Hang Him Twice

by William W. Johnstone

  “Well.” Cody downed his liquor. “I can’t act, either. But it’s quite the life. Best hotels. Comfortable beds. Sure beats sleeping on cold, hard ground. Good food. Maître d’s putting you in the best seats and seeing that you get the best waiters. Sure beats hardtack and beans or nothing but jerky. Folks who love you and don’t want to kill you.”

  “It sounds a lot better than marshaling,” Dooley told him.

  After refilling his shot glass, the great scout leaned across the table. “It’s not. It’s important to me, Dooley, because I’m a showman at heart. I have great ambition. Great ideas. I hope to make the Western ways something the entire world will know and remember. That’s me. Not you. But you could do something almost as important.”

  “What’s that?”

  “I save the West, or the image of the West, for generations, to preserve this for history. You . . .” He held the shot glass toward Dooley, then downed it. “You save actual lives. You save actual towns. You are the hero, not some playactor.”

  “You killed Tall Bull,” Dooley reminded him. “You saved actual lives . . . a lot more than I have.”

  Shrugging, Cody pushed back his chair and pulled his hat down. “Maybe. But here’s the long and short of things, Dooley. I’m pulling out. Stayed here longer than I intended to in the first place. Leadville’s a fine town, Dooley, but I’ve seen many fine towns. It doesn’t hold me like North Platte, Nebraska, or even Denver. Or even New York City or San Francisco or Chicago. What I’m saying, pard, is this. I got nothing for me in Leadville, other than my grubstaking you, which you have paid in full. And our friendship, which shall endure till my dying breath. Nothing to hold me to this burg, though. Nothing that I honestly think is worth saving. It’s a good town, and those miners can’t play poker worth a dang, so I can make myself a bit of money and move on. But it ain’t a town I truly love because there’s nothing in it, or no one, that I really love. Don’t get me wrong, Dooley. I like you a whole lot. You’re one to ride the river with. But you ain’t kin. You ain’t my children. You ain’t my wife. I like you fine. I just don’t love you. And I don’t love Leadville. Because there’s no one here for me.”

  The chair scraped on the floor as Cody stood. He grinned down at Dooley, who drew a deep breath, held it, and let it out before he looked at Cody.

  “I reckon,” Dooley said, “I can’t say I love Leadville, either.”

  “It’s just a town,” Cody said. “Not much to love, except silver and whiskey. But I don’t think you can tell me that there ain’t nobody in this town that you can just walk away from.”

  Dooley stared. Buffalo Bill did not blink. After a moment, the grin on the scout’s face widened, and he stretched out his hand.

  As they shook, Buffalo Bill Cody said, “Some things are worth fighting for, Dooley. You just got to make sure you’re fighting for the right things. And I know for a fact that you are.”

  Dooley watched the tall man walk out of the Silver Palace, shaking hands with miners and vagrants and hurdy-gurdy girls, businessmen and professional gamblers. He was certainly the showman, Dooley realized, but Buffalo Bill was also a scout who lived up to his reputation. He could read the signs. He could read men.

  The legend of the West disappeared, and Dooley stood staring at the doorway, then through the window at bustling, booming Leadville. Across the street, Adam Wolfe, alderman, saloon owner, vigilante, sat on a cracker barrel talking to banker John Price and smoking cigars.

  “You want another drink, hon?”

  Dooley looked up at the barmaid, a tired woman with a painted face and red-rimmed eyes.

  “No thanks.” Dooley tossed her a nickel tip as he stood, adjusted his hat, and walked out the door.

  The banker and the alderman stopped chatting and kept staring. Dooley waited for a farm wagon and a freight wagon to pass, then he strode across the street, stepped onto the boardwalk, tipped his hat as a lady walked past, and stared at the banker and the vigilante.

  “When do I start?” Dooley asked.

  Both men grinned at each other.

  “Let’s go find the mayor and the judge and get you sworn in,” Mr. Wolfe said.

  * * *

  The contract Dooley signed made him town marshal for six months. He would be paid $200 a month, but Dooley insisted that $170 would be put into a fund to build a schoolhouse and pay for a schoolmistress.

  “There ain’t but ten kids in this town, son,” the mayor said, “and eight of ’em is orphans.”

  “Families will come once this town settles down,” Dooley said.

  “I like the idea of a schoolmistress,” said one of the councilmen, and the other councilmen sniggered and elbowed one another.

  Dooley kept telling himself that they were not the reason he was taking this stupid job that likely would get him killed.

  The judge said that was mighty generous of Dooley, and Dooley said that he made more money from his mine than he knew what to do with anyway.

  The contract also said that Dooley would collect half of every fine the judge collected. That gave the judge, naturally, reason to make those fines higher, which suited Dooley fine, too, because he knew that, yes, he did make a passel of money from silver, but now that he would not be working at the mine six days a week he would have to hire a manager and an assistant manager, and a fellow never did know when a mine might go bust. His pa had always tried to save a little bit of hard money when he got some, for those dark days when locusts ate all the money crops or droughts or floods left barely enough food for the family. Besides, Dooley figured he might need some money for poker, when he wasn’t working, of course.

  The council would have to figure out a way to get money to build Dooley an office, but banker John Price, who was also on the town council, agreed to let Dooley have the office vacated by attorney Jonah Terrance Cohen in his rented spot upstairs. That was fine enough with Dooley, although he figured the carpenters and painters would be making quite a racket down the hall fixing the gun shop and painting over the blood on the walls and floor for about a week or so.

  Still, Dooley pointed out, “There’s no room in Cohen’s office for a jail.”

  But that did not matter because another board member pointed out that there was a big hardwood tree on a vacant lot just two streets over, and most of the men on the council knew of that tree, especially those who served on the vigilance committee, for they had hanged about six or seven no-accounts from those limbs over the past eight or nine months.

  The blacksmith named Hans Schultz, also a councilman, said he would be willing to donate chains and leg irons to hold the prisoners as they awaited their fines from the judge, John R. Ottinger, to be levied. For small crimes. Bigger ones would require the circuit-riding judge’s prudence when he came to town. It would be good for business, and Schultz said he would charge the town only one dollar for every culprit he had to put in leg irons. The secretary and treasurer would get together, the mayor decreed, and order some handcuffs for Dooley from Denver, which, with luck, would arrive on Butch Sweeney’s next stagecoach run.

  Which brought up something Dooley had not considered until the mayor mentioned Butch’s stagecoach.

  “What about deputies?”

  “The vigilance committee will be at your disposal should you need extra guns,” Adam Wolfe said. “Perhaps at the end of the month when the mines pay off their men.”

  “I was thinking about someone maybe part-time permanent,” Dooley said, knowing that Butch would be on the stage a lot of the time, though maybe he could hire a jehu.

  “Do you mean Butch Sweeney?” Wolfe asked. After all, Dooley had suggested that Sweeney become Leadville’s marshal.

  “Then who’d drive the stagecoach to Denver and back?” asked a sleepy-eyed councilman.

  Dooley opened his mouth to answer, but shut it. How stupid could he be, trying to pin a badge on his young pard Butch Sweeney? Badges made mighty inviting targets for drunks or outlaws packing iron.

  “No. No, n
ot Butch. Butch Sweeney has a job, and he’s good at it. I’m sure Mr. Wolfe is right. I’ll just get some of the vigilantes . . .”

  “Vigilance committee,” Mr. Wolfe corrected. Vigilantes had a bad connotation, it appeared.

  “Vigilance committee,” Dooley said. “Whenever the need arises.”

  “Harley Boone would make a good deputy, though,” said the blacksmith.

  Dooley stared at Schultz as though he were dirt. “I don’t think so,” Dooley said.

  “I just meant he’s a good man with a gun,” the blacksmith said.

  “Too good,” banker Price said, and a lot of the other men in the banker’s office seemed to agree with the banker’s—and Dooley’s—assessment.

  A storeowner laughed and said, “I think, once word reaches Denver and Georgetown and Cheyenne about what Marshal Monahan did this morning, no one will be venturing into Leadville to do ill will.”

  So the meeting was adjourned. Handshakes, cigars, and pats on the back made their rounds, and Dooley left with a silver-plated six-point star pinned onto his shirtfront. The silver came from Leadville’s mines, donated by some of the big barons. Mr. Wolfe walked Dooley out of the bank. Summer nights at ten thousand feet still did not feel like summer to Dooley.

  “Well,” the saloonkeeper and alderman said, “would you like to celebrate your new appointment as town marshal with a drink of my private stock at my very own saloon?”

  Dooley shook his head. “I’ve got some work to do, but I thank you for your offer.”

  “And I, and everyone in Leadville, thank you for your service, sir. And let me know whenever you need deputies. We are at your disposal. And remember: It’s just like our mayor said. You have a free rein to do what needs to be done to keep the peace in Leadville.”

  Which is another reason Dooley had decided to take that job.

  Wolfe went one way, and Dooley walked the other toward the hotel. He wondered what he had gotten himself into, but he also knew he had made the right decision by not recommending Butch Sweeney for a deputy’s job. Not that Butch would have accepted the offer anyway. He had a stagecoach to drive, a business to run, and no matter how old he was, he would always be a kid in Dooley’s mind. Which seemed a bit odd, now that Dooley considered that. Butch was a kid. Would always be a kid.

  But Julia was now a woman.

  Dooley stopped and stared across the street. The shades to the county clerk’s office remained closed, but yellow light from lanterns seeped through the cracks. George Miller, and likely those no-account Telegram scribe and deputy federal peace officer, were inside, burning the midnight oil and probably planning a way to get rid of Leadville’s new lawman—permanently.

  Which is why Dooley decided not to have Butch for a deputy, and why he was so happy the alderman named Wolfe had pretty much dismissed Dooley’s original idea to have Butch Sweeney become Leadville’s lawman.

  Deputy marshals could get killed just as quickly as town marshals.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  Dooley spent little time in town on his first day as marshal, but he had warned the mayor and the councilmen and the vigilance committee aldermen that he would certainly need some policemen at least for a day or so as he settled his affairs.

  That meant spending the first half of the morning with Jarvis at his office at the mine, getting things squared away, but before he set out for the mine on Halfmoon Creek, riding General Grant with Blue tagging along, he stopped in at the shop of Joe McCutcheon, the sign-maker and an alderman on the vigilance committee, and told him what he wanted and when he needed it.

  Joe McCutcheon was a cigarette-smoking, always-coughing, grizzled old man whose face was harder than sandpaper. He wore a carpenter’s apron tied around his waist, a pencil stuck atop an ear, and his fingers were splotched with paints of various colors and hues, and yellow stains from a life of smoking cigarettes.

  After hacking up half a lung, McCutcheon spit phlegm into an empty tin can and stared at Dooley in disbelief.

  “Just do it,” Dooley said, and dropped a few gold coins by the tin can.

  “You sure?”

  “Yep.”

  The sign-maker shrugged.

  “You get much business?” Dooley asked.

  “Well,” he said, and spit again into the can, “there’s a lot of signs needin’ replacin’ after yesterday’s ruckus.”

  “But you can have this done by the end of the day?”

  The man stared at the coins and nodded. “You’re the marshal.”

  Dooley nodded. “And if somebody happens to come in, you’ll keep your mouth shut and the signs out of sight.”

  The man plucked a cigarette on the top of his other ear, lighted it with the end of the butt he was finishing smoking, and stuck it in his mouth. He answered, the cigarette bobbing on his lower lip. “Like I said, you’re the marshal.”

  So Dooley left McCutcheon to his smoke and paint and signs, grabbed a coffee and a doughnut at the bakery, and rode out of Leadville.

  He had to hire a new bookkeeper, and left that to Jarvis. He had to hire a manager and an assistant, but he promoted his foreman to the main job, and the foreman-now-manager recommended a good hand at the Empire to become an assistant. Dooley figured that the foreman-now-manager knew about such things and such men a whole lot better than he did, so he gave permission for the hire. They then promoted Good Touch Tim, so called because he never blew up anyone tapping dynamite sticks into the drill holes, to a third assistant, and left the hiring of a new miner to Jarvis.

  That went pretty good, Dooley figured, and Jarvis said he would make sure that Dooley got his money on time. Which made Dooley wonder when he would have time to sneak back to his mine and dig up all that money he had buried. But, he resigned himself to thinking, it probably wouldn’t matter because George Miller would likely figure out a way to get the new marshal of Leadville shot down in a week, if that.

  When he got back to town, he left his horse and the blue shepherd in the livery and strode over to the hotel where Butch Sweeney was loading passengers and getting ready to ride out of town.

  Butch smiled and walked up to Dooley, removed his bandanna, and pretended to wipe the dust off Dooley’s silver-plated star and give it a good shining.

  “That’s right pretty,” Butch said.

  “Thanks.” Dooley was not amused.

  Dooley glanced inside the coach. “You got a lot of passengers this trip,” he said.

  “That ruckus yesterday made some folks decide to leave town.”

  That made Dooley frown. Maybe Leadville did need a town lawman. Maybe it was time law and order came to Leadville. But why did he have to bring law and order to Leadville?

  “And,” Butch said, “this might be my last run?”

  Dooley cocked his head.

  Shrugging, Butch said, “Word is that there’s another company forming in Georgetown, and a new outfit has this omnibus that they plan on running from Breckenridge to here. And ol’ Jarrod Dickinson is starting one up to make runs to Silver Plume and back.”

  “Town’s growing,” Dooley said, just to say something as some carpenters worked on replacing doors and windows and patching up bullet holes in the town’s many façades. He also saw Joe McCutcheon hanging a freshly painted sign on Front Street.

  “Yep.” Butch shook Dooley’s hand, reached up to grab hold of the driver’s box, and climbed up the front wheel and into his seat.

  “Be back in a few days,” Butch said, smiled, and reached for his whip. The smile faded and he said, “If you can, it wouldn’t hurt to check on . . .” Julia’s name went unsaid, and Dooley nodded grimly and looked across the street at the county clerk’s office. The shades were open this time, and a figure—undoubtedly George Miller himself—stood staring at Dooley and Butch.

  “Be careful,” Dooley told Butch as he looked back at his young pard.

  “You be careful,” Butch said, and he released the brake and snapped the whip over the lead mule’s left ear.


  He wondered how that kid had learned to handle a whip so well. The kid Dooley remembered from that ranch up in Utah was too green to have even known how to pick up a whip, let alone use one to perfection.

  The stage rumbled out of Leadville, and Dooley felt like a man alone.

  Of course, when he sat down at the little café to grab a bite to eat, he was not alone for long. The bell on the door chimed, and four men entered the restaurant that smelled of fried potatoes, burned bacon, and coffee so powerful it could float not just a horseshoe, but an entire horse. This wasn’t the normal place those four men would take a late dinner or an early supper.

  Their wardrobe was fancy, and not Joseph and Lyman G. Bloomingdale fancy, but really, really expensive. Silk top hats; tailor-made Prince Alberts; silk cravats with diamond and silver and gold stickpins; velvet-lined, double-breasted, pearl-button vests; black leather shoes shined to a gleam that reflected the late-afternoon sun and the dim lanterns hanging in this greasy dining hall. One carried an ebony cane with a carved-ivory handle that resembled a lion’s head. Another’s cane was silver-plated. They did not remove their hats. They did not sit at any of the vacant tables. They walked directly to Dooley. The two cane-toters pulled up the empty chairs and deposited themselves in the rickety seats. The bald one with the monocle disgustingly retrieved a handkerchief from an inside coat pocket and pulled out the other chair. He dropped the piece of white silk on the floor on purpose because, Dooley figured, once his hanky had touched this filth it was no longer fitting for him to keep. The last one waited, turned, and demanded that the nice, skinny waitress fetch him a chair immediately.

  Dooley wanted to punch that sorry cur in his big, bulbous nose, but the waitress hurriedly obeyed and asked if any of the gents wanted coffee.

  They turned up their noses and did not answer.

  Dooley sipped his coffee and picked up a copy of the Leadville Ledger. He did not ask the men what they wanted. They’d get around to telling him, which they did.