CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
The air inside the livery stable was thick with the musky tang of horses and the wet grass smell of baled hay.
Above the door of Matt Rhodes’s office hung an oval tintype of William Tecumseh Sherman in the dress uniform of a major general. A black mourning ribbon on his left arm was for Abraham Lincoln.
Hamp Sedley glanced at the image and made a face, but Ruby’s warning glare kept him silent.
“If you’re hungry I keep a pot of beef stew going in my office,” Matt Rhodes said. “Back in the old days, drifting punchers would stop by for a bite, but it all ended when Hank Cobb took over the town.”
“I could use some of that stew,” Sedley said. “How about you, Sally?”
The girl nodded. “I’m sure sick of rabbit.”
“Then he’p yourself, young lady,” Rhodes said.
“You too, Johnny Reb. Just be careful you don’t choke on it.”
After Sally followed Sedley into the small office, Rhodes’s gaze flicked over the two dozen horses in the barn. Then, his face a grizzled blank, he said, “All right, let’s hear it, Ruby.”
The woman said, “A friend of mine came in to trade Shel Shannon—”
“Yeah, I know. Your friend tried to trade Shannon for Jasper Wolfden, him Cobb kilt but didn’t bury deep enough,” Rhodes said. “Trying to trade with Cobb was a dumb play.”
Ruby opened her mouth to speak, but the old man cut her off.
“Shannon is dead,” he said. “Hank Cobb gunned him. Then he took your friend prisoner, him and another feller.”
“Are they still alive?” Ruby said.
“As far as I know,” Rhodes said.
“Matt, you have to help us rescue them,” Ruby said.
“That’s a tall order, Ruby.”
“You’re our only hope.”
A horse snorted and thumped its hoof on the timber floor. The tin rooster on the roof squeaked as the direction of the rising wind shifted and a suggestion of rain pattered on the roof.
Ruby waited for a few seconds longer than she should have for Rhodes to respond.
Finally, she said, “Matt, surely there are other men in town that’ll join us to get rid of Hank Cobb,” she said.
“Maybe,” Rhodes said. He looked through the office window and stared at Sedley who was spooning stew into his mouth. “I don’t like that feller,” he said.
“Matt . . . please.”
The old man nodded.
“All right, Ruby, I can think of a couple. But you got to keep in mind that Holy Rood is a town like no other. I’ve been in a heap o’ wild cow towns, livened up by buffalo hunters, railroad construction laborers, freighters, cowboys and more riff-raff and assorted hard cases than you could shake a stick at. But the folks who lived in those towns were just as tough, just as wild as them I’ve mentioned, and they hired fighting lawmen to keep the peace and backed them to the hilt.”
Rhodes shrugged. “Holy Rood was never like that. It’s always been a gutless place. Not long before Cobb and me arrived, the town stood back and let an outlaw gang hang their sheriff, a young feller by the name of Bob Wickham. By all accounts he was a good man. I think Cobb got wind of the hanging and that’s why he chose Holy Rood as his place of residence. Probably reckoned he could do anything he wanted in this town.”
Sedley had finished eating and he listened intently to what the old man was saying. “And he’s sure done anything he wanted,” he said.
Rhodes nodded. “First sensible thing I’ve heard you say, Reb.”
“How does a town get to be like this one?” Ruby said. “How can it exist?”
“I don’t know,” Rhodes said. “A bunch of gutless folks happening to congregate in one place can only be called a freak of nature.”
“And such a gathering attracts predators like Hank Cobb and his ilk,” Sally said.
“You got that right, young lady,” Rhodes said.
Ruby gave Rhodes a pained stare.
“Is there nobody?”
Rhodes took his time to answer, and then he said, “Ruby, I’ll he’p you any way I can, short of meeting Hank Cobb gun-to-gun in the street. And there’s Will Granger the blacksmith. Like me, Cobb leaves him alone, though he pays him to shackle prisoners. Will is a strong man who hates what this town has become. He just might throw in with us.”
“Can you bring him here, Matt?” Ruby said.
Thunder rumbled overhead and rain slanted across the open door of the livery.
Rhodes nodded. “You stay here. I’ll go talk with Will.”
Lightning filled the stable with shimmering light and then thunder banged again. The horses whinnied and kicked at their stalls.
Rhodes took a yellow slicker from a hook and shrugged into it.
“I can’t give any guarantees,” he said, picking up his rifle. “If Will says no, then there’s an end to it as far as I’m concerned.”
He stepped to the door and turned his head, his eyes searching the ridge.
“Cobb’s up there, keeping the folks at work,” he said.
The old man stepped into the street then stopped as lightning flashed, followed almost immediately by a roar of thunder.
“These summer storms can kill folks,” Rhodes said, water sluicing off the brim of his hat. “It must be hell up there on the ridge.”