-16-
Red listened to his words, and was sympathetic to his plight.
After all, he was simply a man trying his hardest to do his job. Trying to administer justice the way the State of Texas wanted to administer it.
Wanted to protect the citizens of Blanco from all the ways Savage had been abusing them for years.
She sympathized with him.
But that didn’t mean she’d give into him.
She crossed her arms and took a defiant stance.
“What do you want me to do, exactly?”
“I want you to be honest with me. Tell me exactly what happened to your family and why you think Savage was behind it. If you have any evidence, I want to see it. If you have any witnesses I want to know who they are, and I want to talk to them without you present.
“Same thing for your father’s death.
“I’ve been told that you suspect he was poisoned. I want to know why you think that. If you know the type of poison that was used, I want you to share that with me.”
Red suddenly grew enraged.
“Who in hell told you that?”
“Red, please… please let me finish. It was somebody who cares for you deeply. Deeply enough to want you to stop this vigilante mission you’re on before they lose you.
“I want you to tell me who else was involved. I don’t picture Savage as the type of man who’d go out and dynamite a house. I don’t see him getting close enough to your father to poison him.
“If Savage was responsible for the deaths of your family and your father, he had accomplices. I want to know who they were.
“Lastly, the man you went to Lubbock to see. The one you say you killed.
“I will take you at your word you killed him in self-defense. Proving otherwise without a body or any other evidence would be impossible to do. Therefore I have no choice but to take your word.
“Having said that, though, I want to know how he was involved. What his role was. Why you felt the need to go all the way to Lubbock to track him down.
“In other words, I want to know everything you know. I want you to tell me everything.”
She snarled rather sarcastically, “Is that all?”
He smiled broadly and answered, “Isn’t that enough?”
There was something about his smile that made her soften a bit. She couldn’t be mad at this man, although they were very much at odds.
He was, after all, just a man trying his best to do his job.
She smiled.
Slightly.
Very slightly.
“What happens if I give you all that information? What do I get out of it? Will you take that scumbag away from here and promise me he’ll be put to death?
“Because make no mistake about it. That’s the only outcome that’s acceptable to me.”
“Look. I haven’t seen the evidence you have. I have no doubt that you believe he’s a guilty man. You seem like a smart woman, so I assume you’re probably right about his guilt.
“The problem is that I am sworn to enforce the laws of the state. I am held to a higher standard than those who want to impose vigilante justice. The law has rules of evidence which must be met.
“Once I see the evidence you have, I fully expect to find it sufficient to make an arrest. Hopefully it’ll be sufficient to bring a case against him and to convict him.
“But I don’t want to lie to you or to mislead you. Evidence like hearsay and things that are circumstantial might not be enough to do either of those things. Until I see what you have, I cannot promise you he will be convicted. I cannot even promise you I can arrest him. If you show me a bunch of circumstantial evidence, no eye witnesses, just speculation and hunches, I cannot promise you anything.
“And I’ll be honest with you, Red. Even if you have strong evidence, I can’t promise you he’ll be convicted or punished. I’ve seen too many juries which have failed to convict despite strong evidence pointing to guilt. And that was before the world collapsed into chaos. Now it’s even worse.”
“So all you can offer me if I give you everything I’ve got is a maybe?”
“Yes. I’m sorry. But that’s the best I can do.”
“I’m sorry, Ranger. That’s just not good enough.”
-17-
It wasn’t the result the Ranger was looking for.
He dejectedly left Red’s house, then went back when he remembered he had no clue where to find Judge Moore.
He reached up to knock on Red’s door a second time and heard an argument going on inside.
He couldn’t make out the words. And he wouldn’t have tried to eavesdrop anyway, because it wouldn’t have been the honorable thing to do.
But he could tell two women were having a very heated discussion.
He thought he recognized one of the voices as Red’s, but couldn’t be sure.
In any event, the voices went silent immediately when he rapped upon the door.
He waited several seconds before Red opened the door and glared at him, obviously agitated.
“Now what?”
Randy tipped his hat and nodded, as Texas men had done to Texas women since before it was a state. Before it was a country, even.
“I’m sorry, Red. It’s just occurred to me that I don’t have a clue where Judge Moore lives. Can you point me in the right direction?”
Surprisingly, she didn’t bite his head off. It was a reasonable question, and she was trying very hard not to dislike this guy.
“Corner of Tenth Street and Maple Avenue. Southwest corner. If he’s not there he’s probably in courthouse square playing dominos with the other old coots.”
Randy caught himself before he asked how to find Tenth Street and Maple Avenue.
He’d pushed his luck too much already.
He’d find it on his own.
“Thank you, ma’am.”
As he walked away he wondered who Red was arguing with and why.
He couldn’t help but hope it was regarding the information he was seeking from her.
And he also hoped the other woman, whoever she was, would talk some sense into her.
It turned out the judge’s house was easy to find. Walking down Main Street he came to an intersection where it crossed Tenth Street.
He had a fifty-fifty chance, right or left.
He almost went left. But since his luck hadn’t exactly been good lately, he accepted that his first choice was probably wrong.
So he went right instead, and found Maple Avenue with no trouble at all.
It turned out that the good judge was heading out, carrying a box of double-six dominos.
Randy didn’t bother to ask him where he was headed, but offered to walk along with him.
“Sure thing, young fella. But how come you’re afoot? Somebody steal your horse?”
“No sir. He’s cooling his heels and relaxing in Mrs. Montgomery’s stable. I thought it was a good morning for a walk.”
“Indeed it is. So how’s your case coming?”
“That’s what I came to talk to you about. I’ve hit a wall. I pinned my hopes on finding Savage’s prints on the victims’ handguns, but struck out.”
“What’s your gut tell you, son?”
“My gut tells me he’s guilty of double murder. That he surprised them and managed to shoot them both, then staged the scene to look like it was self defense.”
“Are you a betting man, Randy?”
“No sir, I’m not. Why?”
“I am. And I’d bet my life you’re absolutely correct. But…”
“But I can’t convict him, or even continue to hold him, on what my gut tells me.”
“Precisely.”
“It’s just that… well, it pains me to let him go, judge. Especially when I feel so strongly he’s guilty.”
“Let me guess. You’re not as concerned about his health and well-being as you are about Red’s.”
“No. Not really. I mean, I took an oath to protect all Texans to the be
st of my ability.
“That includes men like Savage. Men you wouldn’t think were deserving of such protection. But it’s my job to protect them as well.”
“But…”
“But you’re right. I’m equally concerned for Red. Because if she carries out her plan to kill him I’ll have to come after her as well. And I wouldn’t feel good about having to take her in.”
“Why?”
“Because I feel she’s paid a heavy enough price already. She’s lost everyone she loves. And everyone who loves her.”
-18-
Judge Moore smiled.
“Don’t kid yourself, son. Red Poston is one of the most loved people in Blanco.
“And don’t presume to know her motives either. I think you’re right in that most of what drives her is vengeance. And that’s justified, for she did indeed lose some very special people.
“But it goes beyond that.
“I’ve known Red since she was a little girl. She used to walk over to my place after supper every night and play checkers with me on my front porch. We’d talk about everything.
“Now that Butch is gone, I know her probably better than anyone except maybe Lilly. I know what makes her tick. And what drives her.
“It’s more than her family being killed. Red has always, since she was a little girl, protected people against bullies. It’s just her way.
“When the old police chief died… the real one, I think Red would have applied for the position. She’d always felt the old chief could have tried harder to find something on Savage to loosen his hold on the town.
“Savage didn’t give her that chance. When she was away he coerced the city council to appoint him as police chief.
“It was mostly because he wanted to quash an investigation into her family’s murders.
“But also it was because he wanted to head off her efforts to clean up the town.
“And by clean up the town I mean do something about his shady business practices.
“Part of what drives Red is that she feels she let Blanco down. I know it’s silly, but she’s angry with herself for not being in town to lobby for the police chief’s position. She feels that if she had she would be in a much better position to keep Savage in check; to hold him accountable for the way he’s been stealing from his customers.
“So she sees no other alternative but to get rid of him altogether. Before he had Russell, Rusty and Butch murdered she had no real excuse to kill him. He’d done the town dirty for a very long time. But he never killed anybody.
“Now he has. You might not be able to prove it, but Red has seen enough proof to convince her in her own mind. And that’s good enough for Red.
“Rumor has it that Sloan and Luna both implicated Savage as the money man behind the operation. Rumor also has it that Savage admitted it to several other people and it got back to Red. Red will, in my opinion, kill him. But she’ll do it in a fair way.”
“What do you mean, a fair way?”
“She certainly won’t sneak up on him and shoot him unawares, like Savage apparently did to those two men at the bank. She’ll probably give him a weapon and a chance to defend himself. That was the honorable way to kill a man in old Texas. You didn’t shoot a man in the back and you didn’t ambush him. You invited him out into the street. There were forty paces between you, and you both drew.
“Those days are gone forever. But it’s my belief Red will find a way to give him a fighting chance.”
“There’s a major problem with that,” Randy said. “The myth was that only the good guys won gun fights. But they frequently didn’t. Frequently the bad guys won and got the good guys out of the way once and for all. And that gave the criminal element in some old western towns a chance to tighten their grip until someone else came along who was brave enough to challenge them.”
“You see my point exactly, Ranger. And that’s what worries me. Hell, it worries the whole damn town. We all know what’s going to happen. Savage is going to wind up dead. And that’s okay. He deserves it.
“The problem is the way it’s gonna happen. I’ve had conversations with many folks and the whole town’s pretty much agreed. It would be better if Red would abandon her morals just long enough to gun him down like the dog he is.
“Giving him a fair and fighting chance may be the honorable thing to do. But Red could come up on the losing end. And with Red out of the way, there’d be no one else with any guts to challenge him. That’s why I, and most of the rest of the town, believe those two men he shot weren’t just casual acquaintances. We believe they were hit men hired by Savage to kill Red.
“Savage may be a despicable man, but he’s smart too. He realizes that, like they used to say in the old west, this town isn’t big enough for the both of them. In order for him to continue to own this town he has to get rid of Red.
“If she gives him even half the chance to do so, he’ll do it.”
“You really think he could defeat her?”
“He defeated two armed men. Men who presumably were a lot more experienced in gunplay than he was.”
“Speaking of that, judge, I’m releasing the crime scene. Can you get word to your Doctor Munoz he can remove the bodies?”
“I’ll let him know. Are you going to order autopsies?”
“No. They wouldn’t tell me anything I don’t already know. That they were both shot dead with Savage’s weapon.”
“So you’re closing the case?”
“Yes. You and I both know it wasn’t self defense. And you and I both know there’s no evidence to dispute his claims. I have no choice but to let him go.”
“Anything else I can do to help?”
“Yes. Work on Red. Talk some sense into her.”
“And convince her to just gun him down and be done with it?”
“No. Convince her to come clean with what she knows and to let the Rangers handle it.”
While Randy and the judge were discussing the case, Lilly and Beth were trying hard to do just that: to convince Red to share her information with the Rangers and then to step back and let them do their jobs.
They weren’t having any luck.
But they did get one small concession from her.
-19-
It was Lilly’s teary-eyed appeal that finally got to her.
“Red, put yourself in our shoes. Take your blinders off and think of the situation you’d leave us in.”
“What are you talking about? You’ll be better off with Savage gone.”
“Yes! Yes we will. But what you’re missing is that there’s no guarantee you won’t be gone in his place.”
“What does that mean, Lilly?”
“It means that in a fair fight that little fat toadie wouldn’t stand a chance against you. That’s a given and nobody with half a dozen brain cells would dispute it.
“But Savage doesn’t fight fair. He never has. He’ll fight you on his terms. And his terms are about as dirty and uneven as they come.
“Red, you got lucky this time. You got lucky because Savage apparently had some kind of dispute with two men he hired to kill you.”
“You don’t know they were hired to kill me.”
“Oh hell, Red. The whole damn town knows that’s what they were hired for. Why else would Savage meet with them secretly late at night? I kinda don’t think they were customers looking to open up a savings account at that time of night.”
“What’s your point, Lilly?”
“My point is if Savage hadn’t killed them they surely would have killed you. And they wouldn’t have fought you fair the way you want to do it. They would have hidden in the bushes with a rifle and picked you off when you weren’t expecting it.”
“Well, it didn’t happen. So you don’t have to worry about it.”
“No. It didn’t happen. John Savage did you a favor. Perhaps the only favor he’s ever given anybody, when he killed those two.
“But there are a lot of other men out there like those two, or like
Sloan and Luna, who’d be willing to kill you for gold. Heck, there might be other men lurking in the countryside right now, even as we speak. Maybe he’s already contracted with others to shoot you, and that’s why he no longer needed the two he shot.”
Red drew silent, and Lilly got the sense her words were finally sinking in.
“Stop thinking about your vendetta for a minute, Red. For just one minute think of us. The people you’ll leave behind if you go up against Savage and he gets you first.
“Think about how your being killed will affect us. And your other friends around town.
“Meaning?”
“Oh hell, Red. You’re a smart woman. Think about a Blanco where John Savage is still alive and still police chief, and you’re no longer around to make him quiver in his boots.
“There isn’t anyone in town who’s man enough to take him on. Judge Moore will try, but he’s an old man with a bad heart. Jacob and Lester will try, but they’re likely to be the next two on Savage’s hit men’s to-do list.
“Red, with you out of the picture Savage will take the gloves off. He’ll no longer fear your wrath, and he’ll succeed in taking over the whole town. He’ll kick every one of us out of our homes one at a time. And those who own their homes outright will go to bed every night wondering if there’s dynamite beneath their house getting ready to blow them to bits.”
She suddenly realized how her words must have hurt.
“Oh, Red, I’m so sorry. I shouldn’t have mentioned the dynamite.”
Red waved her off.
“It’s okay. Don’t worry about it. As for your concerns, they’re totally unfounded. I’m going to make Savage pay, and I’m going to do it quickly. And I don’t need no help from Austin to do it.”
Lilly broke down and started to cry.
“Debbie, stop being a stubborn butthead!”
Red’s jaw dropped. She was stunned.
Red and Lilly had known each other since they were small girls. They’d had plenty of disagreements over the years.
No Help From Austin: Red: Book 5 Page 6