Letter Of The Law

by C. J. Crigger

  Her mind on Herschel's treachery, Delight thrust the tray into his willing hands. "Did Mr. Herschel escort the prisoner over to Judge Elke's court for arraignment by any chance? Or did the judge drop by?"

  Moon already had his mouth full and had to chew before he could answer. "No, ma'am."

  "No to which?"

  "Both." He took another bite of corn. "This from your garden?"

  "What? Oh, yes." Delight's toe began an unconscious tapping. She whirled, setting her skirts aflutter, and strode over to the desk. The prisoner's holster and pistol, along with a small packet of personal items, all of which had been stowed in the bottom desk drawer, were gone. The entry in the charge book where she'd written down his offenses--the space for his name remaining blank--had been crossed out with several lines of black pencil. She recognized Herschel's heavy hand in making the book's entry look like an error.

  How dare he? What did the deputy think he was doing, turning Pelham's prisoner loose without a by-your-leave? Well, he'd find she had something to say about that! Herschel was a man ripe for getting his ears pinned back, and she just the woman who could do it.

  * * * *

  Pel was mightily relieved when he awoke late in the afternoon with his mind clear. He found Delight's little gray-and-white tabby curled on the bed next to him, although of Delight herself there was no sign. Just him and the cat. And he could breathe without bubbling. He'd reached a turning point and he realized he might just live.

  "Delight," he whispered, then rattled some phlegm around in his throat and tried again. "Delight? You here?"

  But the silence was complete, except for the rustle of the bed clothes as he stirred. Pel's hand, shaking like a feeble old man's, moved and touched the cat's soft fur. The cat gurgled and commenced purring, a deep rumble odd in such a small creature. The cat was never far from Delight, he remembered. His anxiety relieved, Pel felt sleep trying to claim him again, almost before he came fully awake. Weak, he thought in that brief instant of betwixt and between. Weak as my grandmother's coffee.

  * * * *

  Delight, hiding an uneasy churning in her stomach, cornered the deputy when, an hour or more after noon, he wandered back to the sheriff's office. His body was rank with the odor of alcohol and old sweat, and his eyes were red as an outhouse rat's. She wrinkled her nose against the raw stink of his breath.

  "Mr. Herschel, what have you done with the sheriff's prisoner?" Her hands, folded to still their anxious shaking, were hidden under a fold of the apron tied snug around her waist. The delay in confronting him had only made her anger grow.

  "If you mean Farley Schoefield what you had locked up, I turned him loose."

  Farley Schoefield. At least now she had a name to put on the would-be robber.

  "On whose authority?" Delight's fingernails bit into the palms of her hands. "He hadn't, as yet, been arraigned."

  Herschel shrugged. "Hell," he said, "nobody even wrote his name in the book. Can't lock a man up without writin' down his name."

  "I can't imagine where you got that idea. He refused to give his name, but he was still the man who shot Mrs. Schmidt and tried to rob the mercantile. There are plenty of witnesses. Besides, he was Pelham's prisoner. You had no right."

  Herschel's face turned a vivid red. "Like hell! I'm the one in charge here. What I say goes. Sure ain't nothing Pel can do about it." His tone turned smarmy as a snake-oil salesman's. "My thought is turning that feller loose saved us all some trouble. He said he learnt his lesson. Said he wouldn't get drunk and go trying to rob the store anymore."

  "And I suppose you believed him." Delight became aware her mouth was hanging open in disbelief and closed it hard enough her teeth clicked together.

  "Yeah. Sure I did. Why wouldn't I? He's a nice enough feller. Bought me a drink the other day just as kind as you please. I axed him when he'd be leaving town and he told me he'd be leaving directly. Sounds to me like I saved us a whole lot of bother. Folks been complaining about all the strangers, and I fixed it so there's one less."

  Belching loud enough to rattle the stove lid, he ambled over and sat down in Pel's swivel chair. "Go away, little woman, and leave me be. You got no business butting in where you don't belong. Womenfolk gotta let men handle the important stuff. And don't you go bothering Pel with this, either. Or the commissioners. Not but what they're a bunch of pewling old men."

  Delight, eyes snapping, forced down the temptation to snatch him bald-headed. She didn't want her hands dirtied. And there was just a touch of something about Boomer Herschel today that made her leery. If only she dared discuss his behavior with Pel. But the deputy was right. She couldn't. Not until Pel was better.

  * * * *

  "Anything wrong, sweetheart?" Pel asked his wife as she helped him with his supper of vegetable-rich soup. She was spooning it into his mouth a sip at a time and she had to be patient because he gasped for air after every bite. Worse, they had to let the food settle each time to prevent it coming right back up. She let on like she didn't notice his struggles by smoothing his bedcovers and stirring the soup until he was ready for more.

  One thing he paid attention to, aside from his own misery, was that she'd been extra quiet this evening, the usual news of the town and her small doings lacking. He had an uncomfortable hunch this did not bode well for the peace of the community. Earlier he'd heard gunshots out in the street, but Delight refused comment on them--not a word. She just sat there beside him in her rocker, petting the tabby in her lap.

  And now she appeared not to hear this question either.

  "Delight? Anything wrong?" he asked again. "You're not worried about me, are you? I'm coming along fine. I'll be on my feet in no time." It would have sounded more convincing if he hadn't had to pause for breath after every few words.

  A smile twitched the corners of her lips upward a fraction. "I know you will." Her mouth opened like she was about to say something else, but she closed it again.

  Pel's brain wasn't working too well, but he hadn't forgotten those gunshots. He couldn't help thinking of all the strangers in town Friday night, or about the attempt at robbing the mercantile, or of the way he'd been gunned down. He also wondered what'd happened to his prisoner and his good steel handcuffs. "Those shots I heard earlier--is Boomer keeping order in town all right?"

  "Mr. Herschel..." she started, then clamped her lips together. They looked funny, in a straight line like that, but Pel didn't think humor was part of the equation.

  "Herschel what?" he asked.

  She shrugged. "You know him. Always hungry and more than a little lazy."

  Pel grunted. "Send him up to see me in the morning. I'll get after him."

  Spoon clattering, she dropped the utensil into the empty bowl and got to her feet. "You're not well enough, Pel. Herschel will have to manage for himself." She rushed away, bearing the dirty dishes off to the kitchen.

  He lay back on the pillow, dripping with sweat from even so little exertion as opening his mouth and swallowing the broth his wife deposited there. Well enough? Maybe not, he conceded, closing his eyes against vertigo born of weakness. It was hard to make himself care. He was drifting off to sleep when it occurred to him she hadn't actually said anything about the situation in town.

  Chapter 6

  * * *

  Delight Birdsall set her pen on the blotter and shook her hand, fingers numb from a solid hour of writing. She hadn't realized Pelham's duties included so much paperwork. When had he found time? Whenever she'd needed him to open a stuck window or haul a box of groceries up the stairs, he'd always seemed to be out somewhere, watching over his town and the county. But it had taken only a few days for his desk to become littered with letters sent by lawmen from other areas, notes on bookkeeping duties, and even the paying out of rewards. For all Deputy Herschel's fine words, he'd done nothing about running the office. She'd soon concluded it was up to her to see the work got done and make sure Pel's job was protected.

  For instance, Mr. Sorenson, a rancher fr
om the lower end of the county, had brought in a notorious horse thief this very morning. Brought him in dead because he'd been caught in the act of stealing Sorenson's stock. Delight got the collywobbles just thinking about it.

  "The paper on him said dead or alive," Sorenson had said, grinning. "And dead is a whole lot easier."

  An example of swift Idaho justice, and one she couldn't quite fault.

  "Just doing my duty," Sorenson had added with a little too much satisfaction for Delight's liking. "Commissioners said they want this county cleaned up, and this is a good start."

  "Yes," she'd agreed, trying to ignore her queasy stomach after a too-close encounter with the dead man, who was growing rank in the heat. "I remember Mr. Sheridan's speech."

  She shuddered again, remembering the sight of the bloody, bullet-riddled corpse lying face down over his saddle. And that horrible stench, new to her experience. Gritting her teeth and quashing her revulsion, she'd paid up. She'd written out a requisition for the reward money and presented it to the gleeful rancher to collect from the county. The commissioners required a written report on the outlay, which was what she was working on now.

  According to the letter of the law, she suspected this was no part of her duties, but what else could she do? Deputy Herschel, she thought on a note of exasperation, is worthless at any task requiring literacy. And worthless at most other tasks, too, when you got right down to it. In fact, Boomer was plain lazy and didn't like a woman telling him what to do, even when the orders supposedly came from the sheriff. The clashes between the deputy and herself were growing more heated and she was frankly at something of a loss.

  Delight sighed, emptied her cup of the last gulp of cold coffee and decided the commissioners would have to wait. It was almost time to change Pel's dressing.

  She got up and stretched, starting when a soft voice called from behind her, "Ma'am?"

  "Yes, Mr. Moon?"

  Tucker Moon had been so silent she'd almost forgotten him back there in the cells. This was the last day of his incarceration. She'd be turning him loose in the morning.

  "Herschel's coming through the back alley, ma'am. Look's like he's plumb pie-eyed and mean as a mangy coyote with it. Doubt you want to meet up with him, shape he's in. Might be best if you left that paperwork for tomorrow."

  Moon looked out over the side alley from his small cell windows. A better view than afforded anyone seated at the desk. And Tuck Moon, whom Delight imagined must've been bored witless having already read the five books in the jail's library at least twice, had caught first sight of the deputy. Avoiding Herschel had become a habit for him--and for her.

  "I shouldn't let him run me off," Delight said. Even so, her feet moved of their own accord toward the inner stairway where the door stood open so she could hear in case Pel called. She carried the letter she'd been working on with her lest she come back to find coffee stains ruining her neat work.

  But Tuck said, "Skedaddle, ma'am," with some urgency, so she did. He knew what Herschel was capable of better than she did. His eye, though faded now to pale green and yellow, was still discolored from their run in the day after Pel was shot. And that was just the first of Herschel's many transgressions. His orneriness became more apparent every day as he grew emboldened by his new authority. He required a boss strong enough to keep him in check. It had been easy for Pel. Not so for her.

  Hating herself for running, yet too weary to face the deputy, Delight gained the landing at the top of the staircase just as he entered the office, his footsteps loud and confident.

  The door closed behind her with a dull thud, the heavy pine planks silencing sound from below. She leaned against it for a moment, settling her ruffled feelings before facing Pel. If he was awake, she didn't want him learning how out of whack the county had become in so few days. Or the kind of man he had for a deputy--two-faced as someone out of a Roman myth. Pelham could do nothing except fret anyway, which might delay his recovery. He was better today than he'd been yesterday. She wouldn't put that progress in jeopardy for anything.

  A smile curved upwards, forced there by sheer will as she bustled into the bedroom where Pel lay.

  * * * *

  In Tuck's view, Herschel had learned his lesson, and he didn't mean that in any good way. Ever since the deputy had come upon Tuck sitting big as life and free as a chipmunk when Mrs. Birdsall neglected to lock his door, ever so often Herschel walked over to the cells and rattled Tuck's cage--after first making certain it was locked. Today was no exception. Tuck looked up as Herschel bounced the big cell key along the bars, the clang of metal on metal raucous in the afternoon quiet.

  "Gotta make sure you don't escape," the deputy said, self-righteous as some old dog watching his soup bone when he shoulda been hunting rats.

  "If escape had been my intention, I'd have been long gone." Tuck didn't move from his seat on the cot. "Although them school-boy tricks of yours are about enough to cause a second thought. Think you're gettin' on my nerves."

  "Come on." Boomer flexed corded arm muscles. "I'll show you nerves. Wouldn't want that eye of yours losin' all its pretty color."

  Speaking of colorful, it would take something to match Herschel's bloodshot eyes. Tuck almost laughed. "Tomorrow morning," he promised. "Out front where the whole town can see what's happening." His wide grin was derisive, and as expected, Herschel bristled in arrogant response.

  A powerful smell of pop-skull whiskey gusted into the cell, driven from the deputy's sweating pores. "Why wait?" he said. "How about I come in there and drag you out right now? Show you what's what, by gum."

  Tuck shrugged. "Suit yourself. You might try, but you ain't in any condition to whup me, and you know it." He could see this bit of advice struck home no matter how much the big man blustered, and so he added, "That's another thing. What you gonna do when Sheriff Birdsall finds out you've been coming in late, drinking on the job, and beating up on the prisoners."

  Tuck hadn't been the only incarcerated man sporting fresh, raw bruises these past few days.

  Herschel snorted. "Who's to tell him? You?"

  "I'll take care of my own business when the time is right, but Mrs. Birdsall ain't blind to what's been going on. I reckon she knows how to tell time and field complaints. And a feller'd have to be dead not to smell the booze on you a mile off. She'll tell him when he's ready." The minute he said it, Tuck wished he hadn't gotten Mrs. Sheriff involved.

  "She does, she's apt to be sorry." The deputy grinned, a taunting exposure of big, yellowed teeth, and ran the key back and forth across the bars again. "Might be a long wait, too. There's talk going around town that Birdsall is finished in Endurance. On one hand we got the county commissioners complaining about paying a man who's layin' flat on his back until who knows when, and on the other hand, a bunch of fellers saying they'll shoot him down again quick as he gets up." His hearty, booming laugh rang out. "Two sides going after him at once. Nope. Don't reckon Birdsall worries me."

  Tuck didn't think much of Herschel's gossip. He got up and walked over close to the deputy, although not close enough for Herschel to grab him through the bars. "Shoot him down again? Who's doing the talking? Are Monroe's men back in town?"

  "Ain't never left. Now they stand out like brass doorknobs and don't give a hoot who sees 'um." Herschel winked. "Guess they ain't takin' out an ad in the newspaper, but whispers are floatin' around."

  "Is that right? Who whispers Diggett Monroe's plans to you?"

  "Folks tell me stuff. Nothin' wrong with that." Herschel's voice blustered.

  "What're you going to do about them outlaws?" Tuck figured he knew the answer to this one, and sure enough, Herschel didn't disappoint him.

  The deputy pursed his lips like some flighty girl trying to get on the right side of the preacher. "Don't reckon I'm doing anything long as they're just talking. What's that old saying? Burden of proof? Yeah. That's it. Can't run a man in just for flappin' his mouth."

  Tuck stared at Herschel. If he read the signs ri
ght, somebody had already bought and paid for the deputy, and it wasn't anyone meaning Birdsall, this town, or this county any good. Well, his little talk with Schoefield had warned him.

  First thing tomorrow, Tuck planned on lighting out--on foot, if he had to--and putting some miles between him and Endurance. If there was one thing he didn't need, it was being caught between a rag tag band of banditos ramrodded by Diggett Monroe, and a town fighting for its life.

  * * * *

  A gentle breeze stirred the curtains as it wafted in through the bedroom window, opened a few inches to help clear the room of its sickroom stink. Pel gratefully breathed in the fresh air, his gaze fixed on Delight's face. He was certain he'd learn more by watching her expression than by straining himself peering down at his chest as she changed his bandage. Her sweet mouth pursed in concentration as she untied the knot.

  "How's it look?" he asked.

  Delight peeled away the dressing, rewarding him with a smile as he lifted his torso high enough for her to draw the bandage's end from beneath him. He hadn't been able to do that yesterday, when Doc had pulled the straw out. Progress.

  "Much better," she said, sniffing the pad she removed. "Not so angry." The used bandage was sticky with fluids still oozing from the wound. Her nostrils flared, but she nodded with satisfaction. "That means it's healing. Smells clean, too. I think you might try sitting up this evening if you feel strong enough."

  A challenge. Pelham figured he'd sit up or know the reason why. "I'll be strong enough." Although he hesitated in mentioning such a delicate subject, he said, "Reckon you'll be glad enough not to hold the pot for me."

  Color rose in her face even as she grinned. "Reckon you're right, if only because you hate it so much." She washed the wound, dabbing carbolic over the soft scab to prevent infection, then unwound a length of clean cotton bandaging from a roll made of one of her old petticoats. He did his best to endure her ministrations without whimpering like a baby.