THE CELL WAS four paces wide by four across. The floor was hard-packed dirt, the walls sun-baked adobe with cement filling the cracks. The roof was corrugated metal sheeting that was bolted into the brickwork. There was a small window at the rear, set with half-inch thick bars that matched the cage at the front. There was a wooden bunk with a dirty blanket and a dirty pillow, a tin pot under the bunk. A spider had a web going in one comer, a dusty web that was heavy with the bodies of flies.
Breed opened his eyes and watched the spider extend the web by three fresh strands. It was a big, fat spider with a mottled gray body and long, delicate legs. It scuttled into the shadows as he sat up, clutching his head. There was a big, painful bump on the back of his skull. It felt hot when he touched it, and the touch sent waves of nausea spinning through his brain. He closed his eyes until the spinning sensation ended, then opened them again; cautiously.
There was sunlight coming in through the window, making patterns on the floor so that the cockroaches darted from light to shade and back again. His mouth was dry and his stomach empty. He looked at his moccasins: the throwing knife was gone. When he checked his waist, he saw that his gun belt was missing, too. He stood up, holding his head, and went to the door. Through the bars he could see a narrow corridor running between the cells and a stone wall with a wooden door set at the center. There was the smell of coffee.
He rattled the bars and shouted.
After a while the door opened and Con Taggart came through. The peace officer was wearing a blue shirt and faded Levis with a gun belt on his waist. His hair and mustache were freshly trimmed. He looked neat and professional, the star pinned to his shirt gleaming brighter than the first time Breed had seen it.
‘You’re awake,’ he said, unnecessarily. ‘Thought maybe I’d hit you too hard.’
‘What am I doing here?’
As he said it, Breed realized it was a foolish question. The thought was confirmed by Taggart’s laugh.
‘What the hell you think?’ asked the sheriff. ‘Waitin’ for the circuit judge to come round an’ find you guilty of murder an’ attempted rape. You best hope he comes fast, or Jonas Masters is gonna haul you out an’ lynch you.’
‘Who’d I kill?’ demanded Breed, clutching the bars as his head spun round.
‘Christ!’ Taggart shook his head. ‘You sure as hell got gall, I hafta grant you that.’
‘Who?’ repeated Breed.
‘You want it spelled out?’ Taggart stroked his mustache. ‘I’ll tell you what I put in my report. I heard gunfire, and Sarah screaming. I entered the house and found Luke Masters dead with two .41 caliber Derringer slugs in his chest. You was down on the floor on top of Sarah. Her dress was ripped an’ you was holding a Remington pocket gun. I clubbed you. Sarah says you burst in an’ jumped on her.’
‘I never used a Derringer,’ said Breed. ‘I was waiting for Luke when I saw him go in the house. I heard shots, and went through the door. The girl was holding the gun. There was someone else in there … I heard them.’
‘Sure,’ said Taggart. ‘Pity Sarah don’t back that. Way she tells it, you gunned Luke an’ jumped on her. What I found was you an’ a gun an’ a dead man. That makes you a killer. Tough, ain’t it?’
‘Lies,’ said Breed. ‘All of it.’
‘I told you not to come back.’ Taggart shrugged. You should’ve listened. Now you’re gonna hang.’
‘Just like that?’ said Breed.
‘After a fair trial,’ replied the lawman. And grinned: ‘I’ll make sure the gallows works right. I like to do things proper.’
There was an open area behind the jail. A two-hundred yard square of sandy ground with scrubby cottonwoods forming a windbreak to the south. Children played there every day, casting surreptitious glances at the window of the cell where the notorious half-breed killer waited for his hanging. After a while the children’s attention got taken up by the building of the gallows. It was a long process: two men appeared early one morning and began to off-load timber from a high-sided wagon. They set up trestles and began to saw wood. Three more appeared and began to dig holes where one of the first men had set marker posts. The holes were for the uprights of a platform that gradually took shape like a miniature stage. It was about fifteen feet by twelve, with a trapdoor at the center. When it was finished, two long uprights were sunk down either side of the trapdoor, topped by a crossbar. The center part of the crossbar was grooved to accommodate a rope, and a big metal hook was fixed into the platform behind the scaffold.
It took a little over two weeks before the structure was ready, and then Con Taggart and a man in a black suit supervised the fixing of the rope. It was a length of oiled hemp, looped at one end into a hangman’s knot. It was passed over the crossbar and wound loosely round three times before the lower end was tied into the hook. The noose hung down far enough that it touched the planks of the trapdoor. The man in the black suit tied a weighted bag to the noose and jerked the lever that opened the trapdoor. The trap swung down, letting the bag drop. The rope stretched out, coming to a jerking stop as it extended to its full length.
The watching crowd gasped, and the man in the black suit unfastened the bag and nodded to Con Taggart.
His words came distantly to Breed: ‘Real nice. Three feet still to go. That’ll be enough so that everyone can see him. Should bust his neck the first time. If not, it’ll be a few minutes afore he chokes.’
Taggart nodded and turned to look towards the jail. He grinned when he saw Breed’s face, and waved.
The trial took place two weeks later.
The judge was a short, fat man in a brown suit. He wore gold-frame spectacles, and mopped his face constantly with a dark blue handkerchief. The dining room of the hotel was chosen for the court’s site. The judge and Con Taggart occupied the topmost table. Jonas Masters sat in his wheelchair directly down from the judge. Breed was shackled at wrists and ankles. Sarah Black was called in as a witness.
Taggart read out a statement that followed what he had said to Breed, then Sarah was called to speak.
‘He just burst in,’ she said. ‘I don’t know where he came from. Luke had asked me to marry him, and I said “no”. Then the kitchen door opened and there was firing. Shooting. Luke fell down and the half-breed grabbed me.’
Levi Brown said: ‘He broke into the hotel. He held a gun on me an’ said he’d kill me if I didn’t say where Luke was that night. I had to tell him, because he said he’d kill me if I didn’t. Said he’d kill me if I gave him away.’
Fargo and Cotton and Jude said that the half-breed had picked a fight with Luke Masters in the Lucky Lady saloon. Had threatened to kill Luke, and might have done so if Sheriff Taggart had not intervened.
Con Taggart said: ‘I warned him off. I told him he wasn’t welcome in Mattock, an’ I was posting him out. I saw him clear of town an’ warned him again. I thought he’d taken the warning. Until I found him trying to rape Miss Black.’
The judge asked if the defendant had anything to say.
‘Luke Masters told me Mattock didn’t like half-breeds,’ he said. ‘He told me he’d kill me if I stayed around. He might have tried in the saloon – he was backed by those three – but the sheriff came in.’
‘And that meant you had to come back?’ asked the judge. ‘Why?’
‘Why not?’ asked Breed in return. ‘I’ve got money. Why shouldn’t I?’
‘This don’t help the court,’ said the judge. ‘What reason did you have for coming back?’
‘I don’t like being run out of places,’ said Breed. ‘Do you?’
The judge hammered his gavel against the desk. ‘Irrelevant,’ he said. ‘Give me yore version of what happened.’
Breed gave it.
The court got quiet as the judge looked at his notes. ‘So,’ he said, ‘the accused was found on top of the woman, a corpse beside him. He had been warned to stay clear of the town, but came back. There was a gun in his hand. And he was known to have threatened the deceased with murder.
‘All right. I find him guilty.’
The sentence was arranged to be carried out the following day, at noon. Breed was taken back to his cell while riders went out to alert the ranches and homesteads in the proximity of Mattock that tomorrow was the big day.
Breed got taken back and given a meal-the best he had eaten since Taggart threw him in jail.
‘You know I didn’t do it,’ he said. ‘Don’t you?’
Taggart shrugged. ‘That matter much now? You’re gonna hang at noon. That’s decided. Legally.’
‘Legally,’ said Breed; bitterly. ‘No questions asked.’
‘Like what?’ Taggart said.
‘Like who really killed Luke Masters,’ Breed answered. ‘The girl? Or you?’
Taggart laughed. ‘Don’t matter much now, does it?
Luke’s dead, an’ you’re named for it. Gonna swing for it. Enjoy yore dinner.’
He went back to the outer office. The door swung shut and the lock clicked closed. The cell got quiet. Breed looked at his food. There was a big steak and a pile of mashed potato; a slice of apple pie; a pot of coffee and a mug. He began to eat.
The sun went down and the cell got dark. Taggart came in to light the solitary lantern in the corridor. He collected Breed’s plates and grinned as he backed into the outer office.
‘Sleep well.’
Breed slumped on the bunk, watching the fading light play over the spider’s web. A moth drifted in through the window, whirring wings carrying it towards the deadly light until it got distracted by the web. It swerved round to investigate the strands. And a wing caught the sticky lines. The moth fluttered furiously, each battering movement sucking it closer into the web until it was caught on feet and wings and antennae. And the spider emerged from its comer, darting over the pattern to sink mandibles into the insect’s body and paralyze the moth. For a moment there was stillness, then the spider began to weave a cocoon about the corpse, leaving it ready for later eating. Leaving it waiting. Like Breed.
The faint sound of metal rattling on metal woke him.
He opened his eyes and sat up, swinging his legs from the bunk so that several cockroaches were crushed under his feet.
‘Here,’ said a muffled voice. ‘I can’t let them hang you.’
And a parcel was shoved in through the bars of the window, falling to the floor with a dull thud.
He picked it up and peered out. A figure slid along the outer wall of the jail, wrapped in a dark cloak so that it was impossible to tell the height or sex. Before he could get any kind of distinct impression, it was gone into the night, lost behind the darkness of the scudding clouds that obscured the newly-rising moon.
He opened the parcel.
The cloth that wrapped it came away easily, revealing a twin-barreled Remington-Elliot Derringer. There were two shells in the barrels and two more in a fold of wax paper settled inside.
He dropped the two spare cartridges into the right hand pocket of his vest, and palmed the gun.
Then he went over to the front of the cell and shook the bars.
After a while, Con Taggart came through the door.
‘I want water,’ said Breed. ‘I’m thirsty.’
Taggart laughed.
‘Takes a lotta men that way,’ he said. ‘They either piss or drink. Guess I could fetch you something.’
‘Just water,’ said Breed. ‘Or coffee.’
Taggart nodded and went back out. In a few moments he returned with a pitcher of water and a tin cup. He set them down on the floor outside the cell and lifted a bunch of keys from his pocket. His Colt slid clear of the holster at the same time, muzzle lifting to point at Breed’s stomach.
‘Back off,’ he said. ‘Stay careful.’
Breed moved to the rear of the cell, close by the window. He kept his hands by his side, the little hideaway gun hidden in his palm. Taggart put the key in the lock and turned it without taking his eyes off his prisoner; leaving the key in the door he shouldered the frame open. Slow and cautious, he bent down to lift the pitcher and set it inside the cell. Followed it with the cup. Breed didn’t move as the door swung shut again and the key turned. Taggart eased back, holstering the Colt.
‘All right,’ he said. ‘Come get it.’
Breed moved across the cell. He squatted down, reaching for the pitcher with his left hand.
‘What’s wrong?’ Taggart frowned as he began to sense danger. ‘What you got there?’
‘This,’ said Breed.
And his right arm thrust out through the bars, the Derringer dropping into position, trigger tight against his forefinger, the hammer against his thumb. The hammer made a loud click! as it snapped back.
The lawman’s eyes got wide, and his frown turned into a look of outrage. His right hand dropped to the butt of his Colt.
‘Don’t,’ said Breed, his voice sharp and clear. ‘I can’t miss. Not at this range.’
Taggart’s hand came slowly clear of the Colt. Breed stood up.
‘Open the door. Use your left hand.’
Taggart did as he was told. The door swung open again and the half-breed stepped out into the corridor. He pressed the Remington-Elliot up against the muscle of Taggart’s stomach and reached over to draw the peace officer’s pistol. He thumbed back the hammer of the Colt and transferred it to his right hand, dropping the Derringer into a vest pocket.
‘You’re crazy,’ Taggart said. ‘You’ll never get away with this.’
‘So far, so good,’ rasped Breed. ‘Don’t try anything.’
He backed the sheriff out into the office and retrieved his weapons, replacing Taggart’s gun with the more familiar weight of his own Colt. There was a clock mounted on one wall of the office: the hands stood at eleven minutes past three. Outside, the street was quiet, no light coming in through the windows.
‘What you do with my saddlebags?’
Taggart’s glance indicated their position behind the desk. Breed lifted them clear, then picked up his rifle from the rack beside the clock.
‘Where’s my horse?’
‘In the stable.’ A fine beading of sweat was running down the lawman’s face, making his luxuriant mustache damp. ‘The saddle, too.’
‘Good,’ said Breed. ‘Let’s go.’
He dropped the Colt’s hammer and slid the pistol into the holster. Taggart took a step forwards* then halted as the Winchester slapped into Breed’s right hand and the lever snapped down and up to pump a shell into the breech.
‘Where you keep your horse?’ he asked.
‘The stable.’ Taggart’s voice was beginning to get ragged. ‘Why?’
Breed grinned. ‘You’re coming with me. You got some questions to answer.’
He picked up the sheriff’s gun and ejected the shells, then tossed the pistol back to Taggart.
‘We meet anyone, you best have a good excuse.’ Taggart nodded and followed the prompting of the Winchester out of the office onto the silent sidewalk.
Mattock was locked up for the night. The stores and the houses were shuttered and dark, even the brothel was showing only a single red light on the door. The moon was hidden behind a fret of clouds and the air carried a faint threat of rain. An ugly white dog snarled irritably from under the sidewalk, but that was the only sound they heard as they walked fast to the stable.
Breed kept the Winchester pointed at Taggart as the lawman saddled the two horses.
‘I’ll be missed come morning,’ he warned. ‘There’ll be a posse out after you.’
‘After us,’ Breed corrected. ‘Anything happens to me, it happens to you. Remember that.’
He went out on the west side of the town, riding for close on a mile before turning north along the downward flank of the mountains. After a while he circled back, confusing the trail as he rode over hard stands of dry rock and along the beds of narrow streams. By the time the sun came up he was about ten miles from the settlement, close to a long spur of the Guadalupes that stuck like a pointing finger back the way he had come. There was a gully dotted with cottonwoods and wild oaks and saguaro. He halted there and motioned for Taggart to dismount.
The sun was rising over the eastern horizon to spread pale light through the misty gray of the dawn, shafting yellow lances of light up through the clouds while the farther perimeter of the sky grew silver, then blue. Birds were singing, and as the air got warmer the cicadas began to chirrup; a coyote howled, its cry cutting abruptly off as though the light terminated its adoration of the night.
Breed stood, watching Taggart.
The lawman was rubbing his hands together as he fought the last of the dawn chill and his own fear. Dew and sweat beaded his mustache, and his eyes were suddenly hollowed by deep shadows.
‘You’re scared,’ said the half-breed. ‘Want to tell me now?’
Taggart dragged a hand over his mustache and wiped it on his shirt.
‘Tell you what?’
‘Who killed Luke Masters?’
‘You,’ answered Taggart; stubbornly. ‘Like the judge said.’
‘You know that’s not true,’ said Breed. ‘You’ve known that all along.’
‘I’m the sheriff,’ said Taggart. ‘Not the judge. The judge said you was guilty. They’ll be lookin’ for you by now.’
‘They won’t find me,’ said Breed. ‘Not in time for you.’
Taggart did his best to sneer. ‘You ain’t gonna kill me. Not now. Not me bein’ a peace officer. You know what that could get you?’
‘Sure.’ Breed chuckled. ‘A hanging. So what’s new?’
Realization brought a fresh beading of sweat to Taggart’s face. He stamped his feet and rubbed his hands on the legs of his denims. His tongue came out to lick at his lips. He spat a loose strand of mustache onto the ground.
‘Go to hell,’ he said. ‘I ain’t tellin’ you nothing.’
Breed went over to him and swung the Winchester in a low, flat arc that drove the stock deep into Taggart’s belly. The peace officer groaned and doubled over. He went down on his knees, clutching at the pain in his gut. Breed rammed the gun a second time against his belly, then landed the flat against the side of the man’s face.
Taggart groaned and pitched over. While he was still on the ground Breed fetched a rope from his saddle. He checked the noose and tossed it over the limb of a cottonwood. Then he walked Taggart’s horse over to a point directly under the low-flung branch and hitched the reins to the bole. He grabbed Taggart’s collar and hauled the lawman onto his feet, leading him at a stumbling run to where the pony stood.
The noose settled around Taggart’s neck and the man stopped groaning as it tightened. Breed heaved him bodily into the saddle and snatched the reins loose from the tree. The tail end of the rope was fastened to the trunk; about a foot of slack hung down behind the sheriff.
‘Oh, Christ!’ said Taggart. ‘You ain’t gonna hang me?’
‘Who killed Luke Masters?’ Breed demanded. ‘Tell me.’
‘I don’t know.’ Taggart’s fingers scrabbled at the rope. ‘For God’s sake! I don’t know.’
Breed walked the nervous horse a few paces forwards. The slack got taken up, drawing the rope tight behind Taggart’s back. The brown-haired man clamped his knees hard against the pony’s flanks. Breed halted, slapping the reins against his left hand.
‘You knew it wasn’t me,’ he grated. ‘Didn’t you?’
Taggart nodded as best he could. ‘Oh, Jesus! Yes! Sure I knew. You weren’t even in there when it happened.’
‘So who did it?’ snarled Breed.
‘I don’t know. I swear to God I don’t! ’ The sweat came thick from the man’s face now, running down his cheeks to mingle with the tears spilling from his eyes so that his handsome features seemed to dissolve behind a mask of trembling moisture. ‘Honest! I don’t.’
‘Tell me what you saw,’ said Breed, his voice cold and flat. ‘Tell me all of it.’
‘Oh, Christ!’ moaned Taggart, trying to insert his fingers between the noose and his neck. ‘I’d taken Sarah out ridin’. We got back an’ I left her at home. I asked her to marry me, for Chrissakes! Then when I went to get a drink I heard about Luke goin’ courting, so I went back. I saw you there. Then I heard the shots. I come in. An’ I saw you there. Someone else went out through a window. Sarah had the gun in her hand.’
His voice tailed off and his hands dropped from the rope. He closed his eyes for an instant, then opened them, staring at the bright morning sky. He shook his head as best he could with the noose holding his throat tight, and laughed.
‘She was holding a Derringer. Christ! She was holding a goddam Derringer.’
‘This one?’ Breed lifted the hideaway from his vest pocket, throwing the breech open to expend the shells. He tossed it to the frightened man.
Taggart caught the little pistol and nodded.
‘Yeah. The same model. Maybe the same gun.’ He dropped it as though the metal was burning him. ‘Where the hell did you get it?’
‘A present,’ said Breed, softly. ‘A gift from a friend who didn’t want me hanged.’
‘Shit!’ Taggart’s eyes closed again. Tears squeezed out from under the lids. ‘She musta given it to you. That means she musta killed Luke.’
‘No,’ said Breed. ‘There was someone else in there.’
‘I’ll find him,’ said Taggart. ‘You just help me down, an’ I’ll find him, an’ clear yore name at the same time.’
‘You were going to hang me.’ Breed’s voice was very cold now, bristly as ice frosting over a winter pond; cutting off the life beneath the water. ‘You didn’t ask questions then.’
Taggart opened his mouth. His hands came up to clutch at the noose. He shook his head again.
‘No,’ he said. ‘Please. No!’
Breed looked at him, impassive as the man began to tremble. Taggart had gloated at one hanging: his. He had consigned Breed to the rope. Unthinking, except to clear the woman’s name; not caring whether his prisoner was innocent or guilty, only interested in settling the affair to his own advantage.
A man has to stand by what he does, his father had told him once. He has to make up his mind an’ follow that path he chooses. If it works out wrong at the end, then he should live with it. Or die for it.
‘You’d have watched me hang,’ said the half-breed. ‘And laughed.’
He jerked the reins of Taggart’s horse forwards as the sentence ended.
The animal snorted and ran out from under the peace officer. Taggart’s hands clutched at the mane, then slipped loose, lifting up to clutch at the rope as the noose tightened on his windpipe. His feet slipped clear of the stirrups and he slid over the pony’s hindquarters, his weight yanking the rope taut from the limb of the cottonwood. His feet hung no more than six inches from the ground, toes angling down as he tried to find purchase for his body on a surface that was just that fractional difference between life and death.
The noose dug against his neck. His eyes gaped wide, bulging out from the sockets as his mouth opened and his tongue jutted out. Nails broke on the hard cord, and a dark stain covered the front of his denim pants. His face went pale, then got dark with the suffusion of blood clotting the burst vessels. It became purple as a strangled cry erupted from his parted lips, from somewhere deep inside him, like the core of his life bursting. His legs lifted up, feet pumping the empty air, then straightened as the seat of his pants grew dark with the final exhalation of his body. His hands fell clear of the rope, dropping to his sides as his body twisted round and round in the warm morning air.
Flies began to settle on the spillings of the corpse. The badge shone bright in the sun. Breed looked at it turning and smiled a hard, cold smile.
‘I got people to find,’ he murmured. ‘I can’t hang around.’