Unlikely Angel

Chapter 11

Chapter 11

Marshal Jasper Clay sat at his desk, feet propped upon it and hat tilted over his eyes while Tusk sat relaxed in a chair gazing out the window but too lost in thought to really see anything. The two prisoners in the jail cell were still yelling as they had been most of the night. Finally Hound Dog had enough and righted his hat on his head before planting his feet on the floor.

“The two of you better stop your fussing before I shoot you both and claim you was trying to escape.”

The slightly older of the two men who looked to both be in their early to mid-thirties sneered at the marshal.

“No use keeping us here. We didn’t do nothing and even if we had, there’s no one to say anything about it.”

“That,” said Hound Dog pointedly, “Is where you are dead wrong. How do you think we got them pretty pictures of you for our posters? Ain’t none of us that creative or hard up for criminals to just go drawing pictures of people no one’s seen.”

A thought seemed to occur to the man.

“That’s a good question. How did you come up with pictures of us?”

“One of your victims drew them.”

The man looked unsettled but fought to compose himself quickly.

“But Marshal Clay, we’re supposed to have killed the whole family. Dead folks don’t draw, now do they?”

A twinkle began in the marshal’s eye and he looked to Tusk to make sure he was listening as well in case he needed a witness. These men were just about to hang themselves without need of a trial.

“But you didn’t kill the whole family, did you?” Hound Dog asked just as sweet as pie. “You left a little girl alive didn’t you?”

The other man jumped off his bunk at that.

“You’re lying! She couldn’t say nothing. She’s just a dummy. Feeble minded, you know…”

His words were cut off by the other man.

“Stay quiet now Clete!” he hissed at his counterpart before turning back to Hound Dog and a now seething Tusk who was none too happy to hear disparaging things about little Susan. “Now Marshal, let’s just say that maybe we met this family, and if we did, I can assure you we did not harm them. But let’s just say we met them and this little girl. Well, that little girl don’t talk at all. Seemed nearly wild so you can see where we might doubt that she can draw such detailed pictures as you say.”

Hound Dog was obviously upset that there hadn’t been enough said by the younger one to hold up in court as a confession but he took delight in what he had to tell them next.

“Susan? She ain’t feeble and she ain’t dumb. She ain’t wild or mute either. She draws like she was trained to do it longer than she’s lived and she talks just fine too. Doc got a good look at what you did to her and ain’t no one in town here going to stand for two men going free who’d do that to a child. You’ll likely hang on that charge alone.”

Tusk shared Hound Dog’s smile at seeing the men in the cell visibly deflate before their eyes. Neither Tusk nor Hound Dog would say aloud in front of the two men in the cell that they didn’t want her to have to testify. That they were afraid of what the cost might be to her to have to come face to face with these men again.