Ride With the Devil (15 page)

THE TENSION IN THE AIR WAS PALPABLE FROM THE moment the stage rolled into Salcedo. At first Hawke wasn’t sure what the difference was, then he figured it out. Instead of the normal flow of traffic, mounted and on foot, there were little conversational groups of people scattered about.

Six were standing in front of Beadle’s general store, four in front of the bank, a few in front of Heissler’s apothecary. But the largest number of people were clustered in front of Sikes’s hardware store and as the stage rolled by, Hawke saw what they were looking at.

In the window of the hardware store, propped up for all to see, was a black lacquered casket with the top half of the lid open. Deputy Nelson Moody was in the coffin, wearing a suit and a white shirt.

Seeing Moody in a suit and white shirt was nearly as shocking as seeing him dead.

“Hawke, did you see that?” Flaire asked, putting her hand on his.

“Yes, I saw it,” Hawke replied.

The stage stopped in front of the depot, and Poindexter came out immediately, to take care of the team.

Hawke helped Flaire disembark, then he walked up to the front of the stage.

“What happened, Mr. Poindexter?”

“You saw the body?”

“Moody? Yes, I saw him in the window of the hardware store.”

“Mr. Welch has three more bodies in the back,” Poindexter said.

“Who are they?”

“Well, they ain’t town folk,” Poindexter said.

“A shootout?”

“Yes, we had a shootout, all right. Then we had us a hangin’,” Poindexter said. “You see, there’s a herd passin’ through, and last night some of the cowboys come into town. Next thing you know, Vox is tellin’ ’em he’s going to throw ’em in jail, one thing leads to another, and they start shooting.”

“What had they done that Vox was going to throw them in jail?” Hawke asked.

“That’s the question everyone in town is askin’ now,” Poindexter said as he led the stage team into the corral. “From all I’ve heard from folks that was in the saloon last night, them cowboys wasn’t botherin’ anyone. But then, just as they was makin’ a quiet exit from town, Vox and his deputies jumped them.”

Poindexter continued with the story, telling of the hanging in the middle of the night, describing the scene as it was illuminated by flickering torchlight.

“Is Culpepper back yet?” Hawke asked when Poindexter finished with his story.

“No,” Poindexter said. “I think he’s got three or four more days before he comes back. But if he don’t come back soon, he ain’t goin’ have no town to come back to.”

“Hawke, I have to get back to my shop,” Flaire said. “I have a fitting to do this morning.”

“All right, I’ll walk you down there,” Hawke offered, and picking up the luggage, he walked her back to the apartment behind her store.

There they exchanged an awkward kiss, then she went inside. Hawke, under the excuse that he had better get back to work as well, went down to the Golden Calf.

The Golden Calf saloon was practically empty when Hawke got there, though there were several people sitting around one of the tables in back. Seeing tears running unchecked down Darci Benoit’s cheeks, Hawke walked quickly back to the table.

“I hear we had a busy night,” Hawke said as he handed his handkerchief to Darci.

“Thank you,” she said, and dabbed at the tears.

“How much have you heard?” Paddy asked, a large bandage wrapped around his head from the blow he’d taken.

Hawke nodded. “I heard a little about it,” he said. “Poindexter said that Vox hung some cowboys last night.”

“Yes.”

“What did he do, lynch them?”

Doc Urban shook his head. “No. Crazy as it sounds, they were legally tried and convicted. Vox held court in the street.”

“How can there be a legal trial in the middle of the night?”

“Judge Watermeyer is a circuit judge. That gives him the authority to convene a court anywhere and anytime he pleases,” Doc Urban responded. “So what Vox did was to roust Judge Watermeyer out of bed and made him hold court.”

“He seemed like such a sweet boy,” Darci said, dabbing at her eyes.

“Who was a sweet boy?”

“Well, they all were nice men, but the youngest one was so sweet.”

“Did you hear that two of the men were already dead when Vox hung them?” Paddy asked.

“Poindexter said something to that effect, but I wasn’t sure I heard him right.”

“You heard him proper, all right,” Paddy said. “The colored driver and one of the cowboys was already dead but Vox hung ’em anyway.”

“That man must be insane.”

“You know, so far I’ve kept my mouth shut about what’s been going on around here,” Doc Urban said. “I’ve tried to stay out of things, figuring it wasn’t my place to take a stand one way or another. But this is getting out of hand.”

“I don’t think any of this would have happened if the colonel had been here,” Paddy said.

“I’m not so sure of that,” Doc replied. “I think it might have happened whether Culpepper was here or not. He had to know what kind of men he hired. Hell, everyone in town knows that Vox ain’t worth a bucket of warm piss, and they’ve known that from day one.”

“Still, Culpepper has done some very good things for this town,” Paddy insisted.

“I don’t know,” Hawke replied. “I’d like to think that it wouldn’t have happened if Culpepper had been here, but if there is one thing I do know about Titus Culpepper, it is that he is a calculating and deliberate man. You can believe that he knew what kind of men Vox and the other deputies were when he hired them. And if he did know, then he hired them for a reason.”

“What would that reason be?” Doc asked.

“Maybe intimidation,” Hawke said. “It is easier to control people if you have them intimidated.”

“By controlling people, you mean control the town, don’t you?” Doc asked.

“Yes,” Hawke agreed.

“I can’t believe that,” Paddy said.

“Why not?” Doc asked.

“Robberies, assaults, and just plain brutish behavior are all down now,” Paddy said. “That’s all due to Culpepper.”

“Paddy, do you know what happens if you put a frog in warm water?” Doc Urban asked.

Paddy chuckled. “No, I can’t say as I do, Doc. But I’m pretty sure you are about to tell me.”

“Frogs are cold-blooded creatures, you see. So, if you put one in warm water, they appreciate it, and they will just stay there and enjoy it. But here’s the thing. If you heat it up a little, the frog won’t hop out. If you heat it more, he still won’t hop out. You can keep on heating that water, and heating it until it reaches a boil. By that time it is too late. At almost any time up until then, the frog could jump out, but he won’t. He will just stay in that water until he is dead.”

“So, what are you saying, Doc? That we are frogs in a pan of water?” Paddy asked.

“Something like that, yes,” Doc said.

Cyrus Green came into the saloon then, walked over to the bar, and lay down a stack of papers. Paddy looked over toward him.

“Hey, Mayor, what are you doing bringing in newspapers today? Your next issue isn’t until Wednesday, is it? I’m not sure I can sell another issue this fast.”

“I don’t want you to sell these, Paddy. I want you to give them away.”

“Give them away? To who?”

“To every man, woman, and child in this town who can read,” Cyrus said resolutely.

“You sound like a man on a mission,” Doc Urban said, getting up and walking over to the bar. He grabbed a few papers, one for himself and one each for the others at his table.

“You’re damn right I’m on a mission,” Cyrus said. “My
mission is to run Culpepper and every one of his deputies out of town. Preferably on a rail.”

Cyrus looked at Darci then, and saw that her eyes were red from crying.

“Did something else happen?” he asked.

“Darci was in love with one of those cowboys that was killed last night,” Paddy said.

“Oh!” Cyrus said. “Oh, Darci, I’m so sorry. Which one? You knew him from before?”

“I wasn’t in love with him,” Darci said. “At least, I don’t think I was. I wouldn’t know, because I’ve never been in love before, and I don’t know how it feels. Also, I just met him last night.”

“Last night?”

“The cowboys were her customers last night.”

“Yes, I heard they had been in here.”

“No,” Paddy said. “I mean they were Darci’s customers last night. Special customers,” he added pointedly.

“Oh. And they made that big an impression on you, did they?”

“Not all of them,” Darci replied. “But one of them…the young cowboy that they hung. He was…he was…” Her lip quivered and, unable to finish her sentence, she began crying again.

“They did seem like nice young men,” Paddy said. “They just came in to let off a little steam from the drive. They drank a lot, as you would expect, and they got a little drunk, but they weren’t mean drunks. I think every customer in the place would agree that they weren’t mean drunks.”

“Yes, well, drunk or not, those boys deserved better than they got,” Cyrus said.

“I wonder how Culpepper will react when he learns what happened here,” Paddy said.

“I don’t know about the reaction,” Cyrus said. “But I’ll bet he already knows what happened here.”

“He knows? How does he know?”

“Because this morning I sent a telegram to Governor Hubbard.”

While the newspaper editor and Paddy were talking, Doc Urban had been reading Cyrus’s editoral. Now, he flicked the paper with the back of his hand.

“You’ve got something here, Cyrus,” he said. “I hope the town pays attention to you.”

“What does he say?”

“He says we need to take the town back,” Doc Urban said. “I think so too.”

“Maybe we should wait,” Paddy suggested.

“Wait for what?” Doc asked.

“Wait until Culpepper gets back in town,” Paddy said. “He’s the one that’s in charge. He’s the only one that can put a stop to this.”

“What do you think, Hawke?” Cyrus asked.

Hawke held up his hands and shook his head. “Uh-uh,” he said. “This isn’t my town.”

“What do you mean, it isn’t your town?” Doc asked. “You’re living here, aren’t you?”

“You might say I’m just passing through,” Hawke replied. “All I want to do is play a few tunes on the piano. Looks like you are getting ready to open a ball here, and I don’t care to be invited.”

“You don’t care to get invited?” Paddy chuckled and shook his head. “Excuse me for laughing, Hawke, but seems to me like you invited yourself when you took Vox’s gun away from him the other night.”

Cyrus laughed as well. “Poor Vox. He has been having a hard time of it here lately. First Hawke takes his gun away from him, then last night Paddy ran him out of the saloon.”

“Yes, but I was holding a loaded shotgun on him,” Paddy said. “I didn’t reach down and snatch Vox’s own gun from his holster before he knew what was going on.”

“You ran Vox out of the saloon?” Hawke asked.

“I’ll say he did,” Doc said, and both Doc and Cyrus launched into the story, telling in great and often contradictory detail exactly what happened. By the time they were finished, everyone was laughing so hard that they were wiping away the tears. In fact, the gaiety teemed totally incongruous with the mood of the rest of the town.

Hawke looked once more around the empty saloon.

“Paddy, it doesn’t look like you’ll be needing much in the way of a piano player for a while. If you don’t mind, I think I’ll take a walk around the town.”

“You go right ahead,” Paddy said. “With all that went on last night, it don’t look like we’re goin’ to be doin’ much business this mornin’.”

AFTER HAWKE LEFT THE SALOON HE WALKED around town for a while, gauging the reaction of the people to recent events. The entire town seemed incensed about it, but nobody had any idea what should be done.

Finally, Hawke found himself in front of Flaire’s shop and realized, with a smile, that he had deceived no one, not even himself. This had obviously been his destination all along. The sign on the door announced that she was open for business, so Hawke pushed it open and stepped inside.

“Lily is back here, Mrs. Perkins,” Flaire called. “Come on in, I think you are going to like what you see.”

Hawke stepped into what Flaire called her fitting room. There, he saw a young girl of about sixteen, wearing a full-skirted dress and standing perfectly still while Flaire was on her knees on the floor, hemming the bottom of the skirt.

“I don’t know about Mrs. Perkins, but I think she looks beautiful,” Hawke said, smiling at the young girl, who ducked her head in embarrassment.

“Hawke,” Flaire said. She stood up and brushed the wrinkles from her dress. “I thought you were Lily’s mother.” Flaire’s speech was slightly impeded because she had a mouth full of straight pins.

“No, I’m sorry, it’s just me. You must be Lily?” he said to the young girl.

“Yes, sir.”

“Lily is leaving tomorrow for finishing school,” Flaire explained. “It’s too bad she didn’t leave yesterday, before all the nasty business of last night. She and her family arrived in town early this morning, before they cut the bodies down.”

“You saw them?” Hawke asked.

“Yes, sir,” Lily said. Her cheeks had flushed red in embarrassment when Hawke first came into the room, but now they turned white as she recalled the gruesome sight she had encountered when her mother and father brought her into town that morning.

“I’m sorry you had to see something like that,” Hawke said. “No young girl should have to see anything like that.”

“No,” Flaire said. “No, they absolutely should not.”

Flaire said the words with such feeling and conviction that Hawke looked at her in quick surprise. Then he remembered that she told him her parents had been murdered in front of her.

“Have you read Mr. Cyrus’s extra this morning?” Hawke asked.

“No,” Flaire said. She got back onto her knees and resumed pinning up Lily’s skirt. “He dropped a copy of the newspaper off a short while ago. It’s in there on the counter, but I haven’t had the opportunity to read it yet.”

“Read it as soon as you can,” Hawke said. “He really lets the Regulators have it.”

“Are you still supporting Culpepper?” Flaire asked.

“Well, don’t forget,” Hawke replied, “Culpepper had nothing to do with what happened last night. It was Vox and his deputies.”

“Do you think, for one minute, they would do that if they didn’t have Culpepper’s approval?” Flaire challenged.

Hawke shook his head. “I’d like to believe that,” he said. “But Titus knew the kind of men he was hiring. And knowing that, he had to expect something like this, sooner or later.”

“Now you can understand why I said you should have taken him up on his offer to make you his chief deputy,” Flaire said as she continued to pin up Lily’s dress hem. “If you had, none of this would have happened.”

She made the comment casually, but Hawke saw the truth of it. She was right. If he had accepted Culpepper’s offer to become chief deputy, the four men who had died last night might still be alive.

“Yes,” he said quietly. “You are right.”

Flaire realized then that her remark had hit home, and she looked up quickly.

“No, Hawke,” she said. She shook her head. “I didn’t mean that the way it sounded. You’re not the blame for this.”

“I know I’m not the blame for it,” Hawke said. “But I could have prevented it.”

“You couldn’t have known this was going to happen. Nobody in town could have predicted it, and we’ve lived here a lot longer than you have,” Flaire said.

“I suppose so,” Hawke said.

Flaire finished with the pinning and stood up again to look at the young girl.

“Twirl around for me, would you please, dear?” she asked.

Lily twirled.

“Take a look in the mirror,” Flaire said.

Lily walked over to look at herself in the full-length mirror. A wide smile spread across her face. “Oh, Miss Delaney!” she said. “It’s beautiful. This is the first grown woman’s dress I’ve ever had. You are so talented.”

“It’s easy to make a beautiful dress when you have a beau
tiful young woman to wear it,” Flaire said modestly. “What do you think, Mr. Hawke?”

“Where are you going to go to finishing school?” Hawke asked.

“Waco.”

“I think the young men of Waco will be struck blind by your beauty,” he said.

Once again the young girl blushed.

When Parker dismounted in front of the jail, he was surprised to see that the sign out front said nothing about it being a sheriff’s or city marshal’s office. Instead, it advertised the building as
HEADQUARTERS, SALCEDO REGULATORS BRIGADE
.

He wasn’t sure what such a group was, but something about it didn’t quite ring right with him, and he was a little apprehensive as he pushed the door open. There were three men, all wearing badges, and all involved in a heated discussion.

“I say we go down there and get this settled once and for all,” one of the men said. He clutched a newspaper in his hand and wadded it up and shook it. “This is the second time he’s wrote somethin’ like this.”

“Gillis is right,” one of the other two men said. “The time to stop this is now, before it goes any further.”

“Excuse me,” Parker said, interrupting the conversation.

“Yeah, what do you want?”

“Is the sheriff in?”

“We ain’t got no sheriff.”

“Well, then, the city marshal.”

“We ain’t got one of them either.”

“But you men are all wearing badges. What are you?”

“Didn’t you see the sign out front?” Gillis asked. “We’re Regulators. I’m Deputy Gillis. What can I do for you?”

“My name is Justin Parker. I’m ramrod of the Bar-Z-Bar
herd, parked just outside of town. I understand there was a problem with some of my men last night.”

“That’s right.”

“What happened?”

“We tried to arrest them for public drunkenness,” Gillis said. “They started shootin’ and we shot back. Now, three of your boys is dead, and we got us another one back there in the jail for accessory to murder.”

“Accessory to murder?”

“They kilt one of our deputies,” Gillis said. “That makes the fella we got back here an accessory to murder.”

“I’d like to talk with him, if you don’t mind.”

Gillis looked over at one of the other deputies. “Why don’t you take him back there, Spellman,” he said. “Let ’im visit for a spell.”

“Yeah, all right. Come along, mister,” Deputy Spellman said. Spellman took a key ring down from a hook and opened a door that led into the back of the building. The place was dark, dank, and smelled of urine, vomit, body odor, and sour whiskey, even though the cells, three on either side, were empty. At the back of the hallway, forming the top part of a U, the cell was occupied.

“He’s right back there, the cell in the middle,” Spellman said, pointing. “Knock on this door when you are ready to come out.”

“Thanks.”

Spellman closed the door behind him, and Parker heard the lock being turned. For a moment he felt apprehensive about being locked in here, though he was sure his fear was without foundation.

Parker started toward the far end of the hallway. He still didn’t know who, among the three cowboys, was still alive, and who was dead, and the shadows were too deep for him to see into the cell.

When he reached the end, he saw Pete lying on the bunk, staring straight up.

“Hello, Pete,” Parker called gently.

When Pete looked toward him, Parker could see that the young cowboy’s eyes were bloodshot and bleary. He didn’t know, though, if that was from crying or from being drunk. He finally decided that it must be a little of both.

“Mr. Parker!” Pete said. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m sorry to have gotten you into all this.” Pete got up and moved quickly toward the bars that separated him from his boss. He wrapped his hands around the bars. “I’m sorry,” he said again.

“Yes, well, things like this happen,” Parker said.

“Can you get me out of this place?”

“I’ll do what I can,” Parker said. “Pete, what the hell happened last night?”

Pete shook his head. “As God is my witness, Mr. Parker, I don’t know what happened.”

“You must have some idea. What do you remember?”

“I remember being in the saloon, drinking with Dusty and Kendall. There was a girl there, I remember that. But I don’t remember another thing until I woke up this morning.”

“They say they are holding you as an accessory to murder.”

“Accessory to murder? What are they talkin’ about? I didn’t murder nobody.”

“You don’t remember a shootout in the street? Or someone being hung?” Parker asked.

“Seems to me like I can recall seeing the three of ’em hangin’ there, but it’s not very clear to me. All I know is what they told me when I woke up this morning. They said Moses was dead too.”

“That’s right.”

“Well now see, that’s another thing I don’t understand. How did poor old Moses get involved in this? I mean, me ’n’
the others was drinkin’ pretty heavy, but Moses wasn’t even with us. What did they kill him for?”

“I don’t know. I was hoping you could tell me.” Parker started back toward the front.

“Mr. Parker, you are going to get me out of here, aren’t you? I’m afraid these crazy sons of bitches might decide to hang me too.”

“Yes, don’t worry. I’ll get you out of here.” Parker called back over his shoulder. He made the promise, though for the moment he had absolutely no idea how he was going to do it.

Titus Culpepper was having his breakfast in the Capitol Café, an eating establishment right across the street from the Capitol building, whose customers were either members of the Texas legislature or people who had business with the Texas state government.

“Mr. Culpepper?”

Looking up from his pancakes, Culpepper recognized Murray Adams, the governor’s personal secretary.

“Yes, Mr. Adams?”

“Governor Hubbard would like to see you, sir, at your earliest convenience.”

“At my earliest convenience?”

“Yes, sir.”

Culpepper took one more swallow of his coffee, then touched the napkin to his lips.

“How about now?” he asked.

“That would be very good, sir. I’ll take you to him,” Adams said.

Culpepper followed Adams out of the café. Austin was a busy and bustling community, not only with the offices of the state capital, but also because of the state university. Carriages, shays, wagons, buckboards, and horses crowded the
street, and the two men picked their way across with some difficulty.

A street corner preacher was haranguing a small audience in front of the State Railroad Commission. He wore chin whiskers that pointed straight out, rather than down, and as he made his points, he stabbed at the air with a bony finger.

“…an’ here’s another reason why God don’ want the railroad. All that steam kills the grass so’s the cows can’t graze. And them heavy engines shakes the earth something fierce, an’ that makes the women sturl. Why, they’ll come the time to where won’t be a single woman in the entire state of Texas able to have chilrun.”

Culpepper chuckled at the preacher and, shaking his head, followed the governor’s personal secretary up the foot-polished concrete steps into the Capitol building. He had no idea why Governor Hubbard had asked to see him personally, but he was sure it had something to do with his announced intention to file for Congress. Perhaps the governor was going to offer his support.

There were a few soldiers scattered around the Capitol building, wearing Yankee blue. There was a part of him that still recoiled at the sight of a blue uniform, but he had learned, long ago, to live with it.

Adams led Culpepper through the building and down a long hallway until they reached an ornate door. Cornices and a peaked roof over the door set the office apart from the many other office doors. Over the top of the door, in gold-leaf lettering, were the words:
OFFICES OF THE GOVERNOR
.

Adams opened the door and they went inside. This was the governor’s outer office, and another clerk looked up as they came in.

“Mr. Adams, Governor Hubbard asked that you wait out here. Mr. Culpepper, you can go right on in, sir.”

“Thank you,” Culpepper said, smiling broadly. Getting the governor’s endorsement would be quite a coup and would just about guarantee his election.

“Governor Hubbard, it’s good to see you,” Culpepper said, crossing the governor’s office with his hand extended.

Richard B. Hubbard had been a lieutenant governor to Richard Coke, becoming governor when Coke quit to become a United States senator. Hubbard was tall, with a full head of dark brown hair and a large, bushy beard.

“Mr. Culpepper, just what in the world is going on in your town?”

“I beg your pardon?” Culpepper asked, surprised, not only by the governor’s question, but by his demeanor.

“You do know Mayor Cyrus Green, I presume?”

“Yes, of course I do. He is not only the mayor, he is also the editor of our newspaper.”

“Mayor Green sent me this telegram this morning,” the governor said, showing it to Culpepper.

Culpepper’s eyes narrowed and he drew his mouth into a tight line as he read the telegram.

“Governor, I assure you, I have no idea what this is about,” he said, handing the telegram back.

“Well, there has to be something to it,” the governor said. “Or do you think the mayor manufactured this from whole cloth?”