The Butcher of Baxter Pass

by William W. Johnstone

  Whirling while dropping to a knee, Jess saw another figure in the doorway to the kitchen. So big, Jess couldn’t even see that door, but he had a clear view of the shotgun the man held.

  The double barrels belched flame and smoke, obscuring the man’s face, and Jess felt a rush of buckshot sail over his head and heard panes of glass in the corner window shatter. The gunman had dropped the old percussion pistol and had grabbed some hogleg that had been tucked in his waistband.

  Jess couldn’t tell who fired first ... the gunman, himself, or Lee Bodeen. He knew who fired the next three rounds, though, because Lee Bodeen was walking as he pulled the trigger, and the gunman was leaning against the wall beside the door, pain etched into his face as Bodeen’s bullets struck him in the chest.

  A second later, the big brute crashed behind the counter.

  * * *

  “Paul Bunyan?” Lee Bodeen joked. “Or Goliath?”

  “Big Dan McNamara,” Jess told him.

  They stood at the corner of the counter, staring at the dead man whose right hand still clutched the old dragoon revolver he had purloined when he and his brothers had busted Burt out of jail. Jess didn’t know where the shotgun came from.

  “Biggest man I’ve ever seen. Took four of my slugs and one of yours to drop him. What’s his story?”

  Jess had holstered his gun after peering into the kitchen to find only the cooks and other workers kneeling on the floor with their hands clasped behind their heads. The rear door to the alley remained open. If the other brothers had been involved in this murder attempt, they had fled quickly. Jess began to remove his bandana and tie it across his bleeding left hand.

  “His father was killed at Baxter Pass,” Jess told Bodeen and Major Clarke, who had pulled himself off the floor and walked feebly to the counter. Jess saw Caroline helping her father into the wheelchair, which she had already righted. The first of the gunmen, the waiter, remained on the floor, though he had managed to pull himself into a seated position and was holding his head in both hands.

  “This is Texas,” Major Clarke said, his voice shaky and his face pale. “I suppose there are many more men in Texas whose fathers were killed at that prison camp.”

  “There are at least three more in town,” Jess told him. His head tilted toward the late Big Dan McNamara. “His brothers.”

  * * *

  Usually dour-faced undertaker Morris Stokes could not contain his glee that Tuesday was shaping up to be as crackerjack of a day as Monday had been, even though he had to pay for extra help to haul Big Dan McNamara to the horse-drawn hearse parked next to the Dalton circus wagon on Main Street.

  The clerk at the desk had ordered two other desk clerks to nail up a tarp to cover the latest window blasted apart with a shotgun, and he had the audacity to ask Jess Casey to do something about all those onlookers standing outside on the boardwalk, pointing, gawking, and gossiping.

  “It’s a city matter,” Jess told him. “Ask Kurt Koenig to take care of it. I’m county. Remember?”

  Even as Doctor Amanda Wilson burned his hand with whatever medicine she had kept in a little rectangular bottle and then went to bandaging it, Jess did his job as a lawman, trying to piece together what—and how—everything had happened.

  Bodeen and Major Clarke took General Dalton back upstairs to his room, the crazy old loon crying out that he had not gotten to eat his supper one moment, and the next saying something about what cowards these Pennsylvanians were for running him out of Danville on a rail. Caroline Dalton sat at the table across from Jess while Doc Wilson, sitting in a chair, finished working on the bloody left hand.

  “That’s going to leave a scar,” Amanda Wilson told Jess.

  “It won’t be my first.”

  The waiter that Jess had coldcocked sat at the next table, still holding the head that Doc Wilson had examined and pronounced that he would live.

  So, the way Jess’s investigation had sorted everything out, three McNamara brothers had come into the kitchen through the back door after one of the workers had hauled out the morning’s trash. They made everyone drop to their knees and put their hands behind their heads. That included the surly man who had been working the counter. Jess had thought that that fellow had just been showing the Dalton crew who was the boss in the Trinity River Hotel’s dining room.

  “They told us that if we made any sound at all, they’d shoot every last one of us,” one of the dishwashers had said.

  And knowing the McNamara brothers, Jess figured, that had not been a bluff.

  Burt McNamara had sent out Emilio Garcia first; he had a wife and eight children, never missed Mass at St. Stanislaus, and had never owned a revolver or even fired one. That record, thanks to Jess Casey’s sore, soon-to-be-scarred left hand, remained intact. McNamara had given Garcia the cut-down Schofield and told him to walk up to the old man in the wheelchair and put a bullet in the back of his head. If he did not do it, Burt McNamara had threatened, he would have no wife to love; and as soon as they had killed her, they would go to the Garcia home and kill Garcia’s children and Garcia’s mother-in-law, who lived with the family in a shack across the Trinity River near the Union Stockyards. Emilio Garcia’s wife, Maria, washed dishes and was a chambermaid for the upstairs rooms. Jess made a note that he would not eat at the Trinity River Hotel anymore if they had chambermaids washing dishes.

  Emilio Garcia said that once he had killed the old man in the wheelchair, he planned on killing himself—even though it was the worst sin a man could commit—if Sheriff Casey and the other men sitting with the old man had not ended Emilio Garcia’s memory. He apologized profusely to Caroline Dalton.

  “You had no choice, señor,” she told him, and relief washed over Emilio Garcia’s face as he thanked the kind dark-haired woman a good dozen times, while making the sign of the cross repeatedly.

  Jess told Emilio Garcia to go home, to take his wife home, to spend the rest of the day with his family and mother-in-law.

  “¿ Y cuándo vas a llevarme a la horca?” Emilio Garcia asked.

  Amanda Wilson released Jess’s bandaged left hand. Jess looked at the poor Mexican and shook his head. “You’re free to go, Señor Garcia. You won’t be hanged. You’re not going to the gallows.” He repeated that in the best Spanish he could muster and grimaced when the poor man sprang out of his chair, fell to his knees, and began kissing Jess’s soon-to-be-scarred left hand.

  Tears streaming down his face, Emilio Garcia got to his feet, and, making the sign of the cross while continuing to bless Jess, he hurried to the kitchen to fetch his wife and run home.

  Amanda Wilson said, her voice flat, without any emotion. “I believe our solicitor, Mort Thompson, decides who goes free and who faces charges, Sheriff.”

  “That coyot’ isn’t here,” Jess said. Which surprised him. Usually, the Tarrant County prosecutor and Mayor Harry Stout would be hovering over Jess like turkey buzzards. He looked at the crowded entryway to the restaurant, but saw only the assortment of men with morbid curiosity.

  The gent who had been working at the counter—his name was William McCutcheon, according to the statement he had given Jess—got up to let the people waiting to eat breakfast know that the dining room would not be open today. Some of them likely had no appetite anyway for food and were just wanting to see where the latest killings had happened. When they didn’t leave quickly enough, McCutcheon cursed them, and that cleared out the lobby.

  McCutcheon came back, picked up the cup of coffee that he had poured for himself, and told Jess, “We’re about out of windows on the ground floor, Sheriff. When are our guests leaving town?”

  “First thing tomorrow,” Caroline Dalton said, her voice stern.

  “If y’all live that long.” He left through the kitchen door.

  “I did not mean to bring all this to you, Jess,” Caroline Dalton. “I did not mean to bring this to your city.”

  Jess was about to tell her that he knew that, but Doc Wilson leaned over and said, “What th
e hell did you expect?”

  What was that saying? Hell hath no fury ... ?

  Snapping her black satchel shut, Doc Wilson leaned closer toward Caroline Dalton. “Your father butchered two hundred men ... and I don’t know how many others he killed at Baxter Pass before the war was over.”

  Twelve hundred and seventy-four, thought Jess.

  Caroline Dalton stood. “I thought,” she said, “that nigh twenty-five years later, you might think that the war is over.” She took a step toward the lobby, stopped, turned, and said, her voice still stern. “Shouldn’t the war be over?”

  And with that, Caroline Dalton was gone, leaving Jess in an empty dining room that still smelled of burnt gunpowder and drying blood, alone with Amanda Wilson.

  A moment later, Jess was alone. Doc Wilson stood, mumbled something about what Jess could take if his hand got to hurting something awful, and then she walked straight into the empty lobby and out the front door. Jess figured he could watch her storm down the boardwalk, and bowl over anyone in her way, but the corner window was covered with a canvas tarp, and the front desk clerk had ordered that the shutters be closed on all other windows.

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  Tuesday, 11:25 a.m.

  “Damn, Jess,” Hoot Newton said when the door to the jail opened. “That shore took ya long enough.”

  Jess handed the big cowboy both plates, telling him to give one to Pete Doolin unless Pete Doolin had escaped from jail, too.

  “Nah,” Hoot said. “He ain’t gone nowheres.” He stopped, thinking. “I don’t think so nohow ...”

  Picking up the second plate, Jess told Hoot that he would deliver the food to the prisoner himself. By the time Jess was settling into the chair behind his desk, Hoot Newton was dropping the plate in the wreck pan. Turning, the cowhand stopped, stared, and finally pointed.

  “What happened to yer hand?”

  “Cut it.”

  “You shore ain’t talkative this morn, Jess,” Hoot said.

  No. Jess had talked himself out that morning, after he had finished asking all those questions about the McNamara brothers and Emilio Garcia.

  Once he had stepped out of the Trinity River Hotel and onto the boardwalk, it had taken Jess practically an hour to walk from the hotel back to the jail. Every newspaperman in town had wanted to hear the story, so Jess had told them. These boys would be kind to Emilio Garcia, especially after Jess had lied that the waiter had fired the pistol shot that missed General Dalton, in a brave attempt to fool the cowards hiding in the kitchen, and that Big Dan McNamara’s shotgun blast had been meant for Emilio Garcia. That’s what wounded Jess’s hand; he had lied. One of the buckshot had plucked at his hand.

  And that, Jess had figured, might also keep Mort Thompson from ruining some other poor man’s life.

  Jess had learned a few things himself from the newspapermen, though. Mort Thompson wasn’t in town. He had taken last night’s train to Dallas, although no one knew why. Mayor Stout had gone with the solicitor.

  “Maybe Dallas’ll keep the both of ’em!” one of the editors had joked. That had gotten a round of applause from a few of the other scribblers.

  Not having Stout and Thompson around could make Jess’s day a bit easier. They would stay out of his hair, and Jess would have his hands full just trying to keep Lincoln Everett Dalton alive until 5:30 p.m. Besides, Jess knew why those two elected officials had left town. Whatever happened today, they would be able say they, having been in Dallas on important matters (like cards or cribs or charging Dallas restaurant prices to the taxpayers), were not responsible. And without City Marshal Kurt Koenig around, any and all blame would be pasted on Jess Casey’s back like an oversized bull’s-eye target.

  “Why don’t you run those Yanks out of town?” one reporter had asked Jess.

  “They have a legal contract to perform,” he had answered. “And a legal right to be wherever they please. They have broken no laws that I am aware of.”

  He had realized that mistake and figured it would cost him when he ran for sheriff. If he ran for sheriff. Cowboying looked pretty good right about now.

  “On the contrary, Sheriff Casey,” the oldest of the reporters had said, “I do believe the murder of two hundred Texas soldiers is against the laws of Texas and the laws of God.”

  “You’d be right,” Jess had told him, “except that twenty-five years ago he was not charged with any crime and has not been charged with murder or anything—as far as I know—over the past quarter of a century.” Then he had let the newspapermen finish writing down that quote, though he wondered how much of it would be accurate in the next editions.

  Finally, hearing no more questions shoveled in his face, Jess Casey had finished: “The war’s over.”

  “The hell you say,” someone had said. A few reporters had laughed, but Jess and most of the journalists had known that the man who had spoken had not been joking.

  Well, Jess now thought, this will all be over come tomorrow.

  Every bone in his body ached, his muscles refused to unclench, and his eyes burned from the lack of sleep. On top of all that, his chewed-up left hand began throbbing, and he couldn’t remember what Doc Wilson had told him to do about the pain.

  That’s when Jess saw the yellow telegraph paper on the desktop.

  “That come fer you,” Hoot told him.

  Jess picked it up, saw that it came from Dallas Constable Paul Parkin and read no further. He looked at the coffeepot on the stove, decided against drinking that, and, after a weary sigh, asked Hoot Newton, “How’s the head?”

  “Hurts.” The cowhand sank into the chair and touched the bandage Doc Wilson had put on him. “You wouldn’t happen to have no whiskey on you, eh, Jess?”

  Jess was about to answer when the door opened and a cowhand, sweeping his hat off his head, stepped into the office and closed the door behind him.

  “Uh ... Sheriff ...” he drawled.

  “Howdy, Eustace!” Hoot called out.

  The cowhand shot a surprised look at Newton, nodded a greeting in return, and looked back at Jess.

  Jess remembered this man. He had been playing poker last night at Gabe’s Place when Luke Flint had killed the late owner of the saloon and the man who had accused Flint of cheating.

  “Eustace,” Jess said. “What can I do for you?”

  Jess figured the cowboy was legitimate. After all, Hoot Newton knew him and had not immediately challenged him to a fight. Besides, what kind of trouble could a man named Eustace cause?

  “Well, Sheriff, it’s this way, you see. All my money was on that poker table last night. I was a-wonderin’if ... well ... I ain’t et in a while, and I gots me a powerful thirst, and ... well ... ain’t it possible for me to get some of that cash back? After all, that Flint, the one you shot deader’n a dog, he was a-cheatin’.”

  There hadn’t been any proof that Flint had been cheating, though Jess knew the sharper had been. And there was this little fact that Eustace, from all accounts—including Eustace’s own—had folded his hand. So without substantiated proof that Flint had been dealing off the bottom of the deck, the poor, broke cowhand really had no claim to the money.

  And then there were those technicalities Mayor Harry Stout and Solicitor Mort Thompson were so fond of pointing out.

  “Eustace,” Jess said with a sigh, “I can’t turn over any money to you without an order from a judge. And then there would be other claims to money in the pot. It wasn’t just your table that Flint stuffed in his grip.”

  Eustace’s face turned sour.

  Jess cursed himself for being a softhearted fool and pulled out his billfold. He handed the cowboy three greenbacks and a Morgan silver coin.

  “I’m good fer it,” Eustace said, stuffing the money into a mule-ear pocket on his pants.

  “I know that.” Jess knew no such thing. Even Hoot Newton seemed skeptical.

  The hat returned to the cowboy’s head, and his left hand found the doorknob. The door opened, Eustace started
outside, but stopped, turned, his face all apologetic again.

  “You wouldn’t happen to have no whiskey on you, would you?” Eustace asked.

  “Coffee’s all we have, Eustace,” Jess told him, and, frowning, Eustace stepped onto the boardwalk, closed the door, and headed for his horse to ride to the nearest saloon.

  “No whiskey?” Hoot Newton said.

  Jess shook his head.

  “But my head hurts.”

  “What about those pain pills Doc Wilson gave you?”

  “Ate ’em for breakfast.”

  “All of them?”

  “They was tiny. Ain’t like they was beefsteaks or brisket from that joint you go to oftentimes.”

  “Sorry, Hoot. And that was the last of my money I gave to Eustace. I’ll be on tick till payday.”

  “Don’t your hand hurt, Jess?”

  “It does.”

  “Well, whiskey’ll make it feel a mite better. ’Specially if it’s rye. Like Old Overholt.”

  “I’ll keep that in mind.”

  From the jail, Pete Doolin was yelling about something to drink, so Hoot filled a cup and took it through the heavy door, leaving Jess alone.

  He thought of the McNamara brothers. One of them had taken a shot at him in the Fort Worth Opera House. He was sure of that. He remembered Hoot telling him about what one of the brothers had said before leaving the jail with Burt. Something that did not add up.

  Tom McNamara had said, “Tell the law we’ll be goin’ home.”

  And Neils had added: “As soon as we pay a Yankee-lovin’ cur dog opery house owner a visit and deliver him a reminder ’bout folks he shouldn’t be bookin’.”

  One of those boys had taken a shot at Jess in the darkened hallway of the opera house, likely thinking that Jess was Gary Custer.

  “But,” Jess said, testing his theory aloud. “If they had run Custer through with that sword, why would they come back?”