ONE
YELLOWSTONE County Sheriff Herschel Baker stood in his slicker with three other men looking at the corpse lying facedown beside the road. With rain dripping off the brim of his hat, he studied the dark circles in the dead man’s back from two bullet holes.
“Anyone of you seen him before?” Herschel asked.
“I think he did some day work for Toby Grant,” Bill Michaels, the rancher, said.
“I’ve seen him at the dance a few times,” said Louis Shultz, a short cattle buyer who had ridden into Billings earlier that wet May morning and reported finding the dead man.
“They called him Wally,” Perk, Michaels’s ranch hand, added.
“Who called him Wally, do you remember?” Herschel asked.
“Hatch and that bunch.”
“Anyone that you know want him dead?”
They shook their sodden hats in reply.
“Well, boys, someone damn sure must have wanted him dead. Let’s load him over my saddle and I’ll take his body in for the coroner. Keep an ear to things. Someone might slip up and say something. He damn sure didn’t expire from natural causes.”
“I’ll ride back to Billings with you,” Shultz said as they put the corpse across Herschel’s saddle.
As he rode with the body in his lap, Herschel considered what he knew about the man’s demise. The five-foot-two cattle buyer Shultz had discovered the body earlier that morning. No sign of the dead man’s horse, and the rain had beaten out any readable tracks. Michaels and his hired man Perk were headed for town to report the same discovery when they met Herschel and Shultz heading out to the scene of the crime.
Wet outside the rubber slicker and chilled to the bone under it, Herschel studied the gray sky that looked like a ruffled goose’s belly. Thunder in the distance growled like an awakened bear who’d been hibernating in a cave. More storms were coming their way. A man should never complain about rain in Montana. But at times like this, it was no convenience for a lawman investigating a murder.
What time did the rain start up there? The dead man wore no slicker. It might mean he was shot before the rain began. Two many questions needed answers. Herschel booted the roan horse Cob around a large mud hole that had been made by a heavy wagon wallowing in it.
The downpour turned the road sloppy, and his big roan gelding sunk into it with its double load. The dead man, shot twice in the back, didn’t even wear a gun. Or else the killers had robbed him and taken it. They called him Wally, Perk had said.
Herschel would have to ride up to the Soda Springs schoolhouse on Saturday night and check with those folks about the dead man. Besides, he needed to shake some hands—that was an elected official’s obligation. As well as showing some interest in that part of the county. He’d get Mrs. Randolph to stay with his three stepdaughters so his wife, Marsha, could come along. She’d enjoy that. She’d campaigned up there before for him when he was laid up by those two who were hired to teach him a lesson and burn him out. He and Marsha could take a bedroll and a batch-cooking outfit, and camp out after the dance.
With the rain streaming off his hat brim, he felt kind of warmed by the notion of having some time alone with her. With a lightning flash, he remembered those long lonely nights when he’d ridden herd on nervous Texas longhorns driving them to Kansas, first as a drover, then as the trail boss, and his final drive to Montana. If anything bothered or startled them, they’d jump up and run off in a maddening stampede. Such panic often took many a cowboy’s life. It made his stomach curdle to think about the number of crude crosses he’d planted on the plains marking some boy’s death. The crosses soon faded or were knocked over, and no accurate record was ever kept of unmarked graves their mothers could never decorate or even find. We planted him a mile north of the Cimarron—east of the trail.
To Herschel, those days were in his past. Montana wasn’t Texas. Winters in Montana made the ones he recalled from Texas seem like light frosts. But he still appreciated the big country of the north. He’d found himself a respectable place in the community being sheriff, and as long as he solved most of the crimes, he’d probably have a job enforcing the law.
This particular murder might be a hard one to solve, but usually the smartest criminal tripped up, spoke out of turn, bragged to the wrong person, or left obvious clues. So far, there was no glaring evidence that Herschel could see. He huddled in his saddle under his slicker as the wet wind increased.
“You got any cattle to sell?” Shultz asked, riding beside him.
“We have some two-year-old steers that’ll have lots of size by this fall.” Herschel thought about the stock they could sell off his wife’s ranch at the end of the season.
“I like threes better. What’ll they weigh?”
Herschel turned his shoulder to the crosswind to save his hat. “By fall, seven-eight hundred pounds. They’re big twos.”
“Can I go look at them?”
“Won’t hurt. They’re down on Marsha’s home place. They’ve got lots of shorthorn blood in them. Many are out of the second cross away from longhorns.”
Shultz nodded. Cattle buyers were like poker players, they never acted excited. But those Midwest farmers liked to feed out those British crosses much more than they did the old longhorns from Mexico.
The two men rode on a long ways in silence, fighting the wind and the driving rain. When they reached Ramsey’s funeral home on Main Street, Herschel stepped down and shouldered the corpse. He waved away Shultz’s offer to help him and sent him to open the door.
At last inside the building under the heavy load, he removed his wet hat and put it on a tree rack. A young man rushed in and looked shocked at him carrying the dead man.
“Let me take him, Sheriff Baker.”
“No, you lead the way. I’ll need a coroner’s report on his death, so we need to lay him out back there.”
“Who is he? The dead man, I mean.”
“Wally something. All we know now is his first name.”
“What happened to him?” Leading the way back, the youth twisted around to look at Herschel and Shultz.
“He got in the way of a couple of bullets, I suspect,” Herschel said, and put the corpse on the tin-topped table. Grateful to have the load off his shoulder, he stepped back and looked at the man’s pale face under the lamplight. He still didn’t recognize him.
“I don’t recall ever seeing him.”
Shultz nodded. “I’ve seen him at a few dances up there.”
Herschel spoke to the boy. “We’re going to put our horses up and find some hot food. I’ll be in my office later if you need anything. I’ve checked him, but I want anything you find on him for evidence. No matter how small or insignificant it may seem.”
“We can do that, sir.”
“You don’t need to show us out,” Herschel said to the youth “We know the way.”
“I’ll handle notifying the coroner, too.”
“Good.”
They left the funeral home with its strong chemical smells and rode down the muddy street to Pascal’s Livery. They left their animals’ care to a hostler and beat the wooden boardwalk back to the Real Food Café. When they got inside the door, Maude hollered to them, busy with her midday crowd and her arms full of dirty dishes.
“The table in the back is reserved for the big shots.” Her words drew some laughter from the folks eating lunch. Herschel shook his head and smiled at the onlookers. “She must be blind.”
Their wet hats and slickers were hung on the crowded coat rack, and the warmth of the room soon began to saturate Herschel’s damp clothing. The smell of cooking food filled the air as he and Shultz settled in the chairs at the special table with the sign that said it was reserved for politicians, ambassadors, generals, and high dignitaries.
“Which one are you?” Herschel asked the cattle buyer.
“I’m with you.” Shultz laughed.
“Roast beef, taters, gravy, and carrots are on the menu today,” Maude said, standing over them with two coffee mugs and a large pot.
“Coffee smells great. We’re on for the plate luncheon special,” Herschel said.
“I need cream in mine,” Shultz said as she filled his cup.
“Next round—no, grab some off that table. Thanks, food’s coming.” She was gone in a swirl of her skirts, refilling cups and collecting for meals in the busy place.
“Well, you ain’t said much about this dead guy.” Stirring his coffee, Shultz looked at Herschel curiously.
“I don’t even know his name, let alone who’d drygulch him in the rain.”
Shultz laughed. “I just wondered how your mind worked on such things.”
“Seen ya brought in a dead man, Sheriff. Who was he?” a man called Arnold asked. Arnold was a farmer who lived over east, and was no doubt in town for parts or supplies on this rainy day.
“All I know is Wally somebody. Shultz found him on the road early this morning coming down from Soda Springs. I think he did day work for some ranchers around that area.”
“Wally, huh?”
“You know any Wally?”
Arnold lowered his voice. “No, but yesterday two tough-looking men each leading two horses apiece crossed by my place. They was avoiding the road and heading north. One of them was leading a bald-faced sorrel horse you could spot a mile away.”
“Know the men?”
Arnold shook his head. “But them horses didn’t belong to that bunch, I’d bet a dollar.”
“I’m not betting, but I appreciate your watching out for me.”
Arnold beamed. “Thanks.”
“Get any word on where they’re at, let me know.”
“Oh, I will, Sheriff. See you.”
“That how you learn things?” Shultz asked him, looking over the heaping platter of food that Maude had just delivered.
Herschel nodded, ready to eat. “I can’t be everywhere. Chances are those horses were stolen in Nebraska and are headed for Canada. I probably won’t ever get an opportunity to question those two. But if I do, I’ll know who they are.”
Busy cutting his beef, Shultz agreed.
Maude’s husband, Buster Cory, came from the kitchen in his stained apron to greet them. He was an old pard of Herschel, who smiled at the man’s stiff approach.
Shultz knew him and nodded.
Herschel filled Buster in on the murder victim as the old man sat on a chair and tried to roll a smoke in his gnarled fingers. At last, the cylinder was licked shut; he struck a match under the table to light it. Soon, little puffs of smoke came out from between his sun-scarred white lips. “Wally, huh? Could be Carter. There’s a Wallis Carter useta work for the 66 outfit.”
“This man’s slender-built, about five-eight. Hadn’t shaved in a while, but no beard or mustache. Black hair, looked a little Injun. High cheekbones.”
Shultz nodded. “Just like I saw him. No hat either when we found him.”
“I never saw one on the ground,” Herschel admitted.
“That ain’t Carter. He was a big man, red-faced all the time.”
“Keep you ears open. He was shot in the back and unarmed.”
“That rules out suicide.” Buster slapped his knee and laughed. Then he drew hard on the cigarette and exhaled with a cough. “Better get back there. She’s piling them dishes in there for me to wash. I’ll listen and if I hear anything I’ll let you know.”
“See you,” both men said.
Buster went off in his rambling small steps toward the rear.
“He’s failing, ain’t he?” Shultz asked quietly.
“Yes, some, but he’s still a great guy.”
“Wonder what we’ll do when we’re that old,” Shultz said, shaking his head. “You’ve got a wife to look after you. I ain’t got anyone.”
Herschel looked across at him and chuckled at the man’s plight. “Maybe you should find one.”
“Maybe I ought to.”
They both laughed.
Herschel went back to the jail after their meal. Shultz said he wanted to look at those steers as soon as Herschel had time to show them to him. After soaking his boots good in the mud while crossing the streets twice to get to his office, Herschel stomped his feet several times before going into the county building.
Inside, he took the stairs to the second floor by twos.
“Anything happened since I left?” he asked his new desk man, Darby Mueller.
“No.” The young man looked flushed. “Was he dead?”
“Yes, and his name may be Wally. Shot in the back. It probably happened sometime overnight, or someone else would have reported his body. He wasn’t wearing a slicker either.
“The young man, his name’s Adam Cline, at the funeral parlor is getting all his personal things gathered for us. No horse, no gun. I think he may have been robbed. Maybe someone knows him and can furnish us some ideas. We’ll have to see.”
“A Mr. Accord was by and wished to speak to you.”
Herschel frowned at his man. “He local? I’ve never heard of him.”
“New to me, too. But he wouldn’t give me a hint about the nature of what he wanted.”
Herschel thanked him as he went on into his large office and stirred up the fireplace ashes to drive the chill out. His predecessor had chosen the office. It was nice, but too large and expansive for an ordinary sheriff. Oh, well. He placed some split firewood on the blazing coals and went to his desk to look at his paperwork, the part of the job he hated the most. It might be May, but the weather seemed more like March to him as he looked out at the water splashing on the windowpanes.
“Sheriff! Sheriff Baker!” Someone was calling him from out in the hallway. “They’re robbing Ted Taylor’s store.”
Oh, my God. He rushed to the door and saw the red-faced youngster out of breath.
“Who is?”
The boy shook his head. His breath was whistling in and out of his throat as he gasped for air. “Don’t know. They’ve got flour sack masks.”
Herschel took a shotgun off the rack, grasped a handful of brass cartridges out of the drawer to jam in his vest pocket, and nodded to his new assistant, who also had taken a scattergun off the rack. “We don’t shoot unless we’re positive that we won’t harm anyone. We can always run them down, but we can’t bring back dead citizens.”
“Yes—sir.”
Herschel rumbled down the stairs, cramming cartridges in the chambers before he reached the bottom and hit the street. With both barrels loaded, without his slicker, he rushed out into the cold rain toward Main Street in case the robbers came in his direction. He could hear the thunder of hooves and the pop of shots headed toward him as he ran for the intersection.
“Get out of the way!” someone shouted. Then more shots. By then, he was near the corner and faced a masked man racing by on horseback with a smoking pistol. Putting the stock to his shoulder, Herschel took aim and squeezed the trigger, and some of the shot must have struck the horse for it went to bucking. When Herschel rounded the corner, he could see the other two masked riders galloping away.
“Don’t shoot,” he said to restrain Darby. “Someone may get hurt.”
He rushed over to the robber who’d been thrown off his horse and was lying in the mud. Alive, but hit hard. Bent over, Herschel jerked off the mask—the man was a stranger. Herschel told the crowd rushing to the fallen man to take him to Doc’s and not to get any idea about lynching him or he’d see they were tried for murder.
“Aw. Jest let him lie there and die then,” someone said.
“I said take him to Doc’s. That’s an order, mister, and if you want to see the inside of a jail cell for a month, keep it up.”
“Aye, we’re taking him,” the man said in surrender, and shook his head in dismay.
“See that they do,” Herschel said to Darby. “I’m checking on the store.”
Soaked to the skin, rain streaming down his face, Herschel hurried the block to Taylor’s store. “Stand aside!” he told the curious people who’d rushed out on the boardwalk to see what had happened.
Inside, he saw Ted Taylor seated on the floor and his wife, Martha, kneeling beside him.
“You all right?” he asked the man in his forties who was on his butt and holding his head.
“They pistol-whipped him,” Martha said, straightening up in her stiff white apron.
“I see that. Did they get much money?” Herschel squatted down beside the storekeeper, who shook his head.
“A couple hundred dollars. I had the safe locked, thank God.”
Herschel wasn’t so sure—it might have cost him his life. “I have one of them if he lives to talk. But I think the ones with your money ran the other way when I shot him. Too dangerous for us to shoot at them in the street, folks and all out there.”
Taylor nodded.
“You see any faces?”
“No, they were all masked.”
Herschel rose and looked at the concerned, curious crowd filling the store. “Anyone else see anything that identified them?”
No one answered him. He shook from the wet cold as he thanked the the crowd. A woman ran over with a blanket from the store’s stock and put it on his shoulders as he shivered. He closed his eyes for a minute—grateful for her kindness. “Thanks.”
“Sheriff Baker, take a slicker as well if you’re going out,” Martha said. “You’ll catch you a death of cold.” She rushed to get him one. “Here, bring them back any time.”
He thanked the ladies and, using the blanket for warmth, he put the slicker over the top of it and started bare-headed for Doc’s. A man murdered and now a robbery—he was really having his share of problems for a rainy Tuesday morning. Being sheriff had suddenly taken a turn for the worse.