God's Thunderbolt: The Vigilantes of Montana

by Carol Buchanan

  “Maybe, but Sheriff Plummer’s appointment should come through any day. He’ll be Deputy US Marshal for the whole region. Then you’ll see.”

  Dan saw. Plummer would rule Alder Gulch through Gallagher. God help them.

  Gallagher smiled. “Seems to me you owe us a poker game, Stark. How about it?”

  “Not tonight.” Dan scraped back his chair and stood up. He looked over McDowell’s head, at Mrs. McDowell. God damn it. He pushed the chair in and leaned on it, smiled at her, made his hands relax so they would not reveal his tension. He’d found out what he wanted to know, and now he hated the knowledge, the futile certainty.

  “Damn it, you owe us a game, Stark.” Gallagher’s smile died.

  “It’ll have to wait.” He reached around Tim to pluck his coat off the peg. When the boy would have moved out of his way, Dan laid a hand on his shoulder. “No, Tim, don’t get up. Tonight I have too much work to do, and then I’ll turn in early.”

  One last time, he would look at her. He made himself say her name, hating it. “A fine meal, Mrs. McDowell.”

  Her eyes were incandescent, so luminous that Dan was surprised to see shadows in the corners of the room. How could her husband not see it, her son, even Gallagher? McDowell picked at a scab on his hand, Tim drew rings on the table with the beer glass, and Gallagher cleaned his knife. Dan shrugged his coat onto his shoulders. He had to take his eyes from her to find the first button. When he glanced back, her breath came a bit faster, though her voice revealed nothing, “Glad you enjoyed it.”

  From behind the safety of his poker face Dan allowed his feelings to shine in his eyes, and was rewarded by a sharp indrawn breath, almost a gasp. He opened the door, ready to step over the threshold. Almost, he was safely out.

  “Hold your horses there,” said McDowell.

  Blood surged in Dan’s neck. Stupid fool that he was, he had given himself away to her husband. Worse, he’d given her away.

  McDowell said, “What sort of work would a surveyor have at this time of night?”

  Dan said, with absolute sincerity, “I haven’t had time to do those calculations.”

  * * *

  No sooner had Martha begun to recover herself after the fracas between Gallagher and Mr. Stark than Canary started in barking. Sam opened the door without getting out of his chair and yelled at the dog, hollered to someone, “Come on in.”

  Step stump step stump, and Club-Foot George Lane put his club foot over the threshold and stepped the good one in after it. He stood, not even closing the door or taking off his hat, like he had no manners till Sam said, “Shut the door.”

  “Sorry.” Club-Foot George closed it quick-like.

  Martha felt sorry for Club-Foot George, it must be a trial to go through life with that foot. She went on with her women’s work, dipped out water from the cold bucket into the wash pan on the stove, while the men went on with their business like she was dead.

  “You wanted me?” Lane asked Gallagher.

  “Yeah. You know they’ve got George Ives chained up over in Nevada City?”

  Lane nodded. “They’re saying he killed the Dutch kid.”

  Martha turned her back so her face could give nothing away. She wanted to shout Hooray because they’d got Nick’s killer. George Ives was the right man. She just knew it. Daniel Stark said so, and he’d put his feet under her table every night for three months, so she knew him for an honest man. Inside she was cheering like at a parade, but she couldn’t let them see a hint of it, while she pretended to be about kitchen things they’d pay no mind to. They weren’t saying Ives was innocent, that he didn’t do it, couldn’t have done it. No, they were all of them – Gallagher, Club-Foot George, and even Sam – talking like he might have, could have done it, or it didn’t matter if he done it.

  Dotty pressed up against Mam. “They got him?” she whispered. “Nick’s killer?”

  “Seems so.” Martha laid her finger against Dotty’s lips, quieted the child, stilled her delight, because the men weren’t about to give the child any pleasure if she showed it.

  “If they aim to have a trial there,” said Club-Foot George, “they’ll have it tough.”

  “How so?” Sam asked.

  Martha glanced over her shoulder. Club-Foot George had a knowing sort of smirk on his face, like he had a great joke for Gallagher and Sam. “Johnny Gibbons hired all the lawyers in town to defend Ives.” His voice became a child’s chant: Neener, neener, neener, I know something you don’t know. “They can’t find a prosecutor.”

  Gallagher slapped his hand on the table top. “I knew it! No lawyer with any sense will prosecute Ives. Not if he values his skin. The fools! Hah! Look here. Ride over to Bannack and get Sheriff Plummer. Tell him to come and take over jurisdiction.”

  “But he ain’t sheriff in Nevada,” said Lane.

  “Don’t matter,” Gallagher said. “We’ll have the boys in the crowd to back him up. Tell them at the ranches I said you should have the good relays.”

  “Will do.” Martha heard Club-Foot George’s step stump down the path. She made a clattery business of the kitchen work to cover her thoughts: Gallagher could promise the best relays for Club-Foot George? Most folks had to take whatever cayuse was handy. It didn’t sit right. Gallagher calling for Plummer, sending orders about remounts at Daly’s and Dempsey’s ranches. Daly’s was a den of wolves, roughs and loafers. Yet Gallagher expected they’d do what he asked.

  Not Tim. She heard, “What if Ives killed Nick?” And the muscles in her neck tightened. Oh, Lord, she was that proud of him for sticking to what was right, young as he was, but he was too young not to be foolish sometimes in his bravery, and then she feared for him.

  Gallagher said, “It don’t matter to Nick what happens to Ives.”

  “It ain’t right,” Tim said. “It ain’t –”

  “You hush up, boy,” said Sam, “this is none of your business.”

  But Tim wouldn’t give in. “You can’t say it don’t matter whether Nick’s killer pays or not.”

  Martha heard a slap and swung around in time to see Sam drawing back his hand, and the boy’s head rocking backwards, then forwards, and a print, like an outline of a hand on a slate, stand out red and clear on Tim’s cheek

  “They won’t hang him if I can help it,” said Sam, “so you just shut up. You got one thing to do, and that’s dig more gold out of that claim.”

  Dotty frowned. “I hope they hangs ’im,” she hissed.

  “Hush your mouth, d’ you hear?” Martha seized Dotty’s arm and shook it a bit. “Now hand me that there towel.” She pointed to a shelf where she kept the towels. She could have reached it easy, herself, but Dotty would have to climb onto a stool to reach it, and maybe that would hide what the young’un had said, because she’d scared her Mam silly. She’d bring the men down on them both, like as not.

  Gallagher laughed. “They won’t get a prosecutor, and won’t nobody dare testify against him, either. Not if they know what’s good for them.”

  “You bet,” said McDowell.

  No matter that Ives might be guilty, they’d make sure by any means that he went free. God’s thunderbolt had struck George Ives, and Gallagher and her own husband were planning how to free him, and it wasn’t because of knowing Ives was innocent. If they thought that, they’d let him be tried, like most folks did, and wait for the evidence to do its work. They didn’t care, not even Sam McDowell.

  Wrapping her hands in the towel, she lifted the basin of hot water, all the time a thought rising in her mind like bread dough, filling it, and the daring of it made her gasp.

  Involuntarily, Martha’s arm jerked, and water just off boil splashed onto her hand, and made her jerk again, spilling more hot water, soaked the towel wrapped around her hand, and she nearly dropped the pan as she set it on the counter, where more water sloshed out but lucky not on her or the child. She knelt, plunged her scalded hand, still wrapped in the towel, into the cold water bucket. She would not cry out. Her hand in t
he bucket, she unwrapped the towel, saw that the scald to her hand was not as great as the scald to her heart: McDowell in cahoots with Gallagher to free Nick’s killer.

  She couldn’t look at them, especially not McDowell. She wanted to cry, he’d gone so far from the man she’d married. What had happened to him that he’d side with Gallagher against what was right? When did he change so, that he’d free Ives, no matter him maybe being guilty? Where was the justice to Nick? The resolve she’d felt rising in her mind was firm now. She’d help Nick’s friends, she’d help Daniel Stark.

  * * *

  Jacob slept when Dan pulled in the latch string and turned up the lamp wick. He set to work without taking off his coat, because Jacob had banked the fire and the cabin already struck cold. Taking up his notes, he began to find where in the calculations he had left off. The bracing air in the room refreshed him, kept him awake, and he took up slate and chalk to work on from his stopping point, and was soon so absorbed in the clear logic of planes and angles that he forgot his chilled feet in their damp boots and clammy socks. He had nearly finished the last calculation when he realized that Jacob was shouting and someone was pounding at the door.

  The cabin, called a bachelor cabin because it was built for one man, never seemed so small as now, when Fitch, Sheriff Hereford, and John Lott all crowded in. Sensibly, Jacob stayed in bed; there was no room for him to stand, and no room for them to sit, even if he and Jacob had possessed more than two chairs. So they stood, close enough to smell each other’s breath.

  “I’ll come to the point,” Fitch said. “You have to prosecute Ives.”

  Deep in his secret mind, Dan had been expecting this. Ever since Gallagher said no one would dare to prosecute, he’d known he would have to do it or the world would know him for the coward he was. So now it came, the request – more like a demand – that he must answer.

  John Lott said, “Bob here, tells us you’re a lawyer, and you think Ives killed the boy.”

  “Yes,” said Dan. How was Fitch taking it now? His friend Ives accused of murdering his foster son. “I’m convinced of it.”

  Sheriff Hereford said, “All the lawyers in Virginia have signed on to defend Ives. Every damn one of them. Ives and his pals have plenty of money.”

  “I’ll prosecute them,” said Dan. “For a fee.”

  “Ha!” Fitch growled. “Money hungry lawyers.”

  “Damn it, show me one soul who isn’t here for the gold,” Dan snapped. “You’re asking me to pin a target on my back, so I have to be sure my family has something in case – ” He did not have to finish that sentence.

  When they left, he made himself finish the calculation and write the report before he pulled off his clothes and crawled into bed beside Jacob, who was already snoring. Tired as he was, he knew he would not be able to sleep for thinking of strategies to make up for the thin evidence, how he would ensure that Grandfather received the gold, who would –

  He entered a grand ballroom lighted by a thousand-candle chandelier, with Harriet on his arm, blond curls and diamonds cascading over her shoulders, into the shadows of her bosom, but outside, where a wall should have been, stood a thin woman who wore a plain shirtwaist and skirt, her hair pulled into a bun, whose eyes glowed large and luminous in the dim light.

  3: Alder Gulch, Nevada City

  The promise of sunrise did not yet separate the eastern mountains from night when Dan and Jacob walked the uncertain road to Nevada City. At Daylight Creek, Dan paused, imagining it to be his own Red Sea: cross it and there was no going back from his commitment to prosecute the three prisoners. Jacob teased him about not wanting to get his feet wet, and with a grunt Dan splashed across, carrying the lantern and leaving Jacob to find his own way through the dark water. On the other side he relented enough to light Jacob’s way.

  At the crest they paused to catch their breath. Lights – candles, lanterns, torches – streamed from Virginia, from Junction, from camps in the side gullies, flowing through the darkness to converge about a bonfire on the main road between the Music Hall and the Star Bakery, in the middle of Nevada. Like ancient warriors summoned to battle by a beacon fire. Or fireflies swarming.

  Some roughs with one or two women companions, caught up with them. “Going to see Ives freed?” one man jeered. “They’ll never convict George!” Their laughter floated back as they strode ahead, heedless of the women, who nagged them to slow down.

  “God,” muttered Dan, unaware that he spoke aloud. “How can we fight that?” The hopelessness of the situation overwhelmed him. No lawyer could win a case against several opponents, with a jury controlled by the defendants’ friends, no time to prepare, no library within which to research precedents and find strategies, no time to gather more evidence. His case consisted of an unreliable witness and a mule, certainty based on attempted flight, and bawdy jokes. Christ, did he even have a case?

  In Nevada, two freight wagons, one painted green, were drawn up at right angles to each other, tongues crossed, forming a corner. Dan leaned the Spencer against the green wagon and helped to roll a log up to the back of it to form the third side of a makeshift square around the fire. The fourth side opened on a small street that curved behind the Star Bakery.

  The courtroom. Good God, Dan said to himself, how could this open space carved out of the road function as a courtroom? Yet it must. There was nothing else.

  Sheriff Bob Hereford joined Dan and Jacob near the fire and held out his hands to its warmth. The sheriff’s eyes were red-rimmed, and Dan thought they must be as scratchy as his own. Deep lines curved from Hereford’s nose around his mouth, and he had not shaved. He said, “We have plenty of men to act as guards. The roughs won’t have a look-in.” He swept his arm around the court area, and Dan saw that while he had been helping with the log armed men had moved in to guard the entire perimeter. They pointed their shotguns and rifles and muskets at the swarming crowd, faces partly lighted – a beak nose, the gleam of an eye, a long tangled beard, mouths slack-lipped around threats:

  “Hang George Ives and you’re dead.”

  “You’ll pan fool’s gold in hell, you bastards!”

  “When Plummer gets here, he’ll show you, all right!”

  “Yeah, just wait! Plummer will show you!”

  Fear ground in Dan’s gut, and even standing as close as possible to the fire, he could not get warm. What had possessed him to agree to this?

  Hereford cupped his hands around his mouth and yelled at the roughs, “Plummer ain’t sheriff of Nevada, damn it. I am. If he tries to take over, I’ll arrest him.”

  Fitch came through the cordon of guards toward them. “If you do, I’ll back you up.” He held his shotgun against his ribs with the stump and stretched out his hand to the fire’s heat.

  “You ain’t man enough to arrest Plummer!” shouted a voice.

  Hereford strode around the fire toward the open side of the square, planted his feet wide apart. “Yeah? Want to try me now?” When no one moved, he spat into the ground, and came back. “Yellow bastards, every damn one. They back down every time. Yellow bastards.” Yet Dan saw the fear in his eyes, the thought in the back of Hereford’s mind, as it was in his own, that even though their numbers had grown in the night, the roughs outnumbered Nick’s friends four or five to one.

  And in Jacob’s eyes he saw a greater fear, the terror of the Cossacks relived. “It’s all right, Jacob. They’ll protect us.”

  Jacob managed a smile, but his hands, outstretched toward the fire, trembled.

  Would Hereford have the courage to stand up to Plummer? Given Plummer’s undoubted skill with a pistol, could any man arrest him? And what if Plummer’s appointment arrived before the trial was over? Could they legally stop a Deputy U. S. Marshal, even one reputed to be in league with the roughs? There was no proof of that, either. Merely suspicion, conjecture, opinion. No proof.

  Meanwhile, it was high time he found out what Hilderman had to say. Dan was heading for the perimeter when two men forced their
way against the general milling of the crowd, amid threats and a few good-natured jeers. “Hey, Cap, watch it. You can’t bull your way through.”

  “Yeah? You’re no china piece, Hank!”

  Stepping between the armed guards, riding a crest of laughter, Jim Williams ushered a stranger ahead of him. The newcomer wore a high-ranking Union Army officer’s caped greatcoat, open to let the quilted lining of the cape show. Dan envied the man his coat, warm enough for a blizzard.

  Fitch whistled. “A goddam Union colonel, looks like.”

  Williams introduced the stranger. “Boys, this is Wilbur Fisk Sanders, from over in Bannack. Chief Justice Sidney Edgerton is his uncle.” When two or three of the other men looked blank, Sanders said, “My uncle is Lincoln’s appointee as Chief Justice of the Territory. I’m here on other business, but when some gentlemen in Virginia asked me to prosecute, I agreed.”