Matt Jensen, The Last Mountain Man The Eyes of Texas

by William W. Johnstone

  “As you can clearly see, it seems to me like you would be the perfect one to elevate to the position of town marshal,” Mayor Trout said to Prescott. “I mean, you are the deputy, after all. And you have been the deputy for some time now and that provides some needed continuity. That means nobody knows the position better than you.”

  “I know the position well enough to know I wouldn’t be worth a damn as the marshal,” Prescott said. Then, toward Annabelle, he added, “Pardon my language, ma’am.”

  “But if you think about it, the pay will more than double what you’re drawing now,” Dupree said.

  “What do I need more money for?” Prescott asked. “I’ve got a free place to sleep right there in the jail. The city pays Moe to furnish my meals free. The onliest thing I need money for is a few beers, and maybe a whiskey now ’n then. The money I make deputyin’ pays me enough so I can do that without no problem. If I got more money, I’d just drink more, and next thing you know I’d turn into a drunk. Now, you sure don’t want that.”

  “No, most assuredly, we would not want that,” Rafferty, the grocer, said.

  “Besides which,” Deputy Prescott continued, “mayhaps you ain’t noticed, but all the marshals we been hirin’ seem to have a habit of gettin’ themselves kilt.”

  “We are all very aware of that, Deputy,” Roy Clinton said.

  “Yeah, well, I don’t aim to be the fifth marshal to get kilt in this town.”

  “We have to do something,” Annabelle said. “Last month three more families moved away because they said that Shady Rest wasn’t a safe place to raise their kids. It seems that every brigand and rapscallion in the entire state has come to town at one time or another, just to make mischief.”

  “I’ve got an idea, if the council will go along with it,” Deputy Prescott said.

  “What is the idea?” Mayor Trout asked.

  “Supposin’ we was to ask Matt Jensen to be our town marshal? Why, just hearin’ the name of who the marshal is would be enough to scare off anyone who was thinkin’ about comin’ here to raise trouble.”

  “What do you mean, just hearing the name?” Clinton asked. “What’s so particular about the name Matt Jensen?” Clinton, who owned the apothecary, had recently relocated to Shady Rest from Atlanta, Georgia.

  “I can’t believe you ain’t never heard of Matt Jensen,” Prescott said. “Why, he’s about the best person with a gun there is. And he’s famous, too, ’cause folks has wrote books about him.”

  “Do you think we could get him to stay around town long enough to be our marshal?” Mayor Trout asked. “From what I’ve heard of Jensen, he tends to move around a lot.”

  “Oh, he’ll stay here for a little while, anyway,” Prescott said. “He’s got a reward comin’ for shootin’ Mutt Crowley.”

  “Enough to keep him here?” Milner asked.

  “Five thousand dollars,” Prescott said.

  Milner whistled softly. “That should keep him here for a while, anyway.”

  “Where does that reward come from?” Mayor Trout asked.

  “It comes from Wells Fargo,” Prescott said. “They had one of their employees kilt when the Crowley gang robbed a bank in Kansas.”

  “What if the reward were to be delayed for a while? He’d have to wait here for it, wouldn’t he?”

  “What makes you think the reward will be delayed?” Dupree asked. “I’ve done business with Wells Fargo. They’ve always been on the up and up.”

  “Who has to authorize the payment?” Moe Woodward asked.

  “Well, sir, Wells Fargo will release the money, but it’ll actually be the county sheriff who will have to authorize it to be paid,” Prescott said.

  “Well, there you go,” Mayor Trout said with a conspiratorial smile. “All we have to do is convince the sheriff to hold up on the payment for a while.”

  “How are we goin’ to do that?” Prescott asked. “There’s no doubt in my mind but that the fella that was kilt was Mutt Crowley. There was plenty of folks who saw that Jensen is the one who kilt him. And I’ve got the dodger on Crowley that says there is a five-thousand-dollar reward for him. Now, you tell me how the sheriff can be convinced to delay the payment.”

  “We can hold it up while we hold a hearing to determine the circumstances of death,” Mayor Trout said.

  “Are you wantin’ to know how he died? It was two bullet holes in his heart!” Prescott said loudly and with obvious irritation. “Hell, the son of a bitch was propped up down there Ponder’s for half the day. If you wanted to know how he died, all you would have had to do would be just go down there and take look at him! If you wanted to, you could’ve stuck your finger in the bullet holes!”

  “There will be no hearing to determine the circumstances of death,” Dempster said. “As the city prosecutor, I have already submitted a report to the circuit judge that no such hearing is necessary.”

  “Besides,” Annabelle said, “if Mr. Jensen has truly earned the reward, as everyone has stated, it would not be ethical to withhold the payment for any reason.”

  “All right, all right, you folks win,” Trout said, holding up his hands. “It was just a suggestion, is all. But that leaves us right where we started. At the moment, we are a city without any effective law enforcement.”

  The mayor’s pronouncement was punctuated by the sound of a gunshot coming from Plantation Row.

  “And as you can readily see,” the mayor continued, using his thumb to point in the direction from which the gunshot had come, “we are badly in need of someone.”

  Pecos

  Margaret Margrabe had been reading, and she was just about to put out the lantern when someone knocked, lightly, on the back door of her tiny one-room house. Surprised, and even a little frightened that someone would knock on her door this late at night, and the back door at that, she moved, hesitantly to it.

  “Who is it?” she called out.

  “Margaret, it’s me, Abe Conner.”

  “Is something wrong?”

  “No, I just thought I would like to call on you, if you would be so good as to grant me a few moments of your time.”

  “But I’m already in my nightgown,” Margaret replied.

  From just on the other side of the door, Prichard recited, softly, sonorously, lines from an Elizabeth Barrett Browning poem.

  “Love me Sweet, with all thou art,

  Feeling, thinking, seeing;

  Love me in the lightest part.”

  “Oh, how delightful!” Margaret said. Then she responded in kind.

  “Yes, I answered you last night;

  No, this morning, Sir, I say.

  Colors seen by candlelight,

  Will not look the same by day.”

  Margaret opened the door to let him in.

  “I came to your back door so no one would see me, and think ill of you,” Prichard said.

  “That was so thoughtful of you,” Margaret said, touching her hair.

  Seventy-five feet down the alley from Margaret’s back door, Charley Keith was sitting on the back stoop of a closed store. He was holding a whiskey bottle in his hand. The bottle, which was nearly one-third full, contained the last dregs of discarded bottles he had gathered from all over town. He’d emptied into it assorted whiskies, wines, and even some beer. He had turned the bottle up to take a drink of this unlikely cocktail just as he saw a man go into the back door of the teacher’s house.

  “Well now,” he said. “Looks to me like the teacher has got her a secret boyfriend. Shhhh,” he said, putting his fingers to his lips. “It’s a secret, so I can’t be talkin’ out loud about it.”

  Laughing quietly, he turned the bottle up for another drink.

  Prichard had just finished with the newest batch of posters when Sheriff Nelson came into the office the next morning. There was a look of shock and dismay on his face, and he shook his head.

  “Who would do something like that?” he asked. “What kind of inhumane monster could do that?”

 
“What are you talking about, Sheriff?”

  “That pretty young woman,” Sheriff Nelson said. “You know, Miss Margrabe?”

  “Margrabe? No, I don’t think I do know her.”

  “She’s the schoolteacher,” Sheriff Nelson said.

  “Oh, yes, I have seen her, spoken to her even. I just didn’t recall her name.”

  “I should have said, she was the schoolteacher.”

  “Was?”

  “She’s dead, Abe. Some inhumane peckerwood murdered her last night. Murdered her in her own bed. Sally White found her body this morning. They were going to do some shopping together, and Miss White went over to her house. When Miss Margrabe didn’t answer the door, Miss White let herself in. That’s when she found her.”

  Sheriff Nelson pinched the bridge of his nose, and shook his head slowly. “She was stripped naked, and lying in a pool of her own blood. The son of a bitch cut her throat.”

  Prichard felt a quiet surge of excitement as he recalled the moment of her death.

  “That’s a shame,” he said.

  “Yes, it is. From all I’ve heard, Miss Margrabe was a sweet young woman. And to think that her friend had to find her like that.”

  “I don’t suppose you have any idea as to who may have done such a thing.”

  “No,” Sheriff Nelson said. “I don’t have an idea in hell.”

  “Well, whoever did it is most likely far from here by now. I can’t imagine someone doing something like that, then remaining around town where he could be caught.”

  “You are probably right. No doubt he is running for his life, as he should be, the inhumane son of a bitch. You know, when it is necessary for the county to hang someone, I am generally the one who has to put the rope around the condemned’s neck. Since I’ve been sheriff I’ve only had to do it three times, and I don’t mind admitting that it has bothered me, every time. It’s an awesome thing to take a man’s life, even if that man has been condemned by the court. But I tell you true, Abe, if we ever do catch the peckerwood who did this, I will take particular pleasure in hanging him.”

  “Maybe we’ll get lucky and find him,” Prichard suggested.

  “Yeah. Oh, how about those reward circulars? Anything interesting in the new batch?”

  “Not particularly,” Prichard said. He pointed to the wall. “As you can see, I posted the new ones, and I destroyed the ones that were no longer valid.”

  “Good, good,” Sheriff Nelson said. “Listen, Abe, if you can watch things here for a while, I think I’m going to go have a drink. After what I saw in that poor young woman’s house, I feel the need of one.”

  “I understand perfectly,” Prichard replied. “Go right ahead, I shall stand watch, dutifully.”

  Sheriff Nelson didn’t respond verbally, but he did nod before he left.

  Prichard walked back over to the desk and sat down to recall his final moments with Margaret Margrabe last night. It had been good. It had been very good.

  Chapter Twenty-two

  Nearly the entire town of Pecos turned out for Margaret Margrabe’s funeral. It was held in the Methodist church, and the pews were filled not only with the parishioners of the church, but with people who hadn’t set foot in a church in several years.

  When the services in the church were completed, the conGeorgeation filed outside. They formed up on either side of the steps as the pallbearers brought Margaret’s body through the front door, then placed it in the back of the highly polished, black, glass-sided hearse. The bell of the church began tolling as Gene Ponder, wearing striped pants, a cutaway coat, and a high-topped hat, climbed up on the seat, then started driving the matched team of black horses toward the cemetery. The mourners followed the hearse, not only those who were coming from the church, but the ones who had been waiting outside as well. At the cemetery, her students formed a corridor through which the casket was carried. Even those men who had not attended the funeral were talking about it in the Silver Spur Saloon.

  “Charley Keith seen someone goin’ into her house,” a man who was standing at the bar said. “And if you want to know what I’m thinkin’, I’m thinkin’ that whoever it was that he seen goin’ into the teacher’s house, well, more’n likely that’s the one what kilt her.”

  “Who did you say seen ’im? Charley Keith?” one of the other drinkers asked.

  “Yes.”

  “Who the hell is goin’ to believe that old drunk?”

  “Charley Keith wasn’t always a drunk. He was a railroad surveyor once, you know. And they say he was damn good at it too, ’til he started hittin’ the bottle.”

  “Yeah, well, there you go. He started hittin’ the bottle, and now you don’t never see ’im but what he ain’t drunk.”

  “No, now, that’s the thing. You don’t ever actual see ’im drunk, ’cause most of the time he can’t get enough whiskey to get hisself drunk. And with someone like Charley, who drinks all the time, it takes an awful lot of whiskey to get him drunk.”

  “Did he say who it was that he seen goin’ in there?” one of the others asked.

  “No, he didn’t say, ’cause he don’t know who it was.”

  “I don’t think it matters much anyhow. It’s more’n likely that whoever done it is long gone. Hell, I wouldn’t doubt but that he’s in California now, or maybe Oregon, or Indiana.”

  “California, Oregon, or Indiana?” one of patrons repeated. He laughed. “That doesn’t make sense. Oregon and Indiana are a long way from each other.”

  “Well, yeah, wouldn’t you want to get a long way away?”

  Prichard had been standing down at the other end of the bar nursing a beer and listening to the conversation, but not participating in it. Then one of the men spoke to him.

  “Deputy Conner, we heard about you catchin’ that wanted murderer. Congratulations on that. You’ll be gettin’ a big reward too, won’t you? How you plannin’ on spending the money?”

  Prichard turned toward them and, with a smile, lifted his beer as if in salute.

  “Gentlemen, I don’t plan to waste any of it,” he said. “I plan to spend every cent on wine, women, and song.”

  The others laughed.

  “No,” Prichard said, amending his comment. “I can do without the song. I shall spend every cent on wine and women.”

  This time the laughter was even more general.

  With a good-bye wave to the others in saloon, Prichard left and started walking back toward the sheriff’s office, acknowledging the greetings of the others in town. He had gotten away with it. But then, why wouldn’t he get away with it? Clearly, there was no one in this town who could match him in intellect. He was absolutely certain that nobody had even the slightest suspicion that he was the one who had killed Margaret Margrabe.

  Shady Rest

  That afternoon there was a shooting in the Ace High Saloon, and later on that night, when two cowboys got into a fight over a whore at Abby’s Place, one of them killed the other.

  “Something has to be done,” Annabelle told Mayor Trout the next morning. “It has reached the point where decent people are afraid to be out on the street at any time now, not just after dark.”

  “I agree, something has to be done,” Trout said. “But what?”

  “You might ask Matt Jensen if he would accept the position,” Annabelle suggested.

  “You know him, Miss O’Callahan,” Mayor Trout said. “I’m told that you and he had dinner together at the Merchants Club.”

  “We did. That is true.”

  “Why don’t you ask him?”

  Annabelle shook her head. “I have no authority to ask him that, Mayor, and you know it. No, sir, if Matt Jensen is asked to serve as our city marshal, the request is going to have to come from someone other than me.”

  Trout nodded. “You are probably correct,” he said. “Very well, I’ll call a special meeting of the city council tonight to discuss it. I’d like you to attend as well. We’ll hold tonight’s meeting at the Merchants Association Cl
ub.”

  “All right, I’ll be there,” Annabelle promised.

  When Matt played poker with Culpepper, he had a pattern of winning a few and losing a few, and he had lost more than he had won so that, at the moment, he was twenty dollars poorer overall. But the poker had been relaxing and enjoyable and Culpepper did manage to point out some helpful hints that Matt was sure he would be able to employ in some future games. This afternoon, however, Culpepper’s table was full, so Matt managed to find another card game, and in this game he won more than he lost. As a result he recovered his twenty dollars, plus an additional ten.

  Several times during the afternoon Matt could hear gunshots coming from Plantation Row, though as the other players in the game pointed out, the habitués of that part of town often discharged their pistols for no reason other than entertainment.

  “Matt,” Hawkins said to him as Matt stepped up to the bar to cash in his winnings, less the 10 percent house cut. “I wonder if you would let me buy you dinner this evening at the Merchants Association Club.”

  Matt chuckled. “I don’t see why not. The ten percent I’ve given up today would probably pay for the meal, so I’ll just feel as if I’m getting my money back. Besides, I ate there the other night with Miss O’Callahan, and I learned that the chef there is an artist with food.”

  Hawkins chuckled. “What you’re sayin’ is, he puts out good grub. Well, I’m glad you enjoyed it. Say, seven o’clock?”

  “Seven o’clock is fine,” Matt said.

  A little later that afternoon, Matt decided, as a matter of curiosity, to check out Plantation Row, since he had not been there since arriving in Shady Rest. The first establishment he visited was the Pig Palace. After he made his usual cautious entry, he saw, sitting in a high chair at the back of the room, a man holding a double-barreled shotgun across his lap. With a leery eye toward the man holding the shotgun, Matt moved up to the bar and ordered a beer.