Between the Rivers

YOU ever wonder why mobs only happen in the dark?” Deputy Wilson mused.

  Gandy had thought about this more than once and had come to the only reasonable conclusion.

  “They’re allergic to sunlight,” he replied.

  Wilson chuckled. He enjoyed his boss’s humor. He occasionally provoked it. Sometimes he suffered it. But mostly he found it an entertaining reason to show up for work every morning.

  “What about our young friend out there?” Wilson asked. “What’s he allergic to?”

  “Soap, if I’m any judge. When are you going to get a shirt of your own?”

  Wilson leaned in to borrow a corner of his boss’s mirror by which to straighten his boss’s shirt.

  “When you lose this one,” he allowed, without apology.

  “I’m more likely to lose a deputy.”

  “Going to the next council meeting yourself then?”

  The only thing Gandy liked about town council meetings was sending his deputy in his place. He buttoned up his vest and smiled broadly.

  “Thanks for reminding me. Next one’s at noon. And don’t be late this time.”

  “It’ll cost you,” Wilson ribbed.

  “Probably. In the meantime, let’s get some work done.” Gandy stepped into the front office and addressed himself to the young man chained to the filing cabinet. “Changed your mind about breakfast?”

  Gideon’s response was not printable.

  “Suit yourself,” said Gandy. “When the judge arrives, I’ll send a runner up to the ranch first thing.”

  “What for?” said Gideon.

  ”Because that’s where you’ll be.”

  “Ya got a jail, ain’t ya?”

  “So?”

  “So let’s go.”

  Gandy hunkered down beside his prisoner. “I can’t shake the feeling that leaving you anywhere near town would be a very big mistake. So, you are going to the Rolling Rivers. I’ll take good care of your friend and make sure he lives up to his end of the bargain.”

  “No,” said Gideon bluntly.

  “Excuse me?”

  “I ain’t a-goin’,” Gideon repeated and, to Gandy’s amazement, he toed open a desk drawer, slammed it shut and tried another. “Whyn’t you dang tin-stars never keep no keys were nobody can find ‘em?”

  “What?” said Gandy, who had never seen a prisoner try to lock themselves up before.

  “Keys,” Gideon enunciated. “Skinny sticks-a metal with teeth.”

  “Doesn’t look like he wants to leave you, boss,” Wilson remarked, obviously amused.

  “Well, the cells are packed and our hands are full.” Gandy smacked Gideon away from a drawer. “What else am I supposed to do with him?”

  “Arrest me,” Gideon insisted.

  Gandy nodded at Gideon’s wrist. “I already did.”

  “Aspen done did that,” Gideon corrected.

  “And that’s why you’re going to stay with them.”

  Stayin’ at some ranch farther out than no crow’d fly ain’t gonna get us no chance at Nelson.

  You’re a-tellin’ me.

  “Ya gotta lock me up.” Gideon jabbed a finger at the badge on sheriff’s chest. “That’s the law.”

  Wilson winced and took a step back. Telling his boss what he could or could not do according to the law was not the most salubrious course of action. Gandy crossed his arms over his bent knees and leaned forward. The thing about leaning was that it had a significant negative relationship to prisoner comfort: the closer a lawman loomed, the less comfortable said prisoner became.

  “You’re right. We should do things according to the law,” Gandy agreed, in the sort of tone that declares, quite happily, that you are not going to like this next bit. “And, according to the law, you are a prisoner. That means the only right you still have is not getting smacked for being lippy— but in your case I’d be willing to reconsider. Now, you can go of your own free will or I can arrange for you to go at gun point, but you’re going. If anything about this confuses you, boy, you just speak up.”

  The only thing that confused Gideon was how on earth he would get to Nelson— and that was not a subject to bring up with the law.