God's Thunderbolt: The Vigilantes of Montana

by Carol Buchanan

  “That nigger, Gibbons, is up to something, riding off like that. Keep your eyes peeled.”

  As if he hadn’t noticed. “As if I didn’t know,” Dan snapped.

  “Okay, don’t get your drawers in a knot.” Fitch dismounted and looped the reins around his stump. He hooked one stirrup over the horn, tugged at the cinch.

  Fitch loosened the cinch, talking as he did so, not looking at Dan, but as if he talked to himself while Dan eavesdropped. “I’ve known a few bastards, one way and another.” The horse dropped its head to rub its muzzle on a fetlock. “Men do things in war they don’t recall except in their nightmares, things they can never talk about. They see things they never imagined men could do to other men.” He gazed over the horse’s back at some distant country in his mind, a bleak landscape, judging from the way his face sagged under the memory. Dan’s horse, grazing, moved a step and Dan caught his balance. Recalled to the present, Fitch said, “You, of course, wouldn’t know about that, would you, Blue, because you’re rich enough to buy a substitute and pay some poor son of a bitch to do your dying for you.” He reached up to the saddle horn and rocked the saddle to settle it on the horse’s back. “Betcha Jacob knows more.”

  Jacob nodded, his jaws working on the dried meat.

  Dan said, “To his misfortune, you’re probably right.”

  Fitch retied the cinch as if the task were the only thing on his mind. “This business, though. Nick liked Ives. Hell, I like him. He’s a friend.” He sounded bewildered, like a man puzzled that life could still show him a new aspect of hell. Then he smiled. “If he did this, shit, then you and me could be friends.” He wrapped the reins once around the saddle horn and swung up.

  Dan shaded his eyes and smiled up at Fitch, a silhouette against the sun. “When hell freezes over, partner.”

  Fitch laughed and reined his horse away. “You got that right.”

  On the road again, Dan found Bob Hereford riding alongside him. The sheriff of the Nevada Mining District dug between his teeth with his little fingernail. “You were pretty smart about the law back there, I’m told. How do you know that stuff?”

  Dan sighed. He had thought of this journey to the gold fields as his opportunity to free himself of the practice of law, that if he had to leave his New York life to come West, he would not have to spend his time in an office, but could be out of doors, a surveyor. He had reasoned that surveying would earn more gold more quickly than as a lawyer, waiting for clients. He’d been correct. “I was an attorney in New York. I come from a family of lawyers. My grandfather founded a law firm, and my father was a lawyer, too. So are an uncle and a cousin.” Grandfather imposed his will on them all, the law was the only honorable occupation for a male Stark. Had Father wanted to impress him by winning a fortune? Or was gambling the only way he could get some excitement in a mundane life of wills and contracts and sloppy accounting?

  “Why aren’t you a lawyer here?”

  “I was a surveyor before I started reading law.” Before Grandfather wore him down. “I don’t like practicing law. I like being outside.” He remembered summer rain falling through smoke spattering women’s frocks with spots of soot. An unfinished brief on his desk, his thirst to be in the woods, to taste clean rain on his tongue. “I like surveying.” The peaceful sense of imposing order, lines and measures, on chaotic nature. The math. Certainties of angles, sines, cosines. The law was messy.

  “If we’re having a trial, we’ll need us a prosecutor.” Hereford spoke so quietly that Dan barely heard him over the clop of hooves on the stony road.

  “Find someone else. Our firm practiced corporate law.” He lied. A dispute over vanished profits turned into prosecution for fraud. A rancorous partnership was dissolved by murder, the survivor prosecuted. Though unqualified in criminal law, he had defended both cases. And won.

  If he prosecuted Ives, he would be a target. He might as well pin a bull’s eye on his chest. Fitch had said some things a man remembers only in his nightmares, but Dan hadn’t said what he’d been thinking, that was not only in war. His own nightmares yielded a single gunshot, and blood pooling from Father’s blasted head across the polished mahogany desk.

  No, he could not risk it, for the family’s sake. They needed his gold to survive. Grandfather was too old to start over, his brothers too young. Yet for Nick, how could he not? He could not bring them back, Father or Nick, but he could do one thing for Nick – justice. Yet he said, “Find another lawyer.”

  Hereford reined away from him, kicked his mount into a trot, and Dan knew he had lost honor. Hereford would never understand that his obligations to the family had to come first. Along with his promise to Harriet.

  Good God, Harriet.

  Were those obligations, those promises, more important than justice?

  Christ, what a mess.

  “Race you to Pete’s!” came a shout.

  In two bounds Dan was leaning into the wind, his horse’s mane stinging his face, galloping full tilt over the rutted road. He ducked his face away from the mane, and trusted the horse to save them both. The clump of riders around him thinned, but Dan’s mount ran on, passing more tiring horses.

  Dan squinted through the whipping mane. Ives led, with others close behind. They topped a rise. In front of Pete Daley’s two-story ranch house stood a saddled horse, men on the porch. Ives led by one or two lengths, no one now between him and Dan, who swung a crop against the horse’s shoulders and hindquarters, but the animal was running flat out.

  Ives was winning. As they neared Daley’s, he glanced behind him.

  Winning.

  Ives must not stop at Daly’s.

  Dan stood in the stirrups to take his weight off the horse’s back, and lifted the reins. The horse shot ahead, a turn of speed Dan hadn’t thought he had. His knees pumped like pistons, the saddle horn rocked. Ives could not get away. Another rider pulled even with him. Tom Baume.

  They flashed by Daley’s and into the Gulch. Wind roared in Dan’s ears, hooves thundered. They missed an oncoming wagon, dodged a loaded pack string, and a man leaped out of their way. Ives’ horse stumbled and sprawled on the ground. Ives jumped clear and left it lie, sides heaving, bleeding from spur gouges, covered with foam.

  Dan yanked on the reins, vaulted off as his horse slid to a stop, stumbled and fell, rolled, stood, grabbed the rifle. Baume ran past him. Where Ives’s tracks turned into a mess of boulders, they stopped. “You might as well come out, Ives!” Dan shouted, “There’s no back door.” He knew this spot.

  Ives came out with a shrug and a smile. “I almost won that race, though, didn’t I? If I’d been able to change horses at Daly’s, I’d be in Dakota by now.”

  Baume said, “I’m getting too damn old for this. I’ll be thirty in a couple of years.”

  They took no chances now. Nick’s friends put Ives on another horse, tied his hands to the saddle horn, his feet to the stirrups, and passed the rope under the horse’s barrel. One who rode ahead led the animal, Ives in the center of a phalanx. Williams detailed a man to look after the broken down horse.

  Hereford and Fitch guided their mounts beside Dan, who had dropped back with Jacob at the rear. Hereford said, “Thank you for bringing him down.”

  Fitch said, “I want him tried, but I still can’t believe he’s guilty.”

  “You can believe it.” Dan hoped there would be no more excitement, no more horse races, or rescue attempts, or even loud challenges. He had never been so weary, sure he had passed his limit of strength some time past. And patience. “Damn it, make up your mind Ives is guilty as sin.”

  “I do not understand.” At Jacob’s careful, precise English Dan bit his lip.

  “You think he killed my boy,” Fitch said.

  “I don’t think it. I know it. I was sure before. Now I know.”

  “Why?” Fitch growled, “Goddammit, you been pussying around this all day. Why?”

  “Because he jokes, he acts like one of the boys, your best pal. He wants to win us
over so we’ll let him go. That’s what a guilty man does. An innocent man is too scared, and he acts scared. And because Ives ran. An innocent man will stay because he knows he’s innocent and has faith in the law to exonerate him. And yes, sometimes that faith is misplaced, but that’s how an innocent man thinks. A guilty man runs because he has faith in the law, too, that it will hang him, because he knows he’s guilty.”

  “Oh, Christ, he was my friend. Our friend.”

  Laughter floated to them, thinner than before, but it proved that some men were yet captivated by Ives, that he had friends among Nick’s friends. Dan thought of princes. “Ives has no friends. Only toadies.”

  Amid a fresh gust of laughter, Ives began a new joke. “Hey, did you hear the one about the whore of Babylon?”

  * * *

  They squeezed through the traffic of riders, mule trains, wagons, and pedestrians. Miners paused, shivering, in the Creek to watch them ride by. In Nevada City they stopped in front of Lott Brothers Store. Some dismounted, but Ives shouted, “No! Take me to Virginia! I can’t get a fair trial here!”

  “Why not?” John Lott, a thin, dark-haired man, thrusting an arm into his coat, shouted at Ives from his doorway.

  “I shot a dog a couple of weeks ago. Damn thing scared my horse.”

  Someone yelled, “He was a good dog. You didn’t have to shoot him up thataway.”

  Johnny Gibbons, catching up with them, bellowed, “Take ’em to Virginia!”

  A slight man sporting a Mandarin goatee and carrying a cowbell, crossed the street to stand with Lott. Fitch told Dan, “Dr. Don Byam, President of the Nevada Mining District.” He paused. “Uses the damn cowbell to get order in the court.” Men were coming out of saloons and stores, from the diggings. A few women stood to the side, hugged their shawls around their shoulders.

  “Try ’em here!” yelled Fitch. “Don’t take them to Virginia, for Gallagher!”

  Perhaps a hundred men now gathered, with more coming, lured from their work by the promise of excitement. Dan straightened his spine. From the saddle he had a good view of the standing crowd, and he loosened the Spencer in its holster. Some of Nick’s other friends were ready as well. Ives must be tried in Nevada, away from Gallagher’s control, Plummer’s influence. Henry Plummer, Sheriff of Virginia City, and sheriff of Bannack, 80 miles southeast in the Grasshopper Mining District. Gallagher was Plummer’s Chief Deputy, his surrogate in Virginia City, and he and all his murderous deputies were friend of Ives. By miners court rules, the sheriff selected the formal jury, or the jury was the crowd, the jury of the whole.

  Dillingham. The name was a drum rattle in Dan’s mind. A summons to memory, and a warning.

  Williams and a second man were untying Ives. Williams coiled the rope, his arms moving with deliberation to make each coil the same size.

  “These men belong to Nevada, not Virginia.” Lott’s high-pitched voice bored into the noise, and men quieted to hear him. “In Virginia they let Dillingham’s killers go scot free. Do we want that here? If we don’t stop murder here, now, all our sacrifices will be in vain! They’ll steal our gold and kill anyone who resists!”

  “Yeah!” shouted the men, with a sprinkling of “No!”

  “That ain’t right!” yelled Gibbons. “You care more about a damn dog than a man!”

  “Damn that nigger,” said Fitch. “He’ll get Ives tried in Virginia, if he’s not careful. That goddam Gallagher.”

  So that was it. Fitch hated and mistrusted Gallagher more than he liked Ives.

  Lott was shouting, “They don’t care a fig for justice in Virginia, or Buck Stinson wouldn’t be a deputy!”

  They missed the point. Why didn’t Byam say something? Or did he not know the rule of jurisdictions? Dan stood up in his stirrups and bellowed over the hubbub. “Ives can’t be tried in Virginia. It’s the wrong jurisdiction!” Judge Byam smiled and nodded to him. A momentary silence, before Ives’ friends cried out again for him to be taken to Virginia, but most of the men seemed to want him tried in Nevada. Dan pounded his fist on the saddle horn. Damn them! Why didn’t they understand?

  Sheriff Hereford put two fingers in his mouth, and his whistle startled the crowd into near silence. “Listen to Dan Stark, boys. He’s from Virginia, and he’s telling it straight!”

  Dan raised his voice to be heard at the back of the crowd, already doubled in size. “Nick’s body was found closer to Nevada than to Virginia. The rules say a crime outside a mining district is tried in the closest district. That makes it Junction’s jurisdiction, and Junction and Nevada have to work it out. Virginia has no say in this.”

  Byam frowned, and Hereford glared up at Dan amid the commotion. “Why the hell did you have to muddy the issue?”

  “Because that’s the rule. Get me some quiet, and I’ll explain it.”

  “You damn well better.” The Nevada Sheriff whistled, and Byam shook the cowbell. Dan’s horse fidgeted under him, and Dan petted it to calm it. He wanted to cover his ears against the din, but didn’t dare let go of the reins.

  Ives sat his horse as if he paused of his own free will, as if his hands were not tied to the saddle horn, as if another man did not hold the reins. To Dan he seemed unconcerned, as if the debate had nothing to do with him, as if he were indifferent to his own fate.

  Dan shouted, “Junction and Nevada should decide who will try Ives for murder. Virginia isn’t in it. They’re too far away from the crime.”

  “No!” Johnny Gibbons shook his fist in the air. “Let’s vote! Try George in Virginia!”

  There was a shout so loud that Dan despaired. Surely they would carry the day, and Ives would be tried in Virginia and acquitted. Like Stinson, who had murdered Dillingham.

  Judge Byam rang the cowbell, and the crowd quieted. Before he could speak, Fitch pointed at Gibbons. “You can’t vote! You’re a quadroon!”

  “That’s right! Niggers can’t vote! You ain’t got a say in this!”

  A vein pulsed across Gibbons’s forehead. He swept off his hat, and Dan thought he would have thrown it into the mud. “It ain’t right!” he yelled. “I got as much say as anyone! I say Ives didn’t murder that boy, and he ought to be tried in – ”

  The Nevada president rang the cowbell. “All in favor of Nevada!”

  If Gibbons hadn’t been trying to obstruct justice for Nick, Dan would have weighed in on his side. Gibbons should have a say in this, no matter how much Negro blood he had, and it couldn’t have been much because he looked like a curly-haired, dark-eyed, swarthy white man, perhaps Spanish or Italian. But the law was the law, and it said that coloreds did not have the vote. Any vote.

  “Aye!” The crowd’s roar rattled Lott Brothers’ windows. Miners and merchants alike, standing in the deepening dusk where shadows already consumed the sunlight, voted to keep justice in their own venue.

  Johnny Gibbons shouted, “Go to hell, all of you! We’ll get you out of this, Georgie! They want a trial, we’ll get you some lawyers.” With that, he slapped his hat on the horse’s rump and galloped off toward Virginia.

  * * *

  “Martha! Wait!” Lydia Hudson, the colored gal walking alongside, hurried up Jackson Street, all the flounces of her black skirt bobbing, the fringes of her shawl fluttering in the wind. Martha crossed over to meet her. “I’ve been looking for thee.” Lydia laid her hand on her bosom as if clutching at every breath.

  Behind Martha, Dotty screamed. “Mam! Mam!” and Canary barked his deep-throated threat. Martha pivoted, dodged around a six-horse team pulling a dray loaded with barrels of beer, ignored the teamster’s yell. Dotty was holding Canary’s rope, the dog jumping and snapping to get at a boy who poked a sharp stick at a cowering puppy.

  Martha grabbed the stick and broke it, cuffed the boy away. “I’ll let the dog loose!”

  The boy, perhaps thirteen or fourteen with greasy hair hanging in clumps, screamed, “I’ll tell Gallagher!” His eyes shifted their focus past Martha. “Keep that nigger away from me. Keep her away, you he
ar?” He edged backwards, turned, ran downhill, and disappeared around the corner onto Wallace Street.

  Martha could bring no saliva into her mouth. Dotty threw her arms around her Mam, sobbing, and all a-tremble she folded the child to her. Canary, wagging his tail and whining, nosed at the whimpering puppy. The colored gal crouched down by the little creature.

  Martha said, “Thank you kindly.”

  The colored gal ignored Martha, spoke to Dotty. “He’s hurt some, but he’ll be fine.”

  The puppy lifted his long muzzle and licked at Canary’s mouth, wagged his tail, gave two or three sharp puppy barks, licked the colored gal’s hand, Dotty’s face. The colored gal laughed, and Dotty, her tears dried like rain in sunlight, laughed along with her. “Mam,” said Dotty through her giggles, “he’s thanking us.” But there were patches of red on his gray fur. Blood.