The Genuine Article (The Sheriff Chick Charleston Mysteries Book 2) Page 6

  “Because I saw them. I went fishing up the Rose River canyon and saw them. They had pitched a tent there. They were cutting and trimming logs to bring out and fishing a little themselves. They said they had been there for four days and probably would spend three or four more.”

  “You took their word for it?”

  “Not entirely. I saw the prepared logs. To me they spelled out work, considerable work. I saw the camp. It obviously had been pitched there some time. I saw how they’d got there and would leave—in an antique lumber wagon drawn by an old team of horses that couldn’t travel two miles an hour. All this at the very time the steer was supposed to have been stolen.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me before?” I asked.

  Mother answered, “It takes a lot of talking to make up for two years, Jase.”

  “It just didn’t occur to me,” Father said.

  “So what next?”

  “I ran into Framboise and Pambrun in town. They were scared. They knew they were about to be charged. I went to the county attorney with them and told what I knew for a fact. Nothing ever came of it.”

  “You don’t mean of what you said?”

  “No. The charge. It never was made. Case dropped. Trumped-up evidence, that’s all it was. We scotched it.”

  Again Mother said, “You know your father.”

  “I don’t know what I know,” I replied. “Charleston never told me, either.”

  Father smiled. “I understand.”

  “I don’t.”

  “Then you don’t really know Mr. Charleston. Look, son, Amussen is all right, I suppose, but no one ever accused him of being extra smart. Mr. Charleston didn’t want to prejudice you. He wanted you to find out for yourself.”

  I was still thinking about those words as I left for the office.

  Charleston listened to my report about Pambrun and Framboise, which I hadn’t been able to make the previous afternoon because he was out of the office.

  At the end he asked, “Pick up anything else?”

  “Only the idea that Eagle Charlie and that old blanket squaw—maybe you’ve seen her—don’t get along. She’s Rosa’s grandma.”

  “Old Woman Gray Wolf, they call her. Tough old girl. Hates whites. I tried to talk to her once. No luck. I have an idea she talks mostly to her ancestors and maybe the priest.”

  “She was talking to Eagle Charlie, talking hot, or I miss my guess. I don’t know why.”

  For a minute Charleston was silent, as if letting a theory take shape. “In the old tribal days,” he said, “a husband could and often did loan his squaw out, for friendship or money. She could sleep with another man, but only with the consent of the husband. Common thing and considered moral enough. But Rosa’s grandma hates whites and hates Charlie’s association with them. Then for him to trade Rosa to Grimsley, a white man! I can see it wouldn’t set well with her. Sounds reasonable, huh?”

  “I suppose so. She was bound to know, I would think.”

  Charleston rose from his chair. “Everything seems in hand, everything but the murder. Court’s sitting, and I have to appear in a couple of pisswillie cases. Take the afternoon off, though you better call in a couple of times just to check. I want you to get on the tail of that Luke McGluke.”

  “Tonight?”

  “Whenever. I suppose tonight’s best.”

  “Sure, I will, but I don’t know—”

  “Unlikely suspect, you’re thinking, but everybody’s unlikely until someone isn’t. What does he do at Breedtown? Who does he see?”

  “Want me to question him? Bring him in?”

  Charleston gave me his slow smile. “Not yet, Jase. Not yet if ever. Question a half-wit, and you get half-witted answers.”

  He put on his silver-gray hat and left me to the typewriter.

  I was finished before noon, and the long day lay ahead of me. I joshed with Jimmy Conner for a while and went out on the street and saw Amussen in the police car, making sure that law and order prevailed. It was prevailing, all right, and would have been without him.

  Yesterday’s wind had spent itself, after wrenching some limbs from the trees that decorated the courthouse lawn and rolling milkshake containers in the gutters. The town wasn’t very keen on tidiness, but the sky was tidy, not a tatter of cloud in it, and the sun was asking things to grow, fast, before frost. I wondered what happened to wind. Leaving us, did it sweep east to torment far neighbors? It was hard to think it just lay down and played dead.

  I shied away from the Commercial Cafe and Jessie Lou and walked to Hamm’s Big Hamburger for lunch. The burger was big enough but, as always, was layered in a store-bought roll that only famine could relish. No wonder kids went for ketchup. I washed the thing down and promised my stomach something better for dinner.

  Afterwards I lounged up and down Main Street without seeing Luke. The town seemed ready for the last rites. I poked my head in the Bar Star. It had everything necessary for a saloon except customers. Mike Day came out of his bank, looking prosperous, and patted one of his setters. “Hot on the trail of the murderer, I suppose,” he said to me.

  “Still sniffing around. Any bloodhound strain in your dogs?”

  He ignored the question as not worthy of notice. He smiled while taking a deep breath, as if the atmosphere of the bank dulled him even though it was spiked with ten-percent interest. “I do believe I can help you. How would your office like a Ouija board as a gift? I think I can get my board of directors to approve. Or maybe we could engage a good fortuneteller.” He didn’t mean to sting me, I realized. He just liked his own sense of humor.

  “Thanks,” I said, “but wait till we ask a few more questions.” I added as a comeback, “You’re next on the list.” I didn’t know how close to right I was.

  “It would be easy to think you’re dumb, Jase,” he answered, not to be offensive. “Just a dumb kid that a star happened to fall on his shirt. Questions? Come on with them. Come one and all. Hear the big banker sing.”

  “What’s the tune?”

  “Washed in the blood of the lamb, meaning ignorance of any wrongdoing, meaning innocence, total.”

  “Lily white?” I said.

  “As the driven snow.” He walked away, chest out, in the direction of the post office, his two setters following. He did own the bank.

  It had come about time to go home for supper. I lazed along on the way there and remembered of a sudden that I hadn’t called the office all day. I stopped at our one and only outside telephone booth. Jimmy Conner said Charleston had driven out to his place and didn’t expect to be back that night, barring emergencies. Nothing doing at the office to upset anyone’s bowels except that Amussen, the damn Swede or whatever, hadn’t come to relieve him, being too busy in his lofty job as town marshal. So would I stop and get grub for the jail’s one customer?

  I trailed off to the Commercial Cafe and got it. Jessie Lou was too busy to cast more than a glance at me, which was all that I wanted.

  I delivered the meal and went home and had supper and stuck around for a time, thinking things downtown wouldn’t pick up for an hour or more. I helped Mother with the dishes, had a bath and looked in on my father, who had his nose in a book as per custom. Then I took off.

  At the Bar Star, to me the most likely place, a four-handed poker game was just getting started at a table that had seen plenty of action in its time. I knew the players, well or barely. One was Ward Yonce, a big wheat-grower in the east end of the county. One was Sylvester Black, a relative newcomer who owned the Chevrolet agency. The others were Felix Underwood and Frank Featherston, both good credit risks. That crowd didn’t play penny ante. I spoke to them while the chips were being counted out. They knew better than to think I was about to put a crimp in their game. No one ever had.

  In one of the low-backed booths, close by, Chuck Cleaver sat. A medium-sized stockgrower, he was known to go on a joyous bust once in a while. Right now he was pouring himself a drink from a half-empty bottle. His attention went from it
to an electrified cattle prod, or goad, angled at his side. It was one of those things, battery-operated, with a push button fixed to the handle. Activated and in contact with target, they delivered jolt enough to put the run on the meanest of cows. Once I had seen a horse touched with a prod. It produced a startled explosion of wind that shot the horse over a fence. Cleaver’s possession looked new. It might be the first he ever owned.

  I bought a bottle of beer from Bob Studebaker and sat in a booth next to Cleaver’s. I doubted he saw me, he was that absorbed.

  The place was hot, holding close the memory of the afternoon sun. It was still, too, and filling up with smoke. I took off my jacket and sipped at my beer, asking myself if McGluke would show up at all. He hadn’t by the time I emptied the bottle.

  I got up and went to the bar for another beer I didn’t want. “Hot,” I said to Studebaker.

  “Who says any different?”

  “Luke McGluke been around?”

  “Earlier.” Studebaker rested his forearms on the bar. “Funny question. What do you want that goony guy for?”

  “Who said I wanted him?”

  “You just did.”

  “All right. I’m making a study. Abnormal psychology.”

  “College boy,” Studebaker said as if the words explained everything. “Abnormal psychology, now that’s a wide field. When I have time, I’ll make out a list of my customers. Always ready to aid education, I am.”

  “Thanks. You expect McGluke to come back?”

  “Sooner or later. He’s got to swamp out.” He turned away and began rinsing glasses. From the table behind me someone called, “Another round, Bob.”

  I went back toward my booth with my beer. The poker game was heating up, though you wouldn’t know it without knowing the players. They sat quiet, smoking and drinking, their whole attention on the cards and on one another, as if the flick of an eye or the turn of a mouth might be revealing. Ward Yonce and Sylvester Black were winning. Felix Underwood fingered what was left of his chips. Barring a turn in his luck, Frank Featherston would have to buy soon.

  In his booth Chuck Cleaver sang to himself. I guessed the tune was “Red Wing,” old theme song of the bunk-house. He grinned at me while he sang. I took my seat.

  I had just settled myself when McGluke entered. From the doorway he looked around, wary as an antelope. Sensing no danger, he walked past me. I had time to notice he was dressed right for the heat, in a tattered shirt and a pair of jeans worn thin at the seat.

  He was about to edge past the poker players when Chuck Cleaver saw him. A sudden smile of inspiration split Cleaver’s face. I should have known what was coming. At the right instant Cleaver touched Luke’s threadbare behind with the prod and pushed the button.

  From almost a standstill McGluke leaped to the top of the poker table. The table collapsed, spilling McGluke and the chips. Three chairs went over, their occupants with them. Only Featherston still had a seat, and one of McGluke’s thrashing legs brought him down. Over the clatter a voice sounded. “What the Jesus Christ hell!”

  From the bar Studebaker yelled, “For God’s sake cut it out.”

  Ward Yonce reared up on his hands and sang out, “Quit swinging at me.” It was a chair leg that had hit him. He reached out a hand to rake in some chips and got hit again.

  Luke McGluke got to a half-crouch and tried to back out, again presenting his butt to Chuck Cleaver. Cleaver calculated, his tongue poked out at the side of his mouth, found the right spot and pushed the button again.

  The curtain rose for an encore.

  Studebaker ran from behind the bar. I jumped up and grabbed the prod from Cleaver. “That’s enough.”

  “Just touched him up a little. Gimme my prod back.”

  “Not yet.”

  The scramble came untangled. McGluke ran for the rear. At the back door he shied one look over his shoulder. I was standing there with the prod.

  “That crazy bastard!” Black said to Studebaker. “What goosed him?” He looked at me, holding the prod. “You?”

  “Not me,” I answered.

  Studebaker didn’t like fights. He said, “I guess he just got a wild hair.”

  “The goddamn chips,” Yonce said, picking up some. He straightened up. “Someone’s going to pay for this, by Jesus!”

  It was then that Felix Underwood started laughing, not giggling, not chuckling, but laughing from deep in the belly. I didn’t know an undertaker could get tickled so.

  By and by they were all grinning. Studebaker pushed up another table. I gave the prod back to Chuck Cleaver. He danced out, delighted.

  Then I went through the back door to the lean-to where Luke McGluke slept. I wanted to tell him I wasn’t guilty, but he wouldn’t answer my knock and his door was locked.

  I figured he had retired for the night, and I went on home. Not until I was on the way there did I start laughing myself.

  Chapter Ten

  After I had told Charleston about Luke McGluke and the poker game the next morning and he had quit laughing, he said, “You have to tell Jimmy and Halvor. There’s not fun enough in our work.”

  His smile faded slowly. “All the same, it was a mean thing to do, using that cattle prod on McGluke. You ever been on the receiving end of one of those things?”

  I said I hadn’t and never wanted to be.

  He looked at the window, not as if to see anything through it. “Mostly what’s funny isn’t so funny on second thought.” He might have been talking to himself. “Except for nonsense, humor is based on pathos or hurt. Ever read ‘Stay Away Joe’?”

  “No.”

  “Funniest damn story you maybe ever will read, but underneath it’s sad. It’s pathetic.”

  It wasn’t often Charleston let such reflections speak out, and for a moment I didn’t break into his thoughts, thinking he might say more, while I wondered whether he wasn’t delaying the business at hand.

  Then I said, “Never laugh, huh?”

  “Oh, hell, laugh. Laugh yourself sick. There’s little enough to laugh about. Later you can look underneath.”

  His gaze moved from the window and came to me. “Nothing last night to put on the record.”

  “Except for my own amusement, I guess.”

  He hitched forward in his chair. “I haven’t told you. Becker’s gone to work for Chuck Cleaver. He came to me, full of sweet innocence, and asked if he could. Well, sure. He’s still in the county, in easy reach.

  “Could I ask if you got anything more out of him?”

  “Not one thing.” He sighed. “I’m still looking for a pry.”

  I waited, wanting him to give me my day’s instructions.

  He went on, “Meantime we’re stuck on dead center. Suspects? Sure, plenty of them, but where’s the evidence? Becker knows something, but we don’t know what. Then there’s Old Woman Gray Wolf, unlikely but possible. There’s Eagle Charlie and Rosa and Red Fall, the true believer. No more than fringe people so far as we know. Count your nutcake, Luke McGluke, for what he’s worth.”

  “My guess is not much,” I said.

  “Take in all Breedtown,” he went on as if he hadn’t heard me. “Take in everyone who didn’t like Grimsley. That’s a damn army.”

  “You want to pick one for me?” I asked.

  Again he paid no attention. “The county commissioners meet today. I’m meeting with them. We need more money, Jase.”

  I agreed without saying so.

  “None of you make enough,” he continued. “I can squeeze out a poor salary for another deputy, but not if I pay the present staff what they’re worth.” The flat of his hand hit the desk. “That damn marshal’s job I got saddled with! Mostly it’s wasted money, but who’d be the first to yell if Halvor isn’t seen cruising the town?”

  “The county commissioners.”

  “And the mayor and the school people and all. And here we are with a murder on our hands. Pisswillie.”

  He still hadn’t told me what to do, but now, as if readin
g my thoughts, he said, “There’s some papers you can serve. Civil proceedings.”

  “All right.”

  “Then relieve Jimmy for a while. He ought to let the wind blow him.”

  I answered, “He gets stubborn.”

  “I’ll speak to him.”

  “No McGluke?” I asked.

  “What do you think?”

  “I don’t think anything. Last night sure didn’t give me a clue.”

  “There’s maybe nothing there. Probably isn’t, but—”

  “I get you. Leave no stone unturned.”

  His big smile, missing for some time, came to his face. He wasn’t a man to let troubles down him for very long. “Good boy,” he said. “We’ll make out, Jase.”

  By noon I had served the papers he’d given me. Then I went home and had lunch, milk and a sandwich not made of those chemical rolls, and bought grub for Jimmy’s one customer and tried to get Jimmy out of the office.

  “What’s the idea,” he said, “the sheriff and you both wantin’ me gone?”

  I told him he worked too long and too hard.

  “So what do I do?” he asked. “Play cards, get drunk, manhandle some bastard, go to a whorehouse of which there ain’t any? All of a sudden why worry about me?”

  “The sheriff wants you to keep in tiptop shape. Get some fresh air. Breathe deep. Exercise.”

  He said, “Oh, shit,” and looked down at his splayed feet, shod in cracked gaiters. One of the gaiters had been cut to allow for a bunion. “Why don’t you tell me to take a long walk?”

  “Three blocks isn’t so long. You can make it to the Club Pool Hall and play gin.”

  “Happy day,” he said and creaked up from his chair and creaked out after getting his hat.

  Time dragged by. Amussen checked in by phone. There were a couple of other calls, neither important. Charleston dodged in, got a nothing-doing shake of my head and left with some papers he took from his desk.

  At four o’clock Amussen phoned again, on schedule. He asked, “Anything for me, Hawkshaw?”

  “Duke Appleby has locked himself out of his car and can’t get help. Mechanics all busy. But maybe he’s rolling by now.”

  “I’ll run by.”