CHAPTER IXBUFFALO COULEE STARTS TO GUESS
THE “coming-to” of Buffalo Coulee on a winter’s morning was a matter of heavy labor. It was a prolonged, piecemeal process, like the first bubbles rising to the surface of water approaching boiling point.
There was no particular incentive to early rising in Buffalo Coulee at any time, and, human nature being itself, the citizens of the prairie township displayed little enough enthusiasm for undue activity. It was usually well after sunrise that the first pair of eyes looked out on the day, and the first odor of cooking robbed the air of something of its purity.
The morning following Sergeant Fyles’ arrival in Buffalo Coulee it was a woman who first looked out of her doorway upon the cold white world to discover his presence. It would be. For in Buffalo Coulee woman’s emancipation from the drudgery of life was still a fantastic dream without any hope of realization.
Her door opened to permit the passage of a shower of homemade mats, and a few oddments of well-worn rugs. At the same instant a currish dog escaped into the snow as though it were glad. Then the door tried to close. It had already begun to move in that direction. But its movement was checked, and it flung backwide again. A figure swathed in a bulking fur coat filled the opening.
The woman was peering curiously. She was startled. Automatically she propped herself against the door-casing, and, folding her arms, slid her work-worn hands up the sleeves of her coat for warmth.
Her gaze was on the police quarters where smoke was rising from one of its two chimneys. She saw that its single door was standing wide open, and a uniformed man, with a yellow badge to his fur cap, and yellow stripes to his black riding breeches, was leaning over the gateway in the lateral fence surrounding it.
She stood there for a while, hardly believing the thing she beheld, and offering herself a varied assortment of explanations of the phenomenon. She was chaotically startled. She was infinitely more startled than she would have been had she awakened to find half the township shooting up the other half. The police quarters had been as dead as a mortuary for over two weeks.
The chaos of her mental processes was matched by the vocal tangle into which she presently flung herself. And her efforts continued as she darted back into the house, closing the door as she went, as though fearful that the vision she had discovered would pursue her. Her harsh tones startled the remainder of her household into angry wakefulness.
“The Howly Saints defind us!” she cried, in an unmusical Irish brogue that was more than half American. “But he’s rose out o’ the grave like a shadder o’ the shades. He’s along ther’, I tell you, an’ all. He’s standin’ around like the crack o’ Doom, an avengin’ figger o’ scarlit flame lanin’ foreninst his fence, waitin’ around fer his hafbreed wench to come along an’ shtroke him, an’ set him purrin’ loike a thame wolf.”
The effect of the woman’s noisy amazement was comparatively instant. First came the remainder of her own household, in assorted garments; a small man who seemed out of all proportion to the size and extent of his family of six children of progressive ages. They debauched like ants from an ant heap, shivering in the morning cold, gawking over at the police quarters. And in ten minutes or so the township was transformed into a sort of arena with a sparse audience spellbound by the spectacle set out before it.
Sergeant Fyles saw and understood the sensation his presence in Buffalo Coulee had created. And while it amused him he accepted its significance. The stir of it warned him. So he completed his survey of the scene of his operations, and just went back into his quarters to prepare a frugal breakfast over the stove in his office.
He consumed his meal and methodically cleared up the resulting litter. Then he pulled on his fur coat,adjusted his mitts, and set out for the business of the day.
Fyles’ business was of a nature prompted by hard common sense. There was nothing subtle in his methods, nothing showy. The police records of Buffalo Coulee had given him a sound foundation of general information. And now, with a whole day before him in which to improve his knowledge of the people, he set about it in the practical fashion which years of experience had taught him was the simplest and best.
But his early morning experience had warned him of the extreme importance of establishing confidence in a general sort of way. He must contrive to allay suspicion, general suspicion of himself. Those who had reason would, of course, remain suspicious. That was inevitable. But he must strive for a general impression that Sinclair’s absence from the township possessed no sinister significance. In fact, the general run of the citizens must be taught to believe that the man was absent on duty with official cognizance, and that he, Fyles, was there replacing him as a temporary relief.
Fyles’ first objective was the house of Doc Fraser.
He found the youthful doctor up. He was dressed, and had eaten, when the policeman bulked in his doorway. And furthermore he found himself greeted in a manner that displayed real satisfaction and something else.
“Say, Sergeant,” the doctor exclaimed with a hand of cordiality outheld. “You’re as good, and better to me than a swell birthday gift. I hadn’t dared to hope for such a quick comeback to my word to Sturt.”
The policeman’s thoughtful eyes beheld all that for which he was looking in the other’s earnest face.
“If it’s as bad as that, Doc,” he said quietly, “it’s just as well I got around.”
“Bad?” The man of medicine looked past the other in the direction of the township. “It’s mighty difficult to find a right adjective for anything in Buffalo Coulee. But there’s things doing, or done, and I’m darn glad to see you.”
In a few moments they were closeted in the little room that was the doctor’s living-room and surgery combined. And Fyles noted the plain, business-like aspect of it. They sat down together, Fyles in an old, creaking, wicker rocker-chair, and his host in the swing chair before his roll-top desk that looked almost painfully new.
And so they sat and talked for upwards of an hour.
For Fyles it was a well spent time, and he was more than appreciative. Question and carefully considered reply flowed in an easy, steady stream throughout the interview. And the policeman revelled in the exactness of the information he received. It was thesort of intimate information that could only have been supplied by a local doctor, a schoolmaster, or a parson.
In the time at his disposal Fyles learned all that was known of the lives of those in whom he was most interested and had been treated to a searching analysis of them as a result of the doctor’s own observation.
When he left the pleasant warmth of the man’s bachelor quarters he felt himself to have set a finger firmly on the uncertain pulse of Buffalo Coulee.
Fyles next headed for the long, low building of Pideau’s store. For it was here he must sow those first seeds of confidence and hope for an adequate harvest. After that he intended to spend the rest of the day moving casually about amongst the citizens, gleaning, probing, searching.
He knew just what to expect at the store. Nor was he disappointed. The place was the centre of the township’s life. It was the foregathering point for gossip and tattle. He knew that for that one day, at least, every movement of his would be a subject of the intensest common interest. So, when he entered the building, he had no astonishment at finding his visit had been well anticipated.
There was a gathering of men about the stove, rough, fur-clad creatures who seemed to hush their talk at sight of him. There were women present, too, and one or two men stood with them at the long counter.
Two people, a man and a woman, in whom Fyles recognized Pideau Estevan, and his daughter Annette, of the night before, were behind the counter making trade with their customers. And then, farther down, in the back part of the store, was the most interesting personality of the whole gathering.
Fyles discovered the solitary figure at once. He also recognized him from the doctor’s close description. And even at the moment of his discovery it occurred to him as remarkable that his attention should have been irresistibly drawn and held by the least conspicuous individual in the store, who was apart from the rest at the far end of it.
It was the Wolf; slim, vital, clean-limbed, smiling, in marked contrast with all those others.
On the instant Fyles remembered something of Fraser’s description of the Wolf.
“I don’t know how it is with you, Sergeant,” he had said. “But I’m all for fool instinct when it comes to estimating the other feller. I can’t place the Wolf, and that’s a fact. He’s the brains and ability of a township of hard-living citizens. But he’s more. He looks like a half-breed and lives like one. Nevertheless, he’s white as you or me. They call him the Wolf, without any other name. And sometimes I think he’s rightly named, though I’ve seen nothing of the savage about him. Maybe it’s something in his looks. You’ll note his grin when you see him. Have you seen ayoung wolf at play? They grin. Grin like hell. You’ll see that grin on the face of the Wolf. But—he’s a man. And I’ve a hunch for him.”
Fyles found himself at the counter. Pideau was serving a big, florid woman with cloth. It was symptomatic that he abandoned his customer on the instant to give attention to the police officer. And Fyles smiled into the snapping eyes that searched his so intently.
“Mornin’, officer,” Pideau greeted him, in his surly fashion.
Fyles nodded, and turned to regard the unsmiling face of Annette who was serving canned goods to a man lower down the counter.
“Morning,” he replied, with easy cordiality.
Fyles was remarking to himself the amazing beauty which the moonlight had only partially revealed to him at his encounter with Annette the night before. Then he came aware that every eye was observing him. And particularly of the unfriendly gaze of the florid woman beside him.
“I’m looking for tobacco,” he announced abruptly. “What plug do you keep?”
“Why, the usual stuff,” Pideau replied, surveying his shelves with pretended interest. “‘L. & B. Gold-stick.’ Then I got some dandy cut stuff with a dope of perique in it. We were mighty glad this morning to see you’d pulled into Buffalo Coulee in the night,” hewent on, striving for cordiality. “We was guessin’. We been without a sight of a red-coat weeks. Well, we just didn’t get it. Then we wake up to find you around. Quick an’ cunnin’, eh? Anyway, we’re glad an’ relieved to see you, sir.”
It was Fyles’ first encounter with Pideau in the flesh. And he was relieved that the half-breed made no attempt to shake him by the hand.
But the man had offered him the cue he desired, and he was quick to take it.
“Quick, maybe,” he smiled pleasantly, careful to engage his whole audience. “Cunning? Well, I guess not. There’s nothing cunning to the police. It’s only crooks need to be that way. Surely I pulled in last night. I’d have been along two weeks back only I was ’way out on a trip, north. I was to have relieved young Sinclair then. He’s out on a big trip and won’t be back for maybe a month, or even—more. Superintendent Croisette reckoned Buffalo Coulee could get along without us for a while, so he didn’t send anyone till I was through. I’ll have two plugs of ‘Gold-stick.’ How much? A quarter each?”
Pideau reached behind him where the tobacco was lying on a shelf. Fyles laid down a five-dollar bill.
“You ain’t anythin’ less—er——?” Pideau broke off.
The invitation was obvious.
“Fyles—Sergeant Stanley Fyles. No, I haven’t anything less. Can you make the change?”
It was curious. Where before there had been a sort of smiling curiosity, as the policeman explained his arrival, that curiosity and smile had suddenly died completely. It was replaced, at the mention of the policeman’s name, by an ominous, serious-eyed watchfulness.
Every eye in the long store was on the policeman’s sturdy figure. Every eye was scrutinizing, seeking something which the officer’s armor of blandness refused to reveal.
Even the Wolf, who, up till that moment, had pursued his labors of translating chaos into order amongst a litter of fresh stores, desisted from his efforts to gaze at the man whose name was an unloved household word throughout the length and breadth of the Northwest.
Pideau made the change without further demur. He watched Fyles carefully count and dispose of it. Then, as the officer turned and moved away to pass out of the store, he turned without a word to the florid-faced woman as though nothing had interrupted their transaction.
But the coming of Stanley Fyles to Buffalo Coulee was not to pass without sharp comment. The silence following the announcement of his name lasted until he was well clear of the store. Then it was broken.
There came a harsh, jeering laugh from the region of the stove. The shoeing-smith, Tom Ransom, notorious as a cynical hard-liver, rasped out a verbal expression of what many of those gathered in the store were already thinking.
“Fyles, eh?” he cried. “Stanley Fyles. They send the slickest sergeant they got west of Manitoba to p’lice a no-account township like Buffalo Coulee. Sergeant Fyles to relieve a bum constable who’s been sent on a big trip. Guess Stanley Fyles best try again.”
“Reckon he’s lyin’?”
It was Pideau who snapped the question.
“I don’t reckon nothin’, boy, ’cep’ I’m feelin’ easy I ain’t in the liquor trade.”
Every eye focussed on Pideau. The blacksmith’s eyes were twinkling. The whole of the company felt the laugh was on the storekeeper. The man behind the counter, however, only shrugged his heavy shoulders and went on with his work.
“Don’t worry, folks,” he said, in his harsh way. “The liquor trade knows how to sleep easy fer jest as long as Fyles stops around.”