“I guess someone will send for you, if there’s need at all.”
“No. I think you better get him, Wade.”
Slowly, without looking back, they walked toward the center of the building, down a corridor to the complete darkness of the cell. They reached the coolness of that last room, divided in half and from the glow of the night by bars, and could be no longer hailed from the street. One side cell, the other bare, with iron rods embedded in the floor and ceiling, it was a room in which two men might meet out of town and in which, once before, a hanging had occurred from scarce planks, a hasty rope, and behind a canvas sheet still wet with turpentine and daubs of paint.
Smoke hardly rose from burning corn silk, no smell of tar or soap. Yet by the tank door — locked — the large shadows of the Sheriff and his friend, allowed owners of the cage, were free to lean against the metal, hold to greasy iron and hear the tinkering of jacknife, the strapping of wrists and tying of the hood. Wind, sand, bugs and daily voices rose and fell sealed beyond the walls of tin and whitewashed brick. The two of them were spread, like men leaning over a fence, against the open slender rails of the tank.
“Wade, let’s take a look at her.” The voice, the rubbing, creasing sounds of the Sheriff drifted away from bars cool to the forehead. He stepped backwards, groped toward the wall and light cord. “She don’t change.” A match flared on his trousers, sulphur fumed in the darkness and for a moment Wade saw the bodies of sleeping prisoners on the tank room floor.
“Twelve years ago, Wade, I left this cell unguarded. And that night, when a break or most anything could have blown, I saw Luke Lampson. I spoke to him; I went along to see his brother married. And the jail held. She’s just as strong tonight.” He pulled the cord and both of them, waiting, rubbed their eyes. The Sheriff looked up, saw the gleam, specks of brown and black in the iron, the square slab of the lock. Wade interrupted.
“Sheriff, is them convicts?”
“Sure. But you know, Wade,” again the hand lay on the other’s arm, “I can’t be in this room and touch these shining bars but what that wedding comes to mind and I see him.”
“Sheriff. Tell me about these men. They’re not just borrowing a place to sleep?”
“I caught them little devils tonight, Wade. Others are still loose. I think I’ll let them go in the morning. They ain’t much use to hold.” He turned slowly, raised his eyes and settled his shoulder tightly between the bars, thrust his body into the pen. A swift prisoner could have caught and twisted the fat arm, an animal torn it with one slash. “I think of Luke right here. This is where I come back to, where I could remember straight, after the wedding. He wanted to come too; I didn’t bring him. I wouldn’t let him further than the office. There’s not many like you, Wade, who want to hang around a jail, who have that need for the taste of lime and light that’s different through ordinary window glass. I didn’t know if to trust him. But ever after, Wade, this room’s been full of fire. I like stone, a man of the law has got to like things hard; he’s got to like the extra weight of a gun and the sound of a closing door. He’s got to watch the men he guards when they’re shaving from a basin on their knees. I was alone for weeks at that time. I didn’t even leave the jail to eat.
“Wade, I wasn’t the man to witness marriage. But he wanted it. We stood together, we pushed through all them women. And if I wanted I could have broke it up, I could have run the lot of them out of town. This cell here hasn’t changed, it’s just kept some of that celebration ever since the time I met him.”
“Sheriff,” Wade peered at the sleepers — one lay almost near enough to touch by stretching a restless foot — and his body slackened, fists settled heavily, arms rested high, “have they been fed?”
“Watered,” continued the Sheriff in a voice low and wandering from the heat, “I watered them.” The other nodded. “You know, Wade, I didn’t even see his brother that night. Two years before I saw him though. I knew that he was marrying, but for all I care he didn’t speak that night.
“But Luke spoke. By the time they had been married half an hour, with all those women trailing after them, and set maybe in some dark room with a latch on the door — I never cared to know where they spent that night — we were in the office, tipping easy together in our chairs. He could have been one of my boys right then, Wade. He was young enough. I could tell he liked it. But I sent him back and waited for morning by myself.”
“You’re not alone tonight, Sheriff. But, you sure these men ain’t sick?”
“Wade, stop putting me off my thought. They’re just locked up for the night is all.” The Sheriff turned, placed his wide face between the bars so that they pressed on his temples and stared into the cell.
The prisoners did not rise. Occasional words, lights burning past the hour, caused no awakening fumble or sudden oath. A few Red Devils lay awkwardly spread eagle in the cell, the black driving mitten of one flung upon the seamless snout of another, tangled, sleeping, perhaps ready to spring with wild rubber limbs high and low against the bars. In captivity, sometime during the night, they had heaped themselves in the middle of the painted floor like a stack of slashed and darkened tires. The Sheriff and Wade slumped, grinned.
“Sheriff, watch this.” Wade, beginning silently to shake, stooped and squeezed, pushed his leg recklessly through the bars. He puffed and it thrust forward, trousers sticking and riding up the bulky calf.
“Wade,” the Sheriff chuckled and whispered, “you’ll get it bit off.”
The dusty shoe of a full sized man probed toward the small formless foot of the nearest sprawled prisoner. Wade hung low and twisted, stopped breathing and bent his head to aim. The Sheriff waited.
He kicked, then kicked again and suddenly pulling and swaying with all his weight he cursed, strained and drew it back. The Devil’s foot moved a few inches and lay still.
“Hell,” Wade caught his breath, “they’re harmless.”
“I told you. But, Wade,” the fingers pressed, relaxed, “go get him for me.”
The red wagon stood at the end of the street. Now and then a volley of firecrackers burst from a huddle of black braided Indians and with a dismal but high pitched cry they scattered, then returned panting toward the wagon. Or a single brave, eyes closed and ankle shoes clumping in the dust, would break from the rest and race with terrified showy speed away from the leaning red spectacle of the traveling house, straight up the center of the empty street.
The fireworks were old. Hoarded in leantos and one room cabins among families of fifteen children and ancient long haired eagle men, they were unearthed, armfuls brought into the street, supplied by bareback riders with pockets stuffed, lathered in haste. The paper cartridges exploded with stored energy or fizzled dangerously in clouds of smoke, the breath of a long horned animal on its knees. Above the clamor of the young men — their legs worked to the rattling of dry stones — the oldest Indian alive, without eyes, chin wrinkled into the mouth, clothed in baggy coat on the shoulders of which scraped his yellowed hair, stood rigidly still and, smiling or grimacing, waved in jerky circles a hissing sparkler.
One of the runners who had left with shouts and returned in a low scuffle, emerged from the alleys between the main buildings of Clare and quietly, whispering, crept to the front of the wagon to hold a bag of gray kernels under the strange horse’s nose. Suddenly it thrashed its tail and ate.
The women of the tribe were waiting. Just beyond range of a sooted and yellow lantern that had been lighted, fanned, and set crookedly near the pair of weathered steps dropped on hinges from the back of the wagon, they bundled together and their brown skeletal cheekbones now and then twitched with pain. Their blank eyes turned upwards to the low but thick red door.