anything that offered such excitement.
Deputy Wilson took a pair of iron wrist cuffs from his belt, told Pearlie to put his arms behind his back, then cuffed them.
“There,” the marshal said. “I reckon that’ll hold you till we get you down to the jail.”
“Jail. What are you taking me to jail for?”
“Murder, boy,” Marshal Dawson said. “You shot down Pogue Quentin’s boy in cold blood. You’re goin’ to stand trial for that, and if Pogue Quentin gets his way, well, sir, I reckon you’re goin’ to hang.”
“Wait a minute, Marshal, this was self-defense!” Pearlie said. “Ask anyone in here, they’ll all tell you, it was self-defense!”
“Now, son, you seen me ask, didn’t you? Kelly says you started it, the bartender says he didn’t see it. That leaves you, Decker, Lenny, and the whore. Deckert, are you really willing to go to court? Hell, you ain’t got nerve enough to even stand up to your wife. Do you think you can stand up to Pogue Quentin, and tell him that his boy was at fault here?”
Deckert looked at Pearlie, who was now in shackles, and at Dawson and the deputy.
Deckert was quiet for a long moment. “No, I—I reckon not,” Deckert said. “Now that I think back on it, it all seemed to happen so fast that I ain’t exactly sure what happened.”
“Deckert, that ain’t true and you know it! You seen ever’thing!” Pearlie said.
Deckert didn’t answer. Instead, he looked toward the floor so he could avoid looking into Pearlie’s eyes.
“That leaves you with nobody but the piano player and the whore. And ever’body knows they didn’t neither one of them like Billy Ray. Let’s go, mister,” Dawson said, waving his pistol toward the front door. “I’ve got a nice cell waitin’ for you down at the jail.”
The jailhouse was at the far end of the street from the saloon, and as Marshal Dawson marched Pearlie down the street, many followed along so that, by the time they reached the jail, there were at least forty or more townspeople who had fallen in behind them, creating a regular parade.
“When you goin’ to hang him, Marshal?” Kelly asked.
“Yeah, let’s string ’im up now!” another said.
“Just hold off, the both of you,” Dawson said. “He’s goin’ to hang, all right, but it’s all goin’ to be done fit an’ proper, soon as we get the judge down here.”
“Who you goin’ to get to try him? Won’t do now to get someone who is all too highfalutin,” Kelly said.
“I’ll be sendin’ for McCabe,” Marshal Dawson said.
“Yeah, that’s it, send for the Hangin’ Judge,” one of the others in the crowd said. “Yeah, that’ll do just real good.”
Marshal Dawson pushed Pearlie into the cell, then closed the door. “Turn around and back up to the bars and I’ll get those shackles off,” he said.
“Thanks,” Pearlie said, turning around while the marshal unlocked the chains.
“Boy, I don’t know what made you come into our town, but you would have been a lot better givin’ Santa Clara a wide berth.”
“Santa Clara?” Pearlie said. “Is that the name of this town?”
“You mean to tell me you don’t even know where you’re at?” Dawson asked.
“I didn’t notice the sign when I rode in.”
“So what you done is, you just come into a town you didn’t even know, just so’s you could kill one of our leading citizens.”
“If the fella I killed is one of your leading citizens, then your town is in sorry shape,” Pearlie said.
“Yeah? Well, we see what kind of shape we’re in when you’re danglin’ from the gallows.”
“You got a doc in this town?” Pearlie asked. “I mean other than Doc Patterson, who said he was a veterinarian.”
“Yeah, we got a doc. What of it?”
“I’ve got a few shotgun pellets in me. You might of noticed that.”
“Don’t worry about ’em. They ain’t a-goin’ to kill you afore we hang you,” the marshal said.
Chapter Fourteen
When Lenny York stepped into the jail that night, he was carrying a tray covered with a cloth.
“What have you got there?” Deputy Wilson asked.
“I brought the prisoner his supper,” Lenny said.
“Who told you to do that? The marshal didn’t leave me no money to pay for the prisoner’s supper.”
“I paid for it myself,” Lenny said.
“Why?”
“Because I saw what happened and I know this man didn’t have any choice. If he hadn’t killed Billy Ray, Billy Ray would have killed him, and maybe even someone else in the saloon, the way he was using that
