Rope Burn

by William W. Johnstone; J. A. Johnstone

  “All rise,” Glennon intoned. The spectators got to their feet as the judge shuffled over to the table and put the gavel and Bible on it. He sat down and waved them back into their chairs, including the prisoners.

  After a rap of the gavel, the judge said, “This court is now in session, Judge Horace Bannister presiding. That would be me. Marshal, what have we got here?”

  Glennon had removed his hat. He stood at the end of the front row where the prisoners sat and said, “The following are here to answer to the charges of disturbing the peace and destruction of property, Your Honor.”

  He named the troopers, starting with Sergeant Vince MacDonald, but he didn’t call the names of Ace and Chance Jensen. That omission deepened the frown that was already on Ace’s face.

  “And what about those two at the end?” Judge Bannister asked. “The two who aren’t soldiers.”

  “They claim they’re brothers. Ace and Chance Jensen are the names they gave me. They’re also being charged with disturbing the peace and destruction of property . . .” Glennon paused, clearly for dramatic effect. “And murder.”

  Hearing it spoken that way was like a punch in the gut. Chance shot to his feet and exclaimed, “That’s a lie!”

  Ace couldn’t stay seated, either. He stood up and forced himself to stay calm as he said, “That’s not how it happened, Your Honor.”

  The deputies had already snapped their shotguns to their shoulders and trained the weapons on the Jensen brothers. Bannister glared at Ace and Chance and said, “Sit down! You’ll have a chance to answer to the charges.”

  “But we didn’t—” Chance began.

  “Marshal!” Judge Bannister said. “If these two prisoners don’t comport themselves with the dignity that should be accorded to these proceedings, I want you to have them restrained and gagged!”

  Glennon looked like he would be more than happy to carry out that order. Ace put a hand on his brother’s shoulder and told him quietly, “We’d better take it easy. We’re liable to just make things worse if we argue right now.”

  “But . . . but . . .” Chance sighed. “All right.”

  Muttering, he sank back into his chair. Ace sat down beside him.

  Bannister pointed the gavel at them and said, “I’m warning you two. No more foolishness like that.” He nodded to Glennon. “Proceed, Marshal. I assume since we have no official prosecutor, you’ll be handling that part of the proceedings as well?”

  “That’s right, Your Honor. The charges arise from an altercation in Putnam’s Saloon yesterday evening, an altercation provoked by Ace and Chance Jensen.”

  Chance leaned forward, ready to leap to his feet again and deny that accusation, but Ace caught his eye and gave a tiny shake of his head. Seething, Chance sat back again.

  “A considerable amount of damage was done in that brawl,” Glennon went on, “including broken furniture and more than a dozen broken bottles of whiskey, and that’s why Sergeant MacDonald and the other troopers are charged with disturbing the peace and destruction of property. But the fight also resulted in the death of George Putnam, the owner of the establishment and a leading citizen of Packsaddle. Because the Jensen brothers started the fight, and because the actions of Ace Jensen, in particular, resulted in Mr. Putnam’s death, they’re being charged with murder as well.”

  Judge Bannister nodded solemnly and looked at Ace and Chance. “How do you plead?”

  Ace started to get to his feet, then paused and glanced at Marshal Glennon, who nodded for him to go ahead. Ace straightened and said, “My brother and I plead not guilty, Your Honor.”

  “Which one are you?” Bannister asked.

  “Ace Jensen, sir.”

  “Do you expect me to believe that your mother actually named the two of you Ace and Chance?”

  “Well, uh . . . no, sir. My name is really William, and my brother is Benjamin. But we’ve always gone by the other names. You see, the man who raised us . . . he was a gambler—”

  “Never mind,” Bannister said. “I just wanted your real names to enter into the record. This is a court of law, not a gambling den.” He looked at the soldiers. “What about the rest of you? How do you plead to the charges against you?”

  Sergeant MacDonald stood up as the spokesman for the group and said, “Guilty, Your Honor.” He looked and sounded surly about it but didn’t hesitate. “We’ll pay the fine and the damages.”

  “We’ll get to that, we’ll get to that. First there’s the matter of determining the outcome of the other charges.”

  MacDonald took a step forward and said, “But we pled guilty. Just tell us how much the fine and the damages amount to, and we’ll pay it.”

  An anxious edge in the three-striper’s voice made Ace remember what Honey had said the night before about how the soldiers had seemed to be in a hurry when they first came into the saloon. MacDonald sounded impatient now, and the other troopers looked worried. Ace supposed they were eager to get back to the fort before they got in trouble for not being at their posts. He wasn’t familiar with the forts in this area and didn’t know how far away this one was from Packsaddle.

  “All in due time, Sergeant,” Bannister responded. “Justice will not be rushed.” He nodded to Glennon. “Proceed with your case against William and Benjamin Jensen, Marshal.”

  “Yes, sir. I’d like to call Alice Winslow to testify.”

  A young woman with her hair pulled back from her face in a severe bun stood up and moved forward. With her hair like that, and wearing a plain gray dress, she didn’t look much like the saloon girl called Honey, but Ace knew that’s who she was. She gave him a glance as she went past. He saw sadness in her eyes, and that made his guts tighten.

  He got to his feet again and said, “Your Honor, aren’t defendants supposed to have a lawyer?”

  Bannister smiled, but the expression didn’t make Ace feel any better. “Son, if you can find another lawyer in Packsaddle besides myself, you’re free to engage his services. But I don’t believe you will. In the meantime, although it’s somewhat irregular in most courts, I will allow you to represent your brother and yourself.”

  Ace swallowed. “Uh . . . thank you, Your Honor.”

  When he sat down, Chance leaned over to him and whispered, “We’re in bad trouble, aren’t we?”

  “It’s starting to look like it.”

  “Wish I could say I’m surprised . . . No, it really wouldn’t make any difference if I was, would it?”

  Ace didn’t answer that. He watched as Judge Bannister instructed the witness to place her hand on the Bible and swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help her God.

  “I do,” Alice Winslow said.

  “Just take a seat there, in that chair at the end of the table, my dear.”

  Marshal Glennon said, “Miss Winslow, you work at Putnam’s Saloon, is that right?”

  “Yes, Marshal, you know I do.”

  “And you were there last night, when the fight started between those two strangers and the soldiers from the fort?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Who started the fight?”

  Alice—or Honey—bit her bottom lip for a second, and Ace hoped she would tell the truth. But then she said, “That man there, the one called Chance Jensen. He . . . he attacked Sergeant MacDonald.”

  Chance was on his feet too fast for Ace to stop him. “MacDonald threw the first punch! And all I did was try to get him to stop hurting this girl!”

  “Sit down,” Bannister grated. He looked at Alice. “Was the sergeant hurting you, Miss Winslow?”

  “N-no, he was just . . . playing around, the way he always does.”

  Down the row of chairs, MacDonald leaned forward and smirked at Ace and Chance. His companions, though, still seemed bothered by the fact that they were sitting here in the town hall when clearly they would have preferred to be elsewhere.

  “So Chance Jensen started all this trouble without any good reason, is that right?”


  Alice swallowed and nodded.

  “You’ll have to speak up, Miss Winslow,” the judge prodded. “It’s your testimony that Chance Jensen acted without provocation in causing this altercation?”

  “Y-yes, sir. That’s what happened.”

  Chance whispered to Ace, “She’s too scared to tell the truth.” Ace just nodded.

  “And after that?” Glennon said. “When Private Haygood climbed onto the bar to get away from the fight?”

  Alice just looked down and didn’t say anything. After a couple of seconds, Glennon went on harshly, “Ace Jensen pushed him off, didn’t he? He caused Haygood to fall on George Putnam and break his neck?”

  Alice’s voice was so low Ace could barely hear it. “That . . . that’s right.” She didn’t lift her head, as if she were afraid to let her eyes meet his.

  Glennon looked at Bannister and said, “I reckon that’s about the size of it, Judge.”

  Ace put his hands on his knees and pushed himself to his feet. “You said that I could represent myself and my brother, Your Honor. I’d like to question Miss Winslow.”

  “That is your right,” Bannister said. “Proceed.” When Ace started to step forward, Bannister lifted a hand and added, “From there will suffice.”

  “All right. Miss Winslow . . . Alice . . . are you sure things happened exactly the way you’ve told them?”

  “I . . . I wouldn’t lie in court,” she said.

  “I know you wouldn’t want two innocent men to be convicted of such serious charges, so I’ll ask you again. Is that the way it really happened in the saloon last night—”

  Alice lifted her head and cried, “I told you! I said what happened! I don’t know what else to say!” Then she put her hands over her face as she started to cry.

  “That’s enough,” Bannister said. “The witness is excused.”

  Alice stood up and hurried past Ace and Chance. This time she didn’t as much as glance in their direction. She went all the way out of the town hall and broke into a run as she went through the doors. Ace figured guilt and shame were making her flee—but they weren’t enough to make her tell the truth.

  Judge Bannister looked coldly at Ace and Chance. “Do you have anything else?”

  “Your Honor, my brother and I are being railroaded. Everybody here knows that. I’m sorry about what happened to Mr. Putnam, but it wasn’t our fault. I never laid a hand on the fella who knocked him down—”

  “Do you have any witnesses to prove that?” Bannister snapped.

  “No, sir. We’ve been locked up since it happened—”

  “The legal system operates on the testimony of witnesses. Since you have none to testify on your behalf, I have no choice but to declare this trial concluded and render a verdict.”

  Ace couldn’t hold in the reaction that boiled up inside him. “We’re being railroaded! This wasn’t a proper trial! There wasn’t even a jury—”

  Bannister leaned forward, gripping the gavel tightly, and his voice was cold as ice as he said, “Do you really believe a jury would have made any difference?”

  It wouldn’t have. Ace knew that. Just like he knew that the outcome had always been a foregone conclusion.

  “You there,” Bannister said. “The other one. You stand up, too.”

  Chance rose to his feet. His face was pale with strain under his permanent tan, and Ace imagined he looked the same way. Both of them knew what was coming.

  “William Jensen and Benjamin Jensen, I find you guilty on the charge of murder in the death of George Putnam,” Bannister said, “and I sentence you both to be hanged by the neck until dead.”

  The gavel came down on the table like the crack of doom.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  “No!” Chance took a threatening step toward the table. “We didn’t do it, I tell you!”

  Shotgun hammers cocked ominously as the three deputies pointed their weapons at the Jensen brothers. Marshal Glennon had leaned his shotgun in the corner, but he rested his hand on the butt of his revolver, ready to draw and fire if need be.

  Ace caught hold of Chance’s upper arm. He knew that if Chance rushed the judge, one or more of the deputies would blast him with a double load of buckshot.

  As he held his brother back, Ace said, “Judge, I object. I’m asking for a fair trial in another town.”

  “You committed your crimes here, and you’ve had your trial here,” Bannister said. “And it was fair, according to the laws of the territory. Both of you sit down while these proceedings continue, or else Marshal Glennon and his men will have no choice but to open fire on you.”

  A frightened murmur swept through the spectators. Some of them toward the back of the room stood up and edged toward the entrance. If the deputies cut loose with those Greeners in here, there was no telling where all the buckshot might go.

  Ace wasn’t sure how the proceedings could continue when Bannister had already found them guilty and sentenced them to death, but getting themselves cut down by those shotguns wouldn’t accomplish anything except to put them in an even earlier grave. So he urged Chance back into his chair and then sat down himself.

  “That’s more like it,” Bannister said. “I’m glad to see that you boys are going to be reasonable. Now, as far as the other defendants go—”

  “Just tell us how much we owe, Judge,” Sergeant MacDonald interrupted, drawing an angry glare from Bannister.

  “All right, I will, Sergeant,” the judge snapped. “I rule that fines and damages in the amount of five thousand dollars will be paid to this court.”

  Now it was the turn of MacDonald and the other troopers to leap to their feet and shout in stunned, angry amazement. At Glennon’s barked order, two of the deputies swung their shotguns toward the soldiers while the other man kept his weapon trained on Ace and Chance. Adding to the commotion in the makeshift courtroom, Judge Bannister pounded on the table with his gavel until the troopers finally quieted down.

  MacDonald said, “Judge, you know good and well we can’t pay five grand.”

  “In that case,” Bannister said with a shrug, “I sentence each of you to thirty days in jail. I know you’re capable of doing that.”

  The troopers looked at each other with expressions of sheer desperation on their faces. For some reason, the jail sentence struck terror into their hearts. Ace couldn’t see why it would unless they believed it would also get them in trouble with their superiors at the fort, which seemed entirely possible.

  Ace wasn’t sure why he was even pondering that question at such a time, unless he was trying to distract himself from being sentenced to death just a few minutes earlier. That was almost too much for him to grasp.

  “Court is adjourned,” Bannister announced. “Marshal, escort the prisoners back to jail.”

  “With pleasure,” Glennon said. He raised his voice. “All you people, clear out! I want a clear path for these men when they go out of here.”

  The spectators who were left in the town hall departed rapidly. Once again, the marshal and his men ringed the prisoners so they would be in a crossfire if they tried anything, and then Glennon ordered them to get moving.

  “We can’t just let them take us back to jail,” Chance said in a low, urgent voice. “They’re going to hang us!”

  “I know, but if we try to make a break for it, they’ll gun us down,” Ace argued. “You can tell by looking at Glennon, he’d like nothing better. Maybe if we cooperate, there’ll be a better chance later—”

  “Until they hang us!”

  “Did you see a gallows anywhere in town?”

  Chance frowned but didn’t say anything, which was the same as agreeing that he hadn’t.

  “Well, that means they’ll have to build one,” Ace went on. “That gives us some time. Maybe that girl will change her mind and tell the truth. The way she rushed out of here, it seemed like lying under oath bothered her.”

  “You think that judge will pay any attention to her, even if she does?”

 
; This time it was Ace who didn’t have an answer. He had to admit, it seemed as if Judge Bannister had had his mind made up before he ever entered the courtroom—and not just where the verdict was concerned, but the sentence, as well.

  What it all came down to was that there was very little room for argument with four shotguns. That amounted to eight barrels of buckshot, and even if all the prisoners rushed the lawmen at the same time, it was unlikely more than one or two of them would survive, if that many. They had to decide between slaughter and even the thinnest thread of hope—and hope won out.

  The prisoners shuffled out of the town hall. The townspeople lined the boardwalks again to watch as they walked back down the street to the jail. And as they did, the bitter, sour taste of defeat was strong under Ace Jensen’s tongue.

  * * *

  Back in the same cell, Ace and Chance sagged onto the bunks. They stared into space in front of them, and after a few minutes, Chance asked, “Do you think the marshal will bother feeding us? Or will he just consider that a waste of money and effort?”

  “A lawman’s got to feed his prisoners.”

  Suddenly, the sound of hammering somewhere in town drifted through the barred window. “You think so?” Chance said with a wry smile. “Sounds to me like they’re already getting that gallows built for us. When you have several men working on the job, it doesn’t take long to hammer one of those things together.”

  That was true. In fact, from the sound of it, the townspeople would have the gallows ready before the day was over.

  Oddly enough, across the aisle in the other cells, the troopers were glum enough that anybody looking at them might think that they were facing death sentences.

  After a while, the cell block door opened and the jailer, Turley, came in. He had someone with him, the old woman Ace had noticed earlier as they were being taken from the jail to the town hall for the so-called trial. Turley said, “You fellas got a visitor. Behave yourselves, or you’ll plumb regret it.”

  The woman had a wicker basket with a cloth over it. She said, “I baked biscuits for you boys. Least I can do to make your time here pass a little easier.”