Deserter (15 page)

The darkness thickened in the cell, the only light a very faint glow from the front of the office. Even that was extinguished, and the prisoners heard the office door close. A train rattled by, just out of sight, neither slowing nor stopping at the Fairplay station.

“Mott's gone out whorin' and drinkin' like usual,” Billy said. “Just like every night when I was here before I escaped.” He lowered his voice. “I guess you're wonderin'why I don't seem too awful worried about being hanged.”

“The thought crossed my mind.”

“Well, don't you worry. It ain't gonna happen. The Night Riders won't let it. They'll either spring me outta here or grab me up when Mott and his men bring me out to the gallows. One way or the other, Jake. But I ain't gonna hang.”

“That's real good, Billy. I hope your boys can pull it off.”

“No doubt about it. You watch an' see. I'm thinkin' they'll be in the crowd comin' to gawk at the hanging, all armed up good, an' cut loose at them sons-a-bitches an' be rid of them for goddamn good.” After a moment, he added,“Simple plans are the best ones, ya know?”

“Sure they are, Billy,” Jake said.

Sure they are, Billy. Could be you're right—maybe simple plans are the best ones. I'd sure hate to put my life in the hands of a bunch called Night Riders, though—'specially if they're store clerks and farmers and ranchers who've probably never fired a shot at a
man. It'd make more sense to blow the window right out of the wall than attack at the gallows. 'Course the explosion would probably kill Billy and me. Or maybe these Riders can overpower Mott somehow.

Gunfire and then a burst of laughter sounded from the street. A woman's voice, high pitched and strident, screamed, “You dirty son of a bitch!” followed by more laughter. Jake adjusted his position on the floor, his back against the wall. His legs, feet, and hands still tingled, but the pain was long since gone. The back of his head was tender and his hair matted with crusted blood, but the worst of the throbbing ache had dissipated. Billy's breathing from the corner was slow and even, interrupted every so often by a mumbled, indistinguishable few words.

At least when he's asleep he doesn't have to think about his wife and what happened to her. Awful thing—purely awful: wife raped and murdered, property burned, life torn apart so bad it could never be put together again by Mott and his crew.
Jake shook his head slowly back and forth, imagining how he himself would react to the same events. He closed his eyes and lowered his chin to his chest.
There's Mott, Uriah said. At about five o'clock. See him? The sheriff's head appeared with the sights of his Sharps on his forehead. Jake set the first trigger and eased light pressure onto the second . . .

It was well into the morning before Mott strode into the cell area from his office. “Over against the wall so I can get your grub to you,” he said. “And look here, boys—there's even some coffee with this fine meal.” The prisoners moved to the wall. Mott unlocked the cell door, slid in the tray, and relocked the door. “Your
trial is comin' up,” he said to Jake. “The judge asked your last name. What is it?”

Jake stepped to the tray on the floor, crouched, and picked up a thick ceramic mug filled with barely warm coffee.“What difference does it make, Mott? The judge is in your pocket, right? He'll do what you tell him to do.”

Mott laughed. “Ol' Judge Konrick ain't in nobody's pocket,” he said. “Funny though how him an'me agree on sentences most times.”

“Yeah,” Jake said. “Funny.”

“Jas?” a woman's voice, morning scratchy, called from the office. “You back there?”

“One of your raggedy-assed whores?” Billy asked. To Jake he said, “The sheriff here pimps out a herd of saloon heifers. Ain't one of them less ugly than a goat's ass.”

Mott's face flushed as he glared at Billy. “You talk a whole lot for a dead man,” he said. “You'll look good at the end of the rope, boy.” Mott's eyes flicked to Jake before he turned away toward the office. They glistened like those of a snake, seething from the inside, promising pain, promising death. “You too,” the sheriff said. Jake held the glare.

When Mott was gone Billy took the second mug from the tray and picked up a piece of moldy bread. He peered at it and then tossed it back onto the tray.“Things are gonna be way different here, Jake,” he said. “When the Riders come after me, Mott is gonna be the first man down. We'll have our town back. Fairplay was a good little burg, at one time. Nice place. It will be again.”

Jake moved to the window and looked out past the gallows. “How'd he take control? Wasn't there any law?”

“Sure there was—an old coot named Cyrus Riordan. He hired Mott on as a deputy when the railroad started the town growin'. Mott started bringing in his men right off—gunmen and gamblers an' outlaws. Then one day Cyrus was gone an'Mott was wearing the sheriff's badge an' that was it.”

“How many men does he have?” Jake asked.

“Maybe forty or so—maybe a few more. New hard-cases show up every so often, join up.”

Jake finished his coffee. The thick dregs in the bottom of the mug made him grimace. “How many of your Night Riders are there?”

“'Bout thirty. All good men. We didn't really get together until a few months ago. Had to be careful about our meetings. That's what brought Mott's men to my place—I'd had a couple meetings there.”

“The Riders—they fighting men?”

Billy looked away almost sheepishly. “Any man can be a fighting man when his home an' his family is being threatened. An' we don't look for pitched battles, Jake. Our plan is to snipe them sons-a-bitches, break them that way. Pick 'em off one to a time.”

Jake nodded.

There was sudden heat in Billy's voice. “Don't you go thinkin' because the Riders ain't gunfighters they can't do what they need to do. I've known most—hell, all—of them my whole life, an' you couldn't find a better group of men. When they come for me they'll end Jason Mott. If the rest of that trash don't run then, we'll keep right on takin' 'em down one by one.”

“Whoa, Billy—seems like you're hearing something I'm not saying. I'm sure your Night Riders are a strong group of good men.”

“You betcher ass, Jake. They are. We all of us want the same thing: We want our town back, and things back to the way they was before Mott. Once we have that, we'll shut down the Riders. Disband, like they say in the army.”

“I see,” Jake said, not seeing at all.
They'll gun down a band of outlaws and killers and then go back to selling ribbons and nostrums or following a mule's ass behind a plow?

Jake glanced down the hall before speaking. “Your men will come when you're taken out to the gallows, then?”

“No—they'll be there already, in the crowd, waitin', with their guns up under their coats.”

“Crowd?”

“Sure enough. A hangin' is a big thing in these parts. Folks come from all over, bringin' their whole families to watch. The whole town'll turn out, too. They used to use a big oak jus' past where the church was before it burned, but now Mott had this gallows outside put up.”

Jake walked back to the window, looking away from his cellmate. It was difficult for him to meet Billy's eyes, to see the confidence in them, the sure awareness that he'd walk away from the whole episode.

“Maybe you never had friends like I have in the Night Riders,” Billy said to Jake's back. “These boys, hell, I'd trust them with my life, Jake.”

That's precisely what you're doing, Billy.

Sometime after noon, Mott and an old fellow dressed in grimy and tattered clothes that, from the way they failed to fit him, were obviously castoffs appeared at the cell door. The sheriff's face was grim and his hand rested on the grips of what had once been Sinclair's Smith & Wesson .22. “Put the slops bucket up
here and then stand facing the back wall,” Mott said.

Jake carefully picked up the almost overflowing bucket, brought it to the front of the cell, and joined Billy at the wall. After Mott unlocked the door the old man shuffled forward and fetched the foul-smelling bucket. Before he turned away with it, he whispered, “Sattiday.” Jake's head snapped around: The old coot's hoarse whisper was loud enough for Mott to overhear. Nevertheless, the sheriff stood where he'd been, apparently unaware of the hurried and brief communication. Jake glanced over at Billy. He was standing with his face to the wall, but Sinclair could see his grin. When they heard the office door close, Jake moved closer to Billy. “Can you get a message to the Riders? We need to get you out of here, Billy—as soon as possible. Like tonight.”

“That ol' boy who looked like a bar rag is named Howie,” Billy said. “He's older'n God an' does odd jobs like swampin' the saloons an' such for booze money. We kinda use him to carry messages now an' again. Howie, he whispered to me. They're plannin' on hangin'me Saturday. The Riders will be there.”

“Damn it, Billy . . . look, today's what?”

“What what?”

“Day of the week. I gave up trying to keep them straight a long time ago. What's the day of the week?”

“Today's Thursday, Jake. Will be all the live-long day,” he added, grinning.

“Billy,” Jake said. “This isn't right. You've got to get a message to your men. Mott's all the things you've said he is—but he isn't stupid. There's something that—”

“Ya know,” Billy cut in, “I'm gettin' tired of your badmouthin'the Riders. Mott ain't stupid? Well, neither are
we—an' you can take that to the bank. Jason Mott don't know it, but he's gonna catch a bullet—maybe a lot more than one—Saturday morning. An' you can take that to the bank, too, Jake.”

Sinclair broke eye contact without speaking.

The heat grew as the day slid languorously on, time moving like molasses in the coldest part of the winter. It was deep autumn—it shouldn't have been hot. But it was. They got their meal sometime late in the afternoon, again on a single tray: fat, greasy beef that'd been too long in the heat, and ragged chunks of stale bread. Again, there were no utensils. It was either pick up the meat with their hands or do without eating. Both men opted to eat. The bread was hard enough to crack teeth.

At dusk the noise from the saloons started. Billy and Jake listened to what sounded like a horse race on the main street followed by gunfire, yells, and drunken laughter.

“Jake, I been thinkin',” Billy said. “I owe you. It's my fault you're sittin' in this goddamn cell right now. If I hadn't slammed you with that branch, you'd be ridin' that pretty mare off to wherever it was you were goin'.”

“I guess I'd have done the same thing, I was running for my life. It wasn't me in particular you wanted to drop, Billy, I know that. You needed my horse, my gun, and you did what any man would do.”

“That don't matter,” Billy said. Then, resolutely, “Like I said, I owe you, an' I pay my debts. You ask anyone if that ain't true. So here's what I'm sayin', Jake—me an' the Riders will bust you out of this jail one way or another. It don't matter if Konrick says you gotta swing, which is what he'll say, sure as you're born. All that drunken ol'fool knows is condemnin'men to the rope.
But don't you worry. We'll pop you outta here like we was yankin' a cork outta a bottle.”

“I . . . I appreciate that, Billy.”

“Sure. An' I'm hopin' you'll join on with the Riders after we get you out. Seems to me you'd be a real good man to have with us, a man who knows some about fighting.”

“I've seen some fighting,” Jake said.

The night moved in slowly. When the meager light that made it to the cells from under the door of the office was extinguished and the prisoners heard the front door slam, they sat in the steamy, still blackness. Neither had much to say.

Sleep didn't come to Jake Sinclair. He sat with his back against the wall under the window, listening to the night. At first the racket from the saloons gave him something to hear, but eventually that died and Jake was left with the summer crickets and the screech, almost too high to hear, of the bats that swooped in on the flying insects outside. Billy breathed deeply and snored sibilantly when he exhaled.

They came before dawn, Mott carrying one lamp, one of the other men another. The boot heels of the four men sounded very loud as they came from the office. The light was harsh in the cell, making shadows sharp-edged, pushing the soft darkness away. Jake stood. One of the men fit a key to the door and swung it open. “You go on and get against the far wall,” Mott said to Jake. He set the lamp on the floor and hefted the shotgun he carried in his right hand across his chest, finger within the trigger guard, the steel of the barrel sending back glints of lamplight.

“Billy,” he said.

Billy sat up and knuckled his eyes, beginning a yawn before he saw Mott and the others, before he realized what was happening.“Ahh, Jesus,” he gasped. His face went white. “Ah, Jesus,” he said again. Jake took a step forward and the twin maws of the shotgun swung to his chest.“Go on,” Mott growled to the cluster of men standing around him,“bring him out. Let's get this done.”

Billy tried to push himself to his feet but couldn't get his legs under himself. He flopped back down on the floor. His hands fluttered about his chest and then moved to cover his face, as if attempting to hide himself. Mott stepped into the cell, shotgun still leveled at Jake. Two of the others stepped past the sheriff and hauled Billy to his feet, grabbing him under his armpits. “This ain't right,” Billy said in a child's voice, almost too quiet to hear. “This ain't Saturday—this ain't right.” He jerked his body toward Jake, his face corpse white, his eyes beseeching, begging.