Six-Gun Law

by Jory Sherman

  Sunlight streamed through the large window in the judge’s office. This one faced north; the one behind him had a western exposure. Blackhawk had stirred up several bevies of dust motes, and these danced in the columnar shaft of light that focused on his chair so that he was the only one in the room caught in the glare.

  Wyman pulled a large gold watch from his vest. He dangled it from his gold chain, then steadied it with a pudgy hand.

  “Punctuality, Marshal Blackhawk. This court runs on punctuality. The world runs on punctuality.”

  Blackhawk said nothing. He stretched out his legs and tipped his hat back on his head as if he had all the time in he world.

  “Well,” the judge said, and slid the watch back into his vest pocket. “Let’s get down to business, shall we?”

  Still, Blackhawk said nothing.

  “Marshal,” Wyman said, “just what do you intend to do regarding this murderer Zane? Have you made any progress in your investigation?”

  “Well, I suppose you could say that.”

  “What, sir? Say what?”

  “That I’ve made some progress. I know more about Lew Wetzel Zane than anybody in this room.”

  The judge reared back in his chair.

  “What is there to know? The man’s a murderer. He killed a peace officer. He’s murdered five people that we know of. Zane is a dangerous man, and a fugitive from justice.”

  “In your eyes, Judge, Zane is all that. But I’ve been getting a slightly different picture of the man.”

  “I don’t care what your picture of the man is, Marshal Blackhawk. I want to know what you’re doing to bring that man before the bar. I want him standing in my court so that justice can be meted out.”

  “You have one thing nailed down, Judge Wyman. Zane is definitely a fugitive. On the run.”

  “So go catch him,” Wyman said.

  “If ordered to do so, I will. As it is, I’ve completed my investigation down here and all that remains is for me to return to Springfield, write my report, and wait for further orders.”

  “That’s not exactly so, Marshal,” Farris said. “Your superiors have assigned you to Judge Wyman’s court. He’ll be giving the orders until this case is settled.”

  Blackhawk cocked his head and looked at the judge. Wyman continued to glare at him, but there was now a smugness to him as evidenced by his pooched lips and his folded hands. He seemed to be looking down on Blackhawk from a great height, as if he were actually sitting on the bench and not at his cherrywood desk.

  “That so, Judge?” Blackhawk said.

  “Yes, that’s so, Marshal. But we’ve got a little sweeter pot to make the assignment a mite more palatable to you.”

  “Oh? And what might that be?”

  The judge looked at Cooper.

  Cooper cleared his throat.

  “Well, sir, I just come from Alpena this morning and the widows of Virgil Pope and Luke Canby have put up a reward for the capture of one Lew Wetzel Zane.”

  “Not a reward exactly, Coop,” the judge said, waving a hand across the desk at eye level. “I’m thinking some of it could be used to pay the marshal’s expenses while he hunts down this killer, Zane.”

  “I’m paid by the United States government,” Blackhawk said.

  “We think you deserve better compensation than the government offers, Marshal.”

  “I couldn’t accept it.”

  “No? Since you are assigned to my court, that is my decision, not yours. I think you’ll be pleased at the amount we have to work with. Mike, you cleared this with Mrs. Pope and Mrs. Canby, did you not?”

  “I did,” Farris said.

  Blackhawk said nothing.

  “Let’s take a look at that satchel, Coop.”

  Sheriff Cooper reached down and lifted up a brown leather satchel, carried it over to the desk, and set it down in front of Judge Wyman. Wyman opened the satchel’s clasp. He reached in and began to pile paper money on the table in neat stacks.

  “That’s the money we can use to achieve swift justice in this case, Horatio. May I call you Horatio? It amounts to twenty thousand dollars.”

  “In reward money,” Blackhawk said.

  “Reward money and incentive money. I want you to hunt down Zane and I want you to have the financial resources to do so.”

  “I’d like to see confirmation that I’ll be working under the jurisdiction of your court, Judge.”

  “Of course,” Wyman said.

  He took a sheet of paper from his desk, handed it to Blackhawk.

  “That good enough for you, Horatio?”

  Blackhawk handed the paper back to Wyman.

  “I’m at your service,” he said.

  Wyman smiled. It was the smile of an indulgent parent. It was also the smile of a skillful manipulator. He swept the money aside and placed the sheet of paper in the center of his desk.

  “Good. Now, what are your plans, Horatio?”

  Blackhawk tipped his hat back square on his head and sat up straight.

  “I’ve got a good idea where Zane is headed. I’ve got one more person to see here in Berryville. Then I can provision and be on my way.”

  “Where, may I ask?” Wyman said.

  “West. To Colorado.”

  The judge counted out some bills, stood up, carried them over to Blackhawk, and held them out.

  “Here’s one thousand dollars to get you started, Horatio. If you run short or need more, for any reason connected with your duties in this case, just send a telegram and we will send you what you need.”

  “That’s a lot of money,” Blackhawk said.

  “And there’s nineteen thousand more waiting for you whenever you need it. And you will bring Zane in. Dead or alive.”

  Blackhawk entered the outer office of Eugene Anderecky’s law firm in Berryville. A petite older woman greeted him from behind her desk.

  “Marshal Blackhawk?” she said.

  “Yes. Is Mr. Anderecky in?”

  “He’s expecting you, sir. Right through that door.”

  Anderecky smiled when Blackhawk entered. The two men had met before, briefly, early in Blackhawk’s investigation.

  “I already know that you’re working for Judge Wyman on the Zane matter,” Anderecky said. “Law clerks are wonderful sources of information.”

  “Do you also know that he is probably misappropriating funds?”

  “Sit down, Marshal, sit down. Tell me all you can.”

  Blackhawk told him about the twenty thousand dollars in reward money, a thousand of which was now in his pocket.

  “Apparently, Ringgold has that discretion,” Anderecky said.

  “He’s a law unto himself, isn’t he?”

  “Yes, he is.” Anderecky smiled.

  “I just have a couple of questions, Mr. Anderecky. Then, I’ll be on my way.”

  “Go ahead.”

  “You told me that Lew Zane transferred his parents’ store over to the Butterfields. Have you recorded the deed yet?”

  “I have.”

  “Did Zane ask for proof of that transfer and that filing?”

  “He did.”

  “And where will you send that proof, Mr. Anderecky?”

  “You’d make a good prosecuting attorney, Marshal. But to answer your question, he did not ask me to send such proof anywhere. He asked me to hold the papers in my safe.”

  “Did he say he’d be back for them?”

  “No, he did not. He said he might be away from these parts for quite a while.”

  “Did he indicate where he might be going?”

  “I’m afraid not, Marshal, and even if he did, that would be part of a privileged conversation and not subject to any divulgence of said conversation on my part.”

  “So you have no idea where Lew Zane might have gone?”

  “I didn’t say that.”

  “But if you do, you won’t tell me.”

  “That’s right. Lew Zane is still my client, until he tells me otherwise.”

&nbs
p; “Thank you, Mr. Anderecky. If he does contact you, or if you’re in communication with him, you might tell him that I’m on his trail. It will go easier for him if he surrenders to me, rather than to Judge Wyman.”

  “You don’t trust Judge Wyman?”

  “About as far as I could throw this building you’re sitting in, sir.”

  Anderecky smiled. “If you do catch Lew, I hope you’ll take him someplace where he can get a fair trial. He’ll never get one in this county.”

  “I know.”

  “And Marshal . . .”

  “Yes?”

  “One thing to keep in mind. Lew Zane is innocent of those charges filed against him in Judge Wyman’s court.”

  “Isn’t every man innocent until proven guilty, Mr. Anderecky?”

  “Not in Carroll County he isn’t. Not in Judge Wyman’s court.”

  One thing Blackhawk knew, when he left Anderecky’s office.

  An innocent fugitive was just as dangerous as a guilty one.

  And Lew Wetzel Zane had already proven just how dangerous a man he was.

  14

  THEY LIVED OFF THE LAND, LEW AND JEFF, TAKING JACKRABBITS at first, then making meat with deer, before they saw their first antelope. The prairie seemed endless, and Jeff had never seen so much grass before, and never grass so high as when they reached the Colorado plains. Each day was a wonder to him as he viewed, for the first time, the majestic buttes and mesas that glowed red in the sunlight, looked like fleets of earthen ships when he squinted his eyes.

  “Tastes a little like goat,” Jeff said on that first night when they dined on a fresh-killed antelope.

  “How do you know? You ever eat goat?”

  “Once’t,” Jeff said. “My pap had a few goats and pigs and a milk cow. Pigs died out from some kind of hog disease and he didn’t want to butcher our cow, so we ate a goat until we found something better.”

  “This tastes pretty good,” Lew said, gnawing on a hind leg roasted over their campfire. “Not much like pork and less tasty then beef, gamier than deer meat. But not bad.”

  “Pfaw. It’s like chewing leather.”

  “I suppose you ate leather, too, in your boyhood days.”

  “Don’t get smart, Lew. You’re mighty sassy these days.”

  “It’s the country, Jeff. It fills you up. It’s so big and I’ve never seen sunsets like these. Not in the Ozark hills. There, they are quick, as if the hills smother all the fire and just leave smoke in the sky. Out here, with nothing to break your sight, they seem to last forever, and they look like paintings that shift colors ever so slowly, living paintings brushed onto the sky by an unseen hand.”

  “Whoo, boy, you should have been a poet.”

  “Well, you see them, too, Jeff. Don’t they quicken your heart? Make you look at the world in wonder?”

  “They mean the end of another long day,” Jeff said, and continued to gnaw on a chunk of pronghorn meat that was so hard to chew, it made his jaw ache.

  “Just look at that moon hanging up there like a lantern, Jeff, shining down on us like silver showered from heaven.”

  “It’s up there damned near ever’ night, Lew.”

  “But I’ve never seen it so close before. In this pure night air. And the stars, look at ’em, so bright and near. Why, it feels like I could reach up and touch them.”

  “Moon’s no closer tonight than it was the night before and if you think you can touch them stars, just reach on up and grab one, why don’t you?”

  “You always this sour on life?”

  “I’m not sour on life, but all that stuff in the sky don’t matter none to me. I got things on my mind. Heavy things.”

  “What things?” Lew asked.

  “Carol. My daughter. I keep thinking of her all alone, with those kids, suffering, maybe in danger.”

  “Worry never did anyone any good, Jeff.”

  “I can’t just let it go.”

  “Maybe that’s what you should do, though. Let it go. When you get out there, see her, you can do something. Now, you can do nothing.”

  “I can worry.”

  Lew laughed.

  Human nature. There was no getting around it. People followed the course they had set for themselves. Jeff was just being human. A father worrying about his daughter.

  They saw other travelers along the trail, avoided them when they could. They saw wagons of every description, some headed west, others returning from somewhere, Santa Fe, Taos, perhaps, laden with goods. They saw riders, too, some leading packhorses and mules, others bound for the West with nothing but the clothes on their backs, the belongings in their saddlebags.

  They saw no Indians, nor did Lew encounter any tracks of unshod ponies. They drifted on and off the trail, guided by the polestar at night, by the sun during the day.

  Finally, the mountains loomed in the distance, a small dark mass that gradually grew larger until, finally, Lew and Jeff could see the snowcapped peaks, the dark masses beneath them like a gigantic backbone stretching as far as the eye could see.

  In the waning days of summer, when their horses waded through shimmering watery mirages that vanished before their eyes, only to reappear again yards ahead of them, they saw the town of Pueblo emerge from the morning haze, and they rode toward it, wide-eyed with wonder, their blood quickening, their hearts pumping in anticipation. For the first time in days, Lew saw a smile on Jeff’s face, and he sensed the man’s impatience as the distance between them and the town shortened and they could make out the individual outlines of adobe buildings nestled at the muscular foot of the towering mountains.

  “I never saw so many smokestacks before,” Lew said. “Look at all that smoke. Wonder what they’re making.”

  “Carol says they’re smelting. Silver and such. She says she could smell the smoke night and day when she and Wayne Smith were there.”

  “Does she live there now?”

  “No. Up in Leadville, remember? That’s where I’m going. What about you?”

  Lew thought about it. He had no plans. He didn’t know anybody in Pueblo, or in Leadville, either, for that matter. He had become a drifter, a man without a home, almost without roots. For the first time in their journey, he began to think about the future. Where was he going? What was he going to do for a living?”

  “I don’t know,” Lew said. “I guess I’ll have to look for a job.”

  “First thing I’m going to do is get a hotel room. Then I’m going to get a shave and take a hot bath. I’ll probably stay in Pueblo a couple of days, then head into the mountains for Leadville. I’d like for you to come with me, if you’re willing.”

  “I’ll give it some thought. That bath and haircut sounds good. So does a real bed.”

  Jeff laughed. They were both bearded and their clothes were caked with salt from sweating so much. They had become used to each other’s smells. Until now. Jeff had a rank smell to him that Lew had finally noticed. And he knew he stank just as much.

  “There’s the Arkansas River,” Jeff said. “Runs right through town.”

  Lew saw it glistening in the sunlight. They had thought about following it to Pueblo, but would have had to ride miles out of their way to find it, going by way of Bent’s Fort, and running into pilgrims traveling from Dodge City, a town with a bad reputation. So they had come the hard way, avoiding, as Jeff told him, “a lot of unsavory folks from Kansas.”

  They put up at the Fountain Hotel, named for the creek that joined the Arkansas River. Like most of the buildings, it was made of adobe brick and only had two stories. But the rooms were cheap and they offered a hot bath for four bits, and a shave for the same amount. They boarded their horses in a nearby livery stable, El Rincon, which took up a corner of a nearly empty street, and was run by a Mexican named Jorge Gonzales. Gonzales, it turned out, knew a lot about Pueblo, and some of his information concerned recent arrivals of many of those same unsavory folks Jeff had spoken about on the trail. He knew quite a bit about Wayne, Carol’s husband, as Jeff
soon found out.

  “Oh, yes, that one,” Jorge said. “He works as a deputy sheriff, but the people, they complain about him.”

  “Why, what do they say about Wayne?” Jeff asked.

  “That he steals money from them. He says it is for their protection, but they say it is for his pockets.”

  “Where might I run into this deputy sheriff?” Jeff asked.

  “At night, he is at the Double Eagle Saloon. He has a girlfriend who works there. A woman named Flora. She is a bad one, they say. I do not know.”

  “Why is she bad?”

  “She gets the men drunk and then these men are rolled when they leave the cantina, their pockets turned inside out. I think she and the deputy sheriff share in the profits from this occupation.”

  After they had bathed and gotten shaves, the two men ate at a restaurant called Rosita’s, recommended to them by the clerk at the hotel. It was a two-block walk and the evening was cool. The clerk had told them they were a month away from their first snow.

  At Rosita’s, Lew asked Jeff about Gonzalez. “Why did you want to know about Carol’s husband? You’re not going to kill him, are you?”

  “No. I just want to ask the bastard why he left my daughter up in Leadville and took up with this whore, Flora.”

  Lew stiffened in his chair. His knife and fork hovered above his steak.

  “Do you want my opinion, Jeff?”

  “Well, opinions are like assholes, Lew. Everybody has one.”

  “Some free advice, then.”

  “I’ll listen.”

  “Stay away from Wayne Smith. And if you do see him, don’t ask him why he abandoned your daughter. The man sounds like trouble. Big trouble.”

  “I just hate what he’s done to my daughter. And I hate to know he’s getting away with it.”

  “Whatever he’s done, is done. You can’t do anything about it. And if you stir up a hornet’s nest, you’re going to get stung.”

  “That’s good advice, Lew. Well taken. I guess maybe I just want him to see me, so he knows Carol is not alone.”

  “That’s all right, then. We’ll just go to the Double Eagle, have a drink, and let it go at that.”

  The Double Eagle was crowded. Men from the smelters packed against the bar, hardcases sat at tables with painted women, and drifters nursed drinks and smoked cigarettes, looking for handouts. Jeff and Lew made their way to the bar and waited in a line for a drink.