Ralph Compton - Bluff City

Clay stepped to the right so no one was between him and Barker. “Now or later, it’s all the same. Barker has a lot to answer for.”

“Is that a threat?” Harve Barker asked.

“Whenever you want, go for your gun.” Clay held his hand close to his Colt and flexed his fingers.

Unperturbed, Barker said, “I am unarmed. Would you shoot someone who cannot defend himself? In front of sweet Melanie?”

“You miserable son of a bitch.”

“I’m not done,” Barker said. “You see, I had heard you were back, and knowing you for the rabid wolf you are, I took the precaution of appealing for help.” He glanced at the Turkish tapestries covering the nearest window. “You may come out now, gentlemen, and do your job.”

The tapestries moved, and from behind them stepped Marshal Tom Vale and Deputy Wiggins. Wiggins leveled his revolver.

“You both heard him threaten my life,” Barker said.

Marshal Vale nodded. “That we did. I am sorry, son,” he told Clay, and sounded sincere, “but you are under arrest. Come along quietly or my deputy will shoot you where you stand.”

Chapter 27

The cell door closed with a clang.

Clay gripped the bars and glared at Deputy Wiggins as the deputy turned the key. “How long do you think you can hold me?”

“Until you rot.” Smirking, Wiggins hung the key on a peg that was well out of reach. “Might as well make yourself comfortable.”

“I’m not the one who should be in here,” Clay said. “Harve Barker is.”

“Oh, sure,” Deputy Wiggins taunted. “We will arrest one of Bluff City’s leading citizens because a notorious man killer says we should.”

“You’re enjoying this.”

Wiggins bobbed his double chins. “Damn right I am. You have been looking down your nose at me since we met, and don’t think I haven’t noticed.”

Marshal Vale broke his silence to say, “That will be enough, Deputy. Wait for me in the office.”

Reluctantly, Deputy Wiggins obeyed.

Clay looked around. In an adjoining cell a drunk snored. In a cell across from his sat a morose man with his head in his hands.

“So what happens now?” Clay asked the lawman.

“The day after tomorrow you appear before Judge Farraday. He will decide whether to have you bound over for trial.” Vale frowned. “I wouldn’t count on being set free. Farraday is a close friend of Harve Barker’s.”

“This is wrong. You know this is wrong. Leave the key where I can reach it and I will be gone by morning.”

Marshal Vale’s frown deepened. “I can’t do that, son.” He tapped his badge. “I took an oath when I pinned this on. I must uphold the law, even when I don’t agree with it.”

“But all I did was make a few threats,” Clay protested. “What can they do to me for that?”

“Depends. Usually the judge imposes a fine and lets the man go with a warning. In your case, with Barker whispering in Farraday’s ear, you could get up to a year.”

“A year!” Clay exploded.

“Simmer down,” Marshal Vale said. “It could be worse. You are not wanted anywhere as Baine, near as I can tell. There was talk of you robbing a bank in Kansas a while back, but charges were never filed because they thought you were dead. So the threats are all Barker has unless he trumps up something else.”

“What about bail?”

“The amount will be up to Farraday. Normally it wouldn’t be much, but in your case he is liable to set it high.”

“I am being railroaded and you know it,” Clay said.

“You brought it on yourself, marching into the Emporium like you did. Barker had me following him around all evening, just waiting for you to show. He is a lot of things, but stupid is not one of them.” Vale left, closing the outer cell door after him.

Glumly, Clay plopped on the cot and swore.

The man in the adjoining cell with his head in his hands looked up. “I couldn’t help but overhear, mister. Sounds like you are in a worse fix than me.” He was stout, with muttonchops and big, sorrowful eyes. “They arrested me for being a footpad. The very idea, that I, Phinneas Muckle, would stoop to robbery!”

Clay walked to the front of his cell. “Vale wouldn’t arrest you unless he had good cause.”

The man sniffed and managed to look more sorrowful. “I thought that you, at least, would be sympathetic to my plight, given that you claim to be unjustly incarcerated.”

“What can you tell me about Jesse Stark?”

“I beg your pardon?”

“You steal for a living. You work the streets. You must hear all the latest rumors. Have you heard anything about Stark? Is he here in Bluff City?”

“My good man,” Muckle said indignantly. “I will have you know I only associate with—” He stopped and stared at the barred window in the rear wall of Clay’s cell. “My word! Is that what I think it is?”

Clay started to turn. A revolver boomed like thunder and Muckle cried out and fell. Instantly flattening, Clay glimpsed a six-shooter and the hand that held it being hastily withdrawn. Shouts came from the front of the jail. A key rasped in the outer door, and in rushed Marshal Vale and Deputy Wiggins.

“What the hell?” Wiggins blurted, gaping at the prone form that lay in a spreading pool of red.

Never taking his eyes off the window, Clay warily rose. “Someone tried to shoot me in the back but hit him instead.”

“Muckle?” Marshal Vale quickly opened the door to the other cell and bent over the footpad. He pressed a finger to Muckle’s neck. “Dead. Plumb through the heart.” He glanced at Clay. “You say the killer was after you?” Then, to Wiggins, “Get outside and look around.”

“But whoever did it is long gone by now,” the deputy protested. “What good would it do?”

“You will do it because I say to do it,” Marshal Vale said. “Ask everyone you see if they saw anything.”

Grumbling to himself, Wiggins hustled from the cells. No sooner was he gone than Marshal Vale came out of Muckle’s cell and inserted the key into the door to Clay’s. “That should keep him busy a while.” Vale opened the door. “Out you go. Your gun belt is in the bottom right drawer in my desk. Grab it on your way out.”

“What?”

“Are you hard of hearing? I will tell everyone you slugged me. You should have time to gather your things and make yourself scarce.”

“Wait a minute,” Clay said. “You’re releasing me?”

“What is the matter with you?” Marshal Vale snapped. “You want out, don’t you?” He jabbed a finger at the window. “If they tried once they will try again. I can post a guard outside, but that won’t stop them if they are determined to blow out your wick.”

“I’ll be on the run,” Clay said. “You will have to issue a warrant for my arrest.”

“You will be alive,” Marshal Vale countered. “Quit dawdling. Work it out in your head later. Someone could come in the jail any moment, and I will have to slam this door shut again and leave you to your fate.”

Clay hurried past him, then paused. “Why? You said yourself that you always abide by the law.”

“I said not to dawdle. But if you must know, I refuse to have your blood on my hands. It’s bad enough that poor Muckle, there, has been murdered.” Marshal Vale’s jaw muscles twitched. “I don’t take kindly to being used.” He gave Clay a shove. “Now go while you can.”

The gun belt was where Vale said it would be. Clay hastily strapped it on, checked that the Colt was loaded and moved to the front door. He cracked it an inch and peered out. The side street the jail was located on was mired in night, and the few people he saw were going about their business. Slipping out, he quietly closed the door behind him.