Ralph Compton the Law and the Lawless

by Ralph Compton

  “You do that,” the Attica Kid said. “And be sure to tell the marshal that Ben Larner can drop a buffalo at a thousand yards with that Sharps of his.” Spurs jangling, he backed out.

  By then Calloway was in the saddle and reining away from the hitch rail. Some of the people on Main Street had noticed the flurry of activity and stopped to stare. “Folks, this is your lucky day!” Calloway hollered. “The bank is givin’ away money for free.” Laughing, he reached into the sack, pulled out a fistful of bills, and cast them into the air.

  The astonished onlookers gaped.

  “Get it while you can!” Calloway yelled and, gigging his mount, he made off down the street. He threw another handful of money at several women who had come out of a millinery and more bills at a group of boys who were playing with a hoop. Then he let out a yip, and with a thunder of hooves, whopping and hollering, the outlaws galloped off.

  No one tried to stop them. No one fired a shot. It was, as the True Fissure would later report, “as slick as could be.”

  Chapter 2

  Marshal Boyd Cooper loved to fish. He loved it more than just about anything. Which was why he had snuck away to the pond on Sam Wilson’s farm. It was a sunny day, the temperature in the eighties, perfect fishing weather. Not that Boyd cared so much about catching fish as he did about being able to relax and forget the cares of his office.

  Boyd knew that his jaunts to the pond were the worst-kept secret in Alpine, but no one complained. He worked hard at his job, and Alpine was as orderly and peaceful as a town could be. No one begrudged him a few hours of indulging in his favorite pastime, especially not at his age. A man in his fifties was entitled to treat himself now and then.

  Only a few people knew Boyd’s other secret, namely that the fish weren’t the only reason he came to the Wilson place. He could fish in any of the nearby creeks or the Rio Grande or Alpine Lake. The pond had another attraction.

  A farmhouse stood less than a hundred yards away, and Boyd had barely cast his line and made himself comfortable when the screen door creaked and out came the other attraction. Today she wore a grass-green dress and had done her graying hair up in a bun. Her hands clasped behind her back, she meandered toward the pond by way of the pump and a cherry tree, making it seem as if she were only out for a stroll.

  Boyd smiled. He liked that about her. She wasn’t one of those pushy gals, the kind who threw themselves at men and practically demanded they catch her.

  Some might think she was being coy, but that wasn’t it. She wasn’t sure of him yet; she was taking her time and taking his measure.

  Boyd pretended not to notice her until she was almost to the bank. Looking up, he greeted her with “Why, Miss Wilson, this is a surprise. What brings you out and about on this fine day?”

  “How many times have I asked you to call me Cecelia?” she replied in that throaty voice of hers.

  Boyd felt a tingle run down his spine. “Couldn’t be more than ten or twelve,” he said, and smiled.

  Cecelia Wilson returned it. She was Sam’s sister and had the same pointed chin, but that was the only trait they shared. The years had been kind to her, and her complexion was smooth except for the crinkle of crow’s-feet around her eyes. She had a full figure and an ample bosom and always hid them beneath dresses that ran from her ankles to her neck. “A body would think you would have learned by now,” she said, then frowned and added, “Although, by rights, it should be Mrs. Zeigler and not Miss Wilson.”

  “Your husband died, what, ten years ago?” Boyd said. “Usin’ miss and your maiden name is perfectly proper.”

  “Eleven years next month,” Cecelia said. “Hard to believe.”

  What Boyd found hard to believe was that she had remained a widow for so long. It wasn’t like in the old days when men outnumbered women by three to one, but there were plenty of older men—like him, for instance—who would delight in having her say I do. “You’re welcome to join me,” he offered.

  “Gracious of you,” Cecelia said. Tucking at the knees, she sank gracefully down and clasped her fingers in her lap. “I was hoping you would come today.”

  Boyd swore that his chest fluttered. “You were?”

  “This has been going on for over a year now, off and on.”

  “You mean me fishin’?” Boyd said.

  “You know perfectly well what I mean. Forgive me for being so forward, but when are you planning to muster the courage to ask me out?”

  Boyd shammed shock and said, “Why, Cecelia, you hussy, you.”

  They both laughed, and Boyd was on the verge of doing what she wanted when Cecelia gazed past him and a puzzled expression came over her.

  “Goodness, your deputy is in an awful hurry.”

  Boyd looked over his shoulder. Sure enough, Hugo Mitchell was running toward the pond as if his britches were on fire. He’d taken his hat off and was holding it, and his limbs were flapping like an ungainly turkey trying to take flight. “What in the world?”

  “Maybe there’s a calamity,” Cecelia joked.

  Boyd hoped not. On weekends a besotted cowhand or miner or townsman might act up, and there had been a couple of stabbings and one shooting since he took office, but that was all. He’d been fortunate in that regard, seeing as how Alpine had twenty-three saloons and a reputation for being on the raw side. “Dang. I wanted to spend some time with you.”

  “Oh, did you, now?” Cecelia teased.

  The deputy excitedly waved his arms. “Coop! Coop! We’ve got trouble!” he bawled.

  “Uh-oh,” Cecelia said.

  Boyd refused to move just yet. His deputy was green and tended to exaggerate things. “Calm down, Mitch,” he said as the younger man came to a stop and doubled over, wheezing and puffing. “What’s so all-fired important?”

  “The bank,” Mitch panted.

  “Which one? We have three.”

  “The Alpine,” Mitch got out. “It was robbed.”

  Pushing to his feet, Boyd gripped Mitch by the shoulder. “How long ago? Did anyone see who did it?”

  “I did. I was right there. He disarmed me in front of everybody and made me look the fool.”

  “Who did?”

  “Why, Cestus Calloway, of course. Who else goes around robbin’ banks in these parts?”

  “Oh my,” Cecelia said.

  Boyd felt another flutter but this time of anger. “Calloway,” he said bitterly. “Did they hurt anybody?”

  “Not a soul,” Mitch said. “You know how he is. He rode out of town laughin’ and throwin’ money at folks. Who’s goin’ to shoot somebody who’s throwin’ money at them?”

  Boyd realized he was still holding his fishing pole and held it out to Cecelia. “Would you hold on to this for me? And my basket? I have to hurry back.”

  “Naturally,” she said. “Do what you must.”

  Wheeling on a bootheel, Boyd strode off. He’d left his horse in a shaded stand of trees that bordered the road and come to the pond on foot.

  Mitch quickly caught up. “You should have seen them. As brazen as you please. They made poor Mr. Hunnecut open the safe and cleaned him out. They’re a scary outfit.”

  “So I’ve heard.”

  “The scariest is that Attica Kid. You should have seen him. Mean as a snake, and he can twirl that pistol of his like nobody I ever saw.”

  “How many others took part besides those two?”

  “All of them,” Mitch said. “It was the whole bunch that the newspaper says ride with Calloway. They headed west. Mr. Hunnecut wanted me to go right after them, but I figured I should come fetch you.”

  “You did right.”

  “Why do you reckon Calloway picked one of our banks this time? He’s fought shy of Alpine until now.”

  Boyd pondered on that. Cestus Calloway had been robbing banks and stagecoaches for the better part of two
years. The first anyone heard of Calloway, he and his men struck the Cloverleaf Bank and made off with seven thousand dollars. Not six months later, they relieved the Red Cliff Bank of twelve thousand. Two stages were stopped earlier in the year, and now this.

  “Folks say it’s because he’s afraid of you,” Mitch mentioned. “On account of your reputation.”

  In a rush of memories, Boyd relived his early days, his years as a deputy in Missouri and then his stint as a marshal in Kansas. Once, and only once, he’d shot a man, a drunk who had stabbed two other drunks and was waving a bloody knife around in the middle of the street. Boyd told him to drop the knife and surrender, but the jackass came at him slashing with the knife as if it were a sword, and Boyd had no choice but to put lead in him. Boyd shot to wound, but the shoulder became infected and the man died.

  Boyd wouldn’t have thought a small thing like that would mark a man for life, but it followed him everywhere. He was a man-killer, they whispered, which was ridiculous. He hadn’t had to shoot another human being in fifteen years, and God willing, he never would again.

  “I told Harve to start roundin’ up a posse,” Mitch said.

  Boyd grunted. Harvey Dale worked part-time as a deputy, and the rest of the time swept out the stable. Dale was in his sixties and had been a buffalo hunter and a scout for the army at one time.

  “How many should we take with us? Twenty or thirty?” Mitch asked.

  “Why not fifty while you’re at it?” Boyd scoffed.

  Mitch took him seriously. “Thirty should be enough. There’s only seven outlaws, so it’s more than enough if they put up a fight.”

  “I was joshin’,” Boyd said to set him straight. “Half a dozen will do.”

  “We’re talkin’ Cestus Calloway and the Attica Kid,” Mitch said. “The Kid alone is a tiger. They say he’s bucked out twenty men or better.”

  “Not likely,” Boyd said. Going by his own experience, he added, “It would surprise me considerably if it’s more than four or five.”

  Mitch had tied his roan next to Boyd’s chestnut. Mounting, they reined out of the trees and headed north toward town at a trot. It was only half a mile, and when they got there, Main Street swarmed with two-legged bees buzzing about the robbery.

  Boyd threaded through to the hitch rail in front of the Alpine Bank and Trust Company. He wasn’t out of the saddle when the door was flung open and Arthur Hunnecut strode toward him like a rooster on the peck.

  “There you are!” the banker exclaimed. “Where in heaven’s name have you been? It’s been forty-five minutes since my bank was cleaned out.”

  “I was out of town,” Boyd said, and let it go at that. Looping his reins, he stepped around the rail. “Suppose you tell me how much they took and anything else that might help.”

  “We’re still tallying the figures,” Hunnecut said, “but I expect the total will be over fifteen thousand dollars. I had at least that much in the safe and they emptied the drawers as well.”

  Mitch whistled. “Lord Almighty. I doubt I’ll see that much money my whole life long.”

  “Go see how Harve is doin’,” Boyd said. “Get grub from Tom at the general store, and ammunition for whoever needs it. We might be out all night, so have them bring bedrolls.”

  “Will do,” Mitch said, and gigged the roan.

  “You’ll have to hurry if you’re to have any hope of overtaking those outlaws by nightfall,” Hunnecut urged.

  “There’s no rush,” Boyd said.

  “I beg your pardon? They’ve stolen the town’s money. If that’s not reason enough, I don’t know what is.”

  “We push too hard, we’ll wear out our horses, and if they have relay mounts waitin’, we’ll lose them for good,” Boyd explained. “So long as it doesn’t rain, we’ll catch them—eventually. Harvey Dale can track like an Apache.”

  Hunnecut regarded the cloudless sky. “I guess you know what you’re doing,” he remarked, but it was plain he was skeptical. “Just make sure you do catch them. The good people of Alpine won’t like having their savings stolen from under your very nose.”

  “That’s hardly fair.”

  “Be that as it may, you wear your badge at the discretion of the town council. We appointed you and we can appoint someone to replace you if you can’t do your job.”

  Boyd bristled but held his temper in check. “I don’t take kindly to threats.”

  “I was only saying,” Hunnecut said, with a barely concealed smirk.

  Were he thirty years younger, Boyd might have hit him. He’d never liked the man. The conceited so-and-so thought he was God’s gift to creation just because he owned a bank. “Let me hear what happened. Don’t leave anything out.”

  Hunnecut’s account was short and to the point. He ended with “I’m surprised you didn’t expect something like this and take steps to prevent it. After Cloverleaf and Red Cliff, it was inevitable that Calloway would strike here.”

  “I can only do so much with one deputy and a part-timer,” Boyd said, “and that’s all the council had money for.” He paused. “If you were so worried, why didn’t you hire a guard out of your own pocket?”

  “I was as careless as you.”

  Boyd looked away so the banker wouldn’t see the flash of anger on his face. As luck would have it, just then a boy of twelve or so hustled up and extended a handful of bills. “What’s this, son?”

  “Some of the money from the robbery. My ma says I’m to give it back.”

  “I should say you are,” Hunnecut said, and snatched the bills before Boyd could. “Thank her for me. It’s nice to know there’s at least one honest soul in this town.”

  “Ma told me that you might give me a reward,” the boy said hopefully.

  “For doing what’s right? That would hardly be ethical.” Hunnecut wagged his fingers. “Now shoo. We adults have matters to discuss.”

  The boy slumped in disappointment and walked off.

  “Proud of yourself?” Boyd said.

  “I certainly am,” Hunnecut said. “I’ve taught him an invaluable lesson. Never rely on the cup of human kindness, because there’s no such thing.”

  “I don’t believe that.”

  “Those outlaws do. You’d do well to remember that when they have you in their gun sights.”

  Chapter 3

  Cestus Calloway liked it when things ran smoothly. He worked hard to ensure that they did. Some folks wouldn’t call robbing banks and stages work, but they didn’t realize how much planning it took to carry out a robbery and get away with your hide intact.

  Take the Alpine Bank and Trust Company, for instance. Cestus had spent weeks preparing. He’d sent some of his men into town—those less likely to be recognized—to scout things out. Bert Varrow was the best at it. A gambler before he took to the owl-hoot trail, Varrow had a good memory for details, as well as cards. Butch McGivern was a natural at ferreting information out too. A former cowboy, he used his friendly disposition to fool folks into gabbing.

  From them, and from other tidbits he’d picked up, Cestus had learned that of the three banks, the Alpine Bank and Trust Company kept the most money on hand. The bank’s president, Hunnecut, liked to brag as much. That made picking the target easy.

  Cestus had also learned that the town’s law dog liked to go fishing now and then, which was right accommodating of him. Occasionally he took his deputy along. By timing the robbery just right, Cestus had hoped to get in and out before they returned. As luck would have it, this time the deputy hadn’t gone, but he was so green he’d posed no threat at all.

  Yes, sir, Cestus congratulated himself as the eight of them descended a pine-covered slope toward Alpine Lake, things had gone well. Now all that remained was to shake the inevitable posse and make it to their hideout unseen.

  Cestus never would have imagined he’d be so good at being so bad. When h
e was a boy growing up in Ohio, there was nothing about him to show that one day he’d be the scourge of Colorado. Or the scourge of anything, for that matter.

  Cestus had been as ordinary as dishwater, a boy who liked to roam the woods and hunt and wrestle other kids and do all the other things kids did. Then his father took it into his head to go West and they moved to the Plains. But farming in Nebraska wasn’t the same as farming in Ohio. The climate was harsher. In the summer the temperature could climb to a hundred and ten or more. In the winter, arctic winds drifted the snow feet deep. There was less rain, and without irrigation, their crops wouldn’t thrive.

  The family was always struggling.

  Cestus thought he’d help out by taking a job sweeping out a saloon and cleaning the spittoons. The gamblers and doves and two-legged wolves fascinated him. It was his first taste of vice, and he drank deep.

  By his sixteenth year he was sick of farm life. He said good-bye to his folks and struck out on his own. He took up with those on the shady side of the law, and liked the life they lived. The excitement of it. The drinking and the card-playing and the willing ladies in their tight dresses.

  Cestus made the rounds of all the Kansas cow towns, living life to the fullest but always short on the money he needed. Then one day in a small farming town called Newberg, when he was half-drunk, he had a brainstorm on how to get that money. He and some pards robbed the Newberg Bank.

  It had been ridiculously easy. So much so that, when he ran out of the money from Newberg, he robbed another bank to see if it would be as easy as the first. It was. He had found his calling.

  And now, years later, he was still robbing for a living, still taking each day as if there was no tomorrow, and loving the hell out of life.

  The pines thinned and the lake appeared. Fed by runoff from a glacier, Alpine Lake had the bluest water anywhere. It was so far from Alpine—over ten miles—that few folks ever visited it except for occasional fishermen and hunters.

  Cestus slowed his mount to a walk and started around the shore toward the far end. That was where their fresh mounts were tied.