Rattlesnake Wells, Wyoming Read online

  Bob made a sour face. He couldn’t quite decide how he felt toward this federal man who’d robbed him—albeit with good intentions—of what could have been a crucial lead. “Fat lot of good it did me,” he muttered, “with you and your quick trigger showing up so hell-bent on saving my hide.”

  “Speaking of quick,” said Brock, “that draw you made against Stuben was about as fast as any I’ve seen. I guess that should’ve been another clue to me—anybody that good with a gun would likely hit what he was aiming at.”

  Bob shrugged. “Water under the bridge now.”

  Brock leaned forward in his chair. “I’m ready with an offer that would go a long way toward making amends for my initial wrong reading.” He patted his chest where the inner pocket of his coat held the wanted papers he’d brought with him. “I’ve got a federal claim on Sanders right here, the one I showed your deputy earlier. My headquarters has wanted that scoundrel for a long time. Say the word, I’ll be happy to take him off your hands and head out of the territory with him.

  “We’ll make a show of leaving, so everybody knows. That won’t solve all your worries, but it will narrow ’em down. If what’s left of the gang hits your town again, you’ll know damn well they’re coming after the bank.”

  Bob put down his coffee and leaned back, lacing his fingers over his stomach. “I gotta say, that’s a mighty tempting offer from my side of things. You’d be heaping an awful lot on yourself, wouldn’t you? Suspecting Sanders’s gang is still in the area, you’re willing to light out on your own, with him as your prisoner?”

  “I’ve never lost a prisoner out on the trail yet,” Brock said proudly. “In fact, I’ll put my record for holding on to ’em up against quite a few jails or other kinds of lockups I could name.”

  “Gutsy call, I’ll give you that.”

  “Like I said, my office has been wanting to get hold of Sanders for a long time. Be a favorable mark on my record if I was the one who brought him in.”

  Bob gestured. “Let me see the papers you got on him.”

  Brock handed them over. “While you’re having a look at those, how about letting me go back and have a few words with Sanders? I want to see the look on his face when he finds out I’m practically standing on his spurs.”

  Bob considered for a moment, then nodded. “Guess it’d be okay. Try not to agitate him any more than you have to. And I guess I don’t have to tell you to be careful around him.”

  “Oh, I’ll be sure to do that.”

  Bob jabbed a thumb over his shoulder, indicating the heavy door that led back to the cell block. “Through there. Leave the door open a mite, if you will.”

  Brock got up and made his way back to the cell area. While he was thus occupied, Bob scanned the papers he’d handed over. They were standard-issue wanted notices for crimes committed in the Dodge City area, dating back a couple years. They looked familiar, and Bob suspected he probably had a copy of both of them in one of his desk drawers.

  Setting aside the wanted papers, he took up the telegram responses that had come in and started reading through them. He could hear a back-and-forth of voices coming from the cell block, but Brock had left the thick door only slightly ajar so they were muffled to the point of not being understandable. Had Bob concentrated hard enough, he probably could have made out most of what they were saying, but for the time being he was more interested in what the telegrams had to say.

  There were three of them. Two basically put the decision of what to do with Sanders back on Bob and his authority. The third, however, came from the territorial headquarters of the U.S. marshals in Cheyenne and laid out somewhat clearer guidelines for him to follow. What it came down to was a line that read Hold until a judicial review can be attained here and then you will be further advised.

  Somewhat clearer. But nothing firm and final. All it accomplished was telling him to keep Sanders locked up in Rattlesnake Wells—as opposed to allowing Brock to take custody, which Bob had been leaning toward—until notified further. When he might get said advisement was left wide open. It might be later today, it might be tomorrow . . . it might be in a damn week. Bob mentally cursed. If he hadn’t sent the inquiry in the first place, he could have handled the matter with a judgment call and turned Sanders over to Brock. But since he had raised the question and had gotten a response from a higher territorial authority, he pretty much had to pay attention.

  A sudden rise in the volume of the voices coming out of the cell block tore Bob’s attention away from the telegram. The voices turning his head were not only louder, they had grown very heated in tone. Bob hadn’t expected an exchange of friendly banter between the pair, but the eruption sounded serious.

  He got up, shoved the door open wide, and strode into the cell block. Marshal Brock was leaning against the wall opposite Sanders’s cell, wearing a crooked, somewhat taunting smile. Sanders was pressed against the bars, squeezing them hard with white-knuckled fists, his face flushed an angry red, mouth twisted into a grimace.

  “What in tarnation’s going on?” Bob wanted to know.

  “Get this sonofabitch outta here!” Sanders seethed. “He’s got no right to be here and you got no right to hand me over to him. Is that what you’re fixin’ to do, like he claims?”

  “If it is, that’s sort of between him and me,” Bob said. “As far as rights, bub, I hate to be the one to break it to you . . . but you ain’t in no position to have very many of those. You should have worried about that when you turned down the outlaw trail and started stompin’ all over honest people’s rights.”

  Brock chuckled. “You tell him, Marshal. Lay it on good and thick.”

  Bob gave him a look. “Real glad you were paying such close attention when I asked you not to agitate the situation.”

  “I can’t help it he’s so touchy that he looks at me and sees the hangman’s noose he’s bound for.”

  Sanders jerked on his bars. “You go to hell. Both of you! We’ll see how much chucklin’ you do out the bullet holes my gang is gonna fill you full of when they show up to bust me out of this cracker box.”

  “Why, Marshal,” said Brock, pushing nonchalantly away from the wall, “I fear he is wholly unappreciative of the hospitality you’ve shown him here.”

  “If I had an hour or so to spare, I’d tell you how much I don’t give a damn about that. For the time being, I think you two have done enough rekindling of your deep friendship. Let’s leave him to his daydreams about his gang coming back to break him out.”

  Sanders’s eyes narrowed into slits as thin as two razor slashes. “You wait and see, Sundown Bob. They’re comin’ back sure enough. And when they do, like I already told you, I’ll see to it your sun gets set once and for all.”

  The lawmen returned to the office area.

  Brock said, “What was that Sundown Bob business?”

  Bob waved a hand dismissively. “Aw, just a silly nickname some folks have tried to stick me with. On account of my sundown red hair.”

  Brock grinned. “Sundown Bob. I like it. It’s sorta catchy.”

  “Yeah, well, I’d be grateful if you didn’t make a habit of using it. Wild Bill Hickock was a pretty catchy nickname, too, but it didn’t do him a helluva lot of good in the end, did it?”

  Brock picked up his wanted papers from the desk, refolded them, and slipped them back inside his coat. “So when do I take custody of Sanders?”

  Bob dropped back into his chair. “Funny thing about that. Only a few minutes ago I was ready to hand him over as soon as you were ready to take him off my hands. But all of a sudden”—he pushed the Cheyenne telegram across the desktop toward Brock—“we got a new wrinkle.”

  Frowning, the muscles at the hinge of his jaw tightening, Brock picked up the piece of paper and read it. His frown deepened as his eyes moved back and forth. When he was done, he tossed the paper back on the desk. “So what does that prove? It’s from a U.S. marshal’s office. I’m a U.S. marshal. The charges against Sanders—down where I come fro
m, up here in your territory, and plenty of other places—are federal charges. It’s all the same ball of wax. So what’s the wrinkle to me going ahead and taking Sanders?”

  “That one little word right there,” said Bob, tapping the telegram with his forefinger, “telling me to hold him here. Hold until judicial review, to be exact. And it comes from territorial authority higher than me . . . after I asked for their advice.”

  “Judicial review, my foot,” said Brock disdainfully. “It’s all legal mumbo jumbo. Bureaucratic bull crap! It just ties things up, slows everything down. You know that as well as I do.”

  “Maybe I see it the same way, maybe I don’t,” said Bob. “The fact remains, the words in that message amount to orders. To me. And no matter how I personally feel—and, believe me, I was never looking forward to having Sanders as a guest for any longer than I had to—I don’t have much choice but to hang on to him until I hear otherwise.”

  “More bull crap! You could turn him over to me if you wanted to. Just say I showed up and we’d already made the transfer before you got that wire. I’ll even promise to swing by Cheyenne when I leave here and back up your story, get it cleared with them.”

  Bob gave a reluctant shake of his head. “That’s tempting, don’t think it’s not. But I—”

  “Then do it, dammit! Show some backbone and hand him over to me if that’s what you want.” Brock’s voice rose to a near strident level and for added emphasis, he banged the edge of his fist down on Bob’s desk.

  Bob sat very still and for several beats just looked at the spot on his desk where the federal man’s fist had landed. Then he lifted his face, eyes flat and cold, and said in a low voice, “I already cut you some slack for shooting a suspect out from under me. I told you once how I feel about respect, then gave you the chance to earn some from me. It didn’t work. Now I’m telling you it’s time to leave my office.”

  Brock stood up. “To hell with you, then. I’ll send my own wire to Cheyenne and get them to see the sense in me taking custody of Sanders so everything will be nice and tidy for you.”

  “You come back with a wire from this same office”—Bob once again tapped the slip of paper before him—“authorizing you to take the prisoner, we can go ahead and settle it. Until then, you and me have no further business with one another.”

  Chapter 20

  Shortly after Brock left, Consuela showed up with lunch for the prisoner. As expected, she had some for Fred as well. When she discovered he wasn’t there, she set his plate of ham, beans, and cornbread on the stove next to the coffeepot to keep warm.

  Turning back to where Bob remained sitting behind his desk, she held out the plate she’d prepared for Sanders and said, “I suppose you don’t want me to take this back.”

  “You suppose right,” Bob told her. “Just set it here on the desk and I’ll take it back in a minute.”

  Consuela brought the plate over and then sat down in the chair recently vacated by Brock. “What’s wrong? You look deeply troubled, angry.”

  Bob would never understand how women were able to do that. He thought he was holding his expression perfectly neutral, but somehow Consuela had seen through it to the turmoil of thoughts underneath. Priscilla used to be able to do that . . . until she became so ill her sense of awareness seldom extended past her pain. Consuela had taken up the habit without ever missing a beat and, if anything, seemed even keener at it.

  “I heard about the shooting up the street a little while ago,” Consuela went on. “I didn’t catch all the details, but I understand another man got killed. Is that what’s bothering you?”

  “I’ve got a lot of things gnawing at me, Con,” Bob said, using the shortened version of her name like only he ever did, dating back to when they were kids. “They’re all sort of tangled together and, yeah, that shooting in front of Bullock’s is part of it. If it had gone different, it might have helped a lot toward untangling some of the rest.”

  “So, in other words, you don’t want to talk about it.”

  “I’m not ready. Like I said, it’s still all in tangles.”

  Consuela rose from the chair. “I guess I should be on my way then. I’ll leave you to feed the prisoner and tend to your . . . untangling.”

  Bob could tell she was hurt because he wouldn’t open up to her, but he couldn’t help it. He had more to worry about than her bruised feelings. “Listen, from now on you don’t need to concern yourself with fixing any more meals for this prisoner. In fact, I’d just as soon you stayed clear of here altogether for a while. Bucky, too. Actually, I’d appreciate it if you’d intercept him when he gets out of school today and not let him come by here like he usually does before heading home. I’ll try to explain it more, to both of you, at supper tonight.”

  Consuela’s expression turned troubled in a different way. “You’ll be home for supper, then?”

  “I intend to, yes.”

  “But later, you’ll be sleeping here at the jail again.”

  “Afraid so.”

  “Very well. I’ll keep Bucky from coming here until you have the chance to talk to him.”

  When Bob took the plate of food and a cup of coffee back to Sanders a few minutes later, he found the gang leader in quite a different mood.

  “Thanks, Marshal,” he said after the meal had been passed through to him. “I don’t know who you got cookin’ this grub, but it’s some of the best I ever had. And I don’t mean just jail food. It’s damned good by any standards.”

  Bob eyed him skeptically.

  “What?” said Sanders under the scrutiny. “Don’t you think I can say a civil word now and then?”

  “Haven’t heard too many up to now.”

  “Yeah, well, we ain’t exactly in a situation here that lends itself to friendly chitchat.”

  “No, and I don’t see that changing anytime soon,” Bob told him. “As a matter of fact, the cooking you’re enjoying so much is fixing to change on account of your constant threats about your gang coming to bust you out. I don’t want the current cook put in danger, so enjoy what you got. From now on it may not be as good.”

  “Well, ain’t that a lousy break,” said Sanders.

  “I’ll still go ahead and pass your compliment along for what you’ve had so far.”

  “Yeah, you do that,” said Sanders on the verge of getting surly again. “No matter how good the grub, I ain’t about to trade puttin’ this joint behind me for the chance to eat some more of it.”

  Bob grinned wryly. “Dream all you want . . . but it ain’t gonna fill your belly.” He turned away.

  Sanders spoke again, halting him. “Wait a minute, Marshal.”

  Bob tuned back and waited, giving him the chance to say something more.

  A look of sadness appeared to settle over Sanders’s face. “When Brock was here before, he said that another of my men got gunned down in town this morning. That right?”

  Bob nodded. “It is.”

  “Pete Stuben?”

  “That’s what Brock said his name was. I wouldn’t have known a name. I just recognized him from the raid up in New Town.”

  Sanders’s mouth pressed into a thin line turned downward at the corners. “Poor damn Pete. He’d rode with me for a long time.”

  “Every indication was that he’d come back to town alone. Any idea why he’d do that?”

  Sanders gave a minimal shake of his head. “Best I could do is a guess.”

  “Care to say what that would be?”

  “Scopin’ out the layout of your jail is the only thing I can figure.”

  “You really think what’s left of your gang is gonna try to bust you out?”

  “Damn right.”

  “You hit us the other night with ten men, by my count. Now you’re behind bars and four others are dead. Maybe more wounded . . . Strikes me that, having had such poor luck on the first go-round, there might be room for a few discouraging thoughts when it comes to trying anything more.”

  “You don’t know my
men.”

  “No, I don’t . . . except for the ones we’ve already killed.”

  “That’s a helluva cold thing to say.”

  “They came here, put themselves in our gun sights. Nobody went looking for them.”

  Sanders seemed to sag against the bars. “Boy, you know how to cut to it, don’t you? Yeah, they came here and ended up in your gun sights. But they didn’t put themselves there . . . I led ’em.”

  “It’ll be more of the same if they come again to try and free you. Even if they succeed, there’ll be a heavy cost.”

  “Nothing I can do to stop it. If they decide to make a try—and I believe they will—I couldn’t change it if I wanted to.”

  Bob said, “I hope to hell you’re wrong.”

  Sanders regarded him intently. “You want to talk about somebody who’s wrong? What about U.S. Marshal Vernon Brock? I’m probably wastin’ my breath thinkin’ there’s any chance you’ll believe me, but that man ain’t what he seems. He might still be wearin’ a U.S. marshal’s badge on his shirt, but it ain’t legitimate. Not no more. It’s just a way of gettin’ everybody to cooperate and cut him the slack he needs to get what he’s after.”

  “And what’s that?” Bob said.

  “Me,” Sanders stated flatly.

  Bob grunted. “Him and half the lawmen between here and the Missouri River.”

  “Only with him it ain’t the same. It’s personal. You turn me over to him, I’ll never see the inside of a courtroom or another jail . . . or even a gallows. He gets his hands on me, it’ll be something a lot worse.”

  “Why?”

  Sanders turned away and took a couple steps toward the middle of his cell. He stood there for a minute with his head hung. “I did him a bad hurt once a long time ago. He’s out for revenge, plain and simple. In his place, I can’t say I blame him. But that still don’t mean I want to face up to whatever he’s got in mind.”