Savage Guns

THIRTY-THREE

I sure get itchy behind walls, forted up. Sooner or later someone’s gonna bust in or starve me out. And this was going to be soon, since it was me against fifteen, twenty T-Bar men ready to tear the place apart and drag the kid to the gallows. I had only moments before that bunch quit staring at Judge Nippers dangling out there on the courthouse square, and started coming for the next ones, namely the Bragg kid and me.

“King, we’re going to get out of here. You hear? I’ll unlock your pa. I’m going out with my scattergun and I’m turning left and heading straight for the courthouse. After a moment, you and your pa slip out and turn right and get out of sight fast. You’re on your own. Try to hook up with your sister and your Anchor Ranch men. That’s all I can do.”

King, he still was trying to get all this straight. Minutes before, he was waiting to be hanged. But he nodded.

I plunged into the jail and unlocked his pa.

“Get out of here. King will tell you where to go,” I said.

“Are you giving me orders?” Admiral Bragg snapped. “You haven’t even fed me. I’ll hang you from the nearest street lamp.”

“Move. If you want to live, move.”

“What’s all this?”

“Judge Nippers is dead. He stayed the execution and got hanged for it. Now move.”

“Dead? Well, he deserved it, sentencing my boy to be hanged.”

That did it. I pushed him back into the cell. He tumbled onto his bunk while I slammed the door shut and locked it. That lock snapped like a rifle bolt.

“You’re leaving me to that mob?” he howled.

“Not if I can help it,” I said.

I locked the jail door, thinking maybe that would slow down the T-Bar mob, and I picked up a few buckshot cartridges. Enough to fire until my trigger finger went dead.

“You ready, boy?”

“What about my father?”

“He wants his breakfast.”

“But—”

I ignored him. “Do what I say. I’m going to slow that mob. You go the other way. Find your sister, and get out of town.”

King stared at me, and nodded. “Thank you,” he said.

“Thank Judge Nippers.”

“If there’s any way we can help you—” he said.

We were out of time. I raced to the front door, opened it a bit, and saw the T-Bar men staring at that limp, twirling body up on the gallows. I nodded to the kid and stepped out, leaving the door wide. It would shield the boy if he was smart enough to jump off the steps and skirt the building.

I moved slowly down them steps, and turned left just as I said I would, and started straight toward that mob on the courthouse square, my shotgun cradled under my arm. I thought I heard the boy slide out, a soft drop to the grass, and then he was crawling back along the wall. Good. He figured it out. Now that bunch out there on the square saw me, walking slow, in no hurry because I wanted the kid to move his butt far away.

I was going to do what I had to do, which don’t mean I wasn’t scared. I’d end up a piece of Swiss cheese, or maybe they’d pull the noose free of Judge Nippers and fit it to my scrawny neck. But I didn’t have time to worry about that. The square was empty except for all them T-Bar men, who were mostly watching Nippers dangle and twirl. Everyone had fled. It felt sort of funny, walking right into that bunch, but I kept on, one foot at a time, that side-by-side shotgun ready.

They saw me coming. Crayfish was staring, and so was Plug Parsons, and so was Carter Bell. They stayed bunched up, not spreading out in a skirmish line, just staying tight around those gallows, with that body dangling there real quiet. I just kept on walking, one boot at a time, and they just kept on staring, first at me, then at Crayfish, and then at Judge Nippers, slowly swaying there, looking testy.

It was odd. I was all alone in the world, but there were people everywhere, watching from every window and doorway, ready to duck when lead started to fly. I wished my deputies would show up, but they’d been taken hostage or they’d be here at my side. I glanced at the hotel, and thought I saw Queen in a shadow there. Then she moved swiftly, and there was some commotion over there. But I was still walking, and getting close to revolver range now, but still too far for a short-barreled shotgun.

Me, I just kept walkin’. There wasn’t anything else to do but to walk. Now they was all staring at me, and a few had their paws sort of hovering over their six-guns. I was real interested in Crayfish, who simply stared, not moving a muscle. He didn’t give me a clue. He stood like a statue on the outer edge of that bunch, his hands at his sides. I thought maybe the T-Bar would wait for him to make the call. So I slid my barrels a little his way. You don’t have to aim a shotgun full of buckshot. All you got to do is point.

I just kept on walkin’ and nothing much happened. I was getting into range. Any one of them riders could pop one at me if he was real careful about where he aimed. But it wasn’t happening. They’d just hanged the judge, and now the law was coming at them one step at a time, and the law wasn’t slowing down.

The other feller who was real important to me was Plug Parsons, standing there like a snorty bull, his hand still on that lever he used to spring the trap and send Judge Nippers to eternity. But Parsons wasn’t edgy like the rest. He was the calmest in the lot, just watching peaceful, like this was a Sunday morning and the church bells had rung. He was armed, like all the rest, but he didn’t bother to lower his paws so he could grab iron if he needed to. He just watched, and waited, and was ready to back up Crayfish’s play.

It got real quiet. But I just kept on walkin’.

It all happened so fast I couldn’t sort it out. A bunch quit the pack and began trotting down Wyoming Street, not quite running like some yellow dogs, but just pulling out of the contest. Then a few more followed, looking back over their shoulders at me.

I just kept on walkin’. Then the rest quit the gallows, this time in a trot because I could spray a lot of buckshot into them now. And then Crayfish himself, after a frozen moment, took off hard, almost loping out of range, and wanting some distance between my buckshot and his flesh.

It was odd. I can’t explain it. The bunch was fleeing. Like they all knew what they had just done, hanging the judge. Fleeing because the law was coming and the law wouldn’t quit, and the law was still walkin’ straight toward the gallows. I watched the whole bunch flee. Except for Plug Parsons, him who slid the noose around Judge Nippers and then pulled the lever. He just stood there, sort of smiling, half protected by the gallows, but some of him showing.

I just kept on walkin’.

“You want to come with me to the jail, Plug?” I asked.

It was funny how he smiled, and said nothing, and just stood there.

“I guess I gotta collar you, Plug. Hanging a judge.”

Parsons had shaded a little behind the gallows to give himself some protection, so I just worked sideways myself, and when Plug saw how it would go, he simply pulled at his revolver, and I shot him. He took about half of them buckshot in the chest and head and toppled like a big old tree. There was a little powder smoke drifting in the breeze, and it was real quiet. Plug shivered a bit and then quit living. He was all red.

I reloaded, and watched them T-Bar men head for the Last Chance. I feared for my deputies. I didn’t know where they’d been hid or who was guarding them, but I was having a bad moment.

There wasn’t nothing to do but climb that stair to the gallows platform. I tried to pull the noose loose, but them things are designed to go one way, tighter, and I couldn’t. I dug around in my britches and found my jackknife and pretty soon sawed through the rope, and stretched the judge out on the platform, and then I cut the noose loose. He stared up at me, like he was expecting something.

“I got one and I’ll get the rest,” I told him. “That’s a promise.”

I saw Maxwell, hovering at his door, looking for business, so I waved at him. He leapt into action, and began hauling an ebony two-wheel cart out to the gallows to fetch the judge. He had a small sign screwed onto the side, that said SEE MAXWELL’S FOR A DIVINE PASSAGE. I waited, and pretty quick Maxwell pulled up. I lifted the judge, who weighed a lot, and carried him down the steps and laid him in the cart.

“You treat him good. You treat him better than you ever treated anyone in your life,” I said.

“Certainly, certainly, that’s my business,” he said. “I always treat everyone best.”

I got to thinking about that, but it still didn’t make any sense.

He took off with the judge, and I recovered my shotgun and watched him wheel that cart across the courthouse square and into his alley door. I peered around, wondering why I’d let myself stand around, but if there was someone on the square, I sure didn’t see him. It was like I was the only one on earth left alive.

I stared at Plug Parsons, or what was left of him. One of the buckshot had hit him in the mouth, shattering what was left of his teeth. Another had passed through his bull neck. Two more had hit his chest, another his arm, and one had almost severed his left hand. I didn’t much care whether Maxwell hauled him off or not.

There wasn’t nobody in that square. My ma used to tell me if there was no one that came close to me, it was time for a Saturday night bath. It wasn’t Saturday night yet, so people would have to put up with me for a while. Them T-Bar men had vanished. My pa used to quote the Good Book: The guilty flee when no man pursueth, or something like that. I could never figure out why they didn’t use plain English, like pursues, instead of that pursueth. They was fleeing, all right, and I was pursuing, and I was going to keep on pursuing.

I didn’t see a soul, but I thought a few hundred eyes was watching. I headed back to the office, thinking I owed Old Man Bragg a breakfast, even if I didn’t care whether he ate for the next week or two. I got to worrying about all them deputies of mine, and wondered whether I’d see them again, or how I could find and free them. They might not even be alive. They might also be hostages. Well, I’d find out soon enough.

When I got back to the office, there was King and Queen in there, both armed to the teeth.

Queen rushed up to me, and danged if she didn’t wrap her arms around me. I don’t mind being hugged, but not by a woman with a six-gun at her hip.

She started crying again, and pretty quick her tears were dampening my shirt, and she clung to me like I had done something real fine.

“I got things to do,” I said.

She let go, and brushed back her tears.

“I guess you two need to hear the story,” I said. “But first I got to feed you pa. He’s in there hollering for his breakfast.”

“Let him holler,” she said. “Just tell us what happened.”

There hadn’t been time to tell King Bragg when I let him out. Just that the judge had signed a stay of execution. So I told them the whole shebang, about the judge and his drinking buddy Carter Bell, who got himself swizzled enough to spill a few beans. How Crayfish had set it up. He wanted to execute them T-Bar men that was on his hit list, and thought it would be entertaining to pin the whole thing on King, and watch the kid hang for something he didn’t do.

They listened quietly.

“I got a few things to do,” I said. “I got to find my deputies. I got to arrest Crayfish for murder. I got to arrest Sammy Upward for putting them knockout drops into your red-eye and being part of it, and lying about it. I got to nab Carter Bell for lying on the witness stand and being a part of it. I’ve got to open up them graves you showed me, Queen, and maybe charge Crayfish with some more murders. I got to shut down Crayfish for good, before he starts worse trouble.”

“Carter Bell went to see Judge Nippers?” King asked.

“I took him over there,” I said. “I told him the judge was a good man to drink with.”

“You took him there?”

“Yep. He was acting sort of squirrelly, like he wanted to brag some, only he didn’t want to brag to the sheriff.”

“And that’s why the judge stopped the hanging?”

“Temporarily. He said he needed a sober confession before he’d call it off for good.”

“Am I still in trouble?”

“I got to let them lawyers figure it out,” I said.

They absorbed that bleakly.