White Lightning

by Lyle Brandt

  Inside the warehouse, there was no denying the pervasive smell of liquor. Slade was cautious as he struck a match and held it high, then found a lamp residing on a shelf beside the door and lit it. With the wick turned down to minimize its glare, he turned to face a wall of barrels. Counted seventeen across the bottom, same across the second tier.

  “How far back do they go?” asked Naylor.

  Edging to his right, Slade raised the lamp and counted quickly. “Six rows back,” he said, “before you hit some other kind of boxes.”

  “So that’s…what? Around two hundred?”

  “Close. I make it two-oh-four,” Slade said, “if all the rows are equal going back.”

  “And would you call those fifty-gallon kegs?”

  “I’d say that’s pretty close.”

  “Over ten thousand gallons, then. You want to check for tax stamps?”

  “Guess we’d better, since we’re here,” Slade said.

  The double row of barrels stood around Slade’s six-foot height, too tall for him to simply peer over the top. Naylor produced a short stepladder from a shadowed corner, set it up, and took the lamp from Slade as he ascended. Seconds later he reported back, “No stamps on these, as far as I can see.”

  “Nothing to say who owns them?”

  “Nope.”

  “All right,” Slade said. “Let’s clear on out and close it up the best we can. I need to think on this a bit.”

  Grady Sullivan was passing on his buckskin gelding when the marshals eased out of the alley next to Stateline Storage. Startled as he was, he managed not to gape at them but kept his eyes straight forward, more or less, and rode on by. His stomach churned, though, and he nudged the gelding to a trot, putting more ground between himself and the two lawmen, heading toward the Sunflower Saloon.

  Bad news, this was, and the big man would want to hear about it sooner, rather than later. Sullivan hoped that Rafferty was still at the saloon and not in bed with one of his doxies. Interruptions weren’t appreciated when the boss was rutting, but he’d have to bust in anyhow if they were on the verge of being raided. More time wasted if the big man had gone back out to his spread, six miles northwest of town, and Sullivan was forced to follow him. Who could predict what damage might be done before they got back into Stateline?

  Grady cursed his four men lying stretched out at the undertaker’s, waiting for their last trip to the bone orchard. And count Eddie Gillespie with them, planted early in a hole on Rafferty’s twelve hundred acres. If they’d done their job correctly in the first place, he’d be sitting down to supper and a few drinks now, instead of rushing to confront the big man with his stomach-churning news.

  Goddamn the law dogs, anyhow. If they had found the liquor, he supposed that hustling Percy Fawcett out of town had been another waste of time and effort. Sullivan could just as easily have tracked the marshals, laid an ambush for them in the heart of Stateline, and removed them that way, even if it raised a ruckus. Who among the townspeople was likely to complain—or testify, if it came down to that?

  The big man owned this town—well, most of it, at least—but that could change like lightning if the marshals linked him to the moonshine sold to Indians and to the murder of their fellow lawman. One would send him up to Leavenworth; the other would abbreviate his trip and see him hanged in Enid, if convicted.

  Either way, what would be left for Grady Sullivan without Flynn Rafferty? More drifting, if he managed to slip through the net and dodge a noose himself. If not…well, then his worries would be over, wouldn’t they?

  Sullivan had given thought to how his life might end, from time to time. He’d never planned on growing old and gray, riding a rocker on a shady porch somewhere. More likely snuffed out by a faster gun one day, or cut down by a coward while his back was turned. That was the life he’d chosen, with the shadow of a gallows always lurking in the background, but it struck him now, riding through darkness, that he didn’t want to hang.

  Dancing on air and strangling slowly while a crowd of gawkers laughed at him? No, thanks. Given a choice, the lesser of two evils, he’d face down the lawmen on his own and let them finish him.

  Or maybe they would die in the attempt. Why not?

  Hell, stranger things had happened.

  Sullivan knew that he was reasonably fast. Not Black Jack Ketchum fast, Wes Hardin fast, or anything like that. But he was still alive, and he could name eleven men who weren’t after they’d faced him in a showdown. Plus a few he’d taken care of for the big man, with the wheat-haired deputy among them.

  Go down fighting if he had to make the choice, damn right. But in the meantime, if there was an opportunity to head that off, he’d risk upsetting Rafferty and his companion for the evening to save them all.

  It was the smart thing, and he always tried to think ahead.

  Captain Brody Gallagher was sipping a glass of whiskey—his third by actual count—when the Western Union rider found him in the officers’ mess. The young man looked winded, though Gallagher knew his horse had done all of the running from Enid to reach Fort Supply. Traipsing around a military base had that effect on some civilians, intimidated by the presence of so many guns and men in uniform.

  The rider spent an awkward moment in the doorway, half a dozen soldiers staring at him while he eyed them one by one, in silence. Gallagher wondered how knowledgeable he might be, concerning officers’ insignia, and soon decided that the answer was: not very. Even so, the bars Gallagher wore might not have helped the stranger, since there was another captain in the room, along with three lieutenants and a major.

  When the best part of a minute had elapsed, the major—Joseph Nussbaum, often called “Joe Nosey” in his absence—raised his gravel voice to ask, “What brings you here?”

  “A cable, sir,” the rider answered.

  “I’d have guessed it from the cap you’re wearing,” Nussbaum told him. “Who’s it for?”

  The rider glanced down at the paper in his hand, suggesting he’d forgotten who he came for, then replied, “A Captain Gallagher, if he’s available?”

  “I am,” said Gallagher, not rising from his seat.

  The young man hurried over, passed the telegram inside a Western Union envelope with CAPT. GALLAGHER printed in block letters across its front. Job done, the rider stood by for another moment, long enough for Gallagher to think he might be waiting for a tip.

  Not likely.

  “Well?” Gallagher challenged him, the envelope still resting in his hand unopened.

  “I was told to wait for a reply, sir. If there is one.”

  “Ah.” Gallagher tore open the envelope, removed the single flimsy sheet inside, and read the message silently.

  NEED HELP WITH UNEXPECTED VISITORS. COME SOONEST WITH APPROPRIATE ASSISTANCE. RR

  Gallagher slipped the cable back into its envelope, then tucked the envelope into one of his pockets. “No reply,” he told the rider. “You can go.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Was that a look of disappointment? Too damned bad. Gallagher wasn’t sending any message back or tipping for delivery of what could only be bad news.

  “Another smitten lady?” Nussbaum asked him, fairly leering, as the rider left them.

  “You know how it is, sir,” Gallagher replied, wearing his best self-deprecating smile. He had something of a reputation as a cocksman, and it served his purpose now to let the others think some damsel pining for his company had wired a plea for some attention.

  “Well, let’s hear it then?” the other captain in the mess—Dave Thompson—said.

  “A gentleman wouldn’t respond to that,” said Gallagher.

  “Since when are you a gentleman?” asked Thompson, grinning.

  “What I am is tired,” Gallagher said, draining his whiskey glass and rising. “With an early start tomorrow.”

  “The patrol,” said Nussbaum.

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Have you picked your men yet?”

  “Three or four sh
ould do it,” Gallagher replied. “I’ll pick them in the morning.”

  But the truth was that he knew which men he needed from among the ranks, had known the minute that he finished reading RR’s telegram. A little subterfuge, that sign-off, taken from the big man’s spread—the Rocking R—to mask his name. It wasn’t all that clever, but at least Enid’s telegrapher couldn’t identify the sender, even if he must know where the wire had come from.

  Stateline. Yet another problem in what seemed to be an endless series of them. “Unexpected visitors,” Gallagher muttered to himself. That had to be the law or something like it, but from which side of the border?

  He would have to find out for himself, when he arrived. A long day’s ride from Fort Supply lay waiting for him in the morning, when he’d been assigned to look for some Cheyenne who’d jumped their reservation earlier that week. They’d have to wait now, and he’d keep his fingers crossed that no white folk were killed while he was off on private business.

  Solving one more problem for Flynn Rafferty.

  10

  For breakfast, Slade and Naylor tried the Borderline Café, already filling up when they arrived at half past six. Slade ordered ham and eggs, with biscuits drenched in gravy on the side. Naylor had skipped the hen fruit, taking bacon and a pile of flapjacks. As whenever he dined out—which came to nearly every meal—Slade made a point of watching people come and go, trying to size them up and guess what they were thinking by the way they acted or conversed with others.

  And this morning, nearly everyone who entered the café took care to seem as if they weren’t observing Slade and Naylor, shooting sidelong glances toward them on the sly. It nearly worked for some, but others were so clumsy at it that they wound up blushing, losing track of what was being said to them by their breakfast companions. Under other circumstances, Slade supposed he’d find it humorous. But at the moment, he was anxious to be off about their business for the day.

  Tracing the ownership of Stateline Storage for a start, then moving on to question the owner about the untaxed liquor stashed away there. That would be a touchy proposition, trying not to give away the fact that they’d already seen the whiskey when, for all intents and purposes, they’d burglarized the warehouse. Any mouthpiece worth his salt could get that evidence thrown out of court in nothing flat, and that would sink their case.

  “Best way to do it,” Slade suggested, “is to drop in on the mayor and see if he can help us. Tell him that we’re following a lead and let it go at that. If he won’t spill the name, there has to be a registrar for deeds or something similar.”

  “That could be in the county seat,” Naylor replied, “wherever that is. Do we even know which county we’re in?”

  “Cowley,” Slade said. “I looked it up before we left. From what I understand, there’s a division of opinion on the county seat. Two towns are claiming it, Cresswell and Winfield. Both are roughly half a day from where we’re sitting.”

  “You did your homework, eh? Too bad we won’t know where to go.”

  “May not be necessary,” Slade remarked, frowning. “Here comes the mayor.”

  “Oh, goody,” Naylor said and stuffed his mouth with pancakes. Mayor Jain entered the restaurant and made a beeline for their table.

  “Both of you still hungry, I perceive,” he said by way of greeting, standing over them.

  “It happens two, three times a day,” Naylor informed their uninvited visitor.

  Slade wondered whether Jain seemed nervous every day, or if it was their presence in his burg that made him jumpy. It was hard for Slade to picture anyone getting elected, even in a small town, if he couldn’t don a steady smile and talk without a tremor in his voice.

  “May I sit down?” the mayor inquired, aiming a quick glance at an empty chair standing midway between the two marshals.

  “Free country,” Slade replied.

  “But not the food,” said Naylor. “Have to buy your own.”

  The mayor blinked first, then forced a laugh at that. “Oh, yes. Very amusing. That’s a good one.”

  “Got a million of ’em,” Naylor said, before another wedge of syrup-dripping pancakes filled his mouth.

  “I was concerned about…um, interested in…the progress of your ongoing investigation,” Jain announced.

  “Convenient that you found us then,” said Slade. “In fact, there’s something that I’m hoping you can help us with?”

  “Which is?” asked Jain.

  “We’d like to know who owns the warehouse here in town.”

  “Warehouse?” It wasn’t easy, swallowing and frowning at the same time, as he spoke, but Jain managed to do both.

  “Stateline Storage,” Naylor interjected.

  “Ah. It’s not quite what I think of as a warehouse.”

  “Call it what you like,” Slade said. “The owner is…?”

  “I really couldn’t say,” the mayor replied.

  “Couldn’t, or wouldn’t?” Slade pressed on.

  “Well…there’s an issue, isn’t there? I mean, it’s private property.”

  “Set up for business with the public,” Slade suggested, “or they likely wouldn’t have a sign out front.”

  “Well, business, yes. I should have said the owner likes his privacy.”

  “The quiet type,” said Naylor.

  “Well…”

  “Where would we go to find those records?” Slade inquired.

  “Records?”

  “The deeds and such.”

  “Um…well…”

  “You haven’t got a courthouse,” Slade reminded him. “I thought maybe the lawyer’s office, but a deed has to be filed. They’re public records. So, if you could tell us where to go, we’ll check it out ourselves and tell the county clerk you sent us. Then come back and see whoever it may be.”

  “Well, now…I wouldn’t want to waste your time unnecessarily,” said Jain. “It is a public record, as you say.”

  “The name?” Slade prodded.

  “I believe that Stateline Storage is an adjunct of the Rocking R.”

  “Add what?” asked Naylor.

  “An extension of,” said Jain.

  Slade pinned him with a look. “And when you say the Rocking R, you mean…?”

  “A ranch outside of town.”

  “Like pullin’ teeth,” said Naylor, glaring at the mayor.

  “He’s asking you who owns the ranch,” Slade said.

  “Why, Mr. Rafferty. He’s big in corn, you know.”

  “I’ll bet he is,” Slade said and smiled at Jain across his rising coffee mug.

  “Well, if there’s nothing else…”

  “You came lookin’ for us, remember?” Naylor asked.

  “Oh, yes! But if there’s nothing new on your investigation, I suppose…”

  “You never know,” Slade said. “Something could break at any minute.”

  “Well, I’ll keep my fingers crossed,” Jain said. “Good day to you.”

  He rose and hurried out, the lawmen watching him. When he was on the street, Naylor remarked, “Looks like he’s in a rush to see somebody.”

  Slade took another sip of coffee. Said, “I wouldn’t be a bit surprised.”

  Captain Gallagher had picked his troopers carefully, using criteria that suited him but might have raised eyebrows at headquarters. All things considered, though, that was the least of his accumulated problems—or it would be, if he bungled his attempt to help Flynn Rafferty and thereby help himself.

  As luck would have it, he’d been scheduled for a routine field patrol that morning, out and back again, but he had told the fort’s commander, Colonel Jeroboam Pike, that he—Gallagher—had received a rider from the neighborhood of Stateline, seeking help with renegades who’d jumped one of the nearby reservations. Naturally, his information had been vague. Arapaho, Cheyenne, or Cherokee, how could he tell until the hostiles had been apprehended?

  Colonel Pike had nearly sent a dozen men with Gallagher, which would have ruined
everything. Some nimble lying was required to narrow down the field, with Gallagher insisting that the raiders number only two or three, at most, maintaining that a five-man squad equipped to travel light and fast would be the best response. It was a tough sale, even so, but he’d prevailed, at least in part due to the colonel’s age and evident infirmity. Expected to retire within a year or less, Pike delegated most of his responsibilities to junior officers and soothed his nerves with whiskey from a bottle he kept hidden in his desk.

  The men whom Gallagher had chosen for his mission were a crafty lot, drawn to the cavalry after they’d worn out their respective welcomes in a list of cities ranging from New York to Dallas and St. Louis. Sergeant Virgil Bonner was the eldest of them, had served prison time in Arkansas before he joined the army, and was decorated by a pale scar running from his left eyebrow down to the corner of his mouth. The privates serving under him on this detail were Gordon French, a brawler from Missouri; Marlon Wetzel, out of Texas, where he’d killed a man or two as a civilian; and the youngest, Loren Sowder out of Brooklyn or the Bronx—Gallagher got the two mixed up, sometimes—where a creative judge had given him the choice of military service or a two-year stay in jail for burglary. All three had found that army life relieved them of responsibility for making most of life’s decisions but did not prevent them from enjoying certain entertainments on the side.

  And if they had a chance to supplement their monthly pay of thirteen dollars with whatever private jobs might come their way, they could be trusted to perform and keep their mouths shut afterward. Especially if blabbing meant they’d face a court-martial and firing squad.

  Like this time.

  Gallagher had spent a restless night considering what might be waiting for them when they got to Stateline. Something Rafferty felt disinclined to handle on his own, that much was obvious. Likely some killing that he didn’t wish to be associated with, that might bring lawmen to his neighborhood and cause them to investigate his shady deals.

  And if the targets were lawmen? What then?

  No difference, except that Gallagher would have to make damned sure he was protected from whatever repercussions might arise. It wouldn’t be enough to simply gun the targets down and claim that they’d been outlaws on a rampage. They would have to disappear or be disposed of in some way that would divert suspicion from himself and his companions.