White Lightning

by Lyle Brandt

  “Go ahead,” said Sullivan. “Tell him what you told me.”

  “Um…Mr. Flynn…thing is, we missed ’em, sir.”

  “Missed who?” he asked, before it hit him and he felt the first small spark of anger flaring in his chest. “You mean…?”

  “The marshals. Yes, sir. I was told to watch the horses, now, you understand. It weren’t my fault.”

  “What happened?”

  “Well, I couldn’t see much from the spot where Hoke told me to wait—”

  “Hoke Woodruff,” Grady interrupted.

  “Yes, I know him,” Flynn replied. Thinking, The goddamned idjit. And to Eddie Something: “You. Keep talking.”

  “Yes, sir. Um…the other boys left me and walked up to this fire we seen, top of a ridge there, and I couldn’t hear ’em talkin’ to whoever was in camp, you know. I kinda seen ’em with the firelight there behind ’em, but it wasn’t clear. After a couple minutes, someone started shootin’, then they all did, but I couldn’t leave them horses after Hoke gimme the order, so I…um…”

  “You left them to it,” Flynn suggested.

  “Yes, sir. That’s about it. For a minute there, I thought they might be winnin’. Then this fella what I never seen before comes runnin’ down toward where I was, and I…well, I…”

  “Took off,” Flynn said. “And what about your friends?”

  “They’s dead,” Eddie replied. “I mean, they’d have to be, sir. All that shootin’ of a sudden, then it cut off quick. They couldn’t be alive no ways.”

  “You’d better hope not,” Flynn informed him.

  “Sir?”

  “They won’t be very well disposed toward you, now, would they? After you abandoned them? If they’re alive and talking to the law?”

  The dusty gunman blanched at that, wringing his hat with anxious hands. “They’s dead, all right,” he muttered, as if trying to convince himself. “I’m sure of that.”

  “Well, then, your problem’s solved. But mine remains. Leave me to speak with Grady, will you?”

  “Yes, sir. Absolutely, sir.”

  “Wait at the bar,” Sullivan ordered, as his flunky reached the office door, prepared to exit.

  “Right. Okay.”

  Alone with Sullivan, Flynn said, “Goddamn it, Grady! What the hell?”

  “I know, Boss.”

  “Oh, you know. Well, that’s all right, then.”

  “Sir, I didn’t say—”

  “Shut up! Best case, we’ve lost four men and put the marshals on their guard. Worst case, some of the clumsy bastards are alive and talking to the law right now.”

  “They wouldn’t give us up,” said Sullivan.

  “Oh, no? You want to bet your life on that, one of them looking at a noose unless he gives them someone higher up the ladder? I don’t.”

  “There’s another possibility,” said Sullivan. “With all that shooting Eddie heard, maybe they took the marshals with ’em.”

  “Wouldn’t that be great?” Flynn sneered. “And then some moke can find them all together, our boys and the two dead lawmen. That’s fabulous!”

  “I can ride out and see if—”

  “No! Hell, no! Forget that. If there’s any chance to put this off on someone else, you’d only make it worse by mixing in the middle of it. Shit!”

  “One other way it could’ve gone,” said Sullivan.

  “Oh, yes? What’s that?”

  “Well, Eddie didn’t see much. Nothing, really. We aren’t even sure Hoke and the boys did find the lawmen. Suppose they happened on somebody else’s camp and got shot up.”

  “If Woodruff was that stupid, you’re a goddamned fool for putting him in charge,” Flynn said.

  “Yes, sir.”

  “First thing to do is tie up your loose ends. This Eddie What’s-his-name…”

  “Gillespie.”

  “If he spills this shit to anybody else, it could be our necks in a noose.”

  Sullivan nodded, stony-faced. “I’ll take care of it.”

  “See that you do. And let me know the minute those two deputies hit town.”

  Ants had found the corpses overnight, but Slade and Naylor brushed them off as best they could before they hoisted the dead meat onto the abandoned saddle horses. There was no way to decide which man had ridden what horse when they were alive, but none of the four animals protested overmuch as they were loaded up. With camp already broken and the early light of day to guide them, Slade and Naylor led the captured animals—two each, trailing their reins—northeast, toward their intended destination.

  “One of two ways this can go, I figure,” Naylor said, once they were under way.

  “What’s that?” asked Slade.

  “The local sheriff, constable, whatever, either recognizes them or doesn’t. If he does, it stands to reason he can tell us who they worked for. If he doesn’t—”

  “Then he can’t. I follow you. Unless he lies.”

  “He does,” Naylor replied, “we’ve got a whole new world of trouble on our hands.”

  “Except we may not know he’s lying, right away,” Slade said.

  “He’d try to pull the wool over our eyes, you mean.”

  Slade shrugged. “Can’t say until I’ve met him, but it’s possible.”

  “I have a way of readin’ people,” Naylor said. “It’s like a gift.”

  “Could come in handy,” Slade allowed. He bit his lip to keep a smile from twitching up.

  “It’s bound to shake somebody up, we come in leadin’ this bunch, eh?”

  “I wouldn’t be surprised,” Slade said.

  “Show ’em we’re not that easy.”

  “So they’ll send more guns next time.”

  “You think?”

  “I don’t suppose they’ll change their minds and ask us to be friends,” said Slade.

  “Not likely, is it?” Naylor fiddled with his reins a bit then asked, “Compared to other scrapes you’ve been in, how was this?”

  “We’re both alive. I’d say we did all right.”

  “Better or worse than usual, I mean?”

  Slade wished he’d let it go but had to say something. “There isn’t any usual. It doesn’t matter if you have a dozen fights in one town, on the same street. Every man you face is different. They can surprise you. If you let that slip your mind, you’re courting trouble.”

  “Understood. I told you, back a while, how much I like the hunting. Thing is, this was just my fourth—no, fifth—real fight. I mean, where there was killin’ or close to it. You’ve been through way more than that.”

  “I’ve had my share and then some,” Slade agreed.

  “It ever get your stomach riled or interfere with sleepin’?”

  “With the first one, I was queasy after. That was over cards. Time passes. You get used to it.”

  “Or quit,” said Naylor.

  “That’s another way to go.”

  “Can’t see me doin’ that,” the younger deputy replied.

  “Long as you’re set to see it through, you’ll be all right,” Slade said. Thinking: Like me. No one who loves you. Nothing to look forward to except—

  “Don’t worry,” Naylor told him. “I won’t let you down.”

  “It never crossed my mind.”

  “Funny if there turns out to be a bounty on these boys, eh?”

  “Won’t matter,” Slade reminded him, “since we can’t claim it.”

  “They could change that rule,” Naylor replied. “I wouldn’t mind.”

  “Another way to go, if you get tired of marshaling,” Slade said. “Turn bounty hunter for the cash.”

  “I thought about it, but I like havin’ the law behind me when I’m hunting. Keeps it clear that I’m on the right side.”

  “There’s that,” Slade granted.

  “Do you think more people hate a bounty hunter or a lawman?”

  “Hate would be a little strong, I think,” Slade said. “For most folks, anyway. We make a lot of people ner
vous when they see us, thinking of the sneaky little things they’ve done, maybe the laws they’ve broken, wondering if something might catch up to them.”

  “Some people hate us, though,” Naylor persisted.

  “Oh, I’m sure they do.”

  “Some folks in Stateline, maybe.”

  “Guess we’ll find out soon enough,” Slade said.

  Their first glimpse of Stateline was a smudge on the horizon, growing as they traveled on, until Slade could make out the shapes of individual buildings. Away to their right, his eyes tracked the telegraph poles with their lines linking Stateline to Enid and points farther out. He wondered if the message marking Naylor and himself for death had traveled on those wires, deciding that it was the only explanation that made sense.

  Technology.

  Slade sometimes felt as if the world had passed him by and was receding in the distance at a lightning pace. They had a telephone exchange in Enid, though subscribers couldn’t talk to any other cities yet. Slade was aware of other new inventions catching on, within the past five years or so: the gramophone, an electric tabulating machine, and Kodak cameras with rolls of film, their pictures printed out on photographic paper. The innovation that concerned him most was cordite, a propellant advertised as “smokeless” that was now replacing black powder in some cartridges.

  A world of wonders, but when felons ran amok it still required a lawman to corral them, bring them in, or put them down. The four dead men riding his dust to Stateline had already learned that lesson, but it wouldn’t do them any good. Not in the present life, at least.

  They entered Stateline from the western end of Border Boulevard, five minutes shy of ten o’clock. A sign announced the street’s name, causing Slade to wonder who had picked it out and how much he’d been drinking at the time. The town was bustling, people passing in and out of shops whose window signs hawked better, cheaper merchandise than that stocked by competitors across the street. It seemed, indeed, to be a town divided but with no signs of defeat on either side.

  Slade spied a marshal’s office on his left, tucked in between a lawyer’s office and a barber’s shop, near the center of town. There seemed to be none on the Oklahoma side, but a flick of the reins brought him over to Kansas in no time. They stopped outside the office; those who could dismounted, stretched, and left the other silent riders draped facedown across their saddles.

  In a minute, maybe less, a man of forty-some-odd years emerged, hatless, star on his chest, gun on his right hip, right hand on the gun. He sized them up, noted their badges, and approached them slowly, flicking glances at the dead men draped on horses. “Have some trouble on the prairie?” he inquired.

  “A bit,” Slade said. “We’re better off than they are.”

  “So I see.” He thrust a hand at Slade, saying, “I’m Arlo Hickey, marshal for the Kansas side of Stateline.”

  Slade introduced himself and shook the older lawman’s hand, then Hickey passed it on to Naylor for another pumping and exchange of names. The ritual complete, Slade said, “We’re hoping you might recognize these fellows, Marshal.”

  “Go with first names, can we? Otherwise, we’ll all be marshaling each other till the cows come home.”

  “Suits me,” Slade said.

  “Same here,” from Naylor.

  That decided, Hickey walked around the horses, lifting heads and peering into faces as he went, a frown tugging the corners of his mouth down. Slade watched him for signs of recognition but saw nothing he could rightly call a giveaway.

  “Don’t know ’em,” Hickey said, at last. “Did they try’n jump you on the trail?”

  “In camp last night,” said Naylor. “One of ’em let on he knew that we were coming.”

  “Well, that’s more’n I could say,” Hickey replied. “We had another marshal come through here, I’d make it eight, ten days ago. Showed up one day, then left without so much as adios.”

  “Blond hair on that one?” Slade inquired.

  “Was, for a fact. Can’t say that I recall his name, though.”

  “It was Tanner.”

  “Was?”

  “He’s dead. Murdered,” Slade said.

  “Who done it?” Hickey asked.

  “That’s what we’re looking into,” Slade replied. “Last place that anybody heard from him was here.”

  “Well, I swan. That’s a puzzlement. You say heard from him here?”

  “By telegraph,” Slade said. “We’ll need to see your Western Union man. But first, if you could take these fellows into hand…”

  “Sure can. We’ll get ’em bedded down in potter’s field, no markers ’less we hear from next of kin sometime. That don’t seem likely, does it, now?”

  Hickey gave them directions to the livery, a good-sized stable on the Oklahoma side, one of the few things Stateline didn’t duplicate. The hostler was a wiry, sad-eyed man who charged a reasonable rate and promised that their animals would be well tended through their stay.

  Next stop, the Stateline Arms, a three-story hotel standing a block west of the livery, in Kansas. Slade and Naylor signed for top-floor rooms, deposited their trail gear, then went down and got directions from the desk clerk to the local Western Union office.

  It was warm this Friday morning, getting on toward midday. Slade considered rolling up his sleeves, then let it go. People who passed them on the street may have been curious but hid it well, averting eyes from Slade and Naylor in most cases, otherwise presenting nods and smiles that stopped a few yards short of welcome. Slade noted that, as in Enid, few of the men carried firearms—at least, in the open—and those who did were a different sort, cowboy types as distinguished from townsmen. The pistol packers eyed Naylor and Slade more warily, as seemed to be the rule in most towns.

  Stateline’s little Western Union office was another operation that had not been duplicated. It stood on the Oklahoma side of Border Boulevard, next to a hardware store with spades and pitchforks in its window. Slade went in, followed by Naylor, their arrival heralded by tinkling bells over the door. The operator came out of a back room, putting on a cap that bore the company’s winged logogram. Beneath a florid face and double chins, he wore a bow tie, dark blue vest, and a white shirt that strained across his paunch. Slade wondered if the color in his cheeks was due to hypertension, alcohol, or the appearance of two lawmen at his counter.

  “Gentlemen…er, officers…how may I help you?” he inquired.

  “Sharing your name would be a start,” Slade said.

  “It’s Fawcett. Percy Fawcett.”

  Slade completed the preliminary introductions, clammy handshakes all around, then said, “There was another marshal in last week. He sent a wire off to Judge Dennison, in Enid.”

  “Yes, sir. I remember him, but can’t recall the name offhand.”

  “Bill Tanner.”

  Fawcett nodded. “If you say so, I’ll assume that is correct.”

  “A short time after sending off that cable,” Slade said, “he was murdered.”

  “M-m-murdered? What’s that got to do with me?”

  “I’m not a great believer in coincidence,” Slade said. “We need to know if anyone besides yourself saw Marshal Tanner’s telegram, or if you mentioned it to anyone.”

  The fat man’s ruddy face went pale. “I never!” he protested. “Why would I?”

  “Maybe someone pressured you,” Naylor suggested. “Maybe paid you.”

  “N-n-no, sir! There is such a thing as ethics in this business.”

  “Ought to be in every business,” Slade replied. “First thing you learn, wearing a badge, is that some folks regard the rules as flexible.”

  “If everyone was honest,” Naylor added, “we’d be out of work.”

  “I deny your accusation categorically!” said Fawcett, with a not-so-subtle tremor in his voice.

  “It’s not an accusation,” Slade informed him. “Yet.”

  “In that case—”

  “But if it turns out you’re lying�
�” Naylor said.

  “That makes you an accessory to murder,” Slade finished the warning.

  “I resent this,” Fawcett blustered. “There’s n-n-no call for insinuations that besmirch my honor. I perform my duties to the highest standard p-p-possible. Ask anyone!”

  “We plan to,” Slade replied.

  “If you remember something, sudden-like,” said Naylor, “you can reach us at the Stateline Arms.”

  “There’s nothing to remember,” Fawcett said, as they retreated toward the exit. “And you needn’t come back here unless you have a telegram to send!”

  “Seems like the nervous sort to me,” said Naylor, once they were outside. “Or guilty.”

  “Safe to say he’s hiding something,” Slade agreed.

  “And I’d say we spooked him. Maybe he’ll go running to the ones he tipped to Tanner’s wire.”

  “Be ready if he does,” Slade said. “After last night, they may try anything.”

  “I’m more alert,” said Naylor, “when my belly isn’t growling. Lunch?”

  “Sounds good,” Slade said. “I’ll buy.”

  “They’re here,” said Grady Sullivan.

  “Together with the men you sent, I understand,” Flynn Rafferty replied. “Facedown across their saddles.”

  “So, you heard already.”

  “Bad news travels fast.”

  “What are we gonna do about it?” Sullivan inquired.

  “Nothing, for now,” said Rafferty. “They talked to Hickey and he’s playing dumb.”

  “You sure he’s playing?”

  “I believe he’s smart enough to know which side his bread is buttered on,” said Rafferty.

  “He ain’t the only one around who knew them boys.”

  “Drunkards and sluts.”

  “They still might talk.”

  “It’s your job to make sure they don’t,” said Rafferty.

  “Yes, sir. But if we start to throw our weight around right now—”

  “Use common sense. Don’t give the marshals anything to work with.”

  “Are we getting rid of them or not?” asked Sullivan.

  “In due time, Grady. Did your mother never tell you patience is a virtue?”

  “Too much patience gives ’em time to work against us. ’Fore you know it, you’re in handcuffs, climbin’ up the scaffold.”