“There’s a boot under the driver’s seat we can fill up with provisions. If we run low, there are settlements between here and there where we can buy what we need.”
“Are you taking along a saddle horse?”
Brubaker frowned and asked, “What business is that of yours?”
“Just curious,” Bo said with a shrug.
“Yeah, I’m takin’ a horse. I’ll tie it on behind the wagon. Do the two of you have good mounts?”
“We do. We won’t have any trouble keeping up.”
“Well, good,” Brubaker said, although he didn’t sound all that pleased by the prospect. “You can meet me here at the courthouse at ... let’s call it six o’clock tomorrow mornin’. Be ready to ride.”
“We will be,” Bo promised.
Brubaker gave them a curt nod and stalked off toward the stairs that led down to the basement jail. From the looks of it, he intended to pay a visit to the prisoners.
“That little banty rooster don’t like us,” Scratch said as he watched Brubaker walk away.
“He doesn’t appear to like much of anybody,” Bo said. “I wonder why not.” He shook his head and clapped a hand on Scratch’s shoulder. “Let’s go see if Corrigan kept that stew warm for us like he said he would.”
The tavern keeper had kept his promise. He set steaming bowls of Irish stew in front of the Texans, along with fresh cups of coffee. Then he surprised them by pulling out a chair and sitting down at the table with them.
“Why don’t you join us?” Bo asked dryly.
“Don’t mind if I do, seein’ as ’tis my place and all,” Corrigan said, grinning under his red mustache. “What did Forty-two Brubaker want with you?”
“It wasn’t Brubaker who wanted us,” Scratch said. “It was that durned judge.”
Bo considered how much they ought to tell Corrigan, then decided that the Irishman could be trusted. Corrigan had been running this tavern for a long time and had a good reputation.
“You heard about the ruckus with the prisoners who tried to escape earlier, I suppose,” Bo said.
Corrigan nodded. “Aye. Some of my customers have been talkin’ about it. Quite a brouhaha from the sound of it.”
“We kept a couple of them from getting away, and that brought us to Judge Parker’s attention. He wanted to hire us as temporary deputy marshals.”
“He’s sendin’ ye into the Territory after badmen, then?”
Bo shook his head.
“We’re going to Texas with Marshal Brubaker. He has to deliver the prisoners he brought in today to another federal judge down in Tyler.”
Corrigan let out a surprised whistle.
“I’m bettin’ Parker don’t care much for that,” he said. “Once he gets a lawbreaker in that Hell on the Border jail o’ his, most of ’em don’t come out again unless it’s to make the acquaintance of George Maledon.”
Bo knew that was the name of the hangman who conducted the executions for Parker.
“In this case, the judge didn’t have any choice. He got a telegram from Washington telling him to go along with what the judge down in Texas wants.”
“Bigfoot Southwick,” Scratch muttered. “I still can’t believe that galoot and those big clodhoppers of his wound up bein’ a federal judge. When we knowed him, I always figured he was more likely to wind up behind bars his own self.”
“And that’d be a good place for a bunch o’ them judges, if ye ask me,” Corrigan declared.
Bo was enjoying the stew. After he washed down another mouthful with a sip of coffee, he asked, “How well do you know Brubaker, Mike?”
“Tolerably well,” the tavern keeper replied. “We’ve been acquainted for four or five years, I’d say.”
Scratch commented, “He’s sure got a burr up his backside, don’t he?”
“He’s not a man who’s easy to warm up to, I’ll admit,” Corrigan said. “Ye can’t question his dedication to the law, though. It cost him his marriage.”
“How’s that?” Bo asked.
“Well, it cost him his engagement, I should say. He never did make it to the altar. But he’d be married to a mighty pretty girl with a rich daddy by now if he’d agreed to give up packin’ a badge. She and her da wanted him to go to work for the old man in his lumber business. The way I heard the story, Forty-two agreed, but then he changed his mind. I reckon he just couldn’t bear the thought o’ sleepin’ in a nice warm bed with a nice warm wife and collectin’ wages for a cushy job, instead of spendin’ his days blisterin’ under a hot sun and freezin’ in a cold rain and gettin’ shot at by some o’ the worst rapscallions west of the Mississippi. The man’s daft, if ye ask me, but don’t ever question how he feels about doin’ his job.”
Bo nodded slowly and said, “That’s good to know, since we’ll be traveling with him for a while.”
“Well, there’s dedication, and then there’s sheer pigheadedness, and Forty-two’s capable of that, too,” Corrigan said. “Have a care, lads, that he don’t get both of ye killed.”
CHAPTER 6
Bo and Scratch were sitting on their horses in front of the courthouse the next morning when Brubaker drove up in the wagon. The air was cold enough that the breath of men and horses alike turned into plumes of steam.
The Texans’ saddlebags were full. Despite what Brubaker had said about taking along plenty of supplies, the Texans had decided that it wouldn’t hurt anything to bring extra provisions.
The sun had not yet peeked over the horizon, but it would be doing so soon. The heavens to the east were full of yellow, gold, and red light, and that brilliance turned the fleecy clouds floating in the sky pastel shades of those same colors, creating a spectacular view.
It was a view those locked up in the basement jail couldn’t see, except maybe for tiny bits visible through the small, ground-level, iron-barred holes used for ventilation. For the most part, Hell on the Border would be dark, cold, and clammy.
All the more reason not to behave like an owlhoot and get locked up, Bo thought as he shifted and eased his weight in his saddle.
He knew that not everybody who wound up behind bars had only themselves to blame for it. Genuine mix-ups could occur, and some of the things that had happened to him and Scratch were proof of that. But most people who wound up in jail or prison were there because they had it coming for something they had done.
From the sound of it, Cara LaChance, Dayton Lowe, and Jim Elam deserved to be right where they were, locked up so they couldn’t hurt anybody else.
Brubaker brought the wagon to a halt and looped the reins around the brake lever.
“I wasn’t sure you fellas would be here this mornin’,” he said. “I thought you might’ve decided to back out.”
“Once we’ve shook on somethin’, we don’t back out,” Scratch said.
“And you’re not going to get rid of us that easily, Marshal,” Bo added.
Brubaker climbed down from the wagon seat.
“Wait here,” he said. “I’ll go get the prisoners. The jailers are supposed to have them ready to travel.”
He went down the stairs to the basement. While Bo and Scratch waited for him to return, they rubbed their gloved hands together for warmth.
A few minutes later, a whole mob of people came up the stairs, led by Brubaker, who had his revolver in his hand. Behind him came a couple of guards carrying shotguns as they backed up the steps so they could point the Greeners down into the dark basement.
Jim Elam, the skinny hombre with long black hair who Bo had scuffled with the day before, emerged next, wincing at the light. He shuffled along carefully because his hands were cuffed behind his back and a chain ran from those manacles down to the shackles on his ankles. Those shackles had just enough play in them to allow him to
