Hang Him Twice

by William W. Johnstone

  “Hands up, boys!” Dooley shouted. “You’re surrounded!”

  Butch Sweeney confirmed that with two shots from his rifle that he fired into the air.

  “I better see hands reaching for air or we’re killing everyone in this camp!” Dooley yelled. He felt relieved when he saw the men coming up to their knees, or simply staying on the ground, but all lifting hands.

  “If one hand drops, we shoot you down!” Dooley growled.

  “We ain’t done nothin’,” one of the men whined.

  “This is my mine,” Dooley said. “You’re trespassing!”

  “Son of a gun,” one of the drunks whispered. “It’s the marshal.”

  “But Miller said . . .”

  “Shut up!”

  Dooley stopped. He could make out Butch Sweeney’s form off to his left. He could not see the men he had captured, but he had a pretty good idea what he would find in the corral. Two bay horses, a black, a chestnut, and a piebald.

  They had just captured the stagecoach-robbing gang. But why would they be hiding out at Dooley’s mine?

  * * *

  In the darkness of predawn, Dooley gently pulled open the front door to Mrs. Buxton’s Boarding House. He had no trouble finding the room he wanted. Mr. Buxton had told him two weeks ago that “as soon as that drinkin’, carousin’, lyin’ inkslinger left town, Dooley Monahan would be welcome to pay Leadville prices for a room with clean sheets and Mrs. Buxton’s wonderful chicken and dumplings for supper every night.”

  There were no keys to the rooms, Mr. Buxton had also told Dooley, because Mrs. Buxton believed that everyone had to be honest to live under her roof. Well, she had let this room to the wrong person.

  Dooley opened the door, heard the snores, made sure that the lying inkslinger had not caroused a chirpy to the room—which would have sent Mrs. Bruxton into hysterics—and he pulled the door shut. He drew the revolver, walked to the bed, sat down, and placed the .45’s barrel underneath Paul Pinkerton’s nose.

  The snoring stopped. The body tensed.

  “Take off your eyeshades,” Dooley ordered.

  With trembling hands, the Denver Telegram reporter obeyed. Dooley struck a match on his thigh, saw the candle next to the bottle of bourbon on the nightstand, and lighted the wick.

  “Monahan!” Pinkerton whispered. Tears welled in his well-rested eyes. “Please don’t kill me.”

  Dooley eased the revolver away from the man’s nose.

  “I didn’t come here to commit foul play,” Dooley said, and found himself smiling, thinking that his crazy plan might just work after all. “I want to make an honest newspaper reporter out of you.” Dooley knew, of course, that he had to speak in the language of a man like Paul Pinkerton. With his left hand, he brought up the pouch, unloosened the twine with his teeth, and dumped a handful of coins onto the quilt that covered the corrupt journalist’s chest. “For a price,” Dooley said. “Of course.” He rattled the bag and let more coins topple onto the bed.

  * * *

  He waited until early afternoon, when the streets and boardwalks were crowded with citizens heading back to work or their homes after dinner. Then Dooley and Butch kicked their horses into a walk, kept their rifles in their arms, aimed at the backs of the prisoners who led the parade on their bay, black, chestnut, and piebald horses.

  A driver pulled his freight wagon to a stop and stood in the box, holding the lines to his mules. Deputy U.S. Marshal Richard Blue reached for his revolver, but froze. His shoulders appeared to slump. The Leadville Ledger editor snatched the pencil from the top of his ear and ran down the street, past the freight wagon, and opened his notepad, which Dooley figured he would fill with truth, and not lies. Or at least just the lies Dooley might have to feed him.

  “Marshal!” the man yelled. He turned around and followed at the side of General Grant. “Are these . . . ?”

  “The real men responsible for robbing those stagecoaches.” He yelled at the men, slouched in their saddles, their hands tied in front of them so that they could hold the reins, their heads tilted forward, and their eyes bloodshot from their hangovers. “Rein up.”

  Dooley saw the new schoolmistress standing in front of the county clerk’s office. The shades were open on this afternoon, and George Miller peered through the thick panes, his ears reddening in rage, in embarrassment. The man practically shook in his boots. Which pleased Dooley to no end.

  “Miss Monroe.” Dooley shifted his rifle to his left hand and used his right to remove his hat. “We have those Readers for your school, ma’am.” He nodded at one of the sacks strapped to the horses of the robbers, this one on the chestnut that, now that Dooley could see, looked nothing like Butch Sweeney’s horse. “And your Shakespeare. And the letter from your ma. Still unopened.”

  That’s when George Miller reached up and pulled down the green shades.

  “How’d you find them, Marshal?” the editor asked.

  Dooley shrugged. “All those Police Gazettes I read in line shacks while cowboying, I reckon.”

  “Marshal Blue says . . .”

  “Marshal Blue says a lot of things.” Dooley met the crooked badge-toter’s gaze. “He also shoots first, without cause, without identifying himself, like that fracas he started at the hotel yesterday. And he swears out writs of arrest without listening to reason, to the truth.” He smiled at Miss Monroe. “But like the Bard says, ‘All’s well that ends well.’ And I’m glad to have ended our stagecoach robbers’ reign. If you’ll excuse me, I need to take five outlaws to our Jail Tree.”

  CHAPTER FORTY-THREE

  Dooley watched Butch Sweeney load the passengers on the stage to Denver the next morning, nodded at Denver Telegram reporter Paul Pinkerton as he climbed into the mud wagon, and smiled when Butch climbed up the coach and gave Dooley a knowing wink.

  “See you in a few days, Marshal,” Butch said as he grabbed the lines to the mules.

  “Have a productive trip, Deputy,” Dooley called back, and watched the old wagon rumble down the street and out of town.

  He hired the guards who had been hired to guard his mine to guard the Jail Tree instead. Paid them better than Leadville prices, too, because he did not want those five stagecoach robbers to escape from the Jail Tree or to accidentally have their throats cut during the dead of night. Not that they would talk, or at least implicate George Miller and possibly Richard Blue . . . at least. Not yet.

  Leadville turned peaceful, and Dooley enjoyed that, even though the shades to the county clerk’s office remained closed. That worried Dooley a bit, because he knew that behind those green curtains, George Miller was planning something devious.

  Plenty could go wrong, Dooley knew. His plan could backfire. George Miller could hire more men to rob stages, more men to rob banks, more men to assassinate Dooley Monahan. Pinkerton could not fulfill his bargain, but Butch Sweeney was supposed to stay in Denver to make sure that did not happen.

  So Dooley just waited. He found time to chat with the pleasant schoolteacher on the streets, but kept hoping to run into young Julia on the boardwalk. Not that she could risk having a conversation in public with Dooley, but it would be nice just to see her face, see her smile, maybe catch her whisper as she said something nice as they passed each other.

  Jarrod Dickinson’s stage from Silver Plume made it into town without incident. So did Jesus Gabaldon’s omnibus from Breckenridge. Yet that just worried Dooley more. Until he came down the stairs from his office on the afternoon and saw Butch Sweeney’s mud wagon wheeling around the corner and heading right down the street. Butch rose to his feet and pulled hard, setting the brake, and the wagon skidded to a stop right in front of the bank.

  Without a word, Butch wrapped the leather lines around the brake handle and bent forward, reaching into the boot. He came up with a stack of newspapers bound by twine. Smiling, Butch tossed those onto the boardwalk at Dooley’s feet.

  It was better than Dooley could have prayed for. It was the Denver Telegram, and stripped acro
ss that rag’s front page was a boldfaced headline in all capital letters.

  Corruption, Violence

  In Leadville–UNCOVERED!

  Even better was the next headline.

  COUNTY CLERK LINKED TO BRIBES, STAGECOACH ROBBERIES, ATTEMPTED MURDER.

  And below that:

  Deputy U. S. Marshal

  Also Involved in Immoral Actions.

  STATE SOLICITOR VOWS TO BRING CULPRITS TO JUSTICE.

  EXCLUSIVE DETAILS!

  Provided by OUR INTREPID REPORTER

  On the Scene and on the Trail for JUSTICE!

  So Paul Pinkerton could write the truth after all. For $1,740 in double eagles.

  The circuit-riding judge showed up on the stagecoach from Georgetown the next morning. By that time, Deputy U.S. Marshal Richard Blue had vanished for parts unknown. Dooley and Butch brought the five suspected stagecoach robbers from the Jail Tree to Dooley’s office above the bank, and, as he expected, once they saw the Denver Telegram article—actually, after the two of them who could actually read told the other three what had been published—they opened their mouths. The Leadville Ledger editor was on hand to write down their confessions for his next paper, which he proclaimed would be an extra, a special edition. “News of this magnitude does not happen every day,” he said.

  That caused Dooley to wonder why something like two alleged bank robberies on the same day or the town marshal surviving assassination by blowing up a gunman and a general store to kingdom come was not considered news of magnitude.

  When Dooley, Butch, the judge, and the editor went to confront George Miller, they found the shades up at the office, the door open, and Miller nowhere to be found. Mr. John Price, the banker, told them that he had seen the county clerk boarding the Georgetown stagecoach that afternoon.

  “Was he alone?” Butch asked. “I mean, was his wife with him?”

  “No,” the banker answered. “I don’t think he even had a carpetbag with him.”

  Butch Sweeney excused himself, and Dooley spent the rest of the day learning about arrest warrants and taking depositions and other legal matters. He missed supper, locked up his office, checked on the guards at the Jail Tree, although by this time he figured he was paying them for nothing, just like Jarvis had told him he had been doing at the mine. Which reminded him to fire Jarvis, the crook, the next morning.

  He checked on General Grant and hurried up the stairs of his hotel, almost cutting his right hand on the splinters he had caused by firing a warning shot at Marshal Richard Blue and the deputies he had sworn in. Once the door to his room opened, Blue the good dog, rushed into his arms, wagging his tail, licking his face.

  “Sorry, Blue,” Dooley told the dog. “Let’s get you outside so you can . . .” His voice trailed off as he saw the note someone had shoved under the door. Reaching down, feeling that knot develop in his gut, he picked up the note and stood. Absently, he walked down the hallway, opened the door peppered with bullet holes, and let Blue run down the stairs to do his business in the alley. Then Dooley struck a match and held it up close to the paper. It was on Office of the Clerk of———County stationery.

  IF YOU WANT TO SEE JULIA ALIVE, YOU WILL SIGN OVER OWNERSHIP TO US. THEN YOU WILL BE PERMITTED TO LEAVE TOWN, WITH OR WITHOUT THE WOMAN.

  BE AT YOUR MINE BY MIDNIGHT TONIGHT.

  OR THE GIRL DIES.

  WE ARE THE SILVER KINGS OF LEADVILLE & WE MEAN BUSINESS.

  He didn’t know what time it was, but he knew it was late. He knew the silver barons in town had not sent this threat. Whoever had done this, whoever had thought of this, was no smart silver king, but a demented fool.

  George Miller.

  Yet Dooley also knew that Miller would kill his wife—murder sweet Julia—if Dooley did not show up. He left the door to the upstairs open, the door to his room open. He left Blue outside sniffing the alley. Dooley ran down the hall, down the stairs, out the front door, and hurried to the livery.

  * * *

  At least the moon was full. Dooley followed the road to his mine, his heart pounding, palms clammy, throat dry. He prayed that he would not be late, that George Miller had not lost complete control of his faculties—that Julia was still alive.

  Even before General Grant had slid to a stop, Dooley had dismounted, somehow keeping his feet as he staggered, found his balance, and ran to the office. The door had been kicked open. Light flittered from a candle on Jarvis’s desk. Dooley stopped at the entrance and looked inside.

  “Miller?” he called out in a whisper. “Then, screaming, his voice bouncing across the empty mining property. “Miller! I’m here, Miller! I’m here!”

  He heard only his echo.

  A sickness entered his stomach, a cold fear that told him midnight had come and gone, and that George Miller had murdered Julia, that Dooley would find her body somewhere. Stepping away from the office, he felt as though he might vomit.

  A voice brought him upright.

  “Over here, Monahan.” It was Miller’s voice. Dooley walked toward the mine entrance.

  “Drop your gun belt, Monahan,” the voice called out when Dooley stood just ten yards from the mine.

  “I didn’t wear a gun,” Dooley said, and held his hands away from his waist. He couldn’t see Miller. Couldn’t see Julia. He could catch the glow of a lantern from inside the mine, but far back. He could hear, though, and felt the hard metallic click of a revolver being cocked.

  “Then come on in,” Miller said, and laughed, “and welcome.”

  “Where’s Julia?” Dooley asked.

  “Why, Monahan, she’s waiting for you. Come. Now.”

  Dooley obeyed.

  When he stepped inside the opening—much larger, a real working mine entrance and not the hidden hole Ol’ Ole Finkle had used—Dooley felt something he figured he had lost count of the number of times he had felt it.

  A revolver barrel pressed against the small of his back.

  “Keep walking, Monahan,” the crazed clerk and dishonest schemer said. “Let’s go see Julia. She’s been waiting for you.”

  Dooley walked. Miller picked up a lantern from a wall hanger as they passed. It felt like ages since Dooley had first entered this mine. He remembered the feeling of complete darkness, and the consistency of the temperature. He recalled how he felt as though the cave went on forever. Then he saw Julia. A torch had been lighted over her head. She was in her nightshirt, hands and feet bound together, hair disheveled—but alive. Her head raised. Her mouth whispered Dooley’s name.

  “Touching,” George Miller said, and shoved Dooley toward her.

  He kept walking, anticipating the bullet in his back, but nothing happened. When he reached Julia, he waited, and George Miller said, “Go on. I want y’all to be together.”

  “I thought you wanted the mine,” Dooley said. “I was supposed to deed it over to you. Remember?”

  “I’m not a fool, Monahan,” George Miller said. “I just wanted you to think I was mad.”

  That’s when Dooley heard the hissing.

  He turned, just as George Miller turned around and ran, the light bouncing off the black rocks, then disappearing. He saw the burning fuse—and he remembered the dynamite that had blown up the general store, along with Harley Boone. Only this time, Dooley understood that he had no time to run and save the day. George Miller had cut that fuse short.

  Julia must have seen it, too, and understood everything. She screamed.

  Dooley threw himself atop the young woman, just as the dynamite detonated. He felt the intense heat, the massive noise that he was certain would rupture his eardrums. He thought he felt rocks pounding against his back, legs, and head. He knew that George Miller had exacted his revenge. He had brought Dooley to the mine he had wanted for all those years. And now George Miller was burying Dooley, and poor Julia, in that mine.

  Forever.

  CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR

  Coughing, bleeding, hurting, and madder than hell, Dooley rose from the rubble. The concussi
on had blown out the torch, but once the dust settled, he could make out Julia’s face. So still. So lovely. Her eyelids fluttered, opened, and her mouth parted.

  Dooley could breathe again.

  Tears welled in her eyes, and Dooley worked on the knots on her wrists. He realized his fingers were raw, bleeding, and his ribs hurt, his head hurt, and he felt blood leaking from multiple wounds. But nothing seemed fatal.

  “Dooley,” Julia said, “we’re going to die here.”

  “No,” he said, “we’re not.”

  “We’ll suffocate.”

  Dooley tried to give her a reassuring smile. He wasn’t sure it was reassuring, and, hell, he wasn’t even certain he smiled, but now that he had her wrists untied and was working on the ropes that secured her ankles, he asked, “What do you see, Julia?”

  She stared at him, confused at first, and finally managed to guess. “Dust. Smoke. You.”

  “It’s after midnight,” Dooley told her. “And the torch isn’t burning anymore.”

  She understood, and began searching. Julia gasped. Dooley got the last knot loosened, and she sat up and hugged him. That hurt, too, but somehow Dooley liked it. As he ran his fingers through her hair, he also looked up.

  A man could breathe here.

  Somehow, he remembered thinking that thought when he had first entered the mine, which then was more of a cave than an actual mine, but a cave filled with silver. Now he saw the moonbeams making their way through the holes in the ceiling. Back when he had first discovered this chamber, it had been daylight. He was happy the moon was full this evening.

  “But,” Julia reminded him, “we can still starve.”

  His head shook. “This is a working mine. It’s Saturday night, early Sunday morning. They’ll be here Monday at six o’clock a.m. for the first shift. They’ll see what happened, and they’ll start moving rock. All we need to do,” he reassured her, “is wait. We can live in here for that long without any worries.”