White Lightning

by Lyle Brandt

  Besides, the ride gave Slade a chance to think and get better acquainted with his trail companion. As he learned over the next few miles, Naylor was twenty-five years old and Texas born, a farmer’s son who didn’t take to plowing, milking cows, or slopping hogs. He’d tried his hand at cowboying, then figured out there was no future in it for him. He’d been appointed a U.S. deputy in Austin, then accepted transfer to the territory when it came his way. He was a fair hand with the twin Colts, by his own account, and while he savored tracking bad men, Naylor didn’t have the attitude of some lawmen who yearned for opportunities to throw their weight around.

  “You figure we’re enough?” asked Naylor, when he’d finished laying out his brief biography.

  “Enough for what?” asked Slade.

  “To handle what we’re up against.”

  “We don’t know what that is yet,” Slade replied. “Don’t undermine yourself by worrying ahead of time.”

  “I’ve just been thinking about Tanner.”

  “Good. That ought to keep you sharp. But don’t imagine that you’ll end up the same way.”

  “Could happen, though,” said Naylor.

  “Anything could happen,” Slade reminded him. “We could be struck by lightning from a clear sky, or a prairie fire could overtake us on the trail. You could wake up tonight with rattlers in your bedroll.”

  “Thanks for that,” said Naylor. “Nice of you to cheer me up.”

  “The other side of fretting is that we could have the job wrapped up in no time, run the ’shiners out, bust up their stills, and bring whoever took Bill Tanner down to face Judge Dennison.”

  “You really see that happening?”

  “The day I pinned this badge on,” Slade replied, “I gave up telling fortunes.”

  “Hey, speaking of that, I heard you took the job to nail your brother’s killers. That the straight of it, or just a campfire story?”

  “Straight, far as it goes,” Slade said and laid it out for Naylor, sketchy on the details, steering absolutely clear of Faith and their relationship.

  When he was done, the younger deputy said, “And you stuck around when it was done. No itch to get back on the move?”

  “I’ve seen a lot of territory,” Slade admitted. “And I won’t say one place is the same as any other. That’s a crock. Some places, you can take your ease and never give a second thought to trouble. Others…well, I reckon you’ve seen those.”

  “A few,” Naylor acknowledged. “But to stay in Enid when you’ve been to Dallas, Denver, any of the big towns, something had to hold you.”

  They were edging into something Slade did not plan to discuss with Naylor, or with anybody else. To cut it off, he said, “You get to be my age, the thought of staying put begins to make more sense. A steady salary, a roof over your head that you can count on.”

  “Goin’ out to sniff around for killers. Gettin’ shot at for your trouble. Yeah,” said Naylor. “I can see how that appeals to an old-timer like yourself.” He laughed and added, “You’ve got what, ten years on me?”

  “At least,” Slade said. Some days it felt like forty.

  “I don’t know,” said Naylor. “Enid’s good for now, you know. But it’s a place I work from, if you follow me. I like the traveling. The hunting.”

  “Just make sure you’re not the one who’s being hunted,” Slade advised him.

  “There you go. That sunny disposition.”

  “It’s a funny thing, I grant you,” Slade replied. “Older you are, the more it seems you’ve got to lose. Should be the other way around, if it made any sense.”

  “Who ever said that life makes sense? My older brother is a preacher, if you can believe it, down El Paso way. He makes a living spittin’ fire and brimstone at the faithful, Sunday mornings. Couple hundred of ’em eat it up.”

  “I take it that you’re not a praying man, yourself?”

  “Depends,” Naylor replied. “One time I prayed I wasn’t out of ammunition, and I found some shells. Does that count?”

  “Only if they fell out of the sky.”

  “Guess not, then.” Naylor turned more serious and said, “Last time I saw my brother, we had words about him sellin’ things nobody gets to see or take advantage of while they’re alive. I doubt that he’s forgiven me, or maybe ever will.” A pause, before he said, “Don’t get me wrong. I wouldn’t say there’s nothing on the other side, okay? I just don’t know. Nobody does, who’s still around and breathing, right? Guess that’s the part of it that rubs me the wrong way.”

  “Well, hopefully,” Slade said, “we won’t find out on this trip, anyway.”

  “Amen,” said Naylor, with a crooked smile. “Amen to that.”

  “How long ago did this come in?” asked Grady Sullivan.

  “Within the hour,” Percy Fawcett said. “I sent for you directly, sir.”

  Sullivan read the telegram a second time, brow furrowing at what he saw. Of course, it had to happen. There’d been no way to avoid it once the door was opened and he’d stepped through, following the big man’s orders.

  “You’ll keep this to yourself,” said Sullivan, not asking.

  Fawcett bobbed his head, which made his wire-rimmed spectacles slip down his stubby nose. “Of course, sir. That’s the rule.”

  “And we all know how much you care for rules, now, don’t we, Percy?”

  Fawcett’s sunken cheeks flushed crimson as he pushed the glasses up his nose, eyes twitching free of Sullivan’s relentless stare.

  When he was satisfied the small man had been duly cowed, Sullivan left the Western Union office, walking east along the Kansas side of Border Boulevard. The street divided Stateline more or less in half, as did the boundary that separated Oklahoma Territory and the Jayhawk State. That split made for peculiar politics and commerce, even sparked a minor feud from time to time, but none of that concerned him at the moment.

  He had business with the big man, and it couldn’t wait.

  Sullivan’s destination, two blocks down from Western Union, was the Sunflower Saloon. It was a good-sized place, the bar and gambling apparatus all downstairs, with ladies and their cribs above. Most nights there’d be some kind of altercation over cards or a doxy, now and then involving guns, normally stopping short of homicide.

  You couldn’t say that for the Sunflower’s competition, catty-corner on the Oklahoma side. The Swagger Inn was a bucket of blood, complete with loaded dice, marked cards, and hookers who were scary if you met them in the sober light of day. The boss man over there, Sean Swagger, hailed from Indiana, Illinois—one of the I states, anyhow—and had a reputation as a cutthroat in his younger days. Some hinted that the killing wasn’t all behind him, but it didn’t matter so long as he kept it on his own side of the street.

  Sullivan pushed in through the Sunflower’s bat-wing doors, jangly piano music greeting him despite the morning hour. The saloon was open twenty-four hours a day, dealers and strumpets working shifts around the clock, to take in every dollar that they could. The big man would be in his counting room by now, after his standard breakfast—steak and eggs—checking the past night’s take.

  Sullivan didn’t like to be the bearer of bad news, but it was better faced immediately, while they could prepare themselves, than being put off in the fragile hope that it would all blow past and leave them undisturbed.

  Too late for that.

  A storm was coming. Sullivan could feel it drawing nearer, and he wondered who’d be standing after it had passed.

  The barkeep saw him coming. “Beer for breakfast, Grady?”

  “Not this morning. Is he in his office?”

  “Same as always.”

  Sullivan turned toward the west end of the long oak bar, past poker tables and a roulette wheel, to reach a door marked PRIVATE, by the staircase that the painted ladies used, leading their customers to paradise. He knocked and waited for the summons from within, then entered, closed the door behind him, moving to a spot before the big man’s desk. />
  “You’ve got a sour look,” Flynn Rafferty observed, sitting behind the spacious desk with greenbacks in both hands. “Something you ate? Or something eating you?”

  Sullivan offered him the telegram. The big man took it, read it silently, and then once more, aloud. “Two marshals coming. That’s the message? Christ, that penny-pinching bastard could have given us their names, at least.”

  “He likely thought we’d recognize them by their badges,” Sullivan replied.

  “And so we will. Given the choice, though, I’d prefer to do without the pleasure of their company.”

  “Coming from Enid when the wire was sent, they won’t get here before tomorrow morning,” Sullivan suggested. “I could meet them on the trail. Discourage them.”

  “That’s good,” Rafferty said. “But delegate it, will you? Someone you can trust to do the job unsupervised.”

  “It wouldn’t take me long,” said Sullivan. “Ride out this evening, come straight back when it’s done.”

  “A military officer knows when to share the burden of command,” said Rafferty.

  “Wasn’t aware I’d joined the army.”

  “Weren’t you? We’re expanding, branching out,” the big man said. “You know that, certainly.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Opening new territory means resistance from established opposition, eh?”

  A silent nod from Sullivan.

  “If I’m the general commanding our advance, that makes you—what? My colonel?”

  “Long as I don’t have to wear a uniform,” said Sullivan.

  “Nothing like that,” the big man answered, smiling. “But I can’t afford to have you riding off to every skirmish.”

  “U.S. marshals. Two of them.”

  “If they knew anything about our operation, there’d be twenty coming. Or the cavalry.”

  “I guess. But when they find these two…”

  “Why should they find them, Grady? Better, don’t you think, if these two simply disappear?”

  “Like they were never here,” said Sullivan.

  “A mystery. Something for old Judge Dennison to ponder, sitting in his courthouse.”

  “While he’s picking more to send.”

  “It buys us time,” the big man said. “And when the next ones head our way, we’ll think of something else. You with me?”

  “Absolutely, Boss.”

  “All right, then. Pick your men and send them on their way.”

  At dusk, still thirty miles or so from Stateline, Slade and Naylor found their campsite. It was on a low ridge lined with bur oaks, ample grass for grazing, and a spring that burbled out of rocks a few yards distant from the spot they chose for sleeping. High ground let them scan the countryside while daylight still remained. Nightfall would blind them, while their campfire shone out like a beacon if they didn’t find a way to screen it.

  “Maybe over here, between these oaks,” Naylor suggested. “We’d have cover from the east and south, at least.”

  “Suits me,” Slade said. He’d staked his roan where she could graze and reach the spring at will, with Naylor’s mount to keep her company.

  They spent a quarter of an hour scavenging for dead wood on the ridge, gathered enough to keep a fire up through the night, and Naylor lit the kindling with a wooden match. He put the coffee on and they got settled on their blankets, eating from their saddlebags. Jerky and corn dodgers for Slade, Naylor devouring some kind of sandwich he had brought from home.

  “Smoked ham and cheese,” he said around a mouthful. “Got another for the morning, too.”

  Slade wished he’d thought of something similar and made a mental note to try for some variety on the ride back from Stateline. As to how long they would be in town, or what they’d find upon arrival there, he didn’t have a clue.

  Naylor appeared to read his thoughts, asking, “You think the ’shine is being made somewhere around Stateline?”

  “We know Tanner was there,” Slade answered. “Anything beyond that’s just a guess.”

  “But something had to draw him there,” said Naylor. “Right? I mean, he didn’t close his eyes and point his finger at a map, deciding where to go.”

  “Not likely,” Slade allowed.

  “So, something that he picked up from the reservation, maybe?”

  “Not from Berringer, or he’d have shared it with us,” Slade replied.

  “One of the Injuns, then. Would they have talked to him?”

  “Could be. Bill had a way of being affable.” Slade caught a glimpse of Naylor’s frown. “Friendly,” he translated.

  “Maybe he got too affable and some of ’em resented it.”

  Slade sipped his coffee. Shrugged. “I couldn’t rule it out,” he answered, “but it doesn’t sound like Bill.”

  “We’re back to ’shiners, then. One of the Cherokees knew something, passed it on. Next thing you know, he’s sending telegrams from Stateline.”

  “Just the one, and nothing in it we can hang our hats on. Getting close, he said. No names or pointers.”

  “So we wait and see what happens when we ask around. Talk to the Western Union guy, their lawmen, anybody else in a position that could help us out.”

  “Best we can do,” Slade granted. “I was thinking we should check out the saloons and see if anyone gets twitchy. If the operation’s growing, chances are they’ve stepped on someone else’s toes along the way.”

  “Could work,” Naylor agreed. “But if they’re playing rough, the townsfolk could be scared.”

  “In that case,” Slade replied, “we offer them a way to end it. Maybe find a weak link in the chain and try to work a deal with someone on the inside.”

  “Just so long as we can hang on to our hair.”

  “I’m planning on it,” Slade assured him. “Till it falls out on its own, at least?”

  “You come from baldies?” Naylor asked him.

  “Not that I’m aware of, but I left home young,” said Slade.

  “Already anxious for the road.”

  “Seemed like a good idea,” Slade said. “Then, once you’re on it, going home seems like more trouble than it’s worth. At least, it did to me.”

  “You ever miss your folks?” asked Naylor.

  Slade sipped his coffee, thought about it. “I was mad as hell when I lit out,” he said, at last. “It took a while for that to fade, and by that time I didn’t think they’d want me back.”

  “How come?”

  “Some of the things I’d done. Was doing. My old man took a hard line, sort of like your brother.”

  “Not a preacher, though?”

  “He could’ve been, but felt a calling from the soil instead. I didn’t see a future in it for myself.”

  “Funny how people start and where they finish,” Naylor said. “Now here we are.”

  “Not finished,” Slade reminded him. “Just getting started.”

  “Right. I wouldn’t want to hex us.”

  Darkness settled over them as they sat jawing, drinking coffee, killing time. After a while, a quarter moon raised a coyote chorus in the distance, somewhere to the north, the voices tangled up and wailing.

  “Ever wonder what they’re saying?” Naylor asked.

  “Not lately. Something about who they’ll have for supper, I suppose.”

  “As long as it’s not us.”

  “I’ll drink to that.”

  “Speaking of which,” Slade said, reaching into his saddlebag, “I brought this, just in case we caught a chill along the way.”

  Naylor’s smile broadened at sight of the bottle. “Whiskey for a ’shine hunt. Get us in the mood, eh? Sounds all right to me.”

  6

  “Two marshals,” Lou McCreery said. “So Grady sends the five of us?”

  “You figure that’s too many, or too few?” Hoke Woodruff asked.

  “Won’t know until I see ’em, will I?” Lou replied.

  “You’re soundin’ shaky, Lou,” Bob Kerrigan suggested
.

  “Hell I am!”

  “He’s right,” Eddie Gillespie said. “I’m purty sure I heard a shiver in your voice there.”

  “Hell you did!”

  “Knock off that shit,” said Woodruff. As the leader of the hunting party, it was his job to keep order in the ranks and see their job completed without any fumbling. “You want to measure pricks, wait till we’re done and you’re back at the bunkhouse.”

  They rode on in brooding silence for a quarter mile or so, then Harry Stroud said, “Five on two feels right to me. Gives us an edge.”

  “Plenty of edge,” McCreery said. “But killin’ marshals…”

  “They’s the same as anybody else,” said Kerrigan. “I didn’t hear you tellin’ Grady no.”

  “You sure as hell did not,” McCreery answered. “I’m just sayin’—”

  “Sayin’ what?” Woodruff demanded. “Spit it out, for Christ’s sake.”

  “That the marshals won’t stop comin’,” Woodruff said. “One dead already, and tonight we make it three. You think Judge Dennison is gonna fold and cut his losses here? Or will he keep on sendin’ more and more, maybe call out the cavalry?”

  Woodruff wanted to laugh at that but swallowed it. He couldn’t tell these yahoos everything he knew for fear they’d blab it far and wide. Instead, he told them, “Let the big man think about what happens after. You just follow orders, right? Do what you’re told, collect your pay, and shut your claptraps.”

  “You got no call to be so tetchy,” said McCreery.

  “Keep it up, I’ll show you tetchy,” Woodruff said, “and then some. I get sick and tired of—”

  “Campfire,” Stroud announced, pointing ahead and slightly to their left, which made it southwest from the trail they had been following.

  Woodruff squinted in that direction, didn’t see the light at first, then caught a flicker of it. Hard to say, when they were still a mile or more out from the spot, but it appeared to be on higher ground.

  “That’s what I mean, goddamn it!” Woodruff said. “You get to yappin’ and we damn near miss it.”

  “Jesus, Hoke, we didn’t—”

  “Keep your voice down!” Fairly hissing at them now, clutching his reins so tightly that the leather straps felt welded to his hands.