Mobley's Law, A Mobley Meadows Novel Page 11

  Davis felt his chest tighten as Ferdie slowly, deliberately, stood and placed his right hand on a wicked looking Arkansas toothpick, the bone handle of which protruded slightly from under his frock coat. Davis opened and closed his mouth several times, trying to think of something he might say to calm the maniac edging toward him, but nothing came to mind.

  As Ferdie started to step around the desk, Davis found himself close to panic. “Now, now, Ferdie. Let’s don’t go getting’ all riled up for nothing. I’m sorry. I guess … It’s just … I’ve had a bad day. I didn’t mean to insult you. After all, I know how much you’ve helped me over the years. I need you now, more than ever. Everything is going wrong.”

  Turning to the window, Davis stood and turned his back on Ferdie. He felt as if his head were about to explode. Black spots hovered at the periphery of his vision. Sweat ran down his face. He reached into his back pocket, removed a large white handkerchief and began to mop his brow. Flecks of red blood oozed from his upper lip, discolored the cloth, and told him his doctor had been right about his elevated blood pressure.

  “Come on Ferdie, let it go.”

  Ferdie stopped, turned slowly and walked to the governor’s well stocked bar. He examined one of the imported crystal glasses, held it up to the light of the window, selected a bottle of whiskey and poured himself a large drink.

  He poured another, and then turned around. Davis still stared out the window. “Drink, Governor?”

  Davis let out a burst of breath and turned around. “Yes, yes, I think I will. I certainly could use another drink. This has been … a bad day. Really bad.”

  “Not as bad as it could have been, Governor. Now, tell me what’s goin’ on. Without the insults.”

  Davis could see Ferdie was under control, but barely. His cheek still twitched, but the wild look had left his eyes. Davis took a deep breath and turned to the bar. The bottle tinkled against the glass as he poured, but he succeeded in filling the glass with only modest spillage. He took a long drink, turned and walked quickly back to the hand-carved French desk. He sat down with a plop. Davis was a man who appreciated the finer things, the easy way of life the office of governor provided him. He did not want to give up these privileges.

  “I’ve got to stand for election in a few weeks,” he said. Even he realized his voice sounded whiney. “From everything I’ve heard there’s no chance I’ll be reelected. I’ve asked Grant repeatedly to cancel the damned thing, but he’s dragging his feet.”

  Davis paused. He struggled to get his breath under control, and then continued in a more confident voice. “The president isn’t ignorant of our problems; he’s just being a coward. Doesn’t want to fight another war, he says. It’s time for healing, he says. He can’t spare troops from the Indian problems up north, he says. Damn that drunken old leather worker. If he lets the rebs take over this state again, there will be anarchy the likes of which the country has never known.

  I can’t let that happen, Ferdie. But, there’s only one way to convince Grant. He’s got to believe the rebels are preparing for war. The only way we can convince him of that is to stir up so much trouble he can’t ignore it. That’s why I’ve had you organize all those cutthroats and set them loose. That’s why I’ve had the police harassing the rebel leaders, trying to stir them up.”

  Davis got up from his chair, walked back to the bar, poured himself another full glass of whiskey and swiftly downed the entire glass. He poured another and glanced in the small mirror behind the bar as he turned to go back to his chair, noting that his face was quite flushed. His heart had begun to pound in his ear. He unconsciously placed his hand on his throat to check its rate. Looking up, he waved for Ferdie to have another drink.

  “Thanks, Governor. So, what’s all this about a judge doin’ in some of my boys?”

  Davis sipped his third whiskey in a row and savored the slow burning effect on his throat. Ferdie seemed concerned now, less threatening. Davis turned back to the desk, considering himself out of immediate danger from Ferdie. “We received a telegraph message from the mayor of Dallas. He says some wranglers out of Mitchell Marsten’s ranch are tellin’ tall tales about a Judge Meadows, from Tennessee, I think it was, who shot it out with fifteen Comancheros and killed every last one of them. He was supposed to have had the help of a sharp shooting marshal named Jack Lopes. Have you ever heard of a marshal named Lopes?”

  Ferdie leaned nonchalantly against the bar. “Can’t say as I have.”

  “Well, no matter. I’ve got Yancy on it. If the man is alive and kicking, he has history and a reputation. Yancy will find out about it. We did have fifteen or so raiders up there, didn’t we. Could it be true?”

  “Hell, Governor, I don’t know. I think you have to assume it is until we find out otherwise. How is it, by the way, there’s a judge runnin’ around Texas you didn’t appoint, or at least didn’t have a say in appointing?”

  “It’s that damn Grant again. He may have turned on me. No president has ever failed to consider the views of a state governor, a member of his own party, on the judicial appointments he intends to make within a state. But the first I heard of this one was today.

  The telegram from Dallas said he was headed for Waco; and, as you know, there’s a new rail line from there. He could be here within a few days.”

  Ferdie nodded. “Maybe this isn’t such a bad day after all, Governor. If you need trouble stirred up, what better way would there be to do it? Just kill the man and blame it on the rebels.”

  “My God, Ferdie. You wouldn’t do such a thing, would you? A federal judge?”

  Ferdie turned back to the bar, poured himself another splash of whiskey. “Governor, I kind of like this job. I have no intention of letting anyone end it before I’m ready to leave. I don’t care if it means killin’ the president himself. No one interferes with Ferdie Lance.”

  Ferdie thought for a moment of the manner in which he had brought Judge Hooks under control, how he had played with the man’s wife for hours before gutting and leaving her body on the courthouse step. Wouldn’t it be nice if this new judge had a wife, or friend he could play with? He felt the old glow come back, the feeling of power as he began to plot out his next moves. With a nod to the governor, Ferdie turned abruptly and stalked out of the room.

  Governor Davis’s heart continued to pound in his ears. Dealing with Ferdie Lance was like dealing with the ultimate evil. Something that had crawled up out of the worst scum covered pond on the planet, and the look the man got on his face as he became enraged was like nothing anyone had ever seen before. The man was, without a doubt, a complete lunatic capable of the worst sort of crime known to man.

  Davis had had men killed before. That was no problem. Politics at this level required a man to be ruthless with his enemies, but dealing with Ferdie Lance left him feeling dirty and ashamed. He turned, and vomited into his waste basket.

  CHAPTER 12

  Mobley swished his quirt about his head in an almost continuous motion. For some odd reason, every time they stopped to survey the horizon, flies swarmed after him. They did not seem to bother Jack or Edson, just him. He was beginning to think he had, “fly target,” written on his forehead, and it was testing his patience, which tended to be short anyway.

  Jack, who was leading the way on his black stallion, had stopped abruptly at the edge of a precipice. A man riding blindly over that last hill would have found himself splattered upon an eroded field of rocks several hundred feet below. A quarter mile further on Mobley could see where the cliffs stepped gradually down like a balcony, to the river valley. He stood in the stirrups, shading his eyes with his right hand, waving the quirt in his other.

  The Brazos River Valley here was considerably lower than it had been farther north. It spread to the horizon, northeast to southeast, as far as he could see. Prairie grasslands ended at the Balcones Escarpment, woods and forests dominant east to the Atlantic Ocean. This area of Texas was prime farm ground, at the farthest edge of civilization. To
the west lay land few white men, other than buffalo hunters, ever chose to visit. Known as the Comanche barrier, Mobley understood that it was wide open prairie for close to a thousand miles, prowled mostly by Indians and the wildest of beasts, wolves, panthers, and hoodoos.

  It had taken three days for the three men to reach the cultivated areas of McLennan County northwest of Waco. Mobley had been in no hurry, thinking to learn more of his companions before they reached civilization. He’d been pleasantly surprised.

  Edson was as free as the prairie breeze, his light manner and sense of humor a refreshing contrast to Jack’s constant seriousness. Edson exuded confidence, was quick to exhibit a shiny-toothed smile, and was more than just a fine looking young man. He was tall, but still at least a half foot shorter than Mobley, and sharply angled from every point of reference. Jack was a few inches shorter, the same age as Edson, but years older in experience. No less important to Mobley, was that he would not have to strain his neck to look down on his friends.

  The thin line of the Brazos River itself could be seen shining here and there for several miles as it snaked to and fro and off into the far distance. Waco was somewhere to the south, apparently hidden in a dusty haze. He’d been told the town was situated in a large bowl-shaped indentation southwest of the Brazos, where the river spilled from the uplands. If so, he could not tell from this distance.

  To the left, he saw a large, well-organized farm with crops in various stages of growth, including cotton, wheat, and barley. The dusty odor of cotton ready for harvest, evident even at this distance, reminded him of home, of the genteel life he could be living had he been comfortable with such opulence.

  The large number of trees, mostly Oak, about the farmhouse suggested cool shade and a place to rest before moving on to Waco. A small meandering stream ran past the rear of several of the farm’s outbuildings. He could see figures walking about, but from this distance could tell little about them.

  Leaning back in his saddle, Mobley crossed his long right leg over Meteor’s neck and hooked it on the saddle horn. Meteor shifted from haunch to haunch as if trying to help him get comfortable. The saddle creaked as only new, well soaped leather can.

  “Take a gander at all this land, boys. Someday all of Texas will be like this, cultivated and civilized. We won’t even recognize it in a few years. Have either of you been this way before, to Waco?”

  Jack was staring at the farmhouse off in the distance. Fat chance, he thought. “Not me.” He’d never felt comfortable in gringo towns and he certainly would never have considered stopping at a farm such as the one spread below. In his Mexican clothes, the farmers would have shot him on sight, for a bandit or Comanchero. Now, he was dressed just like Edson, cavalry pants and loose buckskin shirt. He felt a twinge of anxiety as he realized the effort it would take to maintain his new image, but he had reconciled himself. It was the right thing to do. He would never get anywhere following his previous course. He knew that, but he had not reached the point where he would blindly put caution aside or his life on the line for his new companions. That would take time.

  Edson had stepped down off his horse to inspect the ground, a habitual thing with him. “I have,” he volunteered as he looked up. “About five years ago I came down with Cap’m Marsten to deliver some horses to the livery owner in Waco. It was nice and peaceful then, but I’ve heard tell since they built themselves a toll bridge across the river and brought the railroad in, the place has gone wild. Cowboys and cattle stampedin’ up the streets, shoot-outs almost every day, buffalo hunters clutterin’ up the streets with wagon loads of hides for sale, gamblin’ halls and wicked women chasin’ men and jumpin’ on anything that moves.”

  Jack’s eyes lit up for the first time since the prairie trial. “You don’t say?”

  “That’s what they tell me. More women chasing men than men chasin’ Buffalo.”

  Jack rubbed his hands together. “Hot diggity. The only thing I need more than a good woman is a good meal. Let’s be about it, tempus fugits, as my mother used to say. Time’s flying. Let’s get on with it.”

  Mobley shifted about, but was not ready to move on. The view was a comfort to his eye. “Did your people ever live down this way, Edson?”

  Edson nodded as he continued to inspect the ground about them. “My grandfather, Chief Bowl was his name, used to tell stories about the Cherokee raiding down to the Brazos. There was a tribe here the Spanish called the Hueco, but I don’t know what that means.”

  “It means hollow, or an opening of some kind,” Jack said. “It’s pronounced wayco, with a “w”, not an “h.” The Spanish almost always named places after the most prominent physical feature in the neighborhood. If not that, they would honor some saint. If they named the people or the area Hueco, it is because there’s a big hollow nearby.”

  “Is that so?” Edson lifted his boot to the stirrup and swung himself easily back into the saddle. “Well, anyway, these Waco Indian people came into possession of a sacred spring the Cherokee visited over the years and everybody got their hackles up about it. The spring was supposed to be full of bubbles that tickled the nose and kept people from drinking too much at once. I have my doubts about that, but anyway, the Cherokee were not happy about it and they fought the Waco for some time to no conclusion, if grandfather’s story is correct, and it usually was. He was a great medicine man and knew all of the tribe’s old stories and legends back sometimes as much as a thousand years.”

  Mobley nodded. He thought his grandmother had told him a similar story many years ago. “Anything else we ought to know, Edson?”

  Edson paused. A broad smile cracked his angular face. He chuckled. “A year and a half ago, the local citizens about hung one of the governor’s new judges. Seems this old boy, a Texas District Judge named Oliver as I recollect, come into town demanding new taxes so he could pay for more deputy sheriffs to enforce his will. Citizens refused to vote new taxes, so he up’n threw the entire McLennan County Court—judges, clerks, commissioners, bailiffs, constables and all—right into jail.”

  Mobley stared down at Edson. “Don’t you be whopperin’ us, Edson. That there’s about the silliest thing I ever heard of.”

  Edson was laughing hard now and Mobley felt the first threat of irritation. He did not like being teased, put on, or made to look the fool. “I said, don’t you be telling us no flim-flams, Edson. If this story is true, get on with it.”

  “I swear. On my honor as a United States Deputy Marshal, it’s as true as the horse I’m settin’ on. The town was workin’ itself up to lynch this Judge Oliver when the local doctor suggested the man might be a lunatic and should ought to be treated as such. The next thing you know, the doctor certifies old Oliver as cuckoo crazy, and the county judge—still in jail mind you—issues a warrant for the man’s arrest. Nuttier’n peach orchard squirrel, the doctor said.”

  At this point Edson was holding his side, unable to continue. Mobley looked at Jack. They both began to chuckle. Laughing is catching. Edson settled down after a few moments and they were able to force a continuation of the tale.

  “So, how now, exactly, did they plan to enforce this here jail made warrant?”

  Edson took a deep breath. “Well, one dang brave constable seems to have been overlooked by Judge Oliver’s boys. His name escapes me, Mannin or Miner, something like that; but anyway, this constable seizes up old Oliver and dumps him in a cell right next to the county judge. They both sit there madder’n rabid rattlers until they finally agree to pardon each other. Took ‘em three days of sulkin’, starin’, cussin’ and hissin’ before they finally did it. Ain’t that a hoot?”

  Mobley snorted lightly into his bandanna, both to cover the grin he was feeling and to dig out the remains of some critter that had penetrated his nostril. “So, whatever happened to Oliver? Did he leave town, or what?”

  “I’m not sure. The story didn’t stretch that far.”

  Jack guffawed. “The whole thing sounds like a lot bushwah to me. And wha
t is this about a peach orchard squirrel, anyway? What’s so funny about that? I’ve seen squirrels in orchards before and they looked just fine to me. Why would a peach orchard squirrel be any different from a pecan orchard squirrel?”

  Mobley blew his nose hard into his bandanna. Haaawwwwnnk. He pulled it away and examined whatever it had been that had irritated him. He wiped his nose lightly, looked again, and then put the cloth into his shirt pocket. “Well, Jack ... it’s funny because the squirrel has to work so hard for nothing. The darn peach seeds aren’t edible.”

  Edson laughed. “Nah, that ain’t it at all. It’s because the peach seeds are poisonous. They got something in them, arsenic or something, that makes the squirrels go crazy. I read it in the Police Gazette just last year.”

  “Well, do tell,” Mobley said. “We got us a true and januwine intellectual with us here, Jack. Reads the PO-lice Gazette, he does. Don’t try to pull anythin’ on him, cause he’ll catch ya flat tellin’ a foolery.”

  Jack watched Edson as he settled into his saddle, adjusting himself for comfort, a wide grin on his face. The story was funny, but Jack was getting impatient. “Listen to you two magpies. I’m starving to death. Let’s get on down to that farmhouse and see if we can’t beg up or steal some decent food. Since we ran out of flour for tortillas, I’m getting real sick of bacon and beans that could pass for rocks.”

  Mobley nodded, lifted his leg back up and over Meteor’s neck and booted her gently to get her moving. “Yeah, that sounds good to me. We can go into Waco after supper, if these people turn out to be friendly.”

  Edson squeezed his knees together in the sequence his horse had come to recognize as the cue to get moving. “We’d better keep a sharp eye out, when we get close. It’s a nice looking farm, but Comanches still raid around here now and then. They’re likely a tough bunch to have survived this long so close to Indian country.”