Slocum's Breakout - Jake Logan [53]
“Procipio has sent for him. He will be here soon.”
Slocum started to suggest a way to spend the time before the lawyer arrived when he heard a buggy rattling along the rocky road leading into the village. He scooped up the bills and tucked them into his coat pocket. Letting a lawyer see money before things got spelled out was always a mistake. They focused on the money and nothing more.
Slocum laughed wryly. In some ways, lawyers and the Valenzuela family were alike. Dangle money in front of them and they looked for the most devious way possible to grab it.
“I’m a busy man. This had better be good, Murrieta.” Durant pushed past Procipio and stood in the small room looking belligerent.
“How are you coming with getting Atencio out of prison?” Slocum asked. Durant was a busy man. He said so. There was no need for pleasantries—or politeness.
“I can’t find a judge to issue a longer stay of execution or to go along with the idea that he’s been hanged once so he can’t be hanged twice for the same crime.”
“What about getting the banker to say he was wrong identifying Atencio as a horse thief?”
Durant waved his hand about, as if shooing away horseflies.
“Galworthy is too caught up in putting a new vault in his bank. He’s tired of getting robbed, he says. Doesn’t say a thing about how he robs anyone who puts money in or those he loans to.”
“So you’ve given up trying?” Slocum winced as Maria’s fingernails cut into his arm. She wanted to blurt out her anger but instead clawed at his arm, letting him do the talking.
“There’s only so much I can do, and everyone is starting to ridicule me. There wasn’t any evidence against Atencio save that of the banker’s eyewitness testimony. Galworthy’s come out and said all you people look the same to him.” Durant stared at Maria, putting the lie to that. “A man shot up the bank, broke the window, and then took Galworthy’s own horse and rode away.”
“Galworthy only saw the horse thief from behind?” Slocum asked.
“I tried to bring that out in the trial, but the judge wouldn’t let the jury hear it. Banker Hezekiah Galworthy is a fine, upstanding man and pillar of the community so if he said Atencio stole a horse, that was good enough.”
“He was not even in Miramar when this happened,” Maria said, finally unable to contain herself. “He was here. In this village.”
“Out in the fields working?” asked Durant.
“No,” Maria said reluctantly. “He was in bed.”
“So he was too sick to even be in Miramar,” Slocum said. “There weren’t any other witnesses?”
“None. And Galworthy and Atencio were feuding. The animosity stretched back a month or more over payment on his mortgage. Everybody knew that.” Durant heaved a shuddery sigh. “I can’t get elected dog catcher after this. My career is damned near at an end.”
“Can you bribe a judge?” Slocum asked flat out when he saw Durant begin to shift his weight from one foot to the other, getting ready to leave.
“That’s highly irregular, not to mention illegal.”
“How much would it take to get Atencio’s sentence commuted?” Slocum watched the lawyer closely.
Durant looked from Slocum to Murrieta blocking the doorway, then back. He rubbed his hands on the sides of his coat. Slocum didn’t see the outline of a six-gun or smaller pistol, though the lawyer obviously wanted a weapon in his hands right about now.
“I don’t know. That’s something you have to edge around. Invite them for a drink. Feel out their needs.”
“Heard tell Judge Ralston has big gambling losses.” Slocum pulled out the wad of greenbacks and put them on the table in front of him where Durant could see.
The lawyer licked his lips, rubbed his hands some more, and finally came to some sort of a decision. From the way the man’s face went blank, Slocum knew playing poker with Durant would be a sure way to lose. For all his nervousness before, he was dead calm now and unreadable.
“There might be a tad of truth in that,” Durant said. “After a drink or two he becomes, shall we say, aggressive in his betting. That