Pearlie in the back with a shotgun. Pearlie had no choice but to kill him.”
Sheriff Carson’s eyebrows raised and he lowered the cup of coffee. “If that’s what happened, sounds pretty much like self-defense to me.”
“Yes, you would think so, wouldn’t you? But it turns out that the man Pearlie killed was Billy Ray Quentin, Pogue Quentin’s son. Now I met the Quentins, both of them, at the cattle auction in Colorado Springs recently. And I must say, I didn’t care much for either one of them.”
“From what I’ve heard of the Quentins, I don’t blame you for not liking them.”
“Now, here is the problem,” Smoke said. “Lenny York, the young man who brought us the news, says that the marshal of the town is pretty much in Pogue Quentin’s camp.”
Carson nodded. “You’re friend is right, the marshal does work for him. His name is Clem Dawson.”
“Do you know Dawson?”
“I’ve met him once or twice. He’s from Kansas. From what I’ve heard, he was a pretty good sheriff at one time, but got into some trouble with bounty money while he was there. The story was that he had a private army of bounty hunters working for him. Supposedly, Dawson would give them leads on wanted men, and the bounty hunters would bring back bodies. There was never a live prisoner, mind you, just bodies. Dawson and his bounty hunters would then split the reward money. Of course, that was just the story that was going around about him. They were never able to prove anything, but the decent citizens of the county had the good sense to turn him out in the next election. Sometime after that, he turned up in Santa Clara as their town marshal.”
“Did the townspeople Santa Clara not know about his past?”
“I doubt that they knew about him, at least not at first. They may know more about him now, but it doesn’t make any difference,” Sheriff Carson said. “Quentin not only owns the marshal, he owns most of the town, literally.”
“Why doesn’t the county do something about it?” Smoke asked.
Carson shook his head. “Smoke, you know how big a man you are around here?”
“I’m just a—” Smoke began, but Carson interrupted him.
“Don’t give me that. You are the biggest man in these parts, and you know it. The whole county looks up to you, and would do anything you asked them to do. Well, sir, as big a man as you are here, that’s how big Quentin is in Huereano County. But the difference is, the folks here who look up to you would do anything you ask of them because they like you and they know you are a good man.
“It’s different with Quentin. As far as I can tell, nobody likes the son of a bitch, because he is an evil man. I don’t know that he has done anything that the law can actually get him for, but he has certainly come close. And the reason everyone in Santa Clara will do anything he asks is because they are just flat out scared of him.”
“I see.”
“Marshal Dawson has Pearlie in jail, does he?” Carson asked.
“I’m afraid he does.”
“Then my advice to you, my friend, is for you to get down there as quickly as you can. But unless I miss my guess, you don’t need any advice from me. If I were a bettin’ man, I would say you are on your way right now.”
“Yes,” Smoke said. “Sally is getting the tickets.”
From the office, Smoke heard the whistle of the train as it approached from the north.
“I’d better get on my way,” Smoke said. “Thanks for the information about Dawson.” He held up the coffee cup. “And thanks for the coffee.”
“Good luck, my friend,” Carson said as Smoke stepped through the front door.
Sally was just returning from her errand when Smoke came out of the sheriff’s office.
“Did you get the telegram sent off?”
“I did. And I asked him to send his reply to Denver.”
“Good.”
“Let me get this straight,” Walter Guthrie said. “The marshal wants me to build a gallows right in the middle of Front Street? Last time I built one, it was in the alley behind the jail. Are you sure the marshal wants this thing built in the middle of the street?”
“It doesn’t make any difference where the marshal wants the gallows built. I’m the one paying for it,” Quentin said. “And I want it built in the middle of Front Street. I want everyone in town to be able to watch when we hang the man that killed my boy.”
“How do you know we are goin’ to hang him?” Guthrie asked. “Accordin’ to what I’ve read in the paper, and what I’ve heard said about it from some of those that was there, this here trial might not be all that clear a case. Fact is, they’s some a’ sayin’ it was self-defense.”
“It was murder, pure and simple,” Quentin said. “For everyone who might say it was self-defense, I can get two who will be willing to say it was murder.”
“Who can
“What difference does that make? One is as good as another. Now, are you going to build the gallows? Or am I going to have to get someone else to do it?”
“No need for you to get anyone else,” Guthrie said. “You pay me the money, I’ll build anything you want, anywhere you want.”
Quentin took one hundred dollars from his billfold. “Is this enough to get it built?”
