On the Trail to Moonlight Gulch

by Shelter Somerset

  “That’s absurd,” someone shouted from the gallery near Tory and Wicasha. Tory turned to spy the accuser but saw only the same red faces, twisted with the thrill of the spectacle. About the only disinterested party in the entire proceeding was a yellow cat preening itself under the bar.

  “What does any of this legal mumbo jumbo mean anyway?” another observer shouted from closer to the street windows. “Did Ausmus shoot Johnson fair and square one way or the other?”

  The crowd exploded with agreement.

  “Mr. Ausmus,” Doc Albrecht said, smirking off the crowd’s impatience, “given that you are one armed, how often do you rely on a rifle for your shooting?”

  “Not often at all,” Franklin said, sitting up fuller in his chair while the crowd around him settled with expectancy. “I can shoot one, I’d readily admit, but I most often use my Smith & Wesson revolver when game hunting, which gives me a better shot.”

  “Would you say that you find it difficult to fire a rifle at a long distance target?”

  Franklin nodded. “Yes, I’d admit so. I can shoot maybe forty yards without worrying about losing aim.”

  “Could you demonstrate for the court how you might use a rifle, if Your Honor permits?”

  Judge Gevelinger sighed. “Go ahead.”

  Franklin stood with the rifle in his left hand. Doc Albrecht encouraged him on with a nod. Franklin moved hesitantly at first, but then, as if understanding the value of the demonstration, he proceeded as if he were preparing to shoot one of his hogs. He held the stock between his knees, cocked the rifle with his left hand, and, using his stump, steadied the barrel while taking aim at the large mirror behind the bar. To maintain a steady posture, he had to pivot his waist left, away from the target, and crane his neck to look down the barrel, an awkward position for anyone.

  “And I’m a natural right hander, too,” Franklin said, bringing the rifle to his side.

  “Thank you, Mr. Ausmus.” Doc Albrecht took the rifle from Franklin and rested it on the table. “Your Honor, the victim was found with the bullet still wedged in his brain, directly between the eyes. That would mean that he had to have been shot by a man with the skill of hitting his targets from a range much farther than forty yards, a man with two arms. You can see from the demonstration that the defendant could not have committed this murder.”

  The crowd unleashed more howls. “I want order,” the judge squealed as the crowd’s eruptions intensified, “or I’ll hold everyone in this courtroom in contempt. Now keep your mouths shut.”

  Tory observed Bilodeaux, who had folded his arms and clenched a smoldering cigar between his puckered lips. His expression never changed. A confident arrogance creased the dark lines on his forehead and around his grin. Under the thick contour of his brow, his eyes, blue like sapphires, barely blinked. He snatched the cigar with his stubby fingers and stepped forward. Tory braced Wicasha’s arm.

  “Despite what the defense alleges,” Bilodeaux said to the judge, “I attest that I heard the accused threaten the deceased, and the Indian and the blond boy heard it too.”

  “And who are you?”

  “My name is Henri Thibault Bilodeaux, Your Honor. I own the ranch north of town. I was present on the defendant’s property about two weeks ago, where I witnessed him lodge murderous threats at the deceased, and the Indian and blond boy were present.”

  “Where are this Indian and blond boy everyone keeps referencing?” The judge glanced around, planting his eyes on Wicasha, the sole Indian in the room. “I say it’s about time we hear their side, since they seem so relevant to this story.”

  Tory flinched. He could feel the blood pumping in Wicasha’s arm quicken. The silence that surrounded them grew as stagnant as swamp gas.

  “Step to the bar… I mean, the bench,” the judge ordered.

  Shakily, Tory followed behind Wicasha, hat tight in his hands. A reassuring gesture from Madame Lafourchette failed to ameliorate Tory’s nerves. Standing by the judge, he was able to see Franklin clearer. A sudden rush of warmth settled his trembling limbs. Franklin’s eyes glistened like jade under the chandelier. Tory couldn’t help but smile at him. Frank nodded lightly in his direction, but his mouth remained firm.

  “State your names,” the judge ordered once they were fully before him.

  “I am Wicasha, decorated veteran of the U.S. Army.”

  “And you, son?”

  “I’m…. I’m Tory—” Suddenly, Tory’s words were like musket balls. He couldn’t recall if he’d mentioned his surname to Franklin in any of his letters. Would it somehow give him away? Standing before a court of law, he had no choice but to reveal the truth. His knees began to buckle. “I’m… I’m Tory Pilkvist.”

  “And what connection do you two have with the defendant?”

  “I am his long-time friend,” Wicasha said, “and this is his hired hand.”

  “Were you both present during the incident that this Frenchman has mentioned?”

  Both hesitated. The judge pushed them for a response.

  “We were,” Wicasha answered.

  “And did you hear the defendant make threats of death to the deceased?”

  Wicasha nodded, his eyes downcast.

  “And you, young man?”

  Tory’s head felt as if it were made of cement. Slowly, he nodded. But then a realization lightened his anguish. “I also heard the Frenchman here, Henri Bilodeaux, threaten the deceased,” he said, looking straight at Bilodeaux with self-assurance. “He said that he would shoot him between the eyes, and in fact, that’s just how the victim was discovered. With a bullet hole right between his eyes.”

  The crowd exploded. Tory looked over at Franklin. A soft smile emerged over his tanned face. Tory beamed back.

  Bilodeaux’s cocky grin changed in an instant. He glared at Tory. The strength that surged inside Tory at that moment gave him the sense that he could move mountains. Unfazed, he returned Bilodeaux’s sneer. Yet the outcome of Franklin’s trial still lurked unknown.

  The judge was beating his fist on the counter, leaving the bottle to rattle next to him. “Silence! Silence!”

  “He’s one-armed, have mercy,” a man shouted, defying the judge’s command.

  “He’s a veteran of the Civil War, on the Union side,” another said. “He done to Johnson what he done to a hundred men, all asking for it.”

  One man, a Confederate sympathizer, shouted, “The Yanks were criminal bandits. They took land that wasn’t theirs. They burned down our homes, our cities, left us to starve and perish while hoodlums raped our women and beat our men. Ausmus is one of them, a traitor to his own people.” Fellow traducers on the Confederacy’s side joined in shouting down any support for Franklin and the Yankees. Tory hoped such strong emotions did not smolder with the jurors and shift Franklin’s fate to hanging.

  The judge banged on the countertop with the whiskey bottle. “Order. Silence. We’re not here to rehash the Civil War, for Pete’s sake. If a man were convicted purely from what he did during the war, we’d all be in jail.”

  The crowd broke into laughter. The judge pounded the counter once more. “All right,” he said after everyone settled. He turned to Tory. “Young man, this Bilodeaux is not the man on trial.”

  “Your Honor,” Doc Albrecht broke in, standing tall with his fingertips pressed against the poker table, “illustrating the possibility that others may have motive in Clayton Johnson’s death is paramount to my client’s defense. It could very well prove his innocence beyond a reasonable doubt. If these proceedings come down to merely one man’s word against another, then we all might as well be put on trial. Each man here has a rifle similar to the defendant’s, each man has motive likely in one form or another. The deceased, on more than a handful of occasions, riled most everyone in town with his drunken antics. Bilodeaux’s known more than anyone to have harassed the sot. Besides, we’ve already proven the defendant, being one-armed, could not fire a rifle at the range required to lodge a bullet between a man�
�s eyes.”

  Judge Gevelinger seemed annoyed with Doc Albrecht’s legal technicalities. He knitted his bushy eyebrows and glared down at the bar top. “I see no point carrying this out any longer. I’ve heard enough chatter, from both sides. Let the jury deliberate. Any objections?” Neither the defense nor Marshal Reinhardt (nor the crowd) objected to the motion. The judge dismissed the jury with a casual wave of his chubby hand.

  After one of Madame Lafourchette’s working girls led the five jurors upstairs, Tory and Wicasha rushed to Franklin’s side.

  “This whole trial is a farce,” Tory said through his teeth.

  “Calm down, I think it’ll turn out in our favor,” Doc Albrecht said. “They have very little on Frank that can prove his guilt, we’ve clearly established that.”

  Only fifteen minutes passed before the jurors stepped back downstairs.

  “That’s a good sign,” Doc Albrecht whispered.

  A penetrating hush washed over the crowd. The swilling halted. Beer mugs and glasses froze in midmotion. Tory stepped aside with Wicasha. He was certain he could see the verdict written on the jurors’ faces. Tension paralyzed him.

  “Have you reached a verdict?” the judge said once the men took their seats.

  The man Wicasha had pointed out as Walter Grishin stood. “Yes, sir, Your Honor.”

  “Go ahead. What is it?”

  “Not guilty,” he declared in a robust voice.

  Shouts and cries ruptured from the crowd. Beer mugs clashed in toasts. Foam sprayed over everyone’s heads. Men patted the bustled bottoms of the madame’s working girls. Yet others bemoaned. They scoffed and kicked at the floor and pushed their chairs. Tory’s soul lifted to the heavens. He glanced toward the chandelier and mouthed, “Thank you.”

  Dozens of men from the gallery swarmed Franklin with back slaps and sturdy handshakes. Madame Lafourchette left a bright cherry-red lip print on his flushed cheek.

  Bilodeaux pinched the cigar from his mouth and marched up to Franklin. “I have done what I can to be fair with you, Ausmus. I have offered you a decent price for your land. On too many occasions you have given us no other choice but to use other tactics.”

  “Us? Who is this us?” Franklin, still grinning from all the congratulations, peered at Bilodeaux through the hands that reached out to pat his shoulders. “A jury handpicked to represent the town acquitted me of your crime, Bilodeaux,” he said. “They’re not all fooled by your tricks. You can’t really expect them to fall for your fraudulent bleeding heart scheme that your lust for my land has anything to do with anyone’s good but your own. It’s power and greed that motivate you, Bilodeaux, nothing more.”

  “This is not over. Trust me.” Bilodeaux dashed his cigar to the floor with a burst of sparks. His eyes blazing, he shouldered his way out to the street. Franklin’s supporters pointed and laughed after Bilodeaux’s heavy footsteps.

  More drinks flowed around them. The bartender could barely keep up with the demand as the men pushed against the bar. Tory glanced at the judge, who was still seated at the counter, rubbing his temples. He eyed his improvised gavel, shrugged, popped the cork, and, bringing the mouth of the quarter-full whiskey bottle to his lips, drained it.

  Chapter 21

  “I STILL think that if they put you in jail and forced you to stand trial with so little evidence, then they should’ve arrested Bilodeaux right there on the spot once they acquitted you,” Tory said back at Moonlight Gulch as the sun crested the western peaks. He, Franklin, Wicasha, and Doc Albrecht were sitting outside the cabin at the plank table, the first real chill in the early October air nipping at them. They were still buzzing about the past twenty-four hours. “It’s just not fair.”

  “It would’ve been our word against his,” Doc Albrecht said. “It didn’t work for Reinhardt and Bilodeaux; it wouldn’t have worked for us. Besides, the marshal won’t want Bilodeaux behind bars. He’s too much money to him. He’s gotten immunity plenty of times in the past.”

  “It’s a crime what they did to you, Franklin. All of them should be locked up.” Tory could not stop stewing about the entire ordeal. He was relieved that the jury had cleared Franklin’s name, yet each time he rehashed the episode in his mind, from when Marshal Reinhardt had first dragged Franklin to jail to Franklin sitting at the poker table ready to stand trial, he chewed on his bitterness like rawhide.

  “What do you call those people in the city who steal right from you under your nose?” Franklin asked Tory.

  “Pickpockets?”

  “I was thinking more like politicians.”

  Tory chuckled. “Oh, well, yes, we have plenty of those in Chicago. Most of them are connected with crime syndicates, but then so are the people who vote for them.”

  “We have the same problem out here,” Franklin said, shrugging. “The more power a person in the Hills has, the more they seem connected with bandits. The marshal isn’t much different.” He patted his holster. “At least he gave me my handgun back.”

  “All communities have their share of good guys and bad guys,” Doc Albrecht said, lowering his cup of coffee from his lips. “From Boston to New Orleans, from California to right here in the Black Hills, I’ve seen them all.”

  “I guess there’s no way of getting rid of nefarious men,” Wicasha said.

  “Nope, but at least they keep men like us occupied,” the doctor said.

  Their talk worried Tory. Bilodeaux’s lingering threat to Franklin still echoed in his ears. This is not over. What gall Bilodeaux had. If he exhibited such disrespect for the laws of man in a courtroom, then what would prevent him from eschewing even more profound laws, such as those of common decency? Most everyone insisted he had murdered Johnson, even many of his cohorts. If he went to such lengths, there would be no stopping him. Tory loathed him more and more; he also feared him with mounting dread.

  But to see Franklin surrounded by his friends, joyful and at peace, comforted Tory. For now, Bilodeaux had been subdued. The town had shifted allegiances. The embracing of justice had replaced the hunger for gold. Like the winds that rushed from the nighttime mountains, the town’s sympathies had changed direction and now rested with Franklin, at least for the time being. Tory understood the mentality of mobs. He’d seen it in Chicago, when labor disputes transformed kindly family men into savages ready to tear into comrades and neighbors. But for now, Franklin had freedom and loyalty. And Tory had Franklin back at Moonlight Gulch.

  The doctor stood. “I best be off before it gets too dark. My old scrub of a horse is sluggish enough as it is.”

  “Why don’t you shack up here tonight, Doc?” Franklin said. “I can sleep in my bedroll in the barn, and you can have the feather bed.”

  “No thanks, Frank. I’ll be needed in town tonight. There’ll be a lot of drinking and whatnot after all that’s gone on with your trial today. The town’s frenzied. No telling how many broken bones and alcohol poisonings I’ll have to deal with the next few days.”

  Franklin assisted him in getting his horse from the livestock pen. Tory watched Franklin place a few bills in the doctor’s palm, probably much deserved recompense for advocating on Franklin’s behalf. They shook hands, patted each other on the back. Doc Albrecht’s staunch alliance with Franklin kindled Tory’s heart.

  Wicasha stretched upright when Franklin approached them. “I’ll be getting back to my camp too,” he said. He and Frank clutched each other’s shoulders.

  “Thanks for all your help, Wicasha.”

  “I’m glad things turned out good, Frank.” Wicasha glanced at Tory over Franklin’s shoulder. He flashed him that same strange slick grin Tory had grown accustomed to. Wicasha was always snickering under his breath, cracking toothy grins, as if he held a deep dark secret. Wicasha chuckled and made his way along his usual trail, the setting sun highlighting his quivering shoulders.

  Dismissing it from his mind, Tory kicked back at the table. Franklin leaned against a tree stump, pulled his knees up to his chest. Cool, gentle solitude.


  “I guess you don’t want a fire?” Franklin grinned. His teeth glowed white in the encroaching twilight.

  Tory winced. “I don’t mind a small one. It’s just those bonfires are a bit unsettling.”

  “Where did you pick up a fear of fire?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe it has to do with the Chicago Fire. I was only about five when it happened, but I remember sensing the alarm emanating from everyone. I was too young to put it into words, but I could feel it. I guess that’s why I have a fear. Who knows?”

  Franklin shrugged. “I reckon that could be. Sounds reasonable, in any case.”

  “You think I’m foolish?”

  “No, I suppose we all got our fears. You don’t mind if I light a torch? It’ll keep the bugs away.”

  “No, of course not. That won’t bother me much.”

  Franklin lit a torch and set it into the ground in a hole dug for such purposes. He resumed his position against the tree stump, his hat pushed back high on his head.

  “Do you have any?” Tory ventured to say, probing Franklin’s mind under the deepening denim-blue sky. “Fears, that is.”

  Only heavy breathing lifted Franklin’s chest. Tory waited. He wondered if he had wounded him. Should he ask such pressing questions after his agonizing torment—overnight in a jail and a murder trial? The torchlight danced off Franklin’s face, twisted in serious contemplation. Just as Tory was about to redirect his question, Franklin cleared his throat and spoke.

  “If I had to pick what I fear the most, I guess I’d have to say it’s dying alone.”

  Franklin’s candid response surprised Tory. He had not expected him to expose his vulnerabilities. In a way, Franklin’s confession provoked Tory to yearn to embrace him now more than when he had first spotted him at the trial.

  “It’s strange, because I like living alone,” Franklin went on, studying the ground by his feet. “I reckon my whole life I was trying to find my Moonlight Gulch. Now that I have it, I think about sharing it with someone. The notion of dying out here, or growing old and sick, without anyone to care for me, well….”