“I can’t pay you,” said Sheriff Seth Gulliver regretfully as he eased his three hundred pound carcass into a more comfortable position in his outsized office chair. “Sure upsets me to have to tell you this, boys, on account of you’ve done this county a mighty good turn bringin’ this rooster in ... but that’s the way it is.”
Benedict and Brazos stood staring down at the sheriff of Perona. Then, from inside the jailhouse, they heard Charlie Littlehorse’s I-told-you-so chuckle. The sound touched off Hank Brazos’ indignation.
“You can’t pay us?” After the long journey from Wildcat to Perona the giant Texan was in no mood for comedy. A rock-hard fist came crashing down on the desk top, causing pens and papers to jump. “Mister, you had better pay us if you know what’s good for you!”
“Correct,” Benedict put in. “But take it easy, Reb.”
“Very good advice, Mr. Benedict,” said Gulliver with a smile that only touched at his lips. The sheriff of Perona had numerous chins, a broad, fleshy nose, and black curly hair that curled around his face and neck, giving him the appearance of a massive baby.
Forcing himself to keep the edge out of his voice, Benedict said calmly, “Now just let’s look at this in a nice, friendly manner, Sheriff Gulliver. We brought in one Charlie Littlehorse, Who, going by the posters you have surrounding you here, is worth five hundred dollars to the person or persons capturing him. Yet you say you’re unable to pay us. Is that how it is, Sheriff Gulliver?”
“Sorry as all get-out, Mr. Benedict, but that’s exactly how it is. Ain’t that so, Deputy?”
Deputy Barney Rudkin had returned to the office from his chore of locking up Littlehorse. He was as lean as Gulliver was gross, but he shared his crafty look. Now Rudkin grunted and said:
“Nothin’ but the simple truth, Sheriff.” He gave a glowering Brazos and a cold-faced Benedict an apologetic shrug. “Happens all the time, gents, but until the law gets amended we can’t go against it. And that’s just what we’d be doin’ if we paid you that money.”
“In contravention of Act Twenty-one, Section Five, of the Perona Penal Code,” chimed in the sheriff.
“Duly certified by attorney-at-law Eli Peachman,” Rudkin put in.
“Deputy,” Gulliver said soberly, “I reckon you’d better get the Act for me to read out, otherwise these fellers might leave here feelin’ they been gypped or somethin’.”
Rudkin produced a green-bound folder in a flash, and Gulliver began to recite even before he had the folder open: “Amendment to Act Number Twenty-one, Section Five, relatin’ to the apprehension of felons by other than duly designated officers of the law.”
“What’d he say, Yank?” asked Brazos, who was often pulled up dead by words of more than two syllables.
“I’ll explain later,” Benedict said grimly. “Please proceed, Sheriff.”
Gulliver licked his lips and read on:
“In the event of any person or persons who are not duly designated law officers taking part in the pursuit and apprehension of a criminal, such persons must be previously sworn in as Special Deputies of Diablo Valley, otherwise they shall be regarded as private citizens with no legal right to attempt to apprehend a fugitive. Furthermore—”
Here Gulliver broke off. Marking his place with a fat sausage finger he said sympathetically, “This is the part that particularly concerns you boys.”
“Then let’s goddamn hear it!” snapped Brazos. “Furthermore,” Gulliver continued with some relish, “if such private citizens do become engaged in the apprehension of a criminal, they automatically become ineligible to claim any rewards, bounties or other advancements which the county, territory or Federal authorities might deem fit to place on the said criminal’s head.
“In other words, gentlemen,” the sheriff of Perona proclaimed, closing the file with a slap, “you are out of luck.”
The deputy grinned at the two grim-faced men. “Don’t be sore, fellers. There’s always a bright side, you know. Just think how you’d be feelin’ right now if instead of a small-timer like Littlehorse, you’d brought in somebody like that.” He pointed to the most prominently positioned of the dozen or more wanted dodgers which ornamented a wall of the jailhouse. “You could be worse off, fellers. If you’d have brought in Turk Jory, you wouldn’t be five hundred bucks down, but five thousand. See what I mean about lookin’ on the bright side?”
Scowling, Benedict and Brazos studied the detailed portrait of the bad man that looked down at them from above the legend:
WANTED FOR MURDER AND ROBBERY
TURK JORY
FIVE FOOT SIX INCHES. LEAN OF BUILD. RED HAIR, BULGING GREEN EYES. PROMINENT TEETH. ONE THOUSAND DOLLARS OFFERED BY DIABLO COUNTY ... FOUR THOUSAND DOLLARS OFFERED BY LEGISLATURE OF WYOMING.
Though newcomers to Diablo Valley, Benedict and Brazos had certainly heard about Turk Jory. It was impossible to pass through that section of Wyoming without becoming aware of the most notorious outlaw in the Territory, or to fail to notice the thousands of wanted dodgers posted across two hundred square miles.
“Well, that’s indeed a great consolation, Deputy,” Benedict said sarcastically. “And we’re in your debt for pointing it out to us, aren’t we, Brazos?”
“Plumb overwhelmed,” grunted Brazos, then he squinted at the framed dodger of Turk Jory. “Say, Deputy, what’s that somebody wrote on the bottom of that there true-bill? Can’t seem to make it out from here.”
The deputy shot a glance at the sheriff, who wasn’t looking so pleased with himself any longer. Before he could reply, Charlie Littlehorse called from the cells:
“I can tell you what it is, Texan. That’s an extra two hundred the sheriff has tacked onto that there reward. Ain’t that so, Sheriff Gulliver?”
“Shut up in there, jail-bait!” Gulliver barked.
But Littlehorse just laughed and went right on. “Kinda touchy on the subject of Turk Jory, the sheriff is, fellers. You want to know why? Well, the sheriff is an obligin’ feller, and I’m sure he’ll tell you if you ask him polite—ain’t that so, Sheriff?”
“By Judas, I’m not taking that from any half-breed jailbird!” Gulliver rapped. Hunching his massive shoulders, he strode through the jailhouse archway. A sober-faced Deputy Barney Rudkin then signaled to Benedict and Brazos and led them onto the porch.
“The sheriff’s kinda sensitive on the subject of Turk Jory, gents,” he explained as they stood listening to the muffled sounds of the Gulliver-Littlehorse dialogue from within. “Guess it’s my fault for bringin’ him up.”
“Why does he feel that way about the outlaw?” Benedict asked.
“Well, it’s kind of a long story,” replied the gabby deputy, “but in a nutshell, the sheriff is the only lawman who’s ever brought Jory to book.”
“That don’t make sense,” Brazos said. “He’s still runnin’ loose, ain’t he?”
Rudkin sighed. “That’s nothin’ but the simple truth. You see, they had Jory all set up for trial, but his gang came ridin’ in and busted him out. That was bad enough, but to rub it in Jory pulled the sheriff all the way down the main stem by his nose before he rode out.” The way Rudkin chuckled suggested that he wasn’t as repulsed by what had happened as he might have been. Then, sobering, he added, “I guess now you can see pretty plain why the sheriff feels about Jory the way he does.”
Brazos grunted and Benedict shrugged.
“Hard to imagine anyone wanting to pull the nose of a fine gentleman like the sheriff, isn’t it, Reb?” Benedict drawled before giving the deputy a curt nod and moving off.
“Not hard, plumb impossible,” Brazos replied, slouching off after him.
“Don’t be bitter, gents!” the deputy called after them. Then, grinning to himself, he shook his head and murmured, “Good old Act Twenty-one, Section Five ...”
“You know who I am, big feller?” the sawn-off runt with a boozer’s blotched face asked of the giant at the bar.
Hank Brazos gave the man a look that would peel paint, for even six big beers hadn’t been enough to wash the taste of Sheriff Gulliver’s trickery from his mouth.
“Let me guess,” he growled. Then Bullpup wrinkled his nose and Brazos hunkered down to pour beer into the dog’s tin dish. “You’re Wild Bill Hickok?”
“No, sir,” declared the little man, waving a finger at the ceiling and striking a pose. “I, sir, am the man who’s lettin’ everythin’ go. I’m lettin’ them stage coaches roll, them rivers run, them avalanches fall. I just don’t give a blue-eyed damn anymore, so I’m lettin’ it all go—everything. The rain can come floodin’ down and I won’t lift a hand to stop it. I’ll just stand back and let it fall. I’m gonna let the wind blow and the lightnin’ strike and all them tall trees fall to the ground if they’ve a mind. Now, what do you think of that, young feller?”
Brazos stared at him blankly. As if he didn’t feel low enough, here he was being braced by the town idiot. Yet in a way it fitted, he told himself glumly as the runt told him how he was fully prepared to let the trains run east and west and to allow the sun to cross the sky tomorrow. The whole thing had been a lousy idea from the start. With a long, hot ride under his belt, and with nothing in his jeans for all the hard work, what better way was there to wind up the rotten day than to drink with a fool like this?
“What’s its name, barkeep?” he growled, indicating the little man at his side.
Bartender Sam Macey grinned. “Shep Beckett.”
“What’s it drink?”
“Anything.”
“I shoulda known.” Brazos spun a coin on the bar and sighed. “Pour him a shot of anythin’, friend, and mebbe it’ll shut him up for a spell.”
The whisky Sam Macey poured didn’t make little Shep Beckett go quiet, but it did direct his monologue along a different track.
“Let that whisky slide down,” he beamed, hefting his glass. “Let them hangovers come; I won’t lift a hand to stop ’em.”
Brazos’ big sigh blew the head off his seventh beer. Where the hell had Benedict got to anyway?
Duke Benedict was at that moment in the company of one Eli Peachman, a large, red-nosed, portly gentleman of Perona whose office shingle announced to the world that he was the town’s attorney-at-law and also its undertaker. In a small, pungent room cluttered up with law books on one side and bottles of embalming fluid and folded shrouds on the other, Benedict learned there was nothing he could do about Act Twenty-one, Section Five.
“Sorry I could not be of assistance,” Peachman said in his mournful way as he showed Benedict through the outer office which was lined with pine coffins. “Perhaps next time ...?”
There wouldn’t be a next time. Benedict was quite certain of this as he made his way to the Days of Glory Saloon where he rescued Brazos from the clutches of the man who was letting everything go. The two men made their way to the livery stables. Perona didn’t seem a bad sort of town, but it was one they would leave without one twinge of regret.
Soon Benedict and Brazos were on the north trail, with Perona gradually receding into the sea of night behind them.