“Strike!” the blacksmith roared after a pitch came so far inside it like to put a polish on Longarm’s belt buckle.
Longarm looked back at the umpire and the guy gave him a snotty do-something-about-it look in return.
Whatever the next pitch turned out to be, Longarm figured, he would have to take a whack at it because it was sure as hell going to be a strike regardless.
The pitcher wound up and hurled the thing, and it came whistling in about belly high and square over the plate.
Longarm let his reflexes take over, just like McWhortle said he should.
The crack of horsehide on hardwood was crisp and sweet to hear, and the ball soared toward the clouds in search of eagles to fly with.
The Hoskin center fielder never bothered to take a step back. There were those who said later that the ball went so high and so far that it caused rain over a three county area and broke a critical drought. But Longarm wasn’t sure if he should take credit for that or not.
The Caps won the game seven to six, and afterward Longarm found himself hip deep in small blond Schultzes clamoring to ride on the shoulders of their own personal hero.
Chapter 23
“Short.”
“Yo, boss.”
“I need you to run an errand for me.”
“Sure thing, boss.” Longarm let McWhortle draw him away from the rest of the boys, who were sitting on, over, around, and through a set of loading chutes waiting for a westbound train to carry them all to the next scheduled game.
“Trouble,” the manager said in a low voice once they were away from the players.
“Not another theft of the gate receipts,” Longarm said. mean, I wasn’t watching every second, not hardly, but I never noticed …”
“It wasn’t that,” McWhortle said, “but the Hoskin post office was broken into and robbed this afternoon.”
“Shit,” was Longarm’s heartfelt opinion of the news.
“Yeah,” McWhortle agreed. “Look, I thought you would want to go do, well, whatever it is you do in a situation like this.”
“Hell, I didn’t even know Hoskin was big enough to have a post office.”
“It isn’t much,” the team boss explained, “just a counter and set of pigeonholes inside the mercantile. The proprietor, I suppose he’s the postmaster, too, is the man who was in charge of the host committee. We went back to his store to count the gate and divvy up the money. That’s when he found the breakin.”
“I better go talk to him,” Longarm said.
“While you’re there you’d best pick up something that the boys can see you bring back to me since this is supposed to be an errand you’re going on.”
“Right.”
“The train is due in an hour and a quarter.”
“I’ll be on time,” Longarm promised.
The store was one of those crowded, dusty affairs that sells a little bit of damn near everything. There were plowshares and smoked hams hanging from the rafters, barrels of nails sitting beside barrels of flour, and bags of mortar piled next to bags of salt. There was corn oil, coal oil, whale oil, linseed oil, and oil of camphor. Bacon and bullet molds, hen eggs and darning eggs. Whatever a man needed he could likely find in Howard Jefson’s store.
Except answers, that is.
“Who knew the store would be closed during the ball game?” Longarm asked.
“Everybody who does business here. Which includes everybody who lives within twenty miles of Hoskin,” Jefson told him. “I’ve had a notice to that effect posted for at least the past month.”
“So any local bad boy would have known the coast was clear,” the marshal—he still felt like a clown in the baseball uniform, but there hadn’t been time to change into something more befitting a United States deputy marshal in the pursuit of official duties—suggested.
“Sure,” Jefson agreed, “but nobody has stolen anything around here since last fall. I mean nothing, marshal. Zero.”
“This robbery last fall …?” Longarm prompted.
Jefson grinned, and Longarm got the impression the local man had been waiting for just that question. “Lou and Agnes Brumbauer’s five-year-old twins snitched some candy outa that jar over there. And that, mister, is the biggest crime we’ve had in Hoskin since the town was founded.”
“If it comes t’ that I suppose I can have the Brumbauer twins brought in for questioning,” Longarm said with a deadpan expression, which earned him another grin and perhaps some approval from the storekeeper/postmaster/ball game organizer. “Seriously, d’you have any thoughts on who might’ve done this?”
“Seriously, I wish to hell that I did, marshal.” Jefson shook his head and looked sadly around. “I lost a lot more than just the postal receipts, you know.”
“I’m sure.”
Whoever hit the post office broke in by the simple expedient of prying the back door open and walking in. The padlock that was supposed to secure the door was of top quality and in fact did the job it was designed to do. The lock remained strong and inviolate. Unfortunately the hasp it was supposed to secure snapped in two under the pressure of a pry-bar. The marks left by the bar—a big one—were clearly visible on the wooden doorframe.
“Easy as pie, wasn’t it?” Longarm said.
“Too damned true, it was.”
“They knew where the money was?” Longarm asked.
Jefson shrugged. “How could you tell? The store receipts were in a steel box under the counter there. That was obvious enough, and the whole box is gone. They didn’t bother to try and break it open here, just picked it up and walked off with it. The post office money was in a cash drawer. You can see where they used the pry bar to snap that open. Again it wasn’t exactly hard for anyone to spot, whether they’d been here before and knew the layout or if they were strangers coming in for the first time. The rest of it, more post office money, was in a bank bag that I’d hidden behind that ledger book on the shelf there.” He pointed. “But I suppose a cursory look would turn that up, too. I mean, I just hadn’t thought in terms of securing things from robbers. Not until the Brumbauer kids get tall enough to see over the counters, anyhow.”
“Yeah, I see what you mean. How about your local law? Where’s your town marshal?”
“Don’t have one. Why, we don’t even have a deputy assigned to this part of the county. There’s the county sheriff, of course, but the only reason he ever needs to come around is when he’s electioneering, giving speeches and asking for votes. Fourth of July there’s usually one of the county supervisors will show up and give a talk, but except for that we don’t have much dealing with government.”
“Have you sent for a deputy?”
“Sure. Likely one of the boys will come over tomorrow sometime. Or the next day.”
Longarm sighed. There wasn’t a hell of a lot to see here.
He went outside, starting at the front and working his way around the building. The alley at the back where the door was broken open was littered with trash on ground that was hard as macadam. A herd of circus elephants wouldn’t have left tracks on soil that thoroughly compacted, and if there were any footprints to be seen then they would have to be spotted by someone an awful lot better than Custis Long. And in truth he didn’t think there was anyone that much better than he.
“Do you know if anyone saw anything or anyone, well, out of the ordinary? Today? Any time in the past week? Anything at all?”
Jefson shook his head. “Not that I know of.”
“Then I expect we’ll have to ask around,” Longarm said. He thought about the train that was soon due in to carry the Capitals on to their next stop. He was supposed to be on that train.
On the other hand, his job here, appearances aside, was to act as a U.S. deputy marshal and never mind the silliness of baseball.
If he had to, he figured, he could ask the Schultzes to put up with him for one more night.