Full Dark, No Stars

“I did. It’s over four miles out to the tarvy. I thought for sure she’d come back. Someone must have come along and given her a ride before her head cleared. A trucker on the Lincoln-Omaha run would

be my guess.”

“Yep, yep, that’d be mine, too. You’l hear from her when she contacts Mr. Lester, I’m sure. If she means to stay out on her own, if she’s got that in her head, she’l need money to do it.”

So he knew that, too.

His eyes sharpened. “Did she have any money at al , Mr. James?”

“Wel …”

“Don’t be shy. Confession’s good for the soul. The Catholics have got hold of something there, don’t they?”

“I kept a box in my dresser. There was 200 dol ars put by in it, to help pay the pickers when they start next month.”

“And Mr. Cotterie,” Henry reminded. To Sheriff Jones, he said: “Mr. Cotterie has a corn harvester. A Harris Giant. Almost new. It’s a pip.”

“Yep, yep, saw it in his dooryard. Big bastid, isn’t it? Pardon my Polish. Money al gone out’n that box, was it?”

I smiled sourly—only it wasn’t real y me making that smile; the Conniving Man had been in charge ever since Sheriff Jones pul ed up by the chopping block. “She left twenty. Very generous of her. But

twenty’s al Harlan Cotterie wil ever take for the use of his harvester, so that’s al right. And when it comes to the pickers, I guess Stoppenhauser at the bank’l advance me a shortie loan. Unless he owes favors to the Farrington Company, that is. Either way, I’ve got my best farmhand right here.”

I tried to ruffle Henry’s hair. He ducked away, embarrassed.

“Wel , I’ve got a good budget of news to tel Mr. Lester, don’t I? He won’t like any of it, but if he’s as smart as he thinks he is, I guess he’l know enough to expect her in his office, and sooner rather than later. People have a way of turning up when they’re short on folding green, don’t they?”

“That’s been my experience,” I said. “If we’re done here, Sheriff, my boy and I better get back to work. That useless wel should have been fil ed in three years ago. An old cow of mine—”

“Elphis.” Henry spoke like a boy in a dream. “Her name was Elphis.”

“Elphis,” I agreed. “She got out of the barn and decided to take a strol on the cap, and it gave way. Didn’t have the good grace to die on her own, either. I had to shoot her. Come around the back of

the barn I’l show you the wages of laziness with its damn feet sticking up. We’re going to bury her right where she lies, and from now on I’m going to cal that old wel Wilfred’s Fol y.”

“Wel , I would, wouldn’t I? It’d be somethin’ to see. But I’ve got that bad-tempered old judge to contend with. Another time.” He hoisted himself into the car, grunting as he did so. “Thank you for the lemonade, and for bein’ so gracious. You could have been a lot less so, considering who sent me out here.”

“It’s al right,” I said. “We al have our jobs.”

“And our crosses to bear.” His sharp eyes fastened on Henry again. “Son, Mr. Lester told me you were hidin’ something. He was sure of it. And you were, weren’t you?”

“Yes, sir,” Henry said in his colorless and somehow awful voice. As if al his emotions had flown away, like those things in Pandora’s jar when she opened it. But there was no Elphis for Henry and me;

our Elphis was dead in the wel .

“If he asks me, I’l tel him he was wrong,” Sheriff Jones said. “A company lawyer don’t need to know that a boy’s mother put her hand to him while she was in drink.” He groped under his seat, came up

with a long S-shaped tool I knew wel , and held it out to Henry. “Would you save an old man’s back and shoulder, son?”

“Yes, sir, happy to.” Henry took the crank and went around to the front of the Maxwel .

“Mind your wrist!” Jones hol ered. “She kicks like a bul !” Then he turned to me. The inquisitive glitter had gone out of his eyes. So had the green. They looked dul and gray and hard, like lakewater on a cloudy day. It was the face of a man who could beat a railroad bum within an inch of his life and never lose a minute’s sleep over it. “Mr. James,” he said. “I need to ask you something. Man to man.”

“Al right,” I said. I tried to brace myself for what I felt sure was coming next: Is there another cow in yonder well? One named Arlette? But I was wrong.

“I can put her name and description out on the telegraph wire, if you want. She won’t have gone no further than Omaha, wil she? Not on just a hundred and eighty smackers. And a woman who’s spent

most of her life keepin’ house has no idea of how to hide out. She’l like as not be in a rooming house over on the east side, where they run cheap. I could have her brought back. Dragged back by the hair of the head, if you want.”

“That’s a generous offer, but—”

The dul gray eyes surveyed me. “Think it over before you say yea or nay. Sometimes a fee-male needs talking to by hand, if you take my meaning, and after that they’re al right. A good whacking has

a way of sweetening some gals up. Think it over.”

“I wil .”