Flint swung to face the stranger. He was thick-bodied, a little below medium height, with a balding head, blunt features, and a nose that showed he had a considerable interest in drinking. He wore a white shirt that was open at the neck and the trousers of a rather flashy suit. When Flint glanced around, he spotted the suit jacket hanging on the back of a chair with a gaudy tie draped over it. A derby lay on the table next to the chair. Obviously, the man had come into the saloon, taken off his hat, coat, and tie, rolled up his sleeves, and pitched in to help Buster.
"If you don't mind my asking, mister," Flint said, ignoring the man's question, "who are you?"
The man brushed his right hand on his pants and stuck it out. "Phillip G. Walton, representative of the Wagon Wheel Distillery in Kansas City, Missouri, Marshal. I'm very pleased to meet you."
"Drummer, eh?" Flint shook his hand, even though he disliked traveling salesmen instinctively.
"A whiskey drummer to be precise, sir," Walton replied with a grin. "I don't mind admitting it, because I represent the finest liquor distillery east of the Rockies, and probably west of it, too!"
Flint stared at the pushy little man. Evidently Walton had come to try to sell something to Buster, and he was just helping him clean up to worm his way into the saloonkeeper's good graces. Turning back to Buster, Flint asked, "What about those questions?"
Buster scratched his freckled scalp. "I don't know, Marshal. I don't like the sound of this. A man'd think you was accusing him of something."
"All I really want to know is where you've been getting your liquor." Flint looked at the drummer. "He hasn't been buying it from you, has he, Mr. Walton?"
Walton shook his head. "Nope, that's why I'm here. I'm trying to talk this fine gentleman into placing an order. And make it Phil, Marshal."
Flint grunted. "What about it, Buster?"
"I don't have to tell you nothin', Marshal. Where I buy my stock is none of your business."
"It is when it looks like you've got some bad whiskey, bad enough to kill three men," Flint said coldly.
"Three men? I thought you said—"
"Alfred Pendleton may have been poisoned, too. You know anything about that, Buster?"
The saloonkeeper flushed again. "I wouldn't poison anybody—" he began hotly.
Walton stepped in, smoothly moving between Flint and Buster. To the saloonkeeper, he said quickly, "I don't think that's what the marshal meant, Buster. I figure it must have been an accident. Isn't that right, Marshal?"
"Could have been. And the doctor agrees with me that it's a possibility."
Bad whiskey was fairly common on the frontier. Flint knew only too well that people who brewed moonshine habitually tossed all sorts of things into the mix. Chewing tobacco, gunpowder, red peppers, some even claimed that rattlesnake heads could be used, all those things and more went into the barrels with the cheapest alcohol. The product that came from the distilleries back East was the real thing, but it was expensive and there wasn’t always enough of it to go around. Anybody with some kettles and enough imagination could come up with ungodly concoctions that would satisfy the thirsty cowboys and drunkards who frequented Buster's place and other saloons like it. It was unusual for someone to die from the stuff, but not unheard of.
"Look, Marshal, if I got hold of some bad booze, it's not my fault. Hell, I drink the same whiskey I serve to my customers! You reckon I'd do that if I knew it was bad?"
Buster sounded sincere, Flint thought, but he knew better than to trust the man's word. He remembered all too well how Buster had almost blasted him with a shotgun while he was trying to subdue Leander Gilworth a couple of weeks ago.
"If it was an accident, then you won't be held accountable, Buster," Flint assured him. "But I've got to know where you've been getting your stuff. And if I were you, I'd dump what I had on hand, just to be safe."
Buster closed his eyes, moaned, and lifted a hand to his head. "Don't it ever stop?" he wailed. "I'm just a hardworkin' man tryin' to make an honest livin'—"
"The whiskey, Buster," Flint cut in, a sharp edge to his voice.
"Oh, hell, I might as well tell you. I been buyin' it from the Barrows for the last month. If there's somethin' wrong with the booze, it's the fault of them damn pig farmers!"
"Barrow..." Flint murmured, turning the name over in his mind as he tried to place it. "They've got a farm north of here, don't they?"
"Yeah, eight or ten miles. I don't know exactly where it is. I never been there. They deliver the stuff to me."
"Make it themselves, do they?"
Buster nodded. "I reckon they do. They sell to several of the smaller saloons in town, and I've heard they supply some of the roadhouses around here, too. All I know for sure is that their whiskey is cheaper than I could buy it anywhere else."
"Which just goes to prove the old saying about getting what you pay for, Buster," Phil Walton chimed in. "If you had been doing business with Wagon Wheel, this never would have happened, because we take care to see that only the finest whiskey goes into a bottle with our name on it."
Buster shook his head gloomily. "May have to do that, Mr. Walton," he muttered, "once I get over these hard times. Shoot, if I have to pour out my stock, I'll have to replace it with somethin', or I might as well close up for good."
"We can't have that," Walton said heartily, slapping Buster on the back. "I'm certain we can work out something where you won't have to come up with too much cash right away. We'll work together to keep you in business, Buster. And call me Phil, please."
Watching the oily way Walton moved in to close the deal with Buster made Flint shudder inside. He felt sure most drummers would say anything, do anything, just to push a sale. Ignoring his dislike for the stocky man, he said, "I suppose I'd better ride out and have a talk with the Barrow family. How many of them are there, Buster?"
"Four that I know of," the saloonkeeper answered. "Couple of brothers named Harley and Dennis, and then there're their cousins, Chuck and Eddie." Then he grimaced. "You really intend to go out to their place, Marshal?"
Flint nodded. "I want to find out what they've been putting in their whiskey, and then I'm going to warn them to stick to raising pigs."
"Best be careful if you go out there," Buster warned. "They're not the friendliest bunch. I've heard they sometimes shoot first and then try to find out who was visitin' after the dust settles."
Flint was a little surprised that Buster would give him such a warning; he figured it would be all right with the saloonkeeper if someone shot him. But it could be that Buster didn’t want anyone to suspect later that he had sent Flint into a trap.
"I'll watch my step," the marshal said. "And you get rid of that whiskey."
Buster nodded sadly. As Flint left the saloon, Phil Walton started talking again about setting up an order, and Buster said, "Reckon I'll have to. I'm sure as hell not buying any more of that Barrow moonshine!"
Flint stopped to have Sunday dinner at the Red Top Café and found Cully sitting at one of tables, eating a piece of apple pie. "Any sign of Joshua?" he asked the deputy.
Cully, his dark eyes hollow with worry, frowned and shook his head. "I've looked all over this damned town," he said, frustration plain in his voice. "It's like he just vanished off the face of the earth!"
"Maybe he left town," Flint suggested. "A man with his troubles might do something like that."
"His horse is still at the parsonage," Cully replied. "And drunk or not, I can't see Joshua stealing somebody else's horse. There haven't been any reports of anybody losing a mount, have there?"
This time it was Flint's turn to shake his head. "Joshua will get through this all right, Cully," he said quietly. "He's a good man, a strong man."
"When he's not drinking..." Cully murmured.
Flint shrugged. "All we can do is wait and see. In the meantime, I'm going to ride out to the Barrow place and see if they've been selling bad whiskey to some of the saloons around town."
"Barrow...name's
familiar, but I don't reckon I know them."
"They sold Buster the whiskey he's been serving for the last month or so. They've got a place north of town."
Cully nodded. "Sure, I recollect now. They raise pigs." Relaxing visibly, the deputy grinned for the first time since the marshal had entered the cafe. "I've seen them a few times in town buying supplies. You can tell they spend most of their time around hogs, all right."
Flint returned the smile. "Want to ride out there with me?"
"Somebody really should stay and keep an eye on the town, Marshal. You know how wild some of these Sunday afternoons can get," Cully joked. "But I don't reckon I'll mind doing that."
"All right." Flint laughed. "But I want some dinner before I start out there."
"Good idea," Cully agreed.
The sun was warm on Flint's back as he swung his brown gelding north out of town at an easy trot. Kansas was in its familiar autumn pattern, cold nights, and sunny, warmer days. In just a few weeks the "northers" would start rolling in, bringing frigid temperatures and hints of blizzards, but for now, the weather was crisp and pleasant. A gentle breeze blew in Flint's face as he rode.
While he knew the approximate location of the Barrow farm, after about an hour in the saddle that breeze told him he was getting close. Flint wrinkled his nose. Even if he had not known that the Barrows raised pigs in addition to making whiskey, the odor would have told him. He rode up a swell in the rolling prairie and paused to study the farm that lay below him.
On his left, a ramshackle cabin was nestled in a clump of leafless, stunted brush. A large barn, its doors hanging askew on their hinges, stood in a muddy open area with pole corrals spread behind it. But instead of the cattle or horses that were usually kept in such corrals, these pens were full of hogs. Even at a distance of a quarter-mile, Flint could hear them grunting as they rooted in the mud.
He looked more closely at the barn and noticed a thin thread of smoke rising from it. That's probably where the still is, he thought. He wondered what the Barrows could have put in their moonshine to make it so lethal if that was indeed the cause of the three deaths.
If he discovered that it wasn’t, Flint thought, then he would have an even deeper mystery on his hands—because he was convinced that someone had killed Pendleton, Stockton, and Downing, accidentally or not.
Then he spotted a puff of smoke coming from the chimney of the cabin; evidently someone was home. Flint heeled his horse into an easy walk and rode slowly down the slope.
The grunting of the hogs grew louder as he approached. Some fifty yards beyond the house he spotted a small creek, and Flint supposed that was where the Barrows got the water for the hogs as well as for their homemade liquor. The pigs would eat the mash left over from the distilling process, too. It seemed to be a good setup, Flint thought as he reined in beside a rough-hewn water trough in front of the cabin.
Someone was bound to have seen him riding toward the farm. Remembering Buster's warning, he decided to stay in the saddle until he knew how the Barrows would welcome him. "Hello!" he called loudly. "I'm Marshal Lucas Flint from Abilene! I've come to talk to the Barrows!"
Suddenly the front door of the house creaked open, and a rifle barrel was thrust out. Flint saw it and threw himself out of the saddle just as smoke and lead belched from its muzzle. The slug whined past his head as he fell, and he landed heavily behind the water trough. His horse danced nervously away toward a clump of brush on the far side of the cabin.
"Dammit!" he grated, grabbing for his own gun.
The rifle cracked again, and this time the bullet thumped into the trough. As he hugged the dirt, he heard running footsteps. He looked up and glimpsed a man with a rifle darting toward the barn. The marshal knew that if the man reached it, he would be caught in a crossfire. He twisted around and triggered two quick shots.
His bullets kicked up dust a few yards in front of the running figure. The man yelped and reversed his course, ducking back into some brush where Flint could no longer see him. But that meant the man didn’t have an angle from which to shoot at him, either. Again, the rifle in the cabin cracked, and once more Flint felt the bullet slam into the water trough. Dust and splinters flew in his face.
"Hold your fire!" he shouted. "I'm a lawman!"
To his surprise, a voice called back from the cabin. "You're one of them no-good, whiskey-thievin' sons of bitches!" it shouted angrily. "You can't fool us, mister!"
Flint stayed low, blinking against the dust. "I'm Marshal Lucas Flint!" he repeated. "I'm looking for Harley Barrow, his brother, and his cousins!"
For a long moment, no reply came from the cabin, but no one fired a gun, either. Finally, the voice said, "I'm Harley Barrow. If you got business with me and mine, state your piece, mister."
"Put those guns up first," Flint told him.
"No, sir. Even if you're who you say you are, we still might want to shoot you."
Flint took a deep breath. He wouldn’t argue with Harley Barrow's logic. "I just want to talk to you about your whiskey!"
"Sure, you do," Barrow scoffed. "Reckon you want to buy a few pints, is that it, Marshal?"
Well, at least the man's willing to admit I'm a marshal, Flint thought. That's progress. He called, "Look, I'm going to holster my gun and stand up. All I want to do is talk to you boys, but if you feel you have to shoot me, just go ahead. My deputy knows I rode out here, and when I don't come back, he'll be paying you a visit with a posse and probably a lynch rope. Just want you to know that before I stand up."
It was a calculated risk, but despite the close call when he first rode up, Flint figured they would hold their fire. The Barrows hadn’t lived in the area for long, and they might not know that there was no chance of a lynching in Abilene, not as long as either Flint or Cully was alive.
He slipped his Colt back in its holster and then climbed slowly to his feet, keeping his hands in plain sight. Facing the cabin, he saw the rifle barrel still glinting in the sunlight that hit the open doorway. The oilcloth over one of the windows had been pulled back, and the double barrels of a shotgun poked through that opening. Crouched at the corner of the house was the young man who had tried to flank him and reach the barn. This man had his rifle trained on Flint, too. That accounted for three of the four Barrows, and Flint guessed the other one might be in the barn with the still.
A couple of minutes that seemed like hours dragged by. Finally, Harley Barrow's voice came from the cabin. "All right, boys, I reckon we won't shoot the feller after all. I'll go out and talk to him. But if'n he tries anythin' funny, you blast the hell outta him!"
The door creaked open, and a lean man of medium height stepped out of the shadowy opening into the sunlight. Harley Barrow had several days' growth of beard on his sharp-featured face and shaggy brown hair that hung to his shoulders. He wore a battered black felt hat, a threadbare jacket, a woolen shirt, denim overalls, and mud-covered work shoes. The mud on his boots had dried, and several clumps fell off as he stepped into the yard. Keeping his rifle leveled at Flint, he asked, "Now what the hell was it you wanted, Marshal?"
"I'm told that you and your family make whiskey and sell it to some of the places around here," Flint said evenly. "Is that right?"
Barrow shrugged, and the muzzle of his rifle bobbed up and down. "Folks got to make a livin'," he replied. "What business is it of your'n?"
"You know a man named Buster who has a saloon in Abilene?"
"Maybe we do, maybe we don't." Barrow squinted at Flint. "How come you want to know?"
"Some of his customers died after drinking the whiskey you sold him," Flint told him.
"That's a damn lie!" a new voice protested from inside the house. "Ain't nothin' wrong with our whiskey!"
Barrow jerked his head around and snapped sharply, "Shut up, Chuck! I'm the head of the family, and I'm handlin' this!" His eyes flicked back to Flint. "You're sayin' that our whiskey was the cause of them folks dyin'?"
"Not necessarily. But they're still dead,
and it's my job to find out why. Men have died from bad whiskey before."
Barrow shook his head. "Not ours. There ain't nothin' wrong with our home brew, Marshal, not one damn thing. Hell, we test ever' batch. If anybody was goin' to die, looks like it'd be one of us!"
That was the same argument Buster had used, and Flint had to admit it made some sense. But having met the Barrows—or at least one of them; he still hadn’t gotten a good look at the others—he could easily believe they would toss anything into their brew to liven it up, even something dangerous.
"How about letting me take a look at your still?" he asked.
"The hell you say! Us Barrows ain't in the habit of rollin' over and playin' dead for ever' lawman who comes along, mister. We didn't do it back in Tennessee, and we sure as hell ain't doin' it here in Kansas!"
So they're hill people, Flint thought. That wasn’t surprising. He said, "I could get a posse and come back out here, force you to show me your operation."
"Yeah, and we could plug you right now," Harley Barrow sneered. "Chuck, Eddie, get out here!"
The young man crouching at the corner of the house stepped out into the open. The other man inside withdrew his shotgun from the window and emerged from the door a moment later. Flint glanced from one to the other and blinked. The two men, who were barely out of their teens, had the same stocky build, lank brown hair, and stained buckteeth. Buster hadn’t mentioned that Chuck and Eddie were twins.
Their cousin Harley nodded toward Flint. "Keep an eye on him," he ordered. "I'll go get Dennis. He ought to be in on this, too."
Flint wondered just what Harley had in mind. As he watched Barrow hurry toward the barn, his mind was spinning. He knew he could draw his gun and drop both twins before they could get a shot off. They were watching him, but the dullness in their eyes told him their reactions would be very slow.
He decided not try anything; a shootout with the Barrows wouldn’t solve the problem. It would be better to wait and see what Harley had in mind.
Rattler's Law, Volume One Page 148