The one thing Sheriff Whistler longed for was a murder. The Sheriff had become a Sheriff because he hated his first name and couldn’t think of any other way to keep folks from addressing him by it. The Sheriff was Sheriff of Blackstrap, Oregon.
Blackstrap was a small town in the Wallowa Mountains of northeast Oregon. No one seemed to remember when the town was founded or why, except for the Chinaman, but he never spoke to anyone. The Chinaman carried a rail spike with him wherever he went.
Town meetings were often held in Blackstrap and had been for as long as anyone could remember, except perhaps the Chinaman. One winter a meeting was held to vote on the name for the kitten that had wandered into town alone. Half the town wanted to name him “Cactus.” The other half, “Billy The Kitty.” Mrs. Parrish, who had vowed to abstain, was ultimately swayed into casting the deciding vote for “Cactus.” Unbeknownst to almost everyone, the Sheriff, who took care of the kitten, called him “Oats.”
Tessa, Mrs. Whistler, the Sheriff’s wife, asked the Sheriff to leave their home after some eleven years of marriage. She used to call the Sheriff by his first name and it never bothered him. The Sheriff, everyone knew, was very much in love with Tessa. Tessa had been a mail order bride who got lost in the mail. Somehow she ended up in Blackstrap. Try as they might-though it’s unlikely anyone ever did-nobody could figure out how Tessa got there.
The Sheriff spent more than his share of lonely nights sleeping in the jailhouse after he and Tessa parted. He figured one was his share. He used to ask Oats, who by this time was fully-grown, where he had gone wrong. Mr. Armijo, who often irritated the town’s blacksmith, once overheard Sheriff Whistler talking to the cat. He later assured the Sheriff he would tell no one about the cat being re-named.
The Sheriff longed for a murder to occupy his thoughts after his separation from Tessa.
Unless the Chinaman knew different, there had never been a murder in the history of Blackstrap. No gunfighter or outlaw ever came to town.
If you bought him a whiskey at the Tree Ring Saloon, The Man From Oklahoma would tell stories about gunslingers and bandits, with fighting, shooting and murder. He would have told them without the whiskey, but the Sheriff was nothing if not a man who honored a deal. For a while, after this time spent with the Sheriff, The Man From Oklahoma told stories about lost loves and discovered there was more whiskey in the world than even he could drink.
The Sheriff wanted a real murder. He needed a victim and suspects. He needed to investigate and deduce. When the horse manure began appearing outside the entrance to the Blackstrap Hotel, Sheriff Whistler was preoccupied for a spell, but he soon realized that Norris committed the act. Norris had witnessed the 1887 Chinese Massacre in Hell’s Canyon and had gone simple from it. For a period there, he was leaving horse manure in front of the hotel. He told the Sheriff he wanted strangers in town to step in it and thereby realize they were no better than anyone else. He even used the word “thereby.”
Martha Creek, which was not a creek, but a woman, often baked cookies for Norris. She and one other woman worked in the rooms above the saloon. In the saloon’s back kitchen, Martha baked cookies. The smell of them in the day helped her not to smell the smell of the saloon from the night. A drifter, who claimed that women were a “ballet by God,” promised to return and marry Martha. Having hope, Martha was often content.
A Wallowa Nez Pierce Indian named Stare Of The Owl, who was not allowed in the saloon, eventually moved in with Tessa and they lived as husband and wife. It was said this Indian had fought in the Nez Pierce War alongside Chief Joseph and that he actually knew the old Chiefs Looking Glass and Toohoolhoolzote. Some doubted this and said people only said so because they liked saying Toohoolhoolzote.
Tessa said Stare Of The Owl made her understand the Wallowa country, the “Land Of The Winding Waters,” as he called it. And for it, she loved him deeply. A town meeting was held to discuss the situation of Tessa and the Indian, but was canceled midway after a bear appeared and looked in the window.
Stare Of The Owl overheard children playing cowboys and Indians one summer afternoon along the banks of the Snake River. He was amazed to discover that all the children wanted to be Indians and none of them cowboys. When he asked why this was so, they all said they would never want to be like Sheriff Whistler. Stare Of The Owl left Blackstrap that same day.
Tessa died not so long after that. In winter. Some said she died of a broken heart. Others said it was the bullet she shot into her head. On Christmas Eve, the woman who wrote letters and mailed them to herself, discovered Tessa’s body. A town meeting was held that same night. The Sheriff was not invited. A prayer was said for Tessa. And a vote was taken.
On Christmas morning the town gave Sheriff Whistler the gift he had wanted for so long: A murder. And he spent the rest of his life trying to solve it.
Creative credits
- Written by
- Glen Grant
- Photo courtesy of
- Glen Grant
