by Rusty Davis
Tillie Witherspoon eyed him critically as he went to leave.
“Did Rachel actually let you out in your condition? You look terrible, Sheriff.”
“Wilkins family is not a subject I care to talk about, ma’am.”
“Harrumph. Don’t try to fool me, Sheriff. I know the lay of the land in this town. The poor woman deserves better. So do a lot of others, but do not get me started on that Brewer man again. Now go about your business and finish it this time!”
Kane had a smile as he left. He wondered, if all the men suddenly vanished, if the indomitable women of the West would settle the territory every bit as fast. Maybe faster.
He went back to making his rounds of the town, making sure every last person that could tell the tale knew that Sheriff Kane was back.
He saw Libby and Jeremiah walking ahead. He wanted to talk; he wanted to let it alone. There were words, but he had no idea what they were. He hung back and watched.
Four boys emerged from an alley to block their path. Kane didn’t need to wait any longer.
Kids up to trouble always took a while to talk, but he wasn’t sure how long a fuse either Wilkins kid had on a day like this.
He was not fast enough. Jeremiah launched himself at one of the boys. Soon two had him, and one was blocking Libby as the other started mocking the boy.
“Two half-breeds,” he said. “You got no right to walk on our street.”
“Let you go if you crawl,” said one boy.
“If you beg nice,” said another, squealing as Libby grabbed an ear and twisted it, hard.
“Enough,” said Kane, grabbing the boys holding Jeremiah.
The lead talker sneered. “You’re that sheriff what got put in his place by the Riders. You’re nothing.”
“Let ’em go,” said Kane.
“Or what? You gonna use that arm the Riders busted?”
Kane’s left arm snaked out to grab the big talker by the throat, lift him, and drop him—hard—in a coughing, scared heap. Libby had meanwhile delivered one good kick to the one blocking her from her little brother. Jeremiah was struggling with the two holding him and got in one good punch with a fist that had a rock clenched in it before Kane grabbed one boy who had held him and Libby grabbed the other.
“You do the honors?” Kane asked.
“Hey!” yelled the boy in Libby’s grasp before she slammed his head into the horse trough. When he came up sputtering, Kane pushed the other one at her for his turn.
Soon, four pitiful boys, two dripping wet, were on the wooden duckboards. Mary Ellen Pierce had come out of the Last Chance to see the end of it. It was hard to tell if her shock was her way of containing her amusement.
“Ma’am,” said Kane. “Know these boys?”
“Too well. That one,” she pointed at the big one, “is Harden Jeffries, Enoch’s son. The rest are followers.”
“Then let’s take him home to Papa.” Kane turned to Libby, who spoke first.
“I am sorry we did not tell you the truth,” she said. “We . . .”
Kane opened his arms. Libby walked in and grabbed tightly enough to remind him of the state of his ribs. His exclamation brought a wicked gleam in her eyes and a smile.
“And that’s just the beginning unless you listen to Mama,” she said.
“And why would I do that?”
“Because she has a plan,” Libby said. “She said because you have the heart of a mountain lion and the head of an oak tree, you need help in the planning department.”
“Libby, I would bet your mother said no such thing.”
“She used fancier words that I forgot.” The girl grinned. “We will be at the church later. Mama said to meet us there.”
“How did she . . .”
“Mama knows everything!” She and Jeremiah were led away by Mary Ellen, with the promise of pie.
As for Harden Jeffries, Kane figured it was time to be on the giving end of a show.
He grabbed the boy’s ear and, knowing the hotel was not far, dragged the boy through the dusty street until he reached his destination.
“Sheriff!” Jeffries exclaimed when his son was dumped, whining, in the lobby.
“Disturbing the peace, Enoch,” Kane said laconically. “Next offense, I’ll shoot him.”
“Now I know you may have hard feelings . . .”
“Hard feelings, Jeffries? Town hires a man to go up against the toughs that have gotten beyond its control, then stands back and watches them beat him. Hard feelings don’t begin to cover it, Jeffries. Town lets toughs shoot the Haliburton girl, town has no right to tell me what to do. Your son tries to push around Libby Wilkins and her brother, you got no right to lecture me.”
Before he had returned to the town, he was focused on proving that no one could keep him down. The more he walked its street, the more he grew angry not only at the Riders, but the town itself. They were all guilty. They corrupted Jared Wilkins, and, with their support for the Riders, they were even dirtier than the outlaw gangs he had broken up in Texas.
He wanted to take off the badge and throw it in the man’s face, but he checked that impulse. Whatever came next—and his ideas were walking on the far side of the line between right and wrong—it might be his saving grace to say he was the law.
“Your boy, your responsibility,” Kane said. “Leash him, muzzle him, do whatever you want, but let me catch him saying one cross word to any member of the Wilkins family, and he won’t ever say another one.”
He turned and left before his anger took him to a place he did not want to go, hearing an irate father begin demanding why a child he had allowed to roam around the town all day had somehow gone astray.
“Friend Badge!” Halloran said as they met while Kane continued his rounds. “Lost your mind to be here, lad?”
Kane was not in any mood for jovial banter.
“You got any fight left?”
“For what, lad? Against all of them? You cannot beat them, lad. You cannot. You surprised them today; they will not stay surprised long. Chance has given you the hope of a life with Rachel; she is a fine woman and with a fine family. Take what you can get, Kane, or you might end up losing all of it. If you do not leave, I cannot help for what befalls.”
“Rachel’s a fine lady, Halloran, but we’ll walk our own ways, I reckon,” Kane said. His thoughts went down a road he wanted to leave. “Never was patient, Halloran. Rather get it done than spend days lookin’ over my shoulder. If this Noonan is the brains, he ought to tip his hand. If you want to help me, follow him; watch him. They are more used to seeing you wander than they are me.”
Halloran sighed. “Rachel and her daughter would not look kindly on anyone who helps you to your grave.”
“Lost once because I was too cocky,” Kane admitted. “This time, I fight my way. Get me some information, Halloran.”
The man hesitated.
“With me, Halloran, or with them?”
Halloran thought about that for a moment.
“Friend Badge, you will be the death of me, and Sunday supper with Rachel may be a thing of the past if you end up dead, but a grand adventure it will be.”
“If you got a gun that fires, find it. Watch Noonan. I will see you later.”
Kane had sauntered down to the church after walking through the rows of headstones. If the dead could only talk.
In time, Rachel and the children entered. It was all very simple now. Funny thing how seeing her made it so clear.
“Rachel . . .” He held out his hands. Libby was smiling, Jeremiah, too.
She let him enfold her, then pushed him gently away.
“You are forgiven, and I hope you understand, Kane, that we have learned too well that people we think we can trust do not always pay us back. I should have told you. We will have time later, Kane, to talk about all that. We will. Although I think neither of us are very good at talking about things we wish to be silent about, Kane.”
A soft, brief smile.
“There is
not much time now. From what you said and what Jared said, and what rumors I am hearing today, I think that I understand much I did not before. The banker will be coming to the ranch next Monday. He said he will make an offer so I can leave before the snow but wants to see the ranch.”
“Monday. Five days away?”
“You have five days, Kane. I do not yet know who is connected to whom, but if you assume that the Riders are connected to the town’s council—and I think we can be certain there is some connection—none of them will want to do anything for the next five days, because it might upset their plans. After that, I do not know.” She stepped closer.
“You told me you were ready to ride away. We can still do that, Kane. The children, you, and I. Whatever they want for the ranch will be fine with me. You do not need to try to even some score that only you know exists. The Haliburton girl played with fire and was burned, Kane. You and I both know that.”
“Rachel, would you want a man who ran?” She was silent. “Give you an answer in five days. I will see you then.”
“I will prepare.” She turned. “Kane?”
He waited.
“Awinita.”
He gave her the baffled look she had come to know well.
“It is a Cherokee word my mother loved. It means fawn. That is what she called me until I was taken. I wanted you to know who I really was.”
“Fawn. Awinita.”
“Kiowa had another word for me after they took me. Hoocoo.”
“Devil,” he replied. A wicked grin looked back at him as she nodded.
“Five days, Kane.”
They exchanged one look that lingered, then she and the children were gone.
Five days. A lot could change. A lot needed to. He felt like a man trying to climb a sheer rock face, needing one handhold to find his way. Only one.
The saddle shop was open. Gallagher was not surprised to see Kane, and, after some polite conversation about his injuries, Kane got to the point.
“Why is Silas Noonan not part of your group? He owns a business. He has a lot to gain or lose. Like or dislike all the day long, but, if growing the town is a business, I don’t understand why he is frozen out.”
“It is more the other way around, Kane,” said Gallagher. “Noonan said he wanted a wide-open town, all the gambling and drinking there could be. When the rest of the town council was not with him, he refused to do anything else with us. That was three or four years ago.”
“When did the Riders first form?”
“Around the same time. There came a time when we really had to decide what kind of town we wanted Rakeheart to be. Other towns were starting to grow, and it was a competition of the fittest to see who would win. I can shoot a gun, Kane, but who knows what I would hit? If we were going to face towns that had toughs, we had to have the toughest toughs. I can’t say that it did not get out of hand, but we always thought we were in control. Other towns have sent riders through the streets at night. They do not cause a lot of damage, but they scare everyone. One day, we will not be lucky.”
Kane noted again that other towns seemed to do very little damage to Rakeheart.
Gallagher looked down. “I guess we were wrong. I still think there will be a way to resolve this, Sheriff, but I don’t know what it is. There was a council meeting about making peace with the Riders, but with you here, I don’t know.”
“You figure I should leave?”
“I do not want any more violence in town,” Gallagher said. “The violence makes Silas Noonan richer, but it leaves the town poorer.”
“Yes, it does,” said Kane thoughtfully. “Yes, it does.”
Noonan oozed deceit. Kane had never caught the man in a lie, but, as he sat across from the saloon owner, he was certain every third word was either false or truth warped out of shape.
He said he knew nothing of any Rakeheart connection to the Riders other than what Kane already knew, and that his conversations with Wood were simply part of his determination not to allow things to go from bad to worse.
“I do not pretend, as some of the others do, that I am somehow superior to anyone else,” Noonan said. “My establishment makes money off the fact that men want to drink, gamble, and carouse. I make no secret of this. A town where the only excitement is old women knitting is a town getting ready to die, Sheriff. I do not pretend that I do not abhor some of the things men do, but this is not my fault; it is only business. When men are out shooting at men, they are not in here drinking. And so, in my own fashion, I am a peacemaker as well as a man of business.” He was smirking at Kane.
Everybody’s words, thought Kane. Just business.
Kane knew there was a lie in there but lacked the way to prove it. Noonan’s connections with Wilkins were business. Everything was business.
“Think them Riders are in it for just business?” Kane mused.
“Hardly.”
“Everybody else is. Everybody else knows exactly what makes ’em money.” Kane had half a thought and was trying not to let it drift off.
“What are you trying to say?”
Kane wasn’t quite sure but said it anyway.
“Town gets too safe, town gets its way, town gets so big nobody needs to hire the Riders because there’s nobody to protect against. But if the town is always at risk, the Riders can pretty much demand whatever they want, because the town knows it always needs them, regardless of how little the Riders actually do. What do you think about that, Noonan?”
“I cannot speculate about the inner workings of the Riders, Sheriff Kane.”
“Killing me would have changed the game so much that Rakeheart would have been behind—with the army coming in. But getting rid of me would have meant no one was getting in the way, so the game the way it has been played continues, and they make money.”
“An intriguing speculation.”
“But those Riders are about as subtle as a punch,” said Kane. “So, maybe they are working for someone who wants everything to stay the way it is for a little while longer, knowing that this kind of game never goes on forever.”
“You are talking about an extremely clever man.”
“And somebody who might act like he’s making more money than he really is,” said Kane. “Take this place. Empty more than not. Wonder where the money comes from. Drinks can only cost so much and have so much water in them.”
“I believe, Sheriff, if you have nothing else to say, I have a business to run.”
Kane rose.
“I’ll be back. Don’t you worry on that, Silas Noonan. I will be back.”
Kane was tired and sore as he reached the shack. Almost too tired.
The rifle barked; the slug close enough for him to hear something.
He rode with the pistol in his left hand. The Remington fired where the muzzle flash for the rifle had been.
Hoofbeats told him he missed.
He dismounted, not caring about the pain. He waited. Waited.
A foot. Clear a sound as could be. He lined the gun on the noise. Heard the branch rustle and saw the solid shape against the sky of a deer pulling leaves from the tree near the shack. Kane replaced the gun and went inside. His belongings were sparse. A bedroll, sack of flour, sack of coffee. Yet he was certain they had been moved.
He was upsetting somebody. He wished he knew who it was.
Riding in to Rakeheart the next morning, he knew something was wrong. Conroy, Brewer, Jeffries, and Gallagher were all waiting by Conroy’s store.
For him.
“You and Silas Noonan had an argument yesterday.” Brewer. Accusing.
“Conversation.”
“What about?”
“Riders and such.”
“Sheriff, we employ you,” said Jeffries. “We want an answer.”
“You got it,” said Kane. “He complaining?”
“Hardly,” said Gallagher, speaking as Conroy tried to cut him off. “He’s dead.”
“How?”
“Shot behind his saloon,�
�� said Conroy. “Where were you last night, Sheriff?”
“Old Tompkins shack,” he said. He was intrigued. Had Noonan let something slip he should not? If a Rider killed him, it was not the gang, because he would have heard them. Someone in town. One of the town council? But they were enemies. No. They said they were enemies. Interesting. He wanted to tell Rachel. Let her sort this out through their lies. She saw this better than he did.
“Sheriff?” It was Conroy. “You had nothing to do with this?”
“If I shot everyone in Rakeheart that deserved it, I can think of quite a few folks that would be dead,” he said, glaring at Jeffries. “I’ll look into it.”
“No.” It was Brewer. The others began to nod as they moved behind the banker.
“We thought Rakeheart needed a sheriff; we thought you were the man for the job. Since you started working for us, we have had more killings and more violence. We know that you have suffered greatly, but we have decided that we no longer need you in your position, Sheriff,” Brewer said. “Our town was better without a sheriff.”
Brewer held out his hand.
Kane took off the badge and handed it over. Oddly, he felt free more than he did fired.
“Can I get one last breakfast on the town?”
“Of course,” said Conroy. “No hard feelings, Sheriff. I think we both know things did not work out the way we would have liked. The town wants you to pack up whatever we can give you when you go.”
“I know,” replied Kane. “Just business.”
Then he had a thought.
“Who said I was going?”
The looks they gave him back were beyond priceless. Now all he needed to do was understand why they wanted him gone.
Tillie Witherspoon bristled about petitions and elections, but Kane patiently waited until the storm blew itself out. Janie lingered. Kane wondered how long a body would live without really living.
“Not really such a bad thing that they fired me,” he said at last. “Got a free hand. Going to Laramie to let the army know. Then Rachel’s. If Janie wakes up, don’t let that girl think this is over. It ain’t.”
Halloran, who did not seem surprised Kane was fired, said he had watched Noonan until the saloon closed.
