Justice (21 page)

Was there something he wanted her to see? To know? Was there something about him that she couldn't understand until she saw him immediately after he had looked at a dead body? Did he want her to see one too—was that the only way they could finally be one, as a husband and wife were supposed to be?

If that was true, she wasn't sure, she just wasn't sure....

He had not been a sheriff when they met. Then he had been Wesley Hayden, student of law at the University of North Dakota, and she had been the secretary at Kramer's Chiropractic Clinic, where he came for treatment for his bad
back. The way he limped when he walked in, even she knew his problem wasn't his back; it was his bad leg. After he had come in a few times, she finally asked what had happened to his leg.

“A horse kicked me,” he answered. “Broke my knee like it was a dish plate.”

“I bet that's your problem,” she said. “Not your back. The way you walk twists your spine.”

He smiled for the first time in all his visits. “I thought you were the secretary.”

“It's just common sense,” she said.

“Maybe if I had talked to you earlier I could have saved myself some money.”

She shrugged modestly, but that was exactly what she had been thinking.

He kept on coming to the clinic, though she wasn't sure whether he came because Dr. Kramer was actually helping him or to see her. Finally he said he wanted to ask her out on a date but not before she told him about herself. That made her angry—as if he didn't know her well enough already—but she looked him right in the eye and said she was Gail Berdahl, the only daughter of Carl and Anna Berdahl of Kettleton, North Dakota. Her parents owned a farm in the Red River valley, but she wanted to get away. Not only was she the first member of her family to graduate from high school, but she had gone on to secretarial school as well. She had been working for Dr. Kramer for a year and a half. She attended services every Sunday at Faith Lutheran Church, and taught Sunday School to first-graders. She smoked cigarettes, had nothing
against dancing, and even took a drink of whiskey from time to time. And he, she said, reminded her of every university student she had met—so full of himself it was leaking out the top. If he hadn't blushed, she probably would not have gone out with him. She certainly wouldn't have fallen in love with him.

They were married as soon as he finished law school, and their plan was to move to his hometown of Bentrock, in northeastern Montana. His father had indicated that he could guide some business his son's way and help him get his law practice off the ground. That was all Wesley needed to hear. He decided that it was important to him, after all, to return to the place he came from. Gail simply wanted to see more of the world, even if it was another part of the Great Plains, a small town in Montana.

At first things worked out according to their design. They lived in a small apartment above a bar, and though their place smelled of stale beer and cigar smoke, they suffered through it without complaint because Wesley's father owned the building, and they were able to live there rent-free. In spite of his father's promises, Wesley's practice didn't earn much money initially—he was as likely to be paid with canned goods, homegrown vegetables, or a newly slaughtered chicken as with money—but Gail said nothing. She knew how important it was for him to acquire clients, whether they could pay or not. And one woman was so grateful for Wesley's handling of her husband's estate that she gave them a hand-sewn quilt that kept them warm through their first winter. Besides, Gail had been able to find work as a secretary in the Register of Deeds
office. They weren't rich, but they weren't poor either, and they knew their livelihood would improve.

In fact, Gail was surprised to find out how much she loved Montana. Her infatuation began the day of her very first visit when they drove toward Bentrock at the end of the day, just as the sun was setting over the prairie. The colors! Pinks fading into shades of purple, violet, and lavender—all merging into deep blue. She had seen sunsets before. What she had never seen, since she came from a region that was flat as a tabletop, was the way those colors crept out of the hollows of the darkening hills and the hues of the land seemed to match the sky.

She grew to love the hills too, the way some of them were nothing more than a gradual swell of grassland, as if the earth was simply drawing a breath, and then others were sudden eruptions, rocks breaking angrily through the prairie.

Just east of Bentrock was a hill she liked to climb, and from its height she could look down at the town, the straight lines and right angles of telephone wires and streets interrupted by intermittent bursts of trees in leaf. My town, she would say to herself; this is the town where I will make my life.

True, it was not as prosperous as the communities in her native Red River valley, but the people were for the most part like the people she had grown up around, simple, hardworking, quiet, God-fearing—Swedes and Norwegians mostly, just as in her home county, though here there were a few more Germans and Russians. And Indians. Mercer County was next to the Fort Murdoch Reservation, and its residents, Blackfeet mostly as well as a few Cheyenne and Chippewa,
often came into Bentrock. Some Bentrock residents, her brother-in-law especially, tried to frighten her with stories about wild drunken Indians, but Gail saw the truth. When they came to town they tried hard not to be noticed. In this way they were no different than those solitary ranchers and sheepherders from the outlying regions who, when they had to come to town, acted as though they were in a foreign country and wanted to get back home as quickly as possible.

Gail also made friends soon after moving to Bentrock. The woman who worked right across the hall from her in the courthouse was only a year older than Gail. This woman—Beverly Hilland—was from Alabama and absolutely confounded by her new state and its residents. As Gail tried to explain the ways of these northern plains people to Beverly, Gail came to feel as though she was something of a native herself.

She also made friends with Daisy McAuley, an older woman who was the deputy sheriff's wife. Daisy lived right across the street from the jail and the courthouse, and she often came over to have coffee with Gail and Beverly. Daisy always brought something freshly baked—cinnamon rolls or cookies or coffee cake—and with the pastries she also brought whispered tales about whose farm or business was going to be foreclosed upon, who was planning to go to Great Falls to have her gall bladder removed, or who was having trouble controlling his drinking. Between Daisy's gossip and Wesley's stories about his clients, Gail soon felt as though she knew as much about Bentrock and its citizens as people who had lived there all their lives.

She had no doubt that she and Wesley would live the rest
of their lives in Bentrock, and that fact did not disturb her in the least. She knew who and what she was—a small-town girl with simple tastes and modest ambitions. If she could move into a house large enough to raise a family in, she would be happy.

Then something happened that threatened to change everything.

Julian Hayden, the sheriff and her father-in-law, decided that his son should succeed him in office. Julian's plan was that Wesley would hold the post for a term, and then Julian or Len McCauley would take over again. There was no question that Wesley would be elected; the Hayden name carried more weight than any other in the county, and the last two times Julian ran for office he didn't even have an opponent.

And there was no question that Wesley would do what his father asked. Wesley and his brother were not simply polite and obedient where their father was concerned; they were completely submissive, just as their mother was. Enid Hayden was a meek, high-strung woman for whom even normal conversation required great effort. “Enid's nerves are bad,” people said. Even the simple acts of day-to-day living, such as preparing a meal or going to the store or arranging a visit to the hairdresser, often seemed too much for her. Gail knew Enid was like that at least in part because she was married to Julian Hayden. Julian so completely dominated and browbeat his wife that at the sound of his voice she jumped as if a door had slammed. And when Mrs. Hayden entered a room, Wesley and his brother didn't even look up; when their father entered they automatically fell silent and often stood. Where
Gail was from it was understood that children would behave respectfully toward their parents, but this went beyond anything she had seen. The way the boys behaved around their father reminded her of the way some Catholics in her hometown acted toward the old priest.

The simple fact of Wesley being sheriff—that didn't concern Gail. She feared that once he put on that badge he would become like his father.

She treated Julian Hayden politely—she didn't know any other way—but she could never like the man, never, never. He was everything she was brought up to believe a man should not be. He bullied his wife and sons and anyone who showed him deference. He talked too loud and he cursed in the presence of women. He was arrogant. When he showed generosity toward others he made certain it became known. He flattered and he boasted. Worst of all, he was charming. And he knew it.

Shortly after she came to Bentrock, Gail witnessed a scene that revealed Julian Hayden both as a man and as a law officer.

Around noon one day her father-in-law appeared out in front of the jail with a prisoner in tow. The prisoner was a tall, shabbily dressed man who was so thin it looked as though he might literally be starving. Julian brought this prisoner out by the collar and proceeded to haul the man down the steps of the courthouse. Right out there where everyone could see, the sheriff marched the man the few blocks to the center of town. The sight was so unusual that townspeople came out from their homes and businesses and followed Julian Hayden down the street. Gail and Beverly went along with everyone
else. The little parade finally stopped at the train depot, where the 12:20 train was loading and would soon leave for Havre, Shelby, Cut Bank, and points west.

There, in front of all those witnesses, Julian Hayden bought his prisoner a one-way ticket to Spokane. The sheriff almost lifted the man onto the train, and once he was on, Julian said to him, in a voice so loud everyone could hear, “And if you come back here and try to pull any of those shenanigans again I'll do worse than boot your ass out of town. We don't need your kind around here.” The train began to pull out, and as it did, Julian reached into his coat pocket and brought out a revolver. He held it aloft and shouted again at the man on the train (though perhaps the man could no longer hear him): “And don't be getting any ideas about coming back for this. You'll play hell trying to get it back from me.”

The entire scene was so dramatic that a few people actually applauded their sheriff. Julian, however, gave no sign of having noticed the crowd. He pushed past the bystanders and their questions about what the man had done and how the sheriff had caught him, and walked directly back to the courthouse.

That night Gail told Wesley what she had seen his father do. As she finished her story Wesley began to laugh.

“What's so funny?” she asked.

“Dad,” he said, shaking his head.

“What? What did he do?”

“That ‘criminal' he put on the train was nothing but an old bum who came into the jail the night before last, drunk and
with no place to stay. I know, I was there when he came in. He asked Dad if he could sleep the night in the jail. Now he's Spokane's problem.”

“Why did your father send him there?”

“Damned if I know. Maybe he's got family there. Wouldn't be the first time Dad has reached into his own pocket to buy someone a ticket home.”

Gail thought she already knew the answer to her next question, but she asked anyway. “What about the gun?”

Wesley shrugged. “Probably some rusty old pistol Dad had lying around the office.”

It was clear to Gail that Wesley admired his father for what he had done, for his generosity as well as his cleverness and his showmanship, but for her part Gail felt ashamed that she had even been on the street during her father-in-law's little show.