Utah Outlaws by Jon Sharpe

Author:Jon Sharpe
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group

Sheriff Powell figured that if this new pot of coffee didn’t bring Newly Davis around, nothing could. This was his special brew, double the potency. Nobody sober could get it down—or keep it down—this was reserved for drunks of the worst kind. And right now Newly, who had probably had more to drink than he’d ever had in his life, qualified for that sort of drunk—the worst kind.

Powell toted a large mug of the steaming brew through the door separating the front office from the four jail cells. In the other hand he carried a lantern. Newly was his only prisoner.

The difference in temperature between front and back was immediate. Heat from the potbellied stove didn’t reach the cells. In the winter months prisoners were transferred to a bigger jail in Reston.

Newly was snoring. One of his legs was off the cot and his head was at an angle that guaranteed a stiff neck. The whiskey smell was still on him. Powell, not much of a drinker himself, sniffed the air and made a face. He set the lantern down, unlocked the cell and went inside. The lantern light cast his shadow against the slab wall, making him look like a silhouette monster out of a spooky story for kids.

Powell set the coffee mug on the stool visitors sat on and started in trying to wake Newly up. Drunks could sleep through anything, which was one reason so many of them died in fires. He’d had to drag too many charred corpses from fiery rooms and shacks.

He began by shaking him. The only response he got was Newly muttering to leave him alone. Powell switched to trying to get him to sit up. That ended the same way twice, him managing to get Newly to the edge of the bed and looking like he was on the verge of waking up. But both times Newly managed to fall back to the cot.

Powell went back up front and got a pitcher of water. Probably should have done this the first time. But he’d hated to because he liked Newly and because the water would only make Newly a lot colder than he already was.

But now there wasn’t any choice.

Newly, water dripping from his head, yelped as if he’d been stabbed. He sat up all right, right up straight, his baffled eyes trying to figure out what the hell had startled him out of his drunkard’s sleep.

“What the hell, Sheriff? What the hell’d you do that for?”

“I’m the one who should be asking you that, Newly. You can’t drink worth a damn and you know it.”

“Where am I?” Newly said, running a hand down the top of his head, draining some of the water off.

Where was he? Powell thought. Newly was in a much worse way than he’d thought he was.

“Look around, Newly. See the bars there? You’re in jail.”

“Jail?” Newly’s eyes focused for the first time. “Jail? Why’m I in jail? I didn’t—?”

Powell wondered what Newly had been going to say before he stopped himself.

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