Law at Angel's Landing: A Western Story

by Wayne D. Overholser

  It would be different now because a preacher named William Manning had moved to Angel’s Landing a week ago. He was living with his family in a tent with a sign in front: ANGEL’S LANDING COMMUNITY CHURCH. He’d held Sunday service in the schoolhouse and had announced in the Angel’s Landing Weekly Gazette that he intended to stay and build a church house.

  I had met him and had not been impressed, but then I have seldom been impressed by a preacher. In any case, I thought he’d be glad to marry us, and he could do the job whether he was impressive or not. I went to his tent first thing Monday morning, but he wasn’t in sight.

  The day had started as one of those cold damp mornings that we get in the mountains quite often during the summer. The rain hadn’t amounted to much more than a mist dropping out of a weepy sky, but there had been enough moisture to make your clothes cling to you and bring out the rheumatism in old people. And, of course, enough to make wood that was stored outside too damp to burn well.

  Mrs. Manning was having her troubles. She was squatting beside a smoldering fire in front of her tent, trying to cook breakfast. Half a dozen kids were hunkered around her, all of them whimpering or complaining about being hungry.

  I guess this was the reason I had never been impressed by preachers. This Manning was typical of the ones we had seen in Angel’s Landing. If they were single men and wanted to starve, that was their privilege, but to drag families around and fail to support them was criminal. In my opinion, they ought to go to work, but I swallowed my irritation and asked for the preacher.

  Mrs. Manning stood up and wiped the rain off her face. I guess she knew me or had had me pointed out to her. She said: “He’s not here, Sheriff. His mother in Denver had a stroke and he left yesterday afternoon to go to Durango to catch the train.” She swallowed and wiped her face again, then added: “He took every cent we had to buy a train ticket to Denver.”

  The kids were huddled around her, staring at me, wide-eyed. They had stopped whimpering. I noticed they were clean, good-looking children. Mrs. Manning was about thirty and pretty in a fragile sort of way, like a wildflower that had been plucked and was beginning to wilt.

  “I’m sorry,” I said. “I’ll see him later.”

  “He’ll be gone all week,” she said. “Maybe longer if he can’t borrow money to come back on the train. It’ll take him a long time to walk that far. I’ll have to conduct the services till he gets back.” She hesitated, then asked: “Is there anything I can do? Any message I can give him?”

  “No,” I said. “My business can wait.”

  I was never one to give money away, but this was a tragic situation and I knew I’d be seeing these hungry kids all day in my mind. I dug a gold piece out of my pants pocket and placed it in her hand. I said: “Go to the hotel and get a good meal for your children, Missus Manning. When we get a day like this, it may stay damp till evening, so don’t try to nurse that fire any longer.”

  She looked at the coin, and then at me, and I had never seen a more thankful expression on a human face in my life than I did in hers. “Thank you, Sheriff,” she said. “Thank you very much.”

  “You’re sure welcome,” I said, and walked away fast. She had started to cry and I felt like joining her as I thought of a few remarks I’d like to make to her husband when he got back.

  When I reached my house, I saw Abbie coming around it from the garden. She saw me and waited until I reached her, then she said: “I was going to do some weeding and thinning today, but it must have rained harder during the night. The ground is so muddy I’ll have to wait a day or so.”

  I stood there, looking at her, feeling sore and disappointed and frustrated. I wanted her, I loved her, and I could not understand what had happened to me. Or her. I wasn’t sure which, but the odd thing about it was that I had known Abbie for several years and had always considered her pretty ordinary as far as beauty went, but now, wearing an old dress and with her hair and face damp with the rain, she was beautiful.

  I told her so, blurting the words out and then getting as red-faced as a schoolboy. She was pleased and came close to me and kissed me. “It’s wonderful what the miracle of love can do to a man’s vision,” she said, “and I don’t care who sees me kiss you. I guess I’m the happiest woman in Colorado. Is this our wedding day?”

  “No,” I said, “and I’m disappointed. The preacher went to Denver and he’ll be gone for a week. I’d say for us to go to Durango, but I don’t think I ought to leave.”

  “No, you can’t leave,” she said. She glanced at the house and back to me, and added softly: “I’m tempted, Mark. I’m sorely tempted.”

  “So am I,” I said.

  We stood looking at each other, and it made me feel good to know she was wanting me as much as I wanted her, but I wasn’t one to push her into anything against her will. In the end her sense of propriety was too much.

  “I guess we can wait a week, Mark,” she said.

  “I guess so,” I said, “but I don’t want to.”

  She patted me on the cheek. “Neither do I.”

  “I’m going to see a lawyer,” I said. “The will can’t wait. I should have taken care of it last week.”

  She gripped my arms, her eyes wide and frightened. “Mark, you’ve found out something.”

  I shook my head. “No, I don’t think there will be any trouble until Wallace gets here.”

  “And after that?”

  I still didn’t want to tell her all that I knew or had heard, and I certainly didn’t want to tell her about my fears, which were considerable. So I said: “We’ll just have to wait and find out, but I’m going to see a lawyer right now. Since I don’t have any living kin that I know of, it would be a mess if I fell over dead from a heart attack.”

  I left her standing there beside my house, her face mirroring her concern. I couldn’t help wondering what she would have said if I’d told her I was more worried about a dose of hot lead than I was of a heart attack.

  Two lawyers had moved into town during the past week. One was using a tent for an office and proclaimed in his sign that he was an expert on mining laws. That was no concern of mine, so I went to the second one, a young man named Jerry Carruthers who had rented a cabin next to the bank and had spent the last few days cleaning it up.

  When I stepped inside, Carruthers was sitting at his desk trying to look busy. The room was spic-and-span, the smell of paint hit me the moment I went through the door, and an impressive row of law books was on the wall behind him. I shook hands, telling him who I was.

  Carruthers nodded, saying: “I know who you are, Sheriff. The newcomers spot you right off, but I guess it will take some time for you to get acquainted with us.”

  “That’s right,” I said. “Angel’s Landing is not what it used to be.” I motioned toward Main Street, which was filled with loaded ore wagons headed for Durango and empty ones returning to Banjo Creek, freight outfits, and a conglomeration of rigs, men on foot, and others on horseback.

  “They say history repeats itself,” I said. “It sure has here. When I was a kid, I remember Main Street looking just the way it does now except that we didn’t have the ore wagons then.”

  “Well, what can I do for you?” he asked.

  “I want you to draw up my will,” I said.

  He was surprised and showed it. “I want the business and I’m not trying to discourage you, but you’re a young man and you look healthy.”

  “I am right now,” I said. “I want to leave everything to Miss Abbie Trevor.” I spelled both names for him, then added: “I have no living relatives that I know of, and, if any turn up after my death, I don’t want them to have my money. Miss Trevor and I plan to be married in a few days.”

  “We can fix it legally, of course,” he said, still puzzled, “but I’m curious why you don’t wait until you’re married. You’ll have to have another will drawn up then, and, if that is to take place in a few days, why not wait?”

  “Because I may not be alive then,” I
said.

  This set him back a little. He leaned forward, his eyes searching my face. “Sheriff, I’m getting outside of what is really my business, and I apologize, but damn it, I just don’t understand why a man of your age and health is worried about the next few days.”

  I was irritated, and I guess I showed it, but I thought that what was going to happen in Angel’s Landing was his business as well as mine, so I said: “Some of my friends who have been in business here for years do not think I can handle the law enforcement problems that we’re going to have, so they’ve sent for Captain John Wallace to serve as town marshal. I expect trouble with Wallace.”

  He leaned back in his chair and groaned. “I guess almost everybody in the West has heard of Wallace. Why would they send for him? He’ll make trouble for all of us.”

  “I don’t really know, unless they haven’t heard what I’ve heard,” I said, “but they seem to think there will be anarchy in Angel’s Landing if I’m left in charge, and it will make them lose business. They don’t want anything to happen here like it did in Creede when Soapy Smith was running the camp. They think that hiring Wallace will scare the riff-raff out of town.”

  “It will scare some of the rest of us, too,” he said bitterly. “I hear he’s a killer if you cross him, so I sure as hell won’t risk it.”

  “But I can’t keep from it,” I said.

  He got up and walked to a window, and for a moment stood looking out at the traffic on Main Street, then he said reluctantly: “I’m not a gunman, Sheriff, but the men who want Wallace don’t know what they’re getting. If I can help when the time comes, I’ll do what I can.”

  I was surprised. I looked at Carruthers for a moment, thinking he couldn’t do one damned bit of good, but he was willing. I said: “I’ll remember that.” I wondered how many other men in town would say the same thing. Or, if they did say it, how many would actually put their lives on the line when the time came?

  “I’ve lived in some pretty damned lawless towns, and I know that I won’t get any legal business if it happens here, but Wallace law isn’t the answer.” He returned to his desk and sat down. “I’ll have the will finished by four o’clock this afternoon, God willing, so you can stop and pick it up then. We’ll have to have it witnessed.”

  “I’ll be here with witnesses,” I said, “but it may be after four.”

  “I’ll be here till six,” he said, and laughed wryly. “You never know . . . some more business might wander in from the street.”

  I left his office and made my rounds of the town, thinking that there was more pounding and sawing than usual, more traffic on Main Street, and more strangers in town. All of this was to be expected, and I figured there would continue to be additional growth for weeks, maybe months.

  Then I reached Ben Scully’s big tent and I began to wonder if I was wrong to expect more growth. The front flaps of the tent were tied down, and a big sign pinned to the front of the tent said: CLOSED.

  Chapter Fifteen

  I stood there a couple of minutes, staring at the sign. It didn’t quite add up, Scully’s going off and leaving his tent here. If he hadn’t gone off, why had he closed his business? It was a big tent and must have cost a good deal of money. I knew he’d bought two lots from Doc Jenner, the one the tent was on and the lot beside it, the one on which he’d intended to build.

  Scully had said he was going to sell out. I figured he meant the lots because he’d surely take his tents and gambling equipment and furniture to use in some other camp. I walked around to the back and saw that the small tents were gone. The back flap was up, and, when I heard voices from inside, I decided he was still there.

  I walked into the tent, but Scully and Morgan weren’t in sight. Two men were playing cards, the gambling equipment, the bar, and the tables and chairs had not been moved. The men glanced up and grinned.

  “Howdy, Sheriff,” one of them said. “Ben said you’d be around.”

  They were familiar, but it took me a moment to place them, then I recognized Redbeard and Baldy, the two men Tug and I had jailed the first Saturday night.

  “Howdy,” I said. “I thought you two buckos had left camp.”

  “We’ve been prospecting up the creek,” Baldy said, “but, hell, it’s staked out all the way to the head of the cañon, so when Ben offered us this job, we took it.”

  Redbeard nodded agreement. “If you ain’t been up the cañon lately, you’d be surprised what’s going on. They hit another vein way up on the other side of the Lucky Cat. Before they’re done, they’ll have a dozen working mines all the way up Banjo Cañon. Not high-grade ore like Dolan got out of the Lucky Cat, but ore that’s worth sending to Durango.”

  Baldy nodded. “It’ll be a good camp and it’ll be here for a while. Of course it’ll be hell trying to carry on a business with John Wallace running things.”

  I guessed that they’d been working for Ben Scully all the time, but I didn’t push it. I also guessed that they were hoorahing me, but I didn’t push that, either. I asked: “Where’s Scully?”

  “Him and Ten-Sleep went to Durango,” Baldy said. “He’s selling out. I thought he told you.”

  I nodded. “I thought he meant his lots.”

  “He thinks he’s got a buyer for the whole kit and caboodle,” Redbeard said. “He’s talking about going to Alaska. If he does, he’ll buy what he needs in Seattle before he leaves the States.”

  “We’re just keeping an eye on things for him,” Baldy added. “If the new buyer won’t give us jobs, we’ll go to Alaska with him.”

  I walked out of the tent, thinking that if Ben Scully knew as much about Wallace as he did, then others would know, too, so why would anyone else come to Angel’s Landing to buck Wallace if Scully didn’t want to?

  I spent the morning patrolling Main Street, not because I felt that it was absolutely necessary, but because I wanted to be seen and to think about what was happening.

  New businesses had sprung up since dawn, most of them in tents, although a few shacks had been thrown up at both ends of Main Street. One man was working the old shell game. He shot me a worried glance every time I walked past him, but he kept making pitches.

  Farther up the street a big sign had gone up in front of a tent saying that Professor Harold J. Hollingsworth was a phrenologist and would give you a complete analysis of your personality. A huge picture of a man’s skull decorated one side of the sign. It was marked off into various sections, each of which was supposed to control certain gifts such as imagination, artistic ability, musical talent, and the like.

  Beyond that tent was another that housed a Gypsy fortune-teller named Madam Zorah who could foretell your future. To me they were all con games, but, as far as I knew, these people were not breaking any laws.

  If the men on the street were suckers enough to spend their money on the elusive pea or getting the bumps on their heads felt or listening to Madam Zorah tell their future, it was their business. One thing I had learned was the simple fact that I could not keep people from committing acts of stupidity if they chose to do so.

  The only problem I had all morning concerned a miner who woke up with a head as big as a dishpan. He’d gone to sleep with a whore in her tent, but when he woke up, he was lying in the sun, his pockets empty.

  He pointed out the woman’s tent. When I lifted the flap and stepped inside, I found her asleep. The morning was hot and in the tent it felt like a furnace. She was partly under a blanket, and, as far as I could tell, she was completely naked. I suppose that during the cool part of the night she had pulled the blanket over her, but now that it had turned hot, she had thrown it back so it only covered her legs.

  I guess I woke her when I stepped into the tent. She grabbed the blanket, pulled it up over her, and started cursing me with one of the best vocabularies I ever heard.

  “You’re under arrest for theft,” I said. “Get your clothes on. The jail’s empty, so there’s no reason why you can’t have a cell all to yourself.”
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  She was middle-aged, too fat, her hair frowzy, and the sweat that ran down her cheeks and chin had spread her paint over her face in a crazy-quilt pattern. Suddenly she was very modest, trying to wrap the blanket around her so she was entirely covered except for her face.

  “You want me to get up and dress right here in front of you!” she screamed. “If you think you’re going to get to see . . . !”

  “It wouldn’t be any great pleasure, ma’am,” I said. “I’ve seen prettier female bodies when I was a working cowboy, especially when I was behind ’em.”

  She glared at me, so furious she could not say a word for a few seconds, then she said, tight-lipped: “You ain’t putting me in your lousy jail.”

  “That’s up to you,” I said, “but, if you don’t want to do what I’m going to suggest, I’ll take you down Main Street to the jail just the way you are. I reckon you won’t get cold on a day like this, though you may get a sunburn. Rolling a drunk is one thing I won’t stand for. It’s bad enough taking his money for sleeping with him. I can’t see that it was any bargain.”

  She started cursing me again, then stopped and chewed on her lower lip as if suddenly realizing she was digging her grave a little deeper. Finally she asked: “What do you want me to do?”

  “Give the man his money and get out of town,” I said. “There’s a stage leaving for Durango in about an hour.”

  She didn’t take long to make up her mind. She yanked a purse out from under her pillow and threw it at me. “Get to hell out of here while I dress, you bastard!” she screamed. “I ain’t giving you no free show!”

  “It would have to be free, ma’am,” I said. “It sure wouldn’t be worth paying for.”

  I left the tent. When I came by on my next round after returning the money, she was gone. It was noon, so I stepped into the hotel dining room for dinner. Joe Steele was at the desk in the lobby, but he ignored me as I walked past him.