Rancher's Law Read online

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  PROLOGUE

  1

  2

  3

  4

  5

  6

  7

  8

  9

  10

  11

  12

  13

  14

  15

  16

  17

  18

  19

  20

  21

  22

  23

  24

  ST. MARTIN’S PAPERBACKS TITLES BY DUSTY RICHARDS

  INVITATION TO A HANGING

  Copyright Page

  PROLOGUE

  A low winter sun shone through the grimy windowpanes. She watched the diffused light flood his bare, muscular back as he shaved. Leaning forward over her dresser, he peered into the smoky looking glass. His galluses hung to the knees of his canvas pants. Deliberately, he scraped away the reddish whisker stubble and foamy lather from his suntanned cheeks.

  “Have you heard any word about Clell Lyman lately?” He paused in his task and turned to face her with his steel-blue eyes.

  “No,” she said quickly. Seated on the edge of the bed, wringing her hands in her lap, she looked at the tin ceiling tile for help. This new drift of his conversation made her feel even more rejected, and it kindled an angry, jealous flame inside her that threatened to flare up. Why, he’d been gone for weeks serving warrants in the Indian Territory, and the first time he gets back to Fort Smith and her—all he can talk about some half-breed killer on the loose.

  “Do you think he’s somewhere around Fort Smith?” he asked, swishing the razor’s blade in a pan of steaming water.

  “He may be in Texas for all I care,” she said.

  He raised his eyebrows at her reply, then went back to shaving. The chill in the room forced her to clutch her chenille robe tighter. There wasn’t enough heat upstairs in Molly Mather’s Cathouse to keep the water in a pitcher from skimming over with ice at night. The past summer, why, her room would have baked bread. She ground her molars. And him … he comes back from God-only-knows-where and acts more damned interested in a fugitive than in her body.

  “Where did you leave that spotted bulldog today?” she asked, realizing for the first time that that pest wasn’t along with him.

  “You mean General Ben McCollough?”

  “Your dang dog.” She smirked in disapproval at his back.

  “Ben’s out where I stable my horses, buried in a haystack to keep warm.”

  “Smart dog.” What she really meant to say was: “The stack is a good place for that blunt-faced devil.” She hated how he leered at her and snorted all the time out of his pug nose. Suited her just fine that that blessed bulldog had been left out there.

  “Tillie,” he said, and turned back toward the mirror to scrape his chin. “Where does that Indian woman of Lyman’s live? Nelda Horsekiller?”

  “Shack Town across the Arkansas, I guess,” she said, still filled with bitter resentment over his deliberately ignoring her earlier attempts to lure him into her bed.

  “Get dressed,” he said, using a towel to scrub off the soap remains.

  She frowned at his request and did not move. “Where’re we going?”

  “I’ve got half a notion that he’s hiding out at her place.”

  Finished shaving, he twisted around with his palms turned up like he was lifting her to make her move. “Come on, I want him behind bars. He killed a close friend of mine and a damn sure good deputy marshal.”

  “You go. It’s too cold outside.” She hugged the robe tighter with her clenched fists.

  “You need some fresh air,” he said, putting on his woolen shirt.

  “But—”

  “Come on.”

  “Aw, all right.” She couldn’t say no to him. The handsome galoot stole her heart the first time she saw him downstairs in the parlor. But the real reason she loved him so much was that he never acted ashamed she was a dove. He was always polite, always treated her like she was somebody special. He took her out to those fancy restaurants on Garrison Avenue to eat, and later, in some saloon, he let her stand at his elbow and watch him gamble like she was a real lady.

  She went to the oak wardrobe and drew open the double doors. Her blue dress would look the most respectable. She let the robe slip from her shoulders. The room’s cold air quickly enveloped her bare skin above the flimsy camisole and she hurried to put on her clothing. The small buttons proved hard to catch.

  When at last she dropped her backside on the bed to pull on her shoes, she looked up at him to see if he’d changed his mind about taking her. The set to his chiseled jaw was unmoved. Obviously, he wanted her to hurry.

  She raised up from lacing her footwear. “It’s real cold out there.”

  “You have a long coat.” He nodded to the closet.

  “It’s still awfully cold,” she insisted.

  “I won’t let you freeze.” Ready to go, he held open the door to her room while she shrugged the coat on and tied a scarf over her head. Men! She gritted her molars at the thought of heading into the wintry weather outside. Her door locked, she pocketed the key. Then she pulled on the kidskin gloves, her latest, most expensive indulgence.

  Outside on the top landing, a gust of sharp wind threatened her. She grasped the wood railing, but his powerful arm encircled her protectively. Going down the outside stairs, her soles crushed pellets of snow. She noted a covered buggy and horse hitched in the alley below. His strong presence beside her quickly swept away any reluctance and even the frigid air.

  In the buggy, he covered her with a buffalo robe and put a woolen blanket over her shoulders. She smiled, pleased at his concern for her comfort. Her reaction drew a twinkle in his blue eyes when he took his place beside her and undid the reins.

  “Git up, hoss.”

  The rig rolled down the alley. The iron rims grated on the brick surface. At last, he guided the horse out onto Garrison Avenue. She noted the barkers, already in mid-afternoon, working the sidewalks, extolling the wonders and bargains inside their respective businesses. Texas cowboy hats like his, knit sailor caps from the river boats, even unblocked ones topping blanket-wrapped Indians mixed and mingled about. Through the conjested street filled with farm and freight wagons, bicycles, rigs, and horseback riders, he skillfully drove the three blocks to the ferry.

  Somehow, leaned against his hard form all wrapped in her cocoon, she forgot the eye-tearing wind and charge of arctic weather. Sitting beside him on the seat, like any other respectable woman, filled her with a warm pride.

  The ferry ride to the west bank was marked with the dingy river water slapping the side of the barge with a hollow sound that made her stomach queasy. Ferries had been known to sink, she reflected. Don’t let this one do that. Oh, God, please don’t let it go down.

  Deep chugging of the steam engine, the stink of hot wood burning in the boiler, and the resulting slash of the small paddle wheel added to the sounds of their crossing. When at last he drove the horse off onto the plank docking, she felt grateful to be on dry land in the Indian Territory.

  “Do you know where she lives?” she asked, getting a whiff of sharp smoke coming from the city of shacks lining the riverbank. Some were made of old packing crates with lettering on them, others from rusty sheet iron and sunfaded canvas tents. The sturdier-looking ones appeared to be constructed from small logs with low dirt-covered roofs. She doubted the occupants could even stand up inside them. Blank eyes of mixed breed and Indian children peered at her from open doorways. Why didn’t those kids close their doors against the cold?

  Looking at the unchinked logs and cracks, she decided the temperature must be the same inside as ou
t. A cold chill went up her spine. Never again would she complain about her room upstairs. Then she realized this was where all the worn out doves spent their final days. Not only did Indians live here, but the rest of society’s outcasts as well. Black, white, and red, color had no prejudice in this camp. When all they could do was shuffle around and empty night jars, this was where they moved to. The deranged, demented, diseased, whiskey-sodden drunks, Chinese dope addicts, and the cast aside misfits of Fort Smith’s society languished in this hellhole of despair, separated from those better off by the Arkansas’s muddy current.

  “Where does Nelda Horsekiller live?” he asked, halting the horse beside a humpbacked white woman. She wore several layers of rag clothing and bore a load of sticks for firewood on her back. Her drawn face was shriveled with lines like a prune. Tillie guessed her to be an immigrant from Poland or eastern Europe.

  “She lives in dat one,” the woman said pointing.

  “Thank you, ma’am.” He tipped his hat and drove the horse past her with a cluck of his tongue.

  The woman said something like “dunk-you” after them. Tillie didn’t get it all, but turned her attention to the half—log-walled tent with a stove pipe coming out of the canvas roof through a patch of metal. A better-looking quarters than most. She turned in the seat and watched him open his sheepskin-lined jacket, the butt of his Colt pistol obvious to her. The sight of the revolver made her heart stop. Oh, no, would he be shot making this arrest? The one he sought had already killed another marshal. Her breath caught in her constricted throat when he reined up the horse.

  The sudden realization that this might be the last time she ever saw him alive stabbed her chest. She wanted to reach out, grasp him by the arm, hold him, plead with him, beg him not to go—to be so careful. Somehow numbed in place, the words never made it to her lips.

  “Stay here,” he said, finished wrapping the reins around the butt of the whip. “I’ll only be a minute.”

  Or a lifetime, she added silently, nodding her head. She looked hard after his tall form striding across the frozen ground, watching as a piece of tattered newspaper tumbled along past him to catch on a tree stump. It fluttered there.

  She wanted to glance away from his back and the knee-high black boots that were so hard for her to pull off. Why couldn’t she turn her attention to the brown river? It roiled past at the foot of the steep slope behind the shacks amongst the towering bare sycamore and pecan trees. But no, she continued to stare after his movements until he stopped before the doorway.

  He knocked on the door. In an instant, she saw a hatless figure tear out of the back of the half tent and rush away behind the other structures.

  “Tillie!” he shouted to her, with the gun in his fist. “He’s getting away!”

  She bobbed her head. I saw him. Her fingers fumbled with the leather lines. Filled with impatience, she stripped off her gloves and undid the reins. Her man was already running down the street after the killer. Stopping at intervals, he stood on his toes trying to see over the shacks for the escapee. Nothing.

  “Heeyah!” she shouted, and the rig lurched ahead, spilling her back onto the seat. She regained her place and swung the buggy in beside him as he ran. Then pressing her heels hard on the dash, with all her strength to draw on the reins, she hauled the excited horse to a stop. He stepped on the rig and hanging half out, told her to go on.

  Scooted to the front edge of the seat, she laid the lines to the horse’s back and the animal responded. She drove pell-mell through and around objects, wheelbarrows, fleeing people, even a stray pig that ran off squealing in their wake. A dozen barking, snarling dogs charged out to add to the melee.

  With his free hand, her man clung to a top brace. This stance left his head and upper torso exposed, while he searched for the elusive fugitive.

  “There he goes!” he shouted.

  She spotted the hatless figure running away behind the shacks. In reflex, her sharp front teeth sunk into her lower lip; she pulled down the horse. Her man leaped to the ground and rushed off, jumping over a scabby rail fence and disappearing.

  Alone in the buggy, she trembled under the blanket. Drained by this wave of helplessness, she wildly searched for any sign of the fugitive. The pop of a pistol made her jump and forced her to hold down the excited horse. Ahead of her, from between two hovels, a dark-faced man burst into the street. For a second, he stopped and looked at her in disbelief. Then like a dogged animal, he fled in the other direction.

  He’s getting away! Not on her life was he doing that! She slapped the lines and shouted to the horse. He half reared and plunged ahead in pursuit. The rig tipped from side to side in the frozen ruts. Intent on her quarry, she pressed the horse for more speed.

  The breed turned to look over his shoulder, but not in time. Horse and shaft struck him to the ground. She stood up and sawed on the animal’s bit as they passed over his prone form.

  At last she managed to draw the horse to a halt and turn him around. The sight of her man’s cowboy hat and him looking unscathed, standing over the downed breed, warmed her charging heart. The lump in her throat proved hard to swallow. Thank God. He was safe. She closed her tearing eyes.

  “You’d make a heckuva a deputy marshal,” he bragged, grinning at her.

  “Don’t sign me up yet,” she said, tying off the reins and bolting down from the seat to cautiously walk over for a closer look at the prisoner. “He all right?”

  “You couldn’t kill him, honey, if you cut his head off.”

  Several of the curious onlookers laughed at the Texan’s words. He cuffed Lyman’s hands behind his back, then jerked him up. With a lariat from the buggy, he placed a noose around the prisoner’s neck and tied the other end to the tailgate.

  “If you can’t run fast enough to keep up, I’ll save Judge Parker a hanging fee,” he said to the breed, who to her looked unsteady on his feet.

  “You wouldn’t … ?” she asked, aghast at the notion of dragging someone to death behind her back.

  “Darling, you just never mind,” he said, helping her into the seat. “It’s all up to him to keep up. Let’s get to town.”

  “I’m ready,” she said. Underneath the buffalo robe he carefully arranged over her, the strength drained from her legs. She wouldn’t want to do this kind of work. Being a dove could be trying at times, but this law work hurt her heart.

  He took up the reins and paused. “You know, Tillie, you would make a great marshal.”

  She raised her gaze to look into his steel-blue eyes. All the strong resolve and gut-wrenching concern over the chase melted into mush. That handsome devil … . At last the words slipped from her lips: “I reckon I’d do anything you asked of me, Luther Haskell.”

  1

  A cloud of thick cigar smoke hung in the back room of the Texas Saloon. From the overhead wagon wheel fixture, the yellowish candlelight flickered through the haze onto the faces of four men. Behind a fan of cards, Matt McKean looked hard at his hand, then raised his gaze to study the other players. It was time, he figured, to learn where he stood with these three. Could he risk the exposure of his plans with the whole group or should he do it individually? Test them one at a time. Undecided about his next move, he made no raise, simply discarded a five of hearts and a seven of spades. Jack, queen, ace, all he could hope to do at best was pair one of them.

  Across the table, Dan Charboneau met his look from under his frosty brows. The older man’s face was the color of leather from sixty years of being out in the blazing sun, except where his hat protected his bleached forehead. He was short and burly, with steel-blue eyes that never seemed to blink and a snowy mustache that didn’t move as he held out the deck. Matt discarded two cards and drew two new ones. He left his draw on the table.

  “What’ll it be for you?” Charboneau turned and asked the youngest of the four ranchers. In his early thirties, Porter Reed always looked red-faced, his skin never tanned. He and his late father had brought their large herd of Herefords to th
e Christopher Basin from Kansas. Three years earlier, his father, Yancy, died in a horse wreck. Matt wondered if the son would ever be ready to fill the old man’s shoes.

  “I’ll take one.”

  “No bet?”

  Porter shook his head. Good, Matt decided, he had nothing. Simple enough, the fool was drawing to an impossible inside straight. Matt picked up his draw and slid the new pasteboards in the fan. The sight of two more ladies drew a smile to his thoughts.

  Charboneau looked across at Louie Crain for his draw. The tall, thin bachelor in his forties tossed out a fifty-cent’s raise and asked for three new ones. Crain had a pair. Matt watched for a flicker of the rancher’s eyes when he looked at his new cards. Not a thing—good, he probably had nothing.

  Everyone stayed in, though Matt wondered why Porter tossed in his four bits. Perhaps his mind was no longer concentrating on playing cards.

  The dealer checked the bet, drew two for himself, and made a scowl, which could mean good or bad in Matt’s book. The Frenchman made a sharp hand anytime at poker. Still undecided about his next move, Matt slumped in the captain’s chair and pitched in a dollar raise.

  Porter folded. Crain saw his bet and Charboneau tossed in his cards. Matt spread out his three ladies on the felt.

  “Beats my pair,” Crain said in disgust.

  Matt rose, reached for the small pot with both hands, stopped, and looked around at the three of them. “Boys, this here is sure penny ante, compared to the cattle we’re losing to them rustlers.”

  “Huh,” Charboneau grunted. “What do you suggest we do about it?”

  “We know who the three of them are.”

  “You certain?” Porter asked, obviously taken aback by Matt’s words.

  “Sure as I am the damn sun will come up.” He looked right at Porter.

  “That’s pretty sure.”

  “Who you thinking about?” Crain asked, leaning forward. He searched around as if to be certain they were alone.

  Matt had no worries about the security of the back room. Lincoln Jeffries made damn sure that they were left alone with only an occasional barkeep coming, knocking first, to take their order for a new bottle of whiskey or more cigars. These chambers strictly belonged to the Christopher Basin’s Stockmen’s Society on Thursday night or any other night that they wanted it.