Sheriff J.R. Merritt studied the map for a moment and said. “Oh, I maybe got an idea.” He looked up and grinned from one to the other of them. “But it aint worth spit if they already gone, is it? Let’s wait and see are they still around.”
Rhonda’s was a small cafe off the Dixie Highway a half-mile north of Vero. They sat at a large corner table and ordered coffee and two buckets of fried oysters. They ate without conversation until Merritt said. “You know, boys, grateful as I am to Sheriff Baker for the chance to nab this bunch myself, I cant help but wonder how come he didnt come along with you all. I always heard he had a special dislike for that whole Ashley family and for John in particular. I mean, you’d think he’d make special sure to be in one this.”
The Palm Beach deputies looked sidelong at each other as if each would have one of the other answer the question. Though they had not spoken of it among themselves they had all wondered the same thing. Then Elmer Padgett said, “He had to go see about his family. Tracey said Ashley was goin out to his house. He had to go see if they all right. It’s only natural.”
“Well you right about that,” Merritt said. He scratched his ear contemplatively. “I guess if he sees his wife and kids are all right, he’ll be along, wont he? I mean, he aint about to miss out on takin down about the worst bandit we ever had in this part of the state, is he? Especially one that sends him a bullet and says he’s got another one with his name on it.”
The Palm Beach deputies looked at him.
“Oh yeah, I heard that story,” Merritt said. He blew on his coffee and took a sip. “You know, it’s somethin else I’ve long heard. I aint never believed it for a minute, you understand, but still, I always heard Bobby Baker’s always been just a little, well…scared of John Ashley. They say it’s been that way since they was pups. Now boys, just between us, why you figure anybody’d say such a thing about Sheriff Bob?”
“Well, sheriff, all I can tell you for certain sure is Bob Baker aint afraid of any man alive,” Henry Stubbs said. “I can tell you that sure as I’m sittin here.” The other Palm Beach deputies nodded.
“Some people seem to just naturally prefer a lie to the truth of a thing,” Elmer Padgett said. “Who can say why? Lie’s just more excitin for em, I guess.”
Merritt chuckled in the manner of one responding politely to a awkwardly told joke. “I guess,” he said.
And then Deputy Jones was coming through the front door and spied them and came over and took a chair at the table. He looked at their expectant faces each in turn and without expression said, “They aint at Lillis’s.”
The Palm Beach cops muttered curses and sagged in their chairs. Jones grinned to see their disappointment and then said, “They aint at Lillis’s but they still in town. They’re at Mel’s shootin pool.”
The Palm Beach deputies sat up and exchanged excited looks.
“You boys described them pretty good,” Jones said. “But I tell you what—they dont look the least bit worried somebody might be on their tail.”
Elmer looked at Merritt. “Can we take them there?”
Merritt shook his head. “Not unless I wanna risk shootin bystanders—and I dont.” He pulled out his map and spread it open on the table. “Here,” he said, pointing. “If they’re going north they have to cross here.”
The others leaned forward to see his finger at the mouth of the Sebastian River—where they all knew there was a bridge.
“Let’s get out there before they do,” Merritt said as he stood up.
Except for Hanford Mobley who was still a little sulky because John Ashley had prevented him from burning down Bob Baker’s house, they were in high spirits. John Ashley felt like a fresh new life was opening up to him.
They had gone out on Wayne’s boat early that morning and taken several dolphin just outside the Fort Pierce Inlet and then reeled in some trout on light tackle as they chugged back up the lagoon to the marina under a bright noon sun. They fileted the fish and took them to Lucy’s Kitchen up the street and lingered over a leisurely meal of fried filets and scrambled eggs, fried potatoes, grits and gravy, biscuits and coffee. They had then taken haircuts at Shorty O’Malley’s shop across the street and passed some time chatting with a few of the oldtimers in the local Liars Club who came together there every day to argue politics and tell stories of the old days and shake their heads over the abject state of the modern world. One of them made bold to ask John Ashley how he had managed to break out of state prison twice in one lifetime and John Ashley told him and they all listened raptly to his story. In days to come most of them would at first retell the tale almost exactly the way he told it, but after a time each man of them would begin to embroider it in his own fashion.
The gang had then repaired to Mel’s for a few games of pool and bottles of beer. The first games sparked such a fierce competition for the title of King of the Table that they set up an elaborate six-man playoff system. BY the time Marie Lillis banked the cue ball off the side rail to sink the eight in an opposite corner pocket and beat Ray Lynn for the championship, the windows of the hall had been dark for hours and they were all a little buzzed on beer. Marie beamed with delight as the men happily chided each other for having lost to a woman.
They took their leave of Wayne and Marie on the street in front of Mel’s and got into the Ford. Hanford Mobley, his spirits improved, tooted the klaxon and they drove off up the highway.
Twelve miles north of Vero was the hamlet of Sebastian and three miles farther on was the Saint Sebastian River and the flat wooden bridge that traversed it. The region was isolated and smelled of tidal marshes and rarely sounded of other than wind hissing in the cattails and seabirds squalling at their feed. The sound end of the bridge rested on the tip of a long and narrow spit of land where the highway was flanked to either side by high shrubs and clusters of pines.
The sun was still well about the horizon when the two police cars arrived at the bridge and cross over it and turned around and parked on either side of the road to face any traffic coming off the bridge from the south. For the rest of the afternoon they waited with guns out of sight but at the ready. A few cars came over the bridge but none conveyed the Ashley Gang. After a time Sheriff Merritt wondered aloud if John Ashley was simply taking his time about getting underway for Jacksonville or if he had decided to turn back south for some reason.
At sundown the sheriff told Elmer to move the Palm Beach car onto the bridge and he then positioned his own car across the foot of the bridge to block all passage at this end of it. He removed a heavy length of chain and two large flashlights from his car and handed them to Henry Stubbs and L. B. Thomas in the other vehicle and told Deputy Jones to stay with the St. Lucie car and tell any motorists who approached from the north that they would have to wait until morning to cross or they could press on by some inland route. He then got in the Palm Beach car with the others and they returned to the south end of the bridge and all got out except Elmer Padgett who was driving. They removed the chain and flashlights from the car and Merritt told Elmer to drive back to Vero and borrow a red lantern from the train depot. “Another few minutes it’ll be dark enough so nobody’ll see it’s a cop car unless their lights shine on you,” the sheriff said. “Could be our boy’s gone back, but keep an eye open for him anyhow.”
Forty minutes later Elmer had the lantern and he followed the depot agent’s directions to Mel’s and as he went chugging by on the darkened street he saw them still in there shooting pool and drinking beer and laughing. He wheeled around and headed back for the river and then thought Sheriff Bob must be wondering what they were up to and so stopped at Rhonda’s Cafe and asked the use of the telephone to call his headquarters in Palm Beach County. When the desk clerk said the sheriff was at home, Elmer gave him a message to relay to him, couching it in sufficiently cryptic terms to keep the cafe eavesdroppers from knowing what was going on. Then he went back to rejoin the others at the bridge.
As they drove past the few scattered buildings that composed Sebastian, Clarence Middleton was telling about a duck who went into a speakeasy and asked the bartender if he had any fudge. “Barkeep says, ‘
A Dodge sedan turned onto the highway directly in front of them from an intersecting dirt road and Hanford Mobley applied the brakes hard and the Ford stalled. Beside him John Ashley bumped his head hard on the windshield and behind him Clarence Middleton and Ray Lynn were thrown against the front seats.
“Bastard!” Hanford Mobley shouted and the only two people on the street looked at him. The Dodge sped away without even slowing. “Let’s catch him and whip his ass!” The Dodge went out of sight around a bend in the
