Jurisdiction

by Ralph Cotton

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

  JURISDICTION

  A Signet Book / published by arrangement with the author

  All rights reserved.

  Copyright © 2002 by Ralph Cotton

  This book may not be reproduced in whole or part, by mimeograph or any other means, without permission. Making or distributing electronic copies of this book constitutes copyright infringement and could subject the infringer to criminal and civil liability.

  For information address:

  The Berkley Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Putnam Inc.,

  375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014.

  The Penguin Putnam Inc. World Wide Web site address is http://www.penguinputnam.com

  ISBN: 0-7865-2697-1

  A SIGNET BOOK®

  Signet Books first published by The Signet Publishing Group, a member of Penguin Putnam Inc.,

  375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014.

  SIGNET and the “S” design are trademarks belonging to Penguin Putnam Inc.

  Electronic edition: July, 2002

  For Mary Lynn . . . of course.

  PART 1

  Chapter 1

  Ranger Sam Burrack lifted his duster collar against a blast of cold wind laced with sleet, then tugged his sombrero down tighter on his head. He knew he was too far north for this time of year, but there was nothing he could do about it. He’d been on the gang’s trail too long to stop now. He couldn’t just break away from the hunt and slink home like a dog with its tail between its legs. Besides, he was working alone now—the way he liked it. Nothing against the other Rangers working under Captain Deak McCann out of the badlands outpost, but young Sam felt he always did better working by himself. He nudged the big Appaloosa stallion forward at a walk, keeping a wary eye to the distant northern horizon.

  There had been two other Rangers with him at the start of this journey. Their names were Jake Early and Lawrence Wright. Now Wright was dead, the first to fall, a rifleshot lifting him from his saddle as the three of them rode down a narrow path out of the foothills. It had happened three weeks back, no sooner than they’d picked up the outlaws’ trail and followed them across the badlands. Sam and Jake Early had wrapped Wright in his canvas riding duster and buried him beneath a mound of rocks near the remnants of the old Spanish mission.

  “Don’t worry, Lawrence,” Sam had heard Jake Early say to the rocky grave. “No matter what happens, we won’t stop till we bring every last one of them to justice. We both swear to it.” He turned from Wright’s grave and looked at Sam Burrack with steel in his eyes.

  But young Sam had only nodded slightly and looked away, making no firm promises to either the living or the dead. In the past year, Sam Burrack had seen how quickly a man could play out his string in this vast, harsh wasteland. This land placed no particular value on a man’s life, and it made no exceptions.

  Sam stared straight ahead in spite of the stinging cold wind. This was not a land born of words and promises, and as it turned out, Jake Early should have kept his promise to himself or at least between himself and the rock pile that had once been Lawrence Wright. Jake Early was now fifty miles back, in Stanton, sweating out a rattlesnake bite that, if it didn’t end up killing him slowly and painfully, would likely keep him laid up most of the coming winter.

  “You’ll get them . . . won’t you, Sam?” Jake Early asked through chattering teeth, his tongue swollen, sweat running down his fevered blue cheeks. He’d taken a grip on Sam’s forearm there in the doctor’s office, and Sam had to peel his fingers back one at a time to get loose. “Promise me you’ll get them, Sam!” Jake Early began to sob, the fever taking hold and screaming inside him. “For Lawrence Wright’s sake?” His fingernails dug into Sam’s forearm. Circumstance had turned Jake delirious, reducing his toughness to hopeless rage the way only this rugged country could do.

  “I’m on their trail, Jake,” was all Sam replied.

  “They’ll have the lines repaired before dark,” the doctor called out as Sam slung his saddlebags over his shoulder on his way to the door. “You can wire for help, get a marshal and a posse sent up here.”

  “Thanks all the same,” Sam said over his shoulder. “I best keep moving.”

  “But you need rest, young man,” the doctor called out as Sam opened the door and stepped out of the office. “It’ll do you no good to run yourself into the ground out there. Besides, you’re already outside your jurisdiction.”

  “Don’t I know it,” Sam had whispered, closing the door behind him.

  Thinking about it, waiting in Stanton and wiring for help might have appeared to be the most reasonable move to make. It was certainly the sort of decision Captain McCann would expect him to make. But it wasn’t Sam’s way to wait around for help. Besides, had he waited and wired the Ranger outpost, there was a good chance Captain McCann might have called off the hunt. And Sam couldn’t abide that. He leaned a bit to one side, shouldering against the growing force of the cold wind. Beneath him, the Appaloosa stallion craned its neck sideways to the lashing sleet. “No, sir,” Sam murmured under his breath—he couldn’t abide that at all.

  And he rode on . . .

  The Ganston Gang was not the worst bunch of outlaws to ever lift a pistol, but like most of the cutthroats and border trash that haunted the area around the badlands, they were ruthless enough to demand immediate attention. Young Sam hadn’t been a Ranger for more than a year, but he’d already learned that the longer these kind of men went unchecked, the more dark and heinous their crimes became. At times it appeared that people like the Ganstons were almost expecting to get caught, and to not do so only fueled their brashness and propelled them to greater heights of violence, crime and depravity. Then so be it, he thought, stepping down from his saddle in the midafternoon and shaking the remaining beads of sleet from his duster.

  He’d ridden the Appaloosa higher in the hill line and slightly above the wind-driven sleet. At the crest of a rising cliff, Sam looked out past the gray swirl of sleet beneath them, then far into the distance in the direction of Hubbler Wells. He’d had to break away from the trail of hoofprints and get out of the weather. By tomorrow morning the sleet would have hammered away most of the prints, but that didn’t bother Sam. Come morning he wouldn’t need the prints any longer, at least not to know where the gang was headed.

  The Ganstons and their gang were riding straight to the wells. He’d bet on it. By now, Hopper Ganston and his brother Earl must have figured anyone on their trail had turned back. The closest Sam and the other two Rangers had been to the gang was the day when someone put the bullet through Lawrence Wright’s chest. Shooting a Ranger out of his saddle that way had the gang stoked up and feeling full of themselves, Sam figured. Well . . . maybe it was good, them feeling that way. It would cause them to get sloppy, maybe make a mistake or two, he thought. Then he’d have them cold.

  He turned his gaze away from the distance and led the Appaloosa back across a stretch of loose gravel toward the narrow trail. With any luck he could rest the stallion this evening, push forward all night and be in Hubbler Wells by morning. There were seven men riding with Hopper and Earl Ganston, but the numbers didn’t dissuade Sam Burrack in the least. Once he got the Ganstons all together in firing range, he knew those numbers would change as fast as he could drop a hammer. “Come on, Black Pot,” he said, calling the Appaloosa stallion by name, “let’s get some rest. We’ve got a long, cold ride come nightfall.”

  Atop the roofs along the main street of Hubbler Wells, most of the possemen la
y huddled against the backs of the buildings’ facades, as much to keep out of the cold wind as to keep themselves from being seen. On the mercantile roof, some men had drawn close to an upthrusting stovepipe that came up through the roof of the saloon and cast waves of heat. The men rubbed their hands in the warmth of the stovepipe then pressed their hands against their reddened cheeks. “Had I known the weather was going to hell this quick,” a voice said in a low growl, “I’d never left Virginia City.”

  “Ha!” a sarcastic voice scoffed from the other side of the stovepipe. “The truth is, boys, the sheriff of Virginia City was on the verge of escorting Talbert here out of town with a can tied to his backside.”

  “Shut up, Erskine,” Talbert French replied, lifting his eyes from beneath the brim of his battered silk top hat. “You don’t know me well enough to say such a thing.” The top hat was tied down to Talbert French’s head with a long strip of dirty wool rag that encircled the hat’s crown and lay tied in a thick knot at his chin.

  “I know as much about you as any sane man would ever want to, Talbert,” said Erskine Brock. He spread a flat grin through a week’s worth of beard stubble. His new whiskers shined with frost from his steaming breath. “Boys, it might interest you to know that our fellow Talbert French here was once arrested in Abilene for public nakedness.”

  “That’s a damn lie!” Talbert French shouted, half rising to his feet before the man beside him grabbed his arm and pulled him down. Muffled laughter resounded around the warm stovepipe.

  “Keep quiet over there, you fools!” Colonel Daniel Fuller hissed from his position against the back of the clapboard facade overlooking the street. “Do you want every loudmouth in this mud hole to know we’re up here?” His eyes riveted on Erskine Brock, singling him out as the cause. “I’ll horsewhip any peckerwood who causes things to go wrong here—so help me God!”

  The men around the stovepipe settled, ducked their heads and found it a good time to resume warming their hands near the stovepipe. “He means it, too,” whispered Nells Kroft, his fingertips showing through the missing tips of his ragged wool gloves. The men fell silent, a few of them cursing under their breath at the frigid wind.

  At the facade, Daniel Fuller seethed and turned to the man beside him. “Look at them, Red. Look at what the bankers’ association has hired to help me.” As Fuller spoke, his eyes took in the motley group surrounding the stovepipe, then cut along the facade, appraising each of the possemen with a look of open disdain. “Cowards, drunks and drifters—not a real man in the lot.” As his eyes moved along from one man to the next, he silently tried placing names with faces. Some were easier to remember than others.

  Herbert Mullins was easy to remember because he was always close at hand, ambitious, looking to get ahead. Art Hickson, Shelby Rudd and Delbert Murry were three Kansans who always kept close together. Fuller looked farther along the line of men. Some of them were simply faces without names, he thought, for the time being at least. Thinking aloud he said, “What’s the use? Before this is over, half of them could be dead . . .”

  Red Booker swung his head around in surprise upon hearing the colonel’s dark prophecy. “Never you mind, Colonel Fuller,” he said, steam bellowing from his lips. “You and me never needed much help anyway. We’ll take care of the Ganstons . . . by ourselves if we have to.”

  “Yes, Red, thank you,” said Fuller, settling himself a bit, “I believe that is how it must be.” His eyes seemed to glaze in quiet reflection for a second. Then he said, “I should have died in the war, Red . . . like any true soldier. God should never have sent me out here, to suffer with idiots and madmen. If there is any true justice in this miserable life—”

  “Colonel!” Red Booker’s voice cut Fuller short. He had peered over the edge of the facade to the street below while Fuller spoke. Now he ducked down, fast. “There comes the Indian! Big as all get out!”

  “Wha—?” Fuller raised up onto his haunches, still keeping down and out of sight. But along the facade, three possemen rose up, cocking their rifles until the sound of Red Booker’s harsh whisper stopped them.

  “Stay down, you stupid bastards!” Red Booker grabbed the nearest rifleman and yanked him hard, causing his rifle to fall from his hands onto the tin roof. “Damn it, Bernard, get your rifle and get covered!” The other two men dropped out of sight and huddled against the facade with the others. Bernard Gift snatched up his rifle with one hand, his free hand keeping his ragged derby hat on his head. Steam swirled in his panting breath.

  “Excuse the hell out’n me,” whispered one of the men to anyone near him, “but it was my understanding we get paid for shooting these robbers, not just watching them.”

  The man nearest him, a sobering drunkard named Texas Bob Mackay, said in a hushed voice, “That’s the Injun Willie John down there. All he’s doing is scouting for the gang.”

  “Injun, ha!” said Talbert French. “If he’s Injun I’ll spit in my sock. My daddy worked for a big spread near Atlanta back before the war . . . they had nearly two hundred of that kind of Injun. He kept them jumping and stepping.”

  A short muffled laugh arose from the men. “Alls I know is what I heard,” said Texas Bob. “Folks call him an Injun, I’m inclined to call him the same.”

  “Then maybe he’s half and half,” said French. “But he ain’t all Injun.”

  “I don’t really give a blue damn if he’s a Chinaman,” said Texas Bob. “Kill him and he’s all we’ll get. Let him go back and bring the Ganstons to us—we’ll get every one of them.”

  Texas Bob’s hands trembled, gripping his rifle. He needed a drink so bad his stomach cramped. But he knew he had to fight off the craving. He’d been drunk for a solid two years. It was time he straightened himself out and got down to making a living. Working in a bounty posse was not his first choice, but he had to take what he could get until he could manage to get back in touch with his former comrades.

  “Thank you for that helpful insight, Texas Bob,” Colonel Fuller whispered along the line of riflemen, the others hurrying over from the stovepipe and taking position among the others. Texas Bob gave Fuller a curious glance, not sure whether or not his words were intended to be sarcastic. But the expression on Fuller’s face seemed sincere enough. Fuller nodded in confirmation. “I could use a few more like you, Texas Bob.”

  The compliment helped calm Texas Bob’s raw, quivering gut a little. He swallowed, dry and stiff, and touched a gloved hand to his cracked lips. He couldn’t help but ask himself what harm one small shot of rye would do right before a gun battle.

  On the cold mud-rutted street, the Indian Willie John saw a familiar face on the boardwalk, and he eased his dapple-gray gelding over toward two ragged boys who stood staring at him. Even as he neared the edge of the boardwalk, his eyes continued scanning the town, scouting it out from within the dark shadow of his lowered hat brim. “The hell are you doing here, Billy Odle?” Willie John asked the thinner of the two. The boy stood with his hand resting on the crude wooden pistol handle shoved down in the waist of his outgrown trousers.

  “I live here now, Willie John,” the young man replied. His slight smile revealed the gap of a missing front tooth. “What are you doing here?”

  Willie John didn’t answer. Instead he looked up and down the boardwalk, his eyes checking along the rooflines and alleyways, seeing nothing out of the ordinary for a town like Hubbler Wells. “Where’s your folks, boy?”

  Billy Odle’s hand opened and closed on the pistol butt. “Don’t call me boy, Injun.”

  The words snapped Willie John’s attention to him. “Don’t call me Injun, boy.”

  Willie John sat rigid atop the dapple-gray, looking at the way Billy Odle fondled the pistol handle, for comfort or reassurance, Willie John thought. The boy beside Billy Odle took a step to the side as if any second lead would start flying. Willie John spread a trace of a thin smile. “Don’t sass me, Billy. Where’s your ma and pa?”

  “Oh, all right.” Odle let his ha
nd fall from the wooden pistol. “Pa’s in prison back in Yuma . . . going to be there for the next year or so. Ma was working in a tent out back of the saloon. But it burned three nights ago. Now she’s taking up an empty toolshed over behind the barbershop. You going to go see her?”

  Willie John looked away in embarrassment. “Billy, don’t you say such a thing,” he murmured.

  Billy Odle shrugged, not seeing the harm in what he’d said. “Why? She says the more men she can meet here in Hubbler Wells, the sooner we’ll have enough money to get out of here and go on to Cleveland.”

  Willie John only stared, not knowing how to respond.

  The boy beside Billy cut in: “The men here say Billy’s ma knows every way in the world to—”

  “Hey, hey!” Willie John cut the smaller boy off gruffly, saying, “Damn it, boy! Don’t you realize that’s his ma you’re talking about?” Willie John’s eyes cut from the younger boy to Billy Odle. “What kind of boy says something like that about your ma?”

  Billy shrugged, looked at his friend for support, then back up at Willie John, still not seeing the harm in it. “He’s only saying what she’d say herself.”

  “Lord God . . .” Willie John shook his head, then changed the subject. “What’s your pa in prison for? I never knew of him being a criminal.”

  “Well, he sure enough is,” said Billy, seeming to take exception at Willie John’s words. “He stole a bunch of stuff from a mercantile store in Wakely . . . broke down the back door and everything. Didn’t get no money, but he got all kinds of food! The judge sent him off for three years’ hard labor. Is that criminal enough for you?”

  “I see,” said Willie John, resting his leather wrist gauntlets on his saddle horn. He got the picture of what had happened to the boy and his family since the night he’d last been Billy and his father in Wakely. The family had been struggling along hand-to-mouth even then. It didn’t take long for a man to fall flat on his face in this country, Willie John thought. He searched for something to say, something that didn’t show pity and take what pride a young boy like Billy Odle might have left. “Are you any good with that gun?” He nodded at the pistol in Billy’s waist.