“What were all his men doing in town?”
“Oh, who knows? Maybe just keeping Ruble’s crowd at bay. Ruble’s gang wants to bust into your lockup and hang the boy just as badly as Bragg’s gang want to bust him out. But I think that what happened today wasn’t what Admiral Bragg had in mind. His first purpose was to spring the boy—arm him and help him get out. But you kept messing him up, Pickens, putting yourself between him and his plans. Now isn’t that a thigh-slapper?”
I never could quite figure Nippers out, but I sort of wished Bragg had taken him hostage, just as an educational experience. Nippers had a lot more smarts than I ever would, but sometimes smarts ain’t the equal of a six-gun.
“I ain’t got much thigh-slappin’ in me, Your Honor.”
He cackled. I’d enjoyed that cackle. Nippers had cackled clear through the trial, mostly at King Bragg’s claim that he didn’t remember anything.
“What you gonna do now?” he asked.
“Arrest the pair of them. They were obstructing justice.”
“Good luck. And who do you want to replace you?”
“King Bragg,” I said, and wondered why I said it.
“Make sure he’s hanged first. And if you value your privates, don’t let Queen point a gun your way.”
“She already has, Your Honor. And she didn’t pull the trigger.”
By the time I got outside and was walking the courthouse square, I could see all them Bragg cowboys were gone. There was hardly a horse hitched on Wyoming Street. I debated whether to ride out to Anchor Ranch right off and drag the pair of them into town. That didn’t seem too bright an idea, but you never know. Hitting ’em when they least expect it is a good idea itself. But I let it pass. I’d toss them behind bars soon enough. I’d put the whole Bragg outfit behind bars if I had to.
I didn’t know what to do. This sheriff business was mostly annoying me, and I wondered how come I wore the star. My ma, she always said, put your thinking cap on. I’ve seen a dunce cap, but never a thinking cap, and I wouldn’t know one if I saw it. In my case, it wouldn’t do me a lick of good anyway. Heating my brain would cook it but not cure it.
It was getting along to drinkin’ time, so I strolled toward Saloon Row again, just to see what pot was boiling over. There was a few T-Bar men sipping suds in the Last Chance, but things were quiet enough for a weeknight.
“Want something, Sheriff?” Upward asked.
“Sarsaparilla,” I replied.
He rolled his eyes like he was a long-suffering saint, and uncorked one for me. I laid a wooden nickel on the bar, which he snatched up.
“Lot of Anchor men over to the Sampling Room this afternoon,” I said.
“That’s a nutless bunch,” Upward replied.
“I wouldn’t want them busting down the door to my jail.”
“That’s what they were up to?”
“Could be,” I said.
“You know what, pal? You worry too much. Why don’t you just take a siesta and let it all work out? You’ve got good deputies. The jail’s well guarded. The gallows go up in a few days, the kid gets a necktie, and it’s all over. So quit worrying.”
“Maybe it’s the wrong necktie,” I said.
“I give up on you. Don’t come in here no more. I don’t want to hear all your worrying.”
Upward, he was polishing the bar something fierce, so I knew he meant it.
“I’m not quitting,” I said.
Upward stopped polishing and stared at me. “All right. I tried to tell you. You’ve been warned. Now I’m warning you again. A certain person told me to tell you to lay off. You did your duty, and that ended when the kid was sentenced. Now leave it lay. If you don’t, well, you’d be pretty dumb.”
“Who says?”
Upward, he just shook his head, and I wasn’t gonna get more out of him.
“Who?” I snapped.
He just shook his head.
“Who?”
He didn’t say nothing.
“I thought so,” I said.
It had to be Crayfish Ruble.
Upward looked like he was about to reach for his sawed-off scattergun, but I just smiled, and he got aholt of himself.
“You tell Crayfish I’ll keep on looking into this, and if he messes with me, he’ll be in the next cell from the kid.”
I was feeling blue, and got out into the fresh air before I did something I might regret. Upward was a friend, and now I was running out of friends. My pa, he didn’t have any ideas about how to be a lawman, but my ma would have told me stick to what I know. And now Upward was in there polishing that bar and I didn’t want to know what he was thinking.
The town was as quiet as a Quaker prayer meeting, so I took time to say hello to Critter. He sure was getting ornery, boxed all day in a stall, but I didn’t have much choice. When I needed him, I needed him, and usually fast. He was lounging in the Turk livery barn down on Medicine Bow Street, so I hiked in there, enjoying the good smell of sunlight and horse apples. I wandered down the aisle, and there was Critter all right. He snarled at me and he plainly was fixing to commit murder if I stepped in there. A month in a stall for him was like life in the pen for other criminals.
But then I saw something that pretty near stopped me cold. Hangin’ over that stall was a noose. It hung down from a rafter, and swayed softly, the noose a little over Critter’s head. It was a well-done noose, neat and clean and the rope was fresh hemp, straight out of the hardware store. Critter, he snapped and snarled, but I didn’t pay no attention. That noose got my attention real good. It was not just tacked on there on the rafter either, but wrapped around and tied down, like it was getting set to be used.
That made me madder than a stack of hornets, so I climbed the gate, pushed Critter back, and tried to untie the knots. But it was up there solid, and wasn’t just stuck there, and I finally had to pull out my jackknife and whittle through that hemp until I could pull it away. It sure was a professional job, and it sure was there to say something to me, though I didn’t quite know what. I didn’t know anyone around the county could tie a noose like that. It was a real hangman’s noose, so orderly and tight it sent a chill right through me.
Critter bit my arm, which got my attention.
“Cut it out!” I yelled. I was ready to bite him back.
I set the noose aside and curried him, but he was being ornery and kept crowding me into a wall, so I snarled at him and quit the currying. He thanked me by pulling my hat off, but I snatched it away. He was so barn-sour I felt bad.
“We’ll go out tomorrow,” I said. “I got stuff to do.”
He sawed his head up and down and would have taken a piece of my shoulder out, but I dodged, and slammed the gate shut. This sure wasn’t my day to make friends.
I hid the noose in the stall a moment, and got aholt of the liveryman.
“Turk, you seen anyone around here with a rope?”
“Everyone’s got a rope,” he said. He sort of slurred his words because he didn’t have many teeth, and all the gaps between them whistled.
“I mean, a big thick hemp rope, not some lariat.”
“Hemp? You mean like the stuff in the Emporium?”
I nodded.
“If I did, I wouldn’t tell you,” he said.
He was a toothless grinning sonofabitch, and I wanted to shove a fist into his gums, but I didn’t.
“Who’s been hanging around here since yesterday?” I asked.
“Oh, the usual. Half of them too broke to pay their bills.”
“Who’s come by to pay you?” I asked, figuring that someone who could buy some hemp rope would have enough to pay the livery stable.
Turk just shrugged and smiled, licking his gums. “I don’t keep any books,” he said.
“How do you know when people owe you?”
“All in my head and on my fingers,” he said.
“Does Admiral Bragg keep horses here?”
“Not regular.”
“How about Cray
fish Ruble?”
“Oh, he sometimes buys a week or two.”
“Has he been around?”
“Not since the three killings and the trial.”
“Who else?”
“None of your damn business.”
Turk wheeled away, heading for the pen outside, and I let him go. I collected the noose and headed for Mrs. Gladstone’s Sampling Room.
I found her in there, sweeping sawdust. The Sampling Room was a fancy joint compared to the Last Chance.
She looked up and I handed her the noose. She took it gingerly, staring at me.
“Give it to Admiral Bragg, and tell him I’m tired of nooses,” I said. “Next noose I get, I’ll make sure it fits his neck.”
“Oh, Mr. Sheriff…”
“If we’re going to have nooses around here, I’ll make sure they fit any neck that deserves it,” I said.
She peered at me with real fear in her eyes.
“Tell him that, or maybe I’ll make one for you too,” I said.
She clapped a hand to her mouth.
I was plumb tired of nooses.
“Yes, sir,” she whispered, plainly scairt.
I didn’t care. Doubtful was up to its crotch in nooses.
I left her holding that limp rope, knowing word would soon reach the Anchor Ranch and into the ears of Admiral. I hiked back to the sheriff office and jailhouse, and sure enough, someone had tied a little noose, just a little feller made from cord, onto the door handle. It was hardly six inches long, something someone could stuff in his pocket and not be seen with, but there it was, tied tight around the handle, and dangling there.
I knocked. “It’s me,” I said.
“You all right?” Burtell asked.
“Good as gold,” I said.
He opened. I pointed. That little noose was dangling from the latch.
He stared.
“Guess we ain’t popular,” he said.
At first I thought to cut it loose, but then I decided just to let her hang. That noose sent a message in all directions.
TWELVE
Next thing I knew, there was Judge Nippers steaming over from the Puma County Courthouse with something clutched in his gnarled fingers. I sure knew what it was.
“This, this insult to my divine spark, was hanging from my doorknob,” he said, shaking the little cord noose that was a brother of the one hanging on our door.
“Guess someone’s of a mind to string you up,” I said. “You got any objections?”
I got to give credit to the old boy. He grinned at me like a snapping turtle. “Now and then,” he said.
“You see anyone in the courthouse?” I asked.
“That mausoleum, you could fire grapeshot down the halls and never hit a live mortal during business hours,” he said. “No, I don’t have the slightest idea, and no one else over there does either. I asked the same question.”
“There’s been a few nooses put here and there,” I said. “One real one hanging in my horse stall at the livery barn. Another hanging from the doorknob at my office.”
“Hardly know which side’s having all the fun,” Nippers said. “But I’m ordering the gallows built for half a dozen. If they want hangings, they’ll get more than they bargained for.” There was something real bright in that old prune of a face. “You got any notions?”
“Admiral Bragg’s crew was in town, but they’re gone. There ain’t a T-Bar man in sight.”
“Tell me about your nooses,” the judge said.
“One was hanging from a rafter above my horse. A real one, thick hemp, put there by someone that could climb up there and tie it down. These here little ones, anyone could slide them onto a knob.”
“Which side, do you figure?”
“Admiral Bragg’s outfit already threatened me if I hang the kid. They’re just making sure I get the message.”
“What about Crayfish Ruble?”
“Well, what about him? It’s not his boy gonna stretch rope. He told me the other day, all he cares about is getting it done. Justice. His men were kilt so he wants justice.”
“Any threats from Ruble?”
“Not toward me or you. It’s the Anchor Ranch they’re thinking about. If Admiral Bragg’s bunch bust the boy out, there’ll be a war around here. But as long as the hanging goes forward, they’re not getting their drawers in a knot.”
“Get me some proof,” he said. “By gawd, I’ll string up the whole lot.”
He sure was enjoying himself. He twirled his noose around like it was a trophy, and then stuffed it into the pants of his ancient suit, probably the only one he owned. Nippers patted the bulk bulging from his breast pocket.
“You think a pepperbox can’t hit what it’s aimed at?” he asked.
Actually, that was pretty much true to what I knew about them. I nodded.
“Well, I’ll show you a thing or two!”
He whipped that miserable firearm out of some pocket down inside his bosom, and began eyeing targets.
“No!” I yelled.
But he just ignored me, and finally settled on some dodgers that had been pinned to the rear wall because I thought them fellers looked familiar to me.
“Judge, put that thing down!”
But he was squinting along the top of that handheld Gatling.
Bam! A slug cut through an eyeball of Lorenzo Baca. Bam! The lips of Rattlesnake Billy vanished. Wham! The forehead of Art Hammer was perforated.
Judge Nippers blew smoke away and smiled. “It’s all in the practice,” he said. “I’ll leave two chambers loaded to give me fangs.” And with that, he plunged outside.
“Don’t know as I’ve seen the like,” Burtell said. “Them things put lead everywhere but straight ahead.”
Judge Nippers sure was an entertainment all by himself. The smell of gun smoke lingered in the office. I went and looked at them dodgers. Nippers hadn’t missed a shot. He’d nailed Baca, sure enough. It occurred to me that Baca looked a lot like Rocco, one of them three that King Bragg had sent to heaven, or wherever. I thought maybe I’d write the sheriff down in Refugio County, New Mexico, and see if Baca ever used another name.
I’d had about enough of Admiral Bragg’s meddling, and thought maybe to take a couple of deputies out there to Anchor Ranch and haul his skinny butt into town. The best place for the boss of the Anchor Ranch was in the cell next to his boy. I wouldn’t have no trouble rigging up a few charges to hold him on.
I headed into the cell block to make sure King Bragg was all right. He was lying on his bunk.
“I heard some shots,” the boy said.
“Judge Nippers making a believer of me,” I said.
“I wish he’d saved one for me. Get it over with.”
“How come you went to the Last Chance that day?” I asked.
“Make some trouble.”
“How’d you know there’d be any T-Bar men in there?”
“They told me.”
“Who told you?”
He stared at the wall. “I don’t know. I had too much to drink.”
“Someone told you?”
“Yeah, someone said there was some T-Bar hands looking for a fight, and if I dodged it, they’d know what to think of me.”
“A fistfight?”
He stared at me. “What does it matter? I walked into it.”
“You went alone, looking for a brawl with that bunch?”
“I guess so.”
“Something don’t add up, King.”
“You ever been called a coward, Sheriff?”
“Mostly, they call me lazy. My ma, she used to scold me—”
“Not what I asked.”
He irritated me. “Yeah, a few times. Made me mad.”
“I’m not one. I’m not afraid of dying,” he said. “If you were in my shoes, would you be?”
“I’m not in your shoes,” I said.
Then he turned his back to me. He was just counting the minutes and hours left to him. Or trying not to.
I kept wanting to palaver with him, but he clammed up, so nothing came of it. I hiked out of the jail and locked the door, and thought I’d patrol the town. Burtell would be on until supper, and then DeGraff would come in for the night.
“I’m going out,” I said.
“Better than sitting around,” he replied.
I opened the door and discovered a regular parade out there, a mess of horsemen all heading my way. And Crayfish himself was leading the pack, on a ewe-necked gray horse that should have been sold for wolf bait.
Them fellers was armed to the teeth. Most had a pair of six-guns strapped to their waists, and most of the others had rifles or shotguns sheathed or in hand. A few had regular bandoliers loaded with shiny brass hanging over a shoulder. This here was a regular army. Worse, they spread out in a way that looked like they was priming for action.
“Crayfish, if there’s trouble, you’ll be answering first,” I said.
He knew what I meant. “That word, answering, is an interesting allusion,” he said. “Actually, well done and interesting syntax. My congratulations.”
I just about had a fit, but all I could do was snarl some.
Crayfish smiled easily. “We’ve appointed ourselves your posse,” he said. “We are going to keep the peace in Doubtful until the hanging is over.”
“What are you mouthing about?”
“A posse, we’re a posse, Sheriff. We’re an armed body of men acting in an official capacity on behalf of the legally constituted law officers of Puma County, Wyoming.”
“You ain’t nothing until I swear you,” I said, “and right now you’re not keeping any peace around here.”
“Ah, Sheriff, you don’t quite comprehend. Our town is under siege. Anchor Ranch, in all its power and glory, threatens to perform a lawless act. Namely, breaking the young multiple murderer spawned by its owner out of your lockup and spiriting him away from the majestic reach of the law.”
“He ain’t getting out, and I can take care of it myself,” I said. “We don’t need a posse.”
Crayfish smiled. “Well, you’ve got one. I’ve leased the upstairs of Rosie’s Parlor for the duration, and that will be the T-Bar headquarters until justice is done.”
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