“I’m staying,” Pike Skinner said.
“Stay then. Chick, you and Pete go get some sleep. We’ll be taking them into Bright’s in the morning.”
There was muttering among the men bunched in the doorway. A muffled shout went up outside. The possemen pushed out the door, spurs clinking and scraping.
When they had gone, Pike Skinner swung the door closed and slid the bar through the iron keepers. The goblin faces still pressed against the window glass. There was another burst of shouting and hurrahing outside. Pike Skinner walked heavily to the rear, let himself fall into the chair there, and stared hostilely at Gannon. At the table Carl sighed and rubbed his knuckles into his eyes.
“Didn’t take you long,” Gannon said.
Carl laughed. “We ran onto them just before they hit the river. Pony and Calhoun, that is. They separated but we rode them down easy. Ted and Pike here kind of flushed Billy out of some trees down there and—”
Pike said abruptly, “It was Billy shot Ted.”
“He was shooting at me,” Billy said, in a harsh voice, from the cell. “What was I supposed to do, sit and let him do it?”
“Carl,” Pony said. “You are not going to let those bastards take us out of here, are you, Carl?”
“Shut your face,” Pike said. “You chicken-livered ugly little son of a bitch.”
“Thought you wanted me to let you go,” Carl said. “Thought you told me I might as well, for a jury up at Bright’s would do it anyhow. Save me trouble, you said.”
“I got something to tell you, Bud Gannon,” Calhoun said. “Come over here so’s I can whisper it.”
“Never mind,” Billy said. “Never mind, Bud.”
Gannon didn’t look toward the cell, leaning against the wall where the names were scratched, and watching within himself the slow turn of the cards, knowing each one as it turned. He stared at the goblin faces at the window and listened to the shouting and muttering outside. It was the only card he had not foreseen.
“You are so God-damn sure you caught your road agents!” Pony yelled.
“Hush!” Carl said.
“Be damned if I do! You got the wrong people! You—”
Carl got up, swung swiftly and hit Pony in the face through the bars. Pony fell backward, cursing.
“Wrong people!” Carl said, rubbing his knuckles. “You just happened to pick up that strongbox where somebody else dropped it, I guess.”
“One wrong, though,” Calhoun said quietly, and laughed; he moved back as Carl raised his fist again. Gannon stared in the cell at Billy and he felt his heart swell and choke him again; he had almost missed another card. Billy just looked back at him, scornfully.
“Listen to those boys yell out there,” Pike said.
Gannon started and Carl reached for the shotgun as there was a knock. Carl motioned to Gannon to unbolt the door. It was the Mexican cook from the Boston Café; he slipped in, carrying a tray covered with a cloth. The men outside set up a steady whooping, and the Mexican looked very frightened as he put the tray down and departed. As Gannon swung the door closed behind him he had a glimpse of the vast, dark mass in the street, and groups of pale, whiskered faces showing here and there by lanternlight. Someone was haranguing them from the tie rail at the corner. He bolted the door again.
Carl passed bowls of meat and potatoes into Calhoun. Pony threw his to the floor. “Go hungry then,” Carl said.
Pike took a steak in his hand and wolfed it down, and Carl attacked his hungrily too. Gannon set his plate on the floor beside him. There was another round of shouting outside, with one voice rising above the rest. The words were lost in the uproar. The faces at the window had vanished.
“Bud,” Billy said. Pony and Calhoun had retreated into the darkness. Gannon felt Pike Skinner watching him. “What the hell would you do, Bud?” Billy said. “People after you and throwing lead all over the landscape. What the hell would you’ve done?”
“I don’t know,” he said. Carl was pretending not to listen.
Pike said, “You might’ve thought how come there was a posse after you in the first place.”
Gannon saw Billy’s face twist, and something in him twisted with it. Another yell went up outside, and Pony appeared at the cell door again.
“Sit there and lap your supper!” he shrilled at Carl. “They are coming! Can’t you hear them coming?”
“We’ll stop them,” Carl said, “if they come. You can quit wetting your pants.”
“Bud,” Billy said again.
“Never mind it now, Billy,” Gannon said tightly. Pike glowered at him from the chair beside the alley door. Carl sat hump-backed at the table, forking food into his mouth.
“Long ride to Bright’s,” Carl said, over a mouthful. “You boys in there better get some sleep.”
“We’ll never get to Bright’s!” Pony cried.
“Oh, hush that!” Calhoun said.
Bud—Gannon could hear it, repeated and repeated, although Billy hadn’t spoken again. Reluctantly he turned his head to look at Billy again, and he saw Billy’s lips tilt beneath the pitiful young mustache. “Go ahead and say you told me what I was heading for,” Billy whispered. “Go ahead, Bud.”
“What good would that do?”
“No good,” Billy said, and disappeared. The cot springs creaked. Gannon could hear them whispering in the cell. “Why don’t you tell him?” he heard Calhoun say; then the tumult outside grew suddenly louder, and faces were pressed against the window again.
Someone beat on the door with the flat of his hand. “Carl!”
Carl grunted and rose. He wiped his mustache, hitched at his shell belt, and glanced significantly at Gannon and Skinner. He took up the shotgun and nodded at Gannon to unbar the door.
Gannon did so, and leaped back, jerking his Colt free as the door burst inward. Two men hurtled in, to stop suddenly as they saw Carl’s shotgun. There was a knot of others jammed in the doorway, and behind them Gannon could feel the whole huge and violent thrust of the mob. Pike leaped forward with his Winchester in his hands. Outside they were whooping steadily again.
“You are going to have to give them up, Carl,” Red Slator said loudly, as he and Fat Vint backed up to join the others in the doorway. Close behind these two, Gannon could see Jed Smith, a foreman at the Thetis, Nate Bush, Hap Peters, Charlie Grace, who was one of Dick Maples’ bakers, Kinkaid, a cowboy from up the valley, several miners, and Simpson and Parks, who were both macs for some of the crib girls. Their faces were grim. Fat Vint looked drunker than usual.
“Get out of here, you miserable sons of bitches!” Carl said.
“You can’t stop us!” Charlie Grace shouted, and cheers went up from the dark, featureless mass behind them.
“See if I don’t,” Carl said. “If you think a bunch of pimps and drunk bullprods is going to bust this jail, you are mistaken. Get out of here!”
“We will tramp you down!” Vint yelled blusteringly. “You hear, Pike?” He looked at Gannon with his bloodshot pig-eyes, and sneered, “And you’ll keep out of it if you know what’s good for you, Johnny Gannon.”
“Get out of here!” Carl said, in a level voice.
“We’ll get out of here taking them with us!” Slator said. “We are going to hang the murdering bastards and bust over you if we have to, Carl Schroeder. You know what’ll happen at Bright’s; by God, everybody knows. They’ll get off sure as hell, with McQuown to send up lying hardcases by the dozen and scare the jury green too. You know that, Carl!” The men in the doorway began all to shout at once, and the shouting gathered power outside until the whole world seemed to be shouting.
Carl waited until the noise had subsided a little; then he said, “Red, I’d like to see them hang as much as you. I caught them and lost Ted Phlater doing it.” His voice rose. “And we went out and caught them while you and this bunch was sitting on your slat-asses drinking whisky. So I will be damned if you will take them off us now the hard work is done! Now get!”