“Sheriff, ’tis quite a way you have o’ recruiting someone. If you are for thinking that I can nae do anything, why is it that you want to appoint me?”
“Because there’s something about all that’s going on around here now that doesn’t ring true. It’s going to take someone with a lot of courage, fortitude, intelligence, and good common sense to get to the bottom of it, ’n you have ever’ one of those attributes. Fact is, I’ve never met anyone in my life who has more of those virtues than you do. Will you take the appointment?”
Duff took a swallow of his coffee before he responded. “Aye, Sheriff, I’ll be your deputy, if you’ll be for granting me a concession.”
“What would that be?”
“I would be for wanting Elmer and Wang to be deputies as well.”
A broad smile spread across the sheriff’s face. “Consider it done,” he said.
“Perhaps we could start with the killing of Knox,” Duff said.
“You’re talking about how he was killed?”
“Aye. Elmer told me he had spoken with Welsh about the condition of Knox’s body.”
“The back of his head was bashed in, and he had been shot twice in the back,” Sheriff Sharpie said. “Yes, I know about it. I examined both bodies.”
Sheriff Sharpie got up from his desk and walked over to a filing cabinet where he opened a drawer, then took out a paper and showed it to Duff.
WANTED
for MURDER
(DEAD or ALIVE)
ELWOOD (“HARD”) KNOX
—Reward: $1, 000—
CONTACT: Sheriff Tate (Bent County, Colorado)
“Because of the dead-or-alive provision of this dodger, it doesn’t make any difference how Knox was killed.” After Duff looked at the reward poster, Sheriff Sharpie returned it to the file cabinet.
“I’ve informed Sheriff Tate that Knox has been killed, but I also told him it was by an officer of the law.” He slammed the file cabinet drawer shut. “At least the back-shooting son of a bitch won’t be able to collect on it.”
Chapter Twenty-eight
“You wanted to see me, Mr. Gleason?” Steve Emerson asked. Emerson was a grizzled old cowboy who had been working at Sky Meadow from the very year the ranch was started.
“Yeah,” Elmer replied. He handed Emerson a cloth bag. “They’s a side o’ bacon in here, some beans, cornmeal, flour, coffee, ’n sugar. How ’bout ridin’ over to Percy’s place ’n give this to Kirk? He’s watchin’ out for it till Percy gets back.”
“Woowee damn! With this much food, ole Sam’s goin’ to get fat ’n lazy. He won’t be worth nothing when he comes back,” Emerson teased.
“Yeah, well, we can’t have him eatin’ up all of Percy’s provisions, now, can we? I figure he ’n his new bride will more ’n likely be comin’ back home within another week.”
“It’s about time he married that girl. He was moonin’ over her even when he was workin’ over here, before he ever started his own spread,” Emerson said.
“Well, you goin’ to take that bag to ’im, or not?” Elmer asked, though his smile ameliorated the words.
“I’m goin’, I’m goin’, but I’ll tell you this, I sure hope I don’t never get as cranky as you are when I get your age.”
“Now, seein’ as you’re already older ’n me, how the hell are you goin’ to get my age, lessen you can turn aroun’ ’n start goin’ backward?” Elmer asked with a laugh.
Emerson took the cloth bag, saddled his horse, tied the bag to the saddle horn, then took the easy, four-mile ride over to Percy Gaines’s ranch.
Emerson and Percy had been friends when Percy worked for Sky Meadow, and because of that Emerson had been to Percy’s ranch several times. Emerson was a good chess player, and he taught Percy the game. They played chess when he visited, and Percy welcomed him because running a one-man operation could get very lonely.
“What do you think, Harry?” Emerson asked his horse. “After Percy ’n his new bride get back, do you reckon he’ll still be willin’ to play chess with an old man like me?”
The horse whickered, as if responding to Emerson’s question.
“Yeah, that’s pretty much what I was thinkin’, too,” Emerson said, with a little chuckle.
Percy looked out into the pasture to see how Percy’s herd was doing. To his surprise, the herd wasn’t there, not one cow.
“Well, now, just what do you reckon happened to all of Percy’s cows?” he asked aloud. “Where’d Sam move them to? Percy don’t have that much pasture to move ’em around. The grass ain’t been over et here, ’n water is good so why would he move them?”
That would be the first thing he would ask Sam, though he knew Sam was an energetic sort, and he may have moved the cows around, just to have something to do.
“What the hell?” Emerson said when he crested a little rise that would afford him the first view of the house.
What he saw wasn’t the house he knew so well, and had, in fact, helped Percy build. What he saw was a pile of blackened timbers where the house had once stood.
“Sam?” he called. “Sam, are you here, anywhere?”
The air was redolent with the odor of burnt wood, and Emerson dismounted, then walked up to look at it. It took but a cursory examination of what had been the house to see that there was nothing that could be salvaged.
“Damn,” Emerson said aloud. “How the hell did this happen? And how come Sam didn’t come tell us about it?”
Emerson’s question was answered when he looked toward the barn and saw what he hadn’t seen before. There was a body lying on the ground next to the watering trough, and even from here, Emerson could tell that it was Sam Kirk. He moved quickly to investigate. What was left of the top of Sam’s head was lying in the dirt in a pool of blood and
