Shooting For Justice

by G. Wayne Tilman

“No, John. But I wanted to. Really badly. This way he suffers every day the rest of his life for what he did for history. Removing the man who was the hope of America. One day, they’ll find his corpse in an alley. Knifed by a thug who wanted his wallet. I doubt he will be identified. He will just be stuck away in a pauper’s grave until hell freezes over.

  “He is meeting his reckoning now. This will be his hell. And he deserves every suffering minute of it.”

  “I agree, Michael. Will you ever see him again?” Pope asked.

  “Hard to tell. I told him to never contact me again. He’s crazy. He may or may not. I’ll probably kill him next time.”

  “I’m sure it will be self-defense,” Pope said.

  Kane just gave Pope a smile which made even the tough sheriff’s blood run cold. They rode back to town and had a whiskey at the local saloon. Kane and Rita left for the train depot shortly after. Pope knew he would see his friend again soon. He had an ominous feeling when he did, it would be to ride against an enemy. An as yet unknown enemy. He did not think it would be Booth. Despite Booth’s notoriety, he was not a worthy enough adversary for the two of them.

  Pope went by the Wells Fargo office. Sarah had already ridden home, so he followed.

  8

  The judge heard testimony carefully guided by a high dollar San Francisco defense attorney. He found Mattie Lane’s former suitor guilty of aggravated assault. It was his first criminal offense. He had rounded his age up a few months during questioning. Maupin was still seventeen, so he could not be tried as an adult. The case would be sealed, and he would not carry a criminal record into adulthood.

  Pope was fine with the results. A hefty fine was paid by his father. The man gave every indication of planning some serious corporal punishment of his own. Justice would be served, if not even-handed, then hard-handed.

  Lane brought both daughters for the trial. Despite Lane’s earlier words, Pope was not surprised. He knew the girls would convince him. Mattie was on good behavior, partially because Sarah stayed close during their entire visit.

  Martha still wanted to go into law enforcement. Her father still wanted her to go to college, a rare but not unheard of thing in 1883.

  Pope, with Sarah close at hand, guided a trail ride on Saturday. They urged the senior Lane to accompany them, and he did. It was the first time the Wells Fargo executive had traveled on a horse instead of behind one for years.

  Israel Pope led the procession on a ride through the hills. Then, they headed to the Pacific beaches. Millie did not go, but she saw them off and her picnic lunch accompanied them.

  Israel taught the girls how to cut sign. Pope and Sarah rode ahead and out of sight. His grandfather showed them how to recognize broken horse-high twigs and to see hoofprints. He pointed out a slight irregularity in one of Caesar’s horseshoes. Israel explained how such details allowed a tracker to differentiate among prints when the trail got “busy”, as he called it.

  He asked the girls if they smelled anything. Neither did until they concentrated. Both picked up a faint hint of wood smoke in the air.

  Israel let them lead the way tracking. Soon, they came to a steep bank, leading down to the ocean. They smelled the smoke stronger, then saw Pope and Sarah below sitting at a fire. Millie’s picnic was laid out and the faint whiff of coffee was added to the smoke, beached seaweed and salt air.

  The four riders picked their way carefully down the slope to the beach. They dismounted and Pope complimented them on identifying smoke smell.

  “Why, John? It’s just smoke,” Mattie wondered aloud.

  “It is just smoke. The key is it’s just not a strong smoke smell you were following. We built a Dakota fire pit in the sand. It has a small hole connected by a tunnel to a larger hole with fuel. The fire sucks air through the tunnel from the small hole.

  “The air feeds and superheats the fire. The resultant efficiency makes the fire burn with less smoke. It not only makes for a better fire, but one with less giveaway smoke for predators to smell. Especially, two-legged predators,” Pope explained.

  “Notice John could not dig a tunnel connecting the two pits. So, he dug a trench and covered it with driftwood branches and covered them with seaweed. He accomplished building what the sand would not let him. A tunnel,” Israel explained.

  “I learned about them early as a trapper. I was trapping in Indian country. Most were my friends, but not all. A small, efficient fire without a lot of telltale smoke saved me many a time, I ’spect,” the former mountain man said.

  “Did you ever have to fight Indians?” Martha asked, not knowing much about the famous mountain man’s history.

  “Ha! I did, lass. When they killed my wife. When they attacked me on the beaver trapline. And, when my boy here,” nodding to Pope, “and I rode the retribution trail after the ones who killed his ma and pa and baby sister.”

  “How old were you, John?” Mattie asked.

  “Ten,” he answered simply, not wanting to intercede in the master storyteller’s yarn.

  “John and I tracked a party of about twenty. We knew they were the ones from watching the tribe for a while. We set up an ambush and killed them all. Split pretty evenly between the boy and me. We scalped them and took the scalps back to the tribe. We presented them to the chief.

  “I watched my boy. He was looking at the scalps hanging on the tent. One was reddish. It was his ma’s. He couldn’t tell his pa’s. Then, I saw a change come over his face as he spotted a small, long blonde haired one. His little sister. He looked at me.

  “I didn’t have to nod. We already developed a way to communicate with looks and nothing more. You might have noticed we still do it.

  “My boy raised his Henry rifle and shot the chief between the eyes. Then and there. Stone cold dead.”

  Sarah felt a cold chill as she heard the term “stone cold”. She had described Pope with it several times during their relationship.

  Neither the girls nor the father spoke. The story struck them hard. Pope had heard this story recounted more in the last few weeks than in the ten years preceding added together. He reckoned it was the legacy which made him Pope.

  “Sarah and I both have had to fight Indians, even in the past year. There are good Indians and bad ones. Just like any group of people. I do not hate Indians at all. I respect them and particularly the way their religion revolves around nature and faith and trust. Overall, I might even like them more than my own people.

  “Except for the ones sitting around the fire here, right now. Add Millie and you have the ones most special to me,” he said quietly in an admission so unlike the stoic, taciturn gunfighter.

  Sarah had not thought she could love her husband more until then. The same was true for both young women drinking in the story and hearing his last admission.

  They had fried chicken, cheese, fresh rolls and Millie’s wild berry pie for lunch. Sarah made strong, rich campfire coffee rivaling the coffee of her two favorite men sitting there.

  After lunch, Pope found a driftwood log and lined it up along the bottom to the slope. He placed some empty peach cans he brought on it, spaced a foot apart.

  Sarah placed her .38 S&W and the .44 Bulldog Martha had used to protect Rita Kane on the picnic blanket. Pope surprised her when he added his finely tuned Colt Frontier Model beside them after removing the cartridges. He sat a box of .44-40’s beside the .38 S&W cartridges and the .442 Webley ones.

  “Now, we are going to have some basic marksmanship instruction. I had the honor of being the female shooting instructor for Pinkerton’s,” Sarah began.

  “A couple of ground rules first. Always assume a gun is loaded when you pick it up. Don’t let the muzzle or end of the barrel cross anything you don’t want to shoot. Keep your finger off the trigger until you are ready to shoot. And make sure you know what your target is and what’s behind it if you miss or penetrate it. Makes sense?”

  “It seems automatic to put your finger on the trigger when you pick up a gun, doesn’t it?”
Mattie asked.

  “It does, honey. You just have to overcome the tendency. Now, for aiming, line the front sight bead up even in the rear sight groove. Some people like to put the bead in the middle of the target. I always put it at a six o’clock position. I don’t like anything to hide my target.

  The two smaller guns are double-action. Double-action means pressing the trigger both cocks and fires them. For more precise shots, you can manually cock each. The benefit is it reduces the pressure necessary to fire and the time during which your front sight can sway off the target. However, in a gunfight, unless the person is pretty far away, you generally don’t have time to do it. So, you press the trigger straight back until it goes ‘bang’.”

  She taught the two how to check to see if each gun was loaded and got them to handle all three. Though Mattie gravitated towards the big Colt for less-than-subtle reasons, the smaller two fit their hands far better and were simpler to operate.

  Sarah had Martha load the .38 first and fire five shots single action. She came close to each target but did not knock a can over.

  Mattie went next. She hit two of the three cans.

  Sarah offered Joe Lane the opportunity to shoot, but he was having too much fun watching his daughters. She coached each girl until both could knock over all the cans.

  Sarah then graduated them to the British revolver Pope carried as a backup.

  “Sarah, the barrel is so short. It won’t be as accurate will it?” Martha asked.

  “You’ve made a very logical assumption, Martha. Let me answer it in two parts. One, a short barrel makes it harder to shoot, but no less accurate. Second, Webleys are known for being uncannily accurate. There’s just something about them. To our American eyes, they are kind of awkward looking. But, somehow, they shoot like a barn afire. Try and see.”

  Martha, then Mattie, proved Sarah right. Both shot the larger caliber English gun slightly better than the .38.

  They graduated to Pope’s single action. Sarah made them use both hands, due to the grip size and additional recoil. Both loved it, though neither shot it as well as the Webley.

  “John and Sarah, won’t you all shoot?” Mattie asked.

  Sarah picked up Pope’s .44 and fired five times as quickly as she could. She knew she was literally seconds behind what her husband could do.

  “What a fantastic display, Sarah! How long have you been shooting?” Joe Lane asked.

  “I started hunting food for the family in Illinois when I was about twelve or so. Revolvers were much later. Actually once I joined Pinkerton’s,” she added.

  “John, how about you and Mr. Pope?” Martha asked.

  “From my standpoint, it’s Sarah’s show, Martha. There’s nothing I could show you she hasn’t already.”

  The group turned to Israel Pope. He whipped out his large Bowie knife and threw it from the same distance they were shooting. The blade penetrated the sixth can and pinned it against the dirt slope.

  “Just remember, a gun is not your only option,” he said as he retrieved the Arkansas masterpiece and wiped the blade clean.

  As Sarah repacked the lunch containers and put the food out for seagulls, Pope poured seawater in the fire pit and covered both pits with sand.

  “Some folks say ‘leave nothing but footprints’,” Israel Pope cautioned the girls.

  “I say, ‘don’t leave anything for somebody tracking you to find’!”

  “John, can I be a deputy?” Martha asked. “A full-time deputy on the payroll,” she clarified.

  “You and your father need to work out your future. Education is important. You all need to figure out if college is what you need to do and the rain and long trails and danger of being a peace officer is truly what you want,” he said gently.

  Sarah walked between the two young women and hugged them both at the same time.

  “You listen to John. He’s not just the handsomest gunfighting sheriff in America, he’s pretty wise, too.” She did not get any argument from her fellow distaff pistoleers.

  They mounted and returned to the town. Along the way, Israel pointed out types of trees and birds and potential water sources. Sarah kept silent, learning many new things herself.

  They parted at the guest house in San Rafael, its bullet pockmarks now filled.

  Each Pope led a horse back as they rode home, concluding it was a good day.

  Sarah felt better about her attitude regarding Mattie. She and Martha had bonded during the kidnap investigation and today’s experience just drew them closer.

  Progress continued on the cabin. Pope picked up an iron swing arm for the fireplace and a cookstove with a small oven. He and Sarah took the buckboard to several nearby towns and found a rope bed, mattress, table and chairs and a pair of wardrobes. A couple of braided rugs completed their purchases. They brought cookware and plates from their rooms in San Francisco.

  Finally, a week and a half after the Lanes’ visit and ride, they moved into their cabin. It was close enough to Israel’s to share the corral.

  The last addition was a mare for Sarah. They carefully chose a mid-size gray with endurance, no reaction to close gunshots, and good obedience. It was a lot to expect from a very young horse, but with a little guidance from her former cowboy husband, would fill the bill.

  Sarah named her Kate, after Kate Warne. Warne was the first female detective in America, if not the world. She ended as the supervisory female detective for Pinkerton’s She died at only thirty-five years old.

  Sarah never knew her. Warne died twelve years before Sarah joined Pinkerton’s. She always thought Allan Pinkerton wanted her to be the next Kate Warne. Sarah just wanted to be herself and not a reincarnation of anyone.

  Sarah often wondered about the judgement of her brilliant former leader. He buried Kate Warne in the family plot. It was not a precedent, though, as other Pinkerton detectives had already been buried in there.

  Sarah learned of Pinkerton’s last big project during her visit to the Pinkerton offices in Chicago with Pope. He was organizing all the criminal records he could amass into a national database. He made great headway before his death and the massive file was continued by another odd little man in Washington less than fifty years later.

  Despite Pinkerton’s eccentricities, Sarah held him in high esteem due to his brilliance and the opportunities he gave her.

  New houses, especially cabins, have their own particular smells. Sarah took a long sniff and picked up strong cut wood and leather. Smoke from the fireplace would add to it as the weather got cooler. When she cooked in the cabin, she did with all the windows open for the saving cross ventilation. Sarah did not plan to keep them open in cold weather. A little smoke smell beat freezing, she thought.

  This was both her and Pope’s first home deeded in their names. Over the weekend, she and Millie worked on curtains. They got Pope to hang them. Maybe one day a fancier duvet would cover their wool Hudson Bay blanket on the bed. But neither Sarah nor John cared. They both had the right partner, right home and right job. They lived in the woods, but reasonably close to work. The weather was temperate. They had enough land, as part of Israel’s total holding, to keep neighbors at bay.

  Millie had already started a garden. It was larger than she wanted to handle, so Sarah agreed to work half, and they would share the crops equally.

  Sarah felt she had finally slipped into the fulfilling life she always wanted. She knew she was a pioneer as a woman detective. She did not even consider she was also as a housewife and professional woman.

  Pope was comfortable in his new life also. He worried he would get bored because the pulse throbbing adventure of riding after outlaws was missing. The challenge of besting them in a draw down on the street or trail. He missed setting up camp and surviving under the harshest circumstances. He loved the outdoors and the cold, the snow and rain and being trail weary did not concern him. He just considered it what he did. Who he was.

  Pope mentally kicked himself for lamenting the lessened excitemen
t. He had more adventures in less than thirty years than most men in a long lifetime. Pope knew he should be content riding patrol, training deputies and serving the public. He could not have had a more wonderful wife he came home to every night. He got to spend his non-working hours with his legendary grandfather. Nobody ever had a better best friend than the two Popes.

  He kicked himself again as he talked with Caesar. They were riding west towards the ocean. Caesar was not terribly supportive of his feelings. He was just supportive of being with his master and having his friend, Scout, running along beside him. Pope had started taking Scout with him most places. The dog proved to be one of the most popular members of the sheriff’s office. Children and adults alike stopped to pet him and talk to him. Little did they know the gentle, sometimes comical canine, had saved his master’s life and was an outstanding trail dog.

  Like old times, Pope rode along munching a piece of jerky. He tossed part down to Scout. He was on the trail with two of his best friends. It was shirt and vest weather with a cool wind as fall approached Northern California.

  A whitetail doe crossed the trail ahead of them and Scout took off in hot and loud pursuit. Pope grinned. He loved the sound of a good hound on the trail. And fresh venison. He let this one go and decided he and Grandpa should go out and bring home a couple bucks soon. The season was almost right for hunting, though he knew the mountain man preferred tracking dinner in the snow.

  Pope whistled for Scout, who returned disappointed his pursuit had been cut short.

  They stood on the precipice overlooking the Pacific. It was the spot where everyone carefully rode their horses down during the trail trip with the Lanes.

  Pope did not give any particular thought to the frisky younger Lane as he looked out. He was here for a reason.

  A constituent told him there was odd activity in this area. Small boats rowing in from larger ones offshore.

  Offloading materials on the beach, where other men waited. Then, the men on the beach hauling the probable contraband up the steep slope and away.