God's Thunderbolt: The Vigilantes of Montana

by Carol Buchanan

  Pretending regret, Dan shook his head. “Can’t do it. Con Orem’s saloon or nothing.”

  “Like hell. Maybe I’ll take what’s mine right here and now.”

  Dan laughed. He put his head far back, so that his hat nearly fell off, and laughed as if the Deputy had told a very funny story. As he laughed, he moved his shoulder, caught the Spencer as if it had slipped off, brought it around, and levered a shell into the breech in one motion. All those times practicing that maneuver in his law office, imagining he faced a charging bear, and never thinking he would use it this way. Against a man. He had only to raise the muzzle and cock it now.

  “Like I said, Jack. Con’s place or nothing.”

  Gallagher spread his hands away from his coat. “Okay, I guess it’ll be your way. But the deck better be clean.”

  “Don’t tell me. Tell Con. We always play with Con’s cards.” He was light and floating, his very being soaring to the skies because he had beat Jack Gallagher at this game. Jack’s game. No one would dare accuse Con Orem of running a crooked table, issuing a marked or shaved deck. The man’s honesty was beyond dispute, and he was the best bare knuckle fighter in the Territory.

  He and Jacob waited on Content’s corner for a freight wagon drawn by eight plodding mules to pass before they crossed over. Dan’s stomach growled nonstop. Two men, brothers whose claim Dan had surveyed, caught up with them. “Good for you,” said one. “You showed him, all right.” The other said, “I might sit in on that game. Just to keep it friendly.” Crossing the street, both men stayed with Dan and Jacob. “We heard about this Vigilante thing,” said the first man. “Yeah,” the second said. “How can we join?”

  Dan smiled. “Damned if I know.” How the hell had they heard? Who had talked about the group they were forming? After all the care during the first meetings, the sheets of tin over the windows in Nye’s tin shop, the darkness in which they agreed to the death sentence. He would ask Sanders and Pfouts about them. Did they already have a spy? Was there already an infiltrator? These brothers might be fine men, but he did not know them well, though he knew nothing against them. Or might it be lucky conjecture, a rumor that turned out to be true?

  “Count us in,” the older brother said, and the younger one echoed him as they parted.

  * * *

  Small, light snowflakes swirled on currents of air under a steel gray sky. Dan tugged down his hat brim and put up his coat collar. Colder today. He took a couple of deep breaths, happy to escape the smoky fug of Creighton’s store. Warm though it was, for a man who liked being out of doors it had been hard to bear. Or perhaps it was something in the atmosphere, in the purpose of the men gathered around Creighton’s stove. Murder and robbery on Christmas Day. No one reminiscing about Christmas at home, but if they were anything like himself, they could not help thinking about it. Perhaps that was it, an underlying sadness of men who wanted to be at home. Even Sanders, whose wife and family were in Bannack, had a longing in his eyes though he kept strictly to the subject. Murder and robbery, and how to stop it. Speculating on who had done what, concluding they had not enough evidence. Not yet.

  If anyone had asked him while he was still in New York, Dan would have said that a Vigilance Committee was a mob of men inflamed by drink, hysterical, morally certain and immorally wrong, spontaneously moving by night to lynch someone – black or white – for their own purposes. Outside the law. He would never in a million years have described a Vigilance Committee as a group of the most sober citizens, lawyers, merchants, and law officers, who organized themselves carefully into an Executive Committee, with companies led in quasi-military fashion by themselves or other citizens of equal rectitude. Yet the meeting today had ground along absorbed in administrative detail. The boring construction of an administration as bound in red tape as any government body. As boring as a legislative meeting, and he was immured in it all. All the discussions, the voting, the agreements never put in writing, but remembered.

  The biggest task to separate personal motives from the public good, like curds from whey. Knowing beforehand it would not be perfect.

  Old arguments resurfacing that he thought were settled. It is the way of men, Dan thought, to talk a problem to death before proceeding to solve it. The selection of a ferreting committee to ascertain the probable guilt or innocence of those whom people named as having been present at a robbery, or last seen with a man who disappeared, or with one whose body was found later. They did not have enough yet to warrant hanging a man.

  But they had Dr. Glick’s testimony. Somehow that timorous man had nerved himself to speak up, had traveled all the way from Bannack, and finding himself in time for Hilderman’s hearing, had supported the old man’s claim that fear had kept him from speaking of Ives’s murder to anyone. His testimony finished, he had confided to the prosecutors that he had tended the wounds and injuries of many men who threatened him with death should he say anything. They had come by their hurts in the course of robberies, murders, and bragged to him of their crimes. He had no doubt in the world that they would keep their word to him. He trembled as he spoke, his legs quivered, and he darted looks around as if expecting death at any moment. Yet he talked, and the Vigilantes added his reports to those they already had, those that continued to come in almost hourly, mostly in frightened whispers. All were carefully noted, and the evidence in the stories added up. Dan was delegated, as Virginia City prosecutor, to keep track of these reports, to build on Creighton’s chart. In the midst of the administrative work they had stopped to compare notes, to cross-reference what they knew. Again, not enough against many. Not yet. Against a few, more than enough.

  The Vigilantes did not want to hang one or two now, and one or two later. They wanted to break the back of the conspiracy forever, and to do that they assumed that they would have to swoop down on several men at once. As yet, though the reports piled up, they did not prove a conspiracy, or tell who the primary conspirators were.

  The Vigilantes agreed to wait.

  Dan had asked Dr. Glick why Plummer had not come. Glick replied, “He’s scared. He thinks there is an army of men against him here, and he told everyone in Bannack that his enemies were massing against him, so men have been standing guard on the hills to warn him when the Vigilantes come.” Glick added, “He is a coward. Afraid of the Vigilantes.”

  Laughing, Dan had lied, “Vigilantes? There are no Vigilantes.”

  When X Beidler returned from locating the overdue wagon train Fitch had sent him to find, they would ask him to take charge of the ferreting committee. X had a talent for detection and no fear of any man.

  Dan huddled into his coat and wished he were at home.

  If he couldn’t be at home, at least he might look at the gold stashed with Mrs. Hudson. It would tell him when he could leave this place. Flee from what he couldn’t have. Martha. She was never far from his thoughts. Every time he recollected what enemies he had in Gallagher and McDowell, she came into his mind. His memories of Harriet seemed trivial to him now, a small matter of braving her father’s wrath to look down her neckline as she sat at the pianoforte, pretending he was there to be helpful, turn pages for her. She had no talent for music, but he had hoped she would have a talent for what her plump richness promised.

  He no longer cared. His entire being, it seemed, was caught by a woman whose necklines reached high on her throat and whose shirtwaists could not disguise her lack of figure, a woman worn thin with work and motherhood, but whose courage was as great as any man’s. She had brought him word of the Bamboo Chief. A woman whose bright honest eyes seemed to see into his soul.

  Only he could not stay, and she was married. He wanted to stay with her, and he wanted even more to leave her because she was married. He must keep his promises at home. But God, how he wanted her.

  He pushed open the door to the Eatery. This time of day, with everyone out in the mines and about their business, with the gambling halls and saloons roaring with holiday-makers, few people had yet come for a meal
. One couple sat at the front table by the far wall. The man held her hands in his, and she wept softly into an empty plate. Three men played cribbage near the stove and barely glanced up as he walked down the right hand aisle.

  “Merry Christmas.” Mrs. Hudson wiped her hands on a towel.

  “Merry Christmas,” Dan said, and with a nod included the black couple who sat at the far end of the back bench eating their meal. “Merry Christmas, Albert, Tabby.” They smiled and returned the greeting. He sat backwards on the bench between a cribbage player and Albert, rested his back against the table. “Is that coffee I smell?”

  “It is, as it happens, and it’s the real thing.” She took a blue tin mug from a shelf and poured from the pot standing on the stove. “It hasn’t been standing very long.”

  Dan inhaled the rich brown coffee smell. “It’s the elixir of life.” He sipped it. Thick and strong enough to plow, but he complimented her on it. “I’d also like to make a deposit.” He had finished some calculations, written and delivered the reports, and he had the payments in a poke in his pocket. People were asking him for help with legal problems, too, but he did not want to start a legal practice, develop clients only to leave the Gulch.

  She reached into the warming oven, and the cribbage players smiled when she brought down a poke and gave it to Dan. “Banking business doing well, is it, Mrs. Hudson?” asked one of the players.

  “Well enough,” she said with a smile.

  “Aren’t you afraid you’ll be robbed someday?” The second man asked.

  Albert cleared his throat, and the cribbage players laughed. “No, we don’t suppose robbery is something you’d need to worry about.”

  Dan had turned his back on them. He poured the gold dust from the payments into the poke he kept with Mrs. Hudson and wrote the amount, date, and total on the tag. Like the evidence they had weighed at Creighton’s, it was not enough. Nearly, but not quite enough to pay off the creditors and establish the family in their accustomed style. He leaned against the table and tasted the coffee and made small talk with the cribbage players. Mrs. Hudson was cutting up the haunch of a deer for a Christmas feast. The cleaver made a definably different sound from an axe chopping wood as it chopped through bone and gristle.

  Tabby picked up her and Alfred’s dishes and went back to her work. Albert leaned toward Dan to ask, “D’you think the Territory will come in free, sir?” The soft Southern voice slurred over the words.

  At least this was a change of subject. “It will have to, won’t it? Or we’ll all be dead.” Dan pointed to the empty space beside him. “Do sit down, man. I can’t twist my neck this way for long.”

  “But, sir,” Albert began.

  The cribbage players looked scandalized, but they knew Dan had prosecuted Ives, and they said nothing. Was he getting a reputation? Dan wondered. If so, he hoped it would keep him alive. He patted the bench. “Sit here. Please.” He knew Albert’s objection. A Negro sitting with a white man gave an appearance of equality. About damn time, Dan said to himself.

  Albert moved over, but perched on the edge, as if he sat on nails.

  “That’s better. Albert, this is the political situation.” Dan shifted the coffee cup to make interlocking rings on the table top. “Over in Bannack we have the Chief Justice of the Territory, Sidney Edgerton. He’s a friend, as I understand it, of President Lincoln. He’s also a radical abolitionist, and he and the Governor of the Territory do not see eye to eye.” One of the cribbage players snorted. Dan ignored him. “The Governor has told Justice Edgerton to remain in East Bannack, and until he is allowed to travel to Lewiston he can’t be sworn in and take his rightful place.” Dan pretended to sip at his cooling coffee. He wanted to tell Albert about Edgerton’s plans to talk to the President, about the Territory of Montana, but what if the cribbage players were Secesh? They had stopped their game to listen to him. “The Emancipation Proclamation took effect on January 1, this year, and all slaves in the Territories were freed. You have nothing to worry about unless ―” Dan gulped. Unthinkable! “― the South wins the War.”

  “But sir, the majority here’s Secesh.”

  “Damn right,” said one of the cribbage players. “You Yanks ain’t gonna tell anyone what property we can own. And we will win the War.”

  Mrs. Hudson said, “Don’t worry Albert, thee and Tabby have thy manumission papers.”

  “Who from?” the third cribbage player growled. “You better be sure they’s legal, nigger.”

  “They’re from me,” said Mrs. Hudson, “and make no mistake about it, they are as legal as you are, even if this Territory goes Secesh.”

  The front door opened on a draft of cold air, and Albert stood up as if a string jerked him. His place was at the front table, with the scales, where he could guard the gold and turn away the roughs. He hurried up the left-hand aisle.

  Dotty scooted in, clapping her mittened hands. “Merry Christmas.” She skipped down the aisle to hug Mrs. Hudson, who laughed and wrapped her arms around the child and sang out, “Merry Christmas!” Even the cribbage players laughed for no reason except it was Christmas.

  “Merry – ” Dan caught his breath. Behind the child came the mother with a parcel wrapped in cloth that she held in both hands. She was smiling, and when she saw Dan her smile broadened, and her face shone with happiness, and Dan thought a warm sun had risen in his soul and dissolved the glacial burden of arranging for men to die. It was suddenly, truly, Christmas.

  Behind Martha came Tim, who closed the door carefully after him and offered his hand to Albert. “Merry Christmas, Albert.”

  Dan didn’t hear Albert’s stammered reply. Martha gave her package to Mrs. Hudson, and took a seat next to him, but left a suitable, modest space between them. Dan swung his legs around under the table. His elbow was a few inches from hers. If he could just touch her. He needed all his breath to wish her a Merry Christmas. Tim seated himself across from them, looking like a cat about to eat cream. Behind him, Dan heard a whispered consultation, and Dotty’s voice, “Yes, do, now. Please.”

  Quick footsteps, the door into Mrs. Hudson’s private room opened and closed, and more quick footsteps while Dan groped in his mind for something to say, but could not get further than, “It’s getting colder, don’t you think?” Stupid. Inane. Damn it, he could talk about the most important things, about ensuring guilt before hanging a man, and freedom from slavery, so why could he not say something memorable to this woman? Or something intelligent?

  Dotty squeezed between them. Dan moved over to give her room. The child had a flat package wrapped in a scrap of deer hide tied with a buckskin boot lace, that she laid in front of her mother.

  “Merry Christmas, Mam.”

  “What is it?”

  Dan said, “Looks like the youngsters have a Christmas present for you.”

  “But I don’t need nothing.” Hands in her lap, she stared at the package until Tim said, “Go on, Mam, open it up.”

  “Yes, open it, Mam, do,” said Dotty. “We been waiting to see d’ you like it.”

  Martha untied the cord and laid aside the folds of deer hide wrapping. She let her fingers feel over the hide. “It’s soft, like velvet.” The present was a book, bound in black leather. She wiped her hands on her skirt before she turned the book over and touched the two words embossed in gold on the front cover. “Holy Bible.”

  Dotty said, “We figured you’d like to read that book first.”

  “See?” said Tim. “You can already read two words.”

  “But how–?” Her fingers traced the gold letters, over and over.

  By Dan’s side, Dotty bounced on the bench. “I earned some of it cleaning out sluiceboxes, and I took it over to the paper store, bit by bit, and Timmy, he helped, too, and Mr. Tilton kept it until we had enough to pay for it, and then I brought it over here and Miz Hudson, she kept it till now.”

  Tim said. “I kept back a few flakes here and there from the claim, and a nugget or two.”

  She said
nothing, only her left index finger traced the letters over and over.

  After a bit Dotty said, “Mam?” The child sounded worried. “Mam?”

  Martha shook her head.

  Dan put his arm around Dotty’s shoulders. “It’s all right,” he murmured. She leaned into the circle of his arm. His left hand, resting on the table, signaled Tim to quiet. Together he and the youngsters waited. This was a family. They, all three of them, were what he had wanted all his life and had not known it. First the woman, but his wanting her was only a prelude to the larger work, as the sound of the big drums heralded the Fifth Symphony. They were home.

  Another man’s home, if he had the sense to see it. Another man’s wife. Another man’s children. Martha should have opened the present at home, with McDowell to share her overwhelming joy. It wasn’t right. They belonged to McDowell and he cared nothing about them, always off searching as he was for the Mother Lode.

  These children, this woman, could never be his. He had discovered the Mother Lode on another man’s claim, where he had no business prospecting.