White Lightning (22 page)

“No problem there,” said Rafferty. “Another incident or two and he’s convinced that he can get approval for a clearance of the reservation’s eastern half. We’ll have first bid, at bargain rates.”

“Well, then,” Gallagher said, “I guess there’s nothing left for me to do but make your marshals disappear.”

Grady Sullivan was waiting when the captain left Rafferty’s office. Sitting at a table by himself, he waited for the bluecoats to clear out before he rose and made his way back to the big man’s lair and knocked.

“Enter!”

Sullivan closed the door securely before speaking. “Did you get it sorted out?”

“Gallagher’s motivated,” Rafferty replied. “He has my every confidence.”

“Still say I coulda handled it myself.”

“No pouting, Grady. You’ve done everything I asked of you and cleaned up that mistake with Fawcett, too.”

“Not
my
mistake,” said Sullivan.

“Let’s not split hairs. You chose the men to deal with him. They failed. I’m not assigning blame for that. Who would’ve thought that milksop could’ve got the drop on Jeb and Dooley, anyhow?”

“Still haven’t found ’em,” Sullivan replied.

“Forget those idjits. If they aren’t dead, after letting Fawcett slip, they should be smart enough to keep on running. Focus on what matters now.”

“You think the army needs my help?”

“I think we need better security around the Rocking R,” said Rafferty. “It’s plain to me these marshals must’ve paid a visit to the spread with no one noticing. I can’t believe they happened on our shipment just by serendipity. Can you?”

The hell is
serendipity? thought Sullivan. “I reckon not.”

“Well, then. Rather than pull up stakes and find a new home for the still, we need to make sure that our people keep their damned eyes open, eh? No more careless mistakes. I don’t intend to kick wind just because some lazy bastard’s sleeping on the job. Do you?”

“No, sir.” Sullivan didn’t fancy hanging, no matter whose fault it was.

“Then we’re agreed. We need guards posted day and night, watching the road and property. No more intruders slipping through.”

“I hear you, Boss.”

“Perfect. I’ll leave you to it, then, while Captain Gallagher deals with our other problem.”

“And what happens if he can’t?”

“Why, then, you’ll get your chance. And if it serves our purpose, you can deal with him, as well.”

Sullivan nearly smiled at that but didn’t want to press his luck. Instead, he left the big man’s office and the Sunflower Saloon, bound for the Rocking R. To kick some ass and make damn sure things didn’t fall apart.

Or if they
did,
make sure he’d have ample time to get the hell away.

The burned-out whiskey wagon was a mess, its form unrecognizable beyond the rims of its four wheels, their axles, and its metal tongue protruding from a heap of ashes. Mixed up in the ash, Slade spotted small nails from the former crates and shards of blackened glass from bottles that had burst with the ignition of their volatile contents. Whatever might have passed for evidence was well and truly gone.

Like Percy Fawcett, lying over at the undertaker’s parlor with his throat stitched back together for his funeral. Who would attend the send-off? Stopping by that morning, after breakfast at the Grub Stake, Slade was told that no one had come forward, yet, to claim the body or arrange for any kind of service. Fawcett’s religious leanings, if he’d had any, meant nothing with no minister or church in town, but one more unclaimed body meant another grave in potter’s field.

And once again, no evidence for Slade to use against Flynn Rafferty.

So far, he had his word and Naylor’s that they’d seen the whiskey wagon leave the Rocking R—an observation rendered inadmissible since they’d been trespassing without a warrant. Same thing with the whiskey stashed at Stateline Storage. As for Fawcett’s claim that he had shown Bill Tanner’s telegram to Rafferty’s head shooter, only Slade’s word
would support it now. The latest victim hadn’t lasted long enough to share the tale with Naylor.

Leaving them with nada. Nothing.

Slade was on his way to rendezvous with Naylor at the dry goods store and make their way around the local shops with questions about Rafferty, for what it might be worth, when someone called out “Marshal!” from behind him. He turned back to find a captain of the cavalry approaching, four more soldiers grouped a half-block farther east, just idling.

“So, the army’s in,” Slade said.

“A few of us. I’m Captain Gallagher.”

Slade shook the officer’s extended hand. “Jack Slade. What brings you up to Stateline?”

“We got word one of your colleagues may have run afoul of hostiles,” Gallagher replied.

“Who told you that?”

“It was reported back to Fort Supply. His injuries—”

“We now believe were meant to look like Indians had killed him,” Slade cut in. “And who’d you say reported it, again?”

The captain frowned. “I can’t be sure,” he said. “Maybe the reservation agent? I get orders and I go where I’ve been told to go. You say the injuries were
faked
?”

“Oh, they were real enough to kill him,” Slade confirmed. “We just don’t think that it was done by Indians.”

“I see.” The captain’s frown gave him an almost mournful look. “You won’t mind if I still pursue the other angle, just in case you’re wrong?”

“Feel free. You won’t be in our way.”

“You have another marshal with you, I believe.”

“Around here somewhere,” Slade agreed.

“Perhaps I’ll meet him later on?”

“I wouldn’t be surprised.”

“We’ll leave you to it, then.”

Slade watched the officer rejoin his men, a couple of the others sliding glances toward him while their leader spoke. The huddle hadn’t broken up when Slade moved on, crossing the street and angling toward the dry goods store, with Naylor waiting for him on the sidewalk.

“Reinforcements?” Luke inquired, as Slade approached.

“They reckon Indians killed Tanner,” Slade replied.

“Who sent ’em?”

“Funny you should ask. The captain didn’t seem too sure of that, himself.”

“Trouble?”

“I wouldn’t like to think so,” Slade replied. “But keep your eyes peeled, anyway.”

Their canvass of the town’s shopkeepers yielded nothing. Everyone in Stateline knew Flynn Rafferty, of course, though some only admitted knowing him by sight and seemed evasive while confessing that. Others were quick to sing his praises, but their comments struck Slade as repetitive, almost rehearsed, as if they’d been presented with a script to follow if and when a stranger raised Rafferty’s name in conversation. Wariness appeared to be the rule of thumb, with two of those they spoke to—O’Malley, the barber, and a lawyer named Coltrane—going overboard in listing the saloon proprietor’s outstanding qualities.

“Salt of the earth,” said Naylor, as they left the lawyer’s office. “Did he really say that?”

“Nothing wrong with your ears,” Slade confirmed.

“You get the feeling certain folks in town are scared of Rafferty?”

“I’d say they should be, after last night’s work.”

“And we can’t touch him,” Naylor said.

“Not legally. Not yet.”

“Sounds like you’ve got something in mind, Jack.”

“We know where he cooks his ’shine, right?” Slade pressed on, not waiting for an answer. “And we know he’ll have another shipment moving out, sooner or later.”

“Sounds like we’ll be camping out.”

“Unless you’ve got another thought on how to pin him down.”

“Can’t say I do,” Naylor admitted. “But you have to figure they’ll be watching for us.”

“Doesn’t mean they’ll see us,” Slade replied.

“It’s chancy.”

“Granted.”

“Say we grab another wagon. What’s the plan to keep from losing it?”

“First thing, we try to keep the crew alive. Then head straight back to Enid, without stopping off in Stateline.”

“With the whole bunch after us.”

“Could be. Or we give up for now, go back, and tell Judge Dennison what’s happened. See what he thinks should be done to put it right.”

“I’d hate to stand before him empty-handed,” Naylor said.

“Well, then.”

“We’ll need food to tide us over. Something we don’t have to cook, so there’s no fire.”

“Three restaurants in town,” Slade said. “They must have something we can carry out.”

“And we could use a couple more canteens,” said Naylor.

“Saw some at the hardware store,” Slade said.

“You want to tip the soldiers where we’re going?”

“Rather not,” said Slade.

“So it’s like that?”

“Let’s say I’d like to play it safe.”

“One way to check on them would be to telegraph the fort,” Naylor suggested.

“Right. Except the town’s telegrapher is laid out waiting for his funeral.”

“Somebody else in town might have the knack.”

“One of the people we’ve been talking to?”

“Guess not. I thought about learning the Morse code once,” said Naylor. “Never got around to it.”

“I’d say it’s too late now.”

“You think the judge will reimburse us for the new canteens?”

“Can’t hurt to ask. You want to get them?”

“Might as well,” said Naylor.

“Fine. I’ll get the food.”

“No hardtack, though. It hurts my teeth.”

They separated, moving off in opposite directions on their errands. Slade felt energized once more, after a night of pondering a new approach to Rafferty’s arrest. The course they’d mapped was hazardous, but nothing else had yet occurred to him.

Nothing to do but play it out,
he thought.
And hope to still be breathing when tomorrow comes.

Captain Gallagher stood on the shaded sidewalk with his men, watching the marshals take their leave of Stateline. He already had a fair idea where they were going, back out to the Rocking R, and there was nothing he could do about it.

Nothing
legal
, anyhow.

That hadn’t been the plan, of course, when Rafferty had called him from his post at Fort Supply. Legality had never been an issue. Gallagher was needed to resolve a problem quickly, for the big man’s benefit and for his own.

It rankled, summoned and commanded by a mere civilian, but he’d cast his lot with Rafferty, for better or for worse. Retirement on a soldier’s pension didn’t suit him when there was a fortune to be made and shared among a few bold men of vision. Rafferty had hatched the plan with Berringer, the agent reaching out to Gallagher because, it seemed, he was a savvy judge of character. Together, with a friend or two in Washington, their dream would soon be realized.

Some redskins would be pushed aside, of course. So what? They should be used to it by now. Four hundred years since they had first been rousted by the Spanish, nearly three since English colonists had staked their claim back East, and every day since then the native tribes had been propelled steadily westward. If they weren’t accustomed to it yet, to hell with them.

“We gonna trail ’em, Captain?” Sergeant Bonner asked him.

“That’s the plan. Give them a lead, so they don’t feel us breathing down their necks, then catch up with them on the way.”

“You think they’s any good?” asked Private French, of no one in particular.

“They’re U.S. marshals,” Private Sowder answered.

“Don’t prove nothin’,” Private Wetzel offered, “till you’ve seen ’em shoot.”

“Won’t need to see it, if we do this right,” said Bonner.

“You have a plan, Sergeant?” asked Gallagher.

“Two ways to do it, sir. Come up behind ’em, actin’ friendly-like, then all cut loose,” Bonner explained. “Or ride around and get in front of ’em. Set up an ambush.”

“Flat country,” Gallagher reminded him. “To get ahead, we’d have to circle wide out of our way, and still we might not find a decent place to wait. Might even lose them if they try a shortcut.”

“Only leaves one way to go, then,” Bonner said.

“Agreed.”

The two lawmen had passed from sight now, turning north once they were clear of Border Boulevard. They’d still be visible to someone watching from the eastern edge of town, though. The captain was in no great hurry as he led his soldiers toward the livery.

From this day forward, Gallagher was bound to Bonner and the others by the crime they were about to carry out. He didn’t like it—hadn’t planned on taking anybody with him when he left the army to retire in luxury—but there were ways around that, too.

No end of ways to cut the ties that bind.

“You think they’ll ship another batch of ’shine right off?” asked Naylor when they were a mile or so from town.

“Can’t guarantee it,” Slade replied, “but Rafferty most likely has a list of buyers waiting for the shipment that we intercepted. He’s a businessman, which means he won’t like disappointing customers.”

“Makes sense. But if he knows we’re watching him, he might try sending it around some other way.”

Slade had considered that. The land around the Rocking R was flat enough to let a wagon pass, once it had cleared the sea of corn, but travel overland would still present its share of difficulties and require more time than traveling along established roads. Unless a route was charted in advance, a shipment might be stopped by obstacles that forced the driver to retreat and start afresh, uncertain when or how he’d make it through at last.