Rattler's Law, Volume One

by James Reasoner

  Wolfe picked up his bottle again and took another drink as his men moved up to the bar and began raucously demanding drinks from Storen. The old man busily handed over bottles of whiskey, grumbling as he did so.

  Raising his voice, Wolfe called, "Hodges!" The thick-bodied, middle-aged man who had carried the message to the posse grabbed one of the bottles being passed around and came over to the table.

  Pushing back his soggy hat, he asked, "What can I do for you, Roscoe?"

  "Don’t get too drunk tonight, that's what you can do," Wolfe said. "That posse's back there somewhere, and it's goin' to be up to you to meet them before they get here. I guess it's safe enough tonight, but early in the morning I want you out on the trail."

  Hodges took a long swig from the bottle and wiped the back of his hand across his mouth. "Hell, Roscoe, can't somebody else do that?" He looked down meaningfully at Elizabeth, letting his dark eyes linger on the thrust of her breasts against the wet fabric of her dress. "I thought you might let some of the boys have a little fun whilst we're waitin'."

  Elizabeth tried not to shudder as Wolfe laid his hand on the Winchester on the tabletop. "Forget it, Hodges," he said coldly. "That ain't the way it's goin' to be. You got your orders."

  Hodges took an involuntary step back from Wolfe's glare. "Sure, Roscoe," he said hastily. "No offense."

  "Just remember what I said. If that posse rides in here without us bein' warned ahead of time, I'll make sure that you don't ride out alive."

  "Sure." Hodges bobbed his head and backed away.

  Elizabeth took a deep breath as the impending violence in the air slowly died away. In a low voice, she said, "You really rule with an iron hand, don't you?"

  "These are strong men, and the only thing they respect is somebody stronger. But they're good hombres. I'm glad they're finally gonna get a really big payoff." Wolfe smiled across the table at Elizabeth. "Thanks to you, little lady."

  Elizabeth decided to return the smile. She had been wondering about something, and given Wolfe's current expansive mood, she decided this would be a good time to ask him about it.

  "You didn't seem surprised that the entire posse came after us," she began. "After all, you did leave that note ordering them to send in just one man with the ransom."

  Wolfe waved a hand. "Aw, hell, I didn't expect whoever was leadin' that posse to pay any attention to the note. No lawman would. This is all just part of the game they play."

  Elizabeth shivered. "I'm afraid it's not much of a game."

  Wolfe grinned cockily. "I wouldn't say that. That marshal Hodges said was ramroddin' the posse sounds like a fella named Tom Brennan. Brennan's been after me for nigh on two years now. It's been pretty entertainin', runnin' rings around him."

  Elizabeth thoughtfully studied the outlaw leader's bearded face. "I think you want him to come into town and try to rescue me," she said shrewdly.

  "Don’t reckon I'd mind too much, at that." Wolfe's grin widened. "It's gettin' time to go ahead and kill the bastard."

  As a cold chill ran up her spine, Elizabeth held out an unsteady hand for the whiskey bottle. "Can I have some more of that?"

  Wolfe pushed it across the table to her and said, "Sure, darlin'."

  While she lifted the bottle to her lips, her mind raced. She drank deeply, then lowered her green eyes as she placed the bottle on the table and said softly, "I want to go to my room now. I have to get out of these clothes and dry off."

  Wolfe shoved back his chair, picked up the Winchester and saddlebags. "Sure. Come on. And bring the bottle!"

  Elizabeth picked up the bottle and swayed seductively as she preceded Wolfe out of the barroom. There were some catcalls from the men, but she ignored them. She turned and smiled at Wolfe when they reached the staircase, and he nodded for her to go ahead of him. Under her weight, the stairs squeaked and sagged, making her nervous, but they held up all right.

  Wolfe had picked up the lantern from the counter in the lobby, and as they reached the second floor it cast long, flickering shadows down the hall.

  "Second door on the left," Wolfe grunted. "It's the room I always use when I'm here."

  Elizabeth looked over her shoulder at him. "I'm honored," she said throatily.

  She walked down the corridor, hips swaying. Wolfe followed close behind. When Elizabeth reached the door, she tried it. Finding it unlocked, she swung it open and stepped inside.

  Storen had not gone to a lot of trouble, but the room had been prepared for occupancy. There were blankets on the iron bedstead's mattress. A jug of water and a basin sat on a scratched dressing table, and some of the dust had been wiped off the fly-specked mirror above it. A torn piece of canvas had been hung over the room's single window.

  "Like Storen said, the best room in the house." Wolfe laughed as he heeled the door shut behind him.

  Elizabeth turned to face him with a solemn expression on her features. "It's good enough," she said softly. "We're alone finally, and now we can do what we've been wanting to do ever since we left Abilene." Her hands went to the buttons of her dress and began unfastening them.

  Wolfe watched coolly as the garment slipped from Elizabeth's shoulders and fell around her feet. She stepped out of it, wearing a shift that was as soaked as the dress. A glance in the mirror told her that the outline of her breasts showed plainly through the thin fabric, as did the large dark nipples crowning the swells of creamy flesh. Elizabeth stepped toward Wolfe, her head tilted back, her eyelids drooping closed.

  Wolfe slid his free arm around her, pulling her tightly against him as his mouth came down urgently on hers. For a moment, her lips remained closed, but then they parted, opening to his rough kiss. Her arms went around him, the fingers clutching at the duster he wore, roaming all over his back in demanding caresses. Then her probing fingers brushed back the skirt of the duster and closed over the hilt of the Bowie knife sheathed at Wolfe's waist.

  Suddenly Wolfe tore her away from him, causing Elizabeth to cry out in pain and shock. He gave her a hard shove that sent her staggering across the room, and the side of the bed caught her in the back of the knees. She sprawled across the thin mattress with a flash of milky-white thigh.

  The barrel of Wolfe's rifle came down to line on her fallen form, and he levered a shell into the chamber with a snarl. "You damn slut!" he barked. "I've been waitin' ever since we left Abilene, all right—waitin' for you to pull some stupid stunt like that! You high-and-mighty rich girls think you can always have whatever you want, just for the askin'. And if that don't work, you just take what you want!"

  Tears sprang to Elizabeth's eyes as she covered her face with shaking hands. "No, Roscoe, you don't understand!" she wailed in protest. "I never met a man like you before, not a real man—"

  "Shut up!" Wolfe cut in. "Don’t make it worse. You figgered you could flaunt that body and that smile at me and get me to do whatever you wanted. But then you got impatient and decided to finish the job yourself by guttin' me with my own knife. Well, I was ready for that! And even if you had managed to stick me, where the hell were you goin’? Ain't no place in this territory where my men couldn't find you."

  Elizabeth just shook her head and kept her face covered. Her fear, carefully held in check all during the long ride south, now blossomed into pure terror, leaving her speechless.

  Wolfe moved closer to the bed, and Elizabeth cringed. His eyes were shining with excitement as he surveyed her quaking, half-nude figure. "Not that I wouldn't like to finish what we started," he breathed harshly. "You may have been actin', gal, but that kiss packed plenty of punch anyway." He dropped the saddlebags at the foot of the bed and laid the rifle on the floor. Bending over Elizabeth, he went on, "Maybe when we get this ransom business over and done with, there'll be some time for you and me to have a little fun. Hell, when I get through with you, you may not want to go back to your daddy no more."

  With a wicked grin on his face, he opened the saddlebags and took out a short length of rope. It caught on one of the
packets of money that had come from the safe on Nicholas Stockbridge's private train, and it brought the stack of bills tumbling onto the floor. Wolfe picked them up, riffled a thumb along the edge, and then stuffed them back into the pouch.

  "Yeah, when this is all over..." he mused.

  Then he lashed the rope around Elizabeth's wrists and began tying them to the bedframe. The evil smile never left his face.

  13

  It was late afternoon of the next day when the posse approached Elysium. It had taken a whole night of hard work to round up the horses that had been scattered by the outlaws' attack. Cully looked at the men: If they had been gaunt and haggard before, worn down by the rigors of the pursuit, now they looked even worse.

  Cully didn’t know how far from the town they were, but they had to be getting close. They had been in the saddle since just before dawn, being pushed on relentlessly by Tom Brennan. The U.S. marshal had not smiled all day, his normally hearty cheerfulness having deserted him to be replaced by a grimness that set his features in a hard mask.

  As the posse rode up the long slope of a hogback ridge, Cully glanced over his shoulder at the straggling line of men. They had been lucky and had recovered all the stampeded horses except for one. Two of the men had doubled up, which ordinarily might have slowed the posse, but all the men and animals were so exhausted that they couldn’t in any case maintain a fast pace.

  Cully's gaze rested on Hannah Stockbridge. She smiled tiredly at him. Her features had become lean during the long chase, making her high cheekbones even more prominent. He was amazed that she had held up so well under all the hardships the posse had suffered.

  But she had held up, and so had Elliott Pannier and Roland Stockbridge. Both men had proven to be effective fighters during the battle the night before. They were drawing on reserves that their soft eastern life had never even touched before. But how long can those reserves hold out? Cully wondered.

  When Brennan reached the top of the ridge, he reined in. Cully came to a stop beside him as Brennan reached into his saddlebag for the spyglass. "You see something?" Cully asked.

  "I think there's something over there across that valley," Brennan replied, opening the telescope to its full length, and lifting it to his eye. He squinted through the lens, and after a moment grunted, "Yep, there's a town over there, all right. It's got to be Elysium."

  He passed the spyglass over to Cully, who peered through it. Details of the scene across the valley leaped at him, and he could see the main street, dominated by one large structure. Because there were no horses and no movement, it looked like a ghost town.

  "You sure they're there?" he asked.

  "They're there." Brennan nodded. "Wolfe is just lying low and waiting for us. Chances are some of his men are still sleeping off a drunk. At least we can hope so. That'll help even the odds."

  Cully gave the marshal a quick glance. During the long, hard pursuit, they had never discussed what they would do once the posse reached Elysium. From the way Brennan had spoken, he had planned all along to storm the town immediately.

  Handing the spyglass back to him, Cully asked, "What now?"

  Brennan closed the glass and stowed it away. "We go get that lady back, that's what we do now," he said sharply. He urged his horse into motion.

  A rifle cracked, the bullet kicking up dirt several feet in front of Brennan's horse.

  With one hand Brennan jerked the animal to a stop, while his other hand flew to his Colt. Just behind him Cully was doing the same thing. All along the line the posse members reached for their weapons and scanned the valley in front of them for the attackers.

  No more shots broke the silence around them. Brennan had crouched slightly over his horse's neck to make himself a smaller target. Slowly, he straightened, his eyes searching the valley before him.

  "Just stay where you are! Don’t move, mister!"

  The call came from a clump of trees about fifty yards down the slope. As Cully, Brennan, and the other posse members watched, a man on horseback emerged from the trees and rode slowly toward them. There was something familiar about the man, and as he drew closer, Cully recognized him as the messenger Wolfe had sent to meet them earlier.

  The stranger had his rifle in his hands, and he held himself stiffly, his tension obvious even at a distance. Cully had to give the man credit for having the courage to ride up to an armed posse like this.

  The man approached to within twenty yards, then pulled up and regarded them over the muzzle of his rifle. He asked, "You got that ransom money?"

  Brennan shook his head. "Not yet. We're still waiting for it to catch up to us from Abilene."

  "You sure about that?" the hardcase demanded with a frown. "Seems to me it should've been here by now."

  Brennan rested his hands on the pommel of his saddle and leaned forward. "Seems like it to me, too," he said bluntly. "But I've got no control over that, mister."

  "You could send a rider back, have him check on it," the man suggested.

  Brennan shrugged. "I could. But that'd mean cutting my force. I don't want to do that, even by one man, not with Roscoe Wolfe around."

  The outlaw forced a grin. "Roscoe will play square with you, mister. Don’t you worry about that."

  "I know how Wolfe plays the game," Brennan shot back harshly. "Say what you came to say."

  The man nodded. "All right. You just stay right here. Don’t come no closer to Elysium. If all of you try to ride in, that lady is dead, make no mistake about it. When the money comes, you pick a man to bring it in and then fire three shots. That'll let us know he's comin'."

  Brennan regarded him for a long moment without speaking. Cully glanced from the marshal to the outlaw and back again and waited for Brennan's reaction to these orders. Cully believed it would be out of character for the lawman simply to accept them, but he was uncertain.

  Abruptly, Brennan nodded. "We'll do as you say," he told Wolfe's messenger.

  The man squinted suspiciously at him. "You don't intend to raid the town?" he demanded.

  "You've got my word on it," Brennan said levelly. "We won't attack the town. We'll camp right here and wait for the ransom."

  Cully heard some of the posse members breathe sighs of relief. He turned to see that a look of gratitude on Elliott Pannier's face had replaced the haggard mask he had worn. Hannah's eyes glistened with tears, and a little smile played at her lips.

  "All right, mister," the outlaw said. "You'd best remember what was said here."

  "Oh, I'll remember, don't worry about that," Brennan promised.

  A dubious look still on his face, the hardcase wheeled his horse and put the spurs to it, galloping away down the slope. He kept casting glances over his shoulder, as if he was afraid that the posse members would try to shoot him in the back.

  Some of them probably would like to do just that, Cully thought. Roscoe Wolfe's greed has put a lot of people in danger during the last week.

  Brennan sat motionless in his saddle, his unreadable eyes following Wolfe's man until the messenger had disappeared into the trees. Then the marshal turned and called to the posse members, "You heard what the man said. We might as well all get down and make ourselves comfortable."

  Cully watched as Brennan swung down from the saddle, and then he slowly followed the older man's example. The other men were dismounting, as well, and Hannah Stockbridge slid from her saddle, gratefully stretching to unkink the muscles in her back.

  Cully stepped over to Brennan as the others began tending to their mounts. Looking intently at the marshal, Cully said, "You don't really intend to make camp here, do you?"

  "Of course, I do," Brennan insisted. For the first time today, his face began to reveal his thoughts, and a trace of a smile played around the corners of his mouth. "I just never said how long we'd stay here."

  Cully inclined his head toward the trees where the hardcase had vanished. "This is for his benefit, isn't it, just in case he's keeping an eye on us?"

  "That's right,
son," Brennan replied softly. "Come dark, we'll do what we have to do."

  Cully took a deep breath. "You gave him your word."

  "That's right. I gave my word to an outlaw, a no-good criminal. You think that means anything?" Brennan shook his head without waiting for Cully to answer. "Well, I don't. I'll tell a skunk like that anything as long as it helps me get my hands on his boss."

  Brennan turned away, abruptly dismissing Cully. Enraged, the young deputy struggled to control his feelings as he watched Brennan issue orders to the men to begin setting up a camp. The group cheered vigorously when Brennan told them they could start a fire.

  "Hot coffee again!" one man said fervently. "It's been too dang long."

  Eagerly, the men stripped the saddles from their mounts and gave water to the horses. There was plenty of grass for the horses to graze on but rations for the members of the posse were scarce, so Brennan detailed two men to shoot some rabbits or prairie hens. Two more men were put on guard, just in case another gang came along and ambushed them.

  Cully watched the hubbub with mixed emotions and churning thoughts. Brennan had told him that he wouldn’t honor his promise not to attack Elysium. Right now, he was just putting on a show in case Wolfe's man was still observing them from some hiding place. When the concealing darkness of night fell, Brennan could put his own plan into motion. And there was a good chance that his plan would get Elizabeth Stockbridge killed.

  At the same time, Cully had felt from the first that they couldn’t afford to trust Roscoe Wolfe. Wolfe had been too slippery for too long. To turn over the money and hope that Wolfe would release Elizabeth was asking for too much; the bandit would never do it.

  That was why, Cully at last decided, he and Brennan had to work together, had to come up with some other plan, some scheme that might get Elizabeth out alive.

  As several men built a small fire and got a pot of coffee simmering on it, Cully caught Angus's eye and then strolled over toward Brennan. The shrewd, burly Scotsman, sensing that something was up, followed along behind.