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  MARSHAL AND THE MOONSHINER

  MARSHAL AND THE MOONSHINER

  C. M. WENDELBOE

  FIVE STAR

  A part of Gale, Cengage Learning

  * * *

  Copyright © 2018 by C.M. Wendelboe

  Five Star™ Publishing, a part of Gale, a Cengage Company.

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

  This novel is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination, or, if real, used fictitiously.

  No part of this work covered by the copyright herein may be reproduced or distributed in any form or by any means, except as permitted by U.S. copyright law, without the prior written permission of the copyright owner.

  The publisher bears no responsibility for the quality of information provided through author or third-party Web sites and does not have any control over, nor assume any responsibility for, information contained in these sites. Providing these sites should not be construed as an endorsement or approval by the publisher of these organizations or of the positions they may take on various issues.

  LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA

  Names: Wendelboe, C. M., author.

  Title: Marshal and the moonshiner / C. M. Wendelboe.

  Description: First edition. | Waterville, Maine : Five Star publishing, a part of Gale, a Cengage Company, [2018]

  Identifiers: LCCN 2017029711 (print) | LCCN 2017031527 (ebook) | ISBN 9781432837167 (ebook) | ISBN 1432837168 (ebook) | ISBN 9781432837174 (ebook) | ISBN 1432837176 (ebook) | ISBN 9781432837280 (hardcover) | ISBN 1432837281 (hardcover)

  Subjects: LCSH: United States marshals—Fiction. | Fugitives from justice—Fiction. | GSAFD: Western stories.

  Classification: LCC PS3623.E53 (ebook) | LCC PS3623.E53 M37 2018 (print) | DDC 813/.6—dc23

  LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017029711

  First Edition. First Printing: January 2018

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  Contact Five Star™ Publishing at [email protected]

  Printed in the United States of America

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  MARSHAL AND THE MOONSHINER

  CHAPTER 1

  * * *

  “Hope those turkey buzzards don’t pick the body clean before we get there,” Yancy Stands Close said. He popped a piece of Dubble Bubble in his mouth and offered me one.

  “Hard to chew gum and tobacco at the same time,” I said, as I slowed to allow a fat porcupine to waddle across the road.

  “All’s I’m saying is I hope there’s enough left of the body that we can identify it.”

  “Are all you tribal policemen so uplifting?” Wind blew crosswise into the open window of the Dodge Agony Wagon, bathing Yancy in a surreal, dusty light. “You don’t have to be so happy about a homicide.”

  Yancy smiled with flawlessly straight teeth, as if he’d never been in a fight in his life; as if he’d never raised hell before turning lawman. I never knew when that smile was serious. “I’m happy when I get a chance to raise an Arapaho scalp.”

  I double-clutched the truck. Gear teeth gnashed as it groaned into the lower gear. “You Shoshone haven’t taken scalps in decades.”

  “Want to lay a sawbuck on that, Marshal?” He winked.

  I didn’t. For all Yancy’s charm and boyish good looks, there was something in back of the Indian’s makeup that made me think he might have lifted an Arapaho scalp in his wilder days. But then, I suspected many scalps had been taken on the Wind River Reservation after some genius in the federal government decided to toss the Arapaho and Shoshones—historical rivals and bitter enemies—onto the same reservation in Wyoming. And a man didn’t rise to the position of policeman like Yancy had on the Wind River by being polite. “And you’d take a dead man’s scalp? Right there on his own land?”

  Yancy’s jaw tightened. “Wasn’t his land until your government gave it to him.”

  The truck hit a hard, mud rut and jarred my back against the wooden seat. Dust gritted my teeth, and I spat through a rusted hole in the floorboard, while Yancy batted dust from the front of his shirt. At the start of our trip to the scene of the murder, his turquoise-trimmed double-breasted shirt had been cleaned and pressed so sharp, a man would cut his hand running across that crease. Like he was going to a barn dance. Now dust crusted the front and clung to sweat pockets under his arms. I guess Dodge didn’t consider dust a problem in 1922 when they built the old ambulance for the army. “Did Cat tell you anything else when she called?”

  Yancy took out a Bull Durham pouch from his shirt pocket. He slowly filled a paper with tobacco and rolled the smoke. His hands shook in time to the jarring ride over the rough two-track trail, and he drew out his answer like a trained showman. “She said that Selly Antelope got himself shot.” Yancy wet the edge of the cigarette and spat his gum out the window. “That’s all I could get from her. Damned party lines. Nosy old biddies had to cut in and ask her a bunch of fool questions that drowned her out.”

  “What kind of questions?”

  “Look out!”

  I jerked my head back just as a yearling buffalo sauntered across the road, and I hauled the wheel to the right. Yancy held tight to the side of the door. “Relax. I missed him.”

  “You ought to stick with riding that mule of yours,” Yancy said as he fished in his pocket for a match. “At least you’re familiar with him.”

  As familiar as anyone can be with those knot-headed critters, I thought. “You started to tell me what the ladies on the party line asked Cat.”

  Yancy looked over his shoulder as the buffalo crossed the prairie, stepping on sage brush and cactus like it bothered him none.

  Yancy lit his cigarette, and smoke rings got sucked out through the open window. “Just woman questions. Like did she need anything? And was her man there when Selly was killed?”

  “Is Amos there with her?”

  “No,” Yancy said. “Cat said they ran off after the shooting.”

  “Who’s ‘they’?”

  “Amos and some friend that’s been staying at the ranch.”

  “What friend?”

  Yancy shrugged. “Just some friend that’s got a temper to match Amos’s.”

  I waited for an explanation, but Yancy gathered his thoughts at his own pace. I nearly slapped him before he explained. “I was at a barn dance outside Ethete—”

  “You didn’t go back on your promise?”

  Yancy put the cigarette out against the side of the Dodge and pocketed the rest of the butt. “No, I didn’t go back to drinking and raising hell. I was working the dance. Besides, you know we don’t hold to booze on the rez anymore.”

  I breathed a sigh of deep relief. Sometimes I felt like a priest taking confessions. When I met Yancy all liquored-up and near beaten to death three years ago, I assumed the role of counselor as I nursed him to sobriety and a Wind River tribal police job. Now I was deep into my role as a US marshal for Wyoming, coaxing answers from one reluctant Indian satisfied to tell the story at his own pace. “Tell me about this friend of Amos’s at the dance.”

  “Amos had to pull the guy off two cowboys from Lander who’d went to the dance wanting to do some late night tipi creepin’. Guess they all had intent on the same woman.”

  “Who was the guy?”

  “I didn’t get his name. And just about the time I broke that fight up, Amos got into it with Selly Antelope.”

  “Over the same woman?”

  “Not just any woman,” Yancy answered. “Over his Cat. Seems like Amos went to the outhouse, and when he came back, S
elly and Cat were waltzing around the floor like they were a couple. By the time I’d gotten over there, the fight was over and no one wanted to press charges.”

  “You mean by the time you got there, there were enough young ladies looking to thread their arm through some good-looking Shoshone policeman’s, and you got distracted?”

  “So some ladies made me feel guilty and hauled me into a dance. Or two.” He smiled. “When was the last time you cut a rug?”

  “Long time.”

  “How long?”

  “Before Helen died.” It rolled off my tongue much easier than it had when she succumbed to typhus six years ago. But then time—I reasoned—dulled even good memories.

  A doe antelope and her fawn ran past the truck, and I got distracted myself. The Agony Wagon dropped into a rut that jarred hard against the straight axle, and the wheel whipped hard in my hands. I struggled just as hard to recall just where I’d first met Amos Iron Horse.

  “It was at the Riverton Rodeo last year.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Talking to myself,” I answered Yancy. “Only way I can get an intelligent conversation going. I tried to think when I first come onto Amos.” As the US marshal for Wyoming, I’d received word passed down through the moccasin telegraph that Henry Hollow Horn Bear would try his hand at saddle broncs for the fifty-dollar prize. And the new bureau of investigation wanted Henry bad for kidnapping a Lakota’s daughter off Pine Ridge. I’d waited until Henry had sailed from the horse after his eight-second ride when I approached him. When he started to hobble back to the chutes, I grabbed him and slapped shackles on his thin wrists.

  “Way the rumors went”—Yancy started rolling another smoke—“you pert’n near got scalped your ownself that day.”

  “I would have if Amos hadn’t stepped between me and about forty cowboys ready to stomp me into the dirt.” But he had stood by me and backed down the crowd with an equanimity that impressed me.

  “Turkey buzzards.” Yancy pointed to birds riding the high hot air, circling just over the hill in front of us. “Hope we’re not too late.” I noticed a smirk on his face as he fingered a knife that hung by a leather thong from his belt.

  When we topped the hill, I double-clutched and grabbed a lower gear. The Dodge shook in protest but slowed as we neared a figure leaning against a fence post looking off across the pasture. I’d never met Catherine Iron Horse, but Yancy had—Biblically or otherwise, he didn’t say—and his description was precise even at this distance. She stood erect and proud as we neared. Her shapely figure stood out even at this distance, even under her baggy denims and patched flannel shirt. The wind whipped her auburn hair across her face, and she brushed it out of her eyes with long, slim fingers that seemed out of place here on this desolate part of the reservation. Then she looked upward as her eyes followed the turkey vultures circling overhead, and she swiped a hand across her eyes. A Northern Arapaho, Cat had married Southern Arapaho Amos Iron Horse, whom she met at the Southern Arapaho sun dance in Geary, Oklahoma, three years ago. That’s all Yancy would admit to knowing about the couple.

  And another figure caught my eye lying thirty feet in front of Cat. Selly Antelope had died just where he fell. One hand touched his head as if he saluted his guardian spirit while he traveled along the spirit road. His other hand clutched his chest. His white muslin shirt was soaked with black, coagulated blood that had attracted the buzzards on this intensely hot July day. At least his wavy hair was intact. I would have to keep an eye on Yancy.

  Cat stepped from the fence as I pulled up short of the body and turned the Dodge off. She rubbed her neck and left shoulder as she walked toward us, and I could imagine any number of chores on this hard scrabble ranch that would cause her pain. Even before the truck stopped, Yancy bailed out and ran to her. He draped his arm around her shoulder and drew her close. “You all right, little sister?”

  Cat nodded. Snot dripped from her nose, and she wiped it with her shirtsleeve. She looked at the dead man while she rubbed her shoulder.

  “So you’re not all right?” Yancy said.

  “My mare threw me after the shooting started,” Cat said. “I hit the fence post when I fell, but I’ll be all right.”

  I stepped from the truck and stretched. A snap from my back as loud as a distant rifle shot echoed off the Dodge. But I felt better now that the hour-long drive was over and I could stretch. “Nelson Lane.” I shook Cat’s hand, rough and cracked, like that of any other ranch hand out here on the Rez. I chin-pointed to the dead man lying next to the fence. “Selly?” I asked, though I knew it was him.

  Cat nodded.

  While Yancy stood with his arm around her, I walked to the fence and leaned on a post as I studied the body. Funny how a man as big as Selly could look so small in death. It was as if the spirit road had consumed most of the Shoshone Indian that had once been Selly and had left only a shell.

  Yancy led Cat a few yards away from the body while I stepped over the fence. The top wire had been cut free and dangled in a loose circle at Selly’s feet. I shooed angry blowflies away while I gently lifted his hand from his chest. Rigor had set in, and his arm came away stiffly, revealing a large hole over his middle button. I replaced his arm and stood. I felt as if rigor had crept up on me as well, and I stretched some more. Loose tobacco had been taken by the wind, but a few particles got caught in Selly’s hair as if they refused to leave the dead man. “You?” I asked Cat.

  She shook her head. “Amos. He couldn’t stand the thought of Selly travelling the spirit road without making an offering, even to an enemy. It was all the tobacco Amos had.”

  I could see Amos stand over the body of Selly Antelope, offering tobacco to the four winds, and to the Great Spirit, as he prayed for Selly to have a swift journey home. Amos had never converted to Christianity, and the old Arapaho ways would never leave him. Amos would honor his enemy even in death.

  A Winchester rifle lay beside Selly, and I picked it up: .45-90—more suited to hunting the few buffalo that remained in these parts than hunting men.

  “That’s Selly’s gun, Marshal,” Cat volunteered. She stepped away from Yancy and walked toward the fence. She looked down at the body with her arms wrapped around herself as if she were cold this hot afternoon. “Amos doesn’t own a gun.”

  I checked the tube magazine of the rifle. The gun could be loaded with four rounds. Two were in the magazine, one fired case in the chamber. I handed the rifle to Yancy and bent to the ground.

  “What you looking for?” He had moved to stand close to Cat again.

  “There might be another cartridge case somewhere.” I craned myself up and met Cat’s stare. “What happened?”

  “Like I told Yancy on the phone—”

  “Those nosy old biddies on the line drowned you out,” Yancy said. “I didn’t hear none of it.”

  Cat smiled faintly and walked to my truck. She sat on the running board and held her head in her hands. At first I thought she wouldn’t be able to tell us, but she cleared her throat. When she again looked at me, tears had filled her eyes, and her lip quivered. “I checked fence this morning, like I do every morning. I found some heifers had broken through the fence and gotten into Antelope’s pasture. There’s been some bad blood between us of late.”

  “I can attest to that.” Yancy moved close to Cat. “Selly’s brother, Lance, reported twice in the last week that Iron Horse cattle had busted through the fence and got into his pasture. And Selly called my office two days ago about stray Iron Horse cattle. So when I came here to talk to Amos about it, I told him to keep his fence up. Last thing I needed was more trouble between us Shoshone and the Arapaho.”

  “That so?”

  Cat nodded. She untied her bandana from around her neck and wiped the snot from her nose. “We’ve tried to keep the fence up. But the heifers bust through the rusted old wire every chance they get.” I looked the length of the fence line. There wasn’t a straight strand of barbed wire anywhere, and from where I stood
I saw two fence posts leaning over. A strong wind would finish them off. “Continue about this morning.”

  Cat stood and pocketed the bandana. A button had come loose, and she took longer than I’d expect to button it. Yancy stared at her, and I nudged him. “Grab the camera off the back seat of the truck.”

  Yancy’s gaze darted between me and Cat as she buttoned her shirt, but he headed for the truck.

  I turned my attention back to Cat. Even for an over-the-hill widower like me, it was hard to keep my eyes off her. She was a strikingly handsome woman, even dressed in dusty ranch garb.

  “Like I said, Marshal, I checked the fence this morning and seen they broke through again. I rode like the dickens for Amos in the pasture over there.” She chin-pointed to the west. “I knew I couldn’t herd them back by my lonesome, so me and Amos rode back here and went after them.”

  “On Antelope property?”

  She looked at Selly’s body, and tears clouded her eyes. “We figured we could get them back into our pasture before the Antelopes called the law. Or before they shot them.”

  “They threaten that?”

  “This last time. Selly himself said he’d shoot every last one of our heifers if he caught them on his land.”

  Heifers grazed on scrub and gamma grass in a pasture a hundred yards from her ranch house, oblivious to the dead man who shared their field. “It looks like you got them back before he could do that.”

  Cat leaned against a fence post and took a Prince Albert tin from her back pocket. She turned her back to the wind and began to roll a smoke. I hadn’t a desire for tobacco, though I took a smoke now and again to be polite. I had my own addiction, and I cursed this damned Prohibition for making it even easier to get booze. Cat drew deep of her cigarette, held it a long moment, and blew smoke towards Selly’s body. “He said the last time he was fed up with us free-grazing on Shoshone land.”

  “And today?”