Savage Guns

THIRTY-TWO

I turned to the judge. “You stand back, over there,” I said. “I’m going to open that door, and there might be some lead flyin’ through.”

“You’d open up to them?”

“I don’t know what they want. They’re armed and violating my order. No guns in Doubtful this day. And if they’re up to no good, I’ve got to put a stop to it.”

“It’s dangerous,” Nippers said.

I nodded. A man wearing the badge has to put himself in harm’s way now and then. I waited until he shuffled off to one side, over near the jail door, and then I lifted the bar and opened up.

They didn’t have any weapons pointed at me, at least for the moment. But there was plenty of fingers hovering over holsters, and itchy eyes.

There must have been fifteen, twenty of them, all T-Bar men. And Plug Parsons was leading the pack, and standing in front. Crayfish was there, but at the rear, like he wanted to be as safe as he could get. I saw Carter Bell back there some, but most of those fellers were simply T-Bar riders and gunslicks. I thought maybe I knew what they had in mind, which was an early hanging just to make sure it got done, before crowds around the gallows might change things.

I looked the lot over, but it was Plug Parsons who caught my eye. He was standing there, solid as a bull, wide as a beer barrel, and smug as a bridegroom.

“Where is he?” Parsons asked. “We’re going to push this necktie party ahead, just so nothing much goes wrong today. The law won’t mind.”

“There’ll be no hanging today,” I said. “I got a stay of execution right here, signed by Judge Nippers. You fellers go on out to your ranch and call it a day.”

That sure rocked them back on their heels.

“A stay? What are you talking about?” Crayfish yelled.

“There’ll be no execution. There’s new evidence the boy didn’t do it. And that’s what the judge is going to be looking at. Now go home. You’re all violating my order. No guns in Doubtful today. So get out, before I get a little pissed off.”

They sure were taking their time absorbing that, but I wasn’t seeing anyone turn around and walk away, neither.

“What evidence?” Crayfish yelled.

“That’s for the judge to look over. But there’s a witness sprung up.”

Carter Bell looked pretty solemn, but he wasn’t shaking in his boots neither. Still, Crayfish had three lying witnesses: Bell, Parsons, and my friend Sammy Upward, the sneakin’ bastard that slid them knockout drops into the boy’s booze. I looked for him in that mob, but he wasn’t there. This was all T-Bar men.

Things seemed to teeter like that for a moment, and I thought maybe they’d pull out, but then Axel Nippers himself showed up beside me, huffing and puffing and trying to control the shakes from a hard night of sipping.

“Here now,” he bellowed. “You quit this place. There’ll be no hanging on this day. I’ve heard new evidence and I’ve issued a court order. I’m holding a hearing in my chambers in one hour, and I want every witness who testified at the trial there. That includes Parsons there, and Bell there, and you fetch Upward too. I’ll expect you there, and I’m going to be asking some questions and you’d better be giving me the right answers, or you’ll be facing the music.”

“What questions?” Crayfish asked, real quiet.

“You won’t be there. You’ll just wait and see. You’re going to deliver Mr. Parsons, Mr. Bell, and Mr. Upward, and then you can wait for the verdict.”

“I asked what questions.”

“And I told you.”

“It seems that justice won’t be done this day, unless we do it,” Crayfish said softly.

Nippers pushed pugnaciously into that crowd. “You’ll have your justice. You’ll have it every which way. And those who are guilty will hang. And those who lied will spend a long time thinking about their crimes. And this mob is going to disperse right now. You heard the sheriff. No guns. I’ll throw every last skinny-assed cowboy into the slammer until you’re all feeling sorry if you don’t get yourself out of town right now.”

“You won’t hang King Bragg?” Crayfish asked.

“I’ll hang the man who murdered those three men, and you can count on it, Mr. Ruble.”

“And who would that be?”

“You’ll know when the time comes,” the judge snapped.

“I guess we’ll have a couple of hangings today,” Crayfish said.

He nodded at Plug, who manhandled the judge.

“You varmint, take your fat paws off me or face the music,” Nippers roared.

I got my revolver in hand real quick and aimed it at Parsons.

“Let him go,” I yelled.

“You piece of pig manure, get your hands off me,” Nippers snapped.

Parsons and the judge was wrestling some, but the beefy foreman sure had the upper hand. He swung the judge around between my Colt and himself, and putting a bullet in him and not in the judge would have been like shooting two dogs in heat. So I hunted out Crayfish, but he was already racing toward the gallows, and out of range.

I fired in the air, but that didn’t slow anyone down.

I waded in, but there was a mess of T-Bar riders blocking the way, and I sure enough got into a brawl with three or four, and they were piling on me from all sides, and them fat fists were landing on me. One knocked my revolver into the clay. I slugged back, and kneed one of them boys in his basket, and he whoofed and doubled up, but every time I got ahead, two more came at me. I could feel my blood up, pounding in my head, and I gave more than I took, because I use all of me in a fight, including my thick skull, but I was plain outnumbered, and in a bit they had me down and was kicking my ribs real hard.

I heard a shout and they all quit pounding me and was running toward the gallows on the courthouse square. I tried to get up, but there was something tore up in there. They’d quit me and was hell-bent to get to the gallows. I crawled to my feet, hunted around for my revolver, but it wasn’t there. Someone had took it. I got to standing, and stared at the open door of the sheriff office, wondering how many of them T-Bar men was in there, and what they were doing to my prisoners.

I could hardly stand. I made myself stand. I raced back to the office, and up the steps, and entered. There wasn’t a soul in there, and the jail door was locked tight. So I grabbed a double-barrel scattergun and limped out, closing that office door behind me, wishing a few deputies would show up, now that a shot or two had been fired. But I knew they wouldn’t because they were prisoners somewhere.

Up ahead a block, that mob was propelling the judge straight toward the gallows. There was a few town people running for cover, and a few more who had come to see the show. I could hear Judge Nippers bellowing up there, but couldn’t make out what he said. I knew it was ferocious, whatever it might be. But words don’t cut into a man the way a bullet does, and they were paying him no heed.

I trotted along, feeling pain in my ribs and a lot of other places. I had two loads and that was it. But they were double-ought buckshot, and that always gets some respect. They seen me coming and one tried a potshot, but he was most of a block away. This was shaping up into a real bad mess. I followed along, but now Crayfish himself was turning some of them boys my way and they was popping their six-guns at me, and they was going to hit me pretty quick.

The rest, led by Plug Parsons, was manhandling that judge forward, dragging him when he quit walking. They sure was going to hang the judge, unless I could stop them. And Crayfish was urging them on. Kill the judge before the judge got any more curious about what happened that afternoon in the Last Chance Saloon.

I could see I was losing out. They’d reached the gallows, and were hoisting Nippers up them steps. Now there was two or three of them cowboys who just plain halted to shoot at me, and one bullet sizzled through my sleeve. I veered toward the doorway of Maxwell Funeral Parlor, and got into the entryway, where I was safe for a moment, but a couple of bullets splintered wood right where I’d been a moment before.

I was trapped. They had me penned. I crouched low, and sneaked a peek or two around that corner, only to see what I sure didn’t want to see, and could hardly stand seeing. They was shoving the judge up, and pushing him toward the trap, while some ranny was tying the judge’s hands behind him with a borrowed belt. The judge, he wasn’t taking it lying down, and once in a while I could hear him yelling.

Down below, Crayfish was quietly pointing a few of his rannies into a perimeter, their six-guns pointed at the spectators. He didn’t want no town folk messing up the death of the judge. Up on that gallows, Plug Parsons was calm as could be, lowering the noose over Axel Nippers’ old neck and tightening it some. Down below, a couple of them cowboys was keeping an eye on the doorway where I was crouched. I wished old Maxwell would open up. I might get a shot at them hangmen from a window. But Maxwell always waited politely for death before he ventured out, and he wouldn’t show up until there was a body and someone wanted to pay him to do something about it.

I heard Nippers bellow out his last words: “You baboons,” he said.

That was his final observation on life in Doubtful, Wyoming. Plug Parsons swung that lever. The trap dropped. The judge dropped hard and fast, with a loud crack. He shuddered once and then went limp.

The thing was, the whole place went quiet. Even the wind quit. After all that ruckus, there was no noise, no movement except for the swinging body up there, and no talk. Them T-Bar men just stared at the judge. Even Crayfish just stared. I wondered what was going through their heads. Every last one of them was engaged in murdering a district judge of the Territory. A judge who knew something, and who had stopped an execution, only to trigger his own. He just swayed up there, limp and twisting slowly. The spectators didn’t move neither. It was too much to absorb, so they just stared. There was no law in Doubtful. There was no justice, no decency, no safety.

I was mad at myself because I couldn’t get in there and make it quit. But I didn’t, and now it was too late, and I was still pinned in that entryway.

And the sheriff office and jailhouse stood unguarded.

I edged out, heading toward my office. I had other lives in my care. I heard a shout behind me, and a couple of pistol shots sailed by, but nothing came close, so I just kept on going, my hurt ribs pretty near torturing me, along with a mess of bruises. But I was going to get back there and defend that boy, defend that boy with my life if it came to that.

I made it back all right. The T-Bar men didn’t try to catch up. They probably thought they could tear the place apart any time they chose.

There wasn’t a soul in my office, and the jail door was still locked. I closed and barred the front door, laid out some scatterguns on my desk, and a box of shells, and drank a tumbler of water since I was parched. There was blood on my shirt and arms, but I didn’t know whether it was mine or someone else’s.

I thought maybe I had a few moments, so I unlocked the jail door and headed in there.

It was real quiet. Old Man Bragg stared at me. The boy was simply lying on his iron cot and waiting for the end. The sadness was so thick I could feel it chill my heart.

I unlocked the cell door and swung it wide. The kid glanced at me and lay quiet. I didn’t know what time it was; it might seem like eleven to him.

“King,” I said. “It’s not gonna happen. You’re free to go.”

He stared at me.

“You’re free, boy. No noose.”

The young man closed his eyes. “Don’t try to make it easy for me,” he said.

He didn’t get the message. I dug around in my shirt. The stay was folded in there, so I pulled it out. It was bent some from all that fighting.

“Read,” I said.

He eyed it, and the paper dropped to the floor. I picked it up and stuffed it at him. He took it and read.

“It’s just some legal stuff,” he said.

“Get up, get washed. I need you. We’re in trouble. You’ll need to defend yourself, maybe.”

He stared at me like I was nuts.

Now his father, Admiral Bragg, was up and rattling the cage. “What’s this? What’s this?”

I thought about letting him out, but he would do some damnfool thing, like trying to shoot me.

“I’ll tell you later,” I said.

“Let me out, damn you.”

The kid was dazed. I pretty near shoved him out of the jail and locked up behind him.

“You’re free. Judge Nippers heard some evidence of what really happened. You were knocked out with some stuff, and Crayfish borrowed your gun. There’s a lot more, but we got trouble. You can vamoose if you want, and if them T-Bar men don’t kill you. They’re coming. You’re free, but I need you.”

He stared at me.

“Take this scattergun, boy. You may need it,” I said.

He hesitantly lifted the shotgun, wondering whether I’d shoot him, I guess, and stood there in the middle of the office, freed but not knowing it, and neither of us knew what would come through that door.