There were two jail cells along the right wall of the marshal’s office as you entered. Both cell doors stood open.
“You prefer one to another?” Cole said when we brought Bragg in.
“Don’t matter,” Bragg said. “I won’t be here long.”
“Circuit judge don’t come through for two and a half weeks, if he’s on time,” Cole said.
“I won’t be here long,” Bragg said again.
He went into the first cell and pulled the door shut behind him. I locked it and took the key. The rest of the office was very plain: a stove for winter, a big old table that Cole used for a desk, two straight chairs against the wall opposite the cells, a spittoon in the corner, and a wooden water bucket and dipper sitting on one of the chairs. Bragg sat on the cot in the cell and looked at us.
“Need to be on him all the time,” Cole said to me. “Round the clock.”
I nodded.
“I’ll stay here,” Cole said. “You go down, get something to eat, and come back. Bring him some.”
“I’ll be at the Chinaman’s,” I said. “Won’t take long.”
Cole sat down at the big table and laid his Winchester on it. I leaned my shotgun against the wall next to Cole and handed him the key to Bragg’s cell. He tossed it on the table, put his feet up, and tilted his chair back. I went to lunch.
When I came back with boiled beef and navy beans on a tin plate for Bragg, Cole was in the same position. As far as I could tell, he hadn’t moved. Except that his eyes were open, I’d have thought he was asleep. There was a small pass-through in the cell door. I passed the food in. Bragg took it silently and sat back down and set it on the cot beside him.
“I’m goin’ to have lunch with Allie,” Cole said. “Be back before suppertime. Any trouble, you fire off a couple of rounds and I’ll hear you.”
“ ’Less you’re riding at a hard gallop,” I said.
Cole stopped at the doorway and turned.
“We known each other a long time, Everett,” Cole said. “But I don’t care for them kinds of remarks, ’bout Allie French.”
“No, and you shouldn’t,” I said. “I apologize.”
Cole nodded.
“Apology accepted,” Cole said. “You meant no harm.”
He paused for a moment on his way out. Then he gestured for me to join him and stepped out onto the boardwalk. I went out with him and left the door open.
“I figure,” he said to me quietly, “that we’re going to need to keep an eye on Whitfield.”
“We’ll need him,” I said, “when the judge gets here.”
“And we have to watch Bragg,” Cole said.
“Maybe we can keep him a secret,” I said.
Cole shook his head.
“Town’s too small,” he said. “Half the people in town already know he’s back.”
“We could put him in the other cell,” I said. “Then one of us could watch them both.”
Cole was quiet for a minute.
“Yes, we’ll do that,” he said. “I’ll bring him down soon as I’ve seen Allie.”
He turned without saying anything else and started toward the hotel. I went back into the office and sat in the chair he’d vacated and turned and looked at Bragg. He looked back. Neither of us said anything. He hadn’t touched the food. After a while I put my feet up on the desk and tilted the chair back the same as Cole had and tilted my hat down and closed my eyes and had a nap.