Marshal and the Moonshiner

by C. M. Wendelboe

  “Son of a bitch had enough money to buy his way into office, is what he did. Now he’s got free rein to do what he wants.”

  I’d stuck my nose in where it didn’t belong once again. If there was any friction between local law enforcement, it was none of my affair. I was here to find Amos Iron Horse and drag him back to trial. “Tell me about Amos and Cat.” I quickly changed the subject as I shook out a Lucky Strike. Since coming here, I’d taken up smoking again. And that worried me. I’d always smoked Luckys when I drank.

  Maris eyed my pack, and I offered her one. “Like I said, I slept with Amos just the once. He ran away shortly after that. When he was finally caught, he was too old to stay at the school. But he hung around town, and we met up to shoot pool now and again. He met Cat in El Reno.”

  “Were they happy?”

  Maris shrugged. “As happy as a couple can be . . . You aren’t married, are you?”

  “Not anymore.”

  Maris let out a sigh. “Didn’t want to offend—”

  “Just go on.”

  “Anyway, Amos learned machine work in boarding school. Cat’s father got Amos a job with the Rock Island in their railroad maintenance shop. He was doing good, too. The railroad paid steady, but nothing outlandish. Seems like he and Cat made ends meet. Better than most, but not living outlandishly.

  “Then he started coming around wearing new suits. A watch on his wrist, if you can believe it. He even showed off a rock on his finger big enough that he’d drown if he fell in a creek. And that new Cadillac. Fast. That’s when I knew it.”

  “Knew what?”

  Maris scrunched up her nose as she took the last draw of her cigarette. “That’s when I knew he’d gotten into moonshining.”

  “Brother Vincent?”

  “Give the man a cigar.” Maris did her best to sound like a carnival hawker. “Vincent had a ton of contacts in and around Oklahoma City, and I told myself then it was inevitable that Amos would make those contacts as well. This is Vincent’s town.”

  She chin-pointed through the windshield, and I spotted skyscrapers in the distance as we turned onto State Route 77 toward the city center. As we drove closer to the middle of the city, the traffic became heavy, cars passing Maris’s worn-out truck, men yelling for us to clear out of the way. And the buildings: tall, magnificent. I’d spent some time around Portsmouth when I was recuperating from my wounds, but these skyscrapers were taller and more abundant than I saw back there. Of course that’d been fifteen years ago. “A mite bigger than Bison,” I breathed in awe.

  Maris looked at me and downshifted. The truck lurched, and I hit my head against the roof. Right against my stitches. “Considerably bigger,” she said. “I hate it here. Too many people. Too many roads. I wouldn’t come here if I didn’t have to.”

  “I could have made it on my own.”

  Maris laughed. The wheel jerked in her hand when it hit a pothole. We veered dangerously close to a parked car before she regained control of the truck. “Stauffer would have my butt if he knew I’d come here with you looking for Amos, even if it is my off time. But he’d really have a cow if I let anything happen to a US marshal. That would only bring more marshals to the area, and Stauffer would hate that. No, I’m sticking to you like flies to a gut wagon.”

  We drove west on 10th Street until we reached Lee, then turned south. We drove past St. Anthony’s hospital, and my hand went naturally to my head like I needed to verify what the sawbones in El Reno did.

  Maris pulled into the Sampson Filling Station and stopped in front of an impressive row of gasoline pumps. The most they had in Bison was a two-pump island at the Essy station. “It just don’t feel right to sit on part of a tank of gasoline. Never know when we might have to make a run for it.”

  “A run in this is a fast walk for most other folks,” I said. “But you’re right. We better gas up.”

  She grinned. “This is on the government, right?”

  I said it was and pulled money from my wallet to pay. A teenage boy ran from the station building with his Cubs ball cap pulled low over his eyes. He yanked a rag from his back pocket and wiped his hands as he ran. He turned his back on Maris and spoke to me like he was used to dealing with male drivers. “Fill ’er up, mister?”

  I figured if I bribed the old girl with high octane, it would coax her back to El Reno without breaking down. “With the good stuff.”

  “For this?” When he saw I was serious, he smiled and primed the gasoline pump. While the gasoline trickled down the cowl tank, the kid propped the hood open with a broomstick Maris had stashed beside the battery. He whistled and poked his head out from under the hood. “Oil’s two quarts low.”

  My whistle was no match for the kid’s. But then, he had all his teeth. “Better fill the oil, too.”

  “Reconditioned?”

  “For a machine like this?” I teased. “Only the best new oil.”

  He grabbed two cans of oil from a rack by the pumps and caught Maris staring at him. “Anything else this flivver needs?” he said to her. “Maybe a new paint job? Or a fender to replace the one that’s smashed?”

  She ignored him and started for the outhouse out back of the station. The kid, still smiling, deftly slid the spout into a can of oil and tipped it into the filler tube. He looked at the tires and kicked one. “They’re pretty bald,” he said when he closed the hood. “Got a special on two-plies this week.”

  “You get paid a commission or something?” I asked.

  “Five percent. Ten if I sell a whole set.”

  I tapped a tire with my boot. But not too hard for fear it’d pop right then and there at the pump. “These tires will do.” Besides, I thought, a new set of tires is more than the truck was worth.

  I paid the kid three bucks for the gasoline and two cans of oil and waited for my receipt, so the government would believe my expense report when I submitted it. Maris stumbled from around the corner of the building, buttoning her jeans as she walked. A small patch of flesh on her stomach was visible for a brief moment before she pulled her shirt down. The kid stared at her as if she were a star in a hootchie-kootchie show. She caught us both staring. “What? I’m not like you guys—just step out and let ’er fly when you get the urge. We ladies got other things to do before we . . . do our business. And some different things after.”

  The kid looked at me for an explanation, but I wasn’t even going to go there.

  When we climbed back into the truck, the kid stood by the gasoline pumps and stared at us as we drove off. By the time he told the story to his buddies tomorrow, Maris would be described as an exotic dancer who stopped for gasoline and gave the kid a free show. He’d be the envy of every other pimply-faced kid running around the city. “You gave that kid back there an eyeful on purpose.”

  Maris winked. “Who’s to say the eyeful wasn’t for you?”

  The Chevy’s headlight shone about twenty feet in front of the truck, either from the poor charging system, or because heavy dust coated the headlights. When we got to Second, Maris pulled to the curb between Morrison Filling Station and Makin’s Sand and Gravel. “That’s Vincent’s shop.” She pointed to a large building between Makin’s and Morrison’s. I squinted to make out the shop in the dark. A high fence protected a brick building. Floodlights as anemic as Maris’s truck’s lights strained to illuminate the yard and shop entrances.

  “You said Vincent services oil field equipment.” Except for a section of oil derrick and a couple of rusted tracked bulldozers, the lot was empty. “Where’s the equipment?”

  Maris shrugged. “Maybe, Mister Marshal, us local yokels see that it’s a front for something else. Like his rum running. Now, you coming with me or not?” She slid her .38 revolver into her purse.

  I pulled my vest over my holster. “You going to shoot someone?”

  She stared at me like a cow staring at a new gate. “Like I said before, Vincent’s nasty; he’s got gangster connections. This is just a little insurance. Don’t y
ou always carry?”

  I did, I assured her. And that mine was bigger. I’d always felt safer with bigger.

  The yard gate wasn’t locked, and we waltzed right through the fenced yard to the shop building. Iron Horse Services had been scrawled across the front in scratchy lettering, as if the sign painter had indulged in one too many bowls of opium when he painted it.

  I put my ear to the door. Silence. I motioned for us to go in, and I stopped just inside to allow for my eyes to adjust to the dim light. A single gunmetal gray desk sat in one corner of the room beside a matching four-drawer file cabinet. The walls were devoid of photos that might have shown the success of Iron Horse Services, or the products it sold or serviced. A multi-colored punch board depicting a blond, buxom woman hung on one wall, and a clock advertising Jay’s Rectal Crème on the other one.

  Maris got my attention and led me through the office into the repair shop. A small pump jack sat disassembled on the floor, a shredded bearing on the workbench beside it, presumably awaiting parts. A naked floodlight dangled from the ceiling and cut through the dust floating nose-level throughout the shop.

  “You people want something?” A man called to us in a deep voice that cut through the dust like an auctioneer’s. Or a preacher’s. He remained in the shadows of another room and stepped into the light of the repair shop. He listed to starboard slightly, and I knew instantly he was carrying bigger in a shoulder rig under his jacket, as well.

  He was nearly as tall as me, but thirty pounds lighter and well put together. Long black braids fell onto his chest, and he flicked those braids over his thick shoulders as he walked toward us. It’s hard to age some Indians: they all look younger than me. But I guessed him to be in his early forties. My age, even though he didn’t look it. His dark eyes darted between Maris and me. He met her gaze, then looked her down and up and settled on her chest area. “You need something?”

  We had gone over our hasty plan. I was to talk with Vincent while Maris snooped around the shop looking for clues about Amos. “You Vincent?” I offered my hand, not giving a rat’s behind about protocol. A man’s handshake told me a lot about the person. As I stepped closer, my bulk overshadowed him. My hand easily wrapped around his. And that’s when it became apparent that if someone did hard work in Vincent’s shop, it wasn’t Vincent. His hands were manicured and soft enough to be in one of those fancy Ingram’s Milkweed commercial. “Nelson.”

  “Do I know you?” His eyes narrowed, but softened when he looked over at Maris. She strolled around the shop, exaggerating her stride, tightening her butt in her jeans. She knew how to distract a man. Me included, and I fought to keep to our game plan. “Nelson what?”

  “Just Nelson,” I said. “But you don’t know me. I’m looking for Amos.”

  His eyes left Maris, and he stepped close enough that I could smell the odor of whisky on his breath. God, how I missed that odor. “Amos is up in Wyoming. He moved there a couple years ago with his woman.”

  I smiled as if I hadn’t heard him. “I got a business deal for him.”

  Vincent looked up slightly, but his hand slowly sliding into his pocket gave me concern. A gun or a knife; it didn’t matter what he came out with at this range, and my hand felt my own gun under my vest. “Even if Amos was here, why do you think I’d tell you?”

  I motioned around the shop. “You’d tell me ’cause we’re in the same business, you and me.”

  Vincent grinned. His teeth were as perfect as his manicure job. “So you are an equipment mechanic then?”

  “No.” I laughed a little too easily for his liking. “And neither are you. This place is a front for . . . bigger and more lucrative things.”

  Vincent’s jaw muscles tightened, and his fists clenched. When I was boxing three-round smokers in the service games, I’d always studied a man’s eyes, watched when they narrowed a hair’s breadth before he threw a jab or a haymaker. I watched Vincent’s eyes now as he bladed his stance, his fists clenching in time with his jaw. Just what I needed now: a tangle with a mean drunk with stitches in my head and bruised ribs. “You need to drag your ass out of here. Nelson.”

  I hated to be thrown out of any place, especially on my ass. Call it the stubborn part of my mother I’d inherited. I’d had my fill of Vincent Iron Horse, and I stepped close enough that I could see his nose hair twitch nervously. They’d make a good target for my first punch. “How about you toss me out, then.”

  His stare broke, and he looked away for the briefest moment, like a cock in a fight feinting away for a micro-second. Vincent wasn’t used to having anyone speak to him like I did, and I pressed my point. “I haven’t kicked the dog shit out of anyone tonight. You’ll be the first.”

  His hand snaked toward his jacket, and my genial mood soured. “You shuck that gun and I’ll break your hand. For starters.”

  I remained where I was and waited for the first punch to start this dance. Vincent must have thought I was just a little too much for him in the shape he was in right now, and he stepped back.

  “Now let’s cut through the games.” I breathed in relief. “We both know Amos caught a train from Wyoming with a friend of his.” I let that sink in for a moment. “Like I said, I got some business with Amos. I hear he’s a master machinist.”

  Vincent shrugged, and the braids bounced on his back. “A lot of machinists hereabouts. Lot of them needing work.”

  “But no one good enough to build the quality of stills that Amos does.”

  “Where’d you get the notion he could do that?”

  I wanted to tell him Maris had filled me in about Amos’s prowess with a torch and a rod to make the finest stills in these parts. She said he built his first one when his father, Clive, wanted to get into making moonshine on a small scale. It didn’t take long for word to spread about the fine whisky stills the young Amos Iron Horse produced, and soon Amos learned making them was far more profitable than working for the railroad.

  Vincent took another step back, and his hand went under his coat. I stepped forward, but his hand came out with a pack of Old Golds. He shook one out, but his hand trembled when he lit it. Stalling. He wasn’t sure if I was legit or not. “You risked getting stomped coming in here looking for Amos to build you a still? You got some kind of death wish, Mister Nelson?” Vincent’s hand inched toward his pocket again, and my elbow brushed the butt of my gun under my vest. I didn’t want to kill Vincent. But even less, I didn’t want him to kill me. Call it the selfish side I got from my pappy.

  “Do I look worried, Vincent?” I smiled. “Even if you come out of your pocket with a gun, I got you beat.”

  Vincent moved his hands in front of him where I could see them.

  “Good. You’re a wise man. Now listen. I need eight stills.” Maris and I had talked about my cover story. We agreed that the more outlandish, the better we could pull it off. Vincent would be greedy. “With that many, I can crank out a thousand gallons a week. And I need Amos to build them.”

  “Who are you working with?”

  “No one. I work alone.”

  “Then I know you got a death wish,” Vincent said, laughing nervously and looking about as if the Grim Reaper were about to glide into his shop any moment. “Pushing a thousand gallons a week, you’d step on some powerful toes here in the city. You might even end up in a cornerstone in some new building.”

  “I appreciate your pointed concern for my well-being, but let me worry about that.”

  But Vincent wasn’t listening. He’d finally realized Maris had disappeared into some other area of his shop, and I had to talk fast to keep his mind on me. “You got me wrong, Vincent. I’m offering not to pay Amos.”

  Vincent laughed nervously while he looked about for Maris. “That’s real funny. You pay Vincent for not making your stills. What kind of game you playing? First you want him to build eight stills, then you’re not paying him—”

  “He’ll get paid, all right.” I spoke fast. “But I’ll pay him by way of making him a
partner in my business.”

  “Did Whiskers send you?”

  I wanted to ask how he knew Whiskers, but I didn’t want to blow my story. “Maybe.”

  Vincent dropped his cigarette butt on the floor and took an awfully long time to snuff it out with the toe of his boot. “Mister . . . Nelson, is it? If Amos were here in town—which he is not—he’d be working with me. And I’m connected. I’d have all the business I could handle if I were bootlegging.”

  “A thousand gallons a week. Four hundred barrels a month.”

  “Nobody does that much business,” he said, his head on a swivel now, looking for Maris.

  “I do,” I said. “Or at least I will when I have the cookers. And I’ll need a place to store the barrels.” I waved my hand around his shop. “Some place big.”

  His eyes widened, until he thought it over and finally said, “Where’s your girlfriend?”

  “She’s not my girlfriend. She’s a business associate.”

  His eyes lit up, and a slight grin tugged at the corners of his mouth. He started for his office to look for Maris. I followed him, making as much noise as I could. When Vincent burst through the door, Maris was seated on the edge of his desk reading the latest edition of Meteor. “You ready, hon?” She winked at me.

  “I thought you said . . .”

  “Just think it over.”

  Maris came off the desk, and we started for the door.

  “If Amos miraculously appears, where can I reach you?”

  “I’ll be back tomorrow,” I said over my shoulder.

  I led Maris out of the building, holding her arm. “Don’t look back.” For once, she listened, and we walked to the truck in silence. We started to climb in when she stopped. “Shit!”

  “What?”

  “That.” Maris pointed to the two flattened tires. “Of all the times—”

  “Just grab the patch kit,” I said as I took my gun and vest off and laid them on the seat.