Zeb woke up to the sounds of struggling. He rolled out of bed and was on his feet, preparing to yell at the idiots outside for disturbing his beauty rest, before realizing a set of iron bars was keeping him from getting anywhere near the window.
The sheriff’s office in Coppermill had two cells. Each could hold about five men. Provided they were all rail thin and didn’t mind being vertical for the duration of their stay behind the bars.
The one across the room from the duty officer’s desk, and across from Zeb, was spotless. Or as spotless as anything could be with dust blowing through the door every time someone opened it. Inside the bars a small bunk was pushed against the wall, its straw mattress and thin sheet smooth from lack of use. A metal bucket, shiny in the dim afternoon light, was tucked neatly under the bed and waiting to be used as well.
This cell’s twin, where Zebulon Prichard had until recently been sleeping off a belly full of rotgut, was not so bright and shiny.
Sheriff Wuttke preferred to use this one as the drunk tank. Since public intoxication was the only real crime Coppermill had to speak of, it saved time when they had to clean the place and kept any smell from permeating beyond the desk and into the rest of the room where visitors might be. Wuttke’s deputies appreciated the first of those reasons, but not the second. ‘Sick drunk farmer’ was not the pleasantest of perfumes to do paperwork in.
“The Hell is goin’ on?” muttered Zeb, squinting in the bright afternoon sunlight that filled the office. The sound of struggling continued, but their source showed no signs of entering the room. Zeb considered lowering himself back to the cot when, finally, four men burst into the Sheriff’s office.
Wuttke was in the lead. His normally immaculate uniform was in disarray, his handlebar mustache sticking up in every direction but the proper one, and his normally ever-present Stetson was nowhere in sight. He fought to pull the ring of keys off his belt and get the empty cell open. It took several seconds longer than it should have, at least according to Zeb’s experience, and by the time he swung the door open the other three men were almost on top of him.
Two of those were Wuttke’s deputies, and they were in nearly as bad a state as their boss. Zeb was almost ready to ignore them all, suspecting that the final gentleman in this parade was a brother in arms (or in bottles) that was a bit too feisty when the fire was in his belly. Then he noticed the blood.
It was splattered on the deputies’ tan shirts and slacks. Even Wuttke, upon closer inspection, had a scarlet stain making its way up his sleeve. But none of this was anything compared to the man they were trying to arrest.
Zeb’s first thought…what would have been anyone’s first thought…was that the officers were carrying a scarecrow between them. The man was all bones and elbows wrapped in rags that might have once been work clothes. And he was covered in blood.
It looked like he’d dipped his right arm in bright red paint up to the elbow, and then smeared it over his face and mouth, hitting the deputies a number of times in the meantime. Zeb actually thought that was what it was at first. Then the deputies hurled their prisoner bodily into the open cell and slammed the door, and the angry looks on their faces suggested this was no bad paint job.
“Sonofagun!” yelled the youngest of the three men, shaking his hand in the air in front of him, splattering the iron bars with some more of that red viscous fluid. “Bastard bit me!”
“How bad is it?” asked the sheriff while straightening his mustache, his eyes never moving from the now motionless body lying on the floor of the cell.
“Hurts. But I had worse. It’s my off-hand, so it shouldn’t keep me from working none.”
“Good,” said Wuttke. “That saloon girl told me this one was going on about some friends he had outside of town. I doubt any are as crazy or dangerous as this one, but I’d prefer if we kept an eye out.”
“I don’t like this.” That was the older of the deputies. Zeb thought his name was Parson. “He don’t fight like a man fights. Clawing at us like that. It…”
“What?” asked Wuttke when Parson showed no sign of continuing on his own.
“I dunno. A man uses his fists or his feet. He doesn’t bite and claw like this one. Unless he’s, well, you know…”
“Rabid,” said Zeb. The three lawmen turned and looked at him, noticing their other prisoner for the first time.
Wuttke considered the drunk, then pointed at his young deputy.
“Go see the doc. Get that wound cleaned up. But don’t go spreading any word of this around. Got it?”
“Yessir.”
“Same goes for you, Zeb. We don’t want one crazy drifter causing a panic. Understand?”
Zeb nodded. “As long as you don’t leave me in here alone with him, you got yourself a deal, Sheriff.”
Wuttke snorted derisively at that. “Don’t be afraid, Zeb. The man’s out cold and behind bars. Even if he was to get out, you’d be the safest man in town.”
Almost before the sheriff stopped talking, the bloody body in the cell behind him let out a low, deep moan.
“Oooooohhhhhhh.”
Something in that noise sent a shiver down Zeb’s spine. And from the looks on the other mens’ faces, he guessed it did the same to them.
“With all due respect, Sheriff, I’d rather take my chances somewhere else.”
To Be Continued
Read Part 1 of the story HERE.
Read Part 2 of the story HERE.
Christopher X. Morse 