The Judas Tree

by Matt Braun

  Henry Palmer halted in the middle of the intersection. He planted himself as though he’d taken root, legs spread wide. The shiny star pinned on his vest gleamed brightly in the lamplight. His expression was stolid and his stance was that of a monolith, somehow immovable. He threw up an arm, palm outward.

  “That’s far enough!” he called brassily. “You boys are through for the night!”

  The vigilantes stopped several paces away. Their features registered surprise and momentary confusion. A moment of stark silence ensued while they stood immobilized by Palmer’s glowering stare. On the boardwalk, the spectators appeared spellbound, watching with trancelike awe. Then Wilbur X. Lott took a step forward.

  “No, by God!” Lott shouted. “We’re not through! We’ve only just started!”

  Palmer fixed him with a baleful look. “I’m ordering you to disband—now!”

  “Order and be damned!” Lott said fiercely. “It’s you we want, Palmer.”

  “On what charge?”

  “Murder! Highway robbery! Contempt for the laws of man and sacrilege against a higher law—the law of God!”

  “Wilbur, are you preaching a sermon?” Palmer’s tone was laced with mockery. “Or maybe you’re playacting for the crowd? You always did have a flair for the dramatic.”

  “Save your ridicule!” Lott yelled. “It won’t work! We’ve got the goods on you and your gang of road agents!”

  “Are you asking me to believe you have proof?”

  “I’m not asking!” Lott thundered. “I’m telling you! Cyrus Skinner confessed not ten minutes ago. He named you as the leader—the mastermind!”

  “For the benefit of everyone here”—Palmer gestured around with a sardonic smile—“how did you extract that confession?”

  “With a rope! We let him dangle till he decided to come clean!”

  “Come off it, Wilbur! You put the words in his mouth and choked him until he told you what you wanted to hear. Isn’t that how it happened?”

  “He told us the truth! The whole truth! How you organized the gang and used him as a mouthpiece. He named you as the man responsible for the holdups and killings. The boss!”

  “It won’t hold water,” Palmer informed him. “A confession obtained under duress isn’t admissible in court.”

  “We’re not debating technicalities. Skinner identified you! That’s all the proof we need.”

  “Proof?” Palmer repeated scornfully. “You hung your witness, Wilbur! All we have is your version of what you strangled out of him. And as everybody knows—you’re a confirmed liar!”

  Someone in the crowd laughed, followed by low snickering and several open catcalls. Lott flushed and his eyes went garnet with rage. His voice rose suddenly.

  “You have been condemned to hang, Henry Palmer! By the Lord God Jehovah, we will not be denied!”

  Palmer’s smile seemed frozen. “Up until tonight, the men you’ve hung would have been convicted in a fair trial and duly executed. So I haven’t interfered, even though you’re operating outside the law. But it stops here, Wilbur! I order you—for the last time—to disband or face the consequences.”

  “Consequences, hell!” Lott crowed. “You can’t hide behind that badge anymore!”

  “Wrong again,” Palmer countered. “I am the law, the only law! You have no authority in Virginia City.”

  “These men and that rope”—Lott flung his arm at the man holding the noose—“are all the authority I need!”

  “Since you brought it up . . .” Palmer paused and appeared to tick off numbers. “I count only twenty men, maybe less. That wouldn’t qualify as a quorum, not to mention a majority.”

  Lott brushed aside the objection with a broad wave. “We represent the town, the workingmen! If it’s a majority you want, then we’ll put it to a vote. Let the people decide!”

  A ripple of approval swept through the crowd. Lott nodded and looked around with vinegary satisfaction. Then Palmer stilled the onlookers with upraised hands.

  “Hear me out!” he said in a loud, commanding voice. “Where the mob rules, even innocent men fear for their lives. So I’m going to suggest a compromise that will restore order. At the same time, it will allow us to get at the truth once and for all!”

  “Compromise?” Lott echoed suspiciously. “What’ve you got up your sleeve now?”

  “Law and order!” Palmer announced in a ringing tone. “You disband your vigilantes and I’ll surrender myself into the custody of Attorney General Blackthorn.”

  “Your political crony!” Lott hooted. “Don’t make me laugh! Blackthorn’s the one who put your name up for U.S. marshal. You’d walk away free as a bird!”

  “On the contrary,” Palmer said reasonably. “I would be charged and returned to Virginia City for trial. The issue would be settled in a court of law—by a jury of my peers.”

  The spectators were divided. All eyes were trained on the two men, and the miners listened raptly as their voices were pitted in counterpoint. Until now, it appeared a standoff, with neither man assured of carrying the argument. Then, abruptly, Wilbur X. Lott spread his arms and appealed directly to the crowd.

  “Don’t listen to him!” Lott bellowed. “He’s trying to run a sandy! You let him surrender to his political pals, and he’ll be long gone forever. Either we hang him tonight or we’ve lost. He’ll escape justice—the people’s justice!”

  “Use your heads!” Palmer retorted. “I am a duly elected peace officer. Hang me, and the attorney general will issue a blanket murder warrant. And your name will head the list, Wilbur Lott!”

  “Well, you won’t be around to see it! Your term of office is about to expire . . . at the end of a rope!”

  “There’s the real issue here tonight!” Palmer said explosively. “You want my job! You’d crawl in bed with the devil and sell your soul for the chance to be sheriff. Say it’s not so and brand yourself for the hypocrite you are!”

  For a moment, Starbuck thought Palmer had won. It was a telling argument, all the more persuasive because it was true. Not a man in the crowd doubted that Wilbur X. Lott would indeed sell his soul to wear a tin star. Yet no voice was raised in Palmer’s defense. Instead, a gruff buzz of murmuring broke out among the onlookers. The sound swelled and took on an ugly, guttural tone.

  Lott sensed the ominous change in mood. He shook his fist in the air and cried out violently. “To the Judas Tree!”

  A spate of jubilant shouts erupted from the crowd. There was a sudden milling and a mixed chorus of countermanding orders. Bloodlust transformed them on the instant into a mob.

  “Get some torches!”

  “No! Why take the time?”

  “Do it now!”

  “Where?”

  “The hotel balcony!”

  The miners surged off the boardwalk and engulfed Henry Palmer. He was disarmed and dragged bodily to the hotel veranda. The rope whistled over the railing of the upstairs balcony and dropped beside his head. Someone slipped the noose around his neck and cinched the knot tight. Eager hands grabbed the tail end of the rope, and the men set themselves to pull. Then Lott stayed them with a sharp command. He mounted the veranda steps and looked up at Palmer.

  “Before you meet your Maker,” he asked unctuously, “do you have any last words?”

  “Only for you!” Palmer’s eyes blazed. “I’ll reserve a spot for you in hell. Don’t keep me waiting too—”

  “Hang him!”

  The slack went out of the rope and Palmer was jerked aloft. His legs thrashed vainly at the air and his hands dug madly at the noose. His windpipe constricted and his features took on a ghastly look of terror. Then, like a thunderbolt, a gunshot split the night. A bright pearl of blood mushroomed beneath his badge and an expression of amazement crossed his face. His struggles ceased and the light in his eyes blinked out. He slumped dead.

  The instant of tomblike stillness that followed was suddenly shattered. Someone yelled and pointed, and the crowd turned to look. Starbuck stood on the oppo
site corner, the Colt extended at shoulder level. A wisp of smoke curled out of the gun barrel, slowly drifted away. He lowered his arm.

  Wilbur Lott muttered an unintelligible oath. He leaped off the veranda steps and charged across the street. The crowd parted before him, opening a corridor to the lamppost outside the café. He hauled to a stop a couple of paces from the boardwalk and grasped the lapels of his swallowtail coat. His face was ocherous.

  “You’ve just signed your own death warrant, Mr. Detective!”

  “Oh?” Starbuck’s expression was sphinxlike. “How’s that?”

  “You killed Palmer!” Lott snarled. “You undermined the work of the Vigilance Committee!”

  Starbuck gave him a dark smile. “I put a dead man out of his misery. You’ll have a helluva time charging me with murder.”

  “I charge you with obstruction of justice!”

  “Whose justice?” Starbuck laughed in his face. “Christ, you’re enough to make a buzzard puke! You get your kicks watching men strangle to death, don’t you?”

  Lott stabbed out with a bony finger. “You’ll know very shortly whether or not that’s true. I impose on you the sentence of death!”

  “How do you figure to make it stick?”

  “Quite easily,” Lott intoned. “I intend to escort you across the street and order my men to hang you. Now, hand over that gun!”

  Starbuck leveled the Colt and thumbed the hammer. His voice was suddenly edged. “Why don’t you take it from me?”

  “Look around you,” Lott said, motioning at the crowd. “Your gun won’t save you from all these men! One word from me and they’ll tear you to shreds.”

  Starbuck’s eyes hooded. “One word from you and you’re a dead man.”

  “You’re bluffing!”

  “Try me,” Starbuck said softly. “Only take a deep breath before you do. It’ll have to last a long time.”

  Lott seemed turned to stone. He suddenly realized a wrong word would speed him into eternity. His gaze riveted on the snout of the pistol and a vein pulsed in his forehead. A leaden moment slipped past before he glanced up at Starbuck. He swallowed nervously.

  “We appear to be at a stalemate, Mr. Starbuck.”

  “Here’s the way we’ll play it, Lott. I’m leaving town tomorrow on the noon stage. You call your dogs off—give me your oath we’ve got a truce—and I’ll let you walk away. Otherwise, your vigilante days are over.”

  Lott squinted at him in baffled fury. “You have my word.”

  “Swear it”—Starbuck wiggled the barrel of the Colt—“by your Lord God Jehovah.”

  “I swear it,” Lott grated out. “But make sure you’re on the noon stage. Our truce ends there!”

  “That’s the third time you’ve threatened my life. I generally don’t allow it to happen more than once. So listen close and believe what you hear.”

  “A pronouncement from on high, Mr. Starbuck?”

  “No, just damn good advice,” Starbuck said coldly. “Get down on your knees tonight and pray to your God that we never meet again.”

  “And if we do?” Lott bristled. “What then?”

  Starbuck smiled. “I’ll punch your ticket to the Promised Land.”

  “Anything more?”

  “You’ve heard all I’ve got to say.”

  “And you have until noon tomorrow—no longer!”

  Lott turned on his heel and walked away. He rejoined the vigilantes and ordered Palmer’s body strung up from the hotel balcony. Then, staring straight ahead, he led his men to a nearby saloon. The crowd slowly dispersed to the dives and gaming dens along the street. Within minutes, a ghostly silence descended over the town.

  Starbuck crossed to the hotel. He glanced up at the body as he mounted the stairs and entered the door. His assignment was ended in Virginia City, and nothing he’d done gave him cause for regret. Nor was he touched by remorse for Henry Palmer.

  A man played the cards he was dealt.

  Late the next morning Starbuck called on John Duggan. He’d had no contact with the mining association president since their initial meeting in Denver. The purpose of the call was to deliver his report, which could then be passed on to Munro Salisbury, owner of the stageline. There was also the matter of his fee.

  Duggan looked like a man who had spent a sleepless night. His jowls sagged and his eyes were circled with dark rings, the lines etched deep. He greeted Starbuck with a sallow smile and escorted him into a cramped, utilitarian office. The room was dominated by a scarred mahogany desk, with sectional maps of Alder Gulch pinned to the walls and a large filing cabinet wedged into one corner. He waved Starbuck to a wooden armchair.

  “Have a seat, Luke.” He dropped into a swivel chair behind the desk. “I had a feeling you’d be around today.”

  “I’m catching the noon stage,” Starbuck said, lighting a cigarette. “Figured I’d bring you up to date before I left.”

  “Have you read the morning newspaper?”

  “No.” Starbuck exhaled a cottony wad of smoke. “A reporter tried to buttonhole me at the hotel last night. I told him ‘no comment’ and gave him the fast shuffle. What’d he write?”

  Duggan unfolded a newspaper and pushed it across the desk. “You tell me . . . fact or fiction?”

  Starbuck scanned the front page, smoking quietly. The story was emblazoned with bold headlines and fairly simmered with purple prose. Centered on the page was a photograph of the Judas Tree, with a limp body dangling from a rope. His own name was prominently featured throughout the text, and he found the details surprisingly accurate. Several direct quotes from Wilbur X. Lott were somewhat at variance with the facts. At last, he folded the newspaper and tossed it on the desk. He looked across at Duggan and shrugged.

  “It’s pretty close to the mark. They’re a little confused about the Carver girl and how I tracked down Skinner. But there’s not a whole lot I’d add. Probably couldn’t have written a better report myself.”

  “How do you think the reporter found out we hired you?”

  “Beats me,” Starbuck admitted. “I guess that’s why they’re called newshounds. What makes you ask?”

  “Wilbur Lott,” Duggan said, tapping the newspaper. “You’ll note he’s trying to take a major share of the credit. We feel that’s not in our best interests.”

  “When you say ‘our,’ I take it you mean the mining association?”

  “I do indeed,” Duggan acknowledged. “We hired you—along with the stage company—and we want the credit. Lott had no part in breaking the case!”

  “Call a news conference,” Starbuck suggested. “Let the facts speak for themselves.”

  “Would you agree to a joint interview?”

  “Nope,” Starbuck said shortly. “I try to steer clear of reporters. You don’t need me, anyway. All you have to do is point out one simple fact. Lott hasn’t done anything but hang a bunch of people.”

  “Unfortunately, he’ll claim otherwise, and the public has a tendency to believe what it reads in print.”

  Duggan launched into a long-winded dissertation on the politics of Virginia City. Starbuck listened with only half an ear. He subscribed to no particular ideology and he’d always considered politics a dirty word. To him, it was a matter of supreme indifference which faction controlled the political apparatus. By whatever name, the party in power was no less corrupt than its opponents. He stubbed out his cigarette as the civics lesson drew to a close. Duggan concluded by once more asking him to submit to a newspaper interview.

  “Sorry,” Starbuck replied with a poker face. “You hired me to kill a gang leader. By my count, you got your money’s worth several times over. Let’s just leave it there.”

  Duggan studied him with a reproachful frown. “Doesn’t it bother you that Lott might end up running Virginia City?”

  “I’m not my brother’s keeper.” Starbuck cracked a smile. “It’s a job better suited to preachers and politicians.”

  “Suppose I told you Lott and his vigilantes ha
nged an innocent man this morning?”

  “Anyone I know?”

  “His name was Jack Slade.”

  “Are you saying he had nothing to do with the robbers?”

  “Nothing whatsoever!” Duggan looked worried. “He was a saloon tough and a general troublemaker.”

  “Why’d Lott hang him?”

  “Slade picked a fight with one of the vigilantes last night. Lott ordered him out of town by sunup and he refused to leave. So now he’s decorating the Judas Tree.”

  Starbuck’s jawline hardened. “I reckon that means it’s started.”

  “What’s started?” The worry lines on Duggan’s forehead deepened. “I don’t follow you.”

  “Sooner or later vigilantes get around to hanging all the badmen and desperados. But it’s a goddamn hard habit to break! So some unlucky stiff winds up being lynched before things get back to normal. With Lott, that might take a while . . . and a few more unlucky stiffs.”

  “Now that you mention it,” Duggan said uneasily, “I understand Lott threatened to string you up.”

  “Yeah, he had some such notion.”

  “Then all the more reason to grant the press an interview. You could do Virginia City a favor and settle a personal score—all in one stroke!”

  Starbuck deliberated a moment. “I reckon not. One way or another, the grave always straightens out hunchbacks.”

  “Hunchbacks?” Duggan stared at him. “What’s that got to do with Lott?”

  A slow smile spread across Starbuck’s face. “It’s an old saying. Some men spend their lives trying to get themselves killed. Wilbur Lott fits the mold.”

  Duggan hesitated, considering. “I also heard you threatened to kill him.”

  “Nooo,” Starbuck said slowly. “It was more on the order of a promise.”

  “Hmmm.” Duggan eyed him with a scrutinizing look. “You wouldn’t have a crystal ball, would you, Luke?”

  “I’m a detective, not a swami.”

  “Sometimes there’s only a fine line separating promise and prophecy.”

  “Let’s just say”—Starbuck smiled cryptically—“Wilbur Lott’s a hunchback with one foot in the grave.”