The Only Man I Can Trust
Chapter 17
Chester woke just as the deep darkness of night gave way to the beginning of daylight. He stretched his arms up over his head and wondered why he'd had to spend an uncomfortable night in a chair while those no-goods out back in the cells got to sleep on cots. First things first though, so he threw a piece of wood in the stove and put the coffee pot on.
Mr. Dillon had said to turn most of the prisoners loose this morning, but he began to wonder how he would do that. There were too many of them for him to handle without risk of them ganging up on him. He was just checking the coffee pot when the door opened about half way and Rico's head appeared.
"Where in tarnation have you been off to?" Chester asked him, "I coulda done with a little bit a' help here, ya' know. Come on in now yer here."
"I kinda got scared when all Carp's men showed up, Mr. Chester, - I thought they might come after me if I showed myself. Right now, there's some other men out here looking for you."
To Chester's immediate relief he saw three men outside, one of whom he recognized as Sheriff Carver's deputy, Tim Kegan. The man had been to Dodge on several occasions to collect a prisoner or bring one in. Chester was never so happy to see anyone in his life.
Kegan was a young man - probably about a year or so younger the jailer himself. He was about the same height as Chester but a little heavier.
"Sheriff Carver told us marshal Dillon needed some help. That doesn't happen very often so I found a couple of friends and came on down here as fast as possible."
It didn't take long for Chester to explain what was going on and why he needed help. As usual when he got flustered or excited, his words tumbled out in no particular order, but Kegan had met Chester before and knew Dillon trusted him implicitly.
"Mr. Dillon told me to keep Carp and Farrell and them Holcombe boys locked up, but to let the other men go, so long as they agreed to leave town quick and not come back."
"We'll take care of that for you Chester. You go get some breakfast for yourself and bring something back for the prisoners we're keeping. Once you're back, I'll go have a word with marshal Dillon."
Chester wasn't about to argue with the idea of breakfast - he hadn't eaten since last night when Fleur brought that basket of food to the jail and his stomach had been rumbling for the last hour or more. All he needed was a small piece of steak with perhaps three or four eggs on top and maybe some biscuits with a little gravy on the side. Just enough to keep him going.
It seemed that the town had a whole different atmosphere since Carp had been put out of business. People were everywhere on the street, stopping and talking, and going about their business with smiles on their faces, and a spring in their steps. It made Chester feel good to know that he and Mr. Dillon had made all that possible. He couldn't help swelling with a little pride as the man who ran the only decent restaurant in town recognized him.
"Hey you're with that marshal, ain't ya? Glad to know ya', young fella."
The man reached out his hand and grasped Chester's. The surprised jailer didn't quite know what to do, but let the man pump his hand up and down anyway.
"Aw now I didn't really do anythin' much a'tall. I jest work fer Mr. Dillon. He's the one who planned it all." Chester felt a little embarrassed by all the fuss.
"You got rid of those men for us, and showed us how to fight for what was ours. We should have had the courage to stand up and protect our own town a long time ago, but somehow, till you two came along, we were just running scared." The man stopped and looked around to select a suitable table for his honored guest. "Come on over here and sit yourself down. Whatever you want's on the house."
The jailer couldn't believe what he was hearing. He tried to restrain his food order a little, but the steak and eggs grew to bigger portions and he added some hash for good measure, and of course, he didn't forget the biscuits and speckledy gravy.
The owner left, but returned quickly with a steaming mug of coffee and placed it in front of the marshal's assistant. Chester wasn't used to being treated like some sort of hero. In fact, for most of his life people had ignored him, or worse yet, looked down on him as being feeble. It wasn't until Mr. Dillon had come to Dodge and taken him on as a jailer that anyone had even noticed he was a real person. The marshal had never questioned his abilities, never even commented on his stiff leg. He had just presumed Chester could do whatever was needed. Gradually other people in town began to accept him, just like his boss had done. Yes, he owed a lot to Mr. Dillon.
People in Dodge, well most people anyway, looked up to Mr. Dillon and somehow Chester had become included in his small circle of friends. That meant a whole lot. There was Doc - sure he could be a little surly at times, trying to pick a quarrel about every little thing, but deep down Doc was a good man, and many times he had treated Chester to a free meal - or given him medicine and never really made him pay for it. And then there was Miss Kitty. Chester once had ideas about courting Miss Kitty - of course they were little more than daydreams. There was no way he could afford any kind of a wife let alone one as perfect as Miss Kitty. Right from the start she had had a special look in her eye when she saw Mr. Dillon. It was like two little magnets he had seen once at the fair, they couldn't help but pull towards each other. Sure he had never seen them kiss or even hold hands, but something happened when they were together. At first he had been a little jealous, he would have liked Miss Kitty to look at him like that, but he knew that she deserved a man like Mr. Dillon. It took him a while to understand. Mr. Dillon always described his job as being chancy, he knew very well that there were people out there who would like to see him dead, and a man as honorable as Mr. Dillon wouldn't want to leave a family to fend for themselves if something bad happened to him. He was aware that there were many nights when his boss didn't sleep at the jail, or even go back to his small room at Ma Smalley's. He had a good idea where Mr. Dillon spent those nights, but he didn't allow himself to think about it too much.
He was still staring at the coffee when his meal arrived. A large perfectly cooked steak with four smiling eggs stacked on top. Of course there were potatoes and biscuits on the side, and a whole dish of gravy. For a time, life was being exceptionally good to Chester.
It took the jailer a while to eat all that breakfast, but eat it he did. When he arrived back at the sheriff's office he was surprised to see Mr. Dillon already there. With help from Kegan and the other two deputies they had sent most of the prisoners on their way with threats of prison or even hanging if they ever returned to Great Bend. Only Carp, Farrell and the two Holcombe brothers remained.
Fleur was there making coffee as usual and still trying to catch Mr. Dillon's eye. By the look of things, Chester guessed she wouldn't give up unless the marshal told her that he had someone waiting for him back in Dodge.
Mr. Dillon was talking: "I need someone who witnessed the killing of the sheriff and his deputy. No sense in taking these men to trial if we can't get at least that." He looked at Hugh Tebbers. "Any ideas?"
Tebbers didn't have an answer - but Fleur did.
"Pete Farrell knows all about it, Matt." Chester hated to hear her call him by his name like that. Only Miss Kitty and Doc had that privilege. "Maybe I could persuade him to talk to you."
Chester decided it was time to interrupt. "Mr. Dillon, I'd be glad to take him outside fer a while. I'm purty sure I could make him talk."
"I don't think we need to resort to that Chester." Somehow the marshal couldn't imagine Chester making anyone talk, but he let it slide by. He looked up at Deputy Kegan. "Bring Farrell out here, then leave while I talk to him."
Matt had a good idea that Farrell, without Carp, would be easy to convince. He really didn't care about Farrell much. He wanted Carp for at least hiring someone to kill John Hicks, and he wanted the Holcombe brothers for everything they had put this town through. Tad Holcombe was probably more involved in that than Spike Holcombe, but he suspected that at least some of the money taken from the town went towards bribes to get Spike set free.
Farrell was standing in front of him now. Matt didn't try to stand up, just indicated for the other man to pull up a chair and sit down. He had sent everyone else, including Chester, outside.
"Tell me Farrell," he began, "Are you afraid of Trent Carp, or is it that he just pays you to do his dirty work?"
Farrell looked across the big table at him. "I ain't afraid of you. I know that much! I could come across this desk and hurt you again. I doubt you can move very fast right now." Then he added as an afterthought "And I ain't afraid of Carp neither."
There was a sneer in Farrell's voice that Matt consciously ignored. "You're partly right, You could try to fight me again, but remember this time it would be one on one⦠and I have a gun."
"I don't think you'd shoot an unarmed man, marshal."
"You're my prisoner, you tried to escape. That's all the justification I need."
"You think you're pretty smart, dontcha?"
Farrell had started to rise and Matt reached for his gun. "Don't do it, you can't win." He stopped for a moment so he could take another breath and also to give Farrell time to consider his options. "I just want to talk to you, Farrell. Believe it or not, I'm trying to help you. As it stands now, you and Carp are accused of murdering Sheriff Hicks and his deputy. When a good lawman's killed like that, it isn't long before there's a reward out for information as to who committed the crime. There's enough people in this town that someone is going to be willing to step forward and testify against you both in order to collect that money."
Dillon could tell he had the man's attention now.
"Whoever's found guilty is going to be hanging at the end of a rope when that trial's over." Again, he let there be a silence in the air for a second or two. It gave him time to pause to take a careful breath and Farrell time to consider his choices. After a few seconds he continued to push home his small advantage. "I think you had a lot to do with it - but I believe it was Carp who hired the man, or men, who pulled the trigger. I don't know if it was you he paid or someone else, but I know for sure that you were involved."
"So?" Pete Farrell began to see a grim future for himself. This marshal must be a very determined man - he shouldn't even be sitting here breathing at all after the beating they gave him.
"There's a lot of difference between a prison sentence and a hanging Farrell."
"You're bluffing."
"No, I'm not. I don't really mind if both of you hang, I just think that maybe you don't deserve it as much as Carp does."
Farrell thought for a while.
"What is it you want to know?"
"Who paid for the killing? Was it Carp or Holcombe?"
Farrell sat there biting his lip. Obviously, he didn't want to finish up with a rope around his neck - but he didn't want to admit that he had any part in the murders either. He chose his words carefully.
"It was Tad Holcombe who wanted the law out of the way. The sheriff kept hounding him, threatened to throw him out of town. That's when Carp arrived. He brought two men with him. They were the real killers, marshal. They disappeared quickly after they did their job."
"Any idea who they were?"
"I'm not sure. There's some wanted posters in the desk drawer in front of you. I think one of the men is there, the other man got killed. I think his name was Harris." Farrell deliberately avoided mentioning that it was himself who had killed Harris - it had been a fair fight - but this ornery lawman might not see it that way.
Matt opened the drawer that Farrell indicated, and pulled out a handful of circulars. He passed them to Farrell. Admittedly the man could pick anyone and there would be no way to know if he was telling the truth or not, but he wanted to give him a chance.
Dillon watched as Farrell looked through the stack. One by one he set them aside. There were only two or three left when he stopped and turned one around so that the marshal could see it.
"I'm pretty sure this was one of them."
Matt looked at the circular. "Red Larson" wanted for robbery and murder. One thousand dollars' reward. He had heard the name but that was about all he knew about the man.
Pete Farrell stared hard at the marshal sitting across from him. He wanted Dillon to believe him. He had only got caught up by Carp and his men because Carp had paid him and given him responsibilities. It had made him feel important, and he was paid pretty well for the little work he did. Yes, he had beat a few people up, and taken their money, but he hadn't murdered anyone. Even Harris had been killed in a fair fight.
Matt had taken the circular and folded it carefully, then he put it in his inside vest pocket. He would keep it for later.
He looked back at Farrell and the man could almost feel the cold blue eyes piercing his thoughts.
"That's the honest truth marshal. I know you have no reason to believe me, especially after we beat you up an' all, but I'm telling the truth now."
"I'll tell you what's going to happen, Farrell. Those deputies out there are going to take Carp and the Holcombe brothers to Hays City. There's going to be a trial and I expect a hanging. If you're willing to stand up in court and testify to what you've just told me, I'll do everything I can for you. I don't particularly like you, but I don't think you deserve to hang."
Matt was thinking that between Fleur and Farrell and a few other people from the town they would have a pretty good case against the prisoners back there in the cells.
TBC
