him.
“Cabot!” Harley shouted as they stepped into the back where there were two cells. Only one of the cells was occupied, and Bobby Lee was the only person in that cell.
Bobby Lee had been lying on his bunk, and he got up and moved to the front of the cell.
“You’ve got a visitor! “ Harley said.
Smoke was walking behind Harley, so that Harley could not see his face. Smoke shook his head, and held up his hand to caution Bobby Lee not to give any reaction.
“There you are, Cabot!” Smoke said gruffly. “I’ll just bet you never thought you would see me again.”
“What are you doing here?” Cabot asked. He wasn’t sure what Smoke had in mind, but whatever it was, he was going to play along with it.
“What am I doing here? I’m here to watch justice be done,” Smoke said. “I’m going to send a telegram to Sheriff Carson back in Colorado, telling him that you have been captured. Then I’m going to watch you hang so I can report on that too.”
“You can tell Sheriff Carson that I told him to go to hell.”
“Deputy, let me have a few minutes alone with this man, will you? I need some information, and I think I can get it out of him if I can talk to him alone.”
“I’ll leave you back here with him, but I’ll have to take your gun,” Harley said.
“Makes sense,” Smoke replied. He pulled his pistol from his holster, handed it over to the deputy, then turned back to Bobby Lee.
“What did you do with the money you took from the stagecoach robbery?” Smoke asked gruffly.
“Why should I tell you anything? I’m going to hang in a couple of days anyway.”
“I would think you would want to unburden your soul,” Smoke said.
“Ha! Unburden his soul,” Harley said. “That’s a good one.” The deputy was still laughing as he stepped through the door and closed it behind him.
Smoke heard the door close behind him, and he looked around to make sure Harley was gone. Then, and only then, did he stick his hand through the bars.
“Bobby Lee, it is good to see you again after all these years,” Smoke said quietly.
“You don’t know how good it is to see you,” Bobby Lee said. “I’m not guilty, by the way.”
“I didn’t think you were,” Smoke said. “And what the sheriff said a moment ago about you trying to make arrangements with him to trap Dodd just verified it.”
“Damn, you mean he admitted it? During the trial, he said there were no such arrangements being made, the lying son of a bitch.”
“Yes, he admitted it. But to tell you the truth, Bobby Lee, I really don’t care whether you actually did it or not. You are family, so there is no way I wasn’t going to be here.”
“Yes, well, I wasn’t sure you would come but I’m thankful for it, even if it is only to make certain I have a friendly face in the crowd come Friday.”
“Oh, I don’t plan on being in the crowd on Friday. In fact, I don’t plan on there being a crowd Friday, seeing as there won’t be any hanging for them to watch. You and I will both be gone by then.”
“How? Do you have a plan of some sort?”
Smoke looked around and saw a clock on the wall just outside the two cells.
“Can you see that clock?” he asked.
“Yes, I can see it clearly.”
“What about at night? Can you see it at night?”
“Yes. You see the lantern close to it? The sheriff keeps it lit all night. That’s so they can look in on me from time to time.”
“Good,” Smoke said. Pulling out his pocket watch, he synchronized the time on his watch with the time on the clock. “Now, this is what I want you to do. At exactly five minutes after eleven o’clock tonight, I want you to take the mattress off your bunk, come over here to this side of the cell, lie down, and cover yourself with the mattress.”
Bobby Lee smiled. “Sounds like you have a plan,” he said.
“I do,” Smoke replied. “If it doesn’t kill us both.”
“You want to know where the money is! “ Bobby Lee said, suddenly changing his expression to one of anger. “You can tell the people back in Colorado that I’ll tell them when I meet them in hell!”
Smoke didn’t have to look around. He knew that either Sheriff Wallace or Harley had just opened the door.
“Have it your way, Cabot,” Smoke said, mirroring Bobby Lee’s tone of voice. “In the meantime, I will take great pleasure in telling them that I watched you hang.”
Smoke heard a chuckling behind him. Then he turned to see the sheriff standing in the open door.
“I take it you are satisfied this is your man?” Wallace said.
Smoke nodded. “It’s him, all right. But I didn’t get much out of him.”
“I didn’t think you would. How long before I get the reward money?”
