Hattie tried to stay strong, but I could tell she was devastated. She’d convinced herself on the ride to Black Hawk that the operation would save her best friend.
Hattie and I sat next to Garet’s bed all that night. I worked on sewing the sashes I’d agreed to provide the suffragist march, and Hattie read Garet’s journal. When she got to the end she stared at Garet’s bruised and scratched face for a long time. Finally I couldn’t wait.
“What does it say, Hattie?”
She rose from the chair slowly and handed me the journal. Her face looked as if it had aged ten years in a few hours. “It cuts off midsentence, right after she writes about how she was sure Callum Connolly suspected her.”
I opened the journal to the end, and my shoulders slumped. “This was written almost two weeks ago.”
Hattie was next to the bed, stroking Garet’s hair gently. “What did he do to you?” she whispered. Garet’s breaths were coming in shallow bursts, and her face was pale with a sheen of perspiration on it.
“I need to get back to Jehu at the ranch, but I can’t leave Garet to die here alone, among strangers.”
I didn’t argue with her that I wasn’t a stranger, because I understood what she meant. She wants Garet to die with her family around.
“Why do you need to go back? Jehu is a man, he can handle Spooner.”
A strange look crossed her face. “It’s not just him, it’s Stella and Joan, too. I don’t trust Jed Spooner an inch. I need to get Spooner out of there.”
“What if I tell you we can get him out of there without you leaving Garet’s side?”
“How? Are you going to do it?”
“With a telegram to my old boss, Allan Pinkerton.”
21
WPA Slave Narrative Collection
Interview with Henrietta Lee
Thursday, September 10, 1936 cont
We got to Garet at Black Hawk and it was worse than I thought. She was beat to hell, pale, breathing shallow. She looked dead, or near to it. I had to face it, Garet’s dying. Made myself think of the what after, the hole she would leave in our family. We might have been equal in the outlawing, but the ranch was almost all Garet. We worked it, did our jobs, but she was the spirit of it.
“I didn’t know then that Garet would be my last white friend, but she was. She sure was. Course Jehu was my friend, but lovers, husbands, are different. Summer of ’77 there was still hope in some quarters that Negroes could keep our rights, the few we were granted before Lincoln was killed. I’m skeptical as a rule, even more so now that I’ve lived sixty more years, so I never had much hope about it. But a part of me did, and I think being friends with Garet, being treated as her equal, did it. When she died, that seed of hope died, too.
“Standing there, staring at my friend, wondering what she’d been through to end up here, looking like that. I figured Connolly not being around meant that it had been his fists that had done that to her. I was ready to leave right then and go kill that son of a bitch.
“Grace stopped me by finally coming clean that she had been working for Dorcas Connolly all along. I’d known it, but hearing it made me angry, angry that we’d left a pattern so easy to follow that they were able to pinpoint the Gunnison stage as our target. But I was kinda proud of the fact it had been two women to figure it out, instead of the men. Proved my point about the best person to catch a woman was a woman.
“I did want to kill her. Mostly because I wanted to take my anger at losing Garet out on someone, and I had a legitimate reason with Grace, and she was handy. I pulled my gun out and realized it wasn’t loaded. She stole my damn bullets.” Laughs. “She didn’t trust me, either.
“Hell yeah I woulda killed her by Garet’s sickbed. Garet woulda understood. Not proud of it, but I wanted Garet to live and recover enough I could say I told you so. But as long as Garet breathed, Grace living or dying wasn’t up to me.
“Guess our voices were raised higher than a sickbed whisper, because Garet spoke up, in an almost unrecognizable voice. It was faint, and she sounded more like the Englishwoman she was than I’d ever heard before. ‘Stop arguing.’
“Grace started fussing over Garet, giving her a drink of water, asking her how she felt, trying to fluff her pillow. I was embarrassed for her, with what I suspected about Grace’s feelings. Garet waved her fussing away with a thin, weak hand. She was diminished, and it occurred to me Garet wasn’t going to leave this room alive, that she might not live until the morning. What good would it do to confirm to her that Grace was a Pinkerton? It would’ve made me feel good, to be able to say I told you so, but it would have burdened Garet, and that was the last thing she needed. So I watched Grace, or Claire, stand across the bed from me, her hands clutched in front of her, her shoulders thrown back, waiting for my verdict.
“Thank God Almighty I was saved by the nurse showing up. She shooed us out of the room, and Garet didn’t have the strength to argue. When we were alone, Claire thanked me for not telling Garet, and I got in her face and threatened her a few more times. It’d become something of a habit, a stress reliever. She stood there and took it. When I was done, she rustled through her carpetbag and pulled out a journal. She put it on the table and placed my bullets on the top.
“‘Read this. If you still want to kill me after, you’re welcome to try.’ She pulled a Peacemaker out of her bag, clunked it on the table, and sat right down, arms crossed.” Laughs.
“Every goddamn time I thought I hated that woman more than anything on God’s green earth, she’d do something like that and by God if she didn’t redeem herself. I can tell you now, sixty years on, what I woulda never admitted at the time: Gr—Claire Hamilton was a fine woman, and woulda made a damn good outlaw.
“I finished Claire’s journal and it didn’t make me want to kill her, but I sure as hell wasn’t going to let her know that. I needed her on edge to keep her in line. I thought she was on our side, but the fact was she’d spent months lying to us. She could have told us the danger Garet was in going off alone with Callum Connolly, but she didn’t. I still suspected her priority was saving her own skin, so I made sure she knew she was one bad decision away from me blowing her fucking brains out. You better believe I told her that. Got right up in her face. Her Peacemaker didn’t scare me none.
“She had a plan and I had a plan. I don’t remember either one. It’s been sixty years, and we never used them anyways, because Ruby Steele showed up. The Celestial whore. She was the last person we expected to see coming out of the pouring-down rain. She told us Jehu had been thrown in jail in Cheyenne. I wanted to leave right then, middle of the night in a bone-rattling thunderstorm. Didn’t matter. Jehu needed me. I couldn’t do anything about Garet, but I could save Jehu, and he needed saving. Jail was the last place he needed to be. I would have left, too, but Callum Connolly showed up and we pulled off … Well, this is the part I don’t think you’re going to believe. Hell, I lived through it and I have trouble believing it myself.
“You know what a con is? Cons weren’t our specialty, though I think we missed our calling after Black Hawk. We might could’ve gone all over the country and pulled cons, the four of us. Ruby, too. We didn’t meet up with the sisters until we sprung Jehu out of jail in Cheyenne. It was an eventful week, and that’s the truth.”
PART FOUR
THE KILLER
22
Claire Hamilton’s Case Notes
Thursday, August 23, 1877
Black Hawk, Colorado
I told Hattie everything, drawing out the story longer than necessary, my voice trembling by the end, my body shaking, sure when I finished that she was going to kill me. She prolonged the agony by silently staring at me with dead eyes for what felt like hours. Though my body was quivering, I didn’t speak, didn’t cry, didn’t beg her for my life. I clasped my hands, kept my chin up, and waited for her to declare my fate.
“I’ve suspected from the first, and have known since I followed you to your meeting with Dorcas at the tea s
hop.”
“You were following me, then?”
“Yep.”
“You didn’t kill me.”
“Garet wouldn’t let me do it until you betrayed us.” She pulled out her gun. “Looks like it’s time.”
“No, please. I haven’t betrayed you. Dorcas has no idea it’s you. She only suspects.” I told her the lie about Sally Steele and the gang of whores.
“Where’s your real journal?”
“I … Why?”
“I wanna read it.”
“No.” My case notes had become more personal than professional, and I knew Hattie was clever enough to read between the lines. I’d rather have her kill me than have to face her after she read my innermost secrets.
“What are you hiding?”
“Nothing to do with the investigation, I assure you. I swear to you.”
“You swear to me? That fixes everything. You’ve been lying to us for nearly three months, but now I’m supposed to believe what you say? You’ve put me and my family in danger.”
“I never meant—”
“You never meant what? Look at her face! She lost a battle with someone.”
“I don’t think so, Hattie. Look—”
“You’re gonna argue with me?”
“No, I’m not arguing. Something went wrong, terribly wrong. Why else would she stumble into this town half-dead? And maybe Callum did this; we won’t know until she wakes up. But I’m a detective; I’m showing you what I see. Her face is covered in scratches, especially the side that’s bruised, the same side with the broken ribs. I bet if we looked, that side of her body would be bruised, too.”
“What are you saying?”
“I think she fell off her horse.”
Hattie side-eyed me, but she didn’t yell at me. I was making progress.
“She’s the best—”
“Horsewoman you’ve ever seen. I know. But even the best fall off a horse sometimes. The point is, let’s not fly off the handle, do something impulsive we might regret. We need to wait for Garet to wake up, talk to her, hear what happened.”
“And if she doesn’t?”
“We go to Timberline and get your ranch back.”
“You? How could a rich blue belly like you help? Unless you want to give us some money.”
“I’m not rich. Far from it. I dressed that way because I was undercover. I came from nothing, just like you.”
“Don’t you go comparing your life with mine. As bad as you had it, it wasn’t nothing to mine.”
“You’re right. Of course. I apologize. I want to help. I already helped. When I thought Dorcas was a threat to Garet, I got her out of the way.”
“You? You attacked Dorcas?”
“Yes. I dressed as a man. Unfortunately, I was too late. She probably told Callum her suspicions before they left.”
“If she’d been there, she might have been able to keep Callum from doing whatever he did. Dorcas isn’t a cruel woman, she’s just a rule follower. Garet would have gone to jail, to trial. Instead she’s on her deathbed.”
I covered my mouth and started crying, because I knew the truth of her words. I’d brought all of this on Garet. I should have disappeared when I returned to Denver, never gone to Dorcas, never tried to help.
I retrieved my journal from my bag and held it to my chest.
“I know that I’m partially responsible for Garet laying here, for whatever she went through. But you have to give me the chance to make it right.”
“How are you gonna do that?”
“Well, I’m not sure yet. We will decide together. I’ll do whatever you want.” I gave her my journal. “If you don’t trust me after reading this, then kill me.”
She holstered her gun.
“If I don’t trust you after reading this, I’ll let Garet have the honor of killing you.”
Thursday, August 23, 1877 cont
Alida is in with Garet right now, so I am going to take this time to write down what’s happened since my last entry, little clues, since we aren’t sure if Garet will be able to let us know what happened to her and how much danger Hattie, Jehu, and the sisters are in. I suppose I should include myself in that number, since it seems I’m part of the group now.
Hattie finished my journal and asked, “What next?”
I wasn’t dying today, at least.
Hattie and I had just about agreed that our plans were overly complicated, with too many points where things could go terribly wrong. We’d danced around the simplest answer: if Garet died, half of our problems went away. I felt horrible thinking it at all. I didn’t want Garet to die, but we had to assume that Callum Connolly knew she was the leader of the gang that had been terrorizing him, and that the towns within a hundred miles would be on alert. So we would have to make a run for Timberline through the mountains, which Garet could hardly do after having her guts pulled out, cut apart, and shoved back into her stomach. Not to mention the broken ribs.
“We have to assume Salter is part of this,” I said. When she got to that entry, she’d berated me well and good about keeping quiet on the Pinkerton. “He may be leading a group of agents in search of her. How far is Black Hawk from your old ranch?”
We were in the kitchen drinking coffee. Sunrise was a gray affair. Storm clouds were gathering over the mountains; it was going to come a gully washer soon. Lana had told us her relation to Garet, and we saw in her someone we could trust. She went in and out of the kitchen during her daily chores, catching snippets of our conversation and occasionally offering her own two cents.
“Here to where?” Lana said.
“North of Fort Collins.”
“’Bout a hundred miles, going up through Estes Park. Takes my boy Zeke a good week to get home. Though he don’t get much time off. Always horses to be broken. Why?”
“That’s where Garet was, last we knew.”
“At her ranch?”
“Yes.”
“You can add about twenty more miles on to that. Easy riding, those twenty miles. The other hundred’ll be tough.” Lana furrowed her brows. “What was she doing there?”
“Garet went with Callum Connolly to visit it. The last letter we received was postmarked from there. Said she was heading into the mountains with Callum to visit his other businesses,” Hattie said.
“I wonder if she saw Zeke? My son works for Connolly at Garet’s old ranch. He went back a few years ago hoping to get on with Garet and Jehu. When they were gone, the new foreman took him on. Zeke woulda been plumb pleased to see her. They took a shine to Zeke, Miss Margaret and Jehu. It was fine by me at the time. I was too worried about Homer finding us to be much of a mother. Was Jehu with her?”
“No. Jehu’s at our new ranch,” Hattie said.
“Were you one of Miss Margaret’s girls?”
Hattie looked at Lana for a moment and I could tell she wanted to snap at her that they were partners, but instead she said, “Yeah. I found my way there.”
“Then you know. I’d do anything for Miss Margaret or Jehu. Zeke would, too. You don’t think he done this to her? The younger Connolly?”
“We don’t know,” I said. “We won’t know anything until she wakes up and can talk.”
“Well, it’s a good thing she just did. That’s what I was coming in here to tell you. Doc’s in with her now.”
23
Margaret Parker’s Journal
Events of August 12–19, 1877
Dictated by Margaret Parker, transcribed by Claire Hamilton
Chambers Lodge
Black Hawk, Colorado
Hattie told Margaret we had read her journal and that she should start where it left off.
“Zeke. He knocked on my window. Told me there were a bunch of Pinkertons in the bunkhouse and they were going to take me in the morning. After midnight; we didn’t have much time. He told me to get together only what I needed and to wait for his signal. He was gone before I could ask what it would be.
“An hour later, I hea
rd a scratch on my door. Zhu Li was outside. She stepped into my room and gave me a flour sack of food. She told me Callum was asleep by the fire and Zeke was waiting for me up on the stage road. I climbed out the window and made my way around the house. The fastest way to the road was by the bunkhouse.
“Drunk cowboys in the bunkhouse, one alone next to the barn, passed out. I’d shoved my hair in my hat and wore Callum’s coat. Stole the drunk’s whisky, tossed some on me, drank a swig, and decided to brazen it out. Walked like a man past the bunk just as two men walked out. Salter. Spoke to me, I kept going. Saw my face, yelled to raise the alarm. Pulled out my gun …” Garbled. “… Took off running.
“Lucky they were drunk, but thought I was done for. Horses would catch me before I made it halfway across the field. Heard yelling and running, but no horses. Scrabbled up the hill and found Zeke. Had Storm and another horse. Told him I think I shot Salter, begged him to go opposite direction as me so he wouldn’t be blamed. Said the bridles he stole would only buy us so much time, and we needed to go. Ten miles on we tossed the bridles hanging over our saddle horns into the brush.”
“That’s my boy,” Lana said.
“Rode up the Poudre River toward the park. Thought we were home free. Couldn’t go to the Hole, might lead them there .… though Salter knows .… needed Hattie. Suggested I hide in Black Hawk, send for you. Four days out, they find us south of the park. Don’t know how. Thought we covered our tracks.
“We were by Grand Lake. Stopped there to rest. Had ridden hard five days, horses almost done for. Zeke said might could trade at the Fraser post office, or somewhere along the way. Didn’t want to part with Storm, so I …” Garbled.
“We were on a ridge when Storm was shot out from under me. Threw me down the mountain, he followed. He broke his neck. I was knocked out.”
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