Die with the Outlaws

by William W. Johnstone; J. A. Johnstone

  “I told you who it was,” Matt said. “If you would like, I can go out with you tomorrow to bring them in.”

  “That won’t be necessary,” Sheriff Clark said.

  “What? What do you mean it won’t be necessary?” Art asked.

  “Just before the funeral commenced, Luke McCoy come into town ’n told me that the men who did this would be coming in on their own.”

  “That’s hard to believe,” Matt said.

  “McCoy swore that they would come in, and I’d like to give them the opportunity to do that. You have to admit, Matt, having them come in voluntarily would be a lot better than going out to Purgatory Pass to bring them in by force.”

  “I’ll give you that,” Matt agreed. “All right. We’ll wait and see what happens.”

  * * *

  When Matt stepped to the newspaper office the next morning, Art was seething mad. “This is a setup,” he said angrily. “It’s all a setup and has been from the beginning.”

  “What’s a setup, Art? What are you talking about?”

  “This business about Carter and the others coming in to give themselves up is a complete setup.”

  “Yes, I thought it would be. But I’m going to bring them in if I have to go out there by myself.”

  “Oh, you won’t have to do that. They’ll be coming in, all right.”

  “They are? Then what are you talking about? What’s the setup?”

  “This,” Art said, picking up a newspaper and handing it to Matt. “This is the Bitter Creek Press Bulletin. You might say that it is my competition. Read this article, and you’ll see what I mean by it being a setup.”

  TWO NOTORIOUS CHARACTERS

  HANGED FOR CATTLE RUSTLING

  JIM ANDREWS AND

  PARAMOUR, MARY ELLA WILSON,

  FORCED TO PAY FOR THEIR CRIMES

  Meet Their Fate at the Hands

  of Rightfully Outraged Citizens

  (SPECIAL TO THE BITTER CREEK PRESS BULLETIN) But a short time ago, Jim Andrews, a nester who had established a ranch by stocking it with ill-gained cattle, and Mary Ella Wilson, a married woman and prostitute who lived with him in sinful cohabitation, were found in possession of four illegally obtained steers. The cows bore the brand of the Straight Arrow Ranch, and for this proof of their many transgressions, Andrews and Wilson were hanged.

  Our readers may be interested to know that Mary Ella Wilson is the woman who recently achieved some notoriety as Cattle Mary Ella. This villainous woman first entered the world of criminal activity with her husband, Clay Wilson, who is now serving a life sentence in the state penitentiary in Lansing, Kansas.

  The lynching of the man and woman on the Sweetwater may be determined by some as deplorable. All resorts to lynch law are deplorable in a country that is governed by law, but when the law shows itself powerless and inactive, when justice is lame and halting, when there is failure to convict on downright proof, it is not in the nature of enterprising Western men to sit idly by and have their cattle stolen from under their very noses.

  Rather than a lynching, the event might better be described as a legal hanging, as those who perpetrated the deed were neither a hastily formed mob nor were they vigilantes. They were duly appointed railroad detectives. These brave men, their appointments recognized by law, were acting on behalf of the ranchers of Sweetwater Valley, who for some time have had to suffer the depredations of Andrews and Wilson. Andrews, it is said, maintained a house of ill-repute using the fallen woman, Mary Ella Wilson to “offer her favors” in exchange for stolen cattle.

  There had been many previous attempts to convict Andrews and Wilson, but the courts have refused to do so, regardless of the strength of the evidence. The story of Andrews’s descent is an old one. It was brought about by his passion for gambling, liquor, and lewd women, such as the one with whom he was cohabitating when he met his demise.

  Cattle Mary Ella is known to have killed two men, one a lover with whom she quarreled and subsequently poisoned, and a young colored man who she shot, giving as the excuse that he had attempted to steal her jewelry. Mary Ella Wilson was a tramp of the lowest sort, and Jim Andrews was the scourge of honest men everywhere.

  The five men who executed Andrews and Wilson, being Asa Carter, Moe Greene, Walter Toone, and John and Lem Mason were, in many respects, doing their civic duty, and they should be lauded by all right-thinking citizens. This paper has been informed that they will be surrendering themselves soon so that their names may be cleared and that there be no shame applied to the act.

  “It’s disgusting!” Art Walhausen said angrily. “The Press Bulletin is a daily, and the Gazette is a weekly, but if I had known that Mike Marvin was going to print such a story I would have put out an extra to preempt him.” The Gazette publisher stared at the copy of the Press Bulletin with ill-concealed contempt. “Instead, they have preempted me. Now the entire territory thinks these five men were acting on behalf of the people.

  “Something like this makes me ashamed to say that I am a member of the press.”

  “So they really are going to turn themselves in today?” Matt asked.

  “Yes, to Judge Aaron Briggs.”

  “Do you know Judge Briggs?”

  “Oh, yes, I know him,” Art said in a voice that suggested little respect for the judge. “I’m afraid our good judge is in O’Neil and Kennedy’s hip pockets. I would be willing to bet that the men involved don’t spend a single night in jail.”

  “You think not?”

  “I know this town, I know Judge Briggs, and more important, I know Kennedy and O’Neil. It’ll be a private hearing. DuPont will more than likely bring them in, present them to the judge, the judge will dismiss the case, and it’ll be over.”

  “Well, there is one good thing about this article,” Matt said, pointing to the paper.

  “What can possibly be good about the article?”

  “The paper has brought it out into the public, and that will make certain that it has to be a public hearing.”

  “Even so, we’ll still have to deal with Briggs.”

  * * *

  “No,” Isaac said.

  Matt had found him in the Wild Hog Saloon.

  Isaac shook his head in response to the question Matt had asked. “I won’t testify in court. I’m sorry. I know it is cowardly of me, but my testimony would be unverified, and because of that, the judge will give little credence to anything I have to say. Also, I’m afraid that my very appearance in court would be the same as me signing my death warrant.”

  “But I’ve been told that you were a lawyer,” Matt said. “Seems to me that would count for something.”

  “Why would it? As I would be neither prosecutor nor defense attorney, I would have no more standing with the court than any other uncorroborated witness. It is because I am a lawyer that I know the futility of even trying. Also, I am a colored man who left the legal profession under somewhat of a cloud, and the life I have lived since then has certainly been less than sterling.

  “I wish I could help you, Mr. Jensen. Believe me, if I thought my testimony would have any impact, I would appear, despite the personal danger. But why put my life at risk when there is no possibility of a positive outcome?”

  Matt nodded. “All right. I understand. But, let me ask you this. Does DuPont know you are the one who tried to stop the lynching?”

  “At the moment he has no way of knowing. But he is smarter than he looks, and it won’t take much for him to put two and two together and come up with the answer.”

  “Are you going to stay around here?”

  “Not exactly.”

  “What do you mean,” Matt asked, not understanding the rather vague answer.

  “I mean I’m not exactly going to stay around here,” Isaac repeated without any further clarification.

  Matt nodded, then looked over toward the bar where Fancy stood, having been asked earlier by Isaac to give them a little privacy. “Does she know what you saw?”

  “No,
and I don’t intend for her to know,” Isaac said. “If she knew, it would be as dangerous for her as it is for me.”

  Matt nodded. “Good point. I see what you mean.”

  Matt left the Wild Hog, disappointed that he was unable to get Isaac to agree to testify.

  “How did your visit go?” Art asked when Matt returned to the newspaper office. Art, like Prufrock, knew that Isaac Newton had been an eyewitness to the whole thing.

  “He isn’t going to testify, and I can’t blame him,” Matt said.

  “What’s that?” Art asked, looking toward the front window. “What’s going on out there?”

  “It sounds like they might be coming in.” Matt and Art could hear the shouts from the street out front.

  “Here they come!”

  “All five of ’em?”

  “They’s seven of ’em, looks like to me!”

  Chapter Twenty-seven

  Hearing the calls from the street, Matt and Art stepped from the newspaper office to watch the arrival of the men who had been identified as the participants in the lynching of Jim and Mary Ella.

  Matt had expected only the five who had been named, but DuPont and McCoy were riding in with the ones whose names had been in the newspaper article.

  Matt and the newspaper publisher weren’t the only ones watching the arrival, as there were considerably more than a hundred of the town’s citizens who had turned out.

  “You men done good by hangin’ that thievin’ mongrel ’n his whore!” someone called out to the riders. “This’ll teach people that they can’t get away with thievin’ ’n rustlin’ in Sweetwater Valley!”

  “Lynchin’ ain’t right, no matter who it is,” another man called.

  “You shouldn’ta hung a woman!” another called.

  “Ain’t no need for feelin’ bad about her. She was a whore!”

  “I’m going down to the courthouse,” Matt said. “I want to see what happens.”

  “Good idea. I’m coming with you.”

  “There’s a pretty good crowd gathering down there, so it looks like it’s going to be a public hearing,” Matt said.

  He and Art hurried down to the courtroom, and using Matt’s badge as a deputy and Art’s standing as a member of the press, they were able to go in, even before the courtroom doors were opened.

  Judge Briggs was a short, heavyset man who tried to fight his baldness by combing his hair over the top of his head. He wore thick glasses and had a very narrow strip of a moustache. He was sitting behind the bench when Matt and Art took a seat up front.

  The courtroom was nearly filled by the time the Regulators filed into the room, and though McCoy took a seat at the rear of the room, DuPont walked down front with the five who were the subjects of the hearing.

  Judge Briggs called the court to order, and all conversation ceased as DuPont stood to address the Judge.

  “Your honor, allow me to introduce myself. I am Tyrone DuPont, chief of the Regulators. We’re a group of private detectives employed by the Union Pacific Railroad, and we got the legal right, accordin’ to the Territory of Wyoming, to do the same thing as if we was lawmen. These five men belong to that same group, ’n what they’re doin’ here is they’ve come of their own free will, to surrender themselves to the court.”

  “What is it you are surrendering yourselves for?” Judge Briggs directed his question toward the five men, though not to any one in particular.

  Carter answered for all of them. “We seen our names in the paper sayin’ that we was the ones that hung that cattle thief and his whore.”

  “And, are you now confessing to that?”

  “No, Your Honor, they aren’t,” a strong voice said.

  Though Matt had not seem him earlier, the person who had spoken out was Garrett Kennedy.

  “Are you acting as attorney for these men?” Briggs asked.

  “No, sir, I can’t do that as I am not a lawyer, but I have been asked to speak on their behalf, and with the court’s permission, I shall do so.”

  “All right. The court recognizes Garrett Kennedy as advocate for, but not the legal representative of, the five men who are standing before me.”

  “Thank you, Your Honor. Your Honor, I begin my advocacy by asking if anyone present in this court is prepared to bear witness against these men?”

  “That is a very good question, Mr. Kennedy, and I will now ask it from the bench. If there be anyone present who has pertinent information to offer in regard to these five men and the death, by hanging, of Jim Andrews and Mary Ella Wilson, I ask that you now present yourself and give such testimony.”

  No one responded.

  “There is no witness to testify?”

  Matt stood up.

  “Yes, Deputy Jensen,” Judge Briggs said. “You have testimony to present before this court?”

  “Not directly, Your Honor, but you might say that I am a material witness in that I did go to the location where the lynching took place while the bodies were still hanging. In addition, I have spoken with an actual eyewitness to the murder of Mr. and Mrs. Andrews. He was the one who knew where the bodies were.”

  “And who was this witness, Mr. Jensen?”

  Matt thought of his conversation with Isaac, and he knew that to say his name in public could put Isaac in danger. “I would rather not give his name, right now, but I would tell you, privately, and I am prepared to share with the court what this eyewitness to the lynching told me.”

  “If it does not come from an actual eyewitness, it would be hearsay evidence, Deputy Jensen, and as such I’m afraid that it would not be admissible,” Judge Briggs said.

  “But, Your Honor, I did see the two bodies hanging there, and that is not hearsay.”

  “We are not here to determine whether or not Mr. Andrews and Mrs. Wilson were hanged. We are here merely to establish who did it, and whether or not the hangings were justifiable.”

  “Your Honor, how can a lynching ever be justifiable?” Matt asked sharply.

  “You are out of order, sir, and I will hear no more from you!” Judge Briggs lifted his hammer, then slammed it down sharply.

  “Your Honor,” Kennedy said. “As there is no one to bear witness against these men, may I ask that they be found innocent?”

  “I cannot declare them innocent, as there has been no charge filed against them and no adjudication. However, minus a confession, and minus any direct testimony from a valid eyewitness to the event, I have no recourse but to declare this case nolle prosequi. This hearing is adjourned.”

  “There you have it, Matt. The best justice you can buy,” Art said under his breath.

  “I wish I could have convinced him to be here,” Matt said. “But I can understand his reluctance.”

  “You’re talking about Isaac Newton?”

  Matt cut a quick, cautioning glance toward Art.

  “Don’t worry, I’m not going to publish his name nor tell anyone. I know it would be very dangerous for him if anyone else knew.”

  “Dangerous? It could be fatal.”

  Shortly after the court hearing, Art Walhausen wrote a piece in the Gazette.

  A TERRIBLE INJUSTICE DONE

  The lynching of two of the leading citizens of Sweetwater Valley by men who are members of the Regulators has been portrayed in a highly colored account in the BITTER CREEK PRESS BULLETIN. That paper speaks of Jim Andrews as a particularly tough citizen when quite the opposite is true. Mr. Andrews was well and favorably regarded and spoken of as a peaceable and law-abiding citizen.

  The description of Mrs. Andrews, (portrayed as Mary Ella Wilson in the PRESS BULLETIN) is equally lurid and equally wrong. The lynching of these two admirable citizens was murder, pure and simple. And yet a farce was committed in the hearing where not one of the accused was questioned, and not one word of accusation was allowed to be entered into the record so that, in a matter of but a few minutes the case was heard and dismissed by Judge Briggs.

  Is human life to hold no value whatever? Are four
cows with a brand other than the Circle Dot—the only evidence stated as justification for the hanging of Mr. and Mrs. Andrews—put in balance on one side and made to weigh more than two human lives on the other? Can it be, in this age of enlightenment, in the God-favored territory soon to become a state, that the worst of all crimes can be committed and the perpetrators go free?

  This scribe finds it disturbing that the PRESS BULLETIN, a newspaper that I have always respected and regarded as a companion vehicle in the effort to keep our citizenry informed, would even hint that such a crime was excusable. Shame on them for doing so.

  As for the Regulators, their time has come and gone. Their position as Sweetwater County deputies has rightfully been withdrawn, which means they no longer hold any legal authority. It has become quite well known that they are now, and always have been, little more than a band of brigands. Operating under the command of Tyrone DuPont, they are dedicated not to justice, but to the private service of Sean O’Neil and Garrett Kennedy.

  The murder of Mr. and Mrs. Andrews by the Regulators should energize all good citizens of the valley to rise in unison and demand that these outlaws be disbanded.

  Straight Arrow Ranch

  “The newspaper down in Bitter Crick, the one you talked to, give us a real good story,” DuPont said.

  “That is true,” O’Neil replied. “But I’m afraid that the article in the Gazette may have undone all the good that the Press Bulletin story accomplished.”

  “If you want, I’ll make certain that that newspaper don’t never say nothin’ no more about us or you,” DuPont said.

  “Who was the witness to the lynching?” Kennedy asked.

  “There warn’t no witness,” DuPont said. “You was there in the courtroom. There didn’t nobody show up to say nothin’.”

  “Nobody testified, that’s true, but Jensen claimed to have spoken to someone who saw your men hang Andrews and Wilson.”

  “Oh, yeah, someone was there all right, ’cause durin’ the hangin’ someone commenced shootin’ at ’em. But when you said who was the witness I thought you was talkin’ about in the courtroom where there wasn’t no witness that actual said nothin’.”