Centennial

by James A. Michener

  He made meticulous inquiries at all stores, but found to his disappointment that the Wendells had not accelerated their expenditures. Their joint wages more than justified their purchases. He discovered nothing but he did succeed in alerting Maude Wendell as to his suspicions, for when she went to the butcher to buy liver, one of the cheaper meats, he said, “You wouldn’t like some fine beef?” and she replied, “That’s a little expensive for us,” and he said, “That’s what I told Sheriff Dumire.”

  She did not change expression, but she did say, “He can afford the higher cuts,” and the butcher agreed: “He gets a good salary. And he likes his beef.”

  When she got home she said nothing to her husband, for if he learned that Dumire was interrogating people he might panic and do or say something stupid, but when Philip returned after weeding and running errands for Mrs. Zendt, she took him for a quiet walk on the open land near the well and warned him, “Sheriff Dumire suspects us,” and he said, “I know. He’s been asking me all sorts of strange questions, but I tell him nothing,” and she said, “You ought to stop seeing him,” and he told her, “That would make him more suspicious.”

  So he continued visiting the sheriff. One day he said, “Do you notice how I’ve changed?” and Dumire studied the child, then slammed one hand onto his desk and cried, “You got your hair cut.”

  “I wanted it short, like yours,” Philip said. And the more he was with Dumire, the more he respected him. The sheriff was not the kind of man to get mixed up in badger games, neither as perpetrator nor victim, and if he were by accident involved, he would not panic.

  But much as he respected Dumire, he saw that the sheriff was playing a game, yet somehow it was not a game. His parents were participating in another play, but it was not a play. Real, terrible things were happening, like that tornado he had experienced in Kansas, and he knew that he was at the vortex. Ugly things had taken place, perhaps the ugliest, and only he could keep them in balance. He was no longer a child, nor a play-acting girl, nor a sissy with long hair. He was responsible for his family, and never, never would he reveal even the slightest clue that might endanger it.

  The conflict in which he was embroiled—abiding respect for Dumire and the necessity to protect his parents—became almost unbearable. An adult would have been excused had he crumbled under such pressures; Philip was able to maintain his balance solely because of his childish ignorance of possible consequences.

  So now he and the sheriff began to joust with each other on a much more serious level. The sheriff was convinced that this boy knew what had happened to Soren Sorenson, and the boy knew that Dumire must be kept from penetrating that secret.

  The first break for Dumire came when a chambermaid at the hotel, who had already been questioned four times, told the sheriff, “Now stop suggestin’ that I stole that black bag. Mr. Sorenson had it himself when he stopped by the wedding.”

  “He what?”

  “You were there. I seen you. He looked in, just the way you did. He wasn’t invited, but the door was open and he heard the Wendells singin’ that beautiful song …”

  Quietly Dumire asked the maid to go over what she had said, and he satisfied himself that on the night of the Gribben wedding, Soren Sorenson must have somehow got involved with the Wendells.

  That was all he needed. He was certain that Sorenson must have struck up a conversation with Mrs. Wendell, had “accidentally” overheard that her husband had to leave on the night train to Denver and had fallen prey to their scheme. Somehow it had gone awry and Sorenson had been murdered.

  For two weeks he kept this deduction to himself, praying that he might find someone who had seen Sorenson leave the wedding party with Mrs. Wendell, but there were no such witnesses. “Damn it!” he cried, banging his office desk. “She walked that man right up Prairie and east on Mountain at ten o’clock on a moonlit night and no one saw them. I can’t believe it.”

  No one had seen them. He walked the distance a score of times, trying to picture where the two had moved, and how. He then tried walking along the railway tracks and north on First Street, but he knew Mrs. Wendell would never have taken Sorenson along the deserted bottoms, for he would have become suspicious. No, damn it, she had led him boldly along the main streets, and no one had noticed them. It was incredible.

  So he resumed working on the boy, using the most roundabout and clever lines of questioning, never suspecting that Philip was anticipating every move, and then late one day as he was asking the boy about some trivial thing, Philip looked at him in the inquisitive way he had looked at Mr. Gribben that morning. What was it Gribben had said: “Did you see how their kid stared at me?” With Dumire’s recollection of these words, everything became clear.

  Slowly he rose from his desk and pointed his right forefinger at Philip. “You know!” he said in a low voice. “You know all about it. You’ve known from the start. You knew about Mr. Gribben.”

  Philip merely stared at him. Neither the twitch of an eye nor an increased rate of breathing betrayed any inner turmoil. He looked up at the sheriff with innocent blue eyes and asked, “What are you talking about?”

  For a moment the sheriff was disarmed. Then he began to shout. “You know what I’m talking about, goddamnit! You were there and you saw it all.”

  Philip did not change expression. Sitting demurely, with his hands in his lap, he repeated his question: “Mr. Dumire, what are you talking about?”

  “Murder!”

  At this word Philip looked aghast. Tilting his head up so that he could see better the frenzied man towering above him, he asked, “Murdered Mr. Gribben? I saw him this morning.”

  “You little bastard!” Dumire had not introduced the name Sorenson, hoping to trap the boy into using it, but Philip had been too clever for that. Mr. Sorenson did not exist until Sheriff Dumire said he existed.

  “Get out of here,” Dumire said, grinding his teeth.

  “But I did see him,” Philip insisted as he rose.

  “Did you see Mr. Sorenson?” Dumire shouted.

  “Who is he?” Philip asked with blank innocence.

  “Get out,” the sheriff said, kicking open the door.

  Philip told no one of this exchange. Knowledge of it would only frighten his parents, and they were scheduled to sing that night at the church. The family went early to enjoy the supper, after which Reverend Holly said prayers and introduced the choir, which sang several hymns. “And now,” he said with obvious pleasure, “what we’ve all been waiting for! The Wendells to give us one of their beautiful renditions.”

  He beamed as the Wendells took their place beside the piano. Then he nodded to Sheriff Dumire, sitting across the worship hall, and beamed again as Philip addressed his boyish soprano to the rich opening lines:

  “Soft as the Voice of an Angel,

  Breathing a Lesson unheard ...”

  When Mervin, who must have done the actual killing, came in with his booming baritone, it was too much for Sheriff Dumire. He left before the concluding prayer.

  Early next morning he rode over to the courthouse in Greeley to consult with Judge Leverton, an acidulous man who became furious when he learned the nature of Dumire’s visit. “How dare you come to me with shabby details of a case you can’t prove? And take me into your confidence on something that could later come before me judicially? I ought to throw you in jail.”

  Dumire ignored the rebuke. “I’m merely asking your advice, sir.”

  “For advice, sheriffs go to the district attorney.”

  “You know more law than he does.”

  “I’ll give you some of it. You’re in contempt of court.”

  “Just one question. Will you give me a search warrant?”

  “On such evidence? I’d be impeached.”

  “Judge Leverton, I know they have the money.”

  “On what possible evidence?”

  “Because its the only logical solution.”

  “Get out of here! Before I have you arrested.
”

  On the ride back to Centennial the rebuked sheriff started once more to review the facts; something Judge Leverton had said came into his mind: “Hell, Dumire, without a corpus delicti you have no right to even suggest murder. Sorenson could be enjoying himself in Texas.”

  That was the fundamental problem. Find the corpse, then prove the guilt. But where could it have been hidden?

  He now directed his whole attention to the territory around the Wendell house. If they killed him in there, he asked himself, how did they dispose of him?

  One morning as Maude Wendell left home to deliver a basket of laundry, she noted with concern that a man was loitering in the empty field opposite their house, and when she looked closer she saw it was Sheriff Dumire, pacing off distances and moving ever closer to the old well.

  When he saw her leave the house he nodded, and she returned the gesture, then walked down First Street as if Dumire were not there. Do not look back! she told herself firmly, but when she returned at noon she found her husband in the front room, peeking through the curtain and trembling. “Look!” he told her in frightened whispers, and he pointed to where Dumire and two assistants were carrying a long ladder to the well.

  Mervin stayed at the window, calling out to his wife the progress being made by the sheriff and his men. “My God!” he shouted. “Dumire’s climbing down the well.”

  At this tense moment Philip banged his way through the back door, asking, “What do we have for lunch?” When his mother did not answer, he came into the front room. Seeing them transfixed at the window, he pushed his way in beside his father, just in time to see Sheriff Dumire’s head disappear down the well.

  Breaking into a laugh, he assured his father, “He won’t find anything.”

  “How can you say that?” Mervin cried, leaving the boy and reaching for his wife’s hand.

  “Because I know,” his son said. “Where’s lunch?”

  His parents could not tear themselves from the window, and soon they saw Dumire climb out of the well and indicate by a shrug of his shoulders that nothing unusual had been deposited there. Mrs. Wendell sighed and missed what happened next at the well, for her attention was diverted to the room behind her, where a loud clump indicated that Mervin Wendell had fainted.

  But Sheriff Dumire had found something, a shred of cloth, and he bore this triumphantly to the Railway Arms, where he showed it to the maids, hoping to establish that it had come from some article of clothing Sorenson had worn, but in this attempt he failed. The cloth had been ripped from the shirt young Philip Wendell was wearing when he descended in the bucket, and although Dumire had the evidence firmly in his possession, he would never be able to trace it to Philip’s shirt, for after the boy had trailed the sheriff to the hotel and discovered from a porter the nature of Dumire’s questioning, he understood at once what the sheriff was trying to establish, and he scampered home, found his torn shirt and burned it.

  The next day Philip experienced his one moment of terror. He had been playing east of town with some boys, and as they returned home they noticed a commotion on the little bridge that carried Mountain over Beaver Creek. “The whole town’s there!” one of the boys shouted, and they ran to see what was happening.

  “Sheriff Dumire’s up to something!” a woman cried. “I think he’s found the missing Swede.”

  And Philip saw with dismay that the small creek was filled with boats carrying men who were dragging the bottom with grapples. In the lead boat stood Sheriff Dumire, calling orders, and as Philip watched in horrified fascination, the boats passed close to the spot where the entrance to the underwater cave lay submerged.

  “See if the body could be caught under the edges,” Dumire directed, and long wooden probes poked unsuccessfully along the bank.

  “Try down here,” Dumire called, and as his boat drifted downstream he happened to look up at the bridge, where an ashen-faced boy stood with his trembling chin pressed against the railing.

  “Hello, Philip,” the sheriff called.

  “What are you looking for?” the boy shouted.

  “Things,” Dumire replied, and his boat drifted safely past the telltale cave. For a moment the boy feared he might faint, but then a woman at his elbow shouted, “You ain’t findin’ much, are you, Sheriff?” And the boats disappeared beneath the bridge.

  With that crucial day behind him, Philip could direct all his acting skill toward getting back into the good graces of the sheriff, and so persuasive was he in flattering Dumire that within a few days he was once more running blithely in and out of the office. In the late afternoons he would listen with open admiration as the sheriff explained what had been happening in town that day. “You have so many different things to take care of,” the boy said admiringly. Once he asked Dumire if he had any children of his own, and the sheriff said “One,” and that was all. He obviously did not care for any further questions on that subject, and Philip said, “I wish I was your son.”

  Dumire did not acknowledge the compliment, but inwardly he felt gratified that this boy liked both him and his job. There had been those who didn’t. Back in Kansas his wife had asked in a complaining voice, “What difference does it make if one man gets away?” And he had replied, “All the difference, if you’re the sheriff.” And six days later, when he rode back into town leading the handcuffed killer, he discovered that his wife and son had left, and he had not seen them since.

  With sudden tenderness he asked, “What are you gonna be when you grow up, Philip?”

  “A sheriff,” Philip said promptly.

  “Why?”

  “A sheriff has to be brave and think about things.”

  “That’s right,” Dumire said encouragingly. “I’ve been doing a lot of thinking, and you know what I found?”

  “What?” Philip asked innocently.

  “Mr. Sorenson came to your house and he did something that wasn’t very nice to your mother, and your father killed him. Then he got scared and threw him down the well.” He paused for this to take effect, then asked, “You know how I found out about the well?”

  “What well?” Philip asked.

  “On the crossbeam that holds the pulley that holds the rope, I saw marks of a second rope. Your mother let you down into the well in the bucket, didn’t she, and you tied the rope around Mr. Sorenson’s body, and then she pulled you back up in the bucket, and you helped her pull the dead body up. And I know it happened that way, Philip, because the rope left its mark. And of course, when you were being pulled up, a rock caught on your shirt and ripped off this piece of cloth.”

  From his desk he produced a triangular piece of red-and-gray cloth. Philip looked at it and said nothing. He had never worn that shirt to Sheriff Dumire’s office, so he felt no great worry at seeing the scrap of cloth. Sweeping it up in his right hand, Dumire tossed it back in the drawer. “I’m not going to search your house for the shirt, Philip, because by now you’ve probably burned it.”

  The two antagonists stared at each other, and Dumire asked quietly, “Where did you hide him, Philip?”

  The boy looked at the sheriff and said nothing.

  Then Dumire made a mistake, a bad mistake. He said, “You can tell me, Philip, because you’re just a child. The judge can’t do anything to you.”

  Philip looked serenely at the older man, his resolute little jaw jutting out, and he said nothing, but into his eyes came a look of hurt. He was dismayed that Sheriff Dumire could think he was keeping silent to protect himself. If the sheriff knew so much, didn’t he also know that Philip was protecting not himself but his parents? The boy’s eyes fixed on Dumire’s, and the sheriff felt the rebuke.

  “Now, Philip,” he said lamely. “I didn’t mean that a boy should tell on his parents just so’s he could go scot-free. I wouldn’t advise that ... never.” Philip stared at him, and Dumire asked, “Is there any way we can make a deal?”

  The boy replied, “I still want to be a sheriff. They have to think all the time ... like you.” And
he ran home.

  But the next day he was back in the office when Dumire received the warning telegram from Kansas:

  THREE FORMER MEMBERS PETTIS GANG HEADING YOUR WAY TO KILL CALENDAR

  The sheriff sprang into action at once, dispatching telegrams to towns along the Union Pacific and receiving word from Sterling that three men corresponding to the description had got off the train there, had hired horses and were heading west.

  He was planning what steps to take when Jim Lloyd rode in to town from Line Camp Three, followed by the young Calendar boy astride a big horse. “Sheriff!” the boy called “They’re tryin’ to kill my pop!”

  “The boy rode into camp this morning,” Lloyd explained “We’re getting up a posse to help you.”

  “Let’s go!” the sheriff said, and from Centennial he conscripted Potato Brumbaugh, always ready to join a posse, and two good riders.

  He left the Calendar boy with Philip, thinking how their young lives had followed similar patterns-at an early age each had been required to face and conquer hazardous situations. Perhaps that was why men in the west grew so strong. They had to start fighting so young.