The Sundown Chaser

THE side room in Doc’s office smelled of alcohol and iodine. Lying under the white sheet drawn up to his black-whiskered face, the wounded outlaw looked ghostly pale.

“My name’s Herschel Baker. I’m the sheriff of Yellowstone County. Doc says you’ll survive. I think this bed is better than the one in my jail right now for your recovery. But it comes with rules. Try to escape, you’ll end up in irons in my jail no matter how bad off you are. Harm anyone here, the same applies.”

“I can tell you that folks were ready to lynch you out there in that street if you didn’t know that—so if you try to escape, I can’t be responsible for your life when the posse finds you, and they will.”

Herschel closed his eyes as if in pain and dried his right palm on the side of his canvas pants. “I could jerk you up and shake the fire out of you. Mister, I expect straight answers—start giving them to me.”

Taunton closed his eyes. “Yeah, there ain’t no work in this country. We decided to rob the damn store.”

“Who’s we?” Herschel straddled a chair backward and rested his arms on top of it.

“Taunton, you better think about your position here. You’ve got a real bed and clean linens. The county jail has an iron bed and a couple of stinking blankets.”

No surprise. Pleago lived on the edge of the law. Herschel nodded and rose. “Don’t get any idea that you’re well enough to travel and take off.”

A half hour later, Herschel was back in his office with his deputies Darby, Art Spencer, and Phil Stevens. He told them what he’d learned from Taunton.

“You know he’s been a pain in my backside for over a year. He’s as slick at rustling as any man alive, or you boys would have caught him. We know he eats beef and don’t own a calf.”

Herschel set his lips tight for a moment before he spoke. “I think I’m going to ride up there and give him an eviction notice. And I’m going tell him if he wants to stay around for the trial, then he’ll be tried as an accessory. That’s three to five years.”

Art, who was a burly ex-teamster in his late thirties, laughed. “I’m going along. When are we going up there?”

“Phil,” Herschel said to his former desk clerk, who’d recently turned twenty-two, “you check on Taunton. He’s got it too good over there to mess up, but you never can tell. Since we don’t have any tracks of where those other two went, I want a detailed description of the others from him to telegraph out. He gives you any trouble, tell him you’ve got the authority to move him across the street to a steel cot.”

“Shultz and I are going down to my wife’s old ranch for a few hours this afternoon and I’m going to show him some good steers.”

An hour later, Herschel met the cattle buyer at the livery. They short-loped down to Horse Creek and found Mae Pharr, the hired man’s wife, at the house. She came to the door, a plain-looking gal holding her head like she didn’t feel good.

“Oh, it’s you, Sheriff. Sonny is out checking cows today. Didn’t say which way he was going.”

Herschel nodded. “Tell him to fix that fence up there. Cattle will be getting in the hay meadow.”

“He better see about the mower and get it ready. In a few weeks, it will be haying time.”

She nodded, and they rode on east. Herschel didn’t like the look of things around the home place. The ranch wasn’t being kept up like he wanted. He’d better check on the Pharrs more often. Sonny Pharr was getting good pay to keep that place up.

“He’s not been earning his pay. I’ll keep a better eye on him from here on. He came up here, he was the best hand I figured I could hire. Today, that place looked trashy, and the fence needed fixing.”

They found several bunches of fat two-year-old steers. Many looked like pure shorthorns. Big stout roans and reds, they eyed the two riders suspiciously, then went back to grazing.

“I do think they’ll make big enough steers this fall. Man, they are nice,” Shultz said.

Riding past one group, Herschel noticed one of the steers. On his right side, like a cloudy letter in the red roan hair, was a large white S. Herschel pointed it out to the buyer, who agreed it was unusual.

All the way home, Shultz wanted to talk price, but Herschel let it ride. They’d talk again later in the season. That night, he told Marsha that he had to look in more often on their hired man.

“We’ll see. I wasn’t too happy at what I saw today. We better get some sleep. I can handle it.”

Early the next morning, Herschel sat at the breakfast table with his three stepdaughters and his smiling wife.

“Yes, and we have to weed them today, too, before you three ride the pony,” Marsha announced.

“I thought Art might come early for breakfast,” Marsha said, going for more coffee.

“Not since he got his own wife.” Herschel chuckled. “He ain’t near as footloose as he was before.”

“I don’t really care what he does besides leaving the county.” Herschel stood up over his chair. “I’m ready to make ice cream with fresh strawberries, aren’t you, girls?”

He leaned over and kissed his wife on the cheek. “I should be back by supper time. Art’s outside, I hear him.”

“You all have a nice day,” he said to the girls. “It looks wonderful outside today. Won’t be long and we can plant some other things. Mr. Stauffer has the garden plowed and with all this rain, why, I bet our corn will grow higher than Cob’s back.”

They shouted good-bye and he put on his hat and vest, and carried his gun belt in his hand, strapping it on going out the door. Marsha followed him to the porch, and she spoke softly after him. “Be careful. We need you.”

He looked back and nodded with a wink. Earlier, he’d saddled and brought Cob around front. The tall roan stood hitched at the rack. With a cordial word to Art, he gathered the reins with a hold on the saddle horn. In an instant, he knew when his leg swung over the big gelding’s rump that the horse was ready to buck. He checked him, getting his right foot set in the stirrup.

His move was enough for Cob. The powerful gelding took it as an advantage and tried to bury his head between his knees. Ready for him, Herschel hauled up on the reins and gouged him in the sides with his spurs at the same time. Cob’s halfhearted hops ended with stiff landings on all four legs, but he never really got as high as he wanted to.

With Herschel threatening him all the time, Cob finally settled down, and began a swinging walk he could keep up all day.

“I love that horse,” Art said. “But he’d sure throw me about every time I tried to ride him if I owned him.”

“I got Cob with some young horses I had bought when I was on that place down on Horse Creek and breaking horses for living. He was a long two-year-old then and, man, he was a handful. When I got him dusted off, several folks wanted to buy him and they tried him. He wiped them out and they brought him back, so I finally decided I’d keep him. Never regretted it for a day.”

“That’s right. Those are the good days. But he seldom bucks more than once except when you resaddle him. That’s why I don’t unsaddle him in the daytime.”

They rode till mid-morning, and then found the lane that led to Anton Pleago’s place. Some shaggy-coated Indian ponies nickered at their horses from a stomped-out haystack ring. They were winter-thin, and with them was a gray-faced Jersey cow that was bawling. A man could have used her hips for a hat rack.

A skinny white sow came running over, grunting like the two men might feed her. Then some black Indian dogs set in to barking as if awakened by the pig. They were the slinking kind that no one ever fed—they found their own meals. The crude log cabin and sheds were set in a grove of stunted pines. Smoke came out the tin chimney pipe. But no one was in sight.