“What questions?” Crayfish asked, real quiet.
“You won’t be there. You’ll just wait and see. You’re going to deliver Mr. Parsons, Mr. Bell, and Mr. Upward, and then you can wait for the verdict.”
“I asked what questions.”
“And I told you.”
“It seems that justice won’t be done this day, unless we do it,” Crayfish said softly.
Nippers pushed pugnaciously into that crowd. “You’ll have your justice. You’ll have it every which way. And those who are guilty will hang. And those who lied will spend a long time thinking about their crimes. And this mob is going to disperse right now. You heard the sheriff. No guns. I’ll throw every last skinny-assed cowboy into the slammer until you’re all feeling sorry if you don’t get yourself out of town right now.”
“You won’t hang King Bragg?” Crayfish asked.
“I’ll hang the man who murdered those three men, and you can count on it, Mr. Ruble.”
“And who would that be?”
“You’ll know when the time comes,” the judge snapped.
“I guess we’ll have a couple of hangings today,” Crayfish said.
He nodded at Plug, who manhandled the judge.
“You varmint, take your fat paws off me or face the music,” Nippers roared.
I got my revolver in hand real quick and aimed it at Parsons.
“Let him go,” I yelled.
“You piece of pig manure, get your hands off me,” Nippers snapped.
Parsons and the judge was wrestling some, but the beefy foreman sure had the upper hand. He swung the judge around between my Colt and himself, and putting a bullet in him and not in the judge would have been like shooting two dogs in heat. So I hunted out Crayfish, but he was already racing toward the gallows, and out of range.
I fired in the air, but that didn’t slow anyone down.
I waded in, but there was a mess of T-Bar riders blocking the way, and I sure enough got into a brawl with three or four, and they were piling on me from all sides, and them fat fists were landing on me. One knocked my revolver into the clay. I slugged back, and kneed one of them boys in his basket, and he whoofed and doubled up, but every time I got ahead, two more came at me. I could feel my blood up, pounding in my head, and I gave more than I took, because I use all of me in a fight, including my thick skull, but I was plain outnumbered, and in a bit they had me down and was kicking my ribs real hard.
I heard a shout and they all quit pounding me and was running toward the gallows on the courthouse square. I tried to get up, but there was something tore up in there. They’d quit me and was hell-bent to get to the gallows. I crawled to my feet, hunted around for my revolver, but it wasn’t there. Someone had took it. I got to standing, and stared at the open door of the sheriff office, wondering how many of them T-Bar men was in there, and what they were doing to my prisoners.
I could hardly stand. I made myself stand. I raced back to the office, and up the steps, and entered. There wasn’t a soul in there, and the jail door was locked tight. So I grabbed a double-barrel scattergun and limped out, closing that office door behind me, wishing a few deputies would show up, now that a shot or two had been fired. But I knew they wouldn’t because they were prisoners somewhere.
Up ahead a block, that mob was propelling the judge straight toward the gallows. There was a few town people running for cover, and a few more who had come to see the show. I could hear Judge Nippers bellowing up there, but couldn’t make out what he said. I knew it was ferocious, whatever it might be. But words don’t cut into a man the way a bullet does, and they were paying him no heed.
I trotted along, feeling pain in my ribs and a lot of other places. I had two loads and that was it. But they were double-ought buckshot, and that always gets some respect. They seen me coming and one tried a potshot, but he was most of a block away. This was shaping up into a real bad mess. I followed along, but now Crayfish himself was turning some of them boys my way and they was popping their six-guns at me, and they was going to hit me pretty quick.
The rest, led by Plug Parsons, was manhandling that judge forward, dragging him when he quit walking. They sure was going to hang the judge, unless I could stop them. And Crayfish was urging them on. Kill the judge before the judge got any more curious about what happened that afternoon in the Last Chance Saloon.
I could see I was losing out. They’d reached the gallows, and were hoisting Nippers up them steps. Now there was two or three of them cowboys who just plain halted to shoot at me, and one bullet sizzled through my sleeve. I veered toward the doorway of Maxwell Funeral Parlor, and got into the entryway, where I was safe for a moment, but a couple of bullets splintered wood right where I’d been a moment before.
I was trapped. They had me penned. I crouched low, and sneaked a peek or two around that corner, only to see what I sure didn’t want to see, and could hardly stand seeing. They was shoving the judge up, and pushing him toward the trap, while some ranny was tying the judge’s hands behind him with a borrowed belt. The judge, he wasn’t taking it lying down, and once in a while I could hear him yelling.
Down below, Crayfish was quietly pointing a few of his rannies into a perimeter, their six-guns pointed at the spectators. He didn’t want no town folk messing up the death of the judge. Up on that gallows, Plug Parsons was calm as could be, lowering the noose over Axel Nippers’ old neck and tightening it some. Down below, a couple of them cowboys was keeping an eye on the doorway where I was crouched. I wished old Maxwell would open up. I might get a shot at them hangmen from a window. But Maxwell always waited politely for death before he ventured out, and he wouldn’t show up until there was a body and someone wanted to pay him to do something about it.
I heard Nippers bellow out his last words: “You baboons,” he said.
That was his final observation on life in Doubtful, Wyoming. Plug Parsons swung that lever. The trap dropped. The judge dropped hard and fast, with a loud crack. He shuddered once and then went limp.
