Rattler's Law, Volume One

by James Reasoner

  One of the billiard players casually thrust his cue between the man's legs. His calves banged painfully against it, and his balance deserted him. He waved his arms for an instant in an attempt to regain his footing, then fell heavily on the floor.

  "Wesley!" the man's wife called in alarm from the doorway. Flint looked over and saw her standing there, her hands lifted to her face, her features twisted in a worried expression. She had probably tried to talk her husband out of stepping into the saloon for a drink, Flint thought, but his pride had sent him anyway. The same pride that had just caused him to fall on his face.

  Coming to the door was the worst thing the woman could have done. The hardcases had been willing to ignore her as long as she stayed in the store, but now that she had ventured into their territory, she was fair game. Flint saw she wasn’t particularly attractive, but that wouldn’t mean much to men like these.

  One of them let out a whoop and said to the greenhorn, "Looks like your woman's goin' to come protect you, Wes-lee."

  The easterner scrambled to his feet. "You leave her out of this!" he said hotly. "All I wanted was a drink, and you men had no right to assault me."

  "Talks fancy, don't he?" another of Ladell's men asked. "What do you say, boys? Should we teach him a lesson, or do you reckon we should just dance a little with his wife instead?"

  "I'm for dancin'," one man said with a leer. "An' anything else that gal wants to do!"

  The woman paled and started backing out of the doorway. Her husband's reaction was just the opposite. His face flushed angrily, and he stepped forward. "I said to leave her alone!" he snapped.

  A man reached out, put a hand on his shoulder, and shoved, sending him sprawling against one of the tables. At the same time, another hardcase quickly stepped toward the woman, grasped her arm, and pulled her into the room. She cried out in fear and pain.

  Flint glanced at Ladell. As he watched his men have their fun with the immigrant couple, his face was expressionless, but his dark eyes glinted in amusement. Obviously, he wouldn’t do anything to stop what was happening.

  Jordy West softly muttered a curse, and the young cowboy's features were tight with anger. Flint could see that West wanted to step in and put a stop to the abuse.

  So did Flint. All his instincts told him that the greenhorn was liable to get hurt. But if he got mixed up in this, his budding relationship with Dax Ladell would probably be wrecked.

  The easterner staggered against the table and caught himself. As he straightened, his hand went toward the gun on his hip. He was slow and awkward, and several of Ladell's men reached for their own weapons, their eyes gleaming at the chance for a killing.

  Flint had to act. He palmed out his Colt with deceptive speed and brought the barrel up as he eared back the hammer. While the click of the gun cocking seemed louder than it really was, it was plainly audible over the woman's frightened sobs.

  "You boys hold still," Flint growled at Ladell's men. "Let's leave the guns out of this."

  None of them had drawn their weapons before Flint's action had caused them to freeze. They stayed that way, knowing full well that he had the drop on them, but they looked at Ladell to see what he wanted them to do.

  West had his hand on the butt of his pistol, and he was equally watchful. It was clear he was impressed by the speed of Flint's draw.

  Ladell was still lounging at the bar. A faint smile curved his lips under the heavy mustache. "Don't reckon that's a smart thing to do, buttin' in on my boys' fun like that."

  "I just don't want to see a woman get hurt," Flint said evenly. He looked at the easterner, who was standing as motionless as his tormentors. "Mister, you'd best get your wife and kids and get out of here while you can."

  "But—"

  "Do it!" Flint's voice crackled with command, cutting off any protest the man was about to make.

  He swallowed nervously, nodded, and hurried over to his wife. The man who had been holding her arm released her. Her husband slipped an arm around her shoulders and hustled her out of the saloon. Flint heard him calling urgently to his children to come with him.

  A moment later he heard the slam of the other door, and then, a few seconds after that, the creak of wheels as the wagon pulled away from the building. The cries of the easterner as he whipped up his team carried back into the roadhouse.

  "All right, they're gone," Ladell said. "What now?"

  "Well...I hope we can go back to having that drink and talking about business."

  Ladell shook his head. "I don't reckon the boys would want to work with you now, mister. And like the old sayin' goes, if you ain't with us, you're agin us. You made a mistake comin' here."

  "Maybe," Flint agreed grimly. "I think I'll just ride out, then."

  West spoke up. "And I'll back his play, Ladell." The cowboy had slipped his gun from its holster.

  Ladell glanced at him. "You're makin' a worse mistake than this bastard, West. I ain't holdin' nothin' against you. You can still walk out of here if you want to."

  West shook his head and said, "I'll stay."

  "Suit yourself," Ladell said, shrugging his heavy shoulders. He flicked a nod at the bartender.

  The jug-eared man behind the bar suddenly whipped up the bottle in front of him and flung it at West. His aim was good. The heavy glass bottle smacked into West's arm, knocking it aside. The gun in his hand blasted, but the bullet thudded harmlessly into the wall of the roadhouse.

  At the same instant, Ladell dashed his beer into Flint's face. Then he bellowed and charged, sweeping aside the marshal's gun arm as he bowled into him.

  Flint was driven back against the bar. As he slammed against the hardwood he grunted in pain. He chopped at Ladell's head with his pistol, but the hardcase's hat absorbed most of the blow's force. Over Ladell's shoulder, Flint saw the other men closing in on them.

  He triggered twice, sending the slugs over the heads of Ladell's men. The shots were enough to slow them down. Ladell pounded hammerlike punches into Flint's middle while he held him pinned against the bar. Flint got his free hand on Ladell's jaw and shoved as hard as he could.

  Ladell fell back slightly. Flint drove an elbow into his face, making him give a little more ground. He slashed at Ladell's head with the gun again.

  This time the blow landed heavily. Ladell staggered. At that moment, the bartender looped an arm around Flint's neck and pulled him halfway up onto the bar. Flint gasped for breath but lifted his leg and planted a booted foot in Ladell's midsection. He straightened the leg and viciously shoved Ladell into the midst of his men. Several of them went sprawling along with Ladell.

  West appeared at Flint's side, snatched a whiskey bottle that was on the bar, and clouted the bartender over the head with it. The man released his grip around Flint's neck, and the marshal slid back onto his feet and began gasping for breath.

  He didn’t have much time to recover before two of Ladell's men swarmed over him. He blocked their blows as best he could and threw some punches of his own. Beside him, West was doing the same thing, holding his own as he battled the angry men.

  But Flint knew it was only a matter of time before they were overwhelmed. Once that happened, Lawton's men would probably stomp them to death.

  He ducked under a roundhouse punch and suddenly threw himself forward, knocking one of the men aside. Flint went down, rolled, and came up next to the billiard table. He reached out and plucked up one of the cue sticks. Jamming his gun back in its holster, he charged, whipping the cue around his head wickedly.

  Ladell's men fell back, but two of them didn’t get out of the way in time. The stick cracked across the face of one, pulping his nose, then shattered on the skull of the second, knocking him out of the fight. Flint's charge brought him to West's side. He caught the young cowboy's arm and propelled him toward the door.

  "Run for it!" Flint rasped. He dropped the splintered cue stick, drew his gun, and fired three times as he ran toward the door behind West. These were not warning shots. One bullet
shattered the shoulder of a man who had drawn his gun. Another punched through a thigh and dropped a second man. The final bullet burned a furrow along the forearm of yet another of Ladell's men and forced him to drop his gun. By the time the last shot had been fired, Flint was diving through the door behind West.

  The cowhand vaulted onto his horse and leaned over to jerk loose the reins of Flint's mare. Grabbing the saddle horn, Flint mounted in a flash. He wheeled his horse and banged his heels against its flanks, urging it into a gallop beside West's horse. Side by side, the two men pounded away from the roadhouse.

  Flint glanced over his shoulder and then called into the wind buffeting his face, "Doesn't look like they're coming after us!"

  West looked back and nodded in agreement. "We put up too much of a fight," he called over the thunder of hoofbeats. "And Ladell was out cold!"

  The two men rode hard for several miles, but when there was still no sign of pursuit, they pulled up and let their winded horses walk for a while. "Are you all right?" Flint asked the cowhand.

  "Sure." West rubbed his arm. "I'll be a little sore where that bottle hit me, and there'll probably be a few more bruises, but nothing that won't heal. I'm just sorry you didn't get to talk to Ladell more before that fight started. You didn't learn much."

  Flint shrugged. He shared West's disappointment, but he tried to look at it positively. "At least I got to meet Ladell," he said. "He seems like the type that might be mixed up in rustling, all right, but I don't think he's running the ring. Maybe I would have gotten closer to the ringleader if things had happened differently; maybe I wouldn't." He laughed shortly and humorlessly. "But at least we stirred things up a little. Sometimes that can get results by itself."

  West laughed, too, and then lifted a hand to check his mouth. When he drew his fingers away, they had blood on them. "I'd say we stirred things up a lot," he said dryly.

  9

  For the first time in his professional career Kashton Wellington Newcomb was having doubts about what he was supposed to do.

  This was unique, because he had a deep respect for the law and believed in the rightness of what he was doing. He had been a hangman for ten years, traveling all over the frontier from Texas to Missouri to Montana. Most of the time he moved from town to town in response to summonses from judges and lawmen to do his grim work. Occasionally he would stay in one area and work on a regular basis for a local judge. Over the years his reputation had grown, largely because he had hanged some of the most notorious outlaws in the West.

  Newcomb looked upon his occupation as a science and took great pride in his professionalism. Throwing a rope over a tree limb and hoisting a man up to dangle helplessly until he strangled was barbaric in his eyes.

  His trapdoors worked smoothly and cleanly. The rope was always the correct length, the knot just right, and the fall was perfectly timed. The neck of the person being executed had always broken just as it was supposed to.

  But the necks of those hardcases and killers had never been as smooth and soft as Rachel Coleman's.

  As he went about supervising the construction of the gallows, he found he couldn’t keep the image of her face out of his mind. It was his practice to oversee the work, but this time he was doing it automatically, without really thinking or seeing the scaffold take shape. Instead, he recalled her angry expression and flashing brown eyes when she practically threw him out of the jail.

  At that moment Rachel Coleman appeared to be in charge, not Sheriff Bob Dedrick. She obviously had the kind of forceful personality that made such things possible. Newcomb could understand why she had been able to make a success of her newspaper.

  He could also imagine her taking a strong stand against anyone with whom she disagreed—like Mayor Russell P. Yeager. But for her to have killed the man, poisoned him as if he were vermin...Newcomb couldn’t believe that, not after meeting her.

  However, the evidence against her had been strong enough for a jury to convict her. In the past a jury's conviction had been sufficient for K. W. Newcomb. He never lost a minute's sleep over the men he executed because he was fully confident of their guilt.

  It was different with Rachel.

  By late in the afternoon the main frame of the scaffold had been erected and only a little work remained. Newcomb told the men working for him that they could stop for the day. Local men hired by Sheriff Dedrick, his crew were more than happy to stop work. It would only take a few hours the next morning to install the trapdoor and the lever-and-bar mechanism that would release the door at the proper moment. Then the gallows would be complete and ready for testing. After that, the structure would stand waiting for a day, as a grim reminder of what was going to happen at nine o'clock on Friday morning.

  In the fading light Newcomb examined the workmanship. He checked the height of the platform and the beam suspended above it. Everything looked correct, just like the plans he had drawn after meeting Rachel Coleman. He was confident that it would work perfectly when the time came.

  Heaving a sigh and shaking his head, he walked away from the gallows and didn’t look back. He felt his features settling into a dour expression that was so different from the jolly one he usually wore. Normally during the construction of a gallows, he had his crew laughing all day at the jokes and yarns that he spun so naturally. But today had been different. The work had proceeded in a somber atmosphere. Under the circumstances, most people would expect that, but it bothered Newcomb.

  He had to know the truth, he decided as he walked past the courthouse. He had to be convinced to his own satisfaction that he was doing the right thing. And the only way to do that was to talk to Rachel Coleman again. He turned toward the sheriff's office.

  When Newcomb arrived at the office, a young deputy wearing spectacles was sitting behind the sheriff’s scarred desk. Newcomb smiled as he stepped inside and met the young man's quizzical gaze. "Hello, son," he said heartily, his voice taking on some of its usual jolly, booming tone. "Is Sheriff Dedrick around?"

  The deputy shook his head. "He's down at the café. Can I help you?" Before Newcomb could reply, the young man's eyes lit up. "Say, I know who you are!" he exclaimed. "You're the hangman."

  "That's right, son. K. W. Newcomb, at your service. I was wondering if I could ask a favor of you."

  "Why, sure, Mr. Newcomb. What can I do for you?"

  Newcomb nodded toward the cellblock door. "I'd like to talk to your prisoner for a few minutes, alone if possible."

  The deputy pursed his lips and looked uncertain. "I don't know," he said slowly. "I'm not sure how the sheriff would feel about it."

  At that moment, the door opened, and a stout middle-aged woman bustled into the office, carrying a cloth-covered tray. "Hello, Jeremy," she said brightly. "The sheriff sent me over with Miss Coleman's supper—" She abruptly stopped speaking when she noticed that there was someone else in the office.

  Newcomb whirled around and reached out toward the woman. "Here, ma'am, let me take that for you," he said with a charming smile. He inhaled deeply. "Umm, smells delicious!"

  The woman flushed with pleasure. "Why, thank you, sir."

  "Yes, ma'am," Newcomb went on quickly as he circled the desk with the tray, "if there's one thing I know, it's good food. Why, I'd be willing to wager that this is some of the best in Cheyenne. No, in the whole

  territory." As he spoke, he plucked the ring of keys from the nail on the wall.

  "Wait a minute, Mr. Newcomb," the deputy said, scraping back his chair and standing hurriedly. "You can't—"

  His protest came too late. Newcomb had already unlocked the door and was swinging it open. The hangman glanced over his shoulder and said airily, "Don't worry, Jeremy. We're on the same side, after all."

  Jeremy didn’t look convinced, but he said no more and frowned at Newcomb nervously. As Newcomb turned, he heard the young deputy tell the woman that he would return the tray later.

  Inside the cellblock, Newcomb paused in front of the door and watched Rachel Coleman
rise from the rocking chair with a surprised look on her face. "Why, Mr. Newcomb! What are you doing back here?"

  "Just bringing you your supper, Miss Coleman," he replied, smiling as pleasantly as he could at her.

  She met his gaze coolly. "I seem to recall telling you this morning that I had nothing to say to you. Now that I remember why your name was familiar to me, I should think it would be obvious how I feel."

  Newcomb's smile slipped slightly. "Oh. So, you know who I am."

  "I'm a journalist, Mr. Newcomb," Rachel replied acidly, "not a blithering idiot—although some people would say those things are one and the same. I've run across your name in stories about the fates of outlaws and...murderers."

  Newcomb hesitated. She was just as lovely as he remembered, and the anger sparking in her brown eyes this evening only made her more attractive. "At least let me give you this tray," he said. "Then, if you don't want to talk to me, I'll leave without complaint."

  Rachel moved over to the bars and took the tray that he passed through the special opening in the door. She started to say something, paused thoughtfully, and then asked, "Why do you insist upon talking to me, Mr. Newcomb? I can't imagine you're this interested in all your victims."

  He winced. "I prefer not to think of them that way, ma'am. They were criminals, every single one of them. Innocent people were their victims, not the other way around."

  "I'm a criminal, at least according to the judge and jury," Rachel said bitterly.

  Newcomb took a deep breath and shot a glance at the closed door that led to the sheriff’s office. In a low voice, he said, "Yes, but I'm not at all sure you're guilty."