Marshal and the Moonshiner

by C. M. Wendelboe

  “We were trailing our cattle,” Cat continued. “Fast, just to get off Antelope land. We were within sight of our own pasture when we heard Selly. Hollering and riding hard on us. He caught up with us before we made it back onto our land. He shot one heifer right off.” She jerked her thumb towards Antelope’s pasture. “You’ll find her about a hundred yards over there.”

  I couldn’t see where the dead cow lay, but when I got around to looking, I was certain the odor would lead me to it. “So who shot Selly?”

  Cat remained silent. She rubbed her shoulder and kicked dried horse apples with her boot.

  “Who killed him?” I repeated. “Did Amos?”

  She looked at me then. The hard eyes of defiance had replaced her tears. “I won’t say anything else. Selly is dead. Leave it at that, Marshal.”

  I moved closer. She took a step back. “Was there a struggle?” I asked. “Is that what happened, ’cause Selly there sure didn’t shoot himself.”

  “I’m not saying one more word—”

  “What the hell happened?” I yelled at her.

  Cat slumped over and began to cry. Yancy was instantly at her side. He slid his arm around her shoulder and pulled her tight to him. “We can do this at the tribal office tomorrow.”

  “No, we’ll do this now.”

  Yancy glared at me, and my hand crept to what hair I had left. He wouldn’t get much to hang on his lodge from me if he went crazy with that scalping knife. “Tell me about the fight,” I pressed. “Or I’ll have no choice than to arrest you for murder.”

  She jerked her head off Yancy’s shoulder and stared at me, her eyes hard and piercing again. “All right. Here’s how it went down: Selly shot the heifer, like I said, and lined his sights up on another. That gave Amos the chance to rush him. Amos grabbed the rifle, but Selly wouldn’t let go. Amos pulled Selly off his horse, and the gun went off.” She tossed her cigarette down and stomped it out with her boot. “And that’s the truth.”

  “If that’s the truth, where’s Amos?”

  “Gone.”

  “Gone where?”

  “With Whiskers.”

  “Who’s Whiskers?”

  “That’s Amos’s friend from Oklahoma,” Yancy volunteered.

  “Who is Whiskers?” I repeated.

  “Leave him out of this,” Cat said.

  “Where can I find this Whiskers?”

  She stepped close to me. Cat was tall enough that she didn’t have to stand on tiptoes to look me in the eye. “Him and Amos went back to Oklahoma. Back to the Southern Arapaho.” She spat and her saliva trailed off in the wind. “Amos’s got friends down there that’ll hide him.”

  “But why hide?” I asked. “If what you say is true, this may be an accident. Manslaughter at the most.”

  Her eyes narrowed, and her brows came together. With her malevolent grin, she had transformed herself into a different woman from the one who grieved the departure of her husband and the death of a neighbor. “Amos didn’t want to chance white man’s justice.” She nodded to the corpse. “Besides, Selly got just what he deserved.”

  CHAPTER 2

  * * *

  “I want you to keep your ear to the moccasin telegraph while I’m away,” I told Yancy. He looked up from the cribbage board at me with those hound-dog eyes as if he’d lost his best friend. Or the only one he could beat at cribbage. Since being appointed US marshal, I’d worked many cases on the Wind River with Yancy. But Selly Antelope’s death had begun to take a toll on him. “Find out what you can about the Iron Horses,” I said. “And ask around the Rez about this Whiskers character from Oklahoma. Cat knows more than she’ll say.”

  “Surely you don’t think she lied?”

  And in all those cases I worked with Yancy, his interest in a witness—or a suspect—had never interfered with his judgment. Until now.

  “It was the heifer that rubbed me the wrong way.”

  “Don’t refer to Cat as a heifer,” Yancy said.

  “Not her. I’m talking about that critter that got shot.” I counted my cards. “Think back to the scene. That heifer was shot dead center chest. That big slug exited her left shoulder.”

  “So?”

  “Cat said Selly shot the critter as she and Amos herded them back to their own pasture. Now, how could Selly shoot that heifer in the chest when he was behind it?”

  Yancy stood and grabbed the coffee pot kept warm on the Franklin stove in the middle of my office. “Maybe she’s just mistaken,” he said as he refilled our mugs. “You know how a person can be mixed up in a crisis.”

  “How about Selly?” I popped open a peanut hull and tossed the empty on the floor along with the other shells. “You see any powder burns on his shirt where the slug hit him? Any burn marks from the muzzle?”

  Yancy shook his head slowly. His look told me he grasped my argument. Finally.

  “That means Selly was shot farther away than Cat claimed. Re-interview her the first chance you have.”

  Yancy smiled and finished off his coffee. He was nearly my age, but looked half of it. I guess never being married or having children, a man could concentrate on his looks and charming the ladies. Which Yancy was always able and willing to do. “I’ll talk with her again.” Once again, his pearly whites reflected the light coming through the office window. “Probe a little deeper.”

  “I want you to probe, but not Cat. She’s a married woman, or have you forgotten?”

  “I haven’t.” He waved his hand in the air as if to dismiss my concerns. “I’ll do it this afternoon.” He checked his watch, a new Benrus he’d spent half a month’s pay to buy. It was big and gold and square and seemed natural hanging on his right wrist. I wondered if all lefties were as flamboyant as Yancy.

  I stuffed an extra box of .45 cartridges into my duffle and looked around for my second pair of socks. I always kept extra clothes at my office. I never knew when I might not be able to get home for clean ones.

  Yancy’s mouth drooped as he watched me.

  “Now what’s wrong?”

  “I just don’t know why the US marshal for Oklahoma City can’t hunt up Amos.”

  “We’ve already been over that. Marshal Quinn has his hands full around the Oklahoma City area. He said he has a backlog of a year on his own cases. Looking for Amos would be at the bottom of his list.”

  “How about the sheriff in El Reno?”

  I buttoned my bag and grabbed my dress Stetson from the elk antler rack screwed to the side of my wall, just underneath my picture of the supreme court justices. Mandatory in every US marshal’s office. “Quinn said he talked with Sheriff Stauffer in El Reno, and the best he can do will be to assign me a deputy when I get there.”

  Yancy stood abruptly. The cribbage board flew into a file cabinet, and he slammed his own hat onto the floor. It was the first time I’d seen him abuse his beloved Stetson. His black ponytail, flecked with gray, bounced on his chest. “Damn it, Nelson Lane! I just don’t see how you’ll ever find Amos—or this Whiskers—down there. Oklahoma’s got a whole lot more folks in it than Wyoming does.”

  “You are astute.” I smiled and clamped my hand on his shoulder. “Astute. That’s one of those twenty-dollar words us English majors like to toss around.” But Yancy didn’t smile. “Look, I figure Amos will go to ground in an area he knows, and he’s from that El Reno and Oklahoma City area. That deputy down there will help me, and I’ll be back here losing cribbage to my old pard Yancy in a few days.”

  He shrugged my hand off.

  “I’ll find Amos and be back. Soon. You’ll do all right.” Yancy had begun to depend on me for advice, which I was happy to give. When I was available. With me away, he’d be forced to operate on his own and use his judgment on reservation matters. “In the meantime, you go back to the Iron Horse spread and talk with Cat some more.”

  “I’ll get right on her this afternoon.”

  I shook my finger. “Like I said before—stay off her.”

  I looked around a f
inal time for anything I might have missed when Yancy stopped me. “You gonna be all right down there?”

  “All right how?”

  “You know.” He looked around the office, but there was no one else to hear. “There’s a whole lot more booze flowing down thataway than hereabouts. There’s not going to be anyone for you to talk to if you . . . ”

  “Fall off the wagon?”

  Yancy nodded.

  “Thanks for the concern. But I think I got a handle on it.”

  Just before I closed the door, I caught a glimpse of Yancy standing in front of my office mirror as he adjusted the silk bandana that encircled his neck. He pasted his hair back with spit and cocked his hat at a rakish angle.

  I hoped he’d leave Catherine Iron Horse alone. At least until I returned.

  CHAPTER 3

  * * *

  I hadn’t ridden a train this long since Helen and I rode one from Portsmouth Naval Hospital to Wyoming after the Great War. I was much younger then, a fact my backside reminded me these last two jarring days leaning back against a hard seat. By the time the Chicago, Rock Island, and Pacific jarred to a stop at the depot in El Reno, Oklahoma, I felt like Charlie Lindbergh did when he touched down in France and kissed the ground. I decided I’d had about all the fancy transportation I could stand in this lifetime.

  I pulled back the curtains of the Pullman as the whistle disrupted the humid, dusty air. Hobos bailed off the top of the train like fleas leaving a hound, their turkeys containing what few possessions they owned slung over their shoulders. They scattered in all directions, all looking for the telltale mark other hobos had chalked on houses empathetic to vagrants. I could hardly fault them: if I had been unemployed as long as most of them had, I’d want a sympathetic meal, too.

  The other passengers were as anxious as I was to detrain, and they shuffled in place while the engineer bled off excess steam. When I stood and arched my back, it felt like my mule had throwed me and stomped on my backside for good measure.

  I shouldered my bag and followed two oil roustabouts out the door and into the lobby of the Southern Hotel, which served as the train depot. We had struck up a conversation—of sorts—somewhere crossing Wyoming. They’d worked the oil patch from Texas to Alaska, and jumped at the chance to work the rigs here in Oklahoma. Our conversations had been affable enough, mulling over things like when the police were going to start to roust folks out of the Hoovervilles across the country, or how much more power the new Ford four cylinders would have this year. Affable enough, that is, until they asked my business. When I told them I was a US marshal hunting a man in Oklahoma, they promptly clammed up like they were themselves wanted for something, somewhere. Here in the west, a man ought never ask another his business for just that reason.

  Outside the depot, the two roustabouts hurriedly climbed into a cab. One looked my way one last time before he escaped to somewhere in El Reno.

  A young mother led her pink-skirted daughter to a waiting Oldsmobile Phaeton. The mother brushed dust off the girl’s pink taffeta dress before lifting her into the backseat of the car. As they disappeared around the corner of the next block, I dug Marshal Quinn’s telegram out of the chest pocket of my coveralls.

  SENDING DEPUTY RED HAT TO MEET YOU AND DRIVE YOU TO THE KERFOOT HOTEL: SHERIFF TOBIAS STAUFFER

  After an hour of waiting, I knew Deputy Red Hat was a no-show.

  “Where’s the Kerfoot Hotel?” I asked the ticket agent after I went back inside.

  He picked up his glasses that dangled on a chain around his chicken-thin neck and gave me the once-over. “The Kerfoot’s El Reno’s finest.”

  His drawl made it come out fawnest, but I could work with his twang if he just gave me directions. “How do I get to it?”

  A final once-over of my scuffed cowboy boots, my dusty patched overalls, and dented Stetson, and he relented. “Go east on Wade. From thar you go until y’all reach Bickford. Then north four blocks.”

  “Thanks a bunch, pard’ner.”

  “What?”

  “Thanks for the directions.”

  “Oh.” He took off his glasses. “It’s just a mite hard understanding you with thet northern accent of yourn.”

  I stepped out of the Southern, thankful for the breeze in the stifling evening air, even if it brought a thin layer of dust with it. I crossed Evans and started walking east on Wade, stopping every now and again to slap dust off my overalls. El Reno was considerably larger than my home of Bison—nearly as big as Billings. But dusty. Everywhere. On every building front and car parked at the curb, a thick layer of dust had settled. Even walking along the sidewalk kicked up dirt so fine, it would most likely sift right through my bandana. Whoever coined the term “Dust Bowl” was a genius.

  I walked past shops—some boarded up; others looking as if they would open in the morning: the Waldo Beauty Shop and El Reno Hotel on one corner; Avant’s Service Station occupying the opposite. I stopped to peek in the window of the beauty shop but could see nothing. The business owner—like every other along the street—had hung sheets over windows and doors to fight against the dust seeping in through the cracks. At least in Wyoming, all we had to worry about was blizzards.

  A homemade pickup chugged passed, coughing dark smoke from the tailpipe. The owner had cut the back end off the Model T and bolted wood to the frame to make a flatbed to haul bales of hay. As the jalopy inched by me, it kicked up dust the wind carried toward me. I turned my head as I spat straw and grit from my mouth. The truck gave a final cough and died right as it reached the El Reno Used Car lot. Fortuitous for the business owner. Bad luck for the driver of the T. He’d be lucky to get ten bucks trade-in for the flivver. And it’ll be back on the lot the next morning with a hundred-dollar price tag on it.

  I walked past the city hall and fire station, turning north on Bickford to where the ticket agent said the Kerfoot Hotel was. A homing marshal, they’d call me. Just point me in the general direction, and I’ll find my way. Except this was a city. Not New York or Chicago or Oklahoma City. But El Reno might as well have been that big. I was used to navigating with a compass and a topographical map, and I’d come this far with simple directions from a benevolent ticket master. I’d need Deputy Red Hat if I wanted to navigate the rest of El Reno. And if I ever hoped to locate Amos Iron Horse.

  Between Woolworths and the Western Union office, two old Indians slumped on a wino bench. They passed a Mason jar wrapped in a brown paper sack between them. I sat on the bench and hoped the deputy was driving the streets looking for me. “Get your own!” one of the Indians blurted out.

  “My own what?”

  “Bottle. Taxi stand in front of Standard Motor. But y’all have to bring your own jar,” and he went back to sipping his rotgut. This place was no different from Wyoming or most any other places in the west: men will always get their hooch, even if it’s illegal. I should know—I got my shine from some mountain boys outside Bison, being careful, as a US marshal was supposed to be above that. That was back in my drinking days. Back before I gave it up. But every time I saw someone taking a pull—even Indians sipping bathtub gin—I wanted to grab the jar and chug it. Marshals were above that. They enforced the law. But I had no qualms with those who drank back in the day, and I sure wasn’t going to spend any time enforcing the Volstead Act now. I was here to hunt a murderer.

  I crossed the street, the knots in my legs from riding the Pullman for long hours started to relax, and my rumbling stomach reminded me I hadn’t eaten since this morning on the train. I spotted an oasis in the sea of dust in the form of Leonard Brothers Café. A light shone past sheets that hung over the door, and I chanced it. I entered to a tinkling cowbell over the door, and I parted wet sheets caked with fine dust. Four other people sat in two booths, and they only casually glanced my way before returning to their meal. I was the lone man without a partner, and I sat at the lunch counter. I dropped my duffle at my feet and set my hat on the stool beside me.

  “Coffee, I will wager.
” A potbellied man no taller than my chest appeared from around the kitchen just in back of the counter. His apron sported enough food bits on it to make Van Gogh proud of what the man had done to a simple muslin apron, but he had a smile that would make the Mona Lisa blush. At least I knew I was in a high-class joint.

  “Coffee would be great,” I said. “And water if you got it to wash your damnable dust down my throat.”

  “And apple pie?”

  Before I could answer, he laughed heartedly. “I always know an apple man.”

  “Pardon?”

  “Apple men. They look different from berry or cherry or even peach men. I will be right back.”

  The counter man disappeared into the kitchen. He returned within moments with a mug of coffee and a slice of apple pie that hung over the sides of the plate. He caught my look and laughed. “Big as you are, I figured you for a piece and a half.”

  “Right again.”

  He set the pie and a fork missing one tine in front of me and leaned against the counter. “You are not from around here.”

  “What tipped you off, my northern drawl?”

  “That, and your clothes are not as patched as most folks around these parts.” It came across as pawts.

  I hooked a thumb through a suspender strap. “These are my traveling clothes. Believe me, my every-days have a lot more patches than this.”

  “Then you will fit right in,” he extended his hand. “Byron Black Kettle.”

  There was strength in his grip, even though he had me by twenty years and I had him by fifty pounds. “Any relation to Black Kettle killed at the Washita?” I asked after I told him my name and where I hailed from.

  “My grandfather,” he answered. “Though he was killed years before I was born. By that same guy that y’all had problems with up your way.” I understood. George Custer had massacred defenseless Southern Cheyenne on the Washita River. And six years later he would meet his end by Lakota and Northern Cheyenne a hundred miles north of my home. At the Little Big Horn.