by any means.
The town looked quiet. There was a few ranchers and their women loading up at the mercantiles. The Wyoming flag barely flapped at the courthouse. The square in front of the courthouse was quiet. I wanted the gallows builders to put it in the middle of the square, well away from the streets. I’d asked Will Wiggins at the lumber yard about getting the gallows built, and he said he would bid on it.
“I’ll see about a proper design, and get to sawing the timbers,” he’d said. “I think some good solid pine eight-by-eights should do it. Regular two-by-fours and plank for the deck. I got some hinges here for the drop, which I’ll throw in, since I get ’em back anyways. That deck’s gotta be about eight feet up, so there’s a good neck-cracker fall. Seems to me we don’t want to be hard on the boy, and a good fall’s important.”
He had seemed uncommon eager. I guess it’d give him something to talk about at the potluck suppers over at the Rock of Gibraltar Chapel where he and his woman went at nine o’clock every Sunday morning. The services at that outfit lasted three hours, with a lot of hallelujahs, and I was awful glad I wasn’t of that persuasion.
But after that Sunday, he’d backed off and said he didn’t want the business, so I got Lem Clegg to do it. There was something else I didn’t know nothing about, which was makin’ a noose. A hanging rope is no lariat. It’s entire different, and I was still looking around for someone who could make me one. I’d asked around some, but so far I hadn’t come across anyone to make one for me. That was a noose for sure that Admiral Bragg’s rannies dropped over me, but I sure wasn’t going to get anyone from that outfit to make one for me.
I hitched my holster around. I hated carrying heavy metal all the time, but nowadays I had to. I drifted along Wyoming Street, and finally hit Saloon Row, where the smell of stale beer drifted out of every batwing door. It wasn’t much different from the rest of town, mostly board-and-bat buildings thrown up fast, but it had a different smell.
I went into the Last Chance, looking for Upward. The place was dark and quiet, and I couldn’t see him nowhere, but he wouldn’t be far away. I finally discovered he was out back, liming the outhouse. The outhouses behind Saloon Row stank so bad they sometimes made the whole town stink. Upward and Mrs. Gladstone at the Sampling Room was the only ones that did anything about it, dumping a few loads of lime down the holes once in a while. Doubtful sure didn’t smell like lilacs most of the time, especially on Sundays, after Saloon Row had seen a Saturday night.
He come in, carrying an empty dipper.
“Keeps it down a little,” he said. “You want a shot?”
“No, just want to talk some.”
“What have you got for me, eh?”
There it was again. To get anything out of Upward, you had to whisper something to him.
“I had a little meeting with Queen Bragg in the middle of the night,” I said.
Upward’s eyebrow arched.
“It didn’t come to nothing.”
Upward sighed. “That’s because you don’t have what it takes, Sheriff. Now, if she met with me in the middle of the night, it’d be different.”
“Okay, where are them two witnesses, the ones that testified that King Bragg plugged three T-Bar men?”
“Oh, you mean Plug Parsons and Carter Bell.”
“Yeah, them two. They’re the ones saw it happen. And you were there too.”
“I heard they left the country, Cotton. Right after the trial. They drew wages from Crayfish. The word was, they were scared that Admiral Bragg would string them up, and I can’t say as I blame them for pulling outa here. That’s what I heard, but I don’t know the truth of it.”
“They say where they was heading?”
“Nope, and they didn’t want no one to know. Crayfish told me they’d drawn wages.”
“That leaves you as the sole witness, Sammy.”
“Me, I didn’t see nothing. I was in the storeroom.”
I remembered at the trial, Upward had testified he’d served up some red-eye to King Bragg, and then gone to the storeroom to find a bung starter. The shooting had come in a burst when he was back there, and he was afraid to come out until things quieted, and then it was just a quick peek. King Bragg was standing there with an empty six-gun and there were three T-Bar men down, leaking blood and life.
“King, he says he didn’t know anything, and first thing he knew, he was lying on the floor looking up at you and some others,” I said.
Upward smiled. “He never was down.”
“The jury thought so too.”
“I heard all the shots, and a lot of breaking glass, and stayed low until it quieted. He was standing there holding an empty gun when I come out of the storeroom.”
“Anything else happening?”
“Sure, half the bottles on the backbar, they were busted and my best booze was draining into the sawdust.”
“How come bullets was coming into the bar? I thought King Bragg was at the bar when he shot them T-Bar men.”
“How should I know? Bullets fly all over the place.” Upward was getting annoyed. “All this because Queen batted her big eyes at you in the night?”
I got to feeling sort of dumb, and started to make excuses, and thought better of it.
“Think what you want,” I said.
Upward, he was enjoying himself.
“Did King Bragg start to reload?” I asked. “Get out of here? A man with an empty gun, he’s pretty quick to shuck the empties.”
“I’m tired of the palaver, Cotton. You find something else to tell me, and I’ll find something else to tell you.”
I tipped my hat and left, with Sammy Upward staring at my back. The sunlight felt good. The two witnesses were gone, and Upward said he didn’t see the shooting. King Bragg said he was knocked out and lying on the floor; but Upward said King was standing with an empty gun in his hand. Upward said a bunch of his bottles got busted; the court testimony was that King Bragg was shooting from the bar into the rest of the saloon. It sure was a puzzle.
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