词汇：sheriff

n. 州长；郡治安官；执行吏

相关场景

July didn’t answer. Crazy or not, the tall traveler had been smart enough to figure out that the sheriff of Fort Smith was traveling with a heavy heart.>>完整场景

“What’s the story on this July?” Louisa asked. “That wife of his sounds like a woman of ill fame. What kind of sheriff would marry a woman of ill fame?” “Well, July’s slow,” Roscoe said. “He’s the sort that don’t talk much.” “Oh, that sort,” Louisa said. “The opposite of my late husband, Jim.” She took a pair of men’s brogans from beside the table and began to lace them on her bare feet.>>完整场景

“Roscoe, you’ve went to waste long enough,” she said. “Let’s give it a tryout.” “Well, I wouldn’t know how to try,” Roscoe said. “I’ve been a bachelor all my life.” Louisa straightened up. “Men are about as worthless a race of people as I’ve ever encountered,” she said. “Look at the situation a minute. You’re running off to catch a sheriff you probably can’t find, who’s in the most dangerous state in the union, and if you do find him he’ll just go off and try to find a wife that don’t want to live with him anyway. You’ll probably get scalped before it’s all over, or hung, or a Mexican will get you with a pigsticker. And it’ll all be to try and mend something that won’t mend anyway. Now I own a section of land here and I’m a healthy woman. I’m willing to take you, although you’ve got no experience either at farming or matrimony. You’d be useful to me, whereas you won’t be a bit of use to that sheriff or that town you work for either. I’ll teach you how to handle an ax and a mule team, and guarantee you all the corn bread you can eat. We might even have some peas to go with it later in the year. I can cook peas. Plus I’ve got one of the few feather mattresses in this part of the country, so it’d be easy sleeping. And now you’re scared to try. If that ain’t cowardice, I don’t know what is.” Roscoe had never expected to hear such a speech, and he had no idea how to reply to it. Louisa’s approach to marriage didn’t seem to resemble any that he had observed, though it was true he had not spent much time studying the approaches to matrimony. Still, he had only ridden into Louisa’s field an hour before sundown, and it was not yet much more than an hour after dark. Her proposal seemed hasty to him by any standards.>>完整场景

“I got the solution to both our problems,” Louisa said. “You let that sheriff find his own wife and stay here and we’ll get married.” She said it in the same confident, slightly loud voice that she always seemed to use—after a day of yelling at mules it was probably hard to speak in a quiet voice.>>完整场景

“Well, I’ve been a deputy sheriff for a good spell,” Roscoe said. “I keep the jail.” Louisa was watching him closely in a way that made him a little uncomfortable. The only light in the cabin came from a small coal-oil lamp on the table. A few small bugs buzzed around the lamp, their movements casting shadows on the table. The corn bread was so dry that Roscoe kept having to dip dipperfuls of water to wash it down.>>完整场景

“I doubt you’ll catch that sheriff,” she said, looking Roscoe over.>>完整场景

The woman looked disgusted. “If I had a piece of rawhide I’d tie it to your hand,” she said. “Then the two of you could flop around all you wanted to. What town hired you to be deputy sheriff anyway?” “Why, Fort Smith,” Roscoe said. “July Johnson’s the sheriff.” “I wish he’d been the one that showed up,” the woman said. “Maybe he’d know how to chop a root.” Then she began to pop the mules again and Roscoe continued to whack at the roots, squeezing the ax tightly so it wouldn’t slip loose again. In no time he was sweating worse than the woman, sweat dripping into his eyes and off his nose. It had been years since he had sweated much, and he didn’t enjoy the sensation.>>完整场景

“I’m a deputy sheriff,” Roscoe replied, thinking that would be all the explanation that was needed.>>完整场景

“I guess a bear got her unless she’s hiding,” he said, unhappily. Being a deputy sheriff had suddenly gotten a lot harder.>>完整场景

The only relief he could find was in the knowledge that he was doing his job and earning the thirty dollars a month the town paid him. There were a few tightfisted citizens who didn’t think there was thirty dollars’ worth of sheriffing to do in Fort Smith in a given month. Going after a man who had killed the mayor was the kind of work people seemed to think a sheriff ought to do, although it would probably be less dangerous than having to stop two rivermen from carving one another up with knives.>>完整场景

Elmira felt like laughing. July was flattering himself if he thought he could catch a man like Jake Spoon. But then, if she laughed she would be giving herself away. July had no idea that she knew Jake Spoon, but she had known Jake even before she knew Dee. He and Dee had been buddies up in Kansas. Jake even asked her to marry him once, in a joking way—for Jake was not the marrying kind and she hadn’t been then, either. He had always kidded her, in the days when she was a sporting girl in Dodge, that she would end up respectable, though even he couldn’t have guessed that she’d marry a sheriff. It amused him no end when he found out. She had seen him twice in the street after he came to Fort Smith, and she could tell by the way he grinned and tipped his hat to her that he thought it one of the world’s finest jokes. If he had ever come to the cabin and seen that it had a dirt floor, he would have realized it was one of those jokes that aren’t funny.>>完整场景

“You’ve got that calf broke,” July said. “You could probably saddle him and ride him if you wanted to.” “I milked,” Joe said. He got the pail, and the two walked to the cabin together. It was a fairly good cabin, although it didn’t yet have a wood floor—just well-packed dirt. July felt bad about bringing his bride to a cabin without a wood floor, but being sheriff didn’t pay much and it was the best he could do.>>完整场景

July’s feelings of responsibility had to do with the town, not the man who was killed. Since pinning on the sheriff’s badge two years before, his sense of responsibility for the town had grown steadily. It seemed to him that as sheriff he had a lot more to do with the safety and well-being of the citizens than Benny had as mayor. The rivermen were the biggest problem—they were always drinking and fighting and cutting one another up. Several times he had had to pile five or six into the little cell.>>完整场景

“Why, I was talking about Ben and Sylvester,” Roscoe said. “I guess I forgot you’re a Johnson, since you’re the sheriff.” The remark made no sense—Roscoe’s remarks often made no sense, but July had too much on his mind to worry about it.>>完整场景

Peach had always found Roscoe an irritating fellow, not as respectful as he might be. He was little better than a criminal himself, in her view, and she was opposed to his being deputy sheriff, although it was true that there was not much to choose from in Fort Smith.>>完整场景

“That was the gossip,” Augustus said. “Married a rich woman and became a sheriff, I heard. Well, maybe she run off with a preacher. If she didn’t, I don’t know why he’s out this time of night.” Soupy, a short man, came walking over with Pea Eye.>>完整场景

Lorie was watching him with a strange heat in her eyes. It wasn’t because he had slapped her either. He felt she was reading his mind—somehow most women could read his mind. He had only really out-maneuvered one, a little redheaded whore in Cheyenne who was all heart and no brain. Lorena wasn’t going to be fooled. Her look put him on the defensive. Most men would have beat her black and blue for what she had done that afternoon, and yet she hadn’t even made an attempt to conceal it. She played by her own rules. It struck him that she might be the one to kill the sheriff from Arkansas, if it came to that. She wouldn’t balk at it, if he could keep her wanting him.>>完整场景

“Probably all Texas horses anyway,” Augustus said. “Probably had enough of Mexico.” “I’ve had enough of it and I just got here,” Jake said, lighting his smoke. “I never liked it down here with these chili- bellies.” “Why, Jake, you should stay and make your home here,” Augustus said. “That sheriff can’t follow you here. Besides, think of the women.” “I got a woman,” Jake said. “That one back in Lonesome Dove will do me for a while.” “She’ll do you, all right,” Augustus said. “That girl’s got more spunk than you have.” “What would you know about it, Gus?” Jake asked. “I don’t suppose you’ve spent time with her, a man your age.” “The older the violin, the sweeter the music,” Augustus said. “You never knowed much about women.” Jake didn’t answer. He had forgotten how much Gus liked argument.>>完整场景

“No—in that case it’s the sheriff that’s the unknown factor,” Gus said. “Maybe he didn’t like his brother. Maybe some outlaw will shoot him before he can come after Jake. Maybe he’ll get lost and end up in Washington, D.C. Or maybe he’ll show up tomorrow and whip us all. I wouldn’t lay money.” They fell silent for a moment, the only sound the grinding of the windlass as Dish drew up another bucket of dirt.>>完整场景

“That’s what we’ll tell the sheriff when he shows up to take you back,” Augustus said. “Maybe he’ll take you fishing while you’re waiting to be hung.” Jake let it pass. Gus would have his joke, and he and Call would disapprove of him when he got in some unlucky scrape. It had always been that way. But the three of them were compañeros still, no matter how many dentists he killed. Call and Gus had been the law themselves and didn’t always bow and scrape to it. They would not likely let some young sheriff take him off to hang because of an accident. He was willing to take a bit of ribbing. When trouble came, if it did, the boys would stick and July Johnson would have to ride back home empty-handed.>>完整场景

“I am a gambler, but that’s one I didn’t figure to gamble on,” Jake said. “I just went out the back door and left, hoping July would get too busy to come after me.” “July’s the sheriff?” Gus asked.>>完整场景

“How’d you get loose from the sheriff?” Call asked.>>完整场景

“Yeah, but I’m just a gambler,” Jake said. “They all like to think they’re respectable back in Arkansas. Besides, the dentist’s brother was the sheriff, and somebody told him I was a gunfighter. He invited me to leave town a week before it happened.” Call sighed. All the gunfighter business went back to one lucky shot Jake had made when he was a mere boy starting out in the Rangers. It was funny how one shot could make a man’s reputation like that. It was a hip shot Jake made because he was scared, and it killed a Mexican bandit who was riding toward them on a dead run. It was Call’s opinion, and Augustus’s too, that Jake hadn’t even been shooting at the bandit—he was probably shooting in hopes of bringing downthe horse, which might have fallen on the bandit and crippled him a little. But Jake shot blind from the hip, with the sun in his eyes to boot, and hit the bandit right in the Adam’s apple, a thing not likely to occur more than once in a lifetime, if that often.>>完整场景

Like, for instance, re-elect a sheriff.>>完整场景

Here's a hot tip. We just got it from the sheriff.>>完整场景