Читать книгу Deadly Road to Yuma - William W. Johnstone - Страница 13

Matt and Sam each took an arm and hauled Joshua Shade to his feet. They half carried, half dragged the outlaw down the street to the sheriff’s office and jail.

They wanted to make sure that Shade was locked up securely before they did anything else.

Shade began to regain his senses as they entered the squat, solidly constructed stone building. He groaned and shook his head, causing the long brown hair to flop in front of his narrow face.

Then he jerked his head back so that the cords stood out on his neck, and cried, “Unhand me, foul demons! How dare you lay hands on the Lord’s servant?”

Matt and Sam just tightened their grips on him, and Matt growled, “A lobo wolf is more the Lord’s servant than you are, you crazy son of a bitch.”

Shade jerked and flailed and began to spew curses, spittle flying from his mouth as he did so. He was no match for the blood brothers’ strength, though, and they were able to manhandle him across the room to the cell block door that Sheriff Flagg hurried ahead to throw open.

The cell block itself was small, with two cells on each side of a short corridor. The doors were made of thick beams, with a small barred window in each one.

All the doors were open, indicating that the cells were empty at the moment. Matt and Sam wrestled Shade into the first one on the left. The walls were solid stone and appeared to be thick and massive, like the door. There was only one window, also small and barred.

Matt and Sam threw Shade onto the cot attached to the wall. The cot was the cell’s only furnishing other than a chamber pot shoved underneath it.

Shade sprang to his feet as Matt and Sam backed out of the cell. He was frothing at the mouth like a rabid dog.

As Flagg slammed the door, Shade threw himself against it on the other side and clawed at the bars in the little window. He pressed his face against the bars as if trying to force his whole head through them. That distorted his crazed features even more.

“You can’t lock me up!” Shade screamed. “I’ve come to do God’s work! Release me, you filthy heathens!”

“Shut up or I’ll toss a bucket o’ water through that window,” Flagg said.

“You can’t silence the voice of the Lord! You foul abomination! All of you will burn in Hell for your sins!”

“Maybe, but you’ll be there before us,” Flagg said. He turned to Matt and Sam. “I’m much obliged for your help, fellas. The whole town is. You’ve done enough already, capturin’ Shade like that, but you reckon you could help me take a look around town so I can see just how bad the damage really is?”

“Sure, Sheriff,” Matt said.

“Sinners! Unholy sinners!” Shade screeched from the cell as they went into the sheriff’s office again.

“Grab a couple o’ Greeners,” Flagg said as he waved toward a rack of shotguns on the wall. “Liable to need ’em if any o’ those wounded owlhoots are still alive.”

“We can’t just finish them off,” Sam said.

Flagg shook his head. “No, that ain’t what I meant. Just in case they don’t give us a choice, though.”

“Never hurts to be prepared,” Matt said as he went to the rack and took down one of the double-barreled weapons.

Sam had left the hotel keeper’s shotgun in the street, but he still had several shells in his pocket. He used two of them to load the Greener he took down from the rack, while Matt picked up a handful of the shells that Flagg dumped onto the desk from a box.

Well armed again and ready for trouble, the three men left the sheriff’s office. A gun popped from down the street, causing them to swing in that direction and raise their weapons, but a man called, “Don’t worry, Sheriff! One of these snakes was still alive and reached for his gun, but he won’t trouble nobody no more.”

Flagg’s mouth tightened in a grimace. “Damn it, Kincaid, you better be tellin’ the truth,” he said. “I won’t have anybody takin’ the law into their own hands in my town.”

For the next fifteen minutes, Matt, Sam, and Flagg made the rounds of the settlement. When they were done, the inventory of their findings included five dead outlaws; five dead citizens of Arrowhead, including the hotel proprietor; eight more townies wounded; a heavily fire-damaged hardware store; and hundreds of bullet holes. Few of the buildings on Main Street had escaped without any damage. It would take folks a while to patch up everything that needed patching up.

Even so, the town had fared much better than the other settlements that had been raided by Joshua Shade and his gang. The bank and the other businesses hadn’t been looted, the women were safe, and the whole town hadn’t been burned to the ground.

“We were lucky,” Flagg said in acknowledgment of that fact. “Mighty lucky that you fellas were here in town when Shade decided to hit us. He’d have taken us by surprise and gotten the upper hand, probably wiped the place out, if not for the two of you.”

Matt shrugged. “We don’t like owlhoots, so we were glad to help, Sheriff.”

“What will you do with Shade now?” Sam asked.

Flagg rubbed his bearded jaw and frowned in thought. “I know what folks’d like to do.”

“Drag him out of the jail and string him up to the nearest tree?” Matt suggested.

“Yeah, I’m afraid so.”

“Can’t blame ’em for feelin’ that way,” Matt said. “A varmint as ornery as Shade has got it comin’.”

“But that wouldn’t be legal,” Sam argued. “He has to have a trial.”

“Oh, he’ll have a trial, all right,” Flagg said. “I ain’t gonna put up with any lynch law in my town.” He cast a worried look up and down the street, where people were gathering and talking together in angry voices. A couple of men spat on the corpse of a dead outlaw.

The sheriff went on. “Folks are workin’ themselves up into a bad state, though. They may not want to listen to reason.”

“Do you have any deputies?” Sam asked.

“A couple o’ part-timers. Arrowhead’s a pretty peaceable place most of the time.” Flagg frowned at Matt and Sam. “Say, you fellas wouldn’t consider—”

Matt raised a hand to stop him. “We’re not lawmen, Sheriff. We helped out a badge-totin’ friend of ours over in Texas a while back, but that was enough deputyin’ to suit us for a long time.”

“And we were never actually sworn in over there,” Sam added. “It was all unofficial.”

“That’d be fine with me,” Flagg said. “All I need is somebody to make sure nothin’ happens to Shade before his trial.”

Matt asked, “How long do you reckon that’ll be?”

“The mood the town’s gonna be in, it better be as soon as possible. We got a justice o’ the peace here, but no judge who could preside over a trial like the one Shade’s gonna have.” Flagg scratched at his beard and then thumbed his plug hat back on his head. “Reckon I’ll have to send word to Tucson to get a judge out here. Probably take a week, maybe a little less.”

“Which means you’ll have to guard Shade for that long,” Sam said. “And lynch mobs aren’t the only danger. Once his men realize that he’s in jail, they might decide to come back and get him.”

“Most of them got away,” Matt said. “There’s still a good-sized bunch of killers out there. Probably be a good idea to get some more lookouts posted, Sheriff.”

“Yeah, you’re right,” Flagg agreed. “Wish I had a couple o’ good men to watch the jail, though.”

The blood brothers looked at each other. Matt sighed and said, “I don’t reckon we have much choice, do we?”

“Not really,” Sam said. He turned to Flagg and went on. “All right, Sheriff. We’ll give you a hand.”

“Unofficially,” Matt added.

“I don’t care about that,” Flagg said with a sigh of relief. “I’m just much obliged to you boys for your help.”

“To tell you the truth, I sort of lean toward stringin’ Shade up myself,” Matt muttered.

“You’re not the only one,” Sam said as he nodded toward the sheriff’s office. “Looks like we’ve already got trouble.”

Matt and Flagg turned and saw the same thing Sam did—a large group of men heading toward the jail, carrying rifles and shotguns and talking in loud, angry voices.

“Looks like we’re about to start earnin’ our wages,” Matt said, then went on in a dry voice. “Oh, yeah, we’re not gettin’ paid for this, are we? We’re riskin’ our lives for a no-good, murderin’ skunk just because it’s the right thing to do.”

“Hell of a note, ain’t it?” Flagg said as he lifted his rifle and started toward the mob.