Sheriff on the Spot (8 page)

“I told you Sam was terribly drunk. He toppled over on top of Fred. Passed out. I couldn't move him. I was frantic. I rushed out in the hall and remembered Ezra. I knew he'd help me. Or, help Sam. So I ran and knocked on his door. I got him to come here and he picked Sam up and carried him out. He was groaning about you being sheriff and finding it out,” she went on swiftly, “and I remembered that I'd heard you were turning your badge over to Jeth Purdue tonight.

“And some men say Jeth isn't as honest as he could be. I don't know about that, but I remembered it and I told Ezra I thought maybe we could fix things. You know, by paying Jeth to keep it quiet.” Kitty paused to wring her hands together, then went on in a pleading tone:

“You see, I felt responsible. It was all my fault. And I
knew
Sam had struck in self-defense, but I also knew that it would be called murder because of the circumstances—with Fred being my husband and all. So I made Ezra promise not to do anything until I could try to fix things up with Jeth Purdue. I thought if I told him the truth,” she faltered uncomfortably, “and if Sam and Ezra offered to pay him, he might help us get rid of Fred's body, or fix up a different story, or something. I know it was terribly wrong, but what else could I do?”

“And then,” Pat said, “you found out I was still sheriff instead of Jeth?”

“Yes.”

“Where did you come into it?” Pat growled, whirling to look directly at Joe Deems. “You were mighty dead-set that I shouldn't come up here. You even pulled a gun to try and stop me. Why were
you
worried?”

Deems compressed his lips and cleared his throat. “I knew something was wrong,” he confessed. “Kitty saw you from the back when you first walked into the saloon. She called me and begged me to keep you away from up here. I didn't know why. She didn't tell me it was murder. But she said it would be bad for the hotel—for business. So I did my best to stop you.”

“Where are Sam and Ezra now?” Harold Morgan asked suddenly.

Pat turned to look at Kitty. “I guess Sam's still in his room,” she said pitiably. “I've seen him get drunk like that before, and it generally lasts all night. I don't know about Ezra. I haven't seen either one of them since—” she paused to shudder—“since Ezra carried Sam out of here.”

“We'd better unlock Sam's room and arrest him,” Deems said importantly. “I'll go down and get an extra key.”

“Get one for Ezra's room, too,” Pat called after him.

“You won't—you're not going to arrest Sam, are you?” Kitty arose and came toward the sheriff. Her eyes were dry and they burned into his. “He didn't mean any harm. He was drunk, and it was all my fault. Every bit of it. If I'd told him I was married it would never have happened.”

Despite his prejudice against her, Pat felt a surge of sympathy for the woman who stood before him pleading for Sam's life. It seemed to him he sensed an essential honesty and decency inside her which belied the painted face and sensuously bared bosom. He found himself believing, by God, that she
had
been in love with Sam, strange as it was that any woman could love the dark, ugly little man.

He said slowly, “I don't know just how things will turn out, Ma'am. Sam will have to take his chance, I reckon. It never pays to fool with the law. Bribin' a sheriff ain't never right, even if it does look like a good idea at the time.”

Color came swiftly to Kitty's cheeks. “I didn't mean that,” she protested. “I wouldn't think of trying to bribe you, Sheriff.”

Joe Deems stuck his head in the door and announced, “I've got those keys, Sheriff.”

Pat went out, followed by Harold Morgan and Kitty. Deems inserted a key in the door on the other side of the hall, and opened the door with a flourish as though he were pulling rabbits out of a silk hat. He stepped back to let Pat enter the room first.

Pat stopped on the threshold and said, “Sam!” sharply.

There was no response from the dark room. Pat struck a match and walked in, found a candle on the bureau and lit it. The others crowded in through the doorway as he turned and lifted the flickering candle high above his head.

The bed was rumpled and unmade, and there was a litter of Sam's clothing on chairs and on the floor. But there was no Sam. Pat even got down and peered under the bed, pulled the curtain aside that made a clothes closet out of one corner of the room.

“Must be in the next room with Ezra,” Deems grated in a disappointed tone. “Want me to unlock that door, Sheriff?”

Knowing full well that Ezra was at that moment riding southward with money stolen from the bank, Pat had to play the farce out as though he actually thought Ezra was in the next room. He said hastily, “Better let me knock first. If he's protectin' Sam, he'll more'n likely send lead through the door if he hears somebody unlockin' it.”

He went out and handed the candle to Morgan, stepped to the next door and knocked loudly.

“Ezra!” he called. “Open up, Ezra. This is Pat.” He waited a moment, then added loudly, “It's Pat. I'm comin' in, Ezra. Don't make things worse by shooting.” He stepped back and nodded for Deems to unlock the door.

Deems cautiously stood far back to one side and held the key at arm's length as he inserted it in the lock. Pat took the candle from Morgan and walked in.

Ezra's room also was empty. It bore more signs of hurried flight than had Sam's. The bureau drawers were open and emptied on the floor, and everything was in the utmost confusion.

“Both of them gone,” Deems muttered in an awed voice to Pat. “How you reckon they got out?”

“Are you sure they didn't go down the back stairs?”

“They couldn't. The stairs lead right into the kitchen an' dining room where the help eat. There's always someone there. Looks like they just plain evaporated.”

The single window in the room was open from the bottom. Pat went to it and uttered an exclamation, then leaned out and held the flickering candle to look down toward the ground. Deems hurried to his side and saw the lariat with one end tied to the foot of the bed and running to the window and out.

“So that's how they did it?” he said bitterly. “Got clean away while we were sitting around talking. You better get after them in a hurry, Sheriff.”

Pat said, “I don't need you to tell me my business, Deems. If you'd told me as soon as you knew something was wrong, this wouldn't have happened.”

He pulled himself back inside and set the candle down on the bureau. “If I know Sam an' Ezra they'll be plenty of miles away from Dutch Springs by now.”

“Do you intend to just stand there and let them escape?” Deems demanded.

Pat didn't pay any attention to him. He said to Morgan, “You'll have to stay deputized. You've heard everything that went on here tonight an' you'll be able to swear to it.”

Morgan said, “All right, Pat. What are you going to do?”

“I'll be plenty busy—with a bank robbery and a murder all in one night.”

“What about Jeth Purdue?” Morgan protested. “Why not put him in charge here, seeing that he's to be sworn in as sheriff tomorrow?”

Pat's features tightened grimly. He said, “I aim to have a talk with Jeth Purdue right now. Like to have you sit in on it, Morgan. We might learn something that'll tie up with what's happened here tonight.”

He turned and stalked out of the room, and Harold Morgan followed him.

They went downstairs together and out to the boardwalk. Main Street was deserted again, and all the citizens who weren't in the posse were gathered in saloons excitedly discussing the bank robbery.

Pat stopped at the Gold Eagle and stuck his head between the swinging doors to ask, “Heard anything from the posse yet?”

A series of no's answered him. Men began hurling eager questions at him, but he withdrew and went on toward the jail with Morgan by his side.

“They don't know the half of it,” Morgan said. “If they knew about that dead man up at the Jewel Hotel they'd really have something to talk about all night.”

Pat muttered some reply and kept on going.

Keeping pace with him, the rancher said nervously, “I'm sure mighty sorry about Sam. I know how it's hit you, Pat. You and him being such good friends.”

Pat said, “Sam always was one for gettin' into trouble.”

“That man was knifed in the back,” Morgan said hesitantly. “Don't know whether you noticed it or not. I didn't like to say anything back there at the hotel.”

Pat said, “I noticed it.” He did not amplify the flat statement.

“That's what'll make it go so hard on Sam if he's caught,” said Harold Morgan forlornly. “Making love to a married woman and killing her husband when he catches you is bad enough—but a knife in the back makes it one hell of a lot worse.”

Pat nodded and agreed hopelessly. “Sam never was one to do things by halves. When he gets into trouble, you can trust him to make it
bad
trouble.”

“Do you think you'll catch him, Pat?” Morgan spoke in a low tone as they approached the adobe jail and lean-to office. “I sure wouldn't blame you,” he went on hurriedly, “if you didn't try hard. Like that woman said, the whole thing was her fault. Women like her ought to be hung,” he went on angrily. “Dragging a man like Sam into a mess like that.”

Pat said, “Sam an' Ezra will be together. I reckon I know where to look for 'em. That's why I'm leavin' you deputized an' in charge of the sheriff's office,” he went on carefully. “I'll be ridin' alone after Sam an' Ezra, I reckon.”

“Do you think you got to, Pat? Couldn't you maybe ride in the wrong direction?”

Pat said, “I'm still sheriff of Powder Valley whether I like it or not.” He stopped in front of the padlocked door of the adobe jail and called, “Jeth! You asleep in there?”

Morgan looked at him in surprise, as though he thought Pat had suddenly gone insane. “This here's the jail. The office is around behind.”

Pat said, “I know it's the jail. That's where I left Jeth Purdue.”

Getting no reply to his call, he produced a big iron key and unlocked the barred door. It creaked loudly on rusty hinges as he pulled it open. He peered inside the dark interior and called again, “Jeth! Come on out.”

He grunted with surprise when this brought no answer either. He struck a match and held the tiny flame out in front of him.

Its flickering light showed a body huddled on the bare dirt floor in front of a small barred window.

Pat stepped forward with Morgan right behind him. Neither of them said anything as they looked down at the bloody hole in Jeth Purdue's face where his nose had been.

8

The match fizzled out in Pat Stevens' hand. The dying flame seared his leathery fingertips, but he was not aware of pain. In silence and in darkness, he got another match from his pocket and struck it.

Standing close beside him, Harold Morgan said in an awed voice, “Shot plumb in the face with a forty-five, looks like. How you reckon it could have happened, Pat?”

Pat lifted his gaze to the barred window above Jeth Purdue's corpse. “Could of come through the window.”

“That's it, I bet! If someone came around and called him to the window—stuck the muzzle through the bars! Yes sir,” agreed Morgan excitedly. “That must be how it happened. But, who did it? Who had any reason to kill Jeth?”

Pat shook his head slowly as the second match burned down to his fingertips. He backed away toward the open door, muttering, “That's what we got to find out, Morgan.”

The deputized rancher followed him around the corner of the jail, knelt beside him as Pat struck a third match to study the ground underneath the window.

There had been a heavy shower that afternoon, and the ground was still damp enough to hold footprints. Pat nodded somberly as the yellow flare of the match clearly showed the outline of two feet standing side by side in front of the barred window.

“That's it, all right. A fellow stood here and called Jeth to the window—then let him have it in the face between the bars.” He got up heavily as his third match flickered out in the night air.

“God'lmighty, Pat, this is bad business,” breathed Morgan. “Two murders in one night. And both of 'em
bad
murders. A knife in the back and a man shot while he was locked up inside jail with no chance to do nothing. Do you reckon—?” He paused nervously and glanced at Pat.

“You mean do I reckon they're both tied together?” Pat asked harshly.

“That's what I was thinking,” Harold Morgan confessed miserably. “But it couldn't be. I can see how Sam might have done the other one—being drunk and caught in Kitty's room like that by her husband. But he wouldn't shoot a man like this. Just right out in cold blood. Would he, Pat? Even if he did think he had a reason?”

“What kind of reason are you thinkin' about?” grated Pat.

“I'm thinking about what Kitty said up in her room. About planning with Ezra to fix it with Purdue to cover up that other killing. If Sam and Ezra decided to take it on the run instead of staying to face it—” Morgan's voice broke miserably. “But it couldn't be that way. I reckon it couldn't.”

“You're guessin',” Pat said steadily, “that they were feared Kitty might already of told Jeth about the other. So they couldn't afford to leave him behind them alive when they took out. Ain't that it?”

“I guess I was thinking something like that. But I don't believe it, Pat. I sure don't.”

Pat sighed and said, “Two murders an' a bank robbery all in a couple of hours—and on my last night as sheriff.” He went around to the door of the lean-to office and lit the lantern on the wall.

Morgan stopped in the doorway while Pat stood in the center of the floor and looked around the small office. Everything appeared to be as it had been when he went out. His bedroll was still tied up and waiting to be carried out; Jeth Purdue's gun still lay in the corner where Pat had kicked it a couple of hours earlier.