“Improves?”
“You bet, young fellow. Justice is sublime. It takes a keen understanding to fashion a sentence that fits the crime. A good nip will inspire me to improve the sentence by two or three years.”
I hardly dared ask which direction. He smiled cheerfully, and scratched flakes of dry flesh off his jowls. “I believe you repaired to my chambers to discuss something,” he said.
“I don’t need to repair nothing.”
“Repaired, to make one’s way.”
“You sure got a few years of school on me, Judge.”
“You can cure that with a sip or two.”
“I guess what I come to ask is whether you can stop a hanging.”
“Yes, I can stay it.”
“What would that take?”
“New and compelling evidence.”
“Otherwise, you just let her rip?”
“Otherwise, you the sheriff will pull the lever, and our young prisoner drops about ten feet and dangles with a broken neck, and justice is entirely done, and the world is made whole again.”
“I’ve got an itch about this, Your Honesty.”
“Your Honor.”
“My honor’s fine. Doing a hanging’s about as hard as it goes, but there’s one thing worse.”
“Worse, worse? How could anything be worse?”
“Hanging an innocent man.”
“Ah, you’re getting soft. I thought you were a tough sonofabitch, Pickens. You’ve gone soft on me.”
“I do what I have to do, sir.”
“I can see it. About ten minutes before you’re required to pull the lever at eleven in the morning, and drop King Bragg, you’ll resign. You’ll say you’re not up to sheriffing anymore, so here’s the badge, and you’re on your way to California or the Fiji Islands or someplace like that where you can eat coconuts, and sun on the beach. Fess up now, Pickens. I’ve got the measure of you.”
“You calling me something?”
He smiled. “Nothing you wouldn’t call yourself.”
That sure hurt. I sorta had to admit to it, all right. I just ached not to say another word, but I made myself. “I sorta think maybe the Bragg boy’s innocent.”
“Innocent? Just by carrying the name of Bragg, he’s guilty as hell.”
“Well, I’m not sure he done it. I think something happened in there and I don’t know what, and I need to find out.”
“This is pure cotton.”
“Well, that’s how I’m called, all right, but I’ve learned a few things.”
“You can tell me, but it won’t budge me one iota.” He took a hearty sip of whiskey, just to make his point.
“Them three that got kilt, the Jonas brothers and the one called Rocco, they was bad apples, with some dodgers on them for rustling and stuff.”
“Good riddance then.”
“Yeah, well, there’s some calves out on the T-Bar with altered brands, like they’d been mavericked. And I was sort of wondering how Crayfish Ruble is dealing with that. Maybe the Jonas brothers were nipping calves from their boss. And Rocco was in there somehow.”
Nippers smiled. “Why, obviously Crayfish arranged for the Bragg boy to come into the Last Chance and blow them off.”
He was chortling, but damned if that wasn’t what was gonging in my head these times.
“Judge, they sort of goaded him to go over there to the Last Chance. He was drinkin’ an ale nice and peaceful over to the Sampling Room, when Ruble’s foreman, he come in and began working on the boy, getting him to come next door because they was saying stuff about Admiral Bragg.”
“Well, Admiral Bragg deserves everything they say about him.”
“So the kid went over there, ordered a drink, and someone hit him and next he knew he was on the floor holding his hot revolver, and there’s bodies around.”
“Yes, yes, that’s all in the trial record.”
“What if the boy didn’t do it?”
Nippers stared. “You got even the tiniest shred of evidence?”
“King Bragg don’t remember it.”
Nippers guffawed and wiped more flaky flesh off his jowls. “You got to do better than that, boy.”
I could see how it was going, and I was getting mad myself. I’ve got a temper, and that judge was working it. “I’ll keep looking, and if I find out something, I’m coming back here and I’m going to ask you to stop this hanging.”
“Fat chance,” he said, and nipped another.
I got out of there. Nippers had already hanged the boy in his mind, and wouldn’t be changing anything before the necktie party. Maybe the boy was guilty as hell; that’s what the jury said. But Nippers wasn’t going to help much even if I found some new evidence.
I knew who I wanted to talk to. That dirtbag foreman Plug Parsons, him who lured King Bragg over to the other bar, and testified that the boy killed three men there. Plug was always sort of smirky, and I never much cared for him, but now I cared even less. He’d either be at Rosie’s or at the Last Chance Saloon, so I hightailed it over to the saloon and looked around in there, but I didn’t see him. There was a mess of T-Bar men in there, whistling at me when I walked in, and makin’ jokes, but no Parsons. Upward, he just stared at me and then watched me leave. I wasn’t welcome around there, but where is a sheriff ever welcome?
So maybe it would be Rosie’s. I walked right in, past the unlit red lamp, it being afternoon. The place stank. The T-Bar men smelled worse than hogs. Parsons, he wasn’t in the parlor or kitchen or nowhere downstairs, so I tried all the doors upstairs, and checked out a couple of snoring males, but Parsons wasn’t in there either. I guess I just would have to wait. Truth to tell, I was itching to grab a fistful of shirt and hammer on Parsons until he talked. But first I had to find him.
Doubtful ain’t a big place, but a man could still hide himself in town for a while if he wanted to. I didn’t see anyone resembling Parsons, who was pretty solid beef from head to toe, so I decided to check on Critter. I hiked over to Turk’s livery barn and found Critter gnawing on the gate, which was bad. You don’t want a gate-chewin’ horse around.
“Cut it out,” I yelled.
Critter just yawned.
“You’ll wear down your teeth and die young,” I said.
“You talking about me?” someone asked.
It was Plug Parsons, standing in the aisle behind me.
“I’ve been looking for you.”
“So I’ve heard.”
“I got some questions to ask about that night that the T-Bar men got shot.”
“I’ve already testified, Sheriff.”
“I got a few more ends to tie up. Did you go into the Sampling Room and dog the boy some?”
Parsons yawned. “I thought maybe you wanted to talk about something else. That was weeks ago. Forget it.”
“We’re gonna talk about that, and I want some answers. What did you tell the boy? Why did you lure him over to the Last Chance?”
Parsons hoisted his gun belt around a little, and I didn’t miss it.
“You trying to spring that little killer, Sheriff?”
“Maybe he should be sprung,” I said.
He grabbed a handful of my shirt and yanked me tight. It didn’t surprise me. Some foremen are like that.
“You’re a two-bit punk with a shiny badge,” he said. “Grow up.”
“My ma says I’m big for my age,” I said.
He kneed me but missed. His ham fist swung around behind me, but I shoved him down fast and hard. He landed in manure, and sprang up quick, reaching for his Peacemaker. But he was slower than me; mine was out and pointed. He saw that muzzle aimed between his eyeballs and sort of settled down some. His hat rested on a pile of fresh green apples.
“Now answer my questions, and do it right,” I said.
He just stared at me.
“What happened when King walked in?”
Plug was beet red, hotter than a boiler.
“Who was in there? You and Upward and who else
?”
Plug, he just glared.
“What knocked that boy into the sawdust?”
Plug was steaming now, and a little blood oozed from a cut lip.
“Who shot those three T-Bar men?”
Plug’s eyes gave him away. He wasn’t very good at hiding things. But neither was he talking.
“Whose gun kilt them men?”
This time he answered quietly. “It’s all in my sworn testimony.”
“Your testimony’s a lot of bull.”
He was standing there, wondering which way to jump.
“Lean against that wall,” I said. “Hands high.”
He was slow about it, but he obeyed, and I grabbed his revolver.
“All right, I’m locking you up. Walk in front of me.”
“For what?”
“I’ll think of something,” I said.
I could see he was about to try something, so I buffaloed him. That barrel made a dent in his skull, but it taught him a little respect.
“Walk,” I said.
He wobbled out of the livery barn, me behind him, and headed along the street, making a spectacle. But no one stopped us.
There was a couple of them T-Bar men lounging around the sheriff office.
“I’ve got an itchy finger,” I told them.
Plug shook his head and they got the message.
Rusty must have seen me coming, because the door swung open and I jabbed Plug into the office. The door swung shut behind us.
“What’d he do?” Rusty asked.
“I’ll figure it out,” I said.
Rusty opened the iron door to the cells, and we patted down Parsons and then shoved him into one and slammed the door. Across the aisle, King Bragg was staring at us.
Parsons had a lump on his head, and rubbed it. “What to know something?” he said. “I’m going to kill you. Maybe not now, but soon. You can count on it. And if I don’t, my men will. There’s not a one wouldn’t plug you on sight. You and everyone you hire. You know what, Sheriff? You just bought the ranch.”
EIGHTEEN
I let Plug cool down a couple of hours, and then headed into the cell block. He was standing with those ham hands on the bars, glaring away.
“You can go,” I said.
It sure startled him some.
“You ain’t done nothing much except grab my shirt and cuss me out. I guess I can forget that fast enough.”
He simply dead-eye glared at me so much, I thought to go real easy. I was ready—just in case.
I unlocked the cell door, and he bulled through hard, maybe to knock me off balance, but he saw I was ready, with a billy club that I knew how to use hard and fast.
Instead, he simply stopped and fixed me with that glare. “I’ll kill you soon as I can, Pickens. I’ll kill you and kick in your face and hang you from the nearest tree. It don’t matter whether I kill you face-to-face with a short gun or shoot you in the back with a long one, because either way, you’ll be cold meat.”
“You go cool down at Rosie’s, and stay quiet. I don’t want to see you runnin’ around Doubtful for a while.”
He clenched those ham hands, and I stepped slightly back. I was waiting for him, and he saw it. He knew what a billy club could do, which made him halfway smart.
“Punk kid wearing a star. You’ll pay, Pickens. You’ll be horsemeat before you know it.”
“Get along now,” I said, edging him toward the front door.
“I won’t forget this, you punk. As long as I live, I’ll remember this, and I’ll come kick manure on your grave.”
Plug was sure fussing at me, but I eased him through the sheriff office, while Rusty watched real careful, and then I pushed Plug out the door and locked it.
“You didn’t charge him? You let him go?”
“Oh, he’ll get past it.”
“You coulda charged him with a dozen things. Haul him in front of Nippers. Put him behind iron for six months.”
I laughed. “He got whupped. Not many foremen ever get whupped.”
“He was madder because you let him go than he was when you dragged him in.”
“He’s the big bull, and you know how them bulls are, Rusty. Now he don’t have much to bitch about. I let him go! Only thing he’s really mad about is because I got the drop on him and hauled him in.”
“You better watch your back.”
“It’s a gamble,” I said.
I figured it was better for Plug to be outside of the jail than in. I didn’t have the manpower to keep twenty or thirty T-Bar men from busting in, grabbing Plug, and killing King too.
Rusty eyed me like I was plumb loco, but I made my choice and now I’d live with it.
We watched Plug race down Wyoming Street toward the Red Light District, and I knew that within minutes the story, Plug’s version anyway, would be spreading around there.
“We better fort up,” I said.
Rusty, he spread the spare shotguns at the barred windows and we dropped the bar on the door. We had boxes of buckshot shells that could make nasty holes in crowds. It would be Rusty and me against them T-Bar men, and I thought we’d do pretty well. We’d get help too, soon as Burtell and DeGraff heard the banging.
I headed back into the cell block, and found King Bragg standing just behind the bars.
“You enjoy that?” I asked.
He shook his head. “I thought he’d tear those bars apart and kill me before he killed you.”
“You talk about anything?”
“I asked him a few things. Like, what happened after I walked into the Last Chance, with him dogging me.”
That caught my attention for sure.
King smiled suddenly. “‘Wouldn’t you like to know,’ Plug said. And I said I would because I sure don’t know what happened. All I know was, I walked into the Last Chance and there were a few T-Bar men, and Crayfish, and Upward served me a red-eye, and I waited to see what they were gonna say to my face.”
“And then?”
“I’ll never know, Sheriff, and I’ll hang for not knowing what happened next.”
“Who else was in the Last Chance?”
“Foxy and Weasel Jonas, and Rocco, all bellied up to the bar, sipping whiskey.”
“And somehow you shot them.”
The look in his face was about as sad as any I ever did see.
There was something about this that was nagging at me, but I sure couldn’t figure what, so I changed the subject.
“I’m expecting some visitors,” I said.
“Armed and ready to break in, kill you and Rusty, and then kill me.”
I hesitated. “If it comes to it, I’ll free you and give you the means to defend yourself. But I want your word of honor—”
He snapped, “I won’t give you my word of honor, so forget it. If they catch me in here and kill me, that’s how it’ll be.”
He was some riled up. I sort of admired him, but I didn’t know why.
“You want anything? Water?”
“You want to take my pisspot out and empty it?”
“In a while. Right now, I got to deal with Plug. He sure had some heat in him.”
“Nothing’ll happen,” King said.
I wasn’t so sure. I locked up the cell block and slid the key into my pocket. Rusty, he was studying the streets, but they looked calm enough. It wasn’t yet dark, this being late spring with lots of long light. I decided not to light the kerosene lamp. Not this eve. We were gonna sit there in the dark and watch the streets and close the shutters if lead started flying. But the seven-day clock in there just kept ticking away, minute by minute.
“You think they’ll try midnight or later?” Rusty asked.
“I’m thinking maybe dawn, when they figure we’ve drifted off.”
“Go to sleep, Cotton, and I’ll watch.”
“I couldn’t if I wanted to.”
It sure was a long dark night, and I was askin’ myself what I was sheriff for. It wasn’t any job I wanted, but I got stu
ck with it when the city of Doubtful had a hankering for my services, seeing as how most everyone else was dead that wore their star. But there wasn’t any point in grousing about it. Sheriff is what I was and would be.
The night was real quiet, and we saw no one hunkered down out there. With dawn, Burtell and DeGraff showed up, and I was glad to see them. We filled them in and left them in charge, while I headed back to Belle’s boardinghouse where I had me a little room. I didn’t need much from life. There was an iron bedstead in there, a blanket and pillow, a place for a trunk, and a place to hang up a few clothes. Maybe someday I’d have a woman to care for, and I’d want a little cottage somewheres, with some rambling roses around, but there weren’t no prospects. I thought some about Queen, but she wasn’t thinking about me, and I didn’t like her anyway, except when she smiled a little, which wasn’t very often.
So I walked home through empty streets, since the merchants weren’t up and around yet. Belle’s boardinghouse sure was quiet. I was ready for a good sleep, having spent the night awake, waiting for trouble at the jail. My room was up on the second floor, at the rear, where the sole window looked out on the alley and the outhouses. It was fine in the winter, but a feller didn’t want to sleep with an open window in the summer. I went down that hall, feeling them planks creak under me, and then I noticed the door was ajar a little. I whipped out the .44 without thinking twice. My ma used to tell me I was a little slow, but made up for it by being quick. I never quite figured that one out, but it didn’t matter none. That door was not tight, and I thought I might meet a hail of lead if I opened it more. In fact, there wasn’t nothing but a skinny layer of veneer between the killer in there and me, and that creaking hallway gave me away. So I just paused, wondering what to do, thinking maybe I should get flat on my belly.
“Do come in, Mr. Pickens. I’ve been waiting most of the night for you.”
I fear I recognized that voice straight off.
“You alone in there, Mrs. Gladstone?”
“Certainly. Three’s a crowd at a rendezvous.”
“A who?”
“A lover’s meeting, my dear.”
This was getting worse than being shot.
I edged the door open, ready to shoot, and saw she was alone, sitting in the one chair I possessed. I slid my revolver back in its holster and eyed the lady. She sure was nice-lookin’ wearing a white wrapper, with her hair down and falling over her shoulders. The dawn light from the window seemed to flow like gold over her. She had some slippers on too, with a hole in the side of one for her bunion. Them bunions are awful. My ma and pa both had bunions, mostly from buying bad shoes.
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