“Been wonderin’ what become of you and Jerry. I’m just settin’ down to dinner. Got in kinda late. C’mon in an’ Ma’ll set out a plate. She’s already et, but she kept things hot.” He held the door open invitingly, and his unruffled manner was reassuring to a degree but Chuckaluck wondered if he realized the temper of his own townspeople.

  “I thank yuh kindly,” he said. “I could shore do with a mess o’ victuals. Worry can make a man’s stummick gnaw same as his brains.”

  The sheriff was leading the way to the table. He pulled out a chair for his visitor, then went around to seat himself before a plate piled high with roast beef and frijoles. “Reckon Jerry Kirk’s wild carryin’s on is enough to worry a man into a big appetite,” he said.

  “’Tain’t him so much,” Chuckaluck said. “I jus’ stopped in fo’ a drink at a saloon an’ heard some powerful mad talk aboot …”

  “About a lynchin’ party, I reckon,” Sheriff Morgan cut in jovially. “I been sheriff of Marfa twenty years and there ain’t been a lynchin.’ Oh … Ma … bring in another plate. We got comp’ny for supper.”

  By the time Chuckaluck got his napkin tucked in his shirt collar a plump woman with a beaming face came in from the kitchen with a plate and a knife and fork.

  “This here’s Mr. Chuckaluck Thompson,” said the sheriff. “Feller I tol’ you about was ridin’ herd on Kirk.”

  “How d’you do, Mr. Thompson,” she said, and held out a short plump hand. “I do declare I feel so bad about Jerry,” she went on as she put the plate before him. “You just he’p yourse’f and eat hearty and don’t let him keep you talkin’ till the victuals get cold. There’s more hot biscuits on the stove.” She bustled out and the sound of dishes clinking came from the kitchen.

  Chuckaluck took two flaky biscuits, broke them on his plate and spread frijoles over them, spooning up some of the thick soup with them. The sheriff sliced a thick portion of the tender meat and put it on his plate.

  “Boys in this town talk a lot with their mouths,” the sheriff told him. “More steam they blow off talkin’ the less trouble they make.”

  Chuckaluck chewed on a sizeable piece of beef and a forkful of beans and shook his head morosely until he swallowed. “D’you know thuh things they’re sayin’ aboot thuh man yuh got in jail?” he protested.

  “Don’t worry about what they’re sayin’. Where’s Kirk?”

  “He ain’t been here?” Chuckaluck asked in surprise.

  “Ain’t seen ’im. No bad trouble with Frank Adams, I calc’late?” The sheriff forked a piece of beef into his mouth and then half a biscuit Soaked in red frijole juice. He settled back and munched thoughtfuly while Chuckaluck told him what had happened at the ZB ranch.

  “Jud Montrose is a good man,” he said. “Reckon he might lie about somethin’ if Frank tol’ ’im to, but on t’other hand I don’t reckon Frank tol’ him this time. Is Jerry off his high-horse about Frank now?”

  “Sort of. I got him tuh come ’long with me tuh ask yore prisoner if he met Adams on thuh Fo’t Davis road tuh-day.” Chuckaluck repeated what he had said to Jerry Kirk on their ride into Marfa while the sheriff ate.

  “Makes sense,” said the sheriff thoughtfully. “We better have Jerry hear it his ownse’f when Twister says he did meet Frank. I’m s’prised he hasn’ showed up,” he added.

  “Me too. He hurried out of thuh Lone Star Hotel while I was gettin’ me a room. He was powerful excited aboot his wife’s uncle bein’ in town from Ohio an’ drivin’ out tuh see Missus Kirk yestiddy.”

  “His wife’s uncle?” Sheriff Morgan frowned, holding half a biscuit suspended on his fork.

  “Man name o’ Oscar Bascom,” Chuckaluck explained, then related the story the hotel proprietor had told them. “I don’t know what tuh make outta it,” he confessed. “Kirk acted like he thought this Bascom was up tuh somethin’ funny … aboot thuh money Missus Kirk was gonna get from her daddy which is this man’s brother … on account of he didn’ bring her back tuh town with ’im in thuh livery rig he hired yestiddy. Seems like he thinks Bascom mebbe didn’ even tell her aboot her pappy bein’ dead an’ had lef’ her his money.”

  “But that must be what he come all the way out here for,” the sheriff reasoned. “After she didn’ answer the letter we found in her mail-box.”

  Chuckaluck nodded his head in agreement, chewed rapidly, swallowed, then said, “I dunno jus’ what Jerry Kirk does think, but I know he shore don’t like Bascom an’ don’t trust ’im.”

  They stopped talking and finished the meal in thoughtful silence. Mrs. Morgan came in with thick coffee mugs and a steaming pot of coffee.

  “I shore thank yuh kindly, Missus Morgan,” Chuckaluck said. “I ain’t had sech a good-cooked mess o’ victuals sinct I was tuh home an’ m’mama done thuh cookin’.”

  “It’s a pleasure to see a hungry man eat,” she assured him.

  “Molly loves to see a man tear into her cookin’,” said the sheriff genially when his wife returned to the kitchen. “She’s goin’ t’be mighty disappointed if I turn this Twister a-loose or he gets lynched.”

  “Meanin’ she sets out thuh food fo’ thuh prisoners an’ this waddie et anough supper t’suit her?” Chuckaluck asked.

  “Cleaned up two full plates slicker’n a whistle. Et more’n you did, by golly,” bragged the sheriff. He pushed his chair back and heaved his big body from it. “We’ll go in thuh settin’-room an’ set. I et too much, so we’ll let out summper settle whilst we wait a little more for Jerry. If he don’t come, we’ll have a talk with Twister about Adams anyhow.” He belched gently and went ahead of his guest into the pleasant sitting-room.

  When Morgan got his corncob pipe burning, Chuckaluck said discreetly:

  “I don’t want yuh tuh min’ me hornin’ in on this thing, Sheriff. I got tuh feelin’ moughty sorry fo’ Kirk when we was out to Adams’ place an’ when we was ridin’ to town, an’ I got to admit I sorta liked thuh looks o’ that twisted-face galoot I saw up there by thuh fore tuh-night. Reckon he can’t he’p one side o’ his face bein’ all scarred an’ drawed up kinda devilish-like, but I studied him some on t’other side an’ he looked downright mou’nful an’ innercent.”

  “You ain’t hornin’ in a-tall,” said the sheriff generously. “Reckon you kep’ Jerry from gettin’ hisse’f bad hurt when he jumped Jud Montrose up at Adams’ place.” He sucked on his pipe and seemed to be deep in thought for a while. “I’ve seen it work out befo’,” he resumed, “that a man comes to a place cold, ’thout knowin’ the people mixed up in a deal, an’ seems like he can sometimes study things out better’n some folks that’re close to it. What you got in mind?”

  “What’s yore answer to thuh crazy set-up at thuh Kirk cabin?” Chuckaluck parried.

  “I can’t rightly say I see a answer,” Morgan admitted.

  After a short debate with himself, Chuckaluck said cautiously, “Feller at thuh saloon was tellin’ aboot a tough-lookin’ hombre goin’ crazy an’ lettin’ all thuh water outen thuntank on Rangoon’s spread tuh-day. Said somebuddy seen ’im ridin’ hell-bent up thuh mountain t’wards Kirk’s mesa. Reckon he coulda been thuh killer?”

  “I been checkin’ up on that,” the sheriff told him. “Feller Twister said he seen the man, but I figger he made it all up, ’cause I couldn’ find nobody that’d heard about it ’round Marfa, an’ Twister ain’t had a chance to tell anybody ’cept Jerry an’ me. Who was the feller tol’ you?”

  “I ain’t got no idee. Jus’ one o’ thuh men in thuh saloon,” he said hastily and changed the subject by saying, “Reckon yuh got this Twister dead tuh rights.”

  “Can’t say for shore. If he tol’ the truth about when he left Fort Davis an’ can prove it …”

  “Hadn’ yuh oughta be checkin’ on that?” Chuckaluck cut in.

  Sheriff Morgan nodded. “Sent a deppity off soon as I hit town. He’ll be back by noon to-morrow.”

  “You gettin’ up searchin’ parties fo’ Missus Kirk an’ thuh boy?”

  “Not yet. I thought about it ridin’ in with Twister. Fust off, where’d they start lookin’ at night? ’Nother thing I been thinkin’ is if she did wander off ’round noon yesterday an’ left ever’thing like Twister claims he found it, and didn’ come back, I figger she’s done gone craay. Mind you,” he went on sternly, pointing his pipe at Chuckaluck, “I’ll do my bounden dooty as sheriff. If Frank Adams can prove he lef’ these parts at daylight … an’ if Twister can prove he didn’t get there ’till most dark … then it seems like Kirk’ll be better off if he don’t find his wife.”

  “What aboot his li’l boy?”

  “I reckon that’s partly what I’m gettin’ at,” he said gruffly. “Woman shut up in a cabin with a young-un like she was goes off her kazip an’ no tellin’ what harm she’ll do.”

  “Yuh mean … tuh her own young-un?”

  “I seen it happen befo’,” Morgan said gravely. He paused to press the glowing ember in his pipe firmly into the bowl with a blunt thumb. “Lucy Kirk weren’t never cut out for livin’ up there in the mountains with nobody to talk to. Jerry won’t tell you this, but I know fo’ a fact she was allus throwin’ it up to him about how diff’rent it was from what she was used to back in Ohio. Fought like cats an’ dogs, an’ it wouldn’ s’prise me none if that’s one reason why he went off to San Angelo.”

  “Thuh way he’s actin’ aboot her now yuh’d think he was plumb in love with her an’ couldn’ stand losin’ ’er,” Chuckaluck marvelled.

  “Yeh. Seems like a man fo’gets them things when somethin’ happens to his woman,” said the sheriff simply. “He thinks back to how purty and lovin’ she was. He was plumb crazy about little Bobbie, I reckon. He’s plenty hard hit all right, but I figger his fust mistake was when he made up to a rich gal in Ohio an’ thought she’d be satisfied to live the rest of her life in a fo’-room cabin way up on a mountain mesa.”

  He paused and inclined his head as the sound of hurried footsteps came from the path outside. He lumbered up from the chair in response to a pounding on the door, ambled forward and greeted his caller cordially:

  “C’mon in, Jerry. Me an’ Thompson’ve been waitin’ for you to show up ’fore we went out to the jail.”

  Jerry Kirk’s thin dark face was tightly drawn and his eyes glittered with excitement. Since leaving Chuckaluck at the hotel he had acquired a gun-belt and .45, and his thin fingers clenched and unclenched on the butt of the hoisted gun as he said to the sheriff:

  “I’ve been asking questions and finding out things. You can turn that Twister out of jail. I know who killed Lucy and Bobbie.”

  CHAPTER VIII

  Chuckaluck batted his lids several times in quick succession, then left them half-closed to keep his eyes from popping out of their sockets. He let his face muscles go lax in an effort not to show the astonishment, perplexity and pleasure that were all mixed up inside him. He watched the sheriff’s face through slitted lids, but his heavy features did not change expression and his voice was a mild drawl when he said:

  “That’s right interestin’. Set down an’ take the weight off yore feet an’ tell us all about it, Jerry.”

  This calm reception of his crucial announcement deflated and flustered Kirk. He remained standing in the centre of the room with his thin torso bent forward and his concave stomach flattened against the curve of his spine. His black eyes darted from Morgan to Chuckaluck and he muttered, “Yeh. I know who done it. And why.”

  “Had supper yet?” asked the sheriff genially.

  “I don’t want to eat,” he flung out. “I just had a few drinks. You act like you don’t care what I’ve got to say.”

  “Set down an’ ca’m yo’self,” Morgan insisted. “We’re listenin’.”

  He dropped into a chair and fumbled in the pocket of his sateen shirt for papers and tobacco. His hands trembled when he attempted to trench the paper and sift tobacco into it. There were two torn papers on the floor and a generous amount of the brown flakes on his clothes when he finally fashioned a bulging cylinder and put it between his thin lips to light it.

  “It’s that uncle of hers … Oscar Bascom … from Ohio.” He pulled hard on the loosely-packed cigarette and again looked from Morgan to Chuckaluck with the expression of a man who had lighted the fuse of a powder keg and waited expectantly for the shattering blast.

  Sheriff Morgan nodded. “Heard about that. He was up to yore place yesterday. How you figure he killed her yesterday when it looks like she was alive an’ cooked dinner to-day?”

  “I’ve got the whole thing figured,” Kirk jerked out. “When the lawyers didn’t hear from Lucy after writin’ that letter they got in touch with Oscar Bascom. That’s when he first got the idea of killing Lucy and Bobbie. He told them she was dead and then he come on out here to make sure she was dead.

  “You don’t know Lucy’s folks like I do,” he wen on savagely. “Stuck up and crazy for money. Oscar was dead set against Lucy marryin’ me and he talked her old man into cuttin’ her out of his will. Then when her pa made a new will an’ left everything to Lucy he was determined to stop us from getting it.” He stopped talking and glared at the sheriff’s impassive face.

  “So?” Morgan prompted him.

  “So, he comes to Marfa and sneaks around to find out where we live and goes up there. The minute Lucy sees him she gets the idea he has come here to kill me, because he hates me so he couldn’t stand to see me get a dime of the money. She refuses to tell him where I’m working. When he found Lucy and Bobbie there alone … I can just see him tellin’ her about the money … he gloated over getting it for himself and then he killed both of ’em and took plenty of time to find a good place to hide their bodies.”

  “But what about the dinner …?”

  “I’m comin’ to that,” Kirk burst out. “I know if Lucy had been alive she would’ve come back with him and gone on to San Angelo with ’im. But what does he do? He comes sneakin’ back late in the afternoon and wouldn’t even tell Joe Hanks at the livery stable how Lucy and Bobbie was when he asked about ’em. Just grunted somethin’ Joe couldn’t understand and asked if he knew where I was.” Kirk paused again, indicating that he considered this an even more important point in the case against his wife’s uncle.

  “Did Joe tell him?” Morgan inquired.

  “Joe didn’t know. So Oscar kept askin’ around until he found out where I was working. He went back to the stable and hired a team for early this morning to drive to San Angelo.

  “Now … sometime last night or early this mornin’ he must’ve met up with this Twister feller and either let him in on the scheme or else found out he was just a wanderin’ waddie on his way south and invited him to stop over at the cabin and make hisself at home. And it was Twister that cooked that dinner. Lucy couldn’t’ve cooked it because she was already dead.” He was bent forward until his thin body was jacknifed and his eyes smouldered with fanatical rage.

  “What about the sign that was moved?” Morgan asked.

  “I figure Oscar moved it, figuring on gettin’ somebody somehow to be at the cabin to take the blame when Lucy and Bobbie was found missin’. God knows what kind of lie he made up, but he must’ve got Twister to put the sign back after he had found his way to the mesa.”

  “Makes sense,” the sheriff agreed unemotionally, glancing at Chuckaluck for confirmation.

  Chuckaluck’s round face was screwed up with intense concentration. “S’posin’ this Bascom is money crazy … thuh sorta galoot that’d murder his own niece an’ her baby fo’ a passel o’ money,” he said slowly and cautiously. “He’d mos’ likely be thuh kinda feller that’d know thuh law on it. Yuh tol’ me yore ownse’f back yonder on thuh trail that even if yore wife was dead thuh money’d come tuh yuh as her next o’ kin. So, what would this Bascom gain by murderin’ her?”

  “And Bobbie,” Kirk reminded him grimly. “You’re right. ’Twouldn’t do him any good ’less he killed me, too. With me out of the way he’d be Lucy’s next of kin. That’s why he was in such a hurry to find me … why he drove off to San Angelo at the break of day. An’ get this … he bought a sawed-off shotgun from Larry Harkness before he left. If he’d found me at the store he would’ve called me out and started an argument, I reckon, and killed me with that shotgun.”

  “Hol’ on just’ a minut,” Chuckaluck protested, his forehead rumpled with thought. “If that law aboot yore wife inheritin’ proppity from her pa, even if she died afterwards ’thout claimin’ it; is true, then why wouldn’ it hol’ with a husband an’ wife too? What I mean is, ain’t yuh got no livin’ kin?”

  “Got a brother in Arizona,” said Kirk stiffly. “But I don’t see what that’s got to do with it.”

  “It’s got a-plenty,” the chunky cowhand insisted. “If yuh’d a-died afore yore wife I reckon thuh money might’ve gone back tuh her uncle like yuh say. But if her an’ thuh boy died fust, then I reckon yore brother would colleck ’cordin’ tuh law.”

  “All this talk about who died fust an secon’ is plumb foolish,” said Sheriff Morgan sternly. “Fact is, I ain’t set on believin’ nobody’s statements yet. I ain’t a-tall shore Lucy died fust or last, after gettin’ a look at that cabin. An’ don’t fohget we ain’t heard from Frank Adams yet, an’ there’s that yarn Chuckaluck heard ’bout a s’picious-lookin’ hombre lettin’ thuh water outta Rangoon’s tank … one Twister claimed he seen with ’is own eyes. Feller at thuh saloon where Mr. Thompson was havin’ a drink heard it too.”

  “The way I got it figured about this Twister makes more sense,” Kirk flared angrily. “You said so yourself just now.”

  “There’s other things make sense, too. Or will when we get all thuh facts. Truth is, you ain’t in no condition to figure things out, Jerry,” the sheriff went on in a kindly though chiding tone. “Fust off you jump Twister in thuh cabin, dead shore he done it. Then you go rarin’ about Frank Adams. Now you’re layin’ thuh hull thing on a man from way out in Ohio. Slow down an’ light some place. It can’t be all of ’em.”