Twelve Dead Men

by William W. Johnstone

  A short time later, the Jensen brothers went downstairs. As they passed through the hotel lobby, they said hello to Colonel Howden.

  He stopped them with a wave to come closer. “The town’s excited this morning, boys. People have heard about what happened last night.”

  “I’m not surprised, what with guns going off and all,” Chance said.

  “Folks know that McLaren’s cronies are locked up. They’re excited because they think justice might actually be done in this trial after all. It was looking pretty unlikely there for a while.”

  Ace nodded in agreement. As he had told Severs, McLaren’s pards had overplayed their hand. They should have been satisfied with what they had done already to influence the trial’s outcome. They’d ended up behind bars and were no threat to anyone.

  “Maybe it’ll be over today,” Ace said.

  “We’re all hoping so,” Howden said.

  The people in the café expressed similar sentiments to Ace and Chance while they ate breakfast. Folks acted like they were local heroes, something that had always bothered Ace. The way he saw it, he and his brother just tried to do the right thing.

  He gave a brief thought to the way the world was and decided maybe that made them heroes. He preferred not to ponder on that too much.

  The street in front of the town hall was already crowded when they got there. At least folks didn’t cheer at the sight of him and Chance, Ace thought. That really would have made him uncomfortable. Chance, on the other hand, probably would have enjoyed it.

  The crowd had swelled even more by the time the trial was ready to get under way. The courtroom was full, and more than a hundred people waited outside the building, obviously eager to hear a verdict. It looked like most, if not all, of the population of Lone Pine was there today, along with plenty of other folks from the ranches and mines in the area. Pete McLaren’s brutal, arrogant personality had made him plenty of enemies in that corner of New Mexico Territory.

  Accompanied by his sister, Lee Emory looked a little weak and washed out when he showed up. The newspaperman had a fresh bandage on his head. As he took his seat among the jurors, Ace asked him how he was feeling.”

  “Like somebody cracked a gun barrel over my head,” Emory replied with a faint smile. “But I’ll be all right. Say, I’m not sure I thanked you last night, Ace. I’m sure Meredith felt better having you around while the doctor was tending to me. She said you turned out to be a pretty fair typesetter, too.”

  “I don’t reckon newspaper blood is in my veins,” Ace said, “but I enjoyed helping out.”

  Hank Muller and Fontana Dupree came in, Muller taking one of the empty jurors’ chairs while Fontana took a seat in the front row of the spectators’ section when a man stood up and offered her his chair. She smiled her thanks at him, then turned to look at the jury, specifically Chance. He smiled back at her.

  “This isn’t a Sunday picnic, you know,” Ace said quietly.

  “No, but a picnic isn’t a bad idea. I’ll have to suggest that to Fontana.” Chance paused. “Maybe you and Meredith would like to come along, too.”

  Ace just cleared his throat and tried to look serious. At the same time, the thought of spending some time out in the country with Meredith Emory held a definite appeal.

  He didn’t have time to ponder that because Miguel and his new volunteer deputies brought in the prisoner. McLaren’s hands were cuffed behind his back again, although Miguel switched the cuffs around to the front once McLaren was sitting at the defense table next to Solomon Horton.

  Ace would have liked to check with Miguel and make sure everything had gone peacefully the night before after Severs and the other hardcases were locked up, but he supposed they had or he would have heard about it.

  Miguel ducked into the office that served as the judge’s chambers, then came back out a few moments later and announced, “All rise.”

  When everyone, including Judge Ordway, was settled again, he smacked his gavel on the table. “This court is now in session once more. Mr. Buchanan, I believe you were about to call the second witness for the prosecution.”

  “That’s right, Your Honor,” Buchanan said as he got to his feet. “I call Dooley Finn.”

  Sitting next to Ace, Emory leaned over and whispered, “Dooley’s a boot maker. Often works late at his shop.”

  Buchanan’s line of questioning came as no surprise. He established that Dooley Finn’s business had a good view of the front of the marshal’s office and jail and that Finn had been there on the previous Friday evening. “Tell the court what you observed that evening, please, Mr. Finn.”

  The stocky Irishman, who had graying red hair and a permanent squint in one eye, pointed at McLaren. “I saw that no-good spalpeen shoot Marshal Dixon and that poor curly-headed gal from the Melodian.”

  “Objection, Your Honor!” Horton practically bellowed as he shot to his feet. “Such a characterization is prejudicial to my client.”

  “This isn’t a music hall, Dooley,” Ordway told the witness. “Just answer the questions as plain as you can.”

  “Be sure and I will, Your Honor,” Finn said.

  Buchanan said, “Just to be absolutely clear, Mr. Finn, it’s your testimony that you saw the defendant, Pete McLaren, shoot and kill Marshal Hoyt Dixon and Miss Dorothy Redding.”

  “That is absolutely what I saw. Never a doubt in me mind.”

  “Thank you. No further questions.”

  Horton got up to cross-examine, but no matter how hard he tried to rattle Finn, the boot maker stood firm in his testimony. No one had been in his way to obscure his view, and despite the squint, his eyesight was perfect as he offered to demonstrate with any test the defense cared to propose.

  “That won’t necessary,” Ordway said. “We know you can see just fine, Dooley.”

  Horton gave up on the cross-examination, and Buchanan called his next witness, one of the men who worked for the local undertaker. He had been crossing the street about a block away from the jail when the shooting erupted. The story he told was the same as Dooley Finn’s.

  “I knew right away the marshal and Miss Redding were dead,” the man added. “If there’s one thing I know when I see it, it’s a dead body.”

  That brought some nervous laughter from the spectators and a warning glare from the judge.

  Three more witnesses testified in fairly short order, and all of them corroborated the testimony that had come before them. Horton was unable to shake them on cross-examination. When Buchanan was finished with those witnesses, he rested the prosecution’s case.

  Solomon Horton looked a little sick as he got to his feet, Ace thought. Pete McLaren looked furious, but there was nothing he could do except sit there and wait, hoping that his lawyer could do something to save him.

  “I call my client, Pete McLaren, to the stand, Your Honor,” Horton said.

  The spectators were quiet as McLaren scraped his chair back, stood up, and went to the witness chair. Ace saw hatred on the face of a lot of them. McLaren had lorded it over the people of Lone Pine for quite a while, using fear, intimidation, and brutality to get his way. It had all caught up to him, and there wasn’t a sympathetic eye in the place.

  In a way, McLaren was lucky he hadn’t been taken out of the jail and lynched. Only the fundamentally decent nature of the citizens had saved him from such a fate.

  When McLaren had been sworn in, Horton took a deep breath. “You’ve heard all of these accusations against you, Mr. McLaren. How do you answer them?”

  McLaren sat there breathing heavily. He pushed his lips in and out and frowned. Finally, he said, “I didn’t shoot Dolly and the marshal. I don’t know who did. I don’t deny bustin’ out of jail. I didn’t want to go to prison for shootin’ that fat greas—I mean, for shootin’ José. But I didn’t shoot anybody else. The bullets just came outta nowhere. Musta been somebody lurkin’ in an alley, and when they saw their chance, they opened fire.”

  “Then you didn’t murder anyone, di
d you, Mr. McLaren?”

  “No, sir, I sure—” McLaren stopped short. He was breathing even harder, almost panting. His face had slowly turned a darker and darker red.

  “Mr. McLaren?” Horton prodded. “You were testifying that you’re innocent of these crimes—”

  “Shut up!” McLaren roared as he surged up out of the witness chair. His cuffed hands shot out and grabbed the front of Horton’s vest. As he started shaking the lawyer, he shouted, “Shut up, you damned oily shyster! You’re no better ’n the rest of these pissant townies! All of you scurryin’ around in your useless little lives! Yeah, I shot that damn badge-toter! He had it comin’ for lockin’ me up! Me! Pete McLaren! Otis McLaren’s brother! He deserved to die for that.”

  McLaren gave Horton a hard shove. Horton stumbled backwards and fell in front of the defense table.

  An uproar of shouts filled the room, but McLaren bellowed over it. “Go to hell, all of you! Hang me and be damned to you! See what it gets you! Lone Pine will burn!”

  McLaren turned and acted like he was going to leap at Judge Ordway, but Miguel laid him out with a stroke from the butt of the shotgun he carried. McLaren sprawled on the floor, senseless from the blow.

  “Shackle that man!” Ordway said. “I want him in irons!”

  Miguel sent one of the deputies running to the jail for shackles. While the commotion in the courtroom gradually quieted down, they secured McLaren and dragged him back to the defense table, where they propped him up in his chair as he began to come around.

  Ordway hammered the gavel on the table until the room quieted down, then he asked, “Do you have any further questions for your witness, Mr. Horton?”

  The lawyer, who had gotten up, straightened his clothes, and tried to restore some of his lost dignity, shook his head. “No further questions, Your Honor.”

  “I’ll waive cross-examination, Your Honor,” Buchanan said, not too successful at not sounding smug about it.

  “We’ll hear closing statements, then.”

  Buchanan stood. “I can think of no closing statement more eloquent or convincing than the defendant’s own words, Your Honor.”

  Ordway blew out an exasperated breath, then looked at Horton. “Counselor?”

  Horton just waved a hand weakly and shook his head.

  “Very well, then.” Ordway turned to the jurors. “Members of the jury, you may withdraw to elect a foreman and deliberate your verdict.”

  Colonel Howden said, “I don’t think we need to do that, Your Honor.”

  “For once I agree with the damn Yankee,” Crackerjack Sawyer added. “I reckon we all know how we’re gonna vote.”

  “In that case, I’ll have to poll the jury.” Ordway frowned. “And you’d better be right, Crackerjack.”

  “I’ll get it started,” the liveryman said. “I vote guilty!”

  “As do I,” Colonel Howden said. “Guilty.”

  “Guilty as charged,” Hank Muller rumbled.

  One by one, the jurors spoke up, and each of them said in a clear voice, “Guilty.”

  Lee Emory’s turn came, and the newspaperman said, “I take no real pleasure in this, but . . . guilty.”

  “Guilty,” Ace said, and Chance finished it off by saying the same.

  Ordway nodded slowly. “The verdict is unanimous, as it must be for conviction. Mr. Horton, you and your client will stand while I render the verdict and pass sentence.”

  “Not my client any longer, Your Honor,” Horton said, still appearing shaken. “I’ve resigned.”

  “Not until this trial is over, you haven’t,” Ordway snapped. “Marshal, get the defendant on his feet.”

  Miguel took one of McLaren’s arms, and a deputy took the other. They lifted him. McLaren stood there, looking slowly around the room, his eyes burning hate toward everyone.

  “Peter McLaren,” Judge Ordway said, “you have been found guilty of murder by a jury of your peers. It is the sentence of this court that you be hanged by the neck until dead, two mornings hence. May God have mercy on your soul. Do you have anything to say?”

  “All of you can go to hell,” McLaren snarled.

  “You’ll be there to meet us if we do.” The gavel slammed down on the table. “Court’s adjourned!”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  McLaren sank back down into his chair, a numb look stealing over his face as he realized the weighty implication of what had just happened. Solomon Horton began gathering up the few papers he had on the table. It was over and done with as far as he was concerned and he wanted nothing more to do with it.

  Ace watched from the chairs along the wall where the jurors still sat.

  The crowd began leaving the courtroom. They took a lot of excited talk with them, and the uproar grew even louder as word of the verdict and the sentence reached the greater number of people waiting outside.

  Not all the spectators left, however. Meredith Emory and Fontana Dupree came over to the jurors, who were getting to their feet since their job was finished.

  “Thank God that’s over,” Meredith said. “Maybe now we can put all this behind us.”

  “Not until McLaren’s stretching hemp,” Fontana said. “Then it’ll be done.”

  “That’s the blasted truth,” Muller said.

  Feeling eyes on him, Ace looked over at the defense table. McLaren sat there alone now that Horton had left. Miguel and his new deputies were moving in to take charge of the prisoner and return him to the jail.

  McLaren’s head had swiveled toward the jurors, and the hate Ace saw in his eyes had achieved new levels of virulence. If that old saying about how looks could kill had been true, twelve dead men would be in the courtroom.

  Miguel took hold of McLaren’s arm and pulled him to his feet. “Come on. We’re done here.”

  “It ain’t done,” McLaren said coldly, echoing what Fontana had said. “It won’t be done until all you bastards have paid.”

  “And who’s going to collect?” Miguel said. “Let’s go.”

  With the shackles on his ankles, the prisoner could only shuffle along, so it took a moment for the little group to leave the courtroom. They took him out the back way to avoid the crowd in the street.

  “You know,” Chance mused, “I thought I’d feel more relieved when the trial was over, but I really don’t.”

  “A good man and an innocent woman are still dead,” Ace said. “No verdict can ever change that.”

  “I appreciate you calling Dolly an innocent woman,” Fontana said. “She really did have a good heart. She just never could see McLaren for what he really is.”

  Muller raised his voice and addressed the other jurors. “All of you fellas come on over to the Melodian later. Drinks are on the house for you today.”

  Lee Emory said, “I’m not sure I want to celebrate a man being sentenced to hang, even though it was a necessity.”

  “Well, I don’t mind wettin’ my whistle,” Crackerjack said. “I’ll see you later, Hank, and much obliged to you.”

  Judge Ordway had gone to his chambers after adjourning the court. He returned to the room, the hat on his head making it obvious he was ready to leave.

  “You men don’t have to stay here,” he told the jurors. “Your work is done.”

  “We know that, Your Honor,” Emory said. “Just letting the crowd clear out a little.”

  Ace said, “I was wondering, Your Honor . . . what about McLaren’s friends?”

  “The four who are locked up for assaulting Mr. Emory here and attacking you boys? I intend to send them to prison for a couple years. By the time they get out, McLaren will be moldering in his grave and I doubt any of them will ever return to Lone Pine. That’s what I hope happens, anyway.”

  “Then we should have peace and quiet around here from now on,” Colonel Howden said.

  That comment stirred some uneasiness inside Ace. In his experience, it was all right to hope for peace and quiet . . .

  But assuming you were going to get it was usually a mi
stake.

  * * *

  By the next morning, the settlement was still buzzing about Pete McLaren being convicted and sentenced to hang. Not many people noticed the little procession headed from the town hall toward the jail.

  Perry Severs, Larry Dunn, Lew Merritt, and Vic Russell were facing their trial. Lee Emory had worked in a mention of it in the Lone Pine Sentinel extra at the last minute, after McLaren’s trial but before cranking up the printing press.

  Miguel had informed Ace and Chance they would have to attend the trial and be available as witnesses, along with Emory and Meredith. They were the only ones in the courtroom other than the prisoners, the marshal and his deputies, Timothy Buchanan, Judge Ordway . . . and Solomon Horton, who had evidently been prevailed upon to represent the four hardcases, despite his lack of success with McLaren’s case.

  As soon as the judge gaveled court into session, Horton got to his feet before Buchanan could say anything and announced, “Your Honor, my clients would like to enter guilty pleas.”

  Ordway frowned. “What’s that, Counselor? You’re not going to present a defense?”

  “No, Your Honor. Perry Severs, Lewis Merritt, and Victor Russell all plead guilty to the charge of disturbing the peace.”

  “They’re charged with assault,” Buchanan pointed out. “And what about Dunn?”

  “Laurence Dunn pleads guilty to the charge of assault, Your Honor. With this plea on the record, I move that the assault charges against my other clients be dropped. It’s only fair, since only Mr. Dunn struck the blow resulting in the charges.”

  “Wait just a blasted minute,” Ordway said. “Lee, did you see which one of these men actually pistol-whipped you?”

  “Your Honor, I object!” Horton said. “It’s very irregular for you to question a witness directly, and he hasn’t even been sworn in!”

  The judge glared at Horton “Do really want to tell me how to run my court, Counselor?”

  “I just want things done according to the law, Your Honor.”