Read Online The Accomplice by Marcus Galloway - Free Book Online Page B

out and slapped his hand down on top of the guard’s to trap the lawman’s gun before it could clear leather.
    Confused and rattled, the guard looked at Caleb and his own holster a few times before realizing that it was Holliday who prevented him from drawing.
    “Keep this up, Doc, and I might reconsider letting you go,” said a man from the other end of the hall.
    Caleb tried to get a look at who’d spoken, but couldn’t see much of anything besides the two men standing directly in front of his cell. Pressing his face against the bars allowed him to spot the Texas Ranger making his way to the scuffle between Holliday and the young guard.
    Ben Mays was a handsome fellow with light brown hair and a glimmer in his eyes that seemed to welcome whatever trouble he saw. Plain, battered clothes hung over his muscular frame, and a well-worn hat rested a ways back on his head. As he stepped up to Holliday, he kept his hand on the grip of his gun without drawing it. Even so, the threat was easy enough to read in his face.
    “You’re an upstanding member of this community, which is why I don’t mind cutting you a little slack,” Mays said. “But if you don’t step away from that boy, I’ll have to toss you back into your cell.”
    Holliday sucked in a breath and took a step back. Holding both hands up, he leaned against the wall opposite Caleb’s cell and nodded.
    Mays nodded as well as he reached out to pat the guard on the shoulder. After a few good-natured slaps, he practically shoved the kid back down the hall to where the rest of the lawmen conducted their business. “Go on and collect Doc’s things,” Mays said. “That is, unless he intends to stay for a while longer?”
    “I believe I shall be excusing myself,” Holliday said in a voice that was much more familiar to Caleb. “I was hoping my associate here could join me as well.”
    Without looking at Caleb, the Texas Ranger shook his bead. “Not right now, he won’t.”
    “And why is that?”
    “Because he killed Mike Abel.”
    “You mean Loco Mike Abel?” Holliday asked. At first, the sound he made was a cough. That cough shifted into a laugh. “Surely the man’s name speaks for itself. If I was defending myself in there, then surely my friend in the next cell was doing the same.”
    “I’ll be needing to check on that.”
    “And he’s supposed to sit in there and wait?”
    “That’s how it works, Doc. You should know that by now. I hear you’ve had to sleep off a hard night’s drinking in every one of these cells at one time or another.”
    “Hardly,” the dentist replied, sounding more like a southern gentleman now that he’d had a chance to collect himself.
    Glancing over at Caleb, Mays took in the sight of the other man as if he was looking at a dog standing up on its bind legs. “Witnesses say this one here gunned down Mike after the fight was over. That’s murder in anyone’s book.”
    “He was going for a gun,” Caleb said in a voice that was even rougher than Holliday’s. After clearing his throat and straightening up, Caleb added, “Mike was stirring up shit since the first time he walked into my place. He lost at cards and then started shooting. He’s not the first asshole to get himself killed like that.”
    “No,” Mays said as he squared his shoulders with Caleb and stepped up to the bars, “but he’s the first asshole that you gunned down in front of a dozen witnesses. Doc here gets to leave because he’s an upstanding fellow with even more upstanding fellows to vouch for him.”
    “And what does that make me?” Caleb asked.
    “It makes you the fellow sitting in that cell waiting for me to do my job.”
    “And if I don’t have enough upstanding folks to vouch for me?”
    Mays narrowed his eyes and said, “Then you’ll be the fellow who hangs for committing murder.”

[8]
    If Caleb’s cell had been a respite from the chaos of the Busted Flush, it was a sanctuary after Holliday’s coughing and snoring