“Tried to rob you, you say?”
“Yes, I saw them ahead of me, saw them hiding behind some trees, so I got a little suspicious. I pulled my gun out and when they ordered me to give them my money, I shot one of them. This one.” Luke nodded toward the body draped over the horse he was leading.
“What about the other man?”
“When I shot this fella, the other one turned and rode off. I could have shot him, too, but I don’t have the stomach to shoot someone in the back. Anyway, I thought I may as well bring this one to you.”
Proxmire turned toward the office and called, “Sheriff Ferrell, you want to come out now?”
The door to the sheriff’s office opened behind Proxmire and another man stepped out. Luke was surprised. He believed it was the man who had gotten away. He was also surprised to see the man was wearing a star on his vest. There had been no star during the ambush.
“Deputy, I’m not sure, but I think this may have been the other man.” Luke pointed toward the man behind Deputy Sheriff Proxmire.
“By other man, you mean he was with the man you shot?” Proxmire asked.
“Yes. He had his face covered with a hood, so I can’t be positive, but he was about this size and was wearing the same kind of clothes. Only he wasn’t packing a star when I saw him last.”
“You say they were both wearing hoods?”
“Yes.”
“What about the hood that was on this fella?” Deputy Proxmire asked. “Have you got it with you?”
“No, I just tossed it aside.”
“What about you, Sheriff? Is this the man you encountered on the road?”
“It is, indeed. And you heard him, Sheriff. He just confessed to murdering Deputy Gates.”
“What?” Luke replied loudly. “What are you talking about? I didn’t murder anyone!”
“Did you, or did you not, shoot down my deputy?”
“Who are you?” Luke asked.
“I’m Sheriff Dewey Ferrell.”
“Did you shoot his deputy, Luke?” Proxmire asked.
Luke pointed to the body that was still draped across the horse behind him. “If that man is this man’s deputy, then yes, I shot him. But it was in self-defense. Whether this man is a sheriff or not, he and the man I shot tried to hold me up.”
“We did no such thing,” Sheriff Ferrell argued. “We were merely trying to stop him, so we could ask him a few questions. That’s when he surprised the two of us by shooting.”
“Deputy, I don’t know what’s going on here, but what happened is nothing like this man is saying. Both men were wearing hoods over their faces, and they demanded that I give them my money. You don’t mask yourself with a hood if all you want to do is ask a few questions, do you?”
“You say we were wearing hoods, but you can’t show the hood my deputy was wearing,” Sheriff Ferrell pointed out.
“If the man you say tried to rob you was masked, how do you know this is the same man?” Proxmire pointed to the sheriff.
“He just said that he was.”
“I’m going to have to take your gun and hold you in jail until this is all worked out,” Proxmire said.
“Deputy, I’m telling you these two men tried to rob me.”
“Why would they try to rob you, Luke? Do you carry so much money around all the time that someone would want to rob you?”
“I am now. I’m carrying almost twenty thousand dollars from the sale of my cattle. You can check with Heckemeyer and Sons over in Greenhorn. They will verify that I’m telling the truth.”
“Oh, I don’t doubt but that you sold some cows,” Proxmire said. “But that’s not the question. The question is, did the sheriff and his deputy stop you to ask a few questions as he says or did he and his deputy actually try to rob you?”
“They tried to rob me.”
“Look at it this way, Luke. Right now it’s just your word against Sheriff Ferrell’s word, and seeing as he is an officer of the law, his word carries a bit more weight. But perhaps you can convince a jury to believe you.”
“A jury? Look here, are you actually telling me this is going to court?”
“It is,” Proxmire said.
Luke looked at Ferrell. “Will he be in court?”
“I’ll be there,” Ferrell answered. “I intend to see justice done for the killing of my deputy.”
“All right,” Luke said. “I won’t argue with you, Proxmire. If you’ll let me put this money in the bank, I’ll come quietly and I’ll stand trial.”
“Good idea,” Proxmire said.
Judge Amon Briggs sat back in the chair in his chambers and put his hands together, fingertip to fingertip. He was listening to Sheriff Ferrell.
“Luke can make a lot of trouble for us if we don’t take care of this situation.”
“What do you mean trouble for us?” Judge Briggs growled. “I didn’t attempt to hold him up.”
“Did you, or did you not, give Gates and me the information about him going to sell his cows? And were you, or were you not, going to be in for a third of the take? And that isn’t the only deal we’ve been in. You got your share from the coach holdup two months ago, too, as I am sure you well remember.”
Briggs held his hand out to quiet Ferrell. “All right, all right. There’s no need to say anything else. The walls have ears. Don’t worry. I’ll take care of it.”
“You’d better take care of it,” Ferrell pressed. “Otherwise we’ll both be in trouble.”
Luke’s trial was going to be held in the local courthouse with Judge Amon Briggs presiding. He was in his chambers meeting with the prosecutor. “I want him tried for first-degree murder.”
“Your honor, I don’t think I can make the case for first-degree murder,” Lloyd Gilmore said. “I mean, even if what the sheriff says is true, if all he and his deputy were doing was confronting him for questioning, it still wouldn’t be premeditated murder.”
“It doesn’t have to be premeditated,” Briggs said. “He was resisting arrest, and that is a felony. Any death that occurs during the commission of a felony is automatically first-degree murder.”
“According to Sheriff Ferrell’s own testimony, he wasn’t making an arrest, he merely wanted to question him. That’s not resisting arrest. A good lawyer could say that Luke thought he was being held up, and Tom Murchison is a good lawyer.”
“You’re the prosecutor. It’s your job to make hard cases against good lawyers,” Judge Briggs answered.
“All right, I’ll try. But I don’t think I’ll be able to convince the jury.”
As Prosecutor Gilmore and Judge Briggs were discussing the case, Tom Murchison arrived at the jail to meet with Luke Shardeen.
“You’ve got ten minutes,” Deputy Proxmire said, escorting the attorney to Luke’s cell.
“You are wrong, Deputy,” Murchison declared as he entered the cell. “Mr. Shardeen is my client, and I will visit with him for as long as it takes.”
“Yes, well, uh . . .” Proxmire knew he had no response to that, so he shrugged his shoulders and shut the cell door. “Just call out when your visit is finished.” He turned and walked back to the front of the jail.
Tom Murchison was the lawyer who had handled the estate of Luke’s uncle Frank. Since Luke’s arrival in Pueblo, he and Murchison had become good friends. Compared to Luke, Murchison was relatively short, standing five feet nine inches tall. He wore a red bow tie, and held an unlit cigar at a jaunty angle in his mouth.
He sat down on the other bunk in Luke’s cell. “Tell me what happened.”
Luke told of selling the cows in Greenhorn, then seeing the two men waiting in ambush for him on the trail back to Pueblo. He told how they braced him with drawn guns and demanded that he give them his money.
