“But you believe it’ll build back up,” Matt said.
Flagg nodded. “I do. Hear that?”
He opened the door, and the blood brothers both heard the sound of someone hammering in the distance.
“You know what that is?” Flagg asked.
Matt and Sam shook their heads.
“That’s Cassius Doolittle nailin’ together coffins in the yard behind his undertakin’ parlor. There’s gonna be a big funeral here in town this afternoon, for Charlie Cornwell, Harlan Eggleston, Yancy Baker, Bob McCall, and Rufus Nicholson. Those are all the fellas killed by those outlaws. Every time one of those boys is buried, folks are gonna look at each other and ask themselves why Joshua Shade is still drawin’ breath when he ought to be danglin’ at the end of a rope. They won’t be able to come up with a good answer for that question either, except that it’s the law…and after a while they just won’t give a damn.”
That afternoon, Sheriff Flagg attended the mass funeral in the church at the edge of town while Matt and Sam remained at the jail. Later, when the last coffin had been lowered into the newly dug graves in Arrowhead’s cemetery, and while the undertaker and his helpers were busy shoveling dirt into the holes, Flagg returned to the sheriff’s office.
He still wore the dusty, somewhat threadbare black suit he had worn to the funeral, with a gunbelt strapped around his ample belly under the frock coat. As he hung his hat on a nail near the door, he commented, “Shade’s quiet for a change.”
“He’s been quiet all afternoon,” Sam said.
“Reckon he finally wore himself out from all the carryin’ on,” Matt said. “Any problems at the funeral or the buryin’?”
Flagg shook his head. “Not really, but I could tell that folks are mighty upset. Stan Hightower and all his hands were there, and Stan’s wife Margery never stopped cryin’. I didn’t like the look on Stan’s face.”
“We don’t know who those people are, Sheriff,” Sam reminded him.
“Oh, yeah.” Flagg went over to the stove and poured himself a cup of the coffee that was left from that morning, which was probably strong enough by now to get up and walk off under its own power. “Margery is Rufus Nicholson’s daughter, and her husband Stan owns the Diamond H. One of the biggest spreads in these parts. So Stan’s pretty much used to gettin’ whatever he wants around here.”
Matt propped a hip against a corner of the desk and frowned. “That sounds like trouble brewin’.”
Flagg sighed, sipped the coffee, and nodded. “Yeah, I heard Stan talkin’ after the service at the cemetery about how it’s a waste o’ time waitin’ for a judge to come all the way from Tucson. He said why bother with a trial when Shade’s just gonna hang anyway.”
“And I’ll bet people listened to him, didn’t they?” Sam said.
Flagg shrugged. “Like I told you, Stan’s one o’ the big skookum he-wolves around here. Folks want to stay on his good side. And if he rides into town with a dozen tough, gun-hung cowboys right behind him, ready to back his play, some of the good citizens o’ Arrowhead will find it mighty easy to fall in with ’em.”
“When do you think this is liable to happen?” Matt asked.
“Wouldn’t surprise me if it was tonight.”
“We’ll just have to put a stop to it then,” Sam said.
“You’re talkin’ three men against forty or fifty,” Flagg pointed out.
“I’ll admit, those aren’t very good odds. But we have the law on our side.”
Matt grunted. “That won’t stop a bullet…not unless you’ve got a big thick law book stuck in your pocket.” He turned to Flagg. “You could always just step aside and let them have Shade.”
Flagg scratched his beard and nodded, then said, “Yeah, but let me ask you somethin’, Bodine. If you’d done swore an oath to uphold the law, would
“The things that Shade has done, I might, yeah.”
“No, you wouldn’t,” Sam said. “I know you, Matt. You’re too stubborn to ever do anything like that.”
Matt had to grin. “Well, you’re probably right about that. But we didn’t swear an oath, now did we?”
“We told the sheriff we’d help him. That’s giving our word. It’s the same thing.”
“Damn it, Sam! I hate it when you’re right.” Matt looked at Flagg. “We’ll stick, Sheriff.”
“Nobody’d think any less of you if you didn’t…” Flagg began.
“We would,” Sam said.
“We’ll stick,” Matt said again.
Chapter 12
The settlement had been so crowded because of the mass funeral held that afternoon that no one had paid any attention to Tom Peterson as he mingled with the townspeople and talked to everyone he could. Most of the folks in Arrowhead knew Tom, so they didn’t think anything of it when he asked about what was going to happen to the notorious prisoner who was locked up in the town jail.
Now as he rode back toward his hardscrabble ranch, fear filled Tom. Frannie and the boys and little, seven- year-old Abigail had been out there at the ranch alone with those outlaws all day, and there was no telling what might have happened while he was gone.
