Rattler's Law, Volume One

by James Reasoner

  Dennis gaped at him for a moment, then exclaimed, "Dodge City? That's more'n a hunnerd and fifty miles from here, Harley! It'd take us a week to get there, at least."

  "And Injuns 'tween here and there," Eddie put in, looking apprehensive.

  "And owlhoots," Chuck added nervously.

  "Yeah, and three times as many saloons in Dodge City as there is in Abilene," Harley replied, waving off their objections. "You've heard tell what a rip-snorter Dodge is. But I reckon we can sell all our whiskey for a higher profit than we can get around here. Then we can bring the money back and use it to make us a fresh start."

  "Well, I reckon it could work out," Dennis said dubiously. Chuck and Eddie nodded tentatively.

  "Of course, it'll work out," Harley insisted. "I ain't steered us wrong yet, have I?"

  "No, I reckon not. You always was the smart one in the family, Harley." Dennis grinned abruptly. "All right. We'll do 'er. Kansas ain't never seen a whiskey run like the one the Barrows are goin' to put on!"

  Harley slapped his brother on the shoulder. "Damn right! That's the spirit. Now you boys finish cleanin' up this mess so's you can start loadin' the wagons. If you can get 'em all loaded tonight, we can get started first thing in the mornin'."

  Grinning cheerfully now, Dennis, Chuck, and Eddie began working. As usual, Harley had come through for them, thinking up an idea to get them out of trouble. Everything was going to be fine, once the big whiskey run had been made.

  Harley stood by and watched, a grin on his face as well—but the expression didn’t reach his eyes. They were cold and hard and saw things the other Barrows knew nothing about.

  It was almost midnight when the door of the Barrow cabin opened slowly, and a lone figure slipped silently away from the house into the deep shadows. As the man walked toward the barn, the clouds that had been covering the moon cleared and the silvery light shone brightly on the yard, revealing the unshaven face of Harley Barrow. He went into the barn and started saddling one of the horses.

  Dennis, Chuck, and Eddie were all in the house, asleep; Harley had checked on each of them before leaving the cabin. They had worked hard all afternoon, cleaning up the mess from the boiler explosion and then loading the whiskey barrels on the wagons. The Barrows owned four heavy vehicles, and each was carrying ten barrels of liquor—forty barrels of whiskey to rescue the Barrow family from the sudden run of bad luck they were having.

  Too bad it wasn’t really going to work out that way, Harley thought as he swung into the saddle and walked the horse quietly away from the farm, heading south.

  He had a rifle resting across the pommel of the saddle in front of him, just in case the man he was going to meet tried to double-cross him. Harley didn’t think that was likely; after all, he had been dealing with him for weeks. Still, it never hurt to be careful. The plan was speeding up rapidly, and folks had been known to get greedy.

  Harley was greedy himself. That was why he hadn’t considered the matter for very long when the man first approached him with the proposition. The money was good, and it was easy to earn most of the time. Of course, there was the question of betraying his own flesh and blood, but Harley preferred not to think of it that way.

  He was just trying to make enough money so that they could move on to something better, he told himself. Yes, that was it. But it was more difficult to think of it that way when he remembered the three men who had died.

  No one was supposed to have been hurt. The Barrows had been putting strychnine in their whiskey ever since the old days in Tennessee. Nothing was better for giving the brew that little extra kick. The stuff was poisonous in bigger doses, but Harley and his kin had always been careful not to use too much— until the stranger had approached him and offered him money to sabotage his own operation.

  It had been the other man's idea to increase the amount of strychnine in the whiskey, just enough to start making people a little sick. But it wasn’t supposed to kill anybody. Harley figured he had gotten a little heavy-handed a couple of times when he added the extra crystals while nobody was looking.

  Well, he couldn’t do anything about it now, Harley thought as he rode through the darkness toward the spot where he was to meet his mysterious employer. The man always stayed in the shadows and didn’t let Harley get a good look at his face, and that was fine with Harley. He didn’t need to know whom he had sold out to, just as long as he got paid. And so far, there had been no problem with that. He had been squirreling away the extra money under a loose board in the cabin floor, and he had accumulated more than five hundred dollars already. His brother and cousins had no idea he had that kind of money. They would certainly be surprised when he finally broke the news to them. They might be mad at first, too, but Harley felt sure he could talk them out of that. After all, he was the smart one in the family.

  He had been smart enough to cause whiskey barrels to leak and the axles to break and the boiler to explode. The man he was working for had suggested all those tactics, but Harley carried them out with no trouble.

  More than once Harley had wondered why it would be worth so much money to stop their whiskey production. For that matter, why not just pay them to quit brewing the stuff altogether, instead of working behind the scenes to sabotage the operation? But Harley didn’t spend much time pondering such questions. He simply took the man's money and did what he suggested.

  The grove of trees where he usually met the stranger loomed up ahead. Harley reined in fifty yards from the copse and gave a whistle. A moment later a buggy emerged from the trees, rolled slowly toward him, and stopped a few yards away. The vehicle's canopy blocked the moonlight, and the driver's face was hidden in deep shadows. "Good evening, Mr. Barrow," a voice said smoothly.

  "Evenin'," Harley replied. "Well, I done like you said. One of the boilers is busted all to hell. Then I suggested that big whiskey run to Dodge, and the boys finally come around to my way of thinkin'."

  "Very good," the man in the buggy said. "Will you be leaving tomorrow?"

  "First thing in the mornin'. I figger we'll skitter around Abilene to the north, then when we're west o' town cut south for the trail to Dodge."

  "Excellent. I'll have my men waiting. There's no point in prolonging this. They'll stop your wagons sometime before noon and confiscate the whiskey."

  "You mean they'll steal it?"

  "Exactly," the man confirmed.

  "And nobody gets hurt, right?"

  "Of course not. My men will have the drop on you and your relatives. You'll have no choice but to surrender the wagons. There won't even be any shooting."

  Harley nodded. "Sounds good. That way the boys'll never know I was in on it."

  "Certainly not. No reason for them to know, is there?"

  "Reckon not." Harley cleared his throat. "Uh, you got the money we talked about?"

  "Right here." The stranger tossed a small pouch out of the buggy, and as Harley caught it, the coins inside clinked. "Two hundred dollars in double eagles, just like you requested. I hope you're taking good care of your money, Mr. Barrow."

  "Oh, yeah, I got a good hidin' place. The boys wouldn't never think to look under the floor of the cabin." Harley happily tossed the bag up and down and listened to the pretty clinking sound. Then he grinned as he stowed the pouch under his coat. "Reckon this is the last time we'll be doin' business. Once your fellers take that whiskey tomorrow, we'll be wiped out."

  "Yes, but you'll wind up richer in the process." The man started backing up the buggy. "It's been a pleasure doing business with you, Mr. Barrow. Good luck in the future."

  "You, too, mister." Harley turned his horse and kicked it into a trot. He glanced over his shoulder as he rode back toward the cabin, but the stranger had already disappeared.

  Some things might not make a whole lot of sense, Harley thought, but all it took was the sound and feel of gold coins to make everything right.

  The man in the buggy drove over the rutted, moonlit trail back toward Abilene, keeping one eye on the
road and the other on the shadowy brush that lined it. He wasn’t surprised when a figure on horseback pushed out of the scrubby bushes and trees, walked his horse to the middle of the trail, and paused. Hauling on the lines, the man brought the buggy to a stop.

  "Is that you, Ralston?" he called, his hand hovering near the butt of the gun underneath his coat. Despite the moonlight, it was still too dark to make out facial features from this distance.

  "Sure, boss," a familiar voice answered. "Who'd you expect it to be?"

  The man in the buggy sighed. "Nobody. A man can't be too careful, though."

  "Reckon that's true. But you can trust me and my men, as long as you're payin' us." The rider chuckled, then went on in a more serious tone, "You get everything set up with that idiot Barrow?"

  "I certainly did. They're starting a whiskey run to Dodge City tomorrow morning with all the liquor they have on hand. At least that's what the other three think. Harley Barrow knows that you and your men will be stopping them."

  The man on horseback laughed, a harsh, unpleasant sound. "I'll bet he don't know you plan for us to kill all four of them. Damned dumb hillbillies!"

  "Just be sure none of them lives through the ambush," the man in the buggy said coldly. "Barrow finally let it slip where he's been hiding the money I've paid him, so it won't be any trouble to recover it. I'll do that tomorrow morning after they've gone, while you're hitting them northwest of town."

  The rider nodded. "Sounds good. And once they're dead, I reckon you want us to take the whiskey on to Dodge?"

  "That's right. You shouldn't have any trouble disposing of it for a good price."

  "Got to hand it to you, boss. You've figured out ways to get paid from all sorts of directions."

  The man in the buggy took a cigar from his shirt pocket, unwrapped it, and stuck it in his mouth without lighting it. He felt relaxed now and rather satisfied with himself as well. He had done a good job of planning this operation, setting up the Barrows and leading them along. They were the biggest obstacle in his path, and he had tricked them into removing themselves. He would make a handsome profit on the deal, too, even with the expense of hiring Ralston and his hardcases.

  "Well, I'd better be going," he said. "Tomorrow's going to be a big day, after all."

  "Sure, boss. We'll see you in Wichita next week, like we planned. So long."

  The man lifted a hand in farewell as Ralston turned his horse and rode away. He rolled the cigar from one side of his mouth to the other, then picked up the reins and flicked them, getting his horse moving again.

  Outsmarting Harley Barrow was almost too easy, he thought as the buggy rolled toward Abilene, but a man had to take his opportunities where he found them.

  12

  Deputy Cully Markham had told Augusta Hall that he would find the evidence to prove she had been responsible for the deaths of the two cowhands. But try as he might, he could turn up nothing solid linking Augusta to the deaths.

  He had spent all day Wednesday talking to every clerk and storekeeper in town, trying to learn if Augusta had bought any kind of poison. All of them told him that she hadn’t and swore that had the pretty little temperance lady from the East made such a purchase they would remember it.

  Cully then considered the possibility that she had left Abilene to buy the stuff in Salina or one of the other settlements in the area. But after talking with Oliver Brewer at the railroad station and the men at the livery stables, he was convinced that Augusta hadn’t made use of their services, either. She had been in Abilene all along.

  On Thursday morning, after spending two days on the investigation, Cully told Lucas Flint about his lack of success. As he wrapped up the report, he said, "All I can figure is that she already had the stuff when she came to Abilene. If that's the way it was, we'll never be able to prove it."

  "I warned you we didn't have any evidence," Flint commented. "What's Miss Hall been doing while you were trying to find a trail to follow?"

  "Sitting in her room, as far as I can tell," Cully said glumly. "I don't know why she's still here, to tell the truth. It looks like she might as well leave. After all that's happened, nobody's going to take that temperance business seriously anymore."

  "Maybe she thought that leaving town while you were poking around would make her look guilty," Flint pointed out.

  Cully nodded. "That makes sense...if she really is innocent."

  "Reckon it's hard for you to accept that possibility, Cully, but I think you're going to have to face it."

  The deputy stood up and walked to the window, leaning on the sill, and sighing as he looked out at Texas Street. Without turning around, he replied, "I don't mind her being innocent. We haven't gotten along real well—her choice, mind you—but I don't want to see anybody railroaded, either." He turned around and sighed again. "I reckon I ought to go see her, tell her I guess I was wrong about her."

  "I was just about to suggest that," Flint said. "If that story about her brother is true, the lady's had enough grief in her life already."

  "Yeah." Cully yanked his hat from the peg and then paused before putting it on. Looking bleakly at Flint, he said, "Her brother dropped out of sight and then died from drinking. I hope the same thing hasn't happened to Joshua. It's been five days since he disappeared."

  "I imagine Joshua's all right," Flint replied. "He's not like Miss Hall's brother. He'll come through; you'll see."

  Cully frowned at Flint and started to say something, but the marshal abruptly pulled some paperwork in front of him and picked up his pen. He concentrated on the documents, clearly not wanting to continue the conversation.

  "I'll go see Miss Hall," Cully muttered. Then casting a puzzled glance at Flint, he left the office.

  The marshal had sounded annoyed at him for bringing up Joshua's disappearance. Cully supposed he might have been dwelling on it too much, but after all, Joshua was his brother—his only living kin. A man had a right to be worried in those circumstances, plenty worried.

  He walked quickly to the Grand Palace Hotel. A cold wind blew down Texas Street, cutting through Cully's jacket. The nights were downright frigid now, and the days had grown steadily colder. The old men who sat on the boardwalk in front of the barber shop were nodding sagely these days and talking about the hard winter that was coming. Cully figured they were probably right.

  He went into the hotel and climbed the stairs. He was nervous as he reached the door of Room Seven and lifted his hand to knock on it. He wasn’t used to apologizing to someone he had practically accused of murder. And there was no practically about it, he thought; he had come right out and told Augusta that he thought she had killed those two cowboys. He couldn’t really blame her for getting angry at him, especially since he had failed to find anything to back up his charges.

  And the worst part about it was that she might still be guilty. Just because he couldn’t prove it didn’t make her innocent.

  He sighed, shook his head, and rapped on the door. He had no choice now except to admit his failure. If she wanted to leave Abilene, there was nothing to hold her.

  Cully stared at the unopened door for a minute, then frowned and knocked again. There was still no response. He hadn’t seen Augusta around town during the last few days, but he was certain she was still registered at the hotel. He knocked one more time and waited, then turned toward the staircase, descending it to the lobby.

  "Hello," he said to the clerk behind the desk. "I'm looking for Miss Hall in Room Seven. She's still staying here, isn't she?"

  "Oh, sure, Cully," the clerk replied. "But I don't think she's in now. I saw her go out a little while ago."

  "Any idea where she was headed?"

  The man shook his head. "Sorry."

  "But she didn't check out?"

  "Oh, no. She wasn't dressed for traveling, and she didn't have her things with her. I'm sure she's somewhere around town."

  "Thanks." With a nod, Cully turned and strode out of the hotel.

  When he reached
the boardwalk, he paused and looked up and down Texas Street. He could always wait and come back to the hotel to see her later, he told himself. But now that he had decided to admit to her that he might have been wrong, he didn’t want to put it off. Augusta wouldn’t have any reason to leave the downtown area; he could take a look around and probably find her without too much trouble.

  Cully chuckled dryly. He should probably check the saloons first. She could be making one more try at closing them down.

  That proved to be unnecessary. As he walked east along Texas Street, he spotted Augusta emerging from the Great Western Store, a block away on the other side of the street. Cully stepped down from the boardwalk and angled toward her.

  She had some sort of package in her arms, he saw as he drew nearer. Whatever it was, it was wrapped in brown paper and appeared to be heavy.

  There were steps leading down from the boardwalk at the corner, and Augusta had just reached the bottom of them when she saw Cully hurrying toward her. She stopped and watched him approach, her face expressionless. As he came up to her, he touched the brim of his hat and said, "Good morning, Miss Hall."

  "Deputy Markham," she responded coolly. "What can I do for you? Have you come to arrest me?"

  Cully shook his head. "No, ma'am, I just want to talk to you."

  For an instant, her icy composure seemed to soften. "Have you heard something about Joshua?" she asked quickly.

  "I'm afraid not. He still hasn't shown up."

  Augusta's expression settled back into the mask she had been wearing at the beginning of the conversation. "Oh. I'm sorry. What was it you wanted to talk to me about, then?"

  Cully gestured at the package in her arms and said, "That package looks mighty heavy. Why don't you let me carry it back to the hotel for you, and we can talk on the way?"

  Augusta shook her head emphatically. "I'd prefer not to do that, Deputy. If you have something to say to me, I wish you'd just say it."

  Cully shifted his feet. "I know, but it's hard for me to stand here and watch a woman holding something heavy, Miss Hall. It goes against my upbringing." He wondered if his mumbling about the package was just his way of putting off the unpleasant task he was facing.