“Children, children, children,” Early said as he reined in his horse, “we got company.”
Everyone looked up to see dust rising on the lane leading to the Estes ranchstead, a red bubble light revolving. A state police cruiser came off the lane and into a slide that threw up more dust and scattered the calves the ranch crew had worked on.
Early's horse, shy from the lemonade spill, shied even more. She trampled and danced as Early, hauling on her reins, worked for control.
Dan Plemmons stepped out of the cruiser. He waved his way through the dust cloud. “Cactus,” he said on spying Early, “sorry to interrupt your party, but he's been spotted.”
“Bill?”
“Yup.”
“Where?”
“Concordia. A railroad dick saw him driving through. He had his office relay a call to me, then followed Bill to the Washington County line.”
“The fella gave up?”
“No. Had his office call ahead for a Washington deputy. Got one to shadow Bill to Clay County. Looks like he's coming home.”
“The boy?”
“He's with him.”
Early swung down from his horse. He handed the reins to Estes. “Walter, this is important. The others will help you with the last calves. It'll take you a little longer, but you'll get it done.”
Thelma grabbed hold of Early's arm, all the joy of the day gone, fear etching into her face. “Don't go,” she said.
“Thel, I'm sorry. It's my job.” He turned away and motioned for Tolliver to follow. The two trotted off, their chaps swishing and slapping, toward their Jeeps parked by the barn. Both shucked their chaps and strapped on gun belts. While Early got out a denim jacket and pulled his Winchester from its scabbard on the hood of his Jeep, Tolliver rummaged in the back of his, coming up with a jacket of his own and a sack.
Plemmons, back in his cruiser, drove up to the cowboy lawmen. “No need to take three vehicles unless you want to, Cactus,” he said, his elbow out his window.
Early pointed to Tolliver and the backseat, then made his way around to the front passenger door. He got in next to Plemmons. “You're solid on this?” Early asked as he laid his rifle against the center of the seat.
Plemmons stepped down on the accelerator. “It's the car, the license plate, the man looks right, and he's got a boy with him.”
“Anyone try to stop Bill?”
“I put the word out. Everybody was to lay back.”
“So the fool's coming home.”
Plemmons picked up his radio microphone. He pressed the transmit button. “Any Clay County officer on this frequency, come in.”
Static crackled, then, “Deputy Conroy here.”
“Conroy, Trooper Plemmons. You tailing that Ford Woody?”
“Yessir. I'm 'bout a quarter mile back on Twenty-Four, coming out of Clay Center. This old boy's sure not in any hurry.”
“Call me if he turns south on Eighty-Two.”
“You want me to follow him into the next county?”
“The guy lives outside of Leonardville. I want you to follow him all the way home.”
“I don't know about this.”
Early took the microphone from Plemmons. He squeezed the transmit button as the cruiser bounced through a dry wash on the way to the county road. “Deputy Conroy, this is Riley County Sheriff James Early. I'm making you a deputy in my county for the next twenty-four hours. You oughtta be home long before the end of the day.”
“I better call my sheriff.”
“Don't bother. . . . Clay County dispatcher, you on the frequency?”
A woman's voice came back. “This is the Clay dispatcher.”
“Ma'am, Riley County Sheriff James Early here. Rustle up Sheriff Smith wherever he is and tell him I'm borrowing his Deputy Conroy, would you?”
“Sheriff's right here.”
“Cactus?”
“Art.”
“So this is the guy that killed that teacher down your way?”
“Her husband.”
“My Lord. . . . Sam?”
“Conroy here.”
“You stay with him. If you keep your eyes open, you could learn a thing or two from Sheriff Early.”
“If you say so.”
“Cactus?”
“Go ahead, Art.”
“You want me to come down?”
“We got three of us now. If we pick up our local constable, that's four, and your deputy makes five. That's enough. I don't like posses.”
“Good luck then.”
“Thank you, Art.”
Plemmons ran his cruiser out onto the county highway. He turned west toward Leonardville and a bank of low, scuddy clouds the color of dry dirt. Plemmons flipped on his bubble light. “So your constable is around?”
“Somewhere,” Early said. He glanced back at Tolliver, bareheaded in the backseat. “How many walkies you got in your sack?”
“Four.”
Early smiled. “Makes one for each of us and one for Mose. Hutch, when we get there, we'll scatter out around the perimeter of Bill's property, hunker down. I don't want him to see us when he drives in.”
“We could do a roadblock,” Plemmons said as he steered his cruiser on.
“Dan'l, a man's dangerous in a car. He could run one of us over, and I don't cotton to that.”
“It's your arrest. You call how we do it.”
The trooper negotiated his cruiser around a rutted curve. Ahead and on a rise stood the Smitts house—lonely, looking abandoned, the parched yard ragged from lack of care. Early motioned toward the windshield. “There's Mose at the mailbox, making like a letter carrier.”
Plemmons let off the accelerator. He flipped the bubble light off, slowed his cruiser, and stopped beside Mose Dickerson's Chevrolet coupe.
“With all of ya here, Bill must be on his way, huh?” Dickerson asked through the side window of his car.
Early leaned toward the constable. “He's in Clay County now.”
“What do ya want to do, Jimmy?”
“Catch the bastard.”
Plemmons's radio came to life. “He's turning onto Eighty-Two. Trees along here. I'm gonna lose sight of him for a bit.”
“Roger your call,” Plemmons said into his mic.
Dickerson scratched at his sideburn. “Eighty-Two . . . that makes him about ten miles out.”
Early bailed from the cruiser and waved for Tolliver to do the same. Early came around between the two cars. He stopped at the driver's window of Dickerson's and leaned down. “Got your shotgun, Mose?”
“In the trunk.”
“Hutch's got a walkie for you. Hide your car in those scrubby trees over yonder, then hustle behind Bill's barn. You cover the back of the house.”
Dickerson took a war-surplus walkie-talkie from Tolliver and drove away.
Early pointed Tolliver to the west side of the property. “There's a ravine over there where you can keep out of sight.”
“You?” Tolliver asked as he took a walkie from the bag. He handed the bag and its remaining radios to Early.
“East side. Dan'l and I'll tuck his cruiser in by Mose's car. We'll watch from there.”
“Leaves the front door open for Bill. I like that,” Tolliver said. He hustled off.
Early got back in the cruiser. Plemmons whipped the car around and drove down the road, beyond the yard. The sun, growing pale in the last minutes, disappeared as the scud advanced overhead.
Plemmons glanced up at the clouds. “We're in for rain,” he said as he herded the cruiser off into an open field.
Early also studied the clouds. “Friendly Neighbor called it this morning. Said there was real moisture behind the front for once, and I tell you I can feel it.”
Plemmons drove on to the stand of scrub oak and sumac. He went well into the stand before he killed the motor. The lawmen abandoned the car, but not before Plemmons gathered up his field glasses from beneath the seat and got a rain slicker from the trunk. Early and he then worked their way
forward, to the edge of the stand, to where they could squat down, their backs against tree trunks and tall weeds in front of them.
Plemmons raised the binoculars to his eyes. “There goes Hutch down,” he said. Next he swung the glasses toward the barn. “If your constable is back there, I sure can't see him.”
Early brought up his walkie. He squeezed the transmit button. “Mose, you in place?”
“I'm here, Jimmy.”
“Hutch?”
“Down in a deer bed. Real soft grass here.”
“Don't you go to sleep on me.”
“Right.”
A chill wind rustled up out of the northwest, rattling the fall-dried leaves in the oaks. Early set his walkie aside. He pulled on his jacket and turned its collar up. “Frontal passage. Damn, wish I'd brought my gloves.”
Plemmons handed Early a pair.
“You wouldn't happen to have some coffee, too, would you?” Early asked as he worked his fingers into the tan, fleece-lined gloves.
Plemmons settled back against the rough bark of a tree trunk. “Got a pot and a can of grounds in the trunk. I could drain some water out of the radiator.”
“Did that more'n once in the war. You could get some real strange tastes if the Jeep's radiator hadn't been flushed for awhile, but the coffee was always hot.”
“You like your time in the Army?”
“You like your time in the Marines?”
“Up until they kicked us out of a landing craft, onto a beach in the Mariannas. They taught killing in boot camp. Now we had to do it.”
Early snapped off a bluestem leaf. He chewed on it, the taste flat. “Bad, huh?”
“Like you, I know what hell is. Only three in my platoon got off the beach.”
“Yeah. Can't help but wonder if luck didn't have a lot to do with those things.”
Plemmons cast a sideward glance at Early, Early gazing at the horizon, as if he were gazing into the face of a memory. “How's that?” Plemmons asked.
“My squad, we once went three months without losing a man, other than a wound or two, but nothing to take anyone out of the field. Morning of the first day of the fourth month—I know because the sergeant appointed me to keep count—when we came out of our holes . . . damn . . .”
“What happened?”
“An Eighty-Eight opened up on us.” Early's eyes changed. They came into a sharp focus, and he peered up the road. “Where the heck is Bill?”
Plemmons glanced at his wristwatch. “He should have been here, even poking along. Want me to go to the car and call Conroy?”
“Maybe you better.”
Plemmons laid his field glasses aside. He got up and meandered back toward his cruiser.
Early picked up the glasses. He put them to his eyes and scanned the front and side yards of the Smitts place, then the horizon to the west. “Dan'l,” he called out, “car coming.”
Plemmons came crashing back through the sumac and ragweed. He went down on one knee, grabbing the binoculars Early held out. Plemmons peered through them, starting at the mailbox and panning west. “Got him . . . whoops, it's a little rolly out there. He just went down in a dip. Ahh, there he comes, up over . . . It isn't a Ford.”
Early came up. “What is it?”
“Chev . . . 'Forty-Six, maybe . . . slowing, turning in . . .”
Early pointed at the car as it came broadside. “Sumbitch. That's a Clay County sheriff's car. What the hell's going on? Can you see who's driving?”
“Not for sure,” Plemmons said, the field glasses to his eyes. He followed the cruiser up the driveway until the car stopped in front of the house. A man got out.
“It's Bill,” Plemmons said, “and he's got his kid with him.”
Smitts, in a suit with his necktie pulled loose and his hair disheveled, lifted a boy from the car. He carried the child up the steps to the front door and inside.
“I don't like this,” Plemmons said.
“Can't say I do either.” The first spits of rain flicked across Early's face. He brought up his walkie and spoke into the mouthpiece. “Mose? Hutch? Bill's in the house with the boy.”
“Heard the car.”
“It's not Bill's. He's got a Clay sheriff's car.”
“Jesus . . .”
“Mose, work around until you got a clear shot at the back door. Hutch, you cover the west windows. Dan's gonna do the same on the east side of the house.”
“You?”
“I'm going out front. See if I can talk Bill out. But if he comes out your way, put enough buckshot and bullets around him to drive him back inside. Don't kill him, and don't hit the boy.” Early picked up his rifle. He motioned for Plemmons to move to the side and scooted out low, running hard toward the Chevrolet. Early's foot went in a chuckhole and he sprawled forward. Holding tight to his rifle, he rolled and came up—grass stubble and dirt on his face—and ran on. He stopped only when he had the Clay patrol car between himself and the house. He glanced inside the car, saw nothing of interest and slid down, his back against the cold metal of the door.
Early, breathing hard, turned the volume down on his walkie. He whispered into the mouthpiece, “Hutch?”
“I'm ready.”
“Mose?”
“Got me a good place.”
“Dan?”
“Let's get this thing done.”
“Bill's got to have a gun, so don't you boys go nuts on me.” Early set his walkie on the ground. With his sleeve he rubbed the dirt from his face, the dirt smearing, wet from the rain spits. Early hollered, “Bill!”
No response.
The spits became a mist. Early twisted around. He came up, leveled his Winchester across the hood of the car and squeezed off one round, blasting out chunks of glass from the house's front window.
Early cupped a hand beside his mouth. “Bill? Have I got your attention? Come on out. You're going to jail!”
The front door opened a crack. Out came a gun barrel. Early dropped, and a pistol shot shattered much of the windshield, glass bits going down Early's collar. He brushed away what he could, came up, and pumped four bullets into the door. Early dropped back down. “Bill, you're getting me a mite upset. I got more firepower than you. Talk to me!”
“Sheriff? What about my boy?”
“Your parents want him. So do Judith's parents. They're all good people, Bill. You can't beat that.”
“Give me a minute.”
Early edged toward the headlight. He peered around the fender. “Minute so you can blow your brains out? Not gonna happen. Pitch your pistol out the door. Let this be done now.”
Something moved the front door of the house open a bit further. A hand and pistol came into sight.
“Come on, Bill, throw the gun away.”
Once more, no response. An eternity seemed to pass before the hand flipped the pistol into the yard.
Early reached back for his walkie. He pressed the ON switch and spoke into the mouthpiece. “He's thrown his gun out. This is too easy. I don't like it.”
Tolliver came back. “Mose and I could go in through the kitchen door.”
“You ever get that tingly feeling you're not alone? Check your backs.”
“Right.”
Early again set his walkie aside. He peered around the fender. Again he cupped a hand to the side of his mouth. “Bill? Come on outside where I can see you!”
The door swung full wide, and Bill Smitts edged out with his hands up, at shoulder level. A second man came out as well, behind Smitts. He held the boy in one arm, a claw hand showing.
“Sheriff Early?” the man called out.
“Steph?”
“Mister Smitts is mine. And I have Isaac. The boy's got my name. He's my son.”
Early sat back against the front tire, the first of the heavy raindrops splatting around him. “Steph, how long you been in that house?”
“Three days. I had a feeling Mister Smitts was coming in.”
“And my constable didn't see you?”
> “Nobody sees me when I don't want to be seen.”
“Except me.”
“Except you. But you didn't come around.”
“What do you want, Steph?”
“To leave here without anyone getting hurt. Sheriff, I will dispose of Mister Smitts for you, let you know where you can find the body when Isaac and I are out of your country.”
“Doesn't work that way.” Early pushed himself up. He stepped away from the cruiser. As he did, he brought his Winchester to his shoulder and moved forward at a measured pace.
“Sheriff,” Isaac Daniel Stephanowitz said, “stop there or I will kill him now and you.”
“You could, but you'd be dead before either of us hits the ground. I got a trooper on your right and a deputy on your left. Fifty-yard kill shots are nothing new to them.”
Stephanowitz glanced to the side.
Smitts's hand twitched. “He means it, sheriff. He's gonna kill me.”
“Aww, Bill, you're a dead man anyway. You murdered your wife, for chrissake. Riley County juries don't take kindly to that.”
“But I was in Abilene. You know I was.”
“Bill, your alibi's gone to hell.”
Stephanowitz interrupted. “Excuse me, can we negotiate?”
“You got nothing to negotiate with.” Early straightened. He stood as tall as his frame would allow, the rain splatter increasing. He squinted along his rifle's sights, zeroing on the Israeli's forehead. From the corner of his eye, Early glimpsed a movement through the front window, inside the house. A gimpy man in a duster and a sweat-stained Stetson, water dripping from the brim, eased out the door, the stock of a shotgun at his shoulder. He put the ends of the barrels against the back of Stephanowitz's head, the Israeli flinching at the touch.
“Think this is where ya give it up, fella,” Mose Dickerson said, his voice as flat as a prairie.
Early motioned to the side with his rifle. “Move away, Bill.”
As Smitts did, Plemmons ran in through the rain. He grabbed Smitts and hauled him farther to the side.
Tolliver trotted in. He reached for the child who in turn reached out to him. “Friendly little guy, aren'tcha?” Tolliver said as he took the boy from Stephanowitz.
Early's Fall Page 23