this stuff out of the way. No dedication on account of paper work. Pisswillie. But, Jase, you might take the county car and see if you can get to Chuck Cleaver’s. Just find out if Becker is there. Nothing else.”

  I was willing if not eager.

  Jimmy looked at me as I paused at the door. “Even a goddamn duck takes shelter in weather like this.”

  “I want to know where they find it.”

  “I’ll crank up by and by and meet you in my new launch.”

  The rain was still pouring down. The gutters were full, some overflowing. No life showed in the streets, and no lights. I caught a glimpse of Felix Underwood’s face at a window. He might have been thinking it was good weather for drownings but poor for graveside services. The Bar Star sat like a relic of a ghost town.

  The road to the north narrowed once it entered the country. The borrow pits swam. I came to the Excelsior Ditch, the biggest irrigation ditch out of the Rose River, and to the bridge that formerly spanned it. The ditch was a river and had carried the bridge out to sea or wherever. A big truck loaded with lumber stood at the side of the road. Near it was a pickup. A man left the pickup, scurried to my car and got in without invitation. His name was Joe Talbey. He was a solid-built man with a nose flattened in his days as a brawler. His slicker dripped on cushion and floor. He said, “Holy Jesus and then some.”

  “Hi, Joe. Double or triple whatever it is.”

  One hand burrowed inside his clothes and came out with a cigarette and matches. After lighting up and taking a drag, he said, “Thanks for a roof over my head. That old pickup leaks like a sieve.”

  “Who’s with you?”

  “Two of ’em, snug over in the big truck. There’s just three of us altogether and not near enough. Not enough equipment, either. But the boss tells us to haul ass. He was afraid the bridge might go out like it has once before. Smart man that way, but Christ. Half
the river’s comin’ down that goddamn ditch and more to come, and he wants us to repair it, and today is Sunday to boot.”

  I hadn’t thought about the day of the week. The office didn’t keep careful track because crime didn’t, either.

  Joe said, “How you goin’ to do it, Jase? How you goin’ to bridge that crazy water?”

  “Pontoons. They’re the ticket.”

  A puff of smoke came out as he smiled. “Sure, and I never took thought. The shop’s crowded with the damn things. War surplus, you know.”

  “No way around?” I asked, knowing there wasn’t any quick way and perhaps no way at all.

  “If you want to drive a hundred miles from up on the bench, then maybe so. Me, I’m going home.” He left me, the cigarette in his mouth. The rain would snuff it soon enough.

  I managed to turn the county car around. The rain, though slackened, kept me company back to the office, where I arrived wet and dirty from the pleasant business of changing a tire.

  Jimmy was busy on the telephone. “Just a minute,” he said, turning to me. “How about the road north?”

  “No go. The Excelsior bridge is out and maybe others farther on.”

  “Don’t try it,” Jimmy said into the telephone. “Bridges washed out. You’re welcome.”

  Jimmy hung up the phone and told me, “We’re shut off to the south, too. I got that from the highway patrol. The only route out of this swamp is the Titus road.” The telephone rang. “Christ, all these calls!”

  Charleston was making headway on his paper work. It appeared he might be half finished. He raised his head as I entered. “I couldn’t make it,” I informed him. “The Excelsior bridge is washed out, and the ditch a long way out of its banks. There’s no possible ford.”

  “I was afraid so.” His gaze went over me. “You had some trouble?”

  “A flat.”

  He seemed disgusted, with himself or circumstance. “Remind me, Jase, we need new tires on that car. Why don’t you go home and clean up? Use the car. You look as if you’d just crawled out of a beaver house.”

  I said, “Thanks, Mr. Charleston. What about later?”