“Do I know for sure? Nope, can’t say that I do, but it’s what he does to get his way. His motto’s ‘if it can’t be bought, stomp on it.’ Leastways it strikes me that way.” Granger pressed his hand over the spot where he had tucked away the envelope.
“He always gets his way?” Ike edged from the cell and scooped up everything off the table. The marshal hadn’t even taken a share of the greenbacks and specie. All the money went into his side coat pockets. With a move like a striking snake, he snatched the wallet and stuffed it into an inner coat pocket. The lone envelope remaining on the table bulged with papers. Hesitantly now, Ike tucked that away into his inner coat pocket. He had back everything he had taken off the dead man, other than the one envelope Granger had kept.
“You’re the one to make certain that’s not true,” Granger said.
Ike had no idea what the marshal meant. A chant outside the jailhouse grew louder, demanding revenge for killing Gregorio. All that meant was a necktie party getting anxious and working itself up into a frenzy. Ike touched the butt of the six-gun hanging at his hip. Six rounds meant nothing when dozens from a hysterical mob attacked him.
“Should we find a place to stand them off?” Ike considered locking himself inside the cell. But the iron bars kept prisoners from getting out, not rioters from breaking in. There had to be some hidey-hole in the large jailhouse that the crowd would overlook. There had to be or he was a goner.
“No reason for that. All it’d accomplish is spilling blood all over my polished wood floors. I had to get that Ferguson boy to do the polishing. Keeping him workin’ was harder than if I did the work myself.” Granger put his hands on Ike’s shoulders and turned him around. “Go on down the hall outside to the back stairs. The crowd’s gathered out front and under the cell window. None of them’ll think to watch for you leaving that way.”
“You’re staying?”
“Why not? I can’t talk sense to them, if they’re a real mob. I sure as hell can’t talk sense to them if Schofield is paying them to bang on the door and raise the dead.” Granger chuckled. “That’s funny. Raise the dead. They’d raise you by your neck ’til you’re dead, but you’ve seen your share of hangings, I suspect.”
“One more is too many,” Ike said. Again he rubbed his grimy neck and imagined what hemp cutting into it would feel like.
“You do have a sense of humor, but then you’d need it to survive as long as you have workin’ for a man like him. I have to admit not being anywhere near as brave as you.” Granger poked his head out of the cell block and looked around. He motioned for Ike to leave the cell.
Reluctantly, the former prisoner crowded past the marshal. As Granger had said, a hallway led to sidestairs. Ike feared what lay ahead. This had to be a trick. Nothing else made a lick of sense.
“Go on. The sooner you leave, the quicker you can get back to your job.”
“My job,” Ike said dubiously. “Why are you doing this?”
Surprise lit the marshal’s face. He opened his mouth to answer, then clamped it shut and frowned.
“That’s a peculiar question. I—” Granger grinned ear to ear, as if the answer came to him. “Sorry. You don’t want me to know who you are. I can keep my yap shut about your true identity.” In a gruff voice, the marshal said, “You get on out of here, you jail-breaking scoundrel! As quick as my deputies get back, we’ll be on your trail.” He lowered his voice. “That’s the best I can do for you.” Granger gave a big wink and slapped Ike on the shoulder as if they were partners in some secret scheme.
Ike instinctively shook hands. The look of pleasure on the marshal’s face befuddled him, but there wasn’t any way he passed on the chance to get out of the jailhouse. He released the lawman’s callused hand and tried to keep from running to the door at the head of the stairs.
The hair on the back of his neck rose. He chanced a quick look behind, still thinking the lawman intended to shoot him in the back and claim he had stopped a jail break. Granger waved, then ducked into the cell block. Ike wasn’t sure but thought the marshal was singing a cheerful tune. It made no sense. Nothing that had happened made a lick of sense.
Hand trembling, Ike opened the door and looked down the steep flight of stairs. None of the crowd milled around. Slowly at first, then taking the steps two at a time, he reached the ground. Looking toward the rear of the jailhouse, he saw a few latecomers at the fringe of the crowd shaking their fists and waving a torch around. They ignored him. He headed in the opposite direction, then cut down a street with the intent of losing himself in San Antonio. The crowd didn’t know what he looked like. Nobody in town really did, either, except Kinchloe, Smitty and their boss.
Nobody that hadn’t helped him escape, that is.
His racing heart slowed after a half hour of freedom. Passersby out on the street hardly gave him a second look. He eyed a saloon and considered going in to wet his whistle, then hesitated. This was the Grand Palace, the gin mill that had tried to cheat Lily and her mother. It seemed a betrayal to put money in the greedy fist of the owner.
“Zachary,” he said softly. That was the owner’s name. He remembered how Lily had spat it out as if the mere mention was venom on her tongue.
He squared his shoulders, then marched through the double doors and stopped just inside. The customers gathered near a stage at the rear, waiting for a show to begin. A half-dozen men pressed their bellies against the bar, swilling beer and joshing each other. A mousy woman wearing a red satin dress with a deep scoop neckline made her way back and forth behind the bar. Her expression said more than words ever could. If she had been working straight through for twenty-four hours, she couldn’t have looked more beaten down. Dark circles under bloodshot eyes matched the sad down-curve of her lips. At some time in the past she had tried to apply makeup. Now the mascara was smeared, and rouged cheeks only accentuated her gray, pale skin.
Ike had seen corpses that looked more alive.
To his right, a twin of the barkeep worked dealing faro. Her eyes were bloodshot, too, and her mouth slack. Gnarled fingers worked mechanically, moving cards around the table as she called out winners and losers in an emotionless, muted tone. From what he saw, working at the Grand Palace sapped all energy from the employees.
“How’d you ever decide this was a decent theater?” He spoke to himself, but the words called to mind the energetic Lily and her annoyingly pushy mother. They must have been really down on their luck to think the Grand Palace was a worthwhile venue to find fame and fortune.
Or even enough money to move on to a better stage.
He wedged himself in to the bar and ordered. It felt good having enough coin in his pocket to buy a beer, even if the bitter brew made his lips pucker. With a deft twist, he left the press of unbathed bodies at the bar and headed for a table at the far rear of the large room, away from the stage. Ike settled down and leaned back, suddenly tired to the bone.
He winced as a trumpet player began torturing an almost-familiar song. Before Ike worked through the possibilities of what the random notes were intended to be, the curtains parted and a chorus line of four dancers began swirling their skirts and revealing ankles and bare calves to the hoots and hollers of the men crushed against the stage.
Ike couldn’t see the dancers when onlookers between him and the stage jumped onto chairs and tables to get a better view. Watching the show at one time would have interested him. Now he felt lost and adrift, not sure how to clear out of San Antonio. The only sure thing he did know was that the lynch mob would eventually have their way with him if he failed to escape.
“Why’s Schofield so anxious to get rid of me?” He closed his eyes for a moment, toying with the idea that the railroad president actually thought he had killed the roundhouse engineer. The screeching trumpet made him turn away from the stage in an attempt to block some of the off-key noise pretending to be music.