“Well, I think we shouldn’t, or at least until we get it looked at some more.”
Nippers sucked cheerfully awhile, and exhaled, and sighed. “I knew it. You’re going to give me some sort of flapdoodle excuse.”
“Well, sir, I don’t think the kid done it. And until we find out, I’d like to put off the big event.”
He cocked a fat eyebrow. “You got evidence?”
“Sort of,” I said. “Enough to put her on hold a little.”
“Do you know what evidence is?”
“Well, sir, it’s facts, I imagine.”
“Relevant facts. That’s good. I never would have thought you had it in you. Have you ever read the Territory of Wyoming Code?”
“No, sir.”
“Or Blackstone’s Commentaries?”
“No, sir.”
“What have you read?”
“McGuffey’s Reader, sir. To the fifth grade.”
“Ah, now we’re getting somewhere. You want me to stay the execution. Why?”
“I don’t think he’s the right feller, Your Honor. Here’s what I think. The T-Bar bunch lured him over there to the Last Chance, and the barkeep, Sammy Upward, he fed the kid some knockout drops, and then someone there pulled King Bragg’s revolver and shot them three crooks and put the gun back into King’s hand when he woke up, and everyone testified he done it.”
Nippers’ beetle brows crawled upward and downward and upward, and a rusty laugh belched from his chapped lips. “That so? That’s the evidence?”
“We tried out the bottle of knockout drops, DeGraff did. We knocked out the two T-Bar men.”
“And where did you get this delicious concoction?”
“I was poking around under Sammy Upward’s bar.”
“Without a search warrant.”
“I heard of them things once or twice.”
“I’m glad you’re educated, Sheriff Pickens. Now, where’s the evidence?”
“That’s it, sir.”
I gave Nippers the bottle. He uncorked his flask and sipped and corked. “The ordeals a judge has to go through,” he said. “It’s enough to bring on gout.” He waited for the yeller stuff in the flask to take hold some. “Now, then, did Upward confess to doing this? Or has a witness come forth saying he did it to the Bragg boy? Did Upward confess to owning the blue bottle you purloined?”
“What’s purloined, sir? That’s a new one.”
“Stole, filched, nipped, snatched, swiped.”
“No, he don’t even know I snatched it.”
“Now, let’s see. Is there now a witness saying someone in there who wasn’t King Bragg pumped lead into the deceased? And with King Bragg’s revolver?”
“Nope, not yet.”
“So there’s no evidence for this baroque theory of yours.”
“It ain’t broke yet, sir, but it’s swaybacked some.”
“Swaybacked law. Now that’s a corker,” the judge said. “Pickens, you’re a master of swaybacked law. Now so far, there’s not a shred of evidence. Not a scintilla.”
“A what?”
“Oh, never mind. You think this is enough to stay the execution?”
“That’s what I’m thinkin’.”
“You taking to pitying that little fart?”
“He ain’t little at all, sir. Maybe it’s because he’s in his father’s shadow he seems little.”
“Speaking of his alleged family, Sheriff. First of all, this punk wanders around Doubtful with his shiny new six- gun looking for folks to plant in the local cemetery. Then he exterminates three gents from the rival outfit. Then, when we finally convict him with a proper trial, what happens? His old man shoots you in the outhouse and stages a mock hanging so that you get the message: If the twerp dies, so do you. And then this Admiral Bragg and his nefarious daughter Queen show up in your jail with enough hardware under the cloth to start a Cuban Revolution. Then they take me to lunch, and she’s got a revolver aimed at my crotch, and they’re planning on kidnapping me so they have a hostage they can trade for the twerp. Only, you wandered in and foiled their plot. Then his daughter starts workin’ on you, using wiles and charms—Don’t sit there blushing, Pickens. I got eyes. If they can’t spring the twerp one way, they’ll try another. She’s got no shame, and Admiral Bragg’s got no shame, and they’re playing you for a sucker.”
“Well, she took me to some graves on the T-Bar I’m going to look at, sir.”
