If anybody had told Jack Clegg that he could have broken out of jail and walked from the sheriff’s office to the livery stable, he would not have believed it. When he had actually done it and was saddling his horse, he still found it hard to believe. Having got this far, he told himself, his luck must turn and some officious fool would be bound to challenge him before he succeeded in riding out of Crewsville.
He thought the challenge had come when the proprietor of the livery demanded to know their authority for taking their horses. He had been informed by the sheriff in person that the horses had been impounded by the county and could not be removed without the sheriff’s word. McAllister tried to talk him out of it, because neither man had any wish to resort to more violence, but the man persisted and would have run out of the livery yard into the street, shouting for the law, if McAllister had not unlimbered the gun he had borrowed from the sheriff and told him if he persisted he would have his head blown off. This sobered the man considerably. He came quite meekly into the barn for the two escapers to bind and gag him and conceal him behind a vast pile of hay.
McAllister and Clegg rode out of town past the sheriff’s office and turned south along the creek road. Their departure was witnessed by a number of citizens who later reported the fact to the judge and the sheriff. But that was hours later. When they had lost sight of the town, the two riders took the cut-off to the Tucson road and traveled part of the day in the company of a freight train pulled by slow-moving oxen. In this they conformed to the custom of the place and time, for some enthusiasts among the local Chiricahua Apaches were taking an alarming interest in weak parties of white men moving along that same road. That night the train camped in the shelter of the foothills and was joined by a party of Mexicans led by a citizen of Crewsville named Emilio Chavez. The following day the Chavez party joined forces with the two riders clad in their white dusters and turned for the hills, while the ox-train crept on its slow course in the direction of New Mexico.
~*~
Meanwhile, as they say, back at the sheriff’s office, a small Chinese gentleman who owned the restaurant which catered for the needs of the lawmen and their prisoners became worried for his trade when no deputy arrived to fetch the breakfast for the office’s inmates. This on top of his absence the evening before for the evening meal had made Mr. Lee fearful that he had lost the county trade. It was he who discovered the sheriff and his deputies gagged and bound in the cells. It was this unfortunate restaurateur who suffered the rage and fury of the three Anglos’ anger. Mr. Lee remembered his need for trade and kept a silent tongue. He would save for some future time a reminder to the sheriff that it had been he, Mr. Lee, who had rescued them from their predicament and that, had it not been for his humble self, sheriff and deputies would be lying in those noisome cells to this very day.
The sheriff, hungry, dirty and unshaven, staggered to the judge’s house to report. He received a cold reception from the judge and, to his horror and surprise, the same kind from the source of his passion, the fair Fortuna. As business must always come before pleasure, Southern first talked hard to save his reputation in the eyes of the judge. The humiliating walk from the office to the judge’s house had given him time for a little thought.
After he had taken rebukes and curses from the man he despised and hated, after Tynsdale had blown cigar smoke in his face and not offered him the drink he needed, Southern took a grip on himself and said: “It ain’t so damn bad, judge, I tell you. I had this contingency in mind even before McAllister broke out. A man in my position has to think of everything. Just look at it this way—”
“By God, Southern,” said the judge, “I’ve just about had my bellyful of you. This had better be good,”
Southern bit back his angry words. “If McAllister didn’t escape, if he was still in jail or dead, what excuse would I have to leave town for a good few days. Now I have a reason.”
The judge puffed at his cigar with infuriating and skeptical calm before he said: “When did a sheriff chase after a couple of hardcases without a sworn posse? Can you answer me that?”
Southern stared at him, lost for a moment. “Ah, well—yes—yes. Of course. A good question. It just so happens this sheriff has confidence in his own prowess.” That was a good word, prowess. “He don’t aim to put any honest citizens in danger. No, sir. He has their interests at heart. McAllister and Clegg are desperate men. They kill at the drop of a hat. The brave sheriff and his gallant deputies are willing to risk their own necks as a part of their duty to the county.”
“Is that a fact?” said the judge dryly.
“You’ll see,” said the sheriff.
“I’d better,” said Tynsdale. “Or it’ll go damned hard for you, Southern. Now, quit wasting time and get riding.”
As the sheriff left the house, he came on Fortuna in the hall.
“My, sheriff,” she said with a smile he didn’t like, “you look as though you could use a tub and a razor.”
He rushed from the house, thinking in an agony of embarrassment: How could a woman change so quickly?
He spent the next hour preparing his departure, ordering supplies, a change of horses and sending a messenger to find the local guide, a tame Mohave Indian who had last been seen drinking over-enthusiastically from a whiskey bottle somewhere on the edge of Mex-town. The two deputies looked for him. They questioned local Mexicans and might as well have made their enquiries of the local burros. Mexicans were suspicious of the deputies, all deputies. And sheriffs too. Well they might be. They saw the two lawmen in their true colors pretty quickly when Lancaster informed a few of them that, if they did not discover where the goddam Indian was hiding his drunken self, those same local Mexicans would find themselves charged with a number of crimes. The two deputies were not impressed by the protests that no crimes had been committed. Tully informed them they would be arrested for crimes they would no doubt commit sooner or later. The Mexicans understood that kind of talk. They reasoned with themselves that they did not owe much to a drunken Mohave and they told the lawmen that Punk (for such was the Indian’s only known name) was sleeping off the whiskey under a shady willow at the creek’s edge.
One deputy rode to the creek, found the Mohave and dunked him a few times in the water, then ran him at his stirrup, grasping his braids the while, until together they reached the sheriff’s office. By this time, the unfortunate Indian was bone-shakingly sober. He was also fighting mad, but not mad enough to resort to violence in the white man’s world. So he stuck out for a high price and got it agreed so quickly that he assumed, not unreasonably, that he did not stand a snowball’s chance in hell of getting it. They found him a horse and permitted him a hackamore and no saddle. He considered that fair, for he knew as well as they did that, if there had been a saddle, he would have sold it for drink as soon as their backs were turned.
The four men rode out of Crewsville with a spare horse each and a strong mule carrying their camping gear and supplies. The sheriff was not the keenest trail-rider in the world and he saw no reason to forego all his creature comforts just because he was (officially) scouring the countryside for two escaped criminals. He swore loudly in front of witnesses that he would get his men, dead or alive. Most of the witnesses knew what that meant. Harry Dewlap from the dry goods store started taking bets. Ma Bighton came flouncing down the street demanding that the county pay for McAllister’s board and lodging. The county had chased McAllister out of town so it was only just that she should be recompensed by the county. She hoped nobody knew that McAllister had paid a week in advance.