“Cole, have you seen Billy Ray? I looked into his room. It doesn’t look like he even came home last night.”
Cole cleared his throat, then looked over at a cowboy who was standing nearby.
“Well, sir, uh, accordin’ to what Reeves just now told me, Billy Ray got hisself into trouble yesterday. I was about to come tell you that Billy Ray is in jail.”
“Reeves, are you saying Billy Ray got into trouble yesterday but you are just now telling us?” Quentin asked angrily.
“Yes, sir, well, the thing is, I got drunk yesterday, and spent the night in jail my ownself,” Reeves said. “And that’s where Billy Ray is. I couldn’t tell you before this mornin’ ’cause the marshal didn’t let me out till this mornin’.”
“If it was just drunkenness, why didn’t he let Billy Ray out at the same time?”
“With Billy Ray, it was a little more than just bein’ drunk,” Reeves said.
“What has Billy Ray done now?” Quentin asked with a long-suffering sigh.
“Well, sir, you may remember that he ordered himself a new pair of boots and had the shoemaker make ’em for him. But when he went down to try ’em on, they didn’t fit, so he got mad and busted up the boot store pretty good. He threw a bench through the window, broke up some of Mr. Donovan’s tables, even broke one of his machines.”
“Surely Dawson didn’t have to put him jail for that, did he?” Quentin asked. “He knows I would have paid Donovan for the damage Billy Ray did.”
“Yes, sir, and I think if that had been all there was to it, the marshal would have let him go. But Billy Ray still had a mad on when he come into the New York Saloon, and he beat up Mary Lou.”
“He beat up who?”
“Mary Lou Culpepper. She’s one of Gibson’s whores.”
“Dawson put my son in jail, just for beating up a whore?”
“Yes, sir. From what the marshal was sayin’ this mornin’, there was lots of folks pretty upset about it.”
“Cole, get my horse saddled,” Quentin ordered.
“Yes, sir, I’ll get him ready.”
It took about fifteen minutes to ride the three miles into town. Quentin rode down the street toward the marshal’s office, which was located at the far end of town, and as he did so, several citizens of the town paused to nod at him, or to raise their hands to their eyebrow in a respectful salute. Reaching the marshal’s office, he dismounted, tied the horse off at the hitching rail, then stepped inside.
Marshal Dawson was sitting at his desk, playing a hand of solitaire.
“I figured you’d be comin’ in here as soon as you got into town,” Dawson said without looking up. He put a red queen on a black king.
“What the hell is Billy Ray doing in jail?” Quentin asked.
“Maybe you ain’t heard the whole story.”
“I heard he broke up some furniture and windows over at Donovan’s Leather Goods. Hell, Dawson, you know I’m good for whatever damages he might have caused. You didn’t have to put him in jail.”
“Did you also hear about the girl he beat up?”
“I heard he slapped a whore around a bit. You can’t tell me that’s the first time that’s ever happened to her. Whores get slapped around all the time. It’s the nature of their business.”
“He did more than just slap her around. He broke her nose. There was some folks got pretty upset over it. I figured the best thing to do was to put Billy Ray back in jail until you come into town today. Else there might have been even more trouble. You know how he is.”
“No, how is he?” Quentin asked, a sharp edge to his question.
“Come on, Pogue, you know how he is. Billy Ray’s got about the quickest temper of anyone I’ve ever known. You need to talk to him about that. One of these days he’s goin’ to get mad at the wrong person.”
“You let me worry about my boy,” Quentin said. “He’s my problem, not yours.”
“That ain’t entirely right. He’s my problem, too, as long as I’m marshal of this town.”
“Yeah, well, that’s another thing, Dawson. You are marshal of this town only as long as I say you are marshal of this town.”
“I know that, Pogue,” Dawson said obsequiously. “I didn’t mean nothin’ by what I was sayin’.”
“Find out how much damage was done to Donovan’s store and I’ll make it good.”
“What about the whore?”
“What about her?”
“It cost her two dollars to have the doctor look at her. Plus, she ain’t goin’ to be makin’ a lot of money as long as she’s got a broke nose and two black eyes.”
Quentin took out a twenty-dollar bill. “Give this to her,” he said. “This should be enough, don’t you think?”
“Yes, sir, this ought to more than satisfy her,” Marshal Dawson said.
“Now, turn Billy Ray loose.”
