Chapter 34

"That might do, who has it for sale?" I asked.

"The Mayor's bank owns it. They had to foreclose when Carl Jones got kilt and his wife couldn't keep it going on her own. She had to move out to a shack near the edge of town. It's a shame too - her and the two young girls are barely scraping by doing laundry now. She was a nice woman, and she ran a good general store, it was just bad luck she married a fool," he said.

"Could you give us directions to her place?" Jerrilyn said.

"Sure, tain't no trouble to find it. It's just down to the end of the street, on the left, and back aways, out'n the path. Like I said though, she don't own it no more.

"That don't matter a bit. Tommy's got plenty of money and none of us know a thing about running a general store. The Mayor will probably make Tommy a fair deal on it, unless he wants to be Sheriff himself," Jerrilyn said.

"Well let's lock this trash up until they can get a trial and a proper hanging. We can go talk to the widow after we have them in the cages," I said.

Old Jake made my day then and I can't really say why it made me so happy. I'd been watching him try to ease his way over toward the door we'd just come in and he made a break to get out just as I finished saying we'd better lock the two up.

The short thick club was still in my left hand and I hit him on his near shoulder hard enough to knock him down when he reached for the door handle. He started cussing me as soon as he hit the floor.

"You sure are a dumb son of a bitch. Didn't I just tell you in the saloon I was going to beat the shit out of you if you gave me any trouble? Well, trying to escape from an officer of the law passes my test for giving me trouble," I said.

"Can I give him a good kick in the balls first, Tommy?" Jerrilyn asked, before I could give him another lick.

"Sure, go ahead sweetie," I said.

Jerrilyn walked close to where he was laying but even as dumb as Jake was he still snapped his legs together to avoid what he knew was coming. Jerrilyn didn't say a word - she just pulled her right hand pistol and shot his left ear off, or a large chunk of it anyway.

"Spread 'em or die," she told him, so he spread his legs even faster than he'd closed 'em.

Jerrilyn gave him a solid toe to the balls before he could change his mind. I'd expected him to start screaming but the kick took his breath away and he couldn't. It was just as well from my point of view.

"Ok Tommy, beat his ass a little so we can get moving," she told me.

What the hell, I gave him several good shots to his ribs. I thought about breaking a leg or two but decided against it. If we did get a conviction I wanted him to have to walk up the steps on the gallows we were going to get. Besides, even though he was now in a lot of pain he'd figured out that he'd be in a lot more if he didn't do what we told him to, and the former Sheriff must have been paying attention too.

When Ben opened the door leading back to the cells, Jake and the former Sheriff headed that way right behind him. I followed them and Jerrilyn followed me. Of course the current detainees were standing right by their cell's bars trying to see what had caused the gunshot, cussing, and crying out front. The first one we came to made a painful mistake of his own.

He didn't pester our two prisoners, Ben, or me, but when Jerrilyn walked by he shifted into really dumb bastard mode. He reached out to try grabbing Jerrilyn.

"Why, ain't you the prettiest thing I ever saw," he said, before his arm shot out through the bars.

No, Jerrilyn didn't shot him. She must have noticed that his arm was above one of the steel crossbars in his hotel room door. Jerrilyn grabbed hold of it and just dropped to the floor. Her weight bent his elbow the wrong way and everyone could hear the bones snapping as it did.

We couldn't hear shit for a few minutes after that for the noise his screams were making. Ben and I put Jake and the former Sheriff in separate cells while he howled and Jerrilyn just laughed at him. When we were done Jerrilyn had a suggestion for making him be a little quieter.

"Why don't you use your new club on this one too, Tommy. If he keeps making that racket all night it's going to be tiresome for Ben," she said.

"I don't know Jerrilyn. The way he's howling his arm must hurt awful bad. Maybe we should see if they have a doctor that can come cut it off. It'll probably feel better after that," I said, and the idiot started begging then.

"We don't have a doctor anywhere near here," Ben said.

"Well surely someone has a good axe. I can probably cut it off myself with a few good licks," I said.

"Sure, I can get you an axe from out back. The Marshal won't want us killing him but he probably won't care much if he's missing an arm. Hell, he's pretty understanding about prisoner's who are trying to escape. That's what really pisses him off," Ben said.

"You see, problem solved. We'll cut off the broken arm and if'n he don't quiet down a mite we can just cut off other parts until he does. You don't reckon the Marshal will care if we have to cut his dick off to quiet him down don you?" I asked.

"I never even thought of that, but it sounds like a good plan. I'll go find the axe and we can get started. We got a good stout stump out back we use for splittin' stove wood and it'll probably be just right to lay his arm across. Course if it gets down to cutting his dick off you'd probably better just use a knife," Ben said.

"Wait! Wait Mr Sheriff, I'll be quiet now. I promise I will," the prisoners said.

"Be sure you do, and don't even think of ever reaching out to touch one of my wives again," I said.

"Can you at least see if there's someone around here that can set my arm?" he asked, but it was more along the lines of begging now.

"Hell, the best doctor anywhere couldn't do much with that broken elbow. I'll see if I can do anything for it in the morning, but I can tell you now that it'll never be fit for anything again," I said, and we left.

Maybe I got carried away doing his arm like that," Jerrilyn said, once we were back out in the office part of the jail.

"Don't worry about scum like that ma'am. He's wanted for robbing trains and raping passengers. He'll hang as soon as they get him up to federal court in Denver. His neck will snap just fine whether his arm works or not," Ben said, and it cured any hint of sympathy Jerrilyn had been trying to work up.

Jerrilyn and I headed back to the saloon then. I wanted to catch the Mayor banker before he got away. When we got there the poker game was back in progress and the Mayor banker was still playing. I asked him if we could talk after he finished the hand and he folded and joined us.

"Mr Mayor, I need a place to stay and Ben told us that the general store had living quarters upstairs," I said.

"It does. In fact it has several rooms. Carl Jones, the former owner, was planning on taking in borders but he got killed before he got to get started on his plan. I can rent you all the rooms you need. They aren't exactly set up for it yet though," he said.

"I thought I'd just buy it. The bank isn't wanting to keep it are they?" I asked.

"No, we don't want to keep it at all. What kind of down payment can you make?" he asked.

"What's the total price?"

"The total against it is three hundred dollars, but we'd settle for two fifty to move it. If you could come up with a hundred dollars the bank would loan you the rest for four percent interest," he said.

"I'll just pay the entire two-fifty in cash if it's all the same to you," I said, and knew at once he'd figured I'd never finish paying the note and he could be selling the place again soon and keeping my hundred dollar down payment for the bank's trouble.

He gave me a funny look, but he wasn't dumb enough to try backing out of the deal he'd just made now he knew his pet asset was leaving. He agreed and said we could come by the bank tomorrow and finish the transaction. Apparently, Jerrilyn wanted to settle things right now though.

"It won't take me a minute to get the cash from my saddlebags. I'll be right back," she said, and she was back pretty damned fast with thirteen gold double eagles. The Mayor banker was chagrinned, but he gave us the ten dollars change and told us we could come by for the paperwork when we wanted to.

Our next stop was at the shack Ben had told us about. It didn't look all that bad, but it wasn't some place I'd want to live. There was light coming from inside so I knocked on the door.

"Mrs Jones, could I speak with you for a minute," I said, to the door, when someone inside asked who was there.

"What about?" the voice asked.

"My name is Tommy and I've just become the Sheriff tonight. I've also just paid for the general store and I want to talk to you about running it for me," I said.