“You don’t say,” Ballenger said. “I think I’ll go over and say howdy.” He picked up his beer and walked over to the table. When Possum and Horace paused in their conversation and looked at him, he said, “Don’t mean to interrupt your discussion, gentlemen. Just thought I’d say howdy.” Both men returned his howdy and continued to stare up at him, waiting to see if he had more to say. “I’m just passin’ through Bison Gap, lookin’ for places to invest in towns that look like they have good growth potential. Of course, I’ve agreed not to say who I’m workin’ for, but the bartender over there told me I’ve just missed the chance to invest in a new hotel.”
“Well, now, that’s just too bad, I reckon,” Possum said with a great big grin. “I just came from a meetin’ with the mayor, and we signed a contract and put some money down. Gonna build a jim-dandy hotel, right across from the saloon.”
“Is that a fact?” Ballenger replied. “I’m just a dollar short and a day late, I reckon. Good for you. Looks like a good place for a hotel, but I’ll have to tell the folks I’m workin’ for that the town will have to grow some before it’ll need another hotel. I hope it goes well for you. I ’preciate the information. Let me buy you two gentlemen a drink.” He signaled Jimmy to come over to the table. “Give my friends here another of whatever they were drinkin’.”
“Why, thank you kindly,” Possum said. “Set down and join us.”
“Much obliged,” Ballenger said and pulled a chair back. “I believe I will.” Possum went on to tell him about their plans and assured him that he was just an investor and would have no role at all in the operation of Bison House, as the women had decided to call it. It was a pleasant conversation that ended only when Perley came in, looking for Possum. Possum introduced him to Ballenger, but the friendly stranger took his leave, saying he had a long ride ahead of him.
“Where did he say he was headin’?” Perley asked.
“I don’t know,” Possum replied. “I don’t know if he did say.” He looked at Horace but Horace just shrugged.
“Well,” Perley started, dismissing the subject of the stranger, “I’m glad I caught both of you here. Horace, I’m gonna leave my horses with you, Buck and my packhorse, till this trial is over, then I’ll be on my way. How much will you charge me to sleep in the stall with Buck?”
“Hell, Perley, I won’t charge you nothin’.” Horace said. “If you’re boardin’ your horses, that’s enough.”
“Ain’t you comin’ back to Rooster’s?” Possum asked, genuinely concerned. “Where you gonna eat?”
“Right here,” Perley said. “Jimmy said Ida Wicks will feed me.”
“Damn, I don’t know, Perley,” he looked over his shoulder to make sure no one could hear him. “Ida’s cookin’ might be all right for them two in the jailhouse, but you might be lookin’ for a bellyache.”
Perley laughed. “I’ll risk it. I think it’s best that I stay here in town, so they can find me real quick if they want me to testify. Then when it’s over, I’ll head straight out north. I’ve been gone a good while, and I’d best get back to the Triple-G.”
Possum’s face was etched with disappointment. “Damn, Perley,” he said. “I’ve done got used to havin’ you around.” Then he thought of something else. “What about all them horses you drove down here from Butcher Bottom? You’ve gotta do somethin’ with them.”
“I thought about that, and I decided to give ’em to Tom. He’s still thinkin’ about farmin’ or ranchin’, and he could use those horses if he decides to raise cattle, or trade ’em if he doesn’t.”
“I expect Emma’s gonna be sorry you ain’t comin’ back tonight,” Possum said. “We just kinda thought you would. I know Alice ain’t gonna like it a-tall. She says she’s gonna marry you when she gets growed up.” They both chuckled at that.
“Tell her I’ll come back to see her when she turns sixteen, if I ain’t too feeble to ride.”
“I ain’t tellin’ her no such thing,” Possum laughed. “You’d best be careful what you promise that young’un.”
Perley and Possum shook hands, and Possum climbed on his horse and headed up the creek to Rooster’s cabin while Perley and Horace went down the street, leading Perley’s horses.
* * *
In spite of Possum’s condemnation of Ida Wicks’s cooking, Perley enjoyed a heaping plate of what she called Prairie Stew. He found he couldn’t identify everything that was in it, but when it was all mixed together, the taste was good. There were biscuits, too, and honey to go with them, so he retired to the stable a contented man. It was already dark when he pushed Buck’s rump out of the way so he could get to his blanket in the corner of the stall. The hay his blanket was spread on smelled fresh and sweet. He was sure Horace had made a special effort to fork fresh hay in the stall as soon as he came back from the saloon. A lot had happened in the last couple of days, so he was ready for some sleep. He surrendered to it without a fight when it came, not knowing nor caring about anything else that happened in the town.
* * *
While Perley slept, a dark figure moved quickly through the trees behind the jail, stopping every few yards to stop and listen to the sounds of the town closing up for the night. When the only building left with lights on was the saloon, the figure parted from the shadows of the trees to hurry to the back of the jail. His arm still in a sling, Shorty stopped and knelt down on the ground when he found he was about to tap on a glass window. Confused for a moment, he realized then that the sheriff’s living quarters were in the rear of the building. Where the hell are the cells? He wondered. There were no lamps burning in the windows, so he hoped that meant the sheriff wasn’t there or was already in bed. To be safe, he employed his three-legged crawl underneath the glass windows until past them. On his feet again, he peeked in the window and decided the sheriff was not there. There was no telling when he might be back, so now a sense of urgency was added to what he was attempting. He eased his body around the corner then and found what he was looking for. High up the wall, he saw two small, barred windows, probably only a foot or so below the ceiling inside the jail cell. Staring up at the tiny windows, he saw what appeared to be a screen to keep the bugs out. That could be a problem, he thought, depending on how strong the screen was. He paused to take another look around him. Confident there was no one, he tried to attract his partners’ attention. “Psst,” he sounded, “psst, psst.”
Inside the cell, lying on one of two cots in the small enclosure, Coy Dawkins, annoyed, asked, “Is that you makin’ that damn noise?”
“What noise?” Whit Berry answered, half asleep. “I ain’t makin’ no noise.”
“Psst, psst, psst.”
“There you go again,” Coy charged. “Now say you didn’t make no noise. You tryin’ to make it sound like there’s a snake or somethin’ in here?”
“Damn it, Coy, I told you I ain’t makin’ no noise. Maybe there is a snake in here, ’cause I heard it that time, but it sounded like it came from the outside.” Both men got up from their cots.
Outside, Shorty was growing impatient with his lack of results, so he whispered loudly, “Coy!”
“It’s Shorty!” Whit exclaimed and looked up at the window too high to see out of. “Gimme a lift,” he said to Coy, who couldn’t see out of the window, either, even at his height. So Coy stooped down to let Whit climb on his shoulders. When he stood up straight, he banged Whit’s head on the ceiling, causing him to emit a stifled curse.
“What’d you call me?” Coy demanded.
“It’s Shorty!” Whit repeated. “I can’t see you, you’re standin’ too close to the wall.” Shorty looked around him again, afraid he might be seen, then took a couple of steps away from the wall. “Now I see you!” Whit exclaimed. “I knew ol’ Shorty wouldn’t run out on us,” he said to Coy. Back to Shorty then, he said, “You gotta get us outta here. They’re talkin’ about hangin’ us.”
“How the hell did you get throwed in jail?” Shorty asked. “I thought you was goin’ to
Rooster’s place.”
“We run into a little trouble,” Whit said, and went on to relate their experiences on the trail to Rooster’s.
“That’s sorry news all right,” Shorty said. “Good thing I didn’t go with you. But there ain’t much I can do with just one arm, and it bein’ my left one. You’re gonna have to get yourselves out. I brought you a pistol, if I can figure out how to get it through that window. I can’t reach up that high, and it looks like there’s a screen on it.”
“There is,” Whit said. “Lemme see how stout it is.” With just enough space between the bars to force his arm through, he poked at the screen until he managed to loosen it to the point where he could get his arm all the way out. “Throw that pistol up and I’ll catch it,” he said. For the next fifteen minutes, he attempted to catch the weapon when Shorty tossed it up to the window time after time, but it was not as easily done as they imagined. Shorty was not very accurate using his left arm, and Whit was restrained by the bars in the window from moving his arm to catch it. Coy began to get tired of standing there with Whit on his shoulders and started cursing both of them. He was just about to dump Whit on the floor when Whit finally caught hold of the barrel of the Colt hand gun. “I got it!” Whit exclaimed.
“Not so loud!” Coy cautioned. “You’ll wake the sheriff up.”
“The sheriff ain’t in there,” Shorty said.
“He ain’t?” Coy replied. “Then why the hell didn’t you just come in the door instead of playin’ catch with the damn gun?”
“’Cause I forgot to bring my key for the padlock on the door,” Shorty replied sarcastically. “It’s up to you and Whit now. You’ve got the gun, so you can jump him when he comes back. Then we’ll have to get your horses outta the stable.”
“Right,” Coy said. “Wonder where the sheriff is. Reckon when he’ll be back?”
“How the hell would I know?” Shorty answered. “Whenever it is, you jump him. I’ll be watchin’ from those trees back there. Then we’ll go to the stable and get the horses and get outta this town.”
“I’m gonna find Mr. Perley Gates,” Coy said. “I owe him somethin’.”
“Get out of jail first,” Whit told him. “Then worry about Perley Gates.”
* * *
Sheriff Ben Pylant prepared to leave the meeting of the town council Mayor Wheeler had called for at his store after closing time. “I reckon I know what I’m supposed to do, so I’m gonna go on back to the jail now—make sure my prisoners are all right.” Wheeler had called for the meeting to make sure everyone knew their part in the trial of the two outlaws. That included Dick Hoover, who had reluctantly agreed to represent the two defendants.
“Your job is gonna mostly be to guard the prisoners and make sure they don’t get outta hand,” Wheeler said. “I reckon we didn’t need to tell you that, but I ’preciate you sitting in on the meeting. Have your prisoners ready for trial at two o’clock tomorrow afternoon.”
Pylant assured him that he would, making an effort to impress the council with a confident attitude, even though he felt queasy inside with the dread of dealing with the dangerous twosome. He hoped the trial would move swiftly and the hanging would be done. He didn’t feel comfortable with the two in his jail, and the worst part was he suspected they knew it. These were the thoughts spinning around his brain as he walked across the bridge over the creek in front of the saloon. He was tempted to stop in before going to his office, maybe have a drink or two, then maybe by the time he went to the jail, Coy and Whit would both be asleep. But a couple of drinks usually made him sleepy, and he didn’t plan to sleep that night. In fact, he had decided he would sit up in his office all night with his chair facing the cell-room door, and a rifle and shotgun loaded and laying on the desk before him. He could catch up on his sleep tomorrow night, after Dawkins and Berry were dead. So he passed on by The Buffalo Hump and proceeded to the office with its one lamp burning on his desk.
As a precaution, he stepped up on the stoop very carefully, so as not to make any noise, then paused in front of the door to listen to any sound that might suggest something was wrong. There was none, so he inserted the key in the padlock on the door and unlocked it. He opened the door to find everything just as he had left it two hours before. He released a little sigh of relief and walked on inside, moving as quietly as he possibly could, in order not to awaken his prisoners. His first priority was to take the key to the gun rack from his desk drawer and take the Winchester rifle and a twelve-gauge shotgun from it. He put two shells in the shotgun and checked the rifle to make sure it had a loaded magazine. Then he cranked a cartridge into the chamber and laid it on the desk in front of him. That done, he sat down and faced the cell-room door.
“He’s back,” Coy whispered when he heard the sound of the rifle cocking on the other side of the door. He and Whit both sat up on their cots.
“All right, lay back down there and start to do some groanin’,” Whit said. When Coy was curled up on his cot, Whit called out. “Sheriff!” There was no response from the other side of the door. “Sheriff!” Whit called again and kept calling until Pylant could ignore it no longer.
Finally, the door opened and a lantern was thrust through it, followed by the sheriff. “What are you yellin’ about?” Pylant asked. “Go to sleep.”
“I can’t sleep, Sheriff,” Whit complained. “It’s Coy. He’s got sick on somethin’ and he’s keepin’ me awake.”
“He wasn’t makin’ any noise,” Pylant countered. “I didn’t hear him. I didn’t hear anything till you started hollerin’ for me to come in here.”
“It ain’t the noise he’s makin’,” Whit complained. “It’s the damn smell. He’s gone plum rotten inside, and he’s filled that slop bucket up with it.”
“I don’t smell anything,” Pylant insisted.
“You ain’t in here with that damn bucket under your nose.”
“Well, I ain’t about to come in there just to smell it.”
“I ain’t askin’ you to come in here,” Whit said, holding his nose. “Just let me put that bucket outside the cell, so I can get back to sleep.” At that point, Coy turned over and pretended to vomit into the bucket beside his cot. “There he goes again,” Whit complained. “He’s about filled it up. All I want is to swap this bucket for that one in that other cell and you won’t hear no more outta me tonight.”
“I still can’t smell anything,” Pylant insisted.
“You will if we set it outside this cell,” Whit insisted as well. “I ain’t tryin’ to pull no tricks, Sheriff. I just wanna get some sleep before they hang us tomorrow.”
Pylant hesitated, not sure what to do, but Coy sounded pretty sick. Finally, he said, “All right, I’ll swap slop buckets with you, but I don’t want any funny business from you. I’ll have a gun on you the whole time.”
“Fair enough,” Whit said. “It won’t take but a minute, and then you can go back to your office.” He walked over beside Coy, and holding his nose again, he reached down and picked up the bucket, making a show of doing it very carefully, as if trying to prevent it from tipping over.
Convinced by Whit’s performance that it was a sincere complaint, Pylant went into the other cell and picked up the empty bucket. “All right,” he ordered, “I’m gonna put this bucket right outside that cell door. When I unlock it, you put that bucket right beside it and take the empty one back inside your cell. Any wrong move you make, I’m gonna shoot you. You understand?”
“Yes, sir, I do,” Whit answered, “and I surely do thank you for your kindness.”
Pylant placed the empty bucket just outside the door as he had said he would. Then he drew his pistol and held it on Whit as he turned the key in the lock. He took a quick step to the side, to avoid any possibility that Whit might try to suddenly swing the door wide in an attempt to hit him with it. Whit pushed the door only wide enough to put his bucket beside the empty one. After no show of sudden moves from his prisoner, Pylant bent down to pick up the bucket, his pist
ol held back to prevent Whit having any chance to reach for it. He paused, puzzled when he looked in the bucket. “I still don’t smell anything,” he said. Then: “There ain’t anything in this bucket.”
The words had not fully left his mouth when he felt the cold steel of the gun barrel pressed against the top of his head. “It’s gonna be full of your brains if you don’t drop that gun right now,” Whit promised. Pylant froze, stunned. “Drop it, I said, or I’m gonna put a bullet right through your head.” Pylant dropped the gun, quivering in terror. Whit swung the cell door open. “Git in here!” The terrified man did as he was ordered, almost stumbling over one of the buckets in the process. “Set down on that cot and keep your mouth shut if you wanna live.”
“Why in the hell didn’t you just shoot him when you had that gun on his head?” Coy asked.
“’Cause I didn’t want nobody in town to hear a gunshot.” Whit replied, annoyed that he had to explain it to him. “We’re got some work to do before we get outta this town. Go in the office and see if you can find somethin’ to tie him up with.” He turned back to Pylant, who was cowering on the cot. “Make no mistake about it, Sheriff, if I hear a peep outta you, I’ll shoot you deader’n hell.”
Coy came back in a few minutes. “I found some rope.”
“Good,” Whit said. “Let’s tie him up.” They bound his hands and feet together. “Rip off a piece of that blanket,” Whit ordered then, and they used it for a gag. When they were through, they lifted him up to lay on the cot. “Now, you just lay there and take a little nap, and somebody’ll most likely come find you in the mornin’. I don’t reckon you’ll have to get up to pee. Looks like you already done that.” His comment got a big laugh from Coy.
Lying helpless on the cot, Ben Pylant was silently giving thanks that his life had been spared, although he was not sure he would ever fully recover from the fright he had experienced mere minutes before. He could hear the two outlaws on the other side of the wall, ransacking his office, looking for their weapons and anything else of use they might find. In a short while, the noise stopped and he assumed they had found what they were looking for. He felt his pulse quicken again as he lay there, listening, hoping the door would not suddenly fly open again and they would return to kill him. Long minutes passed before he finally believed they had gone. He relaxed, only then realizing every muscle in his body was tense. I don’t expect I’ll have to resign, he thought, I reckon I’m already fired.
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