YUMA TERRITORIAL PRISON
A WEEK LATER
They came for Clint later at night. He knew the two guards, Ace and Danny.
“Come on,” Danny said.
“Where?”
“Somebody wants to see you.”
“The warden?”
“You’ll see,” Danny said. “Come on.”
Taking him to see someone, or taking him to be killed? Clint was surprised that no attempts had yet been made on his life. Maybe this was the first one.
Both men were armed. Maybe he could get the gun off one of them. With a gun in his hand . . .
“Come on out,” Ace said.
Both guards backed away, leaving plenty of space between them.
“Take it easy, Adams,” Danny said. “This ain’t nothin’ but somebody wantin’ to talk to you.”
“Yeah,” Ace said, “if somebody wants to kill you, we ain’t about to help ’em. We ain’t gonna get into trouble that way.”
Clint didn’t know why, but he believed the two of them.
“Okay,” he said, coming out of the cell. “Okay.”
“Follow me,” Danny said.
The slender guard took the lead, and the brute the rear. They marched Clint down several halls, past some cells to the jeers of the occupants, then into another hall with concrete walls but no cells on either side.
At the end of the hall, however, was one single cell. Danny and Ace stopped.
“You go on ahead,” Danny said. “We can’t let you in, but you can talk. You only got five minutes.”
“For what?”
“That ain’t for us to know,” Danny said. “Just go ahead. We’ll wait right here.”
“And don’t try nothin’ funny,” Ace warned him.
“What could I try in here?” Clint asked.
Ace didn’t have an answer. That was just a warning he used on everybody in Yuma.
“Go,” Danny said, “you’re wastin’ your time.”
Clint nodded, and walked toward the cell.