Marshal and the Moonshiner

by C. M. Wendelboe

  While Celia was stuffing loose tea into an infuser over the stove, I bent to Maris. “Did you ask her where Amos was?”

  “I did, but she is still pondering whether or not to tell us.”

  I walked around the tiny room. One wall was covered with photos—so many it was as if Celia had used them for wallpaper. In the center of the wall, a man clad in buckskins and beaded leggings stood beside a paint pony strapped into a travois. He stood beside a young Celia, a beaded cradle board strapped to her back. A tiny head poked from under the blanket.

  “Indian Days,” Maris whispered. She’d come up on my six o’clock quietly, and stood close enough that her top rubbed against my back. “We skins get dressed up and whoop and holler now and again. It’s what you white folks expect us to do.”

  “Do you?” I asked.

  Maris smiled. “If it meant dressing up to party, I would.”

  Beside the Indian Days photo was another picture. Cat stood beside Amos, her hair in tails that cascaded down her chest and were tied with a bone barrette. Even as a young woman, her shape showed invitingly through the calico dress painted with Cheyenne geometric designs. I stepped closer and fished my cheaters out of my pocket to study the photo. Amos stood expressionless in bib overalls. His thick chest and shoulders strained the straps.

  “My daughter and son-in-law,” Celia said as she set a lacquered wooden tray down on a coffee table and arranged small cups encircling a copper tea pot. She poured tea in the cups and handed us each one. I sipped slowly; the tea was weak, the water tepid, and the aftertaste was going to be bitter, I was sure. “Do you know him?” Celia asked.

  I began to speak, but Maris nudged me with her foot to remain quiet. “Amos and I attended boarding school together,” Maris answered.

  “And you?” Celia turned to me and repeated, “Do you know Amos?”

  “I met him at a rodeo once.”

  “And my Catherine?”

  I nodded.

  “Where?” Celia’s face brightened, and she smiled for the first time. Gone was the Cheyenne woman glaring at the white man invading her home. “Where did you see her?”

  “I met her at her ranch on the Wind River. We talked about one of her neighbors who had . . . dropped by.”

  “The ranch we fled from to move down here,” Celia said. “The ranch deeded to my late husband by his father.”

  Maris laid her hand on Celia’s arm. “Grandmother, we need to speak with Amos. We hoped you’d know where he was.”

  “No,” Celia said. “I do not know. I have not seen him since”—she looked to the ceiling—“two years ago. He would not come to me if he were in trouble.”

  “Why do you think he is in trouble?” I asked, and Maris shot me a shut-the-hell-up look.

  “Why else would a white lawman be here? Of course, Amos is in trouble, just like he was in trouble here before he moved north. I suspect trouble followed Amos to Wyoming, where you have always lived.”

  “Is it that obvious?”

  Celia smiled knowingly. “It is that northern accent. Tosa’e nehestahe.”

  Celia went back to speaking Cheyenne with Maris, which freed me to look at the photos on the wall. An infant wrapped in a trade blanket trimmed with intricate lace lay asleep on a sofa. Beside that photo were hung eight more, each picture showing the girl progressing in age. The last picture was of the girl while she leaned against the fender of a Model A. She proudly showed the picture-taker a watch on her left arm, while her right arm was tucked coyly behind her. Off camera, someone’s arm was draped around her shoulder.

  “That is Catherine when she was growing up.” Celia walked over and stood beside me. She looked sternly at the photos as if to scold the little girl with the picture-perfect smile.

  The nose and eyes were similar to Cat’s. “She was . . . ten here?” I tapped the last photo.

  “Nine. We hit hard times then in . . . 1922, as I recall. We could not afford food, let alone have Catherine’s picture taken every year.”

  Celia became silent then. She looked dreamily at the photos, and the conversation abruptly ended.

  “Thank you Neske’s,” Maris said to Celia.

  Maris led me outside and motioned to the truck. We walked around the church, and Maris leaned against the bed while she lit a smoke.

  “You and her talked an awfully long time. Did she tell you anything that’d help us?”

  Maris blew smoke rings that got lost in the light, swirling dust that never left the air. “Celia’s husband, Fenton, did some business with the Antelopes when he and Celia lived on Wind River. Fenton swapped hay for use of the Antelopes’ black whiteface bull.”

  “I thought you said Arapaho—which Fenton was—and Shoshones didn’t get along. Especially in the early times when Celia and Fenton lived on Wind River.”

  Maris’s face glowed with each draw of her Chesterfield. She had shucked the shawl and now stood with her assets at attention in the cool night air. “Celia said they got along well enough with the Antelopes the first few years. Until Celia and Fenton started missing cattle.”

  “And they blamed the Antelopes?”

  Maris nodded.

  “That why they left Wind River so suddenly?”

  Maris’s face lit with the glow of her cigarette, giving her a hungry look, as if she’d been denied a basic need by not going to Ft. Reno tonight. “Apparently. They figured they couldn’t go to the tribal police—they was all Shoshone back in the day—so Fenton figured the best way out was for them to move in with Fenton’s Southern Arapaho kin. Lease out their land in Wyoming.”

  Maris’s bad habits had started to rub off onto me, and I shook a Lucky Strike out and lit it. “Jobs didn’t exactly fall off trees back then. How’d they make do?”

  “Luck.” Maris dropped her butt on the ground and snubbed it out with the toe of her boot. “Fenton landed a maintenance job with the Rock Island Railroad, while Celia took a job cleaning at the Catto Hospital. Doc Catto kept her on after Fenton died in a railroad accident three years ago.”

  “I still find it hard to believe that Amos hasn’t contacted his own mother-in-law since he’s been here.”

  A panel truck puttered slowly past the church and disappeared around the corner. “Celia told me she and Amos never got along. And it’s the one thing she never forgave Fenton for—introducing Amos to Cat.”

  Maris told me Amos had landed a job as a machinist with the Rock Island. “That’s where Amos and Fenton met?” I asked.

  Maris nodded, and a bead of sweat rolled from the side of her neck down to places I shouldn’t have been looking at. “And Fenton regretted it later when Amos started to run moonshine for Vincent,” Maris said.

  “I thought Amos built the stills for his brother?”

  Maris grabbed a bandana from her back pocket and wiped sweat from her neck and chest. She caught me looking and smiled. I looked away. “At first, all Amos did was build them. But when Fenton learned Amos had started running shine for Vincent—and doing muscle work for his brother on the side in addition to that—Fenton and Amos got into a fight. And Celia insists Amos will talk to the devil himself before he comes to pay her a visit.”

  “So she has no idea—”

  Maris held up her hand. “Celia thinks that if Amos is anywhere, he’s working for Vincent again.”

  I flipped open my watch face. “We have just enough time to make it to Oklahoma City and talk with Vincent before he closes for the night.”

  Maris groaned. “I gave up a potential date with that gate guard to drive to Vincent’s? I got needs.”

  “Me, too.”

  “What kind of needs?” she batted her eyelashes at me.

  “A ride. Now start this thing up.”

  Maris slid behind the wheel and cranked on the starter, but it wouldn’t fire. “Open the hood,” she told me as she rooted around in back of the seat. “We got to prime this pig.”

  She climbed out of the truck with a Mason jar of gasoline, wh
ile I took off the air filter, careful not to spill any oil. She trickled some gasoline into the carburetor and sat back in the truck. It coughed to life, sounding like Maris the morning after a bender.

  I shut the hood and folded myself into the truck. “Celia lied about those pictures.”

  “How’s that?”

  I flicked my cigarette away. “That little girl in the photos wasn’t Catherine.”

  “Of course it was Cat.”

  “That little girl in the picture was showing off a new wristwatch.”

  “So she’s got a watch.”

  “But that little girl was wearing the watch on her left hand, making her right-handed. Cat’s left-handed.”

  “How you know that?”

  “When I talked with Cat at the murder scene, the end of her belt pointed to her right side. A left-handed person cinches up their belt that direction. The girl in the photo is the opposite.”

  Maris shook her head. “You’re making Celia into a liar based on that cockamamie reasoning? Maybe that girl in the picture—Cat—just liked to wear watches on that wrist. And maybe she feels more comfortable tightening her belt from that direction.”

  “Do the math.”

  “You do the math—I never was good with figures. But if you got something more substantial on your mind, I’d like to hear it.”

  “All right. The nine-year-old girl in that picture is sitting on the fender of a Model A sedan.”

  “So?”

  “So, Ford didn’t start building Model As until 1928. Cat would have been twenty, maybe twenty-one when that picture was taken. Celia said that photo was snapped in 1922. She’s lying.”

  “Elders don’t lie . . .” Maris trailed off just as the panel truck we saw pass earlier turned the corner. It drove toward the church even slower than it had last time. I figured its occupants weren’t sinners seeking absolution and squinted in the darkness. Where a business name had been pasted on the side, the truck now had garish paint covering it. Two men eyed us intently through the broken windshield as they approached. The driver fidgeted. The passenger reached for something on the floorboard.

  Time slowed, then, as it does for me during times of eternity when I recognize imminent peril and actually do something about it. I first saw the barrel of the gun jut out the passenger-side window at the same time the driver turned his truck so the passenger could get a better shot.

  I yelled at Maris, but it sounded like an old man hollering in a pickle barrel. I lunged for her. Jerked her across the seat. We fell out of the truck as the first shots broke the night’s stillness. I landed on top of her and rolled and rolled and rolled. Bullets hit her truck with monotonous regularity. Fast. An automatic.

  Maris screamed as I dragged her behind the engine block to protect us as bullets punched through the wafer-thin fender and seemed to follow us. They struck the hood, pieces fragmenting, striking me with shards of glass and metal. Blood trickled down my shirtfront from a dozen tiny cuts. Glass pelted us from a shattered windshield, and a tire blew, making a noise louder than the gun as Maris’s truck listed to one side on the rim.

  I became suddenly conscious that I clutched my own .45 in my trembling hand, and I rolled toward the front fender. I fired twice before I realized I had shot. The panel truck’s side window shattered, and I emptied my gun into the panel as it sped past, slugs skipping off the passenger door.

  Shots came from behind me, and I fumbled for another magazine inside my coat pocket. I turned as Maris crouched behind the hood of the truck, her revolver firing as quickly as she could pull the trigger. The single taillight of the delivery sedan shattered, and two of her rounds thunked against the back door.

  The delivery truck veered sharply to the side. It careened off the curb on the opposite side of the street and smashed into a motorcycle propped against a tree. I slapped the fresh magazine into my gun and rose over the hood, but the truck disappeared around the corner, tires squealing. The sound grew fainter in the night air.

  “You okay?” I asked Maris as I watched the street in case the delivery truck made another pass.

  “I’m all right,” she stammered. “But you got to control those needs of yours.”

  I looked at her then, and at my hand resting on Maris’s chest, ready to push her out of harm’s way. A taut nipple teased my hand, and I jerked away. I was certain she saw me blush even in the dim light. “Who the hell would want us dead?”

  “Jimmy Wells.” Maris swung the cylinder of her revolver out and shucked the empties. She looked wildly around as she kept watch on the street. She dug fresh cartridges from her shirt pocket and thumbed them into the gun. She snapped the cylinder shut and peeked over the hood of her Chevy. “That was Jimmy driving.”

  “I thought you said he was up in Concho on some cattle rustling case?”

  “I thought he was. More importantly, why’d he just attack us?”

  “Guess we’ll have to pay your boss a visit. Ask him why his deputy is doing a Chicago-style shootout. What’s next, dynamite my hotel room?”

  Someone gasped behind us, and I nearly soiled my dungarees. Celia stood there. She covered her mouth with her hand. Beside her stood a man in a dark suit next to two ladies dressed like they were going to choir practice.

  Across the street, a little boy hugged his mother’s leg and looked curiously at Maris’s shot-up truck, while a hobo, awakened by the gun fire, crawled from under a bush. He slung his turkey over his shoulder and hot-footed it away from the action. “You people all right?” Maris yelled across the street.

  The woman nodded and dragged her boy away from the excitement. Maris turned around. “You all right, Celia? Reverend Janis?”

  None of them had been hit, but the church front was pockmarked where stray bullets had chipped away at the sanctity of the First Baptist. I was sure the Right Reverend Janis would build a lovely sermon out of what just happened, something about how we each need to be prepared for when the Lord takes us. For me, I didn’t have the time to contemplate that right now. Right now, I wanted to find that son of a bitch who’d tried to kill us.

  Maris brushed her jeans off as she watched the crowd melt back into the evening. She grabbed her bandana and wiped blood from my cheek and neck from glass cuts. “I want to talk to Jimmy, too.” She seemed to read my mind. “But first I got to get another set of wheels.” She kicked the side of her truck. “ ’Cause the tire shot to hell I could live with. It’s the holes in the motor that’s a problem.”

  I ran my hand over holes in the hood. I didn’t even need to open it to know the Chevy’s motor was a goner.

  CHAPTER 16

  * * *

  Maris picked me up later than usual. After I’d made statements to the El Reno Police last night, I had an adrenaline crash and was out to the world as soon as I dropped onto my bed. But not before I laid my gun on the nightstand next to the bed and propped a chair against the door. Just in case Jimmy and his driver made another try.

  “You gonna climb in?” Maris hung her arm out the window of a Studebaker touring car. The Standard had seen its best days: the previous owner had cut away the rear metal, and a half hay bale still stuck out of the back end. The six cylinder smoked more than Maris, and there was no windshield. Still, it appeared to be an improvement over her truck.

  “Pretty good, huh?”

  I shrugged. “Depending on what it cost.”

  Maris lit a smoke and flicked her match away. The wind took it, and it nearly fell into the hay bale. I walked to the back, grabbed the bale, and dropped it at the curb.

  “Mel said I could make payments.” She winked.

  I walked around the car. “Take a lot of payments, even something this . . . beat.”

  Maris smiled. “Mel knows he’ll get paid. One way or the other.”

  I climbed in, and Maris laid her hand on my shoulder. “I can tell you’re still pissed . . .”

  “And I ought to be. It’s not every day an employee of your sheriff tries killing
a US marshal and one of his deputies.” I jerked my arm away. “Now pedal this damned thing to the courthouse.”

  We pulled up to the Canadian County Courthouse, and I had the door open before Maris even stopped. Even after sleeping on it, I still fumed over Deputy Wells and his shooter taking a strafing run on us.

  The doors to the courthouse slammed open as I burst through. I stomped the halls toward the sheriff’s office with Maris running to keep up. She grabbed my arm, but I jerked it away. She ran around and blocked my path. “Just give me a minute to find out what’s the skinny.”

  I took deep breaths. “There’s a reason Stauffer sent Jimmy to kill us—”

  “He might not have,” Maris said. “Stauffer’s a horse’s ass, but I can’t see him telling Jimmy to gun us down. Especially since we’re his ticket to finding Amos.”

  “Pardon me if I see your boss in a different light.” Two ladies walked warily past us and ducked into the treasurer’s office, but I didn’t lower my voice one whit. “First, one of his men, Dale Goar, jumps me in the back alley and beats the hell out of me. Then Stauffer’s deputy tries killing us.” I exaggerated looking at my watch. “Your minute’s up.”

  I stepped around her and jerked open the door to the sheriff’s office. Melody looked up from her typewriter and saw something in my face that frightened her. She bolted for Stauffer’s office, but I got there first and flung the door open. Stauffer sat behind his desk talking to Johnny Notch, who relaxed in a chair in front of the desk. Both men caressed cigars that cost as much as many men make in a week nowadays. I started for Stauffer, but Notch stood and blocked my way.

  “You want your dog in bloody pieces on the floor?” I threw my coat back to show Stauffer that my hand cupped the butt of my automatic. “Be a pity if his new clothes got soiled.” Notch must have had the same thought, as he took off his black topper lined with rabbit fur and hung it carefully on the back of the chair. Then, for good measure, he skinned his tweed porkpie hat and began rolling his sleeves up.

  Notch chewed on his cigar, his fists clenching and unclenching. I had no doubt he was armed, but he was no dummy; he knew he couldn’t reach his weapon before I pulled mine, and the most he could hope for was to beat me with his fists. The veins in his forehead throbbed, and his teeth clenched tight. He wasn’t used to being talked to like he was mortal. Notch was much bigger, much stronger, much younger than I. But in my frame of mind, I had the killing edge. “Get rid of Notch, or he’s your new wallpaper.”