Kinch Riley / Indian Territory

by Matt Braun

  The cowhands cackled uproariously, slapping one another on the back as they marveled at the sheer artistry of it. Goddamn if Hughie hadn’t done it again, they shouted back and forth. Come up with a real lalapalooza! On the whole they looked proud as punch, as if the sentence rendered by Anderson somehow reflected their own good judgment. The jeers and catcalls they directed at the lawmen made it clear that they wanted no time lost in getting the show on the road.

  Hazeltine began shaking like a dog passing peach pits, and it was plain to everyone watching that he was scared out of his wits. Without his badge to hide behind, divested of even his clothes, there was no telling what these crazy Texans would do to him. He had thought to talk them back over to the southside once they’d had their fun, but it was obvious now that he would be lucky to escape with his life. The fear showed in his face, and not unlike a small child being marched to the woodshed, he started peeling off his shirt.

  McCluskie just stood there.

  Anderson eyed him a moment, then grinned. “Hoss, you better get to strippin’. Jellyguts there’ll outrun you six ways to Sunday if you try racin’ in them boots.”

  The Irishman met and held his gaze. “I guess I’ll stand pat.”

  “Cousin, you don’t seem to get the picture. I ain’t offered you a choice. I only told you how it was gonna be. Sabe?”

  McCluskie did something funny with his wrist and a .41 Derringer appeared in his hand, cocked and centered squarely on the Texan’s chest. “Your boys might get me, but I’ll pull this trigger before I go down. What d’ya say, check or bet?”

  “Well now, don’t that beat all? Got himself a hideout gun.” Anderson was laughing but he didn’t make any sudden moves. At that range the Derringer would bore a hole the size of a silver dollar. “I got to hand it to you, cousin. You’re bold as brass, damned if you ain’t.”

  “Yeah, but I get nervous when I’m spooked. You talk much more and this popgun’s liable to go off in your face.”

  Anderson studied him a couple of seconds, then shrugged. “What the hell? It wouldn’t have been much of a race anyhow.”

  “Judas Priest, Hugh!” Bailey scuttled forward, waving his pistol like a divining rod. “Don’t let him back you down. He’s runnin’ a sandy. Can’t you see that?”

  “Bailey, my second shot’s for you.” McCluskie’s voice was so low the Texans had to strain to catch his words. “Keep talkin’ and you’ll get an extra hole right between your eyes.”

  “Back off, Billy!” Anderson’s command stopped Bailey dead in his tracks. “Trouble with you is you never could tell a bluff from the real article. He’s holdin’ the goods.”

  Bailey kicked at a clod of dirt and walked off. After a moment Anderson’s mouth cracked in a tight smile. “McCluskie, we’ll just write this off to unfinished business. There’s always another day. Now, why don’t you make tracks before some of my boys get itchy?”

  “What about Hazeltine?” the Irishman asked.

  “What about him?”

  “I thought maybe I’d just take him along with me.”

  “Don’t push your luck, cousin.” Anderson scowled and the feverish glow again lighted his eyes. “Our deal don’t include him.”

  When McCluskie hesitated, he laughed. “Mebbe you’re thicker’n I thought. You got some notion of gettin’ yourself killed over a two-bit marshal?”

  McCluskie glanced at the lawman out of the corner of his eye, then shook his head. “Nope. Just figured it was worth a try.”

  “So you tried,” Anderson remarked, dismissing him with a jerk of his head. “See you in church.”

  The Irishman stepped off the boardwalk and backed away, keeping Anderson covered as he circled around the milling horses. Once clear, he saw Spivey and Judge Muse standing in the doorway of the Lone Star and made a beeline to join them. Both men looked grim as death warmed over, and at the sight of the Derringer in his hand they paled visibly. While they had caught only snatches of the conversation between Anderson and the Irishman, there was no need to ask questions. It was all too obvious that a killing had been averted by only the slimmest of margins. McCluskie retrieved his pistol from the street and came to stand beside them in the doorway.

  Tonk Hazeltine was left the star attraction of the Texans’ impromptu theatrical. Accompanied by a chorus of gibes and hooting laughter, he skinned out of his clothing a piece at a time. Shirt, gunbelt, pants, and boots hit the street in rapid succession, and at last he stood before them in nothing but his longjohns and hat. Bare to the waist, he made a ludicrous figure, like some comic scarecrow being ridiculed by a flock of birds. Half-naked, humiliated in the eyes of the townspeople, he had been stripped of much more than his clothes. The reputation he had brought to Newton was gone, vanished in an instant of shame, and with it the last vestiges of his backbone.

  He stood alone and cowering, a broken man.

  The Texans gave him a head start and choused him south across the tracks at a shambling lope. His hat flew off as he passed the depot and every few steps they dusted his heels with a flurry of gunshots. All along the street the sporting crowd jammed the boardwalks watching in stunned silence as his ordeal was played out to its conclusion. Never once did Hazeltine utter a sound, but his eyes were wild and terror-stricken, and tears sluiced down over his cheeks even as he ran. The last they saw of him, he was limping aimlessly across the prairie, a solitary wanderer on the road to his own private hell.

  Anderson and Bailey hadn’t joined in the chase. They watched from in front of Horner’s Store, seemingly content to let the cowhands share whatever glory remained in the final act. Now, grinning and thoroughly delighted with themselves, they became aware of the three men standing outside the Lone Star. Anderson reined his horse about, with Bailey walking alongside, and they crossed the street. Halting a few paces off, the cattleman gave McCluskie a gloating smile, then turned his attention to Spivey and Muse.

  “Gents, it would appear your little metropolis needs itself a new marshal.”

  Judge Muse bristled and shook his finger at the Texan. “Anderson, you’ve brought yourself a peck of trouble. That was a deputy sheriff you ran off, which makes this a county matter. Tomorrow at the latest the sheriff himself will be up here with a warrant for your arrest.”

  “Is that a fact?” Anderson studied him with mock seriousness for a moment, as if amused by the jabber of a backward child. “What would you like to bet that the sheriff don’t get within ten miles of Newton?”

  Bailey laughed, plainly taken with the idea. “Yeah, he ain’t comin’ up here to pull your fat out of the fire. Hell, we’d send him hightailin’ in his drawers the same as Hazeltine.”

  “Which come election time,” Anderson added, “might look real bad to the voters. Or don’t you gents agree?”

  The logic of Anderson’s argument was all too persuasive. Spivey and the judge exchanged bemused glances, and in the look was admission of defeat. Whatever help there was for Newton wouldn’t come from a sheriff whose bread was buttered by Wichita voters. The town was on its own, and like storm clouds gathering in a darkened sky, it was plain for all to see.

  “By damn, it don’t end there,” Spivey declared. “We’ll just hire ourselves a marshal of our own. That’s what we should’ve done in the first place.”

  Anderson leaned forward, crossing his arms over the saddlehorn. “Now I’m glad you brought that up. Fact is, I was thinkin’ along the same lines myself.”

  Muse eyed him suspiciously. “I fail to see where it concerns you.”

  “That’s where you’re wrong, judge. Case you don’t know it, me and my boys have got this town treed. Just offhand, I’d say that gives us quite a voice in who gets picked as lawdog.”

  “By any chance,” Muse sniffed, “were you thinking of nominating yourself for the job?”

  “You got a sense of humor, old man. I like that.” Anderson grinned and dropped his hand on Bailey’s shoulder. “No, the feller I had in mind was Billy here. With him totin’ that b
adge you’d have a townful of the friendliest bunch of Texans you ever seen.”

  Spivey’s face purpled with rage. “I’ll kiss a pig’s tail before that happens. Newton’s not gonna have any back-stabbin’ jackleg for a marshal.”

  Bailey jerked as if stung by a wasp and started forward. “Swizzleguts, I’m gonna clean your plow.”

  McCluskie had been standing back observing, but now he shifted away from the door. “Bailey, you’re liable to start something you can’t finish.”

  The Texan stopped short and his beady eyes narrowed in a scowl. “Big tough Mick, aren’t you? Think you’re fast enough to take both of us?”

  McCluskie smiled, waiting. “There’s one way to find out.”

  Anderson had seen other men smile that way. Cold and taunting, eager somehow, like a hungry cat. The odds didn’t suit him and he very carefully left his arms folded over the saddlehorn. Bailey glanced around, suddenly aware that he was playing a lone hand. After a moment he grunted, ripping the deputy badge from his shirt, and flung it to the ground.

  “Jam it! I got better things to do anyway.”

  Everybody stood there and looked at each other for a while and it was finally Anderson who broke the stalemate. “Judge, you and Spivey oughta think it over. Not go off half-cocked, if y’see what I mean. You put that tin star on anybody besides Billy and I got an idea Newton’s in for hard times.”

  Then his gaze fell on the Irishman. “You’ve braced me twice today. Third time out and your number’s up.”

  McCluskie gave him the same frozen smile. “Don’t bet your life on it.”

  Anderson reined his horse back and rode off toward the southside. Trailing behind, Bailey ambled along like a bear with a sore paw. From the doorway of the Lone Star, the three men watched after them, and at last Spivey let out his breath between clenched teeth.

  “Christ!”

  Late that afternoon nine men gathered in the small backroom office of the Lone Star. Among them were saloonkeepers, businessmen, one judge, and a blacksmith. They comprised the Town Board, and their chairman, Bob Spivey, had called them into emergency session. None of them questioned why they were there, or that a crisis existed. But as they stood around the smoke-filled room staring at one another, few of the men had any real hope of solving what seemed an insoluble mess.

  When the last member arrived, Spivey rapped on his desk for order and stood to face them. “Men, I’m not gonna waste time rehashin’ what’s happened today. Most of you saw it for yourselves, and them that didn’t has heard the particulars more’n once by now. The thing is, we’ve got ourselves a real stemwinder of a problem, and before we leave here we’re gonna have to figure out what to do about it. Otherwise you can kiss the town of Newton good-by. That goes for whatever money you’ve got invested here, too. Now, instead of me blabberin’ on about the fix we’ve got ourselves in, I’m gonna throw the floor open for discussion. Who’s first?”

  The men looked around at one another, hesitant to take the lead, and after a moment Randolph Muse cleared his throat. Rising from his chair, he studied each face in turn, as if in the hope of discovering some chink in their stony expressions. Though he had tussled with the problem all afternoon, he had yet to settle on the best approach. They were a disparate group, with conflicting interests and loyalties, and it would be no simple matter to hammer out an accord. Not a man among them could be bullied, and logic was an equation foreign to their character. That narrowed the alternatives considerably. Leaving perhaps only one appeal which might muster some solidarity in what lay before them.

  “Gentlemen, what I have to say will be short and straight to the point. Where there is no law all values disappear. Whether on life or on property. Newton was founded on a cornerstone of greed, and I think each of us is honest enough to admit that to ourselves. We came here hoping to make our fortune, and for no other reason. Unless we restore law and order to this town there is every likelihood we will leave here paupers.”

  He paused, screwing up his most judicious frown. “Without restraints of some sort, the Texans will turn this into one big graveyard long before you can unload your business on some unwary sucker. If you don’t believe that, you have only to wait and watch it happen.”

  Val Gregory lashed out angrily. “That’s a lot of hot air. I say give the drovers their way. They’re about the only ones that come in my place, and goddamnit, I don’t mean to bite the hand that feeds me. You think about it a minute and most of you’ll see that you’re rowin’ the same boat.”

  Perry Tuttle, the dancehall impresario, readily agreed. But the others evidenced less certainty, muttering and shaking their heads as they tried to unravel what seemed a very tangled web. Seth Mabry, still covered with grime from the smithy, pounded a meaty fist into the palm of his hand.

  “No, by God, I don’t agree. It’s like the judge says. You give in to ’em, and make Bill Bailey marshal, and we’ll wind up presidin’ over a wake.”

  “That’s right,” Sam Homer growled. “Inside of a month they’d tear this town down around our ears.”

  Charlie Hoff and John Hamil, whose stores were south of the tracks, both chimed in with quick support. That seemed to shift the scales off center, and for a minute everybody just stood around and glared at one another.

  Harry Lovett, who operated the Gold Room, finally sounded a note of moderation. “Seems to me we’re all after the same thing. It’s just a matter of how we get it. Hell, nobody wants to rankle the Texans. Most of my business is with highrollers, but I still turn a nice profit on the cowhands. The long and the tall of it boils down to one thing. We can’t operate in a town where every store and saloon and dancehall has to be its own law. That’d be like fightin’ a fire with a willow switch. There just wouldn’t be no stoppin’ it. What we need is somebody the drovers respect. Just between us, I don’t think Bailey’s the man.”

  The gambler had presented a convincing argument, and before anyone could object, Bob Spivey came out swinging. “Harry, you hit the nail right on the head. Only I’d take it a step farther. What we need is not so much a man they respect, but a man they’re afraid of. We’ve got the same problem Abilene had, and everybody here knows how they solved it. Bear River Tom Smith and Wild Bill Hickok. Texans are like any other jackass. You can’t reason with ‘em and being nice to ’em is a waste of time. You’ve got to teach ’em that every time they step out of line somebody’s gonna get a busted skull. That’s the only thing they understand.”

  The men stared back at him, somewhat dumbstruck by his heated tone. Spivey wasn’t a violent man, and when he used words that strong it seemed prudent to weigh them carefully. None of them said anything simply because there was no way to refute his statement. It was all true.

  After a while Val Gregory grunted and gave him a wry look. “I suppose you just happen to have a man in mind?”

  Spivey walked to the door, yanked it open, and gestured to someone in the saloon. There was a brief wait and a slight stir of expectancy, but it came as no great surprise when McCluskie entered the office.

  “Boys, I think you all know Mike McCluskie.” Spivey slammed the door, and while everybody was still nodding, he gave them another broadside. “Mike, if we was to appoint you city marshal, how would you go about handlin’ the Texans?”

  McCluskie saw no reason to mince words. “Same as I would a mean dog. Educate ‘em as to who’s boss. That’d likely mean some skinned heads, and maybe even some shootin’. But it’s the only thing that’d get the job done.”

  “What about the Santa Fe?” Perry Tuttle asked. “Wouldn’t think they’d hold still for you gettin’ mixed up in a thing like this.”

  “I cleared it with ’em this afternoon.” The Irishman nodded at Spivey. “Soon as Bob put it to me I got on the telegraph.”

  Sam Homer rubbed his jaw and looked thoughtful. “Where would you start? Educatin’ the Texans, I mean.”

  McCluskie smiled. “Best way to kill a snake is to cut his head off.”

&nbs
p; The room went still and Spivey glanced around at the solemn faces. “Anybody opposed?”

  When none of the men offered objection, he pulled out a badge and pinned it to McCluskie’s shirt. Then he sighed wearily and a grave smile touched the corners of his mouth.

  “Marshal, I guess you better get to killin’ snakes.”

  TWELVE

  McCluskie wasted little time. What he had in mind depended not so much on nerve or guts or even luck. It required mainly an element of surprise. The Texans had to be taken off guard, hit fast when they least expected it. But if it was to work he had to make his move before the board members scattered and spread the word. Otherwise the chances of taking Anderson and Bailey unawares would be pretty well eliminated.

  While Spivey and the board were still hashing it around, he excused himself and made a hasty exit from the Lone Star. None of them expected anything rash on his part—they were the kind that believed in coppering their bets—and it would never occur to them that he might go the limit strictly on his own hook. That gave him an edge of perhaps a quarter hour, certainly no more. He meant to use it to best advantage.

  His advantage.

  Turning south, he crossed the tracks past the depot and began checking saloons along the street. His plan was already formulated, had been since that afternoon, yet he wasn’t fooling himself about the risks. It boiled down to one of two things. Brace Anderson outright or make an object lesson out of Bailey. The latter alternative seemed the slicker move. Dusting Bailey off would serve as warning, and it might just avert a showdown with Anderson and his crew. That was something he wanted to avoid if at all possible, for Anderson had the men and the guns to turn Newton into a battleground. Still, the plan fairly bristled with danger. There were simply too many unknowns. If he had guessed wrong, and Anderson decided to deal himself a hand, the fat was in the fire.