Hanging Fire

by Eric Red

  The town was quiet, the streets rolled up. The marshal knew perfectly well the reason why Jackson was peaceful today was that Bonny Kate Valance was gone. The town was finally rid of her and tomorrow the rest of the world would be, too.

  Sitting tall in the saddle, Bess looked left and right at the feed store and the grocery store. The road went right up to the doorways. The town council had been talking about appropriating the funds to build a boardwalk on either side of the street like they had in Victor. It would look nice, Bess thought. She looked up at the slate blue sky, puffed with clouds, the sun shining down sharp and hot. Her gaze traveled over to the majestic peaks of the Grand Tetons to the north, capped with snow even in summer, the titanic height and scale of the mountains taking her breath away as it always did no matter how many times she saw them; but once Bess looked at the monumental barrier range, she felt her gaze irresistibly pulled yet again south, along the crags jutting against the sky, to the Teton Pass just west of her. Fear drew her gaze. The pass was cloaked in shadow from the clouds, like a bad omen, and she shuddered.

  Try as she might, Bess Sugarland could not stop worrying about Joe Noose and the bad company he was keeping—Bonny Kate Valance could not get hanged soon enough for Bess Sugarland. The marshal’s stomach would be tied in knots until noon tomorrow when the execution would take place. Bess had already telegraphed the town of Victor, Idaho’s sheriff, Albert Shurlock, requesting he telegraph as soon as Noose arrived with the condemned woman, then again right after the execution when the lady outlaw swung at the rope’s end. Shurlock had promised he would.

  Trying to shake her uncharacteristic disquiet, Marshal Bess flipped her reins and sat upright as her mare trotted up the street in a brisk, purposeful pace that made its proud rider feel every bit the face of law enforcement in Jackson. A few wagons passed, the farmer owners tipping their hats to her. Bess returned the gesture. Turning her horse onto Pearl Street then riding around on Broadway along the town square, the marshal patrolled her town and gave it a once-over, letting the folks know she was on duty, but everything looked quiet.

  This was a good thing, because Marshal Bess wasn’t planning to go back to her office just yet. With Noose gone, a powerful sense of loneliness and isolation had blindsided her, making the U.S. Marshal badge on her chest feel cumbersome, and Bess needed to talk to the only other man who understood what that was like—her father—and there was only one place to do that.

  With a tug of rein and kick of spur, Marshal Bess turned her mare onto Cache Street after rounding the square, heading toward the open county of Gros Ventre a few miles out. And wouldn’t you know it, that’s when she ran into the whole group of them.

  “Ladies,” Bess said, touching her hat in greeting.

  The entire Jackson City Council, a political body composed entirely of local women, was standing gathered at the edge of the square right in front of her, clucking like a flock of hens. The Jackson Hole Women’s Auxiliary, who blocked her path at the end of the square, were having some kind of ad hoc meeting. The female marshal rolled her eyes, ready to get her ear bent, because these women always had a lot of opinions on just about everything and never ran out of things to talk about. Heads swung in her direction—they had spotted her, and Bess was going to have to converse with them. It wasn’t hard to guess what they wanted to bend her ear about: the hanging.

  Every woman in Jackson hated Bonny Kate Valance, Bess included, but for most of the local women this visceral unreasoning loathing of the lady outlaw was fueled with intense personal jealousy because of the seductive effect the gunslinging wench had on their men; husbands, fathers, and sons all ensorcelled and under her spell or so it was believed by the women. Bonny Kate was a notorious outlaw who had the kind of beauty that drove men wild. The women of Jackson, even the most Christian, wanted to lynch her. They considered it an abomination that a slut who they saw as the devil was in their town and couldn’t wait until she was gone from their streets, and the face of the earth, forever.

  It had been a huge headache for Bess in her early days as U.S. Marshal. For the last month, the local women had gathered daily in growing numbers to protest outside the marshal’s office. Holding up signs that read HANG BONNY KATE VALANCE or HANGING IS TOO GOOD FOR HER and suchlike, the disruptive mob disturbed the peace with noisy speeches clamoring for the female outlaw’s demise. Bess had gotten sick of reminding people that Bonny Kate’s demise was guaranteed and her execution already scheduled at the end of the month. This was not soon enough for the protesters, who wanted her dead and out of town directly and not necessarily in that order.

  The men in turn had also protested on the streets against the hanging, claiming that executing a woman was uncivilized and ungentlemanly when what they secretly fantasized about was bedding Bonny Kate. In the last few weeks, Jackson had been having a civil war of sorts, with the men on one side of the street and the women on the other, wives and husbands and mothers and sons shouting and waving signs and fists at one another. In recent days as the female outlaw’s execution date approached, escalating tensions between the sexes reached a boiling point among the citizenry in Jackson.

  Marshal Bess had spent many long hours sitting outside in a chair on the porch of her office with an 8-gauge scattergun in her lap, keeping the peace and hoping she wouldn’t have to use the weapon. Fortunately, except for firing the shotgun in the air two separate times to quiet protests down, she hadn’t had to shoot anyone. Luckily, Joe Noose had been there by the marshal’s side the whole time, standing on the porch next to her and wading in to break up physical altercations and fisticuffs between spouses and neighbors when tempers flared in the crowd. Noose was so big and tough he would lift the combatants apart, one in each hand, as effortlessly as baby lambs without harming anyone until civility had resumed. The intimidating bounty hunter’s very presence was a potent deterrent and order was quickly restored.

  For her part, Bonny Kate Valance just sat alone in her cell, amused by the fuss she was causing, her coarse womanly laugh ringing out occasionally through her cell window, an unseen but constantly felt presence stirring up the populace, the lady outlaw seemingly without a care in the world despite her date with gallows that grew closer with each passing day.

  Today Bonny Kate had left town under Joe Noose’s escort; with her presence no longer felt, a peace and sense of relief was palpable throughout the streets of Jackson as everything returned to normalcy.

  Riding her horse up to the gathered women of the city council, Marshal Bess tipped her hat. “Pretty quiet today, isn’t it?”

  “Is she gone?” Florence McCoy tugged her bonnet around her head worriedly, looking up at the peace officer, who nodded. “She hanged yet?

  “Tomorrow. My deputy is taking her over the pass right now as we speak.”

  “Thought I heard shots up there coming from the direction of the pass a couple times this morning.”

  “I did, too. But it’s nothing to worry about. You hear gunshots out there all the time from hunters and trappers and such during the summer.”

  “What if Bonny Kate escaped?” wondered Eleanor Rittenhouse, a well-liked and outspoken wealthy aristocratic woman from all the way in Philadelphia who had just bought a ranch in neighboring Solitude and served as council treasurer.

  “No chance of that.” Marshal Bess shook her head decisively. “I deputized Joe Noose to take her to Idaho.” All Bess had to do was mention Noose’s name and that pretty much silenced any concerns, but not today, it seemed.

  “What if that evil harlot outlaw shot Noose?”

  “Impossible, Eleanor. Noose took down the entire Butler Gang single-handed, and may I remind you it was the Butler Gang that captured Bonny Kate Valance in the first place and brought her to Jackson. If she couldn’t kill any of those men you best believe she can’t kill the man that did.”

  The crackle of very distant gunfire echoed again, seemingly from the direction of the Teton Pass, but it was hard to tell for sure in the tricky acoust
ics of the valley basin. Bess Sugarland turned her head to stare out at the pass, still cloaked in shadow on the sunny day. Her eyes narrowed, and she chewed her lip. The other women were looking in that direction, too.

  Florence spoke up again. “There was a bunch of lawmen asking around this morning about Bonny Kate Valance—you think it could be them up there?”

  Above them on her horse, it took a beat too long for Marshal Bess Sugarland to respond and return the upturned gaze of the other ladies. “Nope, it couldn’t be. I didn’t tell those Arizona lawmen which way Noose was headed with Valance. And besides, they’re out of their jurisdiction.”

  Bess tipped her big Stetson hat. “A fine day to you, ladies.”

  The group of women stood at the edge of the square, quiet for once, and none of them said a word as they watched their tough no-nonsense lady marshal ride her tall horse down Cache Street toward the empty open country of Gros Venture. None of the women said it but they were all thinking it:

  The only thing out there is the cemetery.

  CHAPTER 10

  Build her gallows high, the judge had said, and so they had . . .

  The stark wooden scaffolding loomed against the sky in the Idaho town of Victor as the workmen put the finishing touches on the crossbeam dangling the thick, oiled rope noose, the trapdoor and lever, and the platform ten feet off the ground, giving ample room for a body to drop and neck to snap like a rag doll on a string. The sound of hammering filled the air. The gallows stood grimly ready for duty in the town square of the small town . . . it was twenty-one miles, thirty yards, and two feet from where the convicted woman and her escort were on the Teton Pass trail at this exact instant.

  Sheriff Albert Shurlock stood below looking up at the hanging structure, glad his own neck was not in it and hoping it wouldn’t be anytime soon. He was a lean, leathery lawman with an amiable, weathered face and twinkling, watchful eyes. Al Shurlock had been sheriff of the growing town of Victor for as long as anybody could remember, since the first barn had been raised twenty years before. He was an affable fixture. His squint was friendly but savvy and he smoked a corncob pipe that lent him an avuncular air. The lawman knew everybody within a hundred miles, and few who mostly came in by train and made their way in and out of Victor across the Teton Pass to Jackson Hole didn’t make his passing acquaintance. It was hot and sweltering with that hard and dry insistent Idaho country heat at this hour so the lawman was soaked with perspiration, but he was used to it.

  His three deputies were a few blocks away at the office or making their patrols on the streets, but so far there hadn’t been any trouble except for a few drunks that had to be rousted. As a precaution against unforeseen circumstances relating to the impending hanging, each one of the lawmen had been issued a Winchester repeater in addition to the Smith & Wesson SAA .45s in their belt holsters they routinely carried but rarely had cause to use.

  Shurlock swung his gaze to the empty railroad tracks ending in the deserted Victor station, the end of the line. Dust and dirt blew across the trackside railbed and trestles, accentuating the emptiness and sense of anticipation of the arrival at 2:13 A.M. tomorrow morning of the Oregon Pacific steam train departing from clear across the country in Philadelphia, which would be pulling in after its lengthy journey, bringing the last spectators for the hanging of Bonny Kate Valance. The town could hardly handle any more people, and the sheriff would be glad to see the vultures go, despite being grateful for the temporary infusion of revenue they were pouring into the local Victor businesses. The town could use it.

  There were too many strangers in Victor the last few days for the sheriff’s liking. Too many people he didn’t know. He preferred the faces he knew or the transient ones just passing through to Jackson. Al Shurlock was a man who didn’t like surprises.

  Victor had increased its population from 75 to nearly 320 residents in the last seven years. It had been formally established just the year before, in 1887. The town had been named after the sheriff’s friend George Victor Sherwood, a dedicated and cussed-natured mail carrier who always delivered the mail despite of threat of Indian attacks. Shurlock had been proud of seeing the town grow. It used to have just a few buildings and a rooming house. Now it had two hotels and a saloon and a boardwalk on one side of the main street. The railroad had been routed to Victor as the end of the line. The train traveled from as far as Philadelphia and brought rich folks and wealthy gentry eager to visit Jackson Hole and taste the West, as something about Jackson fired upper class easterners’ imaginations. There, the wealthy New York and Pennsylvania aristocracy bought ranches and rubbed shoulders with cowboys and outlaws. They took the train to Victor, got off, and rode wagons across the Teton Pass down into Jackson. That was the problem, Shurlock knew. Victor until now had been little more than a train station, a place to pass through on the way to Jackson. All that was about to change.

  The platform that had elevated Victor, Idaho, into the public eye was indeed this very gallows platform built for the sole purpose of the hanging by the neck until dead of the notorious outlaw Bonny Kate Valance, the first woman executed in the history of the United States, and a powerful campaign symbol for the state politicians’ law-and-order agenda of driving the outlaws out of Idaho and Wyoming and bringing the Far West states into the twentieth century.

  In the politicians’ view, it was all about civilizing the Old West in the hopes of a prosperous future for the citizenry in a brand-new century.

  In Shurlock’s view it was a disgusting spectacle, hanging a woman in the center of his town, and with that thought the lawman spat on the street in disgust in the shadow of the hanging platform.

  While he watched the workmen finishing the gallows, Sheriff Shurlock looked around at the town at the grotesque Fourth of July tone of the decorations and celebratory banners filling the square. This hanging was a major historical event with people coming around the country to attend it and Victor was smack at the center of it. Mayor Ralph Wiggins would give a speech he had been rehearsing for months in front of thousands of people from all the thirty-eight states and reporters from every major newspaper across the country. There would be brass bands and trick riders on horseback, shooting contests, and barbecues. Soon, two days from now, the air would be filled with the scents of burning hickory and roasting pork and husked corn. Shurlock could already smell it with the cotton candy. Hangings were public events in the Old West, and the sheriff wondered sometimes how civilized it was for folks to have picnics watching others drop on ropes, but who was he to judge?

  This hanging meant dollars.

  That’s what mattered.

  Bonny Kate Valance held the key to Victor’s future and she was on the way, being delivered to him on a horse. In a sense, her neck in the noose prevented his town from being in a figurative one if the economy didn’t improve while Jackson continued to grow.

  The lawman felt confident the lady outlaw would be delivered on schedule for her date with the rope—he knew the bounty hunter Joe Noose, the man who was taking her across the pass, pretty well. Two months before, Sheriff Shurlock had dealings with Noose, who took on hunting the thousand-dollar bounty on a bank robber named Jim Henry Barrow who had shot a guard in the Victor town bank before fleeing across the pass and ending up in Hoback. There, from what Shurlock heard, things got murky, with another gang of bounty killers tangling with Noose on the claim over Barrow’s dead body. It was a mess.

  One thing Al Shurlock always liked about Joe Noose, doing business with him over the years, was when the bounty hunter chased dead-or-alive claims, he always brought his quarry in alive if he could. Shurlock had no doubt the other bounty hunters had killed Barrow in cold blood and supposedly, from the conflicting stories he had been told, it was a big to-do. Noose had ultimately collected on the reward, but Shurlock heard a lot of men got killed in the process, including his two friends, the U.S. Marshal in Jackson, Jack Mackenzie, and his deputy, Nolan Swallows. The Hoback Marshal Nate Sugarland’s daughter, Bess, was n
ow U.S. Marshal in Jackson and she was the person Shurlock had been dealing with via telegraph on the Bonny Kate Valance business.

  These events were all very confusing and way too much excitement for a simple lawman like Al Shurlock was. Let the town of Jackson have all that excitement— he preferred the peace and quiet of remote Victor, where he hoped to end his days. All this disruption would be all over soon after the execution. Joe Noose was a tough, reliable man and he should be halfway across the pass with the woman by now.

  Sheriff Shurlock had to smile when he reflected that a man actually named Noose was taking Bonny Kate to the gallows.

  Ironic indeed.

  CHAPTER 11

  Into the tawny rolling rural hills of Gros Ventre rode the lone woman on the horse. She had ridden this way having noticed the yellow wildflowers like bright pools of butter against the brown grasslands on the banks of the bend of the Snake River. The flowers grew because of the nearby water. They were perfect. Marshal Bess Sugarland dismounted her mare and walked to the banks, taking many patient moments to select the prettiest flowers with the biggest petals whose stems she carefully cut with her bowie knife into a proper bunch she wrapped in her handkerchief. Then, flowers in hand, she got back on her horse and rode away from the river onto the road to the cemetery.

  It was quiet up here and lonely and peaceful in the big empty of the valley in the shadow of the Grand Teton mountain peaks; the area was named Solitude for a reason. Bess felt it was a good place to spend eternity, which is why she selected the local graveyard as her father, Nate Sugarland’s final resting place. Her old man had loved the wide-open spaces and rode out often to fish the river, and she knew he would be happy to be buried here.

  It was a small graveyard surrounded by a small black corrugated fence below an unmarked metal archway; inside the several-hundred-foot-square plot lay thirty-five gravestones and head markers in uneven rows. Some had fresh flowers on them, some dead flowers, some none at all. Bess thought it was a lovely little cemetery and she felt close to her father when she came here, and she always came alone.