The Cartwright brothers tied off their horses in front of the sheriff's office. Passersby looked at them suspiciously.
"None too friendly-lookin," Hoss said as he stood on the sidewalk with his hands on his hips.
"Well," Adam said, "you can't blame them for being wary of strangers considering what's happened. Let's go see the sheriff." He settled his hat and walked into the office, Hoss following.
"Help you boys?" A man with a plain tin badge on his leather vest sat behind a desk, leaning the chair on its two legs, against the wall, a shotgun across his thighs.
Adam tucked his hands under his arm pits. He wanted to make it obvious he wasn't going to pull a gun.
"My name's Adam Cartwright. That's my brother, Hoss," he said motioning with his head, "and I believe you may have our younger brother, Joe Cartwright, in your jail." Adam looked at the bolted double-doors that led to the cells.
The man just sat and stared at them, looking first from Adam to Hoss and then back to Adam. He dropped the chair onto four legs, leaned over and spit a stream of vile brown juice into the spittoon beside the desk.
Adam and Hoss waited, Adam's lips pursed. He looked at the nameplate on the desk. "Are you Sheriff Murphy?"
The man leaned back in the chair again. "Maybe I am and maybe I ain't. What's it to you?"
"Look," Adam said, pulling out his hands for gesturing but the man with the badge jumped up from the chair and held the shotgun on Adam and Hoss. Both brothers held their hands shoulder height—palms outward.
"Now back up," the man said. "I'd as soon shoot you as look at you, 'specially if you're brothers of that goddamn, murdering sonovabitch in the cell back there."
"Now look. Mister…" Hoss started to approach the desk. The man jacked the rifle. Hoss backed off a step and remained quiet.
"If it's…permissible, we would like to talk to our brother—just to find out why he was arrested…Sheriff." Adam tucked his hands under his arms again.
"Nope. You can't see him 'less the High Sheriff says you can."
"And you're not he."
"Nope. But right now," the man said, waving the end of the shotgun toward the front door, "I'd suggest you leave. Now."
Adam turned to look at Hoss, raising his brows. "Fine. Can you tell me when the…High Sheriff will return?"
"Nope."
"Can you give me an approximation?" The man stared at him blankly. "Will he be back in an hour perhaps? Two Hours? Tomorrow morning? Did he go home for dinner? Run away to join a passing carnival to take your place as the human jackass? What?"
Hoss suppressed a smile.
"Look, mister, I don't like you none. Get out afore I lock you up as well for having a smart-ass mouth. Got it?"
"Yeah. I got it." Adam turned and he and Hoss walked out to stand on the wooden sidewalk in front. They glanced up and down the street. It seemed liked an ordinary town populating those parts but the men sitting outside establishments or riding in the streets stared at the unknown men.
"I say we break Joe out," Hoss said glancing unto the alleyway beside the jail. "Hell, Adam, it's just that deputy. I could take him easy. Then we just haul ass back home. We'd be out of the jurisdiction in no time. What about it?"
Adam rubbed his earlobe—it helped him think. He sighed. "No. If they caught up with us, sent a wire to all the surrounding areas…we have quite a way to go, you know-and if we're caught, hell, they'd string up all three of us. Not worth the risk."
"I'm willin' to take the risk."
"Hoss, why do you always bet against the odds?"
" "Cause if you win, the poke is higher."
"And if you lose, you lose it all."
"But, Adam, we might make it. Get Joe's horse outta the livery or wherever they got Cochise and then wait until evening and break out Joe. I think we could do it."
Adam didn't reply, only looked about the street again and adjusted the brim of his hat. "Let's go get a beer," Adam said and without waiting for Hoss, he strolled in the direction of the Red Dog Saloon.
~ 0 ~
Hoss sat at a table watching Adam play poker on the adjacent one. The stakes were small and Hoss watched Adam intentionally lose one hand after another to one man as the other players did until everyone else had thrown in their cards and left the table.
"How about another hand," the man said as he raked in the small pile of money. He was about 40 with a purple knife scar across one cheek. Adam decided it was probably a souvenir from a sore loser. For all the time Adam had played, that man had won almost every hand—only losing two when he tossed in his cards without much of an ante. Hoss suspected and he knew Adam did as well, that the man was a traveling cardsharp who was probably so well known in the larger cities and saloons that he now made his living in small jerkwater towns.
"I don't think so," Adam replied. "I'm almost pure broke but I have enough for two drinks. Whiskey?" The cardsharp who had introduced himself as John Madison—"No relation to that president," he had joked and Adam wondered how many times the man had made the small joke-nodded so Adam held up his empty whiskey glass and two fingers. The bartender brought two full glasses and Adam flipped him the coins in payment.
The men sipped in silence. "So," Madison asked. "He your muscle?" He moved his head in Hoss' direction.
Adam chuckled. "No, he's my brother," Adam paused before continuing. "You been in this town long?"
"No. Almost a month. It's about time for me to move on. Why?" He was becoming suspicious. This man who had introduced himself as 'Adam' had been a gracious loser during the game but there was something edgy below the surface. Madison suddenly became concerned that 'Adam' wanted his money back, that one of them had noticed his dealing off the bottom of the deck when needed and he didn't want a matching scar—at least that's the best he could hope for. His scar had come in an attempt to cut off one of his ears but he had managed to jerk back and the knife had only caught the side of his face and cheek. And the dark-haired one made him especially leery. "Well? Why do you want to know?"
Adam slowly shook his head. "Just wondered if you'd heard the latest news. Heard someone's locked up in the jail for murder."
"Yeah," Hoss sad. "We heard he killed a woman. My brother here and me, well, we don't take much to anyone who does harm to women or children."
"Well, I had nothing to do with it." Madison threw both hands in the air.
"Ain't no one said you did," Hoss said. "We just wanted to hear it from someone who weren't from here. You know how people get when they tell a story 'bout someone they know—they kinds slant the truth but you, bein' a stranger and all. Well, you'd have a good unbiased way of tellin' it."
"That's right," Adam said and smiled, holding his whiskey and leaning back in his chair. "We just want to hear the news."
Madison looked back and forth from Hoss to Adam. "All right. Not much news about it 'cept people have been mumbling about savin' a trial, not waiting for the circuit judge and just stringing him up themselves."
"Stringing who up?" Adam asked. He looked at the table top after he put down his glass. There were random marks and a few carvings of initials among the water stains.
"Well, some kid was passin' through, at least I heard that's what he claimed, when he met some girl and, well, he forced himself on her and then when she fought, he strangled her and tried to throw her body in the creek—it's runnin' fast now but apparently the body didn't wash away so he was carryin' it when the doctor who was drivin' in from deliverin' a baby, caught him red-handed. That man—really a kid like I said-was holdin' her body while on his horse—a black paint pony. The doc said he'd take the body in and then the kid took off. From what I saw when they brought that poor girl's body in, half her clothes were ripped off. The sheriff caught the killer outside of town a ways and brought 'im in. The crowd wanted to drag him behind a horse, then, when he was all torn up from that, slowly string 'im up—no hangman's knot—just let him suffocate, kickin' his last. It was all the sheriff could do to keep 'em away. Anyway, that's all I know." He looked quickly from Adam to Hoss and back again.
"I appreciate the information," Adam said.
"Yeah, well…" Madison rose. "It's about time I move on." He paused expecting Adam to ask for his losses back but neither brother said anything so James Madison drained his whiskey glass, coughed, and quickly left the saloon. He would head for New Mexico before the weather turned too hot. That's what he'd do, he decided. He wanted more than anything to leave Mule's Pass behind him.
