by Paul Lederer
‘Well?’ Riley asked as they turned their horses back toward the oak grove.
‘Well, nothing,’ the sheriff answered. ‘That was about what I expected. These old birds out here aren’t known to be talkative. Too much chance of getting on the wrong side of somebody.’
‘I wish we could have asked one of the kids-they always see what’s going in and they’re not shy about talking.’
Fawcett suddenly changed tacks. ‘All right, Riley – where have I seen you before?’
‘I don’t know. If you remember, you tell me.’
‘Your lips are about as tight as the farmer’s, are they?’
‘Sometimes. I don’t like the idea of getting on someone’s bad side either.’
‘Does it work?’ Fawcett wanted to know. ‘Not talking to anybody?’
Riley laughed. ‘Only sometimes.’
They rejoined the waiting posse in the dry shade of the oak grove. Fawcett looked around, mentally counting, and asked them, ‘Where’s Burnett?’
‘He said he wanted to look at something,’ Jesse Goodnight said with an elaborately bored shrug.
‘And you didn’t ask him where he was going?’ Fawcett asked angrily.
‘What do I care where the fat fool went?’ Goodnight, who considered himself a tough man, shouted back at the sheriff.
‘Either of you know where he went?’ Fawcett asked David Bean, who was standing nearby, leaning against the rough trunk of a massive oak tree, and Billy, who was squatting on his heels not far away.
‘He didn’t speak to me,’ Bean answered.
‘Didn’t say a word,’ Billy said.
‘All right.’ Fawcett removed his brown Stetson and ran a harried hand over his thinning dark hair. ‘We’ll give him two minutes to get back, then we’re leaving. I hope the fool knows what he’s looking for. That farmer won’t take it kindly, and you can believe the old man has a shotgun just inside the door of his house.’
‘Maybe he went to look for that buckskin horse Jake Worthy was riding,’ Billy Dewitt suggested.
‘The kid might have a point,’ Goodnight said. ‘Though I doubt that fool Burnett would think of anything like that.’
‘You mean Worthy might have swapped horses?’ Sheriff Fawcett asked, frowning slightly.
‘Sure, if he could get one. He had enough money to convince the dirt-scratcher to do that, didn’t he?’
‘He did.’ Fawcett asked Riley, ‘What do you think?’
‘Could be, but we’ve seen no horse tracks either in or out yet. A lot of these farmers don’t like banks on general purposes. This one,’ he inclined his head toward the farm house, ‘wouldn’t need any inducement to hinder us in our pursuit.’
‘Me, I hate banks,’ David Bean said. The farmer’s face was intent. He slammed a fist against his saddle, startling the dun horse he rode. ‘If Abel Skinner had come through with that loan for me, I could be back on my place right now instead of riding aimlessly out here.’
‘He wouldn’t let you have any money?’ Fawcett asked, not unkindly.
‘No. He said he’d give me the final word this morning, but told me that things didn’t look good for me.’
‘I guess you needed that money pretty bad,’ Goodnight said. He was smiling in a dirty sort of way as he sat on his horse. It was almost like a predator watching its prey squirm, Riley thought.
‘Hell, yes!’ Bean exploded. ‘It’s live or die to me.’
‘Is that the reason you’re riding with the posse?’ Goodnight prodded, refusing to let go of the entertainment.
‘You’re damn right it is. I’m desperate to make something out of this, maybe a bank reward or off a bounty on Jake Worthy.’
‘Law officers can’t receive either,’ Jesse Goodnight said with a thin, wooden smile.
‘I’m not a law officer!’ Bean snarled.
‘No? Take a look at that shiny piece of metal on your shirt,’ Goodnight said.
‘Well, then, what are you here for, Goodnight?’ Bean demanded.
‘Me?’ the lean gunman said amiably. ‘Why, I’m just a good citizen doing my duty.’
‘Here comes Mr Burnett,’ Billy told them. He pointed toward the farmhouse where Lester Burnett, leading his white mare, could be seen approaching.
‘About time,’ Fawcett grumbled. ‘I wonder what he’s been up to.’
‘I couldn’t guess,’ Jesse Goodnight said, turning his head to spit, ‘but don’t the fat man look pleased with himself?’
‘We’d better be ready to ride,’ Riley believed. ‘The longer we sit here, the more likely the farmer is to drive us off with his shotgun.’
That sent everyone into leather and they sat waiting for Burnett. The business owners’ association president did indeed look satisfied with himself. It was difficult to tell why. Fawcett, on the other hand, was growing red-faced as Burnett dawdled. Riley was trying to mentally calculate how many miles Jake Worthy could have traveled while they wasted time here.
‘Climb aboard that horse of yours, and let’s get going,’ Fawcett commanded sharply.
‘I was just giving Dolly a little rest,’ Burnett said defensively.
‘Where in hell have you been?’ Fawcett demanded.
‘Did you see that big buckskin horse Worthy rode out of town?’ Goodnight asked. Burnett, pulling himself into leather, looked befuddled by the question.
‘Why? Is it here?’ he asked in puzzlement.
‘Never mind,’ Jesse Goodnight snapped. He turned his horse’s head and started along the valley road again. After a brief, pitying glance in Burnett’s direction, Fawcett heeled his own horse forward. Riley and Billy, riding side by side, fell in behind, leaving a perplexed Lester Burnett and the angry David Bean to trail.
As they rode, the day grew hotter still and the road, skirting the cultivated fields, was bare. Dust flared up from beneath the horses’ hoofs with each step.
Billy Dewitt had reversed his yellow bandana and pulled it up over his nose and mouth as Riley had done to combat the fine, filtering dust. Billy rode nearer yet to Riley and with diffidence now asked the older man, ‘I notice that when the sheriff is trying to figure things out, he asks you what you think. Why is that, Riley?’
‘No reason,’ Riley shrugged. ‘It’s the same as talking to himself, I suppose.’
‘No,’ the blond kid said, disbelieving Riley’s answer, ‘I don’t think that’s it at all.’
Riley didn’t answer the kid; he didn’t even bother to shrug this time. A mile or so on, they reached open grassland which had never been turned with a plow, and the dust waned. Now, though it was hotter, the sun had canted over toward the low hills to the west, its light slanting harshly into their eyes. It would grow dark early and by sunrise, the land would be cold, rimed with frost. Riley let his eyes go to the northern hills from time to time, but there was no further sighting of the mounted man there. He asked Billy, ‘Ever hear of any Indian camps around the area?’
‘No, I can’t say that I have, although I don’t know the west county that well.’
‘I never have heard of one either.’ So the rider was probably not a lone local Indian returning home, but someone who had trailed the posse from Quirt, which had been Riley’s first impression.
The day dragged on. They no longer urged their ponies to speed, not even Sheriff Fawcett, who had the most to lose if they couldn’t run down Jake Worthy soon. Rivers wondered if Fawcett had simply given up on catching the bank robber before they reached the Yavapai Creek, which marked the county borderline. Riding nearly beside Fawcett, but slightly ahead, Jesse Goodnight was bent over the withers of his horse, as if wishing himself farther ahead. Goodnight was not about to give up the chase, county line or not.
Was the one-time outlaw after the robber or the money Jake Worthy was carrying? Riley gave up trying to puzzle out these men and their motives. He had his own plan and his own duty to attend to.
The land had begun to rise again. The slope was gentler, the brush more sparse, but t
he tiring horses moved upward with heavy legs. There was an hour’s worth of sunlight left. Along the western horizon some color was already showing above the far mountains. Their pace had slowed, but it had nothing to do with flagging determination on Fawcett’s part; they simply could not continue at a faster pace.
‘I’m not having my horse die under me,’ Lester Burnett called out. ‘When are we going to stop?’
His voice was oddly muffled, and when Riley glanced that way he watched in disbelief as Burnett lifted a half-eaten sausage to his mouth.
‘Where in hell did you get those?’ Fawcett demanded, although he already knew the answer.
‘Back at the farm. I came across their smokehouse.’ Burnett’s face looked suddenly fearful. ‘Look, men! Don’t get excited. I’ve got plenty to share. There’s a long coil of them in here.’ He patted his saddle-bags and offered them what he hoped was a placating smile. He still didn’t understand.
‘You stole from that farmer!’ It wasn’t a question the way Jesse Goodnight said it. He had slowed and turned his horse to face the townsman. Burnett’s face was flushed with sudden anxiety. Goodnight’s lean face was a savage mask.
Burnett tried again: ‘Look, Goodnight, it’s only a little food to get us along our way. Why would he miss it?’
‘Probably because he works all year to store up enough food for the winter. So his kids will have enough to eat.’
‘It’s only some sausage,’ Burnett whined. He was genuinely afraid now. Sheriff Fawcett, his own face dour, had drawn up beside Goodnight to let his horse shoulder the gunman’s away.
The sheriff asked, ‘Have you ever made sausages, Burnett? Do you know how hard that farm woman worked to make those for her family? No, of course you don’t. You’ve never eaten anything that didn’t come from a store. You’ve taken food from that family’s mouth, and they likely need all they can scrape together.’
‘Sure, and that man will be mad as hell,’ the farmer, Bean, agreed.
‘So what!’ Burnett, who now found himself surrounded by angry faces, shouted. ‘I took some sausages. He sure isn’t going to ride after us and start shooting because of that.’
Goodnight said in a cold, even voice. ‘No, but as for me, I intend taking that road back to Quirt when I go. Which way are you going to ride, Burnett?’
‘That man will have even less respect for the law than ever. I pity the next man wearing a badge who asks that farmer for help,’ Fawcett said.
‘There’s nothing to be done about it now,’ said Riley, who had been silent up to this point. ‘We can’t send him back. Let it go and let’s keep riding.’
‘That’s all right to say,’ Goodnight replied, ‘but we will all have to ride back past that farm one day. If that sodbuster takes a notion, he can hide out along the trail and shoot us out of the saddle. For some sausages! I’ve a notion to shoot this dumb bastard down here and now.’
‘You won’t do that, Goodnight,’ Sheriff Fawcett warned. ‘I’d have to take you right back down to Yuma, and it would be for more than five years this time.’
‘When the law won’t do something, sometimes outlaws have to,’ Goodnight said in a low voice, but his anger was ebbing now. He muttered something about it all being Jake Worthy’s fault, and then swung his horse’s head away, a bitter expression on his lips. They all knew that there was nothing to be done but to ride on and return their focus to capturing the bank robber.
‘Where do you want to camp?’ Riley asked Fawcett. ‘The first place we see?’
‘I suppose,’ Fawcett said wearily. ‘I was hoping we could find some water this side of the Yavapai, but it looks like there is none.’ Side by side, the two men crested the knoll and started down into the valley beyond, which was cluttered with stacks of boulders and acre-sized stands of nopal cactus with some creosote plants and scrub juniper. The sun was no longer high enough to bother Riley’s eyes. It settled slowly into its cradle beyond the distant high peaks. Neither was it bright enough to show the tracks that might have been left by a passing horse. Jake Worthy, to all intents, was lost to them in the night.
‘What was that Goodnight was muttering about Jake Worthy back there?’ Riley asked the sheriff.
‘Goodnight thinks that Jake is the cause of all of his life’s problems.’
Riley frowned, not understanding. ‘Because he’s led us out here?’
‘Partly. You know that Jesse Goodnight just got out of Yuma prison after serving five years for manslaughter?’
‘I’d caught the gist of it. I don’t know any of the details.’
‘Well, it was a dispute over cards. Goodnight followed the gambler he thought had cheated him, a man named Adonis Klotz, out into an alley to continue the conversation. They got into it and Goodnight killed Klotz. Goodnight always claimed the gambler came at him, had a gun in his hand, and that Jake Worthy was there to witness it.
‘Jake swore in court that he hadn’t been there, hadn’t seen a thing, and so Goodnight was convicted. Jake and Goodnight had been pals, you see, but they both had an interest in the same girl then. Believe her name was Bonnie Sue Garret. It doesn’t matter. But Goodnight believes that Jake Worthy just wanted him out of the way so that he could have this Bonnie Sue to himself.
‘It might be true,’ Sheriff Fawcett added with a shrug. ‘I wasn’t there. But Goodnight still claims that it’s true. Jake Worthy let his friend go to prison over a female. If Goodnight is the first one to come up on Jake Worthy, we won’t have a capture, Riley, we’ll have us a killing – one that nobody will be able to prosecute.’
THREE
They clustered around the low-burning campfire, trying to keep warm and keep their minds off their bellies, which – with the exception of Lester Burnett’s – were cramped with hunger. The horses, picketed on the perimeter of the firelight, were in a foul mood over the lack of water. There was some graze for them here – dry, yellow grass – but they needed water to digest it properly.
The fire had been built using juniper branches. It was aromatic enough, but cast little warmth. The men’s faces were in shadows cast by their hat brims. The fire flickered and wove in the light breeze which had come up with nightfall. Distant crickets could be heard chirping, though no one had been able to find a source of water which they would need. Maybe the melting morning hoarfrost provided enough for the crickets. Above, the night sky was cluttered with a trillion stars, sparkling silver against the black canopy of eternity.
‘We’re starting early?’ Goodnight asked, but it was not really a question. If their intent was to outdistance Jake Worthy they had to spend more hours on the trail than the outlaw was willing to.
‘Hour before dawn,’ Fawcett said, letting the answer carry to each of the men. Weary men, saddle-sore men, hungry men. Each nodded, even Lester Burnett – who by unspoken common agreement sat well away from them in the shadows. No one had forgotten the sausages.
Jesse Goodnight finished the last of the coffee in his tin cup. They were thankful that Fawcett had been carrying a small sack of it in his rig. None of the rest of them had paused in their rush after Worthy to think of grabbing supplies. Stupid. But had there really been the time to spend? The thinking had been to get on Worthy’s trail quick and ride hard. Like most mental images, this one did not pan out.
Goodnight had leaned back on one elbow, his tin cup still in hand. ‘Jake Worthy probably had a steak and fried potatoes for dinner tonight. He had the time to make his plan. I believe he did get a fresh horse from that farmer. Now he’s got a good lead on us and knows it, and he’s planning on filling his belly at night and sleeping late in the morning.’
‘You sound like you envy him,’ David Bean said.
Goodnight fixed his dark eyes on the farmer. ‘Do I? I envy him tonight, maybe. But I’ll be alive tomorrow night and the night after that. I’d damn sure rather be me than Jake Worthy at this point. There’s always time for me to eat and sleep when Jake Worthy can no longer do either.’ The vitriol in Goodnight’s v
oice was deep and seething.
Bean didn’t answer the gunman. Instead he stretched out a leg and turned toward Riley. ‘Mister Riley, do you know anything about banks?’
‘Only a little, I’m afraid. Why do you ask?’
‘Well, it’s like this,’ Bean said, ‘I was trying to get a loan from Abel Skinner when the bank was robbed and he was killed. That leaves matters sort of up in the air as far as I’m concerned. If someone else takes charge of the bank, will my loan request have to be begun again, or will Skinner’s recommendation – whatever it was – be acted upon?’
‘That’s sort of a complicated question,’ Riley replied. ‘It’s a matter for the courts to decide if the bank will go into receivership and how the bank’s obligations will be discharged. All of that has to take place at a territorial level. Those are things I don’t know much about and probably wouldn’t understand if they were explained to me.
‘It will likely be a while before the bank is operating again,’ Riley continued. ‘Even if we recover what Jake Worthy stole, the Quirt Bank will be closed down until the auditors have gone over the books.’
Bean was not taking Riley’s words well. ‘But, why? If—’
‘Because who knows, for example, that Worthy will be carrying all he stole? Maybe he has stashed some out, or split the money with an unknown accomplice. They’ll have to find out if the bank’s books balance before someone else can start operating it, if it has all the money it claimed to have in the first place. There are mistakes in bookkeeping as in anything else. And at times these mistakes are not accidental.’
‘Abel Skinner was no thief, if that’s what you’re implying!’ David Bean said loudly.
‘I’m not implying a thing,’ Riley said quietly. ‘It’s just that everyone concerned has to know what sort of footing the bank is on before someone new can take over. Think about it, Bean. Say you owe me forty dollars, and you tell me that you can’t pay because someone stole twenty from you. How am I to know that? And then am I just supposed to forget about the money I’m owed?’