The Dark Sunrise

by Terrence McCauley

  Was it only a month ago? Mackey wondered. It seemed decades ago.

  Gunmen began to file out from the Municipal Building and the three lawmen crouched behind the log and the doorway of the jailhouse for cover.

  “This is it,” Mackey told his friends. “This is how it ends.”

  But the gunmen did not fire and neither did Mackey or Billy or Jerry. They all took cover behind the overturned wagon but watched as the ragged procession made its way toward them.

  Hancock men filed out around both sides of the Municipal Building. All of them were armed, but none of them were raising their guns toward the jail.

  Doc Ridley stumbled up to the ruined boardwalk as the procession of singing townspeople moved between the two buildings. He was still singing when he gripped Mackey’s arm and pulled him out from behind the doorway.

  Mackey kept the pistol at his side as he found himself pulled down into the tide of humanity slowly moving along the thoroughfare. Billy followed. So did Jerry.

  Mackey tried to see if Grant had come out of the building, but the crowd was too thick for him to see much of anything. They kept warbling through the old-time hymn as they moved past the buildings and up the hill that led to the cemetery.

  That was when Mackey saw where they were taking him.

  A mound of fresh dirt stood alone in an untouched part of the cemetery, just outside the patch of dirt that had become known as Mackey’s Garden.

  There was no gravestone, just a wooden cross stuck in the ground with the name “Brendan Mackey” scrawled across it in black paint.

  Doc Ridley held on to Mackey’s arm as the singing townspeople filled in around him. Billy was on his right. Jerry was on his left.

  Mackey waited for the sight of his father’s grave to impact him, but it did not. He had been too accustomed to death to place much value in the resting place of earthly remains. Not even the place where his father had been buried could change that.

  But what the townspeople had done certainly reached him. They had done the only thing they could do to end the carnage. They had come together to save him and Billy and Jerry. They had come together to save themselves from further bloodshed, too.

  The people had just begun to sing the last part of the mournful hymn when James Grant was shoved to the front of the group ringing his father’s grave. The left side of Grant’s face was a bloody ruin, peppered with splinters and glass. Two Hancock gunmen were on either side of him.

  Mackey tried to raise his pistol, but Doc Ridley’s grip on his arm was surprisingly strong for a man so frail.

  “Dearly beloved,” the doctor called out, “we are gathered here this evening to bid a sacred farewell to a man who helped build the town we have been so humbled to call our home for these many years. A man whose grit and humor and determination helped forge a town out of the wilderness. A man whose courage was an example to all of those who were wise enough to see it and fortunate enough to bear witness to it.”

  Doc Ridley closed his eyes and kept his grip on Mackey’s hand. “Heavenly Father, we commend the spirit of Brendan Mackey into thy hands and hope you will hold him in the palm of your hands.”

  The people said, “Amen” as one.

  Doc Ridley let go of Mackey’s hand.

  Mackey raised his Peacemaker and aimed it at James Grant.

  So did Billy. So did Jerry.

  And every Hancock man in the cemetery aimed their guns at them.

  Billy surprised Mackey by saying, “James Grant, you are under arrest for the attempted murder of a peace officer in the execution of his lawful duty.”

  Grant looked at him with his good remaining eye. He smiled as the blood continued to trickle down his face. “You couldn’t prove it before, and you can’t prove it now.”

  “Sure, I can. You shot at me up in the rocks, and I shot back.”

  “Prove it.”

  “Your face is all the proof I need,” Billy said. “And this time, I can swear to it in court with a clean conscience.”

  “You’re talking about a courtroom?” Grant looked around at all the Hancock men aiming their guns at the lawmen. “What makes you think you’ll leave this place alive?”

  One of the women in the group stepped forward and stuck a pistol against Grant’s belly.

  Mackey almost dropped his gun.

  It was Katherine.

  “They’ve got more chance of making it out of here alive than you do, you son of a bitch.”

  “Enough!” cried out Mad Nellie Hancock as she pushed her way through the crowd and into the clearing. “Everybody just hold on, here.”

  No one lowered their guns.

  Nellie said to Mackey, “I’ve lost enough of my own on account of you, Mackey. If we give you Grant, do you promise to leave us alone, for good and for all?”

  “I’m taking him one way or the other,” Mackey said. “Straight up or over the saddle. It makes no difference to me.”

  “But it makes a difference to me and mine,” Nellie said. “You kill him, all of you die. Thanks to your fancy lady here, now some of mine will die in the shootin’. You want Grant? I don’t want any more of mine dyin’. Not today. Not tomorrow. Not next month or next year, either. I want it over for good and for all. What do you say?”

  Mackey felt the weight of every eye in town upon him. He knew what he should do. And he knew what he had to do.

  Unfortunately, they were not the same thing.

  “Tell your men to lower their guns and move away,” Mackey said. “They’ll have no more problems from me.”

  Nellie leaned forward. “I’ve got your word on that?”

  Mackey gripped the Peacemaker tighter. “Any of yours play a hand in killing my father?”

  “The Hancocks always claim their dead proudly,” Nellie told him. “If a Hancock had been killed along with your daddy, you’d have heard about it. We knew what Grant and Rigg were up to. We didn’t stop ’em. But we had no hand in it, either.”

  Mackey imagined that was as close to the truth as he could expect Mad Nellie Hancock to get.

  “Tell them to lower their weapons and go home. You’ll have no trouble from me and my men, but they lower their guns first.”

  Nellie glared at the men as she gestured for them to lower their guns.

  All of them did and began to slowly walk away from the cemetery.

  One of the townspeople handed Billy a rope. He and Jerry set about tying Grant’s hands behind his back while Katherine kept her pistol against his belly.

  “You damned fool!” Grant yelled at Nellie. “I’m the only chance you have in this territory. Without me, who’s going to rebuild this place? Who’s going to line your pockets? Cut these bastards down and let’s get back to work.”

  “Enough Hancock blood has been spilled on your account, Grant. We’ll make do with what we’ve got.”

  She looked at Pappy’s grave, then at Mackey. “I hope you ain’t expectin’ condolences, Marshal. I never did like that mouthy old bastard anyway.”

  With Grant secured, Mackey holstered his pistol. “The feeling was mutual.”

  Mackey waited for her to say more, but she did not. She simply melted in with the crowd and headed back home with her people.

  Katherine rushed to Aaron and threw her arms around his waist. He jumped from the pain that spiked in his left side and she moved away from him. “Honey, are you hurt?”

  “I’ll be fine.” He eased the pistol from her right hand. “Where’d you get this?”

  “Lynch gave it to me before I got on the train to come down here,” she said as she lifted his shirt to look at his wound. “He didn’t want me to come but knew there was no sense in trying to stop me. I’m only glad I got here when I did.”

  He pulled her close to him and wrapped his arms around her. She stopped worrying about his wound and embraced him, too. “You are some kind of woman, Mrs. Campbell.”

  “Mrs. Mackey,” she said into his chest. “And don’t you forget it.”

  “How
touching,” Grant sneered as Billy and Jerry pulled the rope tighter around his wrists.

  “What do you want me to do with him, Aaron?”

  “Stick him back in the jailhouse where he belongs,” Mackey said. “Our jailhouse. Jerry, check on when the next train’s headed back to Helena. I’ve got a feeling Judge Forester won’t be so anxious to kick him loose this time around.”

  Grant struggled as the two deputies yanked him in front of them as they walked down from the cemetery.

  Doc Ridley touched Mackey’s arm as he joined the rest of the townspeople who trailed away from the cemetery. He did not say anything, and Mackey did not expect him to. He had already said plenty without saying anything at all.

  As the last of the townspeople walked back down the hill to whatever was left of their town, Mackey and Katherine stood alone beside his father’s grave, holding each other as another night descended on Dover Station.

  CHAPTER 38

  Two weeks later, Mackey and Billy stood at the window of Judge Forester’s office, looking down at the gallows in the yard of the jail across the street.

  “Do you agree with the newspapermen, Marshal?” the judge asked. “Do you think I’m a fool for not allowing them to cover James Grant’s hanging?”

  Mackey had never liked hangings. He thought it a morbid way to kill a man. The waiting to die. The building of a gallows. The rope hanging there waiting to be employed for only one use. He knew some people needed killing and figured a bullet in the belly in the middle of nowhere was cruel enough punishment for any offense at hand. But hanging just did not sit well with him.

  “I’m under the impression that my opinion doesn’t matter to you one way or the other, your honor.”

  The judge looked at him through cigar smoke. “Your opinion matters when I ask for it.”

  Mackey looked back at the gallows. “Never liked hangings personally, so I’d say you were right to keep it private.”

  Judge Forester looked at Billy, who was also looking out the window at the gallows. “Do you agree, Deputy?”

  “I wished I’d shot him six months ago when I had the chance,” Billy admitted. “But I think a man deserves some dignity when he dies, especially when it’s the court doing the killing.”

  Forester grunted as he puffed on his cigar. “Justice is supposed to be blind and bare for all of the world to see.”

  “Justice would’ve been me letting Billy shoot the son of a bitch like he said. The papers just want pictures for their readers,” Mackey said. “But like Billy said, a man deserves some dignity in death, even James Grant.”

  “It certainly would have saved a great deal of bother, all things considered. Then, of course, I would’ve had to hang you two for murder.” The judge glanced back at the large clock in his office. It was almost eight in the morning. “Five minutes until the proceedings start. You boys sure you don’t want to be down there and look him in the eyes one last time before he’s shown across to the other side?”

  But Mackey had decided the last time he would look at James Grant was that moment the deputies led him from the courtroom after Judge Forester handed down his death sentence. To go down there now would only be self-serving. If the events at Dover Station had taught him anything, it was that he should try to be above such things if he wanted to be marshal of this territory.

  “Lynch can handle it,” Mackey said. “Besides, my place is up here in case you or the governor decide to delay the execution, remember.”

  “No one’s going to be delaying anything,” Forester said. “We want this skunk dead and buried before he stinks up the territory any further than he already has.” The judge winced. “I’ve got to admit, I thought you’d be the one who’d be swinging today, Mackey. I didn’t think you had it in you to let him live after what he did to your daddy. I don’t know if I could’ve done it myself.”

  Mackey had tried not to think too much about his father’s death since returning to Helena. It had been better for him. Better for Grant’s prospects of meeting the hangman’s noose, too, lest Mackey decide to do something stupid. “I try not to think about it, sir. There was enough killing to last that town for a long while.”

  Forester took another puff on his cigar. “I’ve heard people say they don’t know if the town will ever come back. With Mr. Rice putting everything up for sale, who knows what’ll happen to the place?”

  Mackey could feel the old questions and the old anger beginning to rattle around in his mind. Was he angrier at Mr. Rice for abandoning the town or building it up in the first place? If he had been scared off by Darabont that first week he was in town, none of this would have happened. Dover Station would have gone on being the sleepy Montana town it always had been, and Pappy probably would still be alive.

  But he would not have been the territorial marshal, and Katherine would not own the nicest hotel in Helena. Billy would not be a federal lawman, either, nor Jerry Halstead nor Josh Sandborne. They’d all be growing stale on the front porch of the old jailhouse on Front Street, watching the world ride by.

  And, as was his custom, Billy Sunday filled in the silence left by Mackey’s brooding. “Dover Station’s not our town anymore, Judge. Helena is. Everything that counts is here now.”

  Forester looked at Mackey. “He speak for you, too, son?”

  “He’s the only man who can,” Mackey said.

  “Glad to hear it.” Forester leaned against the window frame as they watched Sean Lynch and his men lead James Grant out from the jail and into the yard. One deputy with a rifle led the way while another trailed behind him. Lynch brought up the rear where the preacher would normally be, but Grant had declined to have one present at his hanging. In fact, he had not spoken to anyone since Forester had handed down the sentence of death the previous week.

  Mackey watched them lead Grant up the thirteen steps to the platform before Lynch placed him squarely in the middle of the trapdoor that would open beneath his feet once the rope was secured around his neck.

  Although they could not hear anything from so far away, he could see Lynch pause and ask Grant if he had any final words before his sentence was carried out.

  Mackey imagined he must have said something along those lines, for Grant’s head snapped up toward the window where Mackey and Billy and the judge now stood. He glared up at them with all the hate and fury a condemned man could possibly muster.

  But hate and fury were all he had left, and neither could hurt anyone any longer. And Mackey knew that with one nod of Judge Forester’s head, James Grant would never hurt anyone ever again.

  Obviously realizing Grant had nothing to say, Mackey watched him slip the burlap hood over Grant’s head while two deputies tied his feet. That task done, Lynch slipped the noose over Grant’s neck and pulled it tight. The knot was just above his right ear and appeared to have just enough give in it to end Grant’s life quick once he threw the lever.

  Lynch took five steps back and put his hand on that lever before looking up at the window where Billy and Mackey and Judge Forester were standing. He needed final confirmation before he pulled the lever that dropped James Grant to his doom.

  Mackey began to step aside so Forester could move in and signal the order, but the judge placed a hand on the marshal’s back. “The honor belongs to you, Marshal Mackey. God knows if anyone has earned the right to send him to hell, it’s you.”

  Mackey remained where he was. He tried to feel something for all Grant had done. All of the killings and all of the pain he had caused and all of the blood he had spilled in his quest for more. He was never content with the generous wages Mr. Van Dorn had paid him. He was not satisfied with a healthy share of power. Because men like him were never satisfied. They wanted all of the money and all of the power, and when that ran out, they would find something else to desire so they could have it. Men like Grant built things up just so they could tear them down and start all over again, just as he had done with Dover Station.

  Men like Grant drew men like Nath
an Rigg to their side, men who desired the same thing.

  More, whatever that meant.

  But on that particular morning in Helena, Montana, James Grant’s days of wanting more were about to come to an end.

  The marshal of the Montana Territory gave one curt nod.

  Deputy Marshal Sean Lynch pulled the lever.

  And James Grant dropped through the trapdoor before jerking to a halt. The angle the noose snapped his neck, left no doubt that he was dead.

  Mackey closed his eyes.

  And did not feel a thing.

  Judge Forester popped the cigar into his mouth as he turned away from the window. “Good way to start the day, don’t you think, boys?”

  Billy turned away from the window, too. “Don’t know about good, your honor. But it sure was necessary.”

  “Certainly was, wasn’t it, Mackey?”

  He decided it was time to stop watching Grant’s body dancing at the end of the hangman’s rope. He was as dead as he was ever going to be. No sense in gawking at it.

  He moved away from the window and approached the judge’s desk. “Like Billy said, it was necessary.”

  Forester resumed signing the thick stack of warrants he had piled on his desk. “Glad you think so. If you’d like to take some time off, spend it with your wife, I’d be amenable to it. You probably could use a few days to yourself, now that it’s over.”

  Billy stepped forward and picked up some of the warrants Judge Forester had just signed. “Looks like we’ve still got plenty of work to do, your honor. As long as you’ve still got paper on people, nothing is over. Not by a long shot.”

  Forester looked up as he folded a warrant closed. “Billy speak for you on that, too, Marshal?”

  Mackey grinned at his deputy, who grinned back. “Always has. Always will.” Mackey nodded at the sheaf of warrants Billy was holding. “Who’s next?”

  Keep reading for a special excerpt of another

  thrilling Western adventure by TERRENCE MCCAULEY . . .