Rattler's Law, Volume One

by James Reasoner

  Flint hesitated for a moment, then met West's level stare with one of his own. "Do you know who Rachel Coleman is?"

  "Sure." West nodded. "She's that newspaper lady from Cheyenne who killed the mayor. They're going to hang her in a few days, aren't they?"

  "Not if I can help it," Flint replied grimly. "I'm her brother-in-law, and I'm also the marshal of Abilene, Kansas. I've come to Wyoming to prove that Rachel is innocent. I intend to see that the real killer is caught."

  West's eyes widened in surprise. "The jury found the Coleman woman guilty," he said.

  "I know, but she didn't do it, and I’m not going to let an innocent woman hang."

  "Then who did?"

  Flint looked at the young man and said, "If I'm right, it was your boss—Lance McGill."

  8

  Jordy West, his eyes hooded and thoughtful, stared at Lucas Flint for a long moment. Finally, he said, "Mayor Yeager and Mr. McGill were partners. I guess that's enough to make anybody think McGill might have had something to do with the murder. But I don't see that McGill came out ahead by the mayor's dying. Anabel Yeager inherited her daddy's share."

  "I met the young lady yesterday," Flint told him. "She's not going to cross McGill in anything that he wants to do. Besides, McGill intends to marry her. If he does, he'll have the whole shooting match right in his pocket."

  West considered that, and Flint saw embers beginning to smolder in the young cowhand's eyes as he did so. "You could be right," West said at last. "I've been riding for Trident long enough to know that Mr. McGill does what he wants to most of the time. Thinks he's going to marry Miss Yeager, does he?"

  "That's what he said yesterday when I ran into him at her house."

  West grunted. Then he turned to the marshal with a puzzled expression. "If you're trying to find out who killed the mayor, why all the questions about the rustling around here?"

  "I've got a hunch it's all tied together somehow," Flint replied. "I can't tell you why, West, but I think it would be worthwhile to find out who's behind all the thieving."

  "I told you that. Dax Ladell's the man."

  Flint shrugged. "Could be. You know the man, and I don't. Does he strike you as the sort who could be the brains behind a big rustling operation?"

  West thought about that for a moment, then laughed. "Like I said, Ladell's a hardcase, but I'm not sure he's smart enough to set up a deal like that. You think that McGill's mixed up in the cow-lifting?"

  Flint hesitated. He didn’t know how long West had been riding for McGill, or what the cowboy might have done in the past. He said carefully, "I've heard that the Trident herds had a pretty sudden growing spell a few years back."

  "I wouldn't know," West replied. "I've only been in these parts for a little over a year. Trident was a big spread when I drifted up from Texas and signed on."

  Flint nodded. That would explain why West seemed to be a little more objective about the situation than Flint had expected at first. Naturally, the young puncher had some loyalty to the brand he rode for, but he wasn’t a long-term McGill follower.

  "Do you have any idea where I could find Ladell?" Flint asked.

  "He and his men hang out at a roadhouse north of here," West replied. "I could take you there, but I'm supposed to be checking this range for stray steers."

  "Wouldn't want you to get into any trouble. If you'll just tell me where to find the place, I'll ride up there, see what I can find out."

  West's tanned face broke into a grin. "You're going into that outlaw's den by yourself, Marshal?"

  Flint smiled at the young cowhand. "I don't plan to tell anybody I'm a lawman," he said dryly. "I just want to ask a few questions."

  "Men in places like that don't usually take kindly to questions from a stranger—or even from somebody who's not. Tell you what, I'll ride with you."

  "I thought you had work to do here."

  West's grin widened. "I don't want to miss the fireworks when you ride into Cue Ball."

  "That's what they call the place?"

  "Yep." West nodded. "It's got the only billiard table between Cheyenne and Casper."

  "Maybe we can get a game in," Flint said.

  West laughed, and the two men continued riding north.

  As he rode, Flint realized what a stroke of luck it had been that he had encountered Jordy West. West had undoubtedly saved his life when he was pinned down, and now it appeared that the young man might be a good source of information about what was going on in the area. Flint had already learned more from him than he had in several hours of pumping people in Cheyenne.

  They rode in companionable silence for a few minutes, then Flint asked, "What led you to come up to Wyoming, anyway?"

  West chuckled. "If you're asking whether I was on the run from the Texas law, Marshal, then the answer is no. I guess I was just a little restless. I'd been on a cattle drive up to the Montana boomtowns a couple of years ago, and we passed through this country along the way. I liked the looks of it and decided to come back. Didn't have anything to keep me in Texas. My folks are both dead, the rest of my kin scattered here and there." The young man shrugged. "Like I said, I drifted."

  "How do you like working for McGill?"

  West took his time answering, obviously turning the question over in his mind. "It hasn't been bad," he finally said. "Trident pays about the same as the other spreads, and the cook sets a good table. The crew's not the friendliest I ever worked with, but we get along all right most of the time." He snorted. "There are a few boys who think they're mighty fast with a gun, but I just try to stay out of their way."

  "Pistoleros, eh?" Flint said.

  "Or what passes for it up here. Down home, they'd still be fast, but nothing that special."

  Flint glanced away so that West wouldn’t see the grin on his face. Like most of the Texans Flint had met, West seemed to think that folks from the Lone Star State were naturally bigger, faster, and tougher.

  "How often did Yeager come out to the ranch?" he asked a moment later. "It was half his, after all."

  "Maybe so, but McGill made sure everybody knew he gave the orders on the Trident, not Yeager. The mayor didn't seem to mind. From what I saw he was more comfortable in town. But he did ride out to the ranch house sometimes, to talk things over with McGill, I guess." West's voice softened. "Miss Anabel came with him every now and then, too. We all looked forward to that."

  Flint glanced over and saw the expression on West's face. The young man was obviously thinking about Anabel Yeager, and Flint guessed that he cared a great deal for her. Of course, any cowboy stuck out on the range for days and weeks at a time would welcome the sight of a pretty female face, but West's reaction seemed different from that of the usual lovesick puncher. There was something honest about it, something that went beyond simple physical attraction.

  Could West be in love with Anabel Yeager? Flint wondered. "Did you ever show her around the ranch?" he asked.

  The sudden flush on West's face told Flint his guess had hit home. "I don't reckon that's any of your business, Marshal," West snapped.

  "Sorry," Flint murmured, and then fell silent as he mulled over what West had told him so far. He wasn’t going to push the matter, but West was wrong about one thing—Flint was making everything that had gone on in Cheyenne and on the Trident range his business until he had sorted out Yeager's murder.

  West set their course, angling a little east of north to strike the trail between Cheyenne and Casper. After they had ridden for a while in silence, Flint asked, "Are we still on Trident range?"

  West nodded. "Yes. We have to cross two more creeks before we come to the boundary. McGill's bought a lot of land up this way. He keeps expanding the spread."

  That was interesting, Flint thought. Clearly, McGill wasn’t hurting for money. Yeager's death had not disrupted the day-to-day operation of the ranch or interfered with McGill's plans for expansion.

  He suddenly wondered if McGill had been building up the ranch at the expense of
the partners' other holdings. That might not have sat well with Yeager, might have even led to a quarrel between the two men.

  If only the case against Rachel had not been so cut-and-dried, Flint thought, Lance McGill surely would have emerged as the leading suspect in Yeager's death. The manner of the mayor's death had certainly been convenient for McGill.

  The two men rode on, their conversation sporadic as they eventually left the Trident ranch behind. West pointed out the creek that formed the northern boundary of the ranch as they forded the small stream. The terrain here was rolling prairie with, as always, the foothills and the mountains looming to the west.

  It was well past noon, and Flint's stomach growled as a reminder. "Do you think we can get something to eat at that roadhouse?" he asked as they rode up a small rise.

  When he reached the top, West pulled his horse to a stop and nodded at the building in the broad, shallow valley below. "I reckon we'll find out soon enough," he said with a grin. "There's Cue Ball."

  Flint reined in beside West and studied the landscape. A large two-story building with smoke curling from the chimney stood in the center of the valley. A couple of one-room shacks huddled near the roadhouse, and farther down the valley a church roof and steeple reached for the sky from a stand of trees.

  "Sort of a strange place for a church," Flint commented.

  "Not really," West replied. "Folks can do their celebrating at Cue Ball, then ride down the road and say a prayer when they sober up. Probably works out pretty well."

  Flint grinned. "The way you make this place sound, if we get out alive, we'd better go put something in the poor box."

  "Might be a good idea," West said, and Flint couldn’t be sure if the cowboy was serious or not.

  West started down the hill, and Flint rode alongside him. The marshal could see the wagon road approaching Cue Ball from the south and then winding on north toward Casper. It looked like a well-traveled route. A wagon and a dozen horses were tied up in front of the roadhouse. The place appeared to be busy this afternoon.

  "There's no guarantee Ladell will be here," West said in a low voice as he and Flint approached the building. "But with that many horses out front, there's a good chance he is."

  Flint nodded. They pulled up and found places for their horses at the crowded hitch rail. As they stepped onto the porch, Flint realized he should have gone to see Rachel before leaving Cheyenne that morning. If he didn’t make it out of here alive, chances were she would never learn what had happened to him. Not that she would have long to worry about it if he failed, he thought grimly.

  The roadhouse called Cue Ball was built of broad, weathered planks and had only a few windows and two doors, one at each end of the building. No sign on the place announced its name, but Flint was sure that everyone in this part of the country knew about it.

  He and West stepped into the dimly lit building. The windows were so grimy that much of the sunlight was cut out. A couple of lanterns gave off a feeble glow.

  Flint paused and scanned the interior. A wall divided the place roughly in half. He and West had entered on the side that served as a saloon, with a bar on one wall and a few tables scattered around the room. A steep staircase at the end of the bar led to a balcony with second-floor rooms opening off it.

  Through an open door in the dividing partition, Flint could see that the other half of the building was used as a general store. Barrels of flour, crackers, sugar, and pickles stood in a row on the floor. Bolts of cloth were stacked on tables. Harnesses and farm implements hung from hooks on the walls. A settler, his wife, and four children were rummaging through the goods, and Flint surmised they had come in the wagon tied up outside. Immigrants passing through, he thought, who would probably be all right as long as they stayed where they were and didn’t venture into this half of the roadhouse.

  The billiard table that gave the place its name sat in the center of the room. Several men stood around it watching as two players awkwardly hit the balls around the table. More customers were sitting at the tables, and a couple of men lounged at the bar with mugs of beer in their hands. All the men wore dusty clothes and tied-down guns. Flint could tell that they were all hardcases, men who had no respect for law and order and little for plain common decency. The only woman in sight was the immigrant's wife in the next room.

  As Flint and West came in, the Cue Ball's patrons briefly studied the newcomers with cold-eyed stares. Then the two carrying billiard cues went back to their game, and the spectators turned their attention back to the table. The others began to drink again. The only person who continued to watch Flint and West was one of the pair standing at the bar. He didn’t take his eyes off them as they approached.

  West stepped up to the bar and said to the thin, jug-eared bartender, "I'll take a beer, Stony, and so will my friend here."

  The bartender bobbed his head and started to draw the beers. Flint stopped beside West, met the gaze of the man who was watching them, and nodded. "Howdy," he said.

  The man nodded in return. He was a little shorter than Flint, but heavier, with wide, powerful shoulders. He wore brown whipcord pants, a dingy shirt that had once been white, and a black vest. His black hat had a tightly rolled brim, the front of which curved over dark eyes with bushy brows. A heavy black mustache drooped over his mouth, and the skin of his lean cheeks was pocked. Even without seeing the well-worn grips of the pistol on the man's hip, Flint would have known him for a bad one.

  West sipped the beer that the bartender shoved in front of him, then asked, "How are you, Ladell?"

  "Tolerable," the dark-eyed man answered in a growling voice. "What the hell are you doin' up here, West? Get lost chasin' one of your boss's cows?"

  "Just rode up for a drink."

  Ladell switched his gaze back to Flint, who was sampling his own warm, flat beer. "How about you, mister?"

  Flint's voice was as hard as Ladell's as he replied, "Can't a man get a drink without being bothered with a bunch of questions?"

  "We don't see too many strangers around here. Can't blame a man for being curious." Ladell thumped his mug on the bar and edged a little closer to Flint. "You plan on answerin' or not?"

  "Take it easy, Ladell," West said sharply. "We don't want trouble."

  "That's right," Flint added. He had come here for information, not a brawl. He went on. "No offense meant, mister. I just came up from Kansas looking for a little work. Ran into West here, and he offered to buy me a drink. We knew each other back in Abilene."

  Flint was doing some guessing, but from the things West had said, he thought it was likely the young man had been part of the many cattle drives from Texas to the railheads in Kansas. It was feasible they could have met there. The story would do for Ladell's benefit, anyway.

  "You don't look much like a cowhand," Ladell said, glancing at Flint's hands and clothes and gun.

  Flint shook his head. "I'm not," he said simply.

  "Looking for gun work, are you?" Ladell asked bluntly.

  Flint was equally direct. "Could be. You know where a man could find some?"

  Ladell didn’t answer for a long moment as he studied Flint. Finally, he said, "I can always use another good man." He glanced at West. "Cowboy, why don't you finish your drink and get out of here?"

  Clearly, he didn’t want to discuss business with West around, which was another point in the young man's favor as far as Flint was concerned. West was probably honest if a man like Ladell didn’t trust him.

  Flint gave a minuscule nod as West darted a look at him. He drained half of his beer and then said, "Sure, if that's what Flint wants. It's none of my business what you boys talk about."

  "You're pretty smart for a cowhand, West," Ladell said coolly. "Stay that way."

  West grunted and lifted his beer to finish it. Flint waited patiently. Ladell had sized him up and evidently been impressed with what he had seen. Flint was certainly willing to talk to him about possibly joining the gang. That would be the quickest way to find out
what Ladell was up to.

  Ladell had impressed him as a dangerous man, a man not to be crossed. It was easy to believe that he was part of the rustling ring plaguing the territory, but it also struck Flint as unlikely that he was the man behind the operation. Ladell could handle the actual rustling and deal with any opposition his men and he ran into, but someone else was planning it, Flint speculated.

  West thumped his empty mug on the bar, shot Flint one last look, and turned to leave the roadhouse. Flint had a feeling that the young man would stay close at hand, though.

  West didn’t reach the door. "Say, can a man get a drink in here?" a new voice asked from the doorway between the saloon and the general store.

  Everyone in the room turned. The man who had stopped for supplies with his family was standing there with a cocky grin on his face. Worse yet, Flint saw, he was wearing a new-looking Smith & Wesson revolver in a holster belted high around his waist. On his feet were shoes instead of boots, and his clothes would have been more at home in a town than in this roadhouse in the middle of rugged Wyoming Territory. He was a greenhorn, pure and simple, and Flint knew the man was trouble as soon as he saw him swagger into the saloon.

  The men standing around the billiard table laughed. "What the hell've we got here?" one of them asked. "I never seen nothin' like it before."

  "That's because you ain't never been back east, Burl," another man said. "Hell, they got piss-ants like this one scurryin' all over them cities."

  The greenhorn paused as if suddenly realizing that he was about to get into a situation he couldn’t handle. Watching from the bar, Flint hoped that he had the sense to back through the door, rejoin his family, and get out of Cue Ball while he still could. But then stubborn pride flashed in the man's eyes, and he forged ahead, striding past the billiard table and heading for the bar.