“What was the front?”

“A haberdashery. Family owned, established 1898. There was a black-and-gold sign above the door.”

“A family of smart entrepreneurs, it seems. These days booze is selling hotter than tweeds.”

Thatcher chuckled. “We didn’t go there for tweeds.”

“Good stock of liquor?”

“Nobody left thirsty.”

“Ladies?”

Thatcher didn’t say anything, but he figured his expression was telling enough.

The sheriff chuckled. “Was it a nice place?”

“Nice enough for us. We’d come off a troop ship. We didn’t care whether or not it was high-toned.”

“Well, Lefty’s isn’t high-toned. Not by a long shot. It’s a roadhouse, a typical diner that serves fat hamburgers. It’s also a cathouse. Gert, Lefty’s wife—probably common law—oversees that aspect of their business.

“It was a popular watering hole, but since Lefty can’t sell liquor legally anymore, customers have to enter through a rear door into a back room. Bootleg booze and locally made moonshine flow as steady as Quanah Parker Creek during a heavy rain.”

Thatcher didn’t see how any of this concerned him, so he didn’t comment.

“Now, I don’t meddle in Lefty’s business so long as the peace is kept and nobody bleeds overmuch. But Wally died with his brains in the dirt. Approximately twenty-four hours earlier, he was at Lefty’s where, according to his cousin, he got a little too amorous with one of the girls upstairs. She didn’t favor him, turned him down in terms to which he took exception, and he beat the hell out of her.

“This afternoon, I dropped by there to ask her about the incident, to see if it had any relevance to Wally’s murder. He’d bashed in her mouth and broken her arm. In time, those will heal, but she’ll be lucky not to lose sight in one eye.” He shook his head and made a sound of profound regret. “She’s seventeen.”

A train came rumbling into the station, spewing steam, its brakes squealing. The sheriff let the noise die down before resuming. “The reason it’s bothering me is that Dr. Driscoll went out to Lefty’s that night for the purpose of patching up that girl.”

Thatcher reacted with a start. “The same night Mrs. Driscoll disappeared?”

“That’s why she was alone in the house. Gabe had told me about the incident at Lefty’s. He didn’t name Wally Johnson as the offender. He might not have known. But that connection is what niggles.” The sheriff shrugged. “It’s thready, at best. May be nothing. Could be something.”

Thatcher turned his head aside and watched passengers disembark from the train. Some were greeted, others not. A porter unloaded luggage. The engineer climbed down from the locomotive and stood on the platform, stretching his back.

The atmosphere inside the sheriff’s car had become weighty, although, if pressed, Thatcher couldn’t have said why. Sensing that the sheriff was waiting for a response from him, he said, “It’s probably just a coincidence.”

“Probably. An interesting one, though.”

After a lapse, Thatcher said, “Well, my landlady is a stickler for clearing the sideboard on the dot. I don’t want to miss supper. Thanks again for the lift.”

“Thatcher?”

He’d been about to step from the car, but pulled up short when the sheriff addressed him by his first name, something he hadn’t done before. He turned back to him.

“I told you I’d received two telephone calls during lunch. The second was the one you’ve been waiting on from the sheriff’s department in Amarillo. I hate telling you. Truly, I do. Some while back, Mr. Hobson passed away.”

Eighteen

Bill Amos didn’t soft-soap it. Not that it mattered how delicately he broke the news. To Thatcher it came as a heavy blow.

Mr. Hobson had suffered a stroke. His son Henry Hobson III had sold the herd, sold the ranch.

Learning of Mr. Hobson’s passing was dismantling enough, but Thatcher listened with disbelief when the sheriff told him that the ranch, his home for fifteen years, no longer existed. “Trey sold the ranch?”

“Not the land itself,” Bill explained, “but what’s under it. Oil leases. Dozens of them. Everybody’s punching holes in the ground up there, looking for oil.”

Thatcher couldn’t bear the thought of the sweeping plains being dotted with drilling derricks instead of beef cattle. But he wasn’t surprised that Henry III’s eye was on the future rather than the past.

Much to Mr. Hobson Jr.’s disappointment, his son never had desired to take over the ranch and had wanted nothing to do with the operation of it. When Thatcher had left for Europe in 1917, Trey had already moved to Dallas and was serving in a managerial capacity in a bank, on his way up.

“What happened to all the ranch hands?”

“I don’t know, Thatcher,” the sheriff replied. The intimate conversation had established a first-name basis between them. “I guess they scattered. The deputy who went out there said the place was deserted except for a dog that looked half wolf, and an old Mexican man.”

“Jesse,” Thatcher said. “He was born on the ranch. His daddy worked for the first Mr. Hobson, Henry senior. His mother cooked for the family.”

“Well, Jesse was still out there, living in the bunkhouse. He told the deputy he would stay until somebody forced him off, or he died. He preferred the latter.”

That sounded like Jesse.

“He was glad to learn that you’d survived the war,” Bill said. “He’s been safeguarding your trunk and saddle. He sent the trunk back to Amarillo with the deputy so he could put it on a train. He was reluctant to send the saddle, though. Didn’t trust it to arrive undamaged or not at all.”

Thatcher nodded absently. He would make arrangements to reclaim it later. In the meantime, he struggled to take in that Mr. Hobson was gone.

“I’m awfully sorry about this, Thatcher,” the sheriff said.

Thatcher replied by rote, “Thanks.”

He retrieved his duffel bag from the backseat of the sheriff’s car and returned to the boardinghouse. He hadn’t been back since being hauled out in handcuffs. He ignored Landlady May’s glare and the sidelong glances of the other boarders, and, skipping supper, went straight upstairs to his room, where he weathered a sleepless night remembering the kindness and generosity of the man under whose wing he had spent formative years of his life.