Rawhide Flat Read online

  It was time.

  Deputy Marshal Crane took a deep breath and picked up the shotgun. He immediately laid it down, wiped damp palms on his pants, then took up the Greener again.

  A wave of black depression swept over him and he had to force himself to open the door and step outside. What he was about to do went with the badge and to his mind there was little of the heroic in his actions.

  The West was a male-dominated society where men of all stripes, good and bad, were rewarded for learning the practice of violence and the ways of the Colt. In such a male culture lawmen were regarded as heroes, but so were outlaws. To brace lawbreakers in a saloon was expected of Crane, as was the right of the outlaws to resist.

  There would be no heroes in the Texas Belle that night . . . only men doing what the West required of them, and Crane would have it no other way.

  The crescent moon had horned aside a few stray clouds and was soaring high in the sky. Stars hung like paper lanterns in a Chinatown alley, spreading their cold light, and the wind sighed steadily from the east, chilled by the cooling desert. It nuzzled Crane suspiciously as he walked.

  The forlorn piano still stood in the street, abandoned by pianist and songsters, but the saloons were still in full swing, so noisy that the marshal expected their roofs to lift off at any minute and leave the revelers to celebrate in the moonlight.

  For a few moments Crane hesitated at the door of the Texas Belle. He swallowed the lump in his throat, adjusted his grip on the shotgun, then stepped inside.

  The thick air of the saloon was hot and heavy with the smell of whiskey, cigar smoke, cheap perfume and man-sweat. Crane felt like he’d just walked into an invisible wall.

  It took a while before people noticed the tall, grim man with the badge on his chest and a scattergun in his hands.

  Gradually the loud chatter and laughter faltered. Voices slowed and finally died away, like withered leaves falling from a tree. All eyes turned to Crane, the expressions on the faces of the men hostile and challenging, those of the women bold, smiling and calculating.

  The marshal’s voice cut into the uneasy silence. “Ben Hollister,” he said. “Show yourself.”

  Slow moments ticked past, then the tall, lanky, young cowboy Masterson had named as Long Tom Feeney detached himself from the bar. He stood in front of Crane, his legs spread, thumbs in his gun belt.

  “Who the hell do you think you are, Mister?” he said. “Comin’ in here like you’re the damned bull o’ the woods.” The cowboy was smiling, but his eyes were wild, shining with whiskey and recklessness. He was on the prod, anxious to kill his man.

  Crane was on edge and his patience was wafer thin. “Prove your manhood some other night, boy,” he said. “Now step aside or I’ll cut you in half right where you stand.”

  The puncher tensed, looking at Crane, calculating his chances in the expectant silence, but a voice from behind him said, “Let it go, Tom. If you don’t, Marshal Crane will kill you for sure.” Hollister stepped beside the cowboy. “Won’t you, Marshal?”

  “Where’s Sheriff Masterson and Judah Walsh?” Crane asked, ignoring the man’s question.

  Hollister looked genuinely puzzled. “What the hell are you talking about?”

  “They’re missing. I think you know where they are.”

  Puzzlement gave way to anger on the rancher’s face. “You mean you let Walsh escape?”

  “I mean, he’s gone and so is Masterson.”

  Crane read Hollister’s scarlet face. Reluctantly he realized the man was telling the truth; he’d had nothing to do with the disappearance of the sheriff and his prisoner.

  A man pushed beside Hollister. He was tall and impossibly skinny, dressed in a black frock coat, a stained, collarless shirt and a battered stovepipe hat. Under the coat he wore two guns in shoulder holsters and in his right hand he carried a Bible. A braided dog whip dangled from his wrist.

  The old man’s prominent blue eyes and long gray hair and beard gave him the look of an Old Testament prophet and he spoke like one.

  “He’s lying to us, Ben,” the man said. “He has freed the iniquitous and now he speaks to us with a serpent’s tongue.”

  For all his arrogance and bluster, Hollister had spent a lifetime taking the measure of men. His eyes met Crane’s and he summed up the marshal in his own mind.

  “He’s not lying to us, Reuben.” He turned to the man. “I hired you for one job. Now I’m giving you another: find Walsh and bring him here.”

  “And the sheriff?”

  Hollister shrugged. “If he gets in the way, kill him.”

  Crane’s smile was thin. “Paul Masterson won’t be easy to kill. If the preacher there goes up against him, he’ll find he’s got a cougar by the tail.”

  Without taking his eyes off Crane, the rancher turned his head. “Garcia!”

  When the little gunman pushed though the crowd, Hollister said, “Go with Reuben Stark and his sons and as many others as you need. I want Walsh.”

  Garcia nodded, sliding Crane a look of pure hate and malice.

  Stark turned and yelled, “Abe! Ike! Eli! Jeptha! Get over here!”

  The crowd parted and four bearded men emerged. Stark’s sons were dressed like their father in shabby frock coats, but they wore battered, wide-brimmed hats and had gun belts buckled around their hips. One of the brothers had a smear of lipstick on his cheek.

  “Come with me,” Stark said. “We have a man to find and another to kill.”

  The man with the lipstick smear scowled and said, “But, Pa, it’s dark out there. How we gonna find men in the dark?” He leered at his brothers. “Besides, right now I got something better in mind.”

  The sound of Stark’s hand slapping his son’s cheek was like a rifle shot. As the man staggered back, the old preacher screamed, “Jeptha, he who unites himself with a whore is one with her in body. Verily I say the two will be one flesh and wallow as one in filth.”

  Jeptha Stark wiped away a trickle of blood from the corner of his mouth and glared at his father. “One day, old man, I swear I’m going to kill you.”

  “Get out there in the street with your brothers and find that niggra!” Stark snapped. “Go!”

  Garcia pushed past Crane. Stark and his sons followed, trailed by a dozen or so cowboys and an equal number of hangers-on and barflies. “Fifty dollars in gold to the man who finds Walsh!” Hollister yelled at their retreating backs, and the men cheered.

  The old arrogance was back in the rancher’s eyes. “Why, you’re still here, Marshal?”

  “This isn’t over, Hollister. If you find Walsh I want him surrendered into my custody. I’ll take him to Virginia City to stand trial for murder.”

  “Damn it, man, so he shot a dried-up old spinster with nobody to mourn her but a cat. Every rancher around, including me, is facing ruin and the only man who can save us is Judah Walsh.”

  “I want him, Hollister. He’s a cold-blooded killer.” Anger flared in the rancher’s face. “And how many have you killed in cold blood, Crane? The only thing that separates you from Walsh is the star on your chest. You kill with the blessing of the law, and he doesn’t, that’s all.”

  The rancher shook his head, then softened his tone. “Why should we argue when the solution to the problem has been staring us right in the face?

  “Here’s my proposition: We get Walsh to tell us where the money is hid. Then we give him a hundred dollars, put him on a horse and wish him well. Once he’s outside the town limits, you go after him and make your arrest.”

  Hollister spread his hands. “I can’t say fairer than that.”

  Crane admitted that the man made sense and it could very well be a way out of this mess. “And Sheriff Masterson?”

  “I have no interest in Masterson. If he’s still alive and kicking when this night is over, take him with you and no harm done.”

  “He killed a couple of your men.”

  “And badly wounded another. But when I get my money back, I’m willing t
o let bygones be bygones.”

  “Why didn’t you think of this earlier?”

  Hollister smiled. “I’m a hard, uncompromising man, Crane, and sometimes I go bullheaded at a thing. Now that I’ve taken time to think it through, I’m willing to seek the middle ground.”

  “And the only loser is Judah Walsh.”

  “Do you give a damn?”

  “No, I guess I don’t.” Crane hesitated, then said, “All right, we play it your way. Tell me at once if you find Walsh. And, Hollister, I’ll take it hard if any harm befalls Paul Masterson.”

  “He means nothing to you.”

  “I like him.”

  “Then I’ll tell the boys to go easy on him.”

  The cowboy who’d challenged Crane when he walked into the saloon stiffened and opened his mouth to speak, but Hollister quickly glared the man into silence.

  It had been a small exchange and it probably meant nothing, but for some reason it troubled the marshal deeply.

  Chapter 8

  Crane returned to the sheriff’s office and replaced the Greener in the rack. He added wood to the stove and shoved the coffeepot on to heat.

  The cell adjoining Walsh’s had a cot and he planned to stretch out and get some sleep later, after he took the horses back to the livery stable. Wherever Masterson was, it was unlikely he’d need them now.

  He started to roll a cigarette, but the sound of two fast gunshots sent him sprinting for the door.

  Outside in the street what looked like one of the Stark boys was standing at the alley where Crane had dragged the drunken miner.

  “I got him!” the man shouted. “I got Masterson!”

  When Crane arrived at the alley, Jeptha Stark, a smoking Colt in his hand, was telling anyone who’d listen that he saw Masterson creeping toward him and cut loose. “I hit the son of a bitch twice,” he yelled, his eyes shining. “Plugged him dead center.”

  Led by Ben Hollister and Reuben Stark, men had crowded into the alley, one of them holding aloft an oil lamp. After a few moments, Hollister pushed back through the milling mob of gawking onlookers.

  “You killed the wrong man, damn you,” Hollister snapped. “You plugged a miner.”

  “I know the man,” somebody standing behind the rancher said. “His name is John Horne and he always done more moochin’ drinks than he ever done mining.”

  Old Reuben Stark’s face was livid. “Boy,” he said to Jeptha, “didn’t I always teach you to make sure of your target afore you kill a man?”

  “I was dang certain it was him, Pa, comin’ at me in the dark.”

  “You shot a drunk, boy.”

  “No harm done, Reuben,” Hollister said mildly. “It was an honest mistake.”

  “And it still counts as a kill, don’t it Mr. Hollister?” Jeptha said.

  The rancher said nothing, but Reuben Stark made it clear that he would not be mollified.

  “It ain’t a kill, boy,” he said. “I’ll tell you when you can notch your gun and this ain’t one o’ them times.”

  Jeptha sneered. “I’m claiming the kill, old man.”

  Reuben cursed wildly and screamed, “A foolish son brings grief to his father and bitterness to the one who bore him!” He lashed out with the dog whip that hung from his wrist, cutting his son across the face.

  The scarlet scar of a welt blossomed on Jeptha’s cheek and he cursed and went for his gun.

  Reuben Stark was surprisingly fast. He reached into his coat and a Colt appeared in his hand as though he’d just performed a conjuring trick. As his son cleared leather, the barrel of the old man’s gun crashed onto his wrist.

  Jeptha shrieked and his revolver fell into the dust from his suddenly limp fingers.

  Reuben stepped closer, beating Jeptha with the dog whip, raining powerful, slashing blows on the man’s head and shoulders.

  Punctuating each word with a cut of the whip, Reuben, with a fury that verged on madness, screamed, “The-son-who-raises-a-hand-to-his-father-is-an-abomination!”

  Crane turned to Hollister. “Seems to me we’ll have another killing on our hands if you don’t call off your dog.”

  For a moment the rancher didn’t respond, his eyes glittering, fascinated by the beating Jeptha was taking. Finally, as though he’d just wakened from sleep, he pointed to a couple of his men, then at the raging Stark, and said, “Get him away from here.”

  Reuben was hauled, kicking, into the saloon, screaming curses on his son’s head.

  Hollister shrugged and grinned. “That old man is as mean as a caged cougar and crazy as a loco’d calf.”

  Jeptha had been beaten into the dust. Now he rose and reached for his gun with his left hand. As he flexed his swollen wrist he lifted his blazing eyes to the Texas Belle where his father was still inside raving, and said, “One day I’m going to kill him, just like he killed his own old man.”

  “Stark, you and your pa are a credit to the community,” Crane said.

  He brushed through the crowd, grabbed a lantern from a glassy-eyed cowboy and stepped into the alley. He raised the light until it shone on the dead man’s face. As he suspected, it was the miner he’d buffaloed earlier in the evening.

  “Mister, you should have stayed in the mines,” he said.

  Crane led the horses back to the barn, along a street that was suddenly quiet and subdued. A piano still played in the Texas Belle, but most of the crowd had gone to find a place where they could sleep off their whiskey.

  The moon was dropping toward the horizon, haloed in a hazy ring of blue and rust red, and only a few stars glittered in a sky slowly shading from black to deep violet. The wind was rising, kicking up veils of dust, tugging playfully at the brim of the marshal’s hat.

  When he returned to the sheriff’s office the clock on the wall stood at one thirty. Crane poured himself coffee, sat at the table and built a smoke. He hadn’t slept since the train, and then only fitfully, and he was very tired. Normally he did not let himself get too exhausted, since it was an open invitation to the dark angel, but since his arrival in Rawhide Flat he’d had no other choice.

  Blue cigarette smoke curling around his head, he closed his eyes, letting himself drift. But the opening door brought him instantly to full wakefulness, his hand dropping to his holstered gun.

  Maxie Starr looked like she’d been through it. Her lipstick was smudged and a tendril of loose hair fell over her eyes. She had bruises on her arms and shoulders from rough handling by drunken men, a beer stain on the front of her dress.

  She spoke up without ceremony. “All right, Marshal, where is he?”

  “Who?”

  “You know who. Where’s Paul?”

  “You mean you don’t know?”

  “I mean I don’t know.”

  “They’ve been hunting him, that crazy old Reuben Stark and his sons among them. I don’t think they’ll find him, though.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “Because Paul is smart. Wherever he and Walsh are holed up, it will be safe.”

  “I wish I was that confident,” Maxie said. “Any coffee in the pot?”

  “Help yourself.” Crane watched Maxie for a few moments, admiring the lithe grace of her shapely body. She was a lovely woman, but her beauty was just beginning to fade into fine lines and a hardening mouth, the result of a profession that demanded much and gave little in return. He said, “Don’t worry, Paul will come to no harm. I told Hollister I didn’t want him hurt.”

  The woman turned and her eyes flared. “Hollister! You told Hollister you didn’t want him hurt. Ben Hollister will kill Paul the first chance he gets.”

  “That’s not what he told me.”

  “I don’t care what he told you. Hollister wants Paul Masterson dead.”

  Maxie sat down opposite Crane, her steaming coffee cup on the table in front of her. She looked directly into the marshal’s eyes.

  “Do you really think Ben Hollister will forgive and forget after Paul killed two of his hands and a third is
back at the Rafter-T coughing up black blood and unlikely to last another day? If he let their deaths go unavenged he could never count on the loyalty of his riders ever again.

  “Mister, without that loyalty no rancher can survive for long. Cowboys are a close-knit group and when the word got around that Hollister stood by and did nothing after his men were gunned by a tin-star sheriff, he’d soon discover that he can no longer hire punchers.

  “How long do you think he’d last in this country when he can’t round up his herd or hire men to drive it to the railhead?”

  Crane nodded. “I know about punchers, Maxie. I went up the trail from Texas with John Slaughter when I was fourteen, then three times after that.”

  “Then you know better than anybody why Hollister can’t let Paul live.”

  Crane took out the makings and offered them to Maxie. The woman expertly built a cigarette that the marshal lit for her. Then he rolled one of his own.

  “Hollister made me a proposition,” he said. “He told me that after he catches Walsh and gets the man to lead him to the stolen money, I can have him.”

  “And Paul?”

  “That’s when he said he wouldn’t be harmed.”

  “And you believed him?”

  “Then? Yes, I guess I did. Now I’m not so sure.”

  Maxie drew deep on her cigarette. Ash fell on her dress and she immediately brushed it away. “Marshal, Hollister knows that after he kills Paul Masterson he has to kill you. You’d try to arrest him and he’d be waiting for you.”

  “It’s no small thing to kill a United States marshal, even a deputy marshal.”

  Maxie smiled. Then, as though she were talking to a child, she said, “Gus, about the age you were riding up the trail for the first time, I was working in a saloon in Denver. Men in saloons talk, about gunfighters, lawmen, outlaws and who’s the best with a gun and who just killed who. Do the names W. T. Bentz, Frank Griffin, Madison Mitchell and Jacob Owens mean anything to you?”

  Crane shook his head. “I can’t say they do.”