THE SHERIFF AND THE WIDOW PART TWO

The Tainted Archive publishes part two of Chap's O'Keefe's full length novel.

Part one can be read HERE and part three follows next Monday.

CHAPTER FIVE

Temptress Jessica

Ross Kemp tugged off his boots, loosened his belt and laid his aching body on the cot in his office. Hand-to-hand combat with Boyd Blackwood had been like taking on a grizzly bear. It had tested all his strength.

But his bruises and split skin would heal and mend. On a physical level, a man could cope. It required not much better than a healthy metabolism, regular meals and sleep, and a steering-clear of dirt and infection.

The true test was something different again.

Into Kemp's muzzy head came the image of Ellen. Almost subconsciously, the awareness crept up on him once more that the aura of tranquillity that set her apart was under a dastardly threat.

He recognised that he was deeply troubled. Would Blackwood persist with his lunatic charges, even when sober? If he did, his stock with Ellen would tumble to rock-bottom. It brought him up with a start to realise just how much he valued her respect and good opinion.

He shook his head angrily, fearing Blackwood's punches had left him soft in the head. He had no business to be thinking of the girl -- of any girl -- in such a light.

Like he'd often told Alec Tucker, his allegiance was owed to his job. It had to come first and last, and no decent man had any right to expect a woman to share the dangers and privations it posed. He could not wish them on anyone, least of all a beautiful girl set apart by her appealing qualities of unsullied youth and serenity.

In his disturbed thoughts, he found no place to remember that Ellen had already demonstrated, in the face of adversity at her old home, hidden reserves of courageous initiative and quiet fortitude. And he would have greeted with derision the suggestion that, if the truth were to be told, the seemingly reposed Ellen was reaching the end of her patience with his oh-so-brotherly interest in her well-being.

Kemp's mind ran from Ellen to her opposite -- her stepmother, the darkly beautiful and somehow obviously dangerous Jessica. No wonder they'd not been able to live under the same roof! Where Ellen was restrained, Jessica was provoking. Though he was no puritan, her blatant attempts to procure his masculine attentions had annoyed him. He'd no desire to tangle with a married woman, even one as lushly desirable as Jessica.

Kemp wondered if Boyd Blackwood had observed his wife's flaunting of her mature charms. Maybe he suspected he, the sheriff, had or would reciprocate her interest, and that had triggered his wild notions.

"No, Mr Blackwood, your passionate wife's feminine wiles don't work on me," he said aloud and sardonically.

This brought a grin to his stiffening face. But it froze, then was replaced by a frown of perplexity. An insistent yet light rapping on the thick pane set in the street door broke in on his wry amusement.

"Who's there?" he demanded.

"Jessica Blackwood. Please let me in, Mr Kemp!"

"Well, I'll be damned . . ." Kemp murmured under his breath.

Eyes narrowing, he figured out that maybe it wasn't so surprising. It was all part of the same business. He'd been thinking of the woman that very moment, sure, but it was because he had her husband in his cells -- which was probably also why she was here.

For a second time in the same evening, he unlocked and unbolted his door.

Jessica gasped when she saw him. "Mr Kemp! What's happened to you?"

He hesitated a moment, then answered her frankly, the fingertips of his left hand gently exploring the puffed contours of his face.

"This, ma'am, is the result of your husband's work."

She flinched at the bitterness in his voice.

Kemp stood aside, and she took it as an unspoken invitation to enter.

"Wh-why did Boyd do that?"

"I was hoping you could maybe enlighten me, Mrs Blackwood. He'd gotten some bee in his bonnet that you and me have been behaving -- uh -- unfittingly."

She gazed at him apparently aghast, her amber eyes wide and lustrous. "Oh! That really is too ridiculous!"

"You're not kidding. Them were my thoughts likewise. After he'd thrown his drunken weight around a mite, I tossed him in the calaboose to cool off. That's where he's staying till morning!"

Jessica's chin suddenly trembled and her head dipped.

"The beast! He's done it to spite me, I know!" There were tears in her eyes when she struggled to lift her head.

Embarrassed, Kemp turned and fiddled with the wick in the oil lamp, brightening the dim light.

Jessica squared her shoulders. She tugged down the window blind, as though this decisive movement might help pull herself out of some emotional turmoil.

"Mr Kemp, please . . . I must talk to you in great confidence." Her red lips quivered again. "The fact is, I'm living a life of hell!"

Kemp swallowed and lifted his eyebrows at the vibrant words. This was a new Jessica Blackwood. Where was the poised, flirtatious woman who promenaded Main Street, dressed to leave no more than a speck to the imagination and leaving normally intelligent men slack-jawed and glassy-eyed?

Jessica's distress mounted. "Boyd's absurd jealousies are too much! No one will ever know how miserable he has made me -- how little he understands me."

Kemp forced himself to remember that a God-fearing section of Cedar City society reckoned if rancher Blackwood understood his brazen young wife at all, he'd put her across his knee and give her a fanny-warming larruping. And maybe that's what she'd never had and needed.

She plunged on with her denunciation. "He has so very little time for me, you know. He works sunup to sundown every day in the week. At b--, at night, he's too tired to -- to talk. He takes his supper, then goes directly to sleep. A girl has no excitement at all. He denies me friends."

Jessica pulled out a scrap of lace-fringed lawn and dabbed her eyes. Her bosom heaved.

Kemp could scarcely fail to be affected. Could any red-blooded male? But he had difficulty in finding words fair and appropriate to the situation.

He tentatively put a comforting hand to her shoulder. "Now come along, Mrs Blackwood. You mustn't upset yourself. A fit and honest woman must look for contentment in her home and position. Self-pity won't solve no problems."

"You're right, of course," she said with a catch in her voice. For a moment, she seemed to fight to get a grip of herself, but then she gave a fresh cry. "Oh, no . . . What can he have said about me? About you? He seems to think every man covets me . . ."

Her knees gave and she sank to the floor, sobbing half-hysterically.

"Here! You mustn't take on so!"

Kemp stooped awkwardly, and she seized his arm, he thought to raise herself to her feet. But she pulled him toward her with unexpected strength and he stumbled off balance onto his own knees and into her arms which she promptly wrapped around his neck, locking him in a tight embrace.

She whimpered against his chest, clinging to him impetuously and unreservedly.

Kemp's senses were intoxicated by the soft thrust of her female body against the hardening length of him.

"Don't -- !" she pleaded. "Don't push me away!"

Kemp had done no such thing, though he knew he had to. But the throaty plea was in itself incredibly seductive.

"Hey!" he said quickly. "I don't think we ought to be doing this." He scarcely knew what he was saying.

"Doing what, sheriff? This?" Her lips sought out and were against his before he realised it.

A heady madness took hold of him as her deft fingers caressed and kneaded his broad shoulders, drawing him down with her to the floor. Her kiss was like an exquisite torture on his damaged lips. He was incapable of resistance.

He surrendered, and his own hands roamed unforgiveably over her ripe body, exploring the secret, forbidden lushness of her. In response to her whispered urgings, he returned her drugging kiss and let his hungry lips wander downward to the throat she flung back and exposed to him.

It was when she attempted to entwine his legs with a probing, doeskin-booted foot that her toe inadvertently struck upon the painful bruise left on Kemp's shin by her husband's own solid riding boot.

Sanity returned to the sheriff with a rush. His face hot and his blue eyes ablaze with anguish, he struggled to extricate himself from her clutching embrace.

"God, no! This mustn't happen, you she-devil!" he jerked out.

Every bawdy, leering bar-room fantasy he'd ever heard disseminated about this woman rushed into his head to taunt him. Knowing her reputation and Boyd Blackwood's hate-filled jealousy, he'd been a crazy fool to let her step inside his office at this late hour.

He had to get her out -- but fast!

"You forget yourself, ma'am," he said harshly. "That, or your morals are those of a saloon-girl!"

She tossed back the disordered, raven-black tresses from her face, and got to her own feet as he left her. Cheated of her conquest, she was white with repressed fury. Her amber eyes glinted with defiant passion.

To be rejected by a man was a new and galling experience for her. It was womenfolk who usually regarded her with censure. Their accusing looks were driven by envy, of course. Men always eyed her with admiration and bended to her will. And was it her fault that she was exciting and attractive? Most surely not. She couldn't help men losing their heads over a pretty woman. That, as Jessica saw it, way the way of the world.

"So!" she hissed. "The high-and-mighty sheriff still has his principles, does he? Well, Mr Kemp, they give me a pain, and I shall encourage my husband to do his damnedest

to ruin you!"

"Do what you will, Mrs Blackwood, but you'll not add my scalp to your belt. I find you a sorry picture of a woman -- vain and self-seeking and inconsiderate of the conflict and unhappiness you cause."

Jessica smoothed her hands over the rumples in her riding skirt, seething with impotent indignation at Kemp's perceptive tirade. Then with an explosive "Tchah!" of disgust, she swung on her heel and wrenched open the door to the night and retreat.

But it afforded her a small, compensatory satisfaction that her mission hadn't been entirely in vain. Her personal wants hadn't been fulfilled, yet the fool sheriff was unaware she'd accomplished another important part of her object.

Let him believe he'd humiliated her. Before long he'd see the last laugh was hers!

* * *

Kemp felt sick to think how nearly Jessica had manoeuvred him into a situation that could clearly have compromised his whole position. He was tormented with self-disgust.

He returned to his bed, but bore the next hour in sleeplessness, critically re-examining where he stood. Again, Ellen came unbidden into his thoughts. Agonising doubts about the way he'd been toward her filled his head. But now he felt unclean and unworthy of the hints of interest she'd shown in him.

He couldn't bring himself to offer her a lawdog for a husband. But a disgraced lawdog, stripped of his office, would be an insult to her. He couldn't expect her to even look at him.

Moodily, Kemp wondered whether he'd gone wrong in making law enforcement his vocation. Take away the silver badge and he was a single man, never married, and probably could have made some woman a fine partner and provider. He was loyal and fair and honest. He was of an even-tempered disposition and had a dry sense of humour.

But now he had to ask himself, could he be faithful to a woman when he couldn't stay faithful to his own code?

The hands of the office clock went round and his dejection deepened. It wouldn't do. If his mind would give him no rest, he must give it work to occupy it to some profit. For starters, he could log Blackwood's arrest.

He got up, tucking his loosened shirt more tidily into the waistband of his pants.

Then he discovered his loss.

For a second he was disbelieving and felt and patted right round his belt. Finally, a loose sigh escaped his lips.

"Damn the little hellcat!" he said. "She's gone and stolen them."

The bunch of keys which he'd had attached to a belt loop had gone missing.

He lit the lamp and looked carefully over the floor in a forlorn hope. But no, they'd vanished right enough. And among them were keys to the courthouse which adjoined the other side of the adobe jailhouse block.

It took Kemp several minutes to hunt up a duplicate key kept hidden at the back of a desk drawer.

Jaw clenched angrily, nerves taut as piano wires, he unlocked the solid oak door, but he knew before he got in to check the cells that Boyd Blackwood would be gone.

CHAPTER SIX

Murder from Ambush

Boyd Blackwood rode the wide trail for the Double-B at a fast canter. Every thud of the steeldust roan's hoofs sent a jarring pain shooting up his spine to his aching head.

The moon hung like a lantern high in the black velvet sky, surrounded by a dust-swirl of countless stars and tipping with silver the indigo bulk of the mountains that rimmed the horizon.

Every now and then Blackwood would utter an audible cuss that betrayed the fevered train of his thoughts. Freed from the jail by a remorseful Jessica, who had pleaded exhaustion from the late ride into town and was now resting up overnight at the Cedar City House, his one over-riding design was a crushing vengeance on the corrupting sheriff of Cedar City!

On the morrow, tidied up and recovered from his ordeal, he would ride out with bodyguards to go calling on Judge Franklin Ward. He would see to it the judge tore off Ross Kemp's badge and called new elections.

After news of Kemp's infamy had spread around, he plotted a rougher justice. There were some tough hombres on his payroll. That Snake McClay, for instance. Give them the word, and the once-popular Kemp would be not only out of his job, but out of town on a rail.

Blackwood wetted wind-dried lips. Even dead maybe . . .

The trail led through a grove of cottonwoods where at this season a stream trickled between the smoothly-worn rocks of a ford. The tall trees cut out most of the moonlight, making it a place of deep and possibly treacherous shadows for a horseman.

Just how treacherous, Blackwood didn't guess.

But knowing the need for care, he pulled at the reins of his lathered bronc. The obedient beast slackened its pace, throwing up its head with a jingle of bit-pieces and snorting heavily through distended nostrils. Then it whinnied and seemed reluctant to proceed into the darkness at all.

Blackwood snarled and slapped impatiently at its rump.

"Get going, you ornery critter!"

The baulky horse clop-clopped into the shadows of the trees. It clattered over boulders etched with the silver flashes of the splashing stream.

Blackwood grunted his satisfaction at the cautious and successful passage. He prodded the roan with his spurred heels and felt the great beast surge forward under his hard-clamped thighs.

As they broke out of the greater blackness under the trees, the silhouette of horse and rider was stark against the light of the moon. An easy target for the dry-gulcher left behind, crouched in the cover of the cottonwoods.

He raised his Winchester to his shoulder, levering a shell into the breech. He squeezed the trigger and the spiteful snap of the rifle's fire split the night's silence.

The heavy .44 slug smashed the life out of the rancher, toppling him lifeless from the saddle with nary a cry.

Blackwood's startled steeldust roan plunged on, dragging its dead rider, till his foot dislodged itself from the stirrup.

The horse circled in confusion before it came back to the fallen man. It put its soft nose to the back of his neck exploring the prone body, unaware of the significance of the ugly crimson stain spreading in the middle of Blackwood's suit-coated back.

When it scented the blood, it gave a whinny of fear and moved off.

* * *

Sheriff Kemp shook the coffee pot that sat on the still-warm iron of the pot-bellied office stove. The dregs of his last brew sloshed about in the bottom and he poured them into an enamelled mug. He winced when his mouth filled with the strong black fluid.

A bitter cup for a bitter man.

From a high shelf, he hauled down a stout ledger, half-bound in leather. This was his jailhouse logbook. In it, entered in his bold, firm hand, were largely the names of rowdy cowhands who'd let off their steam in ways unacceptable to their fellow men. If the law was to be administered fairly in Cedar City, without favour, Kemp owed it to this roll of minor miscreants that he should add the line "Boyd Blackwood, rancher, drunk and disorderly".

He was beholden, by oath of office. It was his responsibility to take out after Blackwood and escort him back to the cells. Or at the very least, to enforce the local statute that obliged him to impose and collect a fine. Payment of the same should have been a condition of the rancher's release.

Neglect to perform this duty, and Kemp hated to think what scurrilous story would go the rounds, especially if it became known Blackwood's delectable wife had been involved in the matter . . .

In a grim frame of mind, he fastened on his gun rig and took down his saddle gun, a Winchester .44, from the wall rack. He'd no doubt Blackwood would have headed directly for the shelter of his ranch, probably in some haste to elude ignominious re-arrest.

The night air sharpened the edges of Kemp's bleak fury

on the trail to the Double-B. He rode automatically, preoccupied. It still stuck in his craw to think he'd been bamboozled. Played for a sucker. And the manner of it was belittling. He was no better than the uncouth riff-raff, typified by the beef-prodder pair Lew and Max, whose ogling eyes went out on stalks as they lusted after Jessica Blackwood.

The upright officer of the law had been put to the acid test and proved as fallible as the common herd.

But he had no stomach for laying even his legal hands on his temptress. Right now he was impatient to take up the argument with Boyd Blackwood.

The trail rounded a ridged outcrop of the hills, surmounted by a cluster of oaks growing some thirty-five feet above the road. A froth of clouds drifted across the moon. Ridge and cloud cast blotches of blackness in Kemp's path, but he was gifted with quick adaption to night vision and he spurred his mount on at an unfaltering pace that presently brought him to the still-deeper shadows of the cottonwood grove.

Splashing through the stream, Kemp saw the form of a man sprawled on the trail ahead. Boyd Blackwood?

Kemp drew rein and laid his hand in a gentle pat on the neck of his horse. "This looks bad," he said quietly. "Better get down."

He swung out of the saddle and crouched beside the inert body, tilting back his stetson. It was indeed Blackwood. Kemp's breath was exhaled in a low whistle.

"Shot, by God!"

Sticky blood was congealing around the bullet wound in the centre of Blackwood's back. He was clearly dead, but Kemp had difficulty in grasping that his erstwhile prisoner, and the richest man in the county, would walk no more. Blackwood was a sturdily-built, muscular man, set apart by the aggression and vitality that had driven him to material success. His death seemed unthinkable.

Almost in reflex, Kemp took off his hat.

But the opportunity to come to terms with the staggering turn of events was denied the sheriff.

Engrossed in his thoughts and the always-sobering horror of a murdered corpse, Kemp didn't hear the stealthy footfalls behind him. He only started to turn when a sudden swishing noise alerted him. The bushwhacker had been lying in wait! He saw no more than a blur of movement before the butt of a revolver slammed into his temple.

Kemp's world exploded in a swirling blaze of stars, rapidly succeeded by inky, redshot darkness.

He fell across the dead rancher, unconscious.

* * *

Chilly water was splashing over Kemp's face when he opened his eyes.

"Ugh!" he spluttered. "What's going on?"

"Give the stinkin' lawdog some more!" said a voice he recognised as Jeremiah McClay's.

"Ain't got no more, Snake. Canteen's empty," said another Double-B hand.

A boot-cap kicked Kemp in the ribs experimentally. He blinked and looked around him, though his head hurt intolerably. He was lying on his back at the side of the trail some miles back toward Cedar City where it curved round the distinctive oak-topped ridge. He was surrounded by four of Blackwood's range crew, including Snake McClay.

He fingered his forehead gingerly, discovering an egg-like swelling. Coherent thoughts began to trickle back into his numbed brain.

"Who brought me here?" he struggled to say. Every word word was a sliver of sheer agony that sent reeling echoes through his head. "What have you done with Blackwood?"

McClay sneered. "Ain't much left to be done 'cept plant 'im. Yuh saw to that, yuh back-shootin' bastard! Too bad yore cayuse threw yuh as yuh came back lickety-spit aroun' the curve!"

Kemp heaved himself up onto his elbows and glared in amazement at the runty gunslick. The effort sent his head hammering like a piston in a steam engine.

"Blackwood was bushwhacked -- shot with a rifle, looked like."

"Don't we know it!" McClay said.

Another cowpoke stepped forward, waving the familiar shape of Kemp's own Winchester. "I took the liberty of gettin' yore saddle-gun outa the scabbard, Mr Sheriff," he said with scornful derision. "The barrel's fouled an' it smells jest like it's bin fired in the last half-hour."

"Hell's teeth! You think I killed your boss?"

"Damned right we do, Kemp," McClay cut in. "I seen yuh ride outa town jest after Blackwood left. Real proddy an' in an all-fired hurry."

Kemp's eyes slitted. "What an ex-con believes won't count for much."

The shrewd comment caught McClay by surprise, flicking him on the raw.

"That's over an' done, Kemp," he snarled back. " 'Sides, the evidence ain't mine. The boys here came out from the Double-B an' found the boss' body where yuh caught up an' shot 'im down. Then they rode on toward town an' found yuh here, where yuh'd taken a tumble an' knocked youself stupid. After that, I came along an' we pieced together what yuh did, yuh dirty murderer!"

"I wouldn't shoot a citizen dead in cold blood!" Kemp protested.

McClay gave a stained-toothed grin. "Reck'n we'll let the court decide that, Kemp. We're takin' yuh in. Git up an' on yore hoss!"

The puncher with the Winchester growled. "Ain't no secret there was a grudge between you an' Blackwood, Kemp. Seems like folks in town is sayin' you been carryin' on with his wife an' all. Blackwood was vowin' to fix you. Waal, you got to him first, I guess!"

Kemp lurched to his feet and the world swayed but he managed not to fall. He had to allow that what the cow-hand said about Blackwood and himself must have made good whiskey talk up and down Main Street. He'd tangled publicly with the rancher, and everyone had heard Blackwood swear revenge.

He wondered just how much had been said behind his back. It looked like things could be pretty black for him when they hit town. With Blackwood's death and the accusations of the Double-B men hanging over him, one clear certainty in his dazed mind was that he'd have to turn in his badge. As the cowhand had threatened, he might even have to stand trial.

He'd had cause and opportunity to kill Blackwood. And he had no alibi.

Unaccountably, the prospect of his removal from office brought him relief, almost as though deep inside he'd already acknowledged he was unfit and reluctant to continue shouldering the burden.

"But someone must've killed Blackwood," he said aloud. "I've got to see my deputy. He'll have to organise a search, a posse --"

"Drop it, mister," one of the Double-B riders said. "We got you dead to rights. There ain't gonna be no flamin' posse." He finished with a contemptuous oath that said what could be done with that.

McClay gloated. "Jeez, Kemp -- I'd sure hate to be in yore shoes. They'll mebbe dangle yuh from a neck-rope fer this!"

The gravity of his predicament began to register. He had been put on the spot by a person or persons unknown.

Much would hinge on the thinking of the town. Though it hadn't seemed too important before, he realised that Jessica had somehow contrived to put a stigma on his character, although he'd always rebuffed her blatant attempts to flirt with him.

Surely, now her husband had been murdered, she would speak up and at least scotch the suggestion he'd been involved in some kind of affair with her.

A solid hand fell roughly on Kemp's shoulder.

"Get on your horse, sheriff, and I'll mount up behind and look after you." The speaker sniggered. "We wouldn't want anythin' else to happen to you before you're safely locked up in one of them cells of your'n."

McClay gave an ugly laugh. "We don't want the sheriff's hoss runnin' away ag'in, do we, fellers? That'd be too bad!"

Kemp's horse was brought over from where the Double-B men had found it grazing unconcernedly nearby. Kemp put his foot in the stirrup, noticing for the first time that the reassuring bulk of his Colt had already been removed from his right thigh.

He was a prisoner.

CHAPTER SEVEN

Sheriff on Trial

The news of Boyd Blackwood's killing and the accusing of Sheriff Ross Kemp spread through Cedar City like a prairie fire. As a preliminary to a trial, an inquest was held and the county coroner found that Boyd Blackwood had met his death as the result of a shot fired from a rifle, to wit, a .44 calibre Winchester, and Ross Kemp was charged with his murder.

Silently, Kemp endured the insult of being locked up in what he'd thought of as his own jail. Alec Tucker, officially promoted and confirmed as Sheriff of Cedar City, was apologetic.

"I have to keep yuh in the cooler, all legal-like, Ross, but I'll see to it you're fed good grub, an' the bunk can't be no worse than that ol' cot of yours."

Tucker also loyally reported back on what was being said outside.

Blackwood's widow, it transpired, was making no attempt to cool the heated tongue-wagging. A junior clerk who worked for Isaac Siebert leaked the information that Jessica was only biding a respectable time for grieving before denouncing Kemp as her husband's sworn enemy and killer.

It was whispered the widow would be the star witness at Kemp's coming trial and would be making startling revelations about the ex-sheriff.

Kemp was devastated. "That can't be true!" he said to Tucker.

The new sheriff shook his head sadly. "Wicked, ain't it? The lies a spurned woman'll tell."

"There must be more to it than that . . ." Kemp scratched his head and paced his cell.

He dredged from his memory everything he knew or had ever heard told about the Blackwoods. Naturally, most of it seemed to have no real bearing on a murder, and he dismissed it as irrelevant. But a couple of unpromising scraps nagged persistently round the edges of his reasoning.

First, there was the clandestine meeting Ellen had witnessed between Jessica and the gambler Orson Rymer. He'd formerly regarded a liaison between them as being none of his business. With his circumstances dramatically changed, that might no longer be the case.

Kemp's vague suspicion was further stirred by the second mystery, presented to him by Blackwood himself in the course of his absurd allegations on the night of his death. Blackwood had been upset to the extent of going on a drunken spree about secret notes sent to his wife and signed with an initial that had been his, the sheriff's.

What had that initial been? "K" for Kemp or "R" for Ross?

And if it had been "R" might it not just as easily have stood for Rymer?

"Alec!" Kemp yelled. "Come here!"

Tucker appeared in the jailhouse doorway, puzzled. "What's the hollerin' for, Ross?"

Kemp explained, and Tucker shook his head sceptically. "Sounds like clutchin' at straws, ol' buddy. But I'll do what yuh ask an' ask around. Must say, it's always had me beat what's kept that slicker Rymer in a cowtown like Cedar City."

Kemp's hopes were dashed in the scant matter of a few hours.

Tucker left willing, but came back to the jailhouse scowling.

"Sorry, it's no dice, Ross. Rymer couldna killed Blackwood. He spent the whole of that night -- before and after yuh was chasin' Blackwood -- at the Lucky Horseshoe. I got several honest, poker-playin' citizens to swear as how he was busy lightenin' their pockets an' stuffin' his own!"

"He must've slipped out sometime and come back!"

"Yeah . . . twice. But only long enough to excuse hisself to go to the privy."

Kemp nodded woodenly. "All right. Thanks, Alec."

He was a man accustomed to action, to seizing the initiative and using it to best effect. Delegation had never come easy to him during his period of office. Now, organising his defence from the narrow confines of three adobe walls and an iron grille was a task demonstrably beyond him.

His agitation deepened and his spirits sank. He began to imagine the whole sorry mess might be his comeuppance for being less than square with Ellen Blackwood. Or his needings for falling into the tempting embrace of Jessica Blackwood.

The five days before the trial were the longest in Kemp's life. Sunup on the sixth morning found him unable to face the breakfast Tucker brought him of freshly brewed coffee, flapjacks and ham and eggs.

"I'll just take the java," Kemp said. "The sooner this thing gets done with the better."

Tucker met his eyes momentarily, then very purposefully looked away. "Mebbe it'd be best if there was a breakout," he mumbled. "I c'd git kinda careless an' yuh might cut an' run."

Kemp brushed the proposition aside. "Then you'd be in trouble, too. Right up to your gullet. Forget it."

Unlike Tucker, more than anybody in Cedar City, he was incapable of accepting that truth wouldn't prevail in the end. His basic honesty and belief in the forces of right acted against him in this. He just couldn't envisage the bizarre chain of evidence holding together against him. Though the experience was going to be harrowing, he still thought the murder charge he faced had to be thrown out.

* * *

The courtroom was packed. Every one of the high, barred windows had been opened for maximum ventilation, but an oppressive fug rose above the tightly filled wooden benches set out for the agog public of Cedar City. Smoking was in no way prohibited. Pipes and cheroots and cigarettes collaborated with sweaty bodies to produce a visible stench that rose in coiling wreaths to the rafters.

Humanity proved it stank before a word was spoken.

And the stage was set for the primitive legal system of this frontier community to do the same.

At the front of the room, a long table stood on a dais. Judge Franklin Ward was installed in a high-backed chair at the table, facing the benches. He peered myopically over pince-nez eye-glasses at the papers scattered before him. His beaky nose gave him a bird-like appearance and wings of fluffy white hair stood out from the side of his head above pointy ears. A limp flag bearing the Stars and Stripes of the American States was draped at an angle across the wall behind his head.

Sitting behind a long, narrow table to the judge's right, was an all-male jury of eleven.

Sheriff Alec Tucker escorted his former boss down the centre aisle to a bench set at the judge's left and stood behind him.

A rumble of avid conversation broke out on the public benches at Ross Kemp's entry.

Judge Ward took up a gavel in a wrinkled, arthritic hand and hammered astonishingly hard on his table, setting the water in a glass pitcher quivering with concentric ripples. There was a jingle of spur dangles, a scrape of boots and a rustle of clothing as everybody present stood up.

"Court in session!" The word was given; Kemp's trial was on.

The judge rapped again with the wooden hammer, and there was more shuffling as citizens, jurors and accused sat down.

The clerk of the court, who in everyday life was the ancient barkeep at the Lucky Horseshoe, cleared his throat noisily before reading out the count of murder against Ross Kemp. It alleged he did discharge into the back of Boyd Blackwood with intent a .44 calibre rifle.

A new buzz of excitement ran through the assembly. Judge Ward clicked his teeth together in stern disapproval and wielded his gavel a third time.

"Order! Order, or I'll clear the courtroom!"

When near-silence was restored, the assistant county attorney stepped foward into the space before the dais and began the case for the prosecution. A series of witnesses was called whose testimony rapidly established the bad blood that had existed between the sheriff Kemp and the rancher Blackwood.

Kemp, who had elected to conduct his own defence, didn't bother to cross-examine. "All this stuff is incontrovertible. I'll not contest the witnesses' detail," he advised the judge.

Then the prosecutor called for his star witness.

The bow-legged clerk straightened to his feet.

"Call Mrs Jessica Blackwood!"

Heads swivelled and necks craned. Gasps and sighs greeted the widow's entrance. She was in weeds, but the black garments and veil, whether by virtue of their cut or the wearer's shapeliness, made a mockery of mourning, heightening her sexuality.

Something welled up for a large number of the male onlookers. They would have said it was sympathy. Judge Ward's crippled old fingers adjusted his glasses, then strayed to his throat to straighten his cravat.

Jessica was accompanied by the Blackwood lawyer, Isaac Siebert. Although the widow walked tall and erect, he had one hand at her elbow as if he feared she might suddenly be prostrated by grief without the support. Siebert's other nervous hand clasped a black stovepipe hat and he wore a rusty-black clawhammer coat. Beneath the goatee beard that tufted his chin, a string tie was knotted under a stiff white shirt collar.

Jessica placed a slim hand on a Bible and took the oath. She then took the witness stand and Siebert an empty, reserved seat at the front of the public benches, mopping his brow with a large handkerchief and looking highly uncomfortable. Before he sat down he flashed a look at the unwashed populace and another at Ross Kemp. Both were furtive.

The prosecutor, showing an excess of solicitousness, modulated his voice to draw out Jessica's testimony. Into the hushed room, she dropped the quiet words that totally damned Ross Kemp.

"Yes, Mr Kemp had been -- bothering me with his attentions," she agreed.

"And in what form did the accused couch these -- er -- attentions?"

"Notes! He sent disgraceful notes."

This tallied with testimony from other witnesses to whom Blackwood had admitted his anger at discovering secret correspondence to his wife.

Judge Ward leaned forward expectantly and interjected. "The notes," he wheezed, his watery eyes shining. "I want to read them. Do we have them as exhibits?"

The clerk of the court bobbed up. "If it please your honour, the notes have not been presented."

The white-haired jurist looked over his glasses at Jessica, frowning his reproof. "What has become of the prisoner's notes?"

The audience stirred.

Jessica fluttered her eyelashes and dropped her head. She bit her lip. It was all very heart-melting.

"I destroyed them, judge," she said. "I retrieved them from my husband's breast pocket and burned them. They weren't just embarrassing. They had caused my husband's death. They were evil."

A subdued murmur of assent ran through the stuffy room, and Kemp observed Judge Ward visibly back off, nodding his bird-like head. "Of course, of course," the old cuss muttered.

Kemp rose to cross-examine Jessica. His face was set in hard, frozen lines, masking his fury. He looked out over the packed benches. Only one person gave him what could have been construed as a look of sympathy. That was Ellen Blackwood. The rest gazed back in curiosity or plain hostility.

"Mrs Blackwood, if there's anything evil about this case, it's your heart," he began. "What you've told this court is a pack of wicked lies --"

The prosecutor leaped to his feet, objecting.

"The prisoner is intimidating the witness, your honour! I insist he limits himself to asking material questions."

"Upheld," the judge intoned. "Kemp, I forbid you to hector the witness. Regardless of the gravity of your position, I insist you show proper respect and feeling for a bereaved woman."

Hamstrung, Kemp fumblingly tried to take issue with Jessica in a series of ineffective questions. Impassively, she denied everything his enquiries implied with flat monsyllables inaudible beyond the jury and the front row of the public benches.

Folk at the back of the courtroom stood up, the better to savvy the drift of the interchange, till the judge rapped with his gavel and warned them anyone disturbing the proceedings would be summarily thrown out.

Kemp was appalled at Jessica's glibness; Isaac Siebert, whom he suspected knew things not being said, looked more uneasy than she did, his chin beard twitching spasmodically with the trembling of his jaw.

Dully, Kemp realised his position was desperate. After Jessica was released from the stand, it was all anti-climax.

Judge Ward summed it up for the jury. "The prisoner had powerful motives and clear opportunity. He faced disgrace and loss of office. He comes before us due only to his own recklessness. Spurring his horse back to Cedar City hell for leather in the moonglow, he was unseated and undone. The testimony so bravely given by the unfortunate widow and the other witnesses, the proof of the firing of the sheriff's Winchester -- these things are positive indicators of guilt."

Mindful of a rumbling belly, the judge decreed the jury should retire and the courtroom be cleared for a dinner break. "Refreshments can be sent into the jury during the course of their deliberations, which I trust shall not be protracted."

* * *

An hour later the court reconvened. Again, the room was packed to hot overflowing to see the outcome of the sensation that had rocked Cedar City.

Judge Ward rapped for order and the gabbling ceased.

His honour addressed the foreman of the jury. "I understand you're reached a finding."

Ross Kemp swallowed hard as he scanned the faces of the eleven whose word held his destiny. They ranged from bank cashier to cowhand. Bearded or shaven, office-pale or range-bronzed, each face shone with sweat; each juror sat stiffly.

The foreman, a mournful gent with a drooping, tobacco-yellowed moustache who ran a saddle and harness shop, shuffled to his feet.

"We have, your honour. We find the accused guilty, but make a strong recommendation for mercy in consideration of his previous unblemished record and his years of service as a law officer."

The room went into uproar as the spectators vigorously debated amongst themselves the merits of the verdict and the jury's rider.

"Order! Order!"

It took the united efforts of the judge and the clerk of the court to quell the bedlam.

Judge Ward thanked the jury for their work and the benefit of their opinions. "In the light and wisdom of judicial experience, I can confirm that you have returned the only possible verdict."

Kemp knew that the good people of Cedar City would also acknowledge that the jury had done their best for him in what were near-impossible circumstances.

His eyes sought out Ellen. She looked strained and white-faced, but maybe, too, a little relieved. Mercy would mean, at the very least, that he wouldn't hang. Yet surely the outcome couldn't matter a whole lot to her in her own black mourning clothes. Kemp remained expressionless but his guts were wrenched by the injustice. For all she knew, he was the rogue who'd had impure designs on her stepmother and had shot her father, wasn't he?

There was now only one more question, which Judge Ward decided without ado.

"Ross Kemp, I sentence you to ten years in the state penitentiary."

Next week: "Not More Killing, Please!"

Copyright © 1994 by Chap O'Keefe

All rights reserved