SEVEN
WHO are those men you brought in to jail last night?” Marsha asked, busy fixing Herschel’s breakfast. The oldest girl, Kate, the twelve-year-old, was at the barn milking the cow. The other two Marsha had let sleep in, so she and Herschel would have some privacy to talk. It was long past midnight the night before when he had arrived home.
“I suspect they’re horse thieves,” he answered. “I’m checking them out. But in the cabin we also found a slicker that belonged to the dead man with two bullet holes in the back and dried blood on it, plus, I suspect, his hat. There was a letter in the slicker pocket that was addressed to a Wallace Hamby.”
She refilled his cup with flavorful hot coffee. “What did it say?”
He fished it out of his shirt pocket, and read it aloud.
“Dear Wallace, I am sorry to tell you because I know you do not know this, but your mother died last fall and so I have sold the farm, and I will wire your share of the money to whatever bank you tell me. Please write or wire me what bank and what town it is in so I can do that and close this matter. Sincerely yours, Titus Hamby.”
“Oh,” she said, standing straight-backed, holding the enameled coffeepot. “Maybe then this Wally was robbed, too?”
“That’s what Art and I decided riding in last night. I left word for Phil to check today with all the banks and see if they paid this Wally a sum of money. Also the telegraph office.”
“So what do you have to do today? Is all this going to cancel our going up to Soda Springs for the dance?”
“No, no, but there’s been word of a shooting over at Gayline’s Store yesterday. I’m riding over and checking on it. But if you will start out for the Soda Springs schoolhouse in the buckboard this morning, I promise I’ll be up there for supper with you tonight.”
She shook her head in dismay. “They’re working you to death, Herschel. Can’t your deputies do some of this?”
“They’ve got all they can do. I promise—”
She set the pot on the table and squeezed his head to her breasts. “I know you like this job, but you need more help.”
“There are no funds for more deputies. Maybe when the taxes come in, I can hire a few. Right now, it’s pretty well up to me. Marsha, you know I took this job because the last man wasn’t doing anything.”
She stood back and straightened her apron. “Herschel Baker, you better not stand me up at that dance.”
He half ducked and grinned. “I won’t, Marsha, I promise.”
On the back porch, he hugged his oldest stepdaughter, Kate, who was coming in with the pail of milk. The aroma of the hot milk and cow clung to her as she smiled at him. “Are you two going to the dance?”
He looked at the back door and nodded, releasing her. “Your mother is meeting me up there.”
Kate shook her head with a mischievous look. “I bet she’s real happy about that.”
He stopped at the bottom of the stairs. “Just things I’ve got to do today.”
“Next time we all want to go to the dance,” she said after him.
He stopped again, turned, and pointed his finger at her. “You have a deal.”
“I won’t forget—remember, you promised me.”
At mid-morning, Herschel arrived at Gayline’s crossroads store. It being Saturday, there was an assortment of parked rigs there and several hipshot horses. Women in bonnets were going in and out the front door on the high porch. Some horse-swapping was going on. Boys were playing mumblety-peg with knives.
Tanner Rademaker was shoeing a team of light horses. He had his forge going and a son working the bellows. He was a big burly-shouldered man who did blacksmithing and farmed, and he looked up holding a hoof in his leather apron-covered lap when Herschel dismounted.
“Howdy, Sheriff. What’s new?”
“I heard there was shooting up here yesterday.” Herschel looked around. He knew his presence had people talking behind their hands.
“I heard the same thing,” Rademaker said, busy measuring a shoe on a trimmed hoof. He dropped it and straightened. “You up here checking on it?”
“What did you hear?” Herschel walked over with him to his iron basin, which held the glowing coals and emitted a bitter-smelling smoke.
Using tongs, Rademaker shoved the shoe in the red-hot coals and pulled off his thick leather gloves. “That’s enough air, Carl,” he said to his son on the accordion pump.
“Well, Herschel, I heard it was over a pig. Another man said—” He turned to his son of twelve. “Carl, go play awhile.”
The boy took his leave with a pleased grin and a nod for Herschel.
Rademaker waited until the boy was beyond hearing. “He didn’t need to hear this. But I think it was more about Tompkins’ wife than a pig.”
“Oh?”
“I don’t know if you know it, but Tompkins’ wife, Etta, does not have the shiniest reputation anyway. Been several maverick newborn calves taken over there by ranch hands. So the word was out to them that an orphan doggie . . . well, you know what I mean.”
“I think I am following you. How did the pig figure in?”
“Tompkins come home and found Earl Howard in his house. You know Earl?”
Herschel shook his head. “But go ahead.”
“Earl claimed he was over there looking for a missing pig. I guess they had a fistfight. I’m not sure who won. Yesterday, they got into it again here and Earl shot Tompkins.”
“Tompkins have a gun?”
“Yeah, he had one.” Rademaker made a face. “He wasn’t no match for Earl.”
“How’s Tompkins now?”
“Fine. Earl’s bullet hit a Bible that Tompkins had in his overall bib. Guess you could call it the Good Lord saving him. He was knocked down. But folks first thought he was dead. Earl rode off. Guess he left the country thinking he’d killed him.”
Herschel shook his head. And he’d ridden almost twenty miles to find out it was two dumb men having a gunfight that turned out like that. At times, this job proved to be trying.
“Thanks. You see Earl or he comes back, tell him to ride into Billings and see me in my office.”
“You won’t ever see him again.” Rademaker laughed. “He’s G.T.T.”
Gone to Texas. Herschel understood that abbreviation.
He thanked the big man and led Cob over to the hitch rack at the foot of Gayline’s Store’s stairs. Tipping his hat to the ladies coming out, he strode into the busy store. What he needed was a gewgaw for Marsha. Some little thing that would show he cared, especially after making her drive the buckboard up to Soda Springs by herself.
He roamed around, looking in the glass cases and not seeing a thing. A straight-backed woman with silver in her pinned-up hair, Mrs. Gayline, finally confronted him.
“Sheriff Baker, what do you need?”
He removed his hat, looked across the case, and smiled at her. “Something special for my wife.”
“Combs for her hair?”
“No, she wears it in a Dutch bob.”
“I don’t know her, but we do some pawning with people. And if they don’t come back for it, it is ours to sell.”
“Yes, but I can’t afford—”
“The item I am thinking about would not be expensive to you. We all know you have tried to be fair in how you handle the law. So if I did not make a profit, then whose business would that be but yours and mine?” She reached in and brought out an ivory cameo on a chain and held it in her open palm.
“That’s too expensive,” he said.
She leaned over the counter. “What number is E in the alphabet? Count them off.”
“Five.”
“That was our cost. You may have it for that.”
On the cameo was carved a delicate dancing girl. A ballerina on her toes. He opened it and there was no photograph inside.
“The lady who pawned it took the picture out.”
“You sure that’s all it cost you?”
“If I am lying, put me in jail.” She held out her hands with the long slender fingers and a gold wedding band.
“Don’t guess I’ll do that,” he said, feeling a little embarrassed by her confrontation. Digging down in his pocket, he found several silver dollars and paid her.
“Wait,” she said. “I have a small velvet box to deliver it in.”
“How much is it?”
“Sheriff Baker, I am giving it to your wife.”
He set the necklace down on the counter and dried his palms on the front of his pants. While he did that, she put the cameo in the red velvet box.
“I guess the shooting’s over up here. I came and talked to some folks today and they think the main troublemaker left the county.”
“I knew why you came today. That’s why I bragged on you. It doesn’t have to be a large corporation-owned cattle company to get your attention. I hope your wife likes it.”
He nodded and put on his hat. “Marsha will like it fine. Thanks again.”
Tipping his hat to the ladies, he exited the store, spoke to a few men, and shook their hands. With the box in his vest pocket, he swung on Cob, waved to some kids, and rode northeast. He didn’t want to be late for supper—not this night.
Roscoe Hatch—that was the man he wanted to talk to at the Soda Springs dance. It was apparent from the letter that Wallace Hamby might have received a sum of money from an estate. That he might have been executed in that old abandoned cabin. The question was by whom? And how could Herschel prove it in a court of law?
He pushed Cob, short-loping him across country. This was not the day to be tardy. It was supposed to have been a day for him and his wife to leisurely drive up there, enjoy the company of each other, dance the night away, and camp under the stars. So far, he’d already missed the drive. He wanted to have time to put up the fly for her, although the Montana sky looked clear blue. Anxious to simply be there with her, he pushed the big roan horse on faster through the sage and bunchgrass.
At mid-afternoon, he pulled the hard-breathing horse down. They were on the road near the spot where the body had been. He looked to the south and saw a team coming—they were his wife’s matched buckskins.
He’d timed it right. Even better than he thought he could. He was off Cob and loosening the cinch when Marsha drove up.
She wrapped the reins, jumped off, and ran to hug him. “You sure rode hard to get here.”
“Feel anything in my vest between us?”
She frowned, and then she felt it on the outside with her hand.
“Better look at it.”
“What is it?” With shaky fingers, she opened the velvet box and seeing it, sucked in her breath. “Oh, Herschel—it is wonderful. How much did it cost?”
He hugged her. “Not much. We can get a photograph made of all of us and put it in there.”
“No. I already have those photos. I will get one of you to put in there. You gave it to me and I will always wear it. Then I will always have you with me.”
“Mrs. Baker. Let’s tie Cob on the tailgate and I’ll drive you to the Soda Springs dance.”
“Oh, whoever said that cowboys are not romantic?” She hugged his arm to her.
“Why, we’re the knights of the range.”
“You are, aren’t you?”
“My pa told Travis and me that years ago when we were boys. ‘You boys are knights of the range.’ He said we’d never raise cotton. So far, I haven’t had to.”
“You miss Travis, don’t you?”
“Yes, I do. I always thought the two of us would have built a big ranch together.”
She pushed him onto the spring seat. “I think you have done very well for yourself, Herschel Baker. Let’s go dance.” On the seat, she removed her straw hat and put the cameo chain around her neck, and then the locket down behind her dress front.
“Ready?” he asked.
She hugged his arm. “Yes, I am ready for a wonderful evening, my knight.”
“You boys will be knights on horseback, not knaves that chop cotton,” their pa told them long ago. Maybe Thurman Baker had been right.