Rattler's Law, Volume One

by James Reasoner

  How private that actually was, Flint didn’t know.

  Dedrick could easily listen through the door. However, the man didn’t strike him as the type to do that.

  "Oh, Lucas, it's so good to see you," Rachel said, grasping his hands and squeezing them hard. "I've been praying ever since I asked Leonard to send that telegram that you'd come."

  "Of course, I came," Flint said gruffly as he searched Rachel's face. Except for a few strands of gray in her dark brown hair and a few lines around her intelligent brown eyes, she had not aged at all since he last saw her. Rachel Coleman had always been a handsome woman. She still was. Good looks ran in her family, Flint thought, seeing Mary in Rachel's finely molded features. The resemblance was so striking that the pain, which had once overwhelmed him, threatened to surface again. But Flint quickly suppressed it and went on, "Why don't you tell me what the blue blazes you're doing in jail?"

  Rachel's welcoming smile was quickly replaced by a look of bitter resignation. "I've been found guilty of murdering a man," she said. "And the judge sentenced me to hang."

  Flint shook his head. "You wouldn't hurt anybody."

  "The jury decided differently, Lucas. They say I poisoned Cheyenne's mayor, a man named Yeager." Rachel's voice took on a mocking tone. "The Honorable Russell P. Yeager, as he liked to be called. He was as honorable as a snake, Lucas!"

  Flint glanced around and spotted a three-legged stool standing in a rear corner of the hallway. He said, "Maybe you'd better back up and start at the beginning, Rachel. I've got to know what's going on if I'm going to get you out of this."

  "Is that why you came, Lucas?"

  "Why else?" Flint drew up the stool and sat on it. "I don't intend to see an innocent person hang, especially not you."

  Rachel pulled the rocking chair closer to the bars and eased into it. A smile curved her lips as she said, "Considering some of the run-ins we've had, I'm a little surprised you came all this way to help me."

  Flint grinned. "Shoot, we just liked to fuss a little back and forth. It didn't really mean anything, did it?"

  "I can see now that it didn't." Rachel took a deep breath. "You know I came here to start a newspaper."

  Flint nodded. "As I recall, you said that any territory with the good sense to allow women to vote wouldn't mind a newspaper being edited and published by a woman."

  "I still believe that's true. I ran into a few problems getting started, but no more than anyone does with a new business. The paper was finally doing well...then the election came up."

  "Election?"

  "Wyoming Territory does more than allow women to vote, Lucas," Rachel said. "The laws also give us the right to hold public office. I decided to run for mayor."

  At first Flint was surprised, but as he reflected on it, he knew he shouldn’t be. Rachel had always done the unexpected. "You ran against this Yeager fella?"

  "That's right." Rachel nodded. "He had served for two terms already, and to me that seemed long enough for one man to be in power. Besides, I wasn't fond of the way Yeager ran the town and his business. I thought a change was necessary."

  "But Yeager won anyway," he guessed.

  Rachel shrugged. "I did my best, but Yeager was an experienced politician. He knew how to tell people what they wanted to hear. I only knew how to tell the truth." She got up and began to pace nervously. "The election campaign got rather ugly. Yeager and I had had a lot of run-ins in the past."

  "Like you and me," he suggested.

  She shook her head. "Not at all, Lucas. You and I were just snapping at each other. These were more serious. Yeager and I disagreed on just about everything—from the way the town was run to its place in the territory. When he did something I didn't think was right, I took him to task in the newspaper."

  Flint remembered how sharp Rachel's tongue could be when she thought she was right. "I'll bet that made him real fond of you," he said dryly.

  She smiled. "He reacted exactly as you'd expect. Yeager wasn't accustomed to anyone opposing him. He and his partner, a man named Lance McGill, have always had things their own way here. I thought they had too much power. It goes to a man's head."

  "Sometimes it does," Flint agreed. "This McGill, you said he was Yeager's partner?"

  "That's right. Yeager and McGill owned a great deal of the town and quite a bit of property in the area. Yeager ran the mercantile store they started, while McGill was in charge of the big ranch north of here. Between them they controlled a sizable portion of the business in this part of the territory."

  "And probably wanted more," Flint said. He had encountered before the type of man Rachel was describing.

  "Naturally. I think that Yeager and McGill believed that eventually they would run all of Wyoming. They already had enough influence to persuade the Territorial Legislature to do almost anything they wanted."

  "But I imagine you fought them every step of the way."

  Rachel had been pacing restlessly as she talked. Now she stopped and turned toward Flint, and he saw her brown eyes flash. "This is a wonderful place, Lucas! It's some of the best ranching country I've ever seen. But there's room for farms and industry and the kind of development that could make Wyoming a good place to live for everyone, not just for big ranchers and businessmen. More and more people have come out here since the rail lines opened up, and the area is going to continue to grow. It can't grow properly if it's under the thumb of men like Yeager and McGill."

  Flint nodded. He understood the way Rachel felt. Throughout the West men had grabbed for power and wealth, and the resulting struggles had spilled too much blood and caused more than enough pain. Yet he could see nothing wrong with a man trying to do his best for himself and his family. Civilization, he thought.

  Rachel grasped the bars of the cell and leaned against them with a sigh. "I finally got tired of fighting with Yeager, Lucas. I really did. I'm not sure I was doing any good at all. After I lost the election, the people who supported me in the campaign were hurt. Yeager was a man who held grudges, and he saw to it that my supporters were punished. He managed to run several stores out of business, and my lawyer lost clients. It sickened me to see that happen."

  The more she said, the more Flint saw Rachel had a reason for wanting Russell P. Yeager dead. But even given the situation, he still couldn’t imagine her taking a man's life. "What did you do next?" he asked.

  "I tried to make peace with him. I thought I might be able to do more good in the long run by working with Yeager than against him." She laughed humorlessly. "It was a mistake, of course. I invited him to dinner at my house to show that I had no hard feelings...even though deep down I still despised him."

  Flint didn’t like the sound of that. "Did Yeager accept the invitation?"

  "Of course. I'm a good cook, Lucas. You know that."

  He smiled. "I sure do. I remember that peach cobbler you made for Mary and me when you visited us in Wichita—" He shook his head to banish the thought of Mary and Wichita. "Go on," he said.

  "Yeager wasn't going to turn down a free meal. I put a provision on it, though, and he accepted. He had to listen while Thatcher and I made a few suggestions about how Cheyenne's affairs should be run. Strictly a friendly discussion, you understand. By that time, I had had more than enough of the bickering."

  "Who's Thatcher?"

  "Thatcher Horrigan, my assistant at the paper." Rachel smiled. "He's a young man who used to be a reporter in Philadelphia. He decided to move out here in hopes of eventually having a paper of his own. I had those same dreams for so long, Lucas, that I couldn't resist helping him. He's very sharp, and he's going to go far."

  "Did he have dinner with you and Yeager?"

  Rachel shook her head. "No, he just sat in on the discussion and then left so that Yeager and I could be alone." She blushed suddenly, and Flint suspected he knew what was coming next. Rachel went on. "Even though we had been enemies, I think Yeager was always, well, interested in me. He was a widower; his wife had died before I came t
o Cheyenne. I believe he thought he could bring me around to his way of thinking."

  "I don't imagine there was any chance of that, though."

  "Of course not," Rachel said firmly. "As I said, I despised the man. But I was prepared to be civil, even polite. We sat down, had our dinner, and tried not to talk about the things we disagreed about. It wasn’t...totally unpleasant. After dinner, I gave Yeager some brandy, and then he left. On his way home, he became quite ill. He pulled his buggy to the side of the road and collapsed." She took a deep breath. "He died there. They found him sometime later that night."

  Flint was silent for a long moment, then he said, "I suppose a doctor looked at the body."

  Rachel nodded. "Of course. Our local doctor is a fine physician, a man named Schaffer. He examined Yeager and found that the mayor died of poisoning. He wasn't able to determine exactly what kind of poison killed Yeager, but there was no doubt that Yeager had been poisoned."

  "That doesn't mean that you were the one responsible," Flint said.

  "No, but it was widely known that Yeager had had dinner at my house that night. Sheriff Dedrick asked around and learned that I had bought some rat poison at one of the mercantiles a few days earlier. That was enough to point the finger at me."

  Flint rubbed his jaw thoughtfully as he considered what she had told him. "That doesn't mean a thing," he said after a moment. "Plenty of people buy poison and have good reasons for it."

  "That's true. I had what I thought was a good reason. We've been plagued recently with rats around the newspaper office. That's why I bought it."

  As anger began to grip him, Flint stood up and stalked back and forth. "You mean to tell me you were found guilty on that evidence?"

  "It was a bit circumstantial," Rachel agreed, "but it was enough for the jury. They knew about my feud with Yeager, knew I had bought the poison, knew Yeager was dead." She nodded solemnly. "Yes, Lucas, it was enough."

  "Not for me, dammit," he growled. He stopped pacing and peered intently at Rachel. "Did you kill him?"

  She met his gaze levelly and shook her head. "I swear to you that I didn't. I was honestly trying to make peace with Yeager, even if he was an arrogant blowhard. I didn't kill anyone."

  For the first time Flint saw tears shining in her eyes and heard a slight quaver in her voice. He stepped closer to the bars. "I'm sorry I even asked, Rachel," he said gently. "I knew you were innocent."

  "You know it, and I know it, Lucas, but that won't stop me from hanging for the crime in a few days."

  Flint reached through the bars and, putting his hands on her shoulders, squeezed tightly. "I'll stop it," he promised. "I'll find out who really killed him. You're not going to hang, Rachel."

  She rested her hands on his arms and leaned her cheek against his sleeve. The intimacy made him a little uncomfortable, but he didn’t move. Rachel was upset and had good reason to be. "Thank you," she said softly. "I knew you'd come and help me. I just knew it."

  "Don't you worry about a thing," he said, trying to console her. "I'll get to the bottom of this." He took her chin in his hand and lifted it, and a thought occurred to him. "What about that rancher McGill you mentioned? If he was Yeager's partner, it looks to me like he might have just as much reason to kill him as you. More, really."

  Rachel shook her head. "McGill was nowhere near town on the night Yeager died, and he can prove it easily. No, I'm really the only one who had an opportunity to kill him. All I know is that I didn't do it."

  "Maybe the best opportunity, but not the only one," Flint told her. "We don't know how long it took for the stuff to work. Somebody could have slipped it to Yeager before he got to your house. For that matter, how do you know that he didn't stop somewhere after leaving your place?"

  Rachel nodded thoughtfully. "That's true. I suppose it could have happened that way. But how are you going to find out, Lucas?"

  A grim smile played over his lean face. "This mess is like an anthill, Rachel. I'll just poke a sharp stick in it, stir it around a bit, and see what comes running out."

  "You can get stung that way," she replied with a smile.

  "Not if I move quickly enough," he said.

  4

  Lucas Flint spent a few more minutes reassuring Rachel Coleman that he would do everything in his power to get her out of this predicament, then told her goodbye for the time being. He went to the door that led into the office and found it locked. A knock on the panel quickly brought Sheriff Dedrick, who opened it. Flint lifted a hand in farewell to Rachel and then followed the sheriff into the office.

  "Find out what you wanted to know?" Dedrick asked as he closed the door.

  "I found out enough to make me mad," Flint replied flatly. "You know that woman in there didn't kill anybody."

  The sheriff shook his head. "That's not what the jury said, and they have the final word. I just do what the law tells me to do."

  Dedrick was unconsciously echoing what K. W.

  Newcomb had said earlier. Flint felt a surge of anger, but he restrained it and said, "I'll want to look at the records of Rachel's trial."

  "That's fine. You'll have to talk to Judge Stephens about that, but I don't imagine he'll have any objection." Dedrick sat down and placed his hands flat on the desktop. "Listen, Marshal, I know you're upset about your sister-in-law, and I can understand it. But I can tell you this. Judge Stephens has been on the bench for years. He knows what he's about. There was nothing illegal or irregular about her trial. It was as fair as it could be."

  Flint ignored his statement. "When did you arrest her? How soon after Yeager died?"

  Dedrick shrugged. "The next morning, as soon as I found out that she had bought rat poison. Doc Schaffer came by early that morning and told me what killed Mayor Yeager. Up until then, nobody was sure that he hadn't keeled over from natural causes. That poison made it murder."

  "And you didn't investigate anybody except Rachel Coleman, did you?"

  "Who else was there to investigate?" Dedrick asked, spreading his hands. "The man was poisoned. He had dinner with a woman he'd been feuding with for years. Seems like a pretty simple case to me."

  Flint leaned over the desk and looked intently at the sheriff. "Before this happened, would you have believed that Rachel Coleman could kill anybody?" he asked.

  Dedrick hesitated for a long, uncomfortable moment, then frowned. "Well," he said reluctantly, "maybe I wouldn't have. She always struck me as a lady who'd speak her mind, maybe too much so, but I didn't figure her for a killer." He shook his head. "But that doesn't mean she didn't do it. Folks do things all the time you'd never figure them for."

  "What about other suspects?" Flint snapped. "Surely there were other people with a reason to want Yeager dead."

  "There might have been some hard feelings on the part of some of the citizens. The mayor was a successful man, and you don't get that way without making a few enemies."

  "And what about this Lance McGill?"

  Dedrick snorted in disbelief. "He was the mayor's business partner."

  "That's right. Didn't he profit by Yeager's death?"

  "That's hard to say. In his will the mayor left everything to his daughter. Of course, McGill has more control now, even if he doesn't own any more than he did before. A young woman can't run things like her father would have, and she'll have to rely on McGill." Dedrick leaned forward in his chair. "But McGill has an alibi. He was out at his ranch, nowhere near town. He couldn't have poisoned Mayor Yeager, and he wouldn't have wanted to. You can take my word, Flint, those two got along fine. They had come a long way together, and they were going to keep going, too. In another few years, you wouldn't have been able to find two more important men in the whole territory."

  "That's what Rachel told me. And now McGill's got all that to himself."

  Dedrick shook his head. "You're on the wrong trail, Marshal." He stood up. "Just what is it you intend to do while you're here in Cheyenne, anyway?"

  Flint looked at him levelly. "I intend to fin
d out who really killed Yeager."

  "That case is closed." Dedrick's tone carried a clear warning.

  "Not to me," Flint replied coldly.

  The sheriff lifted a hand and pointed a finger at his visitor. His other hand was resting on his gun butt. "Don't get out of line in my town, Flint," he said. "You may be a lawman back in Kansas, but you have no jurisdiction here in Cheyenne. Just remember that, and whatever you do, stay inside the law, you understand?"

  Flint stared at him for a moment, then nodded. "I intend to," he said. At least for as long as he could, he thought.

  Rachel had said her lawyer's name was Leonard Bosworth and had given Flint directions to his office, which was a block and a half from the jail. As he left, he turned over in his mind what Rachel had told him. He was hoping the lawyer could suggest a starting point for his investigation. Eventually, he knew he was also going to have to find a place to stay. He was still carrying his bag. At the moment, though, Rachel's problem was a great deal more urgent.

  As he started down the street, Flint spotted K. W. Newcomb coming toward him. The hangman recognized Flint at the same time, hesitated briefly, then came resolutely along.

  The marshal noticed that Newcomb wasn’t carrying his bag, and he concluded that the hangman must have checked into the hotel already. Now he was probably on his way to see Sheriff Dedrick. Flint glanced down the street beyond Newcomb and saw the massive stone courthouse looming up ahead with a large grassy area in front of it.

  That's where the gallows will be built, Flint decided. Newcomb must have been looking the place over.

  Not trusting himself to speak, Flint clamped his lips tightly together and averted his eyes. Neither man spoke as they passed each other on the boardwalk.

  Leonard Bosworth's office was on the second floor of a whitewashed frame building above a bakery. An outside staircase led up to the attorney's chambers. As Flint climbed the stairs, the fragrant aromas that wafted from the bakery reminded him that he had not eaten any breakfast before leaving the train. At the time he had not felt like eating, but the smell of fresh bread made his stomach rumble.