He belched some, and looked unhappy, like he hadn’t started his daily sipping yet, and it was keeping him out of sorts. But he paid up, started along with me on his gouty feet, past the gallows with that noose dangling there for all the world to see, and finally we got up the stairs to his chambers, where Mrs. Gladstone sat primly. She looked him over as she would a potential lover, while he pushed a skeleton key into the door and let us all into his office.
“What now?” he asked.
I nodded to Mrs. Gladstone, and she sort of started in.
But she didn’t get halfway through before he interrupted.
“You see those three get shot?”
“No, Your Honor,” she said.
“So you don’t have a shred of evidence,” he said.
“It’s worth a stay of the execution until we find out more. There’s a real question here,” I said. “I’m no lawyer, but I know there’s doubts, real doubts.”
He looked at me impatiently. “Sheriff, you come up with evidence. Evidence. And don’t bother me again unless you’ve got a witness.”
I guess that was how all this would end.
“Until then, that boy’s guilty as sin,” he said.
I helped Mrs. Gladstone to her feet. She was fighting back tears, but Nippers pretended not to notice.
We walked all the way back. It seemed like the longest walk I ever took, like we were walking back into sadness.
I went into the Sampling Room with her, and next I knew, she was crying her heart out. She left the CLOSED sign in the window. She just sat there on a chair, too broken to move, the tears leaking down those soft cheeks. I ached to help her, but there wasn’t a thing I could do. I couldn’t help her and I couldn’t help the boy and I couldn’t help this town of Doubtful.
The door opened and Queen come in. I’d never seen her in there, and I was sure her pa never let her come close to the place, even if it was the saloon that Anchor Ranch riders always come to and called their own.
She looked at me, and at Mrs. Gladstone, whose tears flowed steadily, and she sat beside the older woman and held her hand. I thought maybe Queen was going to cry too, but she didn’t. They sat there in their helplessness. There was nothing they could do, nothing I could do, nothing anyone on earth could do.
Unless I could rattle a confession out of someone, or some testimony out of someone.
It was up to me. It was always up to me. There wasn’t no one to help me.
I left them two women in the closed saloon, stepped into the bright sun, not knowing where to start. But the court testimony depended on two witnesses, Plug Parsons, and Carter Bell, so I supposed that was where to start.
I didn’t know where they might be, or what I’d do if I found them, but the Last Chance was right next door, and that was where they’d likely be, and where the murder of three men had happened not long before, and where I’d open the case if it was to be opened. So I sucked in some fresh June air and stared at the snow-tipped peaks off to the west. Eternity was up there somewhere, nature so big it didn’t matter what a few poor folks called trouble. That reminded me I’d have to round up a preacher for the boy. He had a right to a preacher and a last prayer if he wanted it. He had a right to all of that. Most of the churches in Doubtful were served by circuit riders, since no one could afford a full-time preacher, but there’d be someone, somewhere, to pray over King Bragg, and I’d find one.
I pushed into the Last Chance, and was hit by a wall of foul air. It was sweat. Everyone in there had been sweating, and stinking the air. The smell clawed at my belly. I waited until my eyes got used to the darkness. There were plenty of T-Bar men in there, and they’d turned silent when I walked in. But I didn’t see the big body of Plug Parsons, or the short and rat-faced one of Carter Bell. What I did see was a lot of riders who were wearing one or two sidearms, and whose shirts had big black sweat stains under the armpits. It wasn’t real hot out, but this place was as sweated up as a racehorse after a run.
Sammy was behind the bar, eyeing me like he didn’t want me in there, but I was in no mood to leave.
“Gimme a sarsparilla,” I said.
Sammy looked annoyed, but he uncorked the jug of it and poured a tumbler full. He snapped the glass down so hard in front of me that it didn’t take any smarts to figure how he felt just then.
I laid a dime on the bar, and he swept it away.
The sarsaparilla was warm and cheesy.
“You find what you were missing?” I asked, knowing he hadn’t because them knockout drops was in my office safe.
“I’m not missing anything,” he said. “False alarm. I thought I was, but I wasn’t. I’ve got what I was looking for.”
“So you never told me what you thought was missing,” I said.
He shrugged. “I thought someone nipped a bottle of gin.”
“But it was here?”
“Drunk up now. Crayfish, he sure likes good London gin, and has me order it in.”
“Well, tomorrow it’ll be over,” I said. “You must be glad to see justice done. Them three that King Bragg killed, were they friends of yours?”
“Rustlers and a pimp is what they were. King Bragg did the world a favor.”
