“I guess I gotta collar you, Plug. Hanging a judge.”
Parsons had shaded a little behind the gallows to give himself some protection, so I just worked sideways myself, and when Plug saw how it would go, he simply pulled at his revolver, and I shot him. He took about half of them buckshot in the chest and head and toppled like a big old tree. There was a little powder smoke drifting in the breeze, and it was real quiet. Plug shivered a bit and then quit living. He was all red.
I reloaded, and watched them T-Bar men head for the Last Chance. I feared for my deputies. I didn’t know where they’d been hid or who was guarding them, but I was having a bad moment.
There wasn’t nothing to do but climb that stair to the gallows platform. I tried to pull the noose loose, but them things are designed to go one way, tighter, and I couldn’t. I dug around in my britches and found my jackknife and pretty soon sawed through the rope, and stretched the judge out on the platform, and then I cut the noose loose. He stared up at me, like he was expecting something.
“I got one and I’ll get the rest,” I told him. “That’s a promise.”
I saw Maxwell, hovering at his door, looking for business, so I waved at him. He leapt into action, and began hauling an ebony two-wheel cart out to the gallows to fetch the judge. He had a small sign screwed onto the side, that said SEE MAXWELL’S FOR A DIVINE PASSAGE. I waited, and pretty quick Maxwell pulled up. I lifted the judge, who weighed a lot, and carried him down the steps and laid him in the cart.
“You treat him good. You treat him better than you ever treated anyone in your life,” I said.
“Certainly, certainly, that’s my business,” he said. “I always treat everyone best.”
I got to thinking about that, but it still didn’t make any sense.
He took off with the judge, and I recovered my shotgun and watched him wheel that cart across the courthouse square and into his alley door. I peered around, wondering why I’d let myself stand around, but if there was someone on the square, I sure didn’t see him. It was like I was the only one on earth left alive.
I stared at Plug Parsons, or what was left of him. One of the buckshot had hit him in the mouth, shattering what was left of his teeth. Another had passed through his bull neck. Two more had hit his chest, another his arm, and one had almost severed his left hand. I didn’t much care whether Maxwell hauled him off or not.
There wasn’t nobody in that square. My ma used to tell me if there was no one that came close to me, it was time for a Saturday night bath. It wasn’t Saturday night yet, so people would have to put up with me for a while. Them T-Bar men had vanished. My pa used to quote the Good Book: The guilty flee when no man pursueth, or something like that. I could never figure out why they didn’t use plain English, like pursues, instead of that pursueth. They was fleeing, all right, and I was pursuing, and I was going to keep on pursuing.
I didn’t see a soul, but I thought a few hundred eyes was watching. I headed back to the office, thinking I owed Old Man Bragg a breakfast, even if I didn’t care whether he ate for the next week or two. I got to worrying about all them deputies of mine, and wondered whether I’d see them again, or how I could find and free them. They might not even be alive. They might also be hostages. Well, I’d find out soon enough.
When I got back to the office, there was King and Queen in there, both armed to the teeth.
Queen rushed up to me, and danged if she didn’t wrap her arms around me. I don’t mind being hugged, but not by a woman with a six-gun at her hip.
She started crying again, and pretty quick her tears were dampening my shirt, and she clung to me like I had done something real fine.
“I got things to do,” I said.
She let go, and brushed back her tears.
“I guess you two need to hear the story,” I said. “But first I got to feed you pa. He’s in there hollering for his breakfast.”
“Let him holler,” she said. “Just tell us what happened.”
There hadn’t been time to tell King Bragg when I let him out. Just that the judge had signed a stay of execution. So I told them the whole shebang, about the judge and his drinking buddy Carter Bell, who got himself swizzled enough to spill a few beans. How Crayfish had set it up. He wanted to execute them T-Bar men that was on his hit list, and thought it would be entertaining to pin the whole thing on King, and watch the kid hang for something he didn’t do.
They listened quietly.
“I got a few things to do,” I said. “I got to find my deputies. I got to arrest Crayfish for murder. I got to arrest Sammy Upward for putting them knockout drops into your red-eye and being part of it, and lying about it. I got to nab Carter Bell for lying on the witness stand and being a part of it. I’ve got to open up them graves you showed me, Queen, and maybe charge Crayfish with some more murders. I got to shut down Crayfish for good, before he starts worse trouble.”
“Carter Bell went to see Judge Nippers?” King asked.
“I took him over there,” I said. “I told him the judge was a good man to drink with.”
“You took him there?”
“Yep. He was acting sort of squirrelly, like he wanted to brag some, only he didn’t want to brag to the sheriff.”
“And that’s why the judge stopped the hanging?”
“Temporarily. He said he needed a sober confession before he’d call it off for good.”
“Am I still in trouble?”
“I got to let them lawyers figure it out,” I said.
They absorbed that bleakly.
