Savage Guns

by William W. Johnstone

  “Want to talk to you, Mr. Bragg. Tomorrow, I’m forbidding sidearms at the courthouse square and anywhere else in town. We’re gonna keep the peace here. Any rider wearing a sidearm or carrying a weapon, he’s going to get pinched by my deputies and kept in the jail until he pays a fine for disturbing the peace. And it’ll be thirty days before he can collect his guns.”

  “Are you quite through, Sheriff?”

  “And that goes for you too. It goes for Crayfish Ruble. It goes for anyone in town. My job is to keep the peace, and it’s going to be kept.”

  Bragg smiled. “Except for the violence done to my son. When the peaceful noose peacefully ends his peaceful life.”

  “That’s justice, and it’ll be done proper, and there’ll be no arms on anyone in this town. And now you’ve been told. So see to it.”

  “Thank you, Sheriff. Your advice is always entertaining.”

  Queen was staring at me. And this time, there was no ice in it, only something close to tears. I nodded slightly.

  “I think it is a good idea,” Queen said.

  Her father stared at her, his face reddening, steam rising in his boilers.

  “Bullets have a way of finding the wrong targets,” she said. “Please, Mr. Pickens, do what you can.”

  Well, I pretty near had a fit. Her sticking to her guns, and her pa looking like the safety valve was gonna blow on his boilers.

  He smiled suddenly. “She takes after her mother.”

  “Mr. Pickens is doing everything he can—for us!” she snapped.

  That done it. He arose swiftly, yanked her up, and steered her toward the rooms in back.

  She refused to budge, and he dragged her across the dining room and finally out the door.

  Our eyes locked just as he propelled her into the lobby, but in that split second I saw something I can’t rightly put words to. Sorrow and triumph and iron will, I guess.

  “Now then, what were you saying, Sheriff?” Bragg asked.

  “I’m saying that if you or your men disturb the peace in Doubtful I’ll lock you all up, you especially, and toss out the key.”

  He smiled at that. He grinned so wide he bared some teeth, and then patted me on the shoulder.

  “Give it a try, sonny boy,” he said.

  Meanwhile Queen, she was roaring back into the dining room, and headed straight for me, and before her pa could collect his wits and drag her off again, she came right up and kissed me square on the cheek. Then she stood there, daring her pa to have himself a heart attack.

  “I’ll deal with you later,” he said to her.

  His fist knocked me flat on my butt. I wasn’t looking for it. I wasn’t trying to get in the middle of a family fight. I come up hot and piled after him, but he was ready with a kick to my groin and some moves that told me that this man had some serious training. But I didn’t care; I was young and hot and went after him until he pulled my .44 from its holster, and then I was so mad I knocked him across the room, spilling tables and chairs, and landed on him just about when he was getting his arm around to point my piece at me. The shot hit the ceiling. Someone screamed. I got the best of him then, and twisted his hand until he dropped the iron, and then yanked him up and hit him again.

  “You’re going to spend some time as my guest,” I said, shaking him until his teeth rattled.

  I pushed him hard, scooped up my revolver, and marched him off toward my executive suite in the jail.

  Queen, she stood there dry-eyed.

  “Tell your riders. If they show up armed tomorrow, they’ll all go where your pa’s going.”

  She nodded. I don’t think she liked that any. But she’d do it. Word was going out to the Anchor Ranch’s riders and gunslicks, so maybe something got done this morning.

  “I suppose you know we’ll tear your jail apart,” Admiral said.

  “Walk or I’ll drag you.”

  He walked, soon resuming that disdainful way of his, as if I weren’t clutching his shirt and holding my six-gun in his ribs.

  Now the whole town was watching. A lot of folks had heard that shot, and they were buzzing around Doubtful like hornets on the loose, looking to see who croaked. But no one croaked. What they saw was me, dragging the boss of the biggest ranch in the valley off to my iron cages, and it sure started the mouths flapping. We got to the sheriff office and jailhouse where a couple of them T-Bar men was lounging as usual, and they sure got an eyeful, me marching the biggest cheese in the valley through my doors.

  Rusty, he saw me coming and let us in.

  “Book him,” I said.

  “For what?”

  “I’ll think of something,” I said.

  “Discharging a firearm?”

  “That’ll do. Anything’ll do. Throw the book. Find enough stuff to keep him here for a few months.”

  Rusty whistled.

  “Pat him down,” I said.

  Rusty went to work, and pulled out a double-barreled derringer from Bragg’s breast pocket, and a hideout ankle knife he kept for insurance.

  “You’ll get these back when I feel like it,” I said. “Which I don’t.”

  I steered Admiral Bragg through the jailhouse door and then into a cell opposite his boy. The door clanged shut behind him, and he turned to stare at me so hard it looked like murder was pouring out. Which probably was about right.

  He saw his son across the aisle and stared.

  “Queen disobeyed me,” he said to King.

  King absorbed that some. “I’m glad someone finally did,” the boy said.

  I sure hated to have to do what I would have to do on the next day.

  Admiral Bragg, he just stood there, absorbing that, and not believing it could happen to a fine feller like himself. He clasped them iron bars, and pulled on them, and tugged on them and shoved on them, and I swear them bars bent a little, but maybe it was just my imagination. For the moment, King Bragg’s pa was there, across from his doomed boy, and maybe the boy would teach him a few manners.

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  Mr. Bragg, he sure was noisy back there. He wanted to post bail. He wanted his lawyer, Stokes. He even wanted Judge Nippers, even though a few days earlier he’d tried to make the judge a hostage. I told him I’d let him out at eleven the next day. He had something to watch about then.

  “What are you holding me for?” he asked.

  “I’ll think of something.”

  “It’s illegal, keeping me in here without charges.”

  “Maybe so. I’ll read a law book sometime and find out.”

  “Watch your back,” he said.

  That’s how he thought. If he couldn’t get what he wanted, try a threat. But I would watch my back, all right.

  I left him in Rusty’s care, but Rusty didn’t like it none, and said he was tired of being persecuted and maybe I should give him a day off or some hardship pay. I told him he could have a day off soon as we cleaned out the cells, which would be tomorrow, unless we had to throw a few more cowboys in between now and the big event.

  “I guess I have to put up with it,” he said. “What do you want me to feed him?”

  That reminded me of something. “King Bragg gets whatever he wants for a last meal. Ask him what he wants, and we’ll do what we can for him. It’s owed him, a good last chow down.”

  “Ask him yourself,” Rusty said. He was being ornery, now that I’d put two Braggs in his care. Next thing, he’d ask for a raise or a month-long leave.

  “I’m going out,” I said.

  “And leaving me here.”

  “Watch the place, and keep them scatterguns handy.”

  Rusty sighed, poured some week-old java from the speckled blue pot on the stove, and settled into my chair.

  I was glad to get outa there, and into some fresh morning air. The sun was out, but it wasn’t a nice day. The whole town of Doubtful was brooding, waiting for the next day, or maybe waiting to get past the next day. I saw Mayor Waller putting up some broadsides on his store, advertising “Courthouse S
pecials” at twenty percent off. I guess Courthouse Specials were really hanging specials, which he would offer to the mob that would assemble on that patch of grass the next morning. But just now, there wasn’t a soul on the streets.

  I made my way to Saloon Row, hoping to find Mrs. Gladstone open for business. I pushed through the batwing doors into the Sampling Room, which was empty except for one drunk asleep on the billiard table. Mrs. Gladstone saw me and froze into an iceberg. I didn’t blame her any; she’d tried and lost, and I was halfway embarrassed myself. She stood behind her bar, rigid and frosty, waiting.

  “You sure are a beautiful woman,” I said.

  That didn’t melt one particle of ice, but maybe a little more heat would.

  “I guess you’re just about the finest gal in the territory,” I said.

  She stood unmoving.

  “You had something about King Bragg that you was thinkin’ of sharing with me the other evening.”

  She studied me, a sudden gentleness in her face. Then she nodded slowly.

  “Something you thought might help the boy.”

  “It wasn’t anything,” she said. “Not something that would stop this—this legalized murder.”

  “But you thought it was something.”

  She was plain embarrassed. But then she started in a little. “You know, they were waiting for King. They waited a long time for King to come here. That foreman, Plug Parsons, came over here from the Last Chance every few minutes, looked around here, and left.

  “He’d come in with several T-Bar men. Their horses were tied out front.”

  “Crayfish with them?”

  “Why, yes. He was there.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “I saw them ride up to the hitch rail.”

  “Who else?”

  “I don’t know all those T-Bar people. But the ones that got killed, they came too.”

  “The Jonas brothers and Rocco?”

  “Rocco I know. Every woman in Doubtful knows Rocco.”

  “And Parsons came looking for King Bragg?”

  “Like clockwork. Every few minutes, he just poked his head in here, looked around, and left.”

  “What did he say?”

  “His boss wanted to talk to King.”

  “After the shooting, what happened?”

  “I saw Crayfish in the alley. He had come out to, you know, relieve himself.”

  “And did he go back in to the Last Chance?”

  “I don’t know, Sheriff. I was wondering about the shots next door.”

  “Is that it? What you wanted to tell me about?”

  “It isn’t very much, Mr. Pickens.”

  “Would you come tell this to Judge Nippers?”

  “But I would have to close up.”

  “Maybe it’s worth closing up.”

  Well, she did. She pulled off her apron, fluffed up her hair some, and closed her saloon.

  “Do you think it will help that boy?” she asked.

  I couldn’t say. “The judge wants a witness, someone who saw Crayfish pull the trigger on those three.”

  We walked up empty streets, but I saw some of them riders lurking in the shadows, seeing what kind of trouble they could stir up. There was T-Bar men on the left, and Anchor Ranch men on the right, staring at each other across the wide clay street. Every last one of them was armed.

  Me, I walked Mrs. Gladstone straight up the middle.

  Judge Nippers wasn’t in yet, but I set Mrs. Gladstone down and went hunting for him. He was over in the beanery polishing off some pig knuckle stew, and I told him Mrs. Gladstone had a thing or two to say.

  He belched some, and looked unhappy, like he hadn’t started his daily sipping yet, and it was keeping him out of sorts. But he paid up, started along with me on his gouty feet, past the gallows with that noose dangling there for all the world to see, and finally we got up the stairs to his chambers, where Mrs. Gladstone sat primly. She looked him over as she would a potential lover, while he pushed a skeleton key into the door and let us all into his office.

  “What now?” he asked.

  I nodded to Mrs. Gladstone, and she sort of started in.

  But she didn’t get halfway through before he interrupted.

  “You see those three get shot?”

  “No, Your Honor,” she said.

  “So you don’t have a shred of evidence,” he said.

  “It’s worth a stay of the execution until we find out more. There’s a real question here,” I said. “I’m no lawyer, but I know there’s doubts, real doubts.”

  He looked at me impatiently. “Sheriff, you come up with evidence. Evidence. And don’t bother me again unless you’ve got a witness.”

  I guess that was how all this would end.

  “Until then, that boy’s guilty as sin,” he said.

  I helped Mrs. Gladstone to her feet. She was fighting back tears, but Nippers pretended not to notice.

  We walked all the way back. It seemed like the longest walk I ever took, like we were walking back into sadness.

  I went into the Sampling Room with her, and next I knew, she was crying her heart out. She left the CLOSED sign in the window. She just sat there on a chair, too broken to move, the tears leaking down those soft cheeks. I ached to help her, but there wasn’t a thing I could do. I couldn’t help her and I couldn’t help the boy and I couldn’t help this town of Doubtful.

  The door opened and Queen come in. I’d never seen her in there, and I was sure her pa never let her come close to the place, even if it was the saloon that Anchor Ranch riders always come to and called their own.

  She looked at me, and at Mrs. Gladstone, whose tears flowed steadily, and she sat beside the older woman and held her hand. I thought maybe Queen was going to cry too, but she didn’t. They sat there in their helplessness. There was nothing they could do, nothing I could do, nothing anyone on earth could do.

  Unless I could rattle a confession out of someone, or some testimony out of someone.

  It was up to me. It was always up to me. There wasn’t no one to help me.

  I left them two women in the closed saloon, stepped into the bright sun, not knowing where to start. But the court testimony depended on two witnesses, Plug Parsons, and Carter Bell, so I supposed that was where to start.

  I didn’t know where they might be, or what I’d do if I found them, but the Last Chance was right next door, and that was where they’d likely be, and where the murder of three men had happened not long before, and where I’d open the case if it was to be opened. So I sucked in some fresh June air and stared at the snow-tipped peaks off to the west. Eternity was up there somewhere, nature so big it didn’t matter what a few poor folks called trouble. That reminded me I’d have to round up a preacher for the boy. He had a right to a preacher and a last prayer if he wanted it. He had a right to all of that. Most of the churches in Doubtful were served by circuit riders, since no one could afford a full-time preacher, but there’d be someone, somewhere, to pray over King Bragg, and I’d find one.

  I pushed into the Last Chance, and was hit by a wall of foul air. It was sweat. Everyone in there had been sweating, and stinking the air. The smell clawed at my belly. I waited until my eyes got used to the darkness. There were plenty of T-Bar men in there, and they’d turned silent when I walked in. But I didn’t see the big body of Plug Parsons, or the short and rat-faced one of Carter Bell. What I did see was a lot of riders who were wearing one or two sidearms, and whose shirts had big black sweat stains under the armpits. It wasn’t real hot out, but this place was as sweated up as a racehorse after a run.

  Sammy was behind the bar, eyeing me like he didn’t want me in there, but I was in no mood to leave.

  “Gimme a sarsparilla,” I said.

  Sammy looked annoyed, but he uncorked the jug of it and poured a tumbler full. He snapped the glass down so hard in front of me that it didn’t take any smarts to figure how he felt just then.

  I laid a dime on the bar, and
he swept it away.

  The sarsaparilla was warm and cheesy.

  “You find what you were missing?” I asked, knowing he hadn’t because them knockout drops was in my office safe.

  “I’m not missing anything,” he said. “False alarm. I thought I was, but I wasn’t. I’ve got what I was looking for.”

  “So you never told me what you thought was missing,” I said.

  He shrugged. “I thought someone nipped a bottle of gin.”

  “But it was here?”

  “Drunk up now. Crayfish, he sure likes good London gin, and has me order it in.”

  “Well, tomorrow it’ll be over,” I said. “You must be glad to see justice done. Them three that King Bragg killed, were they friends of yours?”

  “Rustlers and a pimp is what they were. King Bragg did the world a favor.”

  “Did he shoot them in self-defense?”

  Sammy eyed me cynically, like I was being dumber than usual, and then laughed smartly. “You’re a card, Sheriff.”

  “King must’ve been fast, pumping six rounds into them three before they knew what hit ’em.”

  “They sure weren’t expecting it. They were just sipping suds when they began taking on lead pills.”

  “Too bad you was back there and didn’t see it,” I said.

  “That kid was wild, and when someone like him pulls an iron I don’t want to be around. I’m alive to tell about it.”

  “Well, it’ll all be over tomorrow,” I said. “Justice done, and everyone in Puma County’ll forget it ever happened.”

  “That’s what we’re counting on,” Sammy said.

  “One thing, Sammy, and I want you to spread it. No sidearms, no weapons in the courthouse square or anywhere in town tomorrow. Not one. Anyone shows up armed in any way, my deputies will toss him into the tank, and he won’t see his sidearm for thirty days. And he’ll be charged with disturbing the peace.”

  “How many men you think that’s gonna stop?” Sammy asked.

  “As many as we can arrest and haul away,” I said. “I’ve told Crayfish. He’s got the word. I’ve told Admiral. He’s got the word. Now I’m telling these here men, so they got the word. And next I’m gonna tell the Anchor Ranch men, so they get the word. There’s not going to be one person on the courthouse square tomorrow who hasn’t got the word. We’re going to have a peaceful and proper hanging, and there’s not going to be any trouble.”