Letter Of The Law

by C. J. Crigger

  "Thank you, ma'am." He sniffed the aroma--his nose seemed to work all right--with a sigh of pure pleasure. The first swallow slid down his throat and warmed his stomach. "You make the best coffee I ever drank, Mrs. Birdsall, bar none."

  She made a funny gesture, as if his praise embarrassed her. "Start with fresh, cold water, use good coffee, and settle the grounds with an eggshell. Simple."

  He drained the cup. "Hits the spot."

  "If you can stand, Mr. Moon, I'll help you upstairs where you can have another cup and eat your breakfast with Pel. In a minute. First, though, what did Mr. Herschel mean by a has-been gunslinger? You?"

  She'd picked a sore spot to probe, although Tuck didn't think she needed to sound so disbelieving.

  "Tried my hand at it," he said, the admission dragging from him. "Some years back. Wasn't proud of it then, and I'm less proud of it now after--" He stopped, then went on. "But I guess you could say I learned who and what to watch out for when it comes to the bad element."

  "Like Diggett Monroe.

  He sipped again. "Yep. Like Monroe."

  "Do you know him?"

  Tuck struggled from the cot, trying to ignore the pain that shot all the way from his toes to the longest hair on his head. Lemon and lavender, he thought. Acid and sweet. Bring him the best coffee of his life, look on his pain with sympathy, then ask the ten-dollar question with a sharpness that cut through his innards like a knife.

  "I've met him," he said. "He's what convinced me to follow the straight and narrow. I was afraid I'd turn out like him if I kept on like I was doing. So I quit. Rode into Endurance and got so drunk Pel throwed me in jail." His broken lips twitched. "But that's just what could cause a different problem."

  At her questioning look, he explained. "Monroe is a man who keeps what he has. A horse, a drink, a woman. And men. He invites a man into his gang, they don't tell him no."

  "And you did."

  He sighed. "Yes, ma'am, I sure did."

  * * * *

  It was Pel's idea, sending Tuck Moon out to the ranch until both of the deputy's eyes functioned and his body moved without screaming. Not that Moon said a word about the way he felt, but it was easy enough for Pel to read, watching his face.

  "We're a pair, aren't we?" Pelham said, his mouth twisting with rough sympathy.

  "Reckon we are," Tuck Moon muttered.

  Judging by the amount of sweat beading the deputy's forehead, just mounting the stairs had been about all he could handle. Now, at Pel's urging, he sat down to revive himself by drinking another cup of Delight's excellent coffee. A fine breakfast of ham and feather light hotcakes with huckleberries stirred into the batter filled the plate she set in front of him.

  "Bad as I hate to say it, Herschel's right." Pel nodded at Delight's offer of maple syrup. "Folks get a look at you, Moon, and they're apt to lose confidence fast. It's bad enough me being down. Both of us--"

  Delight hovered between them as if undecided which of her two patients needed the most immediate care.

  "It's only a few miles to the ranch. Do you think you can manage alone, Mr. Moon?" she asked, harkening back to Pel's suggestion Tuck take a day or two off. She gave Pel a quick glance. "Maybe I'd better show him the way. Make sure he gets there all right."

  Slowly, Pel shook his head. "Can't let you do it, honey. Somebody's got to be here. Somebody ambulatory, I mean. Boomer'll be spreading the news all over town that we're both laid up. At a guess, we'll have people dropping by within the hour to see if his report is true. Guess you'll be the one to fend 'em off, tell 'em we're both fine as hair on a chicken."

  "Lie to them, you mean."

  Pel chuckled. "Afraid so."

  Delight's mouth tightened. "If anybody had told me the day would come when Pelham Birdsall encouraged me to tell an untruth, I'd have called him a liar."

  "Ma'am," Tuck said, "if you're a-gin it, I don't want you to fib none for me. Let folks see. Shoot, I ain't near as bad as I look. Might be some real surprised banditos when they find out I ain't dead after all."

  "All of them raring to finish the job," Pel said, putting an end to the bravado.

  After a moment, Delight shrugged and started off toward the kitchen. "I'll put together some supplies for you, Mr. Moon. And then harness your horse to our buggy. I don't want you riding."

  To Pel's amusement, she spoke over the top of Tuck's horrified protest. "No, no. I mean it. What if you fell off halfway there, Mr. Moon? Those are my best stitches in your head, and I don't want them going for naught.

  "I've decided," she added, a roguish glimmer in her eyes, "that it's not really lying if you tell someone something not quite true as long as it's for his own good. Do you agree?"

  * * * *

  Before the hour was out, Tuck was astride Ripper and well on his way to the Birdsall ranch. He'd persuaded himself the sheriff and his missus might be right about him staying out of sight for a day or two. Or at least until his eye was open. One thing he was clear about. He'd be danged if he'd insult Ripper by hitching him to a buggy, no matter what Mrs. Birdsall said.

  Pel had given easy directions to his ranch. "It's not far. Just follow the road," he'd said. "In about four miles you'll find a turn-off marked by a lightning-blasted cedar. From there, the trail goes south a couple miles. You'll find the cabin at the end of the trail."

  But as it happened, Tuck, taking the back way out of town, had barely cleared the outskirts before a rider came loping up behind him. The rider, recognizing Tuck aboard the plodding Ripper, pulled his horse down to a walk beside them. A choking cloud of dust swirled around them both. Tuck like to passed out, snuffling through his swollen nose.

  He knew the rider, which didn't raise any joy in him. It was Jake Liston, another of Monroe's hangers-on. Maybe the man wasn't the worst of the lot, but Tuck hadn't ever seen anything about him to brag about either. His hand, already shaking like he had a palsy, crept toward the shotgun tied to his saddle.

  Seeing the move, Liston threw up his hands in mock fear. "No need to draw that scatter gun on me, Moon." His grin turned sly. "If you've even got the oomph for it. Man, it looks like a tree done fell on you. A real big tree."

  "Nah," Tuck said. "No tree. Just Milt Wheatly, throwing his weight around."

  "Yeah, I heard about the fight. Guess everybody has, by now. Said you wasn't tough enough to stand against him more 'n a minute or so. Disappointed him something fierce."

  Tuck's pride stood up and growled. "He's calling it a fight?"

  "Well, sure. You two was mixin' it up, wasn't you?"

  "Somebody's got the numbers wrong. It wasn't just us two, and I'd say it's easy to take a man down when there's four against one, and a gun held on him to boot. When the choice is get shot or take a beating, I'll take a beating any day."

  Liston's grin faded. "Something to that argument, all right, long as you live through it. Glad to see you come to your senses in time."

  "In time for what?"

  "Get out of town before the big dust-up starts. Not that there'll be much to worry about, what with the sheriff out of commission and everybody else shakin' in their boots. Oughta be over in a matter of minutes."

  Liston's words were slurred, as if he'd started early this morning sampling the wares available at the Bucket of Sudz. Tuck figured it was the pop-skull loosening his tongue. "Dust-up?"

  "Sure. Diggitt's calling all the boys back to Garnet City. Soon's everybody's together, he's gonna give orders to ride on Endurance. He figures we'll take over the town easy as a pig slidin' down a greased chute."

  "He tell you that?"

  "His very words. That's what I've been doing in town--getting the word out. Guess we'll be ready to move in a few days. Think you want to join up after all?" He laughed a little as he said it.

  Tuck shook his head and tried to ignore the whirly red dots it raised behind his eyes. "Not me. Ain't my kind of life."

  Liston sobered, his humor fading. "Then take my advice and show this god-forsaken place your he
els. Ain't going to be any too pleasant when the shooting starts and you're on the wrong side. Monroe's declared anyone draws down on him or the boys is fair game. Makes those townsfolk into sittin' ducks, if you ask me. Runnin' is probably the smartest thing you've ever done." He flicked Tuck's stuffed saddle bags--courtesy of Mrs. Birdsall--a quick glance. "But I reckon you figured that out already."

  Tuck opened his mouth to refute what Liston was taking for granted--about him turning tail on Endurance, that is--but he closed it just in time. No point in warning Monroe of his intentions. The outlaw would learn soon enough.

  "Thanks for the warning, Liston," he said. "Be best if you went, too. You ain't a killer like some of these fellers. Pull out while you can. Don't get mixed up any deeper."

  Liston frowned into the distance. "I try to leave now, my life ain't worth a plugged nickel, Moon. You know that."

  Tuck winced from the pain of taking a deeper breath. "Yeah. I reckon I do."

  Turn tail and run? Hell. He couldn't even walk.

  * * * *

  It was still early when Tuck came to the end of a dusty cow path and found the ranch. The cabin was up a side draw, a hay meadow spreading away out front, timber spreading up the hillsides. A feller could watch his stock from his porch, Tuck thought, admiring the layout. He threaded a way through a couple dozen head of fat beeves, leaving the animals undisturbed by his presence.

  The cabin sat in the dappled shade of a few cottonwood trees. Close to, most of the lofty pines had been cut. Stumps, jagged and dry, their bark peeling, rose in the clearing, the logs used to build the house. There was a barn, too, and an outhouse with a crescent moon cut in the door. Just his style.

  What he should do, he thought, was copy Birdsall's plan for a good life. Claim some land, work in town until the ranch was self-supporting, then sit back and let the world go by. And find a good, hardworking woman to keep him company. Too bad the only one he knew was already taken.

  That's if anybody'd let him live long enough to do it--him and Birdsall both. Tuck almost smiled--until the stitching in his forehead pulled, serving as a reminder of what he was doing here.

  At the barn, he unsaddled Ripper, turning the gelding into a corral where grass had grown knee high. With fresh water pumped into a trough, he figured the horse would be fine for a couple days.

  A little bashful at making himself at home in Sheriff and Mrs. Birdsall's house, he was too tired to care. He saw the plain table and two chairs, and the set of cast iron cookware hanging from nails driven into the logs behind the cook stove through a blur. His eye caught on the peeled pole bedstead standing in a corner of the one room, its rope springs drawn tight. Flinging a blanket from his bedroll over the springs, he dropped down on top of it.

  There was a minute of pain, of twirling vertigo, his head swooning and the light behind his eyes flashing red and black. And then it went solid black and he knew no more. He slept.

  Chapter 11

  * * *

  The office key clinked against the derringer in Delight Birdsall's skirt pocket, a reminder that carrying the pocket pistol had become as routine as putting on her shoes and dress. The small weapon was always with her, whether she was cooking in her kitchen or on a trip to the outhouse. The key was because she was in the midst of locking up for the night and had paused on the back steps for a breath of crisp summer night air.

  A forest fire is burning somewhere in the distance, she thought, sniffing. Far enough away the sky remained clear, but a breeze carried on it the ominous smell of smoke. The sunset had been spectacular.

  It was hot upstairs, and despite the heat--or maybe because of it--Pelham had dropped into a restless sleep. She hesitated to disturb him, and so she tarried in the cool to sit a few minutes on the porch step, her skirt, modesty ignored, lifted above her knees.

  Yawning, she stretched her arms to the sky, reveling in the moment of peace. It was late, nearing eleven o'clock. A full moon silvered the landscape, frosting the trees on the hillside behind the office with a glamorous cloak. For the first time since Pelham had been ambushed, she felt hopeful. He'd eaten well tonight, a sign he was better. Truly better and anxious to take up the reins of his profession once more. She no longer feared each hard won breath would be his last.

  Remembering Pel's pain reminded her of Tuck Moon, and she shivered a little. As sorely wounded as Pel had been--still was--at least she hadn't had to physically poke and probe him as she had the new deputy. This had been her first try at sewing up a person and, frankly, she hadn't cared for the experience. Tuck, she felt certain, hadn't cared much for it either.

  Thinking of the deputy brought to mind what Herschel had said about him. Had Moon really been a gunslinger? Was he a man they--she and Pel and the town--could trust? And what about Herschel? How had he known of Tuck's reputation? Why that struck a wrong chord in her, she couldn't say, but it did.

  Occupied with these questions, her mood was shattered by a nearby flurry of shots, the pops a startling echo in the night. Delight jumped to her feet. A man shouted, a horse whinnied, and a dog barked. More men's voices rose in violent protest. Another single shot cracked; the voices went silent.

  "Oh, no," she said aloud. "Not now." Maybe she could pretend she hadn't heard. But she had. Duty called. Pel's duty was her duty. She was his eyes and ears, representative in his place. And she hoped, against the odds, he'd sleep through the noise.

  Nerves aquiver, she locked up before running around to the side alley and through it to the street. A cautious peek around the corner showed a group of men standing outside O'Hanlon's saloon, with several more crowded together in the open doorway. They all gawked at a man sprawled on the ground as blood spurted from his mid-section. The barking dog, which, given its protective stance must have belonged to the victim, stood guard over the body.

  Meanwhile, the man who apparently had shot him danced around like a capering idiot, flaunting a large pistol and keeping the others at bay. As she watched, he sent another bullet into the dark sky.

  She recognized the man. It was the one who Pel had arrested the night he was ambushed, the one who'd shot Mrs. Schmidt. Schoefield, who'd tried to bully her.

  It seemed obvious all the men, except for the one with the pistol, were hanging back, waiting for somebody to take charge of a loaded situation. In other words, they were waiting for an officer of the law. Waiting for Pel. Or the new deputy. And since that was impossible, it meant she was next on the list. Her breath whistling in distress, Delight made certain of the derringer in her pocket and, squaring her shoulders, hastened toward them.

  One person had, perhaps unwisely, separated himself from the others. He approached the man holding the gun, his empty hands spread wide. "Hold it," he said. "There's no need for this. Back off, Schoefield."

  "Back off yourself," the gunman said.

  "Please. Let us give this man some help."

  "Hell, no." Schoefield looked offended. "This here feller is a card sharp, and I didn't shoot him just to have some bleeding hearts coo over him."

  Delight ran on silent feet, nearly there. Damn Herschel for his lies, claiming this man had left town when he'd done no such thing. By rights, Schoefield should've been in jail right now, instead putting everyone on the street in danger. Yet here he was, and before she--before anyone--could stop him, the gunman took aim at the would-be peacemaker and fired again.

  The impact spun the man around, and she recognized Jones from the newspaper. He clutched at his arm and let out a blood-curdling yell.

  Enough was enough. Looked like the townsfolk had made their try at quelling the fracas. Now, as the sheriff's emissary, it was up to her. The thing is, it felt like her stomach was trying to crawl out through her throat.

  Unseen at first, she approached the tableau from behind. Light spilled from the saloon windows and doorway. What with that and the full moon, the spreading puddle of blood beneath the downed man was all too evident. The dog whined once, sounding lost.

  "What's going on h
ere?" she demanded, making her voice loud and gruff.

  The shooter whirled to face her, the pistol bore pointing straight at her left breast.

  She didn't consciously tell her feet to stop. They just did. "Mister Shoefield," she said, "I'll thank you to put down that weapon."

  "Go away, woman," he said. "This ain't your business."

  "That man on the ground makes it my business." She did her best to ignore the pistol. "Do you admit you shot him?" An errant thought burned through her brain. If the man shot her next, she and Pel would be a matched pair, both with holes in their lungs. Only she, likely enough, would be dead.

  "Yeah. So what? He was cheatin' at cards."

  "Cheating is an offense the sheriff's office is equipped to handle," she said, staring him in the eye. "All anyone need do is file a complaint."

  "Complaint's done been filed." Schoefield smirked. "And handled."

  The victim was still moving a little. Not dead then, although Delight believed if he didn't get help, he soon would be.

  The massive canine, one of the largest she had ever seen, snarled and showed its teeth. Schoefield's gun wavered, shifting between her and the dog and back again. Delight pulled the little derringer from her pocket and pointed it at Schoefield. The man's smirk ended suddenly as the dog launched itself into the air.

  Schoefield pulled the trigger.

  Horrified, Delight cringed as the dog screamed. It spun in midair, bit at the blood wetting its fur, then leapt once more at the shooter. With ninety or so pounds of angry dog, its teeth bared as it came at him, Schoefield fired again--and again. But either the pistol was empty or it misfired several times in a row, for there was only a dry click.

  Schoefield screeched as the dog's powerful jaws closed on his arm. The two went down in a whirl of flying dog hair, pounding boots, and splattering blood. The dog growled, the man yelled and cursed. The crowd cheered them both on.