Free A Man for Temperance (Wagon Wheel) by Gilbert Morris Page B

hall and closed the door.
    Brennan did not move but sat on the cot and tried to make his mind blank. Every time thoughts came to him, they were bad, and he was afraid in a way he never had been before. Even a bunch of screaming Cheyennes hadn’t put the fear in him that he felt now. He could face a Cheyenne’s arrow in his belly, but the idea of being locked up like an animal gave him the shakes.
    “Got a visitor for you. As a matter of fact, got four visitors for you.”
    Brennan looked up to see Temperance enter the room. She was carrying Timmy in one arm, and behind her Billy and Rose Abbott trailed along. Billy’s eyes were big as saucers, and Rose was staring at him in a strange fashion. “I told you,” she said, “if you was mean, something bad would happen to you.”
    “Thanks, Rose,” Brennan said, getting to his feet. “You’re almost as cheerful as Benny there.”
    “You folks visit all you want to. You want me to brang you a cheer, Miss Temperance?”
    “No, that’s all right, Benny. I won’t be long.”
    Brennan backed up against the wall and folded his arms. “Well, this make you happy?”
    “Of course it doesn’t, Thaddeus,” Temperance said quickly. “Why would you think that?”
    “Well, you were mad because I was leaving you.”
    “I was upset, but I didn’t want this for you. I wouldn’t wish this on any man.”
    “Have you got to stay here forever?” Rose piped up.
    “This or someplace worse.”
    “Maybe they’ll let you go,” Temperance said.
    “Not very likely. I hear the federal judge is a hanging judge.”
    “They couldn’t hang you, could they, if the man lives?”
    “No, just a way of talking. He hands out the stiffest sentences he can think up. Anyway, this is all your fault.”
    Temperance’s head jerked up, and she stared at him with astonishment. “What do you mean my fault? I didn’t shoot that man.”
    “If you hadn’t gone into town to get some hired help, you would never have heard about me, and I would be out bustin’ rock, building a road for Judge Henry. Instead of that, you find me and I’m going to the penitentiary now and it’s your fault.”
    Temperance shook her head. “Your reasoning is wrong there. Look, I brought you a cake.” She slid the cake on the floor, and he looked at it with disdain. “I don’t want none of your cake.” Temperance had tried to talk to Brennan about God on more than one occasion. He had been less than receptive, telling her more than once to mind her own business, but now she knew she had to say something. “I know things are bad, but God can do all things. Don’t give up on God, Brennan.”
    “I’ve already done that. Now I wish you’d leave.”
    Temperance started to speak, but seeing the set features of the tall man, she said quietly, “All right, but I’ll be praying for you.” He did not answer, so Temperance moved back toward the door of the sheriff’s office.
    Benny reentered and stared down at the cake. “She brought you a cake.”
    “I don’t want her old cake.”
    “Well, give it to me then.”
    Brennan shoved the cake out with his toe, and Benny at once gathered it up and began breaking off chunks and cramming them into his mouth. He mumbled, “I reckon getting hung spoils a man’s appetite. But you ain’t dead yet. Maybe that Simons fellow will live, and they’ll let you go.”
    “No, they won’t.” A gloom had descended on Thaddeus Brennan. He lay down on the cot and closed his eyes. “It’s all up with me, Benny.”
    * * *
     
    BRENNAN MUST HAVE REMEMBERED his words in the days that followed: “It’s all up with me.” He had expected to be kept in jail for weeks, maybe even months, until Asa Witherspoon, the territorial judge, came by. As was his luck, Witherspoon appeared three days after the shooting and opened his courtroom the next day. Since Brennan had no money to pay for a lawyer, Witherspoon appointed an elderly, senile ex-lawyer named Leon Clark to defend him. Clark