“Sounds almost as bad as heaven,” I said. “I sure get myself in a snit when I think of getting stuck there. I don’t know how to play any harp. I wish there was some sort of in-between place where I could have a rip-roaring time now and then, and then get a good beefsteak and a shot of red-eye, and find me the prettiest gal anywheres.”
“Do you believe it? Really, really believe it?” he asked.
“Heaven and hell? No, not like that. Not eternal damnation, not eternal wandering around on streets paved with gold. No way.”
“Maybe just a little time in heaven or hell, and then—you know, nothing?”
“Makes more sense to me,” I said. “But my ma always told me I’m a little slow, so don’t take my word for it.”
“Do you think I’d get to see my mother?”
“That would be the good part of it, if you get the chance.”
“Do you think I’d have time enough to tell her that I got into trouble?”
“Maybe you could tell her you stood up to your pa, and made yourself a man.”
I saw him start to crumble, and I was afraid to say anything more. He didn’t quite. He just struggled to hold it all in, and pretty soon he did.
“I guess you can take me back there now,” he said. “I want some time alone.”
“You want a preacher tomorrow?”
“It doesn’t matter,” he said. “I don’t know what I believe, and he’ll just pray for mercy, and that’s about the last I’ll ever hear.”
“I’ll rustle up a preacher; it can’t do no harm,” I said.
“Maybe it will do harm,” he replied.
He stood, making himself stand real tall and straight. I could see that in him.
I unlocked the jailhouse door, and took him back to his cell. We stepped around that puddle of slop. He walked in, and I locked him up, and he settled down on his bunk, staring at the ceiling. He had a few long hours left, and was probably wishing they’d go fast. He wasn’t fighting or pacing or yelling or weeping or even hoping. He was already gone, at least in his head, and probably that numbness was keeping him quiet. It was hard even for me to look at him there.
I started up the aisle, knowing I’d not get past Admiral, and I didn’t.
“Put us out of here, both of us right now, and you can retire for life,” he said.
“I’ll tell Judge Nippers of your kind offer,” I said. “I’d be a lucky feller, getting to retire at my age.”
“You can have Queen if you want her.”
I stared at him, not quite believing my ears. But he’d said it. It didn’t seem worth an answer, so I headed out of there, glad to escape the stink. I locked the jailhouse door, got me the mop and poured some water into the bucket, and then went back there and mopped up his slop. I wasn’t gonna let any man stink up my jail more than necessary. So I mopped it up until it was halfway decent in there, and then locked up the jail again. I decided not to empty the mop bucket. I’d have to go outside for that, and I wouldn’t do that, not this night.
There sure was a lot of quiet in there by then. It wasn’t late. I had a long night ahead, and a longer day tomorrow. I checked the shutters, checked the barred door, checked the gun rack, and all seemed to be as tight and ready as I could make the place. So there was nothing to do but wrap a blanket around me and sit in the swivel chair until dawn.
We had a seven-day clock in there, one you wound up on Saturdays, and it was clicking away. I was glad that the kid wasn’t hearing that clock tick like that, because he would be counting the ticks, adding them up into minutes and hours. So it just ticked away, and I sat in the chair with a scattergun on the desk beside me, and waited for the seconds to come and go.
I got itchy every little while, and hiked around the office and tried to settle back in my chair. The kerosene lamp burned away, and the reservoir went down some. I wanted real bad to see the sky, see the stars that would be up there long after I left the world, but I didn’t want to open them shutters. I didn’t know what was out there. But the itch became so big in me that finally I decided to try it. I turned the lamp wick down until the flame blued out, and it was dark as hell in there. I felt my way over to the window up front, and opened the shutter a little, half expecting a pole or something to crash through the glass. But there was no one out there, and no one could see me looking out in that darkness. The stars were up there, cold chips of light that comforted me some.
It was real quiet back in the jail. I closed and barred the shutter again, and settled in my swivel chair, and left the lamp unlit so it was pure dark in there, and all I knew was the ticking of that clock. I got to hating the clock because pretty soon it would be telling me of the things I had to do, and so the clock was my enemy, ticking away, ticking me toward the time I took that kid up onto the scaffold with his hands tied behind him and fitted the noose around him and turned it a little to the left and tightened it just right.
That’s when I heard a sharp knock on the barred front door.
“Just a minute, just a minute,” I said, tossing aside my blanket. I made my way through pitch dark to the door, and felt around some for the bar.
“Who’s there?” I asked.
“You know perfectly well who it is. Who else, eh?”
“I sure don’t,” I said.
“You’re slow, all right, Sheriff. I keep telling you, smarten up.”
I knew who it was then. “You alone?”
“I wanted to bring that idiot with me, but he sobered up first and got out while I was still soaking the sauce.”
I eased the door slightly, knowing that in pitch darkness I wouldn’t be much of a target.
“Dammit, Sheriff, open that door,” Judge Nippers said.
I did, and he slipped in. I closed it behind him and dropped the bar once again.
“What are you trying to do, save the county a nickel of lamp oil?”
“You just stand right there, and I’ll light up,” I said.
I felt my way back to my desk, found a lucifer, and thought to hold it far from me, just in case I was a target. I scratched it to life with my thumb. The flare was blinding. And there was Judge Nippers, looking the worse for wear, holding his flask of Kentucky, glaring at me.
“That punk Carter Bell perjured himself,” the judge said. “You got some paper and nib and ink?”
“I do,” I said.
“That’s good, because I’ve got some court orders to write,” he said.
THIRTY-ONE
I rustled up some paper and a nib pen and inkpot and blotter, and set them before the judge, who had settled his bulk in my swivel chair.
“Should have made it sooner,” he said, uncorking the ink and dipping his nib into the ink. “Trouble is, I soaked my gizzard more than usual, and catnapped. The rascal decamped, though I’d intended to collar him. He was swizzled, and I didn’t discourage it. He’s a blabbermouth, and after a dozen little sips, which I’ll charge the county for, he began to undo his perjury.”
He studied the naked paper, his pen poised and ready.
“What are you writing?” I asked.
“I’ll show you in a minute.”
“Print her out,” I said. “Then I’ll get them letters right.”
“No, I’m going to scribble, and then I’ll read it to you.”
“What you got going there, Your Honor?”
“Hush now, this taxes me. You can’t stay up all night and write a bulletproof court order now, can you?”
I figured I’d just have to wait. I slid a shutter open a little, and saw that the new day was quickening, and soon there’d be full light to shine upon the day’s slaughter. I sort of wished the light would never come, and this here day wouldn’t begin. But I didn’t have any skill at stopping clocks. And the seven-day clock on the case there was showing almost seven. It sure was quiet. Not a peep from back in the jail either.
Judge Nippers scribbled a little and then paused. “That soak you sent my way was entertaining. After we’d shared a few shot
s, I asked him what happened over there at the Last Chance, and at first he just smiled some and allowed it was just like his testimony in court. I eyed him and said, ‘Horsepucky.’ He laughed and said that was rich. Horsepucky was it, all right.”
“What was horsepucky?”
“The whole story. It took another dozen sips before the wretch began to spill any beans, but when they spilled, they scattered all over my floor.”
“There’s another story?” I asked.
He glared at me. “You sure are slow, Pickens. I don’t know what to do about you.”
He paused, pen poised over the paper. “I don’t quite know what to do yet. But I’ll do something,” he said. He reached for his flask and took a long, deep suck on her, and then hiccuped and belched real fine. That judge could belch his way right through an hour if he wanted.
“I sure had to pump the little turd to get it out, but I got it out,” he said.
“You mean Carter Bell?”
“He’s the only little turd in town, Pickens.”
I peered out the window, looking for signs of life, but it still was real quiet out there on Doomsday.
“After we soaked his brain a little, he told me how it happened. Crayfish had it in for the three crooks he employed, he being a bigger crook and now having smaller ones nibbling at his ankles. There were the Jonas boys, dumb as stumps but smart enough to slide out and turn the T-Bar brand into the Double Plus, by extending the T into a cross, and turning the bar into a cross. Now you’d think some crooks would be a little cautious about claiming a brand like a Double Cross, but these dopes thought it was clever. It didn’t fool Crayfish for an instant.
“Rocco, the remaining deceased, was another sort of cat. Crayfish had some appetites that would have made Paul Bunyon look like a midget, and Rocco was hired to keep him supplied. But Rocco came out of Hell’s Kitchen, and saw ways to make money. So Crayfish thought it was time to ventilate Rocco, along with the Jonas lads.
“Now here’s the fun of it. Crayfish amused himself with the idea of pinning the whole thing on King Bragg, son of his rival Admiral, who had a nasty habit of strutting down Wyoming Street with a custom-made revolver, looking for someone to kill. Well, my friend, it was easy to set up. Carter Bell had no notion he’d be a witness. He was simply told to wait in the Last Chance. That crappy bartender Sammy Upward was recruited to dose some red-eye he would serve the kid. After that, Plug Parsons wandered next door now and then looking for King Bragg to come in, as he usually did, and simply invited him over. It was easy. Bragg showed up, landed on his face, Crayfish pulled the kid’s Colt, executed the three on his list, and stuffed the gun back in the kid’s possession, where it remained until the kid awakened. That was the afternoon’s entertainment.”
“The boy’s innocent?”
“Now I’m not saying that, Pickens. I’m saying that we’ve got to have another trial and Bell’s going to cough up.”
“He’s not going to say one word in court against his boss,” I said.
“Then I suppose the kid’ll hang,” the judge said. “Won’t be the first time an innocent man got hung.”
I sure was having a bad time of it. “What are you going to do?”
“Stay the hanging until there can be a new trial.”
“Why not just let him go?”
“And deprive Doubtful of a good hanging? Not on your life, Pickens.” He yawned, and set the pen down. “That’s what I get for burning the midnight oil,” he said.
His head slumped forward, and his body relaxed.
“Your Honor! Get that thing writ up!”
He muttered something, and sunk deeper into my chair.
“Wake up! Write it up!”
“Oh, I will, give me a minute,” he said, and settled into another snooze.
“Your Honor, you have to do it right now. Now.”
Nippers just smiled, eyes closed, and wobbled in his chair.
“I’ll help you up. We’ll walk some,” I said.
I headed for the chair, tried to lift his massive bulk, but he sort of swatted me away. “Five minutes, boy. Five minutes,” he muttered.
“Just finish it up, write it up,” I said.
But he pitched forward, splaying himself over my desk.
I guess I never did get myself into such a pickle. That seven-day clock was ticking and tocking and there wasn’t four hours until I had to take the Bragg boy out there to courthouse square and do what had to be done.
Five minutes, then. The minute hand had crept past the hour, and onto the ten. It was three hours and fifty minutes until the hour of tears.
I wrestled the half-done paper out from under him. It was dated, all right, and it said, far as I could tell from that curvy script, that the execution of King Bragg would be stayed for one week, until—And that’s where it quit, and wasn’t signed, and wasn’t worth beans without him signing it.
I eyed that flask, and slid it away from him just in case he woke up and got a new thirst to put himself back to snorin’ again. I paced around, and discovered the blue speckled coffeepot. It hadn’t been washed in a while, maybe two weeks, but I set to work on her, and scraped all that brown coating off. I’d have to built a little fire in the stove to heat it up, and it was going to be a warm day. Maybe I could just go over to the diner and get me a cup and bring it over for the judge. I’d hold it up and pour it down his gullet.
I ached to go back there to that cell and tell the boy that he’d live to see another sunrise, but I couldn’t do that. I couldn’t say stuff to that, and then break his heart if the judge decided to let the hanging go ahead.
It sure was quiet back there. I wondered if them Braggs heard any of it. They might have. But I didn’t have anything good to tell them. I peered out the door, and wondered where Burtell and DeGraff and Rusty were. They should have been in by now. I didn’t see a soul out there, even with the sun up and the day stirring. If one of them would show up, I’d send him over for some coffee, and get the judge honked up a little so he could finish up that paper.
I watched that clock tick away. Every once in a while, it would have a convulsion and tick twice and tock once, but it kept time pretty good, and got past those five minutes. So I went and shook the judge on the shoulder, and he just wobbled like a dead dog, and flopped like a twice-caught fish, and muttered. So I thought I’d give him another five, and then it would be all right, and he would finish up that document, and I would halt everything, and maybe I could free the boy. I wasn’t inclined to let his pa get out, not until eleven, just like I said, but the boy, he could vamoose.
So another five rolled around, and I tried to wake up Judge Nippers, but he just said “Eh!” and started snoring. This here was getting a little chancy, so I figured I’d just have to quit the sheriff office long enough to get some coffee and pour it down his throat. That’d do it. I’d get some java and hold his head up and pry his flaky lips apart, and aim it between his yeller teeth, what was left of them, and pat him on the back some, and pretty soon he’d pop right up and whip that paper into shape, and I’d spring the kid.
That clock was clattering away, and the minute hand was spasming along, like it should, and the hour hand was crawling slower, like it should. It was getting bright out there, with the sun up and the early light slanting across Wyoming Street, so some buildings were lit, and the others were casting shadows.
I was getting real ornery about my deputies. Where was Rusty? Where was DeGraff and Burtell? Maybe they wasn’t men enough to face this day. I began going from window to window, opening the shutter for a look, and finding nothing but a real empty street and alley out there, and the clock was ticking away.
I tried rattling the judge again, but he just said something blasphemous and waved a hand at me, and then it was eight in the morning, and pretty quick it was eight-thirty. And still them lazy no-good deputies of mine hadn’t showed their faces.
The bunch collecting down the street a way looked to be armed to the gills, in spite of m
y ban on weapons this day. I could only wait and see which outfit was defying me, and it didn’t take long. That bunch was T-Bar, and they was strolling straight toward the county sheriff office and jail, and they was staying apart some, not bunched up, like a battle line, and I knew straight off there would be more trouble than I ever faced in my life.
Sure enough, there was Crayfish, back a little, and in front of the usual bunch of rannies and gunslicks and riders. Plug Parsons was leading that parade, looking like a bull, and sure enough, there was Carter Bell in there, wearing his fancy artillery. And I sure wasn’t seeing no deputy of mine, and it was dawning on me that I wouldn’t, because this outfit had collected them and held them somewheres. That was bad news too. It meant they was going to do what they were itching to do all the time they camped in Doubtful.
I had to make some decisions real fast.
I shook the judge until he finally rattled awake and sat staring at me silently.
“Write that thing.”
He collected himself a moment, and nodded. His hands shivered and shook like one of them belly dancers, but he set to work, and made them wobbly letters and words, while I watched real sharp. Then he eyed me, dipped the nib into the well, and signed the thing. He eyed the clock and added the time to it, and handed it to me.
“They’re coming,” I said.
“Who?”
“Crayfish and his bunch. They’re armed. They got my deputies off somewhere, so I’m holding the fort.”
He sighed. “I’ll talk to them. In your hands is a legal stay of execution, pending a review.”
“The boy ain’t free to go?”
“He might be. But I’m going to see whether Carter Bell sober says the same thing as Carter Bell lit up. Maybe later today. In vino veritas isn’t a legal doctrine.”
I sure didn’t know what the old goat was talking about, but it didn’t matter. In a moment, King Bragg’s life would change.
I tucked the stay of execution into my pocket. It felt light as air. It made me feel real light, like a ton of hemp rope was lifted off my shoulders. I’d tell the boy that he was off the hook. It’d all work out. Nippers sure wasn’t gonna let the kid hang now.
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