William looked up at the bigger, younger, and stronger man, then back at Longarm. “You’d better tell him yourself, Marshal. He won’t listen to me.”
“I think he’s got the message,” Longarm said with a yawn as he went over to the front window, then pulled the curtain aside to survey the street.
Auburn was quiet, with only normal activity. It looked like a nice, peaceful frontier town, which made it easy to forget what had happened only the night before.
“Think I’ll take a nap,” Longarm said, trudging over to the bunk and stretching out with a yawn.
The prisoners stretched out on their own bunks. Jack belched loudly and then pulled his hat over his face. He was snoring in a very few minutes.
William came over to press his face against the bars and whisper, “Marshal, there isn’t any chance of us getting life in prison instead of the gallows, is there?”
“There’s always a chance,” Longarm replied, glancing over at the man, “but I’d be lying if I said it was a good one.”
“I didn’t even kill anyone.”
“But you were part of the robbery and you probably raped along with the others.”
“I did,” William confessed, his eyes growing damp. “I don’t know why either. I got two sisters about the same age as the young women we dragged off the trains. And after we did ‘em, I felt like dirt. Lower than dirt. I felt like shit. Robbing folks is one thing, rapin’ decent girls is another. I got no right to ask for mercy, but I sure can’t stand the thought of dying either.”
“We all die sometime,” Longarm told the man.
“But I’m only thirty-two years old! I ain’t lived but half my natural life. And what I have lived has been hard, low, and mean. I never had a chance. That’s why I started to run with outlaws when I was real young. That’s why I’m in this awful fix right now.”
“Oh, horseshit!” Longarm snapped, adjusting his pillow. “You had to have met a lot of good men while you were growing up. Men that had honor and decency and worked from sunup until sundown trying to do the best they could with the hand they were dealt. Men who didn’t take the wrong fork in the road just because life was tough.”
William sniffled. “Yeah, I met a lot of ‘em. When I was younger, I used to think they were as dumb as the mules they followed in the fields. That they were fools … and worse. Now I know that I was the real fool. And my foolishness is going to cost me my poor, miserable life.”
“I’m afraid that is so, William,” Longarm agreed, without a shred of pity. “But why don’t you just stop thinking about that and get some rest.”
“I’ll soon be resting in Hell.”
“Take a nap, William. And, if you can’t do that, at least let me take one for you.”
“You’re a tough man, Marshal Long. Real tough. You got the badge, but you got no pity. You’re like Jack here. He’s got no pity either.”
“You’re wrong, William. You were wrong about the hardworking men you judged to be as dumb as mules, and you’re wrong about me. I do have pity, but I don’t waste it on outlaws like you and Jack and the three that were lynched last night. You’ll all get what you have coming.”
“And what do you have coming!” William cried as he wiped tears from his cheeks and struggled to keep from sobbing.
Longarm thought about that for only a second, then replied, “A nap today, a vacation tomorrow. Now shut up, William, before I have to come into that cell and put you to sleep.”
William took a long, ragged breath. “You’d love to do that, wouldn’t you, Marshal Long. You’d enjoy coming in here and beating the shit out of me. Maybe pistol-whipping me across the head a few times and then doing the same to Jack. You’d like to see us bleed today, wouldn’t you!”
“Shut up, William. I’m going to sleep now.”
“You lawmen are all the same,” William choked. “You got the badge, but you’re no different than those of us who crossed to the other side and broke the rules. There just ain’t a single cent’s worth of difference between you and me!”
“Yeah, there is,” Longarm told the ranting prisoner. “The difference is that I’m going on vacation and you’re going to the gallows.”
Longarm pulled his hat over his eyes. With a big breakfast under his belt, no sign of trouble out in the street, and a long, boring day ahead of him, taking a nap seemed like the most sensible thing to do.
It was early afternoon when he awoke to a loud pounding at the door. Longarm was sleeping so soundly that he came up grabbing for his gun and dazedly looking for an attack. But he quickly recovered and hurried to the door.
“Who is it!”
“Stella! Open up, Custis! Please open up!”
Longarm opened the door and Stella threw herself into his arms, sobbing. He held her tightly for a few minutes and then he said, “So Marshal Walker didn’t make it, huh?”
“That’s not it, Custis!”
“Then … then what?”
“Noah has been murdered!”
Longarm eased Stella back to arm’s length and studied her face. “Stella, are you sure?”
“Yes. And they think I killed him!”
“What?”
“Oh, Custis, it’s true! They’re going to hang me like they did those three men last night!”
Before Longarm could react, a rifle boomed from across the street and Stella crumpled into his arms.
“Stella!” he shouted, kicking the door shut and then throwing the bolt as another slug bit into the thick wood. “Stella!”
The ambusher had missed the mark. Stella had only been grazed across the neck. Blood oozed from her flesh wound, and she clamped her hand over it.
“Custis, am I going to die?”
“No,” he promised, yanking his bandanna out of his pocket and pressing it to the wound as another shot shattered the silence out in the street. “You’re going to be all right.”
He got Stella back on her feet and over to his bunk. “Just hold that bandanna to your neck and keep it pressed tight,” Longarm ordered as he dashed back to the window, gun in hand.
But the street was empty. The ambusher was nowhere to be seen.
Longarm hurried back to Stella. She was crying as he pulled the bandanna away to inspect the wound. “It’s not bad,” he assured her. “You’ll have a nasty scar, but nothing more.”
In reply, Stella reached up and gripped his shirt. “Dammit, don’t you understand! Someone murdered Noah and they think it was me!”
“But … but why!”
“Because they … they found my stiletto in his back, that’s why!”
Longarm groaned. Given Stella Vacarro’s checkered past, it was easy to see why the crowd immediately assumed she had murdered her well-liked fiance. And with Stella’s stiletto buried in poor Noah Huffington’s back, of course everyone would believe she was guilty beyond any reasonable doubt.
“Custis, what am I going to do! I’ve got to run and hide!”
She tried to get up, but he held her down. “That’s just exactly what whoever really murdered Noah wants you to do. Stella, if you run, they’ll catch you and string you up. I can’t leave here to help you. You have to stay with me.”
“Stay here? In this jail?”
“That’s right,” Longarm told her. “It’s the only place where you’ve got a chance until we can figure out a way to prove your innocence.”
“But …”
“Stella! You’ve got to trust me! Someone managed to get your weapon and use it to murder Noah. And that someone is hoping you panic and run. Don’t you see that!”
“Yes,” she whispered. “Yes!”
“It’s all going to be fine,” Longarm said, knowing how hollow his words sounded.
“No, it’s not! I loved Noah! We were going to be married! Have children. Make a family and spend the rest of our lives together! That’s all gone now.”