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  MUNDY’S LAW

  MUNDY’S LAW

  THE LEGEND OF JOE MUNDY

  MONTY MCCORD

  FIVE STAR

  A part of Gale, Cengage Learning

  Copyright © 2013 by Monty McCord

  Five Star™ Publishing, a part of Cengage Learning, Inc.

  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, transmitted, stored, or used in any form or by any means graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including but not limited to photocopying, recording, scanning, digitizing, taping, Web distribution, information networks, or information storage and retrieval systems, except as permitted under Section 107 or 108 of the 1976 United States Copyright Act, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

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  LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA

  McCord, Monty.

  Mundy’s law : the legend of Joe Mundy / Monty McCord. — First Edition.

  pages cm

  ISBN-13: 978-1-4328-2754-0 (hardcover)

  ISBN-10: 1-4328-2754-5 (hardcover)

  eISBN-13: 978-1-4328-2902-5 eISBN-10: 1-4328-2902-5

  1. Law enforcement—Fiction. I. Title.

  PS3613.C38227M86 2013

  813′.6—dc23 2013014017

  First Edition. First Printing: September 2013

  This title is available as an e-book.

  ISBN-13: 978-1-4328-2902-5 ISBN-10: 1-4328-2902-5

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  Printed in the United States of America

  1 2 3 4 5 6 7 17 16 15 14 13

  For Ann . . . always.

  CHAPTER ONE

  Joe Mundy heard the shots, three, spaced evenly apart, on the crowded streets of Baxter Springs, Kansas. He headed for Ninth Street, where the shots had been fired. As he rounded the corner of Cleveland Avenue onto Ninth, a fourth shot shattered an upstairs window at the Hancock Hotel. A woman screamed. People ran into nearby buildings and alleys to escape flying bullets. An older man dressed in a fine suit tripped on the boardwalk in front of the millinery and scrambled on his hands and knees through the door.

  The gunshots spoiled an otherwise pleasant Saturday afternoon in the town of eight hundred people. Folks were in town buying supplies and visiting friends. Texas cattle herds came to Baxter Springs after the Civil War and a stockyards association was formed for trading in cattle. Some of the Texas cattlemen found homes in the area rich in pasture and woodland. Some found trouble as well.

  Joe found the source of the shooting in the form of three men, each carrying a whiskey bottle. One had the bottle in his left hand, a shiny handgun in the other. As Joe approached the three men, the gun handler wisely holstered the pistol.

  Joe took a slow breath as he recognized Hobe Ranswood, the largest rancher in southeast Kansas; his son, Arliss; and Hobe’s foreman, Bill Meyerhoffer. Arliss was the shooter. The level of Ranswood’s success in the ranching business was directly proportionate to his attitude of superiority. This wasn’t the first time he’d caused trouble in town, but Marshal Oster usually took care of it. Joe figured the rancher was basically a good man with a skewed attitude.

  “Mister Ranswood, what are ya’ celebratin’?” Joe asked.

  “Well, if it isn’t Deputy Marshal Mundy. Son, show your ’spect. Say hello to Deputy Mundy, the town’s knight in shining armor.”

  “Hellooo . . . Deputy Joe,” Arliss said slowly and chuckled, proud of his rhyme. He swayed gently back and forth. His face was flushed, and he was sweating.

  Joe looked the kid over. He was wearing a stiff new gun belt and an embossed Mexican loop holster, which housed a nickel-plated Colt single-action revolver with black grips. Arliss was just a titch cross-eyed, so slight that it took a few meetings with him before a person noticed it. The whiskey seemed to worsen the affliction.

  Ranswood took a draw on his bottle and said, “Joe, my boy Arliss here is fifteen years old today. He’s a man now, and we’re celebrating, so don’t give me any of that town law bullshit.”

  “He’s big for his age, Mister Ranswood. Congratulations, Arliss,” Joe said.

  Arliss smirked at Joe and tipped his bottle again. Joe didn’t like the look that Arliss was too young and stupid to be offering. His holster hung precariously in front of his manhood.

  Town folks began to gather across the street now that the shooting had stopped. Joe could hear their whispers. A gust raised a small cloud of dust that filled the air with the smell of fresh manure. A town employee was assigned to keep the waste picked up, but Joe hadn’t seen him today.

  “Mister Ranswood, it’s three o’clock in the afternoon, a little early to be celebratin’ so large, isn’t it?”

  “Joe, I reckon I can celebrate any goddamn time I want. Ain’t that right, Bill?” Ranswood said and roared with laughter. Bill nodded and laughed as well, but not as much. Joe noticed they, too, were armed. Bill’s pistol was clearly visible, but Ranswood’s was under his brown sack coat.

  “Why don’t you trot on along and find something else to do?”

  “I sure will, Mister Ranswood, but first I need your guns. Then you can celebrate without a hold,” Joe said. “Pick ’em up at the marshal’s office when you head out.”

  “Nobody takes our guns, Joe . . . you oughta know that,” Ranswood said and took another drink. The fact that Bill hadn’t taken a drink since he had confronted them wasn’t lost on Joe. Ranswood’s eyes surveyed Joe.

  “Hand ’em over . . . now,” Joe declared, his smile gone. The manure smell crossed his nose again, maybe a not-so-veiled indication of where the conversation was heading.

  The jocularity ceased. Uneasy moments ticked by, and nearby whispering ceased. Any moisture in Joe’s mouth evaporated. Joe had often wondered about his first gun fight, how he would fare, but hadn’t thought about it today. A day that began with breakfast at the hotel with Alice. Most of this bright, sunny October day had been spent walking the streets of Baxter Springs thinking of her. He wondered what the future would bring. He couldn’t picture a little cottage with a white picket fence and an old sheep dog on the porch, but didn’t mind the idea of her being regular company.

  “Hell!” Ranswood said.

  Joe didn’t know what that was supposed to mean, and wasn’t exactly sure how to respond except to demand their guns again. “It’s not a request, Mister Ranswood.”

  The silly grin on Arliss’s face disappeared. He froze icicle still, holding the whiskey bottle in his left hand. The three men stared at Joe. His stomach tightened. He heard a mule bray down at the livery and a frantic whisper by someone in front of the dry goods.

  “Shit, let’s go,” Ranswood said and started to turn away, as did Bill. Arliss didn’t move, his unblinking eyes locked onto Joe. Marshal Oster told Joe to watch their hands, “Can’t hurt ya’ with a look,” he’d say. He was right.

  Arliss’s right hand swung to the shiny pistol. An eternity later, Joe’s own gun exploded, knocking Arliss down. He heard a woman scream from across the street. Joe’s Colt had a barrel of just under five inches and had cle
ared leather smoothly. Ranswood and Bill stopped and turned, as in a slow-motion dance. And it seemed Joe could only move in slow motion as well. Bill went for his gun first, and Joe shot him only inches south of his Adam’s apple. Old man Ranswood looked startled but had his cavalry Colt pointed at Joe before shots were traded. Ranswood’s made an ugly gouge through Joe’s left hip turning him slightly sideways—Joe’s hitting its mark almost dead center of the rancher’s chest. It was over before he was scared. Joe’s first rational thought was that he would have missed, or only winged Ranswood, had not the rancher’s shot turned him off balance. Ranswood would have killed him sure.

  Joe stood there looking down at the three men on the ground. Arliss shivered and wet his new gray trousers. His new white shirt was splattered red. The shiny, half-cocked Colt lay in the dirt beside him. He sighed and stopped moving. His half-open eyes glazed over. Joe felt anger building inside him. Why would the stupid kid do that? For what good reason would he try to pull on me? Was it the arrogant attitude he was raised with and the whiskey? It bothered Joe knowing that he had not been fast pulling his own gun. Marshal Oster had often told him, “Don’t do no damned good bein’ quick if you don’t hit nothin’.” And that was true, but, if I’d taken any longer, accuracy wouldn’t a’ mattered much.

  Frank Lyman heard the pounding of hooves and looked up from the bridle he was restitching. He had been ruminating about how hard that new kid was on tack and how tired he was covering for him. But no more. The next time Hobe hired a green kid, he’d inform Bill that he wouldn’t be responsible for him. He wished that’s what he’d tell him anyway. That’s about where Lyman’s thoughts were gathered up when he heard the horses at a dead run pulling the buckboard.

  “That tears it!” Lyman declared to no one special and threw the bridle at the stump that he had been sitting on. He grabbed at one of the horses as the Negro cook pulled back on the reins, bringing the buckboard to a stop. The following dust cloud enveloped them.

  “What in hell you doin’, Dalmar? Christ’s sake, you tryin’ to kill these horses?”

  “They dead, Mister Lemon, they all dead!” Dalmar screamed.

  “Who’s dead? Dalmar, slow down!”

  “They dead in the street. Boss, all dem, dead as hell, dead as fence post, Mister Lemon!”

  Lyman took hold of the Negro by his vest, yanked him off the wagon, and pulled his face close. Lute Kinney stepped from the Rocking R bunkhouse with his ever-present pair of Smith & Wessons.

  “Dalmar, listen to me. Speak slowly as you can, and tell me what the hell you’re talkin’ about,” Lyman ordered.

  Tears came to Dalmar’s eyes. “Boss is dead. Mister Meysofer is dead, and the po’ boy is dead. They all dead in the street in town.” More hands from the bunkhouse gathered around Lyman and Dalmar.

  “Dalmar, you mean Mister Ranswood, Bill, and Arliss?”

  “Yes sir, Mister Lemon. All dem, dead. Dead as hell!”

  “Are you sure? You been drinkin’, Dalmar?” He sniffed the old man’s breath.

  “No sir. Not a drop, I swears.”

  “How’d they get dead, Dalmar? What happened?”

  Lute Kinney stood near Lyman, listening along with the cowhands. His face showed no emotion one way or the other. It never did. Kinney’s dark eyes were piercing and made most folks uncomfortable when meeting them. One eye socket looked larger than the other, and no one knew if he was born that way or it was the result of an injury. The man never looked sad, angry, or surprised, and most certainly never happy. It was as if he was born without the muscles in his face that made those expressions possible. Some said that a contempt for life itself would be how they would describe him.

  “They was drinkin’ and celebratin’ Arliss’s birthday. They was drinkin’ an’ having a good time while I was loadin’ supplies on the buckboard. I heard shots and peeked out from Dever’s store, and I guess it was Arliss shootin’ off his new pistol that Boss bought ’im,” Dalmar said, and stopped.

  “Go on, Dalmar, then what happened?” one of the hands joined in.

  “The shots, I s’pose that what brung Marshal Mundy. I went back into Dever’s and was stackin’ some cloth Missus Ranswood ordered when I hears more shots. Us in the store, we peeked out again, and that’s when we saw Marshal Mundy standin’ over Boss, and Mister Meysofer and po’ Arliss,” Dalmar looked down and wept.

  They were all silent, except for Dalmar.

  Lute Kinney broke the silence. “Mundy couldn’t a’ shot all three. You stinkin’ cur, who else was there?” Even though his voice was coarse and seemed forced, Kinney’s mouth barely moved when he spoke.

  “Kinney, hold up there. I’ve known Dalmar for most of ten years, and he don’t lie,” Lyman said. “He drinks some, but he don’t never lie.”

  Dalmar looked up and met Lyman’s eyes. “I tol’ what I saw, Mister Lemon, just as I said.”

  “Jee-sus,” one of the hands mumbled.

  “Where you goin’, Kinney?” Lyman asked. Kinney stopped just inside the barn door. “I’m goin’ in to kill Mundy.” He said it as if he was breaking for lunch.

  “When Bill ain’t here, I’m in charge.You know that. Stay put for now. Hobe, ah, Mister Ranswood expects you to make another visit to the Greens on the Neosho. Nothin’s changed there. You’re still on the payroll here, and you can’t be goin’ into town causin’ trouble.” Lyman turned back to face the Negro. “First thing is, Dalmar and I have to go up to the house and tell Missus Ranswood.”

  Kinney gave Lyman a cold stare. “Okay, Mister Boss.” He spat a black mass of tobacco on the ground and walked slowly back to the bunkhouse. Some of the hands called him purely ornamental, not to his face, of course, as Kinney didn’t actually do any ranch work. Only the most naïve of the crew didn’t know his exact purpose for drawing pay.

  “Chip, you ride into town and find out what you can, then git right back here to me.”

  “Okay, boss.” The young hand grabbed his saddle horn and swung into the saddle without using the stirrup. He spurred the mare and galloped toward town.

  “Well, Dalmar, let’s go on up to the house now,” Lyman said. He would rather have a tooth pulled without whiskey if given a choice, but they must tell Elizabeth Ranswood that her husband and son were dead, before she heard it from someone else.

  “Gawdamn, Joe!” Marshal Oster declared when he came through the door. The marshal had sent Joe back to the office to wait for him while he made arrangements to have the undertaker pick up the bodies.

  Joe sat quietly in a chair across from the marshal’s desk. He watched his boss as he continued to blow off steam. Oster was a tall, large-boned man, fifty years old with a growing potbelly. He barely missed the top of the door frame with his hat on. His bushy walrus mustache had so far escaped the shift to gray that most of his hair had already completed.

  Although many people witnessed the shooting, only two gave Oster a statement as to what they saw. “Gawdamn,” he repeated, shaking his head slowly back and forth, as if trying to comprehend the magnitude of the incident. He laid three gun belts and pistols on his desk and collapsed into his swivel chair. He dipped a pen into an ink bottle and scratched down the names of those witnesses and what they’d told him. When he finished writing, he dropped the pen and pulled the hat off that he just realized he still wore.

  “Gawdamn,” he said again in a low tone. “There’s gonna be hell to pay in this town now. Hard tellin’ what’s gonna happen,” he said with a sigh.

  “Do you want me to tell you what happened, Charlie?” Joe asked, slowly moving his eyes from the shiny Colt on the desk to Oster.

  “Well, hell, yes. I’ll write it down too, so Cyrus can read it.”

  Joe explained every detail he could remember as Oster scratched it down on paper. Over the past three years that Joe had worked for Charlie Oster, he’d gained a respect for the lawman that he held for few others. They had finished and were sitting silently when County Attorney Cyrus Carter walked in, followed
by Judge Benjamin Drake.

  Ignoring Joe, Cyrus erupted. “What the hell happened out there, Charlie? Why did Mundy have to shoot them all down for Christ’s sake? Isn’t he supposed to arrest them, bring them into court?”

  “Now hold on just a damned minute, Cyrus. That kid pulled on Joe, set on killin’ him. It was self-defense, clear cut!” Oster said.

  “Well then what? While he had his gun out, he thought he might as well shoot the others, too?” Carter said. He turned back and glanced at Joe, who ignored him, staring straight ahead.

  “Now that’s horseshit, and you know it,” Oster said, standing up, forcing Carter to move his gaze upward at an uncomfortable angle. “Joe’s been the best deputy I’ve had in a while. He had to shoot the kid or die, then it was like dominoes after that. Joe had no choice, and it’s a damned miracle that he wasn’t killed. That Bill Meyerhoffer was a pretty fair hand with a pistol . . . for a ranch foreman.”

  “I was told there was a crowd. Did they all agree with your story?” Carter asked.

  “It ain’t my story, Cyrus, gawdamnit! That’s what happened. Two of them folks tol’ me that’s just the way it happened, just as Joe said.”

  Marshal Oster handed his notes over to Carter and Judge Drake. The two men stood there for several minutes studying the paper, until Cyrus dropped it on Oster’s desk. “There’s no sense in wasting a lot of time and taxpayer’s money, Judge. No jury would convict Deputy Mundy of anything.”

  “I suppose you’re right, but we should go through the motions to show folks we’re not sweeping it under the rug,” Drake said. “We’ll have the inquest at nine o’clock Monday morning. Deputy Mundy, you will then give your statement for the record, and Marshal Oster, you can present witnesses. Shouldn’t take long.” Carter looked down, shaking his head. “Do you have a problem with that, Mister Prosecutor?”

  “Huh? Oh, no, Your Honor. I’m praying the Rocking R doesn’t burn the town to the ground when they find out.”