Salomon 3

by David Xavier

  Before long the four men pulled a wagoncage used for transporting animals or men into the courtyard. A prisoner was already clinging to the inside of the bars hollering. A cavalry patrol had left him at the mission over a week ago and had not returned. He spent each night screaming himself to sleep in the dark behind closed doors and kicking what he could reach. Children stayed awake with tears in their eyes. The mission priest wanted him gone. They threw Salomon in with the prisoner and pulled camped. The wagoncage started out with a jerk behind the vigilantes.

  One man sat upon the cage and held the mule reins. Salomon sat in one corner opposite his fellow prisoner with hands tied. They soon began to sweat. The prisoner’s head bounced with the movements of the wagon and he watched Salomon without a blink. The Comanche pony trailed the wagon on a short rope along with one other horse. The driver sang lyrics from end to end, rarely getting a word wrong, and went through a dozen songs before he began repeating.

  “I killed a woman,” the prisoner said. He had bad teeth and showed them all in a smile.

  Salomon remained silent.

  “Strangled her in the street in front of women and children. You speak American?” The prisoner swatted at his neck and checked his hand. “She was a Mexican whore in San Francisco. They are taking me back to hang. I suppose we will see each other swinging past.”

  He smiled and began the rising laughter of a madman and started stomping the wagon floor when the cage bars clanged and the prisoner jumped. One of the riders pointed a quirt.

  “You’ll cut that out or we’ll make a few stops along the way, how’s that sound?” The rider raised the quirt again and the prisoner smiled back. The driver began to sing again. The rider cursed and pushed his horse forward in the column. The prisoner spat through the cage bars and shifted his eyes back to Salomon.

  “I was a horse thief in Monterey. The ranchers there do not like me. They put a thousand dollar reward out for my head, how do you like that? They see me they will put a bullet in my brain. They will not wait for court proceedings. A thousand dollars for taking horses. Not a penny for the woman in San Francisco but they will read it from the top of the list as if it offends them most.”

  “Quiet.”

  The prisoner looked at Salomon through small eyes. He bobbed his head as he spoke. “Who are you? You ever steal horses?”

  “No.”

  “Or kill a woman?”

  “No.”

  “Then you do the quiet.”

  He turned his shoulder from Salomon and stared out the bars at the passing hills without another word.

  At night the prisoner began hollering from the cage again. He was dragged to a distant joshua and tied there but his howls were still heard. Harper stood beside the wagoncage in the dark and struck a match. His face lit momentarily by the end of a cigarillo. He looked out to the noise.

  “He might not make it to San Francisco he keeps this up.”

  He put an arm into the cage and placed the cigarillo in Salomon’s mouth. He then walked into the darkness and the hollering ceased in a yelp shortly thereafter.

  They rode into San Francisco days later to great fanfare. A rider had gone ahead to alert the sheriff and prepare the jail, along with a deputy escort and a cash reward. Word spread about the arrival of the famous bandit and faces soon filled the street. Women stood watching from boardwalks and boys chased behind the wagon. The horse thief rose smiling from his corner of the cage bruised and beaten, squinting through swollen eyes. He cursed the onlookers and dangled apelike from overhead. He jumped about the cage and gripped the bars to rock back and forth in wails. He urinated off the back in laughter and the boys ceased to chase.

  Two rifled deputies stood beside Sheriff Singleton outside the jail walls as the party approached. They unloaded the prisoners and shuffled them onto the jailhouse platform and turned them to face a gathering crowd. The sheriff spoke aloud to the onlookers of Salomon Pico’s crimes, and the horse thief stood aside him with widening eyes and was quiet from then on. Several voices from the gathered crowd shouted for a firing squad then and there. Others joined in shouts and the crowd pressed forward. The sheriff held his arms over the crowd and assured a hurried but lawful justice.

  Running hoofs sounded, and all heads turned to an approaching rider. A cloth hid his face. He whirled a rope. The sheriff stepped forward and drew his pistol as the deputies prodded Salomon shuffling behind jail doors. When the rider was close he shouted and the crowd stepped away as he came through. The horse thief stood alone with hands tied and the rider dropped his loop as he blurred past. The sheriff called out with his pistol raised but not leveled, and the horse thief stood for a moment regarding the rope around him, then was snatched away.

  Bonfires in the street kept the night alight. Between the hours, the crowd hurled flaming bottles against the jail adobe. Bricks shattered the windows and torches rattled off the wrought iron. Shadows crossed the windows. Several times Sheriff Singleton stepped outside with his pistol swinging side to side to drive away a chanting crowd. The sheriff and two armed deputies crouched inside in darkness and dried their palms on their vests. The fires painted their faces in red dusk and cast wrought iron stripes across the floor. Flames burned and withered and the shadows inside crept forward and back. Perry Harper sat on the floor inside against the wall smoking a cigarillo. The famous bandit sat in the cell nearly unseen.

  “We turn you over tonight and you’ll get more than a hanging.”

  Salomon looked up. It was Deputy Wright who spoke to him, squatting with the rifle across his arms like some overgrown vulture. Deputy Moss was sweating over wide eyes and lurching his gun at every outside noise.

  “They want the blood of the murdering bandito,” Wright said. “I cain’t say I would be sorry to see that happen. Your men would see it done up proper, I bet.”

  “They might,” Harper said. He swung his eyes to Singleton. “But they won’t do much of anything before that reward is paid.”

  “It’s on its way,” Singleton said.

  “I deliver you the most wanted man in California and you deliver me a late reward.”

  “You’ll get every penny. You are not so much a vigilante as you are a bounty hunter.”

  “It would be foolish to not collect what’s offered.” He drew on his cigarillo and turned away. “Pretty exciting for your first day on the job?”

  Deputy Moss broke his attention and looked over. He appeared young. He rearranged his grip on his rifle and swallowed. Perry Harper leaned forward with his arms hanging over his knees.

  “You did not count on a captive such as this in your first twenty-four hours, did you?”

  “I have been a deputy here for over two years.”

  Harper looked to the sheriff. Singleton was lighting a cigar. He nodded and shook out a match. “Yeah, I was the one deputized him.”

  “Then what are you so jumpy for?” he asked Moss.

  “Have you looked outside yet or what?”

  He held his cigarillo in his fingertips in front of him and rolled it slightly. “I wonder what I would be more afraid of: the bloodthirsty crowd getting in or the bloodstained bandit getting out.”

  Moss looked back at the jail cell. “He don’t look like no murderer to me.”

  A torch came in spinning as it would in the hands of a carnivalman and chased the shadows to the corners. It rolled at the sheriff’s feet. Before it settled he stooped and ran it roaring to the door and flung it to whistle. He cursed the crowd but before he closed the door he saw a rider coming on at a run. The rider wore a deputy’s star. The crowd drew back and the rider dismounted on the run and crossed the platform in a stoop with a canvas sack clutched. A few confused shouts followed him, but Singleton closed the door behind him, shutting the room to darkness and dim faces. The deputy knelt in the middle of the room, catching his breath with the canvas sack at his ankles.

  “Is that my reward?” Harper said.

  The deputy rider set his hat on the floor. “I
can’t see a damn one of you in here.”

  “Is that my reward?”

  “Sixteen thousand,” the deputy said. “I’ve never been so nervous riding.”

  He pulled a tied bundle from the bag, hefted it once and tossed it. The bounty hunter stuck his cigarillo in his lips and caught it.

  “Wait now,” the sheriff said. He walked bent over and knelt alongside the deputy rider. He pulled opened another tied bundle and counted out a stack of bills, tilting the money to catch the flamelight, and wrapped the bundle again. He tossed the bag to the bounty hunter and stuffed the separated bills into his shirt pocket. “A thousand of that was for Horsethief Joney.”

  “I delivered him too,” Harper said.

  “How many men do you see sittin in that cell right now?”

  Perry Harper stood with a grip on the bag’s neck. “He was in your custody.”

  “Jail cell is my custody.”

  Harper put his hat on and crossed the room and leaned on the bars. He blew smoke and dropped the cigarillo and stepped it out.

  “If they do not hang you,” he spoke to the shadows, “and you ride California again. Remember I am the man who cut you down from the tree.”

  “He’ll hang,” Singleton said. He bit the cigar at the corner of his mouth. “By us or them, he’ll hang.”

  Harper tipped his hat and walked toward the door. The lawmen watched him cross. He cracked the door and looked out. He put his hands in the bag and cradled the cash bundles. He flung the empty canvas to the sheriff, then opened the door and stepped out with his arms held wide, laughing on the platform to the crowd like a hero, stacks of bills in each hand. The vigilantes in the crowd cheered and came forth. They ushered their leader with guns drawn through the parting crowd and disappeared. Moments later pounding hoofs faded in the darkness behind the crowd noise to the edge of the street and beyond.

  Sheriff Singleton crossed the room and pulled the door shut. He leaned against the back of the door and his cigar glowed red. Deputy Wright crept away from a window. He sat upon a crate and removed his hat and ran a hand through his hair. “Seems like we’re the prisoners.” He looked up. “Now how do you like that?”

  Moss glanced at the windows. He dabbed the back of a wrist to his nose.

  “I said how do you like that?”

  “I don’t like it one bit.”

  “That bounty hunter gets his name in the paper, gets the credit, and gets the money. How do you like that?”

  “I said I did not.”

  Deputy Wright looked around. “What time is it?”

  Singleton pulled a watch and held it close to his face. He turned his body to a window and held the watch close again. “Nine.”

  “What? Did you say nine?”

  “It’s slow by a few minutes.”

  Wright dropped his head into his hands and rubbed through his hair again.

  Footsteps sounded on the floorboards and all faces searched the room. Their eyes collectively united on the jail cell bars. The lawmen squared up at what they saw and Deputy Moss jerked and moved away. Salomon was crouched at the bars with flamelight on his face and his eyes like black glass.

  “Jesus hell.”

  “How long have you been sheriff here?”

  “What?”

  “I met the sheriff of San Francisco years ago.”

  “Sit back down.” The sheriff took a moment before answering. “Three years in October,” he said. “The last sheriff was shot dead outside that door a month after he stood oath. Sheriff before that rode out one night and didn’t come back, left his gun looped on the wall here, and before that the sheriff turned in his star outright. Lost the nerve.”

  “That one,” Salomon said. “Lost the nerve. What was his name?”

  Singleton’s eyes crawled the floor for a moment. He brought his head up. “Taylor. Something Taylor.”

  “Something Taylor,” Salomon repeated.

  A shout came in and they all startled. A face with clenched teeth floated at the window, a pair of hands on the wrought iron. Wright pointed his rifle and the face went running.

  “They’ll get what they want,” Singleton said, looking at the ceiling. He held still a moment, then looked to Salomon. “Hell, we let you out that door now and the crowd’ll probably go running anyway.”

  “I doubt that,” Wright said, sitting in shadow. He eased toward the bars. “What does it feel like? To know you’re going to die in the morning.”

  Salomon had his head bowed now. He did not speak.

  “You kill men in cold blood, and you’ll get the punishment sooner than later.” Wright moved closer. “Is your life passing before your eyes? Regrets filling your head.”

  Singleton did not interfere, he and the others put their eyes to the ceiling, listening. Wright continued.

  “You go on and cower inside.” The deputy leaned against the cell. “Like a baby. You ain’t so dangerous in a cage, you goddamn Mexican dog.”

  Salomon seized the bars in a guttural bark. Deputy Wright fell back and fumbled his rifle. He scrambled to a knee.

  “Back away, Wright,” Singleton said. “They’re on the roof.”

  Wright clanged his barrel against the bars and spat. He moved away muttering. Moss clutched his rifle as his eyes scanned across the ceiling. “What are they doing?”

  A woman screamed in the street. Several more screamed. The sheriff crossed the crimson darkness and clutched the windowframe. The cigar dropped from his mouth. The horsethief’s legs rotated slowly above the platform just outside the wrought iron. They had hung his body from a makeshift hangman’s limb jutting from the rooftop.

  “God almighty.”

  “They’re impatient,” Wright said. “I’ll be surprised if they don’t shoot you off the platform as soon as we step out in the morning.”

  The jail door opened at first light and the sheriff stepped out squinting, his coat pushed aside and his pistol glinting with sunrise. The door stood open behind him. People who sat against storefronts, leaned against hitching posts or slept in the dust of the street stirred. A few came forward. One man approached with his fist in the air and he opened his mouth, but the sheriff pulled his pistol and sent him backpedaling before any words came out.

  “Anybody so much as shouts a word this morning I’m going to shoot,” Singleton said. “We’re taking Salomon Pico, the gold field bandit, to the courthouse to stand in front of a judge and receive his sentence. Any man who doesn’t like the way that sounds is invited to step forward with his grievances now.”

  He cocked his pistol there and it cracked the cool air. No man moved. They slowly rose from their resting spots. Some leaned and spat. Salomon Pico stepped out shackled at hand and foot, his platform steps the only sounds among the clearing of throats and awakening groans. He blinked about at the sky. Deputy Wright prodded and sent him shuffling forward.

  People filled the courthouse to capacity and more, standing at open windows and peering at the prisoner standing with head bowed at the center of the room in the slanting windowlight. All ears were on one voice that carried out and echoed against the walls as the speaker paced before the bandit. He finished his damning speech with a pointed finger and a stare beneath heavy brows, and the judge’s gavel clacked like a sledgehammer on a railroad spike.

  The march to the gallows was immediate. There was no scheduling or overnight wait. They took him staggering by clinking chain with a crowd following in hollers and dust to the hangman’s stage. People shouted from doorways and children peeled their eyes free from their mother’s hands to catch a glimpse of the famous bandit.

  They forced him up the stairs with the sheriff leading the way with the chain trailing from one hand, and Salomon stumbled up the stairs with his cuffed hands held forth like a beggar. They jabbed him by riflebarrel into place, where the doors would open and the dirt was visible far below through the cracks. Deputy Wright approached with a key, the planks creaking beneath him. The wind whipped at their clothing. He turned the
key and the cuffs fell open. He pulled the chain free with a noisy toss and recuffed Salomon Pico behind the back. He reached up and brought the waving noose overhead. From here Salomon could see the building tops and the bay water far out, and the audience below as the knot tightened in place with a yank, their upheld faces and anxious eyes. The ground shook, the stage swayed. Deputy Moss came forward with a black hood.

  “Don’t,” Singleton called out, pointing. Moss held still. “Let them see.”

  The crowd cheered with hoarse screams and shaking fists. Moss retreated and stood by the hatch lever. Singleton held his gold pocketwatch in front of him. He tucked it away and raised a hand ready to drop. Moss swallowed hard and Wright dragged his trigger hand down his shirtfront and regripped his rifle. Mothers pulled their children from the mob. They broke free and fought back into the throng. The stage rattled beneath them and few heads in the crowd blinked about and turned one by one to the approaching rumble from the end of the street.

  There was a shout to halt. The crowd turned to it. A few perverse faces remained on Salomon, unblinking. The sheriff still held his hand high. A man in a long coat and ruffled shirt, a straw boater hat askew, emerged horseback in a din of stomped hoofs and dust, an entourage of uniformed soldiers close behind. The sheriff held his hand steady. Moss looked on with wide eyes. The mounted soldiers pulled their rifles as they approached. The man in the straw hat reined up and pointed, his face streaked with sweat and grit, his eyes wide.

  “You hang that man and a second war starts here today, I swear to you now.”

  No man moved. Salomon turned toward the voice and grinned against the rope. The man dismounted and shoved his way through the silent crowd. He climbed the stairs and the sheriff stepped aside. There was a flash of a blade and the end of rope fell to dangle from Salomon’s neck. The generalissimo stood before Salomon.