The Western Justice Trilogy

by Gilbert, Morris

  Judge Parker looked up, and his eyes opened wide. “Well, hello, Ty.

  Good to see you up and going.”

  Ty stood before the judge’s desk. “Good to be up, sir.”

  Parker stared at his face. “That’s a bad cut you’ve got there. You’re going to have a scar.”

  “Well, a man needs a scar now and then to teach him what life is like.”

  “How’s that bullet wound?”

  “Oh, it’s a little stiff. Didn’t hit a bone, so it’s all right. Anyway, I’m about ready to go back to work.”

  Parker leaned back in his chair. “What’s bothering you, Ty?”

  “Didn’t say anything was.”

  “Well, I’ve got eyes, haven’t I? Somethin’s eatin’ on ya.”

  Ty said, “Well, to tell the truth, when I was lying out there shot and dying, at least so I thought, I got scared.”

  “Scared of dying?”

  “Not so much scared of dying,” Ty said slowly, “but scared of what comes afterward.”

  “I didn’t take you for a religious man.”

  “Well, I haven’t been. Maybe that’s my trouble.”

  Ty knew that Parker himself was a thoroughgoing Christian. He and his family attended church every Sunday. He never used the vile language he heard from many of the rougher men he had to deal with. “I guess I’m just a coward, sir.”

  “No, you’re not a coward, Ty. A man’s a fool not to be afraid of what happens after this life if he has any mind at all.”

  “You know, Judge, there are too many bad people in this place. I’m thinking of moving to Omaha.”

  The judge laughed then. “No bad people in Omaha, Ty?”

  Kincaid stared back at the judge. “Some, but most of ’em don’t kill each other.”

  “You start back on Wednesday. Until then you take it easy.”

  “Sure, Judge. See you Wednesday morning.” Ty walked outside and sat down in a chair, tilting it back against the wall of the courthouse. His eyes were half shut as he watched men, women, and young people pass by. It was a habit he had, to watch people carefully, cautiously.

  “Hello, Ty.”

  Kincaid looked up and saw Fairfax. “Sit down, George.”

  “You’re looking pretty good except for that scar on your head. The doctor said you’d probably keep that.”

  “Won’t hurt my manly beauty any.”

  “You know, I was talking with somebody once who wanted to know what I was going to do with my life.”

  “What did you tell ’em, George?”

  “I told ’em back home everybody was jumping up and down with ambition trying to get me married off.”

  “Why didn’t you marry somebody? There must be plenty of women in England who would want to find a rich man with a title.”

  “That’s what I told them. But I hadn’t found anybody yet who satisfied me.”

  “Why does everybody want you to get married?”

  “Why, I have a title you know, and it’s an entailed property.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “It means the place can’t be sold. A male heir will inherit it.”

  “I’m sure there are plenty of women looking for a rich husband. There’s more to it than that, isn’t there?”

  “I always thought so.”

  The two men were quiet for a while; then abruptly George Fairfax turned and said, “I’ve been thinking about Raina Vernay.”

  The words caught at Ty’s attention. He turned at once and said, “You courting her?”

  “A little,” he said casually.

  “You think she’d fit in the English world?” Ty asked.

  “She could if she tried.” Fairfax stirred restlessly and got to his feet. “Or I might come and live here. It’s a different world for me, but I could learn to like it.”

  “Look at that street,” Ty said with a sweeping gesture. “It has people in it, good and bad, but so does London I expect. I don’t know if a man can change his world.”

  George Fairfax was silent. “I could buy a ranch. Become a rancher.”

  “You don’t know anything about cattle.”

  Fairfax smiled. “I could hire you to run it for me.”

  Ty laughed at that. “There are better men than I am at cattle. You’d better think this over, George. Marriage is for a long time.”

  “I’m doing that. It gives me a headache. I’m not used to deep thoughts. I’ll see you later, Ty.”

  Kincaid watched as Fairfax moved down the street, taking in the fine clothes and wondering if he was serious about Raina Vernay. The thought troubled him, for he had felt a vested interest in Raina ever since the two had been thrown together in La Tete. He got up and began walking the streets of Fort Smith. As he thought about his future, he decided the best place for him to be was at church. Since he had a few days off, he saddled his horse and headed out to the Vernay place.

  On Sunday, Ty entered the barn-church, which was fuller than the last time he had come, and saw Eddie Vernay. He walked up to him and shook his hand.

  “Good to see you, Ty. You can get one of those good five-dollar seats.”

  “No, too close to you for my benefit.”

  “How have you been, Ty? How’s that head wound?”

  “Oh, I’ve had worse getting kicked by a stubborn mule.”

  “Come to hear the sermon? Well, I wish we had a better preacher.”

  “You’re good enough for me.” Ty smiled. He liked Eddie Vernay as much as he had liked any man. He envied him, for there was a stillness and a contentment in the older man’s face that attracted him. It was the sort of thing he longed for, but he had not found it.

  Vernay was staring at him. “You’re troubled, Ty.”

  “Sure am.”

  “What’s wrong?”

  “Don’t know, Eddie. Just don’t feel right. I feel like I’m chasing my tail.”

  “That’s what I did when God first got ahold of me. My sermon today on the prodigal son touches on that.”

  Ty Kincaid smiled slightly. “That sounds like it will fit me.”

  “That boy ran away from home, but he couldn’t get away from himself.”

  “You been reading my mail, Eddie?”

  “Not hard to tell when God’s after a man. You sit there and listen to this sermon. It’ll do you some good. Then you come and stay the night with us.”

  “All right. That would be fine.”

  He saw Raina near the front, but he slipped into a seat nearer the back. He wanted nothing to distract him from taking in every word.

  The sermon was indeed about the prodigal son. Vernay had a way of bringing in other scriptures and other stories and personal references to his own life that moved Ty Kincaid greatly. He had heard of people speak of being under conviction, but he had never known what that meant.

  Once he had asked Eddie Vernay what that signified, and he had shaken his head. “You’ll be absolutely miserable.”

  “Well, what good does that do?”

  “A man gets miserable enough, Ty, he’ll do something about it. God’s after you, and He’s going to get you.”

  After the service, he went to the house and had dinner with Eddie and Raina. Later in the evening, he and Raina went outside and sat on the front porch. They were quiet, simply enjoying the cool evening breeze. Ty’s mind kept going back over the sermon.

  Raina finally asked, “What’s the matter, Ty? You haven’t said ten words.”

  Ty turned to her and said, “Well, something you probably won’t know anything about. I want to serve God, and I don’t know how.”

  Raina suddenly had the experience she heard her father speak of. A scripture came to her mind, and she quoted it for Ty. “‘I have set before thee an open door.’”

  “A door set before me? I don’t see anything like that.”

  “You have to wait on God, and He’s ready now, Ty, but when you get ready, that’s when things will happen.”

  Her direct gaze made
him nervous, and he said, “Maybe that’s meant for you. George Fairfax seems to find you attractive. Maybe he’s a door for you.”

  “Oh, he’s a nice fellow.”

  “He’d make you a good husband. Give you an easier life.”

  “That’s not what I’m looking for, Ty.”

  “That’s what most women want. A good, steady husband with a comfortable income.”

  “There’s more than that.”

  The two sat talking for a time.

  Finally Raina stood. “Just look how the moon casts its lucent rays on the land.” She sighed and turned to Ty. “I don’t know how to find God’s will sometimes, Ty. I wish there were an easier way, but I don’t think there is. I remember a scripture where God says, ‘Ye shall seek me, and find me, when ye shall search for me with all your heart.’ I’ve never really done that.”

  “Neither have I. I’ll bet your pa has though.”

  “Yes, he has, but I’m not as close to God as he is.” She was silent for a time, then said, “I’ve just thought of a scripture about a man who sought God like that. Let’s go in the house and I’ll read it to you.”

  “I’d like to hear it.”

  They went into the house and sat down in the living area. Raina looked through the Bible and found what she sought. “Here it is. Daniel is one of the very few individuals in the Bible who seems to have been absolutely devoted to God. Most of the men and women have a black mark against them, even David, who was a man after God’s own heart.”

  “Didn’t know that was said about anyone in the Bible.”

  “This scripture is in the ninth chapter of the book of Daniel. It begins with verse three. The first two verses tell how Daniel wanted to know what the future held for his people, the Israelites. Verse three begins with Daniel setting out to find the answer:

  “‘And I set my face unto the Lord God, to seek by prayer and supplications, with fasting, and sackcloth, and ashes.’”

  “What does he mean, sackcloth?” Ty asked.

  “In those days whenever people were in trouble or suffering, they put on garments made of sackcloth, the cheapest kind of material.”

  “Do we have to do that?”

  “I don’t think so.” Raina shook her head. “It was a Jewish custom. The important thing is Daniel set out to find God’s will, and he made it the most important thing in his life. Listen to what he did to find God. It begins with verse four:

  “‘And I prayed unto the Lord my God, and made my confession, and said, O Lord, the great and dreadful God, keeping the covenant and mercy to them that love him, and to them that keep his commandments.’”

  “Well, Raina, that lets me out,” Ty said. “I haven’t done any of that.”

  “Just listen to the next verse, Ty: ‘We have sinned, and have committed iniquity, and have done wickedly, and have rebelled, even by departing from thy precepts and from thy judgments.’ You see, Ty, Daniel did what we all have to do, confess to God that he was a sinner.”

  “But I thought Daniel was a godly man.”

  “So he was, but even the best of men and women have sinned against God. Daniel was humble, and we all have to admit that we’ve sinned.”

  “Some worse than others, I’d think.”

  “Yes, all of us have sinned, but not all of us have sinned alike.”

  Ty said nothing for a moment, then added, “So even the best man or woman in the world has to confess his or her sin to God?”

  “Exactly!”

  “Well, I can see that.”

  “This prayer goes on for many verses, but I think this was not a ‘one-time’ prayer. I think Daniel may have prayed for many days or even weeks like this. Even Jesus prayed for forty days and nights at the beginning of His ministry.”

  “But Jesus never sinned, did He?”

  “No, but God seeks us out so that we can know Him. That’s what we need, Ty, to know the Lord.”

  “That’s what I want, Raina, but I’m not a good man like Daniel. I may have to pray for months.”

  “Not necessarily, Ty. Sometimes God answers a sinner’s prayer instantly. Remember the thief on the cross? He prayed one prayer, for Jesus to make him fit for heaven, and you remember that Jesus answered his prayer at once. He said, ‘Today shalt thou be with me in paradise.’”

  Ty bowed his head and was silent, and Raina wondered if she had disturbed him. Finally he looked up, and his eyes were bright. “I’m going to do it, Raina! I’m going to find Jesus if it takes me the rest of my life.”

  Tears gathered in Raina’s eyes, and she took his hand and whispered, “That’s exactly what you need, Ty. And Dad and I will be praying right with you.”

  CHAPTER 22

  Ty arched himself into a sitting position, moving cautiously, and was pleased to find that though the movement was somewhat painful, it was less than it had been. Turning, he walked over to the chair by the window, sat down, and picked up a Bible.

  The morning sun was casting golden bars on the worn carpet. As always, he was fascinated by the multitude of tiny motes that danced in the yellow light almost quicker than a man could see. He looked out and saw that the street was busy with people and wondered how he had been rescued from what could have been his death.

  He put the Bible on his lap and moved his hand back and forth over the surface. I’ve ignored this Bible for years, he thought. I should have known better, and I can’t do that anymore. The thought sobered him, and his lips tightened. This had happened often during his time of recovery, and he knew that his days of ignoring God and letting himself do anything he chose were over.

  Slowly he opened the Bible to the page where he had placed a red ribbon for a marker. He read slowly, beginning with the first verse from the ninth chapter of the book of Acts. “And Saul, yet breathing out threatenings and slaughter against the disciples of the Lord, went unto the high priest, and desired of him letters to Damascus to the synagogues, that if he found any of this way, whether they were men or women, he might bring them bound unto Jerusalem.” The bluntness of the words and the cruelty that Paul had let come into his life were not new to Ty. He had heard this story before and had been affected by it.

  He paused and looked out the window and was silent for a moment and absolutely still. Finally he muttered, “Lord, I need to know what to do with my life, but I’m helpless. You’ll have to show me the way.”

  He continued reading the rest of Saul’s story, and when he read the verses that spoke of Saul’s being knocked to the earth and spoken to by Jesus Himself, his eyes fell on another verse. “And he trembling and astonished said, Lord, what wilt thou have me to do?” Again he paused and prayed, That’s what I need, Lord. I need You to speak to me and tell me what to do. You know I’m helpless. I don’t know enough about You. I don’t even know myself, but I ask You to guide me. He ran his hand over the paper and slowly shook his head and whispered, “I wish God would just knock me flat like He did Saul and tell me what to do.”

  Nothing but silence and the sound of traffic on the street came to him. He heaved a sigh, got up, and plucked his gun belt from a peg driven into the wall. As he strapped it on, he paused abruptly, drew the gun, and stared at it. He was remembering something that Jesus said somewhere in the Bible. “They that take the sword shall perish with the sword.” I guess, Lord, if You let those that live by the gun perish by the gun, that about describes me. The thought disturbed him. He slid the gun back into the holster, grabbed his hat from a peg, and left the room.

  The sun was warm, and as he made his way toward the courthouse to pick up his duties, he greeted several men who spoke to him. He passed by two small boys playing marbles in the dirt of the street. The smaller one had a freckled face, and as Ty was passing by, the boy asked, “Are you a marshal?”

  Ty paused and smiled. “Sure am.”

  “I’m gonna be a marshal when I get big.”

  Ty studied the boy and said, “You know, I played marbles when I was about your age. I was pretty good, too.”
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  “Aw, I can beat you.”

  A notion took Ty. He knelt down, picked up a marble, shot, and sent it spinning toward the marbles in the circle. He missed and grinned. “I guess I’ve lost my touch.”

  The larger of the two boys asked, “Did you ever shoot anyone with that gun?”

  “I don’t like to think about that.”

  He walked away, but he heard the smaller boy say, “He ain’t never shot no outlaws. He’d have said so if he had.”

  The scene troubled him as he continued his passage along the street. He thought back and realized that when he was the age of these boys he had been reading James Fenimore Cooper books glorifying Hawkeye. He realized that he had changed, and he muttered, “That seems like a thousand years ago, back when I was playing marbles….” He reached headquarters and stepped up on the porch of the courthouse.

  As usual, Heck Thomas was whittling on a cedar stick. He looked up and studied Ty for a moment, then said, “Things are pretty quiet, Ty. Too quiet, I think. I get too itchy when it gets too quiet.”

  “Not me. I like it quiet.” Ty smiled. “Is the judge in his office?”

  Before he answered, Heck shaved another curling wisp-like piece of cedar and watched it fall on the mound at his feet. “Yep. There’ll be a hangin’ in two hours. He’ll be at the window lookin’ at it.” He shaved two more slivers and shook his head. “I’d like to know what he thinks when he sees a man dangle that he’s sentenced his own self.”

  Ty found no answer for that. “I guess I’ll go see him.” He entered the courtroom, took the stairs, and knocked on the judge’s door.

  When he heard, “Come in,” he went in and found Judge Parker sitting at the desk with a Bible open before him. “Hello, Ty.”

  “Hello, Judge. Reckon I’d better go back to work.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Yes, I’m all right. Head’s just a little scratched. The bullet wound doesn’t amount to anything—but I’m pretty mixed up.”

  “Mixed up about what?”

  Ty hesitated then said, “Well, I’ve been thinking about God a lot since that day, trying to figure it all out.”

  Parker ran his hand over his hair, and his lips tightened. “It’s hard to be a marshal, and I guess it’s hard to be a judge, too. It costs you something. You know, it cost Heck his family.”