Rancher's Law

by Dusty Richards

  “I work for the territorial governor of Arizona, John Sterling. I am in need of a man to hire as special undercover agent who is unknown in that region.”

  “I have some good men. I’ll put out the word.”

  “No.” The major reached out. The man didn’t understand. He hadn’t come over a thousand miles to let the whole damn world know his purpose. “I can’t afford for this to leave this room. It might jeopardize the man’s life. There are rumbles clear to the White House over this case. Do you understand?”

  “Oh, I understand. Sounds like a serious matter.”

  “That’s why I came by myself instead of wiring you. The man I need must be above reproach and he needs to be a cowboy.”

  Williams sat back in his chair and shook his head in dismay. “You’re sure asking for a lot.”

  “You have any deputies like that I could speak to?”

  “A few.”

  “Which one would be the best one?”

  “Nate McMillan.”

  “Who’s he?”

  “Served in the Confederate army, sergeant’s rank. Has a wife and three—”

  “Won’t work,” the major interrupted him. “He won’t want to go out there and be away from his family.”

  “Guess you’re right. I’ll have to think on it some more.” Williams shook his head, as if he could not recall any other possibility.

  “Fine, I am at the Diamond Hotel.” The major rose and handed the man his card. “If you get the name of a possible candidate, let me know.”

  Strange that this Texan whom the dove spoke about, Luther Haskell, didn’t come up in Williams’s conversation. Was there something about Haskell he should know about? Maybe he wasn’t the man he needed. The notion niggled him as he prepared to leave Williams’s office.

  “I’ve got lots of men working for me. I’ll go over the roster and see if there’s one fits your needs.” Williams stood, and stretched his back. “If there isn’t one here, where will you go next?”

  “Fort Worth.”

  “Plenty of cowboys around there.”

  The major agreed and left the chief marshal. Outside, he joined Dan at the base of the stairs. “Where’s that whorehouse?”

  “My, my, Mr. Major, you sure didn’t have much business in there.”

  “No help in there.” He glared at the column of smoke coming from a paddleboat’s stack chugging upstream. The notion struck him that he needed to be careful in this town. Some rebel or bushwhacker from the war days might recognize him and still hold a grudge.

  “I bets they done got someone up at that place what can sure help you.” Dan chuckled to himself and slapped the knees of his wash-worn trousers. “Yes, suh, I bets they sure do.”

  “Maybe,” he said, letting a small grin play in the corner of his mouth.

  They walked the four blocks and Dan pointed to the front door of the two-story house. Half a dozen steps led to a wide porch. The sun died in the west, spreading blood-red over the rippled water of the wide Arkansas. A fishy smell hung in the air. The major could hear a tinny piano inside when he reached the door to knock.

  “Good evening, sir, and welcome. Come inside. Our rules are no guns, no knifes allowed. Check them here in the hall, then you may go in the parlor,” the buxom woman in a green silk dress said. She waited while he unstrapped his holster and wrapped the gun belt around the .45. “I’m Miss Molly.”

  “Gerald Bowen.”

  “Fort Smith?” she asked over her shoulder.

  “No, Preskitt, Arizona.”

  She turned back to blink at him. “You are a long way from home, sir. Anything in particular that you have in mind?” She waved to an assortment of girls sitting on the couches with smiles for him. Most were dressed in very little clothing and looked to be teenagers.

  “I need to speak to Tillie McQuire.”

  “Oh. Why, she’s upstairs resting, but you may go up and knock on her door.”

  “Which room?” he asked with his nose full of her potent perfume.

  “The last one on the left. Down the hallway.”

  “Thanks,” he said, and started for the staircase.

  “You do know your left?” she asked.

  He raised that hand and nodded to her with a grin. The woman’s words drew a snicker from the parlor girls. He ignored it and climbed the worn steps. At the end of the hallway, he stopped at the open door on the left.

  A young woman lounged on the bed wearing something like a black mosquito netting. One exposed white leg cocked up. The other draped over the side. She fanned herself with a funeral-home issue on a stick.

  “Excuse me,” he said. “You Tillie McQuire?”

  “Yes,” she said, batting her eyelashes at him between swishes of the fan.

  “Lily Corona said that you could help me.”

  “Lily? Why, she’s way out west.” She dropped her leg, sat up, and placed them together, which only made it worse because he could see everything through the net material.

  “Yes. She said you could introduce me to Luther Haskell.”

  “You have business with Luther?”

  “I need to talk to him.” He lowered his voice. “Privately.”

  “He’s supposed to be coming in the next few days,” she said, fussing with the filmy material, smoothing it out over her shapely legs.

  “He’s not here now?”

  “In Fort Smith? Oh, no. He’s gone to the Kiamish Mountains to serve some warrants.” She gathered her long brown hair in both hands and twisted it over her shoulder. “But he will be here by Friday. He promised to take me to supper then.”

  “Guess he won’t disappoint a pretty girl like you?”

  She wet her lips and smiled at him. “You’re very nice.” With an intent glare, she looked him up and down. “You aren’t going to hurt him, are you?”

  “No, ma’am, I have a business offer to discuss with him. I understand he knows about cattle.”

  “You don’t look like the treacherous kind, anyway.” She wrinkled her thin nose to dismiss that. “Oh, yes, he was raised on a ranch, drove lots of them to Kansas.”

  “My name is on this card. I am staying at the Diamond Hotel. Ask him to contact me.”

  She took it and shook her head back to loosen her hair. Then she looked up at him and licked her lips again with the tip of her tongue. “Now, what else can I do for you?”

  “Nothing. This is for you.” He handed her a five-dollar gold piece. “You tell Luther Haskell that I want to talk to him.”

  “My, my, for this I could sure …” She closed one eye seductively. “Let’s say, entertain you.”

  “Not tonight.”

  “I know,” she said, sounding disappointed. “He needs to see you at the hotel.”

  “Thank you. Is there a back way out of here?” he asked.

  “Yes, I’ll let you out the back stairs.”

  “Thanks,” he said to her again.

  Grateful to at last be out in the still night air, he started down the long flight. Over in the dark inky river, a boat pilot blew a sharp horn. He waved good-bye to Tillie and bounded down the steps. The alley stunk of rotten garbage. He soon made his way to the street and found Dan.

  “You leave without paying them girls?” Dan asked, frowning at his appearance coming from the other direction.

  The major laughed, then clapped the man on the shoulder. “Where can a black and a white man have a drink together?”

  “Blue Aces be the place. You must have sure had a good meeting in there?”

  “I did, Dan.”

  “Well, where we going next, it ain’t much of a place—what’s wrong?” Dan asked when the major stopped, swept his coat aside, and shook his head. “I need to go back and recover my pistol.”

  “Oh, you gots in such a hurry, you left it?” Dan laughed some more.

  “Something like that.”

  At last with his hardware retrieved and strapped under his coat, they hurried along the river front to a dive called the B
lue Aces. Dan warned him that the crowd might get a little rowdy, but he would’t let them shanghai him. The major found that amusing, but didn’t doubt it happened in the dimly lit barroom. The floor was hard-packed dirt. At the bar, they enjoyed some halfway cool beer in a tunnel of smoke.

  On a small stage under flickering candlelight, a black banjo picker played fast riverboat tunes on the strings and sang some of them. A mulatto teenager in a short red dress pranced and twirled around the musician showing her skin and most of her private areas to the roaring crowd.

  Considering his presence in this rather obscene setting, the major wanted to laugh aloud. Mary would never believe him that such a place as this existed. The fact it was only a block or so away from the organized business district and that such a seedy dive could even operate there amused him.

  “Hoy, Dan,” a big bearded white man said, and pumped Dan’s hand. From under a flat-brimmed wool cap, his greasy, curly locks hung in his brows. He looked intently at Dan as they shook.

  “Meet the major here, Scotty,” Dan said.

  “I be proud to make the acquaintance, mate.” The big man’s paw felt firm and strong enough to break necks if needed. “Infantry or horse soldier?” he asked.

  “Horse.”

  “Horse, huh? Ah, you ever knew the likes of Georgie Armstrong Custer back then?”

  “A time or two. Our paths crossed.”

  “Ah, may gawd rest his soul good, laddie. At Fort Lincoln, he put me arse in the guardhouse and went off to the war against the bloody Sioux without me. It was a bloody damned shame for me, huh?”

  The major toasted him with his pewter mug. “He might have won that battle of Little Big Horn with the likes of you along.”

  “Hoy, Dan.” The Scotsman indicated the major. “He’s a helluva great chap for an officer. Where ya been ah-hiding him?”

  “Just found him today.” Dan beamed a big toothy smile.

  “Hey, Major, where else ya been?”

  “With George Crook in Arizona.”

  “Aye, I seen him, too, once in Montana. Don’t like to wear uniforms, does he?”

  “No, he doesn’t. Rides mules, too.”

  “Ah, yeah. See you two. I got to be running away. Got me a little sweet thing from Shack Town waiting for me outside. You boys be good.”

  “Tomorrow,” the major began, “rent us a rig. Fifteen years ago, at the end of the war, I was in Van Buren. I want to see it again.”

  “Yes, suh, Major. I will show you this whole country if’n you got’s the time.”

  He didn’t want to tell Dan that he was only waiting to talk to one man: Luther Haskell. No need to act anyway but interested in looking around. Williams had not acted too eager about giving up any of his men to him. If he failed to find a suitable marshal here, he’d have to go to Texas to get one.

  “Say, you seen that head marshal? Tomorrow we can go by and speak to the best black lawman there is over at Van Buren. If him be home. He’s really a big lawman for him being a black.”

  “What’s his name?”

  “Bass Reeves.”

  “He’s the best?”

  “For a black man, he sure be.”

  “I’d like to meet this Reeves.” He might know someone.

  The major ordered another round of beer for them. He rather enjoyed Dan’s company, and relaxed for the first time since he left Arizona. Sitting in a room full of thugs, pimps, whores, and even stranger individuals, he still felt safe enough with Dan and the Colt under his coat.

  In the golden sunlight flooding Garrison Avenue, Dan pulled up the buggy before the Cotton Cafe. The major noticed his arrival, while still eating his breakfast and enjoying a rich cup of coffee. He sent the waiter out to tell Dan to go around back and get his food.

  After breakfast, they drove out of Fort Smith, through the farms to the free ferry and crossed the river to Van Buren. The major could see from the landing how much the town had grown since his post-war days in the village. Before they went to Van Buren, Dan planned for them first to drive down in the bottoms to this black lawman’s place. Mid-morning, they reached Reeves’s neat farm.

  The major watched the big man rein up his team of sweating mules, tie off the reins, lay down his double shovel, and come striding over to Dan. His shoulders were wider than most lumberjacks’ and he had arms that looked like hams on draft horses. The man’s even white teeth sparkled against his clean-shaven jaw.

  “Dan, what brings you out here?”

  “The major here, Bass. He wants to meet you.” Dan wrapped the reins and jumped down to let the major off.

  “Major Bowen. Nice to meet you, Marshal Reeves.” He shook the man’s huge callused hand. It felt like the black could crush an arm or leg in his powerful grip. The skin of Reeves’s palm felt tougher than rawhide from an old bull’s hide.

  “My pleasure. How can I’s help you?”

  “I need to hire a marshal to do some work for my agency. He needs to know cattle and ranching.”

  “That be Luther Haskell.”

  “Someone else came up with that name.” The major considered the man’s quick reply. He wanted to ask why Chief Marshal Williams hadn’t thought of Haskell. Did he not know his own men that well?

  “They done gave you the best name.” The big man crossed his massive muscular arms over the faded blue shirt and galluses.

  “Why didn’t the chief marshal mention him when I asked?”

  “Well, that be simple, Major, suh. Some of them boys kinda crowds closer to the chief. That Haskell, he ain’t no bootlicker, Major, suh.”

  “I need a tough man, not a bootlicker.”

  “That’s Haskell. He be plenty tough. I served some warrants with him, down among them black Seminoles, ‘cause I could tell them apart.” A wide grin crossed his dark shiny face. “Luther’s plenty tough. Saved us getting killed when he jerked up the leader of this gang and says to him, ’You got two choices: Tell them throw down their guns, or they better have them some good clothes to wear to your funeral.’” Reeves shook his head and laughed aloud. “Them boys never had no dress clothes, I guess, ’cause they shucked them guns like dry peas in a sheller.”

  “Thanks,” the major said with a smile, and shook the man’s hand again. “Sounds like Haskell is the man I’m looking for.”

  “You needs a real one, he sure is.”

  “I do, I do. I would appreciate you not saying a thing about this.”

  “My lips are sealed, suh.”

  “Good. Dan, let’s go see Van Buren. Oh, yes, and many thanks for your help. You still marshaling?” he asked the black lawman.

  “Oh, yeah.” Then with a knowing look, he said, “They finds a little more work for them white marshals. Course, they ever got a two-headed snake, I gets to go after them. Besides, this corn of mine needs laid by.”

  “Good-looking crop.” The major saluted him and got on the buggy.

  Next Dan showed him the bustling river town of Van Buren. From the war shattered village the major recalled from over a decade before, there had been much recovery. In and out of several shops, he looked for some geegaws to take back to Mary. At last he found four crystal salt cellars and had the clerk wrap them well in newspaper for him to carry back. Afterward Dan drove him to the ferry and they arrived back at the hotel close to suppertime.

  “I guess until the man returns, we can sightsee,” the major said.

  “Yes, suh, I be here with this here buggy come morning.”

  In the next few days, the major and Dan visited the communities around Fort Smith. Out in the Indian Nation, the major even happened to meet an ex-noncom who served under him, Jasper Thornton, who came close to tears when he discovered the major’s identity.

  With each passing day, the major grew more restless with his waiting. In his letters to Mary, he mentioned the high humidity in the river valley and how he missed the dry, cool air of Prescott. In his writing, he almost spelled it Preskitt, the way the residents pronounced it. Even the Arkansas nights
were saturated with humidity. Bathing didn’t cool him—he finished each bath sweating worse than before. He looked out the open window of his hotel into the street below. Not a breath of air stirred.

  In the distance he heard what sounded like cannon fire. He listened closer and then saw the flashes on the western horizon. A storm was headed toward Fort Smith. Maybe a good rain would cool things down.

  He mopped his sweaty brow and turned away from the window. Any relief would be nice. Perhaps this trip would all be in vain. Poor Sterling must have walked a hole in his carpet fretting about him and how to handle the Christopher Basin lynching.

  Where was this Luther Haskell?

  4

  The distant peal of thunder drew a hunch in Luther’s shoulders as he drove the team. Already he wore his canvas duster against the threat of a downpour. He dreaded the icy cold of raindrops penetrating it, along with the grave diggers that danced across the entire western sky. Those electrifying bolts from the devil had claimed some good cowboys, friends of his, on cattle drives to Kansas.

  He reined up the team at the top of the bank. A slow grin crossed his face as he rubbed the itchy beard stubble around his mouth with the back of his hand. There before him across the inky Arkansas River sat the queen city of Fort Smith. Ben raised up from the floor, put his paws on the dash, and sneezed at the sight of it.

  From his position, Luther made out the lantern lights on the ferry and heard the putt-putt of its steam engine coming across the channel to the west bank landing. No one else waited on his side. He turned and looked back at the zigzag pattern of lightning in the western wall. No way he could get across that river and to the federal courthouse before the sky opened up. His luck wasn’t that good.

  “We’re going to get our butts wet,” he said to the dog.

  With each sudden cool gust, the smell of rain grew stronger than the fishy odors of the Arkansas. He checked his eight chained prisoners seated in the wagon bed, and satisfied they were all there, he clucked to the team. Then using one hand on the brake handle to control his descent, he started down the slope to the place where the ferry would soon rest. One of his wards in back had a coughing spell as the wagon rumbled over the layer of logs.