7
Slocum found the jail locked up the next morning. He turned and started to walk on to Maudie’s, but he changed his mind. Holbrook had walked toward the office and jailhouse last night. He had not walked toward his house. He should be in there. Slocum turned back and rattled the door. When he got no reaction, he knocked. Still no reaction. He walked around to the side of the building and peered in the window of one of the cells. There was Holbrook, all right, sleeping soundly on one of the jail cots. Slocum rapped on the window. Holbrook stirred, but that was all. Slocum thought about going on to breakfast alone and letting the sheriff get his sleep, but then he recalled the way in which Holbrook had conscripted him into staying with him on this damn job. He pounded on the window. At last Holbrook sat up sleepily, rubbing his eyes.
“Hey, you lazy bastard,” Slocum called out. “Get up and open the damn door.”
Holbrook looked over toward the window and saw Slocum’s face staring in at him. He stood up uneasily and staggered toward the front door. Slocum made his way back around to the front of the building just as Holbrook unlatched and opened the door. Slocum stepped in.
“Still asleep, huh?” he said.
“I ain’t asleep.”
“You were till I beat on the window to wake you up,” said Slocum. “Come on and buy my breakfast.”
“I bought your damn breakfast yesterday,” the sheriff muttered. “I only owed you one breakfast for throwing you in jail. Remember?”
“I figure you owe me breakfast every morning from now till this mess with the ranchers is all straightened out on accounta you conscripted me into working for you and you ain’t paying me.”
“Well, shit,” said Holbrook, leaning over the bowl of water on the table and splashing his face. He straightened up and reached for a towel.
“Well?” said Slocum.
“All right, all right, god damn it.”
In a few more minutes, Holbrook was ready, and the two men walked together out of the office and across the street to Maudie’s. They found a table and sat down. Maudie was over at their table in a couple of minutes with two cups of coffee.
“Good morning, gents,” she said with a smile. “What can I get for you?”
“Steak and eggs,” said Slocum. “The sheriff’s paying.” Holbrook grimaced at Slocum, then nodded at Maudie. “I’ll have bacon and eggs,” he said.
“Hash browns, biscuits and gravy?” said Maudie.
“The works,” Slocum said.
“Yeah,” grumbled Holbrook.
“They’ll be right out,” Maudie said, and she turned and walked away. Slocum watched her go, noting in particular the sway of her ample hips beneath the slim waistline. Holbrook noticed Slocum’s gaze.
“Keep your mind on business,” he said.
“I got no business till you tell me what to do,” said Slocum. He picked up his coffee cup for a tentative sip. It was damn hot. He put it back down. “We got nothing to do till this evening,” he said, “and you got no hold on my thoughts.”
The regular breakfast crowd had thinned out some by the time Maudie brought their meals, and by the time they had finished, they were the only ones left in the place. Maudie cleaned off their table and poured some more coffee. They finished the cups without talking much, and Holbrook stood up.
“Let’s go,” he said.
“I think I’ll have another cup of coffee,” Slocum said. “You going over to your office?”
“Where else?”
“I’ll join you there in a few minutes.”
“All right,” said the sheriff, still grumbling. He headed for the counter, and Maudie met him there. He paid her and started toward the door. Looking back over his shoulder, he said to Slocum, “I paid for your damn breakfast.”
Slocum grinned. Maudie moved back over to his table with the coffeepot and poured him another cup. She was holding another cup in her left hand.
“Thanks,” he said.
“Mind if I join you?” she said.
“Why, no,” said Slocum. “Not at all. Please sit down.”
He half stood as Maudie took a chair and poured herself some coffee. She took a sip and let out a long sigh.
“It’s already been a long day,” she said, “and there’s more to come.”
“You’re a hardworking woman,” said Slocum. “Seven days a week, all day long. Do you ever get any time off to yourself?”
“No, I can’t afford it,” she said. “It takes all I can do just to keep this place together.”
“It’s a rough life out here on a woman alone,” he said. “I admire you for the way you handle it.”
“Thanks.”
“You ever think about taking yourself another man?”
“Hell, no,” she said. “Oh, I’ve had offers, but I figure life is tough enough without having to take another man to train.”
Slocum laughed at that, and she joined him. He smiled at her. “It’s good to see you laugh,” he said. “It does something for you.”
She put an elbow on the table and her chin in her hand and looked at Slocum with a smile on her face. “Yeah?” she said. “What’s it do?”
“Oh, I don’t know,” he said. “It ain’t easy to put into words. It just kind a brightens up your face, I guess. It makes you—”
“What?”
“Well, even prettier than you are normally.”
“Thanks, cowboy,” she said. “That’s the nicest thing that’s been said to me in a long time.”
“I can’t imagine that,” he said.
“Thanks again.”
Slocum’s face colored a bit, and he picked up his coffee and slurped some.
“Slocum?” she said.
“Yes, ma’am?”
“What are you doing here?”
“Oh, I just stopped by for a little rest,” he said. “It ain’t exactly turning out that way though.”
“Why not?”
He told her about how Holbrook had thrown him in jail and all the events that had followed, and then he said, “So he conscripted me.”
“He what?”
“Conscripted. You know, like when they take a man in the Army. He just told me that he was making me a deputy or a posse member or something like that, and I didn’t have no choice in the matter. So it looks like I’m working for him—with no pay except for when I make him buy my meals.”
“Can he do that?”
“He says he can.”
“Well, you could go see Burly Baker and ask him,” she said.
“Baker? Who’s he?”
“He’s the only lawyer we got in this town,” she said. “He could tell you if Cy can really do that to you. Course, he might charge you for his opinion. They always do.”
“They’re mostly a bunch of bloodsuckers,” Slocum said.
The door opened and a fat, sweaty man with a round, smooth baby face and wearing a three-piece suit stepped in. “Hey, Maudie,” he said, “do you reckon I could get me a cup of coffee this morning?”
“Sure thing, Burly,” she said. She leaned over close to Slocum and whispered, “Speak of the devil.” She stood up to go get a cup. Slocum stood up as well, and Baker moved to the table next to Slocum’s and pulled out a chair. He nodded at Slocum as he sat his fat ass down.
“Howdy, friend,” he said.
“Howdy,” said Slocum. He stopped about halfway to the door and looked back at Maudie, who was on her way to Baker’s table with a cup and the coffepot. “Enjoyed visiting with you, ma’am,” he said.
“Just call me Maudie,” she said. “Till next time.”
As Slocum strolled back toward the sheriff’s office, he mused about his meeting with Maudie. That next time she mentioned, he thought, could not come too soon for him. Her company was very pleasant indeed, and he looked forward to more of it, much more. He reached the sheriff’s office and went inside, finding Holbrook behind his desk shuffling papers.
“It’s just like I said. When a sheriff ain’t got nothing to do, he pulls out a stack of papers and looks at them. Makes out like he’s working.”
“Fuck you, Slocum,” said Holbrook.
Slocum strolled to the cell where he had found Holbrook sleeping that morning and looked in.
“You have a good night’s sleep in here last night?” he asked. Then he noticed something on the opposite cot from where Holbrook had slept. He walked into the cell and picked it up. It was a scarf, a bright red scarf, a lady’s scarf. Where had he seen it before? It came to him rather quickly. He had seen it around the neck of the lovely Josie Yates. Holding the scarf out, Slocum stepped into the doorway of the cell and looked at Holbrook.
“I reckon I know why you was sleeping so late this morning,” he said.
Holbrook looked up and saw the scarf. He got up quickly from his chair and hurried around the desk and over to Slocum. He snatched the scarf out of Slocum’s hand. “Give me that,” he said. Then he went back to his chair, opened a desk drawer and put the scarf away, shutting the drawer. “Just forget you ever seen that,” he said.
“Aw, come on, Cy,” Slocum said. “I’m about the only friend you got anymore. Hell, if you hadn’t arrested me, you wouldn’t have a friend in the world. Who else you going to talk to?”
“I ain’t talking to you or no one else about that.”
“What’s the matter?” said Slocum. “So you had a woman in here last night. You didn’t arrest her, did you?”
“No,” snapped Holbrook. “Of course not, you ignorant bastard.”
“Well, if you didn’t arrest her, then you had her here for some other reason.”
“Slocum—”
“It ain’t hard to figure out what that reason was. Course, it’s kind a surprising, considering the way she’d been talking to you. I guess that’s maybe just show for when other folks are around. You know, to cover up for what’s really going on.”
“Damn it, Slocum—”
“But if she’s going to be so secretive about it, she sure ought be more careful where she leaves her scarfs laying around.”
“Slocum, if you don’t shut up—”
“What are you going to do? Shoot me? Arrest me? Damn you, Cy, you let me carry on about that gal right to your face. Why didn’t you tell me to back off then? I wouldn’t talk about another man’s woman that way, especially if the man’s a friend.”
Holbrook’s tone suddenly changed. He stared down at his desktop and said, “She ain’t my woman, Slocum. At least, she wasn’t then. Last night was the first time. It surprised the hell out of me. She was here waiting for me when I come in.”
Slocum pulled a chair to the front of Holbrook’s desk and sat down.
“Hell, up till then,” the sheriff went on, “I’da never guessed it. Not in a million years. I always thought that she, well, didn’t have no use for me.”
“Women will sometimes cover up their true feelings in that way,” Slocum said.
“Yeah? Well, I guess so. I was truly just bumfuzzled by the whole thing. I ain’t never been took so by surprise. Hell, if she was a man and took me by such surprise, I’d be killed for sure.”
“You reckon she’ll come again?” Slocum asked.
Holbrook ignored the question. “She had gone and sneaked out of the house after ole Sim was asleep. She rode into town all by her lonesome. I told her I didn’t think that was a good idea. Then we—Well, whenever she was ready to go back home, I wouldn’t let her ride out there alone again. I saddled up and rode along with her till we come to the main gate. Then I just set there and watched till she was going into the house.”
“So you were up pretty late after all,” said Slocum.
“Yeah. I reckon.”
“Well, hell, Cy, you don’t need to worry none about it. I sure ain’t going to say nothing about finding that scarf in there. Far as I’m concerned, I never seen nothing.”
“She’s a fine lady, Slocum. She’s no two-bit whore.”
“I know that, Cy. Say, you ain’t really falling for her, are you?”
“I don’t know. I think maybe I am. That’s what’s bothering me, Slocum. A man like me’s got no business with a fine lady like that. Hell, I don’t make much money, and I could get killed just any day. It wouldn’t be no kind a life to share with a fine lady like Josie.”
It was the first time Josie’s name had been mentioned.
“You could maybe go into some other line of work,” Slocum said. “That is, if you really want the lady.”
“She asked me if I ever thought about being a cow man.”
“Well, there you go. She’d likely get you on out at her uncle’s place. Hell, it’ll likely be hers one of these days. It sounds to me like you ain’t got no worries, Cy. Just go for it.”
“I don’t know.”
“You got to get bold, Cy. Hell, she’s opened the door for you. Just walk on through.”
“Maybe,” said Holbrook. “But even if you’re right, I got to get this mess with the ranchers straightened out first. That’s got to be settled.”
“Well, by God, Cy, we’ll get it done. We got to get that damn badge offa your chest for good.”