Chaparral Range War (9781101619049) (20 page)

“You got any whiskey?” The hatless one pounded his fist on the tabletop.

The station man said he did.

“By damn get us some cups. We're thirsty, ain't we, Curt?”

“Yeah,” he said and turned his attention to Guthrey and Cally. “You two get caught here too?”

Guthrey nodded. “We only beat it by a few minutes.”

“I've seen her before, but I don't know you.”

“Guthrey's my name.”

The other two's eyes flew open.

“Why, he's the—” Hatless said.

“Shut up.” Curt cut him off.

“But—”

“I said shut up.”

The protestor swallowed hard and nodded.

“Get up,” Curt said to his men, holding his hands out from the table. He said something else to them. Guthrey decided it was “Keep your hands clear.” Both men took on a wide-eyed look as they obeyed the big man.

“Go get our horses,” he ordered. His blue eyes in a hard stare never left Guthrey.

“Aw, hell, it's still raining out there.”

“You heard what I said. Get them.” His voice still even, he eased himself up and slipped toward the door after the two wary men.

He closed the door after their retreat and Guthrey heard one ask aloud, “Who was the sumbitch in there?”

“That gawdamn Texas Ranger.”

“Oh, hell—”

“Oh my God, I thought we were both dead,” Cally whispered.

“Easy. They ain't gone yet.” Guthrey patted her leg for reassurance.

“Mister, I don't know who you are, but you put the God-fearing hell into them three,” the station man said, coming out of the kitchen with a shotgun in his hands. “You know them?”

Guthrey shook his head and stood up. “I think he heard you break open that shotgun breech back there.”

“I don't know a thing about that. When I heard your name back there, I knew then you were the reformer, and I knew good and well them three sided with the crooked ring that runs this county.”

“What's Curt's last name?”

“Slegal.”

“What does he do?”

“Good question. He has a ranch south of Steward's Crossing, but most of us think he holds up stages and burns people out for guys like Whitmore.” The man smiled, showing he was missing a tooth in the top row, and shook his head as if he still did not believe how the three men had left. “That bugger was sure not wanting any part of a shoot-out with you.”

“That was the good part.” Guthrey worried more about how upset Cally was.

At last he had a name for the ruby ring wearer: Curt Slegal.

“You all right?” Guthrey asked Cally.

“Yes, I'll be fine.”

But he could tell she had been taken aback by the entire episode. For his part he was glad they'd had no gunfight in the small station. A damn close call but while Slegal might rape women, he wanted no part of a gunfight in such close quarters with a man of reputation. It could have been a bloodbath. The situation had come within inches of exploding into that sort of thing.

The sun was soon out and the storm had passed over them. Everything looked crystal clear when they came outside. The purple mountains showed every detail. Once dusty, the desert brush and cactus looked freshly washed. A pungent smell of creosote filled the cleared air. Cally dried the wagon seat with a towel while Guthrey checked the harness. Satisfied, he climbed on, winked at her, and drove off with his unsaddled horses tied on behind. She clung to his arm.

“Now you know who he is, what will you do?” she asked.

“I will need witnesses that will testify to a grand jury. They will not be easy to find. I am more interested in what the stage man said back there. He called these outlaws part of a crooked ring. How many others are involved?”

“Yes, before I blamed it all on Whitmore. Now it sounds like there may be more to it.”

“So did I. I thought Killion was out to make the most money. Use his deputies to find taxable cattle. But if all this is planned to allow the others to break the law for their purposes, then there is a ring involved. With all that talk about the county board not wanting to hire more lawmen, we are seeing others involved that run the list of the county administrators and others.”

“I think you are getting close to exposing the whole lot of them.”

He slapped the horses to make them hurry. “Could you quietly speak to some of his victims? I know the shock of asking an honest woman to testify about the fact they've been raped is going to be really hard. But we have to stop him.”

She agreed. “I'll try.”

“I know someone who would not tell me his name. I'm going to confront her, find out why she wouldn't tell it to me.”

Cally frowned at him in disbelief. “And she knew it.”

He nodded and still could not figure her reason. Curt might be more powerful than he thought.

They reached the ranch long after sundown. He could see the signs that they'd had some rain there as well. Sometimes it only rained on the just and left the unjust without any. Not this time.

Noble met them and after Guthrey and Cally had some food, the men left her to go to bed. Noble and Guthrey went down by the corral to talk more about the confrontation.

“You know this man Slegal?” Guthrey asked him.

“Not well.”

“He's the one who wears the ruby ring.”

“I'll be damned. I never saw him when he didn't have gloves on.”

“It's damn sure chilling to see him wearing it and knowing what all the sumbitch has done.”

“What are we going to do?”

“If I had the whole thing in my mind and knew how to stop it, I'd set out to do it. I was warned that even if we got more votes in the election they'd not count the ballots right. There's a whole group of them that runs things around here.”

“Whew, all this sounds damn complicated as hell to me.”

“You ain't alone, pard. Better get some sleep.”

Noble agreed.

Guthrey nodded to him as he stared at the North Star and Big Dipper. There had to be something he could do to expose the crooked ring. One big program to take over the county government and get this entire organization closed down. By himself that was impossible. He needed to talk to Judge Collier. But even he did not have the power to do all this, and if something did not happen, all this petition work would go down in flames and the so-called ring would remain in power.

He'd also need to go talk to McCall and Brown in the morning about that very matter. Start there and work up. All the things that were happening needed to be taken in and considered. Maybe they had some ideas on handling things. In the morning he'd go down there. Knowing that Slegal was still on the loose made him more upset than all the rest of it.

In less than two weeks, he and Cally would be married. All in the midst of this tornado of crime and underhanded activity sweeping the chaparral country. He found sleeping in his bedroll evaded him that night. Too many loose ends in his life.

TWENTY-ONE

A
ROUND MIDMORNING,
G
UTHREY
found Carl Brown at his farm, busy repairing a place in the corral that his Jersey bull had smashed apart. Brown was busy nailing up rough lumber. Guthrey stepped in and held up the other end of the board.

“I can't believe a two-year-old, seven-hundred-pound calf could do this much damage,” Brown said as he straightened to examine his work.

“They can kill you too,” Guthrey added, recalling others' past experiences with dairy bulls.

“I know. They're very dangerous. What can I do for you?”

“Do you know a man named Slegal?”

“He has a ranch east of here. He's been spoken about as a troublemaker, but I know of no incidents with him in our community.”

“The man, besides his terrorism activities, has raped a half dozen ranch wives and probably more.”

“Oh no. How do you know that?”

“He does it masked but wears a large ruby ring.”

“What can we do about him?”

“It will be hard to get many of these women to testify, but I am trying to find some who will.”

Brown pushed his straw hat back on his head. “It will be hard to get them to do that. Testify in open court about a man raping them.”

“In my investigating, a man who might know told me that Killion will count his votes and not our people.”

“No, we will have plenty of witnesses there. And be sure the ballot boxes are not stuffed between the polling place and the county courthouse.”

“It is beginning to look to me like there is a ring of officials besides Whitmore and Killion who are in on this deal.”

“Sounds serious. Maybe we have not looked at the real depth of this?”

“What if we interrogate some sub-officials about this business and tell them that if they don't testify against the leaders they will be charged too?”

“It might work. But there are so few workers in those county offices to get to.” Brown backed his butt to the fence and shook his head in disgust. “Any more ideas?”

“I've been thinking. We could make up a posse, say of eight men, then we begin arresting all those we know are in on this deal and the rats will jump off the ship when word leaks out. I think if they face long sentences, they will turn state's evidence and talk.”

Brown agreed. “McCall and I will get all the evidence and information on this Slegal we can get for you.”

“How many signers do we have?”

“Over five hundred now, and our people are working it hard to get the holdouts.”

“We keep adding names at these gatherings. I hope, by the election, we have the ballot-counting thing under control.”

“We can handle that. Thanks. I can see you are doing lots of self-examination about this matter. Don't worry, the people of Crook County are behind you.”

Guthrey nodded and headed back for the ranch, still not certain their plan would work. Lots of these co-conspirators had control of many things that still stood in their path.

Noble was at the ranch alone when he returned. “Cally and Dan went to see some people about this ring guy.”

Guthrey leaned over. “Don't tell anyone. All he has to do is throw that ring away.”

Noble shook his head in disgust. “He needs to be strung up.”

“I know, but that is not the way we need to straighten out the wrongdoing around us.”

“All right, I won't hang him, but he still needs it.”

Guthrey laughed. “I wonder if Slegal has any detractors. People mad enough to testify against him.”

“I don't know.”

“Let's think about our business for a while. I want to ride up and talk to Pete Karnes and see what he's found out about the outcropping.”

“Sure. I'm ready. Let's go.”

They reached the operation midday and the crew was eating lunch. Pete set down his tin plate, rose, and shook their hands.

“Go ahead and eat,” Guthrey told him. “We simply wanted to see how things were going up here.”

“We've been blasting and are down about ten feet in the shaft.”

“Any more gold?”

“Some, but it's spotty.” He handed Guthrey some white quartz pieces with larger streaks in them. “Not much. But it's worth looking deeper.”

Guthrey handed the rocks to Noble. “There's a little more in them.”

With a nod of approval, Noble agreed. “Sure hope you can find something.”

“We might,” Pete said. “We're going to blast some more today.”

“Have you seen anyone around up here?”

“Funny you ask. We had someone here a few nights ago. It was dark, and I had a toothache so I was sitting up. Someone on a horse rode up here, and when I challenged him he rode off.”

“No idea who he was?”

“No, but now we're taking turns guarding at night.”

“Be careful. They shot Bridges in the back up here.”

“Oh, we will. You can tell those kids that I don't know, but there might be gold down there. We do have a few more signs.”

Guthrey nodded and they rode back looking for any tracks of an invader in the canyon. Leaning over in the saddle to read faded tracks, Guthrey wished he had an identity for this person. Too many things needed to be found to advance all his causes. This mine deal had him more convinced there was something up in that canyon. No one had any business in the box canyon but a person involved in Harold Bridges's death and the gold deal.

Cally and Dan were back when Guthrey and Noble returned. Cally rushed out to hug and kiss Guthrey.

“You learn anything?” he asked her.

“We may have a woman who will testify. She wants to talk it over with her husband some more. She's a strong individual and hates that man riding around free to rape others.”

“You may have done some good, then. Thanks.”

“What did you learn?”

“Brown says they are going to be prepared to really oversee the election.”

“Do we need to postpone our wedding?”

“Not unless you want to.”

“Oh, I'd marry you today, but I don't want you worrying about me in the midst of all this other stuff happening.”

“Let's just proceed. If I see any problems ahead we'll talk about it.”

“Thanks,” she said, standing on her toes and kissing his cheek.

“What next?”

“East Fork meeting Saturday night, three days from now. Want me to go over there with you?”

He quickly nodded. “I'm always pleased to show you off.”

She blushed. “I'll go, then.”

A boy delivered a letter from Judge Collier in the midst of all their activity. Everyone crowded around while Guthrey read it.

Dear Guthrey,

I have spoken to the governor twice this week. He plans to immediately appoint you as sheriff and Chief County official for Crook County if the election issue passes. Which is wonderful news.

Deputy U.S. marshals will be in charge of all ballot boxes and counting the ballots so there will be no chance to steal the election. Be prepared to swear in enough lawmen to enforce the law and handle the jail, as well as preserving the peace, should there be a show of force as a result of the election.

Judge A. Collier

A cheer went up.

“That means that you will be the acting sheriff after the ballots are counted,” Cally said, excited at the news.

“Well, it sounds to me like we'll be busier than a beaver in a flood,” Noble said.

Guthrey agreed.

* * *

G
UTHREY AND
C
ALLY
drove over to East Fork, arriving midafternoon on Saturday. Prepared to camp overnight and drive home in the morning, he was amazed at all the assistance he got in raising her tent. Men were full of questions about what he planned to do first after the election.

“If and when I can, I'll get warrants and arrest the people who have been terrorizing the citizens, and any other law violators.”

“Will you have enough help?”

Guthrey nodded. “I think enough citizens will come to my aid.”

“Count me and my brothers in for those volunteers. My name's Hanson.”

“I will keep you in mind, sir.”

“I know you are going to clean them all out.”

Guthrey nodded again. “Crook County will be a much better place to live.”

“I'm glad you came here. We've needed you for a long time as our lawman.”

Volunteers came by all day, and Guthrey felt much better when he escorted Cally to the event that evening. They entered the schoolhouse and were welcomed with applause. He made a short speech asking for their help and for them to go get more signatures so they could close the drive.

Invited to the head of the line, Guthrey and Cally moved in to fill their plates at the food-crowded tables. He could see how happy she was, teasing him some, quietly, about his new fame. He shook his head. “Simple enough, they want to be rid of this ring of outlaws.”

They ate seated on benches at the north wall with a friendly crowd around them. Questions about their pending wedding came around.

“June third,” Cally said, and the women in the crowd nodded in approval among themselves. Soon the band started playing and they danced.

“Are you feeling better?” Cally asked as they spun across the floor.

“Yes, I think we may make a showing.”

“And what about the governor's promise that marshals will oversee the election?”

“Judge Collier's letter said they will watch over everything done that day and will count the ballots themselves.”

She beamed and said, “Oh, Phil, I am so relieved for you.”

He hugged her shoulders a little tighter. “I am very grateful for all this effort, darling.”

In the morning they headed home. When they rounded a bend in the road, they came upon a man dressed in a suit sitting on a bay horse in the middle of the dusty road that wound off the mountain they'd crossed.

“Trouble?” she asked.

“Trade sides. I'll stand up and you slide over to my left.”

“I'm ready.” They changed sides. She rearranged her skirt and sat up. He put his reins in his left hand, then set the revolver in his lap.

“Do you know him?” she hissed.

“No.”

Upset with what might happen and having her along, Guthrey shook his head. “If he goes for a gun, you get off and run for cover. Damn them anyway.”

The intensity of the situation fell on his shoulders. Though he saw no one else, the chaparral cover beside the road made him suspicious that there might be a backup force along with this stranger.

He reined up way short.

The man opened his coat. “I am unarmed. I want to talk with you, Guthrey.”

“Who in the hell are you?” Guthrey asked, still suspicious of this well-dressed man and his purpose.

“Charles Bentson. I'm a lawyer and I have an offer for you. I am offering you a ranch up on the Verde River in exchange for the Bridges place. This ranch is well watered, and you can move your cattle up there.”

“That is not my ranch to trade, sir.”

“Come on, you will own your wife's share in a few weeks. I am sorry we had to meet like this, ma'am.”

She never answered him.

Guthrey shook his head. “I am not going to be bought off.”

“Don't be foolish. You stand no chance, by yourself, of changing things around here. And you have no partners in law enforcement to back you up. I know you aren't dumb enough to try and take over this county by yourself. They'll have a fast funeral for you.”

“Bentson, you tell your people they'd better saddle up and start riding like hell for the border. My law will be a swift sword when it comes after them.”

“Miss Bridges, talk some sense into him. You want a wedding or a funeral for him?”

“Bentson, tell your clients what I said. They'd better ride for the border or they'll be sweating in Yuma Prison.”

The man openly scoffed at him. “You'd better reconsider, Guthrey. You can't win your struggle here.”

Tired of having to listen to the man, Guthrey, with the Colt in his fist, waved Bentson aside, keeping his eyes open for any movement. Cally took the reins and clucked to the team. The anger Guthrey saw in her eyes told him the lawyer was lucky she didn't have a six-gun.

“Save your breath,” he said to the man as they drove by him.

Bentson shouted at him, “You will rue this day.”

“I'll lock you up with them if you like their ways so well.”

Out of hearing range, Guthrey holstered the Colt. “I'm sorry.”

“It isn't your fault. They've tried it all now, haven't they?”

“I guess so. Hampton came for a show of force, now their attorney offers us a bribe.”

“What will you do now?”

“When we get the go-ahead, I have plans that will secure us.”

“I know you know lots more than I do about all this. But it smells kinda bad to me.”

He clapped her on the leg. “The smell is obvious to me. Let's get the horses trotting. But we, you and I, will have to be more careful coming and going.”

“Damn that bunch,” she said in disgust under her breath.

“Yes, I'd do that too.”

She laughed. He patted her on the shoulder. “This will all be gone someday. Have patience.”

“I'll try,” she promised him.

He heard her words and knew things were opening up. It was time for him to call in some cards he'd held back on. When the situation broke, he had some aces he'd held in reserve. But it wasn't time yet to show them. Time would tell him when to move and how.