“I’ll be damn. So, what you’re tellin’ me is, they’s actually some men out buildin’ on the railroad now?”
“That’s what I’ve heard.”
“Where are they, do you know?”
“Right now, I think they’re bridging the Thompson Arroyo.”
“The Thompson Arroyo, huh?” Ray said. “I bet Pa don’t know that. He’s up in La Junta right now.”
La Junta
At a table at the rear of the saloon, Jefferson Tyree sat with his back to the wall, playing a game of solitaire. When Sheriff Mullins came into the saloon, Tyree paid him no attention. Mullins had come in several times over the last few days and had not spoken to him. Tyree didn’t know if Mullins had not spoken to him because he didn’t know who he was, or because he was afraid of him. It seemed very unlikely that Mullins didn’t know who he was. The state had been plastered with dodgers on Tyree ever since he escaped prison.
Tyree started to go back to his card game; then he noticed something that caught his attention, something different.
Sheriff Mullins was carrying a shotgun. That made Tyree suspicious enough, but when he saw who had come in with the sheriff, he knew that something was up. The man with Mullins was Darrel Crawford. Crawford had been chief of prison guards when Tyree was a convict at the State Prison in Cañon City.
Tyree knew this was no coincidence.
“Well, now, if it isn’t Darrel Crawford,” Tyree said. “What brings you to a jerkwater town like La Junta? Are you here on a little friendly visit?”
“Nothing about my visit is friendly,” Crawford replied.
Tyree chuckled. “Let me guess. You are upset about the little fracas I had with Kyle Pollard back in the prison, aren’t you?”
“It was more than a fracas. You killed him.”
“Yes, well, that’s just the way it worked out,” Tyree said. “I wanted to leave, you see, and he didn’t want me to. Killing him seemed the best way of settling our disagreement.”
“Kyle Pollard left behind a child and a pregnant wife, did you know that? He was a good man,” Crawford said.
“He couldn’t have been that good of a man. I mean, what kind of man would take a dangerous job like prison guard when he has a family at home?” Tyree asked.
“You son of a bitch,” Mullins said. “You don’t have the slightest degree of contrition, do you?”
“Contrition?” Tyree replied. He laughed. “Ain’t that somethin’ you’re supposed to get by goin’ to church?”
“Enough talk, Tyree,” Crawford said. “I’m taking you back to prison.”
“Really? Well, now, how are you going to do that? I heard that you lost your job. The prison fired you for letting me escape. This is true, ain’t it?”
“It’s none of your concern whether that’s true or not,” Crawford said. “It has no bearing on what is right and what is wrong.”
Tyree laughed. “I’ll be damned,” he said. “It is true, isn’t it? But that leaves you with a little problem, Crawford. If you don’t have a job, you don’t have the authority to take me back. That’s right, ain’t it, Sheriff?”
“Normally, he would not have the authority,” Mullins agreed. “But we have it worked out. I’ve appointed Mr. Crawford as my deputy.”
Tyree clapped his hands gently. “Well, now, ain’t that somethin’? I mean, our man Crawford here, goin’ from bein’ chief of guards in a state prison to being a deputy in some mud-hole place like this? My, how the mighty have fallen. Tell me, Crawford, does that make you real proud?”
“I told you, whatever my position is doesn’t concern you,” Crawford said. “You’re going back to prison with me. And this time, you’ll hang.”
“You think you’ll get your job back if you take me in?”
“I don’t care whether I get that job back or not,” Crawford replied. “It’s not about the job anymore. It’s about honor.”
“Honor?” Tyree laughed out loud.
“Yes, honor,” Crawford said. “I know honor is a difficult concept for you to understand, but you will understand this.” Suddenly, and inexplicably, Crawford smiled. “What I really want, even more than honor, is the privilege of watching you hang.”
“Really? Well, don’t get your hopes up, Crawford, because I can tell you right now that you ain’t goin’ to live long enough to see that,” Tyree said.
Slowly, and without calling attention to themselves, the other patrons began moving away from the bar to be out of the line of fire should shooting break out. But they were faced with a dilemma. No one wanted to be close enough to be hurt, but everyone wanted to be close enough to witness whatever was about to happen.
“What about you, Mullins?” Tyree asked. “What part are you playin’ in all this?”
“I am a law enforcement officer,” Mullins said. “You are a wanted man. I intend to see that you are brought to justice.”
“And just how are you going to do that?”
“Let’s put it this way,” Mullins said. He pulled the two hammers back on the double-barrel shotgun. “Before all this plays out, you are either going to leave here as Crawford’s prisoner, or as a dead body.”
Tyree shook his head slowly. “And here, I though me’n you had become good friends over the last few days. You knew all along who I was, but you never said or did anything about it,” Tyree said. “I guess the reward got to you, huh? Just too much money for a greedy fella to pass up.”
“Unbuckle your gunbelt and come along with us nice and easy,” Mullins said.
“Sure, Sheriff, whatever you say,” Tyree said, moving his hand down toward his pistol belt. Then, suddenly and unexpectedly, he drew his pistol, drawing and firing so fast that it appeared to be no more than a twitch of his shoulder. Seeing Tyree start his draw, Mullins pulled the trigger on both barrels of his shotgun, but it was too late. By the time he reacted to what he was seeing, it was over. The double-aught charges from his shotgun tore large, jagged holes in the floor of the saloon, even as the heavy bullet from Tyree’s gun was slamming into his heart.
Nobody was more surprised that Crawford. He had not even bothered to draw his pistol, believing that, because Mullins had the drop on Tyree with a double-barreled shotgun, the situation was well in hand. He realized too late that he was wrong, because even as his pistol was clearing leather, Tyree’s second shot crashed into his forehead. Crawford went down, dead before his body hit the floor.
“You all saw it!” Tyree shouted, still pumped up from the excitement of the incident. He pointed to the two bodies. “They drew on me first.”
“That’s ’cause they was lawmen,” one of the patrons said. “They was here to arrest you.”
“Are you saying it wasn’t self-defense?” Tyree challenged. He looked directly at the man who had pointed out that Mullins and Crawford were lawmen.
“If you ask me, it was self-defense,” one of the other men said. “Mullins was pointin’ a double-barrel shotgun right at him.”
“Of course he was. He was tryin’ to arrest him,” the first man said.
“Don’t you understand, Bob? It was self-defense pure and simple,” the second man said, staring pointedly at Bob.
Suddenly, Bob realized that he might be placing his own life in jeopardy. “Oh, uh, yes,” he said. “Yes, now that I think about it, it was self-defense.”
The others in the saloon, catching on quickly, began agreeing that it surely was self-defense.
“But here’s the thing, Mr. Tyree,” one of the men said. “I don’t see no way folks ain’t goin’ to hear about what just happened here, and they’re bound to come after you. Now, far as I’m concerned, and ever’one else for that matter, I mean, you’ve heard ’em.” He took in the others with a wave of his hand. “They all say you didn’t have no choice except to do what you done. But if more law was to come here, why, it’s just goin’ to wind up makin’ trouble for you. So, if I was you, I’d leave now.”