Deserter (14 page)

“If this boy swings, I want first say on his horse an' saddle, Sheriff.” The voice seemed hoarse and sort of far away, but the words were clear. Jake opened his eyes. Ground passed beneath him and there was sweat on the belly of the horse he was draped over, facedown.

“Too late—least about the mare. I already got a pretty good saddle. I'll have to think on that.” The answering voice sounded nearer and there was a slight chuckle behind it. “I guess whether or not he'll stretch a rope is up to the judge, ain't it? Come to think on it, that saddle is a good piece of work—better'n what I'm riding.”

Jake tested his hands. They were tied tightly together, as were his feet. Another length of rope ran from under his arms across the horse's belly and up the animal's far side to where it was lashed either to the rope holding his feet and legs together or maybe to the saddle horn. Either way it didn't make any difference—the drumlike pounding in Jake's head was his entire world.

“Lots of trees,” a new voice said. “Seems we maybe
could save some screwin' around and hang Billy right here. We gotta camp tonight an' I don't fancy sittin' watch on these two.”

“Keep 'em trussed up, is all. An' hell, it ain't like the boys in town didn't build up that nice new gallows. They'd be some mad if they didn't get to try out their work.”

“Well, that's true enough. 'Course we want them goddamn vigilantes to watch one of their boys swing, too. Thing is, this fella has a bottle of whiskey in his saddlebag. Be a shame not to give 'er a taste later on.”

“Later on, my ass. These two ain't goin' nowhere. Break out that bottle. A fine posse like us deserves a drink after runnin' down Billy an' his pal.”

Jake sifted the words through the pain in his head, trying to make sense of what he was hearing.
Billy and his pal? Who the hell is Billy? Who are these . . .
He tried to force enough saliva into his mouth to say a few words when the horse he was tied to stumbled over a rock, went to his front knees, recovered, and lurched back upright. Jake saw the blaze of white light again. This time it seemed to last a little longer than it had earlier.

When Jake shuddered back to full consciousness he was tied to a tree, his hands tied behind him, crushed between his back and the rough bark. His legs, extended in front of him from his sitting position, were secured together with several turns of rope. It was past dusk but not fully dark yet. Ten feet away four or five men sat around a fire. He moved his head and felt dried blood crackle on his neck. He groaned without realizing he'd made a sound.

“Sorry I slugged you so hard,” a voice said. Jake's eyes followed it. A couple of feet away another man
was tied to the huge tree, only his shoulder and the profile of his head visible.

Sinclair had to swallow several times before he could croak an answer.“Who're you? Who're those men?”

“I'm Billy Galvin, not that it matters much, I guess. Those boys are a posse made up of killers, cheats, whoremongers, thieves, and the like—the head man's Sheriff Jason Mott, the worst of the bunch. They're after me 'cause I escaped the jail back in town.” After a moment, he added, “They're gonna hang me.”

“Why?” was the best response Sinclair could find.

“I shot and killed one of them. He was setting fire to my barn. Two others was inside my house with my wife. They . . . messed with her bad . . . killed her. I was off in town buyin' seed. I stopped in the saloon and sucked down a few beers—more'n a few, if you want the truth. If I'd come right home, I probably coulda saved Peggy. I didn't, though.”

“And the law didn't—” Jake began.

“There ain't no law in Fairplay other'n Mott. He runs the whole show, him and his gun hands. Have for a couple years, now.”

“Fairplay?”

“Name of the town.”

The men around the fire had given Jake's bottle some use, and from the raucous laughter and curses, they were into a supply of their own. Jake looked more carefully at them. There were five in the posse. A big man, broad-shouldered, bearded, who faced Jake across the fire seemed to be the only one with a badge. None of them paid any attention to Billy or Jake.

“What's your name?” Billy asked after a few minutes.

“Jake.”

“Jake what?”

For whatever reason a quick image of the commanding officer of the sharpshooters in Jake's battalion sprang into his mind: Hiram Westlake. Jake could have given his real last name. It wouldn't make any difference. But the lie came easy.

“Westlake,” Jake said.

“Well, like I said, I'm sorry I belted you so hard, Jake. I needed your horse and your gun and didn't have no time to discuss it with you. I'd been following you the better part of the day, waitin' for the right moment. Thing is, I seen you draw an' fire at that pheasant an' you damned near changed my mind about what I planned. You're awful fast. Accurate, too. I thought . . . well, shit. It don't matter.” Billy lapsed into silence.

One of the men at the fire put a couple of rifle rounds into the air. The muzzle flashes were two feet long, jagged tongues of orange fire. All five of them found the shots terrifically funny. Jake moved his head and shards of pain erupted in it. He gritted his teeth and waited the spasms out. “You tied hand and foot and then tied to the tree, Billy?”

“Yeah. Trussed up like a goddamn Christmas goose. You?”

“Yeah.”

“Be good if we could get to the horses,” Billy said.“But even if we got loose somehow, that wouldn't happen.”

“Why?”

“Only five at the fire gettin' liquored up. There're six of them. One fella is waitin' with the horses and he ain't drunk an' won't be drunk—Mott'd skin the sumbitch alive if he took a drink on guard duty. Mott's as mean as a rattler in a frying pan, but he ain't stupid.”

More shots—pistol fire this time—blasted into the night air.

“Damn fools,” Billy muttered.

Time passed slowly. Jake's head continued to feel as if his brain were trying to climb out of his skull using a pickax. He attempted to shift his position to see if he could give his hands a little room to work on the rope that held them together, but it was impossible. The rope that held him to the tree must have been applied by a strong man, he thought—he was almost totally unable to move any part of his body from his waist upward. His hands and arms had long since gone numb, as had his lower legs and feet. The boozers quieted; at least two of them passed out. The remaining three sat dumbly, staring into the campfire, past the point of speaking to one another.

“Billy?” Jake said, keeping his voice low.

“Yeah?”

“Who's this judge I heard them talking about?”

Billy's laugh didn't have any humor in it. “He used to be a crooked circuit rider. Now he stays in Fairplay and is crooked there. Mott owns him lock, stock, an' barrel. His trials are a joke. He condemned me without lettin' me say a word in court. Called it murder when I tried to defend my wife and my property.”

After a bit, Jake said, “Look, Billy—maybe we can get out of the jail. You already did it once, right? Hell, with two of us—”

“I got out 'cause the jailer was a drunk,” Billy interrupted. “He came in so liquored up he could barely stand an'I was able to get him close enough to the bars so I could grab his gun an' make him give me his keys. He ain't the jailer no more, you can bet on that.”

“Oh.”

Billy's voice dropped lower. “Don't worry about me hangin', Jake. My friends won't let it happen. We've had meetings. There's a good number of us and we're growin'. Come the day—an' soon—an' we won't put up with Mott and his boys. All we need is a few more good men, a few more rifles.”

“How will they—”

“You'll see, Jake. Let's let it go for now. But you'll see.” The hours until dawn crawled by. Jake semidozed, nowhere near real sleep, but less conscious of the pain in his head and the icy numbness in his legs, arms, and hands. It was Sheriff Jason Mott who came to the tree where Jake and Billy were tied. He didn't speak as he began working the knots. He was a big man, Jake saw, tall, broad, with huge hands. His features were sharp, chiseled looking. There was what looked like a knife scar on his face, running from in front of his left ear to the corner of his mouth. It was slightly raised but pale rather than livid, indicating that Mott had carried it for a while. Mott's breath reeked of morning-after whiskey fumes. “You have no reason to hold me, Sheriff. I had nothing to do with you, your men, or Billy here.”

Mott's voice was deep but not particularly loud as he spoke. “How about murder? You think that gives me a reason to hold you?”

“Murder? You're crazy! I was making camp when—”

“Was either you or Billy who gunned my man,” Mott said. “The way I figure it, you lit out and met up with Billy after he escaped, plannin' on runnin' together. Don't matter who pulled the trigger—you're both guilty as sin under law.”

“That's horseshit and you know it! You can't arrest
me on such ridiculous grounds. No court in the world would convict me—you must know that.”

“Can't arrest you?” Mott chuckled. “Seems like I already did, don't it? And don't you worry about a court. You'll get a fair trial.” He chuckled again. “Then we'll hang you.”

“Damn it, Mott,” Billy shouted. “I never seen this man here in my life 'fore last night. If you had half the sense of a goddamn chicken, you'd let him go on his way.” He spat on the ground angrily. “You think I'm blind? You're after that fancy mare of Jake's—even if you have to string him up to get her.”

Mott turned away from Sinclair and approached Billy, out of Jake's line of vision. The sound of a fist hitting flesh told Jake what was happening.

The sheriff released the rest of the rope holding the two men to the tree and crouched to untie Sinclair's legs and hands. He tossed the ropes aside and stood, pulling Jake to his feet. Jake went down as quickly as he had been jerked up; there was no sensation at all in his legs. He stayed on the ground, trying to mold his hands into fists, pushing blood to them. The coursing of blood to the starved veins and arteries began as electrical pinpricks and quickly escalated to almost excruciating pain in Jake's extremities. He flexed and loosened his hands and kicked out, feebly at first, with his legs. Mott stood back, grinning, watching the two men squirm on the ground, his right hand resting lightly on the grips of his holstered pistol. A glance at the bone grips told Jake his Smith & Wesson was resting in Mott's holster. Anger flashed but Jake kept his mouth shut.

Anger again flared when Mott walked Jake and Billy
to the horses. Both men lumbered like semicripples, their steps small and unsure, their legs stiff and not to be trusted. Jake stopped a few feet from the mounted men. Mare was saddled and bridled with another man's tack; his own gear was on an underweight, droopy-lidded gray with almost no chest. Flies clustered around the festering spur marks on the horse's flanks.

“You two can ride sittin' up from here to town,” Mott said. “Your hands'll be tied. I won't say this but once: Either of you try anything cute, me an' the boys'll cut you down in a second—shoot so many holes in you the goddamn wind will whistle when it blows through. Now mount up.”

The sign a half mile outside town announcing Fairplay was new looking, freshly painted, stark black letters against crisp white paint, and unpocked by bullet holes. The town itself was almost a mirror image of Penderton, with essentially the same stores and businesses, the only difference being that a railroad line ran to the town and there was a shabby depot and some cattle fencing and chutes adjacent to the depot. The mercantile was smaller and there were two saloons, one at either end of town, but beyond those differences, Fairplay had nothing new to offer. The sheriff, his posse, and their two prisoners didn't draw much attention as they rode down the street. A couple of old men sitting in front of the mercantile watched as the riders went by, but both averted their eyes when Jake glanced at them.

The sheriff's desk occupied space in the front room of the office. In the rear, accessed through a narrow
corridor, were two barred cells across from one another. Mott shoved Billy and Jake into the one facing the back of the building, slammed the door, and locked it. Jake took the three steps it required to get him across the cell to the barred window. Outside, not fifty feet away, stood the gallows, the lumber looking bright and fresh, not yet bleached and dried by the sun. Jake turned away. There was no cot. A tattered and thin blanket was bunched in one corner. Next to the blanket was a slop bucket. It was hot in the jail and the smell of old sweat and bodily odors of past prisoners seemed to have permeated the bars and the walls. The air hung in the cell like a dank fog, motionless.

Mott brought their dinner—the only meal they were to get that day—shortly before dark. The two prisoners had to stand against the back wall by the window as the sheriff unlocked the door and slid the tray across the floor. There was a single large plate with a little pile of fatty beef and two pieces of stale, crumbling bread. There were no utensils of any kind. “No coffee?” Billy complained. “Can't you at least bring us some coffee?”

“Sure,” Mott said. “I'll bring it with your pie and ice cream, when I come later to tuck you boys in for the night.”

Jake choked down a couple of slices of the beef and gnawed at a piece of the bread. “You might as well eat something, Billy,” he suggested. “No sense in starving yourself.”

“I ain't real hungry. Seems like it's about this time every night the thoughts about my wife come floodin'in on me. Peggy was her name. She was a good woman.”

Jake nodded. “I'm sure she was,” he said. “I'm real sorry you lost her, Billy.”