PART 10
“Here you go, Dan. Temporary sheriff,” Sully handed Dan the
badge.
Dan looked surprised. “Me? You want me to play sheriff?”
“Yeah. Don’t worry, Dan. You’re gonna be a great sheriff.
Matthew and I will be here to back you up.”
“You can count me in, too,”
They all looked up at the voice. Brian
was walking toward them.
“No, you’re not,” Matthew
told him.
“Matthew, I’m not a little
kid anymore. I’m helping.” Brian said with determination in his eyes.
“How do you know what’s
going on?” Dan asked Brian as he pinned on his new badge.
“Ma just got back. Told me what happened,” he looked at
everyone. “What are we waiting
for? Where do we start?”
“The obvious place,” Sully
said. “The saloon.”
* * * * * * * * * * * * * *
* * * *
“Where’s Hank?” Dan yelled
as the four men entered the saloon. All
activity in the saloon stopped, and everyone just stared at them. “I asked you all a question, and I want an
answer,” Dan continued.
“Who are you, and what do
you want with Hank?” one of the men sitting at a poker table asked Dan.
Another man noticed the
badge on Dan’s shirt. “Hey, look. That guy’s wearing the sheriff’s badge.”
“Hey, you can’t wear that,”
one of the men that Daniel had deputized complained.
“Yes, he can,” Sully stepped
in to stop this man as he came toward Dan.
He pushed him aside. “Mayor
Slicker has made him sheriff. You two
aren’t doing your job, so someone else needs to.”
“Where’s Hank?” Matthew
stepped up and asked the same question Dan had.
One of the saloon girls, named
Rachel, who was closest to Dan, spoke up.
“He’s in the back room. He came
back to the saloon about an hour ago.
He was drunk. As soon as he
walked in, he passed out. We took him
to his room.”
“Thank you,” Dan said
politely to the young woman. The four
men went to the back room, and opened the door to Hank’s room.
Dan walked over to the bed
and slapped his face to try to wake him up.
“He’s out cold,” Dan told the others.
“Good. It’ll make it easier to get him to the
jail,” Sully told him.
The four men did their duty
and carried Hank off to jail.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * *
* * * *
“Now what?” Dan asked the others after they shut and locked the
jail cell door.
“We wire for a judge,”
Matthew told Dan. “I’ll be Nan’s
lawyer. As I can see it, Hank doesn’t
really have a case,” Matthew looked over at Hank who was lying on a cot in the
cell.
“Matthew, what’s going to
happen to Hank?” Brian asked his brother.
“I mean, he’s an OK guy, usually.
He just drinks a lot. Something about
that woman made him lose control,” he pause a moment. “I’d hate to see him hang.”
“He won’t hang, will he?”
Sully asked Matthew.
“Well, that will depend on
the judge’s decision. He didn’t kill
her. It’s possible he didn’t intend to
kill her. Maybe he just wanted to hurt
her. We don’t know. Since he didn’t actually kill her, he may
get a somewhat lighter sentence.”
“Like what?” Dan asked.
“I don’t know. Could be anything,” Matthew shrugged.
It was quiet for a moment,
till Jake walked into the sheriff’s office.
“What do you think you’re
doing? When I said you guys could keep
peace, I didn’t say go and arrest Hank.”
Jake yelled at them.
“Jake,” Sully stopped
him. “Hank shot Dr. Blake.”
Jake stopped and stared at
Sully, “What? How do you know?”
“Dan and I found Nan just
outside of town. She’d been shot in the
arm. When she woke up she said that it
was Hank that shot her.”
“We had to put him in jail,”
Matthew finished for Sully.
Jake calmed down a bit. “He
shot her?”
“Yes!”
Something bothered Jake. “Jake, did Hank say anything to you?” Sully
asked him.
“Jake, if Hank said
something to you, we have to know.” Matthew prodded. “It might help his case.”
“He was drunk. He didn’t know what he was saying.” Jake
told them.
“But he did say something to
you?” Matthew asked in a lawyer-like way.
“I gotta go. Theresa’s waiting for me,” Jake said and
left without giving the others time to say more.
“Hank told him something,”
Dan concluded.
“Yes, he did,” Matthew
sighed. “And it must not have been
good.”
* * * * * * * * * * * * * *
* * * * *
After the others left to go
wire the judge, Dan was left alone in the sheriff’s office. He sat there thinking about what had
happened since he’d arrived in Colorado Springs. Hank was still out cold.
Dan heard a knock on the door.
“Come in,” he called out.
The door opened. Rachel walked in and shut the door behind
her.
“Sheriff?” she said.
“Please,” Dan stood up to
greet her, “call me Dan.”
“Dan, my name is
Rachel. I work at the saloon. You probably already figured that, though,”
she added.
“Yes. May I help you?”
“I wanted to talk to you
about Hank.”
“Of course. Anything you could tell me would be great.”
Dan pulled up a chair for
Rachel. They both sat down.
“Hank’s a good man. He just drinks more than he should
sometimes,” she began.
“Sometimes?”
“All the time now,
really. Ever since Emily died.”
“Can you tell me what Hank’s
relationship with Emily was?”
“That’s what I came to tell
you. Hank and Emily were close. Very close.
She was special to him. So
special that he never sold her to any other man. I think he loved her, Dan.” Rachel finished.
“That’s why he took it so
hard?”
“Yes.”
Dan leaned back in his chair
and thought for a moment. For a brief
moment, an image of Bess Laurence came to his mind, but he shook it away. “Did he say anything to you or the other
girls? Anything about Dr. Blake?” he
asked.
“Said he blamed her. Said she killed Emily. She didn’t, did she?”
“No. Emily couldn’t be saved by anyone. Did Hank say anything else?”
Rachel looked uncomfortable;
“He said he wanted to kill her like she did Emily.” Before Dan said anything, she quickly added, ”but that was the
liquor talking. If he’d been sober, he
wouldn’t have said that. I know he
wouldn’t have. He knows better than to
do something like that.”
“Did the other girls hear
him say this?”
“No, I don’t think so.”
“Rachel, I appreciate you
coming here to tell me.” Dan stopped
for a moment to calm himself down inside.
He looked over at Hank and back at Rachel. “He will get a fair trial,” he promised her.
