Mobley's Law, A Mobley Meadows Novel Read online

  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?

  CHAPTER 6

  Juan awoke to the ring of shovel on rock, the clump of dirt being piled on a mound. Mobley was in the process of digging a large rectangular hole, which was almost finished. A grave?

  Juan was amazed as he watched the sweating man work. With his jacket and shirt off, Mobley Meadows’ rippling lean, wiry body told an interesting story of hard work and proper care, though his back was striped with what looked like scars from a cat o’ nine tails. Had he been flogged? Should I ask? Would he answer?

  Juan pondered the issue for a moment, and then continued his scan. Mobley’s forearms were thick, contrasted with the length of his arms, and his large hands were well callused, presumably from his years at sea. His body was remarkably well coordinated for a man of such exceptional height. He had the tattoo of an anchor with some odd words underneath on his right shoulder. Fascinating.

  Juan coughed lightly to clear his lungs of the night-time phlegm, and to alert Mobley to his attention. “Why are you doing this señ ... uh, Mobley? They certainly wouldn’t have done as much for you.”

  As far as Juan was concerned, it was dangerous to loiter around dead bodies. After a killing, the smart thing to do was move on.

  Mobley stopped digging for a moment, wiped his forehead with the large red bandanna tied about his neck and seemed to think out his answer carefully. “I’ve thought about it some, and I’ve come to the conclusion that civilization is all in the mind. If you think you’re civilized, you’ll try to do right by everyone. If everywhere you look people are acting crazy, it’s up to you to be the first to act right. Others may think you’re the crazy one, but pretty soon they’ll be doing it too. Civilization is catching.

  In other words, civilization can be wherever you want it to be. If it’s not there when you get there, you’ve got to make sure it’s there before you leave. Burying the dead is the civilized thing to do.”

  Juan was not sure he agreed, but he was not about to argue with such a well thought out speech. If the man wanted to waste his time digging holes, that was his business. “By the time you finish that hole, I’ll have some more tortillas cooked up. We’ll eat and get out of this place. It’s making me nervous.”

  “That sounds good to me, Juan, but I think we can spare a little time to train you. I’ve decided, if you are willing, to make you my deputy marshal. Besides doing what you’ve already done, which has been to watch my back, you would be required to act as bailiff in my courtroom and make sure no one gets out of line. With your new found English language skills, I think you would do well. The job pays fifty dollars a month and found, which you will
have to cook yourself. What do you say?”

  Juan stiffened. He’d ridden with hard men, followed a few good leaders in his time, but he’d never worked for anyone and found the thought more than a bit disturbing. What did it mean to work for another man? What would it mean to work for this man, the man he’d considered shooting but a brief time ago? Must he take orders, be loyal without question? Even if he did not agree with what the man wanted to do, what would his own sense of honor require?

  “Judge Meadows, I think maybe you should think about this a bit more. You don’t know me from Adam’s rib bone, yet you want me to watch your back? Ride with you as a friend, teach me things? I think maybe you need to go a bit slower here. I might jump up and shoot you one day just for the sport of it. So why would you suppose I might consider riding with a man so quick to judge others?”

  Mobley tossed his shovel up onto the pile of dirt and stepped out of hole. He dusted his hands off on his pants and stood up straight, stretching his back as he did so. “Well, I suppose that’s a fair question. But it’s one you’ll need to answer for yourself. I have been making quick judgments about people all my life and have been burnt a few times in the process, but frankly I find worrying about what others are thinking, especially when it comes to assigning the probability of evil thought to them, to be a monumental waste of time. I don’t think anyone is very good at it, so I try to judge others by their actions rather than by guesswork. You passed my test in the way you handled yourself up on that cliff, and the rest is up to you. I can tell you, however, that I consider friendship to be a two way street, and that is how I will treat you if you decide to become my deputy marshal. You will be given the latitude to do as you please, under the general instructions I will give you in the beginning, and from there on I will support and back you the same way you’d do for me. The fact that I am a big shot judge will make no difference at all between us.