Chapter 18 #2
“Well, he’s asleep for the night. He’s cut up and so exhausted from being hauled over a horse for two days that he ain’t makin’ no sense.” Nodding, the sheriff said, “In the meantime, let’s see if one of these posters looks enough like him to give us a name.”
Red’s neck still felt cold, as though God in heaven was sending a warning. He bent over the posters but kept his ears wide open.
Sid rode side by side with Boog, and the moon was high in the sky by the time they reached the sleeping town. A light shone in the window of the sheriff’s office. Sid nodded toward it. “Sheriff Dean must be keeping watch.”
Boog muttered in the cool spring night, “Looks to be the only light in town.”
“Let’s circle around. Come in through the back. You still got that key that works on most doors, Boog?”
“I got it.”
“Then let’s go in quiet, get the jump on the sheriff, then knock him cold and leave him in a cell. No shooting if we can help it. We’ll be in and out before he knows we’re there.”
Pulling their kerchiefs over their faces, they circled like patient vultures. There was no sign of life anywhere in town. It was long after midnight, and even the Golden Butte had closed up.
A dim light shone under the back door of the jail. Sid had made a point to know the layout of every building in Divide he could gain access to, always planning for a robbery or escape. He silently swung down off his roan and hitched him beside Boog’s gray mustang and the horse for Harv.
They moved toward the door. Boog quietly produced the key he’d filed down until it would open all but the most expensive locks. The jail hadn’t bothered with expensive.
The lock gave with a single scratch of metal on metal. The door opened with an almost inaudible creak. Boog slipped in. The man knew more about sneakin’ and thievin’ than anyone Sid had ever known. It was what Sid liked best about him.
“What’s that?” The voice coming from the front of the jail froze them in their tracks.
A second later, trying to be silent, they slipped out the back, and Boog swung the door shut.
He turned the lock with aching slowness, and then they hurried into the shadows, pulling their horses along.
An outcropping of rocks that edged the town about a hundred feet to the south offered the nearest cover.
Sid led his horse with Boog right behind him, and they waited.
Sid peered carefully around the rocks as the back door opened. Red Dawson poked his head out. Hard to forget the preacher with his flaming red hair.
Sid had seen the man once, right after Sid had struck Mort down and taken the job.
Sid had heard of the Dawson ranch too. A well-run operation, and he knew of Cassie Griffin Dawson because the Sawyers used that fancy, neglected Griffin house as a line shack.
The older cowpokes on the Sawyer place liked swapping stories about what a worthless, no-account Lester Griffin had been and how beautiful and spoiled his wife was.
The stories were laced with envy that Red had gotten her and apparently taken a firm hand, because now she was the hardworking-est woman any of them had ever seen.
Boog nudged Sid, then spoke in an almost silent whisper.
“He’s who came into the canyon and took Harv.
I could look back once I got myself clear.
They had two men scale the cliffs outside the canyon and pin Harv down.
Sharpshooters, the best riflemen I’ve ever seen.
Probably fought in the War Between the States. ”
Sid had fought in that war too. Then he’d stayed on and fought after Lee had surrendered because he’d gotten a taste for shooting men, and it suited Sid to take what he wanted. Let weaklings work for their bread.
“I wasn’t on watch, or they’d have had us both. I saw that red hair for sure.”
“Name’s Red Dawson,” Sid said. “He’s a rancher, but he’s the town parson too.”
Boog grunted in disgust. “He must be staying the night with Sheriff Dean.”
“You sure it was him in the canyon? Preachers don’t run with riflemen.”
“This one does. Maybe he converts people by threatening to send them to hades. It was him. You think there’s any chance someone else would offer to stay with Harv, someone with bright red hair?”
Dawson, the sheriff just behind him, stared into the darkness. It was too far to see Red’s eyes, but his whole body spoke of alertness. He wasn’t going to let Harv go without a fight.
“Let’s ease back and wait ’em out.” Sid thought of the long, brutally hard day of work he’d had and another one coming tomorrow.
He needed that gold. He was sick of breaking a sweat to earn a living.
But to just go charging in there would bring the whole town down on them.
“They’ll be easier to take when they’re asleep. ”
Sid and Boog faded a bit farther under the trees and settled in.
“I’ll take first watch. Get some sleep. You can spell me later.” Boog sat and leaned his back against a tree so he could keep an eye on the back door.
Sid dozed until Boog jarred his arm. “It’s gettin’ on toward daybreak. We’ve gotta move on the jail now or forget it.”
“Let’s go.” Both of them pulled their handkerchiefs up and eased forward in a silence so thick the hoot owls didn’t even breach it.
Boog led the way back to the rear entrance of the jail.
Again he unlocked the door with his filed-down key.
They stepped into the quiet murmur of voices and the loud roar of Harv’s snoring.
Sid stayed close. Despite the narrow confines of the hall running along the front of the two cells, with Dawson and the sheriff to deal with, it was a two-man job now.
The hall was about two feet wider than the door leading to where the sheriff and Dawson sat talking.
As Sid slipped up that hall, the sight of the iron bars sent a chill up his spine.
He’d cheated prison so far, and he had no intention of ever spending a night in jail.
If he ever found himself cornered by the law, he’d decided long ago to go down guns blazing rather than be locked in a cage like an animal.
Harv lay snoring in the cell farthest forward while the other cage was empty, its door slightly ajar. Sid didn’t wake him in case the cessation of noise might act the same as sounding an alarm. He ducked behind the slightly ajar door and peeked through the crack between the door and the frame.
The sheriff sat there, hands behind his head, feet propped up on his desk with ankles crossed, talking cattle. Dawson’s chair was closer to Sid. He sat just inside the door, holding a cup of coffee in both hands, rocking his chair on its back legs.
Sid’s blow to Dawson’s head had to be brutally hard.
Sid wanted him down and out with one quick move.
Whether Dawson survived the strike or not didn’t matter much.
A witness could bring trouble. Then Sid would get the drop on the sheriff and tie him up.
Hoping to avoid the noise of gunfire, Sid would shoot ’em both, grab Harv, and run if he had to.
Sid glanced at Boog, then drew his gun and turned it so the butt end was forward. Boog nodded, understanding Sid’s plan. Dawson’s chair swayed as he sipped his coffee.
Raising the gun butt, Sid prepared to storm into the room and strike.
Dawson stood suddenly.
Sid whirled his gun around to take aim.
“I might as well get some sleep. It’ll be dawn in a few minutes.”
The sheriff lowered his hands and took his feet down off his desk. “I’ll make it the rest of the night.”
“Just remember he had a partner. Someone out there knows we caught him and could be looking.”
“I appreciate the company. Stop by before you head out of town, and we’ll try and get some information out of him.” Dawson left without a backward glance, and the sheriff settled back into his reclining position at his desk.
Sid and Boog exchanged glances, then, less than a minute after Red’s exit, a soft snoring sound came from the front.
Boog’s cold eyes gleamed. He slipped through the door into the front office. A dull thud sounded of something hard striking flesh and bone. Boog backed into the room, dragging a bleeding sheriff by his feet.
Enough light came from a single lantern in the sheriff’s office to illuminate the trail of blood. Vicious satisfaction uncurled in Sid to think of hurting any lawman. They were the enemy. “Harv, wake up.”