King of Spades

by Frederick Manfred

  Soon the wind of their going tugged at Magnus’ black hat. His white beard flattened out against his cheeks, away from his lips. He braced himself. Dust rose above the boot. He had to slit his eyes against the exploding tan plumes. The worst dust always came right after they’d hit a puffhole.

  They whirled past the first log cabin on the outskirts of Deadwood.

  Then Magnus spotted a thick black crowd of people at the foot of a steep hill. He sat up. That accounted for the deserted look higher up the gulch.

  He next spotted the gallows. Ah, a necktie party. “Let’s hope that’s not my boy, after all the hunting I’ve done for him.”

  Swifty spotted the hanging too. “Another poor bastard born to be hung,” he called over the rattle of their going.

  Iron knuckles of rock protruded into Main Street. Three dogs challenged the lead team.

  Swifty, manipulating the lines, added, “Well, for his sake, let’s hope the drop is deep and the rope tender.”

  The Franklin Hotel entrance hove up ahead.

  Swifty hauled up on the ribbons and let go with a great “Whoa!” Knots of muscles as big as potatoes popped out on his forearms. He kicked the brakes on with his free foot.

  The red stagecoach squealed to a stop precisely in front of the hotel and directly across from the Pillbox Drug Company.

  For a fleeting second all the black figures below swiveled white faces toward the stagecoach; then, all seeming to blink at once, turned back to the business at hand.

  “Hello,” Swifty said, “nobody here to take the horses. That hanging down there has got down to where somebody’s gonna need religion real soon.” Swifty stared at the black mob a moment longer, then thrust the reins in Magnus’ hands. “Here, hold these while I go tie the lead team to a hitching post.” Swifty more fell than jumped to the ground.

  A cowboy jumped out of the coach first. He let down the steps, then helped a woman and two children to the ground. The woman took one look at the gallows and then hurried the children into the hotel. The cowboy stopped to roll himself a cigarette, lit up casually, and then, with a swift look up at the blue October sky, bowlegged toward the black crowd.

  Swifty came striding back. “You can tie the ribbons on the butt of the whip there, Doc, if you wanna.”

  Magnus did as instructed, and then climbed down.

  Swifty looked down at the crowd again. “Bet there’s a woman at the bottom of that.”

  Magnus nodded. “Some poor fellow’s got over onto somebody else’s range.” Magnus’ voice was rough and rusty. To himself Magnus thought: “By the Lord, it better not be the son I’m looking for.”

  “Same difference.” Swifty also threw a quick look up at the October sky. “Let’s amble over and get in on the drop at least.”

  “Lead on.”

  They followed the cowboy into the crowd.

  Magnus walked with slim courtly grace. He combed his bush of a white beard with a quick lightly touching whip of his fingertips, almost absent-mindedly. His white hair made him stick out in the crowd. He was like a white ram in a drove of black sheep.

  Magnus climbed a pine stump for a better look at the young man up on the salt barrel. Magnus winced to see that the noose was already around the young man’s neck.

  After a long hard look, Magnus heaved a sigh of relief. “No, thank the Lord, that’s not my boy Roddy. Too old. Roddy would have been twenty this year. While this fellow is at least twenty-five.” Magnus’ black eyes crinkled in memory. “And this fellow is too tall. Roddy would never have got to be this big. No, thank God, it’s not Roddy.”

  Again Magnus casually touched a hand to his beard. Magnus’ beard wasn’t quite smooth, suggesting that the skin beneath was rough, like deep meadow grass barely covering old pocket-gopher mounds.

  The judge was speaking from his perch on the democrat. “Just a moment, counsel. I think at this point the bench should make it perfectly clear that while this may be a miners’ court, that does not make it any less a court of democratic law.” The judge had eyes like two curls of cigar ash. “I want it clearly understood right here and now that this man will have a fair trial. If you the jury give him this and find him not guilty, he goes scot-free. Even if I have to defend him myself.” The judge touched a gun lying on his top hat. “But if, after a fair trial, you find him guilty, he shall hang, so help me God, and I’ll be the first to help kick the barrel out from under him. If necessary.” The judge’s teeth came together for a second like the jaws of a vise. “But until you find him not guilty, or guilty, the man who touches a hair on his head will have to do so over my dead body.” The judge touched his black gun again. “There shall be true buckskin justice here in Deadwood today.”

  A voice nearby said, “Judge Todd is a swell stiff, ain’t he? It’s good to know we got us a real lawman running this show.”

  Another voice said, “Oh, I don’t know. I’m pretty much against courts myself.”

  The first voice said, “You don’t believe in the law?”

  The second voice said, “Sure I believe in the law. It’s just that I’m plumb adverse to courts.”

  “But that’s blasphemy, man.”

  “Oh, no it ain’t. And I’ll tell you why it ain’t. It’s because of them law Wolves that gets into ’em. When them law wolves can’t get you through a gate they’ve fixed up specia to catch you, they puts up another fence and lays for you cross lots.”

  Judge Todd nodded down at a baldheaded man. “You may continue your opening statement for the state, Mr. Maule.”

  Maule went on from his stump. “Yes, you Earl Ransom, you finally went too far. Oh, we admit our indebtedness to you, that besides getting rid of two of our bad men for us, you also found our true mother lode for us. But this”— Maule pointed a long arm at an open coffin—“this murder of your own sweet wife in a crime of passion … no!”

  A dead woman in a coffin? Magnus rose on his toes to see if he could catch a glimpse of her. But from his vantage point he couldn’t quite manage it. All he could see of her was the white point of her nose.

  “Told you there was a woman at the bottom of it,” Swifty said.

  Maule limped about where he stood. “It’s not that the state is in a black passion for revenge. No. It’s more that the law simply cannot tolerate the philosophy that says, ‘Pistols for two and whiskey for one.’And of course the law certainly cannot tolerate the killing of a woman by a crybaby lover. This is real life and not life as lived by a character in a red-cover novelette!”

  “Let’s hang him and get it over with,” a hard-looking stiff called from the rear. “We’ve got more important things to do than stand around all day listening to you, Mr. Maule.”

  “Don’t worry,” another stiff cried, “our killer is going to get it right straight along.”

  Judge Todd glared in the direction of the interruption. The democrat squeaked as he shifted positions.

  Maule went on. “Human society has learned that the only preventative of crime is a swift and terrible retribution. To cure the killer in us, the only prescription is a stout cord and a good drop. All men finally learn that there is no place on earth so desolate and remote but what the vengeance of mankind will find him out. We, even here in this off-limits territory, simply cannot tolerate the notion that the crook, the robber, the assassin, the blood-stained murderer are nature’s favorites.”

  Magnus grimaced to himself. Ha. That was where the fellow was clearly wrong. The robber and the murderer once were nature’s favorites. In fact it could be argued that the robber and the murderer were thoroughly bred into mankind. “And that part of us, the Old Lizard, now lives in a paralyzed state in all of us. And if it wouldn’t be for pain, we’d still worship blood stained winners.”

  Swifty spoke up, soberly, more to himself than to Magnus. “It is pitiful to see such a fine fellow, a fellow Mother Nature surely intended to be a hero, about to die like a dog with the rabies.”

  Words continued to issue relentlessly from Maule�
�s wide mouth. “Earl Ransom, the state will seek to prove that you murdered your wife, that you did so most foully, that you did so most cruelly. Women are women, yes, that we all know. But we also know that for the sake of the perpetuation of the race, we’ve got to learn to live with them just as they are. Bless ’em, the women just can’t help it if their hearts be of quicksand. Yet just because they are fickle by nature, that doesn’t mean we men have the right to kill our women if they stray a little from the straight and narrow. Ha, actually, as we probably all know, most times it is just as often the fault of the man. It is he who leads her astray. It is he who is mostly the blackhearted monster, not she.”

  Magnus’ black eyes turned somber. “Well now, here our good counsel has got a point. I’ll go along with some of that.”

  Maule continued. “Because, truth to tell, in the man the sin of sex is as pernicious as the seed of the bull thistle, seemingly taking root sometimes even in midair.”

  A gruff voice behind Magnus muttered, “All we seem to get out of this Maule fellow is a lot of wind pudding.”

  A second heavy voice agreed. “That baldheaded fellow surely can keep himself in a fume for along time.”

  Tears appeared in Maule’s darting eyes. “The annals of crime have no record of a murder which more fully awakens the deepest execrations in the human heart than the murder of a sweet wife by a husband gone berserk. And especially so when this husband has killed a wife who was soon to bear him his firstborn. Lord God in heaven!” Maule wept audibly. “At the same time the annals of crime have no record of such a murder in which the guilty party was of such personable and likable nature. Look at him. Doesn’t he look like a fine young man? A god among men, in fact? Friends, therefore it is that while my soul is revolted by what he did, at the same time it also is dissolved in pity for him. For this dark, lost, self-ruined life.” Maule wept aloud some more. “Ah, God, look at this ruin of a man. Whom we must nevertheless hang by the neck until dead.”

  The young man up on the salt barrel with the knotted rope around his neck waited motionless.

  Magnus’ heart went out to the young man. Magnus thought: “Sure is a nice big-looking young fellow all right. Fine tower of a back. Handsome black beard and head of hair. A pity. A pity that so fine a stud of a man should have to die. With no offspring. What a waste.”

  Maule limped as he gyrated on his stump. “Your Honor, the state calls up as its first witness the defendant, Earl Ransom.”

  Judge Todd sat up. “Hold on here a minute. You have no other witness, counsel?”

  “None, Your Honor.”

  “The defendant need not testify against himself, you know. Unless he agrees.”

  “That is understood, Your Honor. But he has already freely confessed.”

  Judge Todd peered across at Ransom. “You have no objection to testifying against yourself as a witness for the state?”

  Instead of answering, Ransom tried to make room for his bearded chin inside the prickly noose.

  “Did you understand the question, prisoner?”

  Ransom looked up at the high hills.

  Judge Todd sat very stiff. “Now we’re not going to have it that you’re not going to talk. That’s contempt of court.”

  A red-bearded miner cried, “Aw, hell, judge, just give him a snort of red whiskey and swing him off.”

  The spring seat quivered under the judge. “You there, you with the red-hot beard, you shut up.” Then to Ransom, the judge said, “Speak up, son. This is your chance.”

  A milky film slowly spread over Ransom’s green eyes. “I have it coming.”

  “What?” Embers came alive in the judge’s gray-ash eyes.

  “I have it coming.”

  “You mean, you will be a witness for the state then?”

  “If that’s what you want.”

  “You’re sure now that this is what you’re willing to do?” The democrat rolled under the judge’s motions.

  “Yes.”

  “You’re sure now?”

  The red-bearded miner cried, “What the hell, judge, every man has a right to go to hell his own way. If that’s what he wants, just give him a good drop and be done with it.”

  Judge Todd stared across at the red-bearded miner for a while.

  The black crowd breathed, and waited.

  Magnus knew how the young desperado felt. He’d once gone down that same path himself, that day after the shooting in Sioux City when he’d awakened to dreary daylight with one shotgun pellet in his brain and another in his throat. He’d never in all his life felt so miserably low and so utterly alone. Thank God the pellet in his brain had pricked the balloon of madness in him. While the pellet in his throat had given him, willy-nilly, the voice of iron gravity. Magnus wept. Where was poor Roddy now? “We know he got aboard the St. Louis. But when it docked in St. Lou, he wasn’t aboard.”

  Judge Todd finally nodded. “You may proceed with the examination, counsel.”

  Maule swung in. “Your name?”

  “Earl Ransom.”

  “Age?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “What?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “You mean you don’t know when you were born?”

  “No, I don’t.”

  Maule threw a disbelieving look at Judge Todd. “Your Honor…. ”

  Ransom continued. “I can’t remember anything from the time when I was a boy. I guess I was hit on the head pretty hard once.”

  “I see.” Maule combed his bald head with deft fingertips. “Then you don’t know where you were born either?”

  “No.”

  The gruff voice behind Magnus said, “No wonder the kid always went around like a sleepwalker.”

  The other heavy voice said, “I noticed that too.”

  Maule gimped around on his stump. “Did you know your father?”

  “No.”

  “You didn’t?”

  “I’ve never even had a dream about a father.”

  “But you have had a dream about a mother?”

  “I think so.”

  “Ah, then you did know your mother?”

  Again Ransom tried to make room for his bearded chin inside the noose. “Say, judge, would you have the boys grease this noose a little? It tickles so.”

  The red-bearded miner cried, “Good idea. The grease’ll help for later on too.”

  Once again embers sparked in the judge’s eyes. “Hangman? You there, Troy Barb, remove the noose.”

  Troy Barb’s moon eyes opened in silvery glitter. “But, Your Honor, he’ll escape. He’s a dead shot.”

  “Not without a gun he isn’t. Besides, I hereby appoint you to stand guard with a loaded shotgun trained on him. And while we’re at it, free his hands too. Never let it be said that we asked a prisoner to speak the truth with the sword of Damocles hung poised over his head.”

  “I hears you.” Troy Barb climbed up and removed both the noose and the rope binding Ransom’s wrists. Troy Barb next asked for and got a loaded shotgun. Troy Barb swung the gun on Ransom’s chest. “The first time you even raises so much as a little finger, you will get a quart of buckshot up your gizzard.”

  “Now, now,” Judge Todd growled, “just stand guard. We’ll do all the hard talking.”

  Ransom stroked his wrists to restore the circulation.

  Black beards waited.

  Judge Todd nodded down at Maule. “You may proceed.”

  Maule repeated his question. “Then you did know your mother?”

  “I can’t say.”

  A stone rattled down the side of Mt. Moriah.

  Somebody called out, looking up, “What the hell you doin’ up there, Larkin?”

  “I prefers a high view of the operation.”

  Maule pushed in. “What do you mean, you can’t say? You just said you’ve had a dream about her.”

  “Yes, I sometimes do dream about someone I think is my mother. But when I wake up, all memory of who this might be is gone.”
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br />   Magnus touched the ends of his white beard with quick ginger fingertips.

  Maule leaned back and eyed Ransom sideways. “Well then, anyway, you are a resident of Deadwood, aren’t you?”

  “Yes”

  “You lived as man and wife with the deceased?”

  “Yes.”

  “You had knowledge of her?”

  Swifty, his eyes on Maule, swore under his breath. “Hey, you’re off the scent, old man.”

  Magnus whispered to himself, “Why, this boy doesn’t have any friends at all.”

  Maule continued. “Is it true that the deceased was in a family way?”

  “So she said.”

  “In other words, two souls went to their death when you pulled the trigger?”

  “Yes.”

  Swifty swore again. “Didn’t I tell you? It’s always threes with a woman.”

  Maule gave a little leap. “Then you admit you killed both mother and child?”

  “Yes.”

  Swifty shook his head. “Man, man, the boy is on the steep downgrade now. Won’t do him a particle of good to hit the brake block.”

  “You did in fact shoot your wife and child?”

  Ransom touched a hand to his right eye. “Yes.”

  Maule turned to the crowd, a honeyed grin on his face. “Gentlemen of the jury, you have heard the prisoner confess the crime of double murder. You have seen for yourself that the prisoner has made no argument to save his life.” Then Maule’s face abruptly blackened over with a look of doom. “Thus the state has no other choice but to ask for the death penalty. That the prisoner die on the gallows, hanged by the neck until dead.” Maule tolled his head, back and forth. “Ahh, so bad an ending argues a monstrous life. May the Lord preserve the soul of this man while we hang his body.” Maule turned toClemens with a short bow. “Your witness.” Maule stepped down.

  Magnus shook his white head. What a pity. “I’d surely like to know the whole story behind this thing.”

  A voice from a bunch of men sitting on the roof of a tin shop called out, “Get on with the hanging! We don’t need any more fancy talk. Ain’t he already admitted he’s guilty?”

  Another voice from the roof cried, “String him up! Let’s go. We got gold to dig.”