Rough Justice Read Free Page A

want?”
    â€œYou’re in a spot of trouble here.”
    Hubbard choked back a sudden bleat of hysterical laughter. “You think so?” he answered. “Thanks for the tip.”
    â€œI want to help you, if you’ll open up.”
    â€œMister, I’ve had all the surprises I can stand for one night,” Hubbard warned him. “If you’re laying for me, I can promise you we’ll die together.”
    â€œTrust me,” said the voice. “A minute’s all I need.”
    â€œIt’s all you’ve got,” Hubbard replied.
    Half crouching, apelike, sweating through his nightshirt even with the chill breeze from the broken windows trailing him, Hubbard inched forward, cautiously unlatched the door, then flung it open, leveling his shotgun at a solitary stranger’s face.
    The tall man had a rifle in his left hand, while his right was holding up some kind of badge shaped like a shield, with a five-pointed star in its center.
    â€œGideon Ryder,” the man said again. “United States Secret Service.”

2
    I don’t know what that is,” Hubbard said.
    â€œThat’s because it’s a secret,” said Ryder. “You mind?”
    Hubbard checked the back alley for lurkers, then let him come in, latched the door at his back, and stood watching, the long shotgun ready. A woman emerged from a room to the left, alluring in a nightgown, less so when he saw the cleaver in her right hand and the long knife in her left.
    â€œAre you all right, ma’am?” Ryder asked her.
    â€œSo far. Who are you?”
    He introduced himself again and let her see his badge.
    â€œThe Secret Service? What’s that?”
    â€œWe can talk about it while we’re moving. If you have a safe place you can go—”
    â€œAnd leave our home?” Hubbard managed to seem dismayed by that idea. “I won’t be driven off by ruffians.”
    â€œRight now, I’d worry more about the cops,” Ryderreplied. “They’re bound to show up here, sooner or later, and with two men wounded that I’m sure of, there’s a good chance they’ll arrest you.”
    â€œWhat? For defending our lives and our home?” Hubbard’s wife sounded outraged.
    â€œYou’re Yankees, they’re Texans,” Ryder reminded her. “Some of them—most of them, maybe—are friends of the men who attacked you. The police see you disrupting their established way of life and don’t appreciate it. They’ll use every means at hand to stop you.”
    â€œBut—”
    â€œWe don’t have time to argue,” Ryder cut her off. “There’s nothing I can do to help you, if they show up while we’re standing here.”
    â€œWhat can you do to help us, anyway?” asked Hubbard.
    â€œStash you somewhere,” Ryder said. “Then see what I can do about the KRS.”
    â€œYou know about them?”
    â€œSave the questions,” Ryder said, “and pack now. Anything you can’t collect within five minutes, leave it here.”
    He watched them scrambling through the darkened rooms, collecting their possessions, while he stood guard at the street-side window with his Henry, counting off the seconds in his head. They whispered as they worked, the woman tearful, Thomas Hubbard trying to be strong on her account.
    And Ryder knew about the KRS, all right. Knights of the Rising Sun, they called themselves, an outfit that had sprung up in Texas soon after Robert E. Lee surrendered to General Grant at Appomattox Court House, in Virginia. They were regulators of a sort, sharing some traits in common with the vigilance committees that had operated in California, Kansas, and Montana before the war broke out in ’61. The majordifference was that they didn’t target gamblers, whores, and rustlers, but were focused on the northern carpetbaggers and home-grown “scalawags” who thought black