Cotton's Devil (9781101618523) (35 page)

As they left the hotel, the mayor, the clerk, and several of the citizenry crowded around the two of them. Their curiosity was palpable. Questions came thick as flies to manure.

“What's going on, Sheriff? Who is that man lying in the street? Did you shoot him? Why'd your deputy arrest that marshal?” Mayor Plume bombarded him with inquiry after inquiry, as did several other people who shouted their own queries.

Cotton held up his hand to stem the tide of anxiety surrounding the town's citizens.

“Folks, if you'll let me get this man down to the jail, I'll explain to everyone's satisfaction as soon as
I
have all the answers myself.” The sheriff pushed Sanborn ahead of him and made his way toward the boardwalk in order to pinch off much of the crowd. Only a few people at a time could be
accommodated by the plank walkway. Many dropped by the wayside, choosing to return to their shops and businesses. But Mayor Plume doggedly followed the sheriff's footsteps, chin held out as if to say
he
would not be denied answers.

When they reached the jail door, Sanborn was nearly knocked on his rump when Melody burst out like a buffalo stampeding, arms flailing to clear the way. She was sputtering some gibberish about a fine thing for a gentleman to do, humiliating a lady, or at least that was Cotton's assessment of her words, unintelligible as they were.

“What the hell was that all about, Jack? Why was Melody here?”

“I had to lock her up because she demanded I stay out of your business with Sanborn. She held a gun on me. Didn't give me any choice.”

Cotton smiled and snorted. “You're learning, my friend, you're learning. Lock this snake up, will you. Better not put him in the same cell as Hogg. I'm not sure they'll be gettin' along after how well their plan went.”

Jack shoved the hesitant Arthur Sanborn into the cell and closed and locked the door. Sanborn was still fuming as Hogg sat morosely on his cot. Cotton sent Jack to fetch the undertaker.

“While you're out, bring Henry here from the alley behind the hotel.

“What's he doin' there?”

“Coverin' both our butts.”

C
otton hadn't seen Mayor Plume since he sent him off in a huff with no answers to his myriad of questions. He'd picked up a horse from the livery and sent Henry back to the Wagner ranch with an acknowledgment of his appreciation for all his help. No word had passed between them concerning Henry's insistence that Cotton was in grave danger, as Cotton hadn't really seen things that way. He'd felt he knew Arthur Sanborn well enough to stay at least one step ahead of him. Lazarus Bellwood had been a wild card, but he never doubted the eventual outcome. He'd figured out early on that there had to be someone else involved in shooting down all those men who'd opposed Lucky Bill Sanborn, and when it appeared Lazarus was that person, things seemed to fall into place rather nicely.

“What're you plannin' on doin' with those two owlhoots we got locked up, Sheriff?” Jack asked, leaning back in a chair with his boots on Cotton's desk.

“I plan to wait.”

“Wait? On what?”

*  *  *

When Jack came back later in the afternoon, he found Cotton sitting on the edge of the desk with a big grin on his face. He was reading a telegram, likely delivered by the telegraph operator Jack had seen racing down the street just as he pushed through the batwing doors of the saloon. Cotton chuckled at what he was reading when Jack entered the jailhouse door.

“You're lookin' darned chipper for a man with a dead body on display just down the street in front of the undertaker's,” Jack said as he began searching around for his coffee cup.

“Uh-huh.”

“So what's on that paper there that's got you lookin' like you just discovered a gold nugget the size of your fist?”

“Huh?”

“I said, what's got you lookin' so pleased?”

“Oh. That confirmation I told you about.”

“Confirmation of what?”

“What I figured all along. There is a
weasel
in the woodpile. And it's time to show him up for the liar he is right now.”

“What in tarnation are you talkin' about?”

“It's all right here on this paper. And in spades.”

“So now we're talkin' about a poker game?”

“No, no, we're talkin' about makin' sure a certain rattler gets what's comin' to him, or maybe even…”

“You mean Sanborn? That who's got you all smiles?”

“In a manner of speakin'. Yep.”

“So what's it say?”

“Solid gold evidence and it could prove deadly to someone.”

“Who? You, me, Emily?”

“Nope. None of us…now.”

“The judge?”

“Yep. It's time to bring him down to earth.”

“How do you figure on doin' that? And what the hell's in that telegram?”

“Proof.”

“Of…?”

“Proof that the no-good son of a bitch is a liar and a murderer. And it's goin' to get him put away for the rest of his worthless life. That is if he doesn't hang first.”

“Who's that telegram from?”

“Our own cagey bounty hunter, Thorn McCann.”

“Why would he send you a telegram? Isn't he holed up at the hotel with Delilah Jones?”

“Nope, not anymore. He's been out of town for four days. Gone to see the governor. I'm amazed you didn't notice, since Delilah has been seen around town without Thorn at her side. He volunteered for a mission and I accepted his offer.”

“So what's on that paper, or are you gonna make me guess?”

“Says here we got ourselves a genuine counterfeit judge. And you were right in your assessment of James Lee Hogg—he's no marshal, either.”

“So, if the judge ain't a judge and Hogg ain't a marshal, we got them dead to rights?”

“Yep.”

“We damn sure got the goods on Hogg for killin' Lucy, but how do you plan on provin' Sanborn killed anyone? I've not even seen him with a gun,” Jack said with a quizzical look.

“I agree that may be difficult, since the man he hired to shoot a number of men is dead.”

“Yeah, thanks to you.”

Since he still hadn't confided in Mayor Plume about the reason for the shooting of Lazarus Bellwood and the events leading up to it, Cotton asked Jack to bring the mayor down to the jail before he confronted Sanborn. Cotton had always thought Plume was a rather shallow man, easily pumped
up by flattery and constantly requiring a boost to his ego. But the sheriff was also aware that there were times when he needed the mayor's cooperation. This he figured to be one of those times.

“Well, Sheriff Burke, I'm here,” the mayor said, as he stormed into the jail. “Are you finally ready to take me into your confidence about the occurrences of yesterday and the claims made by that Hogg fellow?”

“Yes, I am, Mayor. I hope you'll forgive my reluctance to discuss the whole thing in front of a lot of folks who really didn't need to know what was goin' on. Perhaps you could see your way to excuse my secretiveness.”

Plume loosened up and said, “Yeah, I reckon a sheriff has to have a few things he don't blab to just anyone. Apology accepted.”

“Thank you, Mayor. Now, about the two men being held in our jail, we have a messy situation, particularly over that man claimin' to be a judge. First of all, he isn't.”

“He isn't what?”

“He isn't a judge. I have here in my hand a telegram from a friend at the capitol in Santa Fe proving that Arthur Sanborn is no more a judge than me or Jack. The word is straight from the governor.” Cotton handed the telegram to Mayor Plume, who read it with eyes growing wider by the second.

“Well, I'll be damned. That sniveling highbinder pulled one over on me. Why, if it was up to me, I'd say hang him now and be done with it.”

“How about you and me confront him together,” Cotton said.

T
he pounding on Cotton's front door did not come as a pleasant wakeup call. The yelling wasn't much help, either. He swung his legs off the bed, pulled on his pants, and lumbered, barefoot, to the door. He swung it open to find Memphis Jack Stump in a lather, hollering loudly enough to wake the whole town.

“Cotton! Thank heavens you're here instead of out at the Wagner place. We got ourselves a problem. A
big
problem.”

Cotton stepped aside sleepily, yawned, and waved Jack to sit on the small couch.

“I'll make some coffee. I'm goin' to need it to wake up enough to understand what you're blatherin' about.” He had started to the kitchen, when Jack's next words stopped him in his tracks.

“You won't need any coffee once I tell you what's up. You'll damn sure be awake.”

“Uh-huh.”

“First off, you
do
remember tellin' me to go back over
and make up with Melody as soon as I got them two owlhoots tucked in, don't you?”

“Yeah, that's what I said. And I assume that's what you did.”

“Correct, amigo. Left about eleven o'clock, after the prisoners were fed and had a chance at the outhouse one last time. Then I went to the saloon to find Melody. She was all smiles when I walked into the place. It was almost as if nothing ever happened between us.”

“Jack, you're tellin' me things I either know or don't care about. My head is full of cobwebs because I need coffee. So, be quick about it or I'm brewin' up some Arbuckles'.”

“Just wanted to make sure we both remembered last night's instructions, that's all.”

“You're covered. I remember.”

“Well, then we got two problems. The first one is the old man, Sanborn. He's deader'n a picket fence. And the second one is: James Lee Hogg is nowhere to be found. Busted out! Lit a shuck for who knows where.”

“What the…! Why didn't you tell me?”

“What the hell you figure I'm doin'?”

Cotton grabbed his shirt off the chair beside his bed, pulled on a pair of socks and his boots, then ran his fingers through his tousled hair before putting on his Stetson. He picked up his gun belt on the way out, buckling it as he busted through the door. Jack was having trouble keeping up as Cotton charged down the street toward the jail like a raging bull. When he threw open the door, he rushed inside, aiming straight to the cells. What Jack had said was certainly true, and completely unexplainable, by Cotton, at least.

“This just the way you found things when you came in, Jack?”

“Exactly the way. And in case you're interested, I got no explanation, either.”

“Run down and get Doc Winters. We're goin' to need to know how ol' Sanborn died. Maybe Hogg killed him, maybe not.”

Jack left in a hurry. Cotton went into Hogg's cell looking for an explanation. There was no indication that Hogg had been able to find something to
pry
open the lock—no scratches, no bent pieces. Everything was completely intact. It appeared that the door had been opened with a key. Cotton went back out to where the keys to the cells were kept. The one to James Lee's cell was still there on the ring with the other. He had to unlock Sanborn's cell to go inside.

If someone came in the middle of the night to free James Lee, why didn't he cut Sanborn loose, too?
He checked the man's pockets for anything that might explain his sudden demise. That's when he noticed Sanborn's valise. He'd let the old man keep it when he put him in his cell. He'd checked first to make sure there wasn't a gun or a knife in there, or anything else that might make escape possible. The only thing in it was a bundle of papers and about a hundred dollars in greenbacks.

The whole thing made no sense. He had gone back out to his desk when Doc Winters came in.

“Understand you got yourself a corpse, Sheriff.”

“Yep, and I need to know how he slipped off into the world of the dead without showin' any indication he was sick or somethin'. He's in there, cell's open.” Cotton motioned the doc toward the back room.