Brutal Night of the Mountain Man

by William W. Johnstone

  “Yes, sir,” his clerk answered.

  * * *

  “I found an article about the incident in the newspaper morgue,” Crader said two hours later, when he returned to the courtroom after learning what it was about. “I’m prepared to make my case.”

  Potashnick turned toward Judge Turner. “Your Honor, are you . . . ?”

  “Your Honor . . . we can’t be Your Honoring each other all day,” Turner replied. “As you are conducting this trial, I will refer to you as Your Honor. But as I will be acting as Mr. Fontaine’s defense attorney, suppose you just refer to me as Counselor?”

  Potashnick chuckled. “All right, Counselor it is. Counselor, are you ready to present your case?”

  “I am.”

  “Mr. Prosecutor, you may begin.”

  “Your Honor, according to the information I have before me, Wes Fontaine, then a boy of fifteen, shot and killed two men within a period of one hour. And one of the men he shot was the marshal, who was attempting to arrest him for murdering the first gentleman.”

  “Have you any witnesses to call?” Judge Potashnick asked.

  “No, Your Honor, I do not. As it happened nearly twenty years ago, and given the constraint of time since being assigned this case, I have been unable to find any witnesses, other than the printed witness of the newspaper article I have used as my source.”

  “Objection,” Turner said. “A newspaper article is, by definition, hearsay evidence.”

  “But, Your Honor,” Crader replied. “Hearsay or not, it is the only evidence Prosecution has. And, I hasten to point out that it is a contemporary account.”

  “Objection overruled. The newspaper account will be considered as evidence. Have you anything else?”

  “No, Your Honor.”

  “Do you rest your case?”

  “I do.”

  “Defense counsel?”

  “Your Honor, Defense has a witness to the event, a very good witness as he was also one of the principals to the case. I call the defendant, Mr. Wes Wesley Fontaine.”

  Pearlie was sworn, then he took his seat in the witness chair.

  “You go by Pearlie, I believe? Do you mind if I address you as Pearlie?”

  “No, sir, I don’t mind at all.”

  “A moment ago, the prosecutor said that you killed the marshal when he tried to arrest you for murder. Is that true?”

  “No, sir, that isn’t true.”

  “What is untrue?”

  “He wasn’t trying to arrest me,” Pearlie said. “Emmett Miller was the first man I killed. He drew on me, and everyone in the saloon saw it. When Marshal Gibson arrived very shortly thereafter, everyone in the saloon who had seen it told him that Miller drew first, and I had no choice but to defend myself.”

  “And did the marshal believe you?”

  “Yes, sir, he did.”

  “But he attempted to arrest you, anyway?”

  “No, sir, he did not.”

  “Then I don’t understand. If he wasn’t trying to arrest you, how is it that you wound up shooting him?”

  Pearlie told how the marshal had ordered him out of the county, and when he said he didn’t want to leave, that he had a good job and friends, the marshal said that he would either leave or get killed.

  “When I said I wasn’t going to go, he went for his gun.”

  “And you beat him?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “What happened then?”

  “Everyone in the saloon told me that I’d better leave because I had shot a lawman, and it wouldn’t matter if I was right or wrong. Shooting a lawman meant I would probably be hanged for it. So they all took up a collection for enough money for me to leave Texas. As I look back on it now, I think I should have stayed there and gone to trial. But I was a fifteen-year-old kid, I was scared, and I listened to everyone when they told me I should run.”

  Turner returned to the defense table and picked up a piece of paper. “Your Honor, I enter this as a defense exhibit. It is a wanted for murder poster issued on Wes, Pearlie, Fontaine, offering a reward of twenty-five hundred dollars, dead or alive.”

  “Let me get this straight, Counselor,” Judge Potashnick said. “This is a wanted for murder poster, issued against your client, and you are putting this up as evidence for the defense?”

  “I am, Your Honor. Its relevance shall come clear, shortly.”

  “Very well, let the clerk note that this is accepted as evidence for the defense.”

  “Is this an original poster, Mr. Fontaine?” Turner asked.

  “No, sir. As you can see, it’s clear that this poster isn’t twenty years old.”

  “Yes, I can see that. I’m also interested in the way your name is listed here. Pearlie. When the incident in question happened, were you known as Pearlie?”

  “No, sir,” Pearlie replied.

  “How did you come by the name Pearlie?”

  “I figured I needed to change my name, in order to keep anyone from tracking me down.”

  “Where do you think this reward poster came from?”

  “Objection, Your Honor, leading the witness,” Crader said.

  “Sustained.”

  “Let me restate the question. Do you know where this document came from?”

  “I’m sure that Silas Atwood had it printed.”

  “Objection, Your Honor. That’s not a definitive response.”

  “Objection sustained.”

  “I have no further questions, Your Honor,” Turner said.

  “Cross, Mr. Prosecutor?” Potashnick asked.

  Crader started to approach the jury box, then, realizing that there was no jury, smiled sheepishly and came back to the witness stand.

  “Mr. Fontaine, how old were you when this happened?”

  “I was fifteen.”

  “You were fifteen, but you expect this court to believe that you, a fifteen-year-old boy, could draw faster and shoot straighter than an experienced marshal?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Why is that? How were you able to draw faster and shoot straighter than an experienced law officer?”

  “I had been practicing.”

  “So, you practiced drawing and shooting?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Why?”

  “I thought I might need the skill in order to defend myself.”

  “Isn’t it also possible that you had this great skill, and you wished to show it off, and were willing to do so at the slightest provocation?”

  “No, sir.”

  “But that is what happened, isn’t it? In both cases, when you shot and killed Miller, and when you shot and killed the marshal, you could have avoided killing them?”

  “Both Miller and Marshal Gibson drew first.”

  “After you provoked them into it.”

  “No, sir, I don’t see it that way at all.”

  “You say your friends all took up a collection for you?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “And you left Texas?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Crader stroked his chin for a moment as he stared at Pearlie. “Mr. Fontaine, if what you are telling us is the truth, have you ever considered the irony of it?”

  “The irony, sir?”

  “Yes,” Crader said. “According to you, the entire incident happened because you refused to leave Texas when the marshal ordered you to do so.”

  “Yes, sir, that’s right.”

  “But you wound up leaving, anyway.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Wouldn’t it have been better, under the circumstances, to have left when he told you to? As it turned out, you left anyway, and the marshal wound up getting killed.”

  “Yes, sir,” Pearlie said contritely. “I’ve thought about that a thousand times over the last several years. And I wish to hell I had left when he first asked me.”

  “So you admit that you did provoke the marshal into shooting you.”

  “I . . .”

  “No further
questions, Your Honor.”

  “Redirect, Mr. Turner?” Judge Potashnick asked after Crader sat down.

  Turner stood up but didn’t leave the table.

  “Mr. Fontaine, prior to the incident we are debating, how did you and Marshal Gibson get along?”

  “We got along fine,” Pearlie responded. “I guess,” he added.

  “You guess?”

  “Yes, sir. Well, the truth is, I don’t think the marshal even knew who I was. There was no need for him to. I mean, I had never done anything to cause him to know me. We never even spoke, at least, not before that night.”

  “Did you feel you had something to prove?”

  “Something to prove?”

  “Yes. When you went into town with your friends that night, did you have it in your mind that you were going to prove to the others that, even though you were only fifteen, you could take care of yourself?”

  “No, sir. The only reason I went into town that night is because I wanted to have a lemonade, and I wanted to have it with my friends.”

  “No further questions.”

  “Closing statement?”

  “None, Your Honor. Defense rests.”

  “Prosecutor?”

  “Prosecution rests.”

  Potashnick looked out over the court and, for a long moment, drummed his fingers on the bench.

  “Would the defendant please stand?”

  Pearlie, and Judge Turner, acting as his defense counsel, stood.

  “After careful consideration, I find the defendant not guilty, and hereby order the recall of any and all wanted posters that may be, or may come to be in existence, as it pertains to this particular incident.

  “Court is adjourned.”

  With a big smile, Pearlie reached out to shake Judge Turner’s hand. By the time he turned around, Sally had stepped up to the defense table, and she gave him a big hug.

  “Oh, Miz Sally, do you know how long that’s been hanging over me?” Pearlie asked. “I mean, I wasn’t ever really worried about it, but still, it sometimes sort of nagged at me. And now, it’s all over.”

  “It is indeed,” Sally said.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  Etholen

  “I got a telegram for you,” Dennis Hodge said, stepping into the marshal’s office.

  “You have a telegram for me?” Willis asked.

  “You’re the city marshal, aren’t you?” the Western Union operator said.

  “Oh, yeah, I guess I am.”

  “Well, then this is for you. It came for you about five minutes ago.”

  “Do I have to pay for it?”

  “No, it’s already been paid for. Are you going to take it or not? I have to get back over to the office.”

  “Yeah, sure, I’ll take it,” Willis said, reaching for the sheet of paper. He waited until Hodge left before he read it.

  WES WESLEY PEARLIE FONTAINE FOUND

  NOT GUILTY OF ALL CHARGES.

  IMMEDIATE RECALL OF ALL REWARD

  POSTERS ORDERED BY JUDGE F.

  POTASHNICK.

  “Damn,” Willis said. “Atwood ain’t goin’ to like this.”

  “He ain’t goin’ to like what?” Clark asked.

  “He ain’t goin’ to like it that we have to take up all them posters we put out on Fontaine.”

  “What do you mean?”

  Willis showed Clark the telegram. “What the hell? Does this mean we have to go out ’n find all them posters we done put out?”

  “That’s what the telegram says.”

  “What if we can’t find ’em all? What if some people have already took some of ’em, ’n is lookin’ for Pearlie?”

  Willis chuckled. “Well, now, it’d just be a real shame if someone was to kill ’im by mistake, wouldn’t it?”

  Booker laughed as well. “Yeah,” he said. “A real shame.”

  * * *

  “Look at this!” Cal said excitedly, holding out the telegram he had just received from Smoke. “Pearlie has been tried and found innocent already. Miz Kate, you don’t have to worry about him ever again. Whatever happened all those years ago is behind him now.”

  “Oh!” Kate said. “Oh, I’m so happy!”

  “I think the smartest thing I ever did was go to Colorado to find Uncle Wes,” Rusty said.

  “I agree,” Kate said. “I just know, now, how foolish I was once I learned that my brother was still alive, and where he lived, that I didn’t make any effort go see him long before now.”

  Reeves County, Texas

  Dingus Lomax rode into Salcedo, stopped in front of the Longhorn Saloon, dismounted, and went inside. Stepping up to the bar, he slapped a silver coin down in front of him.

  The sound of the coin made the saloonkeeper look around. The man waiting to be served looked like a piece of rawhide. He was smaller than average, with a craggy face and an oversized, hooked nose.

  “What’ll it be, Mr. Lomax?” the bartender asked, stepping up to him.

  “Whiskey.”

  Lomax was a bounty hunter, who was well known for the dispassionate way he could kill. His very name instilled fear. He wasn’t surprised that he was recognized by the bartender, but in his profession that was a mixed blessing. On the one hand, it often gave him an edge, by inducing fear in his quarry. On the other hand, it also forewarned them, so they could get away.

  Lomax specialized in those fugitives who were wanted “dead or alive.” So far he had hunted down and been paid reward money for seventeen such fugitives. Not one of the fugitives for whom the reward was paid had been brought in alive.

  “Why should I bring ’em in alive?” Lomax replied when a marshal queried him about his method of operation. “They’re easier to handle when they’re dead, ’n besides which, I don’t have to feed ’em.”

  When Lomax had ridden into the small town of Salcedo a few minutes earlier, news of his arrival spread quickly. Old men held up their grandsons to point him out as he rode by so that the young ones could remember this moment and, many years from now, tell their own grandchildren about it. Those grandchildren would ultimately tell their grandchildren that their grandfather had once seen Dingus Lomax, so that the legend of the man would span seven generations.

  Lomax picked up his drink, then slowly surveyed the interior of the saloon. He was on the trail of Mort Bodine, and a chance remark he had overheard down in Wild Horse suggested that Bodine might have come to Salcedo.

  The saloon was typical of the many he had seen over the past several years. Wide, rough-hewn boards formed the plank floor, and against the wall behind the long, brown-stained bar was a shelf of whiskey bottles, their number doubled by the mirror they stood against. Half a dozen tables, occupied by a dozen or so men, filled the room, and tobacco smoke hovered in a noxious cloud just under the ceiling.

  At the opposite end of the bar stood a man wearing a slouch hat and a trail-worn shirt. Lomax thought this might be Bodine, and because the man looked away from him the few times Lomax glanced that way, he was sure this was the man he was looking for.

  Hanging low in a well-oiled holster on Bodine’s right side was a Colt .44 with a wooden grip. The man was slender, with dark hair and dark eyes, and there was a gracefulness and economy of motion about the way he walked and moved.

  The longer Lomax studied him, the more he was convinced this was his man. Bodine, if that really was his name, had not turned around since Lomax arrived.

  “Hey, you,” Lomax called.

  The man did not turn.

  “I’m talkin’ to you, Bodine. Your name is Bodine, isn’t it? Mort Bodine? That who you are?”

  Lomax studied him from the back and saw a visible tightening of the man’s shoulders. Then, with a sigh, he turned around. “Yeah,” he said. “I’m Bodine. You’re Lomax, ain’t you?”

  “That’s me,” Lomax said with a smile. “There are wanted dodgers out on you,” he added.

  “Yeah, I know. I’m a little surprised to see you here, though. I thought you shot mo
st of the men in the back.”

  Lomax’s smile grew bigger. “Try me,” he said.

  “Draw!” Bodine shouted, going for his own gun even before he issued the challenge.

  Bodine was quick, quicker than anyone else this town had ever seen. But midway through his draw, Bodine realized he wasn’t quick enough. The arrogant confidence in his eyes was replaced by fear, then the acceptance of the fact that he was about to be killed.

  The two pistols discharged almost simultaneously, but Lomax had been able to bring his gun to bear and his bullet plunged into Bodine’s chest. The bullet from Bodine’s gun smashed the glass that held Lomax’s drink, sending up a shower of whiskey and tiny shards of glass.

  Looking down at himself, Bodine put his hand over his wound, then pulled it away and examined the blood that had pooled in his palm. When he looked back at Lomax, there was an almost whimsical smile on his face.

  He coughed, then fell back against the bar, making an attempt to grab on to the bar to keep himself erect. The attempt was unsuccessful, and Bodine fell on his back, his right arm stretched out beside him, his pistol still connected to him, only because his forefinger was hung up in the trigger guard. The old slouch hat had rolled across the floor and now rested in a half-filled spittoon.

  Lomax turned back to the bar where pieces of broken glass and a small puddle of whiskey marked the spot of his drink.

  “Looks like I’m going to need a refill,” he said.

  * * *

  One hour later Dingus Lomax dismounted, then stepped over to the side of the road to take a leak. He was riding one horse and leading another. Mort Bodine was belly-down across the saddle of the led horse. It wasn’t uncomfortable for Bodine, because he was dead. Bodine was wanted in Presidio County. The county seat was Marfa, but that was farther away than Lomax wanted to go, so he was headed for Wild Horse, which was the closest town.

  As Lomax buttoned up his trousers, he saw a poster pinned to a nearby tree, and he walked over to examine it.

  “Twenty-five hunnert dollars, huh? Seems to me like you coulda at least put a drawin’ o’ this feller, Fontaine, so that folks that might be after ’im would know what this here Wes Pearlie Fontaine looks like.”