Rattler's Law, Volume One

by James Reasoner

  "Haven't seen him," O’Sullivan replied, shaking his head. "And I hope I don't. I've had enough trouble here. I want the rest of my stay to be peaceful."

  "When do you plan to start training again?"

  "Soon, I hope. A boxer gets stale if he doesn't practice regularly."

  Cully smiled again. "Why don't you put on another exhibition with Leslie Garrison? I heard that the first one didn't go very well." The deputy chuckled. "If you could arrange for Emery Thornbury to play the same part in it, you could invite the town and sell tickets. I would have paid money to see that!"

  O’Sullivan joined in Cully's laughter. "I'm afraid Leslie wouldn't go along. He came too close to losing his job to want to repeat it."

  Cully shook his head. "If Thornbury had gotten him fired, we would have done something about it. Folks out here stand behind their friends, Mr. O’Sullivan."

  O’Sullivan nodded; he had already noticed that trait in Abilene.

  "Well, I'd better be getting on about my business," Cully said. "Nice talking to you again, Mr. O’Sullivan. I'm glad you're staying out of trouble."

  "Of course. Trouble is the last thing I want, Deputy," O’Sullivan assured him.

  With a wave Cully strode down the boardwalk. O’Sullivan watched him go, then crossed the street and resumed his journey to the Red Top Café. As he walked, he mulled over what Cully had told him about Ellie Barlow and her family. The girl had obviously faced more than her share of hardships. O’Sullivan's observation was laced with admiration for her, though, admiration for the way she had handled the problems and apparently conquered most of them.

  But it had to be an added burden having a drunkard for a father. From the way Oliver had spoken, Charlie Barlow sounded like an obstinate, unreasonable man. Liquor probably just made him more so. O’Sullivan wondered if he should have a talk with the man, try to straighten him out.

  He gave a snort as he paused before the entrance to the cafe. He was a fine one to be thinking such things, he mused. Nothing but a struggling prizefighter to start with, and now he had hired killers after him. Yes, I'm a fine one to butt into someone else's life and try to fix it, he told himself sarcastically.

  And given his circumstances, the last thing he needed to do was get involved with a woman, O’Sullivan knew. He went into the cafe and tried to stop thinking about Ellie Barlow, concentrating instead on the huge platter of food that Alice Hammond brought to him. Roast beef, mashed potatoes, peas, corn bread, and gravy—that was all a man really needed.

  Try as he might, however, O’Sullivan found that he couldn’t get Ellie Barlow out of his thoughts. She stayed with him all through his meal and during the walk back to the boardinghouse. He entered the house to find Sam Talmage seated in a chair just inside the front door, waiting for him.

  "I was hoping you'd be back soon," Talmage said as he leaped to his feet. "Did you have any trouble?"

  "Not a bit," O’Sullivan told him. "I just had something to eat. And I talked to that deputy for a few minutes. He's a pretty friendly fellow, even if he does look like a gunslinger."

  "Well, come along, I've got that telegram ready to send."

  O’Sullivan shook his head. "I'm sort of tired now, Sam. Why don't I go upstairs and rest for a little while?"

  "You're all right, aren't you?" Talmage asked anxiously.

  "I'm fine, just a little tuckered out, as they say around here. You go ahead. I'll be all right."

  Talmage hesitated, then nodded. "If you're sure...but I'm worried I've already let you out of my sight too much today."

  "Don't be," O’Sullivan said with a laugh. "Nothing's going to happen here at Hettie's."

  Talmage left reluctantly, and O’Sullivan climbed the stairs to his room. It felt good to stretch out on his bed. He thought that he might doze off, especially after all the food he had eaten, but he found that his eyes wouldn’t stay closed. He kept staring up at the ceiling...and seeing Ellie Barlow's face.

  When Talmage returned to the boardinghouse, he knocked on the door of O’Sullivan's room, rapping softly in case the prizefighter was asleep. O’Sullivan grunted, "Come in."

  Talmage came into the room with a dark frown on his face. He glared at O’Sullivan and snapped, "That door wasn't even locked, and you blithely told me to come in like you didn't have a care in the world, O’Sullivan! What if I was Brett Easton, come to call with a gun in my hand?"

  "You're not, though, are you?" O’Sullivan replied, rolling to the side of the bed and sitting up carefully. "Ease off, Sam. You ought to be able to see by now that nobody's going to bother us. You're worrying about nothing. And I've got other things on my mind."

  The detective's face flushed with anger. "Oh? There's something more important than staying alive, I take it?"

  "Damn right," O’Sullivan growled. "I met a girl."

  Talmage's mouth dropped open, and he stared at O’Sullivan as if he couldn’t believe what he had just heard. "You met a girl?" he repeated slowly. "One of the most vicious killers in the country is probably on your trail, and you're upset about some girl?" The detective's voice grew gradually louder. "Have you totally taken leave of your senses?"

  O’Sullivan glared at Talmage. "You're a fine one to talk, the way you've been mooning over that woman doctor!" he snapped. "I'm surprised you haven't claimed you're seeing double again, just so you could go back and have her feel your head some more!"

  Talmage's hands knotted into fists. "Why, you...you damned lout!" he sputtered. "You don't have the brains to understand that a gentleman can have a perfectly harmless conversation with a lady without it meaning that he harbors any improper thoughts."

  "Oh, you've been harboring them, all right, Sam. I saw the way you were looking at her the last time we went to her office." O’Sullivan grinned mockingly. "And if you want to come take a swing at me because of it, you just go right ahead. I could use a little exercise."

  Talmage took a deep breath and made a visible effort to relax. He slowly opened his fists and pressed fingers that were trembling with anger against his legs.

  "This is ridiculous," he snapped. "We're on the same side, Quincy. We shouldn't be threatening each other."

  "Maybe not," O’Sullivan shot back. "I'm just getting tired of you pushing me around, mister. Just because you're a cop doesn't mean you can give me orders. Why, I could leave here and just forget about testifying against Savage and Easton if I wanted to!"

  "I suppose you could at that," Talmage replied in a hollow voice. "But that would be one sure way of getting yourself killed sooner or later. Savage would never rely on your silence unless you were dead. Besides, that would mean they would get away with killing Bernie Campbell."

  O’Sullivan's face fell. "You're right," he said. "I can't do that. But I can't stop thinking about that girl, either."

  "You'll have plenty of time for her when this is over, O’Sullivan," Talmage said, more sympathetically now. "Just concentrate on staying alive. I know you think you're safe out here, but trust me. My instincts tell me we could still have trouble."

  O’Sullivan nodded. Talmage was right. Trouble could come at any time, in any shape or size—maybe even in the form of a beautiful young woman named Ellie.

  7

  There was an ache gnawing at Woodie Price's insides that hurt more than any of the cuts, scrapes, and bruises he had picked up in the brawl with Quincy O’Sullivan. It was the pain of unfinished business. The big Irishman probably still thought he could take Price in a fight. The issue hadn’t been decided because Marshal Lucas Flint and Deputy Cully Markham had intervened, blast those meddling lawmen.

  Laughing at him—that's probably what O’Sullivan was doing, Price brooded darkly as he nursed a beer in one of Abilene's smaller, more disreputable saloons one evening, almost a week after the battle in Angus's.

  Most of the bars in town wouldn’t serve him and his friends anymore. There had been too many fights, too much damage. Angus's had been one of the last respectable places where he could buy a
drink, and now he knew better than to try to return. That crazy Scotsman was liable to grab his shotgun and start blasting if Price so much as showed his face over the batwings. So he was stuck drinking hot beer and watered-down rotgut in dives like this one.

  And none of it was his fault, Price told himself. It was all because folks thought they were better than he was, just because he was down on his luck and had to take on some shady jobs every now and then.

  "Not fair," he muttered into his beer. "Dammit, just not fair."

  "What'd you say, Woodie?" asked one of his drinking companions. Several men were standing at the bar with him, not friends really, but as close to it as a man like Woodie Price was likely to get. They respected him—or at least they were afraid of him, and that was just as good.

  "I said it was damned unfair," Price growled. "We didn't start that fight in Angus's. It was that damned prizefighter."

  Another man blinked owlishly at Price. "I thought you told him you could whip him. I thought that was what started it."

  Letting his rage boil over, Price lashed out and backhanded the man, staggering him. "You stupid idiot!" he snarled. "I gave that Irishman a chance to back down. If he ain't got sense enough to do it, then the fight's his fault, understand?"

  "Sure, sure," mumbled Price's crony quickly, rubbing his sore jaw. "You're right, Woodie, damned if you ain't!"

  "'Course I'm right," Price grunted as he picked up his beer mug.

  He was going to have to even the score with O’Sullivan, but so far, he had been unable to come up with a plan. Since the fight, he had spotted the prizefighter around town a few times, but O’Sullivan had always been with that manager of his. Besides, the way Flint and Cully came running every time there was trouble, Price knew he would wind up back in jail if he wasn’t careful. This time the judge might not be so easy on him. He might have to serve a prison stretch. Price knew he couldn’t stand that, would never be able to bear being cooped up.

  "Maybe I ought to just shoot the son of a bitch and be done with it," he muttered. None of the others paid any attention to him.

  An ambush wouldn’t work, Price decided. Flint would figure out who had done it and come looking for him. Besides, Price wanted his revenge to be more satisfying than that. He wanted to be close enough to see pain on that black Irishman's face.

  Other than Price and his companions, there were three people in the saloon besides the bartender: a drunk who had passed out face-down on one of the tables, a young cowhand barely out of his teens whose face already showed the signs of dissipation, and a middle-aged prostitute who was trying to convince the cowboy that it was going to cost him more to get her to do what he had suggested. All of them ignored the man who came excitedly into the room and hurried over to Price's side.

  "I just saw him, Woodie!" the newcomer babbled urgently to Price. "I found out where he lives. Him and that manager of his just went into a boardinghouse down on Second Street!"

  Price turned to peer at the man who was a minor member of the loose-knit gang. He had told all his men to keep an eye out for O’Sullivan in hopes of catching the prizefighter alone sometime. "What the hell good does that do?" Price snarled. "He's still not where we can get at him, is he?"

  "Maybe not," the man answered defensively. "But I thought maybe you could lay for him, now that you know where he's staying."

  Price nodded as he tried to force his brain to work. There might be something to what the man said. It might be even better if they could somehow draw O’Sullivan's manager away from him.

  A plan suddenly suggested itself to him. He drained the last of his beer and then grunted, "Come on." The other men trooped out of the saloon behind him.

  They walked the few blocks to Second Street, then allowed the other man to direct them to the boardinghouse where O’Sullivan and Talmage were staying. Several lamps were lit inside the house, and Price and his men crouched in the deep shadows of the yard. Clutching the arm of the man who had brought the information, Price demanded, "Do you know which rooms they're in?"

  The man shook his head. "Sorry, Woodie, I don't. But I swear I saw 'em go into that house."

  "All right." Price nodded, releasing the man. The desire for revenge had burned away some of the drunken stupor that had gripped him earlier. Fumbling in his vest pocket, he pulled out the packet of matches he used to light cigars—whenever he could cadge one from somebody—and pressed it into the hand of another man. "There's an empty house just down the block," he ordered. "I want you to go down there and set it on fire."

  "On fire?" the man echoed. "Woodie, I can't do that—"

  "The hell you can't," Price cut in, his voice grating. "You get a good blaze going and yell fire. It'll bring everybody in that boardinghouse out to see what's going on. We'll grab O’Sullivan then."

  "I don't know," the man said dubiously.

  Price's hand closed over his arm. "Do what I told you, dammit! Get moving!" He shoved the man away. "Get moving!"

  "All right, all right," the flunky muttered thickly. He turned and disappeared into the night.

  Price hoped the man would do as he was told and not just keep going. But all his companions knew what would happen if they riled him; none of them would want him coming after them.

  "Come on," Price whispered, jerking his head to indicate that the others should follow him. Quietly and carefully, they slipped into an even darker patch of shadows near the porch of the boardinghouse.

  A few minutes crawled past, and Price grew more nervous. He wondered if he should have set fire to the vacant house himself, rather than trusting someone else to do the job. But if he had done that, he wouldn’t be on hand here to capture the boxer.

  Suddenly, he saw a flame flickering in the darkness up the street. It grew rapidly, throwing a harsh red glow into the yard around the house. "Fire! Help, somebody! Fire!" shouted Price's man.

  Inside the boardinghouse Price heard the pounding of footsteps. A moment later, the front door burst open, as did several other doors along Second Street. Men ran onto the porch, looking around to try to locate the source of the commotion. The fire in the empty house was blazing on the second floor now. Through its windows Price could see flames licking the inside walls and climbing steadily toward the roof.

  Price put out a hand to warn his companions to be quiet. More tenants of the boardinghouse, accompanied by Hettie Wilburn herself, came outside and stared at the fire. One of them said sharply, "Come on, men! They'll be forming a bucket brigade!" Several men vaulted off the porch and raced toward the burning house. The others, including Hettie, followed behind them.

  As the crowd on the porch cleared, Price suddenly spotted O’Sullivan and Talmage standing there, obviously uncertain about what to do. O’Sullivan took a step forward, but Talmage stopped him with a hand on his arm. "What do you think you're doing?" Talmage demanded.

  "We've got to help, Sam," O’Sullivan answered as he turned to the other man. "That fire could spread!"

  "I know all about fires spreading," Talmage replied grimly. "I was there when half of Chicago burned a few years ago. But this is none of our business, O’Sullivan."

  "Dammit, I can't just stand by and not help!"

  Crouched in the shadows next to the porch, Price sneered as he listened to the boxer's self-righteous words. O’Sullivan was acting as if he really cared.

  "All right," Talmage snapped. "I'll go down there and see if there's anything I can do to help. You stay here until I get back."

  "But Sam—"

  "I mean it, O’Sullivan! I'm tired of you plunging into things without thinking."

  O’Sullivan looked angry, but he stayed on the porch while Talmage hurried away. A big crowd had gathered around the burning house, as people from all over town came to fight the fire. Hiding in the shadows, Price heard the clanging of a bell and knew that Abilene's fire department, such as it was, was on its way to the scene. The horse-drawn water wagon could cut down the length of the line required for a bucket brigade, but t
hat was about all it could accomplish.

  Price felt excitement coursing through him. He had certainly stirred up the town. That hadn’t been his main goal, but it still felt good. At the moment, though, he had more important concerns.

  Quincy O’Sullivan was standing alone at the railing around the porch. No one was paying any attention to what was happening at the boardinghouse.

  Price hissed, "Now!" He reached up, grasped the railing, and pulled himself over it. The thud of his boots on the planks of the porch made O’Sullivan whirl around. Price threw himself forward, swinging a fist with all his weight behind it.

  The blow smashed into O’Sullivan's jaw and drove him back against the porch railing. As he crashed into it, the wood splintered and cracked, then gave way completely, dumping him into Hettie Wilburn's flower bed. Price staggered and had to grab what was left of the rail to keep from falling himself. He hadn’t expected this. One of his men bumped into him from behind, and he suddenly felt himself falling toward O’Sullivan.

  The prizefighter caught his breath and rolled out of the way. Price landed heavily in the dirt, the impact knocking the air out of his lungs. O’Sullivan came up on his knees and shouted, "Sam!" just as one of Price's men dove off the porch and tackled him.

  Price pushed himself up on his hands and knees and started to shake his head. He lifted it just in time to see a fist coming at him. O’Sullivan had punched the other man, knocking him out, and thrown him aside.

  Price didn’t have a chance to get out of the heavyweight's way. The blow cracked into his jaw and sent him sprawling.

  Everything was going wrong, Price thought groggily. It had been such a good plan; it should have worked. But now when he looked up, he saw Talmage running toward the knot of struggling men. In the garish firelight the barrel of the gun in Talmage's hand glinted dully.

  For a second, Price thought about reaching for his own gun, but he quickly discarded that idea. He didn’t want bullets flying around until he was more in control of the situation. Throwing lead wildly was a good way to get yourself shot. He pulled himself to his feet and yelled to his men, "Come on! Let's get out of here!"