Pappy went back to absently stroking his beard. “If he says there was a man with a rifle in the turret, that’s good enough for me. I don’t know how he got away, but he did. And if he said there were two shots, then there were.”
“Even though you didn’t hear them, either,” Bishop said.
“I was a bit busy at the time,” Pappy fired back. “And so were you. The crowd cheerin’ like that. How could we know? The shot could’ve gone wide.”
Bishop looked at Jerry. “Or there wasn’t a second shot at all. Maybe the deputy here just panicked.”
Jerry had been hoping it would not come to this. He had been hoping his word would be enough, but it obviously was not. He decided it was time to lay his cards on the table.
He dug into his shirt pocket, pulled out a slug, and tossed it on Pappy’s desk. “To use one of your phrases, Mr. Bishop, how do you explain that?”
Edison and Pappy pitched forward in their chairs to get a closer look at the lump of lead on the desk.
“Looks like a bullet to me,” Pappy said. “Fifty-caliber to my eyes.”
Edison picked up the leaden bullet head in his fingers and examined it as if it was a gold nugget. He looked at Jerry. “Where’d you get this?”
“I dug it out of the mud in front of the platform,” Jerry told them. “It took a lot of prodding with my bowie to find it, but I did. Just to the left of where all of you were standing.” He looked at Bishop. “The shot went wide when I shot at him.”
Pappy sat back in his chair. “Well, it sure looks like Jerry was tellin’ the truth, just like I said he was.”
Edison said nothing, examining the bullet instead.
Bishop did not bother looking at it. “How convenient. He probably placed it there to cover himself.”
Jerry felt his anger beginning to build and it took everything he had to remain in his chair. “And just how the hell could I have done that?”
Bishop shrugged. “You could have planted it to support your story.”
Jerry would have laughed if it was not so ridiculous. “That’s right, Bishop. We’ve got a whole box of old fifty-caliber slugs just sitting in a sack over at the jailhouse. I tucked it in my pocket and brought it over here just to satisfy you.”
Edison gently placed the slug back on Pappy’s desk. “I think you owe the deputy an apology, Mr. Bishop, and so do I. There’s no way he could’ve planted that. A spent round up on the turret? That’s easy. But to fake this, he would’ve had to grab a Sharps and fire it into the thoroughfare. My men were watching him the whole time, so that leaves only one conclusion. There was someone up there, and Jerry saved our lives.”
Edison extended his hand to Jerry. “I’m sorry for not backin’ you stronger.”
Jerry shook his hand as Bishop fumed. “He could’ve fired it days ago and palmed it, claiming he found it just now.”
“Why would he do that?” Edison said before Jerry could answer. “He had no cause to want any bloodshed today.”
Bishop surprised him by having an answer ready. “He had a run-in with the Hancocks at the station a few days ago. Killed one of them. Probably wants to pin this on them.”
Jerry sprang out of his chair and faced the businessman. “You taking the Hancock clan’s part already, Bishop?”
Bishop took a step toward Jerry, his hands still clasped behind him. “I want that bunch wiped from the streets of Dover Station forever. Every last one of them. But the bad blood between you and that family is no secret. And, according to Chief Edison here, he narrowly saved your life today when he pulled you away from Nathan Rigg at The Ruby.”
“I said I pulled him out of there,” Edison said. “Never said I saved his life.”
“But you did just the same.” Bishop pointed at the slug on Pappy’s desk. “That may very well be the evidence you claim it is, Deputy. It may not be. I don’t know. But I do know we’ve got at least ten people trampled to death and dozens more hurt and dying. I know that word of what happened here today will be in every paper in the territory by this time tomorrow. And, within a week, every paper in the country. That means New York. That means Mr. Rice and Mr. Van Dorn will be very upset, which means I’ll be upset. They may reconsider their investment in this town, which would cause irreparable damage to my career and reputation.”
Jerry finally saw the truth. “You don’t care about the dead and the dying, do you? You only care about yourself.”
“I care about what happens to this town!” Bishop yelled. “I care about the investment my company has made here. I care about my betters calling me home and abandoning this place to the likes of Grant and the Hancocks. And I don’t want that to happen. None of us do.”
He took another step toward Jerry, his hands still behind his back. “So no, Deputy Halstead. I don’t just care about my career. I’ll always be able to find employment elsewhere. But I didn’t come all the way out here from New York City just because I was told to. I came here because I wanted to help build something that lasts. And what happened here today puts all of that in grave danger.”
Pappy eased out from behind his desk and laid a hand on Bishop’s shoulder, breaking the tension in the room. “What happened here today was a tragedy, but not of Jerry’s doin’. Lay the blame at the feet of those behind it. The same people who’ve been tryin’ to undo all that good work you just talked about. James Grant and the Hancock clan. And, while you’re at it, you might want to thank Jerry here for savin’ your life.”
Bishop unclasped his hands from behind him and let them drop at his sides. For the first time since he had walked into the office, Jerry thought Bishop looked exhausted and much older than he really was.
“That’s the problem, Brendan,” Bishop said. “It’s not up to me to lay this at anyone’s feet. I’m not the sheriff or the chief of police or a judge.” He looked at Jerry. “And no, I don’t really think you planted that slug in the dirt, Deputy, but I’m an attorney by training. I don’t think you knew that about me. I have a habit of asking questions, even the most wild, baseless questions, because I need to be ready to answer them. And everything I said here today will be repeated in every saloon and every parlor and around every dining table in town, so we need to be ready to answer that kind of talk when it starts. Because, if we don’t, it’ll take on a life of its own that not even I will be able to stop.”
Bishop let out a long breath. “Now, if you gentlemen will excuse me, I have a telegram I need to send to Mr. Rice about what happened here today, followed by a detailed report that will be carried back to New York on the next train.”
He walked around Jerry and Edison but stopped when he placed his hand on the office door. “I’m not going to apologize for what I said here today, gentlemen, but I’m grateful to Deputy Halstead for probably saving our lives. Now, let’s pray I can find a way to save this town.”
He opened the door and closed it quietly behind him.
The two lawmen sat again as soon as Bishop left the office.
Pappy sat on the corner of his desk. “Damned mess, boyos. The lot of it.”
“I want you protected,” Edison said to Pappy. “I’ll have five of my men guarding you every minute of the day from now on.”
“You’ll do no such thing.” He opened the cigar box on his desk and selected a cigar. He motioned for Edison and Jerry to take one, too, but neither felt much like smoking. “I’m the mayor of this town now, and I can’t run things behind a line of gunmen. I do that, I’m no different than that ninny Grant.”
“Someone tried to kill you today,” Jerry said. “If you don’t want Ed’s men around, then let me watch you.”
“As if I could stop you.” Pappy bit off the end of his cigar and spat it into the cuspidor beside his desk. “But I have a feelin’ you boys’ll be plenty busy with other things for the time bein’. The Hancocks don’t like me bein’ mayor, and they’ll be lookin’ to raise as much hell as they can.”
He thumbed a match alive and brought the flame to his ciga
r. He looked at Jerry as the flame took. “You really think Rigg was the one who tried to shoot me?”
“I’m sure of it.” Jerry punched the arm of his chair. “But I didn’t see his face, so I can’t swear to it in court.”
Pappy waved the match dead and dropped it in the cuspidor as he pushed himself off the desk and walked to the window. “All the more reason why we should keep this out of a courtroom, wouldn’t you say?”
Edison and Jerry traded glances before the chief said, “You mean you want me and my boys to take on the Hancocks?”
Pappy parted the heavy drapes and looked out on the ruin that was Front Street. “No, Stephen. I want you to take them down once and for all.”
Pappy puffed on his cigar as he looked out the window. “Good name, Stephen. Patron saint of horses and coffin makers. Both’ll come in handy with the work that’s before us now. Got a church to him in Ballykilmore back in the old country.”
He glanced back at the lawmen. “Know the best thing to come out of Ballykilmore? The road to Dublin.” He laughed at his own bad joke. “Gets me every time.”
Edison did not laugh. “What you want will mean more men.”
“Hire them.” He took a long puff on his cigar. “Hire as many as you need. Just make sure they’re good and know what they’re hired to do.”
Edison grinned. “Don’t worry. Grant didn’t hire me because I’m pretty. They’ll be killers, every one of them. I can have them here within a week.”
Pappy nodded. “See to it, then.”
But Jerry had shorter goals in mind. “The Hancocks will be coming after you a lot sooner than a week, Pappy. I won’t let that happen.”
Brendan Mackey went back to looking out the window again. “The whole Rebel army tried to kill me and Old Sherman once and look at where it got them. We burned Atlanta down.”
He looked back at Jerry and winked. “Don’t worry, son. I’m not so easy to kill. But we’ll kill them for what they did here today, won’t we, boys?”
CHAPTER 23
Grant placed the coffee cup back in its saucer before he threw it at Rigg. “You missed.”
“Just barely,” the Virginian said. “It won’t happen again.”
Mad Nellie Hancock sat quietly in the corner, slumped in her chair as she sipped a mug of beer.
Grant balled a fist and brought it slowly down on the table. Rigg’s calmness could be infuriating sometimes, but he dared not lose his temper. Not in front of the likes of the Hancock crone.
“You aren’t getting forty percent to miss, Rigg, and you aren’t getting forty percent for ‘barely.’ You’re getting forty percent to succeed. Now Mackey’s guard is up. He’ll have men around him constantly. If you had killed him like you were supposed to, his death would have been lost in the fog of all that happened. We’ll turn him into a martyr if we kill him now. You know what they do to martyrs, Nathan. They build churches to them.”
He made a conscious effort to open his fist. There was a time for anger and this was not it. “I needed that old man dead so I could put my plan in place. Now, the Purification will look too obvious. Too naked.”
“It’s my experience that people are embarrassed by nudity, Mr. Grant. They look at it when they see it, but are quick to look away out of modesty.” Rigg grinned. “At least outside of a whorehouse.”
Grant had finally had enough of Rigg’s smugness. “Everything was supposed to happen in the aftermath of the assassination! How will it look now if I put my plan into action?”
“Just like it would have if Pappy was lying on the mortician’s worktable,” Rigg said. “Nothing needs to stop. If anything, it should go on exactly as you planned. No one will remember when it started or how. They’ll be too taken by what happened to care, and you’ll be too powerful for them to dare question you by then.”
Grant ran his hands over the arms of his chair. Perhaps Rigg was right. Perhaps his plans were not ruined after all. “You really think we can still pull it off like we planned?”
“Like you planned, Mr. Grant. And yes, I do.” He glanced back at Nellie, who was sipping her beer like it was warm milk. “Madam Hancock, are you still ready to proceed?”
She looked up as if awoken from a sleep. “What’d you just say to me?”
“Are your people ready to start?”
“I’ve got my boys all over town, boss man,” Nellie slurred. “One nod from you and I’ll set them to work, so long as you promise none of my places get lost in the goings-on. I’ll need your word on that now.”
“You have it, my good woman.” Rigg casually opened his hands as he looked at Grant. “See? No harm done. At least, not until you give the order.
Grant suddenly began to wonder if this was a good idea. He was placing the fate of his future in a windbag dandy and a drunken crone in charge of an inbred horde of mongrels. But men had forged empires with less.
A feeling of excitement sparked deep in Grant’s belly. Perhaps all was not lost after all.
He pulled out his pocket watch and saw it was half-past three. “Spread the word, both of you. Have them start at six. A good hour, six.” He closed the watch and slid it back into his vest pocket. “Yes, a very good hour indeed. A good hour for the Purification to begin.”
Had he not been so consumed by his own thoughts, Grant would have seen the look of concern on Rigg’s face.
* * *
Despite his best efforts and a full pot of coffee, Jerry Halstead struggled to stay awake.
He had intentionally selected the least comfortable chair in the Mackey General Store to stand guard while the town’s newest mayor slept in the back room.
But the events of the day were finally catching up to him, and he found himself nodding off several times.
A shotgun blast and a bloodcurdling scream were enough to bring him to his feet. They were followed by several more yells and gunshots.
He scrambled behind the counter, grabbed the coach gun he had stashed there, and placed it on the display case. He had taken care to stash several rifles throughout the store in case he and Pappy needed them.
He set his Winchester against the counter beside him and aimed the sawed-off shotgun at the door. The scream and gunshots might be a Hancock distraction designed to bring him outside to investigate, but he was not going anywhere.
He and Pappy had spent the better part of the afternoon nailing all of the other doors in the general store shut, even the loading door in the back. If trouble came, it would come through the front door.
He had no intention of walking into a trap. He had every intention of killing anyone who kicked down the store’s front door.
He thumbed back the hammers of both barrels when he heard someone pounding on the door. “Jerry!” a familiar voice called out. “It’s Steve. I mean Ed. Open up, quick!”
“How do I know it’s really you?” It sounded like the chief, but he had to be sure. “What did I show you today?”
“A slug from Front Street,” the voice called back. “Open up, damn it. There’s trouble. Bad trouble.”
Deciding it really was Edison, he left the coach gun on the counter and grabbed his Winchester as he rushed to the door. He found the police chief outside with five of his men behind him. All of them looked nervous.
“What’s wrong?”
“All hell has broken loose on the north end of town,” Edison told him. “We’ve got a riot on our hands. Fistfights, looting, the works. Everyone’s been drinking since this morning and they’re goin’ wild. A bunch of my men are pinned down in the Campbell Arms and need our help.”
Jerry turned when he heard a noise behind him. Pappy was trudging out of his bedroom at the back of the store in his faded long underwear. “How bad is it?”
“Plenty bad,” Edison told him. “Ten of my men are holed up in the Campbell Arms holding back a crowd, but another group is smashing everything in sight. There’s talk of raising a group to hang Mad Nellie Hancock for what happened today.”
But Jerry
did not believe it. “The Hancocks run the north end of town. No one’s looking to hang that hag. They’re trying to draw us out.”
“Whatever it is,” Edison said, “I’ve got most of my men trapped and only five to try to get them out. I need you, Jerry.”
“And you’ll have him.” Pappy pushed the deputy toward the door. “Go with them, boy.” He grabbed the coach gun from the counter and began hurrying back toward his room. “I’ll be along in a minute.”
Jerry did not like the idea of leaving Pappy alone. “I’ll wait for you.”
“Those boys in the hotel don’t have that much time,” Pappy yelled. “We haven’t a moment to lose. Now move! That’s an order. Don’t worry. I’ll be right behind you.”
Jerry still did not want to leave Pappy alone, but knew the trapped officers were the only hope the town had to keep it from tearing itself apart. “You’re sure?”
“I haven’t needed a nursemaid in sixty years,” Pappy said. “Now get goin’ like I told ya!”
Jerry held off as long as he could, hoping Pappy would be ready, but the shouts and gunfire had erupted into a low thunder echoing through the streets. He knew every second counted.
“Hurry up, then!” he shouted back before joining Edison and his men as they ran up Front Street toward the sounds of chaos.
* * *
Pappy tossed the coach gun on the mess of bedclothes as he pulled up his pants and slid the suspenders over his shoulders. He sat on the edge of the bed, fumbling to pull on his boots. The rush of excitement was pumping hard through his veins. He hated the idea of what was happening, but the old soldier in him still craved the thrill of action that awaited him. Just like the war.
He froze when a voice from inside the store said, “I thought they’d never leave.”
Pappy’s head snapped around and he saw a stranger standing in the doorway of his bedroom. It was not Rigg, but one of the men who had been with him in the hotel lobby in Helena.
The Dark Sunrise Page 18