Left Hand of the Law

by Charles G. West

  “Damn it, Victoria,” Garth exclaimed, “you’ve got nobody to blame but yourself. You had no business coming out here till I sent for you, anyway.”

  “And when was that going to be, Garth?” Her initial shock was giving way to anger now. When he didn’t answer, she answered for him. “Never. Is that about right, Garth?”

  “That’s about it,” he replied coldly, and prepared to put his foot in the stirrup. “I’m an important man in the Homestake Mining Company, so take my advice and tell your friends to stay outta my way. That’s for their own good.”

  Her whole world seemingly turned upside down, Victoria continued to sit on the edge of the porch, finding it hard to believe her ears. She didn’t get up when Jonah walked out on the little stoop and asked, “Garth, where are you going? Supper’s getting cold.” Confused, he looked from his son-in-law to his daughter for an explanation.

  “He told me to go back to Omaha,” Victoria said softly. “He doesn’t want me out here. He doesn’t want to be married to me anymore.”

  “Why, you low-down cur!” Jonah cried, all his doubts about Garth crashing back at once. He had worried from the beginning that the no-good son of Sam Beaudry was going to break his little girl’s heart, even though he had prayed to be mistaken about the boy’s character. He marched up to face Garth, who stood fully a head taller than he. “I knew you were trash from the very start.”

  Garth took hold of the saddle horn, but did not step up right away. “You’d better watch your mouth, old man, or I might decide to close it for you.”

  “Papa!” Victoria cried. “Let him go, and good riddance.”

  “We’ll see about that,” Jonah exclaimed, his ire past the point of concern for the size difference. He reached for Garth’s arm, trying to pull him away from his horse.

  “Why, you little shit!” Garth exclaimed. He jammed his free hand in Jonah’s face and shoved the smaller man sprawling to the ground. “I don’t have to take any of your guff anymore.”

  “Maybe not, but you’ve gotta take mine.”

  Garth turned to take the full impact of Ben’s right hand flush on his nose. Knocked off his feet, he landed under his horse, causing the animal to buck sideways, almost stomping him in the process. Those inside the shack had heard the argument heating up outside, bringing them running to investigate. Seeing Jonah manhandled so roughly by the sullen bully was the spark needed to ignite Ben’s wrath. He had not liked what he had seen in Garth Beaudry from the first, and even then he thought it only a question of time before the two of them met on a collision course. He pushed Beaudry’s horse to the side to get at him again. Beaudry pulled his .44 from his holster and raised it to shoot, but he was not quick enough to aim it before Ben kicked it out of his hand. Cleve immediately pounced on the weapon, taking possession of it. Desperately looking for room to get to his feet to defend himself, Garth started crawling on all fours as fast as he could manage. Right behind him, Ben placed his boot squarely in the seat of Garth’s pants, and sent him skidding to fall flat on his face.

  “Ben! Ben!” Victoria screamed. “That’s enough! Let him go!” She had never seen Ben this angry before, and she was afraid he might kill Garth. She did not crave vengeance. She had been hurt deep in her very soul on this evening, but she just wanted him gone from them.

  Ben stopped and stood over the fallen man, his face a livid mask of fury, causing the jagged scar to appear white hot against the flush of his skin. “I reckon he’s about ready to end this little visit,” Cleve said, a calm voice in the ministorm. Holding Garth’s gun on him, he told him to get up and be on his way.

  Keeping a wary eye on the scar-faced devil who had bloodied his nose, Garth got slowly to his feet. Once he was in the saddle, he recovered a portion of his bravado. “I’ll have my pistol back,” he demanded sullenly.

  “Sure thing,” Cleve replied, his tone accommodating. He opened the cylinder and emptied the cartridges on the ground, then tossed the weapon to him.

  “This is a helluva long way from over,” Garth snarled as he holstered the empty pistol. “You’ve messed with the wrong man, mister.”

  “I don’t wanna hear about you, or anybody you know, causing any trouble for these folks,” Ben told him. “’Cause if I do, I’m comin’ after you, and I ain’t gonna stop at a bloody nose next time. See that you remember that. There won’t be any second warnin’.”

  They stood there in the front yard, watching Garth’s departure, until he disappeared in the growing darkness of the evening. Mary sat on the porch beside Victoria, her arm around her daughter’s shoulders, doing her best to comfort her, at the same time feeling the burn of her contempt for her former son-in-law. After a few moments, Jonah walked over to the porch and sat down on the other side of Victoria, and the two of them rocked her slowly back and forth in their arms. Cleve grimaced, then smiled when he looked at Ben. “Damned if this ain’t the liveliest family reunion I ever did see.”

  Ben’s face suddenly lost the image of unbridled fury it had reflected moments before and a smile slowly replaced it. “I reckon,” he replied. There were soon other concerns, however. Maybe Beaudry would be willing to let this confrontation be the end of it. Then, again, maybe he would be inclined to make more trouble as he had threatened. Ben was afraid he and Cleve might have to stay around a little longer to make sure Jonah and the women were all right. He assumed that they might consider going back to Omaha, or anywhere other than Deadwood, but it was too close to winter for them to start out now.

  Chapter 10

  “I think it might be broken,” Angel Lopez said as she tenderly dabbed a wet cloth under Beaudry’s nose in an attempt to clean the blood away. “I’m sorry, darlin’,” she cooed when he flinched in pain. “A lot of it’s dried up and it’s hard to get it off.”

  “That son of a bitch is a dead man,” Garth fumed. “He hit me when I wasn’t looking. They all ganged up on me, and by God, they’re gonna pay for it. I tried to tell ’em in a nice way, but they wouldn’t have it that way,” he went on, offering excuses for coming out on the losing end of the confrontation. “They came in here with a couple of hired guns. That one fellow, the scar-faced one, he’s nothing but a back-shooting bushwhacker, but he’s gonna get what’s coming to him. I can promise you that.”

  “I hope you told that bitch you have another woman now,” Angel said as she rinsed the cloth out in a pan of water, “one who takes care of you. Maybe she might understand better if I go up there and scratch her eyes out.”

  “Don’t you worry about it,” Garth assured her. “Nobody gets away with trying to mess with Garth Beaudry. If they know what’s good for them, they’d better be on their way outta town right now.”

  In the shanty on the hill above the Bella Union Saloon, that very decision was being discussed in earnest by Ben, Cleve, and Jonah. There had been no alternative plan, simply because no one in Jonah’s family had made provision for the possibility that Garth would react in any way other than joyful. Jonah had not been sure what he was going to do in Deadwood, but he had not been overly concerned about it because he thought he had Garth to rely upon. Now he was suddenly on his own, once again the sole provider for his wife and daughter and his grandson in a strange place, owning no property, and with no trade other than that as a schoolteacher. Prospects for the winter looked pretty bleak.

  Cleve was the first to offer, although Ben was about to. “I reckon me and Ben could stay around awhile till you make up your mind what you’re gonna do. Right, Ben?” He glanced at Ben to get his nod of approval, then went on. “We got to get outta this town, though, and build us a camp before the heavy weather shuts everythin’ off. Me and Ben can feed all of us out in the mountains—there’s game a’plenty—but there ain’t nothin’ we can do in this damn town.”

  “I guess we could go on back to Omaha,” Jonah suggested, but without much enthusiasm.

  “Too late,” Cleve replied at once. “Hard winter will most likely set in another month from now, and you’d
probably get caught in the middle of the prairie with about eight or ten foot of snow—that is, if the Injuns let you get that far.”

  Jonah shook his head slowly, reluctant to make the only other suggestion he could think of. “There’s lots of houses for sale around here, and they’re cheap. I’ve still got money left from the sale of my old place in Omaha. I guess I could buy a place a little more decent than this shack, so the women wouldn’t have to spend the winter here.”

  Ben spoke up then. “I don’t think you’d wanna do that, Jonah. The reason houses are goin’ cheap in Deadwood is there’s a lot of folks leavin’ this town. All the small claims have just about been worked out. I think it’d be a bad idea to spend your money on a good house, then this spring or later when you decide you wanna sell it, you won’t be able to get your money back. Hang on to that money. Cleve’s right. It’s too late to go back home, but he and I can build a stout cabin back up over the hill somewhere that’ll take you through the winter. Then, come spring, you can decide where you wanna go.”

  “Ben’s right,” Cleve said. “We can get you through the winter.”

  “You’d do that?” Jonah asked, looking at Ben; then turning to look at Cleve, he repeated, “You’d do that?”

  “Hell, ain’t nothin’ to it,” Cleve replied. “Me and Ben can go scout up a place tomorrow.” He cocked a mischievous eye at Jonah. “If you and the women ain’t tired of havin’ us around.” It was evident by the undisguised expression of relief on the frail little man’s face that the answer to that was not by a long shot.

  They went inside to inform Mary and Victoria of the decision to build a winter home outside Deadwood. Mary’s initial reaction was to question the sensibility of leaving the safety of town to expose themselves to the danger of Indian attacks in the mountains around Deadwood. “We ain’t talkin’ about goin’ deep in the mountains, like me and Ben was thinkin’ about to pan for gold,” Cleve assured her. “Just on the edge of the settlement where it’d be easy for us to hunt for food.” Mary was still skeptical, but she decided that she could rely on their opinion. There was no comment one way or the other from Victoria. She was still foundering hopelessly amid the wreckage of all her hopes and dreams of the past year. “We’ll see what we can find in the mornin’,” Cleve said. “Whatever it is, it’ll be better’n this shack.” It was settled then. The discussion over, Ben and Cleve said good night and went outside to sleep in Jonah’s wagon. As they walked out the door, Cleve bent down close to Victoria and whispered in her ear, “I know you’re feelin’ bad right now, but you’re lucky you found out before you wasted your whole life on that sorry son of a bitch. You’ll see.” She looked up at him and smiled, knowing he was right.

  Mary was up early the next morning. She wasn’t sure when Ben and Cleve planned to leave, but she wanted to have breakfast ready for them before they did. Soon after her mother was up, Victoria joined her in the kitchen half of the shack to help with breakfast. When she came from behind the quilt hung up to divide the sleeping quarters, Mary turned to look at her closely. Aware of the reason for her mother’s close scrutiny, Victoria said, “I’m all right, Mama. I’m over it already.” She was not, but she was determined she soon would be. Her life was far from over. She had been rejected, but it was not something she couldn’t deal with. Being a plain, uninteresting girl and woman, she was used to it. At least she had not come away from the experience with nothing gained, for she had Caleb, and he was worth the pain of being discarded. It occurred to her that she was glad she had not named him Garth Jr.

  Resolved to find work of some kind, so as not to squander the money he had set back for their future, Jonah announced that he was going to scour the town to see if there were opportunities for men of his situation. Mary did not think to discourage him; in fact, she was proud of his undefeated attitude, in spite of odds she did not feel favored his success. “Victoria and I will try to make some kind of home of this miserable shack while you’re looking. Maybe I’ll make something with the last of the salt pork in the barrel. We’ve had so much venison, I’m beginning to feel like an Indian.” She turned to Victoria then. “You and I can go down the hill to town. We need some dried beans, and while we’re at it, we’ll look around to see what this busy town has to offer.”

  Unaware of the determination of Jonah and the women to make the most of their situation, Ben and Cleve rode up the gulch to see what they could find. There was no talk of the original plans they had had for their journey to the Black Hills, although both men realized they were now bound to Jonah’s family for an indefinite period. Ben wasn’t sure if Cleve resented the delay in their goals, but for himself, he really didn’t care, and he had to admit that he had saddled himself with a feeling of responsibility in regard to their welfare. They weren’t going to be able to do much placer mining in the winter, anyway. They might as well spend the time in Deadwood.

  After riding up in the hills on either side of the gulch, which extended for a distance of about ten miles, they began to wonder if Cleve’s boast about finding a place to build a cabin close to Deadwood was a bit naive, for every foot of ground had been claimed. There was plenty of pine with which to cut logs for a cabin, but no longer convenient to town. The logs would have to be hauled from a considerable distance, even if land close in was available. A little before sundown, they headed for home with no good news to report. When they arrived back at the shanty, they found that their day had been good compared to Mary and Victoria’s.

  “I’m proud of her,” Mary told them. “We went down the main street, looking at the shops and stores, and I think we were both enjoying the opportunity to window-shop, even though we didn’t buy anything except these beans you’re having for supper. Do you know there are two newspapers in this town? There’s a theater, the Gem Theater. All this in this unlikely spot for a town in the middle of Indian Territory. Anyway, we were walking past the saloon. The walkway was crowded with some of the roughest-looking men I have ever seen, but they were all very polite and quick to step out of our way. We had almost passed the saloon when this painted hussy burst out of the door and proceeded to accost us. ‘You homely bitch,’ she cursed at Victoria, ‘go on back where you belong.’ And she grabbed Victoria by her hair and almost pulled her off her feet. I was trying to get her off Victoria. ‘He’s through with you,’ she yelled. ‘He’s got a real woman now.’ ‘A real whore!’ I yelled. You should have seen the gaudy frock she was wearing, and her face all painted up. She was still holding Victoria by the hair, but she started cursing me after I called her a whore. I thought she was going to let Victoria go and come after me, but that’s when Victoria took a swing at the hussy with her fist. And she hit her right in the eye.” Mary had to pause for a moment while she chuckled over the incident. “Well, she let go of Victoria then and started holding her hand over her eye, and Victoria hit her again, on her pretty little nose. And it started bleeding! She got herself back in that saloon then, crying like a baby. I was so proud of Victoria.”

  Embarrassed, but unable to suppress a smile of satisfaction, Victoria said, “That’s not a proper story to tell anyone, Mama, especially in front of children.” She placed her hands over Caleb’s ears and scolded, “What will Caleb think of his mother?”

  “I expect he’d be pretty proud of her,” Cleve answered, a wide smile on his face, matching the one Mary wore. Before long, they were all laughing, even Victoria. It was a much-needed respite from the somber overcast that had descended upon the party since arriving in the lawless mining town.

  Having sat quietly, enjoying the telling of his daughter’s vengeance upon her husband’s lover, Jonah waited until there was a lull in the conversation to tell them his news. “I found myself a job today,” he announced, capturing everyone’s attention at once. “I guess I’ll be teaching again. I talked to the folks who run the Congregational School, and they were fairly tickled to find that I was a teacher, because they’ve been needing one ever since the last one left to return to the East.” H
is statement was met with a round of applause, and a proud hug from his wife and daughter. It brought forth a new issue, however.

  “How far is that school?” Cleve asked.

  “Not far from here,” Jonah replied. “In fact, I could walk to the school.”

  “Then I reckon Ben and me have been lookin’ in the wrong place to build a cabin,” Cleve said. His remark caused a lull in the chatter for a few moments.

  “Why don’t we just build another room onto this place?” Ben suggested. “Looks to me like you folks would be better off in town for a spell, anyway. And I know Mary wasn’t too comfortable with the idea of livin’ outside the town.”

  “This shanty is going to need a lot more than an extra room,” Mary announced emphatically.

  “That’ll be part of it,” Jonah said, already seeing Ben’s suggestion as one he favored. “We’ll fix up this place like a regular mansion. New windows and a new door will help keep the cold out, and you can walk to town.” Mary nodded her acceptance of the plan, and that was it as far as a place to live was concerned.

  The next few days were spent planning the new construction of their house, and soon after the actual work began. With Jonah’s wagon, lumber was hauled up from a sawmill on Sherman Street and the addition to the original cabin was well along the way to completion before the middle of September. The work was being done by Ben and Cleve, with Jonah helping out after school was over for the day. The women kept the workers fed properly, and Caleb made himself useful fetching nails and tools when needed. Their neighbor on the downhill side of them happened to be the proprietor of a hardware store, so he made it a point to introduce himself to the builders right away. His name was Malcolm Bryant, a widower, and his thirteen-year-old son, James, was happy to deliver supplies, even staying on sometimes to help with the construction, especially if it happened to be close to mealtime. Before long, James came to be a regular visitor, even when there was no delivery to be made. Everyone participated in the making of the home. The project, and the excitement generated, served as a gentle balm to ease Victoria’s broken spirit. Her evolution was noticed by her mother most of all and was the primary reason for the constant smile on Mary’s face.