Rancher's Law

by Dusty Richards

  “I’m going to be a spy,” he said with an edge of impatience.

  “Oh. Isn’t that dangerous?”

  “All law work’s got its share of danger to it. The secret is not letting them figure out who you are.” He shrugged his shoulders under the galluses crossed behind his back.

  “What are you spying on?”

  “I really can’t say.”

  “You are leaving me …” She fought back the knot in her throat. “And it’s so damn secret you can’t say a thing?”

  He turned on his heels and looked at her with a newfound hardness in his silver eyes. They were more like steel than blue. She felt them like daggers stabbing her aching heart. She wet her lips and clutched the chenille robe tighter around her body.

  “Tillie, we once promised to be honest with each other. You have your job.” He held out his hands and spread his fingers as if in surrender. “I have mine. You didn’t want to give this up and become my wife.”

  She agreed to his statement about marriage with a nod. The deep-rooted sentiment she felt at losing him could not overcome her fear of being a scrubwoman on her knees. That was being a wife to her. No. She would take her chances on her back in this bed. Housewife. Slave. No. Never. She closed her eyes to the idea of him leaving her and tears ran down her face.

  “I’ve offered to find a preacher.”

  “You did, b-but I never counted on losing you!”

  “I told the major I would take this job.” He closed his eyes and shook his head. “What do you expect of me next?”

  “It must pay well?”

  “Yes. There’s a good salary. We could live well on it.”

  “Get out!” she screamed, unable to control her remorse a moment longer. “Go be a spy—I don’t know what …” She pointed to the door and stomped her foot. “Get away from me!”

  “Tillie?”

  “Don’t Tillie me!” In a rush, she grabbed all his things, handed them to him, then shoved him out the room and slammed the door in his face. She braced her shoulder against it to hold it shut, in case he even tried to reenter it. Tears streamed down her face. There were no sounds beyond the thin door. She pressed her ear to it—hoping he would come back. Beg. Plead with her. Relent his plans to go out there. Nothing. Then her knees buckled and she crumpled to the floor.

  The one man in her life who never lied. Who had even offered her respectability and she had rejected it. She’d sent him away and he’d left her life … forever. Why had she told him no?

  She knew the answer was in the bitter memories of her mother’s dreary life, and her own growing up. Bitterly she recalled how her mother slaved over wood fires, beat clothes clean with rocks, carried crying babies on her hip, and did without food, dry shelter, and adequate clothes. Did without those things that Tilie’s profession provided. Sure, she and her sisters in this house of sin were an abomination in the eyes of society, but where were those church sisters when all that she had to eat were her own tears?

  In the depth of her self-pity she paused and heard her own wails that sounded like a pack of wolves over the ridge. Her body felt far removed from her mind. She knew her soul must be riding on a cloud, the one she rode as a girl to escape the brutal lashes of a peach branch that her father delivered at the slightest notion.

  “I’m a going to drive the devil out you, Tillie May,” he would say, then roughly bent her over his knee. Those words stung her as hard as the lashes did on her bare legs. Her mother’s protests were far away and ignored. Afterward, her mother got a severe whipping as well for interfering.

  An empty belly and shivering cold was how she recalled her life growing up in Ohio and Kentucky. If her father ever grew a good crop, she couldn’t recall it. They had hail, grasshoppers, tornados, floods. She saw more of their summer-long efforts washed away than she could ever recall harvesting.

  Moving, always moving to some better place that was usually a sorrier one than the last. Rats wouldn’t have lived in some of those hovels. A crippled mule to farm with, they never had anything worthwhile in her entire life. Never had a single thing anyone would want to steal. She and her mother worked all day making firewood and having to sell it for pennies to buy food and not having fuel of their own to cook with or for heat.

  She found a kerchief in her robe pocket and blew her nose, loud enough to bring her back to reality, and to the fact she was upstairs in Molly Mather’s Cathouse, sitting on the floor. Someone was knocking on her door above her head.

  “Yes?” She waited. Hoping, expecting, to hear his deep reply.

  “It’s me, Bonny. Are you all right?”

  “He’s gone?” Tillie asked.

  “Ain’t no one out here but me. Can I come in? You sound upset, Tillie.”

  “I’ll be fine, Bonny. But, Bonny?”

  “Yes?”

  “Thank you.”

  “I’s just concerned about you.”

  “I know. Thank you,” Tillie said, unable to face anyone over her losses. For certain she couldn’t talk about it to another whore and not cry some more.

  She gathered herself up and threw herself across the bed. How could she bury herself in it? Deep enough, be far enough away, she would never think of that hard-bellied cowboy ever again.

  A knock on the door awoke her. It was dark outside, she sat on the bed. How long had she slept? Dull minded, she pushed the loose hair from her face.

  “Yes?”

  “It’s me, Molly. I have a man out here.”

  She went to the door and cracked it. In the flickering hall light she could see his bald head. The banker, Arthur Coyle. She wet her lips and cleared her throat.

  “Why, Arthur, how nice of you to come by and see me,” she said.

  Looking uncomfortable standing at Molly’s side, he forced a smile on his round shiny face. Tillie strode out in grand style, took him by the arm, and led him back into her room with a nod to her boss that she would care for the little man.

  “How have you been?” she asked him, closing the door.

  “Oh, except for the complaint in my leg, fine.” He stood looking around.

  “Well, little Arthur, let Tillie look at that sore leg.” She began to remove his coat.

  “Yes, yes,” he said gleefully, allowing her to undress him like a child.

  Tillie drew a deep breath up her slender nose. He smelled of talc and barber’s aftershave. After he left her, she knew he would go and take another bath. No doubt so that his dowdy wife could not scent out his transgressions. Poor Arthur. He needed a mother and a mistress, a role that, according to him, his wife avoided like the plague.

  “I was so afraid you would be busy,” he said in his littleboy voice.

  “No. Never for you,” she cooed, unbuttoning his shirt.

  Grateful for the distraction of this customer, she looked with longing over Arthur’s bald head at the starlit windowpane. Wherever you are Luther Haskell, I hope you’re happy.

  7

  “Any word from the sheriff?” The major stood before the governor’s empty desk and lit a cigar. Fresh upon his return from Fort Smith, he felt anxious for any news of the latest events in Christopher Basin.

  Sterling paced the Oriental rug, hands behind his back looking glum. “No. I spoke to Sheriff Rupp two days ago. His men have not had any success at all. The entire community has closed ranks on these killers according to him.”

  “I hired a man to go in.”

  “I guess knowing his name is not important,” Sterling said, pausing and looking hard at him.

  “Luther Haskell. He’s Texas enough to go in up there. Tough man, but I need a cover for him as a cattle buyer.”

  Sterling frowned.

  “Don’t you have an acquaintance in that business, who we can trust enough to confide in? Let them send Haskell in there as a buyer.”

  “Gerald! I can’t think of a soul who does that.”

  “Then I’m headed out again in the morning. Perhaps some of my connections with the railroad can h
elp me find one.”

  Sterling looked vexed. “How will you do this?”

  “I’ll find someone I can trust to help me make a cover for Haskell.”

  “But how?”

  “I’ll find a way. Trust me, I only thought—”

  “What?”

  “That we—you, as governor, had friends in this territory who would help us.”

  Sterling asked, “What if you can’t find anyone?”

  “Sterling, stop worrying. I’ll find an ally I can trust. Quit fretting so.”

  “Gerald, there are times I would submit my resignation to this job just like that.” He snapped his fingers.

  With a weary shake of his head, the major waved off his threat. “We still have lots of work to do here.”

  Sterling squeezed his beard and pulled on it. “It’s a task that requires too much at times. Please politicians, Washington. I think this Dikes boy’s parents are coming out here, too.”

  “Oh, they’ll do lots of good.”

  “Doing what? Raising hell with me and the sheriff, I suppose?”

  “I’m going to find Haskell a cover in the morning. Excuse me, I need to see my wife and catch up on some chores for her.”

  “Give Mary my regards. She ever needs anything in your absence, have her call on me.”

  “I shall.” The major stopped and considered the exhausted-looking man. “We’ll solve this matter.”

  “I know you’ll try, but I’m afraid it will continue to fester.” Sterling sighed. “Eastern newspapers have ahold of the issue. They’re saying we’re a lawless hellhole out here.”

  “That sells newspapers.”

  “Forms public opinion, too.”

  “I guess. I never had to worry about that in the military.”

  “That’s why you got out,” Sterling said, and laughed.

  The major turned and nodded, pleased at the man’s amusement. “It may be so.”

  After he left the mansion, he stopped and arranged for a stage ticket to the railhead. His business completed downtown, he started for his house. Wearily, he strode up the hill, when a voice called to him.

  “Suh?”

  He turned and a black girl in her teens came in long strides waving a piece of paper at him.

  “Missy, she wants to speak to you.”

  “Now?”

  “If you can come.”

  “Of course,” he said, looking around and then falling in beside the girl.

  She hurried up the stairs of the two-story Harrington House and opened wide the front door for him. Inside, she indicated for him to stay in the vestibule, then in a flash of dark legs she wildly took the curved staircase two at a time in search of her boss.

  Ellen Devereau soon appeared on the second-floor landing and handed the girl her hairbrush. Dressed in a blue gown that exposed a great deal of skin and cleavage, she came down the stairs smiling. The major removed his Stetson.

  “Why, Major, you have not been in Preskitt or even visible for some time. So good to see you again.”

  “Thanks,” he said, rotating his hat by the brim in his fingers. “What can I do for you?”

  “Let’s go in there.” She indicated the room off the vestibule, and once inside, closed the door behind them. “Have a chair. How about a drink of something?”

  “No. I have things to do. Not to be in a rush, but what can I do for you?”

  “Well … .” She drew a deep breath, motioning for him to be seated. “I wanted to know how I could repay you for saving me from that scoundrel Waddle who held me hostage.”

  “It was the sheriff and U.S. deputy marshal did that.” He recalled the recent arrest of the counterfeiter and murderer Waddle who had moved in and taken over her operations. She had sought the major’s assistance in Waddle’s removal and arrest. It was over the resolution of that matter that they agreed to cooperate in the future.

  “You are much too modest, Major.” She shook her head to dismiss his words. “I know who arranged it all so discreetly.”

  “There is one thing.” He leaned back in the chair. “This lynching over in Christopher Basin has many people upset. There don’t seem to be any answers to who did it.”

  “I’ll listen, but …” She paused and then lowered her voice. “Perhaps you should poke around the territorial prison.”

  “You know something going on down there at Yuma?” He frowned at her. What next? That would upset Sterling’s entire day if he knew things weren’t going satisfactorily in the construction of the new territorial prison at Yuma.

  “A girl hears things.” She raised thin eyebrows at him.

  “Yes? Like what?”

  “How things are so high-priced.”

  “Enough said.” He considered the matter. There must be some collusion going on down there. Especially if Ellen Devereau knew about it two hundred fifty miles away in Prescott.

  “I will listen for anything regarding the Christopher Basin matter,” she promised. “In case I learn anything, you will be the first to know.”

  “Thanks, Ellen,” he said, and rose to his feet. What was going on at Yuma? Damn, he needed to secure Haskell a cover before he could do anything else. Oh, well, Yuma could wait until his return.

  At his house, Mary gave him a hard look when he mentioned he must pack. “You are leaving again?”

  “A few days this time is all,” he promised.

  “I hardly have your clothes washed and pressed from the last trip.”

  His arm circled her shoulder and they walked outside to inspect her flowers. The red, white, yellow, and blue colors spilled over the fences and yard like a giant painting.

  “You have a green thumb, Mary.”

  “My flowers don’t leave me except in the fall,” she reminded him.

  “Perhaps someday we can move down to Hayden’s Mill and that new town called Phoenix. They say down there that flowers bloom year round.”

  “Summers, they say, are much hotter than Preskitt, too,” she reminded him.

  “Much hotter.”

  “I’ll stay here. Now I must iron some more so you don’t look neglected. Where will you go this time?”

  “Winslow. It appears to be the headquarters for the railroad and shipping.”

  “How long will you be gone?” she asked from the doorway.

  “A week, I suspect.”

  His attention focused more on Ellen Devereau’s information regarding someone overcharging at the new prison construction than being at his own house. Oh, well. He’d tend to that later. He looked across Prescott at Thumb Butte, a particular landmark of bare rock that stood up like its namesake. Lots to do. At the moment, worst of all, he needed a good cover for Haskell.

  A day later, he sat in the office of the Kansas Pacific Railroad Division chief and smiled at his former military cohort. The man behind the superintendent’s desk, Floyd Grimes, retired colonel, looked a little grayer around the edges and thicker set in his swivel chair.

  “Damn, Gerald, you’re working. This marshal business is what the territory needs. Why, there’s more known criminals in this region than you can count. My personal railroad police are constantly arresting them.”

  “I have a particular problem. I need a man to go into Christopher Basin undercover and try to learn who lynched those three men. Actually, I have the man, I just need a cover for him.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I want him to go in there as a cattle buyer. I suspect the ones most anxious to rid the basin of so-called rustlers were ranchers, so I want to send him in as their ally.”

  “So?” Grimes leaned back and tented his fingers, tapping the tips together, engrossed in his thoughts. “This person can’t be someone who talks either?”

  “Correct.”

  “I have the man for you.” Grimes rose from his chair.

  “He’ll need a buyer?”

  “Yes, I think so, and we can trust him.”

  Half an hour later they entered the office of the Kansas City, Chi
cago, and Ashland Livestock Company. A young man ushered them back to the large office. Behind the cluttered desk, a man with snowy eyebrows and mustache nodded.

  “Bill Allen. This is a former army buddy of mine, Gerald Bowen,” Grimes introduced them.

  “Pleased to meet you, Bowen. Have a seat.”

  “Bowen needs your help and he don’t need it all over town,” Grimes explained.

  “Fair enough.”

  Allen listened to his explanation, nodding and making notes. Then when the major finished his pitch for him to hire Haskell, Bowen added one thing.

  “Luther is a former deputy U.S. marshal at Fort Smith, but he comes from Texas. He’s put cattle together for several herds and taken them north.” The major waited for the man’s reply.

  “He should fit in with them rebs down there just fine.” Allen chuckled. “If you say he’s all right, I’ll sure try him. Why not? You’re paying his wages.”

  The major felt a great burden lifted from his shoulders. “All this must be kept very quiet. Not a word to anyone.”

  “Won’t leave my office.” Grimes rapped his knuckle on the desk. “I wish you good luck with your organization, Bowen. If Arizona is ever to join the nation and become a state, we’ll have to end our violent vigilante ways.”

  The major agreed, grateful his plan worked so smoothly this far. If the Yuma one went this well, he’d be pleased. He dreaded telling his wife about that trip. Hotter than hell itself, they said of the place.

  “When’s your man due in here?” Allen asked.

  “As soon as I inform him to come here.” The major considered his words. Luther Haskell might be riding into a certain hell, too. At least he had the man a legitimate cover; the rest depended on the Texan’s skills to ferret out the truth.

  “I’ll send Haskell instructions to come see you and you can point him to the basin.”

  “This all might work out very well,” Allen said, and nodded his head as if extremely satified. “A woman who claims to be a sister to one of those men hung has given me the authority to gather his stock and pay her the proceeds. Can Haskell handle that?”

  “I’m sure he can.”

  8

  “Boys, we may be fixing to get new neighbors np here,” Matt told the others in the back room of the Texas. He searched around the table at the grim faces of the three ranchers.