Early's Fall

by Jerry Peterson

  The bubbles stopped when he saw Dickerson limping in. “And youuu.”

  “I always pay,” Dickerson said, raising his hands.

  “Don't you have any decent clothes? And that hat, it's disgusting.”

  The constable snatched off his elderly Stetson. “I'll put it under my chair. Nobody'll see it.”

  “Very well.” The maitre d', in his swallowtail tuxedo, pulled a chair out for Thelma. “And what will you have today?”

  “An iced tea.”

  He pulled out a chair for Early. “And you, sheriff?”

  “The same.”

  The maitre d' left Dickerson to wrestle his own chair. He peered over the top of his half-moon glasses at the constable. “Your order I know. Coffee, blaaack.” He whisked away.

  Early came forward, his elbows going up on the starched white tablecloth. “Thel, what's this all about?”

  “I already told you, the governor called me.”

  “At school?”

  “Of course, where else?”

  “And you just took off like a big bird?”

  “They understood this was important.”

  “But you walked.”

  “I don't have a car.”

  “On what I make, we can't afford one.”

  “On what I'll make, we can afford two,” Thelma said. She patted Early's hand.

  “Jimmy, she didn't walk far,” Dickerson said. He rubbed a hand over his thinning hair. “Maybe only—”

  Early raised a finger in warning.

  “All right,” Dickerson said, “all right.”

  Thelma took off her hat. She primped her new hairstyle. “What do you think?”

  Early studied her for a moment. “It's different.”

  “Is that the best you can say?”

  “Ahhh—” But before he could say more, the maitre d' swept in with a tray. He set a beading cut-crystal glass of iced tea in front of Thelma, another in front of Early, and a white china cup of steaming coffee in front of Dickerson.

  “Will there be anything else?” he asked. “Dinner menu, perhaps?”

  Early waved him away.

  “This is good. Thank you, Jimmy,” Thelma said after she sipped from her glass.

  Dickerson slurped his coffee. “This idn't bad either.”

  Early again raised his finger in warning. When he looked across the table to Thelma, her happiness and enthusiasm appeared to have drained from her. She slouched in her chair.

  “Jimmy,” she said, an ancient weariness entering her voice, “I'm tired. I think we should go home.”

  He nodded. Early slipped a quarter on the table and helped Thelma up. They walked out of the restaurant at a measured pace, Thelma carrying her hat at her side, Early with his hat at an angle on his head. Dickerson trailed along behind. The three stopped before they stepped off the sidewalk, and when traffic cleared—a prewar Dodge and a pickup truck—they strolled across. Early helped Thelma into the passenger seat of his Jeep and, after he came around, there stood Dickerson, waiting by the back bumper.

  “She all right?” he asked.

  “Mose, I don't know. Would you do me a favor and take all those packages back into the store? Tell Owen I'll work it out with him.”

  “What about what she needs for Topeka?”

  Early scratched at the back of his head. “You think the governor really called?”

  “Well, she said—”

  “Look, the governor doesn't know Thel. Hell, he doesn't even know me, and I worked the county for his election.”

  “I was with you when he shook yer hand at the courthouse.”

  “Didn't mean horse apples to him. Knew it when he kept calling me Sheriff James.”

  Dickerson shrugged and limped away to his car.

  Early got in the driver's seat of his Jeep. When he glanced at Thelma, her head had slumped forward and her chin rested on her chest. He sighed, started the engine, and backed out into the street. Early herded his Jeep east, then north on Fourth. At Bluemont, where he should have turned west for Keats, he instead continued on through the intersection to US Twenty-Four that went north and then west to Clay Center in the next county. Early grubbed his microphone out from where it had fallen between the seats. He pressed the transmitter button.

  “Alice?” he said, holding the mic just beyond his lips.

  “Go ahead, sheriff.”

  “Is Gladys listening?”

  “Yes.”

  “I've got Thel. Something's going on here I don't understand, so I'm going out to the Estes place, see if Walter and Nadine will help keep an eye on her when I have to be away.”

  “Got it.”

  “Call Doc Grafton, wouldja? Ask him to come out to Walter and Nadine's when he can.”

  “Gladys is on it now.”

  “Where's Hutch?”

  A new voice came on, Hutch Tolliver's. “Coming out of Randolph. Two drunks made a helluva mess of Morgan's Grocery. They're passed out in the backseat. Taking them to jail.”

  “Stay on the radio. I'm going over to the state police frequency, see if I can raise the super trooper, get him on the air with us.”

  Early scrunched down for a better look at his frequency selector as a Humphrey's semi motored past him in the opposite lane. He turned the selector two clicks and spoke into his microphone. “Daniel, you out there somewhere?”

  Static answered, followed by, “Junction City. That you, Cactus?”

  “Right. Switch to my frequency so you, Hutch, and me can talk.”

  “Changing frequencies.”

  Early turned the selector back two clicks. “Dan, you on?”

  “Roger.”

  “Hutch?”

  “I'm here.”

  “Spent the morning in Abilene, boys,” Early said as he guided his Jeep around a bend and onto a grade that took the highway up out of the Big Blue Valley. “Bill Smitts's alibi collapsed in the dust. We gotta find him.”

  “This is Alice. I called his house. No one answered. Constable Dickerson just came in, so I asked him to drive by, see if he's outside or in his shop.”

  “Could be at work,” Early said.

  “I called a Mister Larson in Topeka, Mister Smitts's supervisor. Says he's taken a leave of absence.”

  “Cow flop . . . I don't like this.”

  “Sheriff, there's more. Mister Larson said the railroad's got a detective looking for Mister Smitts.”

  “What's that all about?”

  “He wouldn't say other than the detective's on the way here, to see you.”

  “Any idea when he'll get in?”

  “Mister Larson didn't know.”

  “You know where I'll be.”

  “Right.”

  “Hutch here. Chief, what do you want us to do?”

  Early topped the high ground. He steered his Jeep around another bend that took the road on north. “Hutch, get to all our constables. Tell them who we're looking for. Give them Bill's license plate for that Ford Woody he bought. Alice, do the same with the neighboring sheriffs. Call Pott County, Wabaunsee, Geary, and Clay.”

  “Cactus, this is Dan. Sounds like the U-P's already looking for Bill. I got a couple buddies who're railroad bulls with the Santa Fe. A couple calls and I can have eyes out all along that railroad.”

  “Do it.” Early slowed for the turn onto the county road that would take him west, into the ranching country around Leonardville. “This may all be for nothing. Could be Mose will find Bill out in the garden, digging turnips. You need me, I'll be at the Rocking Horse E.”

  “Hutch again. Walter doesn't have a telephone.”

  “I'll leave my radio on. Early out.” He hung his microphone over the mirror and motored on. Early waved his hat to a cowboy riding beside a fence next to the road, a crowd of Hereford yearlings rattling along ahead of him. Beats chasing people, Early thought.

  He glanced at Thelma. Still she slept.

  A mile on and Early slowed for the turnoff onto the lane that led to the Estes ranchste
ad. When he stopped for the gate, Thelma woke. She massaged her temples and yawned. “We home?”

  “No,” Early said as he got out. “Going to stop in on Walter and Nadine, visit a bit.”

  “That's nice.” She stretched and shook her shoulders.

  Early swung the gate wide. He drove through, then closed the gate. When he returned to the Jeep, he found Thelma studying her hands.

  “Why am I wearing gloves?” she asked.

  “Bought them at Hall's.”

  “I did not. I don't even like gloves.”

  Early fished the new hat from the backseat. He placed it on Thelma's lap. “You bought this too.”

  She studied the hat with the same curiosity she had her gloved hands. “Well, I might have bought this. It's nice.”

  “Thel, you bought a whole lot of things.”

  “When?”

  “Today.”

  “Jimmy, don't tease me.”

  “I'm not teasing you.”

  “I know you, Jimmy, you are.”

  “Have it your way.” Early let out the clutch and drove on.

  Thelma turned to him. “Did I really do that?”

  “Yup.” Early hunched forward. He leaned his forearms on the steering wheel as the Jeep rolled on toward a dip in the lane.

  “You think I'm dotty, don't you?”

  “Thel, I don't know what to think. All I know is you've been doing some strange things, and you don't remember them. I'm getting afraid for you.”

  “You think I could hurt someone, don't you?”

  “I didn't say that.”

  “You said I attacked Gladys with a butcher knife, and I can't remember that happening.”

  “Do you remember walking out of school before lunchtime today because you believed you had to get to Manhattan?”

  “But I wouldn't do that.”

  “Thel, you did. You know what I think you should do? I think you should quit teaching until after the baby comes, just take it easy.”

  “But we need the money.”

  “We can get by,” Early said as the Jeep topped the rise on the far side of the wash. Ahead laid a spread of buildings and a corral.

  A black dog, lapping water from the stock tank, twisted around at the sound of the Jeep approaching. He galloped out toward Early, his great bush of a tail whipping the air.

  “Wish we had a dog,” Thelma said.

  “How about him?”

  “He's Walter and Nadine's.”

  “What do you think of us asking the Esteses if we could move in until the baby comes? They're alone and needing help, and I'm pretty fair at cowboying . . . and you wouldn't be alone during the day.”

  “But what about our house?”

  “The neighbors would watch it for us.”

  Thelma gazed at the swaybacked roof of the one-story ranch house set back in the cottonwoods as Early drove past the corral and around the barns. “It'd be nice, wouldn't it?” she said.

  “The worst they could say is no, and you know Nadine isn't going to say that.” Early swung the Jeep about and stopped in front of the dirt walk that led to the house. He strolled around to the passenger side where he helped Thelma down, both greeted by the dog slobbering on their hands as they reached out to pet him.

  “Your people around?” Early asked the Newfoundland.

  The dog jerked his head toward the house.

  “You're pretty good,” Early said, then called out, “Nadine! Walter!”

  After a moment, a woman pushed out a screen door onto the porch, her hands richly white with flour. She shaded her eyes with her forearm. “Jimmy? Thelma? Well, aren't you two nice to come by, and just in time for supper. I got biscuits rolled out.”

  “Walter around?” Early asked as he helped Thelma along toward the house.

  “Oh, he's off in that truck of his, checking on the cattle back in the creek pasture, only pasture that hasn't been burned off by the sun. He'll be home directly. You come on in.” Nadine took Thelma's hand. “You surely do look nice, white gloves and all. You're just the best thing that ever happened to Jimmy.”

  “You're sweet to say that,” Thelma said as she went on inside.

  “Oh, I'm just tellin' the truth.” Nadine eyed Early as he came in. He raked off his hat. “You're lookin' good, too, Jimmy. Come back to the kitchen and we'll talk while I get the biscuits in the oven. Know what we're gonna have for supper?”

  Early scratched at his head as he thought about that one. “A ranch, I'd say beef.”

  “Barbecued brisket, yessir. Got it slow-cooking at the side of the oven, basting it with the best barbecue sauce you ever laid a tongue on.”

  Thelma pulled off her gloves. “Better than the sauce Jimmy makes?”

  “Honey, after you taste mine, Jimmy's will only be second best.” Nadine grinned and went to picking up the circles she had cut from her patted-out dough. She laid them in a greased pan. “Good day at school?” she asked, glancing at Thelma.

  “Jimmy says I walked out this morning.”

  “Well, I suppose you had things to do.” She opened the oven door and a wave of sugary-sweet heat rolled into the room. “Makes you hungry, don't it?” Nadine said as she slid the biscuit pan in.

  “Jimmy says I went to Manhattan. I don't remember it except for him and Mister Dickerson and I having iced tea at the Ware-ham.”

  “Well, we women, when we get babies inside us, they do sometimes make us change, do unusual things that we can laugh about later.” Nadine went to the sink. She wrung out a rag and came to the table. “Thelma, you know where the plates and glasses are. How about you set the table while I scrub the counter? Jimmy, you could make yerself useful, too.”

  “How's that?”

  “I got a mixing bowl and stuff in the sink. You could wash them.”

  All were at their work when someone clomped in the front door bellowing, “Hey, we got the sheriff here?”

  “There's my Walter,” Nadine said. “Walter? Thelma's here, too, isn't that nice?”

  “Just like sunshine,” the old man said as he rambled in, whacking his misshapen Quigley hat against the leg of his denim pants. He slapped Early's back as he passed by the sink, hung his Quigley on a peg, and hugged his wife. “Glory, don't it smell good in here.”

  “Barbecue brisket.”

  “Oh my, we do know how to eat, don't we?”

  “You clean up before you come in?”

  “Splashed a bit in the stock tank.” Estes eased his arthritic frame down onto a chair at the head of the table. He gazed around. “What brings you good people by?”

  Early turned as he worked a drying towel around a graniteware mixing bowl. “Walter, could you use a little help around the Rocking Horse?”

  “Lord, could I ever. I thought we could get on without Sonny, but it's wearing me down.”

  “Maybe we could do a little trading.”

  “You want my ranch?”

  “No no. With this baby coming on, I've asked Thel to quit teaching and take it easy. If you were to invite us to live with you for a couple months, you could keep Thel company when I have to be away. Evenings and weekends, I can wrangle cows for you.”

  “Well, now that's some offer.” Estes held out his glass as Nadine poured it full with lemonade. “What do you think, Mother?”

  “I think it would be awful nice to have young people in the house. I worry about you, Walter, and Jimmy would be an awful good hand.”

  “Then I think we got us about the sweetest deal around.” Estes splashed sugar in his lemonade. He glanced up at Early wiping dry Nadine's mixing spoons. “When you wanna do this?”

  “Maybe Thelma could stay the night, and tomorrow I could bring up what few things we need from our house.”

  A hard rap came from the screen door. Nadine Estes slipped away to see who might be there and returned a moment later, a man at her heels—heavyset, buzz haircut, dark suit, a brown fedora in his hand. “Jimmy,” she said, “this is a Mister Guerney. Says he needs to see you
.”

  Early tossed his drying towel over his shoulder before he shook hands. “My wife,” he said, indicating Thelma—making introductions, “and Walter Estes.”

  The visitor nodded his greetings.

  “Something I can help you with?” Early asked.

  “Maybe I can help you. I'm with the Union-Pacific. Got in your office right after you went off the air. Your dispatcher was kind enough to write me directions so I could drive out. Maybe we should talk outside.”

  Early glanced at Nadine.

  “Jimmy, it's all right,” she said. “But don't be too long. Ten minutes and supper'll be on the table.”

  Early motioned for Guerney to follow him as he led the way back through the front room. “You the dick Mister Larson said was on his way?”

  “Guilty. Got a badge if you want to see it.”

  “Your haircut says you're ex-military.”

  “Military police. Came out of the war a sergeant, and the railroad was hiring. They put me in Topeka.”

  “How much territory you cover?”

  “Lawrence to the Colorado line. Gets busy, I can call in help from Kansas City or Denver.”

  Early pushed the screen door open. He stepped out and held the door for Guerney. “You want to sit?”

  “No, I'd just as soon stand.”

  “So what do you have to tell me?”

  “Do you know what bearer bonds are?”

  “Bonds issued by a business that are payable to whoever turns them in.”

  “Yup, just like a check and just as good, only there's no name on the ‘pay to the order of’ line. The bonds are numbered, so we know who bought them initially.”

  “By ‘we,’ you mean the railroad?”

  “Right.”

  “And this involves Bill Smitts?”

  “We think so. Couple months ago, seventy thousand dollars worth of bonds disappeared from our Topeka office. We shouldn't have had them at all, but a bank had bought them, and we were holding them overnight.”

  “Break-in?”

  “No.”

  “So you figured it had to be an employee.”

  “It's the only thing that made sense. I grilled everybody and confirmed where they said they were that night. Bill was in Lawrence. When I couldn't find anyone guilty, my boss figured it had to be me, but I was in Wamego, checking on pilfered freight. Caught the little bastard who was stealing it too.”