Gruen toyed with the wooden peg fastener on his homespun blouse. Turning, he addressed the same question to Clayt.
“Father had patience enough to put this settlement together. He would have had patience enough to do the necessary to keep it together.”
Henry Deyer, standing with his work-hardened hands braced on the edge of the lectern, nodded in agreement.
Jakob did not expect support for precipitous action from the Adams family, but they were the minority. With the vision of his wife dead in his arms, he was no longer a part of the minority urging restraint. He wanted retribution soon—tonight if possible. He didn’t care to be reminded still again that if they took the law into their own hands, there would be no end to their troubles and, inevitably, it would mean the end of Red Creek as soon as Oakley and whoever he answered to could execute another attack.
“So, Henry,” Jakob continued, “there’s some differences here and we have always settled those by a vote with the majority’s wish being respected.”
Henry Deyer straighted and regarded the people he had been instrumental in recruiting to form the settlement. Under his unblinking scrutiny they grew uncomfortable.
“So, Jakob,” he said, deliberately, “am I to understand that you all want to bring this situation to a head and vote on it tonight?”
“We do, Henry.”
“And what we’ll be voting on is the immediate hanging of Jake Harmer, his being punished by order of a kangaroo court?”
The German silversmith shook his head. “We are not a mob, a kangaroo court, Henry. We don’t want to railroad the man. He’s guilty by his own mouth.” He turned to Clayt. “The man as much as confessed to Clayt. So did Oakley. And Tanner will bear witness too—before God. No injustice will be done here, Henry....“A murmur of agreement ran through the hall.
“We’ve had weeks of the man’s rotten-hearted language and threats. He tried to kill Clayt and Oss. He would have killed any of us who got in his way if he’d blasted his way free—” He spread his arms in supplication. “Do we need any more cause? We pray to a just God. It is written, ’Eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot.’”
Henry Deyer, who conducted the sabbath services, lowered his head. A thin smile softened his stern face. The words had first been written by Hammurabi, two thousand years before Christ.
“It is also written, Jakob, my friend, from the lips of our Savior, that we ’resist not evil: but whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also....’” As he spoke the words from the Sermon on the Mount, Henry recalled how long he had struggled to determine their true meaning—that nothing was said of cowardice, that peace could be won only by having the courage to turn from violence and by dedicating a life to the observance of God’s Laws.
Here and there in the hall, he could hear some whispered grumbling, dissent over the apparent contradictions in the Scriptures. He understood it well. Wagging a finger at Jakob Gruen, he continued, ”’An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth is the law of battle: a sword for a sword, a bullet for a bullet, a life for a life—and never will there be a real victor.” He shook his head sadly. “How well Asa and I—and thousands of our comrades in arms—learned that.”
Jakob raised a fist and shook it. “Is it God’s Law that we should turn the other cheek to that mad man locked up over there, that we should turn him over to man’s law, probably to be set free?” The words came in a near shout.
Henry Deyer, who so recently and so tragically had become the reluctant patriarch of the settlement, lifted both hands in a staying gesture.
“Some things are beyond my wisdom, Jakob, but I understand as deeply as any of you, the pain in your hearts. What I am asking for is the courage to honor a promise to a man, which I also take to be a law blessed by God.”
Jakob remained silent with his fist still clenched. After a moment, he lowered it and turned questioning eyes to the others.
Clayt rose slowly. “But for the grace of God, I’d be lying in the newest grave across the creek. You know how I’ll vote. You know how Henry and Oss will vote, how my family will vote.” He rested a hand on his mother’s shoulder. “I have not asked to speak “
“Speak up,” Henry said. “Speak up.”
“I have not asked to speak because I know the outcome of your vote. The outcome will be judgment by our law and I’m bound by it.” He turned to face the others. “I know what Henry can do to get the confession, the kind we need to get Harmer to the law. I also know that, confession or not, there is a chance that he will not be convicted, especially if it comes to word against word, his against ours. If we judge him guilty and execute him ourselves, Oakley will hire another Harmer to do his dirty work and we won’t know a peaceful hour for the rest of our lives here. In this country—and it’s starting now—power is measured by the size of the herds going to the railroad. That is another law—not written down—but a law just the same.” He turned back to the lectern. “I’m asking this for you, Henry—and for all of us—do you think you can wring a confession on paper out of Jake Harmer?”
“As God is my witness, Clayt, I will! I’ll get one, and it will be legally witnessed in Las Vegas. I just need some more time.”
Turning back to the others, Clayt said, “To honor another promise, will you give Henry the time...?”
“And the help,” Henry interjected.
“The time and the help,” Clayt repeated, “to get the job done?”
There was a moment of hesitation, then a murmur of agreement started, punctuated by a somewhat reluctant showing of hands.
The meeting ran for another hour as Henry Deyer outlined his plan.
“The reason I know this will work,” he explained, “is because we found that nothing tears a prisoner down faster than holding out hope for his life, then snatching it away. Usually you don’t have to do it more than once. This Harmer fellow is tough, but I think I see signs of cracking. I’m not only going to need your help but your patience, too.” Indicating Nelda, he said, “And you’re going to have to play the hardest part, one you’re not going to like at all, but it’s got to be done. There’s no way Harmer can get out of that storage shed without help, and you’re going to have to pretend to give it to him, Nelda, because some of the women have had enough.”
When he had finished a detailed explanation of how the plan was to work, Kate turned to Nelda and whispered, “Do you think you can do it?” Nelda drew in a deep breath and nodded.
“I’ll do it. How good, I don’t know. But I’ll try.“
“If you don’t want to,” Kate said, “if Clayt will let me, I’ll do it.”
Nelda hugged her. “You’ve been through enough, Kate. It’s my place and I’ll do it.”
Chapter Fourteen
Shortly before noon the following day, Buck Tanner reappeared.
“I cain’t stay. I gotta make up time. But two things ya oughta know. Them new owners is comin’ in fur a meetin’ with Oakley: They’ll be on tomorra’s stage. I’m ridin’ in now with a poke full of sweet money to begin hirin’ new hands. Oakley’s hotter than a stirred up hornet. He wants me to git at least six new hands, tough ones, he says, who knows cows and guns equal—and who likes money better than whiskey.”
Clayt managed a grin. “You may be in town for a while!” Tanner gave Clayt and Henry a knowing smile. “I plan on havin’ me quite a time fillin’ that order. They ain’t many’s gonna do.”
He swung into the saddle with the ease of a younger man.
“I got one more thing. Y’oughta git this law business settled real soon. T.K.’s so mad at ya both gittin’ kilt that he’s even bein’ nice to me!” He reined his horse toward the dam and added, “He figgers with you two dead and buried, he’s in the clear. He’s gittin’ set to worry you folks a lot more.”
The men who had gathered around Henry and Clayt watched until Buck Tanner reached the rim and waved. Then they went back to the meeting house to complete the plans that would begi
n late in the afternoon.
An hour before sundown angry voices, men’s and women’s, brought Harmer off the bunk to peer from the little window. A group of settlers, apparently wrangling among themselves, were getting things off their chests a few yards away.
Oss was carrying a hangman’s noose at the end of a coil of heavy halter rope. When Nelda tried to restrain him, he pulled away. “I don’t care about waiting for the law.” He pointed to the strong house. “That mad dog in there tried to drive a spike club into our heads and shoot his way out.” Pointing toward the trail, he continued in an agitated voice, “There’s no marshall in Vegas, and God only knows when there will be one. We’re not waiting. If you don’t want to watch a killer die, then go back to your houses.”
Harmer saw Clayton pushing his way into the angry gathering. When he took his sister’s arm she jerked it away.
“I don’t care! You made a promise to father and you’re just as low as that man if you break it.”
Clayt took her by the shoulders. “You were there when we voted. That is our law and the majority voted to hang the man in the morning.”
A sudden cry of agreement went up from the dozen or so gathered. It seemed to Harmer that the girl and only three or four others were for waiting until he could be taken to the law. In the midst of the argument, Henry Deyer appeared.
“Alright now. I don’t want to take the law into my hands either, but we have no choice. Our law says we act by majority. You’ve had your say. In the morning we’ll do the necessary. Get on back to fixing your suppers. It’ll be over with and he’ll be buried up top with his cronies by sunrise.”
Harmer watched the crowd disperse. The girl was still arguing with Clayton and Oss as they walked away. She was obviously very upset by the decision. He was about to leave the window when he saw the older man take the hanging rope from Oss.
Moving deliberately, he examined the noose and measured off several arm spans of rope as they walked to an old sycamore about twenty yards away. They stopped beneath a stout limb some ten to twelve feet above the ground. Deyer studied it briefly then tossed the free end over it and secured it to a smaller limb lower down.
Anxiety ran to the edge of fear as Harmer watched Clayt test the noose then slip it around his neck. Holding with both hands to keep it from choking him, he signaled them to pull. When his feet hit the ground he motioned for them to pull it higher. Jerking and writhing, he struggled to touch, then signaled his approval. On the ground again, they freed him and secured the rope in place.
As he watched with morbid fascination, Harmer saw two men approaching pulling a heavy hand cart. On it was a newly nailed together, rough box coffin. Suddenly he caught a vision of himself, hands and feet trussed, swinging by the neck until he was blue in the face, his tongue protruding, dripping saliva, and his body contorting in death throes. The older man’s words came back now, whispering through his mind. They were not a threat, just a cold, quiet promise: “Alright, Harmer, we’ll take you at your word. I’ll make you a promise. A week from today you’ll be begging us to hand you over to the law.”
Again, as he stared at the dangling rope, already measured to his neck, and the ample coffin ready to receive his stinking body, Harmer felt a change, felt himself slip from anxiety and the bravado of hollow threats to the first real fear he had known.
Grasping the bars, he jammed his face against them and screamed, “Alright! I’ll tell ya what really happened! The God’s honest truth! I’ll tell ya who done it, who put me up to it. I swear to God it’s the truth. It weren’t my doin’!”
Clayt turned when he heard him. He listened for a moment then walked a few yards closer.
“You want the God’s honest truth, Jake? I’ll tell it to you. We know what happened. We know what Oakley told you to do and why, and we know why you did it!” He paused briefly. Then, in a chilling, matter of fact, voice, he added, “Tomorrow morning, Jake, you can tell the God’s honest truth to the devil!”
When Clayt rejoined the others and they started to leave, Harmer remained silent. For a time he clung to the bars, then let them slip from his hands as he crumpled on the bunk.
Clayt and Oss found him lying helpless, face down when they brought the food. He made no sign that he heard them enter and leave. He was lost in a hell, mostly of his own making, not caring now what happened.
When he finally stirred and found the food it was cold and he had no stomach for it. Standing on the foot of the bunk, he peered through the window again. Even in the moonless night he could make out the ragged silhouette of the old sycamore tree and the limb with the rope hanging from it. Several yards away he could see the darker shape of the work cart and the coffin. In the distance a lantern bobbed along, carried by someone on an after-dark errand.
It caused an eerie feeling, for it reminded him of those other lanterns swinging crazily as they were carried out of their homes by panicked settlers minutes after he and his two gunslingers had blown the dam. He remembered what easy targets they had made, and the trails of flame as they were thrown into the pond or dashed to the ground by those who fell with them to scream for help...or to die.
He remembered other screams, those of innocent women and children, murdered in cold blood when he had ridden through Lawrence, Kansas, with Quantrill and his raiders eight years earlier. Somehow he had managed to block out the vision, if not the memory of them. But now, unaccountably, he could hear them again harking back through the years—and even clearer, through the last weeks since he, with perverted glee, had followed Oakley’s order to the letter...and then some.
As he stood, still older memories assailed him, going back to his childhood in West Virginia, the pain of punishment and the fear of more, that he had blocked out since his tenth year, when his drunken father had beaten him near to death for stealing a gallon jug of raw White Mule and selling it to a hunter for five cents and a rusty, bone-handled skinning knife with a broken point. But this was a new fear. It parched his mouth, blurred his eyes, and knotted his guts. After he had put that first terror behind him he swore he would never know fear again. And he proved it to himself and to those he rode with during the war—always up at the head of the column, just behind Bloody Bill Anderson, who tied scalps to his bridle reins, and Bill Todd, whose rage fed on blood.
For a time he paced the ten-foot-square room like a caged animal. It was easy to tell yourself you weren’t afraid to die when you were sure you never would. You didn’t say it. You just proved it. You proved it most when you risked it most.
Punching a fist into his palm, he said, half aloud, “By God, I’ll prove it again! When they come fur me in the mornin’, I’ll prove it again. I’ll kill at least one of ’em with my bare hands, but I swear to God they’ll never hang me to die slow. They’ll have to shoot me first. If I’m gonna go, that’s how I’m gonna go. Not like some yella-bellied horse thief!”
Harmer did not know how long he’d been trying to stifle his fear with rage when suddenly something struck one of the iron grill bars in the little window and fell to the floor at his feet.
Startled, he picked it up and discovered that someone had thrown a smooth pebble through the window. Cautiously, he climbed up on the foot of the bunk and peered out. Suspecting some sort of trap, he remained silent. Then, as he was about to leave the window, he heard a female voice calling his name softly. The voice called several times more before he decided to answer.
“Who is it? What d’ya want?” he answered in a hoarse whisper.
“Never mind. Just listen to me, Harmer. They’re going to hang you in the morning. They’re not going to wait for the law.” There was a pause. “Do you hear me?”
“I hear ya.”
“Some of us have had enough. We want you out of here. You can’t go back to the Gavilan. Oakley’s going to put all of the blame on you. He thinks you’re dead. If you try to go back he’ll kill you for sure, to keep your mouth shut.”
Suddenly he realized that if he could not go back to the
Gavilan there would be no way he could square up with the Red Creekers. He had counted on T.K.’s anger to finish the job. Desperate now, he pressed his face to the bars.
“I swear to God, I told ya the truth. It was Oakley’s idea. He figgered the whole thing out.”
“It doesn’t make any difference now,” the voice replied. “You’ve admitted that you did it and so has he. We know that. But we want you out of Red Creek, now—tonight. If you’re smart, you’ll get out of the territory. It’s the only chance you’ve got!”
“I can’t go anywheres ’til I git out of this stinkin’ box,” he replied.
“I know that, Harmer. Now listen—I’ve got a pinch bar here. I’m going to push it through to you. Pry up a couple of floor planks. There’s room under there for you to crawl. Crawl to the right, away from the houses, then head for the big willow clump downstream past the last house. There’s a horse waiting for you there. Cross the creek down there, then ride back up the other side to the trail. Do it right or you’re dead, Harmer. We know Oakley put you up to it. The law will take care of him when the time comes. We just want you out of here. We don’t want any more taking of life. Do you understand?”
“Gimme the bar!” Harmer whispered eagerly. “I’ll go! You’ll never see me agin!”
A moment later the pinch bar scraped against the metal grill. He snatched it, jumped down, dropped to the floor, and ran his hands over the planks.
Unable to believe that it was happening, he forced the flattened end between two of the lengths of rough flooring and began prying. As he put more pressure on the pinch bar the old plank began to bow and crack.
On the side of the house where they could not be seen, Clayt waited with a lantern. Oss had a hammer. Both were kneeling beside the open crawl space.
Nelda joined them. “He’s got it,” she whispered.
Clayt gave her neck an affectionate squeeze. “You did a fine job.”
“I hated it!” she replied. “Anything to do with that man makes me feel dirty!”
Judgment at Red Creek Page 12
