"I thought maybe I'd ask him when he comes in," said Billy.
"I would," observed Riley. "That'll show you're interested in your
job. It'll please Simon, too. He'll think you've got his interests at
heart. After that shall I kick him out, or will you let Shotgun bite
him?"
For Simon Reelfoot was not well thought of by the more decent portion
of the community. Men that put money out at high interest and are
careless of their neighbors' property usually aren't. It was said of
him that he still had the first nickel that he ever earned. Certainly
he was not a generous person. Three women, at one time and another,
had been unlucky enough to marry him. Each wife died within two years
of her marriage--murdered by her husband. Not in such a way, however,
that the law could take its proper course and hang Simon by the neck
till he was dead. The murders were done in a perfectly legal manner
and all above-board--overwork and undernourishment. The two in
conjunction will kill anything that lives and breathes. So Simon, if
not a murderer, was at least an accomplice before and after the fact.
A cheerful creature, indeed. There were no children.
Something of all that Simon was and stood for passed through Riley
Wingo's mind as he stood with Riley at the window.
"He always keeps his horses in good condition," said Billy.
"He does--the skunk!" acquiesced Riley.
"Stop calling a honest citizen names," directed Shotgun Shillman. "Mr.
Reelfoot is an upright man. I don't believe he'd rob a child or steal
the pennies off a dead baby's eyes. I don't believe he would--if any
one was looking."
Simon Reelfoot rode up, tied his horse on the lee of the building--he
was always tender of his stock--and entered.
"Howdy," he said glumly. "Cold day."
"If you'd wear something besides that relic of the days of '61 you
wouldn't find it such a cold day," observed the straightforward Shotgun.
At which allusion to his ratty old blue army overcoat Simon's upper lip
lifted. It might almost be said that he snarled silently.
"Feller as poor as I am can't afford to buy buffalo coats," he declared
in the grumbling rumble so oddly at variance with his build. For he
was a little clean-shaven man, this Simon Reelfoot, with a hatchet face
and the watery peering eyes of the habitual drunkard.
"Yeah," he grumbled, staring from one to another of the three officers
with open disapproval. "I ain't got money to buy buffalo coats. I
have to work to earn my living, I do. I ain't got time to sit on my
hunkers around a hot stove come-day-go-day a-taking the county's money
for doing nothin'."
"Which will be just about all from you, Reelfoot," Billy Wingo
suggested sharply.
"Oh, you can't scare me," said Simon, shaking a lowering and dogged
head. "I say what I think, and if folks don't like it they know what
they can do."
"Of course, Reelfoot," pursued Billy, with his most pleasant smile,
"folks naturally know what they can do. But you don't guess now it
gives a feller any pleasure to squash every spider, caterpillar,
hoptoad or snail he runs across. And-- But I don't know that I ever
saw any snails in this part of the county. Suppose now we hold it down
to spiders, caterpillars and hoptoads. Yeah. Why kill 'em? Yeah
again. Why put the kibosh on you, Mr. Reelfoot, just because you make
me think of a hoptoad? You may be a bad old man. I dunno that I care.
But I don't like your company. Not a bit. You're a slimy old devil,
and you never wash. Therefore let's hear what your business is so you
can take it away with you in a hurry."
So saying Billy sat down, cocked his feet up on the table and regarded
Reelfoot gravely. Shillman and Tyler stood before the fireplace, their
legs spread, their hands in the their pockets and their faces
expressionless.
Simon Reelfoot's upper lip lifted in the same soundless snarl.
"I'll go when I please," he began, "and----"
"You're mistaken," contradicted Billy, taking out his watch and holding
it open in the palm of his hand. "Not to give it too a coarse a name,
you'll go when I please. Yep. If you haven't begun to state your
official business with the sheriff within forty-five seconds, out you
go, Mr. Reelfoot, out you go."
"You fellers are paid to see that the law is obeyed," growled Simon
Reelfoot. "You can't throw me out."
"'Round and 'round the mulberry bush,'" quoted Billy Wingo. "Reverse.
Try the other way for a change. You're getting dizzy."
"You make me sick, you fellers. Talk! Talk! Talk! That's all you
do. Talk alla time. All right, I will see if you're able to do
anything besides talk. Two of my cows have been shot and there's two
or three strangers baching it in that old shack of Cayler's on Mule
Creek. Cows are worth thirty dollars per right now, and I want you to
find out if them fellers beefed my cattle."
"Been over there yourself?"
"Sure I have. They wouldn't lemme get inside the door. Threw down on
me. Bad actors, them two lads."
"I thought you said there were three," said Billy Wingo.
"Two or three," snappily.
"Suspicions don't count for much," said Billy. "You know that,
Reelfoot. Have you any evidence against these men?"
"Sure I have," was the reply. "The bodies of my two cows and a plain
track of blood and moccasins to within a mile of the cabin."
"Did the trail stop there--within a mile?"
"Feller had a horse tied. He packed on the beef and rode himself. I
trailed the horse to the corral back of the cabin."
"Were you alone?"
"My friend Jack Faber was with me. He can back up everything I say."
"And you mean to tell me, Reelfoot, that you trailed this beef to the
Cayler cabin and then allowed the men inside to get the drop on you and
run you off?"
"They threw down first," Reelfoot insisted sullenly. "They got the
drop. What could we do?"
"I don't know," replied Billy Wingo dryly. "I wasn't there."
"Perhaps," put in the irrepressible Riley Tyler, "the parties of the
second part forgot their guns."
"A gun ain't much good when the other feller's got the drop," Simon
said sourly.
"The trick is," observed Billy, his manner that of one stating a newly
discovered fact, "the trick is, Reelfoot, to get the drop first."
Reelfoot gaped at him. Then his jaws closed with a click. But they
reopened immediately in violent speech. "What about my cows?" he
squalled. "What you gonna do about them cattle?"
"We can't unscramble any eggs for you, Reelfoot, not being magicians,
but maybe we can dump the rustlers for you. How will you have
them--shot or half-shot? Now, son, you shut up, close your trap,
swallow your tongue or something. Riley Tyler is the only one allowed
to swear around me. Where do you want to cool off--in here or out in a
snowdrift?"
Simon Reelfoot subsided into a chair. He produced a plug of tobacco
from one capacious bootleg, a clasp-knife from the other, snicked open
the claspknife and haggled off a generous chew.
Billy nodded approvingly. "That's better. Shotgun and I will be with
you in two minutes."
Simon Reelfoot glared out of the window. Billy Wingo, whose eyes, for
all their casualness, had not strayed from Simon for a minute, had not
overlooked the pucker of worry that had appeared between Simon's chin
and straggly eyebrows at the mention of the two minutes. With folk
like Simon it is always well to proceed with caution, to learn the real
reason, not the apparent one at the bottom of every move. Quite so.
Why was Simon worried?
Simon's gaze returned from the world without. It skimmed across Billy
Wingo, dodged around both Shillman and Tyler, and dropped to the floor,
where it fastened upon and clung to the nobbly tips of the Reelfoot
boots.
"I don't guess there's any tearing rush," he mumbled.
Strangely enough or rather naturally enough, Billy experienced no
surprise at the remark. "No hurry, huh?" he observed. "A minute ago
you were in a hot sweat to have us do something right away quick. And
now you ain't. What has changed you, Mr. Reelfoot? I ask to know."
"I want the job done right," was the lame explanation. "If you hustle
off too sudden you might forget something."
"What do you think we're liable to forget?" queried Billy.
"How do I know what? But I know it don't pay to go off half-cocked."
Again Simon Reelfoot's eyes strayed to the window. When the eyes
swiveled back to meet those of Billy Wingo, the pucker of worry had
been wiped from Reelfoot's eyebrows.
"No," he resumed, in a tone that was unmistakably relieved, "it don't
pay to go off half-cocked."
"No, it don't," concurred Billy, wondering greatly, both at the change
in Simon's expression and the relief in his tone. Why? He desired to
know why. And he made up his mind to know why. For among his other
vices, Simon was friendly with Rafe Tuckleton and his precious gang.
Billy Wingo, shoving cartridges through the loading-gate of a
Winchester, slouched casually past the window through which Simon was
looking. He perceived, kicking his way through the snow, Mr. Tom
Driver, the local Justice of the Peace. There was no one else in sight.
"Lordy, how the snow dazzles your eyes," remarked Billy, stepping back
and squinting. "Is that Tom Driver coming here?"
"Where?" inquired Simon Reelfoot, and looked through the wrong window.
Yet when Simon had glanced through the other window a moment before, he
must have seen the judge. Hum-m! Billy Wingo continued thoughtfully
to shove cartridges through the loading-gate.
Entered the judge. "Good morning, gentlemen!" was the judicial
greeting. The judicial eyes absorbed the sheriff's preparations.
"You're not going anywhere, are you, Bill?" he inquired, hooking a
chair up to the table and sitting down after he had hung up his hat and
coat behind the door.
"Reelfoot's had two cows shot," explained Billy. "He thinks he knows
who did it. Shotgun and I are going to see about it."
"Only two cows," said the judge. "Then your presence isn't absolutely
necessary. You can send Riley Tyler instead. I have a little business
to go over with you, Bill--a county matter. And----"
"Is it important?"
"I think it is."
"All right. I'll stay. Riley, I guess you'd better go with Shotgun."
It was pure chance that enabled Billy to catch the gleam of
satisfaction in Reelfoot's eyes. He had just happened to be looking at
the man. Satisfaction, yes. Why? Why was Simon glad chat he, Billy
Wingo, was not going with him on the trail of the beef-killers?
When Shotgun and Riley were gone away with Reelfoot, Billy looked
across at the judge and nodded.
"Fly at it," said he.
Without haste the judge fished some papers from his pocket and opened
them on the table. He did it awkwardly. His fingers might have been
all thumbs. He seemed to have difficulty in finding the paper he
wanted.
Billy Wingo, his eyes drowsy-looking, watched silently. "What's it all
about?" he asked curiously.
"Jake Kilroe," replied Judge Driver. "He's been selling liquor to the
Indians."
"He always has."
"I know he has. And it's a disgrace to the community. It's got to
stop."
Billy stared at the judge even more curiously. For this high and moral
tone he did not understand at all. It was not like the judge. It was
not in the least like the judge. No, not at all.
"Stopping liquor-selling to the war-whoops is none of my job," pointed
out Billy Wingo, "the man you want to see is Henry Black, the United
States Marshal at Hillsville. Besides, what have you got to do with
it, anyway? You're not a Federal judge?"
"But the Federal authorities have ordered me to cooperate with them,"
the judge said smoothly.
"Which one asked you?" probed Billy Wingo.
"The second deputy."
"Slim Chalmers, huh? When did you see Slim Chalmers?"
"Day before yesterday."
"Here?"
"No, over at Hillsville."
"I didn't know you'd been out of town," Billy Wingo burrowed along.
"Just got back this morning."
"No trouble getting through?"
"Not a bit. This chinook has thawed the drifts."
"Did you go by stage?"
"No, I rode."
The judge was answering these apparently most unnecessary questions
without a quiver or trace of annoyance. Billy made another cast.
"Did you ride your gray horse?"
"No, the black."
"I hope you wore a coat." The gravity of Billy's tone could not have
been bettered.
"An overcoat?" smiled Judge Driver. "Naturally."
"That's good, that's good. I like to see you looking after your health
thisaway. You'd be a valuable citizen to lose, Judge. I dunno what
we'd do without you. I don't indeed."
What had gone before had been bad enough in all conscience. But this
was even worse. Yet the judge took no offense. He merely smiled
blandly upon Billy Wingo and proffered the latter gentleman his cigar
case. Billy declined with thanks. Whereupon the judge drew a long and
very black cigar from the case and bit off the end.
"It's funny I didn't meet you in Hillsville," mused Billy, turning his
head as if to look at the stove but in reality looking at a mirror
hanging on the wall beside the stove that showed on its face an
excellent reflection of Judge Driver's features.
As he expected, the judge gave him a quick sharp glance, but what he
had not expected was the demoniac expression of hatred that flashed
across the judge's face as summer lightning flashes across the face of
a dark cloud.
Billy Wingo turned a slow head. His eyes met those of the judge
squarely. Gone was the expression of hatred. In its place was one of
courteous regret,--regret that he had been so unfortunate as to miss
his friend Sheriff Wingo in Hillsville.
Billy nodded indifferently. "That's all right. I wasn't in
Hillsville. My mistake. Sorry."
The judge stared in frowning puzzlement.
It was at this juncture that the door opened and Skinny Shindle
entered. He greeted the two men surlily and laid a note on the desk in
front of Billy.
"I stopped at Walton's on my way back from Hillsville," said Shindle,
"and Tom's niece gimme this. She said I was to be sure and give it to
you soon as I could. Seemed worried like, I should say."
"When did she give you the note," Billy inquired casually.
"When I stopped there for a drink. I was only there about five
minutes."
"When was that?"
"Oh, round half-past two."
"And you came straight here?"
"Sure I did. You don't think I was gonna stop anywhere a day like
this, do you?"
Without another word Shindle pulled his fur cap forward, turned and
walked out. He closed the door with a slam that shook the building.
Billy Wingo opened the note.