Gripping the bars of the door, I stared out through the window. I was scared. Was I going to be strung up for something I had not done? Ending on a rope, as pa had done?
My gunbelt and rifle were yonder in the corner of the office, the ivory-handled pistol still in its holster. They might have been ten miles away, for all the good they could do me.
Up the street the tinpanny music box started once more. Two men rode along, and dust drifted from their passing. I paced the narrow cell.
Suppose I did break out? They’d think me guilty for certain then. But if I stayed they might string me up, and they would never even know they’d done a wrong thing. I hadn’t any idea what I should do … or could do.
I tried lying down on my bunk again, but I couldn’t sleep. Sitting up once more, I studied the matter. I had to get out and away—I couldn’t just sit here until they came after me.
But what about the marshal? Would he stand by and let it happen? He did not seem the type. I had him figured for a good man, a solid man, who would stand four-square for what he believed but he was only one man.
Slowly my eyes ran around the room. The place was solidly built. There wasn’t so much as a crack I could get a finger into. I was locked in, tight as a sardine in a can.
Out on the street, somebody whooped drunkenly. It was beginning now … how long before they came for me?
Chapter 12
Suddenly I heard the sound of horses’ hoofs, and looking out through the office window, I could see several riders coming into town. As they passed by, I saw that they were Caxton Kelsey, LaSalle Prince, Andy Miller, Queenie, and at least two others.
They rode on by, into the town’s street. Now what was that about? Why would they risk coming here now? Or had they heard of my arrest? I asked that question of myself, then decided against it as too unlikely. They must have another reason, probably nothing more than a chance for a few drinks, a chance to buck a faro game.
I paced the floor of my cell. If only I was free now, with a gun in my hand! But even if I was free, what could I do that would clear me of the charge against me? Queenie hated me, and she would cheerfully see me hang; and undoubtedly the others felt the same. Anyway, I didn’t want to be free if I had to leave this charge behind.
So what to do? It always came back to that. I was here, a mob was undoubtedly forming up the street, and I had no idea whether the marshal would make an effort to stop them or not. There was no chance of getting a message out. No one even came close to the jail—the area around it was empty.
Lights were coming on in the town. A long, low wind stirred the sage, bringing the wild, free smell of it to my nostrils.
Was this the way it was going to end after all my dreams? After all my hopes of returning to face those who had killed my father? Was I to end as he had?
Feverishly, I searched my cell again. There had to be a way out! I shook the bars of the door, but they were solid. I tried the bars of the window again, as I had before, and they, too, were firm.
Somewhere along the line I must have dozed. I recall sitting down on the bunk and stretching out. The next thing I knew I was awake. It was still dark; outside I could hear a murmur, as of somebody talking.
I got up quickly. Lights still showed bright in the town, and somewhere I heard a wild yell, then a smashing of glass, and coarse laughter. A rider went by, riding fast.
Then I heard footsteps—somebody was coming toward the jail at a fast walk. The door opened, and I saw a body bulk briefly against the lights of the town, then the door closed.
“Chancy?” It was the marshal. “You awake?”
“You think I could sleep with that crowd liquoring up over there?”
But I had been asleep, and I wondered for a moment how I could have relaxed that much. “Are they coming?” I asked.
“They’re talking,” he said. “Maybe it’s all talk.”
“Are you going to let me have a gun?”
He considered that, while I could have counted a slow ten. “Maybe,” he said, “if it comes to that. Nobody’s ever taken a prisoner from me, and nobody is going to.”
“I never killed Alec Burgess,” I told him again, “or even saw him. I’ll state that for a fact, and I’m not a lying man.”
“Who are you, Chancy?” I couldn’t even see him clearly there in the dark, but I could see he held a rifle and was watching out the window.
“Who?” Well, who was I, after all? “I’m nobody,” I said. “I’m a mountain boy who never had much but his health, some ugly memories, and a hope for the future. Back yonder,” I said, “they hung my pa for a horse thief, and a better man never lived. He wasn’t tough or mean; he was a mighty good man.”
Sitting there in the darkness of the jail, I told the marshal about pa, and the horse business and the hanging.
“I’ve always wanted to go back there,” I said. “I’ve wanted to go back there and show ’em.”
“They tell me you can use a gun.”
“I don’t want to use one in Tennessee. There isn’t anybody, anywhere, I’d want to kill. I just want to go back there and show them I’ve made good and here I am about to get my neck stretched.”
Just then we heard footsteps. They were slow, halting steps. A hand touched the latch, but the door was locked.
“Marshal? Are you in there? Open up … this is Bob Tarlton.”
The marshal opened the door, and Bob got himself through the door. He was walking with a cane, and carrying a rifle in his free hand. “Chancy? Are you there?” he said.
“I’m here—and you ought to be back there in bed.” He dropped into the marshal’s chair, and I could hear his ragged breathing. “Let him out, Marshal.” He spoke with an effort. “I’ll stand good for him.”
After a moment’s hesitation, the marshal unlocked the cell door. Crossing to the corner, I picked up my gun belt and slung it about my hips, then I took up the rifle. It was dark in the room, our eyes had grown accustomed to the darkness, and we could dimly make out one another.
“One thing,” I said, “that girl Queenie is in town. She could tell the truth about this if she would. She’s got no use for me, but she was there when I killed that man who was packing this gun. She saw it happen.”
Nobody said anything. We could hear the shouts from the town, and then the sound of a door slamming. We could hear them coming, stumbling and swearing. These were the riffraff—drifters, no-accounts. I knew the type, for I had seen them before, many of them good enough men when sober, but now as a mob they were beyond reasoning, thinking only of a good man gone, and a prisoner who might get away with it.
“Why don’t you two leave?” I suggested. “It’s me they want.”
“We’re partners,” Tarlton said. “Remember?” The marshal made no reply; he merely opened the window and closed the heavy shutters, and then opened a loophole in the shutter.
“All right, out there!” he shouted. “Turn right around and go back! There’ll be no lynching tonight!”
They kept coming, and he fired into the ground, well ahead of them. “Back up, now!” he said loudly. “I’m not alone, and if you want a fight you can have it.”
They stopped and stood there in the darkness, a tight knot of men, muttering among themselves.
“Turn him out, Marshal!” one man called. “Turn him out and we’ll give him what he’s got coming!”
“Not tonight you won’t!” It was another voice, speaking from the roof top. “I’m up here with a Colt repeatin’ shotgun, an’ I can cut your front rank down with my first two shots!”
It was Handy Corbin—I would have known his voice anywhere. He must have brought my shotgun from camp. And he was right: at that range that shotgun would kill or maim half a dozen at each firing. It didn’t carry bird shot, but buckshot of .38 caliber.
Bob Tarlton stood up- and opened the door. “Forget it, boys. We don’t want to hurt anybody, but we’ve got an open field of fire and you wouldn’t have a chance.”