He yawned, chewed on his bit, and dropped a few apples. That meant he was bored, and a run would make life real interesting in the day of a horse.
“All right then, we’re going on a round trip to hell,” I said.
He took off so fast he almost pitched me out of my saddle, but I got upright again, and reined him in a little. He steadied into a rocking-chair lope, so easy it was like walking for any two-legged critters. He wasn’t even breathing hard, but just to play it safe, I tugged him down to a trot once in a while. A trot is the most infernal tail-banging gait on earth, but it rests a horse if he can stand the hammering of a hind-end on his backbone. I kept to a trot only long enough to give him a rest, because more than five minutes of it turned my butt into hamburger.
We kept at it, through country so big it was beyond the imagination of folks living cramped lives back East. Here was land as far as the eye could see, land without a building on it, land enough for everyone. The West was land, lots of land, land for the poor, the people starting out, the helpless, the brave, and everything in between. The trouble came when some fellers with a lot of self-importance wanted all the land and then some, and began pushing others out. Those fellers wanted the best valleys, the best water, the biggest ranch house, and a private army besides, just so they could be the biggest rooster. Admiral Bragg was like that. Crayfish Ruble had different goals. He wanted to get rich and get out. He wanted to run cows until there was no grass, make his pile, and head for the biggest town. If he left a land that was gnawed down to dirt, that didn’t bother him none, so long as he got the last dime he could get out of the place.
Neither of them fellers was the sort to admire, in my book. Bragg had tried to scare or push me into letting loose of his boy, and that didn’t sit well with me. But this trip I was going to look at Ruble’s place, because there was something real bad going on, and I sure wanted to find out what, and whether it had some connection to this hanging that was coming up.
Critter, he began to darken around the neck and withers, so I slowed him down. I didn’t want him to get too sweated up. We had a long ride back to Doubtful coming pretty quick. Besides, I wanted a little time to enjoy the air, the puffball clouds, the snowy mountains off to the west, and the greened up pastures, mostly giant wide gulches, that shone with spring wildflowers and emerald grasses. I sure didn’t know why I was being a sheriff in Doubtful when I could be out in this, riding the range for some outfit. We never know why we make choices, and I still didn’t know why I’d stuck with the sheriff job. I wasn’t even qualified for it. Judge Nippers had just reminded me I didn’t even know the law.
Critter and me, we rode into the yard at Ruble’s headquarters and sure enough, we was met by Rudy Beaver, a shotgun-toting old boy I knew a little. He was a bearded old coot, a real cowman and not a gun hawk. He was grimy, and water-eyed and I don’t think he’d washed for a year or so. He’d be the one to leave behind, looking after the place and the cows, making sure there was feed and water, and the dogs got fed, and the coyotes got shot, and lightning didn’t burn down the barn.
He hobbled my way, cradling a shotgun in his arm, and I settled down Critter and waited for Beaver to come closer. I didn’t know much about him, but I’d heard he had done some hard time somewhere long ago, and was mean as horseshoe nails.
I was wearing my star, which caught the sun and made my visit official. He just hobbled up, with the muzzle of that scattergun pointing low, like it should. He seemed peaceable enough.
“Sheriff? You need something?” he asked. “You ain’t at the hanging?”
“That’s in two days,” I said. “No, I’m just looking around, and I’m hoping you’ll answer a few questions for me, since I just don’t know much of anything about this outfit.”
He nodded, sort of wary, and laid a gob of spit at Critter’s hooves.
“Your bunch is in town waiting for the hanging, and they’re behaving themselves, far as I know.”
“Far as you know,” he said, a wicked twinkle in his eyes.
I sort of thought I might like the old boy. “Your boss is living in Rosie’s. Half your crew’s in there too. That and the Last Chance Saloon.”
“Yeah, that’s him all right. He’s gotta have a woman every hour of every day. Me, I got weary of that about age thirty, and I’ve been happier ever since.”
“Crayfish likes some women more than others?”
The old boy grinned. “Yep.”
I waited a while. The old guy was happy to have someone to talk to. They’d left him alone on the place for days and he was feeling the itch to flap his gums a little. “He wants women that have never seen the inside of a church and don’t ever plan to,” he said.
“What doesn’t he like about church ladies, Rudy?”
The feller just wheezed. “You’re a dumb-ass, Sheriff,” he said.
“Is it true he rented a few and brought them out here?”
Rudy Beaver stared into space. “I didn’t hear what you said, so it never was asked,” he said.
“I heard that his man Rocco rented some gals and brought them here.”
Rudy, he worked up a gob and spat it into the clay. “You looking for something, Sheriff?”
“Yes, there’s four graves out there.” I pointed toward the lonely hills to the north. “They’re girls Rocco brought here. Girls that never returned. The madams were told the girls hopped a stagecoach to Denver.”
Rudy Beaver was turning real quiet.
“You know something about it,” I said. It wasn’t a question.
“I didn’t have a thing to do with it. You done, Sheriff?”
“No, not done. Until this is cleared up, everyone on the place is under suspicion, and that includes you.”
“How’d you find out about it?”
“How’d you know about it, Rudy?”
