Servant of the Law Read online

  Riding back to his shack, Bobby speculated on how he would need a long-range weapon for this job. He stopped off in White Oak at a store and bought a new .44/.40 rifle and two boxes of cartridges. The smart-mouthed boy who waited on him asked if he was going to start a war with all that ammunition.

  “Naw, just potshot nosy clerks that ask a lot of damn questions,” he said, and took his purchase with him.

  “No offense, mister,” the clerk called after him. “I didn’t mean—”

  Bobby never even looked back. Filled with boiling rage, he pushed his way out the front door, ringing the bell as he left. At the hitch rail, undoing the reins, he glared back at the storefront, his heart pounding under his rib cage. Why, that stupid—

  The next day, Bobby rode over to the small community of Black Pine. A crossroads with two cantinas, two stores, a livery, and some hovels where some Mexican families lived. Several small ranchers frequented the place and Bobby wore his worst clothes when he went there “looking” for work. Before he rode into town, he hid the rifle securely wrapped in a blanket under a thick downed juniper. Later he stowed away the new .45 and strapped on his old cap and ball to look like another busted cowboy in need of a job.

  He dismounted in front of the cantina, with a four-day stubble on his face, and wiped the back of his hand on the whiskers. He wished he had a stiffer beard.

  He pushed through the batwing doors into the dark cantina. His eyes were slow to adjust as he walked to the bar and ordered a beer. The man nodded and brought him one.

  “You’re new here?” the barkeep asked.

  “Yeah, need me a job. Anyone hiring?”

  “You build fence?”

  Bobby made a sick face at the man, then lifted his beer and savored the first foamy taste. Bitter as hell, but it was cool and he was thirsty. The man must know that no self-respecting cowboy ever wanted to build fence. Get a damn Mexican to do that.

  “Maybe Johnny Davis could use you for a month on his place.”

  “Where’s his place?’

  “Ride west a few miles and take the road with the D Bar D brand on the board nailed to a post. You can’t miss it. That lane leads right to his headquarters.”

  “Good, I’ll go see him. Someone mentioned the Butlers might need a rider.”

  “Who said that?” The bartender curled the corner of his thin mustache up in disdain.

  “Some guy I met on the road.”

  “Naw, I don’t think so. They got three of them and not very many cows. You talk to Jug Brown about that?” Bobby shrugged as if he didn’t know the man, and concentrated on his beer. “Never caught his name.” He drank another beer then he thanked the man and headed for the D Bar D.

  When Bobby rode up to the low-roofed ranch house, Johnny Davis, who looked half Indian, came out on the porch. A short potbellied man in his fifties, he spoke in Spanish first, then seeing Bobby wasn’t fluent in the lingo, he switched to English.

  “I could use you for four weeks to help me gather some long yearlings. I pay thirty and found.” He waited for Bobby’s reply as if that was all he paid and made no negotiations.

  “Suits me.” Bobby dropped heavily from the saddle. Why, he’d work for the old sumbitch for free to get the lay of the country and not draw a lot of attention. Chisum would be proud of him doing it like this. Killing three men wasn’t like poisoning a few old yard dogs with strychnine, then riding up and shooting the cow thief in his bed. This operation would require much more planning.

  Bobby quickly fit in as a cowboy for the old man. Davis’s Mexican wife cooked them spicy-hot, rich food and Bobby wondered at his first supper if the beef they were eating wasn’t some of Chisum’s. The next day they shod four horses apiece to use on roundup, and Bobby’s back wanted to give out. He could press with both hands all he wanted on his narrow hips when he tried to straighten, but the tightness remained. During the shoeing, Davis filled him in with gossip about the other ranchers in the area.

  “Them Butlers are a little too handy with a long rope,” the old man said, looking off at the mountains. Bobby knew Davis meant they stole cattle. The old man went on. “Best advice I can give you is stay clear of them. They pack sidearms and can use them. They’ve been in some bad scraps before back in Texas. That’s why they’re here, I guess.” Davis bent over and went back to shoeing.

  “I hear you.” Bobby had learned plenty from his employer about the country and the Butlers. If they were tough rannies, it was a good thing he took the job. Near dark, they finished shoeing the last horses, went to the back porch and washed up.

  “Oh, hungry hombres, your supper is ready,” Davis’s wife, Aleta, said from the lighted doorway and welcomed them into her sweet-smelling house.

  “Hungry and sore hombres,” Davis grumbled and she laughed.

  Bobby envied the man for a moment, with his small ranch and good woman. The thought of her reminded him of Rosa and the recollection of his loss nauseated his empty stomach.

  The middle of the first week, he, Davis, two other ranchers, Gill Checkers and Hoyt, were driving steers out of the canyons to bunch and sort on the flats when two riders joined them.

  “Watch yourself,” Davis said under his breath, riding past Bobby. “That’s the Butlers.”

  Bobby nodded that he heard the man’s warning and booted his horse off to keep the bunch of steers moving downhill. One freckle-faced two-year-old ox wanted to cut back, and he had his hands full. There would be plenty of time to meet the Butlers, but he felt better that before dark he would know his next victims.

  The last steer finally in the herd, Bobby dismounted to loosen his cinch and let the lathered cow pony breathe.

  “This here is Bobby Bleau,” Davis said, using the name that Bobby gave him. “He’s working for me through roundup.”

  The elder Butler nodded curtly, indicating that he’d heard the man, and acted like he didn’t bother to talk to mere hands. Butler was a broad-shouldered man with a full black beard and wore a small felt hat with the brim turned down all the way around. Despite the heat of the day, he wore a suit, floured in dust. The senior Butler and Davis rode on to go through the bunch to see whether any animals in the herd wore Butler’s brand.

  “That old sumbitch Davis could have hired me to help him, ’stead of you,” the pock-faced Butler boy of about eighteen said, grasping his saddle horn and rocking back and forth, watching the two men ease their way into the herd.

  “The job’s only for a month,” Bobby said.

  “Old sumbitch,” the boy swore under his breath and stared daggers after Davis.

  “My name’s Bleau,” Bobby offered.

  “Zackeriahah.”

  Bobby decided the pimple-faced kid wasn’t sociable because he’d taken the job that the boy wanted, but he figured Davis would never have hired that boy based on their conversation of the day before. What had he said? “Those Butlers were long on rope.”

  The fact that Zackeriahah wore two guns on his waist and his old man wore the same did not go unnoticed by Bobby. They were tough sons of bitches and he would treat them so. One more of the family to meet, then he’d start laying his plans for how to eliminate the three of them.

  Davis and the old man found five head wearing Butler’s brand in the herd. Butler promised to send Zackeriahah back for the rest of the week to help them. Davis agreed quietly to that, but Bobby could see he wasn’t charmed by the fact.

  When the Butlers rode off, Davis came over and dismounted. He hitched up his batwing chaps, cast a look down the trail where they had disappeared into the junipers, and then spit.

  “I’d rather have a sheep-killing dog than that worthless Butler boy with us.”

  “Aw, easy, Davis. That boy may get kicked in the head and not show up in the morning,” Hoyt said, laughing as he joined them.

  “We ain’t that damn lucky, boys.” Davis went off sharking his head in disapproval.

  Bobby grinned to himself and considered how that might be a good way for Zack to g
o. An accident would be better than them Butlers all being found toes up with bullets in them. Maybe he would work on that when the boy got there.

  The next morning, Zackeriahah showed up at daybreak. Davis sent him with Bobby to scour some more canyons in the mountains.

  They rode single file up the steep trail, Butler in the lead, bragging over his shoulder about how his old man killed four guys in Texas. Bobby looked back to be certain they were alone. Plenty of high bluffs; a man would never survive a fall from any one of them. A golden eagle floated about on the canyon’s air currents looking for a meal and screaming at the intruders in his land. Bobby and Butler finally topped out in the pass and halted.

  A fresh wind swept Bobby’s wet face and refreshed him. He rose in the stirrups; it looked like a big draw above them to the left that they needed to ride up and check, despite Butler’s complaining there was not any cow sign up there on the mountain.

  “Davis said to check all these canyons.” Bobby stepped off to tighten his cinch. He was busy with it when he noticed Butler pushing his horse closer to him.

  “I say there ain’t no cattle up there and we’re going back,” Butler said with a snarl.

  Bobby turned from his task and looked up at Butler’s flushed face. What was he so upset about? Must be a good reason why he didn’t want them to go up there. Were there stolen cattle or incriminating evidence like hides with Chisum’s or others’ brands on them in that canyon or was he just too lazy to want to work?

  “You don’t hear very gawdamn good do you, Bleau?” Butler demanded, reining in his horse in Bobby’s face.

  Bobby felt himself being forced backward by Butler’s crowding his horse into him. A quick check over his shoulder showed it was a long ways down and he stood only a few feet from the brink. He reached for his jackknife, easing it out of his pants pocket and letting Butler think the whole time he was winning this push-and-shove match.

  The fractured layers of rock hung under Bobby’s boot heel. He caught his balance, knowing the next step back would be life or death for him. The knife blade open at last, his sweaty fingers closed on the bone handle.

  A golden eagle screamed close by and made a pass on the updraft. It was enough of a distraction for Butler to look away. Bobby moved like a cat, reached out as he sidestepped the animal and drove his jackknife to the hilt into the horse’s tender flank. The gelding screamed with pain and, before Butler could check him, the horse leaped past Bobby and plunged out into the open sky where the eagle soared.

  Brushed aside by the charge, Bobby fell to the ground and hurt his hand on the sharp rocks. But he knew from the screams that Zackeriahah Butler had gone to see his maker. Despite the aching in his palm, Bobby managed to crawl to the edge in time to see horse and rider hit the boulders below with a dull thud.

  The two were sprawled lifelessly on the rocks. Bobby quickly considered how to get to them. It would take him a good half hour to work his way down there. He rose slowly and rubbed the grit from his palms. He wondered if his jackknife was still sticking in the animal’s flank. If he could find it, he certainly needed to remove it, so no one would ever know. He remounted, gave a last quick look over the edge, but could not see Butler’s body for he was not close enough to the brink to view them.

  Whistling a dry tune, he booted the horse downhill. Had the others heard Butler’s scream? Hard to tell. He glanced back up at the side canyon. What was up there hiding? Maybe nothing. The boy might have been plain lazy and didn’t want to ride uphill anymore. Who knew? It had come close to costing him his own life. Feeling weak-kneed, he took a swig from the pint in his saddlebags to settle his nerves, corked it and put it back. Too gawdamn close. He shook his head and ducked a low-hanging juniper bough.

  I guess a bee stung Butler’s old horse in the flank and he just leaped out into space. That would be his story and no one to question it.

  “What in the hell happened?” Davis asked when he and the others met at the base of the mountain.

  Bobby gave them his “bee story.”

  Davis nodded at the end and said, “Someone needs to ride over and tell Butler. Ain’t much chance the boy’s alive.”

  “I can go,” Hoyt said and turned his horse.

  “We’ll go see what we can do,” Davis said with a look of hopelessness. “Man falls that far—ain’t much chance he’s still breathing.”

  “He’s in a tough place to get to,” Checkers said.

  “Yeah, we’ll have to climb in there on foot for part of the way.” Davis grabbed for his hat, pulled it down, and sent his horse through the dense junipers.

  It took over a half hour for them to reach the area where the body lay. Out of wind and on foot for the last of the steep climb, Davis halted in the lead and mopped his brow on his sleeve.

  “Whew, going to be hell to get his body out of here,” Davis said absently and set out again.

  Bobby came behind Checkers, who grumbled about climbing over every rock. The main thing Bobby wondered about was his jackknife. Was it still buried in the horse’s flank? He wanted to be the first one there, in case. No way to do that with Davis leading the way. He drew in a deep breath and scrambled up the jumbled formation after the man. Something would have to work out when he got there.

  At last, he could see the horse’s legs and hooves stuck out overhead from the top of a building size boulder. They soon would know Butler’s fate. The next thirty feet was straight up. Bobby could reach out and touch the talus rock to help himself scramble up it.

  Davis bent over, picked up something and without looking pocketed it. Bobby’s heart stopped. Had the old man found the pocketknife? Damn. He scurried past Davis and went around the boulder, finding a way to reach the top.

  Pulling himself up so he could sit on the edge of the flat surface, he could smell the horse. Obviously, the impact had forced out the contents of his bowels. The odor was strong and had already begun to gather flies. Bobby rose up on his knees to where he could see Butler’s twisted body. The boy’s head was smashed and bloody from the fall. Butler’s blue eyes stared at the azure sky.

  He was dead.

  “Not much we can do for him,” Davis said, huffing hard from the climb.

  “No, I’ll try to get his saddle off. I imagine his old man will want that?”

  “Sure, guess we can wrap him in his own slicker and let him down the steepest part with a rope,” Davis said as if thinking out loud.

  “My lands, he took a helluva fall,” Checkers said, at last standing on the top of the boulder. “Horse just leaped off up there?” He took off his hat, scratched his thin thatch on top, and gazed skyward in awe.

  “Yeah,” Bobby said, then he bent over undid the latigos on the cinch. They couldn’t prove anything different.

  “Here’s his knife,” Davis said. “He won’t need it. Found it down the hill. Just cut the girth on the other side, be easier to get the saddle off.”

  Bobby nodded to indicate he had heard the instructions and took the familiar Barlow from him. A cool wave of relief settled over him. His plan was complete. It was a horse wreck killed the poor boy. Smile, damn you, John Chisum.

  Bobby waited in the cedar brush until Reginald Butler left the whorehouse in Beecher’s Canyon. The place was run by a German woman, Greta Stalz, who kept some Mexican working girls for the pleasure of the miners and cowboys in the area. Reginald was a few years older than his brother. Bobby met him at the funeral and despite the cold suspicious edge the Butler clan showed toward him over Zack’s death, Bobby acted as if nothing was wrong.

  His roundup work for Davis over, he drifted around like a typical unemployed cowboy. He spent a good portion of his pay from Davis at Greta’s, drank “a little too much” at the cantina, complained about the cheap ranchers not hiring him. All the time, he was learning the Butlers’ patterns, where they went alone and together.

  It was mid-morning sun time when he spotted his quarry leaving Greta’s. Reginald looked about done in when he stumbled out of the w
horehouse and made three tries to get on his horse. He rode away from there like a sack of beans in the saddle and once almost fell off. Bobby observed him from a good distance, and became convinced he could ride up undetected and whack him over the head. Then a wonderful idea came to him. Reginald was about to have a terrible wreck. Dragged to death by his own horse.

  Bobby rose in the stirrups, looked out across the country. Nothing, no one in sight, only scattered junipers. He spurred the bay on.

  “Hold up!” he shouted and saw Reginald look back with his half-opened eyes. He soon joined him.

  “Hmm,” Butler sniffed and turned away. “It’s you.”

  “Hey, I felt real bad about your brother dying that way.”

  “Yeah, I bet he’d be alive today if it weren’t for you.”

  Yeah, he would be. So would you. Filled with rage, Bobby drew his Colt, gripped it by the barrel, drove his horse in close and busted Butler in the back of the head with the butt. Butler pitched face first onto the ground. Barely having time to catch the man’s spooked horse by the reins, Bobby glanced over his shoulder to be certain Butler had not regained consciousness. He hurriedly led the man’s horse back and dismounted.

  He grasped Butler’s right leg and with some effort forced his boot through the stirrup. Out of breath, he glanced down at Butler who was regaining some awareness.

  “What the hell you doing?” Reginald asked, blinking his bleary eyes.

  “Sending you to hell with Zack,” Bobby said and lashed Butler’s horse on the butt.

  The animal made a bound, but when he discovered the dangling object at his heels, he kicked up and began to race away. Like a flapping rag doll, Butler was propelled along with his foot stuck in the stirrup. Bobby quickly mounted. He loped his horse down the dusty road after them to be certain the spooked animal did not stop too soon or that Butler’s foot came disengaged.