They went inside, Hillbilly carrying the tin box with the maps and papers.
Rooster was sitting behind his desk. His hat was on the desk in front of him and he had his hands on either side of the brim as if holding it down. His body was all sharp angles and thin pink flesh. The hair on his head was almost as red as Sunset’s hair, and it stood up toward the top and middle of his head like a rooster comb. Sunset thought: Now I get why he’s called Rooster.
He looked up at them, said, “Whole town is nuts. Ain’t a thing you can get done or keep from being done. It’s a mess.”
“Suppose money is being made,” Hillbilly said.
“Reckon so. That’s why they come up with this Oil Festival in the first place. Money. Wasn’t bad enough we got everyone trying to get in the picture show, now we got people from all over come in to hear music and see fireworks.”
“What’s with all them fellas chained to the tree?” Hillbilly said.
“Run out of room in the jail. Drunks mostly. And the white men in there don’t want to be jailed up with colored.”
“Nothing more impressive than a picky criminal,” Sunset said. “Where’s your partner?”
“He up and quit after Clyde hit him. I’m sheriff now. You know, one of his teeth finally come out from that smack. One in the back.”
“He don’t need that one,” Hillbilly said.
“I was just admiring the badge,” Sunset said. “How’s it feel to be sheriff?”
“Ain’t so sure I like it or want it. It was better when I was a deputy and had someone tell me what to do. You ain’t here on some kind of business, are you?”
“Maybe,” Sunset said.
“Maybe?”
Hillbilly put the box on the sheriff’s desk and opened it. He took out the maps and the papers. Rooster looked at them, said, “These look like papers supposed to be in the courthouse.”
“What we thought,” Sunset said.
“These are land papers,” Rooster said. “Survey papers. How did you come by them?”
“Found them,” Sunset said.
“Found them?”
Sunset nodded.
“Any idea about this stuff?” Sunset said.
The sheriff studied the papers for a while, shook his head. “Just what I told you. You’d need to go over to the courthouse to find out more.”
“What we planned,” Sunset said, “but I thought I’d make a courtesy call. Then we thought we’d stick around for the Oil Festival.”
“On business?”
“With our badges off,” Sunset said.
“Oh. Well. Okay. Me, I’m just gonna sit in here and wait till someone gets killed or something and someone comes to get me. I ain’t getting out there. It’s too damn busy.”
A man built like a stump wearing a white Stetson came out of the back. He had a badge pinned to his shirt.
Rooster said, “Oh, this here is my deputy, Plug. He just hired on.”
“Howdy, Plug,” Sunset said.
“Damn, you are one fine-looking woman,” Plug said.
“Thanks,” Sunset said.
“I got another deputy too. Tootie. He ain’t here right now.”
“We’re parked in the place says no parking out front,” Sunset said.
“That’s all right,” Rooster said. “That’s the business spot.”
“It’s a black Ford,” Sunset said.
“Lot of black Fords,” Rooster said.
“Should I make a note to put in the window?”
“Naw. We’ll figure it out.”
Sunset and Hillbilly went out, the box under Hillbilly’s arm. They left their car in front of the sheriff’s office, walked over to the courthouse, threading their way through people, many who stared at Sunset with her badge and gun as if she might be playing dress up and was part of the festival’s hijinks.
“What are you supposed to be?” a man said, grabbing her shoulder.
“A constable,” she said.
“Well, you look right cute. You don’t work out of Dodge Street, do you?”
“No.”
“Sorry, then,” and he went away.
“Dodge Street?” Sunset said.
“It’s where the whorehouses are,” Hillbilly said.
Sunset jerked her head toward the retreating man. “Well, that sonofabitch,” she said.
Hillbilly laughed.
“How do you know about Dodge Street?” she said.
“Word gets around,” Hillbilly said.
The courthouse was set in the middle of Main Street. The street forked around it and gathered together again on the other side. The building was made of smooth pink stone. It had long wide steps in front of its long wide doors, and it was the only large and only pretty construction in town, one of the few made of stone. All the windows on the street sides were scabbed in spots with dried mud.
In spite of the heat outside, it was cool in the courthouse, and when Sunset put her hand against the edge of the stone doorway, it too was cool, like a dead body. There were only the sounds of their heels as they made their way to a wide stone desk that curved around an attractive woman wearing a black pinned-on hat.
When she looked up she saw Sunset, but quickly shifted her gaze to Hillbilly. Hillbilly smiled, and Sunset could see the woman swallow, and she had an idea how she felt in her stomach because she felt that way herself the first time she saw him.
Sunset explained her purpose, law business, but didn’t go into detail.
The badge and Hillbilly’s looks did it. The woman walked them down a long corridor, and on either side of the corridor were laced-up boxes. As the lady walked, her hams shifted beneath her black dress in a way that made Sunset think she might be trying to throw her ass out of her clothes.
Sunset noted Hillbilly was watching this with appreciation, and she gave him an elbow. He gave her a grin.
“Everything you want is in these rows, and there are some tables and chairs in the back. You can look at whatever, but you can’t take anything. You don’t plan to put anything in that box, do you?”
“We got some law business in the box,” Sunset said. “I’m not going to put anything else in it.”
“All right, then. You are the law. But I had to ask. That’s my job.”
The woman went down the corridor, and Hillbilly watched her go. So did Sunset. It was an impressive departure that warranted the music of a marching band, certainly plenty of bass drum.
At the table in the rear, Sunset opened the tin box and took out the two maps. At the top of each was a letter and a number. One read “L- 1999.” The other read “L- 2000.”
Sunset used the pad and pencil on the table, wrote the numbers down, put the maps back in the box. They went down the corridor looking until they came to a row low down containing boxes with those numbers written on them. They each took a box to the table. There were strings attached to a clasp, and these held down a cardboard flap. They removed the strings and opened a box and poured the contents on the table.
Inside were maps that looked like the maps they had.
Almost.
They were marked up different. Hillbilly said, “I can’t make head or tails of this.”
“It’s the same maps.”
“I know that. But so what?”
“It must mean something, or why else would Pete have put them in the grave. Wait a minute. Same maps, but they’re marked different. See this. It doesn’t quite match. The land is cut up different by this red line.”
“Maybe the reason there are two maps is someone bought a piece of the land, cutting it up.”
“Could be.”
Sunset opened the other box and studied the papers inside. There were numbers written on the papers too. She studied these and studied what else was in the cardboard box, similar papers.
“This is giving me a headache,” Hillbilly said.
“Look here. These numbers are the same on the maps, they’re cut up different on the courthouse maps, but the names of ownership are the same.”
“Where are you seeing that?”
Sunset showed Hillbilly some papers she had gotten out of the cardboard box. “The names are Zendo Williams for one piece of property, and for the other a list of names: Jim Montgomery-he’s the mayor of Holiday. Or was till he disappeared. Well, I’ll be damned. Henry Shelby.”