Rough Justice

by Lyle Brandt

  “Nobody’s mentioned votes, that I’ve heard,” Ryder said.

  “It’s coming. You can bank on that,” said Abel. “It will change the country, possibly the world.”

  “I guess you’ve never been accused of thinking small,” Ryder remarked.

  “I have my failings,” Abel granted, “but that isn’t one of them.”

  “Abel’s a dreamer,” Anna said. “He always has been.”

  “And there’s nothing left to dream of where you come from?” Ryder asked them both, together.

  “Oh, New York has ample problems of its own,” Abel agreed. “There’s Tammany, the Irish, the Chinese. No doubt you heard about the draft riots in ’63.”

  “Heard of them, and observed them,” Ryder said. “I was a U.S. marshal then, guarding the federal court.”

  “A tragedy. So many lives lost, and the property destroyed, simply because one race disdains another.”

  “Not the first time,” Ryder ventured. “Likely not the last.”

  “But it can change,” said Anna, wide-eyed with the strength of her conviction. “Don’t you see that?”

  “What I mostly see, in my profession, would be people doing all the wrong things for the worst of reasons,” Ryder said.

  “That must be terrible.”

  He shrugged. “You get used to it.”

  “Lord, that’s even worse!”

  He changed the subject. “You appear to have experience in dealing with the KRS. If you can think of any information that would help me bring them down,” said Ryder, “I’d appreciate it.”

  Abel frowned. “I hadn’t thought if it in those terms, but we have been logging information, filing it away. Names of the members we’ve identified or have good reason to suspect, their jobs and addresses.”

  “That could be useful.”

  “I’ve made copies,” Anna said, then turned to face her brother. “Abel?”

  “Why not,” he replied. “If it can help to stop them.”

  “Just a minute,” Anna said and hurried from the room.

  “She gets excited, as you see,” said Abel, once he reckoned she was out of earshot. “It’s a blessing and a weakness, all wrapped up in one. The passion, and the frequent disappointment.”

  Ryder didn’t have an answer at his fingertips for that remark, just nodded, and another moment took the pressure off, as Anna came back with what looked to be a diary in her hand. She passed it to him with an earnest smile.

  “It’s all in here,” she said. “As if we’d just been waiting for you to appear.”

  “Well …”

  “I’m serious,” she said and looked it. “You’re like—what, Abel?—a gift from Providence!”

  “Nobody’s ever called me that before,” said Ryder, with a rueful smile.

  “Perhaps they didn’t recognize it.”

  Abel grinned and told him, “When she gets this way, there’s no point arguing.”

  “Hush, you!” she chided him. “I’m serious.”

  “We see that, Anna.”

  “You will come to supper, won’t you?” she asked Ryder. “I mean, if you have the time and it’s convenient? We should thank you properly, for helping me. For helping us.”

  “I’d be obliged,” he said. “What time?”

  *

  Ardis Jackson loitered in an alley catty-cornered from the Bachmann House, smoking and killing time. No one who passed by on the street appeared to notice him, or if they did, gave any sign of recognizing him.

  So far, so good.

  He had been waiting for the best part of an hour, still no sign of Reynolds, Ryder, or whatever he was called. The bastard who’d humiliated him and left poor Caleb with a nose his mama wouldn’t recognize. The worst part had been facing Mr. Coker, telling him the story, feeling like an idiot.

  No, that wasn’t right. The worst part was the fear he’d felt while looking in the Yankee stranger’s eyes, knowing that one wrong move could get him killed. Jackson had been a bully all his life, had learned it from his daddy, and he usually got away with it. A pistol and some attitude could sway most folks, convince them that they ought to go along with him and save themselves a peck of trouble. It was even better when he had a few more boys to back him up, one reason he had joined the KRS, aside from his belief in what they stood for.

  But it hadn’t worked that morning.

  Jackson felt as if they’d started strong, then everything went sour in a heartbeat. They’d been telling off the stranger, then, next thing he knew, Caleb was on the ground and spouting carmine from his blowhole, damn near crying like a baby, leaving Jackson staring back into the coldest eyes he’d ever seen, bar none.

  He could have died there—would have, if he’d dared to make a move in the direction of his pistol. He could see it plain as day, the stranger’s Colt Army blasting a keyhole through his forehead, blowing out his candle before Jackson even had a chance to draw.

  He’d nearly wet himself, had been relieved to turn and scuttle out of there with Caleb hanging off his shoulder, fleeing like so many others had gone running off from him in better days.

  And that was something he could not forgive.

  He rolled another quirley, struck a match to light it, all the while watching the hotel and the street in front of him. It struck him that he might be waiting at the wrong spot, but he had his orders. Mr. Coker had commanded that he stay and watch. The last thing Jackson could afford to do was traipse off, chasing second thoughts, and miss his man entirely.

  But if he showed … then, what?

  Again, he had his orders: scurry back and tell the chief. No one had mentioned thinking for himself, taking a potshot at the stranger while he had a chance. It would be countermanding Mr. Coker, almost like defying him, and retribution could be swift. It could be fatal, come to that, but Jackson still felt that he owed the Yankee something for his personal embarrassment. Maybe, if he could spot the man, he’d have a talk with Mr. Coker, get permission to attempt the job himself, instead of calling in Chip Hardesty.

  Maybe.

  A wagon rumbled past, trailing a plume of dust, and nearly ruined everything. When it was gone, Jackson saw Mr. High-and-Mighty strolling up to the hotel, no way of telling where he’d come from. If the wagon had been any slower, he could easily have slipped inside the hotel and Jackson would have missed him.

  Never mind the ifs, though. It was him, no doubt about it, pausing in the doorway, looking up and down the street, then entering the lobby. For a second there, Jackson was worried that the stranger might have seen him hiding in the shadows, maybe glimpsed a gray plume from his cigarette, but then he turned his back and disappeared into the Bachmann House.

  Jackson was trembling, and it made him furious. He felt a sudden urge to rush across the street, bust in, and blaze away before his enemy could mount the stairs. Backshooting didn’t bother him a bit; in fact, he favored it, if truth be told. What stopped him was the fear that Ryder-Reynolds might be waiting for him, standing in the middle of the lobby with his Colt drawn, lined up on the door, waiting for Jackson to appear.

  That couldn’t be. Could it?

  Another moment, and he knew he’d lost his chance. He dropped the quirley, crushed it underneath his heel, and doubled back along the alley, not about to take a chance on being seen from the hotel. Ten minutes, give or take, and he would be in Mr. Coker’s office, making his report. Doing exactly what he had been told to do. No one could fault him there.

  No one, that was, except himself.

  Screw it.

  Living was better than the only known alternative, and maybe Mr. Coker would reward him for his service. Let him watch, perhaps, when Hardesty took down the Yankee spy—or even lend a hand somehow, if that were possible. Serve as a lookout, maybe even play the role of bait, luring the Yankee out where Chip could drill him with a single shot.

  He went in through the back of Coker’s place, the old Red Dog saloon, and made a beeline for the office, with its PRIVATE sign tacked
to the door. He knocked and waited, fidgeting, until the deep, familiar voice said, “Enter!”

  Rushing in, he stood before the massive desk and blurted, “Boss! It’s him!”

  10

  Ryder had hours to kill before his supper with the Butlers, and he used the time as best he could, making the rounds of Jefferson, showing his badge and asking questions of the locals. Most of them refused to talk or pleaded ignorance; a few seemed to be wishing they could help, but made no secret of their fear. The only one who spoke to him at any length was a middle-aged barber, glad to tell a Yankee that he’d lost two sons in battle for the Stars and Bars, to keep Texas the way it was before the War of Northern Aggression.

  Leaving there, Ryder was glad he hadn’t asked the barber for a shave.

  He had received no answers to his questions, but that hadn’t been the point. After his run-in with the sheriff, he assumed that his identity would be made known to everyone in town. His best angle of attack, in Ryder’s estimation, was to make his adversaries nervous, agitate them to the point that one or more of them began making mistakes.

  That was a risk, of course, potentially a deadly one. As he had seen in Corpus Christi, Coker’s “Knights” were not the kind of men who sat around debating problems. They were men of action—far from heroes, but at least willing to join a mob—and once they started letting fear or anger take control, it weakened them.

  He only hoped it didn’t kill him first.

  Anna had told him to come back at six o’clock and bring his appetite. It wasn’t noon yet, but it felt like ages since he’d eaten breakfast. Ryder heard his stomach growling as he left the barber’s shop and started looking for another place to eat. A small lunch, nothing that would ruin supper for him after Anna took the time to cook.

  Thinking of her troubled Ryder. She was certainly attractive, and intelligent to boot. Her passion, when she spoke about the freedmen and their rights, was plainly evident. Religion played a part in that, he understood, but it was still beyond him how a woman of her station in society would travel far from home, putting her life at risk for people she had never met, in a society that marked her as an enemy.

  The brother, he could understand. Men went off on crusades. But women?

  Ryder thought of Josey Hubbard, widowed, far from home. Had it been loyalty to Thomas that compelled her? Or was Ryder slighting women with his narrow-minded view of how they felt, thought, acted in their daily lives?

  Granted, he didn’t have a great deal of experience with members of the so-called weaker sex. He’d been around, of course, mostly with working girls at various saloons, but they were obviously different. The wives he’d met in Washington, and on his former travels as a U.S. marshal, had been straitlaced for the most part, standing in the shadow of their menfolk, keeping any stray opinions to themselves unless they dealt with housework, decorating, and the like.

  Had he been wrong in most of his assumptions, all along?

  That train of thought was making him uncomfortable, so he cut it off and listened to his stomach, telling him it needed fuel. Across the street, he saw a place called Howland’s, with a sign in its front window advertising FAMOUS CHILI. Crossing at his own risk, weaving through the horse-drawn traffic, Ryder kicked some of the road’s dust off his boots and went inside.

  A waitress seated him and handed him a menu. When he asked what made the chili famous, she just smiled and told him, “Judge that for yourself.”

  “I will,” he said. “And can I get a beer with that?”

  “Sure can.” She flashed another smile that told him Sheriff Travis hadn’t been around to warn the city’s cooks and servers of the viper wriggling in their midst.

  The beer came first, lukewarm but palatable. Ryder barely had a chance to sip its foam before the waitress brought a steaming bowl of chili to his table, set a spoon beside it, and moved on.

  One bite told Ryder why it might be famous, heat from fire and spicy peppers joining forces to assault his senses. By the second bite, his eyes were tearing up and heady fumes had cleared his sinuses. He thought the taste might be addictive, if the first bowl didn’t lay him out.

  Ryder slowed down and took his time, not rushing it, flagging the waitress for another beer when he had drained the first one. Time was what he needed now, to plot his moves—except that Ryder didn’t have a move in mind.

  He’d handicapped himself, coming to Anna’s aid that morning. Not that he regretted it, but he’d revealed himself before he had a chance to build a case of any kind against the KRS. Nothing he’d seen in Corpus Christi tied Roy Coker to the bloodshed there, which meant that Ryder had to wait and watch for any move his adversaries made, an opening he could exploit to his advantage.

  In the meantime, he would pass an evening with the Butlers, glean more information if he could, and go from there. At least he’d have a pleasant hour or two before the job closed in on him again.

  And after that?

  He couldn’t say, but found the outlook grim.

  *

  Somethin’ you oughta know, Sheriff.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Damn Yankee’s goin’ here’n there, all over town, askin’ about the Knights.”

  “I know that, Cletus.”

  Standing with his chest puffed out, the barber looked confused now. “Huh? You know? And whatcha gonna do about it?”

  “Askin’ questions ain’t against the law,” Travis informed him. “If it was, I’d have to lock up every gossip in the city.”

  “Yeah, but this is diffurnt.”

  “For a fact, it is. Still not illegal, though.”

  “So, you don’t plan on doin’ nothin’?”

  “What I plan to do, and what you need to know, are two entirely differ’nt things.”

  “So, you’re just gonna let him go around and—”

  “If he breaks the law, I’ll be on top of him. Until then … well, he’s just another citizen.”

  “He damn sure ain’t no Texan!”

  “And you’re welcome to remind him of that fact. Without breakin’ the law yourself, o’ course.”

  “I guess I set ’im straight, all right,” the barber said.

  “Oh, yeah? I hope you ain’t been talkin’ out of turn.”

  “You know me, Sheriff.”

  “True. That’s what concerns me.”

  “Hey, now.”

  “And it won’t please Mr. Coker if you’re spillin’ things that ain’t nobody’s business, ’less they’re in the brotherhood.”

  “I never would!”

  “See that you don’t,” warned Travis.

  “I just come to tell you—”

  “And you told me. Best go back and see if someone’s waitin’ on a shave.”

  “This is the thanks I get for helpin’?”

  “Thank you, Cletus,” said the sheriff, with exaggerated courtesy. “Now go on back to work. Act normal. Play dumb if the Yankee comes around again.”

  The barber went out, grumbling. Travis thought that playing dumb would not require much effort on his part, then started worrying about what Cletus might have told the Secret Service man already. Shutting up had never been his strong suit, but whatever he’d let slip, it was too late to take it back.

  Travis supposed that he should talk to Mr. Coker, but he didn’t relish getting lectured for a second time that morning. Coker had his own plans under way, and it was best not to disturb him when his mind was gnawing on a problem. Travis would be there to clean up afterward, a lawman’s dreary lot in life.

  Back before the war, he’d been a small-time rancher, not averse to buying steers whose brands were altered, driving them to Mexico for sale. It wasn’t quite the same as rustling, and no one had ever caught him at it, but if anyone had told him he would be the county sheriff after Appomattox, Travis would have given them the horselaugh.

  It was funny how times changed—except he wasn’t laughing now.

  He hadn’t needed Cletus to alert him that the
man from Washington was circulating around Jefferson, asking questions. Travis had followed him, keeping his distance, staying out of sight, and followed up by talking to some of the merchants Ryder had interrogated. Most of them were standing firm, the rest too scared to buck the KRS. Leave it to Cletus, with his big mouth, to be a fly in the ointment.

  Travis wasn’t sure how Coker planned to deal with the investigator. Maybe it was better if he didn’t know, in case he had to put his hand on a Bible one day. Not that he’d ever shied away from lying, when it suited him, but lying under oath before a federal judge could land him in a prison cell, and Travis didn’t plan on serving time.

  He thought about alternatives, not getting far beyond the thought of lighting out for parts unknown, but he’d been born and raised in Marion County, couldn’t imagine fitting in anywhere else. And he believed in what the Knights were doing. Sure he did. Why not? Things had been fine before the war, when darkies knew their place and toed the line. During the war, he’d volunteered to lead the local slave patrol, which kept him out of uniform and paved his way to being sheriff. There had been no insurrections while he was in charge, unlike some other counties he could mention, where the fabric of society had started to unravel.

  No, he wouldn’t run. Not yet, at least. Maybe, if things began to fall apart and he could only save himself by pulling out. Until then, though …

  The Yankee worried him, there was no use denying it. He had a badge and guts to back it up. If push came to shove, he could probably call on the bluecoats to help him, but how would that sit with the citizenry? Would that spark the uprising necessary to expel an occupying army?

  Or, the better question: having dodged one war, was Travis itching to enlist and fight another?

  Food for thought, but it was sour in his mouth.

  Whatever Coker planned, he hoped it worked.

  And that it happened soon.

  *

  It’s not a problem, then?”