“Both sides?” DeGraff said.
“Both sides. Maybe twenty, thirty men on each ranch.”
“And we’re forted up.” Burtell said. He was sort of smilin’, knowing how bad it really was.
“It ain’t easy for them to bust in,” I said. “This here place is made from quarried sandstone. It’s got a slate roof. There’s big wooden shutters for the windows, and they got a few firing ports in them. We got a few scatterguns in here, just in case they bust the door in and try to rush us. I’d hate to try to break through four ten-gauge loaded with double-aught buckshot.”
“Chimney,” Rusty said.
“That’s a bad one. If we got a fire in the stove, they can plug the chimney and smoke us out. That means, no fires in our stove. We drink cold coffee from now on.”
They didn’t mind it much.
“They’re likely to try to draw us out,” I said. “Trouble out there somewhere. But trouble, lawmen needed, so we rush outa here. I ain’t got much of an answer to that. If there’s trouble, one or more of us gotta go. I’m thinkin’ maybe I’ll stay out of here, and you three guard the prisoner. I’ll do better roaming around.”
Rusty grinned. “You’re jailing us and keeping the best job for your lonesome self.”
I ignored him. “Now we got another possibility. They might try to starve you out. A siege where they got the jail surrounded and hope we run outa food and water. DeGraff, it’ll be your job to keep plenty of water in there, and keep them chamber pots and thunder mugs emptied, and keep some hardtack or crackers or jerky or something in there. Stock up and put it on the county bill.”
DeGraff, he nodded. They had twenty years on me, and I felt some ridiculous, giving ’em orders like that. Still, the sheriff job got dumped on me during a set-to a year or so earlier, and the town was happy with me—so far. No telling how they’d feel if I drove off their best customers.
“There’s more,” I said. “If Admiral Bragg and his bunch rush this place, you let him know he’s putting his boy’s life on the line. I hate that, but if it’s war, they can expect us to do what we gotta do. That won’t work with them Ruble boys, who’d just tell us to hand the boy over.”
“Cotton, that’s not good. Our job’s to protect King Bragg any way we can,” DeGraff said. “That’s the law and that’s justice.”
“You sure are right,” I said, seeing the merit in it. “I’ll back off. We’ll protect that boy as best we can, any way we can. Thanks, DeGraff.”
The man barely nodded. He was as lean as a hungry crow, and had the look of a hawk in his skinny face.
“That do it?” I asked.
“I think we got it covered,” Rusty said. “Ain’t nobody gonna bust in here without paying a price.”
“And I hope they know it,” DeGraff said. “I’ll see how we’re fixed for powder.”
“Good idea,” I said. I was pretty sure we had plenty of cartridges and shotgun shells, but it never hurt to check it all out.
We worked out a schedule that would keep two deputies in there at all times. DeGraff headed out to the pump and jacked some water into a pail, and then filled up the spare. After that he would head for George Waller’s store and get some food that would last and keep a man’s belly at bay. I didn’t want no hungry, thirsty, desperate men in here if the place was under fire.
Three or four men defending a jail against maybe twenty-five. I didn’t like them odds, even if we had got ourselves into good shape. But the thing was, it probably wouldn’t happen. Neither Crayfish Ruble or Admiral Bragg would be as dumb as that. Busting a jail and shooting at sworn peace officers would put them on the wrong side of the law for the rest of their days.
There was still a worry or two, when I got to chewing on it. In a few days a crew would start to put up the gallows in the courtyard square. What if them Bragg men tried to stop it? Tore everything out? Well, I’d deal with it. Maybe a town posse could make sure them timbers rose they way they should. I’d talk to the town merchants about it.
Still, the whole thing made me itchy. This was war, and a good way to win a war was to hit where no one expected to be hit. What had I missed? Where was my weak spot? I sure didn’t know. I wish I had a few more aces in my deck, but I don’t know how to be anyone else, and as far as I could see, I’d got us set up for trouble pretty well. There was a few odds and ends, though. I wanted to make sure that someone in town slipped away to get help from the next county if it came to that. I’d need to talk to some of them merchants, and work up a plan. Puma County was a long way from anywhere at all, at the ass-end of Wyoming, and it’d take three, four days to get a force together to break the siege. It wasn’t no fun to think about. But my pa, he always said not to worry about what you don’t know and can’t fix. So that was that.
I made sure my boys was getting the place ready for whatever might come, and then I left the deputies and headed toward Saloon Row. I wasn’t done lookin’ into this business, not by any means.
The town looked quiet. There was a few ranchers and their women loading up at the mercantiles. The Wyoming flag barely flapped at the courthouse. The square in front of the courthouse was quiet. I wanted the gallows builders to put it in the middle of the square, well away from the streets. I’d asked Will Wiggins at the lumber yard about getting the gallows built, and he said he would bid on it.
“I’ll see about a proper design, and get to sawing the timbers,” he’d said. “I think some good solid pine eight-by-eights should do it. Regular two-by-fours and plank for the deck. I got some hinges here for the drop, which I’ll throw in, since I get ’em back anyways. That deck’s gotta be about eight feet up, so there’s a good neck-cracker fall. Seems to me we don’t want to be hard on the boy, and a good fall’s important.”
He had seemed uncommon eager. I guess it’d give him something to talk about at the potluck suppers over at the Rock of Gibraltar Chapel where he and his woman went at nine o’clock every Sunday morning. The services at that outfit lasted three hours, with a lot of hallelujahs, and I was awful glad I wasn’t of that persuasion.
But after that Sunday, he’d backed off and said he didn’t want the business, so I got Lem Clegg to do it. There was something else I didn’t know nothing about, which was makin’ a noose. A hanging rope is no lariat. It’s entire different, and I was still looking around for someone who could make me one. I’d asked around some, but so far I hadn’t come across anyone to make one for me. That was a noose for sure that Admiral Bragg’s rannies dropped over me, but I sure wasn’t going to get anyone from that outfit to make one for me.
I hitched my holster around. I hated carrying heavy metal all the time, but nowadays I had to. I drifted along Wyoming Street, and finally hit Saloon Row, where the smell of stale beer drifted out of every batwing door. It wasn’t much different from the rest of town, mostly board-and-bat buildings thrown up fast, but it had a different smell.
I went into the Last Chance, looking for Upward. The place was dark and quiet, and I couldn’t see him nowhere, but he wouldn’t be far away. I finally discovered he was out back, liming the outhouse. The outhouses behind Saloon Row stank so bad they sometimes made the whole town stink. Upward and Mrs. Gladstone at the Sampling Room was the only ones that did anything about it, dumping a few loads of lime down the holes once in a while. Doubtful sure didn’t smell like lilacs most of the time, especially on Sundays, after Saloon Row had seen a Saturday night.
He come in, carrying an empty dipper.
“Keeps it down a little,” he said. “You want a shot?”
“No, just want to talk some.”
“What have you got for me, eh?”
There it was again. To get anything out of Upward, you had to whisper something to him.
“I had a little meeting with Queen Bragg in the middle of the night,” I said.
Upward’s eyebrow arched.
“It didn’t come to nothing.”
Upward sighed. “That’s because you don’t have what it takes, She
riff. Now, if she met with me in the middle of the night, it’d be different.”
“Okay, where are them two witnesses, the ones that testified that King Bragg plugged three T-Bar men?”
“Oh, you mean Plug Parsons and Carter Bell.”
“Yeah, them two. They’re the ones saw it happen. And you were there too.”
“I heard they left the country, Cotton. Right after the trial. They drew wages from Crayfish. The word was, they were scared that Admiral Bragg would string them up, and I can’t say as I blame them for pulling outa here. That’s what I heard, but I don’t know the truth of it.”
“They say where they was heading?”
“Nope, and they didn’t want no one to know. Crayfish told me they’d drawn wages.”
“That leaves you as the sole witness, Sammy.”
“Me, I didn’t see nothing. I was in the storeroom.”
I remembered at the trial, Upward had testified he’d served up some red-eye to King Bragg, and then gone to the storeroom to find a bung starter. The shooting had come in a burst when he was back there, and he was afraid to come out until things quieted, and then it was just a quick peek. King Bragg was standing there with an empty six-gun and there were three T-Bar men down, leaking blood and life.
“King, he says he didn’t know anything, and first thing he knew, he was lying on the floor looking up at you and some others,” I said.
Upward smiled. “He never was down.”
“The jury thought so too.”
“I heard all the shots, and a lot of breaking glass, and stayed low until it quieted. He was standing there holding an empty gun when I come out of the storeroom.”
“Anything else happening?”
“Sure, half the bottles on the backbar, they were busted and my best booze was draining into the sawdust.”
“How come bullets was coming into the bar? I thought King Bragg was at the bar when he shot them T-Bar men.”
“How should I know? Bullets fly all over the place.” Upward was getting annoyed. “All this because Queen batted her big eyes at you in the night?”
I got to feeling sort of dumb, and started to make excuses, and thought better of it.
“Think what you want,” I said.
Upward, he was enjoying himself.
“Did King Bragg start to reload?” I asked. “Get out of here? A man with an empty gun, he’s pretty quick to shuck the empties.”
“I’m tired of the palaver, Cotton. You find something else to tell me, and I’ll find something else to tell you.”
I tipped my hat and left, with Sammy Upward staring at my back. The sunlight felt good. The two witnesses were gone, and Upward said he didn’t see the shooting. King Bragg said he was knocked out and lying on the floor; but Upward said King was standing with an empty gun in his hand. Upward said a bunch of his bottles got busted; the court testimony was that King Bragg was shooting from the bar into the rest of the saloon. It sure was a puzzle.
NINE
Critter was nipping at me, and I didn’t blame him. I’d been neglecting him. He hated being in Turk’s livery barn, and usually took it out on me with his big buck teeth. If I had big teeth like his, I’d nip him back.
I tried to get over to see him every day, but sometimes I got waylaid. He kept track, and let me know when I was lettin’ him down. If I really messed up, he kicked the hell out of me.
I found some oats and poured some into the manger, but he wasn’t done with me. He backed around until he was shoving me into the side of the stall, just to let me know who came first.
“All right, we’ll get out this afternoon,” I said. “So cut it out.”
He decided his oats were more interesting than me, and got to licking them out of the manger.
“That horse’ll likely kill you some day,” Admiral Bragg said.
He had ridden into the livery barn on his handsome blood bay, and Queen was beside him on a palomino. She was riding sidesaddle this time, though she was sitting astride the other night when she stopped me. I guess maybe she did what her daddy wanted when he was around, and what she wanted when he wasn’t. But in town, she was always riding sidesaddle, very ladylike. I never quite knew why no woman was supposed to ride astride, but it had to do with their anatomy, and I never did figure it out. I thought maybe it was something preachers invented, but mostly it was a way of riding for rich women. It sure was nothing I was gonna worry about.
I thought she might favor me with a little smile, but all I got from her was a haughty stare. I should’ve known. Queen was just being Queen, and Cotton Pickens was nothing but a worm. Oh, well. My ma used to tell me, look twice at a woman because she’ll change in a flash. I hardly have had a chance to test that one out, but I sure been meanin’ to.
I greeted the pair and helped her down, as he dropped off the bay. Her hand was colder than a glacier. Lazarus, the hostler, took them horses off, and began brushing them down.
“I’m glad I found you here, Sheriff. We’re going to visit my boy.”
Admiral Bragg wasn’t asking, but I don’t suppose he had to.
“All right. I don’t keep family from him.”
We stepped onto Wyoming Street, and first thing I noticed was a mess of horses, most of them with the Anchor brand on their left hip, tied to the hitch rail in front of Mrs. Gladstone’s. That was the name of the saloon, a few doors up from the Last Chance. Mrs. Gladstone’s Sampling Room was where the Anchor cowboys collected. I knew a few of them nags. Jesse Tilton was in town, and so was Wiley Wool. Both of them were handy all-around cowboys, tough as they come. Wool was quick with fists, and knew some Oriental moves that meant he could usually flatten someone he was brawling with. And there were other Anchor rannies over there, most of them plenty familiar with sidearms. Sure as could be, there was Big Nose George’s dun horse, and Spitting Sam’s and Smiley Thistlethwaite’s plugs right next door. Most of the Anchor Ranch outfit had pulled into Doubtful, and I knew they was all wetting their parched throats in there.
This was starting to get interesting.
“All right,” I said to Admiral and Queen, “come along.”
We hiked to the courthouse square and the county sheriff office and jailhouse, and I knocked.
“Who?” yelled Rusty.
“Me, with Mr. Bragg and Miss Bragg, come to visit.”
“Is that all right?” he asked.
That meant, was everything okay?
“Yeah, open up.”
The door swung, and Rusty was in there with a drawn six-gun. He let us in and then locked the door behind him.
“Rusty, put on the log that the Braggs are here,” I said.
Then I remembered he couldn’t write none. “Never mind, I’ll do it,” I said. I can spell pretty good, and didn’t have no trouble with Queen. It was Q-W-E-E-N.
Rusty, he’s lookin’ at me and then at Admiral, who was all swelled up in a gray swallowtail coat that seemed to bulge here and there. I nodded to Rusty.
“Looks like we got to do a little checking here,” I said. “I mean, we got to frisk you, sir.”
He was annoyed. “No, you don’t.”
“Well, I can’t let you in there to palaver with King unless we do. And come to think of it, I can’t let Miss Bragg in there. She ain’t friskable.”
That got me two icy stares.
“Take me to the boy, and be quick about it,” Bragg said.
I sighed. There was no way I could back down. Not against a man like that, who probably had a few derringers, toad-stabbers, stilettos, and loose cannons under that lumpy coat. Plus a couple of jail keys, a hacksaw, a file, and lock-pickin’ stuff. And there was no tellin’ what Queen Bragg had under there, and I got red in the cheeks just thinkin’ about all them hiding places. But there wasn’t any way outa this except a frisking.
“You can take off that gray coat, and slide out of the boots, and Rusty here will give them pants a quick pat.”
I could feel the fires blazing in that rancher, and I th
ought he was about ready to explode like one of them steam boilers. Either that or he’d pull out one of them hidden cannons and start givin’ us what-for. But I guess he remembered he had a daughter beside him, so he curbed the volcano building up in him.
“Bring the boy here,” he said.
“No, he stays locked safe and tight.”
“Tell the boy he will live a lot longer than you.”
“I might tell him you said it.”
“Tell the boy if they harm a hair on his head, there’s going to be not one stone standing of this jail and the courthouse; that Doubtful will disappear; that Puma County, Wyoming, will vanish from memory. And every official with it.”
“I guess that’s a threat. Sure sounds like a dilly. We’ll write it up.”
“If you can write,” he said.
That made me mad. I did five grades and part of the next.
I turned to Queen. “You want to add anything, miss?”
She closed her eyes, and for a moment I could see pain radiating from her face. Then she stared at me.
“That goes double for me.”
Rusty, his hand was never far from his six-gun. He saw them lumps under the gray swallowtail. I got to thinkin’ something else. Who might be collecting outside?
“All right, since you ain’t cooperating, you’ll have to get out now.”
“I think we’ll stay,” Admiral said.
This wasn’t playing out the way I’d hoped it would. Twenty of them gunslicks over at Mrs. Gladstone’s, and the boss and his daughter in with me. I saw Rusty chewing on this too, and nodded to him to open them doors. If they wouldn’t get out clean, they’d get tossed out on their ass.
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