by Ralph Cotton
“No shenanigan, Sheriff Schaffer,” Polks beamed. “You asked for my legal opinion as an officer of the court earlier, did you not?”
“I did . . . ,” said Schaffer hesitantly. “But I didn’t expect you to go boring away at it full tilt.”
“I could give the matter no less than my full and earnest attention,” Polks said smugly. “If you expected otherwise from me, you were mistaken, sir. The law is not frivolous in such matters and as an officer of the court of this fine territory I am called not to treat it so.”
Here we go . . . , Sam said to himself, noting how much the attorney seemed to enjoy the sound of his own voice.
“Of course I wanted a sound opinion from you, Polks,” Schaffer said. “But I need to hold them, charge them with something. Look at the mess they’ve made here. They shot up the town, tore up the hotel, broke up a desk chair.”
Polks stepped closer, consulted his pad again and flapped it shut.
“Yes, they undisputedly did all that,” he said. “And I’m certain they might well stand trial for everything from public drunkenness to indecent exposure.” He raised a finger for emphasis. “But not for bank robbery.” He paused and grinned again. “Any lawyer with half a mind can beat this case for them. God knows I would.”
“What about attempted bank robbery?” Schaffer asked, sounding disgusted. “We all know that’s what they had in mind before they got lit up on mescal.”
“Knowing it and proving it is two different things, Sheriff,” said Polks. “Bank money was lying there, they didn’t attempt to take it. So, there goes a bank robbery charge out the window. I’m advising you, trying to convict them will be a waste of time and money.”
“My goodness,” Schaffer said, shaking his head. “The more civilized the law gets, the less sense it makes. No wonder townsfolk like to drop a rope and watch these fools wiggle their bootheels.” He looked at the Ranger. “Have you got them wanted for bank robbery anywhere else in the territory?” he asked.
Without taking his eyes off the grinning lawyer, Sam only shook his head without commenting.
“Then I’m afraid your best bet is to charge them a fine for all the mess they made here, Sheriff,” Polks put in. “And at that, I caution you not to fine them so high that they can’t afford to pay, or you’ll be stuck with them in your jail, feeding them on the taxpayer’s money. How much do you think the townsfolk will like that?”
Schaffer looked at the Ranger.
“See what I mean about the law making less sense?” he said.
Sam only stood watching, listening.
“Here’s something else you’re not going to like much, Sheriff Dave,” said Polks. “Being the only qualified attorney in town, it is my duty to offer my services to the Garlets should you decide to try them here on any charge more than a simple—”
“Jesus, Polks!” said Schaffer, cutting him off. “Do you just sit around dreaming up this crazy, mindless—?”
“I beg your pardon, Sheriff, this is the law,” Polks cut in indignantly. “You did ask me for an opinion. I would be remiss if I gave this matter anything less than my best effort.”
The sheriff cooled and let out a breath. “Pay me no mind, Arthur,” he said to Polks. “I know you’re quoting law, chapter and verse. But sometimes the law piles up on itself like rat turds in a barn loft.”
Polks said, “Fine them and get them out of town, Sheriff. That’s my best advice.”
Schaffer looked back and forth between the attorney and the Ranger.
“Hunh-uh,” he said. “I’m not turning them loose today. Not in the shape they’re in. Look at them. They’re all three off somewhere goosing butterflies. For their sake and the town’s, I’ll hold them until they sober up enough to lift themselves into a saddle.”
“Oh, and then . . . ?” said Polks.
“Then I’ll chase them out of here, like you said,” Schaffer replied grudgingly. He turned to Sam and said, “Unless you still want to take them to Nogales, Ranger Burrack. If you do they’re all yours.”
“Ranger Burrack, did you say?” Polks queried, a look of surprise coming to his face. He quickly looked the Ranger up and down. “The Ranger Burrack I’ve heard so much talk about of late?”
“Most likely,” Sam said flatly, knowing he was the only Ranger named Burrack riding for the Arizona Territory Rangers.
“Sheriff, where are your manners?” Polks said to Schaffer. Then he said to the Ranger, “Please allow me to introduce myself, Ranger Burrack. I’m Arthur B. Polks, attorney-at-law.” He smiled. “No hard feelings over what I’ve said here, I hope.”
“No hard feelings at all,” Sam said.
“Watch him, Ranger. He’s gotten as slippery as an outhouse ditch today,” the sheriff cautioned Sam with a half-joking smile.
“Shame on you, Sheriff Dave,” Polks said with an affable chuckle. “You know that I always have the matters of this town at heart.” He turned to the Ranger with a smile and tipped his hat back atop his head.
“To answer your question, Sheriff,” Sam said, getting back to the Garlets. “If you can’t make a case against these three, there’s no reason for me to take them to Nogales. Turn them loose. I’ll just have to wait until there is a charge that’ll stick.” He gave a slight shrug. “I shouldn’t have to wait long.”
“I wish I could be more help, Ranger,” said Schaffer.
“Obliged all the same,” said Sam. “This is how it goes busting up a big gang like this. I’ll take Cleary and Bonsell back to the Ranger outpost. By the time I get back out here, maybe Braxton Kane will hear about his brother, and him and his pals will come calling.”
“I apologize if what I’ve said causes you any problems doing your job, Ranger,” Arthur Polks said.
“Don’t apologize for the law,” said the Ranger. “I’m used to situations taking sudden turns and peculiarities. That’s why I carry extra bullets.”
• • •
In the darkening shadows of evening, behind Eland Fehrs’ First Street Saloon, Prew Garlet and a half-breed Mayan-Mexican Indian called the Bluebird stepped down from their horses and looked all around the dusty alley. Earlier, the two had heard the shooting from a distance of two miles out of town. A full hour after the shooting had stopped and no sign of his brothers had appeared along the trail, Prew and the Bluebird had led their horses down from among a rise of rocky cliffs and followed the trail toward the Midland Settlement with caution.
Now, they reined their horses to one of the hitch posts standing alongside a row of dilapidated public outhouses. The horses twitched their ears and grumbled under their breath at the terrible stench of human urine and excrement.
“Are you sure that stuff is safe here?” Prew asked the Bluebird, nodding toward the bulge of homemade dynamite in the Bluebird’s saddlebags. “If we blow up these horses, we’re going to be in a tight spot here.”
The Bluebird only stared at Prew blankly as he spoke. When he saw that Prew’s lips had stopped moving, he only nodded his head, his long, shiny black hair hanging from under his hat brim.
“All right, I’ll take your word for it,” Prew said, not realizing that the Bluebird couldn’t hear anything quieter than a clap of thunder. “Stay back here close to them. Nobody’s going to let you into the saloon anyway.”
The Bluebird grunted, but continued walking alongside Prew toward a small, narrow alleyway leading alongside the First Street Saloon.
Seeing the Bluebird still beside him, Prew stopped and held a hand toward him.
“No, damn it,” he said firmly, shaking his head. “Stay here with the horses until I check things out.” He pointed down at the ground as he spoke. When he finished, the Bluebird looked all around, then nodded his head.
“Jesus,” said Prew. “You need to brush up on your Ingles, if you expect to make it in this business.”
The Bluebird only
nodded again and watched him turn and walk away toward the rear door of the saloon. When he saw Prew step aside for two men walking out to use the outhouses, he backed away into the shadow of a building and sank onto his haunches and watched, seeing a smile crease Prew’s otherwise hard and leathery face.
“Evening, gents,” Prew said as he allowed the two men to walk past him, one of them weaving a little on his feet. The two men nodded and walked on purposefully. Prew caught the back door before it swung shut and walked inside, making a show of rebuttoning his fly as he walked across the plank floor of the crowded saloon.
At the bar, he sidled in between two drinkers who had left a sliver of space between them and summoned the bartender with raised fingers.
“Another beer and rye here,” he called out as if he’d been drinking there all evening.
“Another beer and rye coming up,” said a tall, powerfully built bartender with a pockmarked face and a tangle of thick black hair. He hooked a clean beer mug from the bar top and drew back on a tap handle in one sleek quick motion.
Watching the mug fill, Prew pulled out a gold coin and spun it on the bar top. The bartender stood the foamy beer mug in front of him and filled a shot glass with rye from a bottle, almost before the coin stopped spinning and flattened onto the bar.
“I have never knowingly participated in that practice,” the big bartender said, nodding at the coin. His wide hand scooped it up and closed around it like a thick clam.
“Could have fooled me, fast as you are,” said Prew. He gestured down at the rye bottle in the bartender’s other hand. “Leave it,” he said. And before the bartender could turn and make change from a tin box under the bar, Prew asked, “What was you saying a while ago about some shooting that went on here today?”
“What part?” said the bartender, spreading his big hands along the bar edge, his eyes checking along the line of drinkers.
Prew gave an offhanded shrug.
“Well, all of it, I reckon,” he said.
“It was the damnedest thing I ever saw,” the bartender said, “a horse flying out a window that way, the second floor? You ever see something like that?”
Good God . . . !
Prew stood staring, taken aback for a second.
“No, I can’t say I have,” he finally replied. “There was three of them, I heard?”
“Yep, three,” said the bartender. “Each one as wild-eyed crazy as the other. Got blind-flying drunk and decided to rob our new bank.”
Wild-eyed crazy . . . ? Prew had to think about that one for a second. Finally he shrugged again.
“I expect they’re all headed for Boot Hill now?” he queried.
“No,” said the bartender, “they all lived through it, don’t ask me how. They say it’s hard to kill a lunatic.” He pointed a big finger off along the street out front. “They’re all in our jail. But it’s likely they’ll swing by morning. There’re some townsmen mulling it over right now. Add some whiskey into the mix, I’d say they’ll be reaching for ropes most anytime.” His hand went below the bar and came up with change for Prew’s gold coin. “They liquored up right here on loaded mescal before they did their deed,” he added matter-of-factly. He dropped the change onto the bar top.
Prew, sweeping up the change, said, “Man, that must be some powerful mescal.”
“I’ll say so,” said the bartender. “The owner had me take it off our offerings till mescal season next year. Said this was just too strong a mix for these desert pilgrims.” He gave a tight, thin smile. “But I myself will have to slip in a drink or two before I go casting judgment. It’s out in the woodshed—what’s left of it.”
“That’s the only way to know for sure.” Prew nodded, raised his shot glass, drained it, filled it up, and drained it again. “Hearing all this makes me curious about it myself.” He paused thinking how powerful the mescal must be to have sidetracked his brothers so quickly. Then he said, “Say they’re about to hang those three?”
“Oh yes,” said the bartender. “They’ll swing for certain.”
“Well. . . .” Prew sighed, swept the bottle of rye up, corked it, and touched his hat brim toward the bartender. “I suppose if a man’s got to swing, drunk is the best way to do it.” He turned and walked out the rear door. He saw the Bluebird stand up from the shadows as he closed the door behind him.
“Well, Bird,” he said, walking up to the waiting half-breed. “I found out what happened, and where my brothers are.”
The Bluebird only nodded, seeing Prew’s lips move.
“They’re in jail,” Prew said, the two of them walking purposefully to their horses, “and we’re going to get them out, right now. Get your stuff.” He motioned the Bluebird toward his saddlebags.
As the Bluebird took out a homemade bundle of four dynamite sticks from his bags he turned to Prew and saw him hold up three fingers.
“I want all three of my brothers out of there alive—do you understand me?”
The Bluebird looked at Prew’s three fingers and only nodded; he turned back to the saddlebags.
“All right, get it ready to blow,” Prew said. “I’ll get their horses out of the barn. He turned and unhitched his horse’s reins. Before leading his horse away, he looked at the woodshed where the bartender had placed the jugs of mescal. “One more thing I’ve got to do,” he said. He patted the Bluebird on his back as the Indian pulled out two more bundles of dynamite sticks and tucked them under his arm. Bluebird only nodded without looking around.
Chapter 5
At the wall of iron bars separating the three Garlets’ cell from the cell housing the Ranger’s two prisoners, John Garlet, Cutthroat Teddy and Jake Cleary huddled and whispered back and forth in the slice of moonlight slanting through a rear window. Behind John Garlet, Foz and Tillman lay sleeping beneath a steady rise and fall of snoring and mindless babble. Behind Bonsell and Cleary, Casey Stans, the prospector, lay on the plank floor, using his wadded-up hat for a pillow. The sheriff had placed him in the cell to keep him from sleeping on the street.
Jake Cleary gave the sleeping prospector a guarded look, then turned back to John Garlet.
“Don’t worry about that old desert rat,” John Garlet said in a lowered voice, still sounding woozy and somewhat disoriented. “He’s with us, leastwise until we say he can leave.”
Bonsell and Cleary gave each other a dubious look.
“All right, here’s the way I see it,” said Cleary, knowing he could spend all night waiting for John Garlet’s head to clear. “You hombres did not rob the bank, so get that part out of your mind right now.”
“We meant to,” said John, a little confused.
“Shhh, just hush saying that,” said Cleary. “Don’t even let it in your mind. You rode in here, the barkeeper sold you some mescal liquor that would stagger a bull ram. You had no idea in hell what you were doing when you went into that bank.”
“That part’s true,” John said, scratching his throbbing head. “One minute we were drinking big swigs, the next, Tillman and me were on our backs in the dirt where we run each other down in an alley.”
“That must be some powerfully good stuff,” Cutthroat Teddy put in. He sat lowered on his haunches, his bandaged left hand hanging between his knees, his two shortened fingers throbbing like the beat of a drum.
Cleary eyed Bonsell and said in a gruff whisper, “Pay attention, Teddy. Stick to the matter at hand.” Then he looked back at the striped shadowy moonlight crisscrossing John Garlet’s face. “One question, is your brother Prew coming for you?” he asked.
“Hell yes, you can count on it,” John said, knowing that much for certain. “I’m surprised he’s not here already.”
Cleary let out breath in relief and relaxed a little.
“Then that’s that,” he said. “It doesn’t matter if the law says you’re guilty or not. You’ll be out of here soon as Prew
hears about it. He don’t want to leave you here and risk a lynching while the law scratches its butt deciding what to charge you with.”
“Yep, that’s kind of how I see it,” John said, sort of understanding the conversation in spite of his mind still floating on a sea of mescal.
“My question is,” said Cleary, “can I count on you and your brothers letting me and Cutthroat out, too?”
“We all ride for the Golden Gang,” said John. “How can you even ask me something like that?”
“Sorry, John,” said Cleary. “The shape you’re in I wouldn’t want to get forgotten about here.”
“You won’t be forgotten . . . uh,” said John, leaving his words hanging under a confused stare.
“Damn it, John, it’s us—me and Jake Cleary. Look at me,” said Cutthroat Teddy, seeing the outlaw struggle to remember who he was talking to.
“Okay, okay,” said John, raising his eyes to Bonsell’s shadowy face through the bars, “I forgot for a second. I know it’s you. I’m not a damned idiot.” He paused and cupped his unsteady hands to the sides on his head. “I’m getting sober here.” He paused again, then said, “But I swear I can hear a bug crawling down the wall.”
Cleary looked around the dark cells, seeing no sign of any crawling things.
“Get yourself sober,” he coaxed John.
“I’m trying,” John said. “I’m just coming and going. One minute I’m here, the next I’m somewhere else.”
Cleary and Bonsell looked at each other again. Bonsell stifled a laugh and grinned.
“That has got to be some awfully good stuff,” he repeated.
Cleary gave him a sour stare.
“What . . . ?” said Bonsell. “You hear about something that makes a man act like this and you ain’t even curious?”
“No,” Cleary said, tight-lipped. “I’ve been as drunk as I wanted to be my whole damned life. I don’t need no Mexican whoopiee potion making me walk upside down.” He shook his head and looked around again as if searching for bugs crawling on the walls. “You young outlaws are killing us, dragging the whole profession down.”
