He started to reach for it and I said, “Go ahead, Fetterson, you pick it up and
I can kill you.”
His hand hung suspended above the gun and slowly he withdrew it. He sat up in
bed then, a big, rawboned man with a shock of rumpled blond hair and his
hard-boned, wedgelike face. There was nothing soft about his eyes.
“Sackett? I might have expected it would be you.” Careful to make no mistakes he
reached for the makings and began to build a smoke. “What do you want?”
“It’s a murder charge, Fett. If you have a good lawyer you might beat it, but
you make a wrong move and nothing will beat what I give you.”
He struck a match and lit up. “All right … I’m no Reed Carney and if I had a
chance I’d try shooting it out, but if that gun stuck in the holster I’d be a
dead man.”
“You’d never get a hand on it, Fett.”
“You takin’ me in?”
“Uh-huh. Get into your clothes.”
He took his time dressing and I didn’t hurry him. I figured if I gave him time
he would decide it was best to ride along and go to jail, for with Pritts to
back him there was small chance he would ever come to trial. My case was mighty
light on evidence, largely on what Tina could tell us and what I had seen
myself, which was little enough.
When he was dressed he walked ahead of me down the hall to where Cap was waiting
with a gun on the bartender. We gathered up Fetterson’s horse and started back
to town. I wasn’t through with that crowd I’d trailed, but they would have to
wait.
Our return trip took us mighty little time because I was edgy about being on the
trail, knowing that the bartender might get word to Fetterson’s crowd. By noon
the next day we had him behind bars in Mora and the town was boiling.
Fetterson stood with his hands on the bars. “I won’t be here long,” he said,
“I’d nothing to do with this.”
“You paid them off. You paid Paisano an advance earlier.”
There was a tic in his eyelid, that little jump of the lid that I’d noticed long
ago in Abilene when he had realized they were boxed and could do nothing without
being killed.
“You take it easy,” I said, “because by the time this case comes to court I’ll
have enough to hang you.”
He laughed, and it was a hard, contemptuous laugh, too. “You’ll never see the
day!” he said. “This is a put-up job.”
When I walked outside in the sunlight, Jonathan Pritts was getting down from his
buckboard.
One thing I could say for Jonathan … he moved fast.
Chapter XVII
It had been a long time since I’d stood face to face with Jonathan Pritts. He
walked through the open door and confronted me in the small office, his pale
blue eyes hard with anger. “You have Mr. Fetterson in prison. I want him
released.”
“Sorry.”
“On what charge are you holding him?”
“He is involved in the murder of Juan Torres.”
He glared at me. “You have arrested this man because of your hatred for me. He
is completely innocent and you can have no evidence to warrant holding him. If
you do not release him I will have you removed from office.”
He had no idea how empty that threat was. He was a man who liked power and could
not have understood how little I wanted the job I had, or how eager I was to be
rid of it.
“He will be held for trial.”
Jonathan Pritts measured me carefully. “I see you are not disposed to be
reasonable.” His tone was quieter.
“There has been a crime committed, Mr. Pritts. You cannot expect me to release a
prisoner because the first citizen who walks into my office asks me to. The time
has come to end crimes of violence, and especially,” I added this carefully,
“murder that has been paid for.”
This would hit him where he lived, I thought, and maybe it did, only there was
no trace of feeling on his face. “Now what do you mean by that?”
“We have evidence that Fetterson paid money to the murderers of Juan Torres.”
Sure, I was bluffing. We had nothing that would stand up in court, not much,
actually, on which to hold him. Only that I had seen him paying money to
Paisano, and he had been at Tres Ritos when the killers arrived, and that Tina
would testify to the fact that he had paid money there. “That is impossible.”
Picking up a sheaf of papers, I began sorting them. He was a man who demanded
attention and my action made him furious.
“Mr. Pritts,” I said, “I believe you are involved in this crime. If the evidence
will substantiate my belief you will hang also, right along with Fetterson and
the others.”
Why, he fooled me. I expected him to burst out with some kind of attack on me,
but he did nothing of the kind. “Have you talked to your brother about this?”
“He knows I have my duty to do, and he would not interfere. Nor would I
interfere in his business.”
“How much is the bail for Mr. Fetterson?”
“You know I couldn’t make any ruling. The judge does that. But there’s no bail
for murder.”
He did not threaten me or make any reply at all, he just turned and went
outside. If he had guessed how little I had in the way of evidence he would have
just sat still and waited. But I have a feeling about this sort of thing … if
you push such men they are apt to move too fast, move without planning, and so
they’ll make mistakes.
Bill Sexton came in, and Ollie was with him. They looked worried.
“How much of a case have you got against Fetterson?” Sexton asked me.
“Time comes, I’ll have a case.”
Sexton rubbed his jaw and then took out a cigar. He studied it while I watched
him, knowing what was coming and amused by all the preliminaries, but kind of
irritated by them, too.
“This Fetterson,” Sexton said, “is mighty close to Jonathan Pritts. It would be
a bad idea to try to stick him with these killings. He’s got proof he wasn’t
anywhere around when they took place.”
“There’s something to that Tye,” Ollie said. “It was Jonathan who helped put
Orrin in office.”
“You know something?” I had my feet on the desk and I took them down and sat up
in that swivel chair. “He did nothing of the kind. He jumped on the band wagon
when he saw Orrin was a cinch to win. Fetterson stays in jail or I resign.”
“That’s final?” Ollie asked.
“You know it is.”
He looked relieved, I thought. Ollie Shaddock was a good man, mostly, and once
an issue was faced he would stand pat and I was doing what we both believed to
be right.
“All right,” Sexton said, “if you think you’ve got a case, we’ll go along.”
It was nigh to dark when Cap came back to the office. There was no light in the
office and sitting back in my chair I’d been doing some thinking.
Cap squatted against the wall and lit his pipe. “There’s a man in town,” he
said, “name of Wilson. He’s a man who likes his bottle. He’s showing quite a bit
of money, and a few days ago he was broke.”
“Pretty sky,” I said, “the man who named the Sangre de Cristos must have seen
them like this. That red in the sky and on the peaks … it looks like blood.”
“He’s getting drunk,” Cap said.
Letting my chair down to an even keel I got up and opened the door that shut off
the cells from the office. Walking over to the bars and stopping there, I
watched Fetterson lying on his cot. I could not see his face, only the dark bulk
of him and his boots. Yes, and the glow of his cigarette.
“When do you want to eat?”
He swung his boots to the floor. “Any time. Suit yourself.”
“All right.” I turned to go and then let him have it easy. “You know a man named
Wilson?”
He took the cigarette from his mouth. “Can’t place him. Should I?”
“You should … he drinks too much. Really likes that bottle. Some folks should
never be trusted with money.” When I’d closed the door behind me Cap lit the
lamp. “A man who’s got something to hide,” Cap said, “has something to worry
about.”
Fetterson would not, could not know what Wilson might say, and a man’s
imagination can work overtime. What was it the Good Book said? “The guilty flee
when no man pursueth.”