God's Thunderbolt: The Vigilantes of Montana

by Carol Buchanan

  “I know it was George Ives what tried to kill me.”

  Thurmond bounded to his feet. “Damn it, you had your chance. You can’t introduce another witness!” Before anyone could stop him, he clambered into the wagon and confronted Sanders, his fists cocked.

  Sanders pivoted, met him with jutting chin, and put his hands in his coat pockets. “You opened the door! You introduced testimony about Ives’s character! Your own witness testified Ives never so much as threatened another man’s life. We have the right to rebut that testimony.”

  “I object!” Thurmond pointed a finger at the two recorders. “Damn it, be sure to get it into the record. This is unethical maneuvering.”

  “Unethical?” Fists bulging his pockets, Sanders stepped toward Thurmond. “You dare – ?”

  A gun exploded, and both men leaped backwards, Thurmond nearly toppling over the sidewall, Sanders colliding with the witness. Judge Byam rang the cowbell and yelled for order. Smoke rose from one of Sanders’s pockets. Slowly, he pulled his hands out and held them chest high. One hand held a smoking pistol. He stared down at the floor of the wagon.

  Judge Wilson said, “Mr. Thurmond! Sit down, sir, and let us finish this trial.”

  Fitch laughed around the chaw in one cheek. “Sanders almost shot himself in the foot.”

  All this time, the big Norwegian stood in the wagon as if nothing, certainly not errant shots or lawyers screaming at each other, could faze him. When Judge Byam signaled to him to continue, Sanders repeated the question, and Holter launched into his account as if nothing had interrupted him. “I been here at the diggings, and was on my way to Bannack, not a coin to my name. Downstream, where those badlands are, you know? Yah, men come out of the rocks, and he point his pistol at me, and say have I got any money?”

  “Who pointed the pistol, Mr. Holter? Can you show us?”

  “Oh, ja, he’s over there on the log.”

  Sanders said, “Let the record show that the witness has pointed out George Ives.”

  The two recorders bent over their papers, and while Sanders waited for them to finish, Dan heard a crunch of boots shuffling, a cough, a mumbled question and a whispered reply. Someone in the vicinity of the log swore. Dan did not look to see who.

  “I say no, just a few greenbacks,” said Holter. “He say, Show me. So I show him, they’re from a bank in Minnesota. When he see them, he get awful mad. Say go away and don’t come back without more money. Minnesota banks ain’t no good in Alder Gulch. I lead my horse away, and something – I look back. Ives, he points his pistol at me. I run, and he shoots, but horse and I run fast. Lucky thing, his next ball go around my hat and blow it off. A good hat, too. The third shot, pistol don’t go off good. I leave horse and hide in ditch, and they go away. Leave horse.”

  To himself Dan translated, the pistol misfired, they didn’t steal his horse. Lucky Anton Holter.

  “Was Ives alone?” Sanders asked.

  “No. There was two, maybe three other men with him.”

  “Would you know them again?”

  “Oh, yah, I think so.”

  “Do you see any of them now?”

  Holter looked around the crowd. “I don’t think so. I see one, maybe two, when I got up here, but they had business in some other place, I think. They’re gone now.”

  Try as he would, Davis could not shake Holter’s story. After the Norwegian bent his head to show everyone the furrow through his hair, Davis flapped his hands. “This witness is excused.”

  * * *

  One moment the sun’s chandelier lighted the afternoon, and the next, as if someone had snuffed one of the candles, the light sank, and the cold deepened. The moon, in its three-quarter phase, appeared over the jagged northeastern peaks. Now came the moment of decision. Now they would know if it had all gone for nothing. Sanders paced back and forth, mumbling to himself. He would speak for the prosecution, and he scribbled with pencil on pages in a pocket notebook, while Bagg and Dan stood by. The crowd drifted about, muttering low, perhaps debating Ives’s guilt or innocence.

  “Here we go,” said Fitch. “Now you all get to see if you’ve done any good. I’m going to check on the crowd.”

  Jacob murmured to Dan across the wagon tongues. “What next happens?”

  “Damned if I know, Jacob. It’s up to the jury – the juries – now.”

  Bagg chewed on his lower lip, nodded his agreement, said nothing.

  Sanders broke off to join them, drew Dan off to the back of the witness wagon. Lowering his voice so no one could hear him, he murmured, “After we try Long John and Hilderman tomorrow, a few of us will meet in Kiskadden’s upper room.” He scratched under his jaw.

  “I’ll be there.” Dan patted his breast pocket. Other men had notebooks, too, or memories, and stories like Holter’s, like his own, the sum of the information would be piled high. But how high? He had a sense that they stood on top of a mountain, above a fog bank that hid its base, and they must descend through the fog to learn how high was the mountain.

  “I’ll be there,” said Dan.

  Someone from the crowd called out, “Make it snappy, boys. We don’t want a lot of harangue. It’s getting cold.”

  The crowd grew as word went to the saloons, the dance halls, the stores to say that the trial was coming to its head. Men came out to see the best show in town, the best show anywhere, because it was the chance to vote on a man’s life. Dan, listening to the excited mumblings, wondered how many others thought of the Roman Coliseum, where the crowd voted thumbs up or thumbs down on a life.

  Albert, towering over most men, had been watching the road. “Mista’ Stark? That Morton fellow is headed downstream. He’s got his bedroll and a pack mule.”

  “Morton? Good riddance.” Dan smiled. “Thank you, Albert.” As an afterthought, “See any sign of Sheriff Plummer?”

  “No, sir. Morton, he ain’t the first I’ve seen, sir. There’s plenty of the roughs has pulled up stakes and is making tracks.”

  “That’s good, Albert, but you don’t have to call me sir. I was never in the Army.”

  “Yes, sir, Mista’ Stark.” Albert’s slow drawl told Dan that Albert would do as he pleased. A free black didn’t have to take suggestions from a white man.

  * * *

  The mountains cast long shadows over Nevada City, and matches rasped, flint scraped against steel, and candles and lanterns sprouted a hundred flickering lights. One of the guards brought kindling to the bonfire and took it away, flaming, to light the torches on the wagons. Listening to the crowd, Dan sensed a new seriousness. Men spoke in hushed voices as if in church, and when the judges climbed into the green wagon, they quieted at the cowbell’s first ring.

  Sanders bowed toward the defense. “Learned counsel for the defense may take precedence.”

  “Yeah?” said Thurmond. “Mighty generous of you. The defense always goes first.” He climbed into the witness wagon, and raised both hands.

  “Gentlemen, you’ve heard the prosecution’s case. They say that George Ives murdered Nicholas Tbalt for the mules and $400 in gold dust. On what evidence? I ask you, what proof did they show that George Ives murdered anyone in such a cold-blooded way? I’ll tell you what proof. The word of two men who, I say, killed that poor lad themselves. These same two liars – for that is just what they are – liars, these two perjured themselves in this court and before Almighty God. They made a pact with the Devil and his minions, the prosecution, and traded their own freedom for George Ives’s life.

  “Ah, but the prosecutors say that is not the only evidence. We must not forget the mule. They claim that the mule found on Mr. Ives’s property was stolen, and because it was on Mr. Ives’s ranch, it was in his possession, and therefore he stole it. There are a myriad ways the mule could have come there. She strayed there. She was put there, and not by George Ives.

  “We live in dangerous times, gentlemen. The Federal government is waging war to take away freedom granted to us by the Constitution. They want to take
away our property, tell us what we can and can’t own, and they want to dictate how this Territory shall come into the Union. They want to take away our freedom.”

  Behind Dan Albert stirred, a mere shifting of his feet as anyone might do who sought to be comfortable, but his rasping breath told Dan how he was holding in his anger.

  “That’s what’s at stake here, boys. Our freedom. Not only Mr. Ives’s life, but the freedom of every white man in the Territory. How do we know that? Look at the coat worn by the chief prosecutor. It’s blue. Union Army blue. He’s a servant of the Devil that wants to take away our freedom. He is the Devil that wants to take George Ives’s life.

  “Why? Because he had a run-in with Mr. Ives. You won’t hear the story from him, and the prisoner is too much a gentleman to tell it, but I will tell it in the sacred cause of justice. The chief prosecutor was asleep at Rattlesnake Ranch one night, when my client came in. Mr. Ives was slightly intoxicated, and the learned prosecutor felt threatened, so he got the drop on Mr. Ives. If it hadn’t been for the timely intervention of other men, he would have killed George Ives on the spot.

  “No one saw the dastardly murder of Nicholas Tbalt. Even the two lying cowards, the only witnesses against my client, don’t forget, they don’t claim to have seen George Ives pull the trigger. Two wrongs do not make a right, gentlemen! Do not compound the evil of Nicholas Tbalt’s murder with the murder of George Ives. I say to you, gentlemen, the prosecution has not proved beyond a reasonable doubt that George Ives killed that poor boy. Don’t do the Devil’s work for him. Set George Ives free!”

  “Free George Ives! Free George Ives!” shouted the roughs, Ives’s friends, and some of the other men in the crowd took up the chant until Dan thought the whole mob would seize Ives and strike off his chains there and then. Thurmond climbed out of the wagon and sat down by Ives.

  While the judges ordered and cajoled the mob into silence, Sanders stood with bowed head, and when they were quiet enough for him to be heard, still Sanders stood as if looking at some papers in his hand, but whether he was truly looking at them or praying, Dan could not say.

  McDowell patted Thurmond’s back, and his congratulatory smile turned to a sneer as his gaze crossed Dan’s. “Don’t worry, George.” McDowell spoke loud enough for Dan to hear. “We’ll get you out of this yet.”

  Ives bent over to scratch inside his boot, as far down as he could reach.

  Dan could see no worry on his countenance. Why not? Dan wondered. Did he believe that he could yet be freed? Was he so confident? And if so, why? Was Plummer at last on his way? Albert would have warned them. Or Williams would.

  In the wagon, Sanders stood at attention. Peering between the wagons, Dan saw X Beidler straddling the ridgepole of a new small cabin. “Friends, gentlemen of the jury, and citizens.” Sanders paused, and from the back of the crowd someone – Dan thought perhaps Johnny Gibbons – yelled, “Hey, Sanders, get on with it! We ain’t got all night!”

  Even so, Sanders let the silence lengthen. With unsteady torchlight flickering across his face, he looked a spectral figure. The recorders paused, and Pemberton blew on his fingers, and on the nib of the pen to keep it warm so the ink would not freeze.

  “Oh, God,” Bagg whispered to Dan. “He’s petrified.”

  Just as someone might have shouted something, Sanders spoke in a quiet voice that nevertheless could be heard at the back of the crowd. “You have all heard that George Ives is innocent of Nicholas Tbalt’s death. That he did not waylay this innocent young man peacefully riding homeward after concluding his business. That George Ives did not shoot young Nicholas in the head as he knelt to pray. That he did not thereby deprive young Nicholas of the opportunity to cleanse his soul before he met his Maker.

  “The defense says that George Ives is innocent, and God knows Mr. Ives is an honorable man.”

  They could lap up the sarcasm that dripped from his words. Dan recalled Marc Antony’s speech in Julius Caesar about Caesar’s murderer: Brutus is an honorable man.

  “The defense says that we have not proved George Ives killed that dear boy, who never harbored a vengeful thought, who forgave the Indians who slaughtered his parents. The defense says that George Ives would not have killed Nicholas Tbalt because he is a man of good character. George Ives is an honorable man.

  “They brought witnesses to swear to it. They brought George Brown, and Honest Whiskey Joe, and Pete Morton, among others, to swear that George Ives is an honorable man.

  “You have heard other witnesses like Anton Holter, swear that George Ives robbed him, and attempted to murder him. You’ve heard how George Ives extorted money from men at gunpoint. He called them loans, but not one has he paid back. Not one. One man who asked for repayment was told to get lost or he’d be killed. The defense says that George Ives is innocent, because he did these deeds in fun. Armed robbery, extortion. Murder. All in fun. Good, clean fun. George Ives is an honorable man.

  “We say that justice must be served. The souls of George Ives’s victims cry out for justice. The soul of Nicholas Tbalt, whose body lies on that knoll, pleads for justice.

  “We meet here in the gathering darkness and gloom of night, that justice shall balance her scales. I say to you, gentlemen, let us do our duty to Nicholas Tbalt and to ourselves.

  “I call upon you to demonstrate that law and order shall exist, and the assassin, evil-doer and murderer, will be promptly punished.

  “I call on you to bring in a verdict of ‘Guilty.’”

  Now the waiting. The twenty-four men of the advisory jury, surrounded by guards, went off to consider their verdict, accompanied by calls from Ives’s friends: “Vote to free George, or you’re dead.” “Ives is innocent.” Talk, low-voiced and intense, buzzed through the crowd, but Dan could get no sense of their feeling: Guilty or innocent?

  Fitch returned and came to stand with the prosecutors. When Bagg and Dan praised his speech, Sanders only shook his head. “Thank you, but we won’t know if it was good or not until the jury comes back. If they bring in a guilty verdict, it was good. If not….” His voice trailed off.

  “How do you think they’ll vote?” Fitch’s jaws chomped at the tobacco, and Dan thought they worked faster now that the tension was building. So Fitch was nervous, too.

  “You never can tell about juries,” Bagg said. “They’ll produce a guilty verdict because they think someone’s eyes were set too close together.”

  “Or innocent because they like the shape of his head,” Dan said.

  “Myself,” said Bagg, “I think the phrenologists are onto something. The bumps on a man’s head are a certain indication of temperament and predisposition to commit crime.”

  “What do you suppose a phrenologist would make of Ives?” Dan didn’t give a damn, phrenology was a lot of bunkum, but this discussion would pass a little time. His left hand throbbed, and the rifle, slung on his right shoulder, weighed him down. Jacob, who appeared to find safety with Albert, thrust his hands in his pockets, took them out again. Albert stood at ease, arms folded across his chest, a good soldier.

  “Ah, now, there’s a classic case.” Bagg’s eyes took on a kind of the missionary light, eager to convert his listeners. “We can’t know about the phrenologist, but to me it seems obvious – ”

  Sanders interrupted. “Listen. I have an idea how to make the crowd accept the verdict of the advisory jury.”

  Dan exchanged a glance with Bagg. “Tell us.”

  Sanders opened his mouth, but a shout cut him off: “They’re coming back!”

  “What?” Bagg pulled out his pocket watch. “They were only out half an hour.”

  “Shit.” Fitch spat a stream of yellowish tobacco juice that flew out a good ten feet. “So soon?”

  Dan sucked in a deep breath, but the pulse in his throat only beat harder. He thought everyone could see it, and would know how frightened he was. He pulled his scarf higher. Sanders was pale.

  The twenty-four jurors took their seats. Some turned up thei
r coat collars against the chill, two or three rubbed their hands together as if to warm them. What had they done? Would there be freedom for the law-abiding? There could be no freedom without law and order. Freedom to go home with one’s gold? To travel without fear of being robbed or murdered?

  The crowd hushed. From the Music Hall sounded a rackety polka played on a piano and a fiddle that badly needed tuning. The cowbell’s strident noise clashed with the music.

  “Gentlemen of the jury,” called Judge Byam, “do you have a verdict?”

  A miner rose from the middle of the front bench.

  Byam beckoned him forward. “Would you approach, please? I don’t want to have to squint through the fire.”

  “We ain’t unanimous, Judge,” the miner called out.

  Dan’s stomach clenched. Under miners court rules a majority would carry the verdict, even with a formal jury. It didn’t have to be unanimous, but was the minority opinion for a guilty verdict? Did the majority vote not guilty? God, no. Not that. Not that.