Of Grave Concern

by Max McCoy

  “Really, you must come with me.”

  I shook my head in disbelief. “Or what?”

  “Face the consequences.”

  “C’est le bo’del,” I declared. What a mess. “You force me to summon the law.”

  “I am the law,” he said. “My name is Michael Sutton, and I am the Ford County Attorney. I promise you a fair hearing and an impartial examination. Justice demands nothing less.”

  I stared at him with eyes wide.

  “You mistake me for someone else.”

  I was attempting to summon indignation.

  “I think not,” he sniffed. “You are Kate Bender.”

  I laughed, with genuine surprise.

  “You joke,” I said.

  He reached into his pocket and produced a nickel-plated revolver with a four-inch barrel. I stopped laughing. I dislike guns, especially when they are pointed in my direction.

  “I have here a warrant for your arrest on eleven counts of murder, Miss Bender,” Sutton said. “Mackie, the telegraph man, told me he thought it was you, on account of your appearance.”

  “Truly, this is absurd.”

  With his free hand, he retrieved a yellowed and much-folded sheet of paper and shook it open.

  “This is a proclamation issued by Governor Osborn,” he said. “It offers a five-hundred-dollar reward for the apprehension and delivery to the sheriff of Labette County of any member of the Bender family.”

  “Where is Labette County?”

  “You know where Labette County is, Miss Bender. You lived there.”

  He was right. I did know where it was, but only because I read everything I get my hands on, and I remembered newspaper accounts of the Bender horror well. Labette County was three hundred miles due east, above the Indian Nations in southeastern Kansas.

  “You think I am she of the murderous family?”

  His eyes darted to the paper, then back at me.

  “‘Kate Bender is about five feet six inches in height, slender and buxom, rather bold in appearance, walks proudly with head held high, and speaks English with only a trace of a German accent. She is twenty-four years of age.’”

  “I am somewhat older than that.”

  “The warrant was issued four years ago.”

  “I don’t speak German.”

  “You’ve been speaking something foreign,” he said.

  “Mon Dieu,” I said. “That’s French for ‘my God.’”

  The barrel of the revolver drifted.

  “Do be careful,” I said.

  Another glance at the paper.

  “‘Her eyes are hazel, flashing and alert, and her head is wreathed in auburn hair, which appears coppery in the shadow and flares red-gold in sunlight. She dresses oddly, her preferred color is black, and she may call herself professor and be engaged as a Spiritualist or public medium. Beautiful and devious, she is a master manipulator of men.’”

  “You truly think I am one of the Bloody Benders?”

  “Remove your spectacles, please.”

  I took off the smoke-colored glasses.

  “I’ve never seen a more perfect description.”

  “‘Beautiful and devious’ aren’t descriptions. They’re judgments.”

  “I heard that drover call you ‘Katie.’”

  “He’s drunk. He’s calling every woman ‘Katie.’”

  “What’s your name?”

  “Does that description include a raven?”

  “What’s your line of work?”

  There was a handful of travelers on the platform. Seeing the gun and overhearing the conversation, they had cleared a neat circle around us. I managed a bright smile for them.

  “I am Ophelia Wylde,” I said with a flourish. “I am a spirit sensitive on my way to an engagement in Colorado. Let us go somewhere we can talk and reason this out. I promise to be a good and obedient female while we do. Please put that pistol away before you hurt someone.”

  Sutton shook his head.

  “Could you kindly lower the barrel, then?”

  He relented.

  “Thank you,” I said.

  “Do you have other effects aboard the train?”

  “I travel light,” I said.

  “Let’s go.”

  “Where?”

  “How do you say ‘jail’ in French?”

  “I don’t know. I only use it to curse.”

  “In whatever language, you’re headed for a cell.”

  “Why am I not surprised,” I said, and sighed. “The thing that scares men the most about an independent woman is her freedom. It is the first thing they want to take away.”

  “No more talk. The city jail is just to the south, beyond the tracks. I’ll follow you.”

  “Say, do you know anything about a murdered—”

  “Get walking!”

  As Sutton urged me through the muddy streets toward the jail, I could hear the conductor calling out, “All aboard!” His announcement was followed by the hissing and chugging of the locomotive as it began to pull, with increasing speed, the line of faded yellow cars to the West.

  3

  The Dodge City Jail was a two-story enterprise, with the city clerk and police court on the top floor and the lockup below. The jail was made not of stone or brick but of wood, although any prairie wolf would have a hard time blowing this house down. Heavy two-by-sixes were jammed together and held by iron spikes, with the occasional narrow peephole. The walls were thick enough to keep rowdy cowboys inside, and, it occurred to me, to provide a refuge in case of Indian attack. The peepholes were really gun ports.

  “What’s this?” the jailer asked when Sutton marched me up the stairs to the offices.

  “This woman is my prisoner, Tom,” Sutton said. “Lend me a cell.”

  “Lower that piece, would you? You’re so nervous you’re making me twitchy.”

  The jailer was a youngster, barely twenty, but obviously unafraid of the older man. He had unruly blond hair, hands and feet that seemed two sizes too big for his body, and a downy beard. Keeping his seat at the desk near the door, he arched his back and scratched the side of his neck in a casual manner. His well-worn boots were propped up on the desk, and I noted specks of red paint on the toes.

  “Don’t know about that, Mr. Sutton,” he said. “Marshal Deger ain’t going to like it, you using one of his cells. Shouldn’t you be taking her to the county jail? That’s your jury-diction.”

  “Tom, my jurisdiction is the entire Ford County,” Sutton said, with condescension as thick as phlegm. “I wasn’t going to be seen walking a woman at gunpoint across town. It wouldn’t appear chivalrous.”

  “Or brave,” Tom the Jailer said dryly.

  I smiled.

  “Really, Mr. Sutton, holster that piece.”

  Thankfully, Sutton returned the pistol to his pocket.

  “What’s the charge?”

  Tom had taken the fixings from his shirt pocket and was rolling a cigarette.

  “Murder.”

  “That a fact?” The jailer licked the twisted ends of his creation. Then he drew a match across the rough floor and lit the cigarette. He puffed, then exhaled dramatically while pondering this new bit of information. “She kill anybody I know?”

  “I’m not going to try this case for you, Tom,” Sutton said. “But I can assure you, she’s a cold-blooded killer who has sent more men to the eternal rest than any gunslinger who’s ever walked these streets.”

  “She don’t look like a killer.”

  “I certainly have not killed anyone,” I said.

  The jailer smiled.

  “I like the way you talk,” Tom said. “Say something else.”

  “Everyone talks this way back home in Memphis.”

  “It’s like you’re singing the words.”

  “This is a case of mistaken identity,” I said. “My name is Ophelia Wylde, and I was en route to Colorado when your Mr. Sutton and his revolver got between me and my train.”

  “Enough
!” Sutton said. “Place her in a jail cell as directed. I will return later with the paperwork necessary to send her to Labette County.”

  As far as I knew, habeas corpus was still the law of the land, even here at the edge of the world. But I could see there was no use arguing with this Sutton character.

  “What are you waiting for?”

  The jailer shrugged.

  “All righty,” he said. “But you’ll have to explain it to the marshal.”

  Rising from the chair, Tom grabbed a ring of brass keys, which hung from a peg above the desk. Sutton stormed out of the door and I could hear his shoes slapping on the wooden stairs.

  “Ma’am, I’m afraid you’re in my custody,” Tom said.

  “I understand.”

  “Now I have to ask, since I ain’t about to search you—on your honor, are you armed with anything besides that birdcage?”

  “Only my wit,” I said.

  “You’ll have to leave your things up here.”

  “Even my bird? Poor Eddie is already in a cage.”

  “Well . . .”

  “The poor thing is scared to death. And he makes an awful racket without me.”

  Tom relented. He led me down the stairs to the jail, where he unlocked a heavy door of six-by-eights. Then he grasped an iron ring and threw his weight backward. The door swung open on iron hinges, which screeched like a pair of banshees.

  The interior was dark and cool. Slanted shafts of sunlight from the peepholes pierced the gloom here and there, revealing patches of dirt floor. There was a bull pen up front, and a row of cells across the back. Tom led me to the cleanest of the cells, unlocked the iron latticework door, and held it while I stepped inside.

  The cell was about eight by twelve feet. It had straw on the floor and a bunk, with a rope mattress, against the side. The peephole offered a sliver of the view of the trail leading south out of town.

  “Sorry for the accommodations, but we don’t get many ladies in here,” Tom said. The end of his cigarette glowed in the dark. “A few females, but no ladies. Have you had lunch?”

  “I don’t have much of an appetite, I’m afraid.”

  “I’ll bring you something anyway,” he said. “The lunches are the leftovers from the Dodge House, and they are a cut above.”

  He walked over to a coal oil lamp that swung from the ceiling over the bull pen. He raised the globe with one hand and reached for his matches with the other.

  “It gets mighty dark in here,” Tom said. He struck a match and touched it to the wick. “Especially when you’re alone.”

  “Thanks,” I said.

  “All righty,” he said. “If you need anything, just holler real loud.”

  “Thank you, Tom.”

  He started to the door.

  “Oh, there is one thing. . . . Who is Mike McGlue?”

  He grinned.

  “You saw the sign on the depot.”

  “Your handiwork?”

  “No, ma’am,” he said, and laughed. “Old Mike did that all by himself.”

  Then he was gone, locking the heavy door behind him.

  I sat alone in the cell, listening to the beating of my heart.

  4

  You have a lot of time to think in jail.

  I took Eddie out of his cage and allowed him to perch on my shoulder. There was no need for both of us to feel locked up. While I sat on my bunk and fed Eddie some crusts of bread from the lunch I did not want, I pondered my predicament. I was feeling sorry for myself and not inclined to think rationally about my situation, but it would have been disaster to give in to melancholy. So I forced myself to admit that I had been in worse circumstances. I smiled when I recalled the time I had nearly died of malaria after wading through a mosquito-infested swamp in search of the Ghost Orchid, or when I landed in a nest of copperheads after falling through the rotted floor of a haunted cabin in the Ozarks. Nothing bad was immediately going to happen to me, safe in my cell. I had food and water, and there was Eddie to keep me company.

  What led me here? I asked myself.

  What hadn’t was the answer.

  The murderous work of the Bloody Benders was discovered four years before I was compelled at gunpoint to become a guest of the Dodge City Jail. The Bender saga had bled across the front pages of every newspaper in America. I had devoured every story, because Kate Bender was in a similar line of work to mine, at least up until the time she took up killing as a profession.

  The Benders were an ostensible family of four who came to southeastern Kansas to stake a claim on some of the land that was up for grabs after the Osage Indians were removed by the government. On a desolate spot on the Osage Mission Trail, they built a shack and called it the Wayside Inn, offering hot meals and rest to travelers.

  Old man Bender was around sixty and didn’t speak much, and when he did, it was in guttural German. The old woman was about fifty and pretended not to understand English. Both were unpleasant and feared by their neighbors. The son, John, was considered a simpleton and given to fits of maniacal laughing.

  Young Kate, however, was different.

  She spoke English perfectly, or almost so, with a trace of what most took to be a German accent. She was smart and charming and attended Sunday school with her feeble-minded brother. Declaring an ability to communicate with the spirits and through them to render magnetic healings, she advertised her services in local newspapers and promised relief from all maladies. She claimed to restore eyesight to the blind and hearing to the deaf. In lectures she promoted free love, denied the power of death, and demonstrated commune with the spirits by some modest humbug—table tilting, raps and taps, magic slates.

  Kate also conducted séances at the family’s Wayside Inn, where she was particularly popular with the male guests. In addition to meals and lodging, the concern also sold groceries and supplies, which were stored in back. This back third of the cabin was divided from the rest by a canvas hung from a rope, a common enough device on the frontier, and visitors were asked to sit at the table with their backs against the cloth. The backs of their heads made a dimple in the canvas, which provided a handy target.

  The Bender men would swing a six-pound hammer into the proffered skulls, it was reported, while Katie would delight in slitting their throats. I don’t know how the papers knew this, because there wasn’t anybody left talking who actually saw any of the murders. Such a division of labor is a logical guess, I suppose, but maybe it was Katie who bashed them in the head.

  Afterward, the bodies were thrown down a trapdoor and they tumbled into a bloody slab in the cellar beneath the shack. Later, they would drag the bodies out back and plant them in the apple orchard.

  The motive was money, the newspapers reported.

  Some of the travelers carried thousands of dollars in gold, the papers said, intent on staking claims farther west. Others had wagons and fine horses. But whatever a lonely traveler had, it seems the Benders would murder to get it.

  You can only engage in this sort of business for so long, however, before somebody comes along asking questions. For the Benders, the end came when Colonel Ed York came looking for his brother, a physician who had left word of his intention to stop at the Bender inn.

  Katie Bender smiled and lied, saying they had not seen the good doctor, but that perhaps he had been delayed by an Indian attack or some other calamity. She promised to keep a watch out and even offered to conduct a séance to see what she could learn from the spirits—if only Colonel York would give her some time to communicate privately with the spirits. She urged him to come back the next night, preferably alone.

  York declined. Uneasy, but lacking in proof, he moved on.

  A few days later, a neighbor found the cabin vacated. Colonel York returned with a posse, finding to their horror the gruesome cellar—but no bodies. Then the good colonel noticed some depressions in the ground in the apple orchard out back, and someone began probing the soft dirt with a ramrod. It wasn’t long before the rod brought up a tan
gled hank of blonde hair.

  The first body recovered was that of Dr. Bill York, followed by many other corpses, and some parts of bodies. The Benders had killed at least eleven people, including one little girl accompanying her father. After the father was hammered and carved, the girl was buried alive in the orchard, the papers said.

  The Benders, according to a family Bible found in the cabin, along with the six-pound hammer and an eight-day clock, weren’t even all named Bender. The “son” was named Gebhardt, and he may have been the husband of Katie, who probably wasn’t the daughter of the old man at all. But we’ll probably never know for sure, as they disappeared as completely as the ghost of Hamlet’s father at the cock crow.

  But there were plenty of theories.

  Some held the family made their escape by train and horseback through the Indian Nations to Texas. Others claimed to have seen the Benders in Kansas City or Michigan, and one account even had the infamous family making their escape to Mexico in a hot-air balloon.

  A few said the Benders were already dead, that a Labette County posse had overtaken them and dispensed some frontier justice.

  But, County Attorney Sutton, apparently, believed he finally had the real Kate Bender in custody. Proving it, however, would be a problem.

  There’s no way to conclusively prove a person’s identity, except through a good photograph or by the living testimony of those who know her.

  The authorities had only one picture of Kate Bender, a blurry tintype. It was an image that could represent a thousand young women in any given city. That could work both for and against me. People see what they want to see, and if they are inclined to believe I’m Kate Bender, they’d see me in the tintype. As for the memory of witnesses, it is a malleable thing that can be corrupted by anything from wishful thinking to an outright bribe to a bad night’s sleep.

  I estimated my chances were good for being dragged to Labette County and forced to stand trial . . . and perhaps even hanged. Juries are composed of men who represent a consensus of public opinion, and public opinion (no matter how those men may think or behave in private) always goes against a woman like me.

  5

  Women like me.

  Exactly what kind of woman is that?