Rocky Mountain Lawmen Series Box Set: Four John Legg Westerns

by John Legg

  “Oh, yes you can,” Hallie said dabbing at her running nose with the end of her sleeve.

  “No I can’t,” Rhodes said firmly. “Maybe I ain’t the best man in the world at anything, but I got pride. Givin’ someone my word’s the best I can do. I go back on my word, I’ll not be the man you fell in love with.”

  “Yes, you will. And you’d be alive.”

  “I’d as rather be dead than to go back on my solemn word, Hallie. And if I did, I wouldn’t be the man you fell in love with. You know that well’s I do. You should’ve been able to see what happens to a man who’s got no more pride left with your father the last couple months. There wasn’t a thing he wouldn’t try to do for you and Andy, even grovel. And he wasn’t half the man he was when your ma met him, I’d wager.”

  Hallie knew it was all true. But knowing it did not mean she had to accept it. “You men and your pride and your word. It’s stupid.”

  “No it ain’t, Hallie. A man can be dirt poor, not have nothin’ of his own, but he gives his word to someone, he’ll be expected to live up to it. That shows the real measure of a man.”

  “But I’m scared, darn it all.”

  “I understand that,” he said. “But there’s dangers every day. Look at your pa. He was a healthy, hale man, until that accident changed him. I bet you’ve seen a difference in him since he’s been back working. Haven’t you?”

  “Yes.” It sounded small, forlorn.

  “But he could get in another accident easy up there. The walls could cave in on him, or he could fall off a wagon and go under. A man can die a thousand different ways just going about his daily business. Surely you can see that.”

  “I can,” Hallie admitted. “Don’t mean I agree with it, or like it. I’m still scared. Your walking outside and getting killed is somethin’ folks can accept. But you takin’ this job makes it seem like you’re lookin’ to get yourself killed early.”

  “I ain’t.”

  “Oh, I know.” She dabbed at her eyes and nose with her sleeve again.

  Rhodes stood there feeling more awkward than he ever had. He took off his hat and twirled it idly in his hands. “Well, Hallie,” he finally said slowly, “things’re up to you now.” He paused, but got no response. “I love you more’n anything, Hallie, and I want you to be my wife someday. But if you don’t want me, I’ll understand.” Actually, he wouldn’t understand, but he would live with her decision.

  “I don’t know,” Hallie said, still sobbing.

  “You have to make up your mind.”

  She looked up at him, eyes flecked with red, and swollen all around them. “Maybe it’s you who has to make up his mind. But maybe you’ve already done so.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “Well, it seems you don’t love me enough to give up your job. You’ve chosen it before me.”

  “Maybe that’s the way it is,” he admitted. “But I’m a man of my word. I gave it to the city to do this job. And, whether you want to admit it or not, I gave you my word, too.”

  “How?”

  “By tellin’ you I loved you. It’s as true now as it was the first time I said it. I also gave you my word that I’m coming asking for your hand as soon as I was settled into a job.”

  “A job with prospects, I think you said.”

  Rhodes shrugged. “Whatever. I got a job now, and one that pays pretty well. I come over here so you could share my joy at being considered good enough to hold such a responsible position.”

  “Good enough at what?” Hallie demanded, her anger, fear, and worry not lessened an iota. “At killin’?”

  “I hope there’s more to this job than killing,” Rhodes said simply. “Anyway, I figured that now I had a job, I was going to come ask for your hand in marriage. Maybe set a date in the spring:”

  “You’ll be dead long before spring.” Hallie felt icy fear rushing through her veins.

  “Why do you say that?”

  “You know why,” Hallie snapped. “The longest a marshal has ever made it in Intolerance is two and a half months.”

  “I’m not like those others.”

  “Cocky, aren’t you?”

  “At times,” Rhodes admitted. “But I’ll say this, if I wasn’t so cocky and so sure of myself, I’d never have met you. And,” he added pointedly, “you’d have been victimized by fat Ham Macmillan. That what you want? To be his woman?” He sucked in a breath, anger beginning to eat at him. “You have to know that he’d never take you to wife. He’d just use you and drop you like an empty food tin.”

  Hallie shuddered. “I might’s well just give in to that anyway.”

  “How can you say that?” Rhodes hissed. He was as mad as he ever had been in his life.

  “You keep that stupid badge and you’re gonna be dead long before we could get wed. Then where’ll I be? Huh? Easy pickin’s for Ham or some other schemin’ man with no morals or conscience.”

  Rhodes didn’t know what else to say to her. He was worn out, it seemed, from the arguing. But he could not even consider reneging on his deal to become the marshal of Intolerance. He’d as soon shoot off a foot.

  He waited a little in silence, then asked, “You want to see me anymore, Hallie?”

  It took a long time for her to answer, and Rhodes agonized over it. “I don’t know.” she finally said. “I really don’t know, Travis.”

  Rhodes nodded, steeling himself against what he figured was his impending loss. It was like amputating a limb—better fast and quick, rather than waiting for the lingering rot of gangrene.

  “Well,” he said, putting his hat back on, “I’ll be over to my office”—how odd that sounds, he thought—“if you take it to mind to see me again.” He paused, the acid roiling in his stomach. “If you don’t, I wish you well, and I hope you find someone more accommodating to your wishes.”

  He could not bring himself to say goodbye to her. He simply spun and left, striding past a shocked, worried Andy St. John, who watched him as he walked away.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Hovering between rage and despair, Travis Rhodes stalked the streets of Intolerance. The bright, cold sunshine did nothing to raise Rhodes’s spirits. He noted it, and that autumn was fully here. He walked proud and erect, almost daring someone to challenge him. No one did, though several people acknowledged the new marshal with a wave of a tipped hat. He returned those greetings politely. After all, he had given his word to do this job and acting politely toward the townsfolk was part of that job.

  He went back to his office, but decided he was not happy there. He still had things to do, things he had put off in his rush to proudly show off for Hallie. He put on his long frock coat, locked the door behind him, and headed toward Hornbeck’s saloon. As he suspected he would, he found Bonner sitting at a table toward the back regaling a bunch of wide-eyed saloon patrons with his feats of daring-do.

  Rhodes grabbed a beer from the bartender, who informed him that it was on the house. Rhodes nodded thanks and strolled back toward Bonner. He sat a little back from the small crowd gathered around the old mountain man and listened halfheartedly. Even that much was good medicine for him. Bonner almost never failed to perk him up with some tale telling.

  After a little, Rhodes crooked a finger at Bonner. The old man finished up his tale, accepted the applause and the offer of drinks—for later—and sent everyone away. Rhodes picked up his still half-full mug and walked to Bonner’s table.

  Bonner almost choked on his own beer when Rhodes’s coat gapped open in the front and Bonner spotted the gold badge.

  “Jesus, Mary, and Joseph,” he muttered. “My friend, gone over to the other side. Will wonders never cease?”

  “Just close that flapping hole of yours,” Rhodes said more tartly than he had planned.

  Bonner noted it but said nothing for now. He sipped some beer. “So, boy, why’d you come on over here and break up my little parley?”

  “A parley is when two or more people speak,” Rhodes said
in more near usual tones. “What you were doing was sitting there spoutin’ off.”

  Bonner laughed. “I expect I was.” He finished his mug and waved for another. The bartender brought it and another for Rhodes, took away the old mugs, and disappeared behind his bar again.

  Bonner hunched over the table, and slowly turned the beer mug in front of him. “Now, boy,” he said sternly, “what’s put the bug up your ass this time?”

  “This,” Rhodes said, tapping the badge.

  “How’d you ever get trapped into wearin’ that piece of shit?”

  Rhodes explained it tersely but thoroughly, including Hallie’s reaction. When Rhodes was done, Bonner said nothing for a little while, just continued staring down into his mug of beer.

  Finally, Bonner’s head came up and he grinned a little. “You’re in a deep puddle of shit, ain’t you, boy?” He cackled wildly.

  “Goddammit, Joe,” Rhodes hissed. His anger rarely flared, but it had done so not long ago at Hallie’s house, and it was renewed now. “How dare you make light of all this?”

  “Pipe down, goddammit.” Bonner paused, still chuckling. “Hell, you was the one brought all this down on yourself. Wasn’t me forced you to take that goddamn thing. And it wasn’t your little lady made you take it neither.”

  There was nothing Rhodes could say to that. It was all true. It didn’t lessen his annoyance any. He sulked for a few minutes, but managed to start coming out of his funk. Suddenly he grinned just a little.

  Bonner, who had been watching Rhodes, wondered what was up now. “Somethin’ strike you as humorous all to a sudden?” he asked suspiciously.

  Rhodes pulled out the deputy’s badge. He placed it on the table and pushed it across the table with an index finger. “Take it,” he said quietly.

  Bonner recoiled as if snake bitten. “You gone plumb goddamn loco, boy?” he asked, high voice quavering with indignation.

  “Just take it,” Rhodes said.

  “No goddamn way. Not this chil’. I’d as soon have my ass smeared with honey and be set down in a cave with a griz.”

  Rhodes laughed despite himself. “Take it.” A note of friendly warning entered his voice.

  “There ain’t nothin’ you can do or say gonna make me take that goddamn thing,” Bonner said firmly.

  “You either take it, or I’ll run your ass into the calaboose.”

  Once again Bonner looked stricken. “You’d do that to an old friend like me? A man in his dotter age? I’d not last a day in that hole before I’d pass on to the Great Spirit, brokenhearted and havin’ missed out on the final years that’d rightly be mine.”

  “Is there never any end to your bullshit?” Rhodes asked with a small laugh. The fight with Hallie less than an hour ago seemed far away.

  “Nope,” Bonner answered, laughing.

  Rhodes waited out the laughter, and then grew serious. “I’d be obliged if you were to take the badge, Joe. There’s nobody in Intolerance I can trust, except you. And nobody I’d rather wade into battle with.”

  “All this puffery’s gone make me puke,” Bonner growled. But he reached out and picked up the badge. He turned it in one callused hand.

  “Put it on,” Rhodes encouraged. When Bonner showed no inclination to put it on, Rhodes said, “You get paid thirty a month, and half the fines you collect.” He paused. “And, since I get a house for being the marshal, you get the old place all to yourself.”

  “Well, la-de-da,” Bonner said sarcastically, but a grin hovered on his lips.

  “Well, this might convince you,” Rhodes said. “When I come in here just now, bartender Mike over there told me the beer was on the house. I suspect that’s a regular thing.”

  “I guess I might’s well take it,” he said finally, “’cause I just know you’re gonna pester me till my dyin’ day, if I don’t.”

  “That’s a fair assessment,” Rhodes said frankly. “Instead of puttin’ that badge on now, though, I expect we ought to get you some new duds.”

  “I ain’t wastin’ none of my hard-earned specie on some goddamn city clothes.”

  “You don’t have to use your money. Come on.”

  They finished their beers and headed for Burgmeier’s. There Rhodes bought himself several shirts, some long johns, a new pair of boots, bandannas, socks, and pants. They got about the same for Bonner, though the old man grumbled.

  Once that was set up, Rhodes bought all the metallic cartridges he could find for the rifle and two shotguns in the weapons rack. He considered buying two new pistols, ones that used metallic cartridges, but he decided against it. He was familiar with his Whitneys, and the availability of metallic cartridges was not assured.

  Rhodes made arrangements to have everything delivered to either of the houses or the office. Then he told Bonner to hit the tonsorial parlor for a shave and a bath, if nothing else.

  “Goddamn, boy,” Bonner grumbled. “I ain’t had a bath in a coon’s age. I don’t see why I ought to have one now.”

  “Just do it, or I’ll drag your ass over there myself and hold you in the water.”

  While Bonner was taking care of his ablutions, Rhodes wandered back to the office and began putting supplies away. He started a fire in the stove as much to ward off the chill as to make a pot of coffee.

  Eventually, Bonner came by, growling and snapping. He looked like a new man.

  “Hell,” Rhodes said with a small laugh, “you don’t look half as old as you really are. Lookin’ like that, you might even be able to romance some sweet young thing.” Even as he said it, he knew he shouldn’t have. All it did was remind him of Hallie. He shook himself out of the doldrums.

  “You gonna get any more deputies, boy?” Bonner asked. “With just the two of us, we’re gonna be hard pressed.”

  “Yeah, I’ve thought of that. But I ain’t sure who.”

  “Didn’t Pritchard have any deputies?”

  “I asked about that and was told that he had several for a while. One got killed over in Dockery’s saloon. Another had the shit beat out of him one night. He quit, and one of the others soon followed. The only one left quit last night, as soon as he heard Pritchard had been killed.” He sighed. “I’m allowed to have three deputies, but I don’t know anybody but you, Erastus, Phineas, Hallie’s old man, and her brother.” Damn, he thought, everything I do or say brings her back to mind.

  “Erastus is probably too old, though he ain’t near as old as I am,” Bonner said. “He just ain’t as spry.”

  “That’s true. You’ve been more active than I suspect he has.” He paused. “What about Phineas?” Bonner shrugged. “He’s young enough, but I don’t think he’s got the balls for it.”

  “I’d thought the same.” He sighed. “You know anybody? Hell, you’ve met most of the town already.”

  “Met a lot of folks, but I can’t say as I know any of ’em. Not well enough, anyway, to put my trust in ’em.”

  “Well, I expect it’s just going to be me and you for a spell. Maybe with winter comin’ things’ll quiet down.” He didn’t really believe that, though.

  They went about their job with a minimum of fuss. There was always something for them to be doing. With a city the size of Intolerance and a population of rough-and-tumble miners, vagabonds, travelers, gold seekers, and outlaws, they were kept busy enough.

  For the first week or so, Rhodes tried to be everywhere at once. Bonner finally set him down and said, “You can’t do it all by yourself, boy. Now, listen, I know you’re still sweet on that St. John girl and want to show her you’re good at your job—and sock away some money for later—but you’re gonna run your ass ragged.”

  Rhodes, bleary-eyed from lack of sleep, nodded. “Good, now go on home and get some sleep.” After that, both Rhodes and Bonner were a lot more judicious with what they bothered people about. They were wary around drunks, because one never knew what one of them might do. And they made a concerted effort to keep people from hurrahing the town with gunfire. For minor infractions, a
fine of a dollar or so was enough, or maybe letting a friendly drunk sleep it off in a cell.

  It soon got to a point where the town was fairly docile, or as much as could be expected. Those who had seen the gun battle between their lawmen and the four robbers had passed the word on to others, usually embellished a bit more with each retelling. Most of the men in town quickly concluded that Marshal Rhodes and Deputy Bonner were hard men, and ones not to be trifled with.

  The two lawmen made friends among the townsmen and merchants, but found no one they could be able to trust to be another deputy. Andy St. John had pleaded several times with Rhodes to allow him to be a deputy. He always slipped away from home and headed to the office—Rhodes had not seen Hallie since the day he was named marshal.

  “You’re too young, boy,” Rhodes said each time Andy pleaded.

  “I’m as old as you were when you went off to the war,” Andy said in response every time.

  Rhodes would always growl at him. “War ain’t some kind of game, boy. It’s dirty and hard and nasty.” He felt inadequate to describe the horrors he had seen.

  Andy would go away depressed each time, but a day or so later would be back to try again. Each time Andy popped into the office, Rhodes would ask after Hallie. The youth’s answer was always the same: “She ain’t mentioned you, Marshal. But I figure she’s thinkin’ on ya at times.”

  Rhodes would always ask, too, if Hallie was being bothered by anyone. The response was always in the negative, except once.

  “Ham’s been by the house a couple times. He ain’t come to the door or nothin’; just rides back and forth, like he’s waitin’ for Hallie to come out or somethin’.”

  Rhodes nodded, face tight with anger. He had no opportunity to go looking for Hamilton Macmillan that day, and early the next morning, Hallie showed up at the office.

  “Can I talk with you, Travis?” she asked quietly.

  Heart pounding, he nodded and indicated she should sit. He did, too.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  “I’d like to make a complaint against someone, Marshal,” Hallie said meekly.