“Four thousand nine hundred ... five thousand.” Sheriff Seth Gulliver finished counting the pile of big bills into Duke Benedict’s hand and sighed enviously, “Man, but that is a power of money, ain’t it?”
As if he was accustomed to coming by five grand every other day, Duke Benedict folded the fat stack of notes casually, slipped it into an inside pocket and then extended his hand again. Gulliver frowned up at him, not understanding.
“The two hundred, Sheriff,” Brazos reminded him from Benedict’s side across the desk. He jerked his thumb at the big wanted dodger on the wall. “Remember?”
Sheriff Gulliver’s pudgy face fell as he reached grumbling for his billfold. “Hell, you fellers are a little greedy, ain’t you?”
“We had a deal, Sheriff,” Benedict said coolly. “We’ve got it in black and white.”
“All right, all right,” Gulliver muttered, counting out a pile of tens. He pushed the money petulantly across the desk.
“So you’ve been paid in full. Now if there’s nothin’ else ...?”
Benedict eyed the fat lawman keenly as he slipped the two hundred away. Yesterday Gulliver had been almost overpowering in his gratitude. But things had changed today. Now some thirty hours after they’d brought in their prisoner, the sheriff was rather less than friendly.
“Correct me if I’m wrong, Sheriff,” Benedict said, taking out a cigar, “but you seem to convey the impression that you’re not particularly anxious to have us around.”
Gulliver shrugged. “I wouldn’t say that, Benedict. But from where I’m sittin’, your job’s finished and you’ve got your dough, so I don’t see why you’re so set on hangin’ about.”
“This change of attitude wouldn’t have had anything to do with Judge Haggerty’s pending arrival, would it?”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Well, it just occurred to me, Sheriff, that it might be possible that you’re thinking of claiming full credit for Jory’s capture when the judge arrives, and that our presence might interfere with this. I gather from your reaction to the judge’s wire that you value his esteem.”
“Buffalo dust!” Gulliver said, but not very convincingly. “I just—”
He broke off at the sound of rattling bars from the cells. “Duke!” came the voice of Arnold Woodcock! “Is that you out there, Duke?”
“Yes, Jory,” Benedict called back. Then, turning to Gulliver, he asked, “Any objections to our visiting the prisoner, Sheriff?”
“What the hell do you want to see him for?” Gulliver snarled. The sheriff had become very fussy about his prisoner today and had already refused to let Benedict and Brazos visit him. Gulliver had come to look on Turk Jory as his personal property.
Benedict and Brazos exchanged a significant glance. It was imperative that they got in to see Woodcock, for now that the bounty money had been paid it was time to make plans for his escape.
“I don’t see why you should deny us the right to see him, Sheriff,” Benedict said quietly. “What harm can it possibly do?”
Gulliver looked at the jailhouse clock. “I’m expectin’ the judge to arrive any time,” he stated. “I don’t want him to find the jailhouse cluttered up with spectators.”
This convinced Benedict that he’d guessed right about the way the sheriff’s mind was working tonight. A moment’s deliberation suggested a way to turn this to his own ends.
“Sheriff, would it help any if you were to tell Judge Haggerty that you found out where Jory was hiding and designated Brazos and me to bring him in?” He looked at Brazos. “I mean, we’re not interested in glory, are we, Reb? We’ve got all we want out of this deal.”
“Why, sure, Yank,” Brazos replied, catching on.
The way Gulliver’s attitude changed at this showed that Benedict had read him like fine print. “Well, gents,” he said with forced casualness as he lumbered to his feet, “I don’t know if it’d be ethical to try and misrepresent the facts to—”
“We understand how it is, Sheriff,” Benedict assured him with a smile. “It must have been a pretty embarrassing situation, what happened the last time you had Turk Jory in jail, and it’s easy to see how you’re anxious to wipe out that blemish on your record in the judge’s eyes. We’ll say no more about it, Sheriff. Brazos and I will go along with whatever you want to tell the judge. All we ask is that you grant us permission for a final word with Jory.”
“A final word?” Gulliver said quickly.
“That’s right, Sheriff,” Brazos put in. “Like the Yank says, we’ve got all we want out of this deal. We’re figurin’ on pullin’ out later tonight.”
“Well, in that case,” Gulliver said, softening visibly, “why not? Go ahead and see him.” He suddenly laughed, and when Benedict and Brazos looked at him curiously, he said, “Matter of fact, you might have a surprise in store.” He motioned for them to follow as he walked through the thick archway that led to the cells. “Come on in and I’ll show you somethin’.”
Woodcock was hanging onto the bars as they came through. One look at him and they knew his liquor supply had run out. At that moment Arnold Woodcock was a very frightened man.
He had cause to be a lot more frightened as Gulliver came to a halt before his door, grinned at him, then suddenly jerked out his big .44. Woodcock yelped and jumped back from the bars. Gulliver’s hearty laughter shook the jailhouse as he put his gun away.
“Now did you jokers ever see anythin’ like that?” he wanted to know. “This feller, this bad man hell-raiser who’s been searin’ the livin’ daylights out of the whole damn county for years, is yeller. He’s actually scared of guns, can you beat that?”
“Amazing,” said Benedict.
“Plumb astonishin’,” Brazos added. “Who’d have thought it?”
“Me, that’s who,” Gulliver declared, swapping his smile for a scowl as he went to the door to bend a triumphant glance at the cowering Woodcock. “I knew all along that this feller was nothin’ but a yeller-bellied nothin’. That’s all you are, ain’t it, Jory? A yeller-bellied nothin’ what’s gonna hang!”
Woodcock whimpered.
“What a bad man!” Gulliver said as he turned away from the cell. “All right, Benedict, five minutes, though it beats me how you can even stomach talkin’ to such a yeller-belly at all.” The sheriff chuckled. “Promise you won’t show him your guns, boys. I don’t want him dyin’ of fright on me before I can get him onto the gallows.”
Looking as if his legs could hardly hold him up, Arnold Woodcock staggered back to the door and his knuckles showed white as he gripped the bars.
“God almighty, fellers,” he quavered, “where’ve you been all day? When are you gettin’ me out? You hear about that hangin’ judge coming down? Goddamn, they’re gonna—”
“Simmer down, man,” Brazos said gruffly. “And for Pete’s sake get a hold of yourself.”
“I can’t,” Woodcock said pitifully. “I finished off the last of that liquor hours ago and I’m—”
He broke off as Brazos slipped a bottle from his pocket and passed it through the bars. Woodcock’s eyes bugged. He was so anxious to get at the contents that he almost dropped the bottle. Getting the cork out at last, he drank deeply. Lowering the bottle finally, he sneezed so hard that Brazos’ hat almost fell off.
“God almighty!” Woodcock said fervently, “I needed that.” He took another good jolt, but it was plain that whisky alone wasn’t going to be enough to stiffen Woodcock’s backbone this time. The only medicine that could help him now was a big dose of freedom.
“When?” he pleaded, clutching the bars again.
“Tonight,” Benedict told him softly. “We’ve got the money.”
Woodcock’s eyes lit up. “Then there’s nothin’ to stop us now?”
“Not a thing,” Brazos assured him. “Just keep your chin up and we’ll have you out tonight.”
“You’ll have to be careful,” said Woodcock. “They’re watchin’ me like I was gold-plated.”
“We’ll be careful,” Benedict assured him. “Now you just take it easy, Arnold.”
“I’ll try. But how’re you gonna to it, Duke?”
“Yeah,” Brazos chimed in. “How?”
Benedict puffed on his cigar as he leaned against the bars and looked towards the lights of the front office. Then, voice low, he said, “Gulliver is expecting Judge Haggerty tonight. The way I see it, the judge is going to be tired and hungry after his journey and Gulliver is bound to take him out for a meal. That would leave only the deputy in charge here. Now, if there was to be some sort of a distraction to draw the deputy away even briefly, it should be simple enough for somebody like me to get you out, Arnold.”
“Why, that sounds like it could work, Duke,” said the eager Woodcock. “Don’t you think so, Hank?”
“Mebbe,” Brazos said dubiously. “But what’s this here distraction that’s gonna get the deputy away if the sheriff ain’t here?”
“The Red Dog Saloon is three doors up,” said Benedict, cocking an eyebrow at him. “If a decent sort of a brawl should erupt there suddenly, I think it’s feasible to expect that Rudkin would feel obligated to at least take a quick look, don’t you?”
“Why, mebbe he would at that,” Brazos said with a slow smile. “I guess there’d be somebody about my size who’d start the brawl, huh?”
“Dead right,” Benedict said firmly. “We’ll have the horses waiting and ready up at Jackson’s barn in the street behind the bank. I’ll get Woodcock out, meet you there, and with luck we could have Perona behind us even before they realize the prisoner’s escaped.”
They stood there talking the plan over for some minutes. When they left, Benedict, Brazos and Arnold Woodcock were unanimous in the belief that the plan could and would work—if nothing unforeseen turned up.
If ...
By coincidence Judge Myron Haggerty and the Jory gang saw the lights of Perona at about the same time that night. But whereas Haggerty, coming in from the southeast in his private coach, bowled right into town to be welcomed by a fawning Gulliver, Jim Chester of the Gazette and several other local dignitaries, the outlaws, approaching from the northeast, were more cautious and stopped off at Papoose Lake to talk things over.
Papoose Lake lay in the high country some three miles from Perona. It was a peaceful, out-of-the-way spot, and it was here that Turk Jory, standing by the ruins of the old sawmill, stood cracking his knuckles and looking down at the lights of the town.
“I’d better not go down with you first time,” he announced reluctantly. “I mean, you won’t exactly be ridin’ in shootin’ off guns, but even movin’ sly there’s a chance you could bump into somebody, and if I was with you, I could get recognized.”
“Smart thinking, Turk,” said Barton Frank. “We can handle our end of the deal well enough. You want us to check out the bank. That’s all?”
Jory started pacing up and down, for there was no way the runty bad man could stand still when he was excited, and he was excited tonight.
“I guess so, Barton,” he replied at length. “But don’t go takin’ no risks and don’t be too long. I’ll expect you back in an hour, compre?”
“We’ll be back,” grinned Frank, who knew only too well just how impatient Turk could be at times like this. “And I’ve a hunch we’ll be back with good news.”
Jory nodded and signaled them to mount up. When they were in their saddles, he crossed to Frank.
“Barton, there’s just one small thing now I come to think of it.”
“Yeah, Turk?”
Jory’s bulging green eyes glittered. “Like I say, I don’t want you takin’ no dumb risks, mind. Still, if you see any sort of a chance, I sure as hell would like it if you could find out somethin’ about that joker they got locked up down there. Just out of curiosity, you understand?”
“Got you, Turk.”
“All right, get goin’,” Jory said. He stepped back and the bad man trio swung away from Papoose Lake. Jory stood watching as they loped through the dappled shadows of the heavy trees that crowded the trail before emerging into the bright moonlight of the slopes beyond.
Soon they were cut off from sight by the folds in the land and impatient Turk Jory forced himself to settle down to do the thing he always found hardest: wait.
The Mid-Town Diner wasn’t really in the middle of the town at all. It might have been once when Perona was little more than a stopping off place for the stagecoaches and the Pony Express, but Perona had grown away from the diner, which now stood on the western end of Front Street, a good two blocks from the jailhouse.
It was around nine o’clock when the two men, one in a tight-fitting black coat and the other vast in a pink shirt and tent-sized trousers, reached the diner after the two-block walk. Judge Haggerty paused to frown back the way they’d come.
“Are you sure it’s safe for you to be this far away from the jail, considering the special circumstances, Sheriff Gulliver?”
Gulliver swabbed at his forehead. It was a warm night and the slightest exertion caused the overblown badge-packer to sweat like a Chinese laundryman.
“Absolutely no reason to worry, Judge,” he said in the respectful voice that he reserved specifically for Haggerty. “Barney Rudkin might not look all that impressive, but he’s a good deputy. He knows how to mind the store.”
Haggerty bent a black eye on the fat man. “I’m sure he’s capable, Sheriff, but I sincerely trust you have not forgotten what happened the last time you had that savage in your custody?”
It was only over the past two days that Gulliver felt able to smile about the regrettable incident that had haunted him for years.
“No risk of history repeatin’ itself here, Judge. You see, I’m not sure if I’ve told you so or not, but the Jory gang no longer exists. It’s busted up.”
“Who told you this?”
“Jory himself.”
“And you’re prepared to accept the word of a rogue, thief and liar?”
“Judge, I’m a good judge of men, and I can tell you that Turk Jory is too damned scared to lie.” Gulliver broke into a broad smile. “Judge, have you ever seen a feller more scared than he is? And when you marched in tonight and told him you’d hang him inside of forty-eight hours, I swear I thought he’d faint.”
Among the many things that Judge Myron Haggerty seldom or never did, like drinking, going without his coat or giving an accused man the benefit of the doubt, was smile. The Judge considered all smilers frivolous people. Yet, as he stood there in the light splashing through the big front windows of the diner, his rat-trap mouth under the jutting horns of moustache actually moved upwards a fraction.
“It was almost amusing, wasn’t it, Sheriff?” he conceded. Then, back to the safe ground of his normal, beetle-browed self, he snapped, “Very well, Sheriff, if you’re quite content with your security, let us go in and eat, man. I’m famished.”
Judge Haggerty only thought he was hungry. He realized just how feeble his appetite was ten minutes later, as the bucktoothed waitress brought their orders from the kitchen. The judge had ordered steak and it was a solid-looking slab of beef—but then he stared at Gulliver’s plate.
Actually, it was a big metal dish that doubled as a plate only when Gulliver showed up. The dish, eighteen inches long by twelve wide, was completely covered by huge slabs of steak, french fries, greens, flapjacks and several steamy items the judge couldn’t identify.
“Somethin’ wrong, Judge?” asked Gulliver, noting the judge’s look of distaste as he seized knife and fork in his pudgy hands.
“You don’t actually propose to eat all that, do you, Gulliver?”
The sheriff sank his molars into meat and gave a greasy smile.
“Always been a good man at the table, Judge, and all the more so when I feel good. And I’m here to tell you, sir, that I feel mighty good tonight and no mistake.”
Forcing his gaze to leave the mound of food, Haggerty picked fastidiously at his dinner. He masticated, found the steak to his liking, then was forced to say in all honesty, “I suppose you have every right to feel happy with yourself, Sheriff Gulliver. The capture of this notorious felon will have far-reaching effects in our fair valley.”
Gulliver nodded, then pointed his fork in the direction of two tall, sober looking young men seated in a far corner eating shepherd’s pie. “Know who them two fellers are, Judge?”
Haggerty shook his oversized head and Gulliver said, “That’s Marty Cole and Joe Cannon, night guards at the National Bank. Know what, Judge? Last night was the first time I’ve seen them any place but around the bank after dark in years. They’ve just been given a week’s vacation.”
“Because of Jory?”
“Dead right.” Gulliver pointed to another big man with a black beard who was talking to the buck-toothed waitress by the cake counter. “And that’s Boots Jenner, top gun-guard for the stage line. See how Boots is smilin’? Don’t recall seein’ Boots smile since his wife got took by the cholera last winter. Only jokin’ about that, Judge. But you see what I mean, don’t you? Jory’s been a shadow failin’ over Diablo Valley all these years. Now that he’s gone, everybody’s finally learnin’ how to relax again.”
Judge Haggerty, after some scowling, huffing and eyebrow exercising, finally said, “Sheriff Gulliver, you’re as fine a peace officer as it has been my privilege to work with, and I don’t mind who knows it.”