Deal with the Devil (The Law Wranglers Book 1) Read online

  Deal with the Devil

  The Law Wranglers: Book 1

  Ron Schwab

  Poor Coyote Press

  Contents

  Also by Ron Schwab

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Afterword

  New Release

  Also by Ron Schwab

  Sioux Sunrise

  Paint the Hills Red

  Ghosts Around the Campfire

  The Lockes

  Last Will

  Medicine Wheel

  The Law Wranglers

  Deal with the Devil

  Mouth of Hell

  The Coyote Saga

  Night of the Coyote

  Return of the Coyote (forthcoming)

  DEAL WITH THE DEVIL

  by Ron Schwab

  Poor Coyote Press

  PO Box 6105

  Omaha, NE 68106

  www.PoorCoyotePress.com

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Copyright © 2016 by Ron Schwab

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means—except in the case of brief quotations embodied in articles or reviews—without written permission from its publisher.

  Cover Art: “The Parley” by Frederic Remington

  ISBN: 1-943421-15-3

  ISBN-13: 978-1-943421-15-2

  1

  THE INSTANT DANNA'S eyes opened, she sensed someone was in her bedroom. Her body, naked beneath damp, clinging sheets, tensed. She could see nothing in the pitch blackness of the room. She heard no movement. But she could feel his presence. And smell it. The unmistakable, pungent odor of stale sweat and horse dung.

  She lay there, motionless and silent, her heart hammering in her chest, listening, waiting, while her mind grasped frantically for a way to escape the danger she knew lurked in the still room. Who was it? A thief? Perhaps he would leave if she feigned sleep. Or did he know she was awake? How had he gotten in? She had locked her doors. Of course, the window latches had seen better days. Damn, the Derringer was still at the gunsmith's. Did she dare try to work her hand beneath her pillow to the lock-back pocket dagger secreted there? No, not yet.

  Then she heard movement. The floor creaked. Two tentative steps, perhaps five feet from her bedside. She turned her head slightly, her eyes searching from beneath half-closed lids as they adjusted to the darkness. Then she saw the shadowy, hulking form with a massive chest and shoulders.

  "Stay put," came a raspy voice. "You ain't going no place." He stepped toward the bed, yanked away the sheet, and flung it on the floor. She was cornered like a rabbit in a mountain cat's lair. There was no chance to get past the man, and the opposite side of the bed was flush to the wall.

  She looked up at the man who towered over her with a leering, broken-toothed smile on his scraggly bearded face. His eyes, puffy and bulging, were illuminated by an eerie band of moonlight that streaked through the curtained window and reminded her of a desert Gila monster’s. She tried not to flinch as they surveyed her body with obvious delight.

  "Who are you? What do you want?" she demanded, the firmness in her voice belying the icy fear that chilled her spine.

  The man grinned back. "A friend of yours asked me to pay you a call . . . a friend that don't take to law wranglers . . . especially nosey female ones." He shook his head slowly back and forth. "I'll be goddamned if I ever seen a lawyer the likes of you. No, ma'am, I sure ain't."

  "McKenna sent you," she said, her voice a near whisper.

  "I ain't sayin', missy. Don't know that it matters much to you."

  He was neither a thief nor a rapist. He had come to her room to kill. Gripped by sudden panic, she leaped up and tried to slip around him, but his fist drove into her cheekbone like a sledge and sent her reeling and dazed back onto the bed. She opened her mouth to scream, but his rough hand clamped over her lips, squeezing, twisting, until she thought her jaw would snap.

  "Keep your mouth shut, lady. Think about it. It's late: nobody's going to hear you. Even if they do, nobody's gonna pay a screechin' woman no mind. Figure some whore's just gettin' more than she bargained for. And my compadre's waiting out front. A lot of good folks will be feeding worms if they come snooping. We wouldn't want that, now, would we?"

  He was right. It would do her no good to scream. She would only hasten her execution. Time. She needed time. Maybe something would happen; perhaps she could make something happen. She relaxed and lay limp and submissive on the mattress. The man's grip eased. She stood five feet ten inches and was lithe and strong, but this was a big man.

  "We understand each other, don't we lawyer lady? You're buying time and I'm bargaining to get me a bonus. Now, I'm going to let loose and you just lay there nice and quiet while I tend to the niceties." He released his grip on her mouth and straightened up.

  She gasped for breath, watching him as he unbuckled his gun belt and dropped it on the floor next to the bed. If she could somehow outmaneuver him and get to his six-gun.

  "Been a coon's age since I had me some white meat, bitch," the man chortled. "I always got the hankering for it, though."

  As he bent over to take off his boots, Danna's hand inched under her pillow, her fingers groping until they closed on the cold pearl handle of the Sheffield folding knife. She worked at the blade, cursing at her clumsiness as she tried to pry it open. Finally, it pulled free from its handle, and she straightened the blade.

  She knew that the slender seven-inch blade, so delicate and ornate in appearance, was razor-sharp and deadly, for she had carefully honed it herself. The knife was her only chance, and a feeble one at that, for this was a strong man, one who had likely killed before and could easily turn her own weapon on her. Her grip tightened on the hilt of the knife as the man clumsily shed his trousers. He dropped onto the bed and suddenly grasped her crotch, digging at it with jagged fingernails. She gasped with pain but gritted her teeth and did not pull away, opting for passivity for the moment. He pressed his dry, cracked lips roughly against her mouth, but she was a limp ragdoll, neither responding nor resisting. The attacker pulled back his head, glaring into her eyes, breathing heavily, blowing his rancid breath onto her face.

  "What the hell's the matter with you, woman?" he said, his voice husky. "You ain't got no spunk at all." When she did not reply, he said, "All right, have it your way. We'll get this done and I'll be about my business."

  He moved on top of her, his heavy body nearly crushing her breathless. She could feel his hard maleness probing against her as he tried to wedge between her resisting thighs.

  "Leastways, you ain't dead," he said, "yet."

  She clampe
d her thighs, trying now to squirm her hips out from under him, but his breathing was labored and excited, and he drove himself against her with a force that revealed his urgency. The time was right. His mind was consumed by a single thought.

  "Bitch. Goddamn bitch," he croaked. He raised up, slapping her harshly several times before striking her across the bridge of the nose with his fist. She moaned, tears glazing her eyes from the searing pain that ripped through her skull. She clenched her teeth against her lower lip until blood came, struggling against the panic that was trying to overtake her.

  "Now, hump," he commanded, "or I'll beat your face to a bloody pulp."

  Brutally, he jerked her legs apart and collapsed on top of her. He raised his buttocks in readiness to plunge into her just as her hand slipped from beneath the pillow and arced downward, driving the narrow, pointed blade of the dagger hilt-deep into his thickly muscled shoulder. She drew it back as he yelped in pain and reared up to his knees.

  "Oh, Jesus," he groaned, just before she scrambled out from under him and thrust the blade beneath his rib cage. "Oh, no," he sobbed. "Oh, damn, no." He moaned in agony as one hand clutched his wounded belly and the other latched onto the wrist of her weaponless hand, wrenching it sharply and yanking her toward him.

  "I'll kill you. I'll—“ His words were cut off by his own hysterical screams as Danna's dagger stabbed and slashed at his groin. He tumbled backward off the bed. Like a cat, she leaped after him, slicing at his back while he struggled to his feet, sobbing and cursing alternately as he stumbled to the door.

  She caught sight of the door opening just a crack. She had forgotten: the man outside. Where had the bastard left his damn six-gun? She bent over, rummaging through the boots and trousers on the floor until her hand came upon the cold butt of the pistol. She drew it from the holster and whirled toward the door. Crouching by the side of the bed, she watched as her attacker reached the door and pulled it open. In the doorway stood a stocky gunman whose menacing form was outlined perfectly against the moonlit outer office.

  "Blackie, what the hell's going on?" yelled the startled gunman, his eyes darting about the room, his pistol poised to fire. The big man—Blackie—was doubled over in pain.

  "I'm hurt," he choked. "Hurt bad. Kill the bitch, then get me out of here." Blackie pushed past the gunman and disappeared into the law office.

  The stocky man peered into the room and stepped cautiously through the doorway. She had the advantage now. His eyes were foreign to the darkness. She raised the six-gun, aimed, and squeezed the trigger. Her first bullet tore into the gunman's throat; before he sunk to the floor, the second slammed dead center into his chest. She heard the front door open and close. She waited until she heard the pounding of a horse's hooves racing away and then tossed the smoking pistol onto the bed. She moved to the doorway, where she shoved the dead man's obstructing leg into the office, closed the door, and locked it.

  Ignoring the commotion outside, she found a lucifer and lit the oil lamp. Using the last of the water in the porcelain pitcher on the table, she washed and cleansed herself as best she could, leaving the water in the basin a dark crimson before she was finished. Only then was she aware of the relentless pain that wracked her nose and cheekbone. She picked up her knife from where she had dropped it before taking up the attacker's gun. Handling it with almost reverent tenderness, she cleaned the blade carefully before folding it back into its handle.

  She glanced at the sheets of her bed; they looked like someone had tossed a bucket of bright red paint on them. But it was not paint that splotched the white sheets. A small bloodied object next to the pistol caught her eye. She stepped over to the bed. She shivered involuntarily. Blackie's finger, perhaps? She picked up the pistol and poked tentatively at the object. The bile rose up in her throat as she realized Blackie had departed absent the head of his penis.

  She turned away from the bed, hearing for the first time the pounding on her door. "Danna? You all right in there?" asked a man with traces of a southern drawl.

  She recognized the voice of Doc Middleton from down the street. "Yes, I'm fine," she said. "I'll be with you in a moment."

  She brushed back the thick, strawberry-blonde hair that cascaded over her shoulders, trying to pat it into place. Then she slipped into her undergarments and a gingham dress and straightened her skirt before stepping toward the door. There was work to be done; she had to report this to the federal marshal. And it was time to associate with another lawyer on this case.

  2

  JOSH RIVERS AWOKE at the sound of the soft, timid rapping on the bedroom door. He rolled over on his side and placed a lazy hand on the smooth round hip of the tawny-skinned woman who slumbered beside him. The sight of her there, vulnerable, inviting in her nakedness, aroused him again and he scooted closer, slipping his hand up her side and cupping her firm, full breast. She responded to his touch and turned to face him, her black velvety eyes opening drowsily. She smiled warmly. "My stallion," she purred. "My magnifico stallion." She opened her arms to receive him when the knocking came at the door again, this time louder, but still hesitant.

  “Señorita Hidalgo, are you in there?" came the thickly accented voice of a young Mexican woman.

  "Of course, Rosa," snapped Constanza Hidalgo, her dark eyes flashing angrily. "Where else would I be? How dare you bother me when I am taking my siesta? Go away."

  "But Señorita . . . I have a message from the office of Señor Rivers. The boy said it was very important that I should deliver it to you instante.”

  Constanza slipped out of Josh's grasp and sat up. Her lips formed a little pout and she glared down at Josh. "It must be for you," she said.

  Josh grinned sheepishly. "That's possible."

  "Your office would not send a message to me. Joshua, how did they know?"

  Josh reached for her. "Who cares? Forget the message. Tell her to come back later."

  She eluded him, sprang from the bed, and scurried around the room, trying to retrieve her scattered garments, as Josh propped himself up on one elbow and watched with an amused smile, savoring the gazelle-like movement of her lithe body. There were none more beautiful than Constanza in all of Santa Fe, he thought. None more passionate.

  “Señorita?” came the voice again from outside the door.

  "Un momento." She abandoned her search and snapped up the pink satin sheet that had been tossed off the bed during the heat forged from the combined effects of the early afternoon sun and their fervent lovemaking. She wrapped it around her like a sarong and took a step toward the door before she turned and shot him a look of disgust. "You cannot sit there like that," she said.

  "Like what?"

  "You are naked. She will see you. Rosa would die. Besides, I do not want her to know."

  "She knows."

  "No. Unless she sees you, she only guesses. Quickly. On the floor . . . behind the bed."

  He grabbed the pillow and propped it over his lap. "There, I'm covered." But he saw she was in no mood to be teased and he shrugged in resignation. "All right, the floor. But I feel silly as hell." He disappeared over the far side of the bed.

  Constanza, clutching the sheet tight about her, moved to the door and opened it. The plumpish house servant stood wide-eyed in the open doorway.

  "I . . . I am sorry, Señorita Hidalgo,” she said in Spanish. "I did not wish to bother you."

  Constanza smiled benignly and replied in her native tongue. "It is all right, Rosa. I was only napping. As you know, I am cross when I am awakened. Please forgive me for being so sharp with you."

  "It is all right, señorita. I understand."

  "And now, Rosa, the message."

  The girl's eyes had been studying the bedroom behind Constanza. "Oh, yes, the message. Here." Rosa handed Constanza the sheet of paper and backed away, smiling nervously.

  "Rosa," Constanza said sweetly.

  "Yes, Señorita?”

  "I would prefer that you said nothing to my father about this message. Is that unde
rstood?"

  "Oh, yes, señorita. Never. There would be no cause to say anything to your father."

  Constanza closed the door and walked slowly to the bed. "Just as I thought," she said. "Your name is on it." She flipped the note onto the bed. Josh rose up from his hiding place and reached over and picked up the note.

  "How did they know you were here?" Constanza asked.

  "I'm a lawyer. My clerk has to know where I can be reached." He unfolded the note and tried to make out the barely legible scrawl of his law clerk: Levi waiting in your office. Says he needs to see you pronto. Had to talk him out of hunting for you himself. Crabby as hell. Hurry. George

  He crumpled up the note, tossed it on the floor, and moved around the bed toward Constanza who had been watching him intently. "I have to leave soon," he said.

  "Bastardo," she hissed. "Am I but one of your clients that I must have an appointment?"

  They stood beside the bed facing each other. "Don't be angry," he cajoled. "You are dear to me, Constanza. More precious than all the gold in these mountains. I treasure my time with you, but I have my work. Please try to understand." He saw her eyes soften and he knew how it would end. She wanted him as badly as he wanted her. That was the way it should be, and that was the bond between them.

  He took her in his arms and pressed his lips to hers as the silky sheet slithered down the length of her slender body and fell in a heap at her feet.

  3

  JOSH STROLLED LEISURELY across the plaza toward his office which was housed in one of the single-story plastered, adobe brick buildings that lined the streets of Santa Fe's commercial center. He was dressed impeccably in a low-crowned hat and gabardine suit that nearly matched the rust-brown color of his thick, wiry hair. He was tall, well over six feet, with one of those lean, loose frames that seemed to mold, like pliant wax, to whatever garment adorned it at the time. He had a penchant for fine clothes, and he indulged it when fees were good.