Rattler's Law, Volume One

by James Reasoner

  "Documents belonging to the late Mayor Yeager, I believe you said." Newcomb smiled. "I didn't mean to eavesdrop as I came in, but I did happen to overhear that much."

  Horrigan shook his head. "I'm not even sure what they were myself. I imagine it was some research Rachel had done for a story. But I'm downright certain there couldn't have been anything of Yeager's here in this office."

  "You wouldn't think so," Newcomb agreed. He extended his hand to Horrigan. "Well, I'm glad to meet you, Mr. Horrigan. I just hope you'll have some good news to write about tomorrow."

  "So do I, Mr. Newcomb," Horrigan said fervently as he shook the hangman's hand. "So do I."

  Newcomb was deep in thought as he left the newspaper office. He had been a bit embarrassed to interrupt the angry scene he walked in on, but it gave him some more to chew on. If young Elijah was correct, Rachel had had documents belonging to Mayor Yeager in her possession. That was unlikely, Newcomb knew, but if that had been the case, what did it mean?

  Maybe there was more to this than anyone had realized yet. Newcomb's steps took him toward the jail. He wanted to have another talk with Rachel.

  When Newcomb entered the sheriff’s office, he found the young deputy, Jeremy, on duty. He greeted Newcomb with a polite smile, then said, "I reckon you want to see Miss Rachel again."

  "If that's all right," Newcomb replied.

  "I guess it would be." Jeremy's face became solemn. "You know, I never knew Miss Rachel until, well, until she was a prisoner, but I hate to see this happen to her. She seems like too nice a lady to be hanged."

  Newcomb sighed. "I couldn't agree with you more, Jeremy. Now, if I could talk to her for a few minutes?"

  "Sure." Jeremy unlocked the cellblock door for Newcomb, then closed it behind him.

  Rachel was sitting in the rocking chair. She smiled up at her visitor and said, "Good morning, Mr. Newcomb."

  "Kashton," he said.

  "I beg your pardon?"

  "Kashton." He pulled over the stool and sat down in front of the bars. "It's my first name. I usually just use my initials because folks seem to think that Kashton Wellington Newcomb is a funny name. But I don't mind my friends using it."

  A faint smile curved Rachel's lip. "And you regard me as one of your friends, Kashton?" she asked dryly.

  "I hope so."

  "I'm afraid it's going to be a friendship of rather short duration."

  "Now, don't talk like that, blast it!" Newcomb exclaimed. "Flint isn't back yet. I'm sure he's going to return with some sort of evidence to clear you."

  "I'm afraid it would be wishful thinking to believe so," Rachel replied. "But I'm glad you haven't lost hope. As for me, I think I'm just going to have to resign myself to my fate. It will be easier that way."

  Newcomb's roiling emotions wouldn’t let him sit still. He stood up and began pacing back and forth in the short hall. Even though he had known her only briefly, he knew that it wasn’t like Rachel Coleman to give up. Sharing with him the true depth of her despair told him she had abandoned hope.

  He stopped his pacing and grasped the bars of the cell door. "I went by the newspaper office and had that talk with your assistant, Horrigan. I think he'll be more careful about details in the future."

  Rachel smiled again. "How is Thatcher? I hope he's bearing up all right."

  "He seemed pretty upset, but I imagine he'll be all right."

  "What about Elijah? Did you see him?"

  Newcomb nodded. "I didn't talk to him, but he was there."

  "I've been especially worried about Elijah. Thatcher is an intelligent, ambitious young man. He may be upset now, but he'll get over it and make a success of himself. Elijah was so much more dependent on me. He's a very sweet boy, Kashton, and the people in this town just never understood him. They never even dreamed how much talent he has."

  Newcomb remembered the lumbering way Elijah had carried the newsprint out of the office and the vacant look he had in his eyes until Horrigan had given him his orders. "What sort of talent does a lad like that have?" he asked, puzzled.

  Pride gleamed in Rachel's eyes. "Did you notice the eagle painted on our sign?" she asked.

  "Of course. It's magnificent."

  "Elijah painted it. He has a great deal of natural artistic ability."

  Newcomb frowned in surprise. He would never have guessed that the young man possessed such a talent.

  "One day I found him sketching on some newsprint with a piece of charcoal," Rachel went on. "I started to scold him for wasting the paper, and then I saw what he had drawn. It was a lovely scene from the Laramie Mountains. From that day on I encouraged his drawing and painting. With someone to help him, to look out for his interests, he might be able to make a career of it someday." She lifted her shoulders in a tiny shrug and smiled. "I had hoped to be able to help him myself. That's one of the things I regret most about this whole affair."

  Newcomb said nothing for a long moment, uncertain how to reply to Rachel's poignant comment. Finally, he told her, "When I got there, Horrigan was upset with Elijah about some documents he had found and taken to Mayor Yeager's daughter. Did you have some papers belonging to Yeager, Rachel?"

  She frowned. "Documents? What kind of documents?"

  "I have no idea. All I know is that Horrigan was quite angry because Elijah found the papers and took them to Miss Yeager."

  Rachel shook her head. "I don't know what you're talking about, Kashton. I would have liked to get my hands on something other than the public records concerning Yeager. Perhaps if I had, I could have proved that Yeager and McGill were involved in something illegal." She laughed shortly. "I might have even won the election then."

  Newcomb sighed. Far from being the straightforward job he had expected when he received Judge Stephens's wire, this matter was becoming more complicated with every day that passed.

  "I had better go before young Jeremy out there starts to get nervous," he said. "I'll see you again, Rachel."

  "I know. In the morning at nine o'clock, isn't it?"

  Newcomb scowled. How could she be so blasted flippant about it? But that might be the only way she could maintain control, he realized.

  "I'll see you before then," he said quietly. He went to the cellblock door and rapped on it.

  Jeremy let him out and made some comment to him as he left the office, but Newcomb didn’t hear the young man's words. He was too preoccupied with everything that had happened during the last few days. He was only vaguely aware of the people he passed on the streets and barely noticed that even more people were in Cheyenne now than had been there earlier.

  Not surprisingly, Newcomb's steps led him back to the gallows. Another deputy had relieved the one who had been on duty earlier. This man also recognized the hangman and let him pass unchallenged. Newcomb climbed up to the platform and rested his hands on the railing.

  His normally jovial face was creased in concentration. He was thinking about all the things he had discovered since arriving in Cheyenne. He had met Rachel Coleman and experienced feelings he had never known before. And he had seen that not all criminal cases that were brought to trial were simple or cut-and-dried. In this instance, several issues bubbled under the surface—a handful of shadowy facts that

  darted about, making no sense, and confusing what had seemed so obvious at first.

  Newcomb clenched his teeth as doubts assailed him. He turned away from the railing, strode distractedly across the platform, and gripped the trapdoor lever, his hand closing tightly on the familiar instrument. If there were so many questions about the truth in this case, he thought, what about all the other cases that were resolved with him throwing levers like this and ending a man's life in one sharp plummet?

  He was convinced that Rachel Coleman was innocent. God, how many other innocent people had he sent to their death?

  As that horrible thought seared through his brain, the muscles in his arm convulsed. Without thinking, he savagely shoved the lever forward, pushing it beyond its limit
s. The apparatus, so carefully constructed, gave a sudden sharp crack.

  The sound snapped Newcomb back to his senses. He blinked, shook his head, and looked down at the broken lever in his hand. From below, the startled guard called, "Something wrong, Mr. Newcomb?"

  Newcomb hesitated as he stared at the damage he had done. The craftsman within him was shocked by what he saw. He had always treated his work with the care and respect it deserved. But things were changing now, changing with such dizzying speed that he could no longer keep up with them.

  He dropped the broken lever on the platform and strode purposefully over to the stairs. As he went down the thirteen steps, he said to the surprised guard, "I was checking the mechanism, and it failed on me. Damned if I understand why it happened, but it's got to be repaired."

  The deputy gaped at him. "You mean we're goin' to have to postpone the hangin'?" he asked.

  Newcomb shook his head. "No, no. The damage is pretty bad, but I can still have everything ready to go in the morning. You'd better tell Sheriff Dedrick about it, though. I'll keep an eye on the gallows until you get back."

  "Sure." The man bobbed his head and then scurried away toward the sheriff’s office.

  Newcomb ducked underneath the platform and craned his neck to study the arrangement of bars and hinges that would trip the trapdoor. Not only was the lever broken, but the force he had put into his push had also cracked some of the underpinnings. Still, as he had told the deputy, it was nothing that couldn’t be repaired in time.

  The hangman stayed where he was for a long time, even though it was cramped and uncomfortable under the gallows, and stared at his handiwork.

  13

  Lucas Flint had almost forgotten what it was like to get a good night's sleep. He tossed and turned most of the night. His restlessness wasn’t caused by the lumpiness of the narrow bed in his hotel room but by his impatience to be questioning whoever was in charge of the Great Plains Cattle Company.

  He was pushing himself harder than ever before, and he wasn’t as young as he had once been. But soon it would be over—one way or another. At last, an hour or so before dawn on Thursday morning, his turbulent thoughts were overcome by sheer exhaustion, and he dozed off.

  Flint awoke a couple of hours later, shook off the grogginess that gripped him, and went to the room next door to get Jordy West out of bed. The young cowboy was equally tired. The two men found a small café two doors away from the hotel and ordered a pot of coffee and a large breakfast of ham, eggs, and hotcakes. By the time they had finished eating, Flint was beginning to feel somewhat better.

  "Let's get over to that office," he said as he and West stepped onto the boardwalk in front of the cafe. "Somebody ought to be there by now."

  They walked down the street toward the Great Plains Cattle Company. Laramie wasn’t as large a town as Cheyenne, but it was a growing, bustling settlement. Located on the Laramie River, it had begun as a jumble of tents and shanties during the construction of the Union Pacific Railroad. When the construction crews moved west with the railroad, a handful of settlers remained to establish the town, and it was now a shipping and supply center for the ranches in the area. Laramie was young enough that some of its businesses were still housed in tents. The sounds of sawing and hammering rang in the air this morning as the industrious new residents put up more permanent structures.

  Flint figured that the Great Plains Cattle Company, wedged in a row of frame buildings, had been established and doing business for a while. As he and West went down the rough plank boardwalk toward it, they noticed a man approaching from the opposite direction. He reached the door of the office before they did and drew a key from his coat pocket. Unlocking the door, he swung it open just as Flint and West came up to him.

  When they stopped at the doorway, the man nodded to them and said, "Morning, gents. Something I can do for you?"

  "We're looking for whoever runs the Great Plains Cattle Company," Flint told him. "I figure that would be you."

  "Yep. Come on inside."

  The broad-shouldered man led the way into the office and went to a rolltop desk that stood against one wall. He took off his cream-colored Stetson and hung it on a hook on the wall, revealing thick silvery hair. He was in his late fifties with a body that had been powerful at one time but was now shrunken with age. His lined, tanned face spoke of years spent on the range. He sank into the chair at the desk and waved to Flint and West to be seated in a couple of straight chairs that stood next to it.

  "Name's Grady Quinn," he told them. "What can I do for you boys?"

  Flint did the talking. "Mr. Quinn," he said, "my name is Lucas Flint. I'm the marshal of Abilene, Kansas, but I'm up here in Wyoming Territory on a special job." That was true, Flint thought, even though it did sound as though he had some sort of official status. "I'm looking into some transactions that have taken place through your company."

  Quinn frowned. "It ain't my company, Mr. Flint. I just run it for the syndicate back in Kansas City that owns it. But I ain't sure I like the sound of what you just said. Are you implying that this outfit's not on the up-and-up?"

  Flint shook his head. He had pondered that very question for quite a while. Even if McGill was behind the wide-scale rustling that had been plaguing the Cheyenne area, that didn’t mean the company that had been buying the stolen cattle was aware of it. Flint said, "That's not what I meant at all. I just want to know about some cattle you've been buying." He wished he had the records that were now in Anabel Yeager's possession. From what Jordy West had told him, he could pinpoint the dates and amounts of the transactions with those documents in hand. He waited while Quinn considered what he had said.

  The older man mulled it over for a moment, then nodded and said, "Ask your questions, Marshal. I ain't promising I'll answer 'em, though."

  "Fair enough. Do you know a man named Lance McGill?"

  Quinn shrugged his wide shoulders. "Heard the name. Big rancher down south of here, ain't he?"

  "That's right. How about Russell Yeager?"

  "His name's familiar, too," Quinn said after a moment. "Can't rightly place him, though."

  "Dax Ladell?"

  "Oh, sure." Quinn grinned. "Everybody hereabouts knows Ladell. Most folks steer clear of him, though. He's got a reputation as a tough one, and he's sort of touchy, too. But I never had problems dealing with him."

  "You've done business with him?"

  Quinn waved a big, callused hand. "Sure. Bought plenty of cattle from him. Say, he works for that fella McGill you mentioned, don't he?"

  Flint sat up straighter, his interest quickening. "What makes you say that?"

  "Well, I recollect that Ladell's brought several herds in with McGill's brand on 'em. Trident, ain't that it?"

  Jordy West spoke for the first time. "Just the Trident brand or were there others?" he asked sharply.

  Quinn looked a little uneasy. "Well, the way it was told to me, all the spreads down that way would put their stock together for a drive now and then and use Trident as a road brand. Ladell and his crew ride for McGill whenever he puts one of these drives together."

  Flint studied the dealer's weathered face. Quinn was an old hand in the cattle business; he would have had no trouble seeing through Ladell's story concerning trail drives and road brands. But Ladell could have made it worth his while to ignore the different brands and accept the story at face value.

  The marshal took a deep breath, and his face grew grim and hard. "I think you've got good records of all the dealings you've had with Ladell and McGill," he said coldly.

  "I never met McGill," Quinn said quickly. "I was just going by what Ladell told me. Ain't never had no reason to doubt him."

  The old man was part of the scheme, Flint decided, at least on the edge of it. He exchanged a glance with West that told him the cowboy had reached the same conclusion.

  Improvising, West said, "Where might we find a judge in this town, mister?"

  Quinn licked his lips nervously. Flint had
not introduced West when they came in. For all Quinn knew, West could be a range detective or even a federal marshal. "What do you want a judge for?" he asked tensely.

  "We may need a warrant sworn out," Flint replied. He had to suppress a grin. West was quick on the uptake, and he had played his part well.

  Quinn shuffled some of the papers on his desk. "Listen, boys," he said anxiously, "you don't need no warrant to get me to cooperate. I always try to uphold law and order. Anything you need to know, you just ask."

  "How about copies of the records concerning all the deals you've had with Ladell?"

  "All the cattle deals, you mean?"

  "Sure." Flint smile thinly. "What else could I mean?"

  Quinn swallowed and started rustling through the papers even more quickly.

  It took the greater part of the morning for Quinn to write out the duplicate records, but when Flint and West left the office of the Great Plains Cattle Company, they had a thick sheaf of papers confirming that Dax Ladell had sold thousands of head of cattle to the company over the past eighteen months. Quinn retracted his claim that he recognized only McGill's name, as he had said at first, and admitted that Ladell had been acting as McGill's agent, in the stock transactions. Everything was a long way from being resolved, but Flint felt better as he tucked the documents inside his coat.

  "That old man's part of it," West said as they walked toward the livery stable. "I'd stake my life on that."

  "Sure, he is," Flint agreed. "McGill and Ladell paid him off. With the owners of the company back in Kansas City, Quinn probably figured nobody would ever look at things out here closely enough to call him on it.".

  "McGill didn't cover his tracks too well. You saw right through that tall tale about the rustlers stealing Trident stock along with all the others."