by Texas Lover
"You thought wrong."
"Is that so?" Wes rubbed his chin. "Maybe it's just this toothache that's got my thinking all muddled. I hear tell that old pill wrangler could crack jaws with the best of them. Sew up a man too like some kind of tailor. But then, you'd know all about that, wouldn't you, seeing as how you were there when Doc Warren tried to patch up Sheriff Boudreau."
Creed said nothing, but he grew stiffer than a new rawhide rope.
"I hear tell too," Wes said casually, "that you were the one who found your cousin facedown on the road leading back from Bandera Town. That's some kind of terrible thing, finding your kin shot from behind. Did you see the bastards who did it?"
Creed's gaze flickered away. "Nope."
"Hmm. So why don't you tell me just exactly what happened after you found Gator?"
"I slung him over my horse and rode back to the farmhouse. Then I went and fetched a doctor. Pa too," he added tersely.
Wes frowned. "Knowing Gator was alive when you found him, did you ever ask him for a description of his killer?"
"He didn't come to."
"Now that's interesting, 'cause the Sinclairs said—"
"He didn't ever come to, I tell you. And he sure as hell didn't name some persimmon-skin as his heir."
"How could you know that, son, since you were gone for an hour or so, hunting down Doc Warren?"
Creed's jaw tightened mutinously. "I just do, that's all."
"Then it would stand to reason Gator never told your pa who shot him either. And yet your pa says Gator was shot by a gang of renegade Negroes." Wes folded his arms across his chest and locked stares with the boy. "How do you suppose he figured that, seeing as how you didn't find any trace of the killers, and you're the closest thing to a witness I've got?"
Panic crossed Creed's face. "There were tracks."
"Tracks, huh?"
"That's right."
Wes shook his head. "I have to tell you, son, I've been tracking men for years, and I haven't learned yet how to tell the color of a renegade's skin by the hoof prints his pony leaves behind. You don't suppose your pa leaped to conclusions in this matter, do you?"
"My pa can track a man as good as you can, Ranger. By the sound of it, he can probably do it better."
Wes didn't bother to rise to this bait. Either Creed was as dim-witted as a opossum, or he was lying about those tracks. The question was why?
"You know, Creed, it strikes me kind of funny that those renegades never tried to steal anything from your cousin. I mean, they left him with his saddle, boots, and badge. Why, as I hear it told, they even left him with his cartridge belt and gun. Why do you suppose they did that?"
Creed's lip curled. "They were jiggaboos, weren't they? We're not talking about the smartest of men here, Rawlins."
"So you figure these Negroes were bent on murder, not theft, eh?"
"Sure. Everyone knows those black bastards have murder on their minds from the day they're born."
Wes smiled ruefully. Pa Dukker had obviously been feeding heifer dust to his boy for a long time. The sad thing was, Creed seemed to believe it. "Well, I'm glad that's settled. Now tell me about this still of yours."
Creed's head shot up faster than a bull whip. "Gator shut it down."
Wes didn't need his sixth sense to know the boy was lying again. "I reckon that must have caused some trouble between you and your cousin."
Creed looked away. "We got past it."
"So you and your cousin were close, then?" he asked more gently.
"What's it to you, Ranger?"
The boy's hostility was back, and Wes realized he'd touched a nerve. Creed had a hair-trigger temper, all right. No wonder he and Shae fought like wildcats.
"Oh, I don't know. Sometimes I just get to wondering about things. Take your brother Danny, for instance. An hour or so back, I was wondering why he was crying."
Something genuine, like concern, vied with the angry bravado on Creed's face. "What do you mean, crying? Where?"
"Down by the fishing hole. Seems like he was down there trying to hide the preacher boy's stolen puppy."
Creed started in surprise. "The hell he was. You've got no proof of that, Rawlins."
Wes didn't bother to point out the obvious. It wasn't Danny he wanted in wrist irons. Unfortunately, the boy was headed that way unless somebody tried to turn him around.
"You know, Creed, Danny's a fine boy, and he looks up to you. Seems like you could talk to him, maybe give him some counsel. Otherwise, he's just going to lie and steal and hate his way into a jail cell... maybe worse."
Wes suspected his six-shooters were the only things keeping Creed's fists out of his face.
"My brother ain't any kind of rounder," he said hotly. "You'd best keep your wisecracks to yourself, if you know what's good for you. Now move aside. I got business in Milner's."
With a smile that bordered on mocking, Wes refrained from further debate and sidestepped out of the boy's way. Arguing with Creed about Danny would clearly be a waste of time, and he had an investigation to conduct.
Creed's answers—or rather, his lies—had given Wes a couple of ideas, not the least of which was that Gator had been murdered by somebody he knew. No self-respecting road agent would go through the trouble of an ambush and then leave the body for somebody else to loot. And since the bushwhacking had happened so close to Gator's farm, the killer must have been worried about being recognized. Otherwise, he would have ridden right up to Gator's body to make sure he'd finished the job.
Thus, Wes felt safe in assuming that Gator had been slain by somebody who lived in or around Elodea. Just to be safe, though, he decided to see if headquarters had sent any telegrams about hill-country outlaws.
Pushing open the door to the telegraph office, he nodded to the slender, spaniel-eyed operator with the drooping mustache. "Howdy."
The man took one look at Wes's guns and practically fell out of his chair in his haste to pull his boots off the counter and jump to his feet.
"You're, er, that Ranger, aren't you?" he asked in a mousy voice, just one whisker shy of panic-stricken. "I remember you."
Wes frowned. One might have thought he'd held his Equalizer to the man's head on Monday night, rather than paying him double what his services were worth. "That's right, Mister... er—" he glanced at the copper name placard beside the door, "Bartlesby. I've come to see about the answers to my wires."
Bartlesby's Adam's apple bobbed above his starched winged collar. "Your wires, sir?"
Wes gazed narrowly at the man. Bartlesby might be a sight more civil by day, but he wasn't proving any less troublesome.
"That's right. One to Ranger headquarters in Austin and one to the clerk in County Records up in Bandera Town."
"Oh, er, yes. Let me look." Bartlesby hurried to a row of boxes against the rear wall, but he was already shaking his head and mumbling, "No, I don't see any," before he had lifted a single sheaf of paper from the box.
Wes watched these theatrics with rising annoyance. "I should have received answers two days ago."
"Yes, well, sometimes these things take longer—"
"Never mind." Wes cut him off with a wave of his hand. "I want to send another wire to a lawyer friend of mine, Mr. Jonathan Harrell, in Bandera Town."
Bartlesby glanced uneasily out the window. "A lawyer, Mr. Rawlins? Oh, but we've got a fine lawyer here in Elo—"
"I need someone who's friendly with the county judge, not to mention someone I can trust," Wes added under his breath. "Now, why don't you pull up your chair, and I'll spell out the message for you."
Just then, a cowbell clanged and the door swung open. Hannibal Dukker stood on the threshold, his left cheek swelled out with a wad of tobacco. He spat on the floor.
"So there you are, Rawlins, and minus your badge again too. Hell, you know better than to ride into Elodea without your star. Next time, I'm going to have to take away that fancy rig of yours or throw you in the calaboose."
Wes's eyes nar
rowed. There was nothing even remotely amusing about the lawman's threat, and he suspected that was how Dukker had wanted it to be.
"Mr. Rawlins wants to wire an attorney in Bandera," Bartlesby said anxiously. "One who knows the county judge."
Dukker arched an eyebrow. "Is that a fact? Well, you told him about the lines being down, didn't you, Simon?"
"Oh..." Bartlesby's gaze flitted between the two lawmen. "That's right. The lines are down." He nodded vigorously.
Dukker shot him a withering glare. "Simon, isn't that your wife I hear calling you?"
If Bartlesby had been a real spaniel, he would have tucked his tail between his legs. "Why, er, yes, Marshal. I do believe it is. Excuse me, gentlemen."
Wes watched as Bartlesby slinked for the back door and the stairwell that led to his living quarters. Apparently Danny had been right: Hannibal Dukker did own this town, or at least, he owned most of the men who lived in it.
"It's a good thing I ran into you here, Rawlins," Dukker said with a faint sneer. "I was starting to wonder about you. I thought maybe that white nigger boy out at Gator's had put a bullet through your head. If I hadn't been so busy with this damned county sheriff's campaign, I would have rounded up a posse and come out there looking for you."
"Much obliged for your concern, Marshal," Wes said dryly.
Dukker nodded. "So is that farm ready for me and my boys to move in?"
"Not exactly." Wes kept his hands loose at his sides and ready to draw. "As a matter of fact, I was just going to wire the county judge and ask for a court order to keep you off the property."
"You don't say?" Dukker spat another stream of tobacco juice, this time at Wes's boots. It missed only by a hairsbreadth. "Why would you want to do that?"
Wes felt his neck heat with his mounting outrage, but he steeled himself against a show of anger. "There seems to be some controversy over the legitimacy of your claim."
Dukker snorted. "Don't tell me you've been listening to that nigger's nonsense. Hell, what kind of lawman are you? If it ain't a crime for that boy to be strutting around the county, claiming he's Gator's next of kin, then I don't know what is. I don't care if Lorelei Faraday did swear on a Bible, I got my doubts Shae McFadden was out fixing the axle on her daddy's wagon about the same time Gator got shot. That girl has an unnatural attraction for that piece of trash, and I told Mayor Faraday he'd best lock her in her bedroom if he didn't want some jiggaboo baby toddling around calling him Granddaddy."
Wes felt his jaw begin to twitch. He was less concerned about Dukker's slurs against him than about the man's obvious hostility toward Shae and Lorelei. "Speaking of the afternoon Gator was shot," he said with passable nonchalance, "where were you?"
Dukker's eyes narrowed to reptilian slits. "What kind of question is that, boy?"
"An official one. You got some reason for not answering it?"
The two men squared off.
"You think you're so high and mighty, don't you?" Dukker said. "You think you got a license to come in here with your Ranger airs and put yourself above the local law. Well, I ain't going to stand for it."
Wes kept his eyes hooded, affecting a lazy expression, but his muscles tensed in grim anticipation. "You planning on giving me an answer sometime soon?"
Dukker's face darkened with menace. "Poker," he spat. "I was playing poker in the back room at Sultan's. Pete will vouch for me. Simon, lawyer Callahan, and blacksmith Kleber will too—not that I need some kind of alibi," he added, his lip curling. "I'm the law in this town."
"No, Dukker," Wes said quietly, "you just wear the badge."
"Why you smart-mouthed, rooster-headed prick—"
He reached, but Wes was faster, his Colt cocked and leveled before Dukker had even cleared leather. He had the satisfaction of watching the marshal's eyes grow as round as a terrapin's shell. Then Dukker barked with laughter, the sound dark and dripping with venom. "Well, now. I got to hand it to you, boy. You're fast. But can you aim?"
He strutted closer.
"Tell you what. I'll make it easier for you. Go ahead and shoot." He halted, his barrellike chest just inches from Wes's muzzle. "Don't let my badge stop you. After all, you won the draw fair and square." He slipped the buckle on his holster and tossed the Remington aside. "You can call it self-defense. Tell folks around town that's how you Rangers investigate murders, by gunning down the victim's next of kin.
"Or what's the matter, Rawlins?" he taunted, his voice like nitroglycerin. "Have you been spending so much time inside that icehouse Aurora Sinclair calls a twat that you've forgotten how to be a red-blooded man?"
Dukker had already established he wouldn't shoot an unarmed man, Wes thought. Now the bastard was testing him, trying to determine whether he was hotheaded and what his weakness was. Even knowing that, Wes couldn't let the slur against Rorie go undefended.
With careful deliberation he eased his gun hammer back into place, slipped his Colt inside its holster, then hauled off and hit the sonuvabitch, burying his fist in the soft paunch of Dukker's gut. The lawman wheezed, doubling over, only to rear up an instant later with a Bowie knife in his hand. Wes dodged, and the blade slashed harmlessly through his sleeve.
Grabbing Dukker's wrist, Wes slammed the marshal back against the counter, beating his arm on the wood until the knife slipped through Dukker's fingers.
"Now you listen to me, old man," he growled, grabbing Dukker's collar and effectively cutting off a tide of spittle-flecked vulgarities. "I don't care if you own every lawyer and telegraph operator in this county. I'm going to get that court order to keep you off Boudreau's farm. There's going to be a hearing before a judge, and Shae McFadden's claim is going to be given due consideration."
Dukker made a gurgling sound, and Wes contemptuously let him slide to the floor.
"You're just one man, Rawlins," Dukker panted, rubbing his neck and flexing his gun hand into a white-knuckled fist. "Just one man, and this here's my town."
"Well, now you've gone and made it personal, Hannibal." Wes met his lethal stare evenly. "Any time you want a face-to-face showdown, you just let me know. In the meantime, remember one thing: Aurora Sinclair, Shae McFadden, and the children living on that farm are under Ranger protection now. If someone so much as looks slantways at them, you can bet I'll be exacting a price from your hide. So you'd better hope everyone in your town treats them with tender-loving care."
He picked up Dukker's knife and kicked the holster out of the way. Swinging the door open, he paused on the threshold and gave the marshal a harrowing stare.
"Oh, and by the way, Hannibal," he drawled, the threat in his voice thinly veiled, "I don't believe there ever were any renegade Negroes committing murder in this county. And I'm going to prove it."
Chapter 11
The lamp in the sitting room was burning when Wes rode into the yard. He cursed under his breath to see Shae and Rorie perched side by side on the porch steps as if they'd been anxiously waiting for his return.
He'd spent a damned sight longer than he'd intended in town, mainly because he had to track down the four men who Dukker had claimed were playing poker with him the day Gator was shot. They'd all supported Dukker's alibi, nodding vigorously and lying through their teeth. Short of breaking arms or bashing heads, Wes didn't see how he could get them to change their stories. Dukker clearly owned them.
Phineas Faraday, however, had given Wes hope that one Elodean, at least, showed promise as a man. When Wes had found the mayor in his newspaper office, Faraday had greeted him with his usual booming joviality—until Wes challenged the inaccuracies Faraday had printed about him in the Enquirer.
"You forget," Faraday said, his tension not entirely disguised by his well-schooled diplomacy, "I was there when you agreed to help Hannibal get his land back."
"I agreed to ride to the farm and investigate," Wes said through clenched teeth. "I never said I was going to shoot any orphans."
"That's right. And if you'll read that article carefully, you'll see t
he shooting quote is attributed to Hannibal."
Wes scowled. "I want to rebut his lies."
"Sure thing. I have another issue coming out next week." Faraday's newspaperman's smile wasn't entirely benign. "Should I quote you directly in saying Hannibal's a liar?"
"I want you to print the truth," Wes growled back, "and see that justice is served."
"That's what I'm here for."
"Yeah?" He planted his hands on Faraday's desk and glared down into the mayor's bespectacled eyes. "So why did you pin a badge on a murdering sonuvabitch like Hannibal Dukker?"
Faraday's color rose. Looking away from Wes, he became extremely interested in the type he'd been setting—particularly the letter b, which he took extraordinary pains to adjust in the word bullet.
"Town council," he said at last, "felt it would be in the best interests of Elodea to hire a gunfighter as marshal, much like Abilene, Kansas, did when it hired Wild Bill Hickok to clean up its streets. Having a wife and children at the time, Hannibal Dukker seemed more settled and, er, tame than most."
Wes gazed at the man in exasperation. "Gunfighters live by the gun, not the law, Faraday, and it's nigh on impossible to teach an old dog new tricks. As you'll recall, Hickok was drummed out of Abilene a year later for shooting his deputy."
Faraday cleared his throat. "Yes, well, I understand that unfortunate incident was an accident."
"They're all accidents, Faraday, or they're always someone else's fault. Kind of like Gator's murder. Or Doc Warren's," he bluffed, hoping finally to get some confirmation.
Faraday's pudgy hand shook a bit as he reached for the letter d. "I can't imagine where you heard such a rumor. Since Doc tended to medicate his rheumatism with whiskey, Hannibal speculates Doc got a couple of swigs of oh-be-joyful in him, lost his way back from Gator's farm, and fell off the cliff at Ramble Creek."
"After Warren witnessed Gator's will? That would be just a tad bit convenient, don't you think?"
Faraday shrugged, but Wes could hear the nervous shuffling of the man's feet beneath his desk.
"Unless you find Doc's body or some other evidence, I'm afraid we Elodeans have no choice but to accept the findings of Hannibal's investigation."
