Regulator, chapter 14
Charlie infiltrates the gang
Frank A. Spring is back with the latest chapter of his Pinkerton caper, Regulator. In chapter 14, Charlie infiltrates the gang.
by Frank A. Spring
Roann’s Meat & Grocery was only half a lie. Whatever their father had wanted, the Roann brothers knew their talents and their talents lay in killing and cutting, a practice they mostly restricted to animals, and three of them were at that work in their primary butchery and storefront in Pawnee, Oklahoma when the stranger blew in. The Roanns all had dark hair that they wore long with their beards, and were uncommonly large and powerful, all of which made them exceedingly trying to anyone trying to either fight them or tell them apart.
The largest, George, was hoisting a pig carcass onto a display hook using main strength while Calvin chopped ribs and Dal idly sharpened a knife long enough to be a cutlass when their youngest brother, Bee, stumbled in through the backdoor. The brothers had recently expanded their endeavors to smoking the meat they had killed and cut, and Bee was carrying a huge tray of still-smoking pork to set on the counter.
“Smells right,” said Calvin.
“We get any mutton going?” said Dal.
“No sheep for sale as of late,” said Bee.
“That don’t mean we don’t get any, dumbass,” said Dal.
Bee opened his mouth to simultaneously retort and probably earn an asskicking but was interrupted when a dusty stranger with stringy hair and beard burst through the front door as if fleeing from a judgment.
“You the Roanns?” gasped the stranger.
“What’s it say on the sign?” said Dal, entirely forgetting Bee.
The stranger looked around pleadingly for a moment, then settled on Dal.
“I need you to-“
“No,” said Dal.
“But you haven’t heard-“
“Don’t care.”
“Shit, you don’t even know who I am -“
“That’s why,” said Dal.
The stranger groaned. “I’m a friend of Violet’s.”
“Wonder what Davy’d have to say about that,” said Bee.
Dal shushed him with a look, but the stranger seized on it.
“That’s just it! I’m a friend of Davy’s, too! And Salt Lick!”
The Roanns laughed. “Salt Lick don’t have friends,” said Dal.
“They ain’t here, are they?” asked the stranger.
Dal shook his head. The other Roanns resumed their business.
“Shit,” said the stranger. “I was supposed to meet them in Clayton, New Mexico. Was going to help with…what they do, you know?” The Roanns looked noncommittal. “But they wasn’t there, so I come here, which they said was the fallback, except I got into it with this marshal -“
“Marshal?” Dal’s voice was sharp. All four Roanns had stopped what they were doing again.
“I think he’s after them, too,” the stranger said. “He crossed state lines. He was in Clayton, and now he’s here.” He had the Roanns’ full and undivided attention now. “Caught up with me not far from town. We had a tussle, him and I, and I set his horse off running and gave him the slip, but he ain’t far behind me and I need help.”
Dal considered him and pronounced judgment. “The marshal ain’t no worry of ours.”
“But I’m Violet’s friend-“
“Violet makes new friends easy. She’ll be fine.”
The other three Roann brothers exchanged significant looks, and by moral force compelled Calvin to be their speaker.
“What did you say your name was?” Calvin spoke up to the stranger.
“Charlie,” said Charlie. “Charlie Johnson, from -”
“Now, Dal,” said Calvin, riding straight over Charlie’s origins, “say we turn this Charlie Johnson over to the marshal and he really is a friend of Violet’s? Well then we’d be jammed up not just with Violet but with Davy O’Connell.”
“Fuck Davy O’Connell,” said Dal.
“Sure about that, now?” said George in his deep rumble.
“And maybe Salt Lick, too,” said Calvin. “And the rest.”
“Yeah, well,” Dal marshaled his arguments, reviewed them, and found them wanting. “Alright, fine, shit, stick him in the basement until we can sort this out.
“And go find Billy,” Dal ordered Bee. “Let him deal with this shit.”
George was once again hoisting meat, Calvin once again slicing it, and Dal once again sharpening a cleaver when the door opened to admit a stranger, this one dressed in a dark and dusty suit, his marshal’s badge prominent on his waistcoat, his gunbelt clinking.
“Afternoon,” said Dal, looking up. “What can we do you for …” peering at his badge “…marshal?”
“I’m looking for somebody.”
“Ain’t we all?”
Efrain Guerra stepped forward as if to wipe the smirk off Dal’s face. “About yay tall, scraggly-ass hair, beard, goes by Charlie, usually Johnson but might give another name.”
“What do you want him for?” asked Dal.
“Acting the fool to a sworn agent of the United States Government.”
“Sounds like a real bad man.”
“He’s in the trouble of one.”
“There a bounty?” asked Dal casually. The other brothers exchanged a quizzical look.
“There is not,” Guerra replied.
Dal seemed disappointed. “Then how bad could he be?”
“He’d have come here, I think,” said the marshal.
“Why,” said Roann, “is he hungry?’
Guerra’s eyes narrowed and the situation seemed on the point of deteriorating when the door swung open again and Billy Roann, the oldest and most recognizable Roann - because he had grey in his beard - sauntered in, a shotgun casually resting on his shoulder. Bee slipped in behind him.
“Howdy…” Billy said, leaning in to stare at Guerra’s chest. “…marshal."
Guerra slowly sidled back toward the door, trying to keep all the Roanns in his view. “What are you hunting?” he said.
“Pheasant,” said Billy.
“Don’t seem to have had much luck.”
“It’s early yet. Never know what you might kill.”
“The marshal,” Dal interrupted, “came in here telling us how he was looking for a scraggly-haired villain on the run from charges as can’t be specified, least not to the likes of us.”
“Is that right?” asked Billy. “And have you seen this desperado?”
“We was just allowing as how we had not.”
Billy casually opened the action of his shotgun. “Well then,” he said, looking pleasantly surprised to find the weapon loaded, “unless he wants a ham, I guess the marshal will be on his way” and snapped the gun shut. Guerra’s lip twitched and for a moment more than one Roann brother thought they’d finally bought it, but the marshal’s hand drifted away from his gunbelt and he gave them a tight smile.
“Gentlemen,” he said, “thank you for your time.”
Subscribe to The Experiment to keep up with future chapters of Regulator. Check out Frank Spring’s previous contributions to The Experiment which include “Neither Gone Nor Forgotten,” “Oh, DaveBro,” and “In Praise of Gold Leaf.” For legal reasons, I want to make clear that Frank Spring owns the rights to Regulator, free and clear. Follow him on Twitter at @frankspring.
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