Rattler's Law, Volume One

by James Reasoner

  The whiskey drummer moved more quickly than anyone would have expected. His hand darted under his coat and drew out a pistol. As he pointed the gun at Harley, he yelled, "You damn pig farmer!"

  Cully, the closest one to him, threw himself forward and dove under the barrel of the gun. He crashed into Walton, wrapping his arms around the man's waist. The impact knocked Walton off balance, and both of them plunged off the edge of the boardwalk. The pistol in Walton's hand cracked, but it was pointed straight up and the slug blasted skyward.

  Walton tried to throw Cully off as the deputy pummeled him. They rolled over and over, splashing through one of the puddles of whiskey. Cully punched Walton in the jaw, but the drummer's knee came up and smashed into Cully's groin. Walton threw Cully aside and struggled to his feet, moving with a speed born of desperation. Flint snapped a shot at him but missed.

  Instead of returning Flint's fire, Walton lunged toward the boardwalk. Flint saw too late what the man intended. Augusta Hall was still standing there, having watched anxiously while Cully struggled with Walton. Now she screamed as Walton grabbed her and jerked her in front of him.

  "Drop it, Marshal!" Walton shouted, digging the gun barrel into Augusta's side. "Drop your gun, or I'll kill her!"

  An eerie silence fell over the curious crowd who had been watching the bizarre scene. Everyone's eyes were on Walton, who had begun to drag Augusta into the street. Her face was ashen with fear and pain as he cruelly prodded the gun into her side.

  It was plain to Flint that Walton was behind all the trouble that had been plaguing Abilene. He could worry about why later. Now he had to bend down and carefully place his Colt and rifle on the boardwalk.

  Clearly the man was crazy enough at the moment to kill Augusta if anybody tried to interfere with him.

  "All right, Walton, take it easy," Flint said in a deliberately calm voice. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Cully get to his feet and take a step toward them. "Hold it, Cully!" he shouted.

  "But, Marshal—" Cully started.

  "Walton has got the upper hand," Flint snapped, cutting off his deputy's protest. Then turning to the drummer, he said, "What is it you want, Walton?"

  "A way out of this town," Walton replied harshly. "I don't know how everything went wrong, but I'm damned if I'll stay here and hang for something some dumb hillbilly did. Now everybody just back off!"

  Flint gestured to the crowd to do as Walton said. They withdrew quickly to the sides of the street. Walton backed down the middle, pulling the terrified Augusta with him. Flint glanced toward the boardwalk and saw that Rose Keller had arrived sometime during the confusion. She was kneeling beside the sprawled form of Harley Barrow, who had evidently passed out again.

  "You can't get away, Walton," Flint called after the drummer. "You might as well let that girl go and make things easier on yourself."

  Shaking his head, Walton tightened his hold on Augusta and grinned—a horrible parody of his hearty salesman's smile. "Everybody stay away or I'll kill her," he warned again.

  The two of them were about even with the entrance of Angus's Tavern when Flint saw a figure stepping through the tavern's doorway. The man was moving silently and so rapidly that he was almost a blur. Flint opened his mouth to warn the newcomer to stay back, but it was too late.

  Walton must have heard a scuffing footstep, because he began to whirl around. When he saw the man lunging toward him, he shouted a curse and started to tighten his finger on the trigger of his gun. Augusta, fainting, slumped in his arms.

  Moving with blinding speed, the man reached out with his left hand and slipped his little finger in front of the hammer, blocking it from falling, as his other fingers closed around the cylinder of Walton's gun. Walton released Augusta and jerked back a step as she crumpled to the ground, but he couldn’t escape the attacker's long reach.

  Reverend Joshua Markham's right fist smashed into Walton's jaw. The whiskey drummer flew backward, leaving his gun in Joshua's left hand, and crashed heavily to the street on his back. He tried to lift his head, then moaned and let it drop.

  Chest heaving, knuckles swelling, Joshua stood for a moment over the man he had knocked out, then turned worriedly toward Augusta. He dropped to one knee beside her crumpled form, and grasping her wrist, patted her hand and called her name.

  Up the street, Cully stared at his brother with a stunned expression on his face. "Joshua...?" he mumbled incredulously. Then he broke into a run and raced toward the three figures clustered in the middle of the street.

  Flint followed at a slower pace. By the time he

  reached them, Augusta was awake, lying with her head

  pillowed in Joshua's lap while Cully knelt at her side.

  She peered up at the minister and whispered, "Joshua...is it really you?"

  "It is, Augusta," he told her quietly. "Thank God I was in time to help you."

  "You saved her life," Cully told his brother. "After nearly getting her killed," he added with a frown. "That was a fool stunt, Joshua. Where the hell have you been, anyway, and what happened to you?"

  "Hell," Joshua murmured. "That's exactly right, Cully. That's where I was."

  Flint rested a hand on Joshua's shoulder and squeezed it. "There'll be time to tell everybody about that later," he said firmly. "Why don't you help Miss Hall over to the boardwalk and let Rose take a look at her?"

  Joshua lifted Augusta to her feet while Cully took her arm. Together, the brothers supported her between them and moved slowly toward the boardwalk. Rose was just straightening from her work on Harley Barrow as they approached.

  "Rose, why don't you check on Miss Hall and make sure she's all right," Flint suggested. Cully and Joshua stayed at Augusta's side while Rose examined her.

  Flint knelt beside Harley Barrow. His head lay in Dennis's lap, and a rough bandage was taped to his chest. His eyes flickered open as Flint asked, "Are you up to talking, Barrow?"

  "I...I reckon I am if'n it means tellin' you 'bout...that no-good skunk who double-crossed me.”

  "You mean Walton?" Flint said, glancing toward the street. Angus and a couple of other men had taken charge of Walton and were pulling him to his feet and marching him toward the jail.

  "Don't know his name," Harley replied, "but I ain't never goin' to forget the voice. He's the one who paid me to...to poison that whiskey, Marshal. But I never meant for anybody to get hurt. He said it'd just make folks sick. He wanted to...to ruin our whiskey business."

  "And you went along with him?" Flint asked, frowning.

  "You don't understand... He was payin' me good."

  Flint looked at the other Barrows and saw the startled, hurt expressions on their faces. It was plain that they had known nothing about any of this. Flint listened as Harley Barrow confessed his part in everything that had happened, right down to the attempted hijacking of the Barrows' whiskey wagons during their run to Dodge City.

  "Reckon when we...when we started shootin' back, those boys took it personal," Harley stammered. "Never figgered they'd foller us all the way into Abilene. They was sure tryin' to...to kill us."

  "Yes, they were," Flint agreed grimly. "Why are you telling me all this now, Barrow?"

  "'Fore I die...I want to know that that son of a bitch is goin' to get what's comin' to him. He's as much to blame as me for them fellers dyin', Marshal. I couldn't go out...without evenin' the score—"

  Harley's head slumped onto his chest.

  Flint reached for his wrist to check his pulse, but Rose's fingers closed around it first. Kneeling beside Harley, she looked at her watch for a moment, then said, "That's what I thought. He's passed out again, Lucas, but he's a long way from dying."

  The twins were crying. One of them gulped and said between sobs, "You mean Harley ain't goin' to die?"

  "It's not likely, at least not from that wound," Rose answered crisply. "It missed his heart and lungs. He'll recover with enough time and rest. Now, if you men will take him over to my office, I'll do a better job of patch
ing him up." To the twin with the broken arm, she added, "We need to set that bone of yours and put a splint on it."

  Flint helped Rose straighten up. "Is Miss Hall all right?" he asked.

  Rose nodded. "She's shaken up, of course, but she'll be fine. She's not hurt at all."

  Flint turned, surveyed the scene along Texas Street, and shook his head. He saw dead and injured mules, wrecked wagons, huge puddles of whiskey, and debris from countless shattered barrels. There was quite a clean-up job to be done. The prisoners had been taken into the jail. No doubt the cells were packed to bursting. Cyril Warren, the undertaker, had arrived in his wagon and was preparing to load the bodies of the hardcases who had been killed in the fighting. To the north, smoke from the burning warehouse still billowed into the sky, and the strident clanging of the fire wagon could be heard as it rolled toward the blaze. Somebody had thought to call it out in all the confusion. Flint was thankful for that.

  Curious, the marshal pulled his watch from his pocket and flipped it open. Hard as it was to believe, a little less than an hour had passed since Cully had left the office to look for Augusta Hall. Flint snapped the watch shut and laughed softly. It was a tired, ironic sound.

  That hour had been one of the busiest in the long, violent history of Abilene.

  14

  Cully was staring at his brother, still finding it hard to believe that Joshua was back and that he had returned at such a dramatic, fortuitous moment. As they stood on the boardwalk with Augusta, Cully said, "You've got a heap of explaining to do, Joshua."

  The minister nodded. Wherever he had been, he looked none the worse for it—perhaps a little thinner. He wasn’t wearing a tie, either, which was unusual for him. "I do owe both of you an explanation," he said, "and an apology. All I wanted to do was—"

  A hand came down on Joshua's shoulder, stopping his explanation. Lucas Flint, a smile on his face, said, "Maybe you'd better let me tell it, Joshua. I know how modest you are."

  Joshua cast a startled glance at Flint, but he remained silent as the marshal raised his voice and addressed the curious townspeople who were on the street. Quite a few of them had stayed and had already begun the clean-up effort.

  "Gather 'round, folks," Flint called. "There's something all of you need to know." When a sizable group had crowded in front of the boardwalk, he went on, "Most of you were at that play last Saturday night, and you saw that Reverend Markham was having trouble with his part. You know he disappeared after it was over, and you've all heard the talk. The gossip has it that the Reverend was drunk!"

  Mutterings of agreement rose from the crowd. It was scandalous, and the town had buzzed about it for days.

  "I know a lot of you thought that Joshua was off on a bender," Flint continued. "But you didn't know the real story. That was exactly what we wanted you to think."

  Now the group listening to Flint let out startled exclamations. Cully's face wore a puzzled frown, as did Augusta Hall's. The crowd grew larger, its numbers swelled by the arrival of a large group of schoolchildren, shepherded by Sister Lorraine and Leslie Garrison. With the uproar the explosion and fire and gun battle had caused, continuing with classes was a hopeless task, and the schoolmaster, Emery Thornbury, had reluctantly dismissed the students.

  Joshua glanced at his brother, then turned to Augusta Hall, to Sister Lorraine, to Patrick Hammond, and to all his other friends. They looked confused and were waiting for the marshal to continue his explanation of Joshua's bizarre behavior.

  "Marshal, what are you talking about?" Cully asked.

  "It's really pretty simple," Flint replied. "Joshua just pretended to be drunk. I was the only one who knew the truth. Joshua wanted all of you to see the strongest lesson possible about the power of liquor." He clapped a hand on Joshua's shoulder again. "If someone as strong and upright as Reverend Joshua Markham could fall victim to whiskey, then anybody who's not careful could do the same. That's why he pretended he was drunk during the play and afterward. That's why he's been hiding ever since while all of you talked about him and how awful it was that he had taken to drink. But when he saw Miss Hall in danger, he couldn't stay out of sight any longer. He had to give up the game to save her."

  Augusta moved closer to Joshua and placed a hand on his arm. "Joshua? It was all an act?"

  Slowly, the minister nodded. "Like...like the marshal said. It was...a lesson."

  "Oh, Joshua." Augusta moved into his arms and rested her head on his chest, unashamed now as she embraced him.

  Cully shook his head and grinned. "Reckon you fooled us all, big brother. You had me mighty worried. The next time you get a crazy idea like that, how about letting me in on it?" Genuine, justifiable anger edged Cully's voice.

  "I won't be doing anything like this again, Cully," Joshua told him. "I can promise you that."

  Cully turned to Flint. "You knew all along that Joshua was all right. That's why you kept telling me he'd be back and that I shouldn't worry too much about him."

  Flint shrugged. "I would have told you the truth, Cully, but I had given my word. And you've got to admit, even you thought the worst." The marshal grinned. "Your brother's a mighty fine actor."

  "Too good," he commented dryly.

  The laughing, talking crowd pressed closer now. Some of them congratulated Joshua on his act, while others insisted that they knew he had been faking all along. He stood there, smiling and holding Augusta, and somewhat uncomfortably accepted the plaudits of the citizens.

  Close beside him, Flint said quietly, "Reckon it's all over now, Joshua."

  "Yes," Joshua Markham said slowly. "I suppose it is."

  But it wasn’t over, Joshua thought. There was one more thing he had to do.

  By late afternoon, most of the signs that Abilene had been through a small-scale war were gone. The terrified mules and horses were at the livery stable. The wagon and whiskey barrel debris had been removed from Texas Street, and the sun had dried up the puddles of spilled whiskey. A faint odor of liquor still lingered in the air, but it was fading rapidly. The smell of smoke hung over the town, too, even though the fire at the warehouse had died hours ago. The building was gutted, but the fire hadn’t spread.

  Marshal Lucas Flint strolled along Texas Street, enjoying the peace and quiet. He had been busy all day, helping with the clean-up and straightening out the mess that had caused all the trouble. Faced with the testimony of Harley Barrow and the surviving hardcases that he had hired, Phil Walton confessed to committing the crimes in order to take over the liquor trade in Abilene. The man had pretty grandiose ideas, Flint thought. Controlling the liquor in Abilene had only been the first step. Walton had hoped eventually to run all the whiskey in Kansas.

  Any scheming the man did from here on would be in prison, at least for the next several years. Flint doubted that the prosecutor could make murder cases against Walton and Harley, since they hadn’t planned that anyone would die, but they would have to pay for the accidental deaths. In addition, Walton would be serving time for the destruction of the warehouse and the attempted murder of the Barrows, not to mention the kidnapping of Augusta Hall. Flint was just glad that only three people had been unfortunate enough to get hold of the whiskey that contained the fatal amount of strychnine. It was only by chance that Harley and Walton hadn’t killed more people.

  Flint paused in front of his office, glanced again at the sun-bathed street, and then went inside. He found Joshua Markham waiting for him.

  The minister stood up as Flint came in. "Hello, Lucas," he said.

  "Joshua." Flint nodded. "Something I can do for you?"

  "I'd say you've already done a great deal for me," Joshua replied. "More than I can ever repay."

  "I don't know what you're talking about, Reverend," the marshal answered.

  Joshua squared his shoulders and looked Flint in the eye. "I'm talking about the way you lied through your teeth this morning to save my reputation."

  "I just told folks what they needed to hear."

 
"Yes, but you know I really was drunk, that I really did go on that bender you said I faked. If it hadn't been for you, Angus, and Miss Partin hiding me and helping me dry out, I'd still be drunk."

  "You don't have to worry about Angus and Jessica saying anything," Flint assured him. "They're good folks, and they don't want to see anybody hurt."

  "I know that," Joshua admitted. Then he drew a deep breath and went on. "I should be thankful to the three of you. I am thankful. But the idea that from now on I'll be living a lie...well, that bothers me."

  "Listen, Joshua," Flint said, his voice hardening, "you've licked whiskey again, haven't you?"

  "You know I have. And this time, it's for good."

  "Then what good would it do for anybody to know you really fell off the wagon? The way it is now, the whole town is talking about the way you made them think, about the lesson you taught them. That's a good thing, isn't it?"

  "Yes," Joshua agreed grudgingly. "I suppose it is."

  "Then don't call it living a lie," Flint said. "Call it living a lesson."

  Joshua met his steady gaze for a long moment, then smiled and stuck out his hand. "Thank you, Lucas," he said softly.

  "You're welcome, Joshua," he said as he shook the minister's hand and grinned. "Now, tell me. What's the story with you and that temperance gal?"

  Joshua laughed. "Miss Hall and I are good friends, but I think that's all, Marshal. She's already told me that she plans to leave Abilene. She'll be taking the eastbound train tomorrow morning."

  "Going back home, is she?"

  "For now. But she hasn't given up on her mission. She'll be coming west again, I'm sure."

  "Back here to Abilene?"

  Joshua just smiled. "I suppose we'll have to wait and see."

  Early the next morning, Cully Markham was walking down Texas Street. He was on his way to the Grand Palace Hotel to say goodbye to Augusta Hall and see if she would let him accompany her to the train station. Then he noticed a wagon pull up in front of the Red Top Café, and he thought he might have to be delayed.