“What is Powers afraid of?”
“That’s between me, Powers, and Younger,” Ward said flatly.
“I think I could help you if you would trust me.”
Ward Cantrell came to his feet then and walked over to the center of the cell. His cold blue eyes locked with Kincaid’s. “I don’t want anything from you, Kincaid—ever.”
Chane frowned, his straight black brows crowding his piercing hazel eyes. There it was again—that feeling that he should know this man. They stood eye to eye, Cantrell insolent and dangerous, from his warlike stance of a gunfighter to the curl of his lips and the steely glint in his narrowed blue eyes. He was a warrior, body and soul—there was no doubt about that—but that didn’t explain Chane’s feeling that he should know this man. But where? When? If he knew, would it explain why the man had concentrated so intensely on the Texas and Pacific?
Chane cursed the inadequacy of his recall, wondering how he could face Jennie if he failed. He groped for some way to motivate this young hellion.
Recognizing Kincaid’s frowning thoughtfulness as a warning, Ward turned away.
“I wasn’t,” Kincaid said succinctly to Cantrell’s broad back, “planning to give you anything, except a chance to earn your freedom.” He was more than a little irritated. “Somehow I had thought a man facing the gallows would be a little more reasonable.”
“Save your breath, Kincaid,” he drawled, his husky voice freighted with contempt. “I don’t want your help.”
“I did some checking around, Cantrell,” Kincaid said slowly, ignoring the man’s obvious dislike. “You have the kind of experience I’m looking for. You know men, and you know how to lead them. Before you came along, that bunch you put together never did anything right. You turned them into one of the most effective outlaw gangs in history—never got caught—except that time they tried that bank job without you.”
He didn’t mention Cantrell’s reputation with a gun. His own experience along those lines kept him quiet. Cantrell had worked his way right up the line—he was a target now for every would-be gunfighter who wanted to make a name for himself. But he was something more because he chose his fights. He turned down men he didn’t want to kill and even managed to make friends of some of them. He had charm and apparently intelligence as well. That was what had been bothering him about this thing with Powers. Why would a young firebrand like Cantrell suddenly turn into a vigilante? He wasn’t the type. Wilcox’s report was filled with incidents that would seem to prove he didn’t get serious about anything—not guns, horses, or women—he took what was easy and what fell his way. He did not go looking for trouble.
“You know a hell of a lot about me, don’t you?”
“I get monthly reports…That’s why I think it would be a waste of time and money to let you rot in jail for ten to twelve years.”
Cantrell scowled. Anybody but him; anybody but Kincaid, he’d snap at the chance. He’d been everything there was to be, done everything. He didn’t mind the idea of wearing a badge and taking his chances against rustlers or bad men, but he wouldn’t work for the man who had caused the deaths of both his parents and dishonored his sister, even if he did marry her later.
“No deals with you, Kincaid,” he said flatly, turning back to his cot.
“Think it over,” Chane said, feeling a mixture of anger and frustration.
Kincaid left the jail and found his attorney, Winslow Breakenridge, in his office. He spent ten minutes with him and then went directly to the governor’s office in the back room of Bauer and Stanton, General Merchandisers. Governor Ed Stanton was in a meeting with three men seated casually around a large mahogany desk that was Ed’s only concession to his high office. He had been appointed governor of the Arizona Territory by the president, had been elected for one term, and was already worrying about being reelected. Chane waited only a few seconds before Stanton looked up, saw him, and excused himself to come out of the small room.
They shook hands, smiling like old friends who enjoyed each other’s company.
“You pretty busy?”
Stanton grinned. “Talking bullshit—just between me and you,” he said in a low voice. “These gentlemen are trying to persuade me that we should move the capital to Tucson.”
Chane chuckled. This tug-of-war between the residents of Tucson and Phoenix over the site of the capital had been going on for years. Endless behind-the-scenes haggling, such as this visit by Tucson’s finest, was only part of the politicking that went on.
“Don’t they know they don’t stand a chance as long as you live here?”
Stanton grinned. “They figured that angle already—offering me a governor’s mansion.”
“Seriously?”
“Sounds serious.”
“Guess we’d better up the ante,” Chane said, only half joking. There were many benefits that befell Phoenix because it was a state capital, primarily economic. The Arizona Territory now had two colleges, one at Flagstaff and one at Tempe. With the capital here, it was almost guaranteed that the next one would be in Phoenix. Young people would no longer have to go back east to get educated. The ones who could afford it still would, because of the status it bestowed on Phoenix’s wealthier residents. That wouldn’t change. Men still liked to demonstrate their superiority to their surroundings.
“When can you get away? I need to talk to you,” Chane said.
“Saratoga Club in ten minutes be all right?”
The Saratoga Club was a private saloon in the Bricewood West, frequented by card-carrying members only. The memberships had been Kincaid’s gifts to the men who owned businesses and ranches around Phoenix. It encouraged their patronage, and the exclusivity was strictly maintained. The atmosphere was deliberately circumspect, even dull, but it was restful. There were no women allowed. No rowdies allowed either. Peers met there and were assured they were special. It was a bastion of old-boy politics on a raw frontier. And it was good business. It did not pay its way financially, but it more than paid for itself in other ways, when Kincaid could find the time to visit there. The gossip was always revealing, the more so because the men who frequented the staid bar felt like compatriots.
Men waved and nodded as Chane made his way to a table. The walls were paneled in ornately carved mahogany. The bar occupied a place of prominence in the center of the big room for gentlemen who liked to stand while they drank. Clouds of blue smoke swirled gently, stirred by the large hanging overhead fans. Small round mahogany tables, each with two or three leather captain’s chairs, clustered in front of the bar. Glasses were raised, gold coins clinked on the hard marble surface of the bar, and the men nonchalantly flicked cigar ashes into the deep maroon pile of the carpet.
Stanton was only ten minutes late, a record for him. He was always late because people stopped him anywhere and everywhere to tell him their problems. He was totally approachable by stranger and friend alike, and he loved to talk.
He dropped into the chair opposite Chane, and a waiter was there magically with his usual drink—whiskey and milk.
He took a sip of his drink. “My ulcer needed that,” he sighed, leaning back. “What brings you out this time of day? Hotter’n hell out there, isn’t it?” he asked, appreciating the relative coolness of the staid, dimly lit Saratoga Club. He reached into his pocket for his nail clipper.
“There was a meeting of the Cattlemen’s Association here last night,” Chane began slowly, careful not to point out that Stanton hadn’t been there. Chane knew Stanton always spent Monday nights with his mistress, Kate Fletcher, at her place, to reward himself for being an attentive son-in-law, father, husband, and uncle all weekend. Wednesday nights he rewarded himself for working so hard and Friday nights to fortify himself for the long weekend ahead with family and ritual.
“Ahh, I see. Anything important?”
“They appointed me as a committee of one to let you know how unhappy they are that nothing has been done about the cattle rustling, which has been getting worse every
week,” he said, exaggerating only a little. He knew Stanton would believe every word because the morning’s paper had carried a story along those lines. The Gazette hadn’t mentioned his committee assignment, because he had just invented that.
“Damn!” Stanton growled, letting his displeasure show in the angry darkening of his already florid face. “You’re the third man today to tell me that,” he growled. “If I weren’t sitting in this cool room, enjoying this life-saving concoction, I would kick your ass,” he said gruffly. “Now how the hell am I going to get out of this?”
“Why don’t you appoint a special ranger unit to concentrate on the rustling hereabouts?”
Stanton scowled at his friend. “Terrific idea—except where the hell do I get the money to pay for it?”
Chane quickly calculated the cost. At forty dollars a month, a half-dozen men only cost two hundred forty dollars. Even for six months it was under fifteen hundred dollars. A small price to pay if it made Jennie happy. “I’ll donate the money, if you keep quiet about where it came from.”
“Why the hell you doing this?” Stanton asked suspiciously.
“Because, they are stealing my cattle, remember?”
“Oh, yeah,” he sighed. “But who the hell do I hire?”
“Gotta be someone with real leadership ability. A man who can take charge,” Chane said, as if he were mulling it over. “You really can’t let this rustling continue. They’re getting too blatant. They cleaned out Frank Jones—didn’t leave him a steer. The ranchers want every last one of them caught and hanged.”
“Go on,” Stanton said.
“I think I’ve found the man who can find out for us.”
“Who?”
“Ward Cantrell.”
“That gunfighter that kidnapped the Powers girl?”
“She came into town today with her uncle. Said he wasn’t the one.”
“Humph!” he snorted. “Have my doubts about that. What do you know about Cantrell?”
Chane grinned. If he told him everything, Stanton’s ulcers would go into convulsions. “Lawmen possessing the ideal mixture of fearlessness, expertise with firearms and lily-white morality are damned hard to come by. Two out of three is the most we could hope for,” he said dryly.
“So I’ll be careful not to ask embarrassing questions,” Stanton said, grinning before he settled down to business. “Cattle is big business,” he mused, frowning, his florid, heavy-jowled face intent with thought. “All right,” he said slowly. “Suppose I agree. We’ve got too many problems. Cantrell’s wanted for killing a passel of Powers’s men. If what I’ve heard is true, he’s wanted in Wyoming. He’s wanted for robbing your trains. He’s probably wanted in other places for no telling what else. Even if I gave him a full pardon, that might just be for the little stuff. How would we handle that?”
Chane sighed. “I don’t know. I talked to Winslow Breakenridge. He says we have to let him stand trial. But he thinks that no one is actively looking for Cantrell on those old charges. He thinks that after the trial, you could, in the interests of the territory, commute his sentence if he agrees to provide certain services to the territory.”
Stanton snorted. “Great! The judge sentences him to twenty years breaking up boulders in the hot sun or to hang, depending on the mood old fire-and-brimstone Cadwallader is in, and there’s no doubt what Cantrell will decide. That’s no choice! You offer a man a deal like that, and he’ll choose life over death any day. But as soon as he’s out of sight, he’ll run like hell! We’ll never see him again,” he said flatly.
Chane frowned. “In theory, you’re right. But Cantrell is a man of honor. I feel it. I don’t know why, but I’m willing to guarantee it. If he says he’ll do it, he will.”
Stanton shook his head, grimacing before he took another sip of his drink, set it down, and began pushing at his cuticles again, fairly caressing the shiny nail clipper he always carried.
“You aren’t going to like this,” he said heavily, “but I think it’s too damned risky.”
Chane nodded. “I agree that there’s some risk, but we’re just about pushed up against the wall. If you don’t do something about the rustlers, you’ll never get elected again—not even as a dogcatcher.”
Stanton groaned. He dearly loved being governor. It was a position that provided unlimited opportunities and prestige. Even his wife never questioned him about his many absences. She knew and accepted that the governorship made extreme demands upon his time and energies.
“I can’t just pardon the man who has been robbing and killing my people,” he snorted.
Chane leaned forward. “So they hang him, everyone cheers, and five minutes later he’s forgotten. But you, my friend, still have a problem. Men like me keep complaining to you about losing cattle. Men might even start saying rude things about your leadership abilities.”
Stanton frowned. “Is that a threat?”
Chane shook his head in denial. It had been close, he thought, amazed at himself. Was he so besotted with Jennie that he would even stoop to blackmailing his friend to please her in a whim? He didn’t even like Cantrell. He was suddenly remembering a casual remark he had overheard once about his being henpecked. Anger flushed through him. It wasn’t justified. He loved Jennie and wanted her happy. That did not make him henpecked. But something hardened in him. Cantrell was a grown man. He had damned well known the penalties when he began his career as an outlaw. He could damned well take what was coming to him.
Angry at himself, he stood up. “I’ll see you later, Ed.”
“Whoa! Wait a second,” Stanton ordered. “This is pretty important to you, isn’t it?”
Chane sighed. “I don’t know.”
Stanton nodded. “Let me think about it. That reminds me. I’ve always wondered why this Devil’s Canyon Gang only seemed to rob you. Have you given that any thought? Maybe he knows you?”
“What are you implying, friend?” Kincaid asked dryly.
Stanton chuckled. “Sounds pretty bad, doesn’t it? But you have to admit—most outlaw gangs hit banks, stagecoaches, anything they can.”
Chane sat back down. He sighed and picked up his drink. “I’ve thought about it. I had Wilcox working on it from that angle. He checked out everyone who resembled the description we had for the leader of the gang. That’s how we picked up Cantrell’s name, but we couldn’t trace him back more than five years.”
Stanton laughed. “He looks older than that!”
Kincaid grinned, and they both fell silent.
“You sure he could do the job?” Stanton asked.
“I’d stake a lot on it. I had Wilcox give me a full report. Cantrell is a born leader. He prefers to go it alone, won’t follow man or beast unless they were already going where he wanted to go. He doesn’t do anything he doesn’t want to do. He’s no good-time-Charlie who goes along for the ride. Like I said, his history only goes back five years. There’s no telling what he did before that.”
“Please,” Stanton said, reading Chane’s mind, “my ulcers are bleeding already.”
“You have sort of a strange relationship with your nail clipper, too,” Kincaid grinned, nodding toward Stanton’s hands, where he was absently pushing at his cuticles with the blunt edge of the clipper.
“This may seem strange to you, but it never gets headaches.”
“You should have married it.”
“No. I should have stayed single. I was never this horny when I was single.”
Ward Cantrell had several opportunities to regret turning down Kincaid’s offer of help. The sheriff increased the number of deputies who were always on guard, and he was given a court date—two days away. An attorney by the name of Winslow Breakenridge, placid and smooth as a frozen lake, appeared out of the blue to announce that he had volunteered to be his counsel during the trial. He asked a lot of questions Ward either couldn’t or wouldn’t answer and left the jail, shaking his head sadly. “I’m your attorney, Mr. Cantrell. If you won’t trust me—I can’t help
you.”
The trial, since it was only for train robbery, was poorly attended. Leslie Powers was not called upon to testify. Apparently Kincaid had seen to it that her presence would not be needed. Ward was grateful to Kincaid for that. Leslie had been through enough already.
The trial was held in the Garden Courtyard of the Bricewood West, which seemed ironic to Ward. The room was packed with Kincaid’s special agents. Ward recognized Ben, Three Fingers, and a couple of others from the last train robbery. Breakenridge sat beside him at the table facing the judge’s makeshift bench. Kincaid stood in the back of the room and watched him with cool, unreadable eyes. The whole thing was totally predictable. It took four hours. The jury was out of the room for only twenty minutes, but there was no doubt in Ward’s mind what their verdict would be.
Guilty. The foreman looked right at him when he said it. The judge nodded, asked the defendant to stand, then read him the sentence: hanging, to be carried out at sunrise tomorrow. Ward didn’t even flinch; he just stood there listening to the drone of that sanctimonious voice with a fresh wave of bitterness choking him into silence. They led him past Kincaid and a heavyset man with silver-streaked gray hair and a heavy florid face he didn’t recognize, and he stopped.
Kincaid nodded. “Nasty break.”
“You got tobacco on you?”
Kincaid passed him the makings; Cantrell rolled a smoke with deft brown fingers and passed the makings back.
“Got a light?”
Kincaid handed him a small box of matches. Cantrell ignited one match with his thumbnail, held it to the cigarette with a steady hand, and then looked up, bringing the full force of his cold blue eyes into play.
Cantrell held out the matches, dropped them into Kincaid’s hand. Chane held out matches and tobacco, offering them back to him.
“No thanks, Kincaid. If I want anything from you, I’ll ask,” he said quietly, coldly.
Kincaid watched him walk away before he turned to Stanton. “Well, what do you think of him now?”
The Lady and the Outlaw Page 18
