The Blight Way

by McManus, Patrick F.

  Daisy stifled a giggle. Lurch did his snaggletoothed grin.

  “Right, Sheriff!” Herb yelled back without looking up from his paper.

  As Tully ambled over to his parking spot behind the courthouse, some of the current residents of the jail stopped shooting baskets long enough to give him their hard stares through the wire mesh of the exercise cage.

  He held up the shotgun. “Expect some company, boys!”

  Sorry nincompoops. Nobody ever told them you can’t be dumb. Half of them wouldn’t live to see thirty, done in by booze, drugs, cars, AIDS, guns, knives, pool cues, enemies and friends. Mostly friends. The inmates intensified their hard stares. The stares were meant to tell him that as soon as they got out they’d settle the score with him. Two former inmates had actually tried. They hadn’t made it to thirty.

  He climbed into the mud-coated, red Ford Explorer and clamped the shotgun upright in its clip on the dash. He slid the .30-30 into a gun rack attached to the heavy wire screen that separated the front seat from the back. The gun rack also contained a fly rod, separated into its two sections but rigged with leader and fly, a size fourteen Dave’s Hopper. A man had to be ready. He locked both handguns in the glove compartment. As he drove out of the parking lot, he grinned at the inmates hanging against the wire. They didn’t grin back.

  Chapter 2

  Pap was sitting in a rocker on his covered front porch. He was medium height and lean with a thick shock of pure white hair protruding around the edges of his battered black Stetson. A classic wood-and-canvas pack frame was propped against a white porch column. An insulated cooler sat next to it.

  Pap lived alone in the huge house that sat on a hill overlooking what Pap had once clearly thought of as his domain. Probably still did. Visitors to Blight County might wonder how a person earning a sheriff’s salary for nearly forty years could afford such a fine house. The residents of the county, on the other hand, had no doubt.

  Pap walked out to the Explorer and loaded his pack into the rear luggage area. He went back and got the cooler and put it inside the SUV. Then, grunting a bit too graphically to suit Tully, he hoisted himself up into the front seat.

  “You practically need a ladder to get into this rig,” he complained.

  “You better not have a gun stashed in that pack,” Tully said.

  “Course I ain’t. And what’s the idea of you having that saucy little broad of yours tell me what I can bring and what I can’t! What I need a gun for, anyway?”

  “What difference has that ever made?”

  Tully watched his father fuss with the seat belt.

  “How you fasten this infernal thing?”

  “Like this, for the thousandth time!” Tully reached over and snapped the belt latch shut. What was it with old people and seat belts? He’d never met an old person yet who could fasten one. Pap could tear apart a car and put it back together blindfolded but couldn’t figure out how to fasten a seat belt.

  “Happy seventy-fifth, Pap.”

  “Thanks. So what did you get me?”

  “Same as every year. Nothing. Which is more than you deserve. Actually, I do have something.”

  “I probably won’t like it.”

  “Oh, you’ll like it all right. We apparently got ourselves a murder up by Famine. Batim Scragg called up this morning and said he had a body hanging over one of his fences.”

  “Awful thing,” the old man said. “Murder.” Beneath the stormy white brows, the hard little eyes sparkled with sudden delight. “Thanks, Bo. For taking me along. Been a while since I’ve had a good murder. Couldn’t be more pleased if you’d bought me something.”

  “I figured you might like it.”

  “I hope it’s an actual murder, not just a killing. It would be nice there was something for me to solve. I hate it when all you got to do is go down to the nearest bar and arrest the guy that’s bragging about the killing.”

  “Hey, you’re talking about my life,” Tully said. He had to admit, though, that a real murder might be a nice change of pace.

  He turned the Explorer out onto the highway and headed north toward Famine.

  The valley stretched away on either side of the highway with the Blight River meandering a parallel course far off across mildly undulating grasslands. The river banks were lined with cottonwoods, their fall leaves now only tatters dancing in the wind. Tully thought of the leaves as Cadmium Yellow Light. Beyond the river, to the east, the Snowy Range of the Rockies surged up abruptly from the valley floor. To the west, the ragged granite peaks and ridges of the Hoodoo Range protruded above the banks of morning fog.

  The old man pointed to a small patch of yellow high up on the evergreen slopes of the Hoodoos.

  “Grove of aspen,” he said. “Aspen mean there’s water nearby. Don’t mean the water’s easy to get, though.”

  “You had a mine up near those aspens,” Tully said. “You and Pinto Jack. Back in the fifties. One time a bear got in your cabin.”

  “Pinto Jack and me had a mine up there,” the old man said. “This was back in the fifties. Had us a little gold mine up there and a cabin tucked back in that grove of aspen. Well, one time a bear got in our cabin and . . .”

  Tully sighed and stared off into the distance. Pap’s ten thousandth repetition of the bear story had sent the speedometer to eighty-five. He snapped on the flashers on the light bar.

  After Pap had run out the bear story, Tully told him more about Batim’s phone call.

  “I reckon old Batim’s telling the truth,” Pap said. “Hard even to guess how many people the Scraggs have killed, but I can’t imagine a shrewd old fox like Batim reporting one of his own murders to you. He and those two boys of his probably filled half the prospect holes in the Hoodoos with their victims. No reason I can think of he’d report one of his own killings.”

  “Yeah,” Tully said. “Maybe Lem or Lister might pull a stunt like that just for laughs. Can’t imagine Batim doing it, though.”

  The old man pulled out a pack of tobacco and cigarette papers.

  “No smoking in the car,” Tully said.

  Pap laid down a line of tobacco in a folded paper, rolled it into a skinny, crooked little cigarette, gave the paper a lick and stuck it in his mouth. He punched in the lighter on the dashboard and watched for it to pop out. “You know your great-granddaddy Beauregard Tully was the sheriff who hung Batim’s great-grand-daddy, Rupert Scragg?” The lighter popped out. Pap lit his cigarette, stuck it in his mouth, inhaled, then replaced the lighter. He blew a stream of smoke at Tully. The smell was terrible. “Now, Rupert might or might not have been the fella who robbed the stage and killed the driver and a passenger. Beauregard said it didn’t make too much difference either way, because even if Rupert hadn’t done any robbing or murdering yet, he’d get around to it sooner or later, because that’s what Scraggs did. So it was kinda what you might call a preemptive hanging.” Pap smiled.

  Tully shook his head. “Ah, for the good old days. I don’t imagine a preemptive hanging ever occurred to you, did it, Pap?”

  The dark little eyes hardened. “Can’t say it never did. I might have hung a few juries, too, given the opportunity.”

  Tully glanced over to see if the old man showed signs of having committed a pun, but he seemed dead serious.

  “Worst thing ever invented,” Pap went on. “Trial by a jury of your peers. What does that mean, anyway? You try a bank robber, you got to round up twelve bank robbers for a jury? Ha! Ain’t no such thing as a jury of your peers, unless, of course, you happen to be an idiot. Then there’s a pretty good chance you’ll get a jury of your peers.”

  Tully laughed. “You may be right about that.”

  “Of course I am,” the old man said, flicking his cigarette ash onto the floor. “Hey, what’s that up ahead?”

  “Looks like car trouble,” Tully said. “Better check it out.”

  Two old pickup trucks were parked one behind the other on the edge of the highway. They were headed in the directio
n of Blight City. The front pickup had its hood up. Four men were gathered around it. Two of them were leaning into the engine compartment, while the others offered advice. They all looked like cowboys. They wore weathered jeans and denim jackets with cowboy hats and boots. They seemed a bit uneasy when they saw the sheriff’s emblem and light bar on the Explorer. Tully stretched his lanky frame out the door and did his calm, sheriff’s mosey over to them. The men watched him with apprehension.

  “Howdy,” Tully greeted them.

  “Howdy,” they replied in ragged unison, no less nervous.

  “So what seems to be the trouble?”

  “Don’t know,” one of the cowboys said, straightening up from the engine compartment. “We stopped to take a leak, and then she wouldn’t start again.”

  Tully leaned over and looked at the engine, as if he might have a clue. The men watched him hopefully, little realizing the sheriff couldn’t tell a carburetor from a cabaret. “Hmmm,” he said thoughtfully, straightening up and placing his hands on his hips. Then he turned and gestured for Pap to come over.

  The old man moseyed across the highway. Tully had studied moseying from him. Pap stared silently into the engine compartment for a couple of minutes. Then he said to one of the two older men, “What’s your name?”

  “Barton. Pete Barton.”

  “You got a bottle of water in your truck, Pete?”

  Barton frowned. The other men glanced at each other.

  Tully pretended he knew what was going on.

  “Got a thermos with some cold coffee in it,” Pete Barton said.

  “That’ll do.”

  One of the younger men got the thermos of coffee and handed it to Pap.

  The old man poured a bit of coffee on each of the battery terminals. “Now try it.”

  One of the younger men got in and hit the starter. The truck roared to life.

  “Any time you stop to pee and your truck won’t go afterwards, you try this,” Pap told Barton. “If you don’t have coffee, you might pee on the battery, although, now that I think about it, I probably wouldn’t recommend that.”

  Tully nodded, as if to say, “That’s right.”

  “You get into Blight City,” Pap went on, “you might see about cleaning up those battery terminals and tightening the bolts on the clamps.”

  Barton grinned at him. “First time I ever seen coffee used to start a rig.”

  Pap laughed. “Starts me every morning. You boys look familiar. You work up in Famine?”

  “Work for Vern Littlefield on his ranch. At least we did. Worked nine years for him. But Vern’s foreman, a guy named Mitchell, let us go this morning.”

  “How come?”

  “Said they didn’t need us anymore. Wanted us off the ranch before noon.”

  “What about the cattle?”

  “Going to get rid of the cattle and start growing grapes.”

  “Grapes!”

  “Yep. Said there’s more money in grapes than cattle these days.”

  “Nine years,” Tully said. “Seems kind of odd Little-field wouldn’t tell you himself instead of letting his foreman do it.”

  “I thought so. I guess Vern went off on an elk hunt all by himself last night. Anyway, didn’t seem quite like him, not to see us off. But you know how rich folks are.”

  Tully looked at Pap. “Yeah, I do,” he said. “Where you boys headed now?”

  “Texas. West Texas. They got fire ants there now but I don’t think they got any grapes or plan to have any. Never thought I’d be glad to see a fire ant.”

  Tully thought for a moment, tugging on the corner of his mustache. The men watched him in silence. Pap handed the thermos back to Barton and slammed down the hood.

  Tully said, “You know we had a murder up in Famine last night. I can’t have you fellas leaving right now. You’ve got to stay on a while longer. Tell you what. There’s the Pine Creek Motel in Blight City. You know where it is?”

  “Yep.”

  “The owner is a friend of mine. Well, she was once. Anyway, I’ll give her a call and she’ll put you up for a couple days or so. The county will pay all your expenses. Don’t mind the lady’s moaning and groaning. Her name is Ms. Simmons. Janet Simmons. You can eat your meals at Granny’s Café across the street. Won’t cost you anything there either, except a little indigestion.”

  “We didn’t have anything to do with a murder,” Barton said. “Didn’t even hear about it, maybe because we lived in a house on the other side of the ranch. But a couple of days with all expenses paid, that sounds like a vacation to me.”

  The other cowboys smiled, as if they too could use a little paid vacation time. One of the younger men said, “You gonna pay our bar bill, too?”

  Tully had to give that some thought, putting considerable strain on the corner of his mustache. “Okay,” he said finally. “One night.”

  A couple of the cowboys nudged each other. Tully knew he had made a mistake.

  Tully and Pap watched the two trucks go off down the road toward Blight City.

  “First time I ever started a truck with coffee,” Pap said.

  “I thought it might be.”

  Chapter 3

  For the past ten minutes they had been driving past the Littlefield ranch, which stretched to the mountains on both sides of the highway. A herd of Littlefield cattle, hundreds of black dots, grazed beneath the distant foothills of the Snowy Mountains.

  “How much land you suppose Littlefield’s got now?” Pap asked.

  “Oh, I think he’s down to his last forty or fifty thousand acres.”

  “That’s a pity. Back in the good old days, when Rupert Scragg was hanged by Great Grampa, the ranch was so big it had its own town for its employees. When most of the field hands started getting their own vehicles and living off the ranch, Vern’s grandfather burned down the whole town except for the hotel. He’d built the hotel for visitors to the ranch. Look off over there toward the mountains. That’s where the town was. You can still see the hotel.”

  Tully looked to where the old man was pointing. A two-story frame building poked up out of tall grass beyond a distant meadow. He had driven this highway hundreds of times and never before noticed the building. “Must have had a lot of visitors, to have his own hotel.”

  “Reckon he did. The town had its own cemetery, too. It’s on that grassy knoll up behind the hotel. Speaking of cemeteries, I guess old Vern got himself a new young bride.”

  “Is that right? I’m not tapped into the gossip in this part of the county, like some people I could mention.”

  “Well, you should be,” Pap said. “A good sheriff is a good snoop.”

  By ten o’clock they had driven the thirty miles between Blight City and the little town of Famine. The name had originated with the first prospectors to arrive in the valley after gold had been discovered in the late 1800s. The name derived from their having nearly starved to death during the first winter. By the 1940s, the gold had played out. The name once again became appropriate and had remained so ever since. Somehow a population of two-hundred-odd souls still clung to life there, nobody knew how, nor why, not the least themselves.

  Tully shut off the light bar and slowed to twenty-five as he drove through the town. The highway served as the town’s main street. On one side was a small brick grade school and its playgrounds, the barnlike Famine General Store, and Ed’s Gas-N-Grub, the town’s only gas station. Across the highway were Burk’s Hardware and Feed, Hurter’s Grocery, LouLou’s Restaurant and the Gold Nugget tavern. The Gold Nugget was thought of by Tully as the standard locale for picking up the perpetrators of friendly killings. And often the victims, too. It was handy that way.

  “I reckon Vern Littlefield still runs this town,” Pap said. “It’s practically surrounded by the ranch. He’s gotta be getting pretty old, though.”

  “Sixties,” Tully said. “Vern looked in good shape the last time I saw him, but that was at Dave’s House of Fry. So you never can tell.”

&n
bsp; Dave’s House of Fry prided itself on offering “The World’s Best and Biggest Chicken-Fried Steak.” It was located three miles up the highway from Famine. Tully figured Dave Perkins, the owner, was probably Idaho’s most prolific serial killer, cholesterol being his weapon of choice. As far as he knew, pie and coffee were the only things served at the café unfried, and he wasn’t entirely sure about those.

  “Littlefield and Batim Scragg still divide up this part of the county between them?” Tully asked.

  “Probably. I think the arrangement is, Scragg steals from Littlefield and Littlefield steals from everybody else.”

  As they passed the city limits, Tully turned the light bar on and set the cruise control back at eighty-five, swerving out around a logging truck as he did so. Pap stiffened in his seat and then relaxed again as they moved back into the right lane. Another logging truck, this one bulging with a load of skinny logs, sped past in the opposite direction. “Been driving long?” Pap asked.

  “Quite a while,” Tully said. “I can always let you out and you can hitch a ride home, you want.”

  “Naw, hitching’s too dangerous these days. I’ll take my chances with you, poor as they are. By the way, I hear your girlfriend broke up with you. How come?”

  “The usual reasons. Inattentive, insensitive, inane and gross. I think there were some other reasons, but I can’t remember them. That was practically six weeks ago.”

  “Women!” Pap said. “I don’t think I’ll ever understand them.”

  “I thought you did. You’ve had enough of them.”

  “What are you talking about?” Pap said. “You don’t never have enough women. But I guess I had my share. I loves them all, I truly do. The only one I ever really loved, though, was your mother. Which one was she, now?”

  Tully glanced at the old man. He could never be sure whether he was joking. “Rose—Katherine Rose,” he said.

  “Oh, I knew it was Rose all right. Prettiest brunette I ever laid eyes on.”