This story required careful observation of Wayne Maunder in action, and involved repeated viewings of this episode, and others. We didn’t mind. ? We offer it in appreciation of the work that WM did in bringing the character of Scott Lancer to life.
A transcript of the episode can be found on this site
“CONVINCING SHERIFF CUTLER”
PART ONE
Finding the streets of Live Oak, California, teeming with people was not a common occurrence, but the annual Fourth of July social could be counted on to pull in all the nearby ranchers and farmers from miles around.
This fine summer morning, wagonloads of families and ranch hands had begun trickling in shortly after sunup. The bathhouse had filled with the more sober-minded men, in to polish off the latest accumulation of California grit. They’d go on to Elias’ barbershop for a good shave with a sharp razor, a hair trimming and a splash of that Hungary Water Elias claimed no woman could resist. Meanwhile, over at the saloon, the rowdier ranch hands had started their celebration early.
Round the hotel and on the front porch of Miz Dickey’s rooming house, young ladies, in town for the day, passed and paused, turning their colorful parasols over their shoulders and clutching up the flowery skirts of their best summer gowns to keep the hems out of the dust. Their mothers and grandmothers had gathered in the ladies’ parlor at the hotel or in Miz Dickey’s best sitting room, where they would be sipping lemonade sweetened with gossip.
When things were slow over at the café, Miz Dickey’s sister, Sadie, helped out at the rooming house, but today the café was already crowded with newly arrived farmers looking for something to tide them over till the picnic started.
The men from town were already at work under the trees along the creek, barbecuing sides of beef under the watchful eyes of some of the older ranchers. Others, like Elias, were fully occupied with the trade the visitors brought in. Their wives and daughters would be at home, making potato salad, icing cakes and baking biscuits.
An imaginative man could have pictured the coming feast as he strolled down the main thoroughfare. Sheriff’s Deputy Lemuel Sparks was not especially imaginative, although he was momentarily distracted by a sky blue parasol bobbing above a trim form, dressed all in white. He kept the young lady in sight for half a block or so, hoping for a glimpse of the face shaded by the parasol, but when the object of his interest disappeared up the hotel steps, Lem straightened and turned his watchful eyes back to the passing scene.
It was a big day for Live Oak, and Lem was there to make sure nothing spoiled it.
Thieves preyed on crowds like this one. Unruly tempers and too much alcohol could lead to violence. And you never knew when some more calculating criminal might try to take advantage of the holiday distractions for a more desperate act. With the thought, Lem’s hands went to his gun belt, unobtrusively adjusting his pistol’s weight for ease of reach.
Lem stopped a moment on the sidewalk in front of the barbershop. Elias and his man had customers lined up out front, some in the mismatched chairs Elias kept there, the less fortunate lounging about, waiting for a vacant chair and, eventually, a turn inside. Someone had set up a shell game to entertain the men — and pick up some pocket change. Lem thought he recognized the showman from the fair last fall.
A shell game was a game of chance like any of the ones that might be played in the saloon. And as with those, the “dealer” might try to tilt the odds in his favor. Lem watched his hands shift the walnut shells about on his one-legged table. If the man was playing tricks with the pip, Lem couldn’t detect it. He glanced up at the faces of the men watching the action. No dissatisfaction there. Lem had learned from Sheriff Cutler that you couldn’t trust a man’s face too much, but these men, he knew. If they thought they were being had, they wouldn’t make no secret of it.
He turned his eyes back to the game, wondering now where the pip really was and how you could lose sight of the right shell so easily. How long he stood and watched, he wasn’t sure, but he caught himself before anyone noticed. With some embarrassment, he wondered if his face had shown his honest bafflement.
Recalled to duty, he looked at the crowd of onlookers again. One of the faces now caught Lem’s interest. Not a local, still the man looked oddly familiar, although there wasn’t much to distinguish him. Burly, with a gristly stubble that would benefit from Elias’ attention, the man was pretty average in other respects. He could have done with a stop at the bathhouse before coming to Elias. While the other men had their eyes on the shell game, this one was looking through Elias’ window. Maybe a chair was about to be vacated. Or maybe he was waiting on a friend. . . .Even as Lem was thinking this, the man shrank back from the window.
In one instant, Elias’ big window shattered and a dark form hurtled through to land almost at Lem’s feet, stunned. The crowd on the sidewalk scattered, getting clear of trouble.
Lem was no fast-draw artist, but he had his pistol out before the second man came through the window. A tall, broad-shouldered man in fringed buckskins, he stepped through the window like it was a new door. This man, this man Lem recognized and his identity brought with it that of the other man who had looked in the window.
Lem firmed his grip on his Colt. The bounty hunter’s attention was all on the man who lay still at Lem’s feet and neither Lucas Thatcher nor his partner — what was that man’s name? — had noticed the deputy holding a gun on them. It had been five years since he saw them last, but Lem remembered.
“Get up, Ricketts. It’s a long way to Tucson.”
Tucson, Lem thought. Last time it was Denver.
“Now wait a minute.” That was Elias, scared and mad, too, speaking from the other side of the broken window. Flustered, his wispy hair unsettled, Elias clenched his fists in his white apron as he gaped for words to frame his shocked anger. They’d be good, hot ones when they came, Lem knew.
“Damnation, you fellas have broke my window and two bottles of bay rum. Do you know what that dad-blamed window glass cost? Don’t you move a step till we get this settled. Somebody owes me —“
“There’ll be plenty of money when we get this man to Tucson. We’ll send you a bank note from there,” Lucas said. He took another step toward the prone man.
“Hold it right there,” Lem put in, hoping his voice sounded firm like Sheriff Cutler’s. The sheriff had told him time and again that he needed to be more forceful in asserting his authority. It was the way to get control of a situation. <<Sound like you’re in command and you will be.>> Now Lem wanted to stop Thatcher before he could get too close.
Thatcher looked up from his prey. Looked at Lem’s pistol, held rock steady with the forefinger on the trigger. Lucas Thatcher looked back at Lem’s face. He smiled, drew up to his full height, and took a long step closer.
Lem resisted the impulse to wave him back with the pistol — the kind of foolish move that gave a dangerous man an opportunity. “Don’t take another step,” Lem ordered, hoping his voice didn’t sound as ineffectual as Elias’ had, though he was uncomfortably aware that he had echoed the barber’s words.
Whether his words or his pistol would have stopped Thatcher, Lem would never know. Lucas Thatcher’s gaze slid from Lem to something behind him. A big grin split his face and the dark eyes gleamed with recognition. “Why howdy, Sheriff. Just the man we were looking for. Lucas Thatcher – and you remember my partner, Wade Hackett.”
As if the sheriff could have forgotten, Lem thought.
The big man had thrust out a hand for shaking. Cutler appeared not to see the outstretched hand and Lucas lowered it without changing his expression.
Before the bounty hunter could say more, Elias called attention back to himself. “Sheriff! Arrest these men! That feller there —” Elias jabbed the air with a shaking finger, but instead of finishing his sentence, he moved as if to step through his glassless window, as Lucas had done. Perhaps he realized it didn’t befit his dignity, for he drew himself up and took a couple of steps to the left to emerge from the door beside the gaping hole.
Though Lem had noticed Elias’ maneuvers, he was not sure that his boss had. Sheriff Cutler’s eyes were still on Lucas Thatcher. The man on the ground still hadn’t stirred.
“I told Mr. Barber here that we’d pay for the window, Sheriff — just as soon’s we collect on Ricketts. Now stay down, Ricketts, till I get ready for you.”
The groggy man on the ground had made no move to get up. He didn’t look likely to, either, without some help, so Lem figured Lucas was making one of his jokes.
“What brings you back to Live Oak, Mr. … Thatcher?”
Thatcher gestured at the man in the dirt. “Ed Ricketts. Wanted in Tucson for holding up a stage.”
Cutler’s expression didn’t change. “You have a wanted poster, too.” It wasn’t a question, Lem realized.
Thatcher’s grin widened. He fumbled inside his shirt for a worn and folded piece of paper, then passed it to the sheriff, whose face gave nothing away, so that even Lem didn’t know for sure how he felt about being confronted with the bounty hunters again, and another prisoner.
“This better be specific,” Cutler said.
The sheriff glanced at the creased sheet. Lem had crept close enough to see that there were only words, no drawing. Cutler handed the sheet back to the bounty hunter. “I need proof, Thatcher. Let’s take this to my office. Deputy, help the man up.”
Lem looked back down at the sprawling man, relieved to realize that he was not very large. Thatcher’s partner — Hackett, that was the name, wasn’t it? - dropped down from the planked sidewalk to help, but Lem had seized the man under the arms and hoisted him up before the bounty hunter could touch him. Prudently, Lem kept himself between the bounty hunter and his dazed prize. Ahead of him, Thatcher had matched his long strides to Cutler’s shorter ones. Lem could hear the bounty hunter’s emphatic voice explaining how long they had been following this one and how they knew they had the right man. That’s what he had claimed last time, too, Lem remembered. Lem had even believed him. If Sheriff Cutler hadn’t held out so long for proof ... well, that young fella would have died on the way to Denver.
Getting a shoulder under the arm of Thatcher’s quarry and a grip on his belt, Lem struggled off down the street with him. The other bounty hunter kept pace beside him, like he was afraid Lem might drop the fella somewhere and lose him. By the time they reached the sheriff’s office, the sheriff and Thatcher had finished with words. They faced each other across the office, but turned when Lem staggered through the door with his charge. Without being told, Lem guided the man to the empty cell. . . it was the same cell they’d put that Lancer fella in, he realized. When he had turned the key on the new prisoner — to protect him or the public, Lem wasn’t sure which — he faced the sheriff.
Cutler was looking at Thatcher again. “We have a telegraph office now.”
The bounty hunter grinned. “That’s right handy,” he said. “This shouldn’t take us long then.”
Cutler grunted. He looked for Lem. “Send a wire to the sheriff’s office in Tucson, Sparks. Ask for all the details you can get about their stage robber, name of Ricketts.”
“I might have a few things to add,” Thatcher said. “I can prove to them that I’ve got the right man.”
“Right now, you just have to prove it to me,” Cutler said shortly “And if you have a message to send, it will be on your nickel.” He looked back at Lem. “Wait for the answer.” Lem nodded and headed quickly to the door. When things started happening, a deputy didn’t get much chance to catch his breath in Live Oak.
Lem was more than a little uncertain about what the sheriff meant for him to do. Cutler had made it clear that he didn’t want Thatcher adding on to his official message. Lem suspected that the sheriff might also want to know about any message Thatcher sent. Maybe that was why he wanted Lem to stay at the telegraph office instead of having young Jim run the reply over to the jail. Just in case, Lem would make a point of finding out about any messages Thatcher sent. The telegrapher was his cousin, Riley.
Thatcher hadn’t come right out the door with Lem, but he caught up to the deputy before he reached the telegraph office. “You got a lot of good folks in town today, haven’t you, Deputy? Where’s the party?”
“It’s the Fourth of July,” Lem said, wondering if the bounty hunter kept up with such things. Thatcher’s grin told him he did. “There’s a town social.”
Whether Thatcher would have asked for more details, he didn’t know. He had to step back from the door of the telegraph office as one of the local ranchers came out. Tipping his hat to the man in passing, Lem went to the desk inside. Thatcher stood over his shoulder as Lem filled in the message blank. Lem hesitated with the pencil in hand. The words cost money and he wasn’t good at packing a few of them with plenty of facts. He made several starts and did some scratching out before he was satisfied. Conscious of Thatcher’s attention the whole time, Lem took care and eyed his words over several times to make sure he had done the best he could.
When Lem had finished and handed the blank over to Riley, he was tempted to ask Thatcher if he had any complaints. Thatcher only nodded, then said, “You’re wasting your time. He’s the man.”
Lem couldn’t resist pointing out, “That’s what you said last time.”
Thatcher frowned, then shrugged. “The little lady fooled us, I admit it. But we ain’t fooled this time, Deputy.”
Lem looked around for a chair. He was still new to this telegraphing business — they didn’t have much call for it — and had no idea how long it took a message to go over those wires clear to Tucson. He had a hard time believing it would go anywhere at all. There were no chairs on this side of the counter, but the window ledge was a nice deep one and just the right height. He sank down on it, straightening his legs in front of him.
Riley looked up from reading Lem’s message. “Jim can bring you the answer when it comes in,” he said. “He’s out delivering a message now, but he’ll be back soon.”
“Sheriff said to wait,” Lem said.
Riley turned to Thatcher. “You want to send a telegram, Mister?”
Thatcher looked at Lem’s message, still in Riley’s hand. He smiled. “No thanks. I reckon that about covers it.” He had reached the door before he turned back to Lem on his windowsill perch. “Strangers welcome at this barbecue?”
“Nobody’s a stranger on the Fourth of July,” Lem said, honestly surprised at his asking. When Thatcher disappeared through the door, Lem could see beyond him a couple of young ladies, one with a blue parasol, the other with a big pink ribbon in her chestnut hair. Thatcher’s retreating form blocked them from view.
Lem sighed, then settled down more comfortably and tried to think about what would happen next. Could proof come in a telegram from Tucson? It had been hard to come by, last time, with Lucas Thatcher and that Scott Lancer. It had been up to Sheriff Cutler to try to find out where the truth lay. The truth had been like the white pip in that shell game he had watched a little while ago — hiding under one of the identical shells. And all Sheriff Cutler could do to get at it was to demand some proof. Then pick a shell . . . But the sheriff never had liked to watch a shell game, let alone play one.
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Five years earlier:
“Now if you’ll just let us carry on with our business, Sheriff. . ..” Lucas said, like he just expected that Sheriff Cutler was ready to step aside and let him take the prisoner right then and there. The bounty hunter seemed pretty confident that he’d presented convincing evidence that the man sitting in the chair was in fact Jonas Barrett, Denver Bank Robber and Murderer.
That was one of the first things Lem Sparks had learned under Sheriff Cutler -- that a peace officer spends most near all his time listening to people trying to persuade him of something. Everybody has a story - how this fella was guilty, how they were innocent themselves, how something happened or how it didn't happen. But the Sheriff didn’t believe in stories, he wanted evidence, he wanted proof. Sheriff Cutler liked to have something he could hold in his hand, though he couldn’t always get it.
Well, Lucas Thatcher had shown him that “Wanted Poster”, and there was no question the prisoner fit the description, though like the Sheriff said, the poster alone didn’t prove that he was, didn’t prove that he wasn’t.
But added to that, the man hadn’t been too anxious to answer the Sheriff’s question about where he’d been a year ago. It was no surprise when he claimed he’d been “Back East”, and said he’d never been to Denver. And, of course, he’d also given another name than “Jonas Barrett,” just like Thatcher had said he would.
But the main thing was that the two bounty hunters had been following Jonas Barrett’s sister and said she’d been taking money to her brother. And instead of the billfold he’d pretended to be searching for, what the prisoner had tucked up inside his jacket was the envelope of money that Miss Julie Barrett had given him. It just didn’t make any sense that Miss Barrett would have handed it over to a total stranger. And now Sheriff Cutler was standing there, holding that envelope.
But John Cutler had always been a fair man. “I said I’d hear him out,” he told Thatcher. Then he turned to the prisoner and said, “Go ahead.”
“Now my name is Scott Lancer,” the prisoner insisted. “My brother and I are on a cattle-buying trip and we’re just passing through this town.”
“Where’s your brother now?” Sheriff Cutler asked quickly.
“Over at the stage depot.”
The Sheriff glanced at Lucas. The prisoner gestured angrily. “Well, go on---look!”
Sheriff Cutler turned to Lem Sparks, sitting quiet and unnoticed in the far corner.
“See if there’s anyone there.”
Just as the Deputy reached the door, Lucas Thatcher tossed a warning. “Better be careful there, lad, there was more’n one man in on that robbery.”
Lem pulled up short at that, and shot a questioning glance at the Sheriff, who merely nodded. Resolved that he would indeed ‘be careful,’ Sparks exited the jail and headed with a determined step towards the stage depot.
Arriving at the depot office, Deputy Sparks cautiously opened the door and stuck his head inside. He glanced around at the empty counter, the unoccupied bench near the window. No one. Which was not unusual for this time of day. The noon stage had left some time ago and there wasn’t another one due in for a couple of hours yet.
“Clyde? Hey, Clyde, you back there?” Lem called out, even though he knew full well that the depot clerk was mostly likely over at the saloon having his usual late lunch. The dusty afternoon sunlight streamed through the large paned window. A good-sized fly buzzed lazily near the ceiling, before dropping down onto the wooden counter.
“Guess there ain’t anybody here.”
The fly started crawling in a businesslike manner across the bare countertop.
Lem stepped back out onto the sidewalk and stood in front of the depot for a minute, considering. Much as he’d like to head on back to the jail, hear what else the man who called himself “Scott Lancer” had to say, he figured Sheriff Cutler would be a lot happier to hear that he’d done a bit more investigating. Deciding that if anyone knew if there were any other strangers in town, it would be Clyde –--or Joe the barkeep, both over at the saloon, Lem set off across the rutted main street.
He tipped his hat to old Miz McHatten in front of the General Store and then had to stop to answer her questions about how his folks were doing. Of course, then it was only polite to inquire about Mr. McHatten and his wife had plenty to say about how poorly he was, the gout was acting up and he had arthritis something awful and finally Lem had to tell the little gray-haired woman that he was on “official business.”
“Oh, land’s sakes, Lemuel, why didn’t you say so?! Now don’t you let me keep you,” she added, patting his arm with a maternal air. “You just go right along now.”
“Thank you, ma’am. And you be sure an’ say ‘hello’ to Mr. McHatten for me now.”
“I will do that, I surely will,” she assured him. “Do tell your mother I look forward to seeing her on Sunday . . . Deputy,” Mrs. McHatten added with a twinkle, as she tucked her market basket in close and set off briskly down the wooden boardwalk.
Deputy Sparks tipped his hat once more, adjusted his vest with the shiny star pinned prominently on his chest and continued on to the saloon. Passing through the batwing doors, he nodded at Joe over behind the bar and then looked around the dim interior for Clyde. The depot clerk was nowhere to be seen. The deputy recognized a couple of old timers, George and Jesse Sawyer, sitting at one table nursing their beers. There was a younger, dark-haired stranger alone at a table over against the far wall. About the usual amount of business for this time of day.
Lem looked at the dark-haired man again. Nope, he didn’t look familiar at all. He didn’t look like the prisoner’s brother, either, he thought with a sigh.
“Anyone here named Lancer?” he asked the room half-heartedly.
Joe stopped wiping at the polished surface of the bar to give Lem a puzzled look, then the barkeep joined the Sawyer brothers in turning towards the young stranger seated by the wall.
Of course, Lem found himself staring in the same direction as well, so that meant that every eye in the place, all eight of ‘em, was fastened on the man in the brightly colored shirt. But it was Lem who felt uncomfortable, shifting his weight uneasily from one foot to the other a few times before he decided he might as well go. Just as Lem’s left hand reached out for the batwing, the stranger finally broke the afternoon silence.
“I’m Lancer,” he said softly. Then added, “Deputy.”
Lem dropped his hand as if the saloon door was hot to the touch. Anyone would know he was a lawman, the badge pinned to his chest announced that plainly. But how did this newcomer know he wasn’t the sheriff? Lem brought his right hand up to his waist, and rested it on his gun belt. He even pushed his chest out a bit, before he took a few steps further into the saloon.
“So, uh, . . . . you got a brother?”
Like the first one, that question hung in the air awhile. The other three men, the bartender and the grizzled geezers waited avidly, as if they had some kind of wager riding on the answer.
“Yeah, I got a brother.”
“Well . . . he’s over at the jail. . . . I expect you’d better come along with me.”
The man who said his name was Lancer smiled down into his beer, shaking his dark head a little. He scraped his chair back against the plank floor and stood up.
“It against the law in this town ta ask a woman to a dance?” he asked, looking around the room.
No one answered, they all just watched as the man wearing the pink shirt and low-slung gun belt took his time finishing off his beer, then sauntered towards the door.
Lem stood aside to let him pass by, but instead the stranger stopped and grinned over at the old timers.
“There’s an art to it, ya know, to handlin’ a woman. My brother, he’s real experienced.”
Then he walked out of the saloon, leaving the old men staring wide-eyed after him. Reminding himself that he was on official business, Lem nodded gravely at Joe and the Sawyer brothers and then squared his shoulders and pushed through the batwings. Once back out on the boardwalk, he had to move quickly to catch up with the man he was supposed to be escorting to the jail.
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PART TWO
There was a long silence as Sheriff John Cutler sat in his chair, studying the pieces of paper he held in his hands.
The dark haired young man from the saloon just stood calmly in front of the Sheriff, with his hands behind his back. Lucas Thatcher stood behind the Sheriff with his arms outstretched against the two support posts. Wade Hackett, the other bounty hunter, had made himself comfortable, sitting off to the side with his feet up on the spare desk.
“Well, what you’re sayin’ is he ain’t Jonas Barrett,” the Sheriff observed finally, gesturing with those papers towards the prisoner locked up in the cell. “But you got no way of provin’ it.”
John Cutler carefully folded up the papers and handed them back.
“All these prove is that you’re. . you’re supposed to be some fellow named Johnny Lancer and that’s got nothin’ to do with this."
Johnny Lancer accepted his papers. “He’s my brother, Sheriff, that’s all I can tell you. He is my brother.”
Even without seeing their faces, Lem could tell that neither the Sheriff and nor Lucas Thatcher was convinced.
But Johnny Lancer kept trying. He suggested that maybe they ought to send a wire to Denver and ask for more of a description of Jonas Barrett. But Sheriff Cutler explained that the telegraph wasn’t set to go through Live Oak until August.
Johnny Lancer didn’t act surprised to hear that. He didn’t offer to ride to the nearest telegraph office either. Lem noticed, since he figured if the Sheriff had thought it was something worth doing, then he, Lem, would be on his way to Loma.
Lucas Thatcher had had enough. “Sheriff, I’m really gettin’ impatient now!” he said loudly, glaring at Johnny Lancer. “I can’t tell you who that man is, but I can tell ya that he’s definitely involved.”
Thatcher put his arms down and walked around the stove, so he could look Sheriff Cutler in the face, trying to convince him.
“Now I don’t happen to have a wanted poster on ‘im, so that means that for right now he happens to be clear.”
Thatcher gave Johnny Lancer a look, then raised his voice up another notch and pointed at the prisoner. “But not him! He is not clear! I have presented you with plenty of evidence for us to take him with us right now!”
But Johnny Lancer wasn’t ready to back down. He spoke right up in a calm, quiet voice. “Will you just hold on a minute?”
And Lucas Thatcher actually clamped his mouth shut, and stood, hands on his hips, waiting.
“You know Murdoch Lancer, owns a spread about a hundred miles south of here?”
John Cutler repeated the name, but Lem couldn’t tell if the Sheriff recognized it or not. Lem didn’t.
“Well, he’s my old man, and his too, and he’ll be back in a couple days and I think he’s gonna be able to take care of everything. He’ll prove who we are.”
Before Lem had time to even think about that, Lucas Thatcher was trying to make his case with the Sheriff. “You’re gonna believe that, right, Sheriff? The man stands there and lies to ya!”
“Maybe!”
It wasn’t like Sheriff Cutler to raise his voice that way, and Lucas Thatcher wasn’t going to win himself any points acting all disgusted.
“Well, I don’t wanna make any mistakes about this,” the Sheriff informed the bounty hunter in a calmer voice. Then he turned to Johnny Lancer.
“All right,” he said, as he got up out of his chair. “Two days.”
He pointed a finger at Lancer’s chest. “But if I don’t get some proof in two days, I’m gonna turn him over to them.”
Everyone in the jail could tell that the Sheriff meant what he said. Lem nodded his approval, not that anyone noticed. The two very unhappy bounty hunters walked out, then Johnny Lancer handed the Sheriff his gun and asked if he could talk to his brother. Lancer headed over to the cell and the Sheriff sat down at his desk.
“Lemuel?”
“Yes, Sir, Sheriff?”
“You get all that?”
“Sure did, Sheriff . . . . Man’s got two days.”
“Not too much time when a man’s life is at stake.” The Sheriff had picked up his coffee cup and was cradling it with two hands, staring into it. Lem waited.
He waited while the Sheriff fished his handkerchief out of his pocket, then used it to protect his hand when he lifted the coffee pot off of the stove behind him. He waited while the Sheriff poured himself another cup of steaming hot coffee. Lem didn’t know for sure what he was waiting for, but he knew there was more. He knew Sheriff Cutler well enough for that.
“When I walked in on ‘em, over at the depot, the prisoner was lying on the floor, out cold. Hackett had a gun to his head.”
Lem nodded. After all, the prisoner was accused of robbing a bank, murdering a guard . . .
“Now I didn’t see “Dead or Alive” on that Wanted poster. Did you?”
Even though he could tell the Sheriff didn’t actually expect him to answer, Lem did anyway. “No, I didn’t Sheriff.” Which was the truth.
Well, Lem hadn’t actually been able to see the poster Sheriff Cutler had been holding in his hand, but he’d heard the Sheriff read it out loud, and he sure hadn’t said “Dead or Alive.”
“You think they were really gonna just kill ‘im? I mean, what about the bounty money?”
“Oh, well, they’d probably have had some convincing story for the people up in Denver, how Barrett was trying to escape and they had to put a bullet in him.”
There was an edge to the Sheriff’s voice, and knowing that John Cutler didn’t hold a high opinion of bounty hunters in general prompted Lem to put in his own two cents, and make a negative remark about them. But he saw his mistake almost before the words were out of his mouth. The Sheriff looked up at him with a closed off expression like he’d just been caught thinking out loud and wasn’t about to do any more of it.
“Well, now, Lemuel, they’ve got a job to do, same as we have.”
Lem nodded.
“Now why don’t you go take a look at the wanted posters, see if you can find any on those other men involved in that robbery. And then you and I’ll go talk to Clyde over at the depot. And Fred down at the livery. If this Miss Julie Barrett was really here in town, one or the both of them would’ve had to have seen her, coming or going.” There was a pause, and then the Sheriff added, “Those two too.” He indicated the two men talking quietly between the bars of the cell. “We’llfind out when they came in, and if there was anyone else with ‘em.”
Lem had hardly gotten the big stack of posters out of the drawer of the spare desk when the dark haired man with the brightly colored shirt and the low-slung gun belt, collected his weapon and headed towards the door.
“I’ll be back, Sheriff.”
Sheriff Cutler gave him a look. “No need, unless you have the proof.”
Johnny Lancer, who even Lem had noticed didn’t look like a rancher any more than he looked like the prisoner’s brother, left without saying anything more. Lem settled in at the desk with the stack of posters and Sheriff Cutler stood up very slowly and walked over towards the cell.
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The prisoner rose, holding onto the bars with both hands as the Sheriff approached.
The man gripped the bars of the cell the way that Lem had seen other new prisoners do, as if he might pull the bars up and set them aside at any minute. Lem quietly shifted his chair in the corner so that he could continue to look at the wanted posters while keeping an eye, as well as an ear, on the conversation about to begin.
"Look, Sheriff, my name is Scott Lancer. I’ve never robbed a bank. And I've never been to Denver."
Sheriff Cutler nodded, but didn't offer a response, just posed a question.
"So . . . where's he off to?"
"After the girl, Miss . . . Barrett. He'll bring her back so she can straighten this out. She’ll tell you I'm not her brother."
"That would be proof," Cutler acknowledged.
"He also said he might go after . . . Jonas." The challenge in those words was unmistakable.
"If he finds him, that would be proof."
"If he makes it back."
The tension in the prisoner's voice brought Lem's head up.
The Sheriff moved over to the pot-bellied stove without saying anything.
Lem turned back to the posters. He had stopped at one bearing a description of someone wanted for a killing in the Nevada territory. He found it hard to concentrate, curious to know what else the prisoner might say and how the sheriff would handle it. It took him a moment to realize that the Nevada poster had nothing to do with this case. He set it aside and reached for the next as Sheriff Cutler poured himself yet another cup of coffee.
"This -" the prisoner released the bars to gesture at the cell that surrounded him "is unnecessary."
"Could be," Cutler acknowledged. "But maybe not. I have to know for sure."
The prisoner twisted away impatiently, but before Cutler spoke again, he seemed to have put a rein on himself. He stood still, hands at his side now, the bars throwing shadows across his face.
“So he’s your brother.”
“That’s right.”
The prisoner sounded matter-of –fact, but Lem had his doubts. They sure didn’t look or sound anything alike.
Cutler sipped his coffee, savoring it silently for a moment. "That's a bold plan of your brother's, goin' after Jonas. A young man's plan."
The prisoner only looked at him.
"An older man would be more cautious. He'd go after the sure thing, instead of chasing after danger and risking failure."
"A sure thing?" The prisoner frowned.
"Your daddy," Cutler said. "Might get here sooner, if your brother went to meet him and hurry him along."
The prisoner must not have thought of that, Lem decided. Or there was no father.
“What’s your daddy’s name?”
“Murdoch Lancer.”
"What brought you here?"
"Just passing through, Sheriff."
"And you say you’re ranchers?"
"Yes, Sir."
"Where exactly?"
"South of here. Near Morro Coyo."
Lem had forgotten his posters, fascinated by the volley of questions and answers. The sheriff paused a little to frame each question, then asked it in his slow, careful voice. John Cutler's tone didn't give away any more than his face did, though Lem thought he heard something in the way he said "your brother" that showed the sheriff, too, had some doubts about the likelihood of that relationship.
There had been plenty of times that he'd heard the sheriff do this, asking questions. But usually he was trying to figure out who started a saloon fight, not identify a big city bank robber and murderer.
The way the sheriff told it, if you wanted proof, you never just flat out asked what you wanted to know. First you asked questions you already knew the answers to. You even asked things that didn't matter, or unexpected things, so long as you got the prisoner talking. Not that this one had opened up much. Sheriff Cutler pitched a question, the
prisoner tossed an answer right back.
"So you were at your daddy's ranch when this robbery took place?"
"A year ago? I told you, I was back East."
“Where?”
"In Boston. I was raised there.”
"That right? That brother of yours, he from Boston, too?"
"No. Johnny grew up out here. We’re half brothers.
“He’s younger?”
“That’s right.”
"How old is he?"
"I - I'm not sure. Twenty-one. Maybe twenty-two."
What kind of man didn't know how old his own brother was, Lem wondered. It was the first time the prisoner had faltered, and over such a simple thing. Even if they were only half brothers, he ought to know. Lem’s next thought was that it would have been easy enough to lie about it.
The prisoner's voice broke into Lem's musings, finally filling one of those silences that Sheriff Cutler left him.
"I didn’t know I had a brother until I came out here six months ago-- to meet my father."
Sheriff Cutler didn’t raise so much as an eyebrow at that. Not a gambling man, Lem didn’t even like the shell games vendors sometimes set up in the streets — but his boss would be a cool hand running one. That stony face of his never gave nothing away. The prisoner had his arms crossed over his chest and his head bowed. “It’s complicated, Sheriff.”
“You say you’re new here, but you had a pistol strapped around your hips.”
“A man seems to need a sidearm in these parts. I know how to use it.”
“That’s big talk, son — for an Easterner. You ever kill a man?”
The prisoner took his time answering that one. He had his shoulder to the bars now, leaning against them, still not looking directly at the sheriff. “I was in the War.”
Sheriff Cutler made a business of tossing the dregs of his coffee in the stove fire before asking, “Infantry?”
“Cavalry,” the prisoner replied.
Lem watched the two men size each other up for a long moment. Finally the sheriff turned away. “So you grew up back East. You’ve never been to Denver.”
“Not even on the train out,” the man said with a touch of sarcasm.
“But you can’t prove it.”
“No, Sheriff, I can’t prove it. Not today. Not to your satisfaction. So maybe I’ll have to tell my story to the judge in Denver.”
Cutler had almost reached the door, but he stopped and turned at that. “You don’t convince me you’re not Jonas Barrett, I’ll have to let those bounty hunters take you. If you’ve really never been to Denver before, then don’t count on seeing it now, not if you leave here with them.”
Then the sheriff shot a look at Lem that made the deputy squirm. “Let’s go, Deputy.”
Lem knew that tone of voice. He jumped up, glad to leave the wanted posters for a more active pursuit of the truth. He grabbed his hat, but stopped to look at the office and the prisoner before following the sheriff out, to make sure everything was secure.
The man still stood by the bars. One arm rested on the crossbar. One hand dangled out between the bars. Lem had seen that before, too, when he had assisted a U.S. Marshal in delivering a man to the prison in Yuma. The long-timers there had done that — hung around the bars, to get something out into the free air, a hand, a toe, a whole arm, sometimes, reaching into the corridor or, at a window, reaching for the light.
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Out on the sidewalk, Sheriff Cutler waited impatiently for Lem to close the door.
“While you talk to Clyde,” he said, “I’m going to look in at Boney’s stable. He’s closer to the stage office. I’ll meet you at Fred’s.”
Lem nodded. The sheriff had a point. Most folks who lived hereabouts or came through regularly used Fred’s livery stable because his rates were cheaper. But Mr. Boney was closer to the depot and stabled his animals better than Fred did. If there really was a Murdoch Lancer and he really was a big rancher, he’d likely have preferred Mr. Boney to look after his mount.
Lem trailed after the sheriff, thinking this would be the second time today that he’d set out looking for Clyde. No doubt about where he was this time, though. There he stood on the sidewalk, arguing with Mr. Dyer about a big wooden box that rested on the planks between them. Clyde stood in front of the depot door, clearly determined not to let that box come through.
“Eb Dyer, you know that’s too big and too heavy for the stage. You know what the regulations are good as I do. You gonna have to get a drayman to take it to Sacramento and put it on the train there.”
“It’s just one box, Clyde.”
“Sorry, Eb, but this can’t go.”
Eb wasn’t any too happy about that, thrashing his hat against h is thigh, but he didn’t kick up too much of a fuss. Lemuel figured he’d just hoped to catch Clyde napping.
“You need me, Deputy?” Clyde asked when Lem stepped up onto the plank walk.
Lem nodded. “I’d like to have a word with you, if you’re through here.”
Clyde sort of shrugged at Eb like he was sorry he couldn’t help him right then, and Lem followed him into the depot, figuring Clyde owed him one.
“What can I do for you, Deputy Sparks?” Clyde asked when he had shut the door on Eb Dyer.
“Tell me about the folks that left on the stage this morning.”
Clyde’s eyes lit up with interest and Lem braced himself. It was purely a challenge to get more information than he let slip when he had to question folks in town. He’d known most all of ’em since he was a boy, and it was just natural to tell them why he was asking, but the sheriff had told him that his job was to get information, not spread gossip.
“Now, Clyde, don’t go asking me why. Just tell me who took the stage this morning.”
Clyde was all seriousness as he recalled that Mrs. Ramsey had gone to see her sister in Cathy’s Valley and that Mr. Fisher, the lawyer, had business in Sacramento.
Lem interrupted his litany. “Any strangers?”
“Strangers?” Clyde took his time considering, though Lem was sure he could answer him straight off.
“There was a stranger, Lem. A big fella, white-headed.”
“He come alone?”
“What’s he done, Lem? Something dreadful? He sure was big.”
“I don’t know as he’s done anything at all, Clyde. Sounds like he was just a loner passing through.”
“Who said he was alone? I didn’t say he was alone.” Clyde turned and went behind the counter, getting his cash box and ticket book ready for the next stage. “He had two young fellas with him, matter of fact. No, he wasn’t alone.”
“Friends of his, I reckon?”
“I can’t rightly say, but maybe not exactly. They were kind of an odd group, now you ask.”
And this was worse, Lem thought. Now that Clyde knew Lem was interested, he was sure there was something suspicious about them and that would color everything he said.
“The other two was a good deal younger and one of ’em – why Deputy, he looked like a gun hawk. Had this bright pink shirt and silver things running down his britches, with a big ol’ gun slung real low.”
So that much of the story was true. Johnny Lancer at least had been here with an older man. Who might have been his father.
“What about the other one?”
Clyde squinched up his eyes, like he was trying to see the other one from here. “He was a bit taller, fair-headed. He had a gun on his hips, too, now that I think of it.”
And that sounded like the prisoner. “Were they family, you reckon?”
Clyde’s eyebrows went up. “Family? Oh, I shouldn’t think so,” he said darkly. “Didn’t look a thing alike. The gunslinger, now he was a dangerous-looking hombre, slouching on my counter and acting like he owned the place. The other young man, he was so polished looking and polite. Those are the ones you gotta look out for, you know. Sly. Yeah, he looked plumb sly. Then the old man, he was a head taller than either of ’em, at least, with great big hands. He was the one in charge.”
Clyde shot an earnest, confiding look at Lem. “He was the leader.”
“You hear ’em talk about anything while they were here?” Maybe they had mentioned the ranch, if there was one.
But Clyde was shaking his head. “Just the usual, when he’d be back. He bought a return ticket. Told ’em to wait here.”
Well, that was something. “Did you get the name?”
“I just sell them tickets, Deputy.” He paused a moment, then leaned across the counter to whisper “What have they done, Lem?”
“Nothing I know for certain,” Lem said, turning and heading for the door before he could be tempted to say more.
He didn’t want to tempt Clyde to say more, either, now that the man’s imagination had got to working on his memory.
Cutler met him in the street. “Anything?” he asked.
Lem considered his response. “They did come to the depot with an older man. Clyde thought he was their boss.”
Cutler looked at him closely then. “Oh? What made him think so?”
Sheepishly, Lem admitted, “He didn’t exactly say. Should I go back and ask him?”
Cutler shook his head. “I think Clyde told you all he knows.”
And maybe a little more besides, Lem thought.
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From Mr. Boney, Sheriff Cutler had learned that a stranger fitting the description of "Johnny Lancer" had stabled three horses, but no one at Boney's had seen the other two men. And no one had even caught a glimpse of a young woman who might be Miss Julie Barrett.
Their next destination was the livery, where they found Fred busy vigorously hammering at a horseshoe. The stableman’s face was flushed with the effort and wisps of hair fluttered up and down above the rest of the fringe encircling his head. He looked up as they entered, and slowly set the hammer down, but oddly, didn’t offer up much by way of greeting.
Sheriff Cutler stopped a few steps inside the door and stood with his hands in his pockets, looking around the stable.
Fred rubbed his own hands on the front of his leather apron. “Somethin’ I can do fer ya, Sheriff?”
“Well, I didn’t see your rig outside Fred,” the Sheriff observed slowly. “You hire it out?”
“That’s right.”
“Person that hired it, now it wouldn’t have been a young lady by any chance?”
Fred didn’t seem real anxious to answer that question. Finally, the liveryman nodded his head, then quickly turned his attention to the bellows and started working them.
“I’m going to need a name,” the Sheriff announced, loud enough to be heard over the racket Fred was making.
“She must’ve signed for the horse and carriage?” he asked, once it was quiet again.
“Yeah, she signed, . . . . name of Miss Julie Barrett.”
Sheriff Cutler gave Lem a look. This was what was known as “confirmation”.
Turning his full attention on Fred once more, Cutler slowly drew his hands out of his pockets, resting one on his hip, while the other resettled his hat on his head. The silence lengthened and the dust-filled air sparkled in the bands of sunlight slanting through the square window high over their heads. Fred didn’t let the dust motes dance too long before he broke the silence.
“She headed down the South road, it’d be over an hour ago now.”
Sheriff Cutler folded his arms across his chest. “She leave a deposit?”
“Sure, sure, she had the cash. . . . didn’t say when she’d be back.”
Fred sure seemed spooked about something. His eyes kept darting around, first at the forge, then at the horse shoe in front of him, then over at the big livery doors standing open wide.
Sheriff Cutler looked down at the ground for a moment and Lem figured Fred really wasn’t going to like the next question. “You got something else you want to tell me?”
Fred sighed. “I was gonna come right over, soon’s I finished up here, Sheriff. Fact is, she asked me ta wait a full hour after she’d gone. Wanted me ta give this money to somebody she said was over in your jail.” The liveryman reached into his shirt pocket and fished out a good-sized wad of bills.
“She say who he is?” Cutler asked as he walked over to accept the cash.
Fred had to think about that one. “No. All she said was that he’s a young fella. But she sure didn’t look the type ta have friends in jail—an’ I told her that.”
Cutler studied the money in his hand for a moment before looking up at Fred. “No billfold.” It was a flat statement, Lem took it as an aside to himself, but Fred was as quick to respond as if he’d come in contact with piece of hot metal.
“No, no, no billfold, just that there folding money. Like I said, Sheriff, I was gonna bring it on over to you in about, in about, say, ten minutes. Oh, and she asked me to give a message to that fella in the jail---”
“What kind of message?”
His hasty flow of words interrupted, Fred faltered now, seemingly struggling to recall exactly what it was the young woman had said. “She said ta tell ‘im that. . . that she was sorry and. . . hoped he’d forgive ‘er.” He shook his head. “Didn’t say what for.”
“I’ll be sure and give him the message,” Cutler said, depositing the cash in his own shirt pocket as he turned away. Lem let the Sheriff move past him towards the door, then gave Fred a nod and made to follow, when the liveryman spoke again.
“There was a fella in here askin’ questions about Miss Barrett,” he said to the Sheriff’s retreating back.
Cutler paused, half turning to look over his shoulder. “Dark haired man, wearin’ a pink shirt?”
“Yeah, that’d be the one.”
“You tell ‘im where she was headed?”
“Well, yeah, guess I did.”
Cutler nodded and headed through the double doors. Lem followed. Behind them, he could hear Fred hammering away at the horseshoe once more.
Once outside, Lem hurried to catch up. “Guess those bounty hunters were right, when they said she was bringing her brother some money.”
The Sheriff stopped in his tracks. “He already had an envelope full of money, now why would she give him more?”
“I don’t know, Sheriff.”
“Doesn’t make much sense, Lemuel. We don’t know why she left and why she wanted an hour’s head start to get away from here.”
“Maybe . . . maybe she just doesn’t want to behelping him any more, Sheriff. Has to be hard on a young woman, having a wanted man for a brother. Still, she’d be sorry ‘bout leavin’ him. ”
Lem waited patiently under Sheriff Cutler’s scrutiny, and was relieved when his mentor finally nodded. “That could be.” Then more softly, “That could be it.”
Cutler stared straight ahead, then started off in the direction of the jail.
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