Justice

by Larry Watson

  Sheriff Cooke stepped into the room alone, but Wesley felt as though others were with him. Once Wesley got to his feet and looked into the hall he saw his intuition was right.

  Two men in wool caps waited a few yards down the hall. They faced the open door and stood with their legs spread wide as if they were prepared to block the way. One of the men wore a long belted overcoat that looked as though it might at one time have been military issue. The other man wore a short wool jacket, and he was carrying a rifle or shotgun. Wesley didn’t know for certain because the gun was in a cloth scabbard. He cradled the gun loosely in his arms.

  Sheriff Cooke waved his hand in front of him as if to clear the air. “Better pull on your boots, boys. I’m going to have you come with me.”

  “What’s the trouble, sir?” Frank asked.

  The sheriff kept waving his hand, and now he began to sniff the air as well. “You suppose you could spare one of those cigars?”

  Wesley wondered if this might be a trick of some kind—first they would admit to smoking cigars and next he would inquire about the whiskey.

  Tommy, however, had already reached into the box and was handing a cigar to the sheriff.

  Sheriff Cooke held the cigar to his nose and inhaled deeply. “You won’t need your coats. We don’t have that far to walk.” He put the cigar in his coat pocket and led the way out of the hotel room.

  Wesley had a momentary impulse to hang back and then slam and lock the door behind the sheriff’s back. Then—then what? Leap from the window? Wait for the sheriff and his deputies to crash through the door and drag him out? Frank followed the sheriff, and Wesley fell in behind his brother.

  The sheriff’s office was not at all what Wesley expected. Their own father’s office was in the basement of Mercer County courthouse, a large stone building fronted by a long flight of steps leading to heavy glass doors between massive fluted columns. The Great Northern depot was the only public building in Bentrock older than the courthouse.

  McCoy, North Dakota, had its sheriff’s office and county jail in a small, simple one-story building made of the same orange brick as the hotel.

  The boys had walked coatless the length of McCoy’s main street, and though the snow had stopped and the wind died down, the temperature had continued to drop. The windpacked snow crunched underfoot, and their breath formed great clouds of steam. They thrust their hands deep into their pockets or wrapped their arms around themselves trying to make smaller targets for the cold. Once inside the jail they relaxed their shoulders and raised their eyes to examine their surroundings.

  The jail’s interior was as plain as the exterior. There was a desk and swivel chair, a long bench that could at one time have been a church pew, and a coal stove with its pipe extending sideways through the wall. An empty electric light socket hung from the ceiling, and the room’s only light came from two kerosene lamps with soot-blackened chimneys. A telephone and a gun rack hung on the wall by the door. As Sheriff Cooke led them into his office he asked cheerfully, “What do you think, boys—down below zero yet?”

  “Ten below, I bet,” Tommy said.

  “Wouldn’t doubt it. Wouldn’t doubt it one bit.”

  The two men from the hotel had filed into the jail behind the boys. The one in the jacket leaned his gun against the wall by the door. Wesley hadn’t heard either man speak, and now they stood by the door as if awaiting orders.

  Sheriff Cooke pointed to the bench across from his desk. “Why don’t you boys sit yourselves down right over there.” He dropped his weight into the swivel chair, which gave out a rusty whine.

  Sheriff Cooke nodded to the men by the door. “You can go take care of matters back there.” They left the jail immediately, and the shorter man left his gun behind.

  Wesley could see inside a back room the bars of jail cells.

  “They’re not both deputies,” Sheriff Cooke explained. “Just Mr. Rawlins in the overcoat. Mr. Rozinski lends us a hand now and then.” He chuckled in a way that caused the loose flesh of his jowls to vibrate. “When we’ve got more outlaws on our hands than we can handle.”

  “Maybe you could tell us what you think we did,” said Tommy.

  The sheriff didn’t answer for a long time. He reached into his desk drawer and took out a tin of Velvet tobacco and a packet of rolling papers. He took his time rolling his cigarette, as if he were a man who did not smoke often and so wanted each cigarette to be as well made as possible. He moistened the paper not by drawing it the length of his tongue but by flicking out his tongue in tiny licks.

  When the wooden match flared, Wesley jumped. He knew then that he was not simply frightened but still a little drunk.

  “You have pie over at the cafe?” Sheriff Cooke asked them.

  “Yes,” answered Frank.

  “What’s she serving today?”

  “We had apple.”

  Sheriff Cooke nodded as though Frank was merely verifying something the sheriff already knew. “If there’s someone on the face of this earth who bakes a better pie than Florence Spitzer, I’d like to know who. You did right having pie at the Buffalo Cafe. . . .”

  Wesley thought the sheriff was going to go on and say, “But you did wrong when you—” but his soft high voice just faded away and he fell silent, rocking in his squeaking chair, smoking, and eyeing the boys seated on the bench in front of him.

  Tommy broke the silence. “How long do we have to stay here?” His question was straightforward, without any note of pleading or whining that Wesley could detect.

  Sheriff Cooke answered with a gesture. He swiveled around in his chair and motioned for them to come near. “I want to show you something.”

  They stepped over to the wall Sheriff Cooke was facing. There, along with a Soo Line calendar and some Wanted circulars, were photographs and clippings from newspapers. The sheriff tapped one of the pictures. “Look right here at this one.”

  In the yellow newspaper photograph a group of fifteen or twenty people, mostly men in suits and ties, stood or sat around a table set up outdoors for a ceremony of some sort. In the center of the group was a broad-shouldered, darkskinned, bareheaded Indian in deerskin leggings and a beaded shirt. The Indian had a bow pulled back to full draw and his nocked arrow was aimed at the sky. A few of the people in the photograph looked at the Indian but most stared at the camera.

  Sheriff Cooke stood behind the boys so they could get a better look at the clipping.

  The caption under the photograph read, “Sioux warrior Iron Hail became an American citizen at Fort Duncan, North Dakota. As part of the ceremony, Iron Hail released an arrow into the air and said, ‘I shoot my last arrow.’”

  The sheriff tapped the photograph in the vicinity of the table. “Yours truly.” He straightened up and Wesley felt the sheriff’s hand rest on his shoulder. “And do you recognize that old warrior?”

  Wesley and his friends leaned in, as though any face there could be known to them if they only stared hard enough. Every man and woman in the photograph stared impassively at the camera, their eyes as blank and dark as stones. Only because he had been told that Sheriff Cooke was in the picture could Wesley see any resemblance between the full-moon face in the picture and the man behind him.

  Frank was the first to turn away from the wall. “I don’t know anybody there.”

  The sheriff chuckled softly, a sound a little like footsteps creaking on snow. “Well, you might say you do. Yessir. You do.”

  He tapped the photograph again. “Iron Hail is now George Tuttle. Took an American name when he became a citizen. Or they gave it to him. Whichever. Is there a date on there? This was in the Bismarck Tribune. Back in 1917. Of course they’re all citizens now, whether they want to be or not. You boys can go sit back down.”

  The sheriff returned to his chair and fell into another long pause. Wesley was most uneasy during these silences. He was afraid one of them would blurt out a confession. His father had often told them how, when some people were arrested, they would s
imply begin talking, even admitting to crimes with which they were not going to be charged. “They can’t carry all that guilt,” his father would say, “and first chance they get they dump the whole load.”

  Wesley understood. He felt that ache for release, and he had to clamp his jaw down hard. Talking was all he could do in this situation, and that was something he felt he could do tolerably well. Hadn’t he been told for years, by his mother, his teachers, his grandmother, that he was a good boy, bright, polite, and well spoken? If he simply started talking he could explain everything—with a half-truth, half-lie concoction the sheriff would surely swallow—how they had the whiskey, where they got the cigars, why Tommy had a pistol in the Buffalo Cafe, what they wanted with those girls. But his father’s words kept coming back. “If they’d keep their goddamn mouths shut, half these people would get off scot-free.”

  Those girls! Oh Jesus! Beverly Tuttle. George Tuttle.

  As if he were reading Wesley’s thoughts, Sheriff Cooke said, “Yessir. Mr. Tuttle. That’s the papa of the girl you knocked down over at the cafe.”

  Tommy was quick to defend himself. “She, fell!”

  “Bloodied her up pretty good. Chipped a tooth. Cut her lip bad. Almost bit right through it.” Sheriff Cooke shuddered a little as though the thought of Beverly Tuttle’s injury chilled him.

  “How’d she get the scar?” The question sprang out of Wesley before he even knew it was near his tongue.

  “She didn’t need any more problems in that area, did she?” said the sheriff. “Poor gal. As I recall, she got that in a sledding accident. Went flying down a hill headed right toward a barbed wire fence. Tried laying back so she could squeak under it and a strand caught her by the lip.” He shuddered again. “Such a pretty gal.”

  Frank added quickly, as though, the door finally open, everyone could contribute an explanation or excuse. “We didn’t mean for her to get hurt.”

  “She slipped,” Tommy repeated.

  Sheriff Cooke leaned forward and twined his fingers as if he were going to pray. “Course you didn’t mean for her to get hurt. Pretty gal like that. I’m sure you had other ideas.”

  Frank interrupted him. “We didn’t want that—”

  “—and I believe you. I know where you’re from. Montana’s full of good people. But here you are now. In my jurisdiction. Waving guns around. Drinking whiskey. Bothering the gals here in town. Indian or not. What do you suppose the boys here think about you coming around after their gals? They’d like to chase you down, I bet. You’re lucky I got you here where they can’t get to you.”

  Lester spoke for the first time since they had entered the jail, and his voice had a pace and sonority that Wesley hadn’t heard before. “We ain’t scared.”

  “Course you’re not. No. You wouldn’t be here if you were. But I’m thinking about another matter right now. Trying to figure out what I’m going to do.”

  “You could just let us go,” suggested Tommy.

  Wesley stared at the floor. He wished Tommy would keep quiet.

  “Could. I could.” He leaned back in his chair and stared at the ceiling as if he were deep in thought.

  Frank was staring at Wesley, and Wesley raised his eyebrows to question what his brother wanted. Frank did not move, speak, or change his grave expression. Wesley mouthed the word, “What?” Frank looked away.

  Sheriff Cooke carefully placed his palms on his desk and pushed himself up. “Tell you what. You boys go back there.” He pointed toward the jail area. “Wait on me back there. Just shut the door behind you. That’s right. Right through there.”

  The door they closed behind them was thick wood, so dark it looked fire blackened, and its heavy brass latch clicked shut like the lock on a gate. Each of the three open cells had an iron bunk and an overhead light socket in a wire cage, but there were no bulbs in any of the fixtures. The only light came from a corner in the back where a floor lamp stood. With its crenellated pedestal and opaque glass shade it looked like something that belonged in a parlor.

  “Shit,” Lester said. “Now what?”

  Wesley’s father’s jail usually smelled of disinfectant, but this area stank of urine and mold. The cement walls had large dark spots, permanent sweat stains from seeping moisture. “Feels like we’re underground,” said Wesley.

  “Why didn’t you tell him who your old man is?” Tommy asked.

  “What for?” Frank replied.

  “Jesus. Maybe Sheriff Cooke might let us go, that’s what for.”

  “I don’t think that would cut it with Mr. Cooke.”

  “You don’t think. You could tell him and see what happens.”

  Lester wandered into one of the cells. “Fucking Indian bitches. What do you suppose they did? Hightail it over here first thing?”

  “What would your old man do to us?” Tommy asked Wesley and Frank. “If we was in his county.”

  Frank turned to his brother. “What do you think? Just shoot us and bury us, don’t you reckon?”

  “Probably wouldn’t even bother with the burying.”

  “I bet it was the boyfriend,” said Lester from the cell. “Couldn’t fight his own battles so he runs to the sheriff.”

  “Can you imagine,” Tommy said, “what your dad would do if we came to him to take care of our problems?”

  Lester found a slop bucket, an enameled pot that he dragged out into the middle of the cell. He lifted the lid, spread his legs and urinated, the stream hissing and ringing off the metal. “But if he heard someone was waving a gun around in Roller’s Cafe he’d sure as hell come running.”

  “That he would,” agreed Frank.

  Lester covered the pot and slid it back under the bunk. He kept staring down at his fly, as if he weren’t quite convinced he had buttoned it correctly. “Maybe you should’ve told him who your pa is though.”

  Frank nodded at Tommy. “Maybe he should’ve kept that gun in his goddamn pocket.”

  Wesley weighed in on his brother’s side. “Maybe he should’ve left it in the goddamn room.”

  Tommy aimed a listless kick in Wesley’s direction, and as he did, Frank shoved him, sending Tommy stumbling into the wall. Tommy let himself be carried further than the push’s actual force warranted. “Fine,” said Tommy. “I don’t give a good goddamn. Go ahead and put this on me.”

  “Nobody’s putting it all on you,” Frank said. “We’re just saying, you’re the one had the gun.”

  “Well, the sheriff didn’t say too much about a gun.”

  “Figures though, don’t it,” added Lester.

  Tommy rubbed the floor with the toe of his boot and then spit toward that spot. “Shit ass.”

  Frank squatted against the wall, leaning his head back and trying to make himself as comfortable as he could. “And you can leave off that business, telling him who our dad is. We’re not going to do it.”

  Wesley sat next to his brother and looked at his companions.

  Each stared at a far wall or into a dark corner as though he was waiting for something in the room’s shadows to take shape and lead them out of their predicament.

  On the floor in front of Wesley was a small dark stain. He wondered if blood could have made that mark, and then he tried to push that thought away by concentrating on the stain’s shape. Iowa? Was that its shape? Like the state of Iowa on a map of the United States? Their father originally came from Iowa, and whenever he looked at a map Wesley liked to estimate the distance between Iowa and Montana. Or maybe rust made that stain.

  Wesley held his head very still, trying to determine if he was still feeling the whiskey. The stain didn’t move, and neither did his head, even when a drop of icy nervous sweat fell from his armpit to his ribs. He was sober, for all the good it did him.

  His shoulder still held the memory of Sheriff Cooke’s hand resting there. His hand had felt warm, tender, and for the few seconds it rested on his shoulder Wesley could allow himself to believe that the sheriff meant them no harm.

  None of th
e cells had windows, but there was a small high window at the other end of the jail. Wesley considered going down there, hoisting himself up, and looking out. What would he see? Another wall? Snow, certainly. Snow, snow, and more snow.

  Three years ago in late December, right before Christmas, warm chinook winds rolled down the Rockies’ eastern slopes, pushing temperatures into the forties and fifties. For five days the western winds blew, and when they stopped there wasn’t a patch of snow left in northeast Montana. Women went coatless, men gathered in the streets in their shirtsleeves, and the town skating rink turned into a pond of slush. Boys threw baseballs in the streets and their fathers went out to the golf course.

  That Christmas Wesley was in love with Martha Woods, a girl in the class ahead of him at school. Martha didn’t know of Wesley’s feelings for her; in fact, they had no relationship at all beyond saying hello on the streets or in the halls of their school. Nevertheless, as that warm, gusty, snowless Christmas approached, Wesley felt he had to do something to declare his feelings for Martha. At Douglas’s Rexall he bought her a gift, a perfumed powder puff and mirror set, and he took it to her house on the afternoon of Christmas Eve.

  As Wesley stood on the porch of the Woods home and waited for Martha to appear, he could hear the warm wind rattling the house’s rain gutters and humming through the window casements. Snowmelt ran through the streets like bright new rivers.

  At last Martha appeared, but she was with a friend, and the small speech Wesley had prepared could not be delivered in front of another listener. He thrust the package out to Martha, and he saw now how sloppily he had wrapped it—the uneven ends, the crumpled and creased paper, the drooping ribbon. He said, “For you, a Christmas gift”—a phrase that sounded ridiculously formal. No one talked that way! At least no one in Bentrock, Montana.

  Martha took the package and she smiled at Wesley, a smile that told him in an instant exactly how she felt about him. She thought he was a foolish boy, and though she thanked him extravagantly, it was plain she received this offering the way a mother or older sister would accept a gift from a five-year-old son or brother.