Matt Jensen, The Last Mountain Man The Eyes of Texas

by William W. Johnstone

  “Do you suppose they would let me attend the meeting?”

  “You can come as my personal guest,” Hawkins said. “That way there will be no question.”

  There was a room in the back of the city hall that was set aside just for the city council meetings. It had a long conference table in the middle, with enough chairs around it not only to accommodate the council members, but any visitors who might be required to appear before the council. Matt accompanied Hawkins to the meeting and, as of three minutes until three, he looked around the table to see, in addition to the mayor and Hawkins, the other council members: Dupree, Milner, Dempster, Cook, Peabody, and Tobin

  Matt was the only non-council member present, and he sat in one of the chairs that was separated from those occupied by the council members.

  “Mayor, is it true what I heard?” Dupree asked. “Are we here to decide whether or not to appoint a woman as our marshal?”

  “Yes,” Mayor Trout answered.

  “Well, that is the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard,” Dupree said. “Let’s just vote on it now. We can all vote no, and get this silly business over with so we can go back to work.”

  Mayor Trout shook his head. “I promised her that she would be able to address the council.”

  “Well, where is she?” Dupree asked. “It’s three o’clock and . . .”

  “I’m here,” Annabelle said.

  Chapter Thirty

  Looking toward the door, the men gasped, not at the sudden appearance of Annabelle, but at the way she looked. Annabelle was not wearing a dress. She was wearing denim trousers, and a white shirt, tucked down into her trousers. Around her waist she was wearing a belt and holster, and in the holster, Matt saw the same pistol she had brought to her shooting lesson. She was also wearing a man’s hat, beneath which her red hair tumbled to her shoulders.

  For a long moment all the men around the table stared in surprise at Annabelle’s unexpected appearance. As the owner and seamstress of the Elite Shoppe, she’d never been seen in anything except a dress, and not just any dress, but very elegant dresses of her own design and make. And yet, she had never looked more like a woman than she did now, in this outfit.

  “Uh, Miss O’Callahan, if you would take a seat, we’ll get the meeting started,” Mayor Trout said, once he found his voice.

  So shocked were the men that none of them thought to stand, except Matt, who not only stood, he also held out a chair for her, a chair that was next to his own. Not until then did the other men stand, rising awkwardly and discordantly until she took her own seat in the chair Matt had proffered.

  Once they were seated again, Mayor Trout called the council to order. “Gentlemen,” he said. “I think all of you are already aware of the purpose of this meeting. We are here to consider the appointment of Annabelle O’Callahan to the position of city marshal.”

  “That’s not even possible, is it?” Milner asked. “I mean, seeing as women can’t vote, how can they hold a political office?”

  “Mr. Dempster?” Mayor Trout asked.

  “There is no legal reason why she cannot be appointed as city marshal,” Dempster said. “And the operative phrase is appointed, for that is what the position is . . . appointed, not elected.”

  “Well, gentlemen, there it is. According to the city attorney, there is no legal reason why we cannot appoint Miss O’Callahan to the position of city marshal.”

  “Then let’s vote,” Milner said.

  “Mr. Mayor,” Annabelle said. “I believe you said that I would be allowed to address the council?”

  “Yes,” Mayor Trout said. “Yes, I did, and you may do so.”

  “Thank you, Mr. Mayor, and thank you, honorable members of this council, for giving me this opportunity to plead my case.

  “I know that you may question whether I, or indeed whether any woman, could perform the duties of a city marshal. But before you cast your vote using that as your criteria, I would like to tell you the story of Molly Pitcher. That is how she has come to be known, though her real name was Mary Hays.

  “At the Battle of Monmouth in 1778, Mary Hays was bringing water to the parched soldiers, doing so under heavy fire from the British. During that battle, Mary’s husband fell, wounded, and as they carried him from the battlefield, Mary took her husband’s place, swabbing and loading the cannon so that the battery could continue to keep up the fire. At one point a musket ball passed between her legs, tearing off the bottom of her skirt, but Mary continued loading the cannon.

  “After the battle none other than General George Washington recognized her courage, and made her a noncommissioned officer. She has come down through history to us as Molly Pitcher, or the name she used for the rest of her life, Sergeant Molly.

  “Now, gentlemen, I am not comparing myself with a genuine heroine of the War of Independence, but I do use that as an example to show you that honor, courage, and duty are not the exclusive domain of men. I ask for the appointment, and I promise you, I will serve the city well.”

  “I have a question, Miss O’Callahan,” Dupree said. “Do you have a personal reason for wanting this position?”

  “My reason is both personal and public. Too many of our families are leaving town, and if this trend continues, it may well reach the point to where the outlaws outnumber the decent citizens. And when that happens, we will cease to be a town. I, and nearly every other business in town, would be forced to close, and in doing so, would likely lose so much money that I may not be able to start anew, somewhere else. I like Shady Rest, I don’t want to see the town die, and I am willing to fight to save it.”

  “At the sacrifice of your own life?” Milner asked. “Don’t forget, we’ve had four marshals killed already. What do you have to offer that the other four marshals didn’t have?”

  “I am a woman,” Annabelle said. “Initially, that will give me an element of surprise.”

  “Initially,” Tobin said. “But what happens after that initial surprise wears off?”

  “She’ll have the support of a deputy,” Matt said.

  “Ha!” Dupree said. “Are you talking about Prescott? What kind of support do you expect that old coot to provide?”

  “I don’t share your opinion of Deputy Prescott,” Matt said. “But he isn’t the deputy I was talking about.”

  “What do you mean he isn’t the deputy you were talking about? He’s the only deputy there is,” Dupree said.

  “If you appoint Miss O’Callahan as marshal of the city of Shady Rest, I will apply to her for the position of deputy marshal,” Matt said.

  Annabelle smiled at Matt. “And I will accept his application,” she said.

  “Gentlemen, I don’t know about the rest of you, but I am won over,” Tobin said. “And I move the question.”

  “All who favor hiring Miss O’Callahan as city marshal for the city of Shady Rest, say aye,” Mayor Trout said.

  To the man, including Dupree, the vote was “Aye.”

  That very afternoon, Annabelle made her first foray onto Plantation Row. Her first stop was Abby’s whorehouse. Squaring her shoulders she marched up to the house, opened the door, and walked inside. A large woman, smoking a cigar, was standing behind a counter, looking down at something.

  “All the girls is busy right now, honey,” Abby said around her cigar, without looking up. “You can have a seat and wait, or you can come back in about half an hour.”

  “This place is closed, as of now,” Annabelle said.

  “What?” Abby asked, looking up in surprise, not only at what had been said, but at the fact that the words had been spoken by a woman.

  “You have been operating this place without a business license, and without having your girls get regular checkups from the doctor. By order of the city council, this place is closed,” Annabelle said. “Get all of your women down here, now.”

  “The hell I will!” Abby said, and she started toward the back wall, where Annabelle saw that there was a shotgun. Annabelle drew her pistol, aim
ed at the window near the shotgun, and fired. The sound of the shot startled even her, but the window was shattered, and with a little squeal, Abby jumped back.

  “Are you crazy?” Abby shouted.

  “Get the women down here, now,” Annabelle said, holding the smoking pistol.

  Within the next ten minutes, all six of Abby’s “girls” were gathered in the downstairs parlor. The men, a couple of them carrying their boots, were hopping around on bare feet.

  “What is this?” one of the men asked. “What’s going on here?”

  “All of the men, out now,” Annabelle said, waving her pistol toward the door.

  “I ain’t goin’ nowhere ’til I get finished,” one of the men said, angrily.

  Annabelle pointed her pistol at his crotch. “If you don’t go now, you won’t have anything to get finished with,” she said.

  One of the whores giggled.

  “I think she means it, Cootie,” one of the other men said. “Let’s get the hell out of here before that crazy woman shoots us all.”

  Matt was outside, leaning against an Alamo tree that was growing on the side of the road.

  “I tell you what I’m goin’ to do,” one of the men said. “I’m goin’ to go back in there and shoot that crazy woman.”

  “I don’t think so,” Matt said.

  “What? Who the hell are you? What are you doin’ here?”

  “The name is Jensen. Deputy Matt Jensen. And I’m here to help the marshal, if she needs any help.”

  “If she needs any help? Wait a minute, are you tellin’ me that crazy woman in there is a marshal?

  “That’s exactly what I’m telling you.”

  When the stagecoach left Shady Rest the next morning, Abby Dolan and the six girls who worked for her were on the coach. The house where they had been doing business was empty.

  The Crooked Branch was the next business that Annabelle went after. But this time, she didn’t go in alone. Both of her deputies, Matt and Wash Prescott, were with her. Prescott was carrying a double-barrel shotgun; Annabelle and Matt both had their pistols holstered.

  Foster had been warned that they were coming, and he was standing there, waiting for them. He ran his hand over the top of his bald head, and stared at the three with almost colorless eyes that had neither lash nor brow.

  “I heard what you did to Abby’s Place,” Foster said.

  “Did you?” Annabelle asked. “Good, then you know that I am serious. Mr. Foster, you have not paid the excise tax. You are operating a brothel without a license, and your girls are not getting regular medical examinations. Until you bring the Crooked Branch into compliance, I am going to have to shut you down.”

  Foster stretched his mouth into the misshapen gash of an evil smile. “Wade, Luke,” he said quietly. “Take care of this little—problem—would you?”

  From the overhanging balcony of the second floor, a man suddenly rose, holding a rifle to his shoulder. At the same time another man stepped out from behind the piano, with a pistol in his hand.

  Matt drew and fired before the man on the balcony could shoot, and then, on top of the sound of Matt’s pistol shot, came the roar of the shotgun Prescott was holding.

  Wade, the man on the balcony, fell across the banister, then flipped over it and came crashing down on his back. Luke, the man Prescott had shot, was driven back onto one of the tables, his stomach opened up by the shotgun blast.

  Foster looked first at one and then the other, totally shocked by what he had just seen. When he looked back around, he saw that Annabelle was now holding a pistol.

  “As I was saying,” Annabelle said. “This place is closed, and it will remain closed until you can bring it into compliance.”

  Within two weeks, Shady Rest went from being the wildest town in Texas, to being the most peaceful. There was no longer a daily sound of gunfire, no longer did drunken cowboys “huzzah the town” by riding up and down the street shooting their guns, not only into the air but into the buildings. The change in the complexion of the town was almost entirely the result of Plantation Row being pacified.

  But while that change was appreciated by the citizens, and good for the legitimate businesses of town, it had just the opposite effect on Plantation Row. There, the business that the saloon owners had once enjoyed was almost brought to a standstill. And a meeting of the Plantation Row Betterment Council was called, not by Bramley, but by Fred Foster and Red Gimlin.

  “What are we going to do about this?” Foster asked. “She has already closed down Abby’s Place, and my place. I got it open again by paying the back taxes, and getting a license to run a whorehouse, but she’s got the place so orderly now that it’s more like a mortuary than a saloon. Hell, the customers are afraid to get drunk, and that means they’re only spendin’ about half of what they was.”

  “Yeah,” Gimlin said. “The same thing is happenin’ in my place. I paid the taxes, and I got a license for the whores, but we ain’t doin’ near the business we once was. Folks come to my place lookin’ to have fun, not go to a Sunday school class.”

  “I thought you said we had the law on our side,” Foster said. “I mean, hell, your man has a badge. What good is it for him to have a badge if he don’t use it?”

  Bramley nodded, then looked across the room where Durbin was sitting in his high chair, overlooking the saloon floor. The floor was relatively quiet because, even though the new marshal hadn’t come into the Pig Palace yet, the effects of her efforts were evident from the low-key behavior of the customers. There were fewer drunks because fewer men were drinking, and those who were drinking weren’t drinking as much. Bramley signaled for Durbin to come over.

  Leaving the shotgun on his chair, Durbin climbed down, then walked over to the table where Bramley, Foster, and Gimlin had been holding their meeting.

  “Yeah, boss?”

  “Durbin, you are a deputy sheriff, right?”

  “Yes, sir, I am. I ain’t never seen the sheriff yet, but you got me this job, so I am a deputy.”

  “As a deputy sheriff, your authority exceeds that of the marshal, or either of her deputies,” Bramley said. “You are aware of that, aren’t you?”

  “Yes, sir, you done told me that.”

  “Good, I’m glad you know. Now, here’s what I want you to do. I want you to arrest the marshal and both of her deputies, and throw ’em all three in jail.”

  “What do I say is the reason?”

  “Reason? What reason? You don’t need a reason, Durbin,” Bramley said, his voice showing his exasperation. “Just do it!”

  Chapter Thirty-one

  When Wash Prescott walked down Railroad Avenue, carrying a shotgun, there was a bounce in his step. He had found a degree of self-respect that he hadn’t known in many years.

  “Mornin’, Deputy,” Roy Clinton greeted.

  “Good mornin’ Mr. Clinton.”

  As he continued his morning walk, he exchanged greetings with pedestrians and riders. Seeing a woman laden with packages about to get into a surrey, he hurried over to help her, putting the packages in the back, then assisting her into the vehicle. A dog ran up to him and, smiling, Prescott reached down to rub the dog behind the ears.

  As he resumed his walk, he began singing, softly, “My Darlin’ Clementine.” As he passed the feed and seed store, Maurice McGill spoke to him.

  “You’re in good voice this mornin’, Deputy. Think we’ll get rain today?”

  “Kinda feels like it, don’t it?” Prescott replied.

  People who had rarely spoken to him before now greeted him with respect, and their respect built up Prescott’s self-respect. In the café this morning, Moe had brought him a second cup of coffee and a sweet roll, even though he hadn’t asked for it. The meals were furnished free to the marshal and deputies, paid for by the city, so Prescott had been eating at Moe’s for some time now, but never before had Moe brought him extra coffee and a sweet roll for no reason at all.

  It’s funny, if someone had asked him a
month ago if he would ever work for a female marshal, he would have told them they were crazy. But Annabelle O’Callahan had more brass than anyone he had ever met before. He was not only willing to work for her, he was proud to work for her. Yes, sir, this town had been cleaned up, and he had been part of it.

  Mark Worley was sweeping the front porch of his leather goods store, and he paused for a moment as Prescott passed by.

  “Good morning, Mr. Worley,” Prescott said.

  “Deputy,” Worley replied with a nod of his head.

  “Have you heard?” Worley asked. “The Andersons aren’t moving away after all. They said that, now that the town has been cleaned up, they’re goin’ to stay.”

  “Lou Anderson is a good man,” Prescott said. “We need people like him to help us grow.”

  “Yes, sir, that’s exactly what I was thinkin’,” Worley said.

  Worley went back to his sweeping as Prescott continued his morning walk. As he walked away, Harry Durbin suddenly stepped out of the gap between Worley’s Leather Goods Store and Dupree’s Emporium. This put him behind Prescott, and he had his pistol in his hand, pointing it at Prescott’s back.

  “You’re under arrest, Prescott! Throw down that scatter gun!” Durbin shouted at the top of his voice.

  Startled, Prescott whirled around, and that’s when Dupree fired. The bullet hit Prescott in the forehead, and he went down, dead before he hit the boardwalk.

  “What? What the hell happened?” Worley shouted, dropping his broom and hurrying toward the fallen deputy.

  “Hold it right there!” Durbin shouted, pointing his pistol at Worley. Worley stopped, and backed up with his hands in the air.

  Dupree and a few of his customers came out of the store, and they saw Prescott lying dead on the on the weathered boards of the walk. He was on his back with his arms thrown out to either side, as if he were on a cross.

  By now several other townspeople were hurrying toward the scene where Durbin stood, still holding his pistol, though by now all the smoke had dissipated.