God's Thunderbolt: The Vigilantes of Montana

by Carol Buchanan

  Miz Hudson – no, Lydia, it was hard to think of using her given name – joined them. “Nasty horrid boy, that Jacky Stevens. Good thing thee has a big dog.” She breathed deep two or three times. “Of course, what can thee expect, with that woman for his mother.” When Martha did not understand, she said, “Isabel Stevens.”

  “Oh.” The Stevens woman “entertained” at Fancy Annie’s.

  The colored gal stood up, held her hands away from her short coat and green skirt so as not to smear them with blood. “Ain’t nothing serious, Missus.” The pup settled down to lick at a wound. “Whose pup, you s’pose?”

  Lydia smiled. “Ours.”

  “We don’t need no dog,” the colored gal said. The puppy looked up at her, its brown eyes friendly, and raised a paw.

  Martha eyed that paw. “It’ll be a big dog someday, maybe bigger’n Canary.”

  “We can’t turn it away. It’s hurt and that boy will catch it again.” Lydia bent down to let it smell her hand. “I think we have a dog now.”

  Martha said, “A dog is a useful critter. Keeps varmints away.”

  “Those with four legs, and those with two,” said Lydia.

  The colored gal said, “I expect maybe we could use us a watch dog.”

  “I think so. We’ll feed it, and it can sleep by the stove.”

  The colored gal would not carry the pup. “If I gets blood on, it’ll never come out.” Even when Martha said, “Cold water takes out blood,” she refused and walked ahead with her head up. Dotty followed with Canary to make sure the puppy came along, limping, while Martha and Lydia dropped back to the end of their female train.

  Near the corner, Martha’s boot came untied, and Lydia stopped with her while Martha knelt to tie it. “She’s afraid of it.” Lydia spoke softly, though the town’s noise would have drowned a shout.

  “Scared of that little dog? Why?”

  “She’s afraid to love it. Afraid if she does, it will come to grief. She had a child sold away.” Martha rose quickly enough to be dizzy, cast about to find Dotty, only a mite reassured that the child skipped along, laughter sparkling at the dogs’ antics, while Tabby waited, grim about the lips. Dear God in heaven, that a child would be sold away from a mother. Taken from her to Lord knows what? Used however the new owner wanted. Even kind owners were still owners.

  Two women came out of Fancy Annie’s and strode up Wallace, big as you please, like they owned the street. The shorter, plumper one was Helen Troy, as she called herself, who owned that place, and the taller, redheaded one was Isabelle Stevens. Jacky’s mother, Gallagher’s woman. Dressed fit to kill in low-cut silk and satin, wearing new hats with tall flat crowns and wide brims curving down on one side and decorated with orange and blue ribbons that flapped down their backs, and wind-battered ostrich feathers. Silly geese had to use both hands to keep the things on their heads.

  In her dark blue cloak, thick stockings, and brown linsey-woolsey dress, Martha knew she was no beauty, but she was almost warm, while they’d be chilled to the bone in two steps. Thinking they meant no good, Martha moved close to Dotty, Lydia right behind her. The child’s eyes were rounded like full moons. No linsey-woolsey for these women. How to raise up a child like her, that loved pretties so much? Tabby picked up the puppy, and Canary sat at Dotty’s feet.

  As they crossed Jackson, the Stevens woman said, “That dog of yours ought to be shot, going after my boy thataway.”

  “That boy is a menace,” Martha snapped. “He was hurting that puppy, and if we hadn’t been there he’d ’ve turned his meanness on my girl.”

  “You hit him! You’d no call to hit him!” the woman screamed.

  Passersby stopped, and some smiled, expecting a show, women fighting each other in public, an entertainment good as a music hall. Martha wanted to tell them if they wanted a show, they wouldn’t get one from her. Martha wanted to flood this – this whore with words so that she felt what she was, a disgrace to women. She controlled her voice, buried her clenched fists in the folds of her cloak. “You ought to hit him some. Spare the rod and spoil the child. He don’t behave like civilized folks.” All the time, the Stevens woman hollered, so that Martha knew not a word of hers had got through. Martha stepped away. It wouldn’t do to waste more breath on the likes of these.

  A gust of wind tore the ostrich feathers from Helen Troy’s hat. Laughing, Martha watched them go, served her right, wearing such frippery in the wind. Canary lunged free and raced after them, to the cheers of the watching men, dodged around a horseman whose shying mount nearly unseated him.

  “Goddammit,” shouted the man, “that dog outgha be shot!”

  “You just watch where you’re going!” Dotty ran after Canary, and Martha screamed, “Come back!” Oh, Lord, that child would be the death of her. The horseman kicked his horse up Jackson, and Martha found she could breathe again.

  The onlookers cheered as Canary leaped in the air and snatched the feather from the wind. Ears and tail up, he trotted with it to Dotty, who petted him, wrapped his rope twice about her hand, brought him back.

  Martha took the soggy feather from the dog’s mouth, and held it out to Helen Troy.

  “I don’t want that thing,” said the woman.

  “You better take it,” Martha said. “It nearly got my dog killed.”

  The Troy woman snorted, but took the feather in two fingers, and said to the Stevens woman, “Let’s go.” They flounced off down Wallace, or tried to, but the struggle to keep their hats on spoiled the effect, and they could not hold onto both their hats and their skirts, that blew about their limbs and up, to reveal far more than proper. Cheering men watched them go.

  Martha turned her back. “You were looking for me?” she asked Lydia.

  “Yes. It’s the typhus. The doctors can’t keep up, there are too many sick.”

  Dark junipers and silvery sagebrush stood against the snow. “Yes. I’m not surprised. They don’t see what’s around them.” Martha said, “I’ll visit Berry Woman.”

  * * *

  Like his namesake in the Bible, Dan had stepped into the lions’ den. Because of a woman. Pretending that McDowell and Gallagher did not look ready to kill him, that Dotty’s jaw had not dropped when he came in, and that Tim’s cup did not rattle against teeth when he drank, Dan felt as if the lions gathered themselves to pounce. But he hungered to see Mrs. McDowell, so, though his body screamed for rest, and the blood beat in his neck, he would learn if a spark existed, or he had dreamed the whole thing. He was mad, that’s what. Stark raving mad. His own pun on his name almost made him laugh, which he took for hysteria and put him more on his guard, that wound him up even more and knotted his shoulder muscles.

  She set down his plate, venison steak and potatoes fried in deer fat. Indian fare. “Sorry your dinner’s cooling.”

  The aromas of her cooking flooded his mouth with saliva, and he had to swallow twice before he could answer. “I’m the one to apologize,” he managed to say despite his almost desperate desire to pounce on the food. “It’s my fault for being late.” She had saved his dinner for him, she had hoped he would come tonight.

  She had used rosemary to flavor the steak, it brought out the succulent flavors of the venison, and she had used the herb on the potatoes, too, along with salt and pepper just to his taste. The potatoes were not sliced, but cut into chunks, and he guessed that she had rubbed rosemary on the skins before crushing some into the fat. What a meal for a starving man! There were even a few canned beans that she had cooked with the potatoes, and Dan thought he had never smelled or tasted anything so delicious, he who had eaten nothing but ersatz coffee and boot leather for nearly twenty-four hours.

  Mrs. McDowell retreated to the kitchen corner, stood eating her supper and talking softly with her daughter. She did not look at him. He’d been wrong. She would have saved dinner for any boarder. That’s all he was to her. A boarder. He’d been wrong. Wrong, dammit, wrong. He was an idiot. Dan cut off a bite of the venison, piled some potato on th
e meat, and put it in his mouth. His stomach revolted. It tasted as gray as it looked. Focusing on McDowell and Gallagher, he watched her at the edge of his vision.

  “We know why you’re late.” McDowell propped his elbow on the table and pointed his knife at Dan. “You’re one of them as brought in George Ives.”

  He couldn’t deny it. The news must be all around the Gulch by now, even if Johnny Gibbons hadn’t ridden straight to Gallagher to report. Dan said, “We rode out to Wisconsin Creek to ask Long John Frank some questions, and found evidence that Ives killed Nick.” By the set of her head, he knew she listened, even as she whispered with Dotty, as he watched her while he defended himself to the men.

  McDowell stammered, “You – you – .”

  “You son of a bitch,” Gallagher whispered.

  Mrs. McDowell gasped, spun about with her mouth open to scold Gallagher.

  “Hey!” Tim thumped the handle of his knife on the table. “You watch your language around my little sister.”

  “Sorry.” Gallagher spoke to Mrs. McDowell. “I apologize, Ma’am. He took me by surprise.”

  Mrs. McDowell squeezed out words through tight lips. “We don’t hold with that language in this house. Apologize to the young’un.”

  Gallagher rose to his feet, made Dotty as elegant a formal bow as any Dan had ever seen. He wished Nick’s other friends could see this, the fearsome Gallagher, handsome as a rattler dozing in the sun, who ruled the roughs in Virginia City, bested by a woman.

  “I do apologize for my language, Miss McDowell. I hope you can forgive it, and I promise henceforth to behave myself in your company.”

  Dotty smiled at the charming gentleman Gallagher imitated. “You shouldn’t cuss, Mr. Gallagher. It ain’t nice.”

  Gallagher’s big laugh boomed out. McDowell laughed a sort of guffaw down his nose, and Tim grinned at the Chief Deputy. McDowell mimicked his daughter: “‘You shouldn’t cuss, Mr. Gallagher. It ain’t nice.’” Only Mrs. McDowell did not smile, while Dotty looked hurt and bewildered. Dan kept his own face straight.

  While everyone’s attention was on Gallagher, Dan raised the mug to his mouth, so he could look over it past McDowell, who gave himself to his laughter with his head tilted back and his eyes closed. Her modest, high-necked shirtwaist enticed him more than the low-cut fashions of the women in his New York set. Mrs. McDowell’s sleeves, rolled up for work, revealed her wrists, thin and delicate and strong. Unknowing, watching Gallagher, she raised one hand to her breast and fingered a button, then turned her head toward him. Her eyes crinkled at the corners, and her lips softened as she peeked at him from under her eyebrows. Her eyes shone in the lamplight.

  Dan said, “Delicious.” He was talking of more than the food, although that was included. He meant Martha McDowell, and the feeling inside him, for he was convinced that a connection existed between them, a spark, a union of feeling, at least in this, that Gallagher and McDowell should not be laughing so at Dotty. She spoke the truth, and her mother was beautiful to him.

  “Do you need more beer?” asked Mrs. McDowell.

  “Yes, thank you, I do.” He had only drunk half of it, but he held the mug out to her to fill. Her fingertips brushed the back of his hand as across the strings of her dulcimer, and something inside Dan sang. She dipped out more beer for him, and when she brought it back, though Gallagher and McDowell had stopped laughing, he took the chance of raising his eyes to hers, and in them found the answer to his question. The spark existed, was real, and on her side, too.

  As if he held a royal flush, he wanted to leap into the air and shout, and never in any game had he worked so hard to prevent his face from telling anything. He cut another bite of meat, rich and succulent. When he could speak, he was any boarder complimenting the cook. “Delicious, Mrs. McDowell. Thank you.” As he put the cup to his mouth, he met McDowell’s glare over the rim, and turned as cold as if he’d tumbled into Alder Creek.

  She was a married woman. There could be nothing between them. Nothing. His stomach clenched. There could be no good end to this. Dan forced himself to chew and swallow.

  Gallagher interrupted his thoughts. “Ives did not kill the Dutch kid.” The Chief Deputy held his knife ready to cut a piece of potato, forefinger along the top of the blade. With each word he poked the knife into the air at Dan.

  A faint echo, as from a distance, an unmistakable warning rattle. Dan felt the unshaven bristles rise on his face, the hairs of his arms prickled against his sleeves. He cut his meat in a steady rhythm and composed a reply as mild as milk. “I imagine the Nevada miners court will consider all the evidence.”

  “There is no evidence against him.” The whirr of rattles insisted.

  “As to that,” Dan forked a bite into his mouth, chewed until he could swallow, to gain time to think. “It’s in the hands of the miners court.” Thank God he’d had the sense not to prosecute, or he might be dead now.

  “George wouldn’t bushwhack a man that way. Shoot him in a fair fight, maybe, but not murder him.”

  Although George Ives had threatened murder against two men who were reluctant to “loan” him money. Furthermore, he had made those threats in broad daylight in front of witnesses, and they’d been the talk of the town. Dan said nothing, but nodded and took a swallow of his beer. In his opinion, Ives was fully capable of murder and robbery. He knew Ives killed Nick. Knew it from the horse races, the jocularity. Long John’s testimony. Tomorrow they’d know what Hilderman said.

  McDowell said, “Them other times, George was just joking.”

  “He’s a great joker, is George.” Gallagher laughed to show how he appreciated Ives’s jokes, but his eyes, watching Dan, did not seem to catch the fun.

  Dan had looked on Nick’s hideous corpse, understood what it told them about the last moments of a young life, and chased down the killer. His chilled feet rested in damp boots, he craved sleep, and he sat at table with a bully and a man who had threatened to kill him over cards. For a woman he couldn’t have. He was sick of this. “Sure. Backing his horse into Morris’s windows was extremely funny. I laughed for a week.” Words. He had only words to attack with, as men in battle might form up troops and launch them against the enemy. “It cost Morris a dollar a pane to replace them and several weeks of bad weather. Lord knows how much he lost when rain ruined his goods. Hilarious.” Holding Gallagher’s eyes, he sipped beer. “I’ve been told, however, that my sense of humor is deficient. That’s probably why I see nothing amusing in a loaded pistol pointed at me by a man demanding money. But then, it probably depends on one’s point of view.” He smiled at Gallagher. “At which end of the pistol one is standing, the muzzle end or the trigger end. You, apparently, find it highly engaging.”

  Dan’s pulse pounded in his neck as if trying to free itself, but no one could tell because his long hair and high collar covered it. Would Gallagher know he was being accused of being one of the road agents? What the hell. Everyone in Virginia at one time or another has seen Gallagher shoot people when he was angry.

  Gallagher sat, breathing hard, the rattling was loud, now.

  No one spoke.

  Dan listened to McDowell’s steady low growl of breath, Dotty’s sniffling, Tim’s panting. The woman held her fist to her mouth. The cabin walls creaked, wood rubbed against wood. There was food left on Dan’s plate, but he had to get clear of these men. He could never eat here again. Then how would he see her? He’d contrive something. He should not contrive anything, but he knew he would not be able to resist.

  Gallagher shivered as he laid the knife down. “Whoever said that was right, Stark. You don’t have a sense of humor.” He managed a smile, all affability and charm as he waved his hand, sweeping away difficulties. “You don’t want to mess with that court in Nevada. Bring the trial to Virginia. I’ll make sure it’s fair.”

  The effort cost him, Dan knew. Gallagher wanted to kill Dan right there and then, and all that stopped him were the woman and her children and the thought of what McDowell mig
ht do if Gallagher endangered his wife and girl child.

  This was a poker game between him and Gallagher, and the pot was his escape. Dan let his face assume an expression of deep regret. Easy, considering that he’d miss seeing her every day. “Wish I could,” he lied, “but it’s out of my hands. The boys voted to keep it in Nevada.”

  “Why would they do a fool thing like that?”

  Because they know you’ll rig the jury, because they know all the roughs in the area would congregate here and you’d let it happen, because you take orders from Henry Plummer, because you helped Buck Stinson get away with murdering Dillingham. He said, “Adriel Davis yielded jurisdiction to Bob Hereford.”

  “Davis might be sheriff of Junction, but I’m Chief Deputy.”

  “Only in Fairweather District, and it’s too far away from where Nick was killed.” Dan felt her watchfulness, her stone-like shadowed stillness. What did she think? A woman had to take her husband’s part, but she had called on them to be God’s weapon.