Under a clondless sky, Luther jogged his team of bays down the rutted Texas Road toward the settlement. Any wagon tracks that ran southerly in the Nation carried the same title, because if you went far enough down it, you arrived in the Lone Star State. The ruts were still mud-filled from the past hard rain. They called this community Oats. The small crossroads contained a store with a smattering of raw cabins clustered around it. A few straggly pines that barely escaped the axe and crosscut saw stood above new corn patches.
Since early morning he had hurried, hoping to find Choc Bleau at home. The breed, who spoke three dialects, made a good posse man to help him serve warrants and make arrests where he was headed in the Kiamish District.
Framed in thick braids, a brown face popped up in the waving green blades. Armed with a hoe, she blinked at him in the distance, then she spoke sharply to her force of small faces who were equally equipped. Skirt in hand, she began to run across the rows through the knee-high stalks toward the cabin, looking back as if to check if he was still driving his bays up the road.
Nancy Bleau was her name, a full blood. The smaller ones were her and Choc’s brood of half a dozen field hands up to the age of perhaps twelve; she obviously planned to leave them to hoe weeds in her absence. At her current rate of travel, her long legs taking such great strides, she would be at the cabin door before he came up to their place. Choc’s hounds began to bark in excitement. They ran out to the road as if to guard it so he couldn’t go past them.
A low growl from under the seat drew from Luther.
“Shut up, Ben. We ain’t having fights with Choc’s hounds today.”
Still looking unconvinced of the matter of calling off any altercations, the thick-set English bulldog licked his face with his wide red tongue. He gave Luther a sardonic pose, “How come?” then he dropped back to the floor of the bed.
Ignoring the spotted hounds’ chorus, Luther took the lane toward the cabin. Their incisive throaty racket reached a level where he could no longer hear the worn wagon hub knock. Nancy disappeared through the open front door. He reined up and she reappeared, smiled, and armed with a broom, dispersed the noisy pack to the rear of the house from where they spied distrustfully around the corner at the newly arrived rig.
The brake set and reins wrapped around the handle, Luther looked up in time to see Choc’s frame fill the opening. Good. He wasn’t gone somewhere. The tall breed ran the webs of his hands under the yellow suspenders as if testing their elasticity and nodded a hello. Luther returned his welcome and climbed down, anxious to stretch his stiff legs and back.
The half Osage’s black hair stuck straight up. It gave him a look of being much taller than six three. He leaned back inside and found the unblocked gray hat with the greasy eagle feather adornment to complete his dress.
Luther reached in the wagon, took Ben by the plump midsection, and put him on the ground. Without hesitation, but still a wary look out for the pot-lickers, Ben went around and lifted his leg to all four wheels. The ceremony completed, Luther ordered him to stay under the rig. He checked on the dun saddle horse, whose lead rope was tied to the tailgate; he was fine. That accomplished, he turned to see Nancy returning around the cabin’s corner.
“Damn hounds,” she said, out of breath. A warm smile spread over her face as she stuck out her long brown hand to him. “Good to see you, Luther.”
“Good morning.” Funny thing, Luther decided, how her
hand could be so callused from work, yet still feel definitely feminine to his touch. Straight-backed with her raven-black hair parted in the middle and bound in thick braids, she filled out the wash-worn calico dress with an appealing firmness.
“Nice to see you again, Nancy. You sure have a greatlooking corn crop this year.”
She glanced over as if to check on it. Hard put to suppress her obvious pride, she beamed at his approval. “Doing good now. If it don’t get too dry this summer.”
Luther agreed.
“You must have got up pretty early,” Choc said with a slow grin, and stepped off onto the log stoop. “You usually never get here till lunchtime.” He shaded his eyes with his hand and looked for the sun to tell the time.
“I did. I’ve got a wad of warrants to serve in this district.”
“We better eat lunch before we go,” Choc said.
“He’s worried you won’t stop and eat.” Nancy laughed out loud at her husband’s expense.
Choc gave her small frown of disapproval.
“He’s probably right,” Luther agreed.
“Come on,” she said, with a wave for him to follow her inside. “It won’t take long. I already have stew on the stove. And some corn bread left from breakfast.”
“Who you looking for this time?” Choc asked with his full brown lips pursed.
“First, can I hire you?” Luther asked, at the base of the stoop.
“How long?”
“Couple of weeks. You got other work to do?”
Luther could see that Nancy had stopped to stare at her husband. His reply affected her, too. A noisy crow went by overhead. The pine floor of the cabin creaked as if in protest.
Choc shook his head. “There’s a stomp dance coming up, but I can always go to a dance.”
Satisfied, Nancy agreed with a hard nod of approval to
his words and headed across the room to the stove.
“It pays the same,” Luther added. “Buck a day.”
“Good,” Choc said, and motioned for him to take a seat opposite him at the wooden table.
“I’ll wash my hands first,” Luther said. After holding the lines all morning and messing with harnessing the team earlier, they needed to be cleaned. He searched around for the washbowl.
“There is a basin.” She pointed to the dry sink and tossed him a flour sack towel. With hot water from a cast-iron kettle off the range, she filled it for him.
“What’s been happening up here?” Luther asked, busy cleaning his hands.
“They say they will pay our allotments in August this year,” she said over her shoulder.
Choc shook his head. “They never do them on the time they say.”
Luther agreed and dried his hands. Then he came over and sat on the straight-back chair reserved for company and no doubt Choc when there weren’t guests. He scooted it up to the table as Nancy delivered them each a blue and white china bowl of stew. Obviously, this must be her best serving ware. Then she added the half skillet of corn bread to the table.
“Should we have coffee and celebrate?” she asked her husband who agreed with a grunt between spoons of stew.
From the top shelf of her open cupboards, she took down a small cloth sack. Soon she had the beans in a grinder tucked under her arm and swirled the handle with no effort.
“Good thing you came,” she said, and laughed. “He’s pretty stingy with his coffee.”
To suppress his amusement at her words, Luther nodded he heard her. No doubt she used his presence to gouge her husband a little about his thriftiness over the coffee beans. Choc was no big spender, and little doubt the dollar-a-day posse man’s wages that the U.S. Marshal’s office paid him helped them out financially. Few other employment opportunities existed in the district besides logging in the hills.
Lumbering only paid fifty cents a day, and that was after and if the sawmill sold the wood.
Luther set the warrants on the table, picked up the first one, and recalled previously arresting the same one-eyed breed.
“Curly Meantoe,” he said, reading the first name.
“He may be up near the Clam Shell Schoolhouse,” Choc said, and stopped eating. His great brown eyes blinked as if in deep thought, then he nodded in certainty. “He has a sister up there.”
“She’s married to a Fox,” Nancy put in, busy stoking the range’s firebox and adding wood.
“Their name is Clothesrod.” Satisfied with knowing the man’s identity, Choc went back to eating. “He won’t be hard to find. What he do?”
“Says robbery.” Luther turned to the next warrant on the tabletop, took another bite of the rich stew, and read the next name. “Buddy Hart.”
Nancy swiftly turned and looked hard at her husband.
“He killed a white man, huh?” Choc asked without looking up from his food.
“That’s the warrant. Murder. You don’t have to go with me after him,” Luther said.
Choc shrugged as if to dismiss his concern.
“He is your half brother.” Luther wanted to see Choc’s response, though he counted on some lack of it being the nature of the man.
“He broke the law. He is another criminal. I will help you find him.”
“First or last?”
“First,” Choc said, his attention still focused on the stew in his bowl. “He hears we are after him, I bet he will run. We better get him first.”
Luther agreed. He glanced over and saw Nancy turn back to the stove. Hard to tell if she looked relieved or had simply accepted it. All the way from Fort. Smith, the past two days on the road, he had wondered how Choc would take this warrant for Buddy Hart. There were other trackers
available, but the Osage was Luther’s favorite one to hire. In a tight place, he always felt that he could count on him.
Luther felt good that the matter was settled. When he looked up, she delivered them cups of steaming coffee.
“Good coffee,” Luther said in approval, after his first sip of the searing hot brew.
“You know,” Choc began, holding up his stained mug. “If you don’t have coffee all the time, it makes a bigger treat.”
She gave her husband a peevish look of disapproval behind his back for Luther’s sake. Then she went off to sit on edge of the iron bed and drink her own.
Sunlight shone on the forest floor through a filter of thick leaves. The musty sour smell of the rotted mulch permeated the early-morning air. Choc rode a short coupled roan pony ahead of him up the steep trail. A couple of saucy jays screamed at the mounted intruders. Luther’s Texas dun horse’s shoes clanked on the rock outcropping. He knew his posse man did not approve of the bell-like sounds they made at times, but unshod, the gelding would have been footsore and crippled by this time.
Beneath Luther’s horse’s belly or behind him trotted the spotted bulldog, named for Luther’s father’s favorite commander in the war. General Ben McCollough, the former Texas ranger, hero of the Wilson Creek Battle in southern Missouri, who was killed by cannon fire at the Elkhorn Tavern fight called Pea Ridge. Luther’s daddy spoke so highly of the man, thus the name for his forty-five-pound tagalong. Somehow, Ben knew the ways to avoid the gelding’s hooves. Aside from a sneeze or two, his presence remained close to invisible.
With his hand resting on his gun butt, Luther shifted the harness around his waist to relieve some of the pressure of it on his leg. Choc pushed aside a low oak branch and looked back to warn him. He acknowledged the branch and ducked it.
They reached a bench on the mountain and reined up as
a soft breeze swept Luther’s face. From under the towering hardwood canopy, he could see across the deep chasm to the next green range. Somewhere in these mountains, Choc had said earlier that Buddy Hart made his hideout. No one had seen him since the murder. Luther knew no one admitted seeing him for fear his guilt might be shared by anyone who claimed to have been in touch with the twentyyear-old.
“You been to this place before?” he asked.
Choc shook his head. “Not in a few years.”
The exact location of Reed’s lair was irrelevant; Choc’s knowledge of the general area would let him find it. Luther looked down their back trail and saw nothing, but it wasn’t good to take any unnecessary chances.
Choc gave him a head toss and they set out again. Words were a short commodity between them, unless the half Osage hit a streak where he talked for hours. Otherwise, he used hand motions and faces to explain his next moves.
Fox squirrels chattered in the overhead ceiling. Bottom limbs of the great red oaks, ash, and hickory reached far above them in this forest of ancient growth. A faint smell of smoke rode on the air. Only a whiff, but Choc indicated they should stop. Luther searched around. It would be hard to find a place in this glen to tether their horses, the trunks of the giant trees were so vast around.
“You got hobbles?” Choc asked.
“Yeah,” Luther said, carefully checking the area as he reached back and undid the saddlebags.
“Hobble yours, I’ll tie mine to your saddle horn.”
Luther bailed off his dun and fixed the soft ropes around his legs. Then he loosened the girth to ease the pony while they searched ahead on foot. How far away was the source of that smoke? No trace of any in the air when he tried again to use his nose and find it. He removed the .44/.40 from the scabbard and slipped the lever down to check the chamber. The oily-smelling rifle was loaded to the gills.
Armed with a double-barreled shotgun, Choc took the lead and headed uphill. The smoke must have come over
the ridge to reach them. Wind was out of the south, still, the source of it might be miles away. His boot soles tramped through the deep leaf mulch as Luther hurried to catch up. His man could outdo a horse on foot in the woods. He hoped Choc wasn’t in that big of a hurry this time. When Ben gave a loud sneeze, Luther looked aside at him. They might need the general’s services before this was over.
“Come on.” Ben fell in with them in his usual aloft manner, stopping to inspect and piss on various items as he went along.
Choc held out his hand to stop them when they reached the crest. Smoke rose in a thin wisp from a well-made stone chimney. They lay on their stomachs side by side on the ridge. Luther used his looking glass to study the source. No sign of anyone around the outside, but the front door of the small, neat-built cabin was shut.
“Nice-looking place. It ain’t new,” he said, rolling over on his side to hand the glass to Choc.
“No, this place belongs to someone.”
“You think Hart is squatting here?”
Choc nodded and looked hard through the eyepiece. “I’ve been here before. Didn’t know if he was at this one. I think the only way out is the front door and that one window.”
“Good. Will he surrender if he’s in there?” Luther asked, sprawled on his belly beside the man.
Choc shook his head. “I don’t know. Maybe have to stuff green leaves down that chimney and smoke him out.”
“Fine, I’ll give him a chance to surrender first before we do all that work. If we have the wrong place, they should tell us.”
“Good idea.” Choc smiled and collapsed the brass scope.
“Buddy Hart! Buddy Hart! U.S. Deputy Marshal Haskell here! Come out with your hands up!” A double echo of his words came back and he waited, the rifle ready. The bleached gray wooden door remained closed.
Ben sat on his round butt beside them and scratched his
right ear with a hind foot as if bored by their actions. Then he licked his upper lip and nose to complete his ritual.
“That damn dog acts like he knows he’s down there.” Choc belly-laughed at the notion. “Maybe Buddy knows you got Ben up here and don’t want to get bit in the butt.”
“If he’s inside, he sure ain’t answering.” Luther saw the door barely open. The barrel of a long gun poked out the crack. “Get down!” he shouted, and they flattened out.
The shotgun blast roared and soon spent pellets filtered down upon them. Ben snorted his disapproval, rose, and went downhill behind them as if that would be a safer place.
Hard pressed on the ground, they scowled at each other over the reply. Rage swelled in Luther’s chest. Hart wanted to play tough, they’d play tough, too. He would soon learn he’d messed with the wrong men doing a stupid trick like that. Keep up that foolishness and he might even go back to Fort Smith in a wooden box.
“He answered us,” Choc said, on his elbows beside him.
“Yes, he did. How can we stop up that chimney?” Luther asked, still perturbed over the shooting.
“You watch the front door. I’ll go gather some leaves. We’ll smoke him out.” On his hands and knees, Choc backed down the hill.
Luther wondered how his man would ever get them into the chimney, but it was worth a try. He set the rifle on the ground a little ahead of his body to be handy, then looked back at his partner and agreed with a nod.
Choc half rose as he retreated. With him gone, Ben crept up to rejoin Luther, his belly close to the ground, until at last he lay beside him. He panted as if out of breath.
“You getting braver, General?” Luther reached over and scratched the bulldog’s scalp. A low growl curled out of Ben’s throat and his brown eyes focused hard on the cabin.
“We need to get this one, old boy.”
Ben sneezed, but quickly recovered and resumed acting on his guard.
Over half an hour later, Luther rose enough to observe Choc making his way from the decrepit shed toward the
side of the cabin. No more actions from the occupant, only some noisy crows and a squirrel chattering overhead about their invasion.
At last he could make out that Choc carried something resembling a large ball. Uncertain of the nature of the man’s package, Luther spoke for Ben to quit his whining. Then he cocked the Winchester. Beside the chimney’s base, Choc swung the cloth ball on the end of a rope. He gave it a high toss. It landed on top of the stone and mortar structure and went out of sight.
Choc grinned as if pleased, then he moved to the right to stay out of the line of gunfire. Smoke no longer rose from the stack. Enthused about his man’s success, Luther felt they were making progress at last. In a short while, the sounds of coughing from inside could be heard. Gray wisps seeped from around the top of the closed door. Getting bad in there, Luther decided.
At once the door burst open. A small woman coughing in her hands came out, waving a white kerchief, shouting, “Give up! Give up! No shoot!”
Still leery of what Hart might try next, Luther rose with the rifle in his hands. Filled with caution, he advanced down the hillside. After a curt word to control the growling Ben beside him, he saw Choc moving in from the right with his shotgun ready.
“Tell Hart to come out!” Luther ordered the girl. The next few moments could be crucial. Was he using her for a ploy? Luther stopped fifty feet from her.
The figure of Hart broke out of the doorway. With his wide eyes fiercely searching around, he spotted Luther and Choc. Before Luther could raise his gun sights, the fugitive disappeared around the side of the cabin. No chance for a shot by either man with her standing there.
“Get him, Ben!” Luther shouted and the eager bulldog jumped into hot pursuit. A blinding fury of white and black, he tore past her, made the corner on his side, issuing a roar to match a lion the whole time. She fell back screaming, though Luther knew the dog had missed the girl by inches.
Luther shouted for Choc to go the other way around the cabin and he took the left side. Running hard, he came around the house and spotted the fugitive in the forks of a small peach tree. The bush tottered with his weight, almost breaking it. Each time the angry General Ben McCollough lunged off the ground, he snapped his flashing canines like a bear trap only inches from any of Hart’s body parts.
“Ben! Ben, get over here!” Luther ordered and slapped his leg.
One final try to sink his teeth in the fugitive’s hide and Ben quit. With a look of disgust at his master, he came over to Luther, plopped his butt on the ground, and began to scratch his right ear. For Ben, his part of this arrest was complete.
The wide-eyed Hart looked like a man who had seen the devil and somehow lived through the ordeal. Acting as if unsure he was not to be eaten by the monster, he looked with distrust at the seated bulldog and clung to his tenable place in the waving peach bush.
“Get down,” Choc said, armed with the handcuffs and ready to put the irons on him.
To Luther, Hart hardly looked out of his teens. The fugitive glanced one more time at Ben, then unceremoniously climbed down. On his feet, he said something in tongue to Choc, who locked up his wrists.
“I didn’t kill that white man,” Choc answered him.
The boy nodded as if he understood his half brother’s statement.
“He blaming you?” Luther asked Choc when he joined them.
“He wanted to know what I would do if I were in his moccasins.”
Luther agreed with a nod. Tough deal. If Hart had killed a white man in the act of a crime or with malice, then his chances were good of having a meeting with Judge Issac Parker’s hangman.
In front of the cabin, Choc spoke to the girl about food. She looked even younger than the boy; Luther doubted she
was more than fifteen. Her reply was in tongue.
“She has some fried bacon and corn bread,” Choc announced. “We better eat it. May be dark before we can get back to the wagon.”
“You have a horse?” Luther asked the prisoner.
Acting defeated, he shook his head and looked down at his worn out shoes without laces and socks.
“It’ll be a long walk back to Moss’s Store,” Luther warned him, and started to leave. But a question rode heavy on his mind as he turned back and asked, “Were you drunk when you killed him?”
“Bad whiskey.”
“Better think up a better defense than that,” he said offhandedly.
Choc and the girl had gone inside the smoky cabin for the food. They soon returned coughing. Choc tossed his sack of green leaves out in the yard to smoulder. She put a skillet of burned corn bread on the porch stoop, then went back inside and returned with some browned bacon slices on a slab of wood.
After setting the platter on the stoop, she stepped away from it. Luther nudged the anxious Ben back with his toe. Then he walked up, bent over, and took a piece of the meat. A little salty to his tongue, but he nodded his approval as he chewed on it. Seated on the step, Choc used his jackknife to slice the dark bread and dug out a crumbling piece.
“Ain’t bad inside,” he said, chewing on a large hunk. “Little black outside.”
“Where do you live?” Luther asked the girl, who stood with her hands locked in front of her skirt.
“Here,” she said in English.
“No,” he said, busy trying to get some bread out of the pan, but it kept breaking up and crumbling apart with his efforts. “Where is your home?”
“My folks—live—on—the—Grand River.”
“Will you go there?”
She shook her head vehemently.
“Where will you go?”
“Fort Smith.”
“To wait for him?” In defeat, he stuffed a pinch of crumbs in his mouth, then raised up. Her nod told him she would follow her man like he expected. The poor girl would go live in Shack Town, do whatever she had to do to sustain herself during the months ahead. In the end, they would probably hang her lover. By that time, she would either be a drunken whore in the alleys of Fort Smith or have drowned herself in the muddy river water.
“Why don’t you go home—to the Grand River!” he said louder than he intended, sick to his stomach and feeling depressed by the ugly picture of her demise.
“I am his woman,” the resolute-sounding girl said, her eyes dark as diamonds, shing hard in the flickering sunlight coming through the overhead leaves.
With disgust, he looked at her, wanting to say something powerful enough to change her mind, then without a word, he turned on his heels. “Come on, Ben, we need to get the horses.”
“More food here,” Choc said, squatting beside it, busy feeding his face. He gave the bulldog some of the corn bread, which Ben lapped up.
Luther never answered his man, but kept walking up the slope. He wanted to be on their way back to Moss’s. His hunger had turned to nausea at the thought of the girl’s bitter future. And all because of the supposition he had framed from Hart’s own information; how some white men sold that boy bad whiskey. A really good reason to kill him. Yeah. Would he ever learn how these people thought?
The next morning at Moss’s, they prepared to leave the shackled Hart chained to a pine tree behind the store. The Indian girl, who called herself Martha, promised to feed the prisoner and bring him water. Choc cautioned her not to try to free him. She agreed. The two lawmen rode out with Ben trotting behind on the heels of their horses.
“Will he be there tonight?” Luther asked when they were out of her earshot.
“Yes.”
He nodded in approval. Choc knew the limits and the ways of these people. Without a jail facility, chains and irons were the only method of restraint they could use while they went out to serve the other warrants. It forced Luther to leave his prisoners in irons each day and in care of someone to see to their needs.
“Did Buddy kill that man over bad whiskey?” Luther asked as they rode beside the rail fence that protected a healthy-looking patch of knee-high corn.
“Bad whiskey or no whiskey. He was drunk. Probably wanted more.”
“Had no money?” Luther asked.
“Probably was broke. Whiskey does terrible things to some Indians.”
Luther agreed and they pushed their horses into a long trot down the dusty road. It hadn’t rained in a week or longer, and the last of the moisture had evaporated in the stiff winds from the south that this time of year usually brought thick clouds to the Nation. All spring, the winds had only delivered hot weather even in the mountains, where one could usually escape some of the high temperatures.
They headed for Ellis’s sawmill. The warrant Luther wanted to serve was for an Indian, Smoky Kline, charged with stealing an Army mule. He hoped the day’s planned arrest would be a quiet one. Most of their apprehensions went well because of his Indian partner’s presence. Choc was familiar with many people in this district, who knew him as a no-nonsense, tough person. In Luther’s book, the breed being along saved him many serious out of hand altercations with the red men they arrested.
Mid-morning, when they rode off a steep hillside into the wide clearing, Ellis’s vast mill operation bustled with activity. Smoke spewed from an iron chimney in a great column that marked the sky. The scream of the blade digging its steel teeth in the wood fibers filled the air. A powerful smell of turpentine pine and sour oak sawdust hung like a heavy perfume. Men labored to unload log wagons,
and others with mules skidded single cuts to the main mill. A mountain of bark slabs rose beside the steam engine, which huffed like a great fire-breathing dragon under a shake-roofed open shed, providing belt power for the saw.
A short white man dressed in waist overalls, longsleeved shirt, a weathered cowboy hat, and holding a great brown oil can came out and nodded to them over the noise. Luther tried to read the man’s look. He showed no great pleasure over their presence. Obviously, he knew they were not there to buy lumber.
“We’re looking for Smoky Kline,” Luther said, and dismounted.
“You the law?”
“Yeah, U.S. Deputy Marshal. I have a warrant,” he said, loud enough over the clatter and whine for the man to hear him.
“What did he do?” the white man asked, as if troubled by the matter.
“Sold a U.S. Army mule to a man at Van Buren,” Luther read from the bad handwriting by the clerk on the warrant.
“Well, he wasn’t very smart then, was he?” The man laughed, which broke some of the tension between them, and shook his head in disappointment. “Hell, anyone dumb enough to sell a branded mule like that sure deserves to be arrested, don’t he?”
“He work for you?”
“Oh, yeah. I don’t figure he’ll give you a minute’s trouble.” Ellis took off his felt cowboy hat and scratched the thin hair on top of his head. “Hate it. Pure D hate it. He’s a good worker. Family man. Wonder why he ever did that for. Hell, you two don’t know the reason why. You’re just serving them papers, right?”
Luther agreed. They soon found Kline stacking lumber and handcuffed the tall Indian.
“Boy! Why in God’s name did you sell a U.S. branded mule for?” Ellis asked the prisoner.
The broad-shouldered Kline shrugged and shook his head. “He was lame and I couldn’t ride him anymore.”
“Still, that was pure D dumb of you, boy.” With that said, he left them, wagging the oil can, headed across the yard for his steam engine.
Late afternoon, they arrived back to the store and added Kline to the chain with the dejected Billy Hart. Martha cooked them two chickens she had bought earlier from a nearby farmer with Luther’s money. She also fixed a big kettle of brown rice for their supper. The sun was about to set when they finally ate the meal.
The first food since daybreak in Luther’s mouth drew the flow of his saliva. Martha’s chickens looked a little blackened on the outside, but the leg he twisted off tasted good enough.
To get their attention, Ben stealthfully crawled up on his belly and began making snorts and grunting sounds out of his flat nose. Luther ignored him. The bulldog could be a real pest at mealtime.
“That dog’s begging again,” Choc said between bites of the chicken breast in his hands.
“Don’t pay him no mind,” Luther said.
“Who we going after tomorrow?” Choc asked, turning his head to the side to eat more meat off of the bone.
“Two White Crow brothers. Josh and Tag.”
“What they do?”
“I think it’s robbery.”
Choc nodded. “They will be at Red Springs. Maybe making whiskey.”
“You can get in trouble drinking it or making it. Good food, Martha,” Luther said to the girl as she gathered up the tin dishes. “You can give Ben some corn bread, if you’ve got any left.”
She nodded in the firelight and looked back at him. “I’ll feed him.”
“Go on with her,” he said in a head toss to Ben.
The bulldog rose, stretched his back, and then plodded off into the growing night after her. It drew a laugh from Choc.
“He understands English better than my own children.”
“Ben understands eating,” Luther said, and chuckled.
After their breakfast of reheated rice with chicken, they set out on Texas Road for Red Springs. Luther left Martha with seventy-five cents to buy something to cook for supper, promising to return by evening or past. He and Choc trotted their horses away from Moss’s Store.
The coolness of the predawn felt good to ride in. He knew it would heat up again by late afternoon. Each day grew hotter than the day before. Besides, they wouldn’t be in the mountains after these two. The place, Choc mentioned, Red Springs lay in the foothills.
Mid-morning, they rode up a rutted path. In Luther’s book, it could hardly be called a road. Simply two ruts that wound around and up a narrow draw. Riding in the lead, Choc twisted in the saddle often and frowned with displeasure at him. A profuse growth of head-high saplings lined the way blocking their view of everything.
When Luther checked on Ben, the dog acted normal, padding along under him. He could smell and hear better than either of them. Luther felt easier that they weren’t riding into an ambush, though one could surely spring out of this mess of brush at any moment.
At last they rounded a bend and reached a clearing with several open fields. Ahead of them stood a brush arbor housing several wooden barrels beneath it. At the discovery of their appearance, three fat Indian women began screaming in panic; they ran away, each in a different direction. Ben rose to the occasion with a deep-throated growl and started after one of them.
“No! Ben! Get back here!” Luther shouted, unholstering his handgun and dismounting. Far more concerned about the possible presence of their men than the fleeing females, he searched around as he dismounted.
“I’ll catch one and bring her back,” Choc said, and sent his roan after a woman who was headed down the weedy field and still in view.
“Ben!” Luther said again to halt the dog, and viewed the shack to his left. He hitched the horse, looking around,
trying to familiarize himself with the layout.
A wonder they hadn’t been shot in the back. Had anyone been inside that raw board house, they’d made a perfect target. The front door either stood open or was gone. It may never have existed. On close examination, he saw no hinge marks. Cautiously, he put his boot on the front stoop.
Ben whined, then stuck his head inside past the casing. The bulldog tested the air, then satisfied, went ahead of him. Without any interest, he crossed the large open room and Luther watched him go into the lean-to on the side. A few housekeeping items, plus some bed ticking and old blankets were all he could see. Newspaper wallpaper and tattered calendars covered the walls.
Sneezing, Ben soon returned, and Luther nodded to him.
“Good boy. They ain’t here.” Relieved, he started for the front door opening.
Coming across the yard, Choc marched a rather fat squaw by the arm ahead of him. He stopped in the bare dirt space and let go of her arm. His release drew a nasty look from the woman and some guttural words under her breath.
“What’s your name?” Luther asked, looking around for any other signs of their men.
“Josie.”
“Well, Josie, where are the White Crow brothers?”
She folded her arms over her amble bustline and with her dark eyes dared them to make her talk.
“Maybe a noose around her neck would help her remember?” Choc asked.
Warily, she cut her cold gaze around at the posse man and mumbled, “Gone.”
“Gone where?” Luther asked her.
“To sell whiskey.”
“Where do they sell whiskey?”
“How should I know!”
Luther wanted to laugh. Obviously the brothers did not take her on such sales trips. He removed his hat and wiped
the sweat out of the band with his kerchief. They had to be somewhere in the area.
“Josie, when will they be back?” he asked, looking at her and spinning the hat on his hand.
“When they sell all the whiskey.”
“Yes, I understand. You do know making whiskey in the Nation is against the laws of the government?”
She shrugged, as if that made no difference to her. Those were white man laws. She was Indian. This was the same way most of the native people in the Nation felt.
“You know I need to find the brothers?”
A slow nod was all she allowed herself.
Luther decided his line of questions with her was going nowhere. They best bust up the liquor making operation, destroy their supplies, and move on.
“Josie, you call those other women back here. If you three help us break up the still and barrels, I won’t arrest you or them.” All he needed was three fat women to take back to Fort Smith. Besides, there would be children somewhere to be concerned about. No, his amnesty offer would be the best way out of this situation. Then they could get on with finding the White Crow brothers. The sooner the better.
“You heard him,” Choc said, giving her a not-too-gentle shove. “Go get them and don’t be long.”
“Maybe they are gone?” Her brown eyes flew open in disbelief he would demand such a thing.
“Too hot. They won’t run far,” Choc said, and pointed in the direction they left. “Hurry or you can sit in jail.”
She gathered her long dress and headed toward the southeast. The once-upon-a-time cornfield was infested with a profusion of waist-high green weeds. Her route looked direct, and Luther felt certain the others were hiding in the woods on the far side. Choc was right. The first ones he saw were like her, too fat to run very far in the heat.
Would she really find the others, come back, and help them? He looked at Choc and they both nodded. Better get to work. No telling about their help. At least they wouldn’t
have to take back any women prisoners, especially fat ones to load and unload out of the wagon.
Choc found an ax and used it on the stinking barrels full of souring mash. Like chopping open a ripe melon. A few whacks, the staves split and the strong-smelling contents flew out on the dirt.
“Some hogs may get drunk tonight,” Choc said with a horse laugh. Then he reared back and bust open another. The heavy intoxicating odor of soured grain soon filled the air.
Busy emptying two bottles at a time, hearing Ben’s throaty growl, Luther looked up to see the threesome of women coming back through the weeds.
“No, Ben. They won’t hurt us,” he assured the growling dog. “Hey, Choc, we’re going to have company.” His partner nodded and the dog dropped his head back on the old rag rug he was bellied down on.
When the women arrived, Luther told them to dump all the mixed bottles of white lightning. They looked around suspiciously at the two of them, and stepped wide of the growling dog to obey his orders.
“Cut this coil up?” Choc asked, meaning the coiled tubing, which was how the product was distilled.
“In little pieces,” Luther said, taking a small half pint to save for evidence. He stowed it in his saddlebags.
“Now break all the bottles,” Choc ordered the women. That way they would have to go collect more “new” bottles to start up their operation again. It might slow them down from setting up very fast, but he doubted it. There were more stills in the Nation than mushrooms in the springtime, and they had a fair share of the fungus each year.
Midway on their return ride to Moss’s, Choc thought of a place the Crow brothers might be selling whiskey.
“There’s a big church meeting this week on the grounds over on Dead Fish Creek. They maybe over there selling whiskey,” he said at his own discovery.
“A church meeting?” Luther gave him a frown. You
didn’t sell the stuff at a revival. Sounded like a poor marketplace for whiskey to him.
“Oh, yeah,” Choc said with a chuckle. “Lots of people go there for an excuse to meet other people. Some go for religion, some to visit, and always some attend to get drunk.”
“How far away?”
“Maybe ten miles.”
“We better go check it out.” Luther knew the detour would make them late getting back to their own camp, but they had wasted the entire day so far without results. He didn’t consider the destruction of the Crows’ still such a great feat. He couldn’t count the time he’d lost from enforcing the law and serving warrants in the territory in their destruction.
At the next crossroad, Choc motioned to ride west. When they topped the rise above Dead Fish Creek in late afternoon, heat waves rose off the dry, powder road from ruts previously cut by many hooves and iron rims. Spread under the cottonwoods and ghostly white sycamores up and down the valley were hundreds of wagons, picketed horses, mules, and makeshift tents. Camp fire smoke swirled about.
Children rushed around in play, their shrill voices cutting the air.
“Big revival,” Luther said, impressed. “Ben! Get over here.”
The dog had already begun scratching the ground like an angry bull anticipating all the dogs for him to whip in this place. His stub of a tail pointed straight up; no doubt he was ready for war.
“Damn it, Ben McCollough, we don’t need any dogfights here.” Luther searched for him under his dun. Locating the bulldog, he gave him a large scowl of disapproval, which Ben ignored; Luther sat back up in the saddle.
The camp’s yellow and black mongrels began a chorus of barking at the discovery of strangers, especially ones with a new dog. Choc took the lead on his roan and headed
up the lane through the middle of the camps. Many dark eyes looked up from their cooking to stare at them.
Ahead, Luther could make out the wilted leaves of the branches that formed the roofs of the shades set up for the revival. Obviously the people were on a break, for no shouting or hallelujahs came from the brush arbors. Twisting around in the saddle, he looked over the individuals while a woman bent over a cooking fire stared at him. A band of small children wide-eyed with suspicion followed them.
“Hello, my brothers,” he said with a dignified manner about him. His dark beard and full mustache were laced with gray; his eyes, black as coal, glinted as he looked them over.
“Good day,” Luther said, checking around and resetting his dun to make him stand still. “My name is Luther Haskell. I hate to bother you, but we represent the federal court in Fort Smith and we’re looking for some men.”
“Name’s Windgate. I am the spiritual leader of this camp. Who do you seek?”
“Josh and Tag White Crow.”
The preacher shook his head, as if their names were unknown to him. “There’re many people here for this gathering, but those two are not familiar to me. You sure they are amongst us here?”
“They sell whiskey,” Choc said, and booted his roan closer to the man. He wasn’t missing a face in the crowd that had gathered to see about this intrusion.
“I don’t allow—”
“Preacher Windgate, they won’t ask you for permission to sell it.”
The man agreed with a solemn nod, then held his arms up to gain the crowd’s attention. “These men seek whiskey peddlers. They are here on business and want no trouble with God’s children. If any of you know of two men by the name of White Crow, tell these men where they are.” Pained-looking, Windgate searched their faces as he waited for someone to give them a word. The row of head shakes
told Luther enough. Not a soul would come forward.
“Sorry,” Windgate said. “No one here knows of them. But you may light and be blessed by our togetherness with the Lord on this hallowed ground.”
“Thanks, Preacher,” Luther said, and nodded to Choc. “But we must ride on.”
Then one of the bolder camp dogs could no longer resist challenging the invasion of the spotted devil under Luther’s horse and made his move. Dodging around from behind two squaws’ skirts, he bolted into Ben with the roar and fury of a panther.
Spooked by the charge under him, Luther’s horse threatened to buck him off. Fighting the dun, the pony shied sideways and bumped and spilled into several startled people close by. The war was on, with Luther so occupied with controlling his upset horse, he couldn’t even shout to stop it. Both dogs reared up on their hind feet, snapping and snarling for a hold on the other. Then Ben clamped on the other dog’s leg. The cur settled for Ben’s short ear, but the tremendous pressure of Ben’s iron jaws upon on his foreleg caused him to quickly release it and begin to wail in pain.
“Ben! Ben! Let go!” Luther shouted from the midst of the crowd, his horse at last behaving. People crowded in to better see the fight and pushed the dun around to escape being stepped on.
“General Ben McCollough!” The full force of his voice directed at the persistent bulldog who still had not released the screaming mongrel’s leg from his jaws. Filled with rage, Luther bailed off his horse and handed the reins to a full-faced woman. He waded into the open space and kicked his hardheaded dog swiftly in the rump.
At that point, Ben released his grip and the three-legged mongrel raced for safety. Through the laughing crowd he went helter-skelter, running into people, and after one collision, falling down on his butt. Quickly looking back with disbelief written on his face over his misfortune, he left the vicinity in even greater haste.
Head down and wincing in dread, Ben finally looked up
at his master. Luther turned on his heel and went back for his horse. He’d had enough nonsense for one day. He mounted the dun, swung his leg over, and yelled at Ben.
“Get over here!” he ordered, then nodded to Choc that he was ready to leave. “Sorry about the fight,” he said to the preacher.
“Why, Marshal, your fine bulldog did not start it. Is that his name, McCollough?” Windgate asked.
“Yeah, that was my father’s commander.”
“Good man, sir. Ride with the Lord, my friends. Sorry that we’re unable to help you.”
Choc was chuckling to himself when they topped the hill and looked back. The sun was red and fiery orange on the range to the west. Smoke cloaked the valley in a fog. Luther twisted in the saddle to shake his head at the amused breed, who was hardly able to hold it in.
“What’s so dang funny?”
“Bet that damn worthless cur don’t jump another bulldog.”
“Bet he don’t see another,” Luther said, still edgy about the dog fight. “Ain’t that many of them around.”
“That’s true. You got anything to eat in your saddlebags?”
“Some crackers, dry cheese. Why?” Luther asked, considering their contents. Sure not much, and not very fresh.
“I figure them White Crows are around here somewhere. If Windgate knew they were here selling whiskey, he’d bring fire and brimstone down on them. But he don’t know everything that happens in the vicinity of his camp meeting.”
“You want to stay here a while longer and look around for them?”
Choc bobbed his head until the eagle feather twisted on his hatband. “I’ll bet them White Crows ain’t missing such a good place to sell their whiskey.”
Luther stepped down on the ground and unbuttoned his shirt in search of the creature crawling over his skin. He
plucked a large red Lone Star tick from his chest and crushed it with his fingernails.
“Even the Christians have ticks in their valley,” he said, buttoning his shirt. Then he swung back into the saddle. “Fine, let’s circle around and look for them.”
Choc wanted to wait until the camp meeting started back in full swing. Then with all the true believers involved in services, they could easily scout around for the spirit peddlers. Made sense to Luther as he considered the gathering darkness and the day’s oppressive heat. A good breeze to stir the stillness would certainly help, but none appeared forthcoming.
Eating dry crackers and drier cheese with tepid canteen water to wash them down, Luther turned an ear to the voices singing hymns that carried on the hot night air. Seated on the ground with his legs crossed, he wondered how long he’d be out in the Nation chasing fugitives this time, before he could return to Fort Smith.
In the last of the twilight with Tillie on his mind, he thought about her smooth perfumed skin, and their physical relationship. That new outfit she wore made him chuckle. Why, she’d just as well be nude. Her hardheadedness niggled at him the most. She wouldn’t leave that two-story house, not even for a preacher’s words. He had offered her his hand in marriage. She’d refused him, saying she could never be a wife. He found no way to change her firm decision, so he looked forward to seeing her when he could and knew she’d never be his alone.
“You ready? We better go on foot.” Choc stood up and stretched.
“Coming,” Luther said, considering his next move before he rose. “I’ll tie up Ben.”
“Yeah, he might cause us some trouble with them camp dogs.”
“Ben, come here,” he said, and barely snatched him by the scruff of the neck. At last with Ben secured on a rope leash and with finger-shaking orders for him to stay there, Luther started after Choc.
They kept to the woods, skirting to the south of the camp. Making his way after the posse man and stumbling on an occasional unseen object, Luther felt certain Choc could see as good in the night as in daylight. Twice in the darkness he found himself trapped in a dense briar patch by his own doing, and had to backtrack to catch up. As the breathless night wore on his nerves, sounds of the enthusiastic evangelists carried across the valley.
“Ho! Ho!”
Luther caught up with Choc at the edge of a clearing. “That ain’t no revival sound,” he whispered.
Choc nodded. Camp firelight illuminated several men shuffling around. Obviously they were drinking spirits and enjoying themselves.
“See anyone we need?” Luther asked, relying on his man’s recognition of the brothers and others.
“Too dark, but they’re probably there.”
“You got your shotgun ready?”
“Yes.”
“Go in from the right, I’ll come in from the left. We get in place, you fire a round in the air and that’ll get their attention.”
Choc agreed and slipped off to the right side. Luther drew his Colt and went the other way. He hoped the ones he looked for were in this group. The commerce of spirits in the Nation was prohibited, and part of his job was to enforce that law.
“Hands up!” he shouted at the men dancing around the fire. Choc’s shotgun shattered the night, and the drunkest man in camp awoke with a loud, “Huh!”
“You’re under arrest!” Luther said with a show of his pistol.
He estimated the number of men in camp at eight or nine. But his hold on them for the moment was tenuous. Only the fear of being shot by either lawman held the drunks in place, but how many could they shoot?
The only light was the fire’s glare, which cast large shadows beyond their raised arms. Luther recognized the
older of the White Crow brothers, Josh, who looked wild-eyed and about to flee. If he broke away, so might the others. Luther leaped to the man and stuck the gun into Josh’s cheek with his other arm gripping the Indian’s shoulder.
“Tell them that if they run away, you die!” To enforce his point, he shoved the Colt harder into the man’s face until the muzzle was jammed against the Crow’s teeth.
“Wait! Wait!” Josh shouted to the others, and the fight went out of them.
Choc disarmed them, tossing knives and firearms aside, shoving them into a covey against the wagon in the firelight. Luther swung his man around to be certain that no one came out of the dark and snuck up on them.
“You not take me!” someone shouted. Luther saw the flash of his white sightless eye. It had to be Curly Meantoe! Luther had not realized the one-eyed outlaw was among them. Before he could swing his gun around and shoot at him, Meantoe ducked beneath the wagon. There was no chance of Luther firing it without hitting one of the others. Meantoe fled on his hand and knees, and Choc rushed around to stop him.
“Stay there!” Luther warned the others, and leveled the Colt at them. He shoved the brother hard toward them and felt he had things under control.
Choc came back in a few minutes. “Got away.”
“It was Curly Meantoe.”
“Yeah,” Choc said, sounding disgusted over their loss. “I didn’t know he was even here in all the confusion.”
“How many we got here?”
“Five of them that you got warrants for.”
Luther smiled at the news. He should have brought Ben. Then they’d have Meantoe, too. His next concern was how many allies these men had in this camp who could cause them problems? People were no longer singing and shouting. They must be coming to see what the shooting was about.
“Let’s get them in irons and be on our way,” he said.
“Good idea,” Choc agreed, hancuffing them in a chain. He used his pairs and Luther’s two cuffs, which was barely enough to make a chain.
“We heard the shots,” Windgate said, coming through the ring of onlookers.
“No one is hurt,” Luther said. “But I do need their whiskey bottles busted up.”
“Yes, we can gladly do that. I am sorry that I did not know these men were here, or that their purpose was not to serve the Lord.”
“Big camp,” Luther said with a nod. He felt grateful so far that the others did not appear hostile over the arrests. “You bust up the whiskey. It will be payment enough. We will take these outlaws to jail.”
“God be with you. Let’s do what the man asked,” the preacher said to those gathered.
The matter of destruction to be handled, Luther nodded to Choc. Time to make their exit. They started the men toward their horses in the inky night. The inebriated Indians complained and stumbled as they were forced to march.
Filled with growing impatience, Luther figured it took them an hour to get the string of drunks back to their horses. After he released the snorting, happy Ben, he checked the big dipper and guessed it to be past midnight. At this rate, they’d not get back to Moss’s before daylight. Oh well, they had several more prisoners this time.
“Both Crow brothers, Yicky Brown.” Choc named them off as they rode their horses and led the moaning string of fugitives on a rope. “Taylor Brown is his cousin, and Hankins Farr.”
The chorus of complaining drunks staggering along forced Luther to turn around and go back to them on his dun. He checked his horse before them.
“Next man moans or can’t stand up, that bulldog of mine’s going to bite him in the ass. Do you hear me?”
“Hmm,” came their reply in unison. But his threat shut them up and they began to walk a little faster.
In the morning light, Luther went over the rest of the warrants. Seated on his butt, enjoying the coolness of the day, he read off the remaining ones with Choc, who sat crosslegged across from him. They savored Martha’s fresh coffee and listened to the birds coming alive in the trees around the grassy place behind the small store.
“Apple Nuggent?”
“He went to Kansas,” Choc said.
“He use to live down here?” Luther looked at him with a frown.
“Got in trouble over a woman. He was in bed with her when her husband came home. Decided to change climates.” Choc chuckled. “Damn good idea, ’cause her husband would have killed him.”
“Louie Benneau?”
“He may be dead.”
“What killed him?”
“Had a knife fight at a stomp about a month ago.” Choc nodded as if the matter was settled. “He’s dead.”
With a pencil, Luther wrote deceased on the warrant, then read the last two. “That leaves Curly Meantoe and Owen McCantle. You know him, don’t you?”
“Sure, Owen McCantle is a big rich man. What did he do?”
“Counterfeit money, it says here.”
“He lives at White Soap.”
“We better rest today. I didn’t get enough sleep last night. Go after him tomorrow.”
Choc agreed. “You arresting him? McCantle?”
“Kinda hope he’s willing to promise to go in by himself.”
“He’s a big man.” Choc shook his head in disbelief.
“Marshal Williams mentioned that he felt we should handle him with kid gloves.”
“He know about it?”
“McCantle?” Luther shook his head. “Guess not. Usually rich men like him have a lawyer warn them, and surrender before the warrant is served.”
“Yes. Wonder why—”
“Damned if I know anything about it. Just what Williams said.”
Choc pinched some grass off and tossed it into the wind. “You think Williams sent you ’cause you and him don’t get along?”
“You think he thought I’d have trouble with the man?”
“You and your boss aren’t close friends.”
“We’ve had our differences.”
“He didn’t like the way you brought in that rich man’s son belly down over that horse.”
Luther looked away toward the high mountain range in the south, recalling the arrest. “Little smart-mouthed bastard. He wouldn’t come peacefully.”
“His dad was a banker.”
“Yes, in Little Rock. That boy was lucky I even brought him back alive.”
Choc nodded and busied himself pinching off more grass.
“Williams got mad, too, ’cause you shot up them Goats.”
“Fred and Chester Goats.”
“After they ambushed you and you had two bullets in you. My, my, what a shame you had to shoot them both.”
Luther exhaled and shook his head. “Yeah, me and the boss don’t always get on the greatest.” He considered the issue of the rich man’s arrest for a long while, then he nodded his head. “He may have sent me after McCantle on purpose.”
Choc let the pieces of grass slowly drift one or two at a time. “I was only thinking.”
“Yeah.” He would, too.
The rest of their day of leisure was spent resetting the shoes on Luther’s dun. Several of the prisoners’ wives showed up in wagons and cooked for their men. Some even brought clean clothes for them to wear. There were tents set up, tarps strung between trees and wagons. The entire area around Moss’s had become a damn circus, to Luther’s disgust,
but there wasn’t a thing he could do about it. This was the way his business went in the Nation.
“When you go Fort Smith?” a big woman demanded, blocking his way.
“Soon,” he said, and his answer appeared to satisfy her. She moved aside for him to pass her. He glanced back, wondering how his simple answer appeased her so quickly. It couldn’t be too soon for him. Maybe this time he could convince Tillie to marry him … but deep in his heart, he doubted it. He went over to join his partner in the shade.
“How do you arrest a rich man?” Choc asked as if the problem of taking in the property owner still perplexed him.
“Just do it.”
“You think he’s guilty?”
“The grand jury decided he must be tried.”
Choc nodded as if he understood.
The following day they rode to the White Soap Community. Past noon, they approached the two-story brick house set on a knoll under some giant oaks and pines, in the midst of McCantle’s vast fields of cotton and corn. Men, women, and children, busy hoeing in the fields, looked up at them with blank looks.
Concerned about Ben getting into a fight, Luther spoke sharply to him each time some sharecropper’s mutt challenged him from the safety of a shack.
They reined up before the big house and Luther dismounted. He looked around the manicured grounds. This must be the finest place in the district. McCantle had to be married to an Indian woman to possess this much land in the Nation. On several occasions, he had seen the man in Fort Smith and knew him on sight, and that he was white.
A tall black servant came to the front door.
“Mr. McCantle home today?” Luther asked.
“Yes, suh. Who may I say is calling?”
“U.S. Deputy Marshal Luther Haskell.”
“Very good, suh. I’s will tell him.”
Luther looked around at the many flowers in the beds and shared a nod with Choc, who waited at the end of the
walk with Ben and the horses. He heard the black man returning.
“Come in, suh. Mr. McCantle will see you in his office.”
“Thanks.” Luther removed his hat, which the man offered to take. He refused, and carried it in his hand.
The polished wood floor sparkled and the sun coming in the tall windows washed the room with light. Fancy, was what Luther called the French sofas and tables made of rich wood set upon Iranian rugs. A huge glass bookcase loaded with volumes lined one wall. Crossing the great room after the man, he glanced up to consider the huge crystal chandelier over his head.
A woman came out on the balcony. Tall and willowy, dressed in a fine blue silk dress, her long dark hair hung unbraided past her shoulders. No doubt from her dark coloration, she was the Indian of this grand house. He gave her a nod.
When he entered the office, a familiar face with a gray mustache and beard rose from behind a desk cluttered with paper. Serious and brooding, the man forced a smile, then extended his hand, which Luther shook.
“Good day, Marshal. What brings you here? Business, no doubt. Have a chair.”
Luther handed him the warrant and remained on his feet.
The man picked up a pair of gold wire-rimmed glasses and hooked them behind his ears to examine the paper.
“Go ahead and sit down,” he said, and busied himself reading it.
Luther stayed on his feet.
The man set the warrant down, unhooked his glasses, and leaned back. “You’re here to arrest me?”
“Yes, but I have considered the matter. If you will agree to ride to Fort Smith and surrender yourself to the chief marshal, I could save you a wagon ride.”
“I understand. Fine, Marshal, I will set out for there in the morning. Is that satisfactory?”
“With me, yes. You understand that if you fail to appear, I will come back and physically arrest you?”
“Perfectly. May I offer you food or drink?”
“No, sir.”
“My compliments to your boss, Marshal Williams.”
“I’ll tell him, but you will no doubt see him before I do.”
“Oh, you are making arrests in the district?”
“I am. Good day, sir.” Luther prepared to leave. He turned the felt hat around on his hand. The band was damp from his perspiration and felt cold to the touch.
“Randolph will show you out.”
“No need. I can find my own way.”
Luther left the office, nodded to the woman still on the balcony, and hurried across the polished floor, wondering if he wasn’t marring the surface with his boots. A current of distrust ran through his thoughts. Maybe the fact that McCantle would never sit for a minute in the hellhole called a jail in the basement of the federal courthouse bothered him the most. Some big lawyer would have his bail set immediately and then wrangle the rich man out of the charges, guilty or innocent. Why someone of his apparent wealth would even mess with counterfeit money was beyond his comprehension. And he might even be innocent, though he found the grand juries empaneled in the federal court usually had sufficient evidence of a felony having been committed before they issued an arrest warrant.
Good to be able to listen to a mockingbird, he decided, outside in the sunshine. He drew a breath of fresh air. Somehow he felt he had emerged from an alien world. At the dun’s side, he checked his cinch.
“He in there?” Choc asked in a soft voice, motioning toward the house.
“Yes, I talked to him.” Luther swung in the saddle. “He’s going to turn himself in.”
“What’ll they do to him?”
“With a good lawyer, probably dismiss the charges.”
Choc nodded and they rode off. Before it was out of sight, Luther twisted and took one more look at the big house. Some place.
“Where’s Meantoe gone to?” he asked his posse man.
“Maybe to hide in his big fancy house like McCantle, or to give himself up.” Choc laughed. Luther joined him. He could imagine the one-eyed breed living in such an elaborate place and informing him how he would surrender with his lawyer in Fort Smith. Sure would be funny. Only thing, it was true about McCantle and would never be for the rest of the accused they searched for. Two worlds, Luther decided—them that have and them that don’t.