Gallows For a Gunman

by Rod Miller

  Nothing more was heard of him for a few months. Then someone robbed a stagecoach, killing the driver and shotgun rider in the process. That, it seems, was Harlow Mackelprang’s debut with the Catlin gang, a band of thieves and rowdies who had plundered the region hereabouts for years, all the time eluding capture and consequences. But Catlin soon dropped from the scene, and over time the outfit became Harlow Mackelprang’s gang.

  I asked about all this during an interview with the outlaw, and he verified all the essential details.

  You see, lengthy—and not always congenial—discussions with my employer, stretching over the weeks of Harlow Mackelprang’s confinement in the Los Santos lockup, had earned me the right to interview the gunman during his last night on earth.

  Such a thing, Mr. Ford told me, was highly irregular at that time and in that place, the general belief being that the doomed man was entitled to, if not peace and quiet, at least protection from the badgering of the press.

  But my publisher relented and said he would allow it if the marshal would.

  I did not consult the marshal, inferring from previous dealings with the man what his answer would likely be. Rather, I waited at the newspaper office—which is just across the street from the jailhouse—until I saw him leave and head for the café for a late supper, knowing a visit to the saloon would likely follow.

  Once he was out of the picture, I hoped I would be able to convince Charlie, the deputy, to let me interview the prisoner. But knowing there would likely be some activity at the jail through the evening, I settled in to keep an eye on the place until things quieted down.

  Not long after the marshal left, Henker, that professional hangman who came in on the train the other day, showed up. I had sought an interview with him on several occasions since his arrival, only to be denied. He claimed to never submit to interviews, but invited me to buy him a drink. I declined, as I make it a practice not to ply my subjects with drink or any other incentive. Besides, he appeared to have had plenty to drink already.

  A glance at the clock, when Henker departed the jail, showed he had spent less than a quarter of an hour there.

  The next visitor surprised me. Decked out in a violet gown with matching hat and parasol, despite the absence of sunshine to require their use, Althea glided quickly but gracefully up the sidewalk and into the jail.

  Althea, whose work as a prostitute requires the men of the town to ignore her—at least in public— and the women in town to ignore her to the point of denying her very existence, seldom ventures out. That, and knowing something of her history with Harlow Mackelprang, made me curious as to her presence there.

  I made a note to ask Charlie about that.

  She stayed less than ten minutes, then stormed out of there like the devil was on her tail, and cut down the alley that would provide a shortcut to her house.

  Sometime later, the preacher strode purposefully up the street, Bible in hand, and opened the jailhouse door and entered, seemingly without breaking his lengthy stride.

  Although not a regular attender of church services, I am nonetheless all too well acquainted with the preacher. As I said before, Mr. Ford has assigned me myriad duties at the newspaper, one of which is dealing with the church. That was one of the first tasks he assigned me upon my taking up my position here. His glee in doing so should have served as fair warning, but I had no idea what I was getting into.

  To put it mildly, our local man of God confuses his own role with that of his employer.

  Unquestioning obedience is what he expects of the town and all its people, whether they are members of his congregation or not. He campaigns relentlessly to close the saloon and to forbid the sale of the devil’s brew in Los Santos (an issue my employer takes personally, which is part of the reason he was glad to be relieved of direct dealings with the man).

  With equal zeal, he lobbies the marshal to force Althea’s removal from the town.

  And he harangues me, upon the release of each and every issue of the newspaper, concerning our coverage of “unpleasant events” and the downplay, or total disregard, of his submissions of church news, gospel thoughts, and morality sermons.

  His presence is imposing, and I admit to being intimidated by his first few visits. Mr. Ford merely laughed and told me to play along with the man as much as possible while in his presence, then forget everything he said and ignore his demands once he was gone.

  Seeing the preacher enter the jail was not unexpected. The length of time he spent there certainly was. I could not imagine Harlow Mackelprang showing any interest in what he had to say.

  Come to think of it, I could not imagine the preacher showing any interest in Harlow Mackelprang beyond telling the gunman, in no uncertain terms, that he was a sinner, deserved his fate, and was doomed to burn in hell for eternity as he was beyond hope or redemption.

  I would inquire of Charlie about this curiosity as well, I thought, as I locked up the newspaper office and crossed the street to wheedle an audience with Harlow Mackelprang. Charlie seemed lost in thought as I entered, his chair being propped against the wall, hands laced behind his head, and feet propped on the desk.

  “Evening, Broussard. What’s up?” he asked once his eyes focused and recognition filled them.

  “Just what I intended to ask you, Charlie. Big day tomorrow. Thought I’d check in and see how preparations are coming along and get a report on how Harlow Mackelprang is faring on this, his last night on earth. Anything that might be of interest to our readers, you know.”

  “Can’t imagine what that might be. Nothing unusual going on here.”

  “You never know what might be newsworthy. How about if you just give me a rundown of the evening’s events?”

  “Well, let me see. I went over to the café and picked up Harlow Mackelprang’s supper. Steak dinner, it was. Waste of good food, you ask me. Then Marshal sent me home to have my supper; said I’d be on duty here all night.”

  “All night? That is not often the case, is it?”

  “Nah. You know that. Most times, even when we got someone locked up, we just bolt the big door and go on home.”

  “Is the marshal expecting trouble tonight?” I said.

  “Nah, he says not. Just not wanting to take any chances.”

  Charlie screwed up his forehead and pursed his lips in thought, assembling an account of the evening’s events.

  “Let’s see,” he said while cogitating. “Marshal said that while I was gone that old man who’s been hanging around the saloon the last few days with them two Mexicans came by and slipped Harlow Mackelprang a flask of whiskey.”

  “And he allowed that?”

  “Surprised me too. But Marshal said it couldn’t do no harm and might keep that sniveling coward from causing a scene when we string him up.”

  “Makes sense, I guess. Anything else?”

  “Hangman came by. Strange fellow, that. He looked Harlow Mackelprang over good, said knowing his exact size and weight was important to being able to swing him properly. Hell, you ask me, I wouldn’t mind seeing him strangle slowlike and painful. Anyway, the preacher came by later on.”

  “That’s to be expected, I suppose, given the situation. Anything unusual happen with that?”

  “Nah. He just went on back there and harangued Harlow Mackelprang is all.”

  “It seemed he was here for quite a while. Any reason for that?”

  “Not that I know of. I didn’t pay much attention. I did hear that fat con man we got locked up back there pitch in now and again. It was sort of like him and the preacher were ganging up on Harlow Mackelprang, or maybe going at each other. I dunno.”

  “Anything else, Charlie?”

  “Nah, that’s about it.”

  “Oh . . . You know, I could have sworn I saw Althea come in here after that hangman left, and then leave a few minutes later all in a huff.”

  “Hmmm. Saw that too, did you? She showed up all right, wanting to see Harlow Mackelprang, and I let her do it.”
/>   “What did they talk about?”

  “No idea. She asked me to stay away. Wanted as much privacy as possible. When she left, I looked in on Harlow Mackelprang and he was rolled up in a ball on the floor, moaning and holding on to his privates. I didn’t ask him what happened. I figured he deserved it, whatever it was. Anything Althea might’ve done to him wouldn’t be enough.”

  “Thanks, Charlie. Say, you suppose I could talk to him?”

  “I don’t know. I guess that’d be up to the marshal.”

  “He isn’t here. You are. Besides, what could it hurt? It ain’t like he’s got anything else to do.”

  “I reckon that’s true enough. You go on back there and ask Harlow Mackelprang. If he’s got no objection, I guess I don’t either.”

  “Thanks, Charlie. I will repay the favor.”

  That is how I came to be the only reporter on earth to interview Harlow Mackelprang on his last night alive.

  And if I cannot figure out how to write the lead to this once-in-a-lifetime story, it will all be for naught.

  But as I said before, we started out the interview confirming all the whos, whats, whens, wheres, whys, and hows of his early criminal activities and his flight from Los Santos into the desert to join the Catlin gang.

  “So, how did it happen that you took over leadership of the gang from Catlin?” I asked during the course of our wide-ranging late-night interview.

  “I killed him. What the hell you think?”

  “And the other members of the group accepted that?”

  “Some of them wasn’t too happy about it. I told them if they didn’t like it they’d get the same. Most of them snuck off.

  “Only Old Man McNulty and two Mexicans, names of Benito and Mariano, stuck with me. They’s all so useless I might as well been on my own. I probably wouldn’t be in the fix I’m in if it weren’t for them fools.

  “But it’s good to have an extra gun or two sometimes, even if they can’t shoot straight.”

  Harlow Mackelprang made it clear—for the record—that many of the misdeeds attributed to the gang were solo performances.

  “That last thing I done, that deal over in Madera?”

  “Yes, I know of that. You killed a traveler and the innkeeper and raped his wife, as I recall.”

  “Yep. That was me. Just me alone. Harlow Mackelprang don’t need no help to get his name in the newspaper.”

  “Is that why you did it, for the publicity?”

  “Hell, no, that ain’t why I done it. That man who owns that rat hole should not never have messed with me. Knocked me on the head and locked me in a shed. He needed to be learned a lesson.”

  “But he’s dead. What could he possibly have learned?”

  Harlow Mackelprang laughed. “Learned quite a bit before he died, you ask me. Like how much Harlow Mackelprang enjoys taking his pleasure with a lady.”

  “His wife, you mean?”

  “Yep. I made him watch. Then I made that ungrateful woman watch her old man die.”

  “What about the other man, the guest?”

  “Him? He was just in the way, more or less.”

  “Some have asked why you didn’t burn the place down.”

  “They wonder about that, do they? Well, ain’t no reason really. Just didn’t feel like it.”

  “But you are known for setting fires.”

  “I do like a nice warm fire,” he said with a grin I can only describe as wicked. “First big one I set was right here in Los Santos, at the stable. That tied up folks long enough for me to get out of here.

  “Set fire to a bank once, over in Robbinsville. Them folks didn’t want to be robbed and gave me all kinds of trouble, so I tied ’em up and scattered around some lamp oil and dropped a match. Hear they got rescued, though. That’s a shame.

  “Burned up a train once, just for the hell of it. It was just sitting on a siding empty, so I figured the railroad didn’t want it.” Another laugh. “It weren’t much use to them after I got done with it, that’s for sure.

  “Another time I set fire to this hacienda out southwest of here a couple, three days’ ride. Mexican woman there didn’t want to give me no food when I was out of supplies, or a fresh horse.

  “Shot her cook dead and winged an old man who tends the barn animals before she changed her mind. Would have kept killing everyone until I got to her if she hadn’t of changed her mind. But that place was all made of mud bricks, so it didn’t burn too good. It got her attention, though, you bet.

  “Got the attention of her old man and his vaqueros when they got home too, I bet.”

  “You have also stolen livestock, I am told. Is that true?”

  “Sometimes. Mostly just an old cow or a yearling steer for meat, you know. Man can’t be blamed for that. Time or two we took cattle to sell.

  “Stole a whole herd of sheep once. Drove them stupid animals clean down into Mexico and sold them. Them that was left, that is. Lots of them died on the way. Hell, we ain’t no sheepherders. How was we to know we was pushing them too hard?

  “Stole lots of horses. Can’t even keep track of how many. But a man’s got to ride, you know. Besides, this way of getting away I learned from Catlin sure used up horses.”

  “Will you explain it for our readers?” I said.

  “Sure. It ain’t no secret. Every lawman for a hundred miles figured it out long ago. But that don’t mean there was anything they could do about it.

  “Alls it is, see, is that when you do a job—a big job, with the gang—you take along a bunch of extra saddle horses on the lead. Then, when the ones you’re riding get tired, you just climb onto a fresh one and whack the others on the ass and scare ’em off.

  “That way, see, the trail keeps splitting apart and the trackers—most of who couldn’t find their ass with both hands—have to follow up every branch. Gives you lots of extra time to get away.

  “After a while, they don’t know or don’t care anymore which trail is which and you’re so far out in the desert, they have to turn back on account of they don’t know where to find water.”

  “But you did?”

  “Sure. We packed these big skins full. Enough to keep the horses going, barely. And Catlin had men what knew that desert upside down. This one greaser, Benito? He’s as dumb as a stick of stove wood. Can’t talk, and simpleminded to boot. But that Mexican can smell water a day away, I swear. He could turn up seeps where there weren’t no sign of mud, let alone water.”

  “How about your hideout? Is it true that there’s a place out there no one can find?”

  “Hell, no, that ain’t true. Indians found it long ago. I found it, didn’t I? That’s how I joined up with Catlin in the first place.”

  “How did you find it?”

  “Don’t rightly remember. I was pretty bad off just then. But there I was.”

  “Where is the place?”

  “Oh, it’s out there. Anyone could find it if they looked. Thing is, see, it’s a long way from water. Longer than you can ride if you don’t pack water, and that’s why no one hardly ever gets there.

  “If they do, the layout of the place keeps ’em from getting in if you don’t want ’em to. There’s a few lawmen and bounty hunters and soldiers whose bones is laying out there on account of they found it. But it’s in kind of a low spot, see, a little shallow canyon. It ain’t too deep, maybe thirty, forty feet, but them walls is solid rock and straight up.

  “Ain’t but one way in or out, and that’s through a narrow little gap that’s barely a horse wide in spots. The way it cuts into the hill, you can’t see it much ’less you know where to look. Once in that gap, you’re an easy target. One man with a gun can keep out an army.”

  “What’s it like out there?” I asked.

  “Oh, it ain’t much. Just a little meadow or pasture, like. I think that’s what the name they call it in Mexican means—el prado. Up at one end there’s a spring that flows enough to water the grass and provide drinking water for a pretty good horse herd and a
dozen or so people.

  “There’s a couple shacks someone built sometime. Just sticks daubed up with mud. That, and a few ramadas to shade up under. Ain’t much wood around. Few spindly cottonwoods around the spring, so you don’t build no fires except to cook.”

  “So what’s to become of el prado now that Harlow Mackelprang’s gang is defunct?”

  “Oh, someone’ll use it. They’s been folks hiding out there for hundreds of years, maybe more. Hell, there’s even rusty old pieces of Spanish armor still laying around out there. Maybe the Indians will take the place back.

  “Most likely, Mariano and them will drift back out there, maybe some other of Catlin’s men too. If not them, somebody else.”

  We went over again some of Harlow Mackelprang’s crimes, just to assure that I had the facts straight—from his perspective. Most of them, of course, were familiar to me.

  While some outlaws go to great lengths to avoid association with their crimes, Harlow Mackelprang took every opportunity for publicity, announcing his name to victims and witnesses alike. I wondered why.

  “How long you been in these parts, Broussard?”

  “More than two years. Not quite three.”

  “So you came to Los Santos not long after I left town.”

  “That is correct. There was still much speculation at the time about your involvement in the stagecoach robbery over in the Thunder Mountains, not far from Trueno.”

  “That was me all right. That was my first job with Catlin’s outfit. But I didn’t need their help. Pulled that one off all by myself before they even knew it happened. But we been over that already.”

  “True. We were merely establishing the time of my arrival in Los Santos.”

  “Yeah?”

  “You were going to tell me why you have sought publicity for your crimes.”

  “Oh, yeah. Well, you know, I grew up here most of my life. Didn’t have a ma. Old man’s a drunk. So folks here treated me like I was nothing. Less than nothing, in fact. Well, they can see I’m something now. Ain’t none of them ever gonna forget Harlow Mackelprang came to town.”