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    The Affair at Alkali
    The Affair at Alkali
    The Affair at Alkali
    Ebook139 pages2 hours

    The Affair at Alkali

    By Virginia Coffman

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    A miner had been killed in Alkali, and there were those who wanted to give Padge Regan the necktie treatment before his wealthy parents could influence the law. But others were determined that the youngster should be given a fair trial, even though his mother might come to his defense and sway judge and jury by her beauty and her eloquence.

    Among Padge's defenders, if that could be a proper description of those who wanted to see him hang legally, was the town dentist, Doc Millard. But since he was a dark, cynical and somewhat dubious individual, there was a question as to the purity of his motives. This was not true of most of the other residents of the rough and howling frontier town; their motives were clear, and consisted largely of a thirst for blood.

    An off-beat Western by the author of “Moura.”

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherCandlewood Books
    Release dateJul 23, 2012
    ISBN9781937211295
    The Affair at Alkali

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      Book preview

      The Affair at Alkali - Virginia Coffman

      The Affair at Alkali

      Written by Virginia Coffman

      Candlewood Books

      ****

      ISBN: 978-1-937211-29-5

      Published by Candlewood Books at Smashwords

      Copyright © 2012 by Candlewood Press, a division of Harding House Publishing Service, Inc. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission from the publisher.

      Chapter 1

      All through the hot, airless August night, since the body had been lugged into town in the dead prospector’s bedroll, the two factions whose fight had culminated in this murder loafed into the county seat at Alkali. They were wary, edgy, these walkers and these riders, the bearded Nevada miners scowling up through the dust clouds of Main Street at the imperious ranchers on their buckboards, the mounted cowhands looking down their sunburned noses at the townsmen.

      At about ten o’clock the next morning, someone spotted the little cyclone of alkali heading south toward town, and word was passed along the line that they were bringing in seventeen-year-old Padge Regan, to give him a fair trial and a quick hanging before his wealthy parents got wind of it.

      Big Doc Millard, the local dentist and casual Lothario, stuck his head out of the pleasant dimness of Cake Biddle’s saloon long enough to whistle and pull it back again.

      Bull Run was never like this. I’ll take a drink on that, Cake. Be needing it. They’re about to string up some of my best gold inlays if I don’t get out there and stop them.

      Cake Biddle, the bearded giant, the only man in the county bigger than Doc, slid a drink down the bar, which was still cool from the chill that engulfed the desert country before the heat of morning.

      Take my advice. Leave well enough alone. Kid’s had a lynch party comin’ to him long’s I can recollect.

      Mebbe so, mebbe so, Doc agreed, swallowing his whiskey and swiping the back of one muscular hand over his mouth. He grinned, looking younger than his thirty-eight years. You’re forgetting, ain’t you, Cake, the kid’s got a mighty pretty mother.

      That Regan hell-cat! Cake was so indignant he turned his back on his friend and took down a half-dozen glasses from the new pine shelf, which had been nailed up in haste to cover the neat artistic spray in the bar mirror where a spent bullet had lodged after its journey through a cowman from the great Regan spread. Doc watched the saloon keeper spit onto the first of the glasses and begin polishing it.

      Can’t put it off any longer, I guess. And that mining crowd looks real unsociable, too. Well, Cake, if I don’t see you again, remember, face me north on Boot Hill. I like to catch the noon breeze.

      Cake grunted, hawked and spat again, and Doc strolled out, his hands riding easy against his full-skirted new rust-brown coat which bulged a little above his heart. He was just in time to meet the crowd backing up before the hooves of the posse. He recognized much of his own bridgework in the angry open mouths of the miners as they scuffed backward, yelling and still pulling at the legs of the pleasant, snub-nosed, freckled boy riding sidesaddle, one leg over the saddle-horn, with hands and feet bound, in the middle of the posse.

      String him up! somebody cried, hoisting a coil of rope. Doc, whose head in its conspicuous white Stetson topped those around him, found little difficulty in elbowing his way to the center of the fracas.

      All right now, come down off your high horses, boys. Nobody’s going to hang anybody in Nevada without a trial, Doc called out in an even voice that carried clearly over the frantic yelling. There was a stir. He had some of them on his side. He went on pleasantly, I got a couple of gold fillings at stake here. Promised this youngster they’d last a lifetime. Suppose it got around they only lasted seventeen years. Ruin my reputation.

      Those nearest him began to snicker. Gradually his remark, repeated and embellished, carried through the crowd and they were all guffawing and slapping each other on the back.

      A California miner rose up in his seat and called to the rest of his posse who, as far as Doc could see, represented neither the county sheriff nor the local judge.

      Doc’s right. We’ll try the kid before we hang him. That’s fair enough. All in favor?

      There was a moment’s silence, but the suggestion had been well phrased, and so long as Padge would be hanged anyway, they preferred it to be done fairly by a legal lynch mob. Doc tried to cut in, but this time the roar of assent that swept up from the dusty street and through the ranks around him silenced even Doc. His hand rubbed his breast pocket thoughtfully. He touched the lapel of his coat. Only Padge noticed.

      Don’t bother, Doc. Save yourself the trouble. Ma’s coming.

      All right, said the posse leader. Somebody go get Judge Fogarty. Where’ll we try the kid?

      Make it Cake Biddle’s saloon. This neck tying is a thirsty business, said Woody Mellwarm.

      Doc looked up at Padge, whose young freckles stood out on his turned-up nose in the pitiless glare of the desert sun.

      All right, kid?

      Padge grinned back at him, his full lips cracked from the hot ride but full of cocky contempt for the mob and the fate they had lined up for him. His ageless, ice-blue eyes ranged over the crowd, which had now taken on a more festive, less belligerent note. There was a lot of joking among them, many rope jokes sent his way, and as Doc watched him, the kid answered them all with a grin, a flip wave of his bound hands, and a quick: That’s my pal, or Hi, Ernie, you gonna tie the knot? or This your way of paying me that twenty, Fred? until Woody Mellwarm said to him:

      Think your Maw’ll get you out this time, kid?

      Doc watched the kid’s cold eyes harden at mention of his mother, search for the owner of the voice and, finding Woody, nail him down by his face and costume, tab him away for future reference. Doc watched the kid and thought suddenly of a lake he had seen in the desert below Carson Valley, where the water was deep and blue and bottomless. . . .

      Nevertheless, he reached up and lifted Padge down off his mount and sent him hobbling along the length of his ankle ropes, up on the unpainted, splintering porch of Cake Biddle’s saloon.

      A few minutes later, Padge Regan was safely stowed away on top of the bar, with his boot heels dangling over the side, just a few whiskies away from little Judge Fogarty’s elbow.

      Playing with his spectacles uneasily, Judge Fogarty remarked that he trusted they could all behave like ladies and gentlemen. Cake Biddle slid the judge another whiskey which he polished off, and then spoke a toast aloud: To justice!

      A grizzled little silver miner from the mighty Comstock banged on the bar, making the judge’s elbows jump and Padge Regan’s boot heels click a tattoo against the hollow boards.

      To heck with justice! I say hang Padge Regan. Dirty little murderin’ sidewinder!

      Amen to that, put in Woody Mellwarm, jogging the defendant with a rifle butt.

      Order. Judge Fogarty coughed up the frog in his throat and started over again. Anybody know who the late lamented was?

      He was a hard-workin’ miner, a pore sweatin’ cuss just hankerin’ for a grubstake, yelled another of the same.

      All right. He’s a prospector and he’s been shot.

      On Regan ground!

      That don’t mean the Regans done it. Ain’t no fence on the range. Anybody carrying a six-shooter could’ve done it.

      Woody Mellwarm gave them all a look out of his mismatched eyes.

      We found ’im standin’ over the feller; his sixshooter’d been fired once. He’s already been in two shooting scrapes. Now he murders somebody. Why don’t we wring the truth out of the Regan cub? Leering at Padge, he grabbed him by the lapel of his cowhide jacket to carry out his threat. Through the bedlam that followed when two men wrested him from Woody, Padge’s cocky young voice carried clear.

      You talk big about a no-count thieving miner!

      That’s all he’s gonna say. Hang ’im! shouted the California miner. Get rid of ’im before his Maw and Paw buy off any more sheriffs. Everybody’s heard of ’em Regans. By gum, shootin’s too good for the little varmint, and that goes for all the Regans, male and female.

      Good morning, gentlemen. I thought I heard our name mentioned.

      The low-pitched but obviously feminine voice hauled them up short and caused every pair of eyes in the saloon to dart around to the door.

      Lucinda Regan moved through their parting ranks, a tall, rangy beauty with her rich Creole inheritance in the slanting black eyes, the lustrous black hair coiled on her neck, and the lips that could not possibly be that red without artificial aid.

      That poor mining man. Has his funeral been arranged? And how about his people? Does anyone know where we can find them? How desperate he must have been to do what he did!

      Padge, looking relieved, settled back to let nature and his incomparable mother take their course, but the miner who had led the posse, deeply aware that he was the hero in this momentary drama, remembered his manners and let her assumption ride.

      Well, now, we don’t rightly know what was done, ma’am.

      Oh, but I thought— She swung around, perplexed and helpless, a delicate flower among these virile cactus plants, and made a little motion toward her son. But I thought everyone knew. He pulled a gun on my boy, my little Padge.

      Padge grinned and watched her with growing curiosity to see what she would pull out of the hat this time. But there was a smothered, ungallant buzz among the townsmen who, from self-preservation, had long since allied themselves with the miners against the ranchers and cowmen.

      "There weren’t no gun when they brung his

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