brothers and several other gunnies are holed up over yonder at the Saratoga Saloon. They’ve been hanging around ever since the day after Marshal Cobb had to leave town.”
“When was that?” I said.
Cosner scratched a tobacco-stained chin. “Well, he struck out four days ago. This walking pile of dung’s friends and family showed up next morning ’bout ten o’clock. Done kept me holed up in here the entire time. Haven’t even been able to visit the outhouse. Got four chamber pots and they’re all overflowing. Wasn’t for a Messican friend of mine guess I’d’ve already starved.”
“They threaten you?” Boz said.
“Hell, yes, they threatened me. Threatened everybody in town. ’S why ain’t nobody out in the streets. I ’uz about to give up and let ’em have this no-account, low-life stack of skunk shit.”
“His friends been pressin’ you?” Boz said.
“Damn right. Several of them boys stood outside the door earlier this mornin’. Said if’n I didn’t give the smelly bastard up, they’d set fire to the jail. Wait in the street and kill me when I come out. Don’t ’specially wanna die over a shit heel like this ’un, tell you for certain sure, fellers.”
Boston Teal’s unshaven face went scarlet. “Come on. Lemme outta this here cage. I’ll kick the dog crap outta yer smart-mouthed ass, star toter. Callin’ any of us Teal boys skunk shit and such is an act that can sure ’nuff get yer narrow ass put in a coffin.”
Cosner didn’t bother to so much as glance his prisoner’s direction when he shot back, “Aw, shut up, you stupid son of a bitch. One more syllable from you’s gonna be just about all I can stand. Might just send you to Jesus myself. Save these fellers the hellish task of havin’ to escort you all the way back to Fort Worth. A fate I personally consider worse than gettin’ my family jewels caught in the clothes wringer on my wife’s new washtub.”
Sure all he wanted was to diffuse the tension a bit when Boz offered, “Why’d Marshal Cobb leave town in the first place, Deputy?”
Cosner resumed his seat behind the desk. He appeared to soften a bit. “Man’s wife passed away. ’Fore she went and sprouted wings, he’d promised that good lady he’d take her back to Columbus, Mississippi, for proper burial. ’S where her family’s all planted.”
“Got any idea how long he figured on being gone?” I said.
Cosner scratched an ear, then slapped at the side of his head like a dog that might’ve come across a flea. “As much as three weeks, I ’magine,” he mumbled, then gazed at his fingers, as though he’d squished something on one of them. “Maybe longer. Didn’t leave me with any definite date of return, tell the God’s truth.”
Boston Teal let out a derisive snort. “Gutless pile of runny dung heard brother Irby was on the way. Just used his ole lady’s passin’ as a coward’s excuse to blow out of town. Man’s yeller as mustard, by God. Got henhouse ways and smells of feathers.”
Cosner grabbed a half-filled tin cup from the top of his desk then threw it across the room at Teal’s cell door. The battered utensil bounced off the rough-textured iron straps right in front of the mouthy prisoner’s face. Coffee flew all over the grinning, foot-shot bank robber. The unexpected bath really set him off and the water-headed jackass jumped up on the cell door and hung there like some kind of bug-eyed tree squirrel. Gritted his teeth and went to growling and slobbering in the manner of a hydrophobic dog.
Cosner whacked the desktop with an open palm. Flat-handed lick sounded like an angry kid whacked an empty barrel with a long stick. He eyeballed the jailbird and yelped, “Stop that goddamned racket, you gallin’ son of a bitch. Fine woman’s gone to her heavenly re-ward, and you got nothing to offer on the matter.”
Red-faced, purple-necked, and crazy-looking as hell, Teal screwed his head sidewise. Eyes a bulging, he glared through one of the openings between the iron straps in front of his face. “Well, I can sure as hell say this. You boys don’t let me outta this here animal cage, and damned quick, bet none of you’ll live much longer. Figure the only reason brother Irby ain’t stormed this sorry excuse for a hoosegow and freed me already’s a ’cause he thought an idiot like you might well go and shoot me for sure ’fore he could get in here and get me out.”
The deputy jumped to his feet again and shook an angry finger Teal’s direction. “Well, if that’s what your brother thinks, he’s right. If’n he’d a put one booted foot over my threshold, I’d a blasted the bejabberous hell out you first, then him, by God. Same fate applies for any fires he might attempt to set.”
Teal spit a glob of snotty phlegm onto the dirty floor just outside his cramped enclosure. Shook the door of the cell by rocking back and forth from his hanging position. Yelled, “You ain’t gonna live long enough to shoot anybody, you stump-jumpin’ hick. Bet all three a you badge-wearin’ bastards’ll be deader’n a trio of them boys what fell at the Alamo ’fore it gets good dark.”
Boz turned and, very politely, I thought, said, “Shut the hell up, Teal. I’m already tired of the sound of your voice. Every time you open your mouth, it sounds like a crosscut saw going through petrified oak knots. And, hell’s bells, I just walked in the door.”
Teal dropped to the floor with a heavy, one-footed thump. Twisted around on his good kicker like a crippled terpsichorean at a hoedown. Took aim and spit again. “Well, screw you and the horse you rode in on, you law- bringin’ son of a bitch.”
On a personal level, I thought Teal’s jail-cell bravado grossly misplaced. Man just didn’t seem to realize the gravity of his arrogant mistake. Not even when Boz strode over to the cell’s chained-and-padlocked door. My amigo’s spurs clinked and jingled when he came to a grinning stop and motioned for the prisoner to come closer.
All I can say on the matter, now, is that Boston Teal had to have possessed just about as much intelligence as a south Louisiana cantaloupe, when he dragged his damaged foot back over to the tiny cubicle’s door and leaned forward. I couldn’t help but grin as I had no doubt as to what was about to happen. Tell the honest to God truth, I felt a sense of real joy at the prospect of the entertainment in the works.
Teal turned his scruffy noggin sidewise. Sneered when he got right up against some of those iron straps. “Yeah, you badge-wearin’, ass-ugly bastard. Whaddaya want?”
Boz’s hand darted forward like a fanged diamondback’s poison-filled head. Somehow, and don’t ask me how he managed it, my friend got his fingers laced into that surprised outlaw’s scraggly moustaches and beard. He latched on and jerked the man’s face up against that metal cage with a resounding clunk and held on like a Mississippi snapping turtle. Bounced Teal’s empty-sounding noggin off that cell door three or four times before he finally spoke.
I barely heard him when Boz leaned up next to Teal’s bloody ear and hissed, “Sit down on your cot, and shut your irritating mouth.”
Got to give Teal the credit where it’s due, he didn’t back off much. With blood-oozing lips pressed against the cell’s door, man could barely speak when he muttered, “An’ if’n I doan, whachu figger on doin’, you goober-headed turd knocker?”
A twisted, nigh gleeful smile crept across Boz’s face. “I’ll have Deputy Cosner open this door for me. Then, I’ll come in there and kick your lardy backside till your nose bleeds.”
Teal matched Boz’s sneer with a mocking grin of his own and said, “The hell you say.”
Boz broke into a pleased smile. “The hell I do say, Boston ole friend. Get started and I just might keep on bootin’ your blubbery rump till you’ll have to unbutton your shirt when you’re once again able to hobble your way to an outhouse. Then I could just go on and stomp on that damaged foot of yours till it thunders. Hell, have to admit I’m right on the irritated edge of believing as how I might be willing to work like a Georgia field hand kicking the crap out of you.”
Then, damned if he didn’t jerk one whole lip’s worth of Boston Teal’s whiskers right out of the man’s face. Toeless outlaw grabbed his mouth and went to bellering like a red-eyed cow. Hooted and hopped around the tiny enclosure on his only usable foot. Squirrelly bastard cussed everyone ever born from Adam to the most recent president. Ranted, raved, and acted like a mistreated lunatic.
’Course Boz thought that was the funniest thing he’d seen in about ten years. Man laughed like something crazed as he strolled back toward the marshal’s rickety desk. Still in mid-chuckle when he flicked a wad of Teal’s lip hair onto the floor. Stuff hadn’t come to rest when several loud thumps and breaking glass against the jail’s front facade jerked our attention to the shuttered windows and barred door.
I already had a pistol in each hand when I heard someone out in the street yell, “You mother-humpin’ lawmen get your sorry selves on out here, and right by-God now. Come on out, Deppidy Cosner. Bring your idiot friends with you. Gonna cut you boys down pocket high.”
