He put his arms around her and held her tightly to him.
“You see right through me,” she lied.
“Yes,” he said, “I do.”
Riley Cotton and Dan Shaye were in the sheriff’s backyard, smoking cigars and watching Cotton’s wife play with Little Matt. They had become fairly good friends in the last few days.
“She really loves that kid,” Shaye said.
“Yeah, she does,” Cotton said. “I love watching them together. It would break her heart—and mine—if Belinda tried to take him away.”
“I’m sure you’ll be able to work something out, Riley.”
“Whataya mean? Like buying him from her?”
“I get the feeling that once Belinda feels she’s safe from Jeb Collier, she’ll want to be on her way. And I’m not all that convinced she wants to take a child with her.”
“So you think she’ll just leave him here?”
“Maybe.”
“If she did that,” Cotton said, “we could adopt him. Marion would love that.”
“Sure, you could do that.”
“But…what about you?”
“What about me?”
“What if he is your grandson?”
Shaye puffed on his cigar for a few moments, considering how he should reply to that.
“Riley,” he finally said, “I don’t know if there’s any way we’ll actually be able to know that. And even if he is, I don’t see how my sons and I could ever give him the kind of home you and your wife could.”
“So you mean…you’d just leave him with us?”
Shaye slapped the sheriff on the back and said, “Why the hell not?”
42
Sheriff Coffey watched as first one, then two of the men who had ridden into town left the saloon. One of them walked over to the hotel, went inside, and then came out. When the street was empty, Coffey left his chair and walked over to the hotel.
“Afternoon, Sheriff,” the desk clerk said. His name was Norbert and he was also the owner.
“Norbert, that fella who just came in,” Coffey said. “What did he want?”
“Wanted to give me a good day, that’s what he wanted,” the clerk said. “He took four rooms.”
“Did he sign the book?”
“Sure did.”
“Let me see it.”
Norbert turned the book around for the lawman to look at. The four rooms had been taken in four different names and one of the names was Jeb Collier.
“Okay, thanks.”
“Gonna be trouble, Sheriff?” the man asked, worried. “Should I collect in advance?”
“No, no,” Coffey said. “Don’t worry. You’ll get your money.”
Coffey left the hotel and walked back toward his office and past it. He was on his way to the telegraph office, but he had to pass the bank to get there.
Lou Tanner and Bill Samms entered the bank and stopped just inside the door to look around. There was room for three teller windows, but only one was being used. Off to one side were three desks, but again, only one was in use. The others had been vacant for some time, as evidenced by the layer of dust covering them.
“Can I help you gents?” the teller asked.
Samms started forward, but Tanner put his hand on his arm to stop him. Instead, he walked to the window.
“We were just wonderin’ about opening an account,” he said, “but the bank looks…deserted.”
“Well, yeah,” the old clerk said, leaning on his elbows. The lone figure seated at the desk was an older woman who looked over at them and shook her head.
“That old woman hates when I talk to people,” the old man said, “but I ain’t only a teller, I’m the bank manager.”
Now that he was standing at the teller’s window, Tanner could see a large safe behind it—against a wall. Oddly, the safe was open.
“Is that a fact?”
“Sure is,” the old man said.
“If you’re the manager, how come you keep the safe open?”
The old man cackled and said, “That’s ’cause there ain’t no money in it.”
“None at all?” Tanner asked. “What happened? You get robbed?”
The old man found that funny and started laughing so much he lost his breath and started to choke.
“Take it easy, old-timer,” Tanner said. “It’s just a question.”
“I’m s-sorry,” the old man said, wiping tears from his eyes with his palms. “It’s just the idea of somebody robbin’ this bank…there ain’t nothin’ for them ta get.”
“Whataya mean?”
“There ain’t been no money in this bank in years, mister,” he said. “Oh, there was a time when we had plenty of money in the safe and the safe was always closed. We had a full staff here and a real bank manager. Those were the days.”
“What days?”
“The days when most of the big ranches around here kept their money in this bank,” the old man said. “Their operatin’ expenses, their payrolls, they all came out of here.”
“But not no more?”
“Not no more for a long time.”
“But…you still got a telegraph line.”
“We got that line because of the bank,” the old man said, “but when the money got taken out of the bank, nobody came along ta take down the line. So we still got one, but ain’t nobody got any more use for that than they do for this bank.”
The old man cackled again and Tanner started to think that the man only had about half a brain left.
“Is this true?” Tanner asked, turning to the old woman at the desk.
“It’s true,” she said. “That old man tells the story to anyone who’ll listen.”
Tanner looked over at Samms, who just shrugged.
“Is he really the manager?”
“We ain’t got much need for a manager anymore, mister,” she said. “That there old fool is my husband and, truth be told, the only reason we come in here every day is ’cause we don’t got nowhere else ta go and we don’t wanna stay home together.”
Tanner looked over at the old man, who was smiling broadly, a yellow gap-toothed smile.
“Ain’t no harm in lettin’ him call hisself the manager, now, is there?” she asked.
“Lou,” Samms said, “let’s get outta here.”
Samms turned and opened the door, but Lou Tanner had one more question.
“If the ranchers used to keep all their money here, where are they keepin’ it now?”
“They’re keepin’ it in the bank that put us outta business,” she said. “The bank that nearly killed this town.”
“And where’s that?”
“Why,” she said, “that’s in Pearl River Junction.”
The sheriff took up a position across the street from the old bank. He knew Gladys Michaels and her crazy husband Henry were in there. They went in there every day. That meant that they were telling these men everything there was to know about the old bank.
After a while the door opened and the two men stepped outside. They never once glanced across the street, but headed straight back to the saloon, deep in thought the whole way.
He stepped from the doorway and turned to go to the telegraph office, but at the last minute crossed over to the bank.
“Gladys,” he said, sticking his head in. “What’d you tell them fellers that was just in here?”
“Henry told them his story, Sheriff,” she said, “after he told them he was the bank manager.”
“And what else did you tell them?”
“Why, I told them where all the money went to,” she said. “They seemed like nice enough fellas, no sense in lettin’ them think they could open an account here. We told them to go to the Bank of Pearl River Junction, where the ranchers from miles around keep their money.”
Sheriff Coffey closed the door and started walking quickly to the telegraph office.