“Make sure all your buttons are buttoned,” Thelma called out to Rosie when she looked out the window to see the deputy crossing the street. “Here comes Eli.” There were no other ladies in the dining room, so Rosie would receive all of Eli’s attention.
Rosie rolled her eyes heavenward. “I wish my husband paid as much attention to me,” she said. “I guess he’ll set himself down at that table by the kitchen door.” She and Thelma had come to the conclusion that he always sat there for a longer view of Rosie’s behind as she walked out into the dining room.
As expected, Gentry swaggered into the room and paused to look over the patrons seated at the tables before proceeding to the small table he favored by the kitchen. As soon as he was seated, he picked up the heavy coffee mug at the place setting and started rapping it loudly on the table, a mischievous grin on his narrow face. Failing to be amused by his thoughtless behavior, Thelma strode quickly over to ask him to control his juvenile exhibition. “We don’t need that racket in here, Eli. You’re disturbing the paying customers.”
“Is that so?” Eli retorted, the smirk still firmly in place. “Well, I reckon they can get up and leave if they don’t like it, can’t they?”
He was obviously in one of his hellish moods, Thelma decided, so she softened her approach. “Now, Eli, these are law-abiding citizens who came in here to have a quiet supper. They’re the folks who pay your salary.”
“Hell, I don’t need no lily-white citizens to pay my salary,” he responded. “Anyway, where’s Rosie? I need to give her my order.”
“I can take your order for you,” Thelma said. “You want your usual steak?”
“I said, where’s Rosie?” Eli flared up. “I got somethin’ to show her.”
Coming from the kitchen with a pot of coffee, Rosie said, “I’m right here.” She stepped nimbly aside to avoid the hand reaching for her. “You’re gonna make me spill this coffee in a minute,” she scolded. “It just mighta landed in your lap.”
“I’d druther have you land in my lap,” Eli replied, the malicious grin still in place.
Rosie glanced at Thelma then and said, “Go on, Thelma. I’ll take care of Deputy Gentry.” Turning her attention back to him, she ordered, “Put that cup down, so I can pour some coffee in it. Then just play like you’ve got some manners, and I’ll get your order in.”
Grinning like a naughty schoolboy, Eli watched her fill his cup as Thelma walked away. “I got somethin’ to show you, now that that old bitch is gone. This is somethin’ just for you to look at. It ain’t none of her business.” She started to leave, but this time she was not quick enough to escape his hand on her wrist. “Down here,” he said, motioning below the table. Thinking it another of his lewd attempts, she tried to pull away, but could not. “It ain’t nothin’ bad,” he implored. “It’s somethin’ pretty.” He pointed to the ever-present half sword on his belt.
At first glance, she didn’t see what he was trying to show her. Then she saw the delicate silver chain looped over the hilt of the crude weapon and the silver heart attached. She could not help exclaiming, “Where did you get that?”
“I bought it,” Eli lied, satisfied that she was properly impressed. “As soon as I saw it, I said to myself, ‘that little heart would look good on Rosie.’ Course you’re gonna have to do a little somethin’ to earn it.”
Rosie pulled her hand free of his grasp. “I don’t reckon my husband would be too happy about it, even if I did want it—which I don’t. So, do you want your usual supper? Or did you just come in here to show us you don’t have any manners?” She never told her husband about the ongoing mission Eli carried on to get her into bed. William was a hardworking man of gentle nature, and she feared he might call Eli out if he knew of the deputy’s advances toward his wife. And Rosie was afraid that might result in her husband’s death. He was happy in his work at the livery stable. There was no need to place him in danger.
Her rebuke caused only a lascivious grunt from the leering deputy. The foolish grin on his face extended as he lifted the chain from his sword hilt and held it up for her to see. “It’s a mighty fine little doodad—solid silver, worth a lot. Your husband don’t have to know what you did to get it, and you might enjoy it a helluva lot more to do it with a real man.”
He had gotten way too far out of line as far as Rosie was concerned. This was an outright proposition, and more than she intended to tolerate. For a brief second, she considered pouring the contents of the coffeepot she was holding in his lap, but restrained herself, knowing how fearful of the sheriff and his deputies her boss was. Instead, she took another step away from the table and in her most businesslike voice asked, “Are you going to eat?”
“Yeah, I’m gonna eat,” he replied, then held the chain out toward her again, gently swinging it back and forth in an effort to entice her. “Somebody else is gonna get it. You sure you ain’t interested?”
“I’m interested.” The voice, deep and without emotion, came from behind them.
Surprised, both Rosie and Eli had been unaware of the sudden silence that had befallen the rest of the patrons at first sight of the ominous stranger when he walked into the dining room. Lean almost to the point of looking gaunt, he wore a flat-crowned hat pulled low, but still not low enough to cover the vicious scar that ran like a lightning bolt across his face. Forks were suspended halfway between plates and mouths as all eyes fixed on the dark messenger of death as he approached the table by the kitchen door, rifle in hand. Rosie was startled by the wild look of fear that suddenly appeared on Eli’s face. Turning to see the cause, she almost dropped the coffeepot when she encountered the dead blank stare of the figure behind her. Too frightened to speak, she backed quickly away.
Eli looked as if he had seen a ghost, for in his mind that was exactly what had appeared before him. The silver chain and heart dropped from his hand to land on the floor as he struggled to get up from his chair, at the same time reaching for his pistol. In his panic, his efforts succeeded only in tangling him in the chair and resulted in causing him to go over backward on the floor. Terrified by the grim figure standing over him, with his unblinking, almost paralyzing gaze, Eli could not wrestle his gun from his holster as Ben’s rifle barrel pointed at him like an accusing finger. The first shot sent some of the patrons scattering for the door. It was followed by five more rounds, cranked methodically one after the other until there was no uncertainty as to whether or not the man was dead. When the explosion from the vengeful man was over, the dining room had emptied except for one. Rosie MacDonald had trapped herself between the table and the wall, and was left with no escape without having to pass by the sinister executioner.
Ben stood over the bleeding body of the man who had destroyed his life and everything he held dear. There was no feeling of justice served, only a deeper melancholy for all he had lost. He reached down and picked up the silver chain and heart, a present he had given Mary Ellen on their wedding day, formed a fist around it, and squeezed it tightly in his palm. Only then taking note of the quivering girl pressed against the wall, he turned to speak to her. “You can go if you want to, miss. I’ve done what I came to do.” The calmness in his voice struck her as eerie after what he had just done. She would tell Thelma later that his gaze was not that of a mad killer, but rather mournful. She quickly slid by him and ran out the door to the hotel lobby.
He had not really given much thought as to how he was to effect his escape. The thought that had been foremost, to the point of excluding all others, was to end the life of Eli Gentry. Once that was accomplished, he had no other plan than to simply leave town, and Kansas as well. He knew that he could not remain in the place where he had lived and loved Mary Ellen Lytle, so he turned then and followed the frightened waitress.
With no urgency, he calmly walked into the hotel lobby to be met by Jubal Creed and Bob Rice. Both lawmen were waiting with shotguns aimed directly at his face. “Drop it right there!” the sheriff commanded. Then, astonished to recognize the kill
er, Jubal blurted, “Ben Cutler! What the. . . I thought you was dead.”
“So did your deputy,” Ben replied stoically, “but he didn’t stick around to make sure.” Glancing from Jubal to an equally confused Bob Rice, Ben attempted to state his case. “Eli Gentry murdered my wife and my son, burned my house and barn down, and left me for dead. All I came here for was to kill him for what he did. I don’t mean any harm to anybody else. I’m aimin’ to leave this part of the country now.”
Dumbfounded by Ben’s startling accusation, Jubal could only stare at the wicked scar across the young man’s face for several long moments, unable to believe what he was seeing and hearing. If what Ben said was the truth of the terrible massacre of his family, he might be inclined to accept an eye for an eye and let Ben go, but his sense of responsibility reminded him that he was the sheriff. “Wait just a damn minute,” he exclaimed, taking charge of his emotions once more. “You can’t just walk into town and shoot somebody down and say he had it comin’. Drop that damn rifle, like I told you to.” Seeing that he had little choice, Ben carefully laid his rifle on the floor. In control again, Jubal said, “I don’t know if what you claim is true or not. We’ll let a judge decide that, but you don’t take the law in your own hands in this town. If Eli was the one that killed your wife and son, I expect we’d have arrested him and hung him.”
“What’s the difference?” Ben replied. “Seems to me like I saved you the trouble.”
“It might seem to you that way, if Eli was guilty,” Jubal came back. “But there ain’t nobody’s word on it but yours. There ain’t no witnesses.” He wasn’t sure but what Ben might have thought the killer looked like Eli. He was faced with the loss of a deputy sheriff. He couldn’t forget about that. Even though he knew that Eli was thought of as a rogue lawman, he would have to take time to think about this. Rogue or not, Eli deserved a trial before his execution.
“Here’s a witness,” Ben said, pointing to the long scar across his face. “I got a good look at him when he did this.”
“I’m sorry about your wife and kid,” Jubal said, “but we’re gonna wait for the judge to decide on this. It’s the law in this town. Pick up that rifle, Bob.” He nodded toward the front door then and ordered Ben to start walking. “Harry,” he said to the hotel owner, “send somebody to get Doc Jensen to come get Eli’s body.”
Two thoroughly shaken women walked back into the dining room to stand gawking at the bullet-riddled body of the late Eli Gentry. “God, what a horrible sight,” Thelma uttered with a shiver in her voice. “You suppose he really did what that man said?”
“I wouldn’t doubt it,” Rosie answered. “I wouldn’t doubt it one bit. Where do you suppose Eli really got that necklace he was showing off? Ben sure acted like that necklace belonged to him.”
“I’ve only seen Ben Cutler a time or two, when he was in town with his wife and boy,” Thelma said. “But I swear, I didn’t recognize him when he walked in here a few minutes ago—that scar and all, I guess. But he sure looked different. He had a right pretty little wife.”
Unable to remove her gaze from Eli’s body, Rosie was inspired to say, “He made sure ol’ Eli was dead, didn’t he?”
They stepped back out of the way when Doc Jensen walked in, and Thelma whispered to Rosie, “It sure ain’t no big loss to the world, is it?” She sighed then. “I guess we’re closed for the rest of the day. We don’t have a cook, anyway. Jesse went out the back door when the shooting started, and I don’t know when he’ll show up again. In the meantime, we’ve got a mess to clean up.”
The Crooked Fork jail consisted of only two cells in the rear of the sheriff’s office. At this time, Ben Cutler was the only occupant, and Jubal was frankly in a bit of a quandary over the killing. Ordinarily he would have no sympathy for anyone taking the life of an officer of the law, especially considering the blatant, executionstyle murder that Ben was guilty of. But if Eli was the man who slaughtered Ben’s wife and boy, and left him for dead, then he could understand Ben’s desperation for revenge. He was forced to confess that he might have done the same thing if it had been his family. It would be three weeks before a federal judge could make it down to their little town just north of Indian Territory, and from experience Jubal knew that Judge Lon Blake liked to come back with a conviction to justify the long ride from Topeka. It was difficult to think that Eli could have done what Cutler accused him of. There was little doubt that Eli had been wild, and sometimes out of control, the kind of man that rubbed a lot of people the wrong way. But Jubal had never seen evidence of any actual breaking of the law on the part of his deputy. His remaining deputy, Bob Rice, walked in at that moment, carrying the prisoner’s noon meal, so Jubal decided to get his thoughts on the issue.
“Bob, let’s talk a minute about Eli,” Jubal said when Rice returned from the cells.
“All right,” Bob replied, although with little enthusiasm. He plopped his lanky frame down in the chair beside Jubal’s desk. “Whaddaya wanna talk about?”
Jubal paused to study his deputy for a moment. Bob Rice was as much an opposite of Eli Gentry as God could have made, he supposed. Quiet, always serious, Bob took his responsibility as a lawman to heart as a guardian of the citizens of Crooked Fork. “Do you think Eli could have done what that man in there says he did?”
Bob shrugged. “If you askin’ me if Eli did it or not, I ain’t got no way of knowin’. Could he have done it? It’s hard to say.” He paused to think about his next statement before continuing. “But it wouldn’t surprise me none if he did.” There had been more than a few occasions when Bob had been suspicious of Eli’s motives, especially those times when he insisted that he needed no help in going after certain outlaws. It had seemed to Bob that Eli preferred to work alone, and he could remember occasions when Eli was unsuccessful in apprehending a villain, but seemed to be flush with spending money afterward. Eli always boasted that he was unusually lucky playing cards. In spite of this, Bob didn’t think it his place to report his suspicions on a fellow officer, and as long as Eli had not attempted to involve him in any of his under-the-table activities, he had decided to keep his silence. Now that Eli was dead, it didn’t seem to matter, so he told Jubal about some of Eli’s past activities.
“That don’t really surprise me none,” Jubal responded. He knew that he had looked the other way on more than a few occasions when it came to Eli, only because the unruly deputy inspired enough fear in the wilder citizens of the town to keep them under control.
“How do you reckon Judge Blake will rule on this?” Bob asked.
“Whaddaya mean, whether he’ll find him guilty or not?” Jubal responded. “Well, hell, there ain’t no doubt he’s guilty. Half the town saw him do it. What you mean is whether or not he was justified in killin’ Eli. Judge Blake will find him guilty, all right, but he might not hang him if he believes his story.”
Bob thought about that for a minute or two, and then expressed what he really believed. “They ought not send that man to prison for coming after a damn animal that did that to his family.”
“Well, it ain’t up to nobody but the judge,” Jubal said, but he tended to agree with Bob after having talked about it. “I reckon we’ll have us a visitor for two or three weeks, though.”
“Yeah, I was gonna tell you about that,” Bob said. “Rosie said she’d bring his meals over—save Grover the trouble of goin’ after ’em.”
Jubal looked surprised. “She ain’t ever done that before.” He looked to Bob for further explanation. “She a friend of Ben’s?” he asked.
“Don’t ask me,” Bob said. “It oughta tickle Grover, though.” He had to grin when he pictured the evergrumpy countenance of Grover Atkinson, who usually came in the sheriff’s office a couple of hours every other day. It was Grover’s responsibility to clean the office and the cells, and do any other odd jobs necessary. Rosie’s offer to deliver the prisoner’s meals would save Grover from having to come in every day, three times a day, to pick them up himself.
“What oughta tickle me?” Grover asked, just catching the end of the conversation as he came in the door. When Jubal explained, the old fellow’s response was typically straightforward. “You oughta give Ben Cutler a medal for riddin’ the town of that no-good trash you called a deputy.”
“Damn!” Jubal exclaimed, somewhat surprised. “That’s a helluva way to talk about a law officer just shot down. I never heard you talk that way about Eli before.”
“Hell.” Grover shrugged. “I got better sense than to thump a rattlesnake on the nose. I didn’t need him to come after me with that damn sawed-off sword he was so proud of.”
Another thought struck Jubal then. “Eli ain’t got no kin around here that I know of. I reckon the town’s gonna have to pay for his buryin’.”
“Hmmph,” Grover grunted. “I reckon there’ll be three folks at that buryin’, them two fellers Doc has to dig the grave, and the undertaker.” He cast an accusing eye at the sheriff then. “If you ask me, you shouldn’ta made him a deputy in the first place.”
“I didn’t ask you,” Jubal retorted. He was in no mood to submit to a lecture from the grouchy old man, but he knew Grover was right. Jubal was aware that Eli had possessed a mean streak. He just didn’t think it was that wide. There really wasn’t any doubt in anyone’s mind that what Ben Cutler said Eli had done to him and his family was true. And Jubal was beginning to feel the guilt for having hired the rogue deputy. It did no good to tell himself that Eli would have slaughtered Ben’s family whether he was a deputy or not. In retrospect, he halfway wished he had not sent for the judge.
Left Hand of the Law Page 3
