“I don’t want to get sworn in, Horace. I want to go to Salinas.”
“You don’t have any choice, Julius. I’ll have to arrest you if you don’t get your goddam hand up.”
Julius reluctantly put up his hand and disgustedly repeated the oath. “And that’s what I get for keeping you company,” he said. “My father will skin me alive. All right, what do we do now?”
Horace said, “I’m going to run to papa. I need the sheriff. I’d take Trask in but I don’t want to move him. You’ve got to stay, Julius. I’m sorry. Have you got a gun?”
“Hell, no.”
“Well, take this one, and take my star.” He unpinned it from his shirt and held it out.
“How long do you think you’ll be gone?”
“Not any longer than I can help. Did you ever see Mrs. Trask, Julius?”
“No, I didn’t.”
“Neither did I. And I’ve got to tell the sheriff that Trask doesn’t know her name or anything. And she’s not very big and she is beautiful. That’s one hell of a description! I think I’ll resign before I tell the sheriff, because he’s sure as hell going to fire me afterward. Do you think he killed her?”
“How the hell do I know?”
“Don’t get mad.”
Julius picked up the gun and put the cartridges back in the cylinder and balanced it in his hand. “You want an idea, Horace?”
“Don’t it look like I need one?”
“Well, Sam Hamilton knew her—he took the babies, Rabbit says. And Mrs. Hamilton took care of her. Why don’t you ride out there on your way and find out what she really looked like.”
“I think maybe you better keep that star,” said Horace. “That’s good. I’ll get going.”
“You want me to look around?”
“I want you just to see that he doesn’t get away—or hurt himself. Understand? Take care of yourself.”
2
About midnight Horace got on a freight train in King City. He sat up in the cab with the engineer, and he was in Salinas the first thing in the morning. Salinas was the county seat, and it was a fast-growing town. Its population was due to cross the two thousand mark any time. It was the biggest town between San Jose and San Luis Obispo, and everyone felt that a brilliant future was in store for it.
Horace walked up from the Southern Pacific Depot and stopped in the Chop House for breakfast. He didn’t want to get the sheriff out so early and rouse ill will when it wasn’t necessary. In the Chop House he ran into young Will Hamilton, looking pretty prosperous in a salt-and-pepper business suit.
Horace sat down at the table with him. “How are you, Will?”
“Oh, pretty good.”
“Up here on business?”
“Well, yes, I do have a little deal on.”
“You might let me in on something sometime.” Horace felt strange talking like this to such a young man, but Will Hamilton had an aura of success about him. Everybody knew he was going to be a very influential man in the county. Some people exude their futures, good or bad.
“I’ll do that, Horace. I thought the ranch took all your time.”
“I could be persuaded to rent it if anything turned up.”
Will leaned over the table. “You know, Horace, our part of the county has been pretty much left out. Did you ever think of running for office?”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, you’re a deputy—did you ever think of running for sheriff?”
“Why, no, I didn’t.”
“Well, you think about it. Just keep it under your hat. I’ll look you up in a couple of weeks and we’ll talk about it. But keep it under your hat.”
“I’ll certainly do that, Will. But we’ve got an awful good sheriff.”
“I know. That’s got nothing to do with it. King City hasn’t got a single county officer—you see?”
“I see. I’ll think about it. Oh, by the way, I stopped by and saw your father and mother yesterday.”
Will’s face lighted up. “You did? How were they?”
“Just fine. You know, your father is a real comical genius.”
Will chuckled. “He made us laugh all the time we were growing up.”
“But he’s a smart man too, Will. He showed me a new kind of windmill he’s invented—goddamnedest thing you ever saw.”
“Oh, Lord,” said Will, “here come the patent attorneys again!”
“But this is good,” said Horace.
“They’re all good. And the only people who make any money are the patent lawyers. Drives my mother crazy.”
“I guess you’ve got a point there.”
Will said, “The only way to make any money is to sell something somebody else makes.”
“You’ve got a point there, Will, but this is the goddamnedest windmill you ever saw.”
“He took you in, did he, Horace?”
“I guess he did. But you wouldn’t want him to change, would you?”
“Oh, Lord, no!” said Will. “You think about what I said.”
“All right.”
“And keep it under your hat,” said Will.
The sheriff’s job was not an easy one, and that county which, out of the grab bag of popular elections, pulled a good sheriff was lucky. It was a complicated position. The obvious duties of the sheriff—enforcing the law and keeping the peace—were far from the most important ones. It was true that the sheriff represented armed force in the county, but in a community seething with individuals a harsh or stupid sheriff did not last long. There were water rights, boundary disputes, astray arguments, domestic relations, paternity matters—all to be settled without force of arms. Only when everything else failed did a good sheriff make an arrest. The best sheriff was not the best fighter but the best diplomat. And Monterey County had a good one. He had a brilliant gift for minding his own business.
Horace went into the sheriff’s office in the old county jail about ten minutes after nine. The sheriff shook hands and discussed the weather and the crops until Horace was ready to get down to business.
“Well, sir,” Horace said finally, “I had to come up to get your advice.” And he told his story in great detail—what everybody had said and how they looked and what time it was—everything.
After a few moments the sheriff closed his eyes and laced his fingers together. He punctuated the account occasionally by opening his eyes, but he made no comment.
“Well, there I was on a limb,” Horace said. “I couldn’t find out what happened. I couldn’t even find out what the woman looked like. It was Julius Euskadi got the idea I should go to see Sam Hamilton.”
The sheriff stirred, crossed his legs, and inspected the job. “You think he killed her.”
“Well, I did. But Mr. Hamilton kind of talked me out of it. He says Trask hasn’t got it in him to kill anybody.”
“Everybody’s got it in him,” the sheriff said. “You just find his trigger and anybody will go off.”
“Mr. Hamilton told me some funny things about her. You know, when he was taking her babies she bit him on the hand. You ought to see that hand, like a wolf got him.”
“Did Sam give you a description?”
“He did, and his wife did.” Horace took a piece of paper from his pocket and read a detailed description of Cathy. Between the two of them the Hamiltons knew pretty much everything physical there was to know about Cathy.
When Horace finished the sheriff sighed. “They both agreed about the scar?”
“Yes, they did. And both of them remarked about how sometimes it was darker than other times.”
The sheriff closed his eyes again and leaned back in his chair. Suddenly he straightened up, opened a drawer of his rolltop desk, and took out a pint of whisky. “Have a drink,” he said.
“Don’t mind if I do. Here’s looking at you.” Horace wiped his mouth and handed back the pint. “Got any ideas?” he asked.
The sheriff took three big swallows of whisky, corked the pint, and put it back in the drawer before he replied. “We’ve got a pretty well-run county,” he said. “I get along with the constables, give them a hand when they need it, and they help me out when I need it. You take a town growing like Salinas, and strangers in and out all the time—we could have trouble if we didn’t watch it pretty close. My office gets along fine with the local people.” He looked Horace in the eye. “Don’t get restless. I’m not making a speech. I just want to tell you how it is. We don’t drive people. We’ve got to live with them.”
“Did I do something wrong?”
“No, you didn’t, Horace. You did just right. If you hadn’t come to town or if you had brought Mr. Trask in, we’d of been in one hell of a mess. Now hold on. I’m going to tell you—”