Payback at Morning Peak by Gene Hackman

The punctures pumped startling amounts of blood onto the office floor.
    A trail of blood led to Ron’s desk, where the door to the back room had been left open. The deputy must have been in the cell area. Jubal stepped through the portal and eased into the barred confines unnoticed.
    He saw Wetherford’s open cell door, the key on a large steel ring still in place in the lock.
    The sound of someone crying came from the back cell, next to where he had spent the night. As he eased his way down the short hallway, he could see blood splattered in front of the Spanish woman’s cell.
    “Maria, it’s Jubal. Do you remember me?”
    “Yes,” she mumbled between her gasps. “Can you please to help me?”
    “What happened here?”
    A long pause. “I don’t know.”
    Jubal stood by the bars, looking at the forlorn woman. She sat on the floor in the corner of the cell, her hands grasping her knees.
    “Can I get you water?”
    “No, thank you.”
    Jubal thought the voices in the outer office had gotten even louder, sounding as if they were ready to move Ron. The deputy led the chorus, shouting instructions on how to ease his pain.
    Jubal directed his attention back to Maria. “Guess they’re helping Ron.” Jubal watched for her reaction. “Who shot him? How did it happen?”
    “Fat Ron stood there.” She pointed to the corner of her cell next to the bars. “Near the wall of the hombre who came to jail all banged up. I, having to do my daily thing.”
    “Your daily… thing?” Jubal didn’t know what else to say.
    “I was doing him like I did ever’day. Him and stinky-man sheriff.”
    Jubal still couldn’t find the words.
    “The hombre next door, Mr. Petey, he reach over to grab Deputy Ron’s gun and said to him to open his cell or he was gonna shoot him to death. Well, Ron was soiling himself and unlocked Petey’s cell. I beg him to let me out, too, but he just shoots Ron and runs out. It was so loud. Then I’m hearing more pistola rounds, then nothing.”
    Again, Jubal found himself stunned, trying to grasphow all of this had happened. Even so, in the midst of all the unnecessary pain, Jubal realized there was one thing he could do to help.
    Maria continued her moaning but got distracted when Jubal turned the key in her cell door. He swung it open.
    “Quietly,” Jubal said. “Do you understand? People in the office are tending to Ron. More are outside. Stay alongside me and don’t speak.”
    The diminutive woman nodded and began to creep alongside Jubal as they made their way through the throng. They were lucky to be swept outside as the townsmen hoisted Ron onto a stretcher and whisked him away. Jubal and Maria walked unnoticed into the street.
    They made their way along a back alley, and the young woman wept. “Thanks to you, señor. Muchas gracias.”
    “Do you have a place to stay? What will you do?”
    “I have amigas who will take me.”
    Jubal knew there couldn’t be much he could say to her. “Good luck to you, Maria.”
    The woman turned and slipped down a dark lane between two buildings. At the corner she clasped her hands together as if in prayer, called out, “!Muchas gracias!” and disappeared into the shadows.

FOURTEEN
    Sitting on the porch of the hotel, Jubal watched people stream past the jail area, there being, he figured, a morbid curiosity about the death of the sheriff.
    Bufort Morton had died in the street. He had, much to Jubal’s surprise, a family—and, from the reactions of the gawkers, quite a few friends. Or if not friends, acquaintances.
    Jubal wondered if he would have to hold himself somewhat responsible for the man’s death. If he had simply left his canteen with Ty Blake at the crossroads and ridden off, none of this would have transpired.
    He scolded himself for living in the what-if world again. Then he scolded himself again for stalling. He had to make a decision. Not about whether to trail after Wetherford and Tauson, but how to treat Judge Wickham. The man