“Excuses, nothing but excuses!” Nix thundered now. “You’re supposed to keep your ear to the ground. How could you not get wind of something this big?”
“Why would we?” Tilghman said, tired of being bullied. “You want a fortune teller, get yourself another crew. None of us have a crystal ball.”
“Bill’s right,” Madsen chimed in. “We had our hands full with the land rush and claim jumpers. You’re the one that pulled us off the Wild Bunch.”
“That’s not true!” Nix said hotly. “The governor wanted federal marshals assigned to the Strip.”
“Then blame him,” Thomas said with an edge to his voice. “We’re not gonna be your whipping-boys, Mr. Nix. That’s the end of that story.”
Nix stared at them in baffled fury. They were united, obviously unfazed by his harsh manner, and on the verge of telling him to go to hell. What with the newspaper articles and censure from Washington, he could hardly afford to risk losing his top three deputies. He decided to switch tactics.
“Let’s all cool down,” he said, dropping into his chair. “Nothing to be gained in arguing amongst ourselves. You gentlemen have a seat.”
The deputies took chairs ranged before his desk. He massaged his forehead, got a grip on himself. “Tell me this,” he said in a calmer tone. “Where have Doolin and his gang been all this time? Why have they suddenly reappeared … after four months?”
“Wrong question,” Tilghman corrected him. “How could they pull two holdups in three days—over three hundred miles apart?”
“They couldn’t,” Thomas said simply. “Horses don’t have wings.”
Madsen nodded sagely. “Doolin was identified in the Missouri job. So the one in Texas had to be somebody else.”
“Yes and no,” Nix said quickly. “I received a wire this morning from the U.S. marshal in Texas.”
From the clutter on his desk, Nix showed them a two-page telegraph message. The gist of it, he related, was that a posse comprised of Longview citizens and federal marshals had tracked the outlaws to the border of Indian Territory and west along the Red River. There the trail had petered out, lost in the Chickasaw Nation.
“Here’s the corker,” he concluded. “The town deputy in Longview positively identified Will Dalton. Recognized him from those wanted posters we circulated months ago.”
“Holy Christ,” Thomas said softly. “You mean to say Doolin’s operatin’ two gangs now?”
“Sounds odd,” Tilghman observed, shaking his head. “Will Dalton was the runt of the litter, and no wizard. Doolin wouldn’t trust him to pull a job on his own.”
“You betcha not,” Madsen agreed. “Doolin’s the brains of that outfit. He’d never let Dalton branch off.”
Thomas clucked to himself. “Whole thing’s fishy as hell. There were seven men in the Missouri raid and four in Texas. Where’d all these gawddamn desperadoes come from?”
“Oh, I forgot,” Nix broke in, waving the telegram. “The other men in the Longview robbery were identified as well. Asa Knight was killed, and his brother, Tim, got away. The last one is a known friend of theirs, Jim Wallace.”
“Kiss my rusty butt!” Thomas said, astounded. “The Knights and Wallace are wanted men, known throughout the Chickasaw Nation. Wallace has a brother down there—lemme think—Houston Wallace, that’s his name.”
“Down there?” Tilghman repeated with a questioning look. “You mean the Chickasaw Nation?”
“Yeah,” Thomas said. “Near as I recollect, it’s somewheres around Ardmore. Heard he married a Chickasaw woman, turned farmer.”
Nix appeared surprised. “Are you saying he owns land in the Nations?”
“Long as he stays married.”
Thomas briefly expounded on his remark. The Chickasaw Nation, like all the Five Civilized Tribes, was virtually an independent republic. Unlike the western Plains Tribes, the Nations had never accepted annuities or financial assistance from Washington. Thus they had maintained their independence as well as their own courts and legal system. By law, white men were not allowed to own land or property in the Nations except through intermarriage. Their Indian wives, in effect, controlled the purse strings. Divorce could reduce a man to a pauper.
“That raises a legal question,” Nix said when he concluded. “Let’s presume Wallace provides a hideout for his brother and Dalton. That makes him an accomplice to robbery and murder.”
“So?” Thomas replied. “What’s the question?”
“Well, as you’ve said, he’s married to an Indian woman. Does that make him a Chickasaw citizen and immune to federal law? Or do we still have jurisdiction?”
“The courts ruled on that a long time ago. He’s white, and married or not, we’ve got first dibs.”
“Do you know Wallace?” Tilghman asked. “Was he ever on the owlhoot?”
“Not that I heard,” Thomas said. “’Course, it makes sense he’d let his brother hide out there. For all we know, that’s where Dalton’s been holed up the past four months.”
Madsen grunted sourly. “That would explain how he got tied in with the Knight brothers and Jim Wallace.”
“Maybe,” Tilghman said. “But it still doesn’t explain why he pulled a job without Doolin.”
“Neither here nor there,” Nix informed them. “The attorney general wants results, and an end to these damnedable newspaper articles. Right now, Dalton is the only lead we have.”
Thomas raised an eyebrow. “Dalton’s a small-fry compared to Doolin. Are we gonna let Washington politicians tell us how to do our job?”
“Indeed we are,” Nix said sharply. “Not to mention the fact that three men were killed in the Longview robbery. That makes Dalton a prime target.”
“Makes good headlines, too,” Thomas said with a caustic smile. “Assuming we catch him.”
Nix tossed another telegram across the desk. “Forget catching him, gentlemen. Those are your marching orders.”
The deputies scanned the telegram. The message was terse and pointed, an official directive without equivocation. It was, in effect, a death sentence from the United States Attorney General.
I have reached the conclusion that the only good outlaw is a dead one and I order you to employ extraordinary measures in resolving this problem. You are directed to instruct your deputies to bring the
