The Peacemaker’s Vengeance

by Gary D. Svee

  She opened the door and gasped. Sheriff Drinkwalter stood in the light from the cabin, pale as a ghost, his shirt sprayed with blood. She reached out and grabbed the sheriff by the elbow, dragging him into the cabin.

  “Whatever happened to you?” she asked, her eyes seeking the wound that would leak so much blood.

  Drinkwalter shook his head. “Nothing. I’m fine.”

  “Mac, get the sheriff a chair.”

  Mac scrambled to bring his chair from the table. Mary dripped a cloth into rinse water still steaming on the stove, then wiped the sheriff’s face, still seeking the wound.

  Color was coming back to Drinkwalter’s face, and he tried to rise, but Mary held him in place with her hand on his shoulder.

  “Just sit still. We’ll clean up the wound and get a bandage on it.”

  Drinkwalter waved her hands away. “It’s not me, I’m not hurt. I…” he said, shaking his head.

  Drinkwalter didn’t want to tell Mary and Mac that someone had been hiding in the darkness outside the cabin watching the McPhersons. He didn’t want to tell them that the man in the darkness was likely Jack Galt. He didn’t want to frighten them, but he didn’t want them hurt, either.

  “Ma’am, uh, Mary, I was bringing you some balm for your hands.” He fished through his pockets, finding the elixir in his shirt pocket. “I know this isn’t meant for people, but it really works. I use it all the time, and I had this extra, so I’d like you to have it. Put some on now, before you go to bed, and your hands will feel better tomorrow. I know they will.”

  Mary took the balm, nodding.

  “Rub it in, but not so it hurts, just real gentle.”

  The sheriff’s sleight of hand to draw Mary’s attention away from the blood on his shirt didn’t work.

  “What happened out there, Sheriff?” Mary’s voice was tight, insistent.

  “I don’t know. I was walking up the path toward your place, and I stumbled across someone squatted down out there in the bushes. I startled him. He startled me. He took a swing at me, and I … swung back. He ran off.”

  “Do you know who it was?”

  “It was dark. I don’t know for sure.”

  Mac stepped between the two. “It was Jack Galt, wasn’t it?” he whispered.

  The sheriff stared at the ceiling for a moment and then shifted his attention to the boy. “I think so, Mac. I think maybe it was.”

  “He’s coming for me and Ma?”

  “Maybe, Mac. Maybe. But tomorrow we’ll fit your door with a lock. We’ll put on a lock so nobody can get in here if you don’t want them to. You folks just stay close to hand. Don’t go out, one without the other. I’ll go down and roust Galt tonight, see if he was the one, and if he is, I’ll talk to Jim Pratt tomorrow, see what we can do.”

  Drinkwalter looked down at Mary. “Don’t worry about it, Mary. I’m not going to let anyone hurt you.”

  Drinkwalter stepped to the door. “Be sure to lock this now, and keep the curtains drawn.”

  As the sheriff stepped through the door, he could hear Mary’s voice, low and insistent: “Who is Jack Galt, Mac? Tell me everything you know about Jack Galt.”

  “He’s the devil, Ma. Jack Galt is the devil.”

  21

  “No! I damn well will not do that!”

  Jim Pratt, Stillwater County attorney was leaning across his desk both arms thrust forward to support the heat of his anger.

  “Listen…”

  “No, you listen!”

  Pratt’s face was glowing a dark, dull red, and the veins and sinews of his hands stood out as he leaned again across the desk to storm at Drinkwalter.

  “I don’t know what you have against Mr. Galt, but I will not be party to your continued harassment of him. I will count this my lucky day if he does not file suit against you and the county. Any judge, except for that old reprobate that sits on the bench here, would put you in jail for what you’ve done.”

  A growl edged into Drinkwalter’s voice. “That’s what this is about, isn’t it? You wouldn’t give me a restraining order to keep Galt away from Nelly’s, so I went to Judge Smythe. That’s what’s really rattling around in your craw, isn’t it?”

  “Rattling around in my craw, as you so colorfully put it, is your total misapprehension of the law you are sworn to uphold. Rattling around in my craw is the fact that the sheriff of Stillwater County has viciously assaulted a man for no reason whatsoever.”

  “I defended myself.”

  “You defended yourself.” Pratt stood upright, assuming the stance and manner he used for especially recalcitrant witnesses. “And when did this alleged attack take place?”

  “Last night. I told you, last night.”

  “And what were you doing?”

  “I was walking to the McPherson place.”

  “And it was dark?”

  “Yes, very dark.”

  “And what happened?”

  “I stumbled into Galt. He was watching the McPherson home.”

  “And what happened then?”

  “He took a swing at me, so I swung back.”

  “He hit you, then?”

  “No, he didn’t hit me. He just swung at me.”

  “You said it was very dark. How did you know that he swung at you?”

  “I could feel it.”

  “You could feel it. What a remarkable person you are, Sheriff, to be able to feel other people’s movements. How long have you had this gift?”

  “It’s no gift, I—”

  Pratt sneered. “And what did you do then?”

  “I swung back.”

  “And you hit your ‘assailant,’” Pratt said, sarcasm dripping from his voice.

  “Yes. I hit him on the nose.”

  “You said it was very dark. How do you know that you hit him on the nose?”

  “The way it sprayed blood.”

  “Is that what noses do when they are struck?”

  “Yes.”

  “And how do you know that?”

  Drinkwalter’s eyes dropped to the floor. “I’ve seen it before.”

  Pratt’s dripped dripped sarcasm. “So you are in the habit of driving your fist through the cartilage and bone of another man’s nose?”

  Drinkwalter jerked to his feet, words rumbling ugly from his throat. “That’s the way it was. I’m not like that anymore.”

  “You were ‘like that’ last night, weren’t you, Sheriff?”

  “The son of a bitch attacked me.”

  “You bumped into a man in the dark. You ‘felt’ him swing at you, so you broke his nose. You are one hell of a peacemaker, Sheriff. I’d best watch out that I don’t bump into you on the street.”

  Drinkwalter gritted his teeth, cutting off the words he wanted so badly to say.

  “So you bumped into somebody in the dark, and you hit him, you think, on the nose, and you have twisted this around to some bogus charge that Jack Galt was prowling around the widow McPherson’s place.”

  “I know it was Galt. I went to his place last night, and he was nursing a broken nose. So I know he was outside that cabin last night. I know what he was doing, and if you were more county attorney and less chairman of the commerce committee, you would know that, too.”

  Pratt raised both fists and crashed them against the top of his desk, a pencil lying near the edge skittering off to the floor.

  “You will keep a civil tongue in your head when you are talking to me, Sheriff!”

  The county attorney drew a deep breath, willing himself to bring his temper under control. “And what did Galt say when you asked him about his injury?”

  “He said he fell out of bed.”

  “Is it not more likely that he fell out of bed than that he was sitting in the dark outside a woman’s cabin and you happened to stumble on him, and you happened to feel him swing at you and you happened to hit him on the nose on a night so dark that you couldn’t even identify the man?”

  “No court in the world would pay any attention t
o your ranting, Sheriff. And I see no reason why I should. But I’ll tell you this. You leave that man alone. I will not have you harassing him. Now, run off to Judge Smythe and get another one of his restraining orders that won’t stand up in a court of law.”

  “Get the hell out of my office. You can be sure that I will do my damnedest to get you booted out of office at the next election, or before, if I can find any reason at all. Do I make myself clear?”

  The sheriff’s eyes squinted almost shut. “Crystal clear. You know this: Doing your ‘damnedest’ doesn’t amount to a puff of dust to me or anyone else in this town.”

  “GET OUT! Get out, you, you, you …”

  Drinkwalter stepped through the door, closing it on Pratt’s ranting. He tried to smile at Pratt’s secretary, but his anger drove the smile away. Liz stared wide-eyed as the sheriff stomped out of the office, heels ringing on the granite floor of the courthouse proper.

  Mary McPherson’s back stiffened at the knock at the door, and Mac’s eyes traveled to the corner by the front door where his rifle was propped.

  “Won’t be him, Ma. I’ll get it.”

  “Block the door with your foot, Mac. The way I showed you.”

  Mac nodded and stepped to the door. The house key was in the lock, and Mac turned it. Click! The sound grated on Mac’s ears, and the boy winced. He turned the latch and opened the door, bracing it with his foot.

  Sheriff Frank Drinkwalter was standing on the step, an official-looking envelope in one hand and a gunny-sack in the other. A four-foot length of two-by-four extending from the sack’s opening.

  “Hey, Mac. Can I come in for a minute?”

  Mac nodded and opened the door. The sheriff stepped through.

  “I come bearing gifts,” the sheriff said, but his smile seemed strained.

  “First, we have a restraining order from Judge Smythe forbidding Jack Galt from coming within a quarter mile of your place. That will stop him from crossing the Absarokee road to the west of his place. It will ban him from most of Eagles Nest. I’ve talked to Bert, and he’s promised to swing past here every night just to make sure everything’s all right.”

  “Next from my bag of gifts …” The sheriff pulled a couple of steel straps from the sack. They were bent in the shape of a U, but with one side longer than the other. Holes had been drilled through that side.

  “See, Mac, you just mount these in the two-by-fours on either side of the door. I’ve got some lag bolts in the sack, and a wrench in case you don’t have one. Then you drop the two-by-four in, and it’s Katy bar the door.”

  The sheriff tried to smile, but again the smile died.

  “Look, I don’t want to scare you, but I don’t want anything to happen to you, either. I don’t think he’ll try anything, not with Bert around and the restraining order, so this is just a little extra. Just something so you’ll sleep a little better … and so I’ll sleep better, too.”

  “You two all right with this?”

  Mary and Mac nodded.

  “Now, Mac, if you could spare me a little time?”

  Mac’s eyes jerked to his mother. She nodded. “I’ll be fine. I don’t think that Jack Galt poses much of a danger in the daytime.”

  The two stepped out into a glorious morning. A little breeze whispered through the trees, drying the dew that held still to the shadows. Drinkwalter walked north on the trail to the railroad, eyes down, studying the grass.

  “See there, where it looks like a deer bed in the grass?”

  Mac nodded. That must have been where he was sitting, close enough to the trail so he could find his way out in the dark.

  “Here’s where we scuffled.” The sheriff was pointing at broken grass and chafed soil. “When I hit him, he flew off there.”

  Drinkwalter stepped off the path toward a little copse of cottonwoods. “Here, Mac. See this?”

  Mac squatted by the sheriff. There was a fine spray of brown on some of the grass, and here and there bright red where the blood was kept cool and moist by the dew.

  “And there, where the branches are broken on those saplings. Do you see that, Mac?”

  Mac nodded.

  “Now, get this all straight in your mind. Look at it so you remember exactly how it looks. After I hit him, he fell back, roughly southwest. And where did he hit that copse of trees?”

  “Just south of that rosebush.”

  “Good. Get it all in perspective. You might have to back me up in court. Jim Pratt’s got a burr under his saddle. Says I’m picking on one of his precious businessmen. Fact is that I stepped into a squabble between him and Judge Smythe. Neither one has much use for the other.”

  “Now, you get into court, they’ll try to twist everything you say, trip you up any way they can so they can use you to their own advantage. You be sure you understand how this happened, Mac. Make sure that you’ve got it straight in your mind.”

  Mac nodded again.

  “Okay, see here where he fell, the blood? Then he got up and started to run. He had to run toward his place. He was there when I got there last night, nursing his broken nose and concocting that cock-and-bull story about falling out of bed.”

  “So we know basically which way he was running, Mac, almost due east. We should be able to find his tracks and a little blood here and there if we look really close. Places where there’s still dew, we should be able to see his tracks in the grass. But where the sun is on it, it won’t be so easy. So watch for broken twigs and leaves torn from trees.”

  “There,” Mac said, pointing to a sunflower snapped off at the base.

  “Good, and see this speck of blood? We’re on to him.”

  The two followed the trail then, picking up clues as they went. Each time the sheriff stopped, he asked Mac to memorize this clue or that. About two-hundred yards from the smithy, their quarry had stumbled over a log. After Big Jim told them about Galt, Mac had occasionally hidden behind that log, watching the black shape of Jack Galt silhouetted against the red glow of the foundry. There was more blood there, Galt apparently having reinjured his nose in the fall.

  And then they were at the smithy. The door was open and a shaft of light stabbed into the darkness there. But it died, dust motes dancing out its death in the cave-like darkness of that building. Inside, Mac could feel bodies moving in the darkness, but he could not see them.

  And then something darker even than the darkness of the smith stepped between them and the forge, black, absolute light-killing black, against the red glow of the forge, and Mac felt a shiver run down his neck.

  The shadow said nothing, motionless as a statue forged in the heat of the fire.

  Sheriff Drinkwalter stepped into the shaft of light, casting his own shadow on the darkness inside.

  “Another restraining order, Galt.”

  “Din’t do nudding,” Galt said through his broken nose.

  “You’re not to go within a quarter mile of the McPherson cabin. That means you can’t cross this street. Downtown, you can go to the bank, the store and Black Jack Jim’s bar. That’s it. Everything else is out of bounds.”

  “You cad do dis to me. I got my rights.”

  “Step out here, Galt. Got somebody I want you to meet.”

  Galt shuffled, blinking toward daylight. “This is Jack Galt, Mac. You see him. You hear him. You suspect he’s anywhere near you, you get me or Bert, and we’ll toss him in jail.”

  The sheriff leaned toward Galt. “It stops here, Jack Galt. It stops here.”

  22

  “He hissed.” The words leaked into the darkness of the McPherson shack.

  “Mac?” The word came fuzzy, from the edge of sleep, and Mac’s eyes squinted shut. He hadn’t meant for his mother to hear. He didn’t want her to know.

  “Mac?”

  “Yeah, Ma.”

  “What were you talking about?”

  “Nothing.”

  His mother’s voice came clearer, now, concern chasing sleep from her brain.

  “Mac, what
’s bothering you?”

  Mac lay wide-eyed in the dark staring at the ceiling, dark shadow on light. “It was nothing, Ma. I must have been dreaming.”

  “Tell me, Mac.”

  Only the silence spoke.

  “Mac, we don’t have any secrets. Remember?”

  Mac lay in the dark, trying to put words to his fear. “It’s Galt, Ma. The sheriff took me down to Galt’s smithy today to serve the restraining order … so he wouldn’t hide around our cabin at night.

  “He hissed, Ma, like all those words and the court order and sheriff didn’t mean anything to him. All the time he was looking at me. His nose was broken and both his eyes were black. He looked like a skull, Ma, with a snake’s flat dead eyes.

  “He said he was going to see a lot more of me. I think he will do whatever he wants to. I don’t think anyone can stop him. I don’t think he’s human, Ma.”

  The boy’s words crept into the room. “He was the one I saw standing on our step the other night, Ma. It was him. I could tell even with the broken nose. It wasn’t a dream, Ma.”

  After what seemed forever, his mother spoke. “Mac, we have the sheriff and a barred door. Mostly, we have each other. I won’t let him hurt you, Mac.”

  “I won’t let him hurt you, either, Ma—not if I can help it.”

  “Good, now you go to sleep. We’ll have some busy days ahead of us if we’re going to get that new home built for Mr. Drinkwalter and his bride.”

  “G’night, Ma.”

  “Good night, Mac.”

  Mary lay awake, now, staring at the ceiling. Danger was no stranger to the river bottom. Fate could set a Rocky Mountain fever–bearing tick on Mac or her. They probably wouldn’t even notice the bite until the sickness came upon them.

  In August, rattlesnakes fled the dry hills for the river. They were hard to see in the grasses along the Yellowstone, and sometimes when they buzzed, she didn’t know if they were poised six inches from her ankle or a safe yard away.