Mobley's Law, A Mobley Meadows Novel (15 page)

CHAPTER 20

The
Star Variety
was known for its tough clientele. Edson knew it had originally been intended as a theatre for the high nosed snoots of the town, but it had fallen on hard times after the war and it was forced to cater to the cowboys, hunters, rowdies and hooligans as the town grew with the country’s westward movement. Few snobs ventured near the place these days, and that was just fine with the new owners who were thriving as never before, running it as a saloon with the occasional variety act thrown in to soothe the savage beasts.

Edson could take care of himself, but was nervous as he approached the entrance and started to push his way in. He jumped back as two brawling cowboys stampeded out the swinging doors, fists flying and gouging, the men screaming, cussing, and stumbling their way into the mud of a recent shower.

A number of drunken spectators looked on, cheering. A few minutes of wild surging, swinging and falling down, and both fighters were exhausted. Caked with mud and blood, they ceased hitting each other, stared warnings with fists cocked and, inexplicably, fell to laughing and slapping each other on the back.

Edson shook his head. This was one characteristic of the white cowboy he had never understood. How two men could be mortal enemies one minute and the next be having a drink as if nothing had ever happened, was beyond him. In his tribe, people did not make enemies of other people on a temporary basis. If you had an enemy and had fought a battle such as he had just witnessed, it would have been a fight to the death. The only reason such a fight would have occurred in the first place would have been to avenge a murder in the family.

Edson inhaled one last breath of fresh air. The stench of coal oil smoke, old leather, and rancid sweat pulled at his stomach as he stepped inside. Pinching his eyes and sucking his breath through clenched teeth, he surveyed the scene, a maelstrom of noise, smoke, piles of sawdust strewn on the floors, and smelly men. A group of gamblers, in top hats and spiffy vests under ratty suit coats calmly played poker in a far corner, ignoring the chaos of drunks stumbling about, women flashing their privates for a few drinks or a tip, and risking the occasional shot fired into the ceiling by those too snockered to care who they might kill or maim.

There were few places left where a man could stand and order a drink. All of them were at the far end of the polished wooden bar. To get there he would have to traverse a gauntlet of hairy, leather-clad, fully hammered buffalo hunters. As his eyes adjusted to the dim light of the oil lanterns, his sense of smell mercifully began to shut down.

To his left, toward the front, several other card games were in progress. These were attended by hard looking men wearing low slung pistols with their hats pulled down sharply as they concentrated on their cards. At the far end of the bar, at a table fairly isolated from the rest, sat four men clearly not in a good mood. They had glasses in front of them, no cards or chips in sight, and no whiskey.
A good place to start.

Edson willed his feet to move and elbowed into the mass of stinking men standing before the bar, most of whom were holding long rifles in one hand, glasses of whiskey or buckets of beer in the other. If trouble came, it would start here.

Most of the men separated as he shoved his way past. Several others, lips curled, eyes glazed with whiskey, just blinked. One large man clad in a huge shaggy coat, blind drunk and slobbering, reached out and grabbed him by the shoulder. “Hey, purdy boy,” the man belched. “You wanna to have some fun with old Jim Bob Burnett?”

The saloon instantly fell silent. The crowd waited to see what this new wrangler would do. It was the last thing Jim Bob would remember that night. Edson pulled his .44 out smoothly in a short circle and cracked the big hunter squarely across the bridge of the nose, splashing blood, sweat and grime in all directions. Jim Bob’s nose swelled immediately, blocked his near vision, and left him looking like a cross-eyed lion. He dropped his head to his chest and slipped quietly to the floor.

Edson looked menacingly at the small hunter who was obviously Jim Bob’s companion. “Do you want some of this?”

“No, sir, I surely don’t,” the squirrel of a man said. “In fact, I think we were just leaving. Old Jim Bob here, he ain’t usually like this. Why, I ain’t never seen him lay an unwelcome hand on anyone before. It must be this bad whiskey.”

Edson tossed the man two silver dollars. “Buy yourselves another bottle for the morning, a good one this time. I think Jim Bob is going to need it.”

The crowd grumbled its satisfaction with the outcome, and resumed its raucous chatter. Edson continued on down the bar, acknowledged by nods from several of the other hunters as he did so. They clearly thought he’d been fair. He’d ended the argument without a fuss and had been generous to the vanquished. At the far end of the counter, with no one else on his left, Edson bellied up and was immediately addressed by a scowling bartender.

“Take out another of my payin’ customers and you’ll see the wrong end of the shotgun under this bar. Now, what’ll it be?”

Edson moved back slightly. The man’s breath reeked of rotten teeth and foul smoke. He had a weird glow behind his pupils, like he’d been smoking Jimsonweed. If so, he could go berserk at any time. Edson had seen men go out of their heads and never recover after fooling around with Jimsonweed. His instinct told him to whack the man in the mouth, common sense the opposite.

He glared back. “Whiskey! Sourmash—the bottle.”

The man grinned, teeth black and snaggled. His eyes seemed unable to stop jumping about, his eyelids first expanding wide then contracting to a slit. “Big spender, huh?”

Edson laid two dollars on the bar. The man looked down, scooped up the money and turned away. A few moments later, he returned with a bottle and a shot glass, slammed them down on the bar and walked away. Edson read the label. “
Hopi Blue, Corn Whiskey.”

Edson poured himself a drink, sniffed it and took a sip.
Good
. He tossed the remainder of the amber liquid down his throat and turned to look at the table behind him. The four men were still there, looking glum. Edson took a step toward the table, pushed his hat back and looked down on them.

“Howdy, boys. Red’s my name, and y’all look like you could handle a drink. I’ve a bottle here to share, if you’ll be so kind as to bend my ear a little. I’ve been out on the tall grass so long I forgot what it’s like to talk to human type bein’s. What say?”

The four men looked at each other, eyes widening. The man to Edson’s right kicked an empty chair in Edson’s direction. “Mister, you got yourself a deal. Move around there, boys. Let the man squeeze in.”

Edson sat astraddle the chair and placed the bottle on the table. It was immediately seized and passed around, then returned to Edson. He poured himself another drink.

The man who’d invited Edson to sit swept a callused hand around the table. “This here’s Filo, Huntoon, Smokey Mills, and I’m Rufus Gosset. Filo and Huntoon don’t like last names, so I don’t pester ‘em about it.” Rufus shook Edson’s hand and quickly reached for the bottle again.

Filo was a small wiry man with cut marks on his face. Huntoon looked lame-brained with a drooping right lip and the scar of a mule shoe on the left side of his forehead. The lip spilled drool in a steady stream he made no move to wipe away. Smokey Mills looked normal, not ugly, but Edson judged him likely to take offense easily. Rufus was the talker of the group, the obvious leader. His face was also scarred, but his eyes were bright, his gaze steady.

Rufus passed the bottle around. “This is dang good whiskey. It’s been quite the while since we’ve had any Hopi Blue. Time’s been tough, Red. Stone bone tough. We’d been out of work for months, and then last week a man hires us to back him up. He promised each of us a new repeatin’ rifle and a hundred dollars to help him. Now the dirty dog won’t pay us, and we lost the rifles and our pistols as well. We helped him with three rotten jobs and have nothing to show for it.”

Edson poured himself another drink after the bottle came around, and then passed it again so everyone could have their fill. “I don’t quite follow that. You mean you let this man get away without paying you? Excuse me, boys, but that rings a might thin to me. You don’t look the type to let someone put the
bamboozle
on you.”

“Well,” Rufus continued. “It weren’t exactly a
bamboozle.
I mean, we seen it happen right before our eyes, and it weren’t really all his fault. It was real bad luck, for him and us, I guess. But now the polecat says he don’t have to make it up to us, and we ain’t goin’ to let him get away with that.”

Rufus looked around. His partners were grim. “He owes us, by
God
, and he’ll pay sooner or later, or we’ll do him in. Right, boys?”

A chorus of affirmative grunts and growls spewed from the angry men.

“Do you know the man’s name? Maybe I can help. I have a friend who’s real good at resolving disputes.”

Rufus leaned forward and whispered, “It wouldn’t be good for people in here to know about it. The man’s not well liked around these parts, if you know what I mean. But if you think you can help and can keep your mouth shut, I’ll tell you.”

Rufus scanned the room, and then turned back to his friends, each of whom nodded at him.

“Why not?” Mills said. He’s been good enough to buy us a drink.”

Rufus moved closer to Edson and spoke out of the side of his mouth, his eyes darting from side to side. “The man is old Judge Oliver, the governor’s man.”

Edson stiffened, and moved back slightly. “You mean the judge who made such a fool of himself a few years ago. The certified lunatic?”

“The very same.”

A strange warmth seemed to crawl around in Edson’s right ear. He recognized it as a sign, a warning, or one of those coincidences his grandfather had told him about, the ones that seemed to be simple but were not. What could it be? A guide to the future?

“Well, I’ll be danged. How’d you come to get hooked up with that nut chunker?”

“Durned if I know,” Rufus said. “One day we’re a settin’ around, just like now, and this skinny little dude—thin face and real nasty looking—comes in and says he needs men to do some special police work. Bein’ naturally broke as wishbones, we took him up on it. Found ourselves working for Oliver a few days later. He had ten men altogether, five of them hard case blacks who’d been riding with the Blue Bellies. But they was passable to us, no snot, lots of tough. Another was a white man from Austin who kept pretty much to himself. Right away this little dude hands out these brand new repeaters. We were in hog heaven, I tell you. But was we ever wrong.”

“Who was this skinny man? Did you ever find out?”

“Called hisself, Ferdie, as I recall. He never gave out a last name. Said we’d be working for the government doin’ special enforcement jobs. As long as we did what we was told, no questions, he said he’d keep us on the payroll.”

“I guess we didn’t do good,” Huntoon drooled.

“I guess we didn’t,” Smokey Mills interjected. “But I don’t think anyone could blame us. We were in the wrong, though we thought we was doin’ right.”

Edson tilted his head back, looked down his nose. “I don’t follow that, Smokey.”

“It was something to behold.” Smokey poured another drink. “Have you heard about that Judge Mobley Meadows who killed all the
Comancheros
out on the prairie?”

Edson grinned. “Who hasn’t? Is it really true what he did?”

“Well, we weren’t there, but we sure do believe it. We saw him over to the Wiley Miner farm. That’s where he and that crazy marshal, Jack Anthony Lopes, went through Judge Oliver like grain through a goose. I don’t believe I’ll ever see anything like that again in my life.”

The others all nodded.

“Go ahead,” Edson said, his excitement matched only by the feeling that he’d missed something important by leaving the Miner farm so early. “This sounds interesting.”

“Well, like Rufus said, we was working for Oliver, backing him up as he served eviction notices on people who’d not paid their proper taxes. We done it to two other families over east of here, and there’d been no trouble. But when we come up to the Miner’s place, their boys, all armed to the teeth with rifles just like ours, got the drop on us. They was led by this Marshal Lopes and answered to Judge Meadows. Now there is one dangerous man, Judge Mobley F. Meadows. He had old Oliver about to chip in his drawers.”

Huntoon slobbered out a laugh. The rest of the men nodded their agreement, chuckling now.

“Anyways, Judge Meadows shows Oliver a thing or two about the law. Says the papers were no good. In the end, Oliver ends up with a hole in his ear and a fat lip. We had to lift him into his buggy. It weren’t until we got all the way back to the bridge before he come to. All of a sudden-like, he’s madder’n a panther in a hog waller and decides we didn’t earn our money. We’d a shot Oliver right there if’n we’d had our guns.

Hell, I didn’t even know we was in Meadows’ court when we rode up. But we was, and it cost us our new rifles and all the pistols we had. It cost Oliver two hundred dollars in court costs and fines, and I think that’s why he figured to cheat us out of our pay, to make up for his own losses.”

“I tell you what,” Rufus said. “If you ever see that Judge Mobley Meadows coming, you’d better put your weapons away, because his court is wherever he says it is, and he don’t like people waving guns around at him. By God, you should have seen his face when he shot Oliver’s ear off.”