“You know, Sampson, I oughta be real mad at you, trailin’ me here and tryin’ to grab me outta the saloon. But I guess I can forgive you. After all, you’re wrong about me killin’ your brother-in-law. You oughta be goin’ after the doc for that. But I reckon you got your mind all righteous and set, ’bout like a dog after a jackrabbit. You know, a man’s gotta do what a man’s gotta do and all that crud.”
He noticed that his smoke had almost gone out, and took a long drag off it before he stamped it out in Jason’s ashtray.
Sampson wasn’t listening as far as he could tell. Wasn’t even looking at him, and he hadn’t since he set foot in the cell. He just sat on the edge of his cot, staring at the floor.
“In fact,” Rafe went on, “I figure you owe me. Your brother-in-law stole my daddy’s gold shares in one’a them shady poker games of his. Either that, or he held a gun on him ’til he signed. And then he killed him, shot him right through the head. Now, that weren’t very nice, was it?”
No reply from the cell.
Rafe hadn’t expected one.
“And on top’a that, now you’re keepin’ me from a good poker game. I figured to win big tonight.”
Surprisingly, a mutter came from the cell. “I ain’t keepin’ you, Lynch.”
“Yeah, you are. Somebody has to be here when the marshal comes back, and that somebody is me.” He paused to lick a fresh cigarette paper. “I don’t like you much, Davis. Come to think of it, I reckon I don’t like you at all. But if you keep on houndin’ me, looks like somebody’s gonna end up dead. Smart money’s on you.”
He lit the new cigarette and leaned back in the chair to smoke it. It tasted damn good.
Jason was suddenly in a big toot to get back to town, and Ward quizzed him on it. “Why we pushin’ these horses? What’s so important that we gotta get back to it?”
“Sampson Davis. Rafe Lynch.”
Ward couldn’t see why so little time made so much difference. “Aw, they can take care’a themselves, Jason,” he called over the galloping hoof beats. “And Wash is in town!”
“Don’t count on him.” And with that, Jason pulled ahead a full length.
Abe, now riding beside Ward, lifted his brows. “Ours ain’t to reason why,” he called.
“What?” Ward called, but Abe just shook his head, then lifted a hand and pointed forward. The town’s lights, from a bonfire here and a window or two there, were coming into sight.
Abe pulled ahead and hollered something at Jason that Ward couldn’t make out. And Jason slowed clear down to a soft jog trot. Ward could tell Jason’s mare was grateful by the way she dipped her head over and over. The horses were all plumb tuckered out, if you asked him. Which, of course, no one did.
They soon reached the town gates and the wagon train, and rode on through. Jason didn’t take Cleo home as usual, though. He rode on down to the office and dismounted. “Can you walk her out for me, Ward?”
“Guess so.”
Ward had dismounted as well as Abe, and he gathered the reins of all three horses and started up the street, leading them and muttering under his breath.
The office lights were on, and when they walked a little closer, Jason saw Rafe Lynch sitting behind his desk, big as life and smoking a cigarette.
He frowned a little and paused, wondering what the hell was going on, when Abe poked him in the back and said, “Ain’t nobody gonna go see if you don’t.”
“Yeah, yeah,” Jason muttered, and stepped up on the boardwalk, with Abe right behind him.
Rafe didn’t move an inch when Jason shoved in the door. Instead he said, “Howdy, boys! I brung you a prisoner.” He pointed to the cell, and it took Jason a moment to figure out who it was.
He said, “Well, I’ll be double damned! Rafe, you amaze me!”
Abe shifted his weight and shook his head. “Ditto. What the hell happened?”
“You’d best ask the bartender cross the street. He saw more’a the deal than I did, and he’s the one what turned Davis in to me.” Rafe shrugged and attempted to look pious. “I am only a vessel.”
Abe went across the street while Jason stayed at the office, booting Rafe out of his chair and lighting a smoke of his own. This kept up, he thought, and he was going to smoke himself like a ham, only inside out.
Ward walked in, much earlier than Jason had expected. “Horses all right?”
“Yup. They weren’t as used up as we thought. Left Cleo over in your barn. Stripped her tack.”
“Thanks, Ward.”
Ward suddenly realized that they were not alone. He nodded at Rafe, then looked toward the cell for a moment before he said, “Davis?”
Jason nodded.
“Well, big chief? What we gonna do now?”
“Wait for Abe.” He noticed that somebody, probably Ward, had tidied up the pieces of his old chair and put them into the wood bin next to the stove. They weren’t fit for anything but fuel anymore, anyway.
Twenty minutes later Abe came back, bringing the story of Rafe’s near-kidnapping and the barkeeper’s bravery in a time of crisis.
Ward said, “Well, I’ll be damned.”
