For the Love of a Woman

by Orrin Russell

  A roar of chatter burst through the hall. Judge Vanderloop smacked his gavel over the sound block while the District Attorney shouted his objection. Silence was not so easily brought to the courthouse. The rabble whooped and shouted. From the opposite side of the aisle Saul Farro leaned forward and peered down the bench to where Balum sat, a look of revelry smeared across his face.

  When the judge at last brought order to the hall he looked down from his seat and reprimanded Crenshaw. The public was not on trial, he admonished the defense lawyer. Crenshaw only nodded, unimpressed, and continued his dialogue.

  ‘All of these things I say to you now will be presented to you in the coming days. Witnesses will testify on what I have just said. The truth shall come out and Frederick Nelson’s innocence will be proven. I ask not for leniency, but for your good judgement. This is a farce, a complete lie, and zero, I repeat, zero evidence of wrongdoing has been carried out by my client. That is all.’

  Another ripple of commotion went rushing through the hall. The benches were crammed with bodies. Those that couldn’t fit in seats stood shoulder to shoulder in the hot courtroom air where they burst into discussion and argument. Not a one was put off by Crenshaw’s flamboyant opening statement. On the contrary, it was what they had come for; entertainment. The man on trial was for the most part unknown to them. Balum, though he had previously lived in Denver for two months as Deputy Marshal, was nonetheless a near-unknown figure in town. Such men, nearly blank slates, were just the type of men the citizenry craved to cast under public scrutiny.

  Judge Vanderloop shouted out his adjournment of the court and told the rabble that the hearing would resume at noon on the following day. Those who were seated jumped to their feet, the double doors swung open, and the court emptied.

  8

  Alone in the dark hotel room, Balum sat on the edge of the bed, hat hanging in his fingertips between his knees. His chin rested low on his chest and the soft flutter of wind broke at his window.

  His friends had tried to console him. Chester bought him fine whiskey but he had no want to drink it. Randolph ordered food but his hunger had abandoned him. The encouragement they offered felt weak in the face of a justice system seemingly inside out and set against him. He’d sat in their company with a great bulge of tobacco in his cheek until night fell and he wandered back to the Berlamont Hotel alone, wearied further by the unrelenting awareness that Saul Farro walked the streets in total freedom.

  They should have shot Nelson, he told himself again. Left his body as carrion for the vultures, his bones to be bleached over time by the sun in that desolate wilderness of endless sky where the only life was the call of the wolf in the shadows of dusk.

  But that chance had passed.

  When sleep finally took him it was only by thinking of the one point of light in all his narrow vision; Sara Sanderson. He dreamt of her; the kerchief, her eyes intense and unafraid. Her image scrolled across the fields of his mind, easing him into slumber, but only for so long. Other images rose up. Frederick Nelson, Angelique, gatling guns, the Shoshone medicine man.

  He woke in a sweat before the sun had climbed over the earth’s rim. His chest was wet with perspiration. He rose and lit the lantern on the desk, then drew his Colt Dragoon revolver from its holster and disassembled it. With a rag he cleaned each part of the weapon, shining it and caring for it as one would a precious gemstone. He checked the rounds in the cylinder and put the gun back together and dropped it back in the gunbelt.

  He dressed himself, left the hotel, and stepped into the dawn of the rising sun in time to watch it cast its first rays over empty dust-covered streets. Breakfast at the hotel restaurant sat well in his belly, washed down with several cups of black coffee strong enough to make his eyes bulge.

  He had time to kill. The court docket was filled with minor cases. With only one courthouse, time had to be allocated to process them all. Drunks, horse thieves, cattle rustlers, and card sharks, they all needed their day in court. Frederick Nelson’s hearing would not resume again until the afternoon. Until then, Balum needed distraction. For a moment he considered the massage parlor. A temptation, certainly, but one that lent only temporary respite.

  A more meaningful pursuit awaited; Sara Sanderson.

  With a fresh plug of tobacco in his cheek, he strolled the boulevards, one eye open for the lady, the other tensed and waiting for Saul Farro.

  It took not but two blocks to notice the difference from the days before. Until that morning, he was one man among thousands. Ordinary and unworthy of attention. In one day that had changed. Eyes flashed over him, stolen glances followed by hushed whispers. Women nudged their friends with their elbows and men pointed discreetly to their companions at the freshly-accused stranger now tangled completely into the drama of Frederick Nelson and the Oregon Expedition massacre. He could feel their judgement, sense their suspicion and doubt. New bets were being wagered, odds being struck as to who the real killer was, the real story, the truth.

  Not a thing there was he could do about it. He walked forward, ignoring the gawkers, holding his head high and his shoulders back. His feet took him over the shaded boardwalks, across streets filled with traffic and lazy dogs and carts and buggies and all kinds of commotion particular to a city in flux. He spat tobacco into the street and sighed and wondered if he should return to the Berlamont Hotel and hold tight until trial time. The staring and gossiping his presence caused had begun to eat through him.

  The urge had started to win over when he caught a glimpse of the two figures taking tea on the veranda of the Rendezvous Hotel. He turned sharply and felt his blood pump as his legs took great strides across the street. It wasn’t the first time he’d looked up from the street to the raised veranda of the hotel to flirt with a woman, but this was different. It wasn’t just a pretty girl like Leigha Atkisson, or a floozy like Suzanne Darrow. Sara Sanderson was something else entirely. There was something deeper that pulled him to her. Something hypnotic.

  She sat at a small table with her mother, dressed immaculately and sipping tea as if she were in a London teahouse. As he approached he saw Mrs. Sanderson set her teacup down and rise and disappear through the hotel door. Sara sat alone, looking out over the street. Balum closed in and at the railing he removed his hat and smiled.

  ‘A very fine morning, Ms. Sanderson.’

  ‘Hello, Mr. Balum,’ she said, her eyes watching him, amused.

  ‘Does the Rendezvous serve a good tea?’

  ‘It’s passable.’

  ‘I’ve never tried it myself.’

  ‘Too busy bringing murderers to justice?’

  ‘The courtroom might make it sound that way. Maybe I’ve just never had the right company to take tea with.’

  ‘Is that an invitation? Or have you not worked up the nerve yet?’

  Balum leaned back, knocked off balance by the abruptness. ‘It was shaping up to be an invitation. Let me word it straightforward to you; I’d like to take you to tea. Right here, tomorrow morning.’

  She looked down at him over the railing from her elevated position on the veranda. ‘I doubt my father would approve. The courtroom makes you out to be more than an arm of justice. The talk of the town is that it’s all a made up story. You had some ax to grind with Nelson and the truth will soon come out.’

  Balum slapped his hat against his thigh and spat. ‘That lawyer Crenshaw is a piece of work. I’ve never heard such a load of nonsense. Nelson will hang by a rope, you’ll see.’

  ‘Perhaps. In the meantime, if you expect to court me you’ll have to win over my father,’ she paused, then gave a suggestive shrug of her shoulders, ‘or chase me down when no one’s the wiser.’

  Balum watched her toss her hair over her shoulder. He knew she was toying with him. Her implication was at once unclear yet suggestive of something taboo. His mind worked to find a response, but had come up with nothing when Mrs. Sanderson reappeared from the hotel doorway.

  ‘Oh, the talk of the town,’ she sa
id, taking the seat beside her daughter.

  ‘Good afternoon, ma’am,’ said Balum. ‘The name’s Balum.’

  ‘I’m well aware. It’s been on everyone’s lips this morning. I’m Mary Sanderson. I assume you’ve met my daughter.’

  ‘Yes ma’am. We were just chatting about the trial. It’s too bad my name’s being drug through it, but the facts will be clear in the end.’

  ‘I’m sure they will,’ she said. Her face betrayed nothing of the thoughts underneath.

  ‘Speaking of which,’ he said, ‘I’ll need to get going. It starts up in an hour and I need to be present. Good day, ladies.’ He replaced his hat and left them to their tea, retracing his steps away from the Rendezvous Hotel in a much more cheerful disposition than when he had first laid them down.

  The courthouse was no less smothering than the day before. Those who had missed the opening day were rue to miss out on the gossip that might emerge from the second. The only person absent that Balum was quick to note was Ross Buckling. The Sheriff’s duties could only be postponed for so long. His absence meant Balum sat alone on the bench. Neither Chester nor Randolph had been able to make it through the crowds out front. The bailiffs and court clerks ran it like a private club for the rich, and rumors had already started swirling that bribes were being handed out in exchange for admission.

  After the customary rising and sitting when Judge Vanderloop entered, the court was called to order and the spectacle took up where it had left off. Residents of Denver who had dealt with Nelson before the Oregon Expedition departed were called to the stand. The owner of Jackson Stables, a wagon maker, and several who had been eager to join the expedition but who lacked the cash deposit all took the witness stand one by one after swearing on the bible and staring solemnly out into the hall as questions were put to them.

  Frederick Nelson was a handsome man, well spoken when he wished to be. He exuded confidence and gave off an air of expertise in any conversation he took part in. He was a conman through and through, and being a man who excelled at his trade, had duped the townsfolk during his short stay in the city. Though the District Attorney brought up valid points about Nelson’s choice of men, the mandatory fee to join the expedition, and doubts surrounding the only other expedition he led which ended in what was labeled an Indian attack, but of which there was no trace. To each of these points Douglas Crenshaw would rise and pace the small area in front of the jurors, dealing out simple questions that would elicit simple-minded answers, all of which only bolstered Nelson’s credibility.

  When Judge Vanderloop adjourned the court for the day with an announcement that the case would not resume until three days later, public opinion had only shifted in favor of Nelson’s innocence.

  Balum let himself fold into the crowd exiting the hall, ignoring Saul Farro’s elated expression of schadenfreude across the aisle. Chester waited for him outside. Together they left the center of town for the quieter side where the Mexican cantina offered the comfort of its dark interior and clientele more indifferent to his predicament that anything else. They ate pozole and chiles rellenos with Chester lending encouragement all the while, only to land on deaf ears, for though the case against Nelson appeared more insubstantial by the hour, Balum’s mind had space only for Sara Sanderson.

  9

  A cold morning. Dew on the windowsill.

  Looking out at the night sky with his hands braced against the window ledge, he could not guess what hour it might be. Night had not left its hold over the land; morning waited patiently on the underbelly of earth.

  He grabbed up his regular, more comfortable clothing, and dressed himself, knowing sleep would not return to him, then descended the stairs to an empty lobby and out the door. In the crisp air of the pre-dawn he stood motionless like a soldier awaiting orders, until the cold woke him and he turned and walked to the edge of town and watched the horses snort and sputter as they trotted the circumference of the livery corral. He stood watching, his thoughts nowhere, and when the sun rose and the sounds of the town’s awakening reached him, he left the horses to their pacing and walked back to town.

  He had nowhere to be after breakfast so he stood in front of the Berlamont Hotel with tobacco in his lip and watched the passersby. Their steps and the clomp of their horses raised dust through which the sun sent its rays. It illuminated the small clouds of dirt as they rose and plumed and wafted gently back to the ground. He watched ladies lift their skirts and men take their women’s hands when descending from the boardwalks to the street. Their actions gave his mind allowance to think of Sara Sanderson, and just as it began to form the image of the young beauty, the woman herself appeared down the length of the street atop a paint horse.

  Balum spat and wiped his lip and watched her ride forward, her eyes already on him from a hundred yards out. Like she knew where he’d be.

  Abreast of the hotel she reigned in the horse and looked him over head to toe. He wore brown canvas pants and an old threadbare military shirt tucked under a battered canvas jacket. A leather gunbelt hung at his hips. Only the new boots, still bearing a shine, gave any sense of a man of wealth hidden behind the outfit.

  ‘You look better in your tailored suit,’ she said.

  ‘That’s a fine way to greet a man in the morning.’

  ‘I speak my mind.’

  ‘I see you do.’

  She was dressed in ladies riding gear; a multi-layered calico riding skirt and a double breasted vest that clung tightly to her petite frame. A riding whip extended out from her hand, and she held it as though she enjoyed using it.

  ‘I thought I’d take a ride today,’ she said. ‘Where would you suggest I go? I’d like to find a shaded spot where I can look out on fields of wildflowers.’

  ‘Toward the foothills,’ he raised an arm westward. ‘It’s pretty out that way.’

  ‘I’m sure it is. It’s too bad I’m riding alone today; a pretty landscape is better appreciated by two.’

  The forwardness of it struck him. She gave him all the openings while at the same time appearing aloof. He took his hat off and ran a hand through his hair.

  ‘Safer that way too,’ he said. ‘Lot of wild men riding these parts.’

  ‘I’m sure there are.’

  ‘I’m of a mind to saddle up the roan and accompany you. If you’d accept the offer.’

  She raised the riding whip slightly and peered down at him for a moment with her eyes laughing in the corners. ‘From what I’ve heard in the courthouse, you might be precisely one of those wild men I should be wary of.’

  She brought the whip down and the paint jumped forward, leaving Balum standing with his mouth half open and the passersby gossiping amongst themselves about what had just taken place. A decision was made in his mind, shot off like the blast of nitroglycerin in a mine shaft. He stepped into the street where the tracks of her paint had just stood, and let the contours of the hoof prints engrave themselves in his memory. His roan waited in the livery. It had been days since it had stretched its legs, and now it would have fair reason.

  He turned on his heel in direction of the stables and nearly ran straight into the District Attorney.

  ‘Balum,’ started the pale-faced man. ‘Do you have a free moment? I need to speak to you about the trial. You’ll be called to the witness stand soon and I want you to be prepared for the questioning.’

  Balum took a last look up the street at where Sara’s figure was receding.

  ‘Ah…,’ he hesitated.

  ‘This is important, Balum. Come, follow me to the courthouse. We have some items to go over.’

  ‘Can it wait?’

  ‘No it can’t. I don’t know when you’ll be called to the stand, but it could be soon, and I want you ready.’

  The attorney was right; there were more important things to do than chasing pretty girls over the foothills. Still, Balum knew there was only one place he would like to be. Instead he followed the spectacled man to an office in the courthouse biting his tongue all t
he while.

  ‘I’ve never seen anything like it,’ said the attorney when they had taken seats across the desk from one another. ‘This Crenshaw fellow has got a list of witnesses from here to Sunday. He’s got a notary expert that he’s called in for handwriting analysis. I don’t even know what that means. He’s no ordinary lawyer. The man’s done this before.’

  ‘So where do I fit in?’ asked Balum. ‘I’ve given my deposition. What more do they need from me?’

  ‘He’s gonna needle you on that witness stand until you break. That’s what he’ll do. You said in the deposition that Saul Farro was dead, and it’s clear he’s alive and well. You’ve got the affidavits, but that’s just paper. What it’s coming down to is two men’s word against one. You’re the one. That means what you’ve got to say better be solid like a rock.’

  ‘I should have shot him in the mountains.’

  ‘Well, that opportunity is past us, so let’s concentrate on what’s at hand. Ready?’

  They went over the events in detail. The attorney asked questions at every turn in the trail. Some questions were meant to find answers, others to give Balum a taste of what Crenshaw might dish out. By the time it was over, two full hours had disappeared and Balum’s head felt like it had been fed through a grain mill. He left the courthouse with a hand shielding his eyes from the sun as though a convict released from an underground prison.