by Ralph Cotton
She tried again. This time as her hands worked expertly on him through his trousers, she cooed near his ear, “I hope you’re feeling better, Fred. Is there anything I can do for you?”
Elliot didn’t answer. He stared straight ahead, unmoved by her.
“I mean, anything at all?” she whispered, tilting her face in a way to make sure her warm breath caressed his ear and neck. Her cuffed hands worked more intently.
“No, ma’am, there’s not,” Elliot said flatly. The ranger’s gun barrel had left a purple welt across his forehead.
“There’s not? Are you sure?” she whispered.
“I’m sure,” Elliot said over his shoulder.
“What’s wrong? Is it your head?” she asked.
“My head hurts, but that’s not it, ma’am,” he said quietly. “I have no use for women.”
“You have no use for women? Oh!” she said, catching herself in surprise as she got his message. Her hands fell limp.
“I never have,” Elliot said.
She raised her cuffed hands up over his head and dropped them into her lap. “Just my luck, I roped a gelding,” she said half aloud.
When the posse and the prisoners arrived in Wild Wind, the town citizenry turned out and met them on the wide dirt street. “By God, sirs! They’ve caught those murdering dogs!” shouted a man wearing muttonchop sideburns and a long, handlebar mustache. Sam and Longworth lagged back a few feet and observed the prisoners. They allowed the townsmen to line their horses along the iron hitch rail and step down, before they both ventured forward and stepped down themselves, rifles in hand.
“The shape these gunmen are in, I doubt if there’s much chance of them trying to make a break for it,” said Longworth.
Sam eyed Kitty Dellaros and remembered how severely she had cut Andy Weeks’ throat. “You never know what a person is apt to do just to keep himself free and on the run.”
Longworth nodded in agreement.
“As soon as we get them behind bars, we’ll get some length of chain and locks to wrap around the doors, since we don’t know where the key is or how they got out last time.” He gave Longworth a look.
“I’ll get right on it, first thing,” said Longworth.
Standing on the boardwalk, awaiting the ranger and Longworth, Paco Stazo looked all around at the angry faces gathered and said in a guarded voice to Cadden Cullen, standing beside him, “Look at them. To them this is like having a circus come to town.” He made only a trace of a grin.
But the grin was enough to infuriate one woman, Margaret Bratcher, who had been in the street the night before when Bell lay murdered in the dirt. “Wipe that smile off your filthy face, you murdering, rotten snake!” she bellowed. She ran forward onto the boardwalk, spit in Paco’s face and slapped at him. Paco raised an arm to shield himself.
“Let’s stop it, Detective,” said Sam, “before it gets out of control.”
“Right,” said Longworth, the two of them already starting forward. “I’ll get her; you get the prisoners inside.”
Sam hurried in between the townswoman and the line of wounded prisoners, getting there just in time as Kitty leaned toward the shouting Margaret Bratcher and said, “And you can go straight to hell, you pig-licking bitch!”
“Whoa! Hey, that’s enough, Kitty,” said the ranger, standing in front of Kitty, blocking her view if not her cursing. “Open the door. Let’s get inside,” he said to Cadden Cullen.
Cadden did as he was told, and the prisoners began filing in off the boardwalk. As they left the street, Kitty gave the townswoman an obscene gesture with her middle finger.
“I want to watch you hang, you filthy outlaw’s harlot!” the townswoman railed back at Kitty. “I want to see your eyes pop out and watch you soil yourself before your neck sna—”
“Come on, ma’am,” said Longworth. “Let the ranger take these people inside. The judge will see to it they get what they deserve.”
“Oh, will he?” said the woman. “I seriously wonder. He’s gone easy on women before.”
“He’s gone easy on men too,” said a townsman named Joe Clancy, standing nearby. “Sometimes he sends murderers like this to prison instead of stretching their necks for them.”
“We all know how to keep that from happening, don’t we?” said another townsman, one who had not ridden with Longworth’s posse and witnessed what the ranger did to Fred Elliot. “We string them up, right here and now!”
Longworth looked around nervously to see what the ranger was going to do. He breathed a sigh of relief when he saw the ranger step inside the office behind the last of the prisoners.
“Be thankful the ranger didn’t hear that,” Longworth said, keeping his voice down. “I’m going to pretend like I didn’t hear it either.” He turned and walked inside the sheriff’s office and closed the door.
Clancy noticed the hushed trepidation fall over the townsmen who’d ridden in with Longworth. “What?” he said with a shrug. “It’s true, ain’t it? It’s what we’re all thinking ought to be done. Am I right?”
Fred Elliot stepped in close to him and said under his breath, “Being right can get you the same thing it got me, if you’re not careful, Clancy.” He raised his hat high enough to the give the man a good look at the long purple welt across his forehead.
“Damn,” said Clancy. “The ranger did that to you? All you did was exercise your right to free speech?”
“Keep talking, Joe,” said another townsman. “That ranger will have your freedom of speech talking through a broken jaw.”
Clancy settled down and took a cautious look at the closed door to the sheriff’s office. “Maybe we can’t talk here, but Mama Jean has opened the cantina. We can talk there. That’s for damn sure.”
The townsmen began walking away from the sheriff’s office toward the Belleza Grande. From the cantina doorway, a newly arrived gunman named Chug Doherty grinned and said to a gunman named Vernon Reese, who stood beside him, “Now they’re all coming here. Think we ought to cut out, go find Ceran and tell him we saw his man Paco and his gal Kitty drug off to jail?”
“In a few minutes, Chug,” said Reese. “I want to hear what they’ve got to say first.”
“Think we ought to break Paco and the whore out of jail?” asked Chug.
“Hell no,” said Reese. “She ain’t my whore, and Paco Stazo ain’t my right-hand man.”
“What do you want to do, then?” Chug asked.
Reese grinned. “I want to have another drink and hear what these men have to say. Then we’ll take the word to Silva Ceran. After that he can do as he damn well wants about it.”
Chapter 17
As soon as Clancy, Selectman Tyler, Fred Elliot and the rest of the townsmen filed into the cantina and spread out along the bar, Vernon Reese said to all of them, “Damn, gentlemen, I can’t believe my eyes, what I just saw out there.”
Elliot and Clancy looked at him.
“I just saw the law taking sides with a bunch of saddle trash against the town’s respectable citizens,” said Reese. “Somebody tell me it ain’t so.”
“I wish I could tell you that, mister,” Elliot said bitterly, “but I’d be lying.” He gestured to Mama Jean, a large, half-Mexican, half-Irish woman who had worked for the deceased owner over the years. “A bottle and some glasses, Mama,” he said. “There’ll be some big whiskey drunk here today.”
“This wouldn’t be happening in Texas, Mr. Doherty,” Reese said to Chug, who stood beside him. He made sure he spoke loud enough for the others to hear them.
“I expect I know that well enough, Mr. Reese,” Chug replied in an equally audible voice.
Mama Jean stood a newly opened bottle of rye in front of Fred Elliot. Elliot filled a glass and slid the bottle of whiskey along the bar to the others. He took off his hat and dropped it atop the bar and gently touched his bruised forehead.
“I take it you gentlemen are from Texas, then,” he said to Reese and Doherty.
“You take it correc
tly, sir,” said Reese, tipping a shot glass toward Elliot.
Standing on the other side of Elliot, Joe Clancy cut in and said, “Here’s something else you wouldn’t see in Texas.” He gestured toward the purple welt across Elliot’s forehead.
“My goodness,” said Reese. “One of those criminals put it on you, I expect?” he asked Elliot.
“Hell no,” said Clancy.
Elliot said, “One of our own lawmen did this.” He again touched the welt as he raised his filled glass to his lips. “This was done by none other than an Arizona ranger named Samuel Burrack.”
“Ouch!” said Reese. “This kinda makes me wonder whose side he’s on.”
“Don’t think I haven’t seriously pondered that myself, all the way back to town,” said Elliot. “All I did was mention lynching those murdering dogs. This is what it got me.” Upon saying the word, he cut a guarded glance toward the door, lest the ranger walk up and hear him.
“Well, that’s nothing but plumb crazy,” said Reese, enjoying himself. “A man has a right to say what suits him in this great nation of ours.”
“That’s what I thought too,” said Elliot. “But I was wrong. Just saying the word will get a man beaten like a dog.”
“I’ll say it,” Reese declared boldly. “Lynching, lynching, lynching. I dare any damned territory ranger to try calling me down for it.” He raised his shot glass toward the townsmen. “Boys, this is America. We’ve got our rights spelled out for us in writing. Freedom of speech is one of the main ones.”
“By God, this man is right,” said Clancy, inspired by the stranger—and by his second shot of rye. “I’ll say it too. Lynching!” He raised his shot glass. “A lynching is what it’s going to take to bring this town its share of justice.”
“Lynching!” the townsmen along the bar shouted as one, all their glasses raised.
“And here’s to Doc Ford. God bless him,” someone added.
“And God bless Texas!” said Reese.
“Hear, hear!” said Doherty.
“And God bless America!” Elliot added.
In the sheriff’s office, the ranger and Longworth let the waitress, Shelly Linde, inside and closed and locked the front door behind her. Longworth stood at the door with her.
“I saw all of you riding into town, Detective,” she said to him. “I came to see how I can help you.” She looked around the room and back at the cells, where the ranger had already led the prisoners. The Cullens occupied the first cell, Paco and Buckles the second, and Kitty Dellaros the third. The cell doors were closed but not locked. “It was terrible—I mean, the jailbreak and all.”
Sam watched her eyes as she looked from face to face among the prisoners in their cells. He also checked the faces of the prisoners, all of them staring at the young woman, except for Cadden Cullen, who sat intently looking down at his wounded leg.
What have we here? the ranger asked himself, looking back and forth between the prisoners and the young woman.
“That’s kind of you, Miss Shelly,” said Detective Longworth. “But these men have already broke jail and killed the doctor and Chief Bell. I can’t risk having you around them. They’re not to be trusted.”
“Not even long enough for me to take each of them a dipper of water from a bucket?” the woman persisted quietly. “I’ll be careful, Detective. And I’ll have the two of you watching over me.”
“Well . . .” Longworth let his answer stall as he slid a glance to the ranger for approval.
Sam gave a slight nod.
Longworth looked at the dusty, battered prisoners. “All right,” he said to Shelly Linde. “Bring them some water. But don’t let your guard down, not even for a second, with these men.”
“Or the woman,” Sam said to Shelly, seeing Kitty Dellaros staring appraisingly at the young waitress from the bars of her cell.
“I won’t let my guard down, Ranger,” Shelly said to Sam. To Longworth she said, “Thank you, Detective. I’ll go fetch a bucket and start watering them right now.”
When she’d turned and left, Sam opened the door a crack and looked down the street toward the Belleza Grande Cantina. Through the cantina’s open doors he could see that the place was crowded. But it’s not a festive crowd, he told himself. There was no music, no laughter resounding along the dirt street.
He pulled the door shut and locked it. Turning back to Longworth, he asked just between the two of them, “Are you and the young lady together?”
“Together?” Longworth appeared taken by surprise that the ranger would ask him such a thing. “No. I haven’t had time for any social occasions since I’ve arrived here—”
“But I can see you have eyes for her,” Sam said bluntly, cutting him off rather than hearing his awkward denial.
Longworth stared at him.
Sam asked in an even quieter voice, “Do you think she might have had a hand in the Cullens and Kitty breaking out of jail?”
“No,” Longworth said, his voice rigid. Sam could tell he had to struggle to keep from bristling at the question. “The time I’ve been here, I’ve known Shelly Linde to be an upright young woman, Ranger. I have to say, I don’t appreciate you even asking that kind of question.”
Oh yes, Longworth has eyes for her, the ranger told himself. He decided to walk softly on the matter, for now anyway. “Detective, asking these kinds of questions comes with pinning tin on our chests,” Sam said. “I ask because I have to, not because I want to.”
“I understand,” said Longworth, cooling down quickly and letting out a tense breath. “The answer is no,” he said in a calmer tone. “I’d stake my life on it.”
Careful . . . , the ranger cautioned him silently, but decided not to press the issue. “Then I’m glad I asked you now and got the question out of the way,” Sam said. He glanced toward the cells, then back to the detective. “It’s a fact they got their hands on the key some way.”
“I know they did,” Longworth said with resolve, “but it wasn’t from Shelly Linde. I think it was from those two.” He glared at Paco Stazo and Huey Buckles.
Sam made no comment. He walked back toward the three cells. Longworth followed him to the empty peg on the wall where the key had hung. With a nod in the direction of the cantina, he said, “Anyway, shouldn’t our main concern right now be what they’re getting fueled up to do over at the cantina?”
Sam stood looking at the cells, at the battered, bruised, sweat-streaked faces staring back at him. “We know what they’re going to do,” he said.
“They’re going to get drunk enough to come over here and demand we give them the prisoners.” He stared grimly from face to face. “We need to find out who done what, in case we have to give them somebody to hang.”
Longworth stood stunned by the ranger’s words; so did the prisoners. But after a dead silence, Cadden Cullen chuckled a little and said, “Nice try, Ranger.”
“Shut up, Cullen. This ain’t funny,” said Huey Buckles, knowing that he and Paco were the two with the most to worry about.
“Yes, it is,” said Cadden. “Can’t you tell he’s bluffing? He’s not giving anybody over to a lynch mob. He just figured we’d let something go if we thought it might keep us from a lynching.” He grinned and stared hard at the ranger. “I say we tell him nothing. He’s a lawman—let him sort things out. That’s his job.”
“Why don’t you both keep your mouths shut,” Paco said, seeing what the ranger was doing. “It does not matter what we say. We will be lynched in the street, or we will all hang when the judge is finished with us.” He stared at Sam with a wizened expression. “Eh, Ranger?”
Sam stared stone-faced. Cadden Cullen didn’t know it, but his attitude alone had just told the ranger a lot. So had Buckles, by the way he’d reacted. But Sam’s main question was still the cell key. He’d already decided Shelly Linde had given the key to the Cullens. But why had she done it? And where was it now?
When Shelly Linde returned, she went from cell to cell, dipping water from a b
ucket and handing it to the prisoners through the bars. Sam stood back watching, checking the look on her face and Cadden Cullen’s as she gave him the dipper.
“My, my, Miss Shelly Linde,” Cadden purred. For a moment, the ranger thought he detected a trace of a sly grin. “You look as lovely as ever.”
Shelly took a step back from his cell, even though the iron bars stood between them, and both the ranger and Longworth were close at hand. Sam took note of her action and continued observing.
“Oh, did I scare you, young lady?” Cadden asked quietly, not realizing the ranger was catching every word, every gesture. “I wouldn’t scare you for the world,” he cooed. “No, ma’am . . .”
Shelly looked down. In shame? The ranger’s eyes narrowed as she took the dipper from him and walked to the next cell.
But before he could give the matter more thought, the ranger and Longworth turned to the front door as a hard rapping sounded from the other side of it.
“I’ve got it,” said Longworth, stepping over to the door, rifle in hand. He opened the thick oak door a crack, then wide enough for Hilliard Porter, the town blacksmith, to walk through.
“Men, I don’t mean to be an alarmist,” said the blacksmith, walking quickly back to the cells with three lengths of thick chain draped around his shoulders. “But there’s some awfully ugly talk going on at the Belleza Grande.” He raised the three chains and dropped them to the floor. On the end of each length he hooked a thick brass padlock with its key sticking out from the keyhole in its center.
“Obliged,” said the ranger. “We’ve been expecting some ugly talk.” He and Longworth stooped down beside the blacksmith. Each of them picked up a length of chain.
“Who’s the one heading it up?” Longworth asked, standing with his chain and walking to the cell where Paco and Buckles stood watching, listening intently to what the blacksmith had to say.