The three of them stepped out southward. No one appeared upon the plank walk as far as they went, but Parker saw from the corner of his eye the faces glued to store windows as they went along.
The gaunt man’s broken wrist was losing some of its numbness and the pain was coming on strong by the time they halted across from the jailhouse. He swore helplessly in a singsong manner, a lot of the starch gone out of him. He said to Parker when they were no longer moving, “I owe you something for this. We weren’t doing anything. Just come in for a drink and got buffaloed by a damned gun-drunk tin badge. I’ll pay you back for this an’ a damned sight sooner than you think, too.”
Two men drifted out of a northward dog-trot to stand slouched, looking down at Parker and his prisoners. Two more came walking out of a saddle shop across the way. Those four were strangers to Parker; they were cowboys by the looks of them, tough and hard and reckless. It was the still way they stood, all their attention on Parker’s prisoners, that made him particularly notice them, that and the fact that those four men suddenly appeared like that, the only men in sight along the roadway. He stepped closer to his captives, putting their bodies between him and those four motionless watchers.
The raffish man made an oily smile. “You’re smart,” he said. “Smart enough to use us for shields. But, Sheriff…how you goin’ to get across the road with us? There’ll be two on one side of the road an’ two on the other side o’ the road. Either way, lawman, your back’s goin’ to be facin’ someone.”
Out of a nearby doorway stepped several armed men. Councilman Todhunter was in front of them. He moved gingerly up and said: “Go ahead, Travis. We watched it build up against you. We’ve got shotguns. Go ahead, and, if those four try it, they’ll get fiddled.”
“That answer you?” asked Parker of the raffish men. “Move along, both of you.” He touched their backs with his six-gun. “Keep closed up. Make a wrong move and I’ll open the thing by killing you.” He pushed harder with the gun barrel.
The raffish man made a quick, negative wag with his head, stepped down into roadway dust, and went walking onward with the hurting weight of that fierce overhead summer sun fully on him. At his side the gaunt cowboy plodded along, ignoring everything but the agony each jarring footfall brought him through his shattered arm.
Parker stayed close enough to these two so that no one firing at him, even if he was hit, could escape also hitting one of his prisoners. He had a peculiar, cold feeling between the shoulder blades as he made that crossing, as though venomous eyes were burning a hole in him with their icy determination to kill him.
He was not entirely sure what he had, but he’d thought, when first those two range riders had walked their mounts past the jailhouse, that they were not just ordinary hands, and that they hadn’t just happened to ride into Laramie this particular day and this particular time.
Behind him on both sides of the plank walk, as he stepped with his prisoners into the hot shade in front of the jailhouse, men were easing quietly out of stores, armed and silent and solemn-faced. Two of those other cowboys turned abruptly and went toward a saloon. The other two then did the same thing, acting indifferent, acting completely unconcerned.
Chapter Fifteen
Amy wasn’t still in Wheaton’s office when Parker entered, but Lew Morgan was there. He was taking a riot gun off the wall with his back to the door when Parker entered with his prisoners. Lew turned, looked at the prisoners, finished bringing down the shotgun, then walked across the room.
“Who are they?” he asked, indicating the man with the broken wrist and his swarthy companion.
Instead of a direct reply, Parker leaned on the closed door, holstered his weapon, and said: “When Fleharty told me Swindin offered him five thousand dollars for helping, it occurred to me that your foreman would make the same offer elsewhere. That’s why I left Wheaton’s room with Johnny when I did. It didn’t seem likely Swindin could recruit gun hands among Laramie’s townsmen, so he’d have to do it among the cowboys. I wanted to be over here where I could see any riders coming into town.” Parker jutted his chin at his prisoners. “These two rode past a little while ago. They tied up outside Fleharty’s saloon. I wasn’t sure about them, but they looked capable of murder for five thousand dollars. Then the dark one there, when I mentioned your foreman’s name, showed by his expression that he knew Swindin, that he and his pardner hadn’t just happened into Laramie this morning.” Parker looked wryly at Morgan. “I almost made a fatal mistake, though. There are six of them, not two. Just now out in the roadway four more showed up. If it hadn’t been for Todhunter, they’d probably have nailed my hide to a wall.”
Lew pushed his hat far back, turned, and viewed the sullen prisoners. “I’ve seen them before. I think they’re itinerant cowhands like Ace McElhaney was.”
“Well,” said Parker, “the tough one there needs a doctor. Would you find him and fetch him down here while I’m watching them?”
“Sure, be glad to.”
“And, Mister Morgan…leave the shotgun here. Those other four don’t know you’re in this, too. The shotgun might convince ’em otherwise.”
Lew obediently put aside the scatter-gun, stepped around Parker, and walked out of the office.
The raffish cowboy went to the bucket, took a long drink, ignored his partner, and said to Parker: “You got this all wrong, Sheriff. All wrong. We didn’t know them four fellers out in the roadway.”
Parker shot this man a withering look, motioned the injured man to a chair, watched him obey, then removed his hat, tossed it aside, and said: “The only talk I want out of you, mister, is the place where Swindin is holed up.”
“Who is Swindin?” asked his prisoner, looking falsely innocent. “Do you know anyone named Swindin, Buck?”
But the other cowboy, the one addressed as Buck, was too engrossed with his pain to answer this. Instead he sat there looking extremely uncomfortable, saying nothing and getting steadily paler down around the mouth.
“How did Swindin get word to you boys to come help him?” asked Parker.
The raffish man said again: “Who’s Swindin?”
“How much did he offer you?”
“What? Sheriff, you’re way off on…”
Parker could move extremely fast for a large man. He caught that swarthy man by the shirt front, carrying him violently back until they crashed together into the office wall. Impact made the shorter man’s breath burst out of him; his sly, poised expression slipped badly to be replaced by a look of pure astonishment and consternation. He braced himself against the solid weight of Parker Travis.
“Let me tell you something, mister,” said Parker in a voice both low and lethal. “This isn’t a game we’re playing. Swindin killed my brother. I want him for that. You keep on playing games with me and I’ll start the killing by breaking your dirty neck!”
From his chair the other cowboy said thinly, “I wish I had use of both my hands, damn you, Travis. Any killin’…I’d do.” But he made no move to arise, to go to the aid of his friend.
Parker loosened his hold on the dark man. He turned and said to the man with the broken wrist: “You knew me, didn’t you? That’s a coincidence, isn’t it?”
The gaunt man ignored this; his hanging wrist was enormously swollen now and turning purple. Dried blood lay caked where the flesh was lacerated. His eyes were glazed with intense suffering.
Parker swung back to the shorter man. His grip tightened, making breathing difficult. “Talk,” he ordered. “Talk or I’ll break both your wrists, too!”