Tabor Evans - Longarm on the Border

"Seeing I am a stranger who don't know beans about your town, maybe you can tell me how come a man can be sheriff and judge all at the same time."

"Maybe you better ask Sheriff Tucker about that. It's just the way things has always been here, I guess."

"I see."

Before Longarm could ask another question there was a stir in the crowd and a murmur of voices. Longarm and the stranger craned their necks to see what was happening. A knot of men was coming around the corner of the saloon building. Their leader was an imposing figure. He stood high and wide in fancy, heeled boots with colored stitching and wore a tall-crowned Stetson creased in a Dakota peak, but his width competed with his height and detracted from his overall appearance. His stomach hung over his trousers top and rolls of fat forced him to wear his gunbelt too low. Even then, the fat crowded the butt of the old-fashioned ivory-handled revolver that dangled in a tooled leather holster. A gold badge was on the big man's left shirt pocket.

Longarm realized he was getting his first look at Sheriff — and apparently, Judge — Ed Tucker, the man who occupied the catbird seat in Los Perros. Longarm would have been more impressed if Tucker had been a bit on the lean side, and if he hadn't reeled ever so slightly as he strode in front of the little group that trailed him. Still, Longarm thought, he'd reserve judgment until he'd had a chance to study Tucker's face, which was concealed by the shadow his broad-brimmed Stetson cast in the noonday sun.

One of the four men walking behind Tucker was obviously the prisoner. He was shirtless, and wore handcuffs that caught the sun and reflected silver. Longarm paid less attention to him than he did to the other three. Each of the two men flanking the prisoner held one of the handcuffed man's arms. The one bringing up the rear carried the whip, a broad leather thong, over his shoulder. All three of the men, who could only be sheriff's deputies, had the cocky walk of hard cases. Longarm knew the breed; he'd seen them and tangled with them before.

Old son, he told himself silently, looks like you're going to be on the short end of the odds, if it comes out them fellows had anything to do with the army men and the Ranger who dropped out of sight.

By now the sheriff and his men were pushing through the suddenly thickened crowd in the center of the plaza. They wasted little time in ceremony when they reached the cleared area around the well and post. The two who'd escorted the prisoner lashed the man's hands high on the post and stepped aside. The sheriff stepped forward.

"Jed Morton," he proclaimed loudly, "you been tried and convicted of attemptin' manslaughter. You been sentenced with mercy, because the man you tried to kill didn't die. Instead of hangin' you up by your neck till you're dead, the court's been good to you. All you're goin' to git is fifty lashes." He nodded to the man holding the whip. "All right, Spud. Go ahead and lay it onto him."

Stepping aside, the sheriff made room for the man carrying the whip to move into position beside the prisoner. He whirled the lash experimentally, the wide leather thong whistling through the still air, then brought it down on the prisoner's back with a loud, flat thwack. The man flinched, but did not cry out.

Though he'd never heard of Jed Morton and didn't know whether the man was innocent or guilty, Longarm twitched in sympathy as the whip fell. He'd heard of fifty-lash whippings in the old days, and knew they usually meant death to the one receiving them. He made no move to protest. He knew any interference he offered might get in the way of carrying out his assignment. He'd reminded himself sternly during the few seconds before the whip wielder began the punishment that this was no business of his.

Again the whip whistled and landed, but as before, Morton did not cry out. The third blow brought a sigh from deep in his throat, though, and the fourth lash, landing on the weals raised by the earlier blows, produced a louder sigh, a moan of pain. Spud, the whipper, continued the punishment. Longarm, his stomach muscles tightening, lost count of the blows after the sixth or seventh had fallen. Morton was moaning steadily now, a throaty monotone that rose only slightly in volume as each new slash cut into his tattered back. His skin had split after the first few lashes, and blood spattered each time the whip swung. The spectators nearest the whipping post pushed back to avoid the flying drops.

There was an unearthly air hanging over the plaza. The crowd was deathly silent. The only sounds heard were the whip's whistling, the wet, flat noise as it splatted home, and the fading moans of the man tied to the stake.

Longarm's gorge was rising. He felt that he'd stood all he could. Morton was almost unconscious now, hanging limply by his bound wrists. Still the wet, ugly splat of new blows sounded with monotonous regularity. In spite of his resolution not to interfere, Longarm had had a bellyful of the spectacle. He elbowed through the packed crowd until he stood in the front rank of spectators. Spud was raising the whip for another cut at Morton's bloodstained back when, without seeming to aim, Longarm fired. The heavy rifle slug ripped into the ground between Spud's feet. Spud leaped back, letting the whip drop from his hand.

"That's enough," Longarm announced. His voice was flat; he did not need to raise it to be heard in the stillness that hung like a shroud over the plaza. "The show's over."

He shifted the rifle, bringing its muzzle high enough to cover Sheriff Tucker and the two deputies beside him. All three men had started forward when the shot rang out. Now, as the Winchester's muzzle stared into their faces with its single menacing, unblinking black eye, they took a step backward.

"Who in hell you think you are?" Tucker called.

"I'm the man who stopped this sorry damned circus," Longarm replied levelly. He raised his voice only a little. "That's all you need to know right now."

"You got no right!" Tucker's throat and jaws worked with repressed fury. "You're interferin' with the law's due process! I can put you in jail for this!"

Still in the same low, level tone, Longarm invited, "Come ahead." He shifted the rifle to swing it in a short arc that menaced the sheriff and his two deputies in turn. "If you're ready to pay what it'll cost you."

None of them moved. Tucker repeated his question: "Just who are you, anyhow?"

"I told you once, that's enough." Longarm still kept his voice at a conversational pitch. He might have been discussing the weather, or the price of steers. Addressing the deputies, he said, "You two. Get that man down off the post."

There was a steeliness in Longarm's tone now that the men recognized as the voice of authority. They neither argued nor made any threatening gestures as they moved to obey. Rather, they very carefully kept their hands in front of them, at chest level, while they walked to the stake and untied Morton. When they'd freed him and were supporting his unconscious form, they looked questioningly at Longarm, waiting further orders.

From the moment the Winchester's blast had shattered the silence of the plaza, the crowd had been frozen and motionless. Now people began to stir, those closest to the whipping post pushing back to widen the circle in which Longarm held the sheriff and his men. The spectators remained silent, though, and now the eerie quiet was making itself felt, stretching the nerves of the little group in the plaza's center.

Longarm felt the tension building and moved to take charge before it broke. He ordered, "Take that poor devil someplace where his back can be tended to."

For the first time, the deputies looked to Tucker for instructions. He said, "I guess the jail's as good a place as any. Haul him over there, boys. Tell Wahonta I said to take care of him."