CHAPTER SIXTEEN
The last person Sean Keegan expected to see that evening in the Purgatory City marshal’s office and jail was Jed Breen. From the look on the bounty hunter’s face, the feeling was mutual.
The door had opened just as Keegan was opening a bottle of Irish whiskey, which he had charged to the county sheriff’s office even though he knew it would look suspicious since the county sheriff, Juan Garcia, usually charged tequila to the sheriff’s office. A woman with a cut on her forehead sailed through the doorway and landed on the floor. She was real pretty, Keegan thought, despite her torn shirtsleeves and mangled, wind-blown red hair. Her hat hung on a stampede string around her neck, her arms were cuffed behind her back, and her feet were bound with pigging strings and reins. A second later a man flew inside. His was the ugliest face this side of Private Hoot Hanson’s after he ran into that pack of feral hogs down in the Big Bend Country. The man tripped over the cussing woman and knocked his head against the other desk in the office, and spit out profanity.
“Shut up,” a voice yelled from outside, “Or I’ll stove in your heads.”
The two newcomers turned mute. The third visitor then stepped inside, holding a Sharps long gun with a telescopic sight. He looked like he had just gotten the crap beaten out of him, like he hadn’t slept in a month of Sundays, and his pretty white hair was about to fall out or be pulled out. But he looked a hell of a lot better than the first two folks who’d come flying into the marshal’s office and jail.
Sean Keegan would have known him anywhere.
“Howdy.” He held up the bottle. “I was about to have a snort or thirty. Care to join me?”
The surprise on Breen’s face was replaced with the look of eternal gratitude. After leaning the Sharps against the wall, he walked straight to Keegan’s desk, looked at the deputy’s badge pinned to his torn shirt but made no comment, and took the proffered bottle. He drank greedily, muttered his thanks, and then returned the bottle before busying himself dragging the woman into one cell, locking the door, then hoisting the incoherent ugly-faced dude and hurtling him into the neighboring cell. That door he locked, too, as though he had experience with these kinds of things. Sean Keegan had never locked anybody up in any jail, although he had been thrown into calabooses across the frontier and even civilized America more times than he could remember.
After dusting off his hands, Breen tossed his hat onto the other desk, grabbed a chair, and dragged it to Keegan’s place of honor. Keegan drank long and steadily from the bottle, wiped his mouth with his sleeve, and handed the bottle to Breen, who found a mug and let Keegan pour.
They toasted, tin cup against glass bottle, and drank a healthy swallow, chased that one with another, and sighed. Both men leaned back.
“What the hell are you doing here?” Breen asked.
With a shrug, Keegan said, “That’ll be hard to explain. Over just one bottle.”
Breen accepted that, and sipped more whiskey.
“Who’d you bring in?” Keegan asked.
“The woman’s wanted for poisoning a bunch of miners in Arizona Territory,” Breen answered. “Precious Metal. Northern part of the territory.”
“Yeah,” Keegan said “Fort Wilmont is close by. Pretty country I’ve been told.”
“Compared to Purgatory City, Hell’s pretty.” Breen drank again, took in a deep breath, and after exhaling, he motioned to the other cell. “And that is Otto Kruger.”
That elicited a whistle from the Irishman, who rose, crossed the room, and stared through the bars. He took a slug of Irish and steadily made his way back to his chair. After sitting down, he said, “It doesn’t look like Otto Kruger.”
“It doesn’t look like Hans, either, and you can thank the woman for that. But it’s Otto.” Breen drank again, looked at the cells, then straightened. “Did they hang Tom Benteen?”
“Sort of,” Keegan answered.
“What does ‘sort of’ mean, Keegan?”
“Well, Lovely Tom Benteen Lovely—or whatever the hell you want to call him—was hanged. We might be better off leaving it at that. It’ll take too long to explain.”
“Where’s the marshal?” Breen asked.
“Dead.”
“The Rangers?”
“The captain led them off chasing the Kruger brothers.”
“Sheriff Garcia?”
“He went off after the rest of the Benteen gang. They rode in and tried to free Tom. Killed Titus Bedwell and the marshal. Even the damned hangman.”
Breen took the bottle from Keegan’s hand and refilled his cup. After returning the Irish to the old soldier, Breen drank and hoped the liquor might clear his head. Instead, he felt a headache coming on.
“They killed the hangman?”
Keegan nodded. “Well, I don’t think it was intentional. And for all I know, some citizen of Purgatory City might have done the dirty deed.”
“Then who hanged Tom?”
“Me.” Keegan drank greedily, burped, drank another swallow and grinned. “This is the nectar of the Gods.”
“You hanged Tom?”
“Aye. Buried him, too, so to speak. I guess you didn’t see the courthouse, or what’s left of it.” Keegan grinned. “Wind blew the wrong way. But the boys with the volunteer firefighters outfit did yeoman’s work. Saved much of it, especially since the walls are stone and adobe.”
Breen drank greedily, tried to shake the senses back into his head, before finally giving up. “I think you will have to start explaining.”
“Agreed.” Keegan nodded. “But that, Jed me boy, will take more than this one bottle. And since I don’t want to blow the budget of our county, I surely hope ye’ll be good enough to wander down to a fine saloon and return with a bottle. Maybe two.”
* * *
“You mean to tell me, Keegan, that you’re all the law there is in Purgatory City right now?” Breen should have been dead drunk by this time of night, but everything Keegan had told him made him feel cold sober.
“More or less.” Keegan splashed whiskey into Breen’s mug, although he put about two shot glasses worth on the floor and desk top, then took a slug himself.
“Well, I need to extradite the woman, Charlotte Platte, to Precious Metal, and I need to collect the five hundred dollars on Hans Kruger.”
“Otto,” Keegan corrected.
“Right. Right. Otto. Not Hans.” Good, Breen thought, at least I’m slightly intoxicated. “So how do I get this done?”
“Beats the devil out of me.”
“But you are a deputy?”
“Sort of. At least till Garcia gets back . . . if he gets back.”
Breen thought, griped, cursed, drank some more, cursed again. The prisoners griped, cursed, but did no drinking. Finally, just to get his mind on something else, Breen took time to untie the prisoners, although he considered leaving the manacles on the woman—his head still hurt like hell. He even fed them the food that Keegan had purchased on the county’s dime but could not eat all of the beans and potatoes.
He was still thinking when he walked back from the cells to the wanted posters. Seeing the one for all the Kruger outfit, he ripped off the poster for Otto Kruger.
“Well, well, well,” Breen said as he walked back to the desk and showed the placard to Keegan. “This says the Krugers once robbed a bank in Precious Metal of all places. In Arizona Territory. I suppose I could take them both to Arizona. Collect the reward there.”
“It is a pretty town,” Keegan said. “Or so I heard.”
“How do I get to Precious Metal?”
“Take a bloody stage.”
Breen snorted. “The last time I took in a prisoner I rode in a wagon—the last two times, actually.” He touched the knot and scab over his left eye. “Well, you were with me that time a year or so back.”
“Aye, aye, aye, and so was Matt McCulloch. And that crazy actor.” He laughed. “A hell of a fight we had, Breen me pal. Hell of a fight.”
“Hell of a ride, too,” Breen said. “Almost our last one.”
“Aye, that’s the bloody truth.”
They toasted and drank.
“Have you seen McCulloch?” Breen asked.
“Nay. Not in a while. Last I heard he had taken off into the Davis Mountains. Hoping to round up some mustangs. That kind of thing. Has dreams of rebuilding his life, I expect. That’s McCulloch for you. Never any quit in the man. Same as you, Breen.”
The bounty hunter smiled at the compliment and held up his mug. Keegan punched the tin cup with the bottle.
After clearing his throat, Breen said, “I was asking for a refill, Keegan.”
The Irishman laughed, and tossed in a couple more fingers of whiskey.
“There’s not much quit in you, either, old man,” Breen said.
“Aye, but don’t get too sentimental, darlin’ Breeney boy.” Keegan drank and tossed the empty bottle toward the trash, but hit the wall instead, shattering glass on the floor. “Not much work for an old army soldier forced to rip off his stripes. I’ve been doing odd jobs here and there, a wee bit of gambling, and finding ways to get a drink or a meal. Now I’d give me eyeteeth to do something grand, something bold, and adventurous.”
The mood seemed to be turning maudlin, he began to think, but maybe that was just because the three bottles of whiskey they’d shared were empty. What a bloody shame. Drunk with nowhere to go.
Keegan was about to fall asleep when the door opened. The face came without any focus, and a scarecrow followed the big man. Keegan was certain it was a scarecrow. The face looked like a damned Indian, long black hair and all, and one of his arms was nothing but planks of wood or something like that.
Breen said, “Damn,” and reached for his revolver.
The scarecrow stepped one way, and the big gent stepped right toward Breen and knocked the revolver out of the bounty hunter’s hand.
“How much,” the Texas twang drawled, “Have you two featherbrains been drinking? And where the hell is Juan Garcia?”