Telegraph Days Read Free Page B

tolerate, it’s an indecisive male. I decided it was time to dig in the spur.
    â€œIf you’re doubtful, Sheriff,” I said, “we’ll just let you be. Fortunately Jackson had another offer of employment. Reliable young men don’t grow on trees around here.”
    I believe Teddy knew me well enough by this time to grasp that my loyalty to my brother could well affect other things—kissing, for example, or even, at a stretch, matrimony.
    â€œCan you shoot a pistol?” Teddy asked Jackson, more briskly.
    â€œNever tried,” Jackson admitted.
    Teddy sighed, and bit the bullet.
    â€œI rarely shoot a pistol myself,” he admitted. “Mostly the job just consists of walking the drunks across the street and packing them in.”
    The upshot of this tedious interview was that Jackson got hired, at a salary of fifteen dollars a month and board.

5
    O NCE TEDDY BUNSEN reconciled himself to the fact that he now had an active deputy, he began to feel so generous toward us Court-rights that he even offered to stable our mule for free—a handsome gesture under the circumstances. After all, Percy had to live somewhere.
    Then Teddy’s mind seemed to go clickety-click as he thought of tasks he had been putting off and could now assign to Jackson, his useful deputy. Some of the locks could use a squirt of oil, and many of the cells needed a thorough sweeping—most of their occupants were not exactly tidy souls. And there were the long-neglected gallows, which could clearly use a coat of paint.
    â€œI can handle all that, yes sir,” Jackson said, relieved. I believe he feared that his first job as a deputy would be to arrest the biggest killer in the vicinity. In fact, Jackson could probably have arrested some pretty bad killers—he just didn’t know it yet. My brother had abilities that he had no suspicion he possessed—though, at the moment, what he really needed to locate was a broom, a paintbrush, and a can of paint.
    â€œI can’t find the broom—or the paint either,” Jackson admitted to Teddy, who got a kind of embarrassed look on his face.
    â€œGolly, I forgot. Mexican Joe stole the broom—that’s why you can’t find it,” he admitted. “I fear we don’t possess a paintbrush, or a can of paint, though we might have some linseed oil somewhere.”
    â€œThis is a fine kettle of fish,” I told Teddy. “This jail seems to suffer from a dire lack of equipment.”
    Teddy didn’t deny it.
    â€œThere’s a well-stocked general store right down the street,” I remindedhim. “I bet they have a fine selection of paints, and probably even brooms and paintbrushes.”
    Before I could say more, the very thing that I had predicted happened. A wagon with a wild-looking old man on the wagon seat came racing hell-for-leather right down the middle of the road, where, a few minutes earlier, three drunks had been reposing. But for my brother’s timely work all might have sustained a good trampling.
    â€œI don’t know where that old fool is going in such a hurry,” I said, “but I hope you will agree that it was a good thing that Jackson cleared the street.”
    I can’t say that my remark was well received. Ted Bunsen didn’t enjoy my having an idea that he should have come up with himself. Besides, there stood Deputy Courtright, unoccupied due to a shortage of equipment. It all added up to a kind of pressure Teddy Bunsen hadn’t had to experience when he was running things all by himself. He had a kind of crease down the middle of his forehead that I had not observed before.
    â€œSheriff, are you all right?” I asked. It’s odd how it can take but a second for things to get out of kilter in this life.
    â€œIt’s rare that I have this much opportunity for conversation,” he admitted.
    The old man in the wagon was nearly out of sight to the east.
    â€œWho was