The yard of the old, disused Jackson’s barn stood shadowed by the heavy flanking trees under the moon. The secondary shadow of the impressive two-storied National Bank, thrown by the lights of Front Street, encroached on the southern side where the gate had once stood.
In a bright patch of moonlight in the gateway, Bullpup sat on his haunches grinding on the remnants of a shinbone. Before the dog lay an alleyway that went all the way past the jailhouse’s back yard. Bullpup had checked the alley out for cats on his way down from the livery with his master, but had been disappointed.
Moving quietly about the yard, Brazos made a final check on the horses. There were three in all: his high-shouldered appaloosa, Benedict’s sock-footed black, and the sorrel gelding he’d bought at Willigan’s Livery to accommodate, hopefully, the terrified Arnold Woodcock.
Satisfied that everything was in order, Brazos moved to the gateway and stood in the tree shadows with his dog.
It was a fine night for a jailbreak.
Torching a freshly rolled smoke into life with the sweep of a match, he snapped his fingers to Bullpup and started along the alleyway in the direction of the jailhouse. He halted after ten yards or so to squint along the tall brick wall of the National Bank. All was quiet. He could hear the professor at the Days of Glory playing “Oh Susannah” on the open-topped piano. He nodded in approval as he moved on, the cigarette a red, glowing dot under the shadow of his hat brim. The Yank had picked a good spot for the horses; quiet, shadowy and not too close to the jailhouse but not too far away either.
He walked to the back of the jailhouse and stood listening below the window of Woodcock’s cell. The sound of pacing steps drifted out. Circling the jailhouse to the rear, Brazos reached the main stem by way of the side street near the bakery, then sauntered casually along the walk with Bullpup swaggering beside him.
The jailhouse door stood open to catch any breeze that might come. He had a glimpse of Barney Rudkin’s big-nosed face. The deputy sat behind the desk talking to somebody out of sight across the room. Brazos identified the second voice as that of turnkey Hutch Stovey as he tramped by. There was no sign of the sheriff or the Hanging Judge.
Halting at the edge of the jailhouse porch to flick his butt away, Brazos glanced across the quiet street. A tall figure leaned against an upright three doors down. Benedict lifted a casual hand—the signal that all was as it should be at the jailhouse. Brazos replied in kind to tell Benedict that he’d fixed up the horses and was now ready to move into the next stage of the plan.
Though he’d had more than his share of tight scrapes in his life, big Hank Brazos was tense as he mounted the porch of the Red Dog Saloon three doors down from the jailhouse. He wasn’t at all concerned about what he had to do in the saloon, for brawling came almost as naturally as breathing to this powerful son of Texas. But jail breaking was a new deal, although he and Benedict had often had to stretch the law now and again in their long hunt for Bo Rangle. Of course, Arnold wasn’t really a jailbird, but that wouldn’t lessen the danger of the attempt or the consequences of failure.
It was his job to see that nothing went wrong at his end, and he reminded himself of this as he shouldered roughly through the batwing doors.
The Red Dog was a big, high-roofed converted barn. Perona’s longest bar lined the west wall and some of Perona’s crookedest gambling layouts occupied much of the rest. There was nothing fancy about the Red Dog, but even here they weren’t all that keen about dogs at the bar.
“A shot of rye for me and a dish of beer for my dog,” Hank Brazos yelled.
Just about everybody stared; some twenty customers, a sprinkling of percentage girls, and five staff members. Just about every one of them knew Hank Brazos as one of the bounty hunters who’d caught Turk Jory, and they considered him a pretty easy-going sort of fellow.
But there was nothing easy-going about the scowling Texan as he banged the bar with the flat of his hand and demanded prompt service.
A bullet-headed barkeep hurried to fill the unorthodox order, but he stopped as Dan Kirshner came along from the far end of the bar, touched his shoulder, then passed on to lean against the counter near Brazos.
Kirshner bossed the Red Dog and he bossed it well. He was a medium-sized man with a narrow, crafty face, black hair slicked straight back with too much grease, and plenty of gold teeth. He showed the gold teeth now.
“Whisky for you and a dish of beer for your dog, Mr. Brazos?”
“That’s right.”
The saloonkeeper managed to hold onto his smile even when Bullpup turned his massive face to him and made a sound like somebody using a big wrench to force a rusty bolt.
“Your dog drinks beer?”
“Of course he damn well drinks beer. And he’s as dry as a lime burner’s boot right now, just like me.” He slapped the bar again. “Come on, man!”
“I ain’t drinkin’ at no bar with a dog,” a meaty-faced boozer along the bar croaked. Then, as Brazos’ blue eyes found him, he said placatingly, “I mean it ain’t right, is it, Hank? It ain’t what you might call sanitary.”
“You callin’ my dog unsanitary, you chittle-witted, whey-faced son of a whore?” Brazos roared, flexing his shoulders under his faded purple shirt.
“Toby was just saying what I was about to say, Mr. Brazos,” the saloonkeeper said reasonably. “We’re only too happy to have you as a customer; proud, too. But I’m afraid the dog is out.”
“Is that a fact?” Brazos said, fingering his hat back from his head to let a banner of yellow hair tumble across his forehead. He looked around at the staring drinkers. “Well, listen to this. If my dog don’t drink, nobody drinks.” And with that he seized a mug of beer from the fist of the nearest drinker and threw it squarely into Dan Kirshner’s face.
That did it brown. As Kirshner reeled back, swabbing at his face, Mick Claymore and Buckshot Jones came cleaving through the tables. Claymore and Jones were the Red Dog’s bouncers. Sure enough, as soon as Claymore got into Brazos’ range, he was bouncing.
Claymore went down and Buckshot Jones dived at the Texan. Brazos caught him in a wrestling grip, lifted him above his head and hurled him onto a table at which five men were playing poker.
That really did it. They came at him from three sides. He flattened Mississippi Tyler with a right to the forehead and kicked Burk Stoddard in the stomach. Then he ducked under a flying chair that bounced off the greasy head of Dan Kirshner and crashed through the biggest bar mirror in town.
The sound of Kirshner’s hundred-dollar mirror shattering brought Deputy Barney Rudkin hurrying onto the law office porch. He glared along Front Street at the lights of the Red Dog and saw a bottle burst through a window to shower the porch with shards of glittering glass.
“What the tarnal is goin’ on, Deputy?” muttered turnkey Hutch Stovey, coming out to join him. Stovey was a grubby little old man whose eyesight was so poor that he wore two pairs of spectacles at the one time.
It was only too obvious what was going on, even to a man with the turnkey’s poor visibility. If Stovey couldn’t see the men trotting towards the Red Dog from all over town, he could certainly hear the thump and crash of bodies and breaking furniture.
“Damnation, tonight of all nights!” Rudkin muttered angrily. He peered in the direction of the distant Mid-Town Diner where the sheriff was eating with Judge Haggerty. The deputy swore, glanced through the doorway at the corridor leading to the cells, then shook his head in decision.
“No, damn ’em, they can just fight,” he declared. “I ain't leavin’ the prisoner, not for a minute.”
“Yeah, suppose you’re right, Deputy,” the turnkey replied, then winced at a sudden crash that sounded like it could be a wall coming down. “By the tarnal, they’re really gettin’ stuck into it, ain’t they?”
Rudkin gritted his teeth as the tempo of the brawl picked up. Then Stovey said:
“The way that ruckus is goin’, the sheriff’s gonna hear it before long, don’t you reckon? Him and the judge? Mebbe he’ll be riled if you don’t do somethin’ about it. I mean what with him out to make such a good impression on the judge and all.”
Deputy Rudkin knew only too well that he shouldn’t leave the law office while it held a man like Jory, but he knew equally well just how unpredictable the sheriff could be when he liked. Maybe, he thought, he should just go and take a quick look and see if he couldn’t get them to break it off before the sheriff and that fierce little jasper, Haggerty, came stomping down to find out what the hell was going on.
As if sensing what he was thinking, Stovey said, “Off you go, Deputy, before somebody gets killed. Hell, I can watch the place for a few minutes, can’t I?”
Rudkin looked at him closely. “Are you sure, Hutch?”
The turnkey grinned and jerked a thumb over his shoulder. “That one don’t worry me any. We’ve had tougher ladies locked up in our time than that Turk Jory.”
“All right,” the deputy decided. “But you keep a sharp eye until I get back, hear?” He didn’t wait for an answer; he was already trotting in the direction of what sounded like the wildest brawl Perona had known in years.
From his cage of stone and steel Arnold Woodcock strained his ears to hear the deputy’s receding steps, then Hutch Stovey’s shuffle as he re-entered the front office.
The prisoner was so tense that he had to swallow twice before he could get his voice working. “Hutch! What’s going on?”
Stovey appeared in the archway. “Just a ruckus at the Red Dog. Nothin’ to do with you, jailbird.” Hutch Stovey’s tone was laced with contempt. Woodcock’s sad impersonation of the notorious outlaw had convinced even the lowly turnkey that he was the inmate’s mental, moral, physical and social superior.
“Hutch, come here a minute, will you?” Woodcock said urgently, launching into his part of the plan. “I ... I want you to look at somethin’ I got.”
“Wait’ll the deputy gets back.” The turnkey wasn’t suspicious, just tired. He was one of the tiredest men in Perona.
“This is somethin’ I found on the floor, Hutch.” Woodcock frowned down at his cupped hands. “Looks like gold to me ...
“Gold? In a cell?” Hutch Stovey snorted. But he wasn’t so disbelieving that he didn’t start towards the cell to take a look.
The moment the old man vanished from the archway leading into the cells, Duke Benedict silently entered the law office. Hutch was squinting through his two pairs of spectacles at Woodcock’s cupped hands as Benedict came through the archway drawing his gun. Woodcock gasped involuntarily at the sight of the naked weapon, and Stovey began to turn his head to see what had startled the man as Benedict tapped him once, not too hard, on top of the head.
Hutch sighed as if suddenly overcome by weariness, then he collapsed into Benedict’s arms.
The rest was easy. It took Benedict less than half a minute to get the keys, unlock the cell, draw the bolt on the rear door and lead his shaking and disbelieving charge into the free night air. So overcome was Arnold that he wanted to stop and savor the moment, but Benedict was in no mood to tarry.
“You can kiss the ground and say your prayers this time next week,” Benedict clipped out. Then, grabbing Woodcock by the arm, he led him off at a trot along the alley past the rear of the Red Dog and on to the yard of Jackson’s barn where Brazos was to be waiting with the horses.
But Brazos wasn’t there.