by Lou Cameron
“Now is as good a time as any,” Rockwell said. “Hickman is forcing this and I’m going to take him up on it. The man is a murderer. I never said he was a coward. An ambush? It’s hard to tell about that. He may face me himself as a matter of pride. If I don’t go, what about my own pride? My honor, if you like.”
“What the hell has honor got to do with a man like Hickman?” I was angry and made no effort to hide it.
“You asked the question backwards,” Rockwell said. “You should have said, What has honor got to do with a man like you?’ It has everything to do with me. I am going to meet Hickman under his conditions. The chance may not come again. I have to go.”
“Let me give you cover with the rifle,” I urged. “You told me I could go with you.”
“This changes things,” Rockwell said firmly. “Listen, boy, I’m not going to walk in there like a fool. You forget how many shootings I’ve lived through.”
“You may not live through this one.” Did he really think he couldn’t be killed? There were men like that. The notorious gunfighter William Hickok was one of them and yet an alcoholic little gambler put a bullet in the back of his head. I could think of other instances where belief was not enough to deflect a bullet.
Rockwell refused to be angered by my question.
“I know what you’re saying is well meant, but I must go to Abernathy’s mill. The old man died just recently and the place is empty. My young friend, if it’s any consolation to you, I’ll take the long way round and come in from the north. Don’t follow me, William.”
Instead of answering, I walked away from him and went back to the hotel. I felt sure he was walking into an ambush. Hickman may not have been a coward, but he was a great villain, first and last, and I could not see him living up to any agreement he made, especially with Rockwell. There was sense in that, for Rockwell was too deadly to be met on equal terms. There might be any number of Hickman’s people waiting for Rockwell. They might be his many sons, or cronies who had chosen his side in the struggle with Rockwell. I needed a drink and time to think, and not much time was left. Turning into McSorley’s, I saw Cassie sitting at a table with Fitz. Drinks were in front of them. McSorley was behind the bar.
“Forbes,” Cassie called out as I turned to leave, unwilling to listen to any of her devious conversation.
I went over. “What is it? You’re here and you wouldn’t be if I had told Rockwell. I said I wouldn’t.”
“All right, you didn’t tell him. What are you so agitated about? Sit down and have a drink. Get another glass, Fitz.”
Fitz came back with it. Cassie said, “What’s going on, Forbes? We spared your life and you didn’t give us away. There’s some trust there, don’t you think?”
I gulped a glass of straight brandy. “Maybe there is,” I said. “Would you help me if I asked you?”
She looked at Fitz. “We might. It depends what kind of help.”
“By helping me you’ll be helping Rockwell. I’ll tell you how the situation is.”
When I finished explaining, she said, “Why should we interfere? One man is as bad as the other. I just hope they both manage to kill each other.”
“You’re wrong,” I argued. “You heard what Hickman said at Young’s dinner table. Murder. Torture. Mutilate. Raise the tribes. If Rockwell is killed, there won’t be anything to stop Hickman. He’ll go against Brigham Young if he has to. Then you’ll see the bloodiest war ever seen on this continent. Young is wavering, can’t you see? At least Rockwell is sane and will obey orders. There’s no time to argue. I’m going out there to see what I can do.”
She finished her drink and stood up. “We’ll help you,” she said. “If Rockwell wants to know why— if he’s still alive—say you asked me for help because we’re in the same business. He may not believe that, but come on. Mac will come too.”
Riding out of town, McSorley said he knew where the Abernathy mill was. “North of the city. A road branches off after about five miles. The mill is by a creek in a small valley. Plenty of trees and plenty of cover—for them. You say Rockwell is coming in from the north. That’ll take some time, but maybe not enough time for us to get there.”
As we got closer to the branch in the fork I listened for sounds of gunfire. There was nothing. The road was hardly more than a wagon track, narrow and rutted. “The mill is a good ways in,” McSorley said. “You don’t know for sure there’s going to be an ambush, do you?”
A burst of gunfire answered the question for me. It was far away but the sound carried on the still air. We kicked our horses into a gallop; the gunfire grew louder as we got closer. It sounded like five or six rifles were firing at the same time. It was hard to tell because they were firing so fast. We tied our horses and ran along a ridge that McSorley said looked down on the mill. Fitz and McSorley were armed with Colt revolving rifles. Cassie carried a Starr Army .44, one of the first revolvers to come with a strap over the cylinder. I had the Henry and my pockets were crammed with ammunition.
Spaced out wide, we ran along the safe side of the slope, then crawled to the top. Below us, several hundred yards away, was the mill and the creek that ran under it. It took me some time before I was able to make out Rockwell lying in a jumble of rocks; his dead horse was a few yards from his position. The firing started up again. Shots came from the mill but there was only one man there, high up in a sort of tower. The rest of the ambushers were behind trees and huddled behind rocks. There were five of them, all firing steadily, keeping Rockwell pinned down. The sun was fierce in the little valley, and they knew they had him, or they thought they did.
Three of the ambushers had their backs to us; McSorley and Fitz nodded when I raised the Henry and looked at them. Cassie thumbed back the hammer of the Starr and got ready to open fire. The revolver wasn’t going to be much use at that distance but anything to make us seem more than we were would help.
We fired together, killing the three men in a hail of bullets. I kept on firing the Henry while Fitz and McSorley reloaded. One man was left in the mill, two in the cover of the trees. I saw Rockwell pushing out the big Sharps to fire at the mill. As soon as answering fire came from the trees, we left our position and ran along the ridge until were directly above the two men. One of them broke and ran and McSorley killed him with a single shot. The other ran after returning our fire and immediately after that came the sound of a horse galloping away. We laced the trees with bullets; none came back at us. Rockwell was still firing at the mill tower. He fired again and we dashed down the slope to the safety of the trees. Then we edged forward, from one tree to another, holding our fire until there was something to shoot at. Now we could see the mill again, more than two hundred yards away, a solid log building, a natural fortress.
“Port,” I shouted from behind a tree. “It’s William. Is that Hickman in there?”
“He’s in there,” Rockwell shouted back. “Are the rest of them dead?”
“One got away.”
The rifle fired from the tower and the bullet spattered bark in my face.
“Who’s that with you?” Rockwell asked.
“Friends.” I replied. My throat was dry and I longed for a drink of water. Water bubbled in the creek not far away.
“Give me all the cover you can,” Rockwell shouted. “Can you do that?”
Rockwell jumped up the instant we opened fire, and for a man close to fifty, he ran like a goat. A bullet from the tower kicked up dirt at his feet. I fired the Henry so fast, it was a wonder it didn’t jam. The others fired just as fast, and by the time we had to reload, Rockwell was inside the mill. There was a shot and then another. We ran forward but no more bullets came from the tower. Inside the mill the shooting went on. Something fell over as the last shot was fired, and then it was quiet.
“Bring your people in, William,” Rockwell called.
Hickman lay on the floor with a bullet wound in his arm. He had fallen through the trapdoor that went up to the tower. His arm might have been broken; h
e clutched it protectively and blood seeped through his fingers.
Rockwell displayed no surprise when I came in with the others. “I thank you,” he said. “I was caught in a bad place out there. Now you’ll be wanting to get back to town. I’ll come to see you later. We must talk about this. It’s all right. I’m in your debt.”
“Port...” I started to say.
“You stay with me, William.”
Cassie looked at me. “We’ll be going. You asked for help and got it. I hope you remember that.”
I watched them climb the hill to where the horses were, then I went back inside. “Port, I have to explain.”
Rockwell was watching Hickman. “No need to explain. They’re government spies. If they’re with McSorley, they have to be. I’ve known about him for a long time. I always figured he’d lead me to bigger fish. Now he has, Drop it, William. We’ll go into it later. I have work to do here.”
Hickman’s black eyes glittered with hate. “You don’t dare kill me, Rockwell. You have your orders about me. You think you’ll go against Brigham, but you won’t. I know you too well.”
Rockwell smiled at the man he hated most in the world. “You think so? Well, I just figured something out. For a long time I’d been thinking—was sure—that the army was behind that man sent here to try and kill me. McSorley, the woman, the other man could have back-shot me just now. What was to stop them? They could have killed me and then killed William. But they didn’t. So that leaves you. You were behind the assassin. I don’t care if you answer or not. I’m going to kill you for Abby for those children you murdered at Mountain Meadows.”
Hickman struggled up to a sitting position; his eyes burned like coals in his dark face. “Then do it, you son of a bitch. Go ahead and shoot. I’m not afraid to die. What’s holding you back? I hired that man to murder you. I admit it. Shoot, you dumb, illiterate, drunken clown. I wanted you out of the way and I came close to doing it. Time after time you came between me and Brigham, always getting in the goddamned way. Then I thought, I’ll get rid of you and when that’s done I’ll get rid of Brigham and the mealy-mouthed bishops.”
“You wanted it all for yourself,” Rockwell said.
Hickman’s voice rose to a scream, and I realized the man was insane. “I had as much right as any man. We used to be men here. Now everybody is weak and soft and gutless. I would have purified this country with blood and steel. I would have given the Mormons back their manhood. Why don’t you shoot me, Rockwell? Are you that afraid of your goddamned prophet? You know what he thinks of you? You can’t read or write—you’re a joke. Nobody respects you—nobody. They may fear you, but they don’t respect you.”
Rockwell raised the heavy Colt and pointed it at Hickman’s forehead. “You shouldn’t have murdered that little girl. I don’t care about the rest of it.”
The big revolver boomed and Hickman’s skull exploded in a welter of blood and brains. Calmly, Rockwell removed the cylinder and reloaded. “He lost his nerve at the end,” he said, and he might have been commenting on a killing that he had merely observed. “I should have known he wasn’t any kind of man. Odd, all the things he threw in my face. You think people look at me the way he did?”
“The man was a lunatic. What does it matter what he thought or said?”
The mill stank of death and I went out to the sunshine. Rockwell followed me. “You didn’t answer my question.”
“I answered it well enough. Hickman was the man people hated and despised. People are afraid of you too, but not in the same way. You’re a wild man, you get crazy drunk and shoot up the town. You can’t expect people to like that. Just the same, they know they can depend on you.”
“They depended on me too much.”
“You can’t have it every way. You wanted authority and you got it. Don’t complain about it now. What are we going to do with all these bodies?”
“Nothing,” Rockwell answered. “If we bury them—hide them—it will look as if we ambushed them. One man got away and he may have his own story to tell. It’s up to me to tell Brigham what happened. McSorley and the others don’t have to come into it. The man who ran off won’t be able to put faces to them. Brigham will guess that you were here. You want me to tell him yes or no?”
“Tell him yes,” I said. “We did it together. I don’t want you hogging all the glory.”
“Yes, glory,” he said, looking at the dead men. “Hickman is dead and that’s the main thing.”
“Brigham can’t be too mad at you,” I said. “He’s going to need you now. Hickman could not have been alone in what he tried to do. There must have been others just as greedy, just as ambitious. Some of the militia commanders may have been part of it. Businessmen, too. I’ll testify to what I heard Hickman say.”
Under the trees a riderless horse whinnied and Rockwell approached the animal, talking softly all the time. After he calmed the horse he swung into the saddle. He said, “Brigham will know the danger he’s in after I tell him about the conspiracy. I’ll just have to wait and see what he wants to do. If he wants to shoot me, then so be it.”
“You could always take over here,” I said.
Chapter Sixteen
“You mean seize power from Brigham?” he asked, knowing full well that was what I meant. Yet there was no awe in his voice at the thought of becoming supreme ruler of Utah. The events of the past few days had changed him greatly; there wasn’t any surprise at what I was suggesting. Rockwell, it seemed, had gone beyond surprise. No bitterness manifested itself in his calm blue eyes, and if he felt anything at all, it was sadness for something irretrievably lost. His prophet had failed him, but he was not about to respond with betrayal, not even with resentment.
“You must make up your own mind,” I said. “I am not urging you to do anything. This is your country, not mine. These are your people and they are in great danger if Hickman’s conspiracy goes forward without him. If it does, and it may, your life as well as Brigham Young’s will be in another kind of danger. Hickman’s friends can’t let either of you live if they are to be successful. I don’t give a damn what happens to Young, but you are my friend.”
“Then you would have me oust Brigham for his own good?” Rockwell said.
I shook my head. “I wouldn’t have you do anything, Port. You’re the one to decide.”
“I can’t do it,” Rockwell said at last. “Brigham no longer is my friend, but we have been together for too many years. All those years, so many, and if I am a disappointed man I must blame most of it on myself. I always thought Brigham more than a man, and that was wrong. But in many ways he was more than a man. Even you can see that.”
“I see it well enough,” I said grudgingly. “He led you to safety, prosperity, even greatness, but you were all shadows in the bright light of his own vanity. But all right, he did it. No one can take that away from him.”
“I want to take nothing away from him,” Rockwell said. “Whatever he is now, he has always been our leader. If I take away his power he will be left with nothing.”
I thought of the Prophet’s costly house and magnificent estate, and for all I knew he had millions of dollars in gold and currency hidden away, perhaps some of it in the hated “American” banks.
“Hardly with nothing,” I ventured.
“Nothing,” Rockwell repeated firmly. “Knowing what he had been, how could Brigham ride through the streets of Salt Lake, aware that there never would have been a city if not for him? And not just a city, but all of Utah. He’s not like some politician you can throw out because he has no lasting right to what he has. Brigham built this city—the territory—as surely as if he had done it all with his own hands. It was born in his brain and carried out by his will. He let me down, but what he has done must be honored still. It cannot be disregarded.”
“What are you going to do, Port?”
“What can be done on short notice,” Rockwell said. “The Americans are here, so there won’t be time to hunt for the men who plotted with
Hickman. But men I suspect will be sent into the American lines. Let Connor do with them as he sees fit. After that I will issue a warning to everyone else who might be involved. Rise up against Brigham and you will be slaughtered. That’s what I will say. The guard around Brigham will be doubled and his house fortified against attack. Brigham will have nothing to say about that. But that is as far as my disobedience will go. If we are to go to war with the Americans, it must be under Brigham’s leadership. He led us at the beginning, he is entitled to lead us at the end.”
“You think he will appreciate all this, Port?”
The question caused Rockwell to frown; it had not been a politic inquiry. “I am not looking for appreciation or gratitude. Hickman and the murder of that poor girl have come between us, and because of that our long friendship is finished. So be it: the church will go on. But right or wrong, Brigham is still the leader of my people.”
“Is he your leader?”
“No, William, he is not my leader—not in the old sense, anyway. I will obey him, fight for him. But no, he is not my leader. You feel ready to talk about the other thing?”
I took a deep breath. “It’s time we talked about it. I knew they were federal agents, but I didn’t tell you because that wasn’t part of our deal.”
Rockwell nodded. “No, it wasn’t. Even so, we should talk so it won’t be a barrier between us.”
“You’re right, Port. They said they were ready to kill me if I didn’t work with them. My answer was I wouldn’t work for or against them. The same as my deal with you—I was neutral and was going to stay that way. That’s the truth.”
“I know that, William. You’ve been as neutral as any man can be, and you’ve been straight with me all the way. More than that is too much to ask. Listen, young friend, I’m not going to have the woman shot, if that’s what’s fretting you. None of them get shot—they helped save my life, and I can’t walk away from that. But they can’t leave the city till this is over. The woman spy has heard too much, seen too much. So it’s best they stay put and not go wandering about. The sentries have orders to fire on anybody that tries to slip through our lines. You’ll tell the woman?”
