Savage Guns

FOUR

Sammy Upward, he polished that bar so hard he was scrapin’ varnish. I sure liked him even if I didn’t trust him none. He’s got a full deck in his head, more than I got, and he’s always trying to deal aces to himself. So I just stood there and waited for him to outsmart himself.

“Pickens, I never give anything away. You want something from me, you pay for it.”

I’d heard that before, so I just waited.

“Maybe trade. I’ll trade for things.”

I nodded.

“Like, you tell me something and I tell you something. You want news, you tell me news.”

I nodded. “Don’t call me Pickens,” I said. “It’s bad enough alone, but when you put Cotton in front, it’s good for a punch in the nose.”

“Well, do you think I like Upward? What am I, a choirboy?”

“What do you want to know, Sammy?”

He quit polishing. “This is a cold case. How come you’re opening it up?”

“I ain’t very happy with it, is all.”

“You ain’t squaring with me, Sheriff. What got into your bonnet?”

It’s true, I wasn’t squaring with him.

“I got just about hanged myself. So I thought I’d have another look at things.”

“Just about hanged? Just about hanged? Get outa here, Sheriff, or make sense.”

“I got shot in the outhouse.”

“Shot in the outhouse! Now I’ve heard everything. Pickens, you’re either drunk or you belong in the funny farm.”

“It was in Belle’s crapper, and they surrounded me and put a bullet in. Now you tell me something.”

“Me tell you something! You got shot in the crapper and hanged, and now you want something from me!”

This was getting impossible. “I quit,” I said, and clamped the Stetson down on my lumpy head. I’d had enough of Sammy Upward.

“Who hanged you? Who shot you? It had to be Admiral Bragg. Right?”

“I’ve done enough confessing, dammit.”

“How come you’re alive if you got hanged and shot?”

“The bullet went over my head and the rope didn’t hold.”

“Sheriff, I ain’t getting the whole monte.”

“That’s because I don’t feel like telling it. Now I’m outa here.”

“Wait! Don’t go out that door. I’ll tell you something. This here place, it’s owned by Crayfish Ruble, not Rosie.”

“So?” I yawned and headed for clean air. That saloon stank like the vault of an outhouse, especially when the air was moving from Sammy in my direction.

I hadn’t got anything from Upward that I didn’t know, and me getting shot in the crapper would be all over Doubtful anyway.

“Up yours, Upward,” I said.

Maybe that wasn’t very smart, but I never can think of anything catchy to say. Some men, they’ve got just the right word for every occasion, but not me. Upward had got a confession out of me, and I got nothing in return. So all I could think of was Up Yours.

I sure hated the way it was going to play around town. There’d be whispering and laughing behind my back. Admiral Bragg, he dang near hanged the sheriff! Strung him right up and kicked the wagon out! Put a slug through Belle’s crapper, too, caught the sheriff with his pants down! Every time I walked into one of the town’s five saloons, they’d be smilin’ and snickering and I’d be as ornery as a two-hump camel.

I’d be hearing about it for a month. Hell, I’d be hearing about it until I quit and got out of Doubtful. Which I was of a mind to do. This thing was wounding my pride.

I wondered how Rusty was doing over to the jail, so I plowed back there, still pissed at Upward. I’d get even somehow.

My inquiry wasn’t going nowhere, for sure.

Rusty was a typical redhead who’d get into a fight before he knew why, and then forget to quit before he got hurt. But he made a good deputy, mostly because people liked him, which is more than I can say about me. Red-haired people got no brakes.

He was sitting in my chair, reading Captain Billy’s Whizbangs, which had more death and dismemberment and arsenic in its pulp pages than ten cents could possibly buy. The thing was published in Chicago, or Natchez, or some cesspool like that.

“Hey, Cotton, I was reading about a jailbreak in here,” he said. “Forty people dead in Poughkeepsie, New York, including the warden and six guards. You think Admiral Bragg’s going to try to spring King before the hanging?”

“It passed through my head a few times,” I said.

“But it didn’t stick?”

“The day they convicted King Bragg, I told his old man that King would get the first bullet if they tried to bust him out.”

“They got the manpower, Cotton.”

“Admiral’s got maybe twenty cowboys handy with a six-gun.”

“And what do we have? You and me and DeGraff and Burtell.”

“It’s a worry,” I said, trying to dismiss him, but Rusty wouldn’t be dismissed.

“What if they try something slick? Like a hostage? Like they capture you, and want to trade you for King? Or me? Am I worth King Bragg to you?”

“Rusty, if they grabbed you off the streets, I’d just laugh.”

He wasn’t very happy with that. “Well, same goes for you,” he said. “They snatch you and want to trade you for King, I’ll just laugh.”

That riled me some. Why was I so riled this day? Maybe it was because I’d already got shot and hanged this morning. It was fixing to be a lousy day.

“Rusty, if they highjack me and want King for me, tell ’em to go to hell.”

Rusty, he stared at me. “You really mean that?”

“And tell them if they come for King, they’ll collect the body, but not the boy.”

“What if they grab me?” Rusty wanted to know.

“Same thing. I’ll tell them they’ll collect King’s body but not King.”

“You mean you’d not trade me for King Bragg?”

“Nope.”

Rusty, he sort of took a moment to swallow that. ’Cause I was saying if he got took hostage, he wasn’t gonna get any help from me.

“Maybe I’ll get me another job,” Rusty said.

“Maybe you should,” I said.

Rusty, he sort of stared at me respectful. It was the first time in living memory my deputy ever treated me respectful. It was like his red hair didn’t count.

“They might try a trick, like coming in here to talk, and then holding us at gunpoint, snatching the keys, and freeing King. So I worry some. I told the mayor, if Admiral Bragg shows up with a lot of gunmen, get under cover because there’s going to be a lot of lead pills flyin’ around. This jail is gonna get itself shot up.”

Half the time, there’s no one on duty at night, but since King Bragg was our guest, I’d kept a deputy on at all hours with instructions to keep the front door locked. This place ain’t no fortress, but it would take some work to bust in, and I figured anyone knocks down the door, they get a load of double-ought from the Greener aimed that way. So far, anyway, no one had showed up to spring King Bragg, and I doubted anyone would. But you never knew. I’d not put it past his old man to toss a stick of DuPont Hercules through the barred window up high just to put a little respect in us.

“Rusty, you hold the fort around here, and don’t let no one in, not even some drunk saddle tramp. You just keep the scattergun handy. I’m going for a ride.”

“Where you headed?”

“Time to have a little talk with Crayfish Ruble.”

“What for?”

“I don’t rightly know except this whole thing don’t sit good with me. Them three hands of his got kilt; I hardly know a thing about them. Maybe I’ll find out. One was Foxy Jonas, and his kid brother Weasel Jonas, neither of which was a sterling citizen of this republic. They’d steal their mother’s false teeth and let her starve. And the other, Rocco, that’s the only name he ever had, this Rocco, he kidnaped girls and sold them. So King Bragg done the world a favor, except it was murder and he’s going to swing for it. But I’m just curious why Crayfish Ruble had three jacks like that in his deck, so him and me are gonna talk.”

“King Bragg, he done us a favor,” Rusty said. “Them three buried out in the potter’s field.”

“Don’t start thinkin’ that way. Murder is murder.”

I stomped out, headed for Jasper Turk’s Livery Barn, where I was keeping Critter these days. Critter didn’t like it at all. He liked being out on a pasture, with the sun and wind and rain and snow on him, and a chance to bite anyone come close.

He wasn’t exactly the friendliest nag, and sometimes I thought to shoot him, bam, right between the eyes, and send him to the cat food canner. Critter and I, we were growing ornery side by side.

I didn’t much care for this place, but in a town the size of Doubtful, I didn’t have much choice. Turk, he treated horses worse than he treated people, and that always ticked me off. Only, he was careful no one ever saw him at it. But I could tell. I’d lead Critter toward Turk, and Critter would lay back his ears and start clacking his molars and I got the picture real good.

I found Critter gnawing pine off the planks of his pen.

“Wreck your teeth,” I told him.

He snorted. I stepped in and he bit me on the forearm. I always allow him one bite, but if he bites again, we get serious.

“You ain’t got teeth hard enough to draw blood, you old coot,” I told him.

He bit me again, this time gnawing on my shoulder.

“Cut it out!”

He snorted, so I raised a knee to his ribs, and he whoofed up some air, and tried to lay a hoof into me. I dodged just as he kicked with his right rear and whirled around to nip my ear.

“You sure are ornery this afternoon,” I said, but he paid me no heed and was calculatin’ how to kick me in the crotch. He’s a smart horse, all right.

“You been in here too long,” I said. “We’ll take some air.”

He lowered his ugly head and shoved it into my chest.

“Yeah, I like you too,” I said.

Critter could get sentimental at times. We’d been partnering for nine years, and he knew me better than I knew myself. He was a good horse, not fastest at all, but with bottom. That bottom, that no-quit running, saved my life a time or two. So I sort of got along with him, at least most of the time.

I put a bridle on him and watched him lip it, working it with his tongue. He always did that. He hated a bit with a big curb in it, and had a conniption if I got too bossy. But now he settled down, so I brushed him good and led him into the aisle, where I blanketed and saddled him, after kneeing the air out of him so I could pull the girth up tight.

Turk was nowhere in sight, which was good. I didn’t want to see anyone, not after getting hanged and shot that very morning. It sure seemed like a long time ago, between sitting in Belle’s crapper and saddling up Critter.

I let myself out of the livery barn, leading Critter, and then I got on board. He was stiff-legged while he was deciding whether or not to pitch, but finally he sighed and I knew him and me were going to get along on this day.

But it was already deep into the afternoon, and Crayfish Ruble’s spread was miles up the valley. Maybe I should go in the morning. But I decided against it. The last thing Crayfish would expect to see would be the sheriff of Puma County riding in seven, eight o’clock in the evening.

I steered Critter toward the jailhouse, which stood solid and tan, built of sandstone and intended to last a while. I wrapped Critter’s rein around the hitch rail, just in case, and wandered in there.

Rusty was playin’ euchre through the bars with King Bragg.

“I’m heading up the valley to talk to Crayfish. You’ll be on duty here,” I told him.

“You sure you want to go at this hour?” Rusty asked. “Can’t it wait?”

“No, it can’t. A man gets hanged in the morning, he wants answers by sundown.”

“Pay me overtime then,” Rusty said.

King Bragg stared at me. “Ask Crayfish why he shot his own men,” he said.