LITMIR.BIZ

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so, the town had fared much better than the other settlements that had been raided by Joshua Shade and his gang. The bank and the other businesses hadn’t been looted, the women were safe, and the whole town hadn’t been burned to the ground.

      “We were lucky,” Flagg said in acknowledgment of that fact. “Mighty lucky that you fellas were here in town when Shade decided to hit us. He’d have taken us by surprise and gotten the upper hand, probably wiped the place out, if not for the two of you.”

      Matt shrugged. “We don’t like owlhoots, so we were glad to help, Sheriff.”

      “What will you do with Shade now?” Sam asked.

      Flagg rubbed his bearded jaw and frowned in thought. “I know what folks’d like to do.”

      “Drag him out of the jail and string him up to the nearest tree?” Matt suggested.

      “Yeah, I’m afraid so.”

      “Can’t blame ’em for feelin’ that way,” Matt said. “A varmint as ornery as Shade has got it comin’.”

      “But that wouldn’t be legal,” Sam argued. “He has to have a trial.”

      “Oh, he’ll have a trial, all right,” Flagg said. “I ain’t gonna put up with any lynch law in my town.” He cast a worried look up and down the street, where people were gathering and talking together in angry voices. A couple of men spat on the corpse of a dead outlaw.

      The sheriff went on. “Folks are workin’ themselves up into a bad state, though. They may not want to listen to reason.”

      “Do you have any deputies?” Sam asked.

      “A couple o’ part-timers. Arrowhead’s a pretty peaceable place most of the time.” Flagg frowned at Matt and Sam. “Say, you fellas wouldn’t consider—”

      Matt raised a hand to stop him. “We’re not lawmen, Sheriff. We helped out a badge-totin’ friend of ours over in Texas a while back, but that was enough deputyin’ to suit us for a long time.”

      “And we were never actually sworn in over there,” Sam added. “It was all unofficial.”

      “That’d be fine with me,” Flagg said. “All I need is somebody to make sure nothin’ happens to Shade before his trial.”

      Matt asked, “How long do you reckon that’ll be?”

      “The mood the town’s gonna be in, it better be as soon as possible. We got a justice o’ the peace here, but no judge who could preside over a trial like the one Shade’s gonna have.” Flagg scratched at his beard and then thumbed his plug hat back on his head. “Reckon I’ll have to send word to Tucson to get a judge out here. Probably take a week, maybe a little less.”

      “Which means you’ll have to guard Shade for that long,” Sam said. “And lynch mobs aren’t the only danger. Once his men realize that he’s in jail, they might decide to come back and get him.”

      “Most of them got away,” Matt said. “There’s still a good-sized bunch of killers out there. Probably be a good idea to get some more lookouts posted, Sheriff.”

      “Yeah, you’re right,” Flagg agreed. “Wish I had a couple o’ good men to watch the jail, though.”

      The blood brothers looked at each other. Matt sighed and said, “I don’t reckon we have much choice, do we?”

      “Not really,” Sam said. He turned to Flagg and went on. “All right, Sheriff. We’ll give you a hand.”

      “Unofficially,” Matt added.

      “I don’t care about that,” Flagg said with a sigh of relief. “I’m just much obliged to you boys for your help.”

      “To tell you the truth, I sort of lean toward stringin’ Shade up myself,” Matt muttered.

      “You’re not the only one,” Sam said as he nodded toward the sheriff’s office. “Looks like we’ve already got trouble.”

      Matt and Flagg turned and saw the same thing Sam did—a large group of men heading toward the jail, carrying rifles and shotguns and talking in loud, angry voices.

      “Looks like we’re about to start earnin’ our wages,” Matt said, then went on in a dry voice. “Oh, yeah, we’re not gettin’ paid for this, are we? We’re riskin’ our lives for a no-good, murderin’ skunk just because it’s the right thing to do.”

      “Hell of a note, ain’t it?” Flagg said as he lifted his rifle and started toward the mob.

      Chapter 10

      The men had almost reached the door of the sheriff’s office when Flagg pointed his rifle in the air and pulled the trigger. The crack of the Winchester made the men stop in their tracks. Some of them whirled around and started to raise their weapons, but they froze when they saw the muzzles of two shotguns pointing at them.

      “What the hell, Sheriff!” one of the townies yelled.

      “Back away from there!” Flagg rumbled. He jerked his rifle in a slashing motion to emphasize the order. “That’s my jail, by God, and nobody sets foot in there without my say-so!”

      “There’s a rumor you got Joshua Shade locked up in there, Cyrus,” another man said. “A couple fellas saw you and those drifters draggin’ him into the jail.”

      “Don’t you worry about who I got locked up,” Flagg snapped. “That’s the law’s business. Now, I want you all to break it up and go on about your business…except for a couple of good men who are willin’ to serve as lookouts on top of the bank and the hotel.”

      Some uneasy muttering came from the crowd. “That’s where Harlan and Charlie were, and they wound up dead,” one of the men said.

      “That’s not gonna happen again.”

      “How do you know that, Sheriff?”

      “Because Shade’s men know that we’re ready for ’em now. They’ll have more sense than to try to attack the town again tonight.”

      “But they might some other time,” another man declared, “because they know that Shade’s a prisoner!”

      “If we go ahead and hang him, they won’t have any reason to come back here!”

      Cries of agreement went up from most of the men.

      Sam’s voice rose powerfully to cut through the hubbub. “What about vengeance?” he asked. “If you lynch Shade, you’ll just give his men even more reason to come back to Arrowhead!”

      That reasoning quieted the mob for a moment. Flagg took advantage of the opportunity to say, “I’m gonna send a rider to Tucson first thing in the mornin’. We’ll have a judge out here in less’n a week, so we can give Shade a proper trial…and then hang him!”

      The sheriff was no longer making any pretense that Shade might not be in the jail. He had just admitted it, for all intents and purposes.

      But the mob had been convinced of that already, so the admission didn’t really make any difference.

      “You sure he’s gonna hang?” a man asked.

      “He’s got to be found guilty first,” another pointed out.

      “Hell, we got dozens o’ witnesses who saw him lead that charge into town, shootin’ all the way,” Flagg said. “He’s been seen in other towns, too, raidin’ and killin’. No jury’s gonna find him innocent. You know that.”

      More nods and mutters of agreement came from the crowd.

      “So go on home,” Flagg continued, “unless you want to volunteer to take a shift on lookout duty.”

      Several men stepped forward, and Flagg picked two of them to climb up on

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