A car had just pulled up. There were two men in it: both wearing Stetson hats and dark suits. One of them, big, fat with a belly, got out of the car, leaving the other at the wheel. The sun glittered on the star he wore on his lapel. As he squeezed out of the car, his coat fell open. I saw the gun belt and the .45 in its holster.
"Cops!" Roy said sharply.
I felt a chill snake up my spine. I looked wildly at Lola. It was a funny thing but in this moment of panic I turned to her, feeling she and no one else could save me.
"It"s the sheriff," I said. "He"s coming in here!"
Lola picked up a cloth and wiped her hands.
"I"ll handle him," she said. She was as calm and as unruffled as a bishop presiding at a tea party. "It"s all right, Chet."
It was easy for her to be calm. She hadn"t to face Farnworth. The sight of that fat sheriff froze my blood.
Both Roy and I stood aside and we watched her walk into the lunch room. As the door swung to behind her, I heard her say, "Why, h.e.l.lo, Sheriff, you"re quite a stranger."
I felt sweat on my face as I leaned against the wall, listening. Roy stood on the either side of the door, also listening and watching me.
"h.e.l.lo there, Mrs. Jenson, nice to see you again." The sheriff had a booming voice that carried easily to us. "Is Mr. Jenson around? I wanted a word with him."
"Why, no. Carl is away."
Lola"s voice sounded casual. I imagined her facing the sheriff, her green eyes bland and her expression unruffled. It would take a lot more than a fat sheriff to rattle her, but he was certainly rattling me.
"Mr. Jensona"away?" His voice registered his startled surprise. "That"s an event, isn"t it? I"ve never known him to leave here before. Where can I find him?"
"I don"t know." She managed to convey by the tone of her voice that she didn"t care either. "He"s moving arounda"anyway, that"s what he told me. He is supposed to be either in Arizona or Colorado. Since he left, I haven"t heard a word from him."
"Any idea when he"ll be back, Mrs. Jenson?"
A pause, then she said in a cold, flat voice, "I don"t think he is coming back."
I heard the sheriff"s grunt of surprise.
"Not coming back? What do you mean?"
"He"s walked out on me."
There was a long pause. I could imagine him staring at her and getting a blank stare in return. I looked across at Roy, who was listening with the same intenseness as I was. Our eyes met. He frowned, shaking his head.
The sheriff said, "Well, this is a surprise. What makes you say that, Mrs. Jenson?"
"It"s not the first time a husband has found someone else he likes better than his wife." She managed now to get a waspish note in her voice. "What business is it of yours anyway, Sheriff? If Carl likes to make a fool of himself over some woman, that"s my headache, not yours."
I heard him shuffle his feet.
"That"s a fact, Mrs. Jenson, but I"m sorry to hear it. Some woman, huh?"
"Oh, I suppose it is as much my fault as his. I shouldn"t have married him. He was too old for me. From the start we didn"t get along together. Well, at least he did the decent thing: he left me this place. I won"t starve. What did you want to see him about? Anything I can do?"
The sheriff cleared his throat noisily.
"I understand there"s a fella working herea"Jack Patmore. Is that right?"
My heart began to thump violently. I looked quickly around the kitchen for a weapon. There was a meat cleaver lying on the table. I reached out and grabbed it. I wasn"t going back to Farnworth. If this fat sheriff imagined he could take me, he was in for a surprise.
Roy, watching me, shook his head. He had lost colour. Maybe he could see from the expression on my face that I wasn"t going to be arrested without a fight. Maybe the sight of the sheriff"s gun scared him: it didn"t me. I would rather be shot than face Farnworth.
I heard Lola say, "Patmore? Why, yes. He works here. Carl hired him before he left. I have to have someone here to help out."
"I understand that, Mrs. Jenson. I want to talk to him."
"I"m not stopping you." Her voice was very casual. "He"s somewhere around."
Roy moved silently over to me.
"I can handle this," he whispered. "Leave it to me."
He crossed the kitchen to the back door, opened it and moved quickly and silently out into the hot sunshine.
Lola was saying, "He"s probably over the way in the repair shed. Why not see for yourself?"
"I guess I"ll do that, Mrs. Jenson."
I heard the sheriff move to the door, then Lola said, "Did George Ricks tell you about Patmore, Sheriff?"
"That"s right ... he did."
"Did he complain that Patmore hit him?"
There was a pause, then the sheriff said awkwardly, "Why, yes."
Lola went on, her voice hard, "Did he happen to tell you why Patmore hit him?"
"This Patmore seems a quarrelsome type. Ricks said . . ."
"He didn"t tell you that Patmore hit him because Ricks called me a wh.o.r.e?" The indignation in her voice sounded very sincere. "I would like to think, Sheriff, you would have hit Ricks if you had heard him call me that."
The sheriff cleared his throat.
"Why, yes. The fact is I had an idea he was shooting the breeze ..."
I heard the screen door creak open, then Roy"s voice say, "Morning, Sheriff."
A pause, then the sheriff said, "Is your name Jack Patmore?"
"That"s correct," Roy said.
I leaned against the door, listening.
Roy was about my height, dark like me, and his moustache was clipped like mine. If Ricks had given the sheriff a description of me, Roy could be mistaken for me.
The sheriff said in his heavy, booming voice, "George Ricks says you knocked him down yesterday. That right?"
Lola was quick to cue Roy in.
"I was telling the Sheriff," she said, "you hit Ricks because he called me a wh.o.r.e."
"I certainly did," Roy said. He sounded cheerful. "And I"ll tell you something else, Sheriff. If Ricks shows his snout here in the future, I"ll not only knock him down again, but I"ll kick his backside as well."
There was a pause, then the sheriff said, "Where do you come from, Patmore?"
My heart began to thump again and my grip tightened on the handle of the meat cleaver.
Roy said, a jeering note in his voice, "Oakville, California. In case you don"t know, Sheriff, in my home town we don"t let rats like Ricks call women names. If you want my fingerprints just tell mea"you can have them."
"Okay, fella, you don"t have to act smart." The sheriff sounded annoyed. "It"s my job to know who lives around in this district."
"Carl met Patmore in his sc.r.a.p deals," Lola said quickly. "That"s why he hired him to work for him."
There was a pause, then the sheriff said, "Well, all right. Take my tip, Patmore, don"t be quite so free with your fists in the future."
"You tell Ricks to watch his dirty mouth and I"ll watch my fists," Roy said. "How"s that?"
The sheriff said, after hesitation, "I"ll talk to him."
"And while you"re talking to him," Lola broke in, "Perhaps you"ll be good enough to tell him to keep away from here. He does nothing but pester me for money."
"I can imagine, Mrs. Jenson. Your husband told me about him a"if there ever was a scrounger . . ." Again the long pause, then he went on, "I"m sorry to hear you and Mr. Jenson ..." He cleared his throat. "Well, I hope it will clear up."
"That"s kind of you," Lola said indifferently, "but you must worry about Carl nor me. Carl is happy, so am I."
"I"m glad to hear it." His voice sounded anything but glad. "We"ll miss Mr. Jenson. I would never have believed he would have walked out of herea"he was born here."
"It seems some women can make the nicest man act like a fool." There was a waspish note in her voice again. "This place isn"t idea of paradise. I don"t plan to stay here longer than I can help. When I"ve saved enough money I"m leaving. If Carl bothers to let me know where he is, I"ll suggest he either comes back here or lets me sell the place. One thing I"m sure ofa"I"m not spending rest of my days here."
"Well, I can understand that, Mrs. Jenson. If your husband isn"t coming back, I can see you wouldn"t want to stay on here. It"s a lonely place for a woman."
"Yes. Well, it"s been nice seeing you again, Sheriff."
"I"m sorry I don"t have the time to come out here more often. It"s a long way out, but if you ever want any help, you have only to call me."
"I"ll remember thata"thanks."
I heard him walk heavily to the door.
"So long, Patmore."
"So long, Sheriff," Roy said I heard the door click, then the car start up and drive away.
I put the meat cleaver down on the table and wiped the sweat off my face.
Lola and Roy came in.
"That was pretty smart," I said to Roy. "I thought I was in a jam that time."
"I told you I could handle him," Lola said impatiently. "You didn"t have to get so worked up."
"I don"t know about that," Roy put in. "I would have been worked up all right if I"d been Chet."
"Oh, you men!" She started work on the chickens again. "You fuss about anything."
Roy started towards the door, grinning at me.
"Thanks, Roy," I said. "That was pretty smart."
"As if I didn"t owe you something, pal," he said, and went out.
There was a long pause while I watched Lola arranging chickens on the spit.
"This washes out tonight, Lola," I said.
She turned quickly to stare at me, frowning.
"What do you mean?"
"I"m not going into Wentworth."
"Why not?"
"Use your head, will you?" I said, getting angry with her. "Suppose we walk into the sheriff? He thinks Roy is Patmore now. Who do we say I am?"
"Suppose we don"t walk into him?" she said.
"I"m not in the position to take chances, and you know it."
"So what? Are you going to be scared from now on of ever going into Wentworth because you might just possibly run into that fat old fool?"
"If he gets an idea there is something wrong out here," I said, trying to keep my voice down, "he"ll come out here and take a look around. He might even dig Jenson up. You wouldn"t be quite so calm if he did that, would you? After all, you shot him."
"Did I? How does he prove that?"
I stared at her for a long moment, a little shocked and very uneasy.
"All right, let"s drop it," I said. "We"re in this jam together, Lola. I can"t go to Wentworth tonight. I"m not taking any risks even if you want to."
She turned her back on me, shrugging.
"All right, so you"re not going to Wentworth," she said. "It"s not stopping me."