Rancher's Law

by Dusty Richards

  “Five of them that you got warrants for.”

  Luther smiled at the news. He should have brought Ben. Then they’d have Meantoe, too. His next concern was how many allies these men had in this camp who could cause them problems? People were no longer singing and shouting. They must be coming to see what the shooting was about.

  “Let’s get them in irons and be on our way,” he said.

  “Good idea,” Choc agreed, hancuffing them in a chain. He used his pairs and Luther’s two cuffs, which was barely enough to make a chain.

  “We heard the shots,” Windgate said, coming through the ring of onlookers.

  “No one is hurt,” Luther said. “But I do need their whiskey bottles busted up.”

  “Yes, we can gladly do that. I am sorry that I did not know these men were here, or that their purpose was not to serve the Lord.”

  “Big camp,” Luther said with a nod. He felt grateful so far that the others did not appear hostile over the arrests. “You bust up the whiskey. It will be payment enough. We will take these outlaws to jail.”

  “God be with you. Let’s do what the man asked,” the preacher said to those gathered.

  The matter of destruction to be handled, Luther nodded to Choc. Time to make their exit. They started the men toward their horses in the inky night. The inebriated Indians complained and stumbled as they were forced to march.

  Filled with growing impatience, Luther figured it took them an hour to get the string of drunks back to their horses. After he released the snorting, happy Ben, he checked the big dipper and guessed it to be past midnight. At this rate, they’d not get back to Moss’s before daylight. Oh well, they had several more prisoners this time.

  “Both Crow brothers, Yicky Brown.” Choc named them off as they rode their horses and led the moaning string of fugitives on a rope. “Taylor Brown is his cousin, and Hankins Farr.”

  The chorus of complaining drunks staggering along forced Luther to turn around and go back to them on his dun. He checked his horse before them.

  “Next man moans or can’t stand up, that bulldog of mine’s going to bite him in the ass. Do you hear me?”

  “Hmm,” came their reply in unison. But his threat shut them up and they began to walk a little faster.

  In the morning light, Luther went over the rest of the warrants. Seated on his butt, enjoying the coolness of the day, he read off the remaining ones with Choc, who sat crosslegged across from him. They savored Martha’s fresh coffee and listened to the birds coming alive in the trees around the grassy place behind the small store.

  “Apple Nuggent?”

  “He went to Kansas,” Choc said.

  “He use to live down here?” Luther looked at him with a frown.

  “Got in trouble over a woman. He was in bed with her when her husband came home. Decided to change climates.” Choc chuckled. “Damn good idea, ’cause her husband would have killed him.”

  “Louie Benneau?”

  “He may be dead.”

  “What killed him?”

  “Had a knife fight at a stomp about a month ago.” Choc nodded as if the matter was settled. “He’s dead.”

  With a pencil, Luther wrote deceased on the warrant, then read the last two. “That leaves Curly Meantoe and Owen McCantle. You know him, don’t you?”

  “Sure, Owen McCantle is a big rich man. What did he do?”

  “Counterfeit money, it says here.”

  “He lives at White Soap.”

  “We better rest today. I didn’t get enough sleep last night. Go after him tomorrow.”

  Choc agreed. “You arresting him? McCantle?”

  “Kinda hope he’s willing to promise to go in by himself.”

  “He’s a big man.” Choc shook his head in disbelief.

  “Marshal Williams mentioned that he felt we should handle him with kid gloves.”

  “He know about it?”

  “McCantle?” Luther shook his head. “Guess not. Usually rich men like him have a lawyer warn them, and surrender before the warrant is served.”

  “Yes. Wonder why—”

  “Damned if I know anything about it. Just what Williams said.”

  Choc pinched some grass off and tossed it into the wind. “You think Williams sent you ’cause you and him don’t get along?”

  “You think he thought I’d have trouble with the man?”

  “You and your boss aren’t close friends.”

  “We’ve had our differences.”

  “He didn’t like the way you brought in that rich man’s son belly down over that horse.”

  Luther looked away toward the high mountain range in the south, recalling the arrest. “Little smart-mouthed bastard. He wouldn’t come peacefully.”

  “His dad was a banker.”

  “Yes, in Little Rock. That boy was lucky I even brought him back alive.”

  Choc nodded and busied himself pinching off more grass.

  “Williams got mad, too, ’cause you shot up them Goats.”

  “Fred and Chester Goats.”

  “After they ambushed you and you had two bullets in you. My, my, what a shame you had to shoot them both.”

  Luther exhaled and shook his head. “Yeah, me and the boss don’t always get on the greatest.” He considered the issue of the rich man’s arrest for a long while, then he nodded his head. “He may have sent me after McCantle on purpose.”

  Choc let the pieces of grass slowly drift one or two at a time. “I was only thinking.”

  “Yeah.” He would, too.

  The rest of their day of leisure was spent resetting the shoes on Luther’s dun. Several of the prisoners’ wives showed up in wagons and cooked for their men. Some even brought clean clothes for them to wear. There were tents set up, tarps strung between trees and wagons. The entire area around Moss’s had become a damn circus, to Luther’s disgust, but there wasn’t a thing he could do about it. This was the way his business went in the Nation.

  “When you go Fort Smith?” a big woman demanded, blocking his way.

  “Soon,” he said, and his answer appeared to satisfy her. She moved aside for him to pass her. He glanced back, wondering how his simple answer appeased her so quickly. It couldn’t be too soon for him. Maybe this time he could convince Tillie to marry him … but deep in his heart, he doubted it. He went over to join his partner in the shade.

  “How do you arrest a rich man?” Choc asked as if the problem of taking in the property owner still perplexed him.

  “Just do it.”

  “You think he’s guilty?”

  “The grand jury decided he must be tried.”

  Choc nodded as if he understood.

  The following day they rode to the White Soap Community. Past noon, they approached the two-story brick house set on a knoll under some giant oaks and pines, in the midst of McCantle’s vast fields of cotton and corn. Men, women, and children, busy hoeing in the fields, looked up at them with blank looks.

  Concerned about Ben getting into a fight, Luther spoke sharply to him each time some sharecropper’s mutt challenged him from the safety of a shack.

  They reined up before the big house and Luther dismounted. He looked around the manicured grounds. This must be the finest place in the district. McCantle had to be married to an Indian woman to possess this much land in the Nation. On several occasions, he had seen the man in Fort Smith and knew him on sight, and that he was white.

  A tall black servant came to the front door.

  “Mr. McCantle home today?” Luther asked.

  “Yes, suh. Who may I say is calling?”

  “U.S. Deputy Marshal Luther Haskell.”

  “Very good, suh. I’s will tell him.”

  Luther looked around at the many flowers in the beds and shared a nod with Choc, who waited at the end of the walk with Ben and the horses. He heard the black man returning.

  “Come in, suh. Mr. McCantle will see you in his office.”

  “Thanks.” Luther removed his hat, wh
ich the man offered to take. He refused, and carried it in his hand.

  The polished wood floor sparkled and the sun coming in the tall windows washed the room with light. Fancy, was what Luther called the French sofas and tables made of rich wood set upon Iranian rugs. A huge glass bookcase loaded with volumes lined one wall. Crossing the great room after the man, he glanced up to consider the huge crystal chandelier over his head.

  A woman came out on the balcony. Tall and willowy, dressed in a fine blue silk dress, her long dark hair hung unbraided past her shoulders. No doubt from her dark coloration, she was the Indian of this grand house. He gave her a nod.

  When he entered the office, a familiar face with a gray mustache and beard rose from behind a desk cluttered with paper. Serious and brooding, the man forced a smile, then extended his hand, which Luther shook.

  “Good day, Marshal. What brings you here? Business, no doubt. Have a chair.”

  Luther handed him the warrant and remained on his feet.

  The man picked up a pair of gold wire-rimmed glasses and hooked them behind his ears to examine the paper.

  “Go ahead and sit down,” he said, and busied himself reading it.

  Luther stayed on his feet.

  The man set the warrant down, unhooked his glasses, and leaned back. “You’re here to arrest me?”

  “Yes, but I have considered the matter. If you will agree to ride to Fort Smith and surrender yourself to the chief marshal, I could save you a wagon ride.”

  “I understand. Fine, Marshal, I will set out for there in the morning. Is that satisfactory?”

  “With me, yes. You understand that if you fail to appear, I will come back and physically arrest you?”

  “Perfectly. May I offer you food or drink?”

  “No, sir.”

  “My compliments to your boss, Marshal Williams.”

  “I’ll tell him, but you will no doubt see him before I do.”

  “Oh, you are making arrests in the district?”

  “I am. Good day, sir.” Luther prepared to leave. He turned the felt hat around on his hand. The band was damp from his perspiration and felt cold to the touch.

  “Randolph will show you out.”

  “No need. I can find my own way.”

  Luther left the office, nodded to the woman still on the balcony, and hurried across the polished floor, wondering if he wasn’t marring the surface with his boots. A current of distrust ran through his thoughts. Maybe the fact that McCantle would never sit for a minute in the hellhole called a jail in the basement of the federal courthouse bothered him the most. Some big lawyer would have his bail set immediately and then wrangle the rich man out of the charges, guilty or innocent. Why someone of his apparent wealth would even mess with counterfeit money was beyond his comprehension. And he might even be innocent, though he found the grand juries empaneled in the federal court usually had sufficient evidence of a felony having been committed before they issued an arrest warrant.

  Good to be able to listen to a mockingbird, he decided, outside in the sunshine. He drew a breath of fresh air. Somehow he felt he had emerged from an alien world. At the dun’s side, he checked his cinch.

  “He in there?” Choc asked in a soft voice, motioning toward the house.

  “Yes, I talked to him.” Luther swung in the saddle. “He’s going to turn himself in.”

  “What’ll they do to him?”

  “With a good lawyer, probably dismiss the charges.”

  Choc nodded and they rode off. Before it was out of sight, Luther twisted and took one more look at the big house. Some place.

  “Where’s Meantoe gone to?” he asked his posse man.

  “Maybe to hide in his big fancy house like McCantle, or to give himself up.” Choc laughed. Luther joined him. He could imagine the one-eyed breed living in such an elaborate place and informing him how he would surrender with his lawyer in Fort Smith. Sure would be funny. Only thing, it was true about McCantle and would never be for the rest of the accused they searched for. Two worlds, Luther decided—them that have and them that don’t.

  3

  Governor John Sterling paced across the carpeted floor with his hands clasped behind his back. Major Gerald Bowen concluded the meaning of Sterling’s headlong thrust and the rapid foot pattern on the oriental weaving, meant that something had the governor thoroughly upset. This was nothing new in their relationship. The major knew that the man would soon have an ulcer from all his worrying about things that went wrong in the Arizona Territory. Even before the two of them devised the secret Territorial Marshal Task Force, Sterling had fretted about something every time he summoned him to the mansion.

  After the legislature turned down Sterling’s request for rangers, the lawmakers, of course, left the lucrative county by county sheriff law enforcement system in place. The Arizona Territory needed an arm of the law that went beyond the sheriff’s individual fiefdoms to ever curb the criminals, therefore the marshals. Then to avoid the ire of the legislators, he and Sterling had to be secret and named them as officers of the state court system. A very loose way to avoid controversy, or—they hoped it worked that way, with the governor issuing the agency’s wages and expense money from his federally funded court budget.

  “You’ve heard about the hanging of those three ranchers in Christopher Basin?” Sterling demanded.

  “It’s been on the front page of the Daily Miner enough.” The Major lit his cigar and sat back in the chair. “Yes. They say that vigilantes hung the three men. It is assumed the victims were rustlers in the area.”

  “One of them was Theodore Dikes, the son of a very large political contributor from New York State. His father has contacted President Hayes, and the fat is in the fire over his son’s lynching. Sheriff Rupp was up here an hour ago. Of course, he’s already sent two of his best deputies up there to investigate it, but he says the trail by this time is way too cold to ever learn anything.”

  “I agree. What else does Rupp think about it?”

  “Well …” Sterling made a wry face. “I believe Rupp is an honest man. He’s maybe one of the few such men wearing a sheriff’s badge in the Territory who is honest. Frankly, he thinks the mystery of who did it will go unsolved.”

  “That means the locals probably know who hung them and won’t tell?”

  “Yes. In most of these cases, he says they do know and they will protect their own.”

  “If the president had not wired you?” The major looked hard at Sterling, wondering what would have been his response without pressure from D.C.

  “I don’t know. His secretary contacted me about the urgency of it, and I have to answer him immediately with my plan.”

  The major set his cigar down and rubbed his temples with the tips of his fingers. “If Rupp can’t learn anything up there, then we need someone to go in there undercover and try to find out who did it.”

  “Who could do that?” Sterling cast a troubled look at him.

  “I’m thinking he needs to be a cowboy or stockman. Needs to fit in with those people and then try to find a crack in their wall of silence.”

  “How long will that take?”

  “Months, I suspect.”

  “Oh, no, that won’t work. I need an answer today about what I am doing out here.”

  “These Dikes must be powerful people.” The major drew his head back and gave him a frown. Why did Sterling always expect immediate results that were impossible?

  “They must be very important.” Sterling threw his hands in the air. “This may be the most serious thing we do.”

  The major agreed. “I’m afraid I need to go and find the right man for this job.”

  “Where?” Sterling blinked his eyes in disbelief.

  “Fort Smith, Arkansas.” He nodded to himself, pleased with thinking of the place as a source for his new marshal. That should be the spot to find him.

  “Why there?” Sterling frowned in disapproval at the notion.

  “Judge Parker’s court h
as jurisdiction over western Arkansas, the unassigned lands, and the Indian Territory. His chief marshal has lots of U.S. deputies. Several of them, I understand, have a southern drawl. Most of those ranchers up in Christopher Basin came from Texas, right?”

  “Yes, but Fort Smith—that’s weeks away from here.” Sterling looked frustrated and beside himself at the prospect of more delays.

  “Those three men’s graves are cold. Another week or so won’t hurt them.”

  “This new marshal that you’re going to hire—”

  “John, I don’t even know his name.”

  Sterling clapped his hands on both sides of his face. “What will I tell—”

  “Tell the president that the local law is working on it. Fire off a letter to that U.S. Marshal Bloom in Tucson.”

  “Him!” Sterling shook his head. “He’ll tell me that lynching isn’t a federal crime.”

  “Good,” the major said, on the edge of losing his temper. “But you can tell Washington you have even asked the U.S. marshal to look into it.”

  Sterling frowned impatiently. “You know Bloom won’t do a gawdamn thing.”

  “I’m going to do something. I’m going home to pack my bags. I’ll be at the railhead as fast as I can and catch the first train east. I’ll wire you from there.”

  “Fort Smith?” Sterling crossed his arms and held them. He dropped his gaze to the floor, as if he couldn’t fathom the plan.

  “That will be our best option to hire a man who can fit in up there. Perhaps, I say, perhaps … he can break the silence.”

  Sterling squeezed his beard and looked hard at him. “Damn it, doesn’t it go against your grain to hire someone you know was a former Reb soldier?”

  “Not if he can get the job done.”

  “It damn sure would me. It would absolutely scald my backside to have to hire one. Oh, go find the man and then we can sit around here and stew until he learns something.”

  “Sterling?” The major waited. “This will not happen overnight. That man has to worm his way in up there. Don’t expect an open and shut door.”

  Sterling held his hand out to stop him. “I understand. Do it your way and I will face the consequences.” He shook his head in disbelief. “We’ll have to do it that way. We’ve no other choice.”