BECAUSE THE PASSAGE of time was irrelevant to him, Adam Steele took no trouble to try to keep track of it as he lay on his back on the narrow cot in one of the two cells that adjoined the Rosarita sheriff’s office.
He had been brought there between Nelson and Bascomb who had put up their Colts while Kyle walked behind him, Remington aimed at a midway point of his spine. This after he had accepted without comment the assistance of the doleful Masterson in getting to his feet: when he had discovered that he could remain upright and then move unaided. That he hurt worse standing up than he had curled up in the dust of the street was something else that registered: but the pain was not bad enough to warn that bones had been broken or damage had been done to vital organs. During the short, unhurried walk from out front of the Bate’s Grocery Store to the sheriff’s office and jailhouse he was unable to see anything clearly because the glaring brightness of the mid-afternoon sun combined with the effects of the beating to keep his eyes in soft focus—whether he was looking at the ground a yard ahead or trying to peer into the distant west beyond the end of the street. But he could sense something about the townspeople who watched his ignominious progress toward the lockup: some were feeling as satisfied with what had happened as were his escorts and the Bate boy, while others were sympathetic to his plight and disgusted at how it was brought about. The son of the grocery store owner had put into triumphant words how one faction felt and Ellie Webb had argued against him in angry contempt on behalf of the other side. This before Kyle snarled at the both of them to cut it out and signaled the start of the walk along the street, through the dispersing group of bystanders who mostly only watched the tight-knit quartet of men. Although some did pass low-toned comments that raspingly allied them with Kyle or ranged them against him.
Little time was wasted inside the sheriff’s office. With a minimum of talk, Steele was searched for further concealed weapons—an apprehensive Doc Bascomb patting him down while the sheriff continued to keep him covered with the Remington. While this process was attended to, Dunc Nelson complied with Kyle’s request that he should take the key from a desk drawer and open one of the cell doors. Then, nothing taken from him as a result of the search, the Virginian was ordered into the open cell with a gesture of the Remington. It was the lawman who clanged the door closed, turned the key in the lock and removed it.
Apart from the town doctor’s sweating nervousness as he tensely ran his trembling hands over Steele’s clothes, the sheriff and his helpers had been unemotionally efficient after they had brought their prisoner in off the street. For which Steele was impassively grateful. Also, he appreciated the coolness of the atmosphere and the less brilliant level of sunlight within the stone-walled building. Most welcome of all was the cot which had a solid timber base but with a blanket-draped straw-filled mattress and pillow on top. It was not until he had stretched out on the cot that he became aware that somebody had jammed his hat on his head. And he tipped it forward over his face, to further reduce the intensity of light assaulting his eyes.
There he had lain, indulging in the luxury of resting his body as he waited patiently for the pains of the beating to diminish. Resting, too, his mind, that as yet was not filled with angry memories of what a fool he had been or notions of how he might take his revenge against those who were responsible for his present situation.
At first he was vaguely aware of talk in low tones as the three men engaged in what sounded like desultory conversation on the other side of the wall to which the cot was pushed. He made no attempt to eavesdrop, and heard the rising and falling drone of the voices as just a part of the background noise of the town that filtered into the lockup area of the building through the two glassless, barred embrasures that pierced the wall on the street side. The townspeople went about their business quietly, and for most of the time they all contributed to a body of sound that was perhaps more conducive to restorative rest than utter silence would have been.
Once a saddle horse clopped by and now and then a rig rattled and creaked along the street. Because he was not attempting to monitor passing time, Steele had no idea how long it was after he was locked in the cell that the saloonkeeper and the doctor left the sheriff’s office. For a few seconds or perhaps a number of minutes he felt weary, but thought that the aches in his legs and torso would not allow his mind the comfort of sleep. Then a mid-toned bell began to clang, and as he responded to it with a jolt and folded his back up off the cot, he knew he had drifted into sleep.
His hat fell off his face as he sat up, and the instant he saw his surroundings clearly he recalled in detail all that had happened to him until he lowered himself onto this cot and waited for the curative powers of time to work on him. He swung his legs off the cot more cautiously than he had raised his back. And as he decided that the first self-diagnosis about the seriousness of his injuries had been correct, he thought he identified the reason for the urgently ringing handbell. When it stopped, the thudding of running feet and the excited shouting of children confirmed his guess. School was out.
He retrieved his hat from the floor and set it on the cot as he rose to his feet. His knees hurt more than the base of his stomach, the left side of his chest and the bruised area of his left jaw and cheek. But his legs made no threat of collapsing beneath him as he paced back and forth within the confining distance of a dozen feet between the barred door and window. On the other side of the door was a short lobby that gave access to this cell and the one separated from it by a line of floor to ceiling bars—in the same way that the doors were set in a line of vertical bars strengthened by a horizontal band at a midway point. A one-piece wooden door with a three-inch diameter hole at eye level would open into the lockup area from the sheriff’s office. The rear and side walls were of unfaced stone beneath a ceiling of stout timber beams. The empty cell was as spartanly furnished as the one in which Steele did his pacing to get the blood circulating through his mistreated body again—just the cot with the minimum of bedding and a bucket. The place looked and smelled neat and clean, and Steele sensed that neither cell had been occupied for a long time before he was brought here.
When he had walked much of the ache out of his legs, he stood at the narrow window for half a minute or so, flexing his muscles and gently massaging his chest where Orville Kyle had delivered the damaging blow with his boot. Immediately across the street from his viewpoint was the unfinished hotel. To the right of this was a small house behind a neat, fenced garden and next to this was the school. All the students had now gone from Steele’s field of vision. But he did see the middle-aged and frail-looking schoolmarm as she made her way from the school to the house, carrying a stack of books. She paused in the garden to stoop and uproot a weed. Then, as she made to bend down again better to breathe in the fragrance of a rose, she sensed the Virginian watching her. Just for a moment she met his incurious gaze with a frown of fear: before she whirled and hurried to go into the sanctuary of the house.
The woman’s reaction to him kindled the threat of anger within the Virginian as he contrasted his initial impressions of the town of Rosarita with his current opinions. But then he shifted his gaze to survey as much of the street as he could see in the other direction. And he was able to suppress the futile emotion as he saw what was taking place out front of the row of stores to the east of the roofless hotel. Here there was a barbering parlor, a meat market and a bakery with a tree-shaded length of sidewalk along the front. The Rev. Masterson sat in a rocking chair in the tree shade outside the barber’s, and seemed to be gazing everywhere but at the man at the cell window—until the familiar form of Ellie Webb emerged from the doorway of the bakery and said something to attract his attention before she stepped down off the sidewalk and started across the street with a resolute gait. He then almost sprang up from the rocker and hurried to join her, the both of them constantly switching their gazes between Steele and the facade of the sheriff’s office a few yards to his left. Masterson, who was empty handed, looked nervous. The woman expressed the same brand of determination as was evident in her stride as she carefully carried a shopping basket and made sure it did not swing overmuch.
‘I think it important—’ the stockily built preacher began.
‘He’s here to tell you how sorry he is, young man!’ the woman, who matched the preacher in height but carried more weight, broke in; her voice almost strident in contrast with the soft Irish accents of the man. ‘I’m not against sentiment, but first things first. A man has to eat and drink and when he’s had his fill of—’
It was her turn to be interrupted now, by the sheriff who flung open his office door with a forceful sound that signaled his mood to the unsighted Steele before Kyle said in a snarling tone: ‘It’s real nice of you people to stop by with comfort and sustenance for the fast gun who shot your peace officer and then near gelded him!’
‘Mr. Kyle, I—’ The preacher hooked a forefinger inside his clerical collar and moved it from side to side, like he felt he was being choked.
‘From what I heard and saw with my own eyes, wasn’t nothing happened to you that you didn’t invite by your damn fool—’ The angrier Ellie Webb got, the plainer she appeared to be. And her features were as ugly as her mood as she again cut in on Masterson.
‘Nice for me, too!’ Kyle broke in, moderating his own tone to one of cunning. ‘Because I’ve got business out of town and I need to deputize a guard for the prisoner. You can consider yourself duly deputized, Mr. Masterson. And you, Mrs. Webb, have saved me the trouble of having to see he gets fed. I really do appreciate your help and cooperation.’
‘But I can’t!’ the preacher protested.
‘Of course you damn well can!’ the woman snapped. ‘You was eager enough to take a hand in this rotten business earlier on this afternoon. Go attend to your out-of-town business, Orville Kyle. And you can ride easy knowing Mr. Steele’s being well taken care of.’
The lawman vented a grunt of acknowledgement that implied he was not so sure of this. Then he came out of the sheriff’s office doorway so that he could be seen by Steele, and see him. He was carrying a Winchester rifle that looked to be as well cared for as his revolver. He also carried a sheepskin coat of the kind Steele favored and was in process of putting on his hat—atop a head that truly was totally hairless except for his bushy black eyebrows. ‘Plan to turn you loose in the morning, mister,’ he said, his blue-green eyes as impassive as were the Virginian’s coal-black ones. ‘If I’m back by morning, that is. Should be.’
‘Where are you going, Mr. Kyle?’ Masterson was anxious to know.
‘You know my policy of law-and-order enforcement, Reverend. Head off trouble before it has a chance to happen. Intend to go have a talk with those highfalutin’ city folks that came in on the stage. Then maybe swing out to visit with Lucas Hart. Figure as my duly appointed deputy you got the right to know that, Masterson.’
‘What if something crops up that I can’t—’
‘Locked up the way he is, Steele won’t cause you any problems,’ Kyle growled, checking the act of swinging away from the sheriff’s office. ‘What other kind of trouble ever comes to this town?’ He shrugged his broad shoulders. ‘You know the brand of community spirit we have in Rosarita. Help won’t be slow in coming.’
‘I have a question, feller,’ the Virginian said, and drew a sound of impatience from Ellie Webb as the lawman again delayed his departure. ‘My rifle and knife, and my horse and everything on him: all my belongings are safe?’
Kyle scowled and spat and in his saliva there was just a faint stain of his last chew of tobacco. ‘Nobody steals in Rosarita, mister. Either off their neighbors or off of strangers. Your mount’s being well taken care of by Matt Hope at the livery. All your tack and the rest of your gear are in the office. Everything’ll be returned to you in the same state or better than when it was confiscated. Afternoon, Mrs. Webb, Masterson.’
He tipped his hat and strode out of Steele’s angle of vision, headed east: presumably to get his own horse from the livery.
‘Good afternoon, Orville Kyle,’ the woman called after him coldly, then muttered softly but forcefully, ‘and good riddance!’
‘What the sheriff said about your belongings is sure to be true, Mr. Steele,’ the preacher assured, eager to please. ‘There will be no trouble about—’
‘Oh, attend to your duties as a deputy, whatever they are!’ the impatient woman urged and bustled out of Steele’s sight to enter the office.
Masterson looked helplessly around, but saw nothing or nobody on the street who he felt could assist him in his predicament. Then he peered up at the sky that was shading to a softer tint of blue as the less harshly bright sun slid beyond the midway point in its afternoon arc down the south-western dome. If he offered up a silent prayer in the short time he held his head tilted back his expression of misery suggested he felt there was little hope his plea would be answered.
‘Least you’re better qualified than the average deputy, feller,’ Steele told him evenly.
‘I am qualified only to preach the word of Almighty God, sir!’ Masterson countered, and seemed to be caught between irritability and apprehension. ‘Why, even that ridiculously tiny pistol I pointed at you to prevent bloodshed was not loaded!’
The Virginian experienced a flare of anger as he heard this admission, but killed it after his eyes had glittered for just a part of a second. Then, smiling with his mouth as he heard the door from the office to the lockup open behind him, he told the preacher:
‘The usual run of lawmen can only guard what they see. You can take care of me body and soul.’
‘At the best of times, sir, I am not amused by humor that makes fun of religion and the religious.’ He spoke the retort as he went from Steele’s sight into the sheriff’s office: and emphasized his depth of feeling with a slam of the door that was as angry as the manner in which Kyle had wrenched it open.
Ellie Webb drew the Virginian to turn away from the window as she announced sourly through the bars at the other end of the cell: ‘You don’t exactly go out of your way to have folks like you, young man.’
He looked at her earnestly as he allowed: ‘Reckon I don’t, ma’am.’ Then he showed her the grin that used to be boyish as he added: ‘But nothing good comes easy.’