Deadwood Dick drew his other six-gun, standing there like a rock. When the enraged beast was but three yards off, he fired two shots with unerring precision—one bullet in each eye of his ponderous enemy.
With a terrific roar the grizzly rushed on, with blood streaming from its eyes and totally blinded—rushed on, straight over the edge, crashing helplessly down into the canyon below.
“Attaboy! I couldn’t have done better myself! I war jest gettin’ ready to dispatch the brute myself with my Winchester!” exclaimed a voice, and, looking up, Dick beheld a face peering down at him from a ledge far above. “Reckon you dispatched him jest in time afore it got too dark fer straight shootin’.”
“I guess so. That was a close call. But how’s feller to get down or up from here, I’d like to know.”
“I’ll give you a hand. I’ll lower one end of my lariat and you can climb up to here. Once on my ledge. I’ll warrant I can get you safely down this cussed mountain.”
Slinging his rifle to his back and securing his revolvers, Dick got hold of the lasso, and up he went with a monkey’s agility, pulling himself up to the ledge where his rescuer welcomed him with a hearty “Glad you made it, pilgrim!”
“Calamity Jane!” Dick ejaculated involuntarily, for in the features of the stranger he recognized a description he had obtained of the young female daredevil.
“At yer service, sir!” was the reply, accompanied by an amused laugh. “You stare at me as if I were a critter from another world.”
“Yes, well, excuse me,” Dick stuttered with embarrassment. “You see, I’ve heard so much about you. You will pardon me, and—”
“Heard about me? You bet your boots! But, by Ned, pardner, you did remarkable execution with that cussed b’ar. I don’t believe thar’s another galoot in Whoop-Up as could do the job in quicker time, or a more scientific manner. Didn’t get nary a tear?”
“No. I was doggone lucky,” Dick replied, marveling, while he spoke, at the wild beauty of the girl before him. “I got away with only a cuff on the side of my head.”
“Which did you more good than a pint of patent medicine. It aroused the fight in you. It’s all the medicine a man wants to brace him up. Men need a slap an’ women a slight, to wake ’em up. Anyhow, that’s my logic. Shall I conduct you down the mountain, or can you make it alone? Let’s go, pilgrim. Nuttal and Mann’s saloon, where we’re headed, serves a powerfully good brand of coffin varnish.”
Deadwood Dick to the Rescue
The Sturgis-Deadwood stage was creaking along a rutted Black Hills trail, enveloped in a cloud of dust, carrying, besides a drummer and an Indian trader, a precious burden—beauteous Polly Anderson, chaperoned by her aunt Milly, on the way to meet the radiant girl’s fiancé, gallant Captain Tom Calhoun of the United States Cavalry, stationed at the fort, still a bone-rattling seventy miles away.
Up on the driver’s seat, gruff old Pat Mayotte cracked his whip, humming a song to himself. Perched beside him sat his “shotgun” rider, Slim McIvers, dozing, swaying to the coach’s rhythm. Inside, the drummer longed for a snort from the bottle hidden in the deep pocket of his duster, while the trader yearned to light a cheroot from his ample supply, but both gentlemen refrained, conscious of being in the presence of ladies.
“Hope to God, ma’am, we’re not running into Chief Red Wolf’s band of Sioux miscreants,” said the drummer in order to make conversation. He was interrupted by the loud blast of a rifle shot, shattering the stillness of the forest. On the roof, McIvers toppled from his seat, dead with a bullet hole between his eyes.
As if dropped from nowhere on the road by an evil spirit, the tall figure of a man stood pointing his sixteen-shot Winchester straight at Pat, growling: “Whoa, stop right thar or I’ll blow yer noggin’ off!”
Having no choice, Pat obeyed. Fear gripped the passengers inside. The drummer, peering timidly out from between the coach’s window curtains, had seen the stark figure with the Winchester.
“A road-agent, by Jove!” he whispered hoarsely. “Don’t move, and pray.”
The menacing figure standing in the road was clad in a long black coat that reached below the knees, black boots with huge spurs, and a black, wide-brimmed Mexican hat, and his face, except for the malignant, evil-glowing eyes, was hidden by a black kerchief. Close by, half-hidden by a large pine tree, Pat Mayotte discerned a huge black stallion, champing at the bit. The blood in Pat’s veins turned to ice. By the robber’s outfit he knew who they were up against—it was Snake-Eye Sam, the fiendish, pitiless stagecoach robber, lately come to the Hills from the California Sierras where, so rumor had it, he had killed more than forty men, ravishing at knife point any female passenger who took his fancy.
“Have a pity, Lord,” Pat muttered under his breath, “for Snake-Eye Sam will have none.”
“Get down, pilgrim,” Snake-Eye ordered, and Pat obeyed. One more shot, fired point-blank, and the poor driver was on the ground, weltering in his blood, a death rattle reverberating from his throat.
The robber yanked open the door of the coach. “Everybody out!” he ordered in a tone that brooked no resistance. “An’ be quick about it ef ya know what’s good fer ya!”
The passengers alighted, trembling and ashen-faced, certain that their lives were forfeit.
“Behave yerselves!” Snake-Eye told the two men, whose teeth were chattering, “an’ keep your hands up!” Expertly, he relieved them of their wallets, gold watches, and all other valuables. Then he turned to the women, snatching the older lady’s purse, tearing from her throat a pearl necklace, brutally wrenching from Polly’s finger her diamond engagement ring.
“That’ll fetch a good price,” he muttered with a fiendish grin, leering at Polly with malevolent eyes in the same way a horse trader might appraisingly contemplate a fine specimen of horseflesh.
“Ye’re a looker, by gum!” he hissed, “How’d ye like to git better acquainted with a real hombre?” and with brute force he grabbed the girl around her slender waist.
“Unhand me, foul villain!” she cried, her innocent young face pleading more eloquently than any words.
Snake-Eye Sam laughed heartlessly at her tender pleas, and dragged poor Polly, sobbing with fear and revulsion, to his horse. The girl swooned and fainted as the robber hoisted her seemingly lifeless form onto his horse and mounted up behind her. Mercifully, Polly was no longer conscious of her plight, of the fate worse than death that the human devil incarnate intended to inflict upon her.
“For the love of God and your immortal soul,” her aged aunt pleaded, with hands uplifted, as in prayer, “let her go. She is betrothed and about to be wed!”
“Sorry, ma’am, but the groom will hev to wait a while longer. Hasta la vista!” And in an instant he was galloping away with his fair captive.
“Woe is me!” her aunt cried in desperation. “All is lost!”
“Hark!” exclaimed the drummer, turning his ear to the distant hills. “I hear hoofbeats!” Suddenly, his face lighted up and he cried: “Fear not, madam, for all is not lost! There is but one man in all the West who rides a great white stallion such as the one that approaches so swiftly! It is Deadwood Dick to the rescue!”
The drummer had spoken true. Deadwood Dick it was who presently reined in his horse beside the stagecoach, contemplating the crimson scene of carnage. His form was stalwart and iron-cast, with strength delineated to the critical eye in every curve and muscle. His face was plain, yet rather attractive, with its firm mouth shaded by a heavy yellow mustache, eyes of a dusky brown, and hair light and worn long down over the shoulders. A face it was which a lady might admire, and a gentleman envy. His attire was plain, consisting of a buckskin suit, knee boots, and a gray-felt slouch hat. He carried no weapons but his trusty rifle and a single cap-and-ball pistol. Around his saddle horn was coiled a lasso of prodigious length.
“I know this for Snake-Eye Sam’s diabolical work,” said Dick gazing sadly at the lifeless bodies of Pat Mayotte and Slim McIvers, “the wretch wh
o did this must be brought to justice!”
“For God’s sake, dear man,” sobbed Aunt Milly, “justice, as you say, but first and above all my niece must be delivered from the hands of that devil. She’s about to be wed. Save her, save her, dear man, and all I own in this world shall be yours. Save her before, before …”
“Deadwood Dick at your service,” answered the stalwart horseman. “Say no more. I understand your fears, but all shall be well. But speak not of reward, my dear lady. Rescuing a damsel in distress is all the reward I could wish for. But there is no time to lose. I must be off!”
And with those words Deadwood Dick took his leave, urging his steed into a thundering gallop.
Through canyons and dense forests, over rushing streams and dizzying heights went the wild hunt. “Faster, faster, Snowstorm,” (for that was the white stallion’s name), Dick urged on his horse, “we must and we shall free that young girl whose life and honor are at stake! It’s up to you and me!”
The proud animal redoubled its stride as if it understood what was at stake. Ahead, and unaware that Deadwood Dick, like an avenging angel, was hot on his trail, Snake-Eye reined in his horse at a small stream to let him drink. Polly was draped across the animal’s back like a freshly slain deer. A deep moan escaped from her lips.
“Comin’ to, my beauty?” the vile caitiff muttered under his breath with a wolfish grin. “We’re close to an abandoned miner’s shack I know of. Mebbe we’ll stop thar fer a bit an’ get chummy.”
Polly shuddered, pretending not to hear. “I’ll hurl myself from the nearest cliff before I let this fiend touch me!” she silently vowed.
Something made Snake-Eye Sam look back. On the trail, a mile behind him, he spied a flash, a brightness. It was a sunbeam playing upon the silver fleece of Deadwood Dick’s great white stallion. The robber instantly recognized it for what it was. A foul curse burst from his lips. “Deadwood Dick! Hell and damnation! I’ll slit yer throat, gal, afore I let him take ye from me!” He spurred his mount into a dead run.
Deadwood Dick too had gotten a glimpse of his enemy. “Fly, fly like the wind, Snowstorm!” he urged on his stallion, who needed neither whip nor spur to do his beloved master’s bidding. Speedy, the robber’s black horse, was fast as lightning, but even swifter was Snowstorm, not laboring under a double burden. Snake-Eye could hear his thundering hoofbeats coming closer and closer.
“Damn ye, Deadwood Dick!” he cried. “I’ll salt ye down fer winter meat!” He whipped out his pistol from its holster, turning in the saddle to fire at his pursuer and paying no heed to his fair captive. Wide awake now, Polly, quick as a flash, grabbed the ruffian’s arm and sank her teeth into his hand, making him drop his weapon. At the same instant, the loop of Deadwood Dick’s lasso tightened around the villain’s neck, jerking him from his saddle. Momentarily stunned, the robber lay flung to the ground, fighting for breath, his malignant eyes bulging from his head. Faster than the eye could follow, stalwart Dick threw the rope’s other end over the sturdy limb of a nearby tree, refastened it to his saddle horn, and swiftly guided Snowstorm a few yards farther, thereby lifting up the road-agent until he was dangling from the branch, writhing in his death throes.
“Deadwood Dick at your service,” the bold rescuer told Polly. “Don’t look now, miss. The villain’s getting his just deserts, earned a thousand times by his foul misdeeds. But it’s not a sight for tender eyes.”
He could have spared himself saying this. Polly had fainted again. Dick carried her limp form to the nearby brook and bathed her face with cold water from his cupped hands, loosening her blouse at the throat and partially exposing a heaving bosom of snowy purity, even whiter than Snowstorm’s silver coat.
Polly opened her eyes and beheld him who had saved her from a fate too terrible to contemplate. Deadwood Dick gazed at her in awe and admiration. Never before had he found himself in the presence of such radiant beauty. The girl was a splendid specimen of young womanhood. He could hardly turn his eyes from a face so alluring.
“You risked your life to deliver me from this devil,” whispered Polly. “How can I ever thank you?”
“To bring you back, alive and well, to your loved ones, miss, is all the thanks a man could ever wish for. I shall get the horses. In two hours you shall be snug inside the Indian Queen Hotel in Whoop-Up. It’s not much of a town, miss, but the hotel is tolerably clean and the food is good. I’ll make sure that your aunt is there too.”
To himself he thought: “And to think that I went to all that trouble to deliver this singular example of beauteous womanhood to another man. Well, what’s a fellow to do? It’s all in a day’s work.”
Behind in the lone forest, Snake-Eye Sam was left suspended, a warning to all murdering outlaws.
CHAPTER 13
An’ That’s My Roolin’
In the Old West all manner of men, including saloonkeepers, served as judges. In many god-forsaken places they received neither salaries nor regular fees, but operated on “hope”—that is, covered their expenses through the fines they imposed. Men who upheld the law during those long-forgotten days were untrammeled by a knowledge of the law and of Latin, which could only have gotten in the way of common sense. Their rulings were often highly eccentric and biased, since they ran courts as they damn well pleased. If a law was needed, they promptly enacted one. If a law got in their way, they ignored it. They followed no precedent and allowed no appeals. A judge might be functionally illiterate and yet exhibit good horse sense, dealing out justice honestly, after his own fashion, thereby gaining the respect and affection of his fellow citizens. Such a one was Major Barry, the “Texas Bantam Cock,” who held court inside a California saloon during the gold-rush days. Barry knew how to put a recalcitrant, obstreperous lawyer in his place. As he himself put it down in his own inimitable spelling:
H. P. Barber, the lawyer for George Work insolently told me there were no law fur me to rool so I told him that I did not care a damn for his book law, that I was the Law myself. He jawed back, so I told him to shetup but he would not so I Fined him 50 dolars and comited him to gaol fur 5 days fur contempt of Court in bringing my roolings and disissions into disreputableness and as a warning to unrooly citizens not to contredict this Court.
A newspaper in Manzano, New Mexico, recorded a dialogue between a similarly erudite judge and the defendant:
JUDGE: There is on the docket a case against you for ARSENY. Guilty or not guilty?
PRISONER: Guilty, Your Honor.
JUDGE: The sentence of this court then is, that you pay a fine of two hundred dollars or marry the girl!
Some judges tempered justice with mercy. Others, such as “Hanging” Judge Isaac Parker, the “Law West of Fort Smith,” sentenced no fewer than 160 men to death and was mighty vexed to see half of them slip through his fingers due to the shenanigans of softheaded lawyers. Seventy-nine “evildoers,” however, died of sudden “throat trouble” brought on in workmanlike fashion by George Maledon, Parker’s “neck-stretcher,” who, on special occasions, transported half a dozen unlucky citizens to the netherworld simultaneously by means of an oversized common trapdoor. George’s grim boast was: “I never hanged a man who come back to have the job done over ag’in.”
By and large, justice in the early days functioned according to the motto that there was more law in a Colt six-shooter than in all the nation’s lawbooks. Of all the highly unorthodox western judges of the last century, the most famous was Roy Bean, the “Law West of the Pecos.”
The Law West of the Pecos
Roy Bean had never read the law. He sprang from Justitia’s head like Athena from the head of Zeus, styling himself “judge” and “justice of the peace” by virtue of his possession of a single tattered and fly-specked volume of the Revised Statutes of Texas, 1879, Other lawbooks, sent to him from time to time, were used to light his stove, or their torn-out pages were stacked between the seats of his two-hole privy. Bean was unkempt in appearance, sported a scraggly, tobacco-stained beard, an
d had a shiny, bulbous nose, reddened by imbibing huge quantities of beer and forty-rod. He could generally be seen on the porch of his saloon-cum-courthouse, wearing a wide-brimmed sombrero, an ever-present cigar clamped between his teeth. He always wore a collarless seldom clean shirt, baggy pants, and a much stained and bespattered vest, buttoned only at the top to give room and ease to his Falstaffian belly. He was a fraud and a joke and a holy terror, as, on rare occasions, he condemned men to hang on the flimsiest evidence, having the sentence executed on the spot. He came down hard on Mexicans, Indians, blacks, and Chinese, but was tenderhearted in the case of Irishmen and former Johnny Rebs, particularly if they happened to be paying patrons of his establishment.
Born about 1825 in Kentucky, Bean killed his first man in Mexico at the age of twenty. In 1850 he got thirty days for launching a fellow man into glory during a “duel” in the then tiny town of Los Angeles. He almost died of hemp fever when he started an affair with a comely señorita betrothed to a Mexican officer who was not amused. During the ensuing encounter the luckless fiancé came up second-best. His amigos waylaid Bean, strung him up from the nearest tree, left him dangling, and rode away. His inamorata, who had watched the scene from behind a clump of bushes, promptly cut him down while he was still alive. He carried the mark of this misadventure, a deep red scar around his throat, until the day he died. His neck remained permanently stiff, “like an iron bar,” so that he could not turn it. He later claimed that his neck had been stretched like that of a “goldurn jeeraff” and that it had taken him months to bang it back into its proper length. In his youth Bean gloried in being a mean barroom fighter. He once slowly and deliberately shoved a burning cigar up his opponent’s nose.
Legends and Tales of the American West Page 36