Shooting For Justice

by G. Wayne Tilman

  With ports nearby, this practice was surely some sort of smuggling. Drugs perhaps, more likely items bypassing trade tariffs. He would like to catch them in the act.

  Pope had his deputies stop by here on a frequent basis patrolling.

  So far, the beach had been empty, on everyone’s checks. Pope doubted the deliveries would be made during darkness. The landing of a small boat in the surf was treacherous on a bright, calm day. As was transiting the steep clifflike slope up from the beach. Especially when one was hauling a load uphill.

  The sheriff determined he and his deputies would continue watching. It would come together when it was time. Patience would pay off. Pay off as it did with most things legal and illegal.

  Pope enjoyed the solitude. He took in and savored the smells and sound of the surf for a while. He had to force himself to turn Caesar back towards San Rafael.

  He wanted to swing by Sausalito before calling it a day, so the three headed southwest. Pope stopped at a spot on a high cliff. It was at the northernmost Marin Headlands and overlooked San Francisco. He saw the ferry coming and Alcatraz Island between the point and the city beyond. Turning seaward, the view was magnificent as the Pacific stretched out, seemingly to infinity.

  Pope turned Caesar towards Sausalito and rode on, doffing his hat in town as they rode through. He liked the job Marks Jewelers had done crafting his new gold sheriff’s badge. It glinted at every speck of sunlight as he rode down Caledonia Street slowly before leaving the town and heading for San Rafael some eight miles away.

  He checked in at the office. There was nothing of great importance for him from the chief deputy regarding goings-on in Marin County. Pope headed for the hills and home.

  The next morning, Pope rode to Tiburon after court.

  Sarah went to her office and began laying out a route for investigative trips related to claims against the company.

  Midmorning, the telegrapher called out for her and said she had a “Most Urgent” telegram coming in from Wells Fargo headquarters. She knew it would be from Hume.

  “Should I decipher it?” he asked.

  “Yes, please,” Sarah replied.

  Several minutes later, he brought the plain language version over. He had transcribed it in readable cursive. Telegraph operators were required to be able to always write in a clear hand so there were no mistakes.

  “Black Bart robbed stage halfway between Schellville and Napa on the Napa Road. The driver thinks he winged robber. He hacked a mark on a tree close to the road at robbery site. Respond with all due haste and begin crime scene review. Unknown whether location is in Sonoma or Napa county. Do not advise sheriffs. Morse and I are on the way. Hume.”

  “This is it,” she thought. “My big one. Alone.” Sarah felt very odd in not asking Pope to accompany her. She knew, though, it was a credibility moment for her. Despite her experience as a detective, this was a major opportunity to prove herself.

  “Wire Hume back. Say I am on the way now.” She looked at the big Northern California map on the wall. It was twelve miles between the two places.

  The trip up to Schellville appeared to be about twenty-four miles. It would take her two or two and a half hours with Kate going as fast as Sarah would want to push her for the distance.

  She changed from her dress to the riding skirt, blouse and vest she kept at the office. She put on both guns and pinned her badge on the vest. Going out to the hitching rail, she placed the new sawed off in the front holster she had a tackle maker craft for her.

  Sarah knew she had her investigative kit, Dietz lantern, and extra ammunition in one saddlebag and camping and cooking gear and some food in the other. She stopped at the café and picked up some biscuits and sliced meat.

  Riding past the sheriff’s office at a fast trot, she saw Caesar was not there. Pope must have left for Tiburon already.

  She picked up the speed a bit once she got out of town. Like Pope, she had begun to talk with her horse and planned her strategy aloud for the next two hours and fifteen minutes.

  Schellville was small enough she passed through it without slowing down. She calculated she should start looking for the scene in about half an hour.

  She slowed Kate a bit and began to watch for a man on foot as well as the scene.

  Morse and Hume had developed a profile of the man known as Black Bart over the past seven years.

  The stage robber always operated alone, though he used painted, tapered sticks as fake rifle barrels pointing at the place where he stopped his stages. These were the illusionary rifle barrels he claimed were covering passenger as well as Wells Fargo jehus and shotgun messengers. Nobody in twenty-eight robberies had ever seen his face. He was a short man, dressed as a workman. He always had a feed sack over his head. It had cutouts for eyes and mouth.

  He left or recited a poem several times during his robberies.

  Though he wielded a full-length double-barreled shotgun, he had never fired a shot in his many robberies. He preyed almost always on Wells Fargo stages. His modus operandi was to break off the green treasure box’s padlocks.

  Sarah scanned the road and left and right as she rode. She slipped the new twenty gauge from its holster hanging off Kate’s saddle horn. This would be the arrest of a lifetime, she thought. Sarah was unaware Pope had turned his back on the opportunity to make the greatest arrest in American history only a week ago. He would never tell her. She did not have a need to know.

  Soon, she came to a place with rifle barrels behind a tree and several bushes. She knew they were a ruse, but dismounted Kate and circled around the clump with two barrels and approached, shotgun at the ready.

  As she thought, they were fakes. Props used to scare victims into thinking they were surrounded. Sarah circled the area and began her search for clues and evidence.

  There was every possibility the famous robber and his shotgun were still in the immediate area. She did not know what transportation he had or how badly he was wounded. Or, if his wound was just a hope on the part of the Wells Fargo driver or jehu. She wondered why it was he instead of the shotgun messenger. He may just want to be known as the man who shot Black Bart. One of the detectives needed to ask him why he shot the robber.

  It took Sarah a while to clear the area and feel confident Black Bart was nowhere close. She put her shotgun in the holster since the description was more apt than scabbard.

  Removing her notebook, she began her crime scene sketch. She wrote the location as closely as she could in the upper right corner and drew the road and, using her compass, included the direction. Sarah left the box undrawn until she searched the area. She did not want evidence to fall outside the box she drew around the main scene. She put an X where it appeared the stage had stopped. A clue was one, ten-gauge empty shotgun shell. The shotgun messengers always reloaded as soon as possible after firing, having only two rounds before resorting to less effective revolvers.

  She made a note to ask if the jehu had handed the shotgun back to the shotgun messenger who had reloaded.

  Sarah placed the empty shell in a small evidence sack and continued her search. The treasure box was not there. Apparently, either the driver took it onwards with the stage to Napa or the robber took it. There were no other horse tracks in the area. Black Bart had never been identified with using a horse to reach or leave a robbery. Sarah deduced the driver took the treasure box on the stage. Had Black Bart actually gotten any treasure, or valuables carried in the treasure box? Or had he been shot, and the robbery interrupted?

  She did find a broken padlock. The lock answered her question. She noted its position beside the road on her sketch and put it into an evidence sack also.

  Sarah circled in a fifty-foot radius of the stage’s position. She found footprints. The shape of the toe and heel suggested shoes to her rather than boots. They were not deep, even in a patch of soft loam. She noted the man was not very large, which also fit the profile for Black Bart. She tried to track him but lost the trail after a hundred feet into t
he scrub. Where were the two Popes when you needed them?

  At the point where she lost the footprints, she found what would prove the greatest clue of all. A handkerchief with specs of blood on it. It was still twisted as if it had been bound around something. She surmised it had been used as a bandage wrapped around a hand, wrist or ankle.

  She marked the find and used a rock to hold it in place until Hume arrived. Sarah noticed a laundry tag safety-pinned to one corner. This one clue, she knew, was how they would find and end the stage robbing career of Black Bart, whoever he was.

  Sarah could hardly contain her excitement.

  Using the paced off distance from the find to the stage, she drew a line between the two. Sarah then scribed the outer boundaries of the box for her sketch. She carefully paced the length and width and included those measurements by the lines of the boundary.

  She dated and signed the sketch and ate something while waiting for the two senior detectives.

  They arrived in a rented carriage and she reviewed her sketch and walked them around the crime scene. They stopped and examined the handkerchief and its laundry mark. Hume told her it was important. Morse offered to track it down but asked for Sarah and perhaps five other detectives to assist. If Black Bart was based in San Francisco like both Hume and Morse thought, they had to visit each of hundreds of laundries until the owner of the small rectangle of cotton was found.

  Hume concurred. They stopped by the cabin on the way back to the ferry. Sarah told Millie what was going on. Millie told Sarah, Israel was on the way back from an errand and would unsaddle, rub down and feed Kate.

  Sarah packed several days’ worth of clothes in a valise and left with the very excited Hume and Morse in the carriage.

  “I think, after all these years, we’ve got him, Jim!” Morse exclaimed.

  “I do, too. Thank heavens you walked a wide perimeter, Sarah,” Hume said.

  “I did, but actually found the handkerchief at the point where I lost his trail while tracking him. It was frustrating losing his trail. As you have always maintained, he does not appear to use a horse or mule. There would have been some sign of dung, chewed grass or tracks. But there was nothing indicating a horse. When I was riding out, I watched both the road and the surrounding land for some sign of one man walking or hiding. Nothing. Not a thing at all. I believe he walked towards woods.

  “He will probably lay low for a few days. I sure would like to know how hard he was hit and where,” Sarah said.

  “I would also. Changing back to the handkerchief, those tags are more indicative of a San Francisco Chinese laundry. Ones in Sausalito, Oakland, or other towns or cities on either side of the Bay are different, though I don’t understand why. Your evidence, Sarah, will solve this seven-year case. I know it will,” Harry Morse said.

  Though they were late getting back to the office, Hume insisted they lay out a search grid on a San Francisco city map in his office. The grid would be for ten searchers. Morse offered additional of his men to add to Hume’s. Hume would stay in the office and coordinate and Morse would be the senior person in the field for the search. Sarah would accompany Morse.

  By ten o’clock, they had concluded their plan and Hume had the night manager flag a hansom cab to take Sarah to a hotel. She checked in for several days, suspecting she would have to extend her stay beyond her reservation.

  She slid a small wooden wedge under the door to keep someone with a passkey from entering. Sarah placed her short shotgun beside the bed and stripped. She was asleep almost as soon as her head hit the pillow.

  In Marin County, Pope proudly received her message from Millie as the two men sat down for dinner.

  “Sounds like Missy did everything right,” Israel commented. Pope nodded, wondering if he should take a day and go to San Francisco.

  “I wouldn’t, it’s her play,” Israel preempted Pope’s question. “She was a Pinkerton detective going undercover and arresting people before you met her. She will be with Harry and with Hume. Don’t worry. She’s a big girl.”

  “She wasn’t a wife then, Grandpa.”

  “Being a wife didn’t make her lose her edge, honey,” Millie quickly said.

  Pope nodded and his thoughts drifted. He wondered how quickly he would solve whatever was going on over on the beach. He would go over there first thing in the morning.

  “Another great meal, Millie! Scout and I are going to check the horses. Y’all have a good night,” he said to Israel and Millie.

  The sheriff and his dog walked outside. The night was cool. He checked on his grandfather’s four horses and mule as well as Caesar and Kate.

  He built a small fire in his cabin fireplace, let it burn a while as he stared into it.

  Eventually, Pope banked the fire for the night and climbed into a cold bed. He still watched the glowing embers until he drifted off to sleep. The place was really starting to feel like home. The only thing missing was a raven-haired beauty.

  The next day, he checked in at the office and rode out towards the beach to see what may be going on. As he approached, he saw a bald eagle. His spirit animal. It soared high. He heard its call. Pope took it as a good omen.

  He arrived at the beach and saw it was deserted. Knowing no pick up team would approach with him there, he and his horse and dog slipped into the woods and waited.

  After an hour, he rode out and went back to the office. He checked the reports for yesterday and last night. The deputy on day patrol checked the beach and did not have any sightings either. Pope wondered how frequently drugs would be delivered by ship. He assumed the largest market and probable end point would be San Francisco.

  “Why not bring them directly into port?” he wondered. The port security was not extremely tight. Or at least it wasn’t a few years ago when he was with the San Francisco Police Department.

  He telegraphed his old boss, now Detective Lieutenant Howell.

  “Ships dropping off contraband on Marin coast. Using small boats to bring in to deserted beach. Heroin? Ideas? Sheriff John Pope, Marin County.”

  Howell did not reply until late in the day.

  “Sheriff? When did you leave WF? Supplies of heroin and hashish are way up here.”

  Pope grinned. Howell was a good man. He fully believed he taught Pope everything he knew about being a detective. More was about how to wrap up cases solved or not and how to make money off the job. The latter, at least, did not involve being on the take.

  Not conclusive, but supportive, Pope thought.

  Sarah completed her first day of interviewing laundries. Mostly Chinese. Many did not speak English, or at least not very well.

  Hume had a photograph made of evidence laundry tag FXO7 Sarah had found. He had copies printed of it and distributed to his detectives on the case and those of Harry Morse.

  Even in situations where the laundry owners Morse and Sarah were interviewing did not speak English, they communicated effectively by shaking their heads when shown the facsimile of the tag.

  Hume maintained a master sheet on the laundries interviewed.

  On the fourth day, Morse and Sarah hit pay dirt. It was the total teams’ three hundred fifty-seventh laundry interviewed.

  They got a nod instead of a shake of the head.

  While Sarah waited, Morse found the only Chinese detective he employed. A man he considered his best detective.

  Morse hoped the laundry owner spoke Mandarin like Detective Lee.

  They quickly found out the two were able to communicate, though not easily. Their dialects were different.

  Lee turned to Morse and said, “This tag is one for a Charles Bolton. He lives at a hotel where Mr. Wong delivers his laundry. He does not know the name but will take you there.”

  “Tell him it will be worth his time.”

  Lee told the man, who took off his apron and made ready to leave.

  “Harry, this has been your show more than anybody’s for about eight years. Why don’t you make the arrest? You deserve the glory.
Lord knows John and I owe you for the way you have supported the two of us since we’ve known you,” Sarah said.

  Lee asked the laundry owner to describe the customer. Lee told Morse and Sarah he was a small, older man perhaps in his sixties and dressed extremely well. He said the suits he cleaned for Bolton were of the highest quality.

  “With the money he made robbing stages, I damn well bet they are!” Morse said, immediately apologizing for cursing in front of a lady. Sarah shrugged and brushed it off.

  “Why don’t you two go with us to the hotel? If he’s there, I will arrest him and take him to Jim Hume. If not, we’ll work out a stakeout plan to catch him when he returns.” Both agreed it was a good approach.

  They walked four blocks. The laundry owner stopped in front of the Webb House Hotel and pointed.

  “I guess we’re here,” Lee noted.

  “Let me go in and inquire about him,” Sarah said. “I will pretend to be his niece.”

  At the very moment, a man walked out in a suit and bowler hat. He had a walking stick, diamond stick pin, diamond ring, and they were to later find, gold watch.

  The laundry owner became very excited and started saying, “Bolton! Bolton!”

  Bolton turned to go back in, but Sarah drew fast and yelled, “Freeze, Black Bart!”

  Shocked, the man froze in his tracks and Lee handcuffed him.

  Bolton flinched as the handcuffs were put on and Lee found a wrist was heavily bandaged from where jehu McConnell had fired and nicked him on the wrist with a rifle.

  Lee proceeded to frisk him as Sarah put away her .44. He was completely unarmed. Not even a penknife. The laundry owner returned to his business, fifty dollars in gold richer from Harry Morse. The three detectives walked the man, who looked like a wealthy businessman, to Wells Fargo headquarters.

  Sarah made sure Hume was in his office and congratulated Harry Morse. Lee returned to Morse Detective Agency and its owner walked the man known as Bolton into James Hume’s office.

  “Chief Detective James Hume, may I present my prisoner, Charles Bolton. He is otherwise known as Black Bart, the poet stage robber,” Morse announced.