God's Thunderbolt: The Vigilantes of Montana

by Carol Buchanan

  Fitch bit off a chaw from a plug of tobacco, chewed to soften it. “McDowell didn’t want her. She brought the children and just tagged along, probably because if he once got away she’d never see him again.”

  Dan heard the chomp and hiss of mastication, smelled the tobacco. His stomach lurched. “Good Lord! He couldn’t stop her?”

  Fitch laughed. “You don’t know much about women, do you? Once they take a notion, you’ve got a snowball’s chance in hell of stopping them.”

  The singing started again as the three men walked down the track. “Besides, he’d sold the farm, and told her about it after he’d used the money to buy what he’d need to come out here.”

  Dan and Jacob spoke almost together. “Gott im himmel,” Jacob said. “He would his family leave?”

  “But – but she would have nothing. No way to make a living.” Dan could not imagine it. A man cared for his family, that care defined him as a man as much as courage in battle, or prowess in bed.

  “Yes to you both. That’s the sort of first class bastard McDowell is.” He stopped, faced Dan, and in the candlelight, his expression was serious and completely without its usual half-sneer whenever he looked at Dan. “It’s a good thing you board there, Blue. That family needs someone principled putting his feet under Mrs. McDowell’s table.”

  The compliment was so unlooked for that Dan felt himself gaping like some half-wit, mouth open, lower lip slack.

  “Of course, you got completely the wrong principles, you know.” Fitch’s upper lip lifted at one end. “You say you’re a Union man, on the wrong side of this here illegal War and you haven’t the balls to fight in it. You just spout poetry.”

  As a child, he’d played the children’s game, all joining hands and running in a crooked line intended to throw the last child off the whip, the snake’s tail. This felt like that. He’d been whipsawed. The Atlantic pounded in his ears, the push and drop and long withdrawal of the waves tugging hard at him. He held tight to the Spencer’s stock, something solid amidst an undertow of wanting to beat the shit out of Fitch. God damn Tobias Fitch.

  “Go to hell!” Dan stalked away, his feet sure in the starlight, Jacob scrambling after him.

  Fitch called out, “My boy thought a lot of you, Blue, and for his sake I’ll remember that.”

  Dan stopped. “In memory of Nicholas, then, we’ll make a truce.”

  “All right. Until we’ve dealt with Nick’s killers.”

  Fitch caught up, and the three men, Jacob in the center, trudged downward.

  The claims along the creek lay quiet to the water flowing around mounds and barriers, seeking its way as it always had and always would, the moon glimmering on its surface. Their boots crunched over ruts slimed with ice from mud setting up. They did not speak. Tonight, Dan thought, they would set about the work of finding Nick’s killer, and he would lie to Mrs. McDowell about his absence. He had a hunch she would not be fooled. Uneducated, she was not unintelligent, not without spunk and fire as her outburst had proved. He sensed in her a finer spirit trapped in marriage to a drunken oaf. He would see her soon. Would he think her beautiful now? Or would she have turned again into the drab he thought her before she called on them to be God’s thunderbolt?

  * * *

  Before turning toward the McDowell cabin from Idaho Street, Dan stopped to catch his breath. It was a bit of a climb from the creek, up Wallace, right on Jackson, left on Idaho. All uphill. Nothing in Virginia City was level; it was all uphill or downhill. The McDowells’ dog, a yellow hound named Canary, growled. When Dan whistled to it, it woofed and bounded to meet him, wriggled and squirmed against his legs as he bent to scratch it behind the ears.

  He was crazy to come here. He knew it. Take supper with McDowell and Gallagher after winning this afternoon? Just so he could see Mrs. McDowell once more. What had got into him?

  He thought he had two plausible lies prepared. One to explain why he wouldn’t play cards tonight, and one to explain why he wouldn’t be at dinner for the next day or two. Jacob had offered to take a note, but he wouldn’t be any more of a coward than he already was. He wouldn’t hide behind Jacob.

  He had tried to reason with himself. Who could Dan identify him to? The sheriff of Junction district, or Nevada district, or Gallagher? How could he trust any of them? Or the miners court?

  At least, he’d given the victim a proper burial, though he’d vomited at the sight of the throat cut in a great tearing gash.

  His hand unsteady, Dan knocked at the door, heard McDowell’s shout to come in.

  Inside, the aromas of beef stew and fresh bread welcomed him. If McDowell greeted him with a frown and a grunt, his family had a smile for Dan, and Tim, who sat with his back to the door, twisted around and said, “Good evening, Mr. Stark.”

  McDowell sneered at his son. “Getting fancy are we? ‘Good evening, Mr. Stark.’”

  “Good evening, Tim. Evening, all.” Dan hung up his coat on a peg driven into the wall, between two of the logs. A tall kerosene lamp standing in the center of the table gave enough light to eat by and for the men to see each other’s faces. Beyond the circle of lamplight, the beds, a larger one and a smaller one, stood in the two back corners. Between them, along the rear wall, squatted two large trunks whose brass fittings caught gleams. In the corner to the left of the door, a rocking chair and quilt stood beside a round table as if waiting for Mrs. McDowell to pick up the mending heaped in a basket.

  Gallagher, one cheek bulging with food, gave him a quarter of a nod. He sat facing the door, had insisted on that chair, claimed he didn’t want someone to sneak up on him. Who, Dan wondered, would invade the McDowell house to shoot the Deputy?

  She seemed nervous, but the lamp and one candle on a kitchen shelf gave too little light to see her expression clearly. Taking his usual seat at Gallagher’s right, facing McDowell, he said, “Good evening, Mrs. McDowell.” He felt stiff, knew he sounded stilted, wondered when they would challenge him.

  “Good evening, Dotty.” For the child he had a special smile. “How are you?” She reminded him, in her countrified way, of his little sister Peggy, who began to think of her womanhood, but yet climbed trees. When he last saw her, nearly seven months ago.

  “I’m sad, Mr. Stark,” she said. “Poor Nick.”

  “I’m sad, too,” said Dan.

  Mrs. McDowell said, “Think of Nick with the Lord. He’s happy now, and we’ll see him again.”

  Gallagher snorted, McDowell mumbled, “Damn foolishness,” around the bread in his mouth. Dotty’s small face brightened, but her brother kept his silence, spooned up his stew.

  A pleasant idea, Dan thought, though it wasn’t one he could take comfort in. He didn’t think Nick had wanted such happiness. Not yet.

  “You seen Fitch?” McDowell asked.

  “We walked back together from Nick’s burial.” Dan accepted the thick slice of roast that Mrs. McDowell set in front of him. She had wrapped her hands with a red towel to protect them from the plate’s heat. Her hands were long-fingered, but rough from work and cold. His mother creamed her hands and wore white cotton gloves to protect them at night.

  He tore a hunk off the loaf of bread and bit into it. Delicious. Everything was delicious. He’d dined in big New York houses where the food wasn’t so good. How did she manage on that small stove? She had to kneel to it, or stoop to work.

  “He said he’d bring money tonight,” said McDowell. “I got a bead on a good thing out aways.”

  “He’ll be along,” Gallagher said. “Fitch always wants part of a good thing. McDowell, your woman cooks as fine a meal as I’ve ever eaten.”

  McDowell ducked his head once, perhaps agreeing, or maybe just acknowledging the comment.

  “Indeed so,” Dan said. He glanced past McDowell. Mrs. McDowell stood within the pool of candlelight. Her eyes were huge, deep, and luminous with pleasure, and he thought he’d never seen any woman so beautiful. His tongue dried like lint in his mouth. He cut at the meat without knowing
he did so, chewed as if he willed it, while blood pulsed in his ears. His throat balked at swallowing.

  He looked at her. She stood as if frozen, the ladle in her hand, her eyes wide and shocked.

  God damn it, what was happening? Dan shifted his focus to McDowell, who busied himself tearing bread. Dan swallowed, drank a sip of beer. Breathed.

  Gallagher’s voice sounded far away.

  Dan cut another bite of meat. Married, an inner voice was shouting, married, damn you. Surely the others must hear it. Dear God in heaven. Married. God damn it. He put the meat into his mouth and looked up. No one had heard. No one had seen. But Mrs. McDowell sat on a stool to catch her breath.

  It had to have been a trick of candlelight, of scattered and flickering shadows. Nothing had happened. He took a bite of roasted potato. Nothing had happened. Not really.

  Thinking so, he dared raise his eyes toward her, ready to shift focus if McDowell noticed, but she was watching Dotty eat, and her face glowed with such a love for her daughter that Dan could not swallow his bite of potato. It was no trick, or if it was, it was a trick of angles and planes in her thin face. Her own beauty. She raised her head and smiled at him, and her eyes were as large and deep as before. He felt his features soften, though he dared not smile for fear McDowell would see, and made himself look away, tried to hear Gallagher over the massive drumbeat in his ears.

  He had never seen her before. Not really. Until now. Christ Almighty. He put bread in his mouth.

  Gallagher’s face turned to Dan, and at the gesture, Dan’s hearing cleared.

  “You feeling lucky tonight?” Gallagher asked.

  He’d been expecting this challenge, had to adjust his mind to it, but he only wanted to talk to Mrs. McDowell. Martha. Talk to her. Hold her. Be with her. Dan chewed on the bread. He needed time to think, to wrench his mind from the woman to the lie he must tell. Convincingly. And all he wanted to do was look at her, test the feeling and know if it were real, had she felt something, too? He swallowed the bread, drank some beer. He wanted her.

  McDowell’s head was bent over the plate safely between his elbows. Just like his hole card. His head came up, and Tim sat quiet as stone.

  “No more than this afternoon.” Dan kept his breathing even before diving into the lie, the bluff; he played for higher stakes than gold. “You’ll have to wait a day or two to get your revenge.” He kept his voice friendly, mild as milk, seemed to concentrate on Gallagher, but at the edge of his sight, he knew she watched him.

  Dotty’s voice, chatting to her mother, continued on for a few words, something about walking with Molly Sheehan, then stopped. A bucket of water, heating on the stove, bubbled once or twice. The wind probed the chinking between the logs.

  “Jacob and I are riding out real early with a prospector who wants a secret survey.”

  “Where you going?” McDowell glared at Dan.

  “Blamed if I know.” Dan’s uncertainty came from the unaccustomed idiom. He had learned the substitute word for damned since coming West. “He just said to meet him two hours before dawn.”

  “You ain’t taking him to any of my claims.” McDowell’s fist clenched around his spoon.

  “That’s not likely to happen,” Dan said, “even if I could find your stakes under the snow.” McDowell opened his mouth, and Dan decided a little righteous indignation was in order here. “You know very well I’ve never lied on a survey yet. Or helped anyone to jump a claim. What do you think would happen if the boys thought I was a dishonest surveyor? I’d be a dead man.”

  Dan leaned back in his chair, spread his palms, and smiled first at McDowell, then at Gallagher. Sweat dampened his shirt, trickled down his back, but they wouldn’t see under his jacket. Some water splashed over onto the stove, and the woman leaped to lift it onto the counter. Dan said, “When I get back you’ll have your chance to get even. That’s a promise.”

  “No,” said Gallagher. “I think it should be — ”

  The dog’s barking startled them all. McDowell’s arm jerked and a few drops of beer spilled into his bowl.

  Fitch’s voice shouted, “Shut up, you damn yeller coon hound.”

  McDowell opened the door and yelled at the dog, but Canary growled until McDowell slammed the door behind Fitch.

  “I swear, McDowell,” said Fitch, “one of these days that dog of yours will come to a bad end.” He hung up his coat and hat on the empty peg next to Dan’s things.

  While Fitch held everyone’s attention, Dan dared to look at Mrs. McDowell, who seemed absorbed in Dotty’s chatter. He hoped his face didn’t betray his longing.

  McDowell bared his teeth at Fitch. “Right before him as does my dog down.”

  “Oh, don’t get all lathered,” said Fitch. “Howdy, Jack. Blue.” He bowed to Mrs. McDowell. “Good evening, Ma’am, I trust you’re in good stead after today’s sad event.”

  Everyone was curious in his own way how Mrs. McDowell would respond, and Dan was free to watch her, just one of the men at her table. The Commandment said: Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s wife. But oh God, he did. He did.

  If Fitch had expected a curtsy, he didn’t get it. She nodded politely, without warmth. “Thank you, I’m doing fine.”

  Tim surrendered his chair to Fitch, stood beside his mother. Dotty took her brother’s hand, and he put an arm around his mother’s shoulders. The three of them made a tableau of closeness that excluded them all. Even McDowell, as if they were a unit, complete in themselves. He might long for her as a man in the desert craved water, but he could never come between her and her children. Beyond his reach. By law, by motherhood, and Jesus, by her own wish? God, no. Not that. If she didn’t respond, didn’t feel with him, then, then what? He knew it was dangerous to wait, but he had to know, had to have a signal, could not ride out on tonight’s errand unknowing.

  She turned her head toward him, as he thought, with utmost care, her face neutral until in a moment when her husband, Gallagher, and Fitch pored over a small pile of dust that glittered and grew out of Fitch’s poke in the lamplight, her lips curved and she allowed her mind to glow in her eyes. It was the answer he wanted, and it unsteadied him.

  Dan scraped back his chair. “I’d better be on my way. I’ve got to look over my equipment, to be sure it’s ready.” He was confident they would accept that lie, too. No one around here knew anything about a surveyor’s transit, or compass, or chain; he could convince anyone that one of them might be out of order. Unless they understood that he would never have any piece in less than tip-top condition, always ready to go.

  Retrieving his coat and hat, Dan said, “Mrs. McDowell, don’t expect me to dinner tomorrow. I’m likely to be quite late.”

  Her brilliant glance shook him. “I’ll pray for your safety and your success.”

  Tim said, “We both will.”

  “Thank you.” Dan had little faith in prayers, but he guessed that both of them figured out what was afoot, and would keep silent. For that he was grateful.

  McDowell snorted. “Success? He’s going to measure a damn claim, is all.”

  Tim said, “We just hope lightning don’t strike him, is all.”

  “Yes.” Mrs. McDowell had withdrawn into shadow. “I thought I heard thunder.”

  “You’re hearing things.” McDowell’s laugh boomed out. “You can count every star in the sky tonight.”

  Fitch said, “I’ve known a thunderbolt to come out of a clear sky.”

  Gallagher’s easy, charming smile was calculated to warm Dan to his wishes. “When you get back, you’ll owe us another game, Stark. You promised us, and we’ll be sure to collect.” But the smile did not go to his eyes, with their chill, warning stare.

  “Oh, I’ll give you your chance to win, Jack. If you can.” Because goddam it, he would not lose on purpose to any man.

  2: Wisconsin Creek

  Moonlight gave each man a silent escort, a companion rider and horse stretched out across the crusted snow. Would that the actual horsemen moved so
quietly, but saddle trees creaked, bit chains jingled, and hooves scraped on rocks. Someone, Dan thought, was bound to wonder why this night ride. Ask unwelcome questions. Under his left knee the Spencer rested in its saddle holster, a comfort and a threat. He had pulled it out quickly enough on hunting trips, but this time the game was human. Could he shoot a man? Point it at him? God forbid. His teeth clashed, and he pulled his collar up against the chill air on his neck.

  They rode in quasi-military formation, Fitch in the lead with Jim Williams, called Cap. In an election as a wagon train captain, Williams had faced down his opponent, Joseph Slade, rumored to carry an enemy’s ears in his vest pockets. Men paid Williams respect, and the title stuck. Beside Dan, Jacob sat his mount like a sack of potatoes, and Dan worried that he might fall off and be hurt.