Mobley's Law, A Mobley Meadows Novel

by Summers, Gerald Lane

  Across the street from the ticket window, Jack could see a row of variety shops and a small saloon called the Empire Buffalo. A sign on its brick front said, “Cold Beer 5 cents All you can eat FREE FOOD.” Above the saloon, typical of the more permanent structures in Waco, were living spaces for the proprietor and his family. Two large sets of French windows that opened onto small balconies overlooked the street.

  Jack examined the building closely. One of the upper balcony windows was open. He could see no one inside. He shifted his gaze back to the milling men, and then carefully checked the buildings along both sides of the street.

  Mobley was talking to the ticket agent and writing out a telegram to his grandfather. From the corner of his eye, he saw one of the men in the street whirl and fire his buffalo rifle.

  CHAPTER 24

  Mobley ducked. The shot had not been aimed at him, but toward the left hand balcony window above the saloon. Almost simultaneously, a bullet whined past Mobley’s ear, imbedded itself in the wall with a loud SMACK, and scattered plaster and wood splinters in all directions.

  Drawing both pistols, Mobley dropped into a fighting crouch, although even crouched he could still see over the heads of most everyone in the crowd. Jack and Edson did the same.

  It was too late. The cowboys in the street had realized an assassination attempt was in progress. In an instant they had located the shooter. A huge buffalo hunter had spotted the assassin first as he was about to fire from the balcony. He’d killed the man instantly. The .50 caliber slug had slammed the man against the side of the door frame, and before his body could slide down to the floor, it had been hit by a fusillade of bullets from the angry cowboys.

  Mobley started to fire at the man himself, but stopped and stared in horrid fascination as the body was refused permission to drop from the wall. Bullet after bullet slammed into the corpse, holding it there as if nailed in place. Finally, the angry men ran out of ammunition, and the body collapsed like a scarecrow released from its post.

  The silence was deafening, smoke thick in the air. Finally, the big hunter bulled his way into the Empire Buffalo. A few moments later he yelled out the balcony window.

  “Ain’t anyone else up here. Don’t shoot; it’s just me—old Jim Bob. I’m a coming’ out.”

  No one fired as Jim Bob peeked out the window, looked down at the bloody mess at his feet and announced, “He’s plumb daid, boys. Ya done shot him to rags.”

  Jim Bob stepped out onto the balcony. With one burly arm, he picked up the limp body and threw it down onto the street where it splatted flat without a bounce. He yelled down. “Anyone know this bag of holes? He don’t look familiar to me.”

  The cowboys gathered around the body and gaped. One of them, a young boy about fourteen years old, stared, and then upchucked on the corpse.

  “Why, dang and doo, Billy Blue,” another of the cowboys said with disgust, “Did you have to do that? Ain’t he ripe enough already?”

  The young Billy Blue quickly turned and elbowed his way out of the crowd, one hand on his mouth, the other on his stomach, ashamed of what he’d done and about to do it again. Several of the drunken cowboys laughed, but stopped when Mobley and Jack made their way to the body. Mobley looked down, then away. The odor of death and the foul smelling, drunken hunters almost gagged him.

  “Do any of you fellers know this man?”

  One of the men came closer, looked hard at the dead man. He hesitated for a moment, and then said softly, “I think I do. He was one of Judge Oliver’s policemen. One of the ones who came down from Austin. I don’t know who he was working for today, if anyone but himself, but it couldn’t have been Oliver. He’s been holed up in his hotel nursing his wounds, refusing to see anyone. I know, because he’s refused to pay us for the work he hired us to do and we’ve been waitin’ for him to come out so’s we can have a word with him. Ain’t that right, Smokey?”

  “That’s right,” the man called Smokey said as he leaned in closer to get a look at the dead man. “After Oliver woke up yesterday, he got real mad and stomped off. When he comes out of his hotel we’re figurin’ to whup up on him ourselves unless he pays up.”

  Mobley looked down at the two men, his jaw flexing. “You boys were with Oliver out at the Miner farm?”

  “Yes, sir,” Smokey said as he looked sheepishly down at his feet. “But we didn’t know Oliver was in the wrong, honest we didn’t. We thought we was on the side of the law ‘til you told us different. After that, we just wanted our money and to get the heck out of there. But Oliver, he wouldn’t pay us, so we’ve been stuck here.”

  Mobley nodded. Oliver was at it again. Trying to cheat his own help. Mobley hesitated, and then looked down at the two smallish men. “Do you boys want to make a legal claim against Oliver?”

  The two men looked at each other, and then turned back to Mobley. “Do you think it would do any good? A claim, I mean?”

  “You never can tell. It won’t do any harm to try.”

  “All right, Judge. We’d like to make a claim for our wages. Judge Oliver owes each of us. I’m Rufus Gosset, and this here’s Smokey Mills. Filo and Huntoon couldn’t get up this morning, but Oliver owes each of us a hundred dollars for the work we done.”

  Mobley turned to Jack. “Marshal Lopes, would you please fetch my docket book? It’s in my saddle bags.”

  “I’d be happy to.” Jack turned to the group of men. “Listen up, boys. I’m trustin’ you to watch over the Judge here while I’m gone down the street to our horses. If one hair on his head is mussed when I get back, there will be the Devil himself to pay.”

  The cowboys started looking around in earnest, rifles clanking open and shut, cartridges fumbled and pistols reloaded. Mobley smiled. Good ol’ Jack, he never misses a bet.

  “Now,” Mobley said firmly as he turned back to the crowd. “Where is that fine gentleman who fired the first shot? I’d like to thank him for savin’ my bacon.”

  The cowboys looked around. One of them yelled. “It was old Jim Bob Burnett. That’ll be him up there in the window.”

  Mobley looked up to see the big hunter standing on the balcony. “Come on down, Jim Bob. I’d like to thank you personally for the speed and accuracy of your shootin’ today.”

  Jim Bob could be seen reddening as he hung his head. But he turned and walked back down through the saloon and out the front door. Mobley started clapping as the huge man stepped out onto the boardwalk. In seconds the cowboys picked up the cadence.

  Jim Bob lifted his head, eyes yellow and shiny as he looked at Mobley, then to the men in the street. His head seemed to shrink down into his neck, his mouth skewed sidewise. “Aw, shucks, fellers … ‘t weren’t nothin’.”

  Jim Bob was obviously embarrassed by the attention. For a moment Mobley thought the man would run off, but his feet stayed firm on the muddy ground. He had clearly not expected to be honored for doing what was right.

  Mobley walked up to Jim Bob and held his hands in the air to silence the growing crowd. Even Richard Coke had returned to watch the proceedings. This time the old politician kept his mouth shut.

  “Boys, I’d like you all to meet Mister Jim Bob Burnett. From now on, I’ll tolerate no one calling him anything else. That’s the order of United States Circuit Judge Mobley F. Meadows. Any man who violates that order will find himself in the old grey bar hotel just as fast as I can send him there.”

  Mobley paused as applause broke out. Mister Jim Bob Burnett swelled with pride, his face red, feet shifting back and forth like an old elephant.

  Mobley reached to his sash and withdrew one of his matching Colt’s pistols. “Mister Jim Bob, this pair of new Colt’s cartridge pistols with the fancy ivory handles was given to me by my old grandfather and none other than President Ulysses S. Grant. There’s only two of them this fine in the entire State of Texas, or the country for that matter. I want you to have this one. That way, I’ll always know you’re safe, wherever you are and whatever you’re doing. Every time I pick up
this other one, I’ll be thinking about how you saved my life this day.”

  The crowd cheered. Several cowboys jumped up and down and ran back and forth on the street screaming the news for everyone to hear. Within minutes, the small group had grown back to its original size. If anything, the crowd’s enthusiasm was greater than before. People were dancing, stomping, and carrying on like total lunatics.

  Mister Jim Bob Burnett looked to be in shock. He stared down at the finely engraved weapon Mobley had handed him. Tears began to pour out of his rheumy eyes, over and down his badly swollen nose. Finally, he plopped down on the boardwalk steps, the pistol held lovingly in his lap.

  Mobley was not surprised by the reaction. He knew men like Burnett expected to live and die without opportunity for recognition. The pistol was symbolic of the respect the man would now receive. It might well change his life forever.

  By the time the crowd finally regained its sanity, Jack had returned with the docket book, Mobley’s saddle bags, and their rifles. Jack had decided they should be as well armed as they could be from here on out, regardless of the celebration.

  Upon receiving the docket book, Mobley nodded for Jack to call the court to order. Jack promptly fired his rifle in the air, and the startled cowboys, half of whom immediately drew their pistols in response to a possible new threat, visibly shrank back as Jack’s commanding voice called the court to order. Several men wondered aloud of what was to occur.

  “O’Yez, O’yez, O’yez. The Circuit Court of the United States of—SHUT UP OUT THERE YOU TWITS. The next time anyone so much as passes gas, they’ll answer to this rifle.”

  The crowd became silent. Most of them sat down in the dirt and mud of the street as Jack closed his speech. Richard Coke was not so foolish. He sat down on the step between Mobley and the hero of the day, Mister Jim Bob Burnett. A number of mounted cowboys stepped off their horses and sat on hitching rails. Ladies and little girls sought out steps or stairwells while adolescent boys climbed support posts and anything else they could manage in order to get a better view.

  Mobley sat down next to the bearded and bellied Richard Coke and proceeded to write in his docket book. After several minutes, during which the crowd behaved like stone statues, he stood up. Being tall had its advantages. He could see everyone as they stared back at him.

  “We’ll call the case of Rufus Gosset, Smokey Mills, Huntoon and Filo, each of whom claims wages in the amount of one hundred dollars from Judge John W. Oliver, who, they say, failed and refused to pay the wages promised for their assistance, and who is now hiding in his room at the Lone Star Hotel like a sniveling coward, refusing to come out.”

  The crowd cheered.

  “Silence!” Jack yelled, and silent they became.

  Mobley nodded, and continued. “Judge John Oliver is known to this Court to be a man of ill gotten gains not above perverting the law to his own means.”

  The crowd booed. Jack allowed the boos to continue for several seconds before he resumed his silencing glare.

  “He is not here, though, to defend himself against these charges, so I cannot conduct a trial on the merits of the case until he is served with the claim and allowed time to respond. He may be a swine, but he is entitled to due process of law.”

  The crowd groaned. Jack looked at Mobley, puzzlement on his face. But Mobley had decided to play this for all it was worth. He clamped his jaw shut so as to maintain a stern look. Since the trial at Wiley Miner’s farm, he’d thought carefully about the concept of due process. The law had always required that parties receive notice and opportunity to respond, but had left the nature of process up to the courts. Now, with the Fourteenth Amendment in force, the courts would have to define it carefully as time went by. Mobley saw it as more than mere procedure. It was substantive, requiring government at all levels to act properly in dealing with its citizens. He’d used the concept to overturn the reappraisal law, but here its application was simply a matter of fairness.

  Mobley looked sternly at the two ragged men. “Rufus Gosset, Smokey Mills, can you swear under oath on the Bible before God, that you did, in fact, have an agreement with Judge Oliver whereby he agreed to pay you and your friends Filo and Huntoon one hundred dollars each for assisting him in his duties and that you did carry out the duties he assigned to you in good faith?”

  Smokey nodded and looked at Rufus. “Well, sir, we don’t rightly know what you mean by that word, whereby, but we sure enough will swear to the rest of it—‘cause it’s the truth.”

  “Yes, sir, YOUR HONOR, sir,” Rufus replied, his head bobbing up and down in unison with Smokey’s. “We sure enough will. Now, he won’t pay and we don’t even have a dime for a bucket of beer.”

  The crowd booed and yelled epithets. Jack allowed it, for he knew how bad it could be when a man really needed a beer and had no money.

  Mobley harrumphed, planted his hands on his hips and jutted his jaw forward. “I’ve prepared an order here which you boys may serve upon the livery stable owner, which directs and commands him—what was his name, Edson?”

  “Stony Brooks, your Honor.”

  “Which directs and commands Mr. Stony Brooks to seize, hold and attach all property belonging to Judge John W. Oliver pending trial of this case, which I am now scheduling for after my return from Austin. That attachment order includes the specific sorrel horse and new buggy Judge Oliver was seen to be driving when he appeared at the Miner farm yesterday. This order is intended to secure payment of the claim of these boys should they prevail at trial and to prevent Judge Oliver from making off with the assets he has accumulated in this county.”

  “Now, if Judge Oliver does not see fit to appear at the trial, the horse, buggy and all its fine tack may be turned over to the claimants, thereafter to be sold in order to satisfy the judgment that will be rendered by default against him. That’s all I can legally do, boys. But since I doubt old Oliver has the juice to appear before me again, I think you’ll get your money. In fact, I’m so sure of it, I’m going to advance you fellers a hundred dollars against the judgment, just to keep you in good spirits while the time passes. Now, I should add, Oliver can get his horse and buggy back anytime before the trial by just payin’ what he owes.”

  Turning to Richard Coke, Mobley nodded. “Can I rely on you, Sir, to make sure my order is carried out, in my absence?”

  Richard Coke puffed out his chest. “Judge Meadows, you have my solemn word as a Texan that these men will receive every last penny to which they are entitled.”

  The crowd resumed its raucous behavior and this time did not stop. Mobley, Jack and Edson were hoisted on the shoulders of several buffalo hunters and spirited off for drinks at the Empire Buffalo, from where they emerged only after Richard Coke arrived to advise them of the train’s eminent departure. It was watering, chuffing and belching steam at the station.

  CHAPTER 25

  Mobley stepped onto the weathered wooden dock in front of the station, took a deep breath and exhaled loudly. He loved trains and loved riding on trains even more. Without consciously trying, he found himself plonking his boot heels down harder on the dock as he walked along, enjoying the hollow sound and trying to make it louder. Other noises, familiar only to a railway station, added to his pleasure.

  Fellow travelers scurried about, lugging items of personal luggage, pushing to get in line and aboard lest they be left behind. Anxious mothers counted heads while fathers stood aloof in their best suits trying to maintain an appearance of dignity, as if they traveled by train every day.

  The steaming locomotive drew Mobley like a bee to a flower. There was something about such machines that thrilled him. Massive, compelling. The engineering and technology required to create such wonders boggled his mind. Like a new rifle, he felt an urge to touch it, take it apart, move its levers and wheels, see what made it tick. Locomotives brought out the child in him.

  This particular engine appeared well maintained. Newly painted slate black with red, white, and orange trim, it
looked brand new. Mobley knew it was not. Newer machines did not sport the wildly rakish cowcatcher or the intricate ironwork of the smokestack.

  The number “9” stood out in white on the front end of the boiler and below the cab. Ornate gold leaf letters on the side of the engineer’s cabin identified the machine as belonging to the Houston and Texas Central Railroad.

  Mobley watched, fascinated, as steam escaped in a regular rhythm from safety valves making a strangely hollow, BONG, each time it hissed out a puff of white. The smell of axle grease, oil, wood smoke and steam added to the sensation. It was caged power demanding release, singing and whining while its masters dawdled.

  Two men in striped overalls fussed about in the cab preparing for departure. One of them smiled down at Mobley and nodded, knowingly. Mobley smiled back, touching his hat with a two-fingered wave.

  Farther down the ramp, passengers formed an orderly line, handing their tickets to the conductor. Mobley glanced at Jack and saw him standing several feet back, nervously eyeing the engine. Edson grinned like a little boy about to pull his sister’s pigtails.

  Jack turned. “How fast do these trains go? I’ve never been on one before.”

  Edson sidled up to Jack and nudged him in the ribs with the point of his elbow. “You’ve never been on a train before? Why, Jack, you are about to have the time of your life. These things move up to twenty-five miles an hour. I’ve heard tell of some moving forty miles an hour. They say if you stick your head out the window, it’ll suck the breath right out’n your mouth.”

  Jack stared down the length of the train and shifted his weight from foot to foot before turning back to Edson with a glare. “I know a better way to have my breath sucked than sticking my head out of a train window, smarty pants. I’ll bet you’ve never been on one yourself.”

  Edson assumed a natural pose of nonchalance, his hands on his hips. “You’d lose that bet, Jack. All during the war we were moved around by train, horses and all. I’ve never sat in a real passenger car, but I’ve rode plenty of stable cars.”