White Lightning

by Lyle Brandt

Or better yet, borrow a few of Rafferty’s hard cases from the Rocking R to finish off his squad. Let death ensure their silence while he staged the scene and spun a fable of miraculous escape from overwhelming odds. He even had the rump graze on his mount to make the story credible, and once the two lawmen had disappeared without a trace, who’d doubt that they had fallen prey to the same renegades?

  With any luck at all, he just might pull it off.

  • • •

  Slade saw the captain bolt and chased him with a twelve-gauge blast, then had to focus on the bluecoats who had stayed behind to fight it out. One spurred his mount toward Naylor, trading close-range shots and doubling over as a bullet drilled his abdomen. Slade swung around to face the other, found the soldier bearing down on him, and squeezed off from the hip without a chance to aim.

  It didn’t matter with the target looming over him, a stocky soldier leaning right across his saddle for a better shot at Slade. The buckshot barely had a chance to spread before it turned the shooter’s face and brains across his horse’s croup. The chestnut gelding bucked and sent its nearly headless rider flopping from his saddle to the ground, landing with all the grace of dirty laundry in a canvas bag.

  Which still left one.

  Slade pumped the shotgun’s lever action, spinning back toward Naylor and his gut-shot adversary, just in time to see a bullet strike the younger marshal’s chest. Naylor lurched sideways, spilling toward the earth, while Slade lined up the wounded private in his sights and blasted him from life into oblivion.

  Four down, and as he ran toward Naylor, Slade had no view left of the retreating officer in charge. Dismissing Gallagher from conscious thought, a job to handle later when he had the time, Slade knelt at Naylor’s side and found the younger marshal laboring to breathe. A punctured lung and sucking chest wound made it doubly difficult, painting the lower half of Naylor’s face with blood. A darker stain, spreading across Luke’s shirt, told Slade one of the slugs had pierced his liver.

  “Guess you’ll…have to…finish…this job…on your own,” said Naylor, laboring to force the words out of his throat.

  “Hang on,” Slade said. “I’ll get you back to town. The doctor—”

  Even as he spoke, Naylor convulsed and coughed a small geyser of blood. As he slumped back to earth, his eyes were dim, unfocused, staring off somewhere beyond the morning’s scattered clouds.

  Slade still went through the motions, feeling for a pulse he knew he wouldn’t find, then rose and looked around the battleground. Aside from Luke, four bodies lay in twisted attitudes of death, their faces slack, blood soaking through the tunics of their uniforms. Their horses hadn’t run far, once the shooting stopped, but Slade was damned if he would spend the whole day hauling corpses onto saddles single-handed.

  One was quite enough.

  The horses he could handle, though, once he had Naylor draped across his patient Appaloosa, standing still as if it understood the situation, maybe even felt a certain sense of loss. The other animals responded to his call, offered him no resistance as he linked their reins, forming a small remuda that would trail him back to town.

  Another customer for Stateline’s undertaker, and if anybody wanted to retrieve the fallen soldiers, they were free to do so. Bill the army for their burial, or plant them with the other stiffs in potter’s field, Slade didn’t give a damn.

  He had a date with Brody Gallagher, no matter where the captain tried to hide.

  “And your bright idea was running straight back here?” asked Rafferty, sounding bemused.

  “Where else?” Gallagher’s face was mottled, sickly looking. Shallow breathing made it sound as if he’d done the running back to Stateline, rather than his winded, wounded horse.

  “Try anyplace,” Rafferty answered. “Christ, man! Did you have to lead them back to me?”

  “You don’t know that I’ve led them anywhere,” said Gallagher. “Or that there’s anyone to lead.”

  “That’s right. I don’t know, since you ran and left your men to do the dirty work. But if you thought that they were winning, you’d have stuck with them to finish it.”

  Gallagher drained the glass of whiskey that he’d poured himself while giving Rafferty a sketchy version of the fight. When Gallagher could speak again, he said, “You weren’t there, Flynn. You didn’t see. I panicked, damn it! I’ll admit that.”

  “It’s a harder job than shooting squaws and their papooses, I suppose,” Rafferty sneered.

  “You go to Hell! Suppose I hadn’t come back. You’d be sitting here and thinking everything was rosy till the marshals walked in and arrested you.”

  “Or,” Rafferty replied, “you might’ve done the job you were assigned by staying with your men. An extra gun to make the difference. Who knows?”

  “I think you’d rather I was dead!” said Gallagher.

  “Than bawling in my office? Why not? Either way, you’re useless to me now.”

  “Goddamn you!”

  “Think about it, Captain,” Rafferty bored in. “You can’t go back to Fort Supply without your men, now, can you? Who’d believe that redskins killed the rest and let you go? Worse yet, if either one of those damned marshals is alive, you’ll be a hunted man. And anyone associated with you will be hunted, too.”

  “You’re all heart, Rafferty.” The captain’s dour expression would have fit a sulky child.

  “I hope you didn’t walk in here expecting sympathy,” said the saloon proprietor. “Your only hope is that your men got lucky with the marshals. Better yet, if all of them are dead.”

  “You mean—?”

  “The only thing you’ve said this morning that makes sense. If everybody’s dead, we make the lawmen disappear and claim that renegades wiped out your squad. It would be better if you had an honorable wound to sell the story. Maybe if a bullet creased your head and knocked you out. They might’ve figured you were done for.”

  Gallagher was frowning now, shaking his head.

  “Your other choice is lighting out and see how far you get. Between the army and the marshals, I don’t like your chances much.”

  “Head wound,” said Gallagher. “Can’t say I like the sound of that.”

  “Your other choice, the way it looks to me, would be head in a noose. And I don’t plan to stand beside you on the scaffold.”

  “I have to go back, then.”

  “But not alone,” said Rafferty. “It wouldn’t do for you to soil your drawers. I’ll talk to Sullivan.”

  “I wish I’d never gotten into this,” said Gallagher.

  “Next time around, think twice,” said Rafferty. “Right now, shut up and let me try to save your ass.”

  16

  Stateline’s undertaker was a chubby, round-faced man named Abberline, who combed his thinning sandy hair across a bald spot on his crown. He seemed to be a relatively jolly sort, for one in his profession, but his face fell when he saw Luke Naylor draped across the saddle of his Appaloosa, spectators already gathering from shops along the street.

  “Oh, my,” he said. “This is…this is…” He gave it up and settled for the old standby. “Marshal, I’m sorry for your loss.”

  “He’s not alone,” Slade said and nodded toward the horses he’d led into town behind the Appaloosa. “Four more waiting for you on the north road, three miles out of town. I didn’t feel like packing them.”

  “Those look like army saddles,” Abberline observed, sounding concerned.

  Ignoring that, Slade walked around toward Naylor’s head and said, “You want to help me carry him inside?”

  The undertaker would have liked to wait, Slade guessed, and have his flunkies do the job, but Slade was tired of people gawking at the body, muttering among themselves. Together, he and Abberline hauled Luke down from his blood-smeared saddle, got him slung between them, Slade taking the head end, and hauled him down an alley to a side door of the undertaker’s parlor. Once inside, they got him situated on a table in the middle of the room and Abberline stepp
ed back to catch his breath.

  “I’ll handle everything from here,” the undertaker said, when he could speak again, dabbing his sweaty forehead with a handkerchief. “And bill the court in Enid, shall I?”

  Slade peered at him, asking, “What’s your normal practice?”

  “With a law enforcement officer,” said Abberline, “it’s common for the service or department that employed him to assume responsibility. Of course, if family prefer to make some alternate arrangement, we accommodate their needs, as well.”

  “I don’t know if there’s any family,” Slade said. “We never talked about it.”

  “In that case, I’ll wire Judge Dennison with an inquiry.”

  “And you’d do that how, again?” asked Slade.

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “With your town’s telegrapher already here, I mean.”

  “Ah, yes. I see your point. Well…I suppose Mayor Jain might know of someone else who’s qualified. Or Marshal Hickey, if he’s up to talking yet.”

  Slade frowned and said, “So there’s been no communication in or out of Stateline by the telegraph since…when? Sometime on Friday afternoon, when Fawcett first dropped out of sight?”

  The undertaker pondered that and finally replied, “You know, I couldn’t say. It’s been a few weeks since I had to send a wire, myself.”

  “But if a telegram was sent to Fort Supply on Friday evening, say…who would’ve handled that?”

  Abberline shrugged. “If Mr. Fawcett didn’t send it, I have no idea.”

  Something to think about. Rafferty must have known he could reach out for help, even if Fawcett was removed from circulation. What did it take, besides a knowledge of Morse code? Minimal training on the telegraph itself, learning to tap the key. It wouldn’t take a genius. Slade supposed that anyone of average intelligence could master it with practice.

  Wishing that he knew the code himself, he turned to leave. Pausing at the exit, he told Abberline, “If you have any trouble reaching Enid, let me know. I’ll see what I can do.”

  “Of course, Marshal.”

  “And have your helpers standing by,” Slade said. “You’ve got more business coming pretty soon.”

  Rafferty knew that Stateline’s mayor was agitated from the way he held his bowler hat in front of him, shield-like, kneading its brim with nervous hands so that the hat rotated counterclockwise in his grip.

  “What has you troubled, Warren?” he inquired.

  “Those marshals,” said the mayor.

  “In what respect?”

  “You haven’t heard? Well, let me tell you. One just brought the other in to Abberline’s, stone dead. And he was leading army horses. Four of them. No riders.”

  So, thought Rafferty, I guess we won’t be blaming this on redskins, after all.

  “They’ve just arrived?” he asked.

  “Five minutes, give or take,” said Jain. “I should go speak to him, but what on earth am I supposed to say?”

  “Good question,” Rafferty acknowledged. “When you go—and I agree you should—be sure and take Arlo’s replacement with you. What’s his name?”

  “Wilkes. Jared Wilkes.”

  “All right. Take Marshal Wilkes along with you to see—which one is it who’s still alive?”

  “The older one. Jack Slade.”

  “Stress your concern for law and order here in Stateline. Ask about the soldiers. Find out anything you can.”

  “One thing I know already,” Jain replied. “Five bluecoats came to town this morning, now there’s four who won’t be going home. What happened to the fifth?”

  “You’re asking me?” Rafferty frowned.

  “It was rhetorical.”

  “Best save your rhetoric for the election stump there, Warren. What we need right now is solid information. First, what happened. Second, what the marshal who’s still breathing plans to do about it.”

  “Not much that he can do, is there, but send out for reinforcements? Old Judge Dennison won’t take a second marshal’s murder lying down.”

  Rafferty felt his anger simmering. “You worked that out all by yourself?” he asked.

  “Well, I—”

  “Do us both a favor, Warren. Put that silly hat back on your head, get out of here, and do as you’ve been told. All right?”

  Face flushing crimson, Jain put on his bowler hat and left without another word. When he was gone, Rafferty poured himself a double shot of whiskey, threw it down in one gulp, and stood waiting for the alcohol to calm him.

  Reinforcements. Damn it!

  He’d been trusting Brody Gallagher to make his latest problem go away, but now Rafferty knew his trust had been misplaced. The captain was a coward who’d say anything to save himself if he was charged with murder, and the men he’d brought along to help him were a pack of bunglers.

  Make that had been bunglers. Dead now, they at least could pose no further threat to Rafferty. Only their captain still remained to be eliminated. Rafferty could pass that job to Grady Sullivan or deal with it himself, as long as it was handled soon.

  Meanwhile, this Marshal Slade would try to reach his boss in Enid and report the loss of yet another deputy. Grady had done a service there, eliminating Percy Fawcett, but for all Rafferty knew the marshal might be skilled enough to send a wire himself. If not, he’d scour the town until he found someone who was. Rafferty had his own key tapper at the Rocking R, but Slade might turn up someone else if he was diligent.

  If he lived long enough.

  In for a dime, in for a dollar, he decided. Killing one more lawman hardly mattered at this point. Judge Dennison could only hang him once, and getting rid of Slade would buy more time for Rafferty to cover his own tracks. He had no major fear of anyone in town betraying him, at least until an army of police showed up to put the squeeze on them. If Rafferty could put his house in order first, convince the townspeople who mattered that he had it all under control, there was a chance he’d still slip through the net. And Berringer could help him sell the redskin angle if it came to that.

  Get busy then, he thought. You’re wasting precious time.

  Slade was halfway to the Stateline Arms when he saw Mayor Jain and the young deputy marshal up ahead, crossing the street to intercept him. Warily, he stopped and waited for them on the sidewalk, near the barber’s shop.

  “Oh, Marshal, there you are!” said Jain, as he approached.

  “Looks like it,” Slade replied.

  “There’s been more trouble, it appears.”

  “No shortage of it, Mayor.”

  “Since you hit town, at least,” said Jain.

  Slade’s eyes narrowed to slits. “You’re blaming me for this?”

  “Well—”

  “You recollect another marshal who was murdered after passing through, before I ever saw this place?”

  “That was unfortunate, but—”

  “And the men who tried to kill me and my partner on the trail before we got here? Men no one in town admits to knowing.”

  “Sir, I—”

  “Now the army gets a call to come and help. Nobody knows who sent for them, I guess.”

  “Not me,” said Jain. “I can assure you that—”

  “And then they kill my partner, try and kill me, too, before they’ve been in town two hours. How am I to blame for that, again?”

  “Marshal, I didn’t mean to say that—”

  “What you’ve got here,” Slade pressed on, “as far as I can see, would be a town built on a lie. Somebody hereabouts is cooking moonshine, selling it to Indians and anybody else who’ll buy it, cheating Uncle Sam out of the tax. You know the man responsible and take no steps against him. As the man supposedly in charge of Stateline, that makes you a criminal accomplice. And your marshal, too, unless I miss my guess.”

  “Now, hold on,” said the deputy. “You’ve got no call—”

  “Not you,” Slade cut him off. “Hickey. I’d bet you next month’s pay that he arranged to have our e
vidence go up in smoke, then somebody surprised him with a beating just to sell it.”

  When neither man replied, both gaping at him in surprise, Slade asked the mayor, “Who have you got in town that knows the telegraph, with Fawcett gone?”

  “Well, um…”

  “I know Morse code,” said Jared Wilkes. “I’ve never used the key, though.”

  “Anybody else?” Slade asked.

  “There might be someone at the Rocking R,” Jain said, reluctantly.

  “No help to me, then.” Slade turned back to Wilkes and said, “You’re it, then, Deputy. I’ll be in touch. Make sure you don’t get lost.”

  “Don’t worry,” Wilkes replied. “I won’t be goin’ anywhere.”

  “That’s what my partner thought, this morning,” Slade informed him. “And some soldiers, too, I bet.”

  With that, he left them standing openmouthed and passed on down the street to his hotel. It may have been Slade’s own imagination that the desk clerk seemed surprised to see him.

  Getting edgy there, Slade warned himself. Calm down and take it one step at a time.

  As long as those steps led him to Flynn Rafferty.

  “Did you hear all that?” asked Rafferty.

  Emerging from the office closet where he’d hastily concealed himself upon Mayor Jain’s arrival, Captain Gallagher brushed off one tunic sleeve and nodded. “I could hear you.”

  “It appears your days in uniform are coming to an end. Once Marshal Slade reports back to Judge Dennison, it won’t take long for word to reach your colonel.”

  “What’s your point?” Gallagher asked, while pouring out a double whiskey for himself.

  “Isn’t it obvious? You were an asset as a captain in the U.S. Army. Now, you’re nothing but a liability. A fugitive. I can’t be seen with you or recognized as giving you a lick of help. I’m sorry to be blunt here, Brody, but you’re worse than useless to me now.”

  “Listen, you bastard! I’ve done everything you asked me, right along. I’ve kept my mouth shut and I’ll keep it shut from here on, but you have to help me get away.”

  “Where would you go?” asked Rafferty.

  “I haven’t worked that out. First thing I need is money for the road. A lot of money.”