Rattler's Law, Volume One

by James Reasoner

  "What the blazes is going on?" Leslie wondered, seeing the children gathered in a circle in the school yard. Emery Thornbury was dashing around the outside of the group, crying, "Stop it! Stop that barbarism this instant!"

  As usual, no one was paying any attention to him.

  O’Sullivan and Leslie hurried into the yard and peered over the ring of shouting children. In the clearing in the center of the circle Oliver Barlow was trading punches with a taller, redheaded boy. Oliver skillfully dodged some of the blows and blocked others, and the ones that got through didn’t seem to faze him.

  "That's Ray Winters," Leslie exclaimed. "He's been tormenting the smaller children ever since I came here."

  "It looks like he's about to get his comeuppance," O’Sullivan grunted. This development came as no surprise to him. He had known when Oliver left the train station that the boy was up to something. Oliver had had the look of a man about to even a score.

  Patrick Hammond moved among the students, busily taking wagers from them on the outcome of the fight. There was a grin on his freckled face. He would clear at least a dozen marbles and maybe a pocketknife or two from this bout.

  Emery Thornbury finally stopped dancing around the group and contented himself with bouncing up and down, an agitated look on his narrow face. He had seen Oliver march into the school yard and confront Ray Winters, but he had never dreamed a brawl would break out.

  Slowly, it became clear to all the spectators that Oliver was winning this battle. O’Sullivan glanced over at Leslie and saw the proud grin on the teacher's face. Leslie had taught more than facts and figures to Oliver; he had taught the boy the skills he needed to take care of himself—and Oliver had learned as well to have faith in his own abilities.

  Initially Ray's greater height, weight, and reach had given him the advantage, but Oliver kept boring in, shrugging off the punishment and dishing out some of his own. Suddenly he feinted with his left, drawing a wild swing that left Ray off balance and wide open. Oliver shot out his right fist, landing a blow directly on Ray's nose. The older boy sailed backward, his face bloody. He sat down hard, wailing, and clutching his injured nose.

  Oliver stepped back and dropped his hands. "Fight's over," he said simply. He turned and walked away, the circle of children parting to let him through.

  O’Sullivan felt a surge of pride. Along with his new-found courage and skill, Oliver had also acquired the maturity not to take advantage of a fallen opponent. Ray Winters had been stripped of his status as a feared bully, and that was all that Oliver had set out to accomplish.

  "Hooray!" called a female voice. O’Sullivan turned in surprise to see that Ellie had been watching the fight as well. Netta was with her, and the little girl was rushing forward to greet her victorious brother.

  "I'm sorry, Ellie," O’Sullivan said quickly. "I shouldn't have allowed Oliver to fight like that—"

  "Nonsense," his wife replied. "I don't remember how many times Oliver came home with a bloody nose because of that Winters boy. It's time he took some of his own medicine!"

  O’Sullivan grinned and embraced Ellie, glad that she and Netta had followed them from the depot. Oliver had taken care of their last piece of unfinished business in Abilene. Now they really could make that fresh start.

  Far to the east, a train whistle shrieked faintly through the chilly air.

  "That'll be the westbound," Leslie Garrison said with a smile. "You folks had better get back to the station." He held out his hand. "So long, Quincy."

  "So long, Slugger," O’Sullivan replied, gripping Leslie's hand firmly. "We'll come back to see you someday." The prizefighter's grin widened. "After all, we never did get to spar. You won the last time we mixed it up, and I figure I'm due for a rematch one of these days!"

  Whiskey Trail

  Contents

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Prologue

  A bitter autumn wind whipped among the buildings of Abilene. The night was clear. The moon and stars shone brightly, but the silvery illumination was cold. Alfred Pendleton could see where he was going as he stumbled out of a ramshackle saloon on the western edge of town. The saloon he was leaving sold only the cheapest whiskey, like the amber liquid sloshing around in the half-empty bottle he was carrying. He was drunk but not so far gone that he didn’t notice the moonlight. Anything that helped him find his way was a blessing.

  There were no boardwalks in front of the buildings in this part of town, so Alfred didn’t have any posts to hang onto for support. He lurched into the street, hunching his shoulders as the bitter wind hit him and penetrated his thin cloth coat.

  Isn't a fit night for man nor beast, he thought as he staggered along. Had it not been for the liquor warming his insides, he knew he might freeze to death before he reached the abandoned cabin on Mud Creek that he claimed as his own.

  Alfred Pendleton had been a great many things in his forty-odd years. He had punched cattle and eaten dust on trail drives; had tried to scratch a living from the ground as a farmer. He had driven freight wagons and worked as a blacksmith and for a while had even clerked in stores. But the very best thing he did was drink.

  Nobody's better than I am at that, he thought with a chuckle as he lifted the bottle to his lips and took another long swallow.

  The rotgut burned as it trickled down his throat, just as he knew it would. The fire that had been kindled in his belly blazed even higher as he added more fuel to it.

  Alfred blinked his watery eyes and peered around him at the dark, empty street. Where is everybody tonight? Sure, it was cold and windy, but that was no reason for folks to hide inside. Alfred didn’t like to drink alone. He had forgotten that when he left the saloon a few minutes before, some peaceful solitary boozing had been the only thing he’d had in mind.

  He staggered over to a hardware store that was closed for the night. Pounding on the door with his free hand, he called, "Anybody home?" No one answered.

  Alfred was about to raise his voice to shout even louder when a warning in his alcohol-fogged brain made him stop. If he made too much of a ruckus, somebody would call the marshal, and then Lucas Flint would haul him off to jail.

  Alfred frowned and pondered that for a moment.

  Getting tossed in the hoosegow might not be so bad. At least it would be warm there, while his ramshackle cabin would be icy cold. Even if he started a fire in the little stove, it would take most of the night to warm the place up.

  In jail, however, his bottle would be taken away from him. Flint would never let him keep it and finish it off in a cell. Alfred had paid good money for that bottle, and he intended to polish it off when he got home. Nobody would take his whiskey away from him, he decided.

  Lurching back toward the middle of the street, he peered into the deep shadows, trying to remember the way to his cabin. A moment later, he picked a route and began shambling along.

  He had taken three steps when a fiery pain flared up in his gut. Gasping, Alfred pressed his free arm across his middle and doubled over. The savage pain made him tremble. Beads of sweat broke out on his forehead, making the bitter wind blowing in his face seem even more frigid.

  Slowly the spasm eased. Alfred gulped deeply and straightened. He had no idea what was wrong, but it had been bad. He didn’t want to go through that again.

  "Best take another drink," he muttered to himself. That would fortify him, give him the strength he needed to make it back to his cabin.

  He lifted the bottle to his lips and guzzled some more whiskey. Satisfied for the moment, he wiped his mouth with his coat sleeve. Then, jamming his battered felt hat down on his head, he started walking again
.

  A moment later fresh pain wracked him again. An agonized groan escaped from his lips. Alfred forced his head up and opened his mouth several times before he managed to croak, "H-help..."

  But no one was around to hear him. With the bitter weather and late hour few people were stirring in Abilene tonight.

  Somehow Alfred moved his feet. He moaned again as the pain stabbed at his insides. He had gone only a few more yards when his strength deserted him completely. His knees buckled, and he collapsed. The almost empty whiskey bottle slipped out of his fingers, bounced in the street, and rolled away. Alfred doubled over, trying to curl his body around the agony inside him. When that brought no relief, he twisted and writhed in the dust.

  The sound of hoofbeats pounding the street some distance away reached his ears. He lifted his head and looked out into the darkness. A few blocks away a lone horseman crossed the street from an alley. Forcing his lips open, he wheezed, "Help me."

  But the rider never looked around. He was going about his business, his body hunched against the cold. The chilly wind whipped Alfred's desperate plea away before it could be heard.

  Alfred saw the man disappear into the shadows, and then another convulsion gripped him. He tried to retch, but nothing came up. Suddenly he realized he was going to die. Less than five seconds later, he did.

  Being a devoted lawman is one thing, Marshal Lucas Flint thought, being a dad-blasted fool is another. Nobody was going to make any trouble on a night like this. Folks were too busy trying to keep warm.

  It was almost midnight, and Flint was taking his final turn around Abilene for the night, just finishing his swing through the old west end. He paused in front of a particularly disreputable saloon and peered through the filth-streaked glass of the window. A few men stood before the makeshift bar—rough planks laid across empty barrels. No tables were scattered around the long, narrow room; this wasn’t a place for playing cards or seeking the company of women. Men came here for only one reason—to guzzle moonshine and escape the hardships of their lives in the oblivion of the fiery brew.

  There was no need to step inside, Flint decided. The saloon was quiet, like all the others in town. The first real cold snap of the season had depressed everybody.

  The tall, broad-shouldered man in a dark suit and flat-crowned hat moved away from the window. Lucas Flint's face was lean, his eyes quick and intelligent. A sandy-colored mustache drooped over his wide mouth. A walnut-butted Colt Peacemaker rode in the well-oiled holster belted around his hips. He had been a frontier lawman for a long time, and he moved confidently through the shadows as he turned away from the saloon. Abilene was his town; he knew its ins and outs, knew how easily trouble could crop up unexpectedly.

  But not tonight—the weather was just too nasty for anybody to have mischief in mind.

  Flint began to think about the stove in his office and the pot of coffee that was staying hot there. He started back toward Texas Street. But some instinct made him pause and turn to stare back the way he had come.

  In the glistening moonlight he noticed something lying in the middle of the street. As he watched, the wind caught the object and whipped it around for a few feet. Flint finally recognized that it was a hat.

  So someone had lost a hat. The town marshal didn’t need to concern himself with something so minor. Nevertheless, Flint grimaced and strode quickly over to it. He had been around too long to ignore a nagging feeling that something was wrong. It was his job to find out what.

  He picked up the hat and, frowning, turned it over in his hands. In the moonlight he could see it looked like Alfred Pendleton's. Alfred had spent quite a few nights in Abilene's jail, sleeping off drunken binges. Along with big Leander Bullfinch and a few others, Alfred was one of the regulars in the cellblock.

  Squinting into the wind, Flint peered up the street and spotted an odd form lying several feet from one of the buildings. The lawman started toward the sprawled shape. A few steps later, he broke into a run. As Flint drew near, the huddled figure resolved itself into something human. The marshal's gaze darted around, his hand hovering near the butt of his Colt. He had plenty of enemies, and this situation might well be a trap.

  Warily he approached the figure and dropped to one knee beside what he now could identify as a man lying curled on his side. Grasping his shoulder, Flint carefully rolled him over on his back. The moonlight shone harshly on Alfred Pendleton's distorted face. Seldom had Flint seen anyone's face twisted in such agony. With the back of his hand, he touched Pendleton's cheek. It was cold, too cold to be chilled by the wind alone. Alfred Pendleton was dead.

  Based on the icy rigidity of the body, Pendleton had been dead for half an hour or so. Flint drew a match from his coat pocket and struck it, but the wind blew out the flame before it had a chance to reveal anything. The marshal found another match and scratched it to life. This time he cupped his hand around it and quickly scanned the body. In his hasty examination Flint didn’t see any wounds.

  That didn’t mean much. If Pendleton had been killed, he might be lying on the bullet or stab wound that had taken his life. Flint let the wind blow out the second match and tossed it into the dirt. He slipped his hands under Pendleton's arms and straightened up, pulling the body with him. It was a thoroughly unpleasant task, but Flint wrestled the body over to the shelter of a small porch that fronted a nearby building. Then he went to look for Abilene's undertaker.

  Cyril Warren had already turned in for the night, but since he was the town's undertaker as well as the Dickinson County coroner, he was accustomed to having his sleep interrupted. The balding, fussy little man pulled on. his clothes, then lit the kerosene lantern that stood on his front porch. Clutching his coat closer to his thin body, he walked with Flint toward the spot where Alfred Pendleton's body lay. In his high-pitched voice Warren complained about the bitterly cold night, but Flint sensed that he was just grumbling to have something to say.

  "He was in the street when I found him," Flint said as Warren knelt and examined the body by the lantern light. "All I did was move him over here out of the wind. What do you think, Cyril?"

  Warren grunted. "No sign of injury. Of course, I'll have to examine him more thoroughly to be sure. But right offhand, Marshal, I'd say this man died of natural causes. Alfred Pendleton, isn't it?"

  "That's right." Flint turned up his coat collar. It seemed as if the wind was getting even colder.

  "He was a heavy drinker, wasn't he?"

  "Right again."

  Warren stood up and brushed his hands together. "There you are, then. The man drank himself to death. He probably did so much damage to his internal organs that they simply wouldn't function any longer."

  "At first I thought he might have frozen to death, but it doesn't seem cold enough for that," Flint commented.

  "I agree with you, Marshal, although the exposure he suffered may have indeed contributed to his death. When the human body gets cold, it has to work much harder to warm itself. This man simply couldn't keep that up."

  Flint nodded. What Warren said made sense and fit with what he knew of Alfred Pendleton. Wearily Flint said, "I'll help you get him back to your place. Go ahead and check him over, just to make sure we didn't miss anything, and then I guess you can bury him at county expense. I doubt Alfred had any money."

  "Very well. Why don't I go get my wagon? That'll save us having to drag him over to the undertaking parlor."

  "All right." Flint pushed his hands deeper in his pockets and watched Warren hurry off into the night.

  Standing alone in the bitter wind, he began to pace, both to put some distance between himself and the corpse and to ward off the cold.

  He hadn’t known Pendleton well, but he hated to see anyone die so needlessly. Flint liked a cold beer on a hot day and a bottle of good wine from time to time. He even enjoyed a shot of whiskey under some circumstances. But Alfred Pendleton had always been drunk. Every time Flint had run into the man he had been intoxicated to some degree. It was a was
te, he thought disgustedly, but there was nothing he could do about it.

  Staying close to the body, Flint strolled aimlessly in and out of the moonlight. Suddenly his foot bumped against something that was lying in the long shadows cast by a building. He bent down to pick up whatever it was he had kicked, his fingers groping in the dirt. Finally, they closed over smooth, cold glass. As he straightened, he stepped over to a patch of moonlight and frowned at the liquor bottle in his hand.

  It had no label, which wasn’t unusual; a lot of the rotgut served in Abilene came in unmarked bottles such as this. He lifted the uncorked neck to his nose, sniffed, and recoiled slightly as the pungent odor of cheap whiskey assailed his nostrils. If he had had any doubts about the cause of Pendleton's death, this discovery laid them to rest.

  Flint crossed to a trash barrel that stood at the entrance to an alley and tossed the bottle into it. Alfred Pendleton would no longer need it.

  1

  At dawn the next morning Deputy Cully Markham awoke in the small room next to the cellblock. The first thing he realized was that the bitter wind of the night before was no longer howling. Yawning, he rose from the bunk and ambled sleepily to the side door of the jail to bring in the bucket of water he had left outside. As his fingers touched the cold metal handle, he shivered at the chill that ran up his arm. A thin layer of ice floated on top of the water in the bucket. As he carried it into the warm office, the ice began to melt.

  Cully shoveled the ashes out of the stove and added some kindling and small logs to the glowing coals that remained. Then he washed up, fetched more water, and started a pot of coffee brewing. There were no prisoners in the cellblock, but the deputy knew that when Lucas Flint arrived, he would be ready for a cup of hot coffee. At this hour, Cully wanted one, too.