Mobley's Law, A Mobley Meadows Novel

by Summers, Gerald Lane

  The maid stuck her head out of the kitchen, eyebrows raised as she looked around. “Yes’m.”

  Maggie walked up the stairs to her room and examined herself in the mirror. The spinster outfit would not do. She rummaged through her dresser to find the low cut linen blouse she had purchased the year before in New Orleans. It was white, embroidered with red and pink roses about the bosom, and displayed her breasts in a most revealing manner. She held it up. “This ought to do it. If he’s got any blood in him at all, he’ll be pawing the ground, snortin’ to get in.”

  * * *

  Thoughts of Cinda Sue lingered in Edson’s mind. He’d been attracted to her, but not seriously. She was too young. Eager, yes. But inexperienced. She could have gotten him killed. The way she’d stroked him under the table had been incredible. If he hadn’t been so scared she probably would have finished him right there. The woman had nerve, but no more sense than God gave a soda cracker.

  He understood women willing to risk everything for a few moments of pleasure. He’d been able to resist Cinda Sue, but knew it would happen again—with some other woman—and he would not seek a way out. Women were sacred to him. They deserved to be cared for. It was not sinful to help a lonely, starving female. It was his duty.

  He was not surprised when Maggie Hoolihan knocked once and opened the door. She carried a large bucket of hot water, which she quickly set down. He stood with a towel wrapped about his narrow waist, hairless chest bare. He examined her for a few seconds before she spoke.

  “Well, good lookin’, are you going to make me stand here all night?”

  “No, ma’am, I surely ain’t.” He stood aside to allow her entrance to the room. “These are nice rooms. Did you decorate them yourself?”

  “Yes, indeed. It’s hard to find good help these days.”

  Maggie dragged a bathtub into the room and placed it strategically next to the large double bed. She retrieved the bucket and began pouring steaming water into the tub. Edson watched her closely as she bent over, cleavage turning to bare bosom. She smiled up at him as the last of the water dripped into the tub. “Would you like more?”

  “Yes’m, and some soap, if you have any.” The blouse was an invitation hard to miss. He smiled. “You weren’t wearing that shirt a little bit ago, were you?”

  “No,” she said, as she brushed away another unruly wisp of hair. “I spilled some water on my other blouse. Besides, I thought you might like this one better.”

  “Indeed I do, ma’am. It does wonders for your … personality.”

  She put the bucket down, straightened her dress and adjusted the blouse. Her eyes were aglow. “Call me Maggie, Red. I don’t much care for that ma’am business. Makes me feel old. Right now I don’t want to feel old.” She moved up close, dropped her eyes and lowered her head.

  “Maggie.” He felt her fingers walking up his chest, circling, tickling. He breathed into her lightly scented hair. She looked up at him, lips full and wet. “Tell you what, Maggie. You go get the rest of the water, and then we’ll see if you can find the nice present I’ve brought for you.”

  Looking down at the movement under his towel, she smiled. “I can see where you’ve got something hidden. It’s beginning to peek out. You won’t be much of a challenge.”

  He laughed.

  She moved toward the door. “It’ll be a few minutes. I have to heat some more water, but you go on ahead and start without me. When I get back, I’ll give you one of my famous back scrubs.”

  “Sounds real good to me.”

  Edson slipped off his towel and eased into the shallow, steaming water. His mind flashed from Cinda Sue to Maggie Hoolihan. Two women after him in one day. He thought of Mobley Meadows and his quick anger over the situation with Cinda. What would the man think now? Was Mobley a prude? No, he was too intelligent for that. Inexperienced, more likely.

  The surprising thing about the white man, he’d always thought, was the big fuss they made out of sex before marriage. In his clan, and as far as he knew in the entire Cherokee nation, children were neither discouraged nor reprimanded for engaging in sex play. No stigma attached. It was considered a thing of nature, like a dream. It brought one closer to the spirit world. He had never changed his views on the subject and was proud of his own experiences, with white women especially, who were so often repressed and restricted.

  Head back, arms wide, he became one with the water. Muscles relaxed, his exhaustion dissipated with the rising vapor. He heard the door open. Maggie entered and closed the door, smiled and approached, bucket in hand.

  Edson’s excitement was obvious in the shallow tub. He felt himself surge, splash in the steaming water. She came closer, eyes shining, neck flushed, voice husky.

  “This is the last of it.” She poured the fresh water directly upon him, aiming carefully.

  The involuntary splashing increased and he watched Maggie’s desire flare. The scent of her willing body reached out. Edson locked his gaze to hers, inviting. She set the bucket down, hesitated, and then began to remove her clothes.

  Edson was transfixed as the blouse came up over her head to reveal the full, round breasts he had fantasized. She moved her hands under and over them, lingered as her fingers circled her nipples. Her hands slipped sensuously down. The full red skirt quickly lay in a heap on the floor. She stepped gingerly over the tub’s rim, bending to nuzzle his ear, and then sat right down on him.

  “Oh, Lord,” he breathed.

  * * *

  It was close to nine o’clock in the evening before Edson was able to extract himself from the clutches of Maggie Hoolihan. They’d made love for several hours. At times he’d thought she would pass out from passion. She’d screamed out loud, thrashed and banged around on the bed so hard the man in the adjoining room pounded on the wall with his boot. Maggie was something special, a woman truly in touch with the Great Spirit. She was a woman he would cherish and remember forever.

  When finally worn out, Edson slept for an hour, and then dressed to go out on the town. He did not want to explain why he must go, and Maggie did not ask. She stayed in the bed, eyes half closed, a smile on her face.

  As he walked out the door of the Lone Star Hotel, he heard rinkytink piano music emanating from the Star Variety Theater a block away. He decided to go there first. His job was to obtain information, focusing on those who might know of the terrorist attack or might have participated in some manner in the planning of it. The best place to find such information would most likely be where the worst of such people gathered.

  CHAPTER 20

  The Star Variety was known for its tough clientele. Edson knew it had originally been intended as a theatre for the high nosed snoots of the town, but it had fallen on hard times after the war and it was forced to cater to the cowboys, hunters, rowdies and hooligans as the town grew with the country’s westward movement. Few snobs ventured near the place these days, and that was just fine with the new owners who were thriving as never before, running it as a saloon with the occasional variety act thrown in to soothe the savage beasts.

  Edson could take care of himself, but was nervous as he approached the entrance and started to push his way in. He jumped back as two brawling cowboys stampeded out the swinging doors, fists flying and gouging, the men screaming, cussing, and stumbling their way into the mud of a recent shower.

  A number of drunken spectators looked on, cheering. A few minutes of wild surging, swinging and falling down, and both fighters were exhausted. Caked with mud and blood, they ceased hitting each other, stared warnings with fists cocked and, inexplicably, fell to laughing and slapping each other on the back.

  Edson shook his head. This was one characteristic of the white cowboy he had never understood. How two men could be mortal enemies one minute and the next be having a drink as if nothing had ever happened, was beyond him. In his tribe, people did not make enemies of other people on a temporary basis. If you had an enemy and had fought a battle such as he had just witnessed, it would have been a
fight to the death. The only reason such a fight would have occurred in the first place would have been to avenge a murder in the family.

  Edson inhaled one last breath of fresh air. The stench of coal oil smoke, old leather, and rancid sweat pulled at his stomach as he stepped inside. Pinching his eyes and sucking his breath through clenched teeth, he surveyed the scene, a maelstrom of noise, smoke, piles of sawdust strewn on the floors, and smelly men. A group of gamblers, in top hats and spiffy vests under ratty suit coats calmly played poker in a far corner, ignoring the chaos of drunks stumbling about, women flashing their privates for a few drinks or a tip, and risking the occasional shot fired into the ceiling by those too snockered to care who they might kill or maim.

  There were few places left where a man could stand and order a drink. All of them were at the far end of the polished wooden bar. To get there he would have to traverse a gauntlet of hairy, leather-clad, fully hammered buffalo hunters. As his eyes adjusted to the dim light of the oil lanterns, his sense of smell mercifully began to shut down.

  To his left, toward the front, several other card games were in progress. These were attended by hard looking men wearing low slung pistols with their hats pulled down sharply as they concentrated on their cards. At the far end of the bar, at a table fairly isolated from the rest, sat four men clearly not in a good mood. They had glasses in front of them, no cards or chips in sight, and no whiskey. A good place to start.

  Edson willed his feet to move and elbowed into the mass of stinking men standing before the bar, most of whom were holding long rifles in one hand, glasses of whiskey or buckets of beer in the other. If trouble came, it would start here.

  Most of the men separated as he shoved his way past. Several others, lips curled, eyes glazed with whiskey, just blinked. One large man clad in a huge shaggy coat, blind drunk and slobbering, reached out and grabbed him by the shoulder. “Hey, purdy boy,” the man belched. “You wanna to have some fun with old Jim Bob Burnett?”

  The saloon instantly fell silent. The crowd waited to see what this new wrangler would do. It was the last thing Jim Bob would remember that night. Edson pulled his .44 out smoothly in a short circle and cracked the big hunter squarely across the bridge of the nose, splashing blood, sweat and grime in all directions. Jim Bob’s nose swelled immediately, blocked his near vision, and left him looking like a cross-eyed lion. He dropped his head to his chest and slipped quietly to the floor.

  Edson looked menacingly at the small hunter who was obviously Jim Bob’s companion. “Do you want some of this?”

  “No, sir, I surely don’t,” the squirrel of a man said. “In fact, I think we were just leaving. Old Jim Bob here, he ain’t usually like this. Why, I ain’t never seen him lay an unwelcome hand on anyone before. It must be this bad whiskey.”

  Edson tossed the man two silver dollars. “Buy yourselves another bottle for the morning, a good one this time. I think Jim Bob is going to need it.”

  The crowd grumbled its satisfaction with the outcome, and resumed its raucous chatter. Edson continued on down the bar, acknowledged by nods from several of the other hunters as he did so. They clearly thought he’d been fair. He’d ended the argument without a fuss and had been generous to the vanquished. At the far end of the counter, with no one else on his left, Edson bellied up and was immediately addressed by a scowling bartender.

  “Take out another of my payin’ customers and you’ll see the wrong end of the shotgun under this bar. Now, what’ll it be?”

  Edson moved back slightly. The man’s breath reeked of rotten teeth and foul smoke. He had a weird glow behind his pupils, like he’d been smoking Jimsonweed. If so, he could go berserk at any time. Edson had seen men go out of their heads and never recover after fooling around with Jimsonweed. His instinct told him to whack the man in the mouth, common sense the opposite.

  He glared back. “Whiskey! Sourmash—the bottle.”

  The man grinned, teeth black and snaggled. His eyes seemed unable to stop jumping about, his eyelids first expanding wide then contracting to a slit. “Big spender, huh?”

  Edson laid two dollars on the bar. The man looked down, scooped up the money and turned away. A few moments later, he returned with a bottle and a shot glass, slammed them down on the bar and walked away. Edson read the label. “Hopi Blue, Corn Whiskey.”

  Edson poured himself a drink, sniffed it and took a sip. Good. He tossed the remainder of the amber liquid down his throat and turned to look at the table behind him. The four men were still there, looking glum. Edson took a step toward the table, pushed his hat back and looked down on them.

  “Howdy, boys. Red’s my name, and y’all look like you could handle a drink. I’ve a bottle here to share, if you’ll be so kind as to bend my ear a little. I’ve been out on the tall grass so long I forgot what it’s like to talk to human type bein’s. What say?”

  The four men looked at each other, eyes widening. The man to Edson’s right kicked an empty chair in Edson’s direction. “Mister, you got yourself a deal. Move around there, boys. Let the man squeeze in.”

  Edson sat astraddle the chair and placed the bottle on the table. It was immediately seized and passed around, then returned to Edson. He poured himself another drink.

  The man who’d invited Edson to sit swept a callused hand around the table. “This here’s Filo, Huntoon, Smokey Mills, and I’m Rufus Gosset. Filo and Huntoon don’t like last names, so I don’t pester ‘em about it.” Rufus shook Edson’s hand and quickly reached for the bottle again.

  Filo was a small wiry man with cut marks on his face. Huntoon looked lame-brained with a drooping right lip and the scar of a mule shoe on the left side of his forehead. The lip spilled drool in a steady stream he made no move to wipe away. Smokey Mills looked normal, not ugly, but Edson judged him likely to take offense easily. Rufus was the talker of the group, the obvious leader. His face was also scarred, but his eyes were bright, his gaze steady.

  Rufus passed the bottle around. “This is dang good whiskey. It’s been quite the while since we’ve had any Hopi Blue. Time’s been tough, Red. Stone bone tough. We’d been out of work for months, and then last week a man hires us to back him up. He promised each of us a new repeatin’ rifle and a hundred dollars to help him. Now the dirty dog won’t pay us, and we lost the rifles and our pistols as well. We helped him with three rotten jobs and have nothing to show for it.”

  Edson poured himself another drink after the bottle came around, and then passed it again so everyone could have their fill. “I don’t quite follow that. You mean you let this man get away without paying you? Excuse me, boys, but that rings a might thin to me. You don’t look the type to let someone put the bamboozle on you.”

  “Well,” Rufus continued. “It weren’t exactly a bamboozle. I mean, we seen it happen right before our eyes, and it weren’t really all his fault. It was real bad luck, for him and us, I guess. But now the polecat says he don’t have to make it up to us, and we ain’t goin’ to let him get away with that.”

  Rufus looked around. His partners were grim. “He owes us, by God, and he’ll pay sooner or later, or we’ll do him in. Right, boys?”

  A chorus of affirmative grunts and growls spewed from the angry men.

  “Do you know the man’s name? Maybe I can help. I have a friend who’s real good at resolving disputes.”

  Rufus leaned forward and whispered, “It wouldn’t be good for people in here to know about it. The man’s not well liked around these parts, if you know what I mean. But if you think you can help and can keep your mouth shut, I’ll tell you.”

  Rufus scanned the room, and then turned back to his friends, each of whom nodded at him.

  “Why not?” Mills said. He’s been good enough to buy us a drink.”

  Rufus moved closer to Edson and spoke out of the side of his mouth, his eyes darting from side to side. “The man is old Judge Oliver, the governor’s man.”

  Edson stiffened, and moved back slightly. “You mean the judge who m
ade such a fool of himself a few years ago. The certified lunatic?”

  “The very same.”

  A strange warmth seemed to crawl around in Edson’s right ear. He recognized it as a sign, a warning, or one of those coincidences his grandfather had told him about, the ones that seemed to be simple but were not. What could it be? A guide to the future?

  “Well, I’ll be danged. How’d you come to get hooked up with that nut chunker?”

  “Durned if I know,” Rufus said. “One day we’re a settin’ around, just like now, and this skinny little dude—thin face and real nasty looking—comes in and says he needs men to do some special police work. Bein’ naturally broke as wishbones, we took him up on it. Found ourselves working for Oliver a few days later. He had ten men altogether, five of them hard case blacks who’d been riding with the Blue Bellies. But they was passable to us, no snot, lots of tough. Another was a white man from Austin who kept pretty much to himself. Right away this little dude hands out these brand new repeaters. We were in hog heaven, I tell you. But was we ever wrong.”

  “Who was this skinny man? Did you ever find out?”

  “Called hisself, Ferdie, as I recall. He never gave out a last name. Said we’d be working for the government doin’ special enforcement jobs. As long as we did what we was told, no questions, he said he’d keep us on the payroll.”

  “I guess we didn’t do good,” Huntoon drooled.

  “I guess we didn’t,” Smokey Mills interjected. “But I don’t think anyone could blame us. We were in the wrong, though we thought we was doin’ right.”

  Edson tilted his head back, looked down his nose. “I don’t follow that, Smokey.”

  “It was something to behold.” Smokey poured another drink. “Have you heard about that Judge Mobley Meadows who killed all the Comancheros out on the prairie?”

  Edson grinned. “Who hasn’t? Is it really true what he did?”

  “Well, we weren’t there, but we sure do believe it. We saw him over to the Wiley Miner farm. That’s where he and that crazy marshal, Jack Anthony Lopes, went through Judge Oliver like grain through a goose. I don’t believe I’ll ever see anything like that again in my life.”