by Gene Shelton
Jim made a mental note to keep an eye on Sally. If it looked like she was deliberately trying to stir up trouble he’d see that she caught the next stage out of town.
TWELVE
Tascosa
October 1884
Sheriff Jim East closed and locked the new jail door and yanked on the doubled-strap iron slats that served as bars. The door barely wiggled. At least, he thought, the county hadn’t skimped on its lockup; it would take several sticks of dynamite to even loosen the doors of this jail.
He heard the scrape of boots and chairs on the wooden floor overhead. The association hadn’t wasted any time convening its first grand jury. The mortar was still damp between the stones of the two-story courthouse, and the grand jury upstairs was loaded with association backers.
“Might as well get ready,” he muttered to himself. “There’ll be a paper stampede coming down those stairs pretty quick.”
He had barely settled into the chair behind his old desk—the county had decided the expense of a new one wasn’t warranted—when Pat Garrett clumped down the stairs, a sheaf of papers in hand, followed by County Judge McMasters. Garrett was smiling. McMasters looked grim. But then, Jim thought, McMasters most always looked like he’d just swallowed a handful of red ants. Garrett handed the sheaf of indictments to Jim.
“Well, Sheriff,” Garrett said, “we’ve got the legal papers. You game to go help us haul in some rustlers?”
Jim leveled a cold stare at Garrett. “I told you I’d help as long as it was legal.” He dropped his gaze and studied the indictments one by one. Most of the names were familiar. All were associated with the small rancher and cowboy faction. Jim sorted the indictments into two piles, then tapped a finger on the top paper of the shorter stack. “I’ll take care of these myself, Pat,” he said.
Garrett’s eyebrows arched. “I thought we were supposed to be a team again.”
“Not on these two. Your LS men ride up on Tom Harris, there’ll be a killing for sure. Same with Deke Lochenburg. They’ll shoot first and then ask how come you’re there.” He shoved the other indictment papers to the corner of the desk. “There’s enough others to keep you and your boys busy for a while without me, Pat.” He stood and reached for his hat.
“Where are you going, Sheriff?” Judge McMasters was a bit red in the face. He expected the duly elected officials of the county to jump when he hollered “frog.” Jim East didn’t feel a single twitch in his leg muscles.
“I’m going after Harris first, then Deke. I’d kind of like to bring them both in alive, Judge.” Jim saw the flicker of disgust in the judge’s eyes. The association, it appeared, would prefer to see them brought in face-down over a horse. Jim tucked the two warrants into a shirt pocket, slipped into his coat and lifted his rifle from the rack by the door. He paused at the doorway.
“By the way, Judge,” Jim said, his tone casual, “how much did the county make off that herd of rustler brand cattle?”
McMasters sputtered, his face flushed. “You know damn well those cowboys never came back with the money.”
Jim nodded. Shouldn’t he baiting the county judge like that, he thought, but a man takes his fun where he finds it. He stepped through the door into the cool October air. The golden leaves of the cottonwood trees by the courthouse rustled in a gentle breeze. The air had a fresh smell to it, crisp and clean, flavored with a hint of woodsmoke. Going to be one of those days that’s a keeper , he thought, if some fool doesn’t spoil it with gunsmoke.
The sun was just past its midpoint when Jim reined his sorrel to a halt in the narrow canyon ten miles from Tascosa where Tom Harris spread his bedroll when he wasn’t at his ranch in Liberty.
A wisp of smoke curled from the chimney of the small rock house nestled against the side of the canyon amid a jumble of sandstone boulders and stunted cedar trees. Tom was at home, it appeared. Jim slipped his rifle from its scabbard, cocked the weapon and rested it in the elbow of his left arm. He kneed the sorrel forward.
He made no attempt to sneak up on the house. That was the quickest way to draw a bullet. Tom Harris was not only stubborn, he was also a dangerous man with a quick temper and a fast gun. But he wasn’t the type to shoot a horseman who rode straight into camp like he belonged there. Jim pulled the horse to a stop ten yards from the cabin door.
“Hello, the camp!” Jim called.
Tom Harris stepped through the doorway, a Winchester in his hand. “Hello yourself, Jim East,” Tom said. “What brings you out this way? Social call?”
“Nope. I’ve got a warrant for your arrest, Tom. I’ve got to take you in.”
“You bring some help for that little chore?”
Jim shook his head. “Just me. I looked the paper over myself. It’s legal.”
“What’s the charge?”
“Rustling. Specifically, twelve head of LIT cows. Back in August.”
Harris snorted. “Hell, Jim, you know I never stole any LIT stock. Besides, I was over in Liberty the whole of August.”
“Then you’ve got nothing to worry about, Tom. Fetch your possibles sack and saddle up.”
Harris’s eyes narrowed. “What if I decide I don’t want to be arrested?”
“Then we’ll do it the hard way.”
“Maybe I’m faster with this Winchester than you are with that one.”
“Maybe. Maybe not. Think it’s worth betting your life on, Tom?”
There was a moment’s silence before Tom said, “I’m studying on it.”
Jim shifted his weight in the saddle. The slight movement brought the muzzle of his own rifle into line with Tom Harris’s gut. “Tom,” he said, “you may be a lot of things, but I’ve never figured you for a killer. It’s getting a little late in life to start picking up some more bad habits.”
Harris stood for a few heartbeats, poised on the balls of his feet, thumb on the hammer of the Winchester. Jim felt the steady thump of his own heart against his ribs. In the silence he thought he could hear the tick of his pocket watch. Then Harris grinned and lowered his rifle. “I’m no killer, true enough. I’m not a fool, either. I’ve seen you work a Winchester. You reckon I can get a fair trial? Tascosa’s association country.”
Jim lowered his own weapon. “I can’t deny that, Tom. And you’ll be up against Temple Houston. He’s a top hand district attorney, one of the best, but he’s fair. With a good lawyer on your side you’ll stand a chance.”
“How do I know the association won’t bust me out of jail and lynch me to the nearest tree?”
“Because I won’t let them.”
“That’s good enough for me, Jim. I’ll get my stuff.”
Moments later the two men rode side by side toward Tascosa. Harris had handed over his pistol and rifle. Jim saw no reason to put the man in irons. Harris had given his word he wouldn’t try to run. The word of a thief might not be something a man took to the bank, but Harris’s promise was enough for Jim. Besides, they both knew Jim still held a Winchester.
“Jim? Are you sure that paper said LIT cattle? Didn’t mention LS stock?”
“I’m sure of it, Tom. Just LIT.”
Harris chuckled. “Then I reckon I’m in the clear this time.”
***
Jim stowed his Winchester on the office gun rack and hefted the sawed-off ten-bore shotgun. Deke Lochenburg didn’t have as much common sense as Tom Harris did. He had a worse temper, and a hate for Jim East that went back to that day on Trujillo Creek. Deke had told Jim that the next time he’d better have a gun in his hand. Jim figured the ten-gauge qualified as a gun. The biggest one he could find.
Harris lounged on a cot in the new jail cell. He seemed pleased, in an odd sort of way, to be the first to “break in” the new lockup. He would have some company soon—if not Lochenburg, then someone else. Garrett and his men had already started a swing through the Canadian, looking for others named in the indictments.
Jim hadn’t bothered to tell Garrett that Lochenburg was already in town. It was going to be chan
cy enough facing Deke without a half-dozen LS men getting in the way and maybe getting dead in the process. Jim broke the action of the ten-bore, checked the loads and strode into the faded dusk.
It didn’t take long to locate Lochenburg.
All Jim had to do was ask the whereabouts of Frog Lip Sadie. Tonight she was working the Emporium in Hogtown. Jim eased through the saloon doorway and paused to survey the crowd. Frog Lip Sadie wasn’t on the floor. That meant she was already at work. Jim strode to the table where Jess Jenkins had just dealt a hand of blackjack.
“I’m looking for Deke,” Jim said.
Jenkins waved a card toward the doorway to the back rooms. “First door on the right,” he said. “You going to kill him?”
“If he wants it that way.”
Jenkins grunted. “Don’t let Sadie get hurt. She’s one of my best.”
The crowd of cowboys stepped aside after a quick glance at the twin bores of the big shotgun. Conversations stopped and card games went still as Jim walked past.
He knocked on the door of Frog Lip Sadie’s room. It wasn’t polite to walk in on a woman, even a five-dollar whore, without warning. Also, some of them carried nasty little forty-one caliber derringers.
“Deke, you in there?” Jim called.
“East, is that you?” The voice rumbled back, the words slurred a bit from too much whiskey and a touch nasal from the busted nose. To walk straight in on Deke would be like chewing a handful of live scorpions. Jim moved away from the door and pressed himself against the rough adobe wall.
“I’ve got a warrant for your arrest, Deke. Come out slow with your hands empty.”
“The hell you say, you sonofabitch!” Splinters flew from the flimsy door; three slugs slammed into the adobe wall atop the reports of a big-bore pistol. Bits of dried adobe speckled Jim’s cheek.
“Sadie, get down! I’m coming in!” Jim called. He waited a second, then tapped the barrel of the shotgun against the doorknob. Two more slugs tore through the wood. They were belt high to Jim. He grunted aloud as if hit, then scraped the stock of the shotgun down the wall as he crouched beside the door.
Moments later the shattered door banged open and Deke Lochenburg stepped into the short hallway, a Colt pistol in his fist. Jim raised the shotgun. “Drop it, Deke!” he yelled.
Lochenburg whirled toward Jim, the muzzle of the pistol swinging into line. Jim squeezed the front trigger of the smoothbore. The heavy buckshot charge from close range picked Deke up like a big fist and slammed him to the floor. Jim knew the blocky man with the big pistol was dead before his head bounced twice. Still, he kept the left barrel trained on the body as he stepped to the door and glanced inside. Frog Lip Sadie cowered naked beside the bed, her face stark white beneath the smeared kohl and rouge.
“Sadie, are you all right?”
The woman swallowed, tried to speak but managed only a croak, then nodded.
“Get some clothes on,” Jim said. “This place will be full of people real quick.” He ignored the woman and edged closer to Deke’s body. The charge had taken Lochenburg squarely in the chest. Jim stared at the dead man for a moment. He had forgotten how much blood could come out of a man.
A nervous cowboy peered around the doorway leading to the main saloon. “Better get the county judge, friend,” Jim said. “We’re going to need an inquest here.”
Tascosa
December 1884
Jim East sat at his desk, pieces of the stripped-down Winchester spread before him, and listened to the growing moan of the north wind outside.
So far it had been a mild winter in the Panhandle. Only one snowstorm worth noting had come, a six-inch blanket that covered the countryside. Three days after the snow stopped it was gone, melted by a bright winter sun and the Chinook winds that often swept down the eastern slope of the Rockies into the northern Texas Plains.
Jim picked up the sear and trigger assembly of the rifle, cleaned the powder residue away with a dry rag, and wiped the mechanism lightly with an oiled cloth. The rifle showed a bit of scabbard wear along the octagonal barrel and the stock was scarred from encounters with brush and an occasional rock. But the bore was still bright, lands and grooves crisp and well defined.
Upstairs, the scuffle of chairs and occasional voices raised in argument sounded from the second session of the Oldham County Grand Jury. Jim smiled wryly at the loud words from above. The association was not altogether pleased with the results from the first round of trials.
Tom Harris was once again a free man, a jury of his peers having found him not guilty of the charge of stealing LIT cows. District Attorney Temple Houston had accepted the ruling with class and grace. The dark-haired, dark-eyed son of the man most Texans called the father of the state merely shrugged and smiled at the verdict. “Hell, Sheriff,” he had told Jim in private after the trial, “the state—meaning in this case the Panhandle Cattleman’s Association—didn’t have a shred of solid proof to begin with. We tried the man on his reputation and for leading the cowboy strike, not for stealing cows. He’s guilty as sin, but not of the charge he was tried on.”
Another former LS cowboy and a nester rancher had been cut loose by juries. Young D. B. Swarthmore was beginning to make a name for himself as a defense attorney. He was new to Tascosa, not long out of law school, and still operated under the assumption that men were innocent until proven guilty. He might get over that eventually, Jim knew, but in the meantime he was winning nearly as many cases for the little men as Temple Houston was for the big boys. Houston didn’t seem to mind. He seemed to like watching a good young lawyer at work.
Houston was still a few cases ahead in the courtroom game. Four small-time rustlers were on their way to enjoy the state’s hospitality for a number of years. Two more sat in the new Oldham County jail waiting for the long trip to the state pen.
Of those convicted, Garrett’s LS Rangers had brought in two on their own. Jim and L. C. Pierce helped Garrett run the others to the ground. Garrett still seemed to be keeping his word that there would be no Ranger lynchings. Only two men had been killed resisting arrest and Jim freely admitted both of them deserved it. Jim knew the association was upset with these results. The big men wanted the accused rustlers shot or lynched on the spot, not brought to trial. A trial was a hell of a lot more expensive than a bullet or a rope.
If they had done nothing else, the Tascosa lawmen and the LS Rangers had helped swell the populations of New Mexico and Colorado of late. At least a half dozen of the men indicted had left the Tascosa country at a long lope once word got out that the situation had turned serious. Rustling along the Canadian had slowed. It hadn’t stopped.
The role Garrett’s LS Rangers played in the full-bore attack on cattle and horse thieves had backfired as far as public sentiment went. Resentment against Garrett and the big ranchers was stronger than ever now among the owners of the smaller spreads and the cowboys who sided with them. Jim knew for a fact that many of the men who rode for the big brands resented the high-handed approach their bosses had taken in hiring Garrett. The gulf between the cowboy-nester faction and the association group widened by the day.
Jim had finished cleaning and reassembling the Winchester by the time the familiar footsteps sounded on the stairs. He fed a couple of cartridges into the loading port, worked the action to chamber and then eject them, and grunted in satisfaction. The weapon’s action was smooth and fluid. He was confident it would function even in weather below zero. He was loading the rifle when Garrett and McMasters stepped into his office. Garrett carried a handful of papers. The stack was smaller than last time.
“Got some business for us, Sheriff,” Garrett said as he handed over the indictment papers. McMasters merely glanced at Jim and grunted a surly greeting before he stalked from the office. Jim ignored the judge’s snub. He thumbed through the indictments and set one aside.
“No problem with that one, Pat,” he said. He studied the others for several moments, then glanced up. “These could be touchy. Tough
bunch.”
Garrett nodded. “Wade Woods, Bill Gatlin and Charley Thompson. I expect we’ll have to burn some powder on those boys.” Garrett strode to a window and stood for a moment, watching the sand and debris swirl down the street in the freshening wind. “Know where they are, Jim?”
“I’ll find out.”
Garrett turned to face Jim. “Those three will most likely have others with them. Gunmen, not just cowboys. What we need is a good blizzard. Like on the Pecos campaign against the Kid’s bunch.”
Jim could almost feel the pain in his fingers just thinking about it. “You’re right. God, I sure wish you weren’t. I hate being horseback in one of these blue whistlers. Never quite got over the frostbite from that little trip to Sumner and back. But that’s the best way to take them with the least chance of a shootout. If a man’s all cozy and warm he doesn’t figure any lawman would be crazy enough to ride in that weather—Wait a minute, Pat.” Jim strode to the window. A cowboy on a paint horse was riding past, his hat jammed down over his ears against the wind. Jim stepped outside. Garrett followed. “Hey, Ben!” Jim called.
The horseman glanced at Jim, then reined his paint toward the courthouse door. “Am I in some kinda trouble I don’t know about, Sheriff?”
Jim grinned. “No. But in case you don’t remember, you did have yourself a good time last night. You headed back to the Bar CC?”
The young man nodded. “No place else to go and it’s another whole month ‘til payday.”
“Tell Jesus Quintana I’ve got a warrant for his arrest, Ben. Tell him to get his butt in here before I have to go get him. Jesus doesn’t want that.”
Ben nodded. “I’ll tell him, Sheriff. See you next month.” He reined the paint about.
“That’s all there is to that one?” Garrett seemed a bit mystified. “Will Quintana come in just like that? Just because you told him to?”