Rogue Law

by Paul Lederer

  ‘Why are you continuing to assume that I’ll be a party to any of this!’ I asked. My blood wasn’t boiling, but it was simmering. My hands were shaking a little with subdued anger and I knew my face was flushed with temper.

  ‘Because, Lang,’ Matti said as she rose, ‘you are in a tight spot. Unless you move your cattle off of my land tomorrow – which you can’t do – they’ll have to stay where they are for the time being. That means you have to pay me something for holding them. You are nearly broke, as you’ve as much as admitted to me. And,’ she added with words that were like nails in my coffin, ‘you have already refused the only work suitable for you around here.’ She lifted an eyebrow. ‘Unless you have decided that serving as town marshal would be preferable to working for me.’

  ‘I don’t know which would be worse,’ I said, placing my napkin aside. ‘I truly don’t.’

  She walked out then, leaving it to me to slide my last two silver dollars onto the table to pay for our breakfast. I hurried to catch up with her outside the door and, as I did, it occurred to me that I had been chasing her all around town that morning, following her like a puppy dog. I had decided I had had enough and was going to tell her so when she turned her green eyes on me, smiled and said, ‘That’s been about enough excitement for one morning. I’m returning to the hotel for a short rest.’ Then Matti walked away, twirling her green parasol, smiling at the strangers she met.

  My mood was dark and my thoughts savage as I headed the sorrel out onto the desert, leading my little dun pack horse. Half a mile on, I picked up the trail winding among the low-crowned, sage-studded hills that led toward the yellow-grass valley beyond where the Rafter L spread itself along the length of Whipsaw Creek, which was the dividing line between my land and Kent’s Hatchet Ranch. Out of habit I watched for signs of interlopers, but, as I had hinted at when talking to Matti, Hatchet hands now gave me wide berth after that scrape a few years back where I – luckily – came out on top in a Shootout with two Hatchet riders. I had sent them home over their saddles with a note to Reg Kent asking him please to respect our boundary line in the future. And they had, for the most part.

  From the rim of the last rise I took measure of the poor cluster of structures I called my home ranch. The shack, tilting a little away from the prevailing western wind, two pole-and-brush outbuildings, the lean-to stable, the forty square-foot pole corral where just now Virgil Sly seemed to be standing around doing nothing at all but enjoying the day. It didn’t even irritate me any more. I knew Virgil wasn’t good for much except company, and we both knew that he took any time I was away from the ranch as being his signal to do even less than usual. I didn’t pay him much, but he wasn’t worth much. We agreed on that point and so we got along.

  Watching me ride in, the narrow, hunched cowhand with the blue shirt torn out at the elbows placed one of his near-toothless smiles on his leather-colored face and lifted a hand in greeting. He took the lead rope to the dun as I swung down from my horse’s back.

  I stood still for a moment, looking up at the pale-blue sky. Nothing showed there, not a hawk or circling buzzard, not a wisp of cloud. Coming nearer, Sly asked, ‘What are you looking at, Lang?’

  ‘Nothing, Virgil. I just wanted to make sure the sky wasn’t falling out here as well.’

  ‘Something happen in town?’ he asked, as I uncinched my saddle and slipped it from the sorrel’s back.

  ‘Nothing much. They shot Les Holloway dead. Offered me the job of town marshal which I refused. Got my land taken away from me.’

  I tossed my saddle over the sagging top rail of the corral and whipped off the sorrel’s blanket, releasing it into the enclosure. Sly watched me as if waiting for the rest of the joke, a smile nearly developing as he watched with anxious eyes.

  ‘What d’ya mean?’ he managed to ask eventually. He fell in behind me as I tramped toward the house, carrying the sorrel’s reins over my shoulder.

  ‘Somebody showed up in Montero with a title to the ranch that seems to be better than mine. We’ve been given the option of working for them or drifting.’

  I toed open the door to the shack, hung reins and bit on a rusty nail on the wall and sat down on a chair next to the rickety old table. Virgil Sly was trembling with excitement. He knew I wasn’t joking. I never hold the punch line back that long. He removed his torn flop hat and scratched at his thin red-gray hair.

  ‘A claim jumper?’ He was incredulous. Probably because he, like I, hardly believed it would be worth anybody’s effort to steal this patch of cactus-stippled dry land. Still, it was ours. Our only home.

  Sly said, ‘I’d like to see them try it. First sight I get of that claim jumper, I’ll go to shooting.’

  ‘I’ll bet you wouldn’t,’ I said, winging my own hat across the room to settle on my bunk.

  ‘Sure I would! Why wouldn’t I?’ Virgil Sly demanded. ‘Of course I would,’

  ‘No,’ I told him, ‘you wouldn’t if you got a look at her.’

  His look said it all – a woman? – a woman was going to try doing this to us?

  I explained as well as I could as we started bringing the supplies in from the dun and stocking our miserable pantry. Virgil let me talk, not interrupting once although he made a series of doubtful, disbelieving sounds in his throat as I slammed our goods onto the sagging shelves and went on and on about the she-devil, Miss Martha Ullman, heartless destroyer of homes.

  ‘What are you going to do, Lang? I mean, what are we going to do?’ I was a long time answering; I had been a long time pondering it.

  ‘The weather’s holding fine,’ I said at last. ‘The horses don’t need that lean-to. Clean it out and we’ll move in there for the time being. ‘I hope that it’s not too close or too far from the house to suit her.’

  There hadn’t really been any choice as the lady had already figured out. I couldn’t leave my cattle, the only real asset I had, nor did I have any place else to drive them. There was some free range in the area, but it was no more than blow sand where even nopal cactus withered and died trying to survive. I would have to stay on the ranch and work for Matti until I could find some way to prove up my title. Before leaving town I had stopped at the office of our only local lawyer, Bill Forsch, but he was not in. I had left a note sketchily explaining matters and saying I’d be back in a day or so to consult with him. I had not mentioned anything about legal fees, and though Bill and I got along well enough, I didn’t figure he would see the profit in taking on a case without payment.

  Still it was all that I could think of doing.

  As I was raking the horse manure out of the lean-to, scattering fresh straw around for bedding. I told Sly, ‘Well, this won’t be too bad. We’ve both slept out under worse conditions.’ Which was true, but that shack, this land had been purchased by the years of living like that, having nothing, saving every dollar that came my way while working for other people. Now, it seemed, I was right back where I had started from, and all because of some rich city girl’s whim.

  The city girl with the shiny red hair, charming smile, laughing green eyes and a taste for walnuts.

  It was all too soon – I hadn’t even gotten used to the idea let alone processed it. Yet at first light the next morning, with dawn still reddening the eastern sky above the long shadowed hills, here she came. Matti was alone. Sitting a big buckskin horse, wearing baggy black jeans, a man’s yellow checked shirt and fawn-colored Stetson, she came riding directly toward the house while Sly and I stood bareheaded, stunned to silence, watching her arriving to take charge of the Rafter L.

  THREE

  Virgil had just emerged from the house where he had started the fire for coffee going in our old steel plate stove. He walked toward me, squinting against the light of the new sun, studying the incoming rider. There was a moment when he seemed not to believe what he was seeing, then his eyes focused on Matti and, when I glanced his way, I saw that his mouth was hanging open just a bit. His weather-lined nut brown face was fixed into a stunned t
rance-like expression.

  ‘New boss?’ he asked, when he recovered his speech.

  ‘That’s her,’ I said unhappily. Why she had ridden all this way so early was beyond me. I suppose she was eager to mark her land. She seemed neither cheerful nor unhappy. There was a little half smile on her lips which could have meant anything. A few twists of her red hair had worked their way free of her Stetson and decorated her forehead.

  ‘Good morning, Lang!’ she said as she halted the buckskin horse she was riding. The animal looked too big for her. When she swung down, holding its reins, she barely came up to its shoulder. ‘Virgil?’ she asked pleasantly. Her smile melted Virgil Sly, striking him silent again. ‘Will you please see to my horse for me?’

  Virgil leaped forward as if no favor Matti asked could be too small or too large for him eagerly to perform. He didn’t know her as I did yet.

  Glancing at the smoke rising from the iron stovepipe, she asked me, ‘Is breakfast ready?’

  ‘Nothing but coffee,’ I said with a half-apologetic shrug. ‘That’s all we usually do.’

  ‘I’d like a cup. May I come in?’

  ‘It’s your house, isn’t it?’ I asked, with my resentment showing a little. She ignored it.

  Virgil was falling over himself to assist her. ‘Of course! Come on in. It’ll be a pleasure to have an actual lady visit.’ He blabbered on like that as he escorted her to the shack. I watched them enter through the door which was hung unevenly on leather hinges. Looking at the forlorn arrangement of buildings, feeling the rising breeze sweep dryly over my body I found myself wondering what I cared if I lost the whole place to this clever, charming little lady. Let her try to make a go of it out here.

  It was all very fine to talk about driving a new herd onto the range, but the fact was that it could support no more cattle than I was running now. I had paid Henry Trent 150 gold dollars for my 1200 acres, and many were the times that I decided that old Henry Trent had gotten the better of the bargain.

  I wandered over to the corral, still sunk in shadowed thoughts. The sorrel came over to me and I stroked its muzzle and sleek neck. I watched a coyote running in the low-tailed slink they have, dash across the far corner of the clearing, thought about shooting it, rejected the idea as being too much trouble and of little use. It was Matti’s coyote now. Let her shoot it if she wanted to.

  From nowhere, as I stood, boot propped up on the lowest rail of the corral, watching the skulking predator, a thought came to me.

  I owned 1200 acres of this dry, barren land – or had, before yesterday. But Matti had told me that her deed showed that she had possession of 1000 acres. ‘Minus a county easement,’ she had added. A county easement was something they retained just in case some time in the next century they might decide to build a road or string telegraph wire or some such. A mere strip of land intended for such use should the county ever need it.

  Where had the other 200 acres of land from my parcel gone to? I should have studied the map in the records office more closely. The sorrel nuzzled me for more attention, but my thoughts were elsewhere. In some way, for no reason I could fathom, 200 acres of land had vanished from my property. When selling to me, had Henry Trent held back a slice of land for his own later use, and let me go on assuming that the other 200 acres were included in my purchase? He had not made the same provision when selling the ranch to Hangdog, certainly. The acreage was defined as 1000, not 1200 on that deed, the one Matti held. Something did not make sense.

  I needed to look at my original deed. Now.

  I made my way to the shack and entered to find Matti and Virgil sipping coffee from tin cups, deep in a conversation. Virgil was saying: ‘… ’Course since Lang here was acting marshal in Socorro, he managed to pull me out of what could have been a nasty situation.’

  I glared at Virgil. He could talk about himself all he wanted, but I didn’t want him telling Matti about my past trails. She watched me over the rim of her coffee cup with amused eyes.

  ‘I knew Lang must have been in law enforcement somewhere, sometime. The way they were so eager to press the marshal’s job on him—’

  ‘Move your chair!’ I snapped, interrupting her.

  ‘Pardon me?’ she said, offended.

  ‘Move your chair, Matti. Please!’

  She rose, and the heavy chair was moved – by Virgil – and I removed the loose floorboard that covered my little cache beneath it. A brass box contained a record of my birth, a few other legal papers, twenty-seven dollars in silver money and the deed to this property signed by myself, Henry Trent and two saloon-bum witnesses. Crouching, I removed the deed, placed the box aside and opened the envelope containing the deed.

  Sitting on my cot, I placed my hat aside and read the deed word for word, one at a time. Matti craned her neck, but she could see nothing from where she sat. Finished, I refolded the deed and placed it back in its envelope. Instead of putting it back in the metal box under the floorboards, I tucked the document inside my shirt.

  ‘All right,’ I asked Matti, before she could enquire where my concentration was, ‘where did the other two hundred acres go?’

  She looked at me blankly. ‘I don’t know what you mean.’

  ‘Let me see your deed,’ I said, extending a hand

  ‘No.’ Her refusal was flat and final.

  ‘What two hundred acres?’ Virgil asked, rousing himself from his soulful study of Matti’s face.

  ‘Miss Ullman here owns a thousand acres of land. Funny thing is, Virgil, I have a claim to twelve hundred acres, and according to the deeds, it is the same piece of property. I am asking her where the additional went. Where it was, as far as that goes.’

  ‘I’m sure I don’t know,’ Matti said, as if nothing could matter less to her. She rose, tucked her red curls into the Stetson she was wearing and stood watching me, hands on hips. ‘Is someone going to show me around the ranch?’

  ‘I can’t,’ I complained, standing up. ‘I don’t even know where it begins and ends now.’

  ‘You saw the map yesterday.’

  ‘I wasn’t looking for anything like that.’

  ‘Lang,’ she told me with a sad shake of her head, ‘it seems that you are just not a very careful man.’ I started to snap back, but she went on, ‘If there is less land on my deed, then obviously either the former owner – this Henry Trent – decided that he did not wish to include it in the sale to Uncle … or Hangdog noticed the disparity and told Trent that there was a mistake which was then corrected. Uncle Hangdog—’

  ‘Yes, I know,’ I grumbled. ‘Hangdog was very careful when it came to business matters!’

  ‘Exactly.’ She turned her eyes on Virgil Sly. ‘Will you ride out with me and show me the property.’ Virgil was instantly ready to agree and was reaching for his flop hat before he thought to glance at me for permission.

  ‘Go ahead,’ I said sourly. ‘She’s the boss lady.’

  ‘Then you are staying on?’ Matti asked with one of her infuriating smiles. ‘Both of you?’

  ‘We’re still here, aren’t we?’ I was standing now as well, as near to Matti as I could decently get, forcing her to lean back in order to look up at me. She didn’t look in the least intimidated. ‘I have some business to attend to in town,’ I told her.

  ‘Oh? Fine. We’ll expect you when we see you,’ she replied. Then she and Virgil started out the door, neither of them so much as glancing back as he began describing the lay of the land, doing all but strewing rose petals in front of her as they walked toward the corral.

  I was still angry. Exactly what it was that made me maddest, I couldn’t have said, or didn’t want to admit. The minute they were gone I felt an odd loneliness creep over me. I stood in the doorway, watching as Virgil saddled his stocky blue roan, his mouth going a mile a minute. After a while they rode out toward the north, a cheerful laugh that had escaped Matti’s lips lingering in the air.

  It was Sunday morning and Montero lay silently baking in the harsh yellow sunli
ght. The Saturday-night roisterers were holed up asleep somewhere. The doors to the side-by-side saloons on Main Street – the New Amsterdam and the Golden Eagle – stood open, airing them out. The bartenders from each establishment, wearing white aprons, leaning on their brooms, stood in front of the businesses, jawing with each other. There had been a law passed some time ago to ban the sale of liquor on Sunday. Of course, the law was ignored.

  McCormick’s store was open, of course. The storekeeper never seemed even to catnap. One day he would die a very rich man. Just now he turned from washing his window to lift a hand to me as I passed.

  I drew the sorrel up in front of Bill Forsch’s office and swung down. It was Sunday, but Bill would be there. He had a small room over his office to sleep in. He said that he couldn’t afford a house or even a room in the Western Hotel. I believed him. There really wasn’t much call for a lawyer in Montero. Most of the people took care of their disputes without resort to a courtroom, finding it quicker and cheaper to do things their way. I found Bill’s office door locked and proceeded to bang on it, thinking I could offer to buy him breakfast in lieu of a consulting fee.

  After that I had no idea how I was going to pay him. From what I had gathered, resolving this matter was going to require a trip to Santa Fe and a few days of Bill’s time.

  Hair rumpled, wearing an unbuttoned vest over a half-buttoned shirt, the thin blond lawyer swung open the door. He wasn’t angry, but neither was there joy on his features when he recognized me. He had a cold cigar clenched in his teeth and a vague, dreamy look in his watery blue eyes.

  ‘Come in,’ he said, there being nothing else he could say.

  ‘Bill, I’ve got a problem.’

  ‘I wouldn’t have guessed it,’ he said with soft irony. ‘Take a seat and I’ll tell you how much it will cost before you tell me you can’t afford it and leave, having disrupted my morning routine.’

  ‘I am sorry, Bill,’ I said. I remained standing, just wanting to get matters settled. No matter how it turned out in the end. ‘You got my note?’