The word soft as a coax in a horse’s ear came from Rags. “Let’s sort the situation out a little bit.” He ambled around to the far side of the confrontation. “Mallory, if I was you, I’d be looking the other direction during this.”
“I was thinking that myself,” the deputy sheriff said, moving off with his back turned to the situation created by the furious Glasgow sheriff.
“Jonesie, keep an eye on this with me,” Rags resumed, still softly conversational. “Somebody’s got to be witnesses if this buck-fever sheriff cuts loose on innocent men on their way to pitch some hay, don’t you think?”
“I’m seeing the same thing ahead you are,” the foreman agreed, sending the sheriff a look that meant it. “Manslaughter, if not murder, way beyond the performance of duty.”
“Doesn’t look good, does it,” Rags suggested at large. Then said to the sheriff, as if calming him, “Maybe you ought to consider Harv’s offer a little more. Sounds like a fair deal to me.”
Scanning around furiously at man after man armed with a shiny pitchfork, the sheriff held his pose, his hand twitching over his gun butt.
“Carl, none of us are any use to you dead,” Harv put in on him with surprising gentleness. The frustrated lawman cast one last look around at the united bunch of us, then slowly let his gun hand fall to his side.
Breathing hard, he faced Harv, who still was standing there waiting him out. “All right, you win. Glasgow and Letty it is, loverboy. I’ve got to put up with you under the same roof just like when we was kids, do I,” he complained, as if he’d been sentenced to his own jail. Trying to fluff himself up, he turned to the waiting deputy and made another swipe of the hand at Herman and me. “On second thought, these other two yayhoos aren’t my worry. Harv, grab your stuff and we’ll head for Glasgow,” he said, as if it had been his own idea all along.
First shaking hands all around with the crew, Harv went to fetch his bedroll from the bunkhouse while Skeeter collected the pitchforks and Highpockets kept an eye on things, and in a daze I realized Herman and I were free again.
Almost. Behind us, Rags proved that he had a boss voice when he wanted to. “Now, let’s sort you two out. Find out what kind of desperadoes I’ve let on the place. Come on up to the house.”
? ? ?
LEADING US into his office, Rags seated himself at a desk big as a dining room table and motioned us to sit down across from him. Perched there, I couldn’t help but sneak peeks around the room, as I’d bet Herman was doing, too. On all the walls were framed photographs of Rags riding twisty broncs, and championship awards, the kind of marks of fame I had hoped to see on Aunt Kate’s walls when I was under the impression she was Kate Smith. This was worlds better, leaving me open-mouthed as I gazed around the collection. Also, from right there at the heart of Rags Rasmussen’s ranch empire, I could see the daybooks arranged as neatly as you would expect from the most scrupulous bronc rider in the world, and fine old furniture which put the Double W’s to shame. One item I recognized from having read about the Pilgrims was a sinner’s bench, a straight-backed hardwood church pew that must have been a rare antique. On it sat one of those hand-carved signs sold at the craft booths outside rodeo arenas, with the wording WHY IS TEMPTATION ALWAYS THE TASTIEST THING ON THE MENU? Well, nobody said Rags lacked a sense of humor.
Pretty quick, though, I snapped to, into full realization that big desks like the one separating us from Rags Rasmussen was where ranch bosses wrote out checks when they fired someone. Herman had that same awareness, I could tell from his spooked expression.
Looking as if he’d rather be in a saddle somewhere, Rags turned first to Herman. “Fritz, as I guess I better get used to calling you until further notice,” he said, as if grading his behavior in the presence of a pistoleer, “you could have got your cozies shot off, you know, making that move when that peewee sheriff was itching for his gun.”
“I did not think of myself,” Herman answered simply. “I taked a leap of fate.”
Rags digested that, long enough that our seats were growing as hard as that sinner’s bench. Then he sat up a bit and sighed. “Better to be lucky than smart, I suppose. All right, tell me the rest of it, why fate had to plunk the two of you down on my ranch out of all the places in the Big Hole.”
Between us, Herman and I owned up to everything, with Rags listening hard.
When we finally ran out of confessions, he rubbed his jaw longer than usual before saying that sneaking into America to get away from Hitler probably was the kind of infraction that would die away with time, and any choreboy who made Jones happy was worth keeping. That took care of Herman but left the matter of me, quivering inside as I waited.