“You savvy what we’re sayin’?” demanded the man with the gun pressed to her head.
Tom’s mouth had gone bone-dry, but he nodded, and after a second had worked up enough spit so that he was able to say, “I savvy. Just tell me what you want, mister. I’ll do anything. Just don’t hurt my family.”
The gunman chuckled. “You’re a smart hombre. Now listen close…”
Chapter 11
A door at the far end of the corridor in the cell block led to the room that Sheriff Cyrus Flagg called home. He had a folding cot, though, that he carried into the office and set up for the blood brothers.
“One o’ you fellas can get a little sleep while the other one stands watch,” he told Matt and Sam. “I’ll take my turn, too.”
“It’s after midnight,” Sam pointed out. “Not that long until morning. Why don’t you go ahead and get some rest, Sheriff? Let Matt and me worry about watching the jail until morning.”
Flagg stifled a yawn. “You sure?”
“We’re sure,” Matt told him.
“All right then. I can’t tell you boys how much I appreciate your help.”
Flagg opened the cell block door, and Shade, who had finally quieted down, immediately began haranguing him again through the window in the cell door, clutching the bars as he did so.
Flagg slapped the Winchester’s barrel against the bars, which made Shade let go of them and jump back. The outlaw began yelling even louder.
“Keep it up, Shade,” the sheriff growled. “I might just toss the keys out the front door and let the folks in town do whatever they want to you.”
“Sinners, filthy sinners!”
Flagg shook his head and walked on back to his quarters, closing the door firmly behind him. Matt closed the cell block door. Shade kept yelling.
Matt ignored him and said to Sam, “What was the idea of volunteering us to stay up the rest of the night?”
“The sheriff’s a lot older than we are,” Sam pointed out. “I’m sure he needs the sleep more than we do.”
“I wouldn’t be so sure of that.” Matt yawned himself. “But there’s nothing we can do about it now. You can take first watch, though.”
“Fine.” Sam went behind the desk and sat down, while Matt pulled his boots and gunbelts off and stretched out on the cot. He placed the shotgun on the floor within easy reach.
A few minutes later, Shade stopped yelling, and soon after that, Matt was sound asleep.
When he woke up, sunlight was slanting through the front window of the sheriff’s office. Matt sat up abruptly and said, “What the hell! How come you didn’t wake me up for my turn on watch?”
Sam still sat behind the desk, with his feet propped on it now as he leaned the chair back against the wall. “I wasn’t all that sleepy,” he said, “so I didn’t see any point in it.” He grinned. “After the way you complained last night, I didn’t want you being too tired and cranky this morning.”
“Cranky! Why, I’ll cranky you, you—”
Shade must have heard them talking. He started yelling again. Matt and Sam heard the door at the other end of the cell block corridor open, and Sheriff Flagg shouted, “Shut up in there!”
“The word of God will not be silenced!” Shade screeched back at him.
He was still carrying on when Flagg came into the office a few minutes later. The sheriff wore his overalls again and looked more like a farmer than a peace officer.
“Mornin’, fellas,” he said with a friendly nod for Matt and Sam. “I reckon the rest of the night was quiet?”
“It was,” Sam said, not pointing out that Matt had slept through it, too. “I heard a little loud talking from the street a few times, but no one tried to get in.” He nodded toward the window. “We had the shutters closed most of the night, but we figured it was all right to open them this morning.”
“Sure enough,” Flagg agreed. “I’ll go down to the hash house and see about gettin’ some breakfast sent up for the two o’ you…and for Shade, too, I reckon, although I hate to waste good food on a varmint like that. Wouldn’t be right to let a prisoner starve, though.”
“I suppose not,” Matt said grudgingly.
“I’ll see about gettin’ a message sent off to the court in Tucson, too,” Flagg promised. “Anything else you boys want in particular?”
To be on the trail again, Matt thought, but that was going to have to wait a while. At least until Flagg received word that a circuit judge was on his way to Arrowhead.
Flagg left, and came back a short time later with a cloth-covered tray containing platters of flapjacks, biscuits, and thick slices of ham. Matt had coffee boiling in the dented old pot on the stove by then. Shade’s yells still came from the cell block, but the three men just ignored him as they ate breakfast.
“I did some askin’ around town while I was out,” Flagg said. “Nobody’s talkin’ about lynchin’ Shade.”
“At least not that they would admit to the sheriff,” Sam pointed out.
“Yeah, well, there’s that,” Flagg admitted. “I got pretty good instincts, though, and I don’t think anything’s goin’ on right now.”
