Mobley's Law, A Mobley Meadows Novel (5 page)

* * *

Juan watched the man, this Mobley Meadows, this
juez
, his savior from starvation, ride off. He then looked down at the bags in his hand. He shook his head. What was a judge doing out here in the middle of nowhere, wearing a beautiful buckskin jacket that had seen better days, armed to the teeth, and one of the best shots he’d ever seen? There remained much to be learned of this character.

He looked in the saddle bags, found several pieces of hard rock candy wrapped in a paper, licked one cautiously, and then gobbled it into his mouth. The surge of energy was incredible. He rolled it around with his tongue. Ooooh.
Strawberry
.

* * *

By the time Mobley returned, driving thirteen horses and his pack mule, the man he’d left was looking more alive. His dark eyes had lost that strange glazed look and he was steady on his feet. A small fire was burning in a rock-lined pit and a skillet full of beans simmered on a rock partially in the fire. A stack of thin, round, flat flour cakes, similar to some Mobley had savored in the Spanish Quarter of New Orleans many years before, had been carefully laid out on a flat rock.

Mobley stepped down from his horse, conscious now of elbows and odd angles, not wanting to look the buffoon. He’d never mastered the art of stepping gracefully on or off a horse. Angus used to say he looked like a granddaddy spider feeling its way off a hot stove, but Mobley had just ignored him. His legs were too long for grace and he could do nothing about it. Without pausing, he unsaddled Meteor and released her to graze with the other animals, knowing instinct would keep them together until he could devise a system of hobbles. He eyed the flat cakes, mouth suddenly watering. He squatted across from Juan and snatched one of them up.

“We’ve managed to come into some fine animals here, Juan. You can take your pick. I figure these old boys owe it to you as restitution for your loss. I’m declarin’ the rest of them forfeit to the court as penalty for their owners’ crimes. We can sell them in Waco for court costs. I’m headed for Austin, but I figure to stop in Waco first. The company of a man as competent with a skillet as he is with a rifle would be a genuine comfort.”

Mobley tossed the hot cake from hand to hand as he examined it and sniffed the steaming aroma. “What do you call this thing? It looks like somebody stepped on a potato and scraped it off’n his boot.”

Juan smiled, nodded his acceptance of the horse and travel offer and found himself relieved. He would not have to kill this man for the horse. But ride with him, cook for him? Another matter he would have to ponder.

“Ah, that,
señor
? It is just the finest
tortilla
you will have ever eaten, for it is said among my people that the flavor of my hand is the best in all Mexico. Of course, there is bacon and the
frijoles
are cooking, but it will be some time before they can be softened and fried.”

Juan watched the tall judge bite into the soft, warm tortilla, close his eyes with pleasure and rock back on his heels. Juan slowly rolled and munched his own. He’d never been on good terms with a judge, anywhere. Further, he was not sure of this man’s intentions. He seemed honorable, but it was too soon to tell. Juan might still have to kill him. Perhaps he should do so anyway. The man was just another damned
gringo
like the ones who’d been chasing him. Why settle for one horse when fifteen could make him wildly rich?

CHAPTER 4

Juan suppressed his thoughts of murder, wondering at the same time how he could have considered such a thing. He’d never killed wantonly or without justification, but he’d been on the run, angry and hungry for so long, his mind had begun to fray. He’d fought a battle beside this judge, and they’d been victorious. They’d shared a meal. He had his black stallion without resort to violence or trickery. Now the man offered friendship. How could he refuse?

Juan stiffened himself. He would accept the offer but maintain his language charade until the relationship grew beyond doubt. He looked closely at the judge, searching for information, something to reveal the truth. There were no signs. The man was just as he appeared, open and honest, if not a bit odd in dress and height. Juan had never known a man so tall.

Juan coughed lightly, arms crossed upon his chest. “My name is Juan Antonio Lopez,
señor
judge, and I am of a fine respectable family in Mexico. My mother was English, my father Spanish. You will not regret your kindness this day, for I am an honorable man. I repay all of my debts.”

Juan paused as he considered his life and the extent to which he would relate it while he pondered his bigger decision. “It seems, however, the present leadership in Mexico considers my presence undesirable, and I am forced to admit I am not capable of representing my family in an appropriate manner at this particular time. At some time in the future, when I have regained my family honor, I shall appropriately return your great favors.”

Mobley could see Juan was puffing himself. He was talking big, but his body language said he was holding something back. Mobley had seen the response before. People were nervous around judges. Those who feared the law feared the judge even more. Deep down, everyone fears a man with such power. It was one of the things that bothered Mobley about the job. He’d always been quick to make friends.

“Well, thank you, Juan. But, I think I’m the one who owes the favors. If you hadn’t been up on that hill to pick off some of those varmints, they’d be squabbling over my liver right now. What’s more, the odds against either of us surviving were more than poor when you decided to join in. That took a lot of courage. I’m indebted, and I don’t forget.”

Juan squirmed as he recalled his motivation for joining the fight. He hung his head. This was not right.
There could be no more lies
. It was decision time, again. Even as he’d thought how he would kill this man and take all the horses, he’d talked pompously of honor. That was the problem. Without honor, a real man was nothing.

In that instant, Juan decided. Judge Meadows was a man to whom truth must be told. There would be no murder. Juan would opt for friendship, and there must be no deception between friends. Juan stood up, dusted his ragged pants, straightened his back, and let out a long slow breath.

“
Judge
Meadows,” he said in the perfect accent of an English gentleman of means. “My name is indeed Juan Antonio Lopez, and as you can no doubt tell from my sudden lack of Mexican accent, I am not what I seem to be. In fact, my father was
General Santa Anna
, former dictator of all Mexico—the swine—but he does not recognize me as his son. He betrayed my mother and had me cast out after she died.

I’ve traveled with hard men in revolution against the tyranny in Mexico, and given the chance to return and put the evil men who oppress my people to the sword, I shall most certainly do so. In the meantime, I am without means, impecunious, and have nothing. No one to talk to, no friends, nothing to be proud of in my life. I helped you because I wanted that black stallion and something decent to eat. If you still believe me courageous and deserving, then I must say you are an easy man to please.”

It was a different man who stood proudly before Mobley Meadows. His shoulders no longer slumped and his defensive posture was gone. Though Juan had been less than truthful about family and heritage, his actions were understandable. There had been no violation of trust because there had been no trust. There was now. Mobley needed a friend and more. He needed help. This prairie was not like the hills of Tennessee. It was a dangerous place.

“
Heh, heh
.” Mobley bounced up and down as he squatted, thought about rising, then stayed where he was, knees pointed sharply toward the fire. “Now, if that don’t beat all. I ain’t heard English spoke like that since my last visit to Boston. A nice old man from London, England gave us a lecture about something, but all I remember was how different he sounded. He claimed to be a barrister
,
or a solicitor, or something like that, and wore a weird white wig just to show us all how they dressed up in court over there. He sounded just like you here today.”

Mobley paused as he directed his gaze on Juan, eye to eye. “Juan, my friends call me Mobley. There’s no need for honorifics, no Judge, no mister, just—Mobley. My old pappy used to call me
Stretch
, but he’s long gone and I don’t care for it much anymore. Don’t ever call me
Moldy
, even if I get to stinkin’ like a week old work shirt. Riles me. That settled, let’s go round up the rest of these bodies and see what we’ve got. Your rig’s a mite scarce. There ought to be one good set of clothes on all these boys. We’ll let their dead souls make up for their living evil by providing for their betters.”

Mobley picked himself up, stretched and scratched his belly. He then mounted and rode off to locate the dead men and drag them back near the camp—
downwind
. They were venting putrid gas something fierce and attracting flies by the millions, but there was no time to bury them before nightfall. The coyotes may have some fun with the bodies during the night, but that was just the way it would have to be. By the time he returned to camp, the sun was low on the western horizon.

It took Juan somewhat longer to ride up to the high plain, locate the grazing horses of the two men he had killed, place the one remaining body on a horse and ride back down. When he returned, Mobley was arranging a variety of goods on a red and white striped five point wool blanket taken from one of the dead. There were thirteen new Winchester Model ‘66 .44 rim fire rifles, called
Yellow Boys
because of their shiny brass frames, miscellaneous goods, thirty boxes of ammunition for the rifles, assorted wicked looking knives, thirteen brand new fifty dollar gold pieces, and some mixed Mexican and American coins. Juan unceremoniously dumped his Indian on the ground, lined him up with the others and carefully placed another fifty dollar gold piece on the pile. He looked up.

“Let’s not forget that one over at the bottom of the cliff.”

Mobley nodded and both walked to where the Indian had fallen to his death on the rocks. A strange itch was tingling the back of Mobley’s neck, and it usually meant trouble, but this time he did not interpret it as such, just curiosity. Something was wrong with this whole scene, these strange men so well armed and mounted. He couldn’t make sense of it. He looked down at the dead Indian, and toed him in the ribs.

“This one won’t be difficult to fold in a hole. Looks like every bone in his body is broke.”

Juan did not respond.

Mobley hooked his thumbs in his waist band and looked around. Although good at reading people one on one, he was as poor at figuring the evil motives of others as he was at such games himself. “What do you make of all this, Juan? Fifteen of the nastiest critters the Devil ever created, armed to the teeth, and rich as any ne’er do wells I’ve ever seen.”

Juan hunkered down to examine the man’s clothing and a small leather
parfleche
tied to his waist. His mind had been honed by years of association with desperate people. He knew there was a simple answer, for these were simple men. “A guess only, but I would say someone paid them to do a job. Gave them good rifles, maybe the horses, too. They made the mistake of coming upon you when you weren’t in the mood to play.”

Juan looked up at Mobley to see him paying rapt attention. “The money division suggests they did not steal it. Indians, or Mexican bandidos for that matter, would have had unequal shares. The strongest would have had the most, the weakest the least. It looks to me like someone, a white man most likely, paid them individually. Another thing, all of the gold pieces have the same date—
1872
—which suggests they were all paid at the same time from the same source. What I can’t understand is why they were this far north.
Comancheros
usually work way off to the southwest these days.”

Mobley stared at Juan, his respect increased several fold. The man could think. “
Comancheros?
Meaning those scum who trade whiskey and guns to the Comanche? Well, that’s interesting. You figure this is money and goods legitimately come by, not stolen?”

“The money, yes. The horses? Possibly provided, but more likely stolen, and I doubt the job they were hired to do was legitimate.”

Mobley nodded. “A conspiracy? But to do what? Surely they didn’t come all the way up here just to harass me. Shucks, even I didn’t know I was going to be out here. I’d planned to take a train straight down to Austin, but got the itch to see some country and exercise Meteor a bit on the way. Are there more of these critters running around, do you think?”

Juan shook his head. “I doubt it. But you cannot tell. This country is full of angry, hungry men. A few months ago down by Laredo, there was a rumor. I didn’t follow it up. Supposedly, a man with a lot of money was trying to raise men for reprisal raids. Some said he worked for the government. Others said he was out to get revenge against the government. No one knew for sure.”

CHAPTER 5

Mobley poked the campfire with a stick. It crackled and jumped pleasingly, flaring bright as rising sparks flew off into the night. The danger of prairie fire was slight this time of year; still, he knew it paid to be careful. Wildfire on the prairie had roasted many a slow footed pioneer and he had no desire to be one of the next. But, the night was chilly and the fire, fueled mostly by small sticks and old buffalo dung, still seemed weak against the cold. Toward morning it would be worse. There was only one sure way to fortify oneself against it.

He extracted a pint bottle of Angus Meadows’s finest Tennessee whiskey from the pack alongside his sleeping roll and settled his back against the saddle.

“This here’s some of the best Tennessee sourmash made, Juan. Would you care for a snort?”

Juan looked up from the skillet he’d been scrubbing. A broad smile spread across his face, causing the ends of his mustache to crinkle upward. “You have
whiskey
? Oh, my Lord and all the saints be praised, I’ve been saved.” He dropped the skillet and scuttled closer, reaching for the bottle.

Mobley chuckled as he stretched to hand over the leather covered flask. Juan looked at it lovingly, removed the cork with a hollow pop, and held the opening to his nose, sniffing deeply. He carefully placed the flask to his lips, tipped back his head and took a long three swallow pull.
Ahhhhhhhhh
. He then shook himself like a wet dog, from the head down to his waist.
Ahrrrrrr
. Juan’s eyes watered at the strength of the brew, his breath a ragged gasp. Mobley found himself snort-laughing as Juan tried to hand the bottle back.

“No, Juan. Go ahead. Drink your fill. There’s more where that came from.”

Juan obliged, taking another long pull and repeating his sequence of response until he had Mobley laughing and snorting so hard he could hardly talk.

As Juan set the bottle down, Mobley reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out two cigars. He scratched a match along his boot, waited for the flame to settle, then lit one of the cigars.

“I’ve a spare cigar here, too, if you’d care to light up. These are fresh from Havana, soaked in red English naval rum, and rolled out on the milky thighs of beautiful Cuban virgins. At least, that’s what they told me the last time my ship dropped anchor there. Anyhow, they’re smooth and mild. I’ll vouch for that.”

For a brief moment, Mobley pictured the Cuban girls he’d known and the pleasures of his last voyage to the Caribbean. He quickly dismissed the fantasy. He’d had great fun on his trips to the islands, running blockades during the war, but in general he had difficulty with women. The loose ones were a comfort, easy to talk to and be with, but real ladies an enigma. He could never settle for the former and was unable to comprehend the latter.

Most of the fine ladies he’d met had seemed fragile, subject to sniffle at the slightest hurt. He’d had no truck with them. Others had been put off by his height, being runty little snips without the good sense to recognize the value of being able to see over a crowd. If there was a woman out there for him, he’d yet to meet her. Besides, his life was just too dangerous. It wouldn’t be fair to a good woman to subject her to such a life as his.

Mobley sucked lightly on the stogie and watched Juan light his with a glowing stick from the fire. “I’m not much of a smoker, Juan, but a fine cigar with a glass of good whiskey is supposed to be a sign of the civilized man.”

Juan paused for several minutes, savoring the whiskey and its pepper-like descent to his stomach, and waving his nose through the sweet smoke of the cigar. It had been a very long time since he’d felt this well. When he looked back at Mobley, he sensed similar thoughts. The man seemed at peace with himself. But Juan knew things were not always as they seemed. It was imperative he find out as much about his new friend as he could, before some unknown personality characteristic could put him in a dangerous situation. Knowledge was survival.

“Mobley, if you don’t mind me asking, what is a judge doing out here alone on the prairie? I thought judges had their own courthouses with fancy offices and all of the amenities. I’d never thought to see one out on the prairie dressed in leather, shooting it out with a band of
Comancheros
.”

Mobley glanced over to Juan and flicked the ash from his cigar. He reached for the bottle, lifted it far back and finished it off. There had been no more than one full swallow left, which he took to be a small courtesy from Juan. Never take the last cookie, that sort of thing. A nice gesture. He felt even better now, about Juan. He was indeed a gentleman, when he chose to be.

Mobley exhaled a stream of smoke, pursed his lips and blew a perfect smoke ring. He turned and smiled at Juan. “Just a teensy bit ago, Juan, I was asking myself the same question. Oh, I’ve got a destination all right, Waco and then Austin finally, like I said. I’ve only been a judge in Texas for a few weeks. My nomination was ratified by the Senate last month, but I could have gotten down to Austin by train from Fort Smith. I just wanted to see the country. When I got past that bitty little town of Dallas, the prairie reminded me so much of the sea I decided to set out on my own.

The buckskin jacket, now, is for looks as much as comfort. My grandmother did the beadwork. Nice, ain’t it? She’s full Cherokee. Anyway, my old grandfather said the jacket might scare off bushwhackers, or at least give them pause before they came after me.”

Juan smiled. “You mentioned dropping anchor in Cuba. You’ve been a sailing man, then?”

Mobley leaned back and blew smoke through his nose. “Four years. I served as Mate on the
Helen Rose
, during the war. Privateerin’ mostly; up and down the coast and all over the Caribbean. Angus Meadows, my grandfather, owns the Meadows Line Shipping Company. He’s a powerful, crafty old man. Served as a Marshall in Tennessee in his early days, but then became a sailor and finally a ship owner. He didn’t want me slogging around in the infantry getting myself killed durin’ the war. Figured I’d stand out too much on the battlefield and have no chance.
Go to sea
,
young man
, he said. So I did. Once his mind is made up, the family tends to do what he says.”

Mobley hesitated as he considered how much more to tell. There was something about Juan. A deep form of intelligence and intuition. They’d just met, but already Mobley admired the subtle way the man slipped up on what he wanted to find out. It was a talent Mobley sorely lacked.

Mobley thought of his grandfather, how his own life had been marked by rebellion against his stepfather and then acquiescence to the old man. Should he have objected to Angus’s manipulation, been more rebellious?

No, he loved the old man too much. Besides, his grandfather had an uncanny way of knowing exactly what Mobley really wanted. He’d helped him get into Harvard, but surely knew it would not be a good fit. In the end, he’d accepted Mobley’s decision to clerk for and read the law with Judge
Wild Eye
Sagen, even though he’d personally hated the man with a passion. When the war came, he knew Mobley would not fight against his relatives in Georgia but would do something, anything, to get into the action. Sending him to sea had been the perfect answer. After the war, things were completely different and much had happened since.

Mobley shifted his focus back to the fire. He suddenly felt as if he had said too much, though in fact, he had said little at all. Sparks rose well into the air as he pushed over several sizable chips with his stick to allow the air a better flow to the fire. He settled back. Juan politely waited for him to continue, then seemed to shake himself.

“You’ll have to excuse all my prying, Mobley. This has been a strange day and I haven’t had anyone to talk to for more than a month. If you get tired of my talking, just roll over and ignore me. I seem to have a million questions on my mind. Like, what exactly is a circuit judge, and what does he do?”

Relieved at the change of subject, Mobley smiled, put his hands behind his head, fingers interlocked, and launched into a spiel on judicial history, a subject he loved. “In the old days, when there weren’t many courthouses, judges had to ride around their territory. That’s how they came up with the term. It was a better system in those days, as far as I’m concerned. Now, they’re building fancy courthouses all over the place, and the judges get to thinkin’ of themselves as royalty, with their robes, titles and all. But that’s not me. I figure to be where things are happening or do something else.”

Juan nodded. It made sense. The man was a rebel in his own way, fighting against the tide. “You’ve got a job on your hands. Do you have any idea where you intend to start?”

“Actually, no. I figured to go on down to Austin and pay my respects to the senior judge, Aubrey Hooks. Get his ideas. It’s traditional for new judges in a circuit, and since he’s in charge of administration for the federal courts out here, it seems the prudent thing to do.”

“
Senior
Judge? He has more authority than you do?”

Mobley looked at Juan with increasing respect and curiosity. He was very good at seeing to the heart of things. He’d make more than a friend and cook. He’d make a good deputy marshal.

“No, Judge Hooks is a circuit judge, too. He has no real authority over me, but, by tradition, the purse strings are in his hands because he’s been here longer. If he wanted to irritate me, he could do so, but only the Supreme Court can overrule one of my decisions.”

Juan rolled his now overheated stogie around in his mouth, his mind working rapidly. He flicked ash from his cigar, imitating the judge’s casual mannerism. “Do you figure to come back after Austin and keep wandering about the prairie, rendering
justice
from the end of your gun barrel?”

Mobley almost choked; smoke rushing out of his nose as he laughed aloud. The man sure knew how to poke. “You are some piece of work, Juan. No, that’s not the kind of civilization I’d like to bring with me. I’d be happy if I could get a few people out here to rely on the law rather than a lynching party.

There are all kinds of little towns springing up, but in every one I’ve come to, people were suspicious and unfriendly. You’d of thought I was the devil himself, the way some of them looked at me. I don’t know what’s going on, but the people here have no respect at all for the law. If someone does something wrong, they don’t arrest him and take him to court, they find a tree and string him up. That’s got to stop.”

“Don’t they have their own courts? I’ve seen many towns with justices of the peace, police courts, county courts. Those judges must be local people, you’d think? Do you mean they don’t even rely on their own people to do the right thing?”

“Apparently not.” Mobley pondered the deeper meaning of this insight, and then shook his head. “Well, we’re not going to solve all of Texas’s problems tonight. Let’s hit the hay. All that killin’ has tired me some.”

Juan nodded but continued to suck on his cigar. Maybe the rumors he’d heard were true. Texans were getting ready to fight their own government. He’d laughed when he first heard talk of government men trying to recruit bandits for special raids, but what if it was true? If that sort of thing was really happening, another war could well be in the works. If it came, where would he stand?