Jurisdiction Page 9

  “There’s bounty on me,” said Lester. “I’m worth hauling back dead. You make something, I get a good wooden box. What do you say?”

  “I’ll tell the bounty hunters where to find you. But I’m not after any reward money,” said Sam. “Now turn loose of that horse.”

  A look of resolve came over the wounded outlaw’s face. “You want it, you’ll have to take it,” said Lester, clutching the stirrup with one hand, his free hand going to the pistol on his hip.

  “That’s what I figured,” said Sam.

  The pistol shot rolled across the plain like summer thunder.

  PART 2

  Chapter 8

  Sam Burrack had been sitting atop Lester Phelps’s dun, looking back toward the hills through the increasing snowfall, knowing that whatever traces remained of the Odle boy and the wounded Indian would be gone by morning. But there was nothing he could do about it now, Sam reminded himself. He looked back at the Appaloosa stallion on the lead rope behind him. Then he heard the sound of a hoof striking a rock and saw Red Booker leading his horse toward him.

  “Don’t shoot, Ranger,” said Booker, drawing nearer, “it’s only me.”

  “Where’s the rest of the posse?” Sam asked.

  “They’re coming along,” said Red Booker. “We’ve had no luck finding the Ganstons, so we’re headed back for Hubbler Wells. How’s it going for you? Any sign of that Injun or the kid?”

  “No,” Sam lied. “I caught up to one of the gang, though.”

  Booker looked at the horse beneath the Ranger, then at the Appaloosa on the lead rope. “What happened?”

  “He clipped my stallion with gravel. I had to take his horse to get back to town.”

  “Is he dead?” Booker asked, looking around as if to find a body.

  “Yep. He’s an hour or better back there, just above the flatlands on a hill trail. If you want the bounty, he’s all yours.”

  “Colonel Fuller will be much obliged,” said Booker. The Ranger couldn’t help but notice a begrudging attitude.

  “It was nothing I did,” said Sam. “I just happened along. He tried to ambush me. I shot him.”

  “I didn’t say anything, did I?” said Booker.

  “You didn’t have to,” Sam replied.

  Before either man could speak again, Colonel Fuller’s voice called out from a few yards away. “Red? Who’s that with you?” the colonel asked.

  “It’s the Ranger, Burrack,” said Barker.

  “Oh? The Ranger, eh?” Fuller came forward at the head of the riders.

  Sam and Booker both sat silent, watching Fuller and the others appear gradually from the white swirl. “Well, young man,” Fuller said to Sam Burrack, looking around and seeing no outlaws draped across his horse’s back, “I see you’ve had no luck, either.”

  “He shot another one, Colonel,” Booker cut in. “Said the body is back there for the taking along the hill trail.”

  “I’ll be damned,” the colonel growled under his steaming breath. A grumble stirred among the men. Then Talbert French nudged his horse forward a step.

  “I ain’t proud,” said French. “If he’s offering, I say let’s take him up on it.”

  “Is that it, Ranger?” Fuller asked. “You don’t want to claim the bounty?”

  “If I did, I’d be toting the body with me, Colonel,” said Sam, shaking his head. “I told you, I’m only after the man who killed my fellow Ranger.”

  “Then what do you say, Colonel?” Talbert French asked, getting eager. “It’s honest money.”

  Colonel Fuller nodded, looking a little embarrassed. “Yeah, all right, go on, French.” He waved the man away. “Take Texas Bob with you.”

  “I haven’t seen Texas Bob since last night, Colonel,” said French. “I fear he’s deserted on us.”

  “That damned drunkard,” Fuller grumbled under his breath, looking all around as if Texas Bob might appear. “Then take Erskine Brock with you. Between the two of you, maybe you won’t get lost.”

  “You might want to wait about sending them back there, Colonel Fuller,” Sam offered in a quiet tone. “The way this snow is falling, it’s going to be hard traveling by nightfall. Might be wise to wait till morning.”

  “I think my men are capable of riding a few miles on their own, Ranger,” said Fuller. “The rest of us are going to make a wide swing west on our way back to town.”

  “Suit yourselves,” said Sam. “See you in Hubbler Wells.” Without another word he nudged the dun forward, leading the injured Appaloosa. He wasn’t going to mention the hoofprints he’d been following when Lester Phelps ambushed him. For the boy’s sake, Sam wanted to keep the posse away from Willie John’s trail. By the time these two made it back to Lester’s body, Sam could only hope the snow had covered all tracks into the hills. From the looks of the weather, anybody up in those hills wasn’t going anywhere for a while. He’d get back on their trail as soon as the snowfall lifted.

  Ten yards along the flatland trail, Sam looked back long enough to see that two of Fuller’s men had separated from the others and were headed in the direction of the body he’d left lying in the dirt. “Fools,” he murmured under his breath. Seeing the two men turn in their saddles and look toward him through the thickening white swirl, Sam shook his head and rode on.

  “He’s too damn uppity and cocksure of himself to suit me,” said Talbert French, tugging his hat down tighter on his head and tucking a ragged wool muffler up across his face. He turned his horse, Erskine Brock doing the same beside him and they moved forward at a slow walk.

  “Maybe he knows what he’s talking about,” said Erskine Brock. “I can’t see no harm in waiting for this weather to lift. It ain’t like that body’s going anywhere, is it?”

  “Coyotes will get to it by then, you idiot,” Talbert French sneered behind his muffler. “If you’re scared, you can just as well stay here.”

  “I ain’t scared of nothing,” Brock snapped back at him, “but I don’t see no sense in taking unnecessary chances, either.”

  “Relax,” said French. “Suppose I was to tell you I had three full bottles of unopened rye in my saddlebags? Would that calm you any?”

  “Are you joshing me, Talbert?” Brock gave him a dubious look. “Where in the world would you get three bottles of rye whiskey?”

  French cut him a glance, his eyes revealing little above the edge of the ragged muffler. “It fell out of the sky to me. Where do you think I got it? I got it from the bar when everybody was watching that Ranger buffalo the colonel.” He tapped his gloved fingers to the side of his hat. “Some of us use our heads, Erskine.”

  Brock grinned now. “Well, pull it out if you’ve got it. It’s a welcome companion in this weather.”

  “I thought that might change your mood some,” said French, bringing his horse to a halt as he reached a hand back into his saddlebags. “I’ve been waiting for an opportunity to take a snort. I wasn’t about to mention it to none of them buzzards, take a chance on them telling Booker or the colonel about it.” He pulled up a corked bottle, inspected it closely in the falling snow, then pitched it to Erskine Brock.

  “Whoa! Be careful,” said Brock, catching the bottle with both hands.

  “Don’t worry, Brock,” said French. “There’s plenty more where that came from.” He nudged the horse forward.

  For the next hour they pushed on through the blowing snow until they had moved upward onto the hill trail where the rock served as a partial windbreak. The first bottle of rye was nearly gone when the two of them stepped down from their saddles and let their reins fall to the ground. They left the horses and walked a few feet across the trail for a closer look at the body lying almost completely covered by a building white drift.

  “There now, we found him. That wasn’t so hard to do, was it?” French asked in a whiskey-tilted voice. He reached out with his boot toe and scraped snow from the dead man’s face. He chuckled, saying down to the corpse, “May you rest in peace, you frozen dead sonuvabitc
h.”

  Erskine Brock looked all around through the swirling snow with bleary eyes and said, “I don’t want to hang around here if it’s all the same with you.”

  “Suits me,” said French. But he stood with his head cocked slightly, staring at the grim dead face. “They never seem so damn tough once you find them all shot-up like this, do they?”

  “No, I reckon not,” said Brock, still shooting nervous glances along the trail. “Let’s get him across your horse and go.”

  “My horse?” French gave him a hard, drunken stare. “What’s the matter with your horse?”

  “Nothing,” said Brock, his voice sounding more and more shaky. “I just want to get him loaded and get out of here. This place is perfect for an ambush.”

  “Ambush, ha!” French reached out for the bottle dangling in Brock’s hand. “This one’s done his last ambushing, is my guess. It ain’t the dead you need to worry about, it’s the—”

  Talbert French’s words stopped abruptly beneath the roar of a six-gun as the bullet slammed him squarely between his shoulder blades. Warm blood splattered onto Brock’s face. Brock turned, the whiskey bottle falling from his hand as he snatched his pistol up from his holster. But he never got a shot at the figure standing obscured in the blowing snow with the reins to Brock’s and French’s horses in his hand. Brock saw the blossom of fire spring up around the smoking pistol barrel. The shot lifted him onto his toes, then dropped him five feet back, his pistol flying from his hand.

  Brock wrestled upright onto his knees and clutched the gaping hole in his chest as the figure stepped forward through the blizzard. “Don’t shoot . . . I’m done for,” he pleaded, feeling his blood spill out from between his fingers.

  Huey Sweeney stepped forward, taking his time, a half-grin on his face beneath his lowered hat brim. The pistol bucked in his hand, then fell silent as its echo careened higher into the hills and out across the flatlands below.

  In one of the small rooms above the Paradise Saloon, Hattie Odle was rolled up into a ball on the bed, her arms hugging her stomach. Tinnie Malone spoke to the other four women gathered around her in a hushed voice. “I couldn’t leave her there in this shape. There was no fire in the stove. She would have caught her death tonight. I had to bring her here at least long enough to warm her up some.”

  Clare Annette, a tall, stout woman with a high pile of flaxen hair shook her head and pulled her plume-trimmed gown snugly across her large bosom. “Tinnie, if Asa finds out what you’re doing, helping her, he’s gonna make it tough on all of us.”

  “Look at this poor thing, Clare,” Tinnie whispered. “I couldn’t leave her there all alone. I know the kind of hell you go through getting that black tar out of your system. What would you have done if you’d found her instead of me?”

  Clare Annette let out a breath of exasperation. “The thing of it is, I wouldn’t have gone looking for her in the first place. You know we’re not supposed to have anything to do with her.” She leaned slightly and winced, watching Hattie Odle tremble in a cold sweat. “Jesus!” Clare Annette reached down, pulled up a long corner of blanket and lay it over Hattie Odle, tucking it around her. “All right, Tinnie, we can keep her in here until I get a customer. But then she’s got to go. I don’t want Asa jumping on me over this.”

  “Asa can go to hell, as far as I care,” said Tinnie. “I’ll take any blame that comes.” She looked to one of the other women, a thin older brunette with a large artificial mole grease-painted on her cheek. “Turkey, will you get some firewood from your room? We’ll go warm up her shack for her before we take her back there.”

  “Confound it, Tinnie,” Turkey O’Brien protested. “I barely got enough wood to last the night as it is.” She looked at the others standing staring at her, then sighed, “Hell . . . okay. But let’s all chip in some.”

  “Thanks, Turkey, we will,” said Tinnie. “Won’t we, girls?”

  “Sure,” said a young woman named Jersey Lori Smitts, speaking for the others. “I’ll sit with her some tonight, if that’ll help.” Jersey Lori glanced at the others. “Maybe we can split it up some, take turns with one another through the night?”

  “Count me in, then,” Turkey O’Brien nodded, reaching down a hand and wiping Hattie Odle’s hair back from her forehead. “This poor little thing is going to need all the help she can get.”

  “What was the fool Ranger thinking, leaving her alone to sweat out opium?” Jersey Lori asked, her voice still hushed.

  “Don’t bl-blame hi-him,” Hattie managed to say, trembling. “I t-told him t-to . . .” Her voice trailed off.

  The women looked at one another, then Turkey said, “You didn’t tell him how bad it is, did you?”

  Hattie Odle shook her head as her whole body shuddered. “I cou-couldn’t,” she moaned. “M-my b-boy . . .”

  “What did she say?” asked Jersey Lori, reaching down and taking a pillow and tucking it beneath Hattie’s head.

  “She’s worried about her boy, Billy,” said Tinnie. “All the townsmen think he left here with that wounded Indian.” She lowered her voice to the others, trying to keep it from Hattie Odle, saying, “God help him if he did . . . that Indian is a straight-up killer, if it’s the same Willie John I knew in Abilene.”

  “Oh, it’s the same one all right,” said Clare Annette. “As far as ever seeing that child of hers again . . .” Shielding her words with the side of her hand as if keeping it a secret, she nodded down at Hattie Odle. “. . . I wouldn’t count on it if I was her.”

  “Shame on you for saying such a thing, Clare,” Tinnie whispered.

  “I’m just being honest,” Clare added.

  “Shame on all of us, if you ask me,” said Jersey Lori. “We all had a hand in whatever happens to her boy.”

  “What in tarnation is that supposed to mean?” Turkey O’Brien asked, propping a thin hand on her hip and giving Jersey Lori an offended look.

  “It means if we hadn’t shunned this woman and treated her so poorly to begin with, maybe all this other stuff would never have happened.”

  “Bull!” said Turkey. “We shunned her because Asa told us to. And so what if we did? He’s the one keeping us in business. He gave her the chance to be a part of our group, and she turned him down. We had every right not to welcome her with open arms, with her taking on customers that should’ve belonged to us.”

  “She never took any customers that I wasn’t glad to get rid of,” said Lori. “And you know why she turned Asa down? She’s not like us. She was only doing this for a little while, just to get back on her feet. She didn’t want to get tied in with Asa, and I don’t blame her. He would never have let her leave.”

  Turkey O’Brien chuckled. “Lori, honey, you tell me if there’s one of us here who didn’t tell ourselves we’d only start whoring for just a little while.” She spread a wry grin and passed it from one woman to the next. “Just long enough to save up some money . . . to pay off a debt . . . to get some good-for-nothing grifter out of jail. Truth is, I came into the business because I like sleeping past sunup.”

  Turkey stared at Jersey Lori, still waiting for an explanation. “What’s any of this got to do with us causing her boy to be riding with Willie John?”

  Jersey Lori didn’t answer. Instead, she looked to Tinnie for some support.

  “So, Turkey,” said Tinnie, letting out a breath, “now that we all know your likes and dislikes, can we count on your help with Hattie or not?”

  “Oh, of course, I’ll do my part helping her,” said Turkey. “I just wanted to make sure I said my piece first.”

  Tinnie shook her head in exasperation, snatched up a wool coat and threw it around her shoulders. “I’m going to take some firewood to her shack and start heating it up. I’ll be back as quick as I can.”

  Tinnie left the room and headed down the stairs, throwing the hood of the coat up over her head. Hoping not to be noticed, she stayed close to the wall and hurried along to the rear of the saloon where a door led out int
o the alley. But as she slipped out and closed the door behind her, at a table near the glowing stove, Asa Dahl, Tucker Miegs, and Miegs’s brother, Pierson sat watching. Tucker Miegs’s wounded leg was wrapped with a thick bandage beneath his striped trouser leg. He held a brass-handled cane close to his side. Beads of sweat dotted his forehead. A bottle of rye sat in front of him. “What do you suppose that one’s up to?” he asked Asa Dahl.

  “I don’t know, but I’m damn sure going to find out,” Asa replied. He started to rise from his chair, but Miegs’s hand clamped his forearm and sat him down.

  “Take it easy, Asa,” said Miegs, his voice a bit thick from the rye. The pain in his leg throbbed without mercy. “I’ve never seen a whore yet that won’t show you everything . . . if you keep your mouth shut and watch.”

  “Don’t try to tell me about whores,” Asa said.

  “I won’t,” said Tucker Miegs, “but maybe my brother will.” He nodded at Pierson sitting beside him. Pierson raised his eyes slowly to Asa Dahl as he finished a shot of rye and slid the glass forward.

  “Maybe somebody better tell you something, Asa,” said Pierson Miegs in a flat hiss of a voice. “I leave town for a few hours, then come back finding my brother shot and put out of the dope business. All of it because he did you a favor—getting that whore hooked on black tar.”

  “One whore on opium ain’t exactly a business,” Asa Dahl offered, his voice not sounding up to the task of facing Pierson Miegs.

  “It was a start,” said Pierson, a thin mirthless smile spreading beneath his pencil-thin mustache. “Who knows what it might have built into, hadn’t been for you and that Odle woman.”

  “It wasn’t my fault that damned Ranger took an interest in her,” said Miegs in his own defense. “Things got out of hand so quick here. I couldn’t do nothing about it! Nobody could. One minute everything was going on its usual way, the next minute we had bounty hunters, bank robbers and Rangers sticking their noses into everything.”

  “Only one Ranger,” Pierson Miegs corrected him.