a billy club could do, which made him halfway smart.
“Punk kid wearing a star. You’ll pay, Pickens. You’ll be horsemeat before you know it.”
“Get along now,” I said, edging him toward the front door.
“I won’t forget this, you punk. As long as I live, I’ll remember this, and I’ll come kick manure on your grave.”
Plug was sure fussing at me, but I eased him through the sheriff office, while Rusty watched real careful, and then I pushed Plug out the door and locked it.
“You didn’t charge him? You let him go?”
“Oh, he’ll get past it.”
“You coulda charged him with a dozen things. Haul him in front of Nippers. Put him behind iron for six months.”
I laughed. “He got whupped. Not many foremen ever get whupped.”
“He was madder because you let him go than he was when you dragged him in.”
“He’s the big bull, and you know how them bulls are, Rusty. Now he don’t have much to bitch about. I let him go! Only thing he’s really mad about is because I got the drop on him and hauled him in.”
“You better watch your back.”
“It’s a gamble,” I said.
I figured it was better for Plug to be outside of the jail than in. I didn’t have the manpower to keep twenty or thirty T-Bar men from busting in, grabbing Plug, and killing King too.
Rusty eyed me like I was plumb loco, but I made my choice and now I’d live with it.
We watched Plug race down Wyoming Street toward the Red Light District, and I knew that within minutes the story, Plug’s version anyway, would be spreading around there.
“We better fort up,” I said.
Rusty, he spread the spare shotguns at the barred windows and we dropped the bar on the door. We had boxes of buckshot shells that could make nasty holes in crowds. It would be Rusty and me against them T-Bar men, and I thought we’d do pretty well. We’d get help too, soon as Burtell and DeGraff heard the banging.
I headed back into the cell block, and found King Bragg standing just behind the bars.
“You enjoy that?” I asked.
He shook his head. “I thought he’d tear those bars apart and kill me before he killed you.”
“You talk about anything?”
“I asked him a few things. Like, what happened after I walked into the Last Chance, with him dogging me.”
That caught my attention for sure.
King smiled suddenly. “‘Wouldn’t you like to know,’ Plug said. And I said I would because I sure don’t know what happened. All I know was, I walked into the Last Chance and there were a few T-Bar men, and Crayfish, and Upward served me a red-eye, and I waited to see what they were gonna say to my face.”
“And then?”
“I’ll never know, Sheriff, and I’ll hang for not knowing what happened next.”
“Who else was in the Last Chance?”
“Foxy and Weasel Jonas, and Rocco, all bellied up to the bar, sipping whiskey.”
“And somehow you shot them.”
The look in his face was about as sad as any I ever did see.
There was something about this that was nagging at me, but I sure couldn’t figure what, so I changed the subject.
“I’m expecting some visitors,” I said.
“Armed and ready to break in, kill you and Rusty, and then kill me.”
I hesitated. “If it comes to it, I’ll free you and give you the means to defend yourself. But I want your word of honor—”
He snapped, “I won’t give you my word of honor, so forget it. If they catch me in here and kill me, that’s how it’ll be.”
He was some riled up. I sort of admired him, but I didn’t know why.
“You want anything? Water?”
“You want to take my pisspot out and empty it?”
“In a while. Right now, I got to deal with Plug. He sure had some heat in him.”
“Nothing’ll happen,” King said.
I wasn’t so sure. I locked up the cell block and slid the key into my pocket. Rusty, he was studying the streets, but they looked calm enough. It wasn’t yet dark, this being late spring with lots of long light. I decided not to light the kerosene lamp. Not this eve. We were gonna sit there in the dark and watch the streets and close the shutters
