Law at Angel's Landing: A Western Story

by Wayne D. Overholser

  “Mark could deputize one of you to help,” Tug said.

  He was being ornery, but I didn’t blame him. I almost laughed when he said that because it was downright comical to see all four men shake their heads and start backing off. It was working out exactly as I had known it would. Once these men who had brought Wallace to Angel’s Landing realized what the situation was, they would look to us for help and we still didn’t know how to give it.

  “He’ll be on you men for more money than you’ve contracted to pay him,” I said, “and he’ll be on every businessman in town. The women, too. A lot of them will leave like Ben Scully did. I don’t mind telling you that Tug and I are pretty damned sore about it because you didn’t trust us to do the job we had been doing and could go on doing. If you had been willing to give me the money you’ve promised Wallace, we could have hired a couple more men.”

  “We plead guilty,” Yager said somberly, “but there’s got to be a way to get the drop on that kill-crazy bastard.”

  “I’ve been trying to think of it,” I said. “I’m still thinking. Come on, Tug. We might just as well find out what Wallace is up to.”

  We left the back room and bucked our way through the crowded saloon to the street. The instant we cleared the front door I saw that something was happening, but it took me a moment to see what it was. About half a block down the street the traffic had cleared away. Even people on the boardwalk had ducked into stores and the hotel lobby and offices.

  Wallace was standing in the middle of the street. Facing him, about ten feet away from him, was a cowboy I had seen in town a few times. His name was Whiskey Bowman. He worked for the Rafter B, a big spread south of Paul Kerr’s place. He came to town three or four times a year just to turn his wolf loose.

  I’d never had any problem with Bowman, though I knew he was a bully and plenty of other men had had trouble with him. It was just that he’d never gone on a real tear since I’d started packing the star.

  I was too far from the men to hear what was being said, but I could see that Bowman was drunk and mean and was giving Wallace a cursing. Wallace had found his man to kill. Bowman was too drunk to know what was happening, or maybe he didn’t even know who Wallace was. I started toward them, but I was too late. Wallace took one step forward and said something, and Bowman went for his gun.

  I had seen men draw, mostly in saloons where they were showing off, or on the 4th of July when there was a lot of shooting going on and the cowboys who were in town were carrying guns and trying to out lie each other, but I had never seen a man pull a gun with the cold-blooded purpose of killing someone else. I was seeing it now, but I still found it hard to believe.

  I had the weird feeling that Wallace’s gun jumped out of his holster into his right hand. It didn’t, of course, but his hand moved so fast that it gave that impression. Wallace fired three times before Bowman’s hand touched the butt of his gun.

  The three shots pounded into each other and rolled along the street in what seemed one giant explosion of sound, then the echoes came and died. Bowman was in the dust, not moving, and Wallace was standing over him, his smoking Colt in his hand.

  I ran toward them, Tug a step behind me. Men began to edge out of doorways, not sure yet that they wanted to be in the street. I reached Bowman and knelt beside him. He was dead. I was sure he would be, but I was shocked to see that the three bullet holes in his chest were close together and any one of them would have killed the man.

  Wallace looked at me, a small, contemptuous smile on his lips, his big star reflecting the light of the afternoon sun. He asked: “You want me for murder, Sheriff? Or do you call it justifiable homicide?”

  I told myself I still didn’t want to commit suicide, and that was what I would do if I tried to arrest Wallace. Besides, there was no doubt about what had happened. Bowman had gone for his gun. I don’t know how Wallace had done it, but somehow he had goaded Bowman into drawing.

  “Self-defense,” I heard myself saying. “That makes it justifiable homicide.”

  Men had formed a circle around us. Doc Jenner examined Bowman and ordered one of the men in the circle to go for the stretcher in his office. Wallace glanced around the circle, his face expressionless, his gun still in his hand.

  “I want you men to know that I’m the law in Angel’s Landing,” he said. “The sheriff is a coward as you all saw. He has forfeited any right he or his deputy has to claim to be the law in this camp.”

  What he had said was calculated to force me into drawing my gun. It didn’t work, but it brought closer the moment when I would have to make my play, or he would be proved right in saying I had forfeited the right to claim to be the law. I faced him, my right hand hanging motionlessly at my side.

  “You’re a little early to be talking about who’s a coward and who’s the law,” I said. “I’m still sheriff.”

  I turned and walked away, my cheeks burning. Tug strode beside me, saying: “I knew Bowman. He wasn’t much of a man, but he shouldn’t have been trigger bait for that bastard.”

  We started toward the jail, then I changed my mind. I said: “Let’s go see Maggie Martin.”

  Tug nodded. He said: “We ain’t got much time, Mark. That son-of-a-bitch set this up just the way he wanted it. Now it’s our play.”

  “Mine,” I said.

  “Ours,” he snapped. “This is what I signed on for. You ain’t leaving me out. Don’t try.”

  I didn’t answer. I saw no use to argue, but I knew there was nothing Tug could do. Somehow this had to be handled between me and John Wallace. I looked up at the blue sky and thought I had never seen it so beautiful. I thought of Abbie and told myself I couldn’t die now, not with the whole world giving me all I could possibly want. No, I couldn’t die at the hands of a man like John Wallace, who should have been destroyed a long time ago.

  We found Maggie sitting in a rocking chair in front of a small tent that was directly behind her big one. She nodded somberly at us. She said: “I can guess what happened down the street, but tell me.”

  I told her, then asked: “Is that the way he always starts?”

  “That’s the way,” she answered. “He guns somebody down. It doesn’t make much difference who it is. One killing sets him up. After that, he gets what he wants because nobody will face him. Usually the regular lawman, if there is one, resigns and leaves town. Is that what you’re going to do, Mark?”

  “No,” I said.

  “Then you’ll be dead in forty-eight hours. Maybe less.”

  “There’s got to be a way of taking care of him,” I said. “I just haven’t found it yet.”

  “You’re not going to, either,” she said bitterly. “I expected to fight him this time, but Baldy and Red left me. I thought I was paying them enough to hold them, but I guess there isn’t enough money in the world to pay a man to face what looks like a sure bet to get killed.”

  I figured you could never buy loyalty from men like that, so I wasn’t surprised they’d left, but I didn’t say so. I asked: “What about this man Shell?”

  She shrugged. “He belongs to Wallace, though I’ve got no proof of that.”

  Tug said softly: “He’s here.”

  I turned to see Wallace stride around the corner of the big tent. He said: “I didn’t expect to see you here, Sheriff. I thought you’d be hiding somewhere or getting on your horse and sloping out of town.”

  He’d probably seen me come here and had followed to put more pressure on me. I said: “I was aiming to hide, Wallace, but I haven’t decided on what would be the safest place.”

  “Captain Wallace,” he said angrily. “Damn it, I’ve told you often enough.” He turned to Maggie. “Well, we seem to have run into each other again.”

  “How much?” she asked resignedly.

  “I’m here to enforce the law,” he said. “Somebody has to pay me. Your share is ten dollars a week, starting now.”

  “I’ll get it,” she said, and disappeared into the tent.

 
I wheeled and walked away. Tug hesitated, then caught up with me. “We can’t do it, Mark,” he said. “We just can’t walk off and leave that bastard free to skim the cream off the top of this camp. It makes us both look like cowards.”

  Wallace wanted me out of the way and he wanted it now or he wouldn’t have tried again so soon to make me mad enough to draw against him. It was an old game that doubtless had worked many times for him in the past and had paved the way for him to kill more men than he was likely to remember. Nobody wanted to be called a coward, and it rankled in me just as much as it did in Tug, but to give way to the rage that was building in me would be to hand the town over to Wallace.

  “We’ll move when the time is right, Tug,” I said. “Not before.” I looked at him and saw the overpowering anger that was ruling him. “You’ve got a wife and baby. Don’t you forget it.”

  “I ain’t forgetting,” he said savagely. “I ain’t forgetting that you’re the boss, neither.”

  That hurt. He was saying what others were saying or would be saying—that Wallace was right about me being a coward. I said curtly: “You stay in the office tonight. Leave Wallace alone.”

  I wheeled away and strode toward my house. For the first time I wasn’t sure I could hold off.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Abbie had supper on the stove when I reached the house. She gave me a searching look when I stepped into the kitchen, but when I didn’t say anything, she said: “Supper will be ready in a few minutes.”

  I sat down at the table and smoked my pipe. Presently she brought the food to the table and took a chair across from me. We ate, still saying nothing, then she rose, picked up the dishes, and washed and dried them.

  When she finished, she said: “I’m going home, Mark.”

  “I’ll go with you,” I said.

  We walked through the twilight, my arm around her. When we reached her place, she said passionately: “It’s mighty queer the way duty controls a man. You and I could leave here tonight and never come back. We could get married and have children and live a long and normal life together. Nobody in this town deserves anything from you.”

  Her face turned up to mine. I looked at it in the thin light and thought about saying that there would always be situations like this and a man couldn’t run from them or he’d be running all of his life. I knew that was true, and I had certainly given a lot of thought to running.

  I didn’t say any of those things. Instead, I asked: “Is that what you want me to do?”

  She took a long breath. “No, Mark,” she whispered. “I guess it isn’t.”

  “It’ll be over soon,” I said. “It’s got to be.”

  I held her in my arms and kissed her. When I let her go, she whirled away from me and ran up the path to her front door. I watched her until she disappeared into the house, then I walked back through the twilight that was almost night now.

  I didn’t know what to do except to wait and that wasn’t going to be easy. I didn’t think I could sleep, and I wanted to be home when Garnet Wallace came, though I still had a feeling that it could be some kind of a trap that would give Wallace a chance to get at me. Still, I had to take that chance.

  I was convinced that Mrs. Wallace was not a happy woman. Maybe, just maybe, she had something to tell me that would open a door for me. So far I hadn’t hooked on to anything, so I couldn’t afford to overlook a possibility.

  I sat for a long time on my front porch, thinking I should be on Main Street, but I also thought that this situation was about to come to a head. I just had to give it time.

  Wallace had said I had forty-eight hours. I suppose he thought I would panic in that time and leave town, or I would be driven into facing him. Sooner or later that’s what I would have to do, but I wanted it on my terms and at a time of my choosing.

  Midnight was slow coming. I got so jumpy I couldn’t sit still, so I walked to the jail thinking I’d talk to Tug. The office was empty. I had told Tug to stay there, but he was nowhere in sight. That worried me, but I had no intention of hunting for him. If he wasn’t going to play this my way, he’d have to take what came to him.

  I did go on to Main Street and I stood on the corner for a time, watching the scene that had become familiar to me. The usual Saturday night crowd was on the street. The men were moving from one saloon to another, some drunk, some sober. Men stopped to talk; others pushed their way through or around the talkers so that there seemed to be a sort of pulsating movement in the flow of the crowd.

  A fight would break out, usually between two men too drunk to hurt each other. Now and then a gun would go off, most of them aimed at the sky. The business district ran for several blocks now, and lamps in the saloons and gambling places and the flaming torches in front of the buildings made Main Street almost as bright as day. Laughter and angry shouts mingled together to make a strange, discordant sound.

  On any other night I would have been in that crowd, trying to keep it moving, arresting drunks and stopping fights, and doing anything else I needed to do to keep order, but I had resolved that tonight I would stay out of it.

  I wanted to see what Wallace would do. I did not see him, but I suppose that his mere presence in town intimidated the real troublemakers. In any case, nothing was happening that seemed out of order, so I turned back to my house.

  I sat down again on my front porch. I didn’t look at my watch, but I knew it was close to midnight. Presently I caught a hint of movement in front of the house. I rose and, drawing my gun, stood with my back to the wall.

  I called: “Who’s there?”

  I half expected a bullet, to see the blossom of gunfire and hear the hammering explosion of a shot, but instead I heard a woman’s voice: “It’s Garnet Wallace.” She ran up the path. When she reached the porch, she asked: “Where are you?”

  “Here,” I said, and put out a hand to her, still not sure she wouldn’t greet me with a bullet, though I didn’t think that would be Wallace’s way. He would do his own killing in front of the entire town. He would lose the effect he sought if he didn’t. Besides, I was convinced he enjoyed the act of killing another man.

  She felt my hand on her arm and gripped it quickly. “Inside,” she said softly. “I know I wasn’t followed, but I don’t like to take chances.”

  I led her through the door into the front room. “Shut and lock it,” she said. I did, then she added: “Take me to your bedroom.”

  That made me nervous and I began to suspect some version of the old badger game. I said: “I don’t want . . .”

  “I’m the one who’s taking chances,” she said sharply. “John will kill me if he finds out what I’m doing. Now do what I tell you.”

  I led her across the living room into the bedroom.

  She said: “Shut the door and pull the blinds, then light a lamp.”

  I hesitated, but, having gone this far, I decided I’d be stupid not to see it through. As soon as I held a match to the wick and replaced the chimney, she said: “Good. Now get the blind down.” I obeyed, then she said: “Watch carefully. I’ve got something to show you.”

  I smelled her perfume; I was very much aware of her sensuous body, and I had a strange feeling of being tugged in one direction and then the other.

  She faced me and began to unbutton her blouse. I guess I stopped breathing because I knew what she was going to do. All of a sudden I could see Wallace smashing down my door and finding a scene that would give him every right to shoot me, thus putting the community behind what he did.

  “Hold on!” I shouted. “I don’t want . . . !”

  “Oh, shut up,” she said tartly. “I can find plenty of men to seduce without coming here. I’ve got something to show you.” I guess she thought she hadn’t convinced me yet, so she added: “I can find better-looking men than you to go to bed with.”

  That took the wind out of my sails. I couldn’t dispute her last statement, so I stood there, motionless, my mouth open and I suppose my eyes bugged out of my head. Anyhow, sh
e stood naked in front of me a moment later, and I had to admit that she had a beautiful and exciting body. I wanted her. Any man who looked at her would want her. I took a step toward her, but she held up a hand.

  “No, damn it,” she said. “Look, but don’t touch. I told you I didn’t come here to get into bed with you. You just take a good look at me. I’m a beautiful piece of female flesh. I attract men. I knew that because it used to be my business. I’m not John’s wife. I’m a whore. He picked me out of a house in Bismarck three years ago. I belong to him, he says, therefore he can do anything to me he wants to.

  “I was glad to go with him at first because I’d have done anything to get out of the damned whorehouse, but now I’ll do anything to get back into one. He’s a monster, Mister Girard, an animal. I want you to free me. I’ll never be free as long as he’s alive. I’m doing this to show you why I want him killed, and then I think you’ll believe what I’m going to tell you.”

  She turned around slowly. I gasped and I guess I stopped breathing again for a moment. Her front side was beautiful and attractive; her back side was ugly and repulsive because it was a mass of scars and welts. Two of them were fresh, open and bloody wounds that must have been painful. I guessed they had been given to her within the last day or two.

  She turned back to face me, asking: “Convinced?”

  I nodded, and she began to dress. “I told you that you had put him into an ugly mood in Durango. When that happens, he always takes it out on me. That’s why he whipped me. He calls you a cowboy sheriff and acts like he has nothing but contempt for you, but actually he’s afraid of you.”

  “That’s hard to believe,” I said.

  She shook her head. “No. You see, you haven’t caved in. He’s told me many times that men like you are the dangerous ones in the long run. He’s determined to kill you, Mister Girard, but there’s one thing you don’t know and it’s the last thing he wants you to know.”