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“What good’ll it do keeping an eye on me, Sheriff?” Sutton said bitterly. “I’m a dead man already, you’re just waiting for the hemp-broker to show up.”
“Man’s got a point,” Doc said in his soft Georgia drawl. “Crazy dance we’re calling, Lock.”
A puff of smoke belched out from under the broad brim of the black hat tipped over the face of the long-legged man perched in a tipped-back chair, feet on the cold stove. “A decent description of the rule of law, Doc. And as I recall, it was the ‘crazy’ part that made you sign up for this.”
Doc pursed his lips, nodded, and turned to spit his cigar-end into the cuspidor between the two men’s chairs. “Can’t say as I disagree. If you’d turned Cartwright over to us instead of shooting him yourself, Sutton, I’d a shaken your hand instead of putting on the cuffs. Never liked that son-of-a-bitch. But you shot him, so we wait for the judge to get here and convict you, and then we hang you good and legal for murder. Waste of time, if you ask me.”
“Doc’s a good deal less finicky than I am about who lives and who dies.” The pipe-stem under the black hat-brim tipped a little, probably from Sheriff Lock grinning. “I could unlock that cell and let you out, but that’d just lead to an even faster trial than the one you’re entitled to get.”
As if to emphasize the sheriff’s words, the door pounded once again. “Let ‘im out, Sheriff Lock!” a man roared. Four or five others took up a similar cry.
Sutton let go of the bars so abruptly that they clanged once, and huddled back on his cot, eyes wide.
“That’ll be Cartwright’s hired hands.” Lock didn’t lift his black hat-brim from over his eyes, nor straighten out his chair from its tilted-back position. “You really ought to have let Ben pay them for the month before settling your score, Sutton. Doc, go talk to them.”
“All right, Sheriff.” Doc stood and walked to the door.
“Talking to a lynch mob?” Sutton shook his head. “What the hell can you say –”
Doc yanked the shotgun off the wall, flung open the door and fired one round straight into the crowd. He slammed the door on the screaming and panic outside and walked back to put the duck-gun back on the wall. The noise outside had already dispersed into scattered men yelling and cursing.
“Doc has a way with words,” said the hat.
Doc hunkered down under his desk, fumbling around. “Where the hell’d I put that blame thing – there it is.” A cry of pain from outside. “Hold yer goddamn horses, I’m coming!” Doc yelled. He straightened, holding a gator-skin doctor’s bag, and walked back to the door. “Don’t make me shoot y’all while I’m doing this!” Doc bellowed through the door before going outside to treat the wounds he’d just caused.
Sutton stared after the sheriff’s gunman, once again clinging to the bars of his cell.
“Yup,” the lanky figure said. Sheriff Lock had not moved from his chair or even tipped his hat back. “I reckon that’s just about as crazy as us saving your life so you can get hanged later. Go figure medicine or the law."