Savage Guns

TWENTY-FOUR

Judge Nippers was parked at his desk, soaking up spirits, which he sucked from a little flask he held tenderly in one beefy hand.

He eyed me from under bushy brows. “You’ve come to beg off. Forget it. Hang the bastard,” he said.

“Well, I think we shouldn’t, or at least until we get it looked at some more.”

Nippers sucked cheerfully awhile, and exhaled, and sighed. “I knew it. You’re going to give me some sort of flapdoodle excuse.”

“Well, sir, I don’t think the kid done it. And until we find out, I’d like to put off the big event.”

He cocked a fat eyebrow. “You got evidence?”

“Sort of,” I said. “Enough to put her on hold a little.”

“Do you know what evidence is?”

“Well, sir, it’s facts, I imagine.”

“Relevant facts. That’s good. I never would have thought you had it in you. Have you ever read the Territory of Wyoming Code?”

“No, sir.”

“Or Blackstone’s Commentaries?”

“No, sir.”

“What have you read?”

“McGuffey’s Reader, sir. To the fifth grade.”

“Ah, now we’re getting somewhere. You want me to stay the execution. Why?”

“I don’t think he’s the right feller, Your Honor. Here’s what I think. The T-Bar bunch lured him over there to the Last Chance, and the barkeep, Sammy Upward, he fed the kid some knockout drops, and then someone there pulled King Bragg’s revolver and shot them three crooks and put the gun back into King’s hand when he woke up, and everyone testified he done it.”

Nippers’ beetle brows crawled upward and downward and upward, and a rusty laugh belched from his chapped lips. “That so? That’s the evidence?”

“We tried out the bottle of knockout drops, DeGraff did. We knocked out the two T-Bar men.”

“And where did you get this delicious concoction?”

“I was poking around under Sammy Upward’s bar.”

“Without a search warrant.”

“I heard of them things once or twice.”

“I’m glad you’re educated, Sheriff Pickens. Now, where’s the evidence?”

“That’s it, sir.”

I gave Nippers the bottle. He uncorked his flask and sipped and corked. “The ordeals a judge has to go through,” he said. “It’s enough to bring on gout.” He waited for the yeller stuff in the flask to take hold some. “Now, then, did Upward confess to doing this? Or has a witness come forth saying he did it to the Bragg boy? Did Upward confess to owning the blue bottle you purloined?”

“What’s purloined, sir? That’s a new one.”

“Stole, filched, nipped, snatched, swiped.”

“No, he don’t even know I snatched it.”

“Now, let’s see. Is there now a witness saying someone in there who wasn’t King Bragg pumped lead into the deceased? And with King Bragg’s revolver?”

“Nope, not yet.”

“So there’s no evidence for this baroque theory of yours.”

“It ain’t broke yet, sir, but it’s swaybacked some.”

“Swaybacked law. Now that’s a corker,” the judge said. “Pickens, you’re a master of swaybacked law. Now so far, there’s not a shred of evidence. Not a scintilla.”

“A what?”

“Oh, never mind. You think this is enough to stay the execution?”

“That’s what I’m thinkin’.”

“You taking to pitying that little fart?”

“He ain’t little at all, sir. Maybe it’s because he’s in his father’s shadow he seems little.”

“Speaking of his alleged family, Sheriff. First of all, this punk wanders around Doubtful with his shiny new six-gun looking for folks to plant in the local cemetery. Then he exterminates three gents from the rival outfit. Then, when we finally convict him with a proper trial, what happens? His old man shoots you in the outhouse and stages a mock hanging so that you get the message: If the twerp dies, so do you. And then this Admiral Bragg and his nefarious daughter Queen show up in your jail with enough hardware under the cloth to start a Cuban Revolution. Then they take me to lunch, and she’s got a revolver aimed at my crotch, and they’re planning on kidnapping me so they have a hostage they can trade for the twerp. Only, you wandered in and foiled their plot. Then his daughter starts workin’ on you, using wiles and charms—Don’t sit there blushing, Pickens. I got eyes. If they can’t spring the twerp one way, they’ll try another. She’s got no shame, and Admiral Bragg’s got no shame, and they’re playing you for a sucker.”

“Well, she took me to some graves on the T-Bar I’m going to look at, sir.”

Old Nippers, he cocked one of them woolly brows and snorted.

“McGuffey Readers, fifth grade,” he said. “Here’s what you do. Read the Territorial Code. Get someone to help you with the big words. Now get that blue bottle back to Upward and apologize to him for poking around in there. And get yourself ready for a hanging, because that’s what’s going to happen in a little while. You understand, Sheriff?”

“I guess you ain’t gonna postpone it any.”

“No, and if you pester me again, I’ll probably speed it up.”

I escaped from there. Them fumes was giving me a headache. It sure was nice outside, where the air was fresh. That reminded me. I hadn’t looked in on Critter for a few days, and I’d better get over there before he had a fit.

He was in his stall at Turk’s livery barn, just like always. When he seen me coming, he kicked the gate. I thought I’d been shot. He put a rear hoof into that wood so loud it sounded like a cannon. Then he did it again, splintering the planks some, by way of greeting me.

“I guess you been missing me,” I said.

He kicked the side of the stall and snorted. Then he kicked again just to make the point.

“I guess I better back you out before you kill me,” I said. I wasn’t going in there when he was feeling a little unhappy. So I opened the stall gate, expecting him to pile out of there, but he just stood there, his ears laid back, his head turned just enough to keep an eye on me. I knew what he wanted. He wanted me to slide in beside him, so he could kill me.

“If you don’t want to come out, I’ll just shut the gate on you,” I said.

He hammered both walls with his hooves, and then reared up and piled his front hooves into the head of the stall, for good measure.

That brought Turk. “Judas Priest,” he said. “Give me a new barn when it’s over.”

“He’s a friendly nag,” I said. “He just takes it personal when he’s penned up.”

“Well, take him somewhere else.”

I turned to the hoss. “Critter, you’re dog food,” I said.

Critter sighed, and backed out quietly.

“It takes some persuading,” I said.

“That horse should be shot,” Turk said. “You owe me.”

Critter yawned. Turk stared, itching to get his knife and slit Critter’s throat, but then he wheeled away.

“Critter, you gotta stop annoying people,” I said.

Critter licked his chops and waited, while I brushed him down and threw a blanket and saddle on him, and bridled him up. The truth of it was, I just wanted to escape town a bit. It was getting so I didn’t want to hang around Doubtful, and maybe a good ride would quiet me down some, and maybe quiet Critter too. I was strung tight as a piano wire, and maybe Critter was reading that in me. He was pretty quick to pick up how I was feeling, and truth to tell, I was so tight-strung that I didn’t know how I’d get through the next two days, and maybe the next week because I didn’t know how I’d feel after dropping that boy, who might or might not be guilty. Truth to tell, I was feeling real bad. I never thought when I took the sheriff job I’d be dropping people off a gallows and my hand would pull the lever that would send them to hell. It didn’t seem the same as meeting someone in a fair fight. It just seemed real bad, and it was gnawing at my gizzard all the time now.

I took Critter up Wyoming Street, and he was so happy he was prancing along. But then Sammy Upward came bounding out, and I reined up.

“Hey, you leaving?”

“Just for some air. This town’s tight as a drum.”

“I got a prowler.”

“A prowler? Something get took?”

“Well, maybe.”

“What’re you missing?”

“Just some stuff—nothing to worry you about. But if you see anyone poking around my bar, let me know quick, eh?”

“You’re missing something, Sammy. I gotta know what it is and what it’s worth.”

“I’m not missing a damned thing,” Upward said. “I just got some suspicions, is all.”

“I can’t look for something I don’t know what it is, or why it was took.”

“Forget it. Just some loose bar stuff.”

“Well, I’ll keep an eye out for loose bar stuff, Sammy.”

“I shouldn’t have bothered. It was nothing,” Upward said, and ducked inside.

Now that was sure saying something to me. He wasn’t owning up to what was missing, and that was real interesting to me.

“Well, Critter, that was like a confession,” I said. “Sammy should’ve just kept his trap shut, but he didn’t think of that.”

Critter, he just yawned, and headed for the open country up the road. He sure was one happy horse. It was a fine June day, not too hot, and he was kicking up his heels and thinking thoughts about mares, but that was all he could manage, the way he was fixed. I think about women all the time, and I’m not fixed. A year or so ago, I’d met a real sweet one named Pepper Baker, with big blue eyes. But her pa sent her off to finishing school back East, mostly to finish me. Still, me and Pepper weren’t done, and when she came back we’d see about a few things. So I was in the same mood as Critter, only more so.

We loped up the valley a mile or so, and I was just thinkin’ about turning back, when up ahead, coming over the brow of a hill, was a mess of horsemen, like an army of beetles. Twenty, thirty, maybe even more, and they wasn’t in a hurry, just walking quietly toward me. Now that made me real curious, so I just reined in Critter, and let that bunch approach me. By the time they got within shouting distance, I knew what that crowd was. It was the whole damned Anchor Ranch, on the move.

It sure smelled like trouble.

Sure enough, there was Admiral Bragg on that blooded horse of his leading the bunch, and next to him that Queen, riding astride shamelessly. And first thing I noticed was that every manjack of them was armed to the teeth. Admiral, he had a matched pair of sidearms. Behind him came an army, including Big Nose George, wearing a sidearm and carrying a longer one. Next to him was Alvin Ream, with a bandolier over his shoulder and a pair of irons hanging from his hips. And sure enough, there was Smiley Thistlethwaite, and his pal Spitting Sam, the pair of them looking like they was ready for trouble. There was a bunch more behind them, mostly riders for the brand, some of them well outfitted with one or two irons.

I didn’t know what to make of this march upon Doubtful, but I knew who I was and what I am. I’m a peace officer. And this bunch looked like an army.

I sat Critter, who laid back his ears and waited to bite and kick all them animals coming his way. I might have enjoyed that. Most of them were blooded horses, because Admiral Bragg liked good horseflesh. Me, I like whatever thrives, and I don’t much care how the beast looks.

So I sat there and waited, and before long Bragg pulled up, and Queen beside him.

“Afternoon, Sheriff,” he said.

“You wouldn’t be heading for Doubtful, would you?”

“Free country,” he said.

“We’re not going to have any fights in Doubtful,” I said.

“We’ve come to say good-bye to my boy,” Bragg said, pretty solemn.

“You’re welcome to do that, but not with weapons. There’s gonna be no weapons on anyone day after tomorrow.”

“Is there a law against it?”

“Disturbing the peace,” I said.

“Peace! You call the day when they break my boy’s neck the peace?”

I felt a little sorry for the man; I didn’t want to do what I had to do, and he didn’t want me to do it. But things were in motion that I couldn’t change, and we’d just have to live with it because that’s how it was.

I saw how Queen was sort of hiding her hands in all them hiked up skirts she was wearing, for a change. I thought she’d shoot a sheriff if it came to that.

“Miss Queen, you’ll want to put your hands in plain sight,” I said. “I get plumb itchy.”

She didn’t move a muscle, and it wasn’t hard to figure where that muzzle under there was pointing.

“Miss Queen, you just smile now, and I’ll smile back.”

She didn’t smile none.

I decided to make up some rules as I went along. “There’s gonna be no weapons at the hanging. Neither you nor any of Crayfish Ruble’s bunch neither. We’ll see to it. You’re going to leave all your arms at the Sampling Room, and the T-Bar men are going to leave all theirs at the Last Chance Saloon. That’s what you can expect. We’re going to see to it that justice is done proper by the Territory of Wyoming.”

I got me a snicker from Spitting Sam, and a few smirks from some of the others.

“All right,” I said. “Anyone wearing arms, both sides, that day is gonna get tossed into my pen. And you’ll stay there for a while.”

“You done, Sheriff?” asked Admiral Bragg.

“For the moment,” I said.

All them riders whirled by me, with little glances my way, and a few little gestures, and a few smirks. And then me and Critter were standing in the lonely road, watching that army head for Doubtful.