8
After breakfast the three of them started walking toward the office together. Thomas happened to look across the street just as Ben Cardwell came out of the hotel.
“I’ll see you at the office,” he said to his father and brother.
Shaye looked across the street to see what had caught Thomas’s attention. “What is it?” he asked.
“Just a stranger I met last night,” Thomas said. “No big deal. I just want to talk to him.”
“I’ll come with you—” James started, but Thomas cut him off.
“That’s okay, James,” he said. “It’s just one man. We’re just gonna talk.”
“Okay, Thomas,” Shaye said. “Just watch yourself.”
“Always, Pa.”
Thomas started across the street as Shaye and James continued on to the sheriff’s office.
Cardwell left Sean Davis snoring in the room and went downstairs for breakfast. He decided to walk around town to look for a place to eat rather than settling for the hotel dining room. As soon as he stepped outside, he saw the sheriff and the two deputies across the street. After a few moments, the deputy from the night before stepped into the street and started across. Cardwell thought that he and this deputy were probably destined to clash. He decided to wait where he was and let the man come to him. As the lawman got closer Cardwell could see that he was wearing his badge today.
Thomas knew the man was letting him come closer, and that suited him. He wondered where the other one was, and opened the conversation by asking.
“He’s still asleep,” Cardwell said. “When we’re off the trail and in a real bed, he’s a late riser.”
“And what would be the late riser’s name?”
“Davis, Sean Davis,” Cardwell said. “You won’t find his name on any posters.”
“What about yours?”
“Ben Cardwell,” the man said. “No paper on me either. We’re just a couple of law abiding citizens.”
“You law abidin’ citizens figure on stayin’ around town a little longer?” Thomas asked.
“We’re not sure,” Cardwell said.
“Headin’ someplace?”
“We’re not sure.”
“What are you sure of?”
“Not much,” Cardwell said. “That’s how we like it. We just take it a day at a time.”
“Well,” Thomas said, “just keep a tight rein on your friend and there shouldn’t be any trouble.”
“I’m all for no trouble, Deputy,” Cardwell said, “but you should know that we’re always ready to…defend ourselves.”
“Shouldn’t be anything in town for you to defend yourselves against,” Thomas said.
“Then it sounds like we won’t have any trouble at all.”
“Keep that in mind, then.”
Thomas turned to leave, and Cardwell asked, “You got a name?”
“Shaye,” Thomas said. “Thomas Shaye.”
Cardwell frowned. “Ain’t the sheriff’s name Shaye?”
“He’s my father,” Thomas said. “You heard of him?”
“I might have heard somethin’.”
“Maybe you heard he’s got less patience that I have.”
“Naw…that wasn’t it. What about the other deputy? The young one?”
“My brother.”
“You fellas keep it all in the family, huh?”
“That’s right,” Thomas said. “We’re closer than most lawmen, and we really watch each other’s backs.”
“Nobody watchin’ your back now, are they?”
Thomas looked Cardwell in the eye and said, “I don’t need anybody watchin’ my back now, do I?”
“I guess not,” Cardwell said, raising his hands to shoulder level and spreading them. He even wiggled his fingers. “There’s no danger here, Deputy.”
“I hope it stays that way.”
A block away Dan and James Shaye had stopped. They were watching Thomas and the other man talk in front of the hotel.
“Somethin’ happened last night at the saloon,” James said, “but I don’t know what.”
“Which saloon?”
“The Road House.”
Shaye did not take his eyes from the two men a block away, but he wanted to look at James.
“What was Thomas doin’ at that end of town?”
“I don’t know, Pa.”
“Okay,” Shaye said, “that part doesn’t really matter now.”
“What part does, Pa?”
“I want to find out what happened last night,” Shaye said. “I’ll go and talk to Al Baker, he owns the Road House—”
“I can do that, Pa,” James said.
Thomas turned to walk away from the other man, then turned back.
“All right, James,” Shaye said. “Go and do that.” Shaye told his son where Baker lived. “He stays open late, so he’ll be asleep now.”
“I’ll wake him up.”
“You do that.”
James didn’t move.
“Do it now, James.”
“Yes, Pa.”
9
Shaye got back to the sheriff’s office well before Thomas. He knew he could ask his son what had happened at the Road House Saloon the night before, but if Thomas was going to places like that and not telling anyone, there had to be a reason. He’d leave it to James to find out what that reason was.
Thomas entered the office and walked right to the stove to put on a pot of coffee, which they kept going all day.
“How did it go?”
Thomas turned and looked at his father. “You ought to know,” he said. “You watched the whole time.”
“Just watching your back, Thomas,” Shaye said. “It doesn’t mean I don’t trust you, it just means that I like to keep my deputies alive.”
“If it was a deputy who wasn’t your son, would you feel the same?” Thomas asked.
“Exactly the same.”
“Then fine,” the younger man said. “Then we don’t have a problem, do we?”
“I never thought we did,” Shaye said. “So what did you find out about the stranger?”
“Strangers,” Thomas said. “There’s two of them, and they’re just…drifting, or so this one says.”
“You get their names?”
“Yes.” He gave the names to his father, who reached for his stack of wanted flyers. “Cardwell said there was no paper on either of them.”
“He’s probably right,” Shaye said, “if he gave you their real names.”
“Well, if he gave me phony names, then we can only go by the likeness of the posters,” Thomas said. “That means I should look through them.”
“Be my guest.”
Thomas sat opposite his father and pulled the stack of flyers into his lap. “Where’s James?”
“He said he had to run an errand.”
Thomas smirked. “At the bank, I’ll bet.”
“You’re probably right.”
While going through the flyers Thomas asked, “You gonna talk to the mayor?”
“About what?”
“About his daughter and James.”
“Thomas,” Shaye said, “has James even talked to the girl beyond bank business?”
“Not that I know of.”
“Then I don’t think there’s a relationship there worth talkin’ to the mayor about, do you?”
“No, sir,” Thomas said, “I guess you’re right.”
The water on the stove began to boil, so Shaye went over to drop the coffee in while Thomas continued to go through the flyers.
James knew that Al Baker lived right above the Road House. There was a stairway on the side of the building leading up to a door, which James first knocked on, then pounded on.
“All right, all right!” an annoyed voice came from inside. “I’m comin’!”
The door swung open and Al Baker squinted out at James from beneath heavy, puffy eyelids.
“What the hell—”