Clifton Adams - Boomer

Ben Farley, looking pleased when he saw Dagget and the prisoners, sat at Battle's plank desk. The supplier stood uneasily to one side, hugging close to the coal-oil stove.

“I'm glad to see you're both here,” Dagget said blandly, looking at Farley. “We can get this thing settled without a lot of fuss.”

The oilman tilted his chair back and smiled. “What's there to settle, Marshal? These two killers murdered one of my men and shot another. They're murderers, and I mean to see them hanged.”

Dagget took a frayed cigar from his shirt pocket and inspected it carefully. He licked it expertly and began searching absently for a match. “I take it then that you aim to bring charges against these two with the U. S. marshal's office.”

“Of course. It's my duty as a decent, law-abiding citizen.” But Farley was wondering what Dagget was getting at, and his eyes narrowed and his smile was not so wide.

Dagget lighted his cigar, glancing carelessly at Battle. But when he spoke, it was to Farley. “Just what kind of charge do you aim to bring?”

“I told you. Murder. Unprovoked attack and murder; I've got Battle here as a witness.”

The marshal nodded. “All right, but you'll have to go down to Muskogee and swear out a complaint.”

That was the way it was in the Nations, the only dependable source of law enforcement was the government marshals, and their ranks were thin and the system was all but hopelessly snarled in inevitable mountains of red tape. Once, not so long ago, the nearest marshal's office was located at Fort Smith, in Arkansas, but now there was an office in each of the Nations and a man didn't have to ride a hundred miles or more to swear out a complaint. Things were not so bad as they once had been, but they were not good. Local government in towns like Kiefer was practically nonexistent, and the load of law enforcement rested heavily on the thick shoulders of a few men such as Jim Dagget.

Jails here were few, the courts were overworked, for thieves and killers habitually sought sanctuary in the Nations. Another time, under other conditions, Dagget would not have handled this situation as he did now—but here it was part of his job to see that the overworked courts did not collapse under a mountain of borderline cases, and if he sometimes set himself up as judge and jury, that also was part of the system.

Perhaps “the system” was in Jim Dagget's mind now as he fixed his stern gaze briefly on Grant. He did not look as though he enjoyed the job as it had to be done, but he was a lawman and had learned to make the best of what he had.

Ben Farley, from behind Battle's desk, was nodding. “I'll be glad to swear out the complaint, Marshal.”

“Good,” Dagget said stiffly. “But there's something that maybe you ought to know before taking the oath on an unprovoked attack.” He drew a folded slip of yellow paper from his vest pocket and laid it gently on the plank desk.

Farley frowned and darted a quick glance at Battle. “What is it?”

“A sales slip, Farley.” And he smiled with that peculiar savagery that seemed always to lie so close to the surface. “It's made out by Battle and signed by young Muller, a record of a business transaction made by them yesterday. Would you like to read it, Farley?”

A sheet of cold, still fury slipped down behind the oilman's eyes, but he made no move toward the paper.

“It says here,” Dagget went on, “that Battle sold the Muller lease five hundred dollars' worth of derrick timbers, on credit. So it would appear that the boy acted in good faith when he went to pick up the merchandise last night. You claimed they were stealing the shipment and you and your boys pitched in to give Battle a hand, but the ticket says different.”

Kurt Battle made a small, explosive sound and wheeled on the marshal. “Where did you get that?”

Dagget's grin was a hairline slash across his face. “You ought to be more careful about locking your safe.” Then, to Farley, “Do you still want to swear out that complaint of unprovoked attack?”

Because Battle had insisted on a legal right to five hundred dollars, Farley's plan had boomeranged. With the ticket in Dagget's hands, the last thing Farley wanted was to face the questions of a federal court.

“A man on your pay roll was killed,” Dagget pushed him. “You've got the right to go to court about it.”

Farley shot Battle a glance of blinding anger. He stood stiffly, jamming his hat down on his forehead. “I withdraw my complaint,” he said. “I was misled by what Battle told me. You can't prove that I wasn't.”

“No,” the marshal said, “I guess I can't.”

Farley fixed his gaze on the sales ticket, and suddenly he grabbed it up and waved it in Dagget's face, then turned his rage on Grant and Turk Valois. “Battle can still withdraw his credit! He doesn't have to give credit to anybody he thinks is a bad risk, even if the material was ordered on consignment!”

A nervous, bitter humor tugged at the corners of Turk Valois' mouth, and he stepped forward to the marshal's side, drawing the packet of crisp bills from his windbreaker. “We've decided we don't need the credit,” he said, grinning at the oilman. He threw the money on the desk. “Mark the bill paid, Battle. The timbers belong to us legal, and we've got a deputy marshal as witness.”

Not until they were outside and well away from Battle's supply tent did the marshal speak. “Listen to me!” he said, taking the runner's arm in a steel-trap grip. “I don't want you thinking I did you any favors. Both of you ought to be in jail, along with Farley and Battle, and the wild-eyed Muller kid and the hired gunman.” Suddenly he seemed tired; his eyes were faded with fatigue. “But in the eyes of a court both sides had a good case and probably all of you would have gone free anyway.”

For just a moment he regained his old savagery. “I'm not a court. But if I have to be, I'm the judge, jury, and executioner... and don't you forget it!”

Doc Lewellen's office and sickroom was over a feed store a few doors up from the Wheel House. Except for four cots, the interior was as barren as a garret, with only a single oil-drum stove in the middle of the floor to fight back the winter chill.

Rhea Muller did not look up when Grant and Valois came into the room. She sat ramrod straight on a cane-bottomed chair beside her brother's cot, her pale face set like concrete, and Grant's memory went quickly back to the day of Zack Muller's funeral, for she had looked the same way then. Bud Muller lay motionless beneath a mound of cast-off army blankets, his eyes closed, his face colored with fever in a way that made him look even younger than he was.

Doc Lewellen glanced at them from the corner of the room where he was scrubbing his hands at a makeshift washstand. “Jim Dagget must be goin' soft,” he said dryly. “I didn't expect to see you two so soon.”

“How's the boy?” Grant asked.

The doctor wiped his hands on a flour-sack towel and began fastening his soiled cuffs. “He's full of opium now. Likely he'll be sicker from that than from the gunshot wound.” He got into his coat, buttoning it all the way to his scrawny throat. “How come the marshal let you go?”

Grant ignored the question and walked quietly to the boy's cot, but Rhea still did not look up. “You look like you could use some sleep,” he said.

At last she raised her head and fixed her cool gaze on Grant's face. “There'll be time for sleep... later. What happened to the timbers?”

At a time like this, with her brother full of opium and in the hands of a whisky-soaked quack, her principal concern was still with the well. Grant smiled stiffly. “The timbers are bought and paid for; they belong to us.”

Surprise jarred her out of her frozen calm for a moment. Grant's smile felt like a crack across the face of an earthen jug, but he held it and inclined his head toward the runner. “Valois paid for it.”