CHAPTER 15
Although Rhoades told him the suite of rooms he had acquired for him at The Frontier Palace were much nicer than his single room at the Hotel Helena, James Grant did not care.
“It’s the principle of the thing,” he said as he tried to rub feeling back into his wrists. He had been released from jail several hours before, but the feeling of the shackles was still there. He imagined it would be a long time before he forgot how they felt, if ever. “I’m a free man, J.D. I should be able to stay where I please.”
“You may be free,” the attorney allowed, “but you’re a convicted felon in the eyes of the law, so when the territorial marshal tells you to do something, I advise you to do it. Changing rooms is a small price to pay, James. You won. I thought you’d be happy.”
Grant glared at him. “How can I be happy with Al Brenner rotting away in a cell for the next five years? The Hancocks will be furious I let him get locked up.”
“Ten years,” Rigg added from the chair in the corner of the suite. “Old Forester tacked on an extra five for what he did in his courtroom. That stupid bastard will probably rack up the full twenty-five years by this time next week. I doubt his kin will shed a tear for him, especially after we get you back to Dover Station.”
“What?” Rhoades exclaimed. “You can’t go back there, James. The judge told you as much.”
“He said I can’t sit on a board or work for any large companies,” Grant told him. “He didn’t say I couldn’t start my own company.”
“Start it with what?” Rhoades asked. “That fifteen-thousand-dollar ruling pretty much cleaned you out.” The attorney sat up a bit straighter. “And there are my fees to consider.”
“I’ve considered them,” Grant said. “Yours and Rigg’s, too. You’ll get your money, and the judge will get his fine.” Grant smiled. “That old drunk was right, you know. I stole a lot more than fifteen thousand from Silas Van Dorn while I was running things. More than he or anyone else knows.”
“I don’t want to know,” Rhoades said. “But as your attorney, I strongly advise you to stay away from Dover Station. Mr. Rice has sent out a replacement for Silas Van Dorn. Paul Bishop. I’ve heard a lot about him. He’s not sickly and he’s not a fool, James. You won’t be able to control him like you controlled Van Dorn. He’s a Quaker, in fact, and doesn’t drink or gamble. The man doesn’t even curse. You won’t be able to corrupt him.”
Grant absently moved his hands over his red brocade vest. It was good to feel such finery again. “There’s more than one way to corrupt a man, J.D. If you can’t do it by being next to him, then you take the ground out from under him.” He looked at his attorney. “Believe me, I know. And I know just how to do it, too.”
Rhoades stood up. “I believe every man is entitled to a defense before the law, but I won’t help you break it, and I won’t sit idly by while you put yourself in jeopardy. If you won’t follow my counsel, then you have no further use for my services. I believe our association has come to an end. I’d like my payment now before I leave.”
“I’d give him his money, Mr. Grant,” Rigg said. “You don’t want him coming after you in court for it.”
“It’s your money too, Nathan. Don’t forget that.”
Rigg examined the crease in his pants leg. “Well, if it’s all the same to you, J.D., I think I’m going to hang around for a while. See if Mr. Grant has any use for me in his future plans.” He looked over at Grant. “That is, if you’ll have me, sir.”
Grant smiled. He had expected the mercenary to stay with him, knowing a wise bet when he saw one. He was glad his time in Mackey’s jail had not dulled his instincts. “You’re welcome if you have a mind to stay, Mr. Rigg.”
The retired colonel looked at the attorney. “Guess you’re on your own from here, J.D. I’ve got myself another partner.”
“I can’t say I’m surprised,” Rhoades said, “or particularly disappointed. Now, about my fee?”
“I have your bill,” Grant told him. “As soon as I get back to Dover, I’ll have my bank send the money to your offices in Chicago. It’ll be waiting for you by the time you get there.”
“I certainly hope so.” Rhoades picked up his leather bag and walked to the door. “I’d wish you luck, Mr. Grant, but I don’t think it’ll do you much good. Going up against the likes of Aaron Mackey is no one’s idea of a successful venture.”
“I went up against him,” Rigg said. “And I’m still here to tell the tale.”
“For now,” Rhoades said. “But I got to know him fairly well when I represented him in his court-martial. What the Campbell widow told you about him on the street is true. You won because you were his superior officer. There wasn’t much he could do to stop you in a military courtroom. But you’re not in the army anymore, Nathan, and Mackey doesn’t answer to you. He answers to Judge Forester and, more than that, to himself. If you cross him, I don’t hold out much hope for your chances.”
Grant watched how Rigg would handle the attorney’s rebuke. He half expected him to shoot him where he stood.
But he just returned to examining the crease in his pant leg. “I’ve always known I’ll die in my bed, J.D. I think I even saw it once on a particularly warm day on my family’s plantation in Virginia. I like to think of it as some kind of prophecy. Nothing Aaron Mackey can do will change that.”
“For your sake, I hope not,” Rhoades allowed, “but like I said, I don’t hold out much hope for your chances.” He looked at Grant. “Either of you. Good luck to you. You’re going to need it.”
He walked out of the suite, leaving Grant and Rigg alone.
Grant watched the door long after Rhoades had left. “That man gives Mackey too much credit.”
“And you don’t give Mackey enough,” Rigg quickly said.
“Don’t tell me you’re afraid of him, too.” Grant was beginning to have second doubts about his new employee. “He’s not God, Nathan, and a good part of his current celebrity came from me. I’m the one who cooked up that Savior of Dover Station business, not The Dover Station Record. Figured building him up would be good for my investments, and I was right, too. But I know the man behind the legend I created. He’s still a two-bit hick from the middle of nowhere. He might be some kind of war hero, but he’s still just a man, and any man can be killed.”
“That’s where you’re wrong, Mr. Grant.” Rigg uncrossed his legs and picked up his chair as he carried it over to be closer to his new employer. “He might be just a man and any man can be killed, but he’s no hick. I sent him up against the worst raider Arizona had seen in years with a ragtag force of convicts and every ne’er-do-well in the stockade. I made sure he was undermanned and outgunned. Even gave him a crooked scout to help balance the odds against him. He not only returned alive, he returned a hero.”
“I’ve heard all about that story,” Grant said, “and it never impressed me. I’m no sand savage.”
“No, you’re not.” Rigg set the chair down next to Grant and took a seat. “So when they elevated Mackey to captain against my wishes, I sent him after the scout who betrayed him. Just him and Sergeant Sunday. I figured two men would be no match for a Comanche with a good year-anda-half head start on him. It took him a year before he returned back to the fort, and when he did, he had that scout in tow. When I ordered some of my officers to kill the scout before he talked, he stepped in and stopped it single-handedly.”
He leaned forward, and Grant found him uncomfortably close, but refused to move.
“A man like Mackey,” Rigg went on, “doesn’t stop. He doesn’t quit. He doesn’t get discouraged, and he doesn’t go away. You have to make a man like that go away and the only way you can do that is by breaking him. You don’t break him with bullets or violence. You break him by cracking his very soul. And if you’re willing to do that, then you and I are going to get along just fine, because I’m the man to do it.”
He held out his hand. “And my price is a sixty-forty split, Mr. Grant. A sixty-forty split of everything, and, together, we end Aaron Mackey once and for all.”
Grant looked at the hand before him. Was this the hand that would finally rid him of Aaron Mackey once and for all time? “That’s an awfully steep price to pay to get rid of one man.”
“Don’t think of Mackey as one man,” Rigg said. “Think of him as the only man who can bring you down, because he’ll never stop trying until he does. You know I’m right, too. Hell, I’ll even throw in that colored deputy of his for no extra charge.” His hand remained steady. “What do you say?”
Grant did not like the idea of cutting in a practical stranger on so much of the empire he planned to rebuild. An empire that would dwarf anything Frazer Rice or Silas Van Dorn had dared to dream. An empire he intended on building as soon as possible.
But he had no doubt he could find a use for Rigg and his men. If anything, they could be useful in bringing the Hancock family to heel. After that, he could always have an accident, just like Walter Underhill.
He shook Rigg’s hand. “Why do I have a feeling I’ve just made a deal with the Devil himself?”
The colonel laughed as he pumped Grant’s hand with enthusiasm. “Oh, Mr. Grant, with your money and my men, we’ll do things the old Devil himself would shy away from.”
James Grant liked the sound of that. He liked the sound of that very much.