don’t know how to play any harp. I wish there was some sort of in-between place where I could have a rip-roaring time now and then, and then get a good beefsteak and a shot of red-eye, and find me the prettiest gal anywheres.”
“Do you believe it? Really, really believe it?” he asked.
“Heaven and hell? No, not like that. Not eternal damnation, not eternal wandering around on streets paved with gold. No way.”
“Maybe just a little time in heaven or hell, and then—you know, nothing?”
“Makes more sense to me,” I said. “But my ma always told me I’m a little slow, so don’t take my word for it.”
“Do you think I’d get to see my mother?”
“That would be the good part of it, if you get the chance.”
“Do you think I’d have time enough to tell her that I got into trouble?”
“Maybe you could tell her you stood up to your pa, and made yourself a man.”
I saw him start to crumble, and I was afraid to say anything more. He didn’t quite. He just struggled to hold it all in, and pretty soon he did.
“I guess you can take me back there now,” he said. “I want some time alone.”
“You want a preacher tomorrow?”
“It doesn’t matter,” he said. “I don’t know what I believe, and he’ll just pray for mercy, and that’s about the last I’ll ever hear.”
“I’ll rustle up a preacher; it can’t do no harm,” I said.
“Maybe it will do harm,” he replied.
He stood, making himself stand real tall and straight. I could see that in him.
I unlocked the jailhouse door, and took him back to his cell. We stepped around that puddle of slop. He walked in, and I locked him up, and he settled down on his bunk, staring at the ceiling. He had a few long hours left, and was probably wishing they’d go fast. He wasn’t fighting or pacing or yelling or weeping or even hoping. He was already gone, at least in his head, and probably that numbness was keeping him quiet. It was hard even for me to look at him there.
I started up the aisle, knowing I’d not get past Admiral, and I didn’t.
“Put us out of here, both of us right now, and you can retire for life,” he said.
“I’ll tell Judge Nippers of your kind offer,” I said. “I’d be a lucky feller, getting to retire at my age.”
“You can have Queen if you want her.”
I stared at him, not quite believing my ears. But he’d said it. It didn’t seem worth an answer, so I headed out of there, glad to escape the stink. I locked the jailhouse door, got me the mop and poured some water into the bucket, and then went back there and mopped up his slop. I wasn’t gonna let any man stink up my jail more than necessary. So I mopped it up until it was halfway decent in there, and then locked up the jail again. I decided not to empty the mop bucket. I’d have to go outside for that, and I wouldn’t do that, not this night.
There sure was a lot of quiet in there by then. It wasn’t late. I had a long night ahead, and a longer day tomorrow. I checked the shutters, checked the barred door, checked the gun rack, and all seemed to be as tight and ready as I could make the place. So there was nothing to do but wrap a blanket around me and sit in the swivel chair until dawn.
We had a seven-day clock in there, one you wound up on Saturdays, and it was clicking away. I was glad that the kid wasn’t hearing that clock tick like that, because he would be counting the ticks, adding them up into minutes and hours. So it just ticked away, and I sat in the chair with a scattergun on the desk beside me, and waited for the seconds to come and go.
I got itchy every little while, and hiked around the office and tried to settle back in my chair. The kerosene lamp burned away, and the reservoir went down some. I wanted real bad to see the sky, see the stars that would be up there long after I left the world, but I didn’t want to open them shutters. I didn’t know what was out there. But the itch became so big in me that finally I decided to try it. I turned the lamp wick down until the flame blued out, and it was dark as hell in there. I felt my way over to the window up front, and opened the shutter a little, half expecting a pole or something to crash through the glass. But there was no one out there, and no one could see me looking out in that darkness. The stars were up there, cold chips of light that comforted me some.
It was real quiet back in the jail. I closed and barred the shutter again, and settled in my swivel chair, and left the lamp unlit so it was pure dark in there, and all I knew was the ticking of that clock. I got to hating the clock because pretty soon it would be telling me of the things I had to do, and so the clock was my enemy, ticking away, ticking me toward the time I took that kid up onto the scaffold with his hands tied behind him and fitted the noose around him and turned it a little to the left and tightened it just right.
That’s when I heard a sharp knock on the barred front door.
“Just a minute, just a minute,” I said, tossing aside my blanket. I made my way through pitch dark to the door, and felt around some for the bar.
“Who’s there?” I asked.
“You know perfectly well who it is. Who else, eh?”
“I sure don’t,” I said.
“You’re slow, all right, Sheriff. I keep telling you, smarten up.”
I knew who it was then. “You alone?”
“I wanted to bring that idiot with me, but he sobered up first and got out while I was still soaking the sauce.”
