Cotton's Law (9781101553848)

by Dunlap, Phil

  “Someone tried to kill you tonight. He almost succeeded in getting me instead.”

  “What the devil are you blathering about? Kill me? I’ve been right here.”

  “One of those gunslingers that’s been hanging around town for some weeks. Buck somebody.”

  “Buck Kentner?”

  “Yes. That’s him.”

  “What happened?”

  “A note was delivered to Arlo to give to you, by that Delilah witch.”

  “A note from Delilah to me?”

  “Yes.”

  “And how did you get it?”

  “I took it from Arlo and brought it upstairs to give to you, but I didn’t because I read it first and it said for you to meet her down by the bridge over the creek and . . .”

  “Whoa! Slow down. You’re sayin’ you read a note meant for me?”

  “Uh, well, uh, yes. I—­” Melody sat on the edge of the bed, and her eyes seemed to be searching for some elusive answer to Jack’s question.

  “You sure do have a lot of nerve reading someone else’s messages, Melody.”

  “I-­I know, Jack, I shouldn’t have, but after what happened, I don’t feel all that bad about it because if I hadn’t, it’d be you lyin’ out there dead instead of Buck.”

  “Buck’s dead?”

  “Uh-­huh.”

  “And you killed him?”

  “No . . . no. He shot at me, but I tripped on a piece of rotten wood and fell. Musta gone down right at the same time as he pulled the trigger. Hit my head and sorta went all black and woozy for a while. Don’t know how long, but when I came out of it, there was this fella tryin’ to help me up.”

  “What fella? And who shot Buck?”

  “That’s what I’m tryin’ to tell you. It was that fella who was helpin’ me to my feet.”

  “Do you know him?”

  “Not before then.”

  “Well, did he give you his name?”

  “Yeah, it was Comanche somethin’ or other. I was still pretty woozy.”

  “Comanche Dan Sobro?”

  “Uh, yeah, I think that’s it.”

  “Let me get this straight. One of Havens’s killers, Buck, was shot and killed by another of Havens’s killers, Comanche Dan, that about right?”

  “Uh-­huh. That’s what happened.”

  Melody stood up, pale and disconcerted, straightening her wrinkled skirts. She looked like she couldn’t decide whether to laugh or cry. She finally settled on the latter. Jack took her in his arms.

  Chapter 37

  “So, that’s the story on Buck Kentner, Cotton, at least as Melody tells it.”

  “Looks like I need to talk to Comanche Dan. But before I do, I told you we might have more backup than we figured.”

  “You figure he’d go against Havens even after taking the thousand dollars?”

  “He came out to the Wagner place to find me. Scared Emily to death. She doesn’t take to gunslingers stoppin’ by for a casual visit. Still a little gun-­shy from her encounter with Cruz, I reckon. But he did tell me about him bein’ a deputy U.S. marshal and all. Still, I don’t plan to fold my hand until I see all the cards.”

  “And none of the others knew what Comanche Dan looked like?”

  “That’s what he said.”

  “I reckon that’s possible, especially if these rats came out of their holes from all over.” Jack scratched his head and frowned. “You think he’s tellin’ it straight?”

  “I’d like to think so, but I also like to see a bill of sale before I accept a man’s word that the horse he’s ridin’ is his.”

  “I like your thinkin’. Where do you figure to go from here?”

  “Havens has lost three of his hired guns already, and he’s no closer to getting rid of me than he was the day he arrived. I’d say he’s about to get himself real worked up over this last turn of events. Could bust the whole plan loose.”

  “You thinkin’ of givin’ him a little extra push to kinda get things started?”

  “Indeed.”

  “What do you want me to do?”

  “I’ve been watchin’ him, and I think I know the chink in his armor.”

  “And that is… ?”

  “Your beautiful friend Delilah Jones.”

  “You’re fixin’ to get me killed, aren’t you? Either by Bart or by Melody.”

  “One of the risks of being a deputy. You should know that by now.”

  “What am I supposed to do?”

  “Pay extra attention to Delilah. Drop by the bank just to say hello, meet her after the bank closes, walk her to her room, ask her to dinner . . . Hell, I don’t know, you’re the lothario around here.”

  “I don’t know what that means, but I’ll assume it’s an insult since it’s comin’ from you, Cotton.” With a deep sigh, Jack pushed out of his chair, hiked up his sagging gun belt, and strode outside, muttering to himself. Melody will use that derringer on me without giving it a second thought if she even suspects I’m fooling around. I know Havens doesn’t sport a gun, but he’s proven he’d not stop at payin’ one of his back-­shooters to even the score for him.

  Sleeve Jackson was once again standing in front of Bart Havens’s large oak desk. He had been berated for the past half hour by the red-­faced man shaking his fist and pointing his finger at him. He’d about had his fill of being treated like a galley slave. One thousand dollars didn’t give any man the right to chew on him like an old piece of meat. As he stood silently, gritting his teeth and seething inside, Delilah arrived and was immediately invited, none too politely, to receive her share of the blame for Buck’s death, which Bart perceived to be a failure on the part of them both.

  “Can you explain why Jack sent that slut out to the bridge instead of going himself?”

  “I . . . really . . . can’t, uh—­”

  “I’d lay money that you didn’t give that note directly to him as I instructed. Isn’t that right?”

  “The bartender said he was still asleep and that he would be certain that Jack got it as soon as he came downstairs.”

  “Do you suppose that’s what happened?”

  “Perhaps not. The woman who owns the saloon must have somehow gotten hold of it and figured I was asking Jack to meet me for, er, something romantic. She’s very jealous, or so I’ve been told, and I suppose she showed up fully intending to tear my eyes out.”

  “Well, well, the lady has solved the riddle.” Havens stood up suddenly, slamming his fist on his desktop. “But your incompetence got Buck killed! Get out, Delilah! I’ll deal with you later.”

  Delilah turned and abruptly left. Feelings of anger mixed with fear for her own safety. Tears dribbled down her cheeks as she returned to her hotel room.

  After Delilah left, Havens redirected his fury back to Sleeve. Although the gunslinger had yet to figure out what part he’d played in Buck’s demise, he could but quietly withstand the tongue-­lashing he was getting. Had there not been another two thousand dollars awaiting his successfully shooting down the sheriff, he would have killed Havens on the spot.

  “Who got the drop on Buck?”

  “I don’t know. I went down to the undertaker to see the body. Had one bullet in him.”

  “In the back, I suppose?”

  “No. He saw it comin’. Undertaker said it looked like he’d failed to get a shot off before he went down,” Sleeve said, shaking his head.

  “I’m betting that damned deputy was waiting for Buck. Probably dry-­gulched him. Well, never mind, I’ll take care of him.”

  “How do you figure on doin’ that?”

  “After the loss of Whitey Granville, J.J. Bleeker, and now Buck, we can’t afford to wait any longer. We’ll put the second part of a plan I been thinking about into motion. I want you to take this to the telegraph office and get it sent pronto. Do you understand? No screwups!”

  Sleeve took the paper being handed him and left, grumbling to himself.

  Having overheard Black Duck Slater and Sleeve Jackson
discussing plans on how best to ambush the sheriff after the loss of Buck Kentner, and now Havens’s plan to bring in more help, Plink put down his whiskey glass long enough to try concentrating on exactly what they were saying. Drunk as he was, enough of their conversation had broken through the haze and gotten his attention. And he didn’t like what they were saying one bit. He saw their whispering as just a way to cut him out of his rightful money for being the one to do in the sheriff. He had no intention of giving up what he considered his right, the right of one brother to avenge another brother. He started to pour himself another drink, then stopped, thinking better of it. His blurry eyes and slow speech aside, he recognized that he must sober up long enough to do the deed. As tough as it was, he scooted the bottle aside, turned the glass upside down, and pushed his chair back from the table. He needed some fresh air to clear his addled brain. He knew the time had come to put together his own plan before any of Havens’s other gunslingers could beat him to the punch. He couldn’t allow any of them to take what was his and his alone. He, Plink Granville, would be the one to go down in history as the man who killed Sheriff Cotton Burke. And that was all there was to it.

  He stumbled through the batwing doors, nearly falling on his face once before catching himself on a post out front. He hugged the heavy timber, the one that held up the porch, for several minutes as his head stopped spinning. It had been quite a while since he’d stood up. His body was still adjusting when Bart Havens came strolling toward him.

  “G’day to you, sir,” Plink muttered.

  “And to you, my good man. Where are you headed?”

  “Uh, thought I might get some fresh air, maybe take a short nap.”

  “Do I detect a man driven by a purpose? Or do I just see another slovenly drunk looking for a place to pee?”

  Plink was at once infuriated by the man’s callous words. The sting of Havens’s comments was like a rattler’s fangs sinking deep into his flesh. But what could he say? Havens was the source of the money he’d need if he hoped to make a clean getaway after the shoot-­out. He could only blink away the blur of liquor and mumble his acceptance of the insult.

  He stepped off the boardwalk in front of the saloon and stumbled down the street, nearly losing his footing every so often in the uneven road. If he could manage to stay away from any whiskey until morning, he’d surely be sober enough to accomplish his task. That is, if he could control the shaking hands he’d experienced with every previous attempt to sober up. He was well aware that alcohol had consumed him for several years now, and any attempt to break free of its control over him would likely be futile in the long run. But for now, he needed only to be alert for a short time, and fast, like he had once been. He could take this sheriff, of that he was certain. Why, it wasn’t that long ago when he backed down one of the most notorious gunslingers in Texas. The man’s name didn’t immediately come to him, but he could still see clearly how the man had thrown up his hands at the realization that Plink Granville would easily best him if the confrontation came to that point. It hadn’t, though.

  Plink entered the hotel lobby still bleary-­eyed and stumbling. He fell twice on the stairs up to his room. After fumbling for his key, he opened the door, went inside, and fell facedown on the creaking bed. Sleep came quickly but fitfully. His head was awash with unsettling images of guns going off and bodies being thrown to the ground to lie in pools of blood that seemed to grow and grow until the street was a river of red. At one point he awoke screaming and sitting up in bed. His revolver was in his hand and he was pointing it at his own head. Perspiration poured off him and he lay back shaking, filled with fear.

  The nightmares were becoming more and more violent, and almost certain to again emerge each and every time he closed his eyes.

  Chapter 38

  “Jack, I want you to ride back out to Mrs. Blanchard’s place and see if you can get a little more time from those folks. We’ve got to keep them from comin’ into town with fire in their eyes and a rope in their hands. If they come rampaging in here like a mob of vigilantes, Sleeve and his boys will cut them to pieces. And we’ll be caught in the middle. We can’t take them both on at the same time.” Cotton seemed uncharacteristically nervous.

  “You’re right about that, but I doubt I can do much if their minds are still set on only givin’ us four days. Half of that is gone already. They didn’t seem overly eager to listen to a tin star,” Jack said.

  “We have to try. Since you’re the one who talked to them in the first place, it should be you that does the asking. Make it sound like you understand their cause.”

  “Trouble is, I do,” Jack said as he frowned, grabbed a rifle off the gun rack for his saddle scabbard, and left.

  As he approached the Blanchard ranch, he pulled up. What he saw was disturbing. There were about a dozen riders in the barnyard, ambling around aimlessly like they were waiting for the order to saddle up. They were well armed and gave the impression they were about to lay siege to a fort. Jack sat still for a few minutes pondering whether to ride down into the midst of a gaggle of angry men with guns. Finally, he could see no other option, and he spurred his horse to a gallop. When he reined up in front of the house, Mrs. Blanchard came onto the porch with her hands on her hips. She wore an apron as if she’d just finished feeding a passel of hungry soldiers. As Jack looked around, it appeared that’s exactly what she’d done.

  “What is it you want this time, Deputy?” Her mood was decidedly cold.

  “What’s goin’ on? I thought we’d agreed you folks would give us at least four days to solve the Havens problem.”

  “Most of the ranchers that have been taken in by that scoundrel voted to go against our agreement. I figure they’re all out of patience with waitin’,” she said.

  “If those men ride into Apache Springs figurin’ to dislodge Havens and his hired gunslingers, there’s goin’ to be a lot of bloodshed. Many of those men out there in your barnyard won’t be comin’ home to their families. I know you don’t want that to happen.”

  “Ain’t nothin’ I can do about it. They’re grown men and they make up their own minds. Ain’t a darned thing an old woman can say to change that.”

  “Mrs. Blanchard, I know those men will listen to you. Please consider what I’m sayin’. I need a little more time. The sheriff and I are both on your side, but we are also sworn to uphold the law, and what you’re about to do is illegal. Arrests will be made, blood will be shed, and all over one crooked banker. He’s the only one who’ll come out of this thing untouched. Please, listen to me—­”

  “What’s this fella fillin’ your head with, Miz Blanchard?” said one of the men who’d gathered out back, as he walked his horse around to the front of the house.

  “He’s come to talk us into stayin’ put for a spell, just so’s the sheriff can get this Havens to move on of his own accord, I reckon.”

  “That it?” the man asked Jack. “You figure to convince Havens to pull up stakes and give up waitin’ around to clean us all out? Why, son, you’re as full of buffalo dung as he is. He ain’t goin’ to skedaddle; he’s goin’ nowhere until all those loans come due and then he’ll own half the county.”

  “I never said it would be easy. But we have to try doin’ it legal-­like. Havens won’t win this fight; you got my word on that. But what you’re plannin’ can’t succeed, either. Havens has hired a bunch of killers and he’d like nothin’ better than to see some of you brought down so’s you won’t be alive to pay his bank back. That way, he wins by default, your families will lose everything, and he don’t have to wait for his money, nor anything else. Your women and children will be kicked off the land you worked hard to develop. That what you want?”

  “You got a good argument, son, but our minds are made up. We’re gettin’ rid of that skunk for good. Now is as good a time as any. We’ll still give you till Friday, but that’s it,” he said over his shoulder. Every one of the riders shouted their agreement without protest, even though many had heard Jack
’s words.

  Jack could see the futility of wasting more time talking. He mounted up and spun his horse around. He spurred the gelding to a run, heading straight back for town. He could only hope Cotton would come up with a solution before the army of angry ranchers blew the lid off things, turning the streets of Apache Springs into a possible massacre.

  He came to a dusty halt in front of the jail and dismounted in the cloud swirling around his horse. He stomped onto the boardwalk and pushed the door open.

  “Cotton! Things a—­”

  He saw then that except for the one prisoner the jail was empty. He went back outside, looking up and down the street for the sheriff, without any luck.

  “Crap!” he grumbled aloud, mostly to himself. “If Cotton’s gone back out to play parlor games with Emily Wagner at a time like this, I’ll—­”

  “You’ll what?” Cotton said as he came around the side of the jail.

  “Uh, nothin’.”

  “So, what happened? Did you get them to hold off?”

  “Hell, no! Fact is, they’re still bent on comin’ on Friday. I couldn’t steer that herd away from the cliffs. And they’re pretty lathered up, too. Couldn’t talk any sense to ’em.”

  “Damn! Okay, here’s what you do. Go down to the livery and tell whoever’s there to drag out every bale of hay and straw he’s got and pile ’em on either side of the street at the edge of town. That’s the most logical way for ’em to come. I just saw Henry Coyote ride into town. I’ll get him to stay in town a couple of days. I’ll have him take up a position on the balcony of Melody’s saloon.”

  “And when they see we’ve blocked their way, what do you figure they’re goin’ to do? Hope you ain’t figurin’ on them boys turnin’ tail and runnin’. They won’t, believe me.”

  “Didn’t figure they would, but they’ll not be wantin’ to shoot it out with the law as well. I don’t figure they’re goin’ to face down you, me, Henry Coyote, and Havens’s men, too.”

  “Havens’s men? What the hell are you talkin’ about? They won’t lift a hand to help us. They’ll see it as a perfect opportunity to gun us down in the process.”