The colorful bouquet of flowers she held told him the reason why Judge Forester had sent word for him to hurry.
Katherine’s smile confirmed it. “Glad you finally decided to come to your own wedding, Marshal.”
* * *
The rest of the ceremony was a blur to Aaron. Katherine had arranged everything with Judge Forester a few days beforehand, asking that the wedding take place immediately after the trial.
“I knew a new life would be starting for us now no matter what the verdict,” Katherine said to him as the wedding party took their places in the now-vacant courtroom. “What better way to sweep the past clean than with a wedding?”
Mackey felt himself blushing. He was not used to this kind of attention. “But I didn’t get you a wedding ring.”
“I’ve already got one.” She took off her old wedding ring and handed it to him. “This time, it’ll be from you and like a whole new ring again. Your father is giving you his. He’s also been kind enough to offer to give me away.”
Mackey handed Katherine’s ring to Billy. “Keep an eye on that until the time comes.”
“I did the last time, didn’t I?” Billy reminded him.
Mackey had thought less and less about his marriage to Mary in the years since she had left. He had forgotten almost every detail about their wedding day, even that Billy had been his best man then, too. “Let’s hope the second time’s a charm.”
“It is.” Billy took Katherine’s gloved hand and kissed it. “It really is.”
Mackey had the chance to take a better look at his father and the colorful sash he was wearing. “Why’s Pappy in that getup? He wasn’t wearing a sash and a top hat at the trial.” He noticed another detail troubled him even further. “And why the hell is he wearing gloves? He doesn’t even wear gloves when he’s unloading freight.”
Katherine suppressed a smile and looked away from her future husband.
Mackey asked Billy, “What’s going on?”
Billy replied with a wince.
“Is someone going to tell me,” Mackey asked, “or just stand there making funny faces all day?”
“A boy from the telegraph office found him right after the trial,” Billy said. “Mr. Bishop of the Dover Station Company pushed for the town to hold an election for mayor today. Looks like they elected Pappy as their new mayor.”
Katherine giggled.
Now Mackey knew why Billy was wincing. “They finally did it.” He closed his eyes. “He’ll be worse to live with than ever after this.”
“At least you’ll know Dover Station will be in good hands.” Katherine took her fiancé’s hands. “All the more reason to stay right here in Helena, isn’t it?”
“Music to my ears,” Judge Forester said, interrupting the couple. He held up a key and an envelope to Aaron and Katherine. “I almost forgot. An early wedding present from Mr. Rice of New York.”
Mackey took the envelope and key from the judge. “What is it?”
“The deed to the Hotel Helena. Says he was so impressed with what Katherine had done with the Campbell Arms in Dover that he knew she could do wonders here with her own hotel. I know she’ll turn that tired old place into a palace, starting with the kitchen.”
Katherine giggled again as she brought her hands to her face, barely able to control herself. Mackey had never seen her so happy.
Joshua stepped forward and took the envelope and key from him. “I’ll keep them safe for you until after the ceremony, Aaron. You look like you might drop them.”
Judge Forester cleared his throat. “Now, let’s hurry up with these proceedings so I can swear your daddy in as mayor of Dover Station. I’m not sure if it’s legal or not, but, by God, it’ll certainly be fun!”
Mackey found himself being jostled into place by Katherine and Pappy and Billy. He was not accustomed to being flustered or rushed but realized he did not mind the bother.
Only young Sandborne stood back on the fringe, but Mackey beckoned him to stand next to Billy before the judge. “You’re part of this family now, Joshua, whether you like it or not.”
Josh seemed to like it just fine, given by how quickly he stood next to Billy.
Satisfied that everyone was in place, Judge Forester cleared his throat and began the proceedings.
“Dearly, beloved, we are gathered here today to witness the joining of Aaron Mackey and Katherine Campbell in holy matrimony.”
The ceremony went on like that for several more minutes. Words being said by the judge and Aaron and Katherine. Vows repeated and rings exchanged and none of it seemed real to Mackey until he heard the judge say, “I now pronounce you Mr. and Mrs. Aaron Mackey. You may now kiss the bride!”
And Mackey did kiss her, and as she kissed him back with what he knew was all of her heart, he realized the great whale had swum away beyond his notice or care.
CHAPTER 15
Although Rhoades told him the suite of rooms he had acquired for him at The Frontier Palace were much nicer than his single room at the Hotel Helena, James Grant did not care.
“It’s the principle of the thing,” he said as he tried to rub feeling back into his wrists. He had been released from jail several hours before, but the feeling of the shackles was still there. He imagined it would be a long time before he forgot how they felt, if ever. “I’m a free man, J.D. I should be able to stay where I please.”
“You may be free,” the attorney allowed, “but you’re a convicted felon in the eyes of the law, so when the territorial marshal tells you to do something, I advise you to do it. Changing rooms is a small price to pay, James. You won. I thought you’d be happy.”
Grant glared at him. “How can I be happy with Al Brenner rotting away in a cell for the next five years? The Hancocks will be furious I let him get locked up.”
“Ten years,” Rigg added from the chair in the corner of the suite. “Old Forester tacked on an extra five for what he did in his courtroom. That stupid bastard will probably rack up the full twenty-five years by this time next week. I doubt his kin will shed a tear for him, especially after we get you back to Dover Station.”
“What?” Rhoades exclaimed. “You can’t go back there, James. The judge told you as much.”
“He said I can’t sit on a board or work for any large companies,” Grant told him. “He didn’t say I couldn’t start my own company.”
“Start it with what?” Rhoades asked. “That fifteen-thousand-dollar ruling pretty much cleaned you out.” The attorney sat up a bit straighter. “And there are my fees to consider.”
“I’ve considered them,” Grant said. “Yours and Rigg’s, too. You’ll get your money, and the judge will get his fine.” Grant smiled. “That old drunk was right, you know. I stole a lot more than fifteen thousand from Silas Van Dorn while I was running things. More than he or anyone else knows.”
“I don’t want to know,” Rhoades said. “But as your attorney, I strongly advise you to stay away from Dover Station. Mr. Rice has sent out a replacement for Silas Van Dorn. Paul Bishop. I’ve heard a lot about him. He’s not sickly and he’s not a fool, James. You won’t be able to control him like you controlled Van Dorn. He’s a Quaker, in fact, and doesn’t drink or gamble. The man doesn’t even curse. You won’t be able to corrupt him.”
Grant absently moved his hands over his red brocade vest. It was good to feel such finery again. “There’s more than one way to corrupt a man, J.D. If you can’t do it by being next to him, then you take the ground out from under him.” He looked at his attorney. “Believe me, I know. And I know just how to do it, too.”
Rhoades stood up. “I believe every man is entitled to a defense before the law, but I won’t help you break it, and I won’t sit idly by while you put yourself in jeopardy. If you won’t follow my counsel, then you have no further use for my services. I believe our association has come to an end. I’d like my payment now before I leave.”
“I’d give him his money, Mr. Grant,” Rigg said. “You don’t want him coming a
fter you in court for it.”
“It’s your money too, Nathan. Don’t forget that.”
Rigg examined the crease in his pants leg. “Well, if it’s all the same to you, J.D., I think I’m going to hang around for a while. See if Mr. Grant has any use for me in his future plans.” He looked over at Grant. “That is, if you’ll have me, sir.”
Grant smiled. He had expected the mercenary to stay with him, knowing a wise bet when he saw one. He was glad his time in Mackey’s jail had not dulled his instincts. “You’re welcome if you have a mind to stay, Mr. Rigg.”
The retired colonel looked at the attorney. “Guess you’re on your own from here, J.D. I’ve got myself another partner.”
“I can’t say I’m surprised,” Rhoades said, “or particularly disappointed. Now, about my fee?”
“I have your bill,” Grant told him. “As soon as I get back to Dover, I’ll have my bank send the money to your offices in Chicago. It’ll be waiting for you by the time you get there.”
“I certainly hope so.” Rhoades picked up his leather bag and walked to the door. “I’d wish you luck, Mr. Grant, but I don’t think it’ll do you much good. Going up against the likes of Aaron Mackey is no one’s idea of a successful venture.”
“I went up against him,” Rigg said. “And I’m still here to tell the tale.”
“For now,” Rhoades said. “But I got to know him fairly well when I represented him in his court-martial. What the Campbell widow told you about him on the street is true. You won because you were his superior officer. There wasn’t much he could do to stop you in a military courtroom. But you’re not in the army anymore, Nathan, and Mackey doesn’t answer to you. He answers to Judge Forester and, more than that, to himself. If you cross him, I don’t hold out much hope for your chances.”
Grant watched how Rigg would handle the attorney’s rebuke. He half expected him to shoot him where he stood.
But he just returned to examining the crease in his pant leg. “I’ve always known I’ll die in my bed, J.D. I think I even saw it once on a particularly warm day on my family’s plantation in Virginia. I like to think of it as some kind of prophecy. Nothing Aaron Mackey can do will change that.”
“For your sake, I hope not,” Rhoades allowed, “but like I said, I don’t hold out much hope for your chances.” He looked at Grant. “Either of you. Good luck to you. You’re going to need it.”
He walked out of the suite, leaving Grant and Rigg alone.
Grant watched the door long after Rhoades had left. “That man gives Mackey too much credit.”
“And you don’t give Mackey enough,” Rigg quickly said.
“Don’t tell me you’re afraid of him, too.” Grant was beginning to have second doubts about his new employee. “He’s not God, Nathan, and a good part of his current celebrity came from me. I’m the one who cooked up that Savior of Dover Station business, not The Dover Station Record. Figured building him up would be good for my investments, and I was right, too. But I know the man behind the legend I created. He’s still a two-bit hick from the middle of nowhere. He might be some kind of war hero, but he’s still just a man, and any man can be killed.”
“That’s where you’re wrong, Mr. Grant.” Rigg uncrossed his legs and picked up his chair as he carried it over to be closer to his new employer. “He might be just a man and any man can be killed, but he’s no hick. I sent him up against the worst raider Arizona had seen in years with a ragtag force of convicts and every ne’er-do-well in the stockade. I made sure he was undermanned and outgunned. Even gave him a crooked scout to help balance the odds against him. He not only returned alive, he returned a hero.”
“I’ve heard all about that story,” Grant said, “and it never impressed me. I’m no sand savage.”
“No, you’re not.” Rigg set the chair down next to Grant and took a seat. “So when they elevated Mackey to captain against my wishes, I sent him after the scout who betrayed him. Just him and Sergeant Sunday. I figured two men would be no match for a Comanche with a good year-anda-half head start on him. It took him a year before he returned back to the fort, and when he did, he had that scout in tow. When I ordered some of my officers to kill the scout before he talked, he stepped in and stopped it single-handedly.”
He leaned forward, and Grant found him uncomfortably close, but refused to move.
“A man like Mackey,” Rigg went on, “doesn’t stop. He doesn’t quit. He doesn’t get discouraged, and he doesn’t go away. You have to make a man like that go away and the only way you can do that is by breaking him. You don’t break him with bullets or violence. You break him by cracking his very soul. And if you’re willing to do that, then you and I are going to get along just fine, because I’m the man to do it.”
He held out his hand. “And my price is a sixty-forty split, Mr. Grant. A sixty-forty split of everything, and, together, we end Aaron Mackey once and for all.”
Grant looked at the hand before him. Was this the hand that would finally rid him of Aaron Mackey once and for all time? “That’s an awfully steep price to pay to get rid of one man.”
“Don’t think of Mackey as one man,” Rigg said. “Think of him as the only man who can bring you down, because he’ll never stop trying until he does. You know I’m right, too. Hell, I’ll even throw in that colored deputy of his for no extra charge.” His hand remained steady. “What do you say?”
Grant did not like the idea of cutting in a practical stranger on so much of the empire he planned to rebuild. An empire that would dwarf anything Frazer Rice or Silas Van Dorn had dared to dream. An empire he intended on building as soon as possible.
But he had no doubt he could find a use for Rigg and his men. If anything, they could be useful in bringing the Hancock family to heel. After that, he could always have an accident, just like Walter Underhill.
He shook Rigg’s hand. “Why do I have a feeling I’ve just made a deal with the Devil himself?”
The colonel laughed as he pumped Grant’s hand with enthusiasm. “Oh, Mr. Grant, with your money and my men, we’ll do things the old Devil himself would shy away from.”
James Grant liked the sound of that. He liked the sound of that very much.
CHAPTER 16
A week later, Jerry Halstead was sitting on a bench, sharpening his bowie knife on a whetstone when Chief Edison and three of his men arrived at the station.
“Morning, Ed,” Jerry said without looking up from his knife. He had taken to calling the man Ed, even though he knew that was not his first name. “Looks like rain’s coming.”
“Rain’s not the only thing coming.” Edison sat on the other end of the same bench. “I suppose you and me are here for the same reason.”
Jerry spat on the stone and moved his blade across it. “Guess that would depend on what your reason is.”
“Mayor Mackey is due in on the eight o’clock train from Helena,” the chief said. “We’re here to escort him over to the Municipal Building to show him his new office.”
“That’s a coincidence, Ed, because I’m here to do the very same thing.”
Jerry held up his knife so it caught the dull morning light. The knife was the last present his father had ever given him. He had given it to him on the very day he had been shipped off to missionary school in Texas. It was in better condition now than it had been the day he had taken it from the box it had come in. It had served him well in the years since, and he took pride in keeping it in fine condition.
“Heard Grant is back in town,” Edison said, “though I haven’t seen him myself. They say he’s holed up in an upstairs bedroom at The Ruby, though no one has seen him. No one who’ll admit it anyway.” The chief shrugged. “Could be just a rumor, I guess.”
“I heard that one myself,” Jerry said. “It’s one of the reasons why I came down here this morning. Figured you boys might not mind having another gun hand on your side.”
“Couldn’t hurt,” Edison allowed, “especially after hearing he’s got a
new man with him. Nathan Rigg. Heard he was a colonel in the cavalry, but he’s something of a mercenary now. Now him I’ve laid eyes on. He’s a dandy, all right, but looks like he knows how to handle himself.”
Jerry had seen Rigg standing in front of The Ruby saloon on Lee Street a few days before, though he had not known his name. To Jerry, Rigg had the look of a man who had put an awful lot of work into looking dangerous. As to whether or not he was as dangerous as he looked would be a matter to be decided at a later date.
Perhaps today, here at the station. Yes, Jerry decided, that would be a fine way for them to make each other’s acquaintance.
The police chief swallowed as he looked at the big knife Jerry was admiring. “My name’s not Ed, you know. It’s Steve.”
Satisfied that the blade was sharp enough, Jerry leaned forward and tucked the knife into the sheaf on the back of his belt. “I know, but you look more like an Ed to me, so I’ll go on calling you Ed, if you don’t mind.”
Something in the chief’s face told Jerry that he did, in fact, mind, but not enough to make a big deal about it. At least yet. “I suppose I’ve been called worse. You’re a mighty tough man to get to know, Halstead.”
“I’ve been told that a time or two,” Jerry admitted. “I’ve been called distant and even aloof depending on the company I keep. I had to look that one up the first time someone pulled that word on me. Aloof. It’s a good word. Wish I could use it more in my kind of work, but so far, I haven’t found a way. I get called ‘uppity’ a lot, too. That’s usually by folks who take me for a half-breed.”
He made a point of looking at the chief. “What about you, Ed? You think I’m uppity?”
“I know you’re not a breed,” Edison admitted. “Always saw Mexicans as white as far as I’m concerned, but I’m not concerned much when people form their opinions. But there’s no denying you’re definitely a strange one. In the short time you’ve been here, you drink alone, eat alone, and haven’t made any friends, at least none that I can see.”
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