Lassiter Tough Page 13

  Millie sat in a straight chair across from him. She gripped her knees so hard the knuckles were white. “My brother did this to Rep,” she said in a tight voice. “Just as surely as if he had used a gun.”

  “Don’t upset yourself, Millie … Mrs. Chandler,” the doctor advised dryly. “It’s over and done. You can’t help your husband now.”

  Millie glared through the moisture that clouded her dark eyes. “I know what you’re thinking, Doc, and it’s wrong, wrong. No, I didn’t love Rep. But I respected him. And I would have made him a good wife. Isn’t that true, Lassiter?”

  “Very true,” he replied gravely.

  Doc Clayburn suggested they have a drink in memory of the late Jeremiah Rep Chandler. Millie got out Rep’s bottle and poured into three glasses with a shaking hand.

  “It’s not proper for me to drink my whiskey straight,” she said, her face stained with tears, “but at the moment I don’t feel very ladylike.”

  Doc Clayburn drank so many toasts to the memory of the departed rancher that he was forced to spend the night. He slept on a spare cot in Lassiter’s quarters.

  In the morning, Lassiter made a silent ride with him back to Santos where arrangements were made for the funeral.

  They buried Chandler in the ranch graveyard a quarter of a mile beyond the house, among the graves of vaqueros and ranch hands and next to that of his late wife.

  Most of Santos had come out to pay respects to their neighbor. Kilhaven, Tate and Rooney were present with some of their men. The tall Kilhaven, the only one who had never married, stood alone.

  There being no reverend in Santos and no time to send for one, Millie read from the Book of Psalms in a strong, clear voice.

  Isobel Hartney worked her way through the assemblage to reach Lassiter’s side. He saw her, stunning in black, her green eyes under pale brows slightly mocking.

  “An attractive young widow and a ranch for the taking,” she whispered. “What an opportunity.”

  Lassiter gave her such a cold look that she blanched.

  “I … I was only jesting,” she said quickly and touched his arm. But he drew away.

  In the next moment he heard Sanlee’s voice. “Sorry I’m late, sis, but …”

  Millie was just throwing the first clod of dirt, thumping down onto her husband’s coffin. At the sound of her brother’s voice, she whirled, her black eyes alive with hatred.

  “Get off this ranch, Brad. How dare you come here after what you’ve done?”

  Sanlee, big and bearded, in a black suit a little too tight for him, clenched his teeth. “What the hell have I done?”

  “You know, you know!” she cried, leveling a slim forefinger at her half-brother. “Get off this ranch. Or so help me God, I’ll kill you myself!”

  With his face flaming around the beard, Sanlee stalked away. Some of his men had ridden over with him—Doane, Pinto George, Quine and Tige.

  As they all mounted up, Doane turned his large skull and looked directly at Lassiter. There was no emotion on his scarred face, but his eyes were threatening. Then they all rode away.

  Lassiter realized he would have to postpone his leave-taking until Millie got herself in hand.

  17

  *

  With Rep Chandler’s death, five of the vaqueros quit. They had liked working for Rep Chandler but didn’t fancy being bossed by a woman, his widow. It was a matter of stubborn male pride. Luis Herrera had tried to argue, but they were adamant. Shortly after their departure, a drifter named Pete Barkley came out to the ranch asking for work. He was rangy and had a pleasant smile. But there was a hard, calculating look in his light gray eyes when he thought no one was observing him.

  Herrera asked Lassiter if he should hire him on. Lassiter, with other things on his mind, told him to use his own judgment. Lassiter was trying to figure out some way to leave Box C without hurting Millie too much. Before quitting the country, however, he intended to have it out with her half-brother. Hopefully, it would be the elimination of Sanlee, not Lassiter. In which case, she would have a clear field to pick and choose her own way through life. He would make a suggestion—to give some favorable attention to Marcus Kilhaven. Kilhaven had told him once how much he admired her. At the time, Lassiter had sensed the feeling went a little deeper than simple admiration.

  Two days after the Chandler funeral, Sheriff Doak Palmer rode to Box C with some grim-looking men. With him were Sanlee and Doane, the latter wearing a hard smile. Two of the sheriff’s six men, all strangers from Tiempo, had a pair of loose horses on lead ropes.

  “These was found in your pasture, Lassiter,” Sheriff Palmer said, gesturing at the horses.

  “Who found them?” Lassiter demanded.

  “Don’t make no difference.” Palmer’s flinty eyes were triumphant. “Brand belonged to a man named Harkness. Way I figure it, you needed horses after your herd stampeded an’ killed a few. So you helped yourself to Harkness horses.”

  “Lassiter a horse thief?” Millie cried, coming to the yard in time to hear the last. “Impossible!”

  “Sorry, Mrs. Chandler,” the tall sheriff smirked. “Not only horse-stealin’, but murder. Harkness was found with his throat cut.”

  “Oh, my God,” Millie gasped.

  “First off, my deputy figured Harkness, bein’ a mean ol’ cuss, had cheated one hombre too many. But then he noticed the old man’s dog was shot, an’ horses missin’. Horses found on your property, Mrs. Chandler.”

  “I simply don’t believe that,” she cried.

  “I ask again, who found them?” Lassiter’s eyes drilled the faces of Sanlee and Doane in turn. The word “murder” hung over the yard like a storm cloud. When it was obvious the sheriff wasn’t going to answer his question, Lassiter said, “Let me get the men who were with me on the cattle drive. They’ll swear we needed no horses.”

  The sheriff glanced at Sanlee from under his hat brim. Sanlee shrugged, as if to say, “Let him go ahead. Won’t do him any good.”

  By then, everyone was dismounted, standing under cottonwoods beside the big barn.

  In broken English the wounded Ruiz and the others swore that they had sufficient horses to see them through, even after the stampede.

  “Proves nothing,” Sheriff Palmer said indignantly. “Reckon I got to take you to the county seat an’ lock you up, Lassiter. Till we sort this all out.”

  “Wait a minute, Sheriff,” Lassiter said, his voice deadly calm, the cold blue eyes boring into Sanlee’s face. “I can take you to the scene of the stampede, which was started by an ambush.”

  “What ambush you talkin’ about?” the sheriff demanded.

  “I’m talking about Diamond Eight.”

  And when Sanlee started to make an angry protest, one of the sheriff’s men, gray-bearded and paunchy, said, “Doak, why don’t you let him finish tellin’ it?” Others in the party nodded in agreement. Sheriff Palmer looked irritated.

  “Speak your piece, Lassiter. Then we got to get movin’.”

  “Along the lip of a canyon you can see where the brush is cut clean,” Lassiter said. “The herd did that. The string of cows that I shunted away from the main herd.”

  “What about it?” Palmer demanded.

  “They went headlong through that brush. And right into the men hiding there. They swept some of the men into the canyon. I’ll bet on that. Not only men but every horse.”

  Lassiter was gambling because Doane was getting fidgety, glancing first at Sanlee, then at Lassiter, his large, scarred face reddening in anger.

  “Your word only, Lassiter,” Sheriff Palmer said, plainly upset.

  “I’ll bet a hundred dollars against two bits that if we dig deep enough under what’s left of those dead cows, we’ll find horses. And they’ll be wearing the Diamond Eight brand.”

  All eyes including the sheriff’s turned to Sanlee and Doane. Sanlee bristled at such an accusation being hurled at him. But he kept his mouth shut. But Doane opened his. Obviously flustered and angered, tryin
g to squirm out of the hole Lassiter had dug for him, the big man shouted, “So you admit turnin’ them goddamn cows on us. You killed Rance an’ Hale an’ put us afoot.”

  In the dead silence that followed, Lassiter said, “Afoot?”

  Sanlee gave the hulking giant a withering look. The sheriff seemed embarrassed.

  “One way to settle it, Doak,” said Ab Hunter, the bearded man who had spoken up before, “is to do like Lassiter says. Have a look at that canyon.”

  Sheriff Doak Palmer cleared his throat. “That won’t be necessary,” he said pompously. “The Harkness horses weren’t actually found on Box C, but close to it. Close enough for me to be suspicious.” He managed to give Lassiter a hard look. “We’ll be ridin’ on, but was I you, I’d watch which side of the hill I walked on.”

  When they had gone, Lassiter said, “It’d be nice if the sheriff followed up on this. But I don’t figure he will.”

  “It’ll be a snowy day in July before Sheriff Palmer ever moves against Diamond Eight,” Millie said bitterly.

  It was a familiar story—a powerful rancher, a greedy sheriff. He wondered if they were too bright, either one of them. Or Doane, for that matter.

  But he wasn’t fooled. He recalled the look Doane had flung him the day of the funeral. He thought of Sanlee calmly writing out the names of the three ranchers he wanted Lassiter to gun down. Deadly as a cornered rattler was the way he assessed Sanlee, brains or not. Today the rancher had been made to look like a fool in front of others, thanks to Doane’s imbecilic outburst. Sanlee wouldn’t soon forget this day. And if Lassiter knew his man, the final move would soon be made… .

  Rep Chandler had endorsed the bank draft Lassiter had brought back from Tiempo but never cashed it. The following day, Millie went to town to take care of it. But she returned looking angry and worried.

  “Hobart refused to honor it,” she told Lassiter stiffly. “He said there seemed to be something irregular about it. But he didn’t bother to explain.”

  Lassiter remembered the banker well. Arthur Hobart, put together as if with three spheres: round legs, round belly and a head that reminded Lassiter of a large pumpkin.

  “Arthur Hobart is beholden to Brad, I suppose is the explanation,” Millie went on in a desperate voice. “We need that money to keep us going till next spring.”

  “Brad Sanlee again, eh?” Lassiter’s face was cold. “Do you want to ride in with me, Millie? I aim to have a talk with Mr. Hobart.”

  “I think it’s hopeless. He says I’ll have to go all the way to Tiempo to have the bank there honor it. But he says because of the irregularities, whatever that means, it may take weeks.”

  “I’ll go to Santos alone,” Lassiter said. “Want to give me the bank draft?”

  She dug around in her blue reticule, found it and handed it over, then slumped to the sofa and stared out a window at the dusty ranch yard. “What can go wrong next?” She sounded despondent.

  “I’ll either bring back cash or see that it’s credited to your bank account.”

  “Just be careful,” she called to him, but he was already out the door and striding toward the corral.

  As he hitched a team to Rep Chandler’s hack wagon, he felt in his bones that the showdown with Sanlee was drawing ever nearer. This latest business with the bank only gave it another nudge. No doubt Sanlee had put Hobart up to refusing to honor the check.

  He was taking the hack wagon just in case he decided to bring back cash; it would be easier to carry. He hadn’t quite made up his mind yet.

  When Lassiter entered the bank that afternoon, the only person he saw was a cadaverous clerk named Alan Johnson. He was perched on his high stool behind a wicket, wearing a visor, white shirt and sleeve guards. He didn’t look up.

  Lassiter said he’d like to speak to Arthur Hobart.

  Johnson muttered, “He ain’t in.”

  The door to Hobart’s office was closed. Probably the banker had seen him coming along the walk, Lassiter reasoned. After taking care of bank business, Lassiter intended to go to the Hartney Store, where he had left the team and wagon, in order to buy the makin’s. Yesterday he had used his last paper and emptied the tobacco sack. Millie suggested he might as well use what Rep had been using. Lassiter didn’t mind drinking a dead man’s whiskey, but he had an aversion to smoking his tobacco rolled in papers he had left behind on the good earth. Besides making a purchase, he hoped to see Isobel. After all that had happened on the Tiempo trail and afterward with the sheriff, he felt the need to see a pretty face. Not that Millie wasn’t pretty, but with her it was different. She was Rep Chandler’s widow.

  A sign on the closed door said A. Hobart, President. Lassiter said, “I think Hobart’s in there. Mind knocking to see?”

  “Ain’t in, I tell you.” Johnson’s bony fingers clenched a pen stuck in an inkwell.

  “I think I’ll take a look.”

  “You ain’t allowed back there,” Johnson cried in alarm.

  But Lassiter had already stepped through a wicket. He was approaching the office door when it was flung open. Arthur Hobart loomed up in the opening, his eyes in the round skull blazing with indignation.

  “I suspect you’ve come on behalf of that Chandler woman,” he began, but Lassiter cut him off coldly.

  He flashed the bank draft before his eyes. “I want the money. Now.”

  “You can’t come in my bank in a high-handed way and expect …”

  “You’re taking advantage of the lady because she’s a widow. And as her foreman, I don’t figure to put up with it.”

  Something in the cold, clipped tones, the chill in Lassiter’s eyes, drained Hobart’s round face. His mouth sagged. He looked wildly out the front window in the direction of O’Leary’s as if willing Brad Sanlee to step from the saloon and come to his rescue.

  Lassiter smiled thinly, guessing what went through the banker’s mind. “Might be all to the good if Sanlee did step up,” he said, still in that voice that cut like an ax through ice. “We could finish up our business once and for all.”

  Hobart rubbed a hand over his mouth and reached out for the bank draft. But Lassiter shook his head. “Not till I see the money—$37,000.”

  “I … I don’t have that much in the safe.”

  “Let’s both of us go see if you’ve got it.”

  Johnson was still huddled on his high stool, his pen scratching as he pretended to work on the books. He looked around once, his eyes fearful, then returned to his task.

  “You should go in for bank robbery, Lassiter,” Hobart said with a shudder. “You’d be good at it. The way you look at a man freezes the spine.”

  “This isn’t robbing a bank,” Lassiter pointed out. “This is taking what is due the widow Chandler. As her foreman, I’m collecting for the lady.”

  Hobart unlocked his squat black safe, then spun a dial. He opened the double doors. Lassiter could see stacks of silver coins. Gold coins were in racks of various sizes depending on their denomination.

  “Why didn’t you honor the draft for Mrs. Chandler?” Lassiter demanded. “It would have saved everybody a lot of time.”

  “I … I thought it didn’t look quite right. I was busy at the time and only glanced at it.” Pouches under his hazel eyes were glossy with sweat. “I … I suggest you deposit the draft to the Chandler account.”

  “With your tie to Brad Sanlee, we’ll take cash.”

  Hobart made a great show of indignation, puffing out his chest above his round belly. “See here, Lassiter, I treat every customer the same. And I have no more ties with Mr. Sanlee than with anyone else.”

  “We’ll still take cash.”

  “When Chandler became hard-pressed after his first wife died and wanted a loan on his place, he went to a bank in San Antonio instead of me.”

  “I don’t know anything about that.”

  “And now I’m supposed to kowtow to his widow… .”

  With a shaking hand, Hobart counted out $37,000 in neat stacks on the tab
le. Then he got a canvas bag, filled it with the money and pulled the drawstrings.

  Lassiter picked up the heavy sack and stood, eyeing Hobart. He had no use for most bankers because they so often preyed upon the ignorant and helpless. This banker he detested. Hobart was a sneak; it was written on the pudgy face, the loose-lipped mouth, the eyes set in deep sockets.

  Lassiter said, “You write a few lines for me, saying you gave me the money in good faith in exchange for a bank draft. Just in case you get ideas about claiming I took it by force.”

  “I … I’ve never been so insulted in my life.”

  Lassiter handed him a pen from an inkwell. “Write!”

  Drops of sweat from the banker’s face dotted the paper as he wrote what Lassiter instructed. It smeared some of the ink, but not enough to make it illegible.

  When it was done, Lassiter folded the paper and put it in his pocket. Then he picked up the sack of money and backed to the door, with Hobart watching him nervously.

  As he started walking toward the Hartney Store, Lassiter glanced over at the saloon, almost wishing some of the Diamond Eight bunch would be there and see him with the money sack. And try to take it.

  Then he caught himself. No, that wouldn’t be right. That money belonged to Millie Chandler and he had no right to place it in jeopardy.

  All the way back to the store, he turned it over in his mind. He was still thinking about it when he put the money sack under the wagon seat and covered it with gunny sacks. Then he entered the store, standing at the front counter where he could keep one eye on the wagon through a window. The store was fairly crowded. Finally, Lassiter got the attention of a thin-faced clerk and bought papers and tobacco. Then he casually inquired if the owner was in.

  “Miss Hartney went out to Diamond Eight. Brad is having a shindig. Important people that has something to do with the railroad is the way I heard it.” He hurried away to wait on another customer.

  “Wasn’t meant to be,” Lassiter muttered under his breath.

  Then he stiffened. So she was out at Diamond Eight. Perhaps it was just as well that the hoped-for interlude had not happened after all. Just how far could he trust her? And he had the Chandler money.