Culhane’s first year in law school was one of quiet study and a few college-boy pranks that were always pulled off in the company of his fellow students. No real harm was done, and overly indulgent fathers—including Tim Riley, Junior—shelled out the money necessary to repair damaged property and soothe ruffled feelings.
The young Riley lad’s second year was marked with increased honors in academia, and it seemed that he would become more than just a competent lawyer for his crooked family. Culhane, heading for scholastic honors, was making friends among the elite. Strong, personal connections in potentially influential circles seemed a certainty.
Then he ruined everything.
Riley liked a particular small restaurant in Cambridge. It wasn’t a fancy place, and the food was plain and unexciting. But a waitress there had caught his eye. She was an Irish girl, lately arrived in the States, and she had everything that Culhane Riley admired in a woman. She wasn’t very bright, believed everything he said to her, and was promiscuous. Riley rented a small apartment for them in the neighborhood where he could get together with her several times a week. He brought her presents and lied to her of a deep love he had for her. In return, the girl granted him her sexual favors upon demand, and was never pushy or argumentative. Although she sensed that somehow she was in the backwater of his life, the woman held out the hope of someday becoming his wife. Thus, when she found herself pregnant, she wasn’t really upset about it.
Riley, on the other hand, was plenty upset. His first noble thought was to kill her. But he knew there was little chance he could get away with it.
Too many of the locals in that neighborhood could identify him as a constant companion. The police would naturally make a thorough investigation of their relationship. He’d been too careless in covering his trail.
His next idea was to get a train ticket and give it to her along with a cock-and-bull story of how he’d join her later out in California where they would be married. He quickly realized that even a girl as dumb as she was wouldn’t fall for that line of malarkey.
Finally Culhane came to the conclusion that the right doctor could end both the pregnancy and his troubles. He made a few prudent inquiries through some of his family’s connections and came up with the name of an alcoholic M.D. who would perform the abortion for a few dollars and a case of Irish whiskey. Culhane went back to the girl and told her he’d arranged for a physician to tend her during her pregnancy. He sweetened things up by saying his own sainted mother now knew about the situation, and that she had even recommended the doctor. After the examination, they would go to his parents’ house, where she would meet her future in-laws and arrangements could be discussed about the big wedding that would take place in the city’s largest cathedral.
That ploy worked.
The young immigrant waitress went happily with him to the doctor’s office. If it seemed a bit shabby, she didn’t notice, since she’d never been inside a doctor’s treatment room in her life. While Culhane cooled his heels in the waiting room, the doctor, reasonably sober at least, gained her confidence and set about earning his money and liquor. He applied the chloroform carelessly, and the operation was even worse. Between the anesthetic and the hemorrhaging, the girl died. This situation, to the doctor at least, seemed like a good reason to treat himself to a few strong drinks while he thought things out.
After a couple hours of waiting in the anteroom, Culhane’s patience was gone and his curiosity at a high pitch. He eased up to the door and sneaked a peek. As luck would have it, the other door leading to the street opened at that same moment, and an indignant bill collector, with a policeman in tow who carried a summons for the doctor’s arrest, charged in. They didn’t take long to realize that between an intoxicated doctor, a dead girl with blood flowing from between her legs, and an upset young man, there was foul play involved.
For the first time in all their prolonged years of crooked ways, a member of the Riley family was hauled off to jail.
The elder Rileys were infuriated. The arrest had attracted the local news media and the Boston papers were filled with lurid stories of the Irish gangster’s son who was an honor student at Harvard, and the death of a poor, innocent immigrant girl brought on by the young cad’s promiscuity. Riley’s law career was permanently ruined, and he was thrown out of Harvard.
The charge against Riley was involuntary manslaughter, but a bribed judged reduced the accusation to conspiracy to abet a felony and gave him a suspended sentence of three years. Tim Riley, Junior, gave the young man a hundred dollars and disowned him.
Kicking Culhane Riley out into the world with a hundred dollars was like turning a lion loose in a herd of zebra. He knew that the big city’s crime scene was pretty tightly sewn up by well-established gangs, so he decided to head out west where there were wide-open spaces and a more primitive form of outlawry that offered ample opportunity for an ambitious and ruthless newcomer to find a niche for himself.
Riley drifted aimlessly for a while, and his fortunes dwindled to the point where he was forced into armed robbery a couple of times. But he ended up in western Arkansas right next to the Indian Territory. He fell in with various groups of whiskey and gun smugglers who sold their goods to both the Five Civilized Tribes and even farther west to their wilder brethren who went by the names of Comanches, Kiowas, and Sioux, among others.
After a year of this profitable activity, Culhane Riley’s organizational skills and talents came into play and he formed his own hand-picked gang. Their first order of business was to eliminate the competition by laying skillful ambushes for small convoys of whiskey and gun wagons. After the men in these parties were murdered, Riley’s gang met the expenses of the operations by looting their goods and peddling the stuff themselves.
But being a city boy finally brought Riley to the point of wanting to settle into a more urban environment, even if it was a small town. He’d been through Lighthorse Creek, J. T., on several occasions. He considered the place perfect to establish a headquarters to actually control a large territory. It was not unlike gang areas of his native Boston. He and his men quickly moved in and took over a section of the community. The townspeople made a few half-hearted attempts to drive him out with hastily hired sheriffs and pistoleros, but Riley and his men dealt with these threats quickly and effectively.
But now, he faced a different sort of adversary. And Riley remembered the newspapers back in Boston that had splashed the story of him and the dead girl all over their front pages. This latest threat from the Lighthorse Creek Sentinel brought back that boiling hatred that he had for journalism.
~*~
Riley seethed inwardly as he finished his brandy. He stared down at the Sentinel building and held the cigar tightly in his clenched teeth. He turned at the knock on his door and looked to see Jake Donner standing there.
“You sent for me, boss?” Jake asked.
“Yeah. I got a special job for you and a couple of the boys,” Riley said. “I want you to go over to that newspaper early tomorrow morning and give that editor kid a going-over that he won’t forget for a hell of a long time.”
“How good a going-over, boss?” Jake asked with a grin.
“Enough to impress him with the seriousness of his attitude,” Riley said. “There’s an outside chance he could prove invaluable to me, so I intend to have him solidly established in my own camp soon.” Jake frowned quizzically. “I don’t understand what you mean, boss.”
“Goddamn it!” Riley exclaimed. “Break his nose and bruise his ribs. Just tell him it’s a message from me and the offer to join me is mandatory.”
“Uh, yeah,” Jake said. “Bruise his nose and break his ribs and, uh ...” He thought hard for a moment. “Tell him—”
“Never mind! I’ll talk to him myself later,” Riley said. “Just knock him around a bit to hurt a little. I don’t want him crippled up.”
Jake smiled. Now he understood perfectly. “Right, boss. Tomorrow morning?”
Riley nodded
. “Tomorrow morning.”
Seventeen
Tom Deacon pulled on the reins to hurry his horse as he led the animal across the shallow rapids of the river.
Both man and mount were near the end of their physical endurance. The only difference was that the human’s spirits were much higher.
Tom fully realized he had escaped the posse that had been chasing him continuously for the previous twenty-four hours. The only thought that nagged his sense of well-being was that another group of the vigilantes might have caught his old friend Yule Quint and left the hapless man swinging at the end of a cruel rope.
The gelding whinnied a tired protest, but calmed down when it realized that its owner was not going to demand any more galloping. Instead, Tom fastened the hobbles around the hooves, and began uncinching the saddle. The faithful animal snorted in appreciation, then turned immediately to nibbling the sweet, green grass around the trees that cast cooling shadows over the river bank.
Tom occupied himself by picking up some dried, fallen branches and breaking them down to campfire size. He arranged a place for them and set about starting the small blaze. Within ten minutes his coffeepot was on, and the first indication of water about to boil soothed his ears. Next came the small cauldron for the beans. These would require at least two hours of cooking before they would be soft enough to eat. But Tom figured he had the time—and enough coffee—to pleasantly pass the afternoon until he could enjoy the grub.
When the coffee was finally ready, the campsite was prepared and comfortably established for the rest of that entire day and the coming night. Tom knew his horse needed at least twenty-four hours to recover from the hellacious running it had been forced to do. The traveler took the first delicious sip of coffee he’d had in nearly four days. Hot, strong, and bitter, it refreshed him and made the world seem a better place. A cooling breeze danced lightly through the tree branches above him, and the shallow water running briskly past his camp made a comforting sound that calmed the nerves and eased back physical tensions.
Tom fully intended to take Yule’s advice and permanently settle in as a lawman in a larger town. It was time he established some roots, he figured, and there was some respectability to be had in a community like that too. A good-sized town would also provide comfortable living quarters. Before, in the small hamlets where he’d served as town marshal or sheriff, he’d found rooms in cheap hotels or in the back of saloons. There would be more women available too, and not just cheap dance-hall gals. Tom grinned as he considered the possibility of really settling in someplace by getting married. Maybe to some widow lady with a boarding house.
He didn’t expect or hope for a peaceful existence. Tom knew he would never escape violence. It almost seemed as if a lifetime filled with chaos and conflict was his destiny. It had begun during his early years on the family’s Texas ranch fighting the weather, snakes, scorpions, outlaws, Mexican bandidos, and Indian raiders. After that had been the four long years in the Confederate army where he’d participated in pitched battles that left vast fields carpeted with the dead. After that was over and done, he drifted back to Texas for a more personal kind of gunplay that came with serving as a lawman.
He also had a stubborn streak that got him into more than just trouble. Many times in his life, his attitudes had forced him into situations where he’d faced dangerous disadvantages. Even in the waning days of a lost war, he’d stuck it out to the last while more logical men had simply walked off and returned home. It was this combination of Texas pride and Rebel grit that always made him hang on to the end—no matter how bitter it was.
Tom smiled again and patted his lean, hard belly. Perhaps he could work himself up into a supervisory spot on some big town’s police department, and grow nice and plump while he sent eager young whips out to keep the peace and make arrests. That would be peaceful enough to suit him.
He took another sip of the coffee and leaned forward to sniff at the beans that were getting close to being ready. At that particular time, life didn’t seem too bad for Tom Deacon.
In fact, it was downright pleasant.
~*~
The bell over the door rang, and Martin set the heavy inking brayer down to see who the caller was.
Three hard types stood on the other side of the counter. “Howdy,” Jake Bonner said.
Martin felt a little uneasy as he walked up to them. “What can I do for you?”
Jake grinned. “My name is Jake Bonner. This here’s my pals Tad Perkins and Frank Colen.” Martin’s face remained impassive. “I asked if there was something I might do for you.”
“Why, we come over to learn something about this here newspaper of yours.”
Martin shrugged. “There’s not much to explain,” he said coldly. “If you’ve read it and understand it, you know everything there is to know.”
Jake walked around the counter with Tad Perkins and Frank Colen following. The leader of the three reached out and grabbed Martin’s apron. “I’d allow as to how I don’t like what’s in your damn shit sheet.”
Martin’s face blanched in anger, and he twisted away. “Let go of me!”
Tad Perkins laughed. “You’re a feisty little banty rooster, ain’t you?”
“Tell me,” Martin said. “Did Culhane Riley send you? I know he is too cowardly to do his own dirty work.”
Jake’s smile faded. “You don’t talk about the boss like ’at, boy.” His fist swept out, striking Martin in the midsection.
Martin doubled over in pain. “Get—get out of here!”
Now Frank Colen moved in. He slammed a heavy opened hand down on the back of the newspaperman’s head, knocking him to the floor.
Martin tried to scramble to his feet, but he caught a vicious kick in the ribs from Tad’s boots. “You wrote some bad shit on me, boy.” He motioned to Jake. “Tell him what he wrote, Jake.” Jake pulled a folded copy of the Sentinel from his back pocket and unfolded it. “Lemme see.” He scanned the editorial page for the article. “It’s right here. He said you was ‘a callous villain, so evil as to cause the sen— sensi— sensi —’”
“Sensibilities!” Martin snapped from his position on the floor.
“Right,” Jake said. “The ‘sensibilities of decent men to feel the utmost rev— revul— revulsion.’ ”
“That ain’t nice, is it?” Tad asked.
“Hell, no, you damned fool!” Martin yelled. “I didn’t mean it to be nice.” Now he got to his feet, gingerly holding his bruised side. “And I’ll say it to your face! You are despicable and cowardly.”
Tad leaped forward and began beating Martin. The punches were instinctive and uncontrolled, but effective. The small youth fought back valiantly but he stood no chance with the larger, enraged man.
Jake grabbed Tad and flung him back. “The boss said he didn’t want his damn face all smashed up!” Tad’s face was distorted with rage. “He called me a bad name and cowardly!”
Martin hissed through his bloody mouth. “You’re a no-good rotten son of a bitch! Can you understand that, you God-damned loutish swine?”
Tad leaped forward again. This time it took Frank’s help to hold him back. The insulted man roared in uncontrolled fury. ‘I’ll kill you, you little bastard!” He struggled to draw his pistol, but his two companions wrestled him to the floor and finally subdued him.
“Get him outta here,” Jake told Frank.
“Right.” Frank Colen pulled and pushed Tad outside.
Jake turned to Martin and pointed a finger at him. “This is just a warning, Blazer. Any more shit outta you in that damn newspaper and you’re a dead man. And the boss wants to have a word or two more with you. It’d be best for your ass if you paid heed to what he’s gonna be telling you. Understand?”
“You go to hell!”
“You been told, boy.” Jake went outside to help Frank wrestle Tad across the street and back to the west side.
Martin stared out the window at the trio until they went inside the Silk Garter. After they d
isappeared into the saloon, he went to the back of the office and stepped out into the alley, he had no water in his own building, but Earl Tobey had a cistern at the back of his barber shop. He went over to the pump and worked the handle until he’d drawn a half bucketful.
The door of the tonsorium opened. Earl Tobey stuck his head out. “What the hell’s the matter with you, Martin?”
Martin looked up from dousing his bloody features. He didn’t mince words. “Culhane Riley sent three of his henchmen over to beat me. As you can see, they did a fair job.”
“By God, boy!” Earl said angrily. He came out into the alley. “Get inside so’s I can tend to you proper.”
They went into Earl’s shop and he cranked down the chair. “Get on there.”
Martin stretched out. “Oof!” His ribs now complained bitterly of the rough treatment received from Tad’s boots.
Earl worked quickly and expertly. “I’ll wash you up some, then we’ll get you down to Doc Cranston for a proper look-over.”
“I just want to get the blood off so people won’t stare at me,” Martin said. Suddenly he sat up. The pain was excruciating. “Ow!”
“What the hell did you do that for?” Earl demanded.
“By God! I do want people to look at me.” Martin struggled to get off the chair, he lurched toward the door. “Maybe they’ll see that I’m serious in fighting Culhane Riley.” He limped outside and almost bumped into Abbie on her way to her father’s store.
She screamed and grabbed him. “What’s happened to you, Martin? I went down to the newspaper to find you.”
Martin, glad that his nose had started bleeding again, stood up as straight as he could. “I’ve had my first run-in with Culhane Riley!” He turned and walked down the street toward Doctor Cranston’s office with Earl and Abbie following.
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