"Marshal Madrid said he vould stop you from leaving town. I think he meant he vould kill you. Mr. Yay, he said no. He said it vould happen on the road. The prisoner vould have a gun and escape. You vould be dead, I think. At first, it vas only vun prisoner. Then you took the other vun. Mr. Yay said so much the better...."
Stella was extremely excited, and her accent made it doubly hard for Muckamuck Charlie to understand what she was talking about. He gathered that she was warning Willie someone would kill him if he tried to take Palma to Ellensburg, but Charlie doubted that this could be taken literally. She probably wanted to keep Willie in town for reasons of her own. It was disappointing to see that Willie was sobered by her jabbering.
"Thanks, S-Stella," Willie said.
"You'll not go?"
"I g-guess I'll go. I'll be as safe on the road as I am in t-town. But I'll search those prisoners before I start out, Stella."
Willie touched her elbow and they walked together through the big barn door into the sunlight. Charlie got up and watched Willie ride to the marshal's office, leading the two extra horses. Stella hurried off toward the big house behind the town. Willie went into the office and reappeared with two handcuffed prisoners. All three mounted and rode out of town.
The sight of Palma stirred an ugly hatred in Charlie and a fear for Willie. True, Willie had a gun in his belt and the prisoners were handcuffed. But Jim Palma was a strong and wily man. He had stomped that Umatilla boy to death down at Selah, and Charlie had heard other bad things about him. He wasn't sure that Willie was a match for Palma. Maybe that jabbering squaw was right, after all, Charlie thought.
He made his way up a cleared hillside above town, feeling a little better as he walked. He had staked his horse up here—no sense in wasting whisky money on a livery fee. After a day's grazing, the animal looked to be in fair condition. Saddle and bridle were in a clump of brush where Charlie had cached them. He fought a brief battle with the temptation to sell these for whisky money; then he saddled up and cut behind the town to the Ellensburg road.