The Complete Western Stories of Elmore Leonard - Elmore Leonard [182]
“One other thing, Dick,” Will said. “I hear you’re taking bets there isn’t going to be a wedding today.” He glanced back at the crowd of men in the shade. “Who’s holding the stakes?”
There was a silence, then someone called, “Nobody’d bet him.”
Calender beckoned to the man. “Come here.” He brought a five- dollar gold piece out of his pants pocket and gave it to the man. “Dick Maddox’ll give you one just like this. Now you add the two up and have that much ready for me when I get back.”
He walked to the ramada. The tension was gone. Some of the men were whispering and talking, some just looking out at Maddox still sitting in the street.
The boy’s face was beaming as he watched his father. Clare came toward him.
“You ripped the seam of your coat up the back,” she said.
He felt her hand on his back pulling the cloth together. “Gives me a little more room,” he said, conscious of the men watching him.
“It’s your good coat, though,” the woman said. “I’ll mend it soon as we get home.”
22
Jugged
Original Title: The Boy from Dos Cabezas
Western Magazine, December 1955
STAN CASS, HIS elbows leaning on the edge of the rolltop desk, glanced over his shoulder as he said, “Take a look how I made this one out.”
Marshal John Boynton had just come in. He was standing in the front door of the jail office, one finger absently stroking his full mustache. He looked at his regular deputy, Hanley Miller, who stood next to a chair where a young man sat leaning forward looking at his hands.
“What’s the matter with him?” Boynton said, ignoring Stan Cass.
Hanley Miller put his hand on the back of the chair. “A combination of things, John. He’s had too many, been beat up, and now he’s tired.”
“He looks tired,” Boynton said, again glancing at the silent young man.
Stan Cass turned his head. “He looks like a smart-aleck kid.”
Boynton walked over to Cass and picked up the record book from the desk. The last entry read:
NAME: Pete Given
DESCRIPTION: Ninteen. Medium height and build. Brown hair and eyes. Small scar under chin.
RESIDENCE: Dos Cabezas
OCCUPATION: Mustanger
CHARGE: Drunk and disorderly
COMMENTS: Has to pay a quarter share of the damages in the Continental Saloon whatever they are decided to be.
Boynton handed the record book to Cass. “You spelled nineteen wrong.”
“Is that all?”
“How do you know he has to pay a quarter of the damages?”
“Being four of them,” Cass said mock seriously. “I figured to myself: Now, if they have to chip in for what’s busted, how much would—”
“That’s for the judge to say. What were they doing here?”
“They delivered a string to the stage line,” Cass answered. He was a man in his early twenties, clean shaven, though his sideburns extended down to the curve of his jaw. He was smoking a cigarette and he spoke to Boynton as if he were bored.
“And they tried to spend all the profit in one night,” Boynton said.
Cass shrugged indifferently. “I guess so.”
Boynton’s finger stroked his mustache and he was thinking: Somebody’s going to bust his nose for him. He asked, civilly, “Where’re the other three?”
Cass nodded to the door that led back to the first-floor cell. “Where else?”
Hanley Miller, the regular night deputy, a man in his late forties, said, “John, you know there’s only room for three in there. I was wondering what to do with this boy.” He tipped his head toward the quiet young man sitting in the chair.
“He’ll have to go upstairs,” Boynton said.
“With Obie Ward?”
“I guess he’ll have to.” Boynton nodded to the boy. “Pull him up.”
Hanley Miller got the sleepy boy on his feet.
Cass shook his head watching them. “Obie Ward’s got everybody buffaloed. I’ll be a son of a gun if he ain’t got everybody buffaloed.”
Boynton’s eyes dropped to Cass, but he did not say anything.
“I’m just saying that Obie Ward don’t look so