“It still didn’t give him the right to kill the man. Did Delco have a gun?” John asked, looking over the crowd.
“He went for one,” someone said.
“How many saw him go for his gun?” John asked.
Several raised their hands.
“Was he standing—I mean Delco. Was he standing?”
“Yeah,” Bart Yeats stepped forward and said. “They was shouting first. That Home calling Johnny a cheat, and Johnny began bowing up.”
“Who drew first?”
“That big guy was fast.” Yeats shook his head. “That man you arrested is lightning. Johnny wasn’t in his class.”
“It ain’t for me to say, but it looks like self-defense to me.”
“I’d have argued about that, Marshal,” Yeats said, “but not after I seen that card you’ve got there in your hand. I played with that Delco and thought he was straight.”
“Cheating at cards isn’t a reason to take a man’s life.” John frowned at the man.
“I’ll bet you money and even give you big odds, ain’t no jury in Colorado going to find him guilty.”
“You may be right, but even the good book says, ‘Vengeance is mine, saith the Lord.’”
“That guy Home took his own vengeance out tonight.”
“Maybe he did,” John said. He looked over the crowd, then turned on his heel and pushed his way out the batwing doors. The prosecutor would want witnesses. Yeats could round him up a few. They wouldn’t be worth much. He studied the card in the light from over his shoulder, then shaking his head with disapproval, he pocketed it. An ace of spades had cost one man his life.
Two days later, at the marshal’s office, John was busy at his desk answering correspondence.
“You and that widow getting serious?” Anser asked from the doorway without turning to look at John.
“No, on my salary, I can’t afford to pay attention on this job, let alone take a wife with two schoolchildren.” John shook his head and finished the letter to the Nebraska sheriff. He had been unable to find a killer that this sheriff thought might be in the area of Walsenberg. The wanted man’s name was Ramon Ortega. A Mexican, short and swarthy, about five foot four with scars on the left side of his face.
“You could collect a weekly fee from each of the saloons. They’re making money on these drunks we handle.”
“That would be disreputable.”
“Every other marshal in Colorado does it. You ever speak to the mayor about a raise?”
John looked up. Of course he had broached the subject, but he’d received no firm response. He studied Anser who was busy rolling a cigarette, his shoulder pressed to the facing so he could observe the street.
“I have spoken to Mayor Roy and he claims they can’t pay any more,” John said.
“Damn funny. In the rest of—”
“This isn’t the rest, this is Walsenberg.”
“John Wesley …” Anser dropped his voice and stepped inside the jail.
“What is it?” he asked, anxious to know what was causing his first deputy to act so strangely.
“Don’t let them see you, but we have four men riding up Main Street. Brother, they’re sure enough hard cases.” Anser stepped back, anxiously studying whatever was wrong in the street
“Grab a shotgun,” Anser said in a very serious tone. “Three of them just went inside the First National. They left one outside to guard the horses and he’s cradling a rifle.”
“Here,” John shouted, rose to his feet, reached over on the rack, took a greener down and tossed it to his deputy. Then he jerked out a desk drawer and began to fill his vest pocket with brass shells.
“You go down the alley—” But when he looked up, Anser was already gone. No, not that way, he thought, but he was too late. His deputy was headed right into their gun muzzles if they were robbing the bank.
John reached the doorway to see his deputy shouting orders at the horse guard to throw away his gun. A shot rang out. The lookout cut his deputy down with rifle fire. John rushed out in time to see Anser on the ground, and when he looked for the shooter, he was unable to locate him, hidden as he was behind the four horses. Though his conscience bothered him, he brought the shotgun to his shoulder and let loose a blast into their rumps.
His scattershot sent the robbers’ mounts into panic. They bolted forward and crashed down the hitch rail. It gave John enough time to hook his hand under Anser’s armpit and drag him to safety underneath a parked wagon. With no time to see about the man’s condition, he fired the second round of his shotgun at the shooter who was fighting to control the panicked animals. Two of the animals stung by the pellets broke loose and ran away.
“Throw down your gun!” John ordered, uncertain whether the horse guard still had one or not.
One of the masked robbers emerged from the bank with a smoking gun. Bullets like angry hornets whizzed by John’s head as he reloaded the twelve-gauge with buckshot. He fired back at the shooter. The blast doubled the outlaw in two and sent him flying back inside the open door of the bank.
The wild-eyed horse handler mounted, and took two wild pistol shots at him. John swung the barrel around to bear down on him, pulled the second trigger, and blew him headfirst off the pitching horse into the street dust. At this point, John dropped the Greener and with his Colt drawn charged into harm’s way.
The robbers inside the bank soon filled the air with cuss words. One came to the doorway and drew a bead, but his gun went off in the air when John’s well-aimed bullet cut him down.
“Come out of there now!” he ordered and a hush settled in the street. Then came the sound of boot soles crunching over glass shards on the floor and a man in his forties, the red bandanna he used for a mask pulled down, came out of the door with his hands high.
“Where’s the rest of them?” John demanded, holding the pistol at arm’s length cocked and ready.
The bank robber shook his head like John couldn’t count. “You got them.”
“Turn around,” John ordered, still not satisfied. Wary of the others, he moved in and frisked the man, took a knife out of his boot, then shoved him through the bank’s front door.
“They’ve shot Mark Bridges,” the teller, Amos Grimes, screamed and rushed up to him and his prisoner.
“Doc’s coming, I am certain.” John knelt and rolled over the one he’d cut down with the buckshot. The blast had torn him wide open. Obviously, from the man’s blank eyes he was bound for the hereafter. After checking his prisoner to be certain he wasn’t up to anything, John closed the robber’s eyelids with his left hand.
“Get over there.” John ordered the outlaw to stand by the front of the grilled cages. Then he kicked away the pistol from beside the last wounded one on the floor. He was still alive.
“That kid outside that you shot is still breathing,” Rupert Jennings, his other deputy said as he burst in the door. “He isn’t going anywhere, though, Marshal.”
“Good, take this one to the jail.” John indicated the unscathed one. “I’m going to see about Bridges,” he said and paused. “What is your name?” he asked the outlaw.
“Ted Keith.”
John nodded, waved his pistol at the two on the floor. “What did they call this gang of yours?”
“Didn’t have no name. This was our first bank job.”
“And your last,” Rupert said and shoved him toward the door.
John found the wounded banker propped up by his desk. Someone had loosened his tie and the front of his shirt was soaked in crimson.
“Hurt bad?” John asked, squatting down and seeing they had used a towel to try and stop the blood flow.
“Not bad,” Bridges managed.
“Doc will be here in minute. Anything I can get you?” John asked.
The banker’s eyes narrowed. “Tell Imogene I always loved her.”
“You’ll be fine—” John said, but the man’s chin pitched downward and the bookkeeper, a thin man in his forties who squatted on th
e other side of Bridges, screamed like a woman, “Oh God, no, he’s dead.”
John looked up and saw a familiar woman coming through the front door. He bolted to his feet to catch Imogene Bridges before she could throw herself at her fallen husband.
“Mark! Mark! How is he?” she cried, trying to get past him.
“You can’t do anything, Imogene,” John said, struggling to overpower her. “He said he always loved you.”
Then as if John had slapped her, she stopped trying to get by him. “He said he loved me?”
“Yes, the last thing.”
“He never said that to me.”
“Yes, he did, he said for me—”
“Damnit! Damnit!” she cried as tears rushed down her face and John was forced to hold her wrists to keep her from pounding him. “He told you, but in twenty years of marriage he never once told me.”
Things went fast. Anser was carried to Doc’s office, alive, but in critical condition. The two wounded robbers joined Ted Keith in jail and after Doc did all he could for Deputy Anser, he arrived at the jail looking bleary-eyed and began to work on the two injured robbers.
John had their names. Davy Brown was the kid holding the horses. He gave Las Cruces as his address. The other wounded robber said his name was Warren Bradley. Mumbled that he came from Texas. The dead man was Fred Brown, also of the Lone Star State.
When Doc finished tending to the men, it was ten after ten on the wall clock. He emerged from the cell block, and the volunteer guard, Matthew Riggins, locked the doors after him. The physician washed his bloody hands at the pitcher and bowl in the outer office.
“They going to live?” John asked.
“Sure, unless you cut their heads off, they’ll live. Hard to kill those tough ones. Nothing I could have done for poor old Bridges today.” Doc pulled off his reading glasses, stuffed them in his shirt pocket and shook his balding head wearily. “Guess we don’t get a choice of who lives and who dies, do we?”
“No.”
“They’ll be all right to stand trial when the circuit judge gets here.”
“Thanks, you’ve had long day,” John said, concerned about his own deputy’s recovery.
“I didn’t have to drag my deputy out of the street under gunfire and face down those killers with them shooting at me like you did,” Doc said, and poured himself a cup of coffee off the stove. He sank heavily into the chair opposite John’s. “That took more cold nerve than most men have. This town is proud of you, John.”
“That’s fine,” he said, then wet his lips. “That’s my job, Doc. You have yours and I have mine.”
“Word around town is pretty loud about you and Bessie.”
“It’ll have to get louder, Doc. No way I could ever afford to get married on my salary.”
“The boys been talking about that. Most lawmen collect fees from businessmen to supplement their pay.”
“Some own gambling halls and houses of ill repute too,” John said leaning over and lowering his voice. “I don’t belong to that kind of law enforcement, either.”
Doc nodded. “John, we’re going get you a raise. I can’t say how much, but the whole city board and the mayor wants you to stay here.”
“Good, I need to go check Main Street. I’ll be up to see Anser after I make my rounds.” John put on his hat to go out the door.
“John …” Doc rose wearily to his feet. “The last two marshals did this job for free and lived off the fines and kickbacks they pocketed. Folks don’t want that kind of law again.”
“I know,” John said, and turning, spoke loudly to his new guard. “Keep an eye on things.”
“Oh, I will, Marshal,” Riggins promised.
John and Doc went outside. The sounds of hell-raising down the street rolled loud and clear. With a quick thanks and a goodbye, he hurried down the boardwalk. When John stepped from Branagan’s porch to cross the space between it and the next steps, a rope whistled. The lariat snapped tight around him, pinning his arms to his sides. He realized with a gut-wrenching knot in his belly that he had walked into a trap.
“Sorry to do this,” the leader of the three men in masks said as they bound him up.
“Let me go. You can’t do this. Let the law handle it.” John knew as they trussed him up that his words were like raindrops on a rubber slicker. They never soaked in.
“We had a trial and the jury’s in,” the man said as they sat him on the ground. “Mark Bridges was too good a man to die like that. Them bank robbers will pay the hangman’s price tonight.”
John fought at the ropes that bound his hands. Anger raged through his body as he sat on the ground in the dark alley. Vigilantes were in charge. It was his job to protect the criminal as well as the innocent, but there was nothing he could do in the alley, bound and tied.
He closed his dry eyes as tight as he could and strained. It was his job; he had to do something.
“Get me loose someone!” he shouted. But he knew not even the worst drunk would touch him until the “court’s wishes” were fulfilled and the three bank robbers were hung from a tree.
John closed his eyes and prayed for them, both the vigilantes and the outlaws. “Dear heavenly Father, forgive them …”
The next day, Mayor Roy came by the jail with his hat in his hands and told John about the ten-dollar-a-month raise they would start paying him next month. John nodded and thanked the man politely, then he went over to check on Anser at Doc’s. Sixty dollars a month was still not enough to make any wedding plans with. Not nearly enough. He shook his head, still seeing the vision of the three bank robbers hanging from the cottonwoods. The pay raise would not help them, or poor Mark Bridges. They would have his funeral that afternoon.
Hat in his hand, John entered the office. Doc looked up from his reading and John nodded at him. “How’s the patient?”
“Getting stronger already, but he’s sleeping. We better let him rest.”
“Sure.” John put on his hat and went down the stairs. Some good news anyway: maybe Anser would make it. He missed the deputy. His absence left lots of things for John to do by himself.
He went by his small apartment, took a sponge bath, and put on his best white shirt for the funeral. He brushed the dust off his suit coat and his hat. He considered how strange the mayor had acted earlier at his office. The man had seemed extremely anxious as he told him about the small increase in his salary.
Should he tell Bessie about the raise in pay? By his own calculation he needed a salary of at least a hundred dollars a month to support a wife and family. Sixty bucks was a long ways from that amount. He closed his eyes for a brief second at the hopelessness of solving the matter, then he started for the door. It would be sacrilegious to ask God for a raise. On the second-story landing, he stopped and studied the hills beyond the town.
To have someone pleasant for a wife, a person he could share his life with, was something he hoped someday to achieve. He simply wanted someone to come home to. He shook his head in disappointment and hurried for the cemetery and the final services for the banker.
After church on Sunday, John ate dinner with Bessie and the children. The boy and girl, Brent and Trudy, cleared the table and were excused to go visit some friends with a stern warning to be careful in their church clothing.
“And please recall that this is the Sabbath, so don’t be rowdy,” Bessie reminded them before they left.
“We will,” they promised. “Good day, Marshal,” they said politely and hurried out the front doorway.
“Nice children,” he said to her absently and held the china cup of hot coffee close to his mouth.
“Yes, they have been raised right,” she said stiffly.
A fiddle-tight string was drawn between them. He couldn’t put his finger on the problem. Across from him, Bessie sat more straight-backed than usual. She reminded him of a china doll, so statuelike, so prim and proper.
“I received a small raise—” He stopped and considered the matter. “But hardly en
ough to make plans on.”
“I should think they would be willing to pay you three times as much after what you have been through the past two weeks.”
He sighed heavily. “Unfortunately they aren’t.”
“John, I had hoped—” She wet her lips and looked down at the white linen tablecloth. “I mean, I have wanted the two of us to reach some sort of … well, an understanding. Soon it will be fall—well, in a few months it will be and I—” Her green eyes bored a hole in him. “John, am I so ugly that you can’t make up your mind?”
“No, you are a very attractive person, Bessie. But there is no way I could provide you and your children a fit living on sixty dollars a month.”
“John, I will be very frank with you. You know Fred Bowles?”
“The rancher from west of here?” John recalled the man. Why, he must be close to sixty. Gray-haired and with ample girth, he came to town in a carriage driven by a Mexican driver. Bowles owned lots of cattle and sheep.
“He’s offered to marry me.”
“I didn’t know that you knew him,” John said, taken aback.
“I have made some shirts for him. Of course, my relationship with the man has been very proper.” She raised her chin as if he had accused her of impropriety.
“I never doubted that. But I don’t see—”
“No, John, you don’t. I don’t want to marry Bowles—” Tears began to well in her eyes then spilled down her face. “But I have no choice if you—”
“Bessie, you do what is best for you and the children.” John rose to his feet. He knew as well as he had a week before, bound and tied in that alley, that fate would take its course.
“It will not be the happiest life, I am sure,” she said and blew her nose loudly into a linen napkin.
“I am certain that he will treat you and the children well,” John said to reassure her.
She dropped her chin and shook her head wearily. “Goodbye, John.”
“Yes, thanks, and tell the children I said thank you.” He rose heavily and could see she had no wish to accompany him out.
Servant of the Law Page 5