White Lightning

by Lyle Brandt

  “Do you trust that half-baked marshal with the ’shine?” asked Naylor, when he downed another mouthful of his stew.

  “I think he’s spooked right now, and leery of what might befall him if he messes up.”

  “You know he’s talked to Rafferty by now, or someone working for him. Probably the mayor, as well.”

  “The whole town knows we brought the whiskey in,” Slade said. “Nothing that we can do about it now, unless you want to sit up with it overnight.”

  “And leave tomorrow at the crack of dawn? No, thanks,” Naylor replied.

  “The crack it is, then,” Slade agreed. “Let’s finish up and hit the hay.”

  “Think I might have a drink first, if it’s all the same to you.”

  “Feel free, as long as you don’t spoil your beauty sleep.”

  “I’ll be bright-eyed and bushy-tailed,” said Naylor. Scraping up the last dregs of his stew, he left coins on the table for his tab and rose. “See you tomorrow, then.”

  “See you,” Slade said and took his time clearing the plate in front of him.

  Six forty by his watch, and he’d decided on another look around Stateline before he went to bed. Check on the whiskey wagon one more time, most definitely, just to reassure himself that Marshal Hickey wasn’t being lax, and then he’d head back to the Stateline Arms. He’d need his wits about him in the morning for the long ride back to Enid with their evidence, when anything might happen on the trail.

  More bodies for the undertaker, if it came to that.

  But whose?

  Standing in the alley next to Benteen’s Hardware, Percy Fawcett watched the marshals talking at their table in the Borderline Café. It hadn’t been much trouble finding them at supper time, only three restaurants in town, but creeping in the shadows had played havoc with his nerves. Now that he’d found the lawmen, Fawcett felt an urge to rush across the street and join them, make them take him into custody that very moment, but his fear of being spotted held him back.

  Even remaining where he was put strain on Fawcett, knowing any passerby might turn in to the alley on a whim, taking a shortcut home from shopping, and discover him. He didn’t fear the ordinary townsfolk, but if one of them remarked on seeing him, however casual the comment, it might reach the wrong ears and betray him. Grady Sullivan was likely hunting him by now, which meant the rest of Rafferty’s hired hands would also be involved.

  How many men? He wasn’t sure and didn’t care. A mental image of them scouring the countryside made Fawcett’s knees go weak. He leaned against the wall immediately to his left, one hand inside his jacket, drawing strength from contact with the checkered grip of his revolver.

  This time yesterday, he’d been a frightened rabbit, nearly certain that his life was over. He was still frightened today—more so, if anything—but having proved that he could kill in self-defense, the fear seemed slightly more remote, somehow. Or maybe he’d been scared for so long he was simply going numb.

  Across the street, the younger of the marshals rose, put money on the table, then went out and left the other one to finish eating on his own. Fawcett edged closer to the street, a cautious step or two, and watched the lawman pass down Border Boulevard in the direction of the Sunflower Saloon. Going to visit Rafferty, or just to have a drink?

  One thing was certain: trailing him to Rafferty’s establishment was tantamount to suicide. It would be quicker and more merciful if Fawcett used his own Colt on himself. Cut out the middleman and spare himself from any inquisition Grady Sullivan might have in mind.

  The other marshal sat and ate methodically, cleaning his plate, in no apparent rush. The café’s waitress, Rosie Hammond, brought more coffee to his table and the lawman nodded thanks, then sipped it gingerly, testing its heat. What was his name? Naylor or Slade? Fawcett couldn’t remember which was which, after they’d spooked him with their first appearance at his office. Now, he wished that he could shout across the street and rush the man along, but settled for a muted curse instead.

  Two horsemen clip-clopped past the ally where he stood, and Fawcett edged back farther into darkness. Were they some of Rafferty’s hired guns? He couldn’t tell, had never met them all, but from their attitude it didn’t seem that they were searching. Fawcett tracked them until they passed out of sight, relieved that neither one had glanced in his direction.

  Now the second marshal rose, set money by his plate, made some remark to Rosie as he left and got a smile back for his effort. Fawcett saw him leave the restaurant, praying he wouldn’t head for either one of the saloons, and almost whooped aloud when this one turned back toward the Stateline Arms. Another moment made it certain, as he saw the marshal reach the hotel’s entryway and step inside.

  Feeling his pulse throb in his temples, Percy Fawcett started off on the roundabout path that would place him behind the hotel. If he could reach the back door without being spotted, maybe he would make it through the night alive.

  The Sunflower Saloon had thirty-five to forty drinkers getting down to business by the time Luke Naylor pushed his way in through the bat-wing doors. One of the working girls was singing, more or less, while the pianist played a song that had begun to make the rounds, “The Cat Came Back.” She flashed a smile at Naylor when he passed and got a nod back in return, her off-key voice trailing him to the bar.

  He found a space and got one boot up on the rail between a smelly teamster and a man dressed like a storekeeper. It struck him odd that neither one of them spared him a glance, but Naylor guessed they may have seen him coming in the back-bar mirror and decided it was unwise to acknowledge him. That or the whiskey they were slugging down demanded all of the attention they could muster.

  Maybe moonshine?

  When the barkeep made his way around, Naylor ordered a beer and got a mug brimming with foam. It wasn’t ice-cold, but it wasn’t watered, either, so he figured it would do. When he was halfway through the mug, Flynn Rafferty came by, working the room, and stopped to pass the time.

  “Marshal, is everybody treating you all right?” he asked.

  “I can’t complain,” Naylor replied.

  “I understand you had a look around the countryside today,” Rafferty said.

  Wanting to spar a little, Naylor thought. And said, “A bit of it. I’m sure there’s lots we didn’t see.”

  “And any progress on your quest?”

  Naylor allowed himself a shrug. “It’s hard to say.”

  “Well, if there’s anything that I can do to help…”

  The Sunflower’s proprietor was leaving as he spoke, his smile directed toward the players in a nearby poker game. Naylor was tempted to pursue and question him, but Slade was adamant about tipping their hand before they had a warrant from Judge Dennison. Give Rafferty some time to sweat, see what his next move was, and go from there.

  He took advantage of the back-bar mirror, tracking Rafferty across the room until he stopped by the piano, bent his head and told the singer something. Naylor saw her glance his way, over the boss’s shoulder, nodding as she answered back. When the pianist started up another tune, she left him to it, winding through the tables toward the spot where Naylor stood before the bar.

  A moment later, with a warm hand on his arm, he heard her say, “You’re new in town.”

  He turned to face her. Answered, “That I am.”

  “I would’ve noticed you, if you’d been through before.”

  Her face beneath a spill of auburn hair wasn’t as hard as some he’d seen working saloons. Naylor decided she was probably nineteen or twenty, put together well enough inside a purple satin dress, some kind of corset thing on top that emphasized her breasts, puffed sleeves, and a black velvet choker wrapped around her neck. The beauty mark on her left cheek was something she had pasted on.

  “I came in yesterday,” he said. “You weren’t around.”

  “Day off,” she told him. “But we’re both here now.”

  “Looks like it,” Naylor said. “Something to drink?�
��

  “I don’t mind if I do.” She stepped in closer, nuzzling his right arm with a breast. “You want to take that drink upstairs?”

  He felt a smile twitch at the corners of his mouth, knowing that she was bait, wondering how and when the trap would spring. Resolved to keep his twin Colts close at hand.

  And said, “I might, at that.”

  Sullivan entered through the back door of the marshal’s office; there was no one in the cells tonight for Arlo to concern himself about. The confiscated whiskey wagon sat out back, its crates of bottled moonshine covered with a tarp that Hickey must have found somewhere.

  “I wasn’t sure you’d make it,” said the marshal, slouched behind his cluttered desk.

  “Told you I’d be here, didn’t I?”

  “People tell me all kinds of things.” Hickey stood up and moved around the desk toward Sullivan. “You know I can’t be held responsible for this. I want to help and all, but if it comes to doin’ time…”

  “You can’t be trusted not to squeal,” said Sullivan. “We all know that, Arlo.”

  “Hey, wait a second, now! I never said—”

  He saw Sullivan draw his six-gun, blanching at the sight of it. “Now, Grady…just hold on there! You and Mr. Rafferty should know I’d never carry tales. For Christ’s sake, I’m in this as much as any one of you!”

  “That’s right,” said Sullivan. “You are. But we still want this lookin’ realistic, don’t we? For the other law dogs?”

  “Well…I mean…What have you got in mind?”

  “Brave man like you,” Sullivan answered with a crooked smile, “wouldn’t just let somebody walk in here and do away with evidence. You’d do your duty, eh? Put up a fight?”

  “I’m not about to draw on you, Grady. You think I’m crazy?”

  “Nope. Just yellow.”

  As he spoke, Sullivan closed the gap between them, swung his pistol in a flashing arc, and smashed it into Arlo’s cheek. The marshal staggered backward, crying out, and fell against his desk, one arm outflung, his papers scattering. He spat blood, sobbing out, “Hold on, now!”

  Sullivan lashed out again, a backhand this time, catching Hickey on the right side of his face and opening a gash beside his nose. The marshal folded, slipping off the desk and dropping to all fours, blood dribbling from his face onto the floor.

  “Them U.S. marshals see you,” Sullivan advised, “they’re gonna know you fought real hard to save that ’shine. Be proud of you, I bet.”

  His boot caught Hickey in the ribs with force enough to lift him off the floor and drop him on his side, groaning, knees rising to protect his groin and stomach. Something came out of the marshal’s bloody mouth that sounded like a plea for mercy, falling on deaf ears.

  “Don’t want ’em claimin’ you’re a faker, do we, Arlo? Wouldn’t set right.”

  Grady stepped around his fallen victim, raised one foot, and drove his boot heel down into the lawman’s ribs. Hickey convulsed, squealing in pain, tears mingling with the blood that smeared his cheeks.

  “Reckon that oughta do it,” Sullivan announced. He looked around the small office and spotted two lamps burning, one on each side of the room. Stepping around the desk to reach the nearest of them, he asked, “You don’t mind if I borrow this? Okay, I didn’t think so.”

  Out the back door with the lamp in hand, feeling its heat, Sullivan stood beside the whiskey wagon’s tailgate, checking both directions in the night. He saw no sign of anybody watching him.

  “Seems like an awful waste,” he muttered, then reared back and pitched the lamp into the wagon’s bed, where it exploded into leaping flames.

  The rapping on Slade’s door was muffled, tentative, as if his caller might be having second thoughts—or didn’t want to rouse the occupants of nearby rooms. Slade drew his Peacemaker and cocked it as he crossed the hotel room in stocking feet to reach the door. He stood aside from it with his left shoulder to the wall, his pistol raised.

  “Who’s that?” he asked.

  A soft voice answered, “P-P-Percy Fawcett.”

  Lowering the Colt around waist level, Slade opened the door with his left hand, peered through the three-inch crack, and verified that Fawcett was alone. “What can I do for you?”

  “We should talk,” said the telegrapher. “I have some information that can help you.”

  Slade stepped back, opened the door for Fawcett, then spotted the bulge beneath his coat and jammed the muzzle of his Colt against his visitor’s rib cage. “You won’t be needing this,” he said and pulled the short-barreled revolver out of Fawcett’s belt.

  “That’s for my own p-p-protection,” Fawcett said, but made no move to take the weapon back.

  Slade shut and latched the door behind him, nodding Fawcett toward a nearby chair. “You’ll get it back on your way out,” he said.

  “I c-c-can’t go back out there,” said the telegrapher. “They’re after me!”

  “Who is?”

  “Rafferty’s men. They’ve tried to k-k-kill me once, already.”

  “When was this?” Slade asked.

  “Last night. G-G-Grady Sullivan pretended we were going somewhere s-s-safe, outside of town, but I could tell that he was l-l-lying. Jeb and Dooley…when they t-t-tried…I shot them.”

  “Here in town?”

  The nervous caller shook his head. “A couple miles off toward the B-B-Blue Stem Hills.”

  “Why would they want to kill you?” Slade inquired.

  “To s-s-shut me up,” said Fawcett. “I…I lied to you about the other marshal’s telegram.”

  “You let somebody see it.”

  “Sullivan.”

  “And what is he to Rafferty, exactly?”

  “He does all the d-d-dirty work,” Fawcett replied.

  “And he’s afraid you’ll talk.”

  A jerky nod. Fawcett’s hands lay twisting in his lap.

  “Are you prepared to testify in court?” asked Slade.

  “I’ll d-d-do whatever’s necessary,” Fawcett said. “To stay alive.”

  “Showing the telegram’s not criminal,” Slade said, “but you can kiss your job good-bye.”

  “L-l-least of my worries, isn’t it?”

  “If you come with us back to Enid, you can tell your story to Judge Dennison. For full cooperation, I suspect he’ll let you off the hook as an accessory.”

  “Accessory to w-w-what?”

  “Conspiracy to kill a U.S. marshal,” Slade replied. “You wouldn’t hang for that, I guess. Ten years at Leavenworth is probably more like it.”

  “But I didn’t know!”

  “Just stick to that and tell the judge what happened, any thing this Grady told you at the time or afterward. My guess is that—”

  Outside, from Border Boulevard, a man’s voice shouted, “Fire!” Another picked it up, farther away, and by the time Slade reached his window, he saw half a dozen figures running past, in the direction of the marshal’s office.

  Where the yellow light of flames was visible behind the row of buildings, leaping high.

  Slade took the hotel stairs three at a time, buckling his gunbelt as he went, out past the worried-looking clerk and onto Border Boulevard. Townsfolk were out in force now, answering the cry of “Fire” that ranked among a frontier town’s worst nightmares. Slade could smell wood smoke and something else, sharp in his nostrils as he struck off toward the marshal’s office.

  Whiskey burning?

  Damn it!

  By the time he got to Hickey’s office, two men were emerging with the marshal slung between them, arms across their shoulders, toes dragging across the sidewalk. Slade glimpsed Hickey’s swollen, bloody face and ran on past him, down the nearest alley toward the heat and crackling sound of fire. Already there ahead of him were eight or nine townsmen with buckets, throwing water on the rear wall of the nearest building while the whiskey-wagon bonfire blazed away.

  Priorities. Of course, they’d let the wagon burn and concentrate on saving Stat
eline from a fire that might take down the whole north side of Border Boulevard. Why not? Some of the first men on the scene had pulled the wagon slightly farther from the marshal’s office, braving heat intense enough to blister skin while they were at it, but the load of moonshine wasn’t going any farther.

  Not unless you counted going up in smoke.

  “What happened?” someone asked, behind him.

  Turning, Slade saw Naylor standing with his gunbelt slung over one shoulder and his shirt unbuttoned, with its tails outside his pants. “I just got here,” he said. “Looks like you found yourself a party.”

  Naylor let that pass. Replied, instead, “I saw the constable out front. Looks like somebody thumped him pretty good.”

  “We’ll need to see if he can tell us who that was,” Slade said.

  “Need something, that’s for sure,” said Naylor. “We just lost our evidence.”

  “Some of it,” Slade replied. “We’ve got another angle, though.”

  “Which is?”

  “Somebody waiting back at the hotel you need to see.”

  “Oh yeah? You gonna tease me with it?”

  “Fawcett. The telegrapher,” Slade said.

  “He came to you?”

  “Claims someone tried to kill him, but he got the drop on them instead. Come on. Let’s have a word with Hickey, then go back and you can hear his story for yourself.”

  One of the men who’d carried Arlo Hickey from his office still remained beside the marshal when they reached him, making sure he didn’t topple over in the dirt. The other one had gone in search of Stateline’s doctor, due back anytime. Hickey was barely conscious, drooling blood, and muttered incoherently when Slade asked who had beaten him.

  “What say we try him in the morning,” Naylor offered. “We can see about that other thing, meanwhile.”

  Slade rose from where he’d knelt beside the battered lawman, turned back toward the Stateline Arms, and froze at sight of Percy Fawcett leaning up against one of the wooden pillars out in front of the hotel.

  “Damn it, I told him not to leave the room,” Slade said.

  “Too much excitement for him,” Naylor said, crossing the street with Slade. “He didn’t want to miss the show.”