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THE DEAF MAN'S DEMISE

By

D.L. CHANCE

   "You're sure he's dead?"

   "He's deader'n hell." The sheriff pointed open-handed at the kitchen door. "I know what dead men look like, and he's dead."

   Theodore Roosevelt Hartfield - Theo to his family and friends - tipped his hat at the local law, but stopped in the doorway. He looked around the kitchen, noting details of the death scene in the bright sunlight coming through large, dusty windows that probably hadn't known curtains for years, if ever. In fact, most everything in the twelve by twelve room was covered with a layer of dust. Except for one disturbed spot in the dust. He noticed one of the windows had a small round hole in an upper lefthand corner.

   "Well, ain't you going in?" The sheriff wiped at his sweaty brow with a stained shirtsleeve and leaned against the wall. "He's not coming out here to talk to you, you know." 

   Ignoring the dig, Theo studied the man lying on his left side in a large pool of congealing blood that started at the base of a cluttered kitchen counter and spread out to cover most of the dingy tiled kitchen floor. Shirtless, he was tall, lanky, balding, somewhere in his late-30s and, with that raw gash in his chest directly over his heart, definitely dead. A big bowie knife was still clutched tightly in his right hand, and there were no footprints in the carnage. He'd apparently been about to cut up the plucked chicken lying disinterested on the counter when whatever happened...happened.

   "What was his name, again?" Theo asked.

   "Roy Wheeler."

   "Wheeler. Got it." On the other side of the kitchen, Theo noticed light winking through another hole in the wall, but it didn't line up with the hole in the window. The back door just to the right of the counter cabinet was solidly barred with what looked like a rusty iron buggy axle, and the large faded calendar tacked to the door claimed it was still March of 1921 in this part of New Mexico. Apparently, it had been more than three years since Roy Wheeler gave any thought to the passage of time. Theo briefly wondered if the calendar was covering up another bullet hole, or if door's exterior showed signs of forced entry. Through the dingy kitchen window, he could see piles of empty feed sacks and wooden shipping boxes stacked on a covered loading dock bearing a sign with the name "Barton's Feed and Seed" in faded blue letters. Theo figured it was probably the small ranching town's only feed store. "And you said he couldn't hear?"

   "Deaf as a proddy circuit judge when you ain't got the bail."

   "I see."

   The sheriff stood fidgeting for another few minutes before he yanked a handkerchief from his pocket and shucked his Stetson. The heat inside the two-room shack located on an alley behind the feed store was oppressive, Theo allowed, and the dead man was bound to start stinking pretty soon. But he learned at his famous grandfather J. Breckenridge Hartfield's knee that details are details, and they must be fully understood before they got lost.

   "You gonna be much longer, Hartfield?" The sheriff mopped down his forehead. "Hell I've already seen as much as you have, and it's clear to me that he stabbed his ownself with that knife he was using to cut that chicken yonder."

   "Did he?"

   The sheriff fanned his face with his hat.

   "Sure he did." The lawman jerked a forehead freshly sparkled with new sweat at the dead man. "If someone else did the stabbing there'd be evidence of some kind of fight, and there'd be sign of where he walked in the blood. But there just ain't none of that. The evidence is the evidence, and it'll just have to be good enough."

   "Not many people cut up a chicken with a bowie," Theo pointed out.

   "Don't matter. He was just about to cut it up when he changed his mind for reasons only he knew about."

   "Maybe."

   "Maybe, hell!" Clearly irritated now, the sheriff jammed his hat back on his sweaty scalp and parked his fists on his hips, and squared off with the sharp-dressed young man who'd arrived on the train the previous night with intentions of spending a couple of days with a friend before heading home to Denver. "Look, Hartfield," he hissed, "I only allowed you in here because Carliss is your old army buddy, and he said you might could help with this case. And I'll allow that you Hartfields do have a big name in the detective-for-hire business. But if you can't see what's right there in front of you, then I might as well call in the coroner's court and the undertaker right now and get this suicide put to bed once and for all." The lawman stepped around Wheeler's unkempt bed and stalked toward the front door, then stopped to turn back. "And if Carliss don't like it," he snapped, "I'll fire him and get another deputy. One that don't have any bigshot war pals coming around and sticking their noses in my official duties!"

   Theo shrugged, and rubbed absently over the scar an unknown German sharpshooter put on his left forearm in the snow-choked Argonne Forest back in the winter of ‘19. "Okay," he said, suddenly realizing what he was doing. He stuck his hands into his pockets and walked around the bed that seemed to take up most of the twelve by twelve combined bedroom and parlor to join the sheriff near the fresher air at the open front door facing directly out into the alley. "But you're letting a killer get away with murder."

   "Murder?" The older man frowned at Theo. "I thought we already agreed there's no evidence pointing to another man being in that kitchen." He made stabbing motions with his hand. "To stab a man, you have to be right up where he is. Or, if he'll stand still long enough to let you do it, tie a knife to some kind of long pole and stab him that way. Like a spear. But nothing about that room says someone else was in there."

   "Maybe," Theo said, shouldering past the sheriff and walking outside into the direct Central New Mexico sunlight. He waved when Carliss, at the wheel of the only motor vehicle the sheriff's department owned, rounded the corner and drove slowly down the dusty alley. He was returning from the office, where he'd gone to fetch a camera. Not far away to the left of the shack sat the sun-silvered outhouse Wheeler as a tenant apparently shared with the feed store workers. Something moved in the shade at the bottom the small building when the car went past, and Theo looked closer. "You get a lot of rattlers in town, Sheriff?" he asked, as Carliss pulled the automobile to a stop and killed the engine.

   "Rattlers?"

   "Like that one near the toilet yonder," Theo said, pointing. "That big one."

   The sheriff squinted in the direction of Theo's finger, then he jerked the revolver from his holster.

   "Damn!" he snapped, pegging a shot at the snake. "How'd that filthy bastard keep hid from the chickens and hogs around here long enough to get that big?" He fired off two more rounds. "Dammit, I hate snakes!"

   Carliss parked the Ford in front of the dead man's house and jumped out. His own pistol in hand, he joined the others and cautiously approached the spot where the snake lay writhing and twisting in its final death throes. He finished the pinkish-colored rattlesnake off with one last shot, but didn't get too close to where the head was still moving.

   "The Mendoza kid told me he saw a whopper of a rattler out here a couple weeks back," the deputy said. "But I didn't believe him."

   "Did someone fire a shot--oh." A man wearing a dusty leather apron joined them from the feed barn. "So that's the big snake," he said, staring at the slowly squirming carcass. "I didn't really believe there was one back here."

   Carliss turned to the newcomer. "You heard about it?"

   "Yeah. Charlie Crawford said he saw it out here when he came in last week. ‘Said he shot at it, but missed."

   "Someone was shooting guns out here?" Theo asked.

   The man looked at Theo, and a slightly puzzled expression came over his face when he noticed Theo's fine linen suit and expensive boots. But he nodded at the snake anyway.

   "He said he panicked when he saw the rattler, and shot at it before he knew what he was doing."

   "Crawford fired off a gun in town?" The sheriff frowned at the man. "Why wasn't my office told about it, Jim?"

   Jim, obviously an employee at the feed store, shrugged. "Beats me," he said. "We heard the shot from inside and I asked him about it when he came back from the toilet."

   "What'd he say?" the sheriff asked.

   Jim glanced quickly at Carliss before looking back at the older man.

   "He said he shot at a big rattlesnake, but he missed and it crawled back under the outhouse." Jim shrugged. "You could have asked Crawford about it yourself if you'd been here an hour ago. He said he spent the night in his truck after getting drunk on some homebrew last night, and came by to pick up a load of cottonseed cake this morning before heading home. He used the outhouse while he was here, too. But he didn't say anything about seeing a snake this time."

   "Well, it's dead now." The sheriff gingerly nudged the tail end of the eerily unmoving snake with the toe of his boot. "And I'm too busy to press you for details on that illegal drinking liquor you just mentioned, Jim. Anyone want these rattles?"

    "No thanks," Jim said, starting to turn away. "I've got to get back to work. At least I won't have to wonder if Crawford was lying about seeing that rattlesnake out here anymore." He shuddered and glanced toward Wheeler's rented shack. "'Tell the truth, it had me kinda spooked there for awhile. Say, you might ask Roy about that rattler. He might have seen it, too."

   The sheriff drew a deep breath and turned his back on the snake. He straightened up and jerked his forehead at the Wheeler house.

   "Uh, Roy's dead, Jim," he said. "That's why we're all here. Me and Carliss came to serve papers on him for assaulting that notions salesman last week. Hartfield, here, just came along for the ride. I found Roy dead in his kitchen, and it looks like suicide to me."

   Jim's face went blank and he staggered backwards a step.

   "He killed himself?" Jim closed his eyes and drew a deep breath, then gazed at the house. "Not many around here liked Roy, I guess," he said softly. "But damn! I can't believe anyone wished anything like that on him. How'd he do it?"

   "It looks pretty open and--"

   "Uh, Sheriff," Theo said softly, "it's none of my business, but is it a good idea to--"

   "Damn right it ain't none of your business, Hartfield!" The sheriff glared at Theo, then he looked at Carliss. Then he turned to gaze for a long moment at the dead rattler before turning back to Theo. "Uh, I reckon you're right, though," he said. "We'd best keep it all as close to the vest as we can until the coroner's court releases their findings that it was suicide."

   "Did you store Roy in Weinberg's big meat cooler?" Jim asked. "Sure don't know how I missed seeing y'all take him away."

   "Roy's still in the house," Carliss said, nodding at the shack. "But we'd appreciate it if you keep that to yourself for awhile."

   Staring at Wheeler's kitchen window, Jim went white and swallowed hard before nodding and turning to walk quickly back toward the loading dock. "I'll send Mr. Barton over as soon as he comes in," Jim called from the back door. "He'll want to know about his renter."

   "Yeah, do that," the sheriff said, turning to the others. "Well, I'd better go round up the Justice of the Peace and a couple of old boys for a coroner's court. Carliss, you stay here and snap a few pictures of Roy before we get back."

   "I'll get ‘em."

   "And, Hartfield," the sheriff said, removing his hat and turning to Theo, "I'm still not sure I agree with your murder idea, but if you're not busy I'd appreciate it if you'd stick around awhile longer."

   "So you thought a little more about the rattlesnake?" Theo asked.

   "It ain't from nowhere around here," the sheriff said softly. "I'm not saying it has anything to do with Roy's death, but you've got me thinking about how it is a mighty curious coincidence."

   Standing in the shade of the outhouse, and thinking how with so many knotholes the rickety old toilet didn't offer much in the way of privacy, Theo eyed the rattlesnake corpse while Carliss took a few snapshots of Roy Wheeler's death scene. When the deputy joined him, Theo nodded at the snake. "You might take a picture of him, too," he said. "Never know when something like that could come in handy."

   "Sure," Carliss said, aiming the Kodak. "Since we got this new Autographic No. 1 in last year's budget, the sheriff is downright possessed about getting all the use out of it we can. I guess he thinks the county might want to take it back someday." He gazed at the dead viper through the eyepiece. "This is a pretty odd snake for these parts," he said.

   "What kind of rattlers do you usually see ‘round here?" Theo asked. "I'd guess it's mostly diamondbacks."

   Carliss snapped off two pictures, and then considered the question. "Yeah," he said. "Diamondbacks out on the ranges, coontails closer to town. Don't see many in town, though."

   "I wouldn't think so." Theo noted the tint of the dusty ground in every direction. "Especially if they were colored like this one. They'd fairly glow on this gray-white caliche dirt, like this one does. That's probably why it caught my eye. How far is the closest big outcropping of red sandstone?"

   Carliss squinted deep in thought. "That'd be toward the western part of the county," he said. "Toward the foothills. Out near the...damn."

   "Near the what?"

   "Near the Crawford spread."

   Two hours later, after the Justice of the Peace and the Baptist preacher had a chance to look at Roy for awhile, and after Carliss and the sheriff got Roy's corpse laid out in the big meat cooler at the slaughterhouse until the undertaker could get around to preparing it for burial, Theo climbed into the back seat of the county-owned Model A, with Carliss behind the wheel and the sheriff sitting in the front passenger seat for the thirty-mile ride across the open prairie to the Crawford Ranch. But less than five miles down the dusty dirt track leading to Crawford's place, the sheriff mopped at his sweaty face and turned to Theo.

   "Now that I study on it some," he said, raising his voice over the noise of the incessant wind blowing in his open window, "I'm not sure this is right. After all, we don't have all that much to talk to Crawford about. There's lots of ranchers around with red sandstone on their places. And, yes, as far as we know Crawford is the only one of them that was in town this morning about the time when Roy appears to have died. But I ‘magine there's lots of folks around here that wouldn't mind seeing him dead, even if they wouldn't say so out loud.  Roy Wheeler could be one more cussed son of a ***** most of the time."

   "How so?" Theo asked.

   The sheriff shrugged his eyebrows. "Roy was just mean." He looked to Carliss for confirmation and got it in the form of a terse nod. "He was born here and grew up here, and everyone always tried to get along with him," the sheriff went on, "but most of the time he was plain old hateful. I used to wonder if it was because he was born deaf, but I stopped that a long time ago. I b'lieve he'd have been a spiteful bastard even if he had hearing like a schoolteacher. That was just his nature."

   Theo considered this. "Did he get beat up a lot, or something, when he was a kid?" he asked. "That sort of thing can turn lots of men bad."

   "Hell," the sheriff snapped over his shoulder. "If anyone got beat up, it was Roy doing the beating. He was in the grade just ahead of my youngest brother, and he'd pick fights with anyone, no matter their size or age. Roy beat up my brother at least five times a year, and would have fought me if he hadn't got to running with the saloon trash that never finished school about the time I came back from Mister Roosevelt's war down in Cuba. Like I said, Roy Wheeler was just plain mean. I believe his mama died sorrier for that than she did for birthing him deaf."

   "So whoever killed him did the town a service?" Theo asked innocently.

   The sheriff's eyes suddenly narrowed angrily. "Stop the car, Carliss," he snarled.

   "He didn't mean nothing by that," Carliss said, glancing nervously at his boss. "He just--"

   "I said stop the damn car!"

   Carliss drew a deep breath and braked the Model A just before the trail crossed a dry wash. The sheriff grabbed his door handle and, giving it a hefty jerk, slid out. In the backseat, Theo watched the lawman shuffle toward the empty watercourse. There, with his back to the car, the sheriff unzipped his britches and urinated onto a dusky sagebrush. Watching to see what the older man would do then, Theo and Carliss kept quiet. When he was finished, the county law closed his pants and stared into the sky for what seemed like a long time before turning and walking back toward the car.

   "Okay, Hartfield," he said, climbing back into his seat, "make your case. But if we've got to go all the way out to Charlie Crawford's place today, it better be a damn good one!"

   Theo let go the breath he'd been holding. He hadn't expected the sheriff to cause him any real problems. Not with Carliss watching. But in his years of working around local law enforcement officials as part of his job with the Family Business, and knowing how petty those local officials could be sometimes, he wouldn't have been surprised if the sheriff loosed a manic tirade in his direction then told him to stay as far away from the Roy Wheeler case as it was possible to be in the time he'd be in town.

   "Unless you or Carliss can answer one question," Theo said, "you just about have to go out there. If you don't mind my saying so."

   The sheriff's brow furrowed suspiciously.

   "What question is that?"

   "Can Charlie Crawford throw a knife?"

   The sheriff started to say something, but he shut his mouth and wordlessly motioned for Carliss to start the car instead.

   "Well, Charlie, can you?" the lawman asked more than an hour later, after Carliss had to change a flat tire on the Ford.

   Bleary-eyed and unkempt, and obviously still badly hung over from the previous night's drinking, the cowboy belched and tried to focus his eyes on the three town men standing in his front parlor. He didn't appear to hear when the man standing next to him, his foreman, snorted at the question.

   "Can I what, again?"

   "What's this all about, Sheriff," Al Carter, Crawford's top ranch hand asked. "Can't you see Charlie's a sick man? Why are you bothering him with silly little questions about knives?"

   "He's not sick, he's getting over a drunk," the sheriff said. "And right now, his immediate future depends on how he answers."

   "Don't say nothing," Carter said, looking back and forth between Crawford and the sheriff. "This ain't no radio play. The sheriff and his deputy can't just come out here to a man's home and ask personal questions like that without a warrant from the court." He glared at Theo. "Not even if they bring their lawyer along."

   "Hartfield ain't no lawyer," the sheriff barked. "Leastways," he amended, glancing at Theo, "I don't think he is. But I've got to know right now if Charlie can throw a knife and make it stick where he wants."

   "Sure I can," Crawford mumbled. "I can out-throw any man in the county with a good bowie knife. Wanna see me do it?" He reached for his empty belt sheath. "Damn," he muttered. "Must've lost it somewhere. But I could throw it if I wanted to!"

   The sheriff exchanged looks with Theo and Carliss before drawing a deep breath.

   "Charlie Crawford," he said, jerking handcuffs from his belt, "we're taking you in on suspicion."

   "S-Suspicion of what?"

   "Of killing Roy Wheeler," the sheriff said.

   "Wheeler is dead?" Carter asked, before Crawford could say anything.

   "Deader'n hell," Carliss said, helping hold Crawford's arms behind his back. "Apparently, it happened this morning, about the time Charlie was getting that load of feed."

   "Son of a ***** probably had it coming," Carter snarled. "Him and Charlie never did get along. Hell, I don't believe I ever heard of Roy Wheeler getting along with anyone."

   "Roy Wheeler?" Crawford muttered. "Wait a minute, what load of feed?"

   "The load we saw still sitting on your truck when we drove up." The sheriff turned away from Crawford and toward Carter. "Now, if you care anything about your boss," he said, "you'd better get back to town and hunt him up a lawyer, pronto."

   "Do it, Al," Crawford said. "Do it."

   "I'll head in after I get that truck unloaded," the hired hand murmured to the sheriff.

   "See you then," the sheriff said, leading Crawford out of the house.

   On the way to the sheriff's car, Theo stopped beside Crawford's battered pickup truck to tie a shoe while the others went on, and he noticed a Winchester hanging on hooks in the back window. Almost losing his balance at one point, he reached up and grabbed at one of the bags of feed to keep himself from stumbling. Then he straightened, brushed red dust from his hand, and continued on to the car. But he stopped after a few steps and gazed back at the truck.

   Funny, he thought, he'd only seen one small red sandstone soil deposit on the way in and it was nowhere near the road. In fact, Carliss mentioned that most of the sandstone was further west on the Crawford range. Closer to the foothills. If Crawford drove the load of feed out from town, with no red sandstone dust along the way to coat the bags, where did the dust come from?

   Crawford was snoring heavily when Theo climbed in beside him.

   "He dropped off the minute he hit the seat," Carliss said over his shoulder. "Must've been one hell of a drunk."

   "I guess," Theo said, pulling the door shut and noticing that Crawford's breath, while ferocious in its stink, didn't have the usual alcohol tang of the career drinker. "Sheriff, when we get back to town, can we stop at Wheeler's place first?" he asked. "There's something I want to get another look at."

   "Before we get Charlie properly jailed?"

   Theo nodded. "I think it's important," he said.

   "It had damn sure better be!"

   The car had another flat on the outskirts of town, but Theo got out and walked quickly on to Wheeler's house while Carliss took off afoot to find a fresh spare until he could get both flats fixed.

   Theo cautiously entered Roy Wheeler's kitchen and found the hole in the window that faced out onto the loading dock. He studied at the opposite wall. It took a few minutes, but he finally spotted what at first looked like a mouse hole where the wall joined the floor. The two holes lined up nicely with the back door of the feed store. Nodding to himself, he moved around, careful not to step in the mostly dried blood still on the floor, so that he could see through the other small hole in the kitchen's outer wall. He adjusted his line of vision until the hole let in the most sunlight possible. A few yards directly beyond the hole, he knew, stood the outhouse. Then he looked down to see where he was standing, and slowly turned to eye the opposite wall. And there it was. Looking to his right, he saw--

   "So here you are, Hartfield," the sheriff said, pushing a groggy Charlie Crawford past the bed and ahead of him into the kitchen. "Is barging into a crime scene something you Hartfields do a lot of in Denver?"

   "No," Theo said absently, brushing past the sheriff and the prisoner and glancing at the bed before heading for the privy. There, he cautiously pulled the door open and stepped inside. At about shoulder height, he found what he was looking for.

   "Dammit, Hartfield," the sheriff huffed from just outside the toilet, "I was talking to you!"

   "Uh, what?"

   "I asked what was it you wanted to look that was so important I couldn't get Charlie booked into the jail first, and you just walked off to come out here to the pissiore."

   "Details." Theo stepped outside and, holding his left hand to shade his eyes from the oppressive heat and glare from the late afternoon sun, gazed in the direction of the loading dock. "Just a few details."  

   "Well, if you're finished with your...your details, I need to get Charlie--"

   "Crawford didn't kill Wheeler," Theo said absently. "He's not your man. By the way, where is he?"

   "I left him passed out on Roy's bed. He's not going anywhere anytime soon." The sheriff removed his hat and mopped his forehead again, and stared incredulously at Theo. "What the hell do you mean he's not the killer? Dammit, Hartfield, you're the one who pinned it on Charlie Crawford to begin with!"

   "Mighty hot out here in the sun, Sheriff," Theo said, slowly walking toward the covered loading dock at the back of the feed store. "Let's go sit in the shade yonder, and I'll explain it all."

   "You'd damn sure better!"

   "And while you're at it," Theo whispered turning slightly away from the building, "keep your pistol hand ready to draw like you did at that snake."

   "Now why the hell do I--"

   "'Afternoon. Jim," Theo said, stepping into the shade and noting the presence of the feed store employee. He was leaning against the back door frame, his hands apparently clasped behind his back. "Is Al Carter around yet?"

   Jim shrugged.

   "Why should I know when Carter comes and goes?"

   "Just curious." Theo perched lightly near the end of the porch, where he could see the whole expanse of the loading area, and glanced at the kitchen window of Wheeler's rented shack just across the yard. "I thought you might know."

   The sheriff sat heavily on the edge of the dock, but Theo noticed he did sit so that he kept his right hand -- his gun hand -- free and loose.

   "It's none of my concern what Carter or anyone else does when they aren't in here buying feed," Jim said. "He's just another customer."

   "I guess." Now that his eyes were adjusted to the shade, Theo idly studied the plank flooring of the dock. "That load of cottonseed cake you sent out to Crawford's place this morning, had it been here long?"

   "Feed comes in, feed goes out," Jim said, shrugging again. "That's how the business works."

   "I reckon so. Say, Jim, are you the one who shot at Wheeler, or the one who threw the knife at him? I'm guessing you were the shooter."

   Jim's eyes went round.

   "Wh-what the hell are you talking about?"

   "Yeah, Hartfield," the sheriff said, coming to his feet, "what the hell are you--DAMN!"

    Theo slid off the deck and, crouching, crabbed to his left just as a bullet crashed through the floorboards where he'd been sitting.

   "Drop it, Jim!" the sheriff roared, his pistol suddenly materializing in his hands. "Now! I mean it!"

   There was a tense moment of silence, then Theo heard a heavy-caliber handgun hit the floor.

   "I didn't kill Roy," Jim shrieked. "I didn't do it! I swear! I missed him clean. Carter killed him!"

   Theo came to his feet and rejoined the sheriff. Jim was rocking back and forth on his knees, his head in his hands. Gingerly, Theo moved closer to the feed store employee and deftly plucked the man's pistol from the floor while two customers and another aproned employee appeared in the doorway.

   "Stay back," the sheriff snapped at the newcomers. "And keep your hands where I can see ‘em!"

   "It was just Jim and Al," Theo said. "These others are nothing but bystanders."

   "Now how the hell do you know that?"

   "Because they weren't around this morning when Jim shot at Wheeler twice and missed, and Al had to finish him off with Crawford's big bowie."

   The sheriff glared at Jim.

   "That right?"

   The feed store worker just wiped his eyes and looked away.

   "Okay, Hartfield, why?" Disgusted with the man he thought he knew, the sheriff tore his eyes from Jim to fix an even more intense stare on Theo. "What's the motive?"

   Theo jerked his forehead at the building. "Al and Jim were dealing in stolen feed," he said. "Al would bring it in from somewhere on the other side of the county, some big ranch or another store, and Jim would sell it here. That's where all that red sandstone dust came from. Same with the rattlesnake. It must've hitched a ride here hidden inside a load. That feed we saw on Charlie's truck was inbound, not outbound. It was covered in red dust. Anyway, Wheeler must've seen what was going on from his kitchen window, and figured it out."

   "That true, Jim?" The sheriff stretched a boot out to toe the man roughly on the thigh. "Is that why you killed Roy?"

   "He said...he said he was gonna turn us in if we didn't cut him in on the profits." Jim drew a deep breath before going on. "That made Al madder'n hell. Al is crazy, Sheriff! He said he'd kill me too if I didn't go along with him."

   "Well, we'll just see about that." The lawman jerked his forehead at Wheeler's shack. "What did Crawford have to do with all this?"

   Jim merely looked down at his hands.

   "Nothing," Theo said. "Charlie Crawford wasn't in town overnight, like Jim claimed. He was home either drunk or drugged, or both. Probably still is drugged, in fact, to be so groggy from it."

   The sheriff's eyebrows shot up, and he glared hard at Jim.

   Jim lowered his eyes.

   "Anyway," Theo continued, "I suspect that when Al Carter showed up with the load of stolen feed this morning, Wheeler made a fuss over it. They must've agreed to whatever he wanted, and Wheeler went back into his kitchen to fix his breakfast. Then -- and you'll have to ask Jim or Carter how they decided just which of them was gonna do it -- Jim got hold of the Winchester from Crawford's truck. His first round was from the outhouse, yonder, through a knothole in the wall. When he came back to the loading dock, he realized he missed when he saw that Wheeler was still alive. So he shot through the window, and missed again. I'm guessing that's when Al Carter gave up on shooting -- it was probably getting too noticeable -- and snuck into the house and flung the knife Charlie lost in the truck into Wheeler's chest. Then, instead of unloading the truck, Carter drove back to the ranch to wait for the excitement to blow over."

   The sheriff squinted his eyes first at Theo, then at Wheeler's shack, then at Jim. "Okay, that all makes sense," he finally said, his shoulders slumping. "By the way, Jim, you're under arrest. I guess Carter has high-tailed it out of the county by now." He shook his head. "Damn! I should have made him come with us when I had the chance."

   "Carter will be along directly," Theo said, turning his face directly into the first cool breeze of the evening. "In fact, there he comes now." He nodded his eyebrows at the pickup truck moving slowly down the alley.

   "Now how the hell did you know he'd come back here?"

   "I figure he just had to know one way or the other." They always wanted to know for sure, Theo thought. "Sheriff, I suggest you don't let Jim say anything for the next few minutes."

   "I won't!"

   "I'm not going to hang for a killing Carter done," Jim wailed.

   "Keep shut!" the sheriff roared.

   When the truck came fully within sight of the loading dock, with Al Carter at the wheel, it turned onto the feed store property at the very last moment. Carter killed the engine and sat watching the others for a minute before jumping spryly from the cab to stand beside the open door.

   "'Evenin', Sheriff," he called out. "I saw Carliss fixing a flat, and he said you took Charlie on to jail. Glad to see you here."

   The sheriff raised his voice. "Why?"

   "Because I wanted to tell you I think I figured out who killed Wheeler. I think it was Jim, yonder."

   "No, I mean why didn't you come tell me at the jail if you thought that's where I was?"

   "Well, because I...um, I figured--"

   "You're under arrest, Al," the sheriff snapped, bringing up his sidearm. "For the murder of Roy Wheeler."

   "Hell I am!"

   Carter turned to reach inside the truck. The Winchester was in his hands and he was turning to fire at the loading dock when a large butcher knife suddenly flashed across from Wheeler's house and almost buried itself blade-first in the middle of his back. Carter screamed once, and then dropped to the ground to flop and flail around under the edge of the pickup, kicking up a thick cloud of dust and dirt much as the rattlesnake had done in the morning.

   Charlie Crawford charged angrily around the corner of the shack.

   "You tried to get me hung, you ungrateful sumbitch!" he screamed at Carter. "And after I gave you work and took you into my home!"

   "Charlie, you ignorant bastard!" Carter moaned. "You were just...just..."

   Carter stopped moving. Crawford dropped to his knees beside the body, sobbing into his hands.

   Instead of confronting Crawford, the sheriff turned incensed eyes on Theo.

   "That's two corpses in my jurisdiction today," he snarled. "Why is it that death follows you Hartfields around like a puppydog?"

   "I didn't kill either one of them."

   "Dammit, Hartfield, that's not the damned point--"

   "Aren't you wondering where Crawford got the butcher knife he threw?" Theo calmly asked. "He didn't bring it from the ranch."

   "I--I" The lawman turned to stare at the rancher. "Yeah, where did he get it?" he asked softly. "I left him in Wheeler's bed."

   "It was in the covers." Theo drew a deep breath and let it slowly out. "When Wheeler realized someone was in his house, and turned in time to catch the bowie in his chest, I figure he threw the knife he was cutting the chicken with. But he missed. It must've landed on the bed instead, and likely buried itself in the blankets. Crawford must have--"

   "He found it when he laid down on the bed." The sheriff jerked handcuffs from his belt and turned to Jim, who silently held out his arms. "I'd have figured that out for myself, Hartfield," he muttered, snapping the cuffs onto the only still-living suspect. "Hell, it ain't nothing hard."

   Silently agreeing that it wasn't a difficult guess, Theo spotted Carliss driving the police car down the alley.

   "You and your Justice of the Peace will have to decide whether or not to charge Charlie Crawford with Carter's killing," he pointed out. "But that's between you all. I'm going to visit with my friend, yonder, for awhile before heading home. So if you want a statement from me, just come by Carliss' house."

   "Oh, I will." The sheriff pushed Jim ahead of him and frog-marched the prisoner toward the edge of the dock, but he stopped before he reached the single stair. "Um, Hartfield," he said, turning back to Theo, "I...damn. I ‘preciate it. But you gotta understand that I can't let just any civilian come poking into official county law business. Especially someone who ain't from around these parts."

   "I see." Theo smiled at the older man. "Would it help if I send you a bill?" he asked. "That'd make it all official."

   The sheriff grinned back.

   "You can send it," he said, "but I'm not guaranteeing we'll pay it."

   As the sun dipped below the distant horizon, Theo shrugged.

   "I guess that'll just have to be good enough then," he said.

Keyword: THE DEAF MAN'S DEMISE

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Posted by tarhead 2008-03-09 22:32:57 nice story good writing chance. + Report this comment

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