When Lawyers Collide

Roddy watched Notch go and then hurried out into the busy city street. He felt nervous, but excited. Tolan wouldn't be able to push him around any more. He'd be able to run his own crew, and it wouldn't be small time like the Paine Gang. Tolan may have been happy hiding up in the hills, picking off occasional travelers or the local pig farmers, but Roddy Calaister was ready for bigger and better things. Getting rid of Tolan and making 'friends' with the law was just the beginning.

Roddy laughed out loud and then turned his steps toward Smith's Livery Stables. The first act of this little drama would take place there and he didn't intend on being in a bar having a few drinks. He wanted to be there when Tolan was taken down.

Lester sat on an overturned bucket and tapped another wad of tobacco into his pipe. Fred and Astra were securely tied up and all he had to do was sit back and relax. And if he was lucky, the stable girl would return and take him up on his offer. It was to his great surprise then that a group of town guards suddenly came marching into the barn. Roddy grinned from his hiding place near the open doors at the opposite end of the stables. Tolan had always shied away from mixing with the shady arm of Walants law and so it gave Roddy a special satisfaction that he was using Tolan's very fear of judicial double-dealings to put him out of the way. But his grin vanished from his face when he saw the lawyer step from behind the guards. "You are under arrest for acts of banditry and violence against an official of the state," the lawyer intoned gravely. But it wasn't Master Notch doing the intoning. It was that guy that Roddy let escape!

Fred and Astra felt like cheering as Rift ordered the guards to restrain poor old Lester. But their hope of rescue was abruptly cast into doubt when a second group of guards marched into the barn followed by a man dressed almost exactly like Rift. "What is going on here?!" the man demanded. Rift turned toward him and shot the same question right back at him. The guards stared at each other confused and uncertain of what to do next. The two lawyers though stepped up to each other in a very clear and unambiguous face-off.

"Master Notch," the first one challenged contemptuously.

"Master Rift," the second answered threateningly.

1. "I think they know each other," Fred whispered to Astra.

Go Back

View Forward Story Tree
View Back Story Tree