The Law at Randado

by Elmore Leonard

  “That’s enough, Digo!” Tindal screamed.

  Digo let him fall. He backed away breathing hard, wiping his mouth. “He needs only twenty more pounds,” Digo grunted, “and it could have been the other way.”

  Sundeen said, “You didn’t do it.”

  Digo looked at him. “More than two minutes?”

  Sundeen nodded. “But take his pants off anyway.”

  It was well after midnight when the wagon rolled into the street and stopped in front of the Metropolitan Café. Light framed the painted windows of De Spain’s, but now there were no sounds from inside and across the street the windows of the jail office were dark. The street was silent, though the crickets could be heard if you listened for them.

  Haig Hanasian climbed off the wagon seat and for a moment disappeared into the deeper shadow at the door of his café. He unlocked the door and returned unhurriedly to the wagon and close to the sideboard he said, “All right, come this way.”

  A man rose to his hands and knees in the wagon bed. He hesitated, then dropped silently over the sideboard of the wagon and as he did, two figures rose slowly, cautiously and followed him over the side. Haig Hanasian held open the door and they passed by him into the darkness of the café.

  They stopped as he closed the door. “Be very quiet,” he said. “The tables are just to your left all the way to the back. The counter stools are along the right. Walk straight and you will not bump anything.” He moved past them and they followed his steps to the kitchen. They heard him close the door. A match flared in the darkness and Haig lighted the lamp that was above the serving table.

  The three men, who were in range clothes and watched Haig with full-open shifting eyes in dirt-streaked faces, were the men Sundeen had forced out of town. Merl White and the two Sun-D riders who had sided with him.

  Haig said, “Sit down,” glancing at them and then at the smaller table against the wall, then at their swollen bare feet, the shreds of wool socks and the traces of blood on the floor as they moved to the table. Haig pulled the chairs out for them. He began clearing the few soiled dishes from the table, but hesitated as he picked up the plate with the brown paper cigarette mashed in it. He put these dishes on the serving table, then went to the stove.

  Merl White said, “What about your horses out front?”

  “They are patient,” Haig answered. He was a short heavy-set man and he spoke quietly, as if he were tired, and the heavy mustache over his mouth covered the movement of his lips.

  “If you want to tend them,” Merl White said, “I’ll see to the fire.”

  “It’s all right,” Haig said, looking at Merl. But then his eyes went to the serving table, to the cigarette mashed out on the plate. He lighted the fire and moved the iron pot that was on the stove over the well. “It will be ready soon.” He walked to the rear door that opened to the backyard. “I’ll be gone only a few minutes,” he said.

  The three men were watching him. Merl said quickly, “Where’re you going?”

  Haig turned. “Don’t you trust me?”

  Merl swallowed. “I’m sorry…I guess we’re edgy. We wondered what you planned.”

  “When I come back we will talk about it,” Haig said.

  “A man can’t go far without boots.”

  Haig nodded. “We will talk about that, too.”

  He went outside, then up the back stairs to the second floor porch and through a door which opened to a hallway and just inside the door he lighted a table lamp. At the end of the hallway the living room was dark. Haig opened the door on the left, the door to his wife’s bedroom, but he did not go in.

  The room was dark, but the light from the hall fell across the bed and he could see her form under the comforter. She was lying on her side with her back toward him as he stood in the doorway and she did not move.

  “Are you awake?”

  “I am now,” Edith said drowsily. Still she did not turn.

  “I have to tell you something.” She did not answer and he repeated, “Edith, I have to tell you something very important.” He moved into the room and stood by the bed.

  “What is it?”

  “Those three men that were chased out of town—they’re downstairs.”

  He expected his wife to look at him now, but she did not. “Did you wake me up to tell me that?”

  “It concerns you,” Haig said, “because they will be here until Monday night.”

  “Then what?”

  “Then I’ll take them to La Noria.”

  “The good Samaritan.”

  “I only ask that you stop entertaining Mr. Sundeen as long as they are here.” Haig said this quietly, without emotion, as he had said all the things before.

  She turned now, but only her shoulders and head on the pillow, her body twisted beneath the comforter and now the faint light showed her eyes and the outline of her features.

  “I’ll try,” she said, beginning to smile.

  “He was here this evening,” Haig said.

  “How would you know that?”

  “He ate supper in the kitchen and you had coffee with him while he ate.”

  Now she recalled Kirby Frye, picturing him sitting across the table from her, but she said, “I didn’t know watching someone eat was a sin.”

  “With you,” Haig said, “it could be a very near occasion to it.”

  “You’re absolutely sure Phil was here?”

  “Who else?”

  Edith rolled over lazily and with her back to him again said, “Imagine whatever you like.”

  5

  Danaher came Sunday morning. He had been to La Noria on county business and had planned to stay there over Sunday before returning to Tucson, but two men rode in late Saturday afternoon with the story of the hanging at Randado and that changed Danaher’s plans.

  He left for Randado before sunup and all the way there he thought of Kirby Frye and wondered if he had returned. The two men told that the regular deputy had not been there, only the jailer.

  And if Frye had returned, what?

  Danaher had confidence in his deputy, though he kept reminding himself of it, because picturing Frye he saw a young man who looked too easygoing, who maybe smiled too readily and who called almost anyone older than himself mister. No, those things didn’t matter, Danaher reminded himself. His confidence was based on a feeling and he relied on it more than he did the external evidences. A man could look like a lot of things, but Danaher let his intuition tell him what was beneath the surface. A good deal of the time, Danaher felt alone in his job, this being sheriff of Pima County, and he liked to think that sometimes God gave him extra help—an above-natural power that allowed him to rely on his intuition in appraising people—a compensation for the loneliness of his job, and to make up for the minimum of help he could usually expect from others.

  His intuition told him many things about Frye. That he was sensitive without being emotional, that he was respectful without being servile, and that he was a man who would follow what his conscience told him ninety-nine per cent of the time. That was the quality which sold Danaher, because he was sure he could make many of his own principles a part of that conscience, and in time he would have a real deputy. He showed Frye that he himself was a man to whom principle was everything and this way, whether Frye was aware of it or not, he won Frye’s respect.

  At the same time, Danaher was honest enough to admit to himself that maintaining Frye’s respect would even make John Danaher a better man and he thought: That’s how God tricks you into being good.

  It hadn’t taken long for him to like Frye, and that happened with few people he ever met. He respected him as a man, and with Danaher respect was something to be given out sparingly and only after substantial proof that it was deserved. Once he caught himself pretending that Kirby Frye was his son and he called himself a damn fool; but when he did it again he thought: Well, what’s so unnatural about that? But the next time he saw Frye he spoke little and he bawled hell out of him for letting
cigarette butts collect on the jail floor.

  The first time he ever laid eyes on Frye was at Galluro Station the day after the Chiricahuas hit—

  Danaher received the wire on a Saturday afternoon, from Fort Huachuca, relayed through the Benson operator. BRING POSSE GALLURO STATION HATCH AND HODGES LINE URGENT CHIRICAHUAS.

  They reached Galluro Monday before noon, Danaher and eight men, only eight because raising a posse on Saturday wasn’t the easiest thing in the world. They moved along at a steady but slower pace keeping their eyes open on the chance they might be riding into the running Chiricahuas and that was why it took them until Monday to get there.

  The station had been partially burned, the stable and outbuildings, everything that wasn’t adobe, and the teams had been run off. The dead were buried: the station agent and his wife and the Mexican hostler. But two people were missing: the hostler’s wife and the little girl, and it was naturally assumed the Apaches had taken them. The agent’s wife had been in her forties, that was why she had not been taken.

  A Lieutenant J. R. Davis told them this.

  He was there from Fort Huachuca with half of a company, about eighteen men counting his Coyotero scout, plus two civilians who stood with their thumbs in their belts waiting for something to happen. The other half of the company had gone out the day before while the sign was still fresh, Lieutenant Davis told them; but he had waited in order to tell Danaher their plan, which was no plan at all, but the only alternative Davis could think of.

  So, the first half of the company was to stay on the sign as long as possible, following wherever it led. Davis would take the remainder of the company and angle east by southeast for the Dragoons, which was the logical place the Apaches would try to reach no matter what direction they took from Galluro. By Wednesday, Davis said, he hoped to have made contact with the rest of the company by heliograph. And if luck was with them, the Apaches would be somewhere in between their sun-flash messages.

  Danaher was told to take his men west, back toward the Santa Catalinas, the way they had come, and keep a sharp eye, because perhaps these Apaches weren’t heading for the Dragoons at all, but trying to get away in a westerly direction. Danaher was angry, because he could see the lieutenant didn’t believe this, but only said it because he had come all that way from Tucson with eight men and it was a shame not to have him doing something.

  “How many were there?” Danaher asked.

  “Not more than a dozen,” Lieutenant Davis told him, and glanced at his scout. “That’s what Dandy Jim reads.”

  “And you’re pretty sure,” Danaher said, “you can handle these twelve Chiricahuas by yourself.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Well, you’re sending us off for home now you don’t need us.”

  The lieutenant’s face reddened, but it was anger and not embarrassment. “What do you mean don’t need you? Couldn’t they just as easily have gone toward the Catalinas?”

  “You’re not even considering it.”

  “My God, I can’t go all four directions with eighteen men!”

  Danaher felt sorry for him momentarily. The lieutenant had problems of his own to live with and to him they were bigger than anyone else’s. There was no sense in aggravating him further. It wasn’t the lieutenant’s fault Danaher had been brought here; still, the Pima sheriff couldn’t help one more small jab and he said, “Well, Lieutenant, how do you suppose I’m going to watch your western frontier with only eight men?”

  The lieutenant’s face was still flushed and he said angrily, “How many men would you like, Mr. Danaher?”

  “Many as I can get.”

  “Will two be enough?”

  “If that’s all you can spare.”

  Davis motioned to the two civilians who were standing with Dandy Jim. “You men go with the sheriff here.”

  One of the men said, “You’re orderin’ the wrong boy. When I start ridin’ it’s back toward Huachuca.”

  Davis looked at the other man, scowling. “What about you?”

  He was standing hip-shot with his thumbs in his belt and he nodded. “All right with me.”

  The first man said, “Kirby, what you want to go way over there for?”

  “Well, Frank, our deal’s closed, I thought I’d go on up to Prescott and visit with my folks.”

  Davis said, “Mr. Danaher, you get one man.”

  “That’ll have to do then,” Danaher said.

  He glanced at the man who was coming with him, but did not take a second look because there wasn’t anything out of the ordinary about him—though maybe he was lankier and lazier looking than the next man—and Danaher didn’t bother to shake hands with him, but turned to his eight men and told them they would eat before starting back. Then, drinking his coffee, Danaher looked over at Davis’ half-of-a-company preparing to leave and he saw his new man and Davis’ Coyotero scout squatting, talking together, and Danaher’s interest advanced one step.

  But it was not until later that he spoke to him. They had been riding for more than an hour and it came when the two of them happened to be riding side by side.

  “What did that Coyotero tell you?” Danaher’s first words.

  “To stay awake.”

  Danaher looked at him because the boy’s voice was calm and he had not been startled by the sheriff’s abrupt question. “What do they call you?” Danaher said now.

  “Frye.”

  “Frye what?”

  “Kirby Frye.”

  “Where’re you from?”

  “Randado originally.”

  “Is that so? What else did that Coyotero say?”

  “That maybe part of them went this way.”

  “What do you think?”

  “I think he could be right.”

  Danaher half smiled. “Don’t go out on a limb.”

  Frye glanced at him, saying nothing.

  Danaher asked, “Did he tell the soldier that?”

  “No.”

  “Why not?”

  “It wouldn’t make any difference with the few men he’s got.”

  “Davis thought they’d run for the Dragoons,” Danaher said.

  “Well, he’s probably right.”

  “So they could have gone either way and both Davis and the Coyotero are probably right.”

  “I’m saying,” Frye said, “they could have gone both ways. Any Chiricahua could dodge soldier patrols and get back to the Dragoons, but he’d stop and give it some thought if he was driving those stage horses.”

  “So maybe the ones with the horses went this way,” Danaher concluded.

  “That’s right.”

  “But if they were to drive them west, then make a long swing back to the Dragoons, that would take time.”

  “They’ve got more of it than anybody else,” Frye said.

  They camped without a fire on flat ground, but with foothills looming in the near distance. It was the boy, Kirby Frye, who suggested no fire. The men grumbled because as far as they were concerned they were going home, not stalking hostiles; but Danaher agreed with Frye and said bluntly, flatly, no fire, and that’s all there was to it. They ate jerked beef and biscuits, then lay on their stomachs to smoke, holding the glow cupped close to the ground. One man, with a cigarette in his mouth, stood up and walked off a few feet to relieve himself. He turned, surprised, seeing Danaher next to him, but had no time to dodge as Danaher’s fist swung against his jaw. Without a word Danaher stepped on the cigarette and returned to the circle of his possemen.

  In the morning as soon as they reached high ground, they saw the dust. Far off beyond the sweep of the grade below them, hanging clear and almost motionless in the distance, seeming only a few hundred yards off in the dry air but at least four hours ahead of them, beyond arroyos and cut-banks that were only shadow lines in their vision. Horses raised dust like that and every man there knew it. And when they moved on, down the sweep of the grade, there was an excitement inside of them that wasn’t there before. Danaher c
ould feel it and he knew the others did, but they rode loose and kept it inside and tried to look as if this was something they did every other day of the week.

  Well, Danaher thought, watching his men when they weren’t watching him, that was a good sign. They’re good men and maybe I shouldn’t have hit that one last night. Now they know they’re not just riding home and they’ll act like grown men.

  But later on Danaher’s men let their excitement show. Since noon they had been deep among the hills, winding through the shadows of brush and rock formations, moving single file with two men a mile or so ahead, moving slowly but gaining steadily on the column of dust which they would see only occasionally now.

  About two o’clock they heard rifle fire up ahead and soon after one of Danaher’s advance riders was coming back. They could read good news all over his face.

  Danaher side-stepped his big chestnut gelding to block the trail and the rider came up short, almost swinging out of the saddle. He had been yelling something as he rode in and now Danaher told him to shut up and take a breath and they’d find out what happened a lot quicker.

  “Now what’s it all about?”

  “John, we got one!”

  The man’s name was Walt Booth and he was the same one who had showed his cigarette glow the night before and Danaher had hit. He was quick tempered and easily roused to fight, but Danaher could handle him and that’s why he always let Booth join the posses.

  Now Booth told them what had happened. How they had topped a rise and there right below them, but beyond a brush thicket, were eight or ten horses in a clearing like they’d been held up to rest. It hit them right away, Booth told. Stage teams from Galluro! And that meant only one thing—

  “We started to rein around and I heard it. A snappin’ sound in the brush. Now I had my piece across my lap and my finger on the trigger—had it there all morning—and I’m broadside to the thicket when I hear the noise and the next second this son-of-a-bitchin’ ’Pache’s standin’ there gawkin’ at me. He starts to run, but he’s a split-haired second late and I let him catch it right between the wings.” Booth was grinning. “Didn’t even have to lift the piece, just squeezed one off and he flops over like a sack of fresh cow chips.”