"Aw, hell!" Eddie said disgustedly. Chuck echoed that heartfelt sentiment.
"Enough romance." Harley pointed toward the steaks. "Eat your food 'fore it gets cold."
"We could shoot that fella," Chuck suggested in a low voice, nodding toward Cully.
Harley shook his head. "Women ain't worth shootin' folks over. They ain't like hogs."
"That's true," Dennis added sagely.
The twins sighed again, picked up their knives and forks, and started to take out their frustration on the thick steaks. Harley was just glad they had decided to listen to reason before he had to whip some sense into them.
Cully slowly disengaged himself from Alice, even though he hated to break the contact with her soft, sweet lips. He looked down at her, his arms still around her, and grinned. "Shoot, I'm going to have to stop thinking of you as a little orphan girl, Alice. How'd you learn to kiss like that?"
"I was desperate," she hissed. "I had to kiss somebody. "
Cully chuckled. "Thanks," he said. "And here I thought it was my charm."
"Oh..." Alice made a face. "Come over here where we can talk, and I'll tell you about it."
Cully followed her to an empty stool at the end of the counter, then glanced over his shoulder at the odorous farmers seated in the center of the room. He had spotted them as soon as he came in. Now he recognized them as the Barrows and was aware that they were looking at him from time to time with great interest. As he sat down, he asked, "All right, what's this all about?"
"You see those four farmers over there?" Alice replied, inclining her head toward the table where the four men sat.
"Sure. I've seen them in town before; I know who they are. Have they been bothering you?"
"The twins think they're in love with me. They wanted to come courting."
Cully's eyes narrowed. "Did they insult you?"
"Oh, no, they were actually fairly polite to me. They wanted to kill each other, but... Anyway, I'm glad you came in when you did. I hope you don't mind, but I told them that you and I are...well, that you're my steady beau."
"Reckon I understand now." Cully grinned. "That was the reason for the kiss, huh?"
"Well, I had to make it look real."
Cully's grin broadened. "You did that, all right," he replied. "It was mighty nice, Alice."
"Yes. It was, wasn't it?" A pretty flush appeared on her fair skin, and her green eyes sparkled.
"Still, you shouldn't have lied to them like that. It could get you in trouble someday."
"You're not angry with me, are you?"
Cully shook his head. "No, I'm not mad. Reckon I ought to feel honored. You think you could get a cup of coffee for your steady beau?"
Alice smiled brightly. "I sure can."
She returned with the coffee a minute later, placing the steaming mug on the counter in front of Cully. Then she went about her business, waiting on the customers who had come to sample the Red Top Café's food.
Cully paid no attention to the Barrows, but he sensed they were still watching him. When he finally glanced in their direction, he saw that the twins were both glaring at him as if they wanted to skin him alive. He looked at them coolly for a moment, then returned his attention to his coffee. Alice paused next to him several times to chat, and he knew she was trying to maintain the image of the relationship she had claimed. He also knew she wouldn’t mind turning the phony courtship into a real one.
When the Barrows finished their meal, they got up and went to the door. Harley Barrow paused to leave several wadded-up greenbacks on the counter near Cully. He pointed them out to Alice, then turned to follow his brother and cousins. He hesitated again, this time to trade cool stares with Cully. Then he walked quickly to the door and led the others out.
They were a strange bunch, Cully thought. Flint had told him about the hostile reception he had gotten on his visit to their farm. They certainly looked capable of brewing up something that would kill the people who drank it. But that was hardly enough to convict them of murder.
Sliding off the stool, Cully dropped a coin on the counter for the coffee, waved to Alice, and left the café. He thought briefly about stealing another kiss but decided not to lead her on. Now that the Barrows were gone, so was the reason for the charade.
He stepped out onto the boardwalk and gazed up and down Texas Street, looking for any sign of the family. A moment later, he spotted them on a wagon that was pulling away from one of the general stores. They appeared to be on their way out of town, and Cully breathed a little easier once he realized that. While the Barrows were in Abilene, the potential for problems loomed. Cully had never shied away from trouble, but he liked to face it on his own terms when he could. That meant that innocent people like Alice or passersby on the street had to be safely out of the way.
The deputy had a feeling he would be seeing the Barrows again.
On the way back to the farm, Harley doubled over and clutched at his stomach with one hand. Dennis peered at his brother, saw the lines of strain on Harley's face, and asked anxiously, "What's wrong?"
"That damn steak must've been bad," Harley answered. "My gut's kickin' up a hell of a fuss!"
"You need me to take the reins?"
Harley shook his head. "I'll be all right. Let's just get back home."
But as the wagon rolled north toward their farm, he continued to complain of stomach pains and let out a low moan from time to time. By the time they arrived, Harley was trembling and saying he felt faint.
"You'd better go inside and lay down," a concerned Chuck told him. "We'll haul that booze over to Faulk's by our lonesome."
"You sure you boys can handle that?" Harley asked dubiously.
"Hell, yes!" Dennis replied. "You go on and take it easy, Harley. Shoot, you work too hard anyway."
"Well...maybe I will stretch out for a mite."
"Don't you worry 'bout a thing, Cousin Harley," Eddie assured him. "We'll take care of ever'thin'."
Still looking doubtful, Harley went into the cabin while the other three unloaded the supplies and then drove the wagon over to the barn. The Barrows stored their whiskey in barrels inside the barn, and it took only a few minutes for Dennis, Chuck, and Eddie to lift three barrels into the wagon bed.
After they had finished, Dennis went into the cabin and found Harley lying on one of the bunks. "You sure you'll be all right here by yourself?" he asked.
Harley nodded. "I feel bad 'bout this, Dennis, leavin' this chore up to you boys."
"Hellfire, Harley, we ain't little kids no more. It's time we was takin' some responsibility for runnin' the business. It's ours, too, you know."
"Sure, it is. You go ahead. Just make sure Faulk pays you. That ol’ skunk's liable to try to swindle you when he sees I ain't along."
Dennis grinned. "Ain't nobody goin' to swindle us, brother. Sure as hell Faulk ain't."
Harley nodded his agreement, put his head back, and closed his eyes. Dennis went out to the wagon, climbed onto the seat, and took the reins.
Gray clouds began moving in from the north as the wagon rolled over the prairie toward the roadhouse. "Looks like it's goin' to storm, Dennis," Eddie said, looking anxiously at the sky.
Dennis shook his head and tried to sound wise as he declared, "Naw. Them clouds ain't got no rain in 'em. They'll just cool things off a mite."
"Hope you're right," Chuck replied. "I'd hate to have to come back from Faulk's in the rain."
The roadhouse was around five miles from the farm, and they had covered about half the distance when Eddie sat up straighter in the back of the wagon. He raised an arm and pointed, calling, "Riders comin', Dennis."
Dennis's eyes followed his cousin's outstretched arm and saw a small group of men coming toward them. He was able to count half a dozen of them, and they were riding fast, kicking up a cloud of dust with their passage.
"Get your rifles ready," Dennis ordered, feeling panic flutter inside. He was used to Harley handling situations like this and knowing th
at Chuck and Eddie were looking to him for leadership made him nervous.
"You reckon they mean trouble?" Chuck asked.
"That many men in a hurry out here on the plains don't hardly ever mean anythin' but," Dennis snapped. He slapped the reins, trying to hurry the team along, and the wagon jounced recklessly as they picked up speed.
Suddenly Dennis saw puffs of smoke rising from the group of riders and then heard a series of faint cracks. As cold fear ran up his spine, he exclaimed, "Dammit, they're shootin' at us!"
"Damn whiskey thieves!" Chuck yelled. He leaned over the back of the seat and lined his rifle on the strangers. The Winchester blasted, sending lead screaming toward the men.
Eddie began firing at the riders as Dennis shouted and hauled on the reins, making the team veer off the trail to the left. Chuck and Eddie bounced wildly as the wagon jolted over rugged ground, but they kept shooting.
The riders were close enough now for the Barrows to make out their features—or at least they would have been if the men hadn’t been wearing bandannas over the lower halves of their faces. They carried rifles and handguns, and they fired a barrage of bullets at the wagon. Dennis heard slugs whining through the air close to his head. He yelled and tried to urge the team on to greater speed. Chuck and Eddie tried their best to return the gunfire.
"Hang on!" Dennis shouted.
He jerked the reins, forcing the team to make an even sharper turn. Their rickety, cumbersome wagon could never outrun a group of men on horseback. But maybe he could zigzag the vehicle back and forth and stay out of the line of fire until his cousins could pick off a few of the raiders. Chuck and Eddie were firing as fast as they could, but so far, they hadn’t hit any of the men.
Then Chuck pressed the trigger, and one of the attacking figures slumped and slid out of the saddle. "I got one of the bastards!" he whooped excitedly. The other ambushers paused for a moment, but then they renewed their attack, charging the wagon with their guns blazing.
"I got one, too!" Eddie cried as another rider fell.
The would-be thieves began to veer away. They had lost two of their number, and they had to be wondering about the high price of capturing three barrels of whiskey. Evidently it wasn’t worth it, because they turned and rode away, leaving their companions where they had fallen.
"Whooo-eee!" Dennis shouted. "We run 'em off!"
"We sure did!" Chuck joined in. "That was mighty slick drivin', Dennis."
"Thanks," a grinning Dennis replied as he hauled the team to a stop to let the overheated, breathless animals rest. "You and Eddie were the ones doin' the shootin', though. Those fellers probably wouldn't've turned tail and run if you hadn't dropped a couple of ’em."
"It was pretty damn good shootin', weren't it?" Eddie crowed with a proud grin.
A few minutes later Dennis started the team moving again, and it wasn’t long before they were back on the trail. Within an hour, they pulled up to Faulk's dilapidated roadhouse, which was nothing more than a soddy like so many of the dives that dotted the plains, and were unloading the whiskey for the fat, unkempt owner.
Faulk stood next to the wagon as they worked, watching them. "Where's Harley today?" he asked shrewdly.
"Feelin' a mite puny," Dennis told him.
The stout tavernkeeper nodded. "I reckon he'd want me to wait to pay for this load until he's along. I'll just catch up next time."
"No, sir," Dennis snapped. "Harley, he told me to be sure you paid today."
"He did, did he?"
"Yes, sir. Else I was to cut your ears off and bring 'em back to him, he said." Harley had told him no such thing, of course, and Dennis had to suppress the grin that tugged at the corners of his mouth. The threat sounded good.
Evidently it was enough to impress Faulk. The roadhouse owner grumbled as he reached into his grubby pants, pulled out a bag of coins, and tossed them to Dennis. Dennis would have counted them if he had been able to go beyond twenty, but he supposed he would have to trust Faulk until Harley
could check the amount. If the man had shorted them, Harley would know it. Then they would come back and teach Faulk that it wasn’t smart to try to cheat folks from the hills of Tennessee.
Dennis tucked the bag inside his grimy shirt and nodded. "Thank you, Mr. Faulk. You just send word when you need some more whiskey."
Faulk grunted and went inside his roadhouse. Dennis turned the wagon around and started it toward home. He grinned over his shoulder at his cousins. "Reckon we done a right good job, fellers," he said. "We fought off them jaspers who tried to steal our whiskey, and. we got ol’ Faulk to pay up. Yes, sir, Harley's goin' to be mighty proud of us."
Sighing with satisfaction, Dennis reached into his pocket and drew out the string of licorice Harley had bought for him in town. He was still grinning as he took a bite of the candy and tried to remember if he had ever been this happy before.
10
Cully Markham stepped out of the marshal's office that clear, cool evening and looked up and down Abilene's main thoroughfare. It was a quiet Monday night. A few men on horseback were riding by; a couple of wagons rolled along the hard-packed dirt street. Tinny music tinkled faintly from the saloons, all of which had their doors closed against the cool autumn air. In the summer, when the doors were open and only batwings barred the entrances, a dozen different melodies would float into the street, blending to make one special sound.
Leaning against the boardwalk post, Cully tried to relax. Lucas Flint was having dinner with Rose Keller. He would come back to the office afterward, and then he would no doubt be reticent, almost stiff-necked, about his evening. Cully smiled to himself. He wondered if Abilene's marshal and its doctor would ever get it through their heads that they felt more than friendship for each other.
He stretched and rolled his shoulders. He ought to be out looking for Joshua, he told himself, his grin gradually fading as the troubling thought of his brother crossed his mind yet again. In the forty-eight hours since Joshua's disappearance, he had scoured the whole town, talking to everyone who might have seen him. A couple of drunks who frequented the town's dives claimed to have seen the Methodist minister on Saturday night after the temperance play. According to them, Joshua had been even drunker than he had been during the performance. Cully didn’t know how much weight to give to their stories. He hated to think that Joshua had gone on a bender, but the evidence seemed to be pointing that way.
Nevertheless, someone should have seen Joshua between then and now. That was what really worried Cully—his brother had simply vanished—and he didn’t think Joshua would have done that of his own accord.
Then his concern really took flight, and he started to worry that someone might have hurt Joshua, possibly even killed him during a robbery and hidden the body.
Cully took a deep breath and got hold of himself. Worrying and imagining all sorts of horrors wasn’t going to help one bit. He would keep his eyes open, he told himself firmly, when he went on the nightly rounds with Flint later. Other than that, he could do nothing.
Diagonally across the street in the next block, the front door of the Grand Palace Hotel swung open, splashing light from the lobby onto the boardwalk. Cully glanced toward the bright pool, saw a figure emerging from the hotel, and frowned as he recognized Augusta Hall's tiny form. She was carrying something long that glinted in the lantern light. Cully caught his breath.
Augusta was moving rapidly in his direction on the opposite boardwalk. Cully called out, "Miss Hall!" Quickly he stepped into the street and started hurrying toward her. But he had to pause to let a freight wagon pass and cursed in frustration as he dodged around it. As soon as his view was clear, he saw she was now almost opposite him and was cradling a shotgun in her arms.
Cully broke into a run. He had no idea what Augusta was up to, but he doubted it was anything good. He hadn’t seen her since after Stockton and Downing had died in the jail cell on Saturday night, following the fiasco of the play, and had no idea what she had been doing s
ince then. But he knew she was upset and figured that she had been holed up in her hotel room ever since. Evidently, she had come out sometime to buy or borrow that scattergun.
Augusta was turning into the Bull's Head Saloon as Cully bounded onto the boardwalk. He called her name again, but although he was certain she heard him, she didn’t slow down or look around. Flinging open the saloon door, she marched in and raised the shotgun.
Cully pounded down the boardwalk as cries of surprise rang from inside the Bull's Head. Racing into the saloon behind Augusta, he heard her exclaim, "Everyone out! Get out of this den of iniquity while you have the chance!"
Cully stopped just inside the entrance several feet behind Augusta, who was sweeping the shotgun from side to side, menacing the large crowd inside the always busy saloon. He quickly scanned the customers and spotted Jessica Partin standing at one of the faro tables, a stunned expression on her attractive face. The saloon's owner and his two bartenders held their hands up, their faces clearly showing they thought Augusta was crazy.
Cully glanced at the tiny spitfire in front of him. Her back was rigid with anger, her head quivering. He was certain he knew what had prompted her to take matters into her own hands. She had been sitting in her room brooding about what happened Saturday night until she could no longer stand it and decided that violence would work where her morality play hadn’t.
"Miss Hall, what the devil are you doing?" Cully asked quietly.
She gasped in surprise but didn’t turn around or lower the shotgun. "I'm doing the Lord's work, Deputy, not the devil's," she hissed. "This saloon must be closed, and I'm going to see that it is."
"By shooting it up?"
"If necessary." Augusta's voice was firm, determined.
"That's not going to do any good," Cully replied, trying to sound calm and reasonable. "You'll just wind up in jail, and the Bull's Head will keep on doing business as usual." He paused, then went on, "Probably they'll be busier than ever. Folks will want to come see the place that got shot up by a pretty little temperance lady from back East."
Rattler's Law, Volume One Page 150