Cotton's Law (9781101553848) Read Online Free PDF Page B

hauling that over to the stage office for me?”
    Jack bent over to lift the trunk. His eyes got wide as he straightened up instantly.
    “What the hell you got in there, gold bars?”
    “No, just some of my—­”
    “Yeah, I know, your women’s
necessities
. I’ll have someone from the stage line bring a cart over.” Jack left the house rubbing his sore back and muttering something about “women” and “necessities.” He didn’t understand either one.
    As he was passing by the bank on his way to the stage office, Jack saw Cotton emerge with a serious look on his face.
    “Hey, Cotton, what’s got you lookin’ like you was snakebit?”
    “I told Givins about Bart Havens and the rumor about a new bank starting up. He’s the one who looked snakebit. I couldn’t get a straight answer out of him about what he would do if the rumor turned out to be true. I got the impression he couldn’t cover the withdrawals if many folks made a switch to another bank.”
    “That’s not something the folks around here would take well,” Jack said. “A failed bank could make for some pretty temperamental outbursts, and that usually means someone gets hurt.”
    “You don’t have to remind me. Let’s get back to the jail.” Cotton looked up and down the street as they made their way back to the sheriff’s office.
    Jack was chattering about something, but Cotton wasn’t hearing any of it. He was lost in the past and his last encounter with Bart Havens. That experience had left him with a bad feeling about what Havens might be capable of should their paths ever cross again.
    It all started about five years back, in another town, but with similar circumstances. The town was named Benbow Creek, named appropriately after the town’s only Civil War hero, a colonel who died defending a hill nobody had ever heard of. The town had one bank. Bart Havens came in and started another bank, using tactics that were questionable, but never anything clearly illegal. After about a year, the town’s original bank closed its doors, costing its stockholders everything they’d invested and then some.Cotton was the town marshal in Benbow Creek, and while he could do nothing to stop the migration of depositors from one bank to the other, he
could
put a stop to a sudden increase in violent crime in town, seemingly always against those who’d chosen to back the original bank by keeping their deposits there. Over a period of six months, Cotton caught a half dozen gun-­toting troublemakers in the act of setting fires, breaking into stores, or beating some storekeeper or businessman half to death in some dark alley. He was able to take two of them to trial, where they denied any ties to Bart Havens, even though everybody knew them to be habitual liars. The other four he was forced to shoot, two of whom died. He felt no regret, except that he was positive Bart Havens was behind every dastardly deed, and he set out to prove it. Before the dust settled, Havens had been run out of town, losing everything. And now Cotton could see the seeds of the same scenario all over again. He wasn’t eager to watch a man like Havens get away with ruining a decent businessman and, in doing so, putting a lot of families in financial jeopardy if they didn’t toe his line.
    “. . . and so, I’m not sure what I’ll do with myself while she’s gone. Got any ideas, Cotton?”
    “Huh?”
    “I said, got any ideas what I can do with myself while she’s gone?” Jack squinted at Cotton like he’d lost his hearing.
    “While who’s gone? What the hell are you talking about?”
    “Melody, that’s who. She’s goin’ back to Gonzales to put together some sort of deal. Didn’t really get the gist of the thing. Damn, Cotton, don’t you never listen to anything I say?”
    “Sorry, Jack, got some things on my mind right now. Like how to keep Apache Springs from blowin’ away like a tumbleweed in a whirlwind when Bart Havens hits town.”
    “Maybe someone should