The Edge of Violence Read online

  The original capitol remained on its site, a wreckage of ash and stones, although everyone in the state kept saying that—one of these days—folks would put up another building, maybe one with a dome. Yet no funds had been found to build such a magnificent building.

  William H. Bennett’s term as U.S. Marshal for the District of Oregon had expired back in April, and Senator J.W. Nesmith nominated Albert Zeiber as Bennett’s replacement. Congress approved that appointment on November 6. Now, a few days before Christmas, Marshal Zeiber had arrived in Salem and sent word to Colter that he wanted to meet him.

  Colter had no idea what his boss looked like. He stepped inside the building, out of the light but frigid rain, and removed his slicker. It was like most government buildings—this planned hotel turned into state offices. Not much different than the federal buildings up in Portland. Men in top hats and fancy suits scurried about with satchels and papers and this better-than-you’d-ever-hope-to-be expression on their faces. Colter had seen that enough from the previous marshals he had worked under—and most of those he had actually liked.

  A U.S. marshal was an appointed politician. He served at the whim of the attorney general and the state senate, maybe even the president, and so marshals came and went. Republicans now. Democrats before. Yet one thing remained the same, no matter which party was running the show.

  Marshals stayed behind desks. Deputies did all the work, served the writs, and made the arrests. Deputies did all the dying.

  “Marshal Colter?”

  Colter turned from the painting of Lewis and Clark that hung in the lobby of the building. He found a solidly built, bearded gentleman, holding a raincoat draped over his left arm, his left hand holding a military campaign hat from the late war. He did not look like he thought he was better than anyone. He could even have been a sheepman—like Mr. Holman himself—wearing his Sunday-go-to-meetings clothes.

  “Yes, sir.”

  The man extended his right hand. He had a grip like a sheepman, too.

  “I thought so.” The man gestured at the LeMat that hung snugly on Colter’s hip.

  Tim Colter had learned to always keep a revolver handy. Jed Reno had taught him that, too.

  “I’m Albert Zeiber.”

  “Welcome to Salem, Marshal.”

  The politician smiled, but it wasn’t the fraudulent smile Colter had expected.

  “It’s good to be here, sir. Grand to be in Oregon. And a pleasure to meet you.”

  Colter shrugged. He had never cared much for accolades.

  “Is there a good restaurant nearby where we could take a bite to eat? Maybe sip some coffee? And talk?” He shook his head. “Someplace where the roof does not leak. I almost drowned talking to Mr. Cornelius.”

  A Republican from Washington County, Thomas R. Cornelius, for all practical reasons Colter’s first commanding officer with the 1st Oregon Cavalry, was now president of the Oregon State Senate.

  Tim Colter decided that he liked his new boss.

  “I know just the place, sir.”

  * * *

  Betsy McDonnell had been running the Bullfrog Café down on Ferry Street since her husband had died—of diphtheria—early in 1867. Anyway, that’s how Colter had started talking to her . . . well, why she had started talking to him anyway. Maybe they had helped each other heal.

  Maybe Betsy was the reason Colter had finally burned down that home that overlooked the Pacific Ocean. Patricia, he made himself believe, would want him to move on. He was alive. And if you were alive, Patricia often told him, you have to live. That’s why they had sold the farm and struck out to the Umpqua in search of gold. And then followed the Siuslaw River to the Pacific to find another adventure.

  She brought Colter and Marshal Zeiber two cups of coffee and two giant corn muffins, seasoned with cinnamon, all on the house.

  “To welcome you to our lovely state, Marshal.”

  Zeiber stared up at Betsy. “Madam,” he said, “I thought Oregon—this country—was of such a deep green that never would I find anything to match its beauty. Until I saw your eyes.”

  She smiled, but he blushed, noticing the black band around the arm of her gray dress.

  “I hope you do not find my comment inappropriate, madam. I meant no disrespect and please allow me to offer my condolences to your—”

  “Apologies are not necessary, Marshal,” she said, “especially after such a wonderful compliment. Might I get you anything else?”

  Colter stared. She did have stunning green eyes. Even on such a rainy, dismal, cold day as this, they shone. Her hair was red, bright and as warm as a Christmas fire. She looked at him, winked, and left after Zeiber shook his head.

  “A fine woman.” The marshal sipped his coffee. “My world . . . and this coffee is the best I’ve ever tasted.”

  “Wait till you sample her muffins, sir.”

  “She cooked these herself.”

  “She does practically everything in this restaurant herself.”

  Zeiber sampled the muffin, then studied Colter with a bit of scrutiny.

  “Her husband . . . ?” the marshal asked after Colter had sipped about half his cup of coffee.

  “Dead,” Colter answered blankly.

  “How did he die?”

  Colter swallowed. He stared out the window at the puddles still being pelted by drops. “Diphtheria.” He wasn’t sure he could even say the word. Yet this time, when he did say it, he no longer saw his dead wife and children. This time, he did not even see the flames roaring through the home he had built with Patricia. He just saw the rain.

  “I am sorry.”

  Turning away from the window, Colter shook his head. “No need, Marshal. My wife and children have been gone for more than two years.”

  As he lifted his coffee cup, Marshal Zeiber smiled. “And . . .” He sipped the coffee, lowered it, and shook his head. “Never mind.”

  “What is it?”

  Zeiber leaned forward. “Sir, I was going to ask you—as a widower myself—about the availability of Mrs. McDonnell—as of the end of January, of course, giving her enough time for mourning for the appearance of respectability.”

  Now Colter stared at his boss with complete puzzlement.

  U.S. Marshal Albert Zeiber laughed as he pulled off another bite of muffin. “But I know better than to trespass, Marshal Colter, especially when the owner of that property carries a LeMat pistol.”

  Colter’s head shook. “Marshal, I think you are mistaken.”

  “I don’t. I see beauty in Mrs. McDonnell’s eyes, Tim. I see something totally different in yours.”

  They finished their muffins in silence, sipped coffee that Betsy came by to refill, and finally Albert Zeiber pulled the satchel off the floor, set it on the table, and unfastened the clasps.

  “It’s time for business, Marshal Colter,” he said, and pulled out an envelope. Colter read only the Seal of the Attorney General of the United States of America.

  “My first bit of business as U.S. Marshal of the District of Oregon,” Zeiber said, “is to show you this letter. A request, sir. A plea for help.”

  Actually, the papers Colter saw in his hand came from various people. Requests. Forwards. Endorsements. First he held a letter from Henry Stanbery, the attorney general, written to Marshal Zeiber. Just a brief note about what he was forwarding to Oregon, although Colter did feel a bit honored that he now held a piece of paper signed by the United States attorney general, a man who worked close to President Andrew Johnson.

  Next he held a letter from Laban H. Litchfield.

  The name meant absolutely nothing to Colter, but the letterhead read:

  Dakota Territory

  Office of the U.S. Marshal

  Dakota Territory had been created by Congress on March 2, 1861. It covered much of what had been the Unorganized Territory. That had been another mere forward, a letter of endorsement, sent to James H. Alvord, territorial marshal in Idaho. Most of these new territories had been carved out from other t
erritories. Idaho, well, that’s one thing Colter knew. The territory, carved out three, no, four years back, covered a lot of the country people were starting to call Wyoming.

  The last letter, the one that had been forwarded to Washington City . . . to Yankton in Dakota Territory to Boise in Idaho Territory and, finally, to U.S. Marshal Albert Zeiber in Oregon, was in Tim Colter’s hands in a café in Salem on a wet, wintry December morning that was approaching afternoon.

  Sir:

  We, the undersigned citizens of Violet—but representing the majority of the inhabitants of our fair city along the Union Pacific Railways, ten miles east of Cheyenne—beseech thee for relief.

  Our city, soon to be heralded as a great beacon to the Western territories, is besieged by ruffians, cowardly murderers, and the most vicious and evil rapscallions ever to lurk. We need law. We need help. We need to rid our great city of evil-doers and make it fit for our people, our women, our wives, our children . . . and those settlers who wish to help settle this great Western empire.

  We believe one man can help us accomplish this task. Therefore, it is our great wish—our only hope—that one of your federal lawmen, the renowned marshal Tim Coulter, be sent to Violet. We can pay him fifteen dollars a month.

  Two men are at the root of our problems. Both ruffians with no moral values, a saloon owner named Micah Slade and a nefarious gambling operator known as Paddy O’Rourke. We are at their mercy, and fear for the lives of our town and all of us law-abiding citizens.

  Please, Marshal Coulter, please dear sirs, please ride to our rescue. Save us from being wiped off the face of the map.

  Colter read the signatures:

  Jasper H. Monroe, mayor, Violet, Idaho Territory

  X (which someone, apparently the mayor, had noted as Eugene Harker, freed slave, good barber)

  B.B. Cutter

  H.R.R. Yost

  Aloysius Murden

  Duncan Gates

  Then Colter carefully refolded the letters and handed them, and the various envelopes, back to Marshal Zeiber.

  “What do you think?” Zeiber asked.

  “They spelled Colter wrong,” Colter answered.

  Zeiber’s smile showed no amusement. “Marshal Alvord said he would welcome you in his territory, even on a temporary assignment, but he believed that this is not a federal matter. He says . . .”

  Colter nodded. He had read Alvord’s letter, and had to agree with him. Maybe it was federal as it was in U.S. territories, but this seemed to be more within the jurisdiction of a local lawman. Alvord said he had written Mayor Monroe, telling him the very same, but assuring him that he would forward the correspondence to the new district marshal for Oregon and a request to deliver it to Tim Colter.

  “And fifteen dollars a month is not much pay to risk one’s life,” Zeiber said. Yet, Zeiber’s eyes were as easy to read as Betsy McDonnell’s.

  Tim Colter’s boss was disappointed.

  “So your answer is . . . ?” the new marshal asked hopefully.

  He already knew it. So did Tim Colter, who was watching Betsy bring more coffee and a couple of slices of pie. He saw her eyes. He knew....

  It was one thing to go after some hard case like Stewart Rose. That was his job. He had to do that. They had robbed the U.S. mail, which led to federal warrants for the arrest of Rose and his gang. Tim Colter had taken an oath. But to travel all the way to Cheyenne—wherever in blazes that was—and risk his life for people he didn’t know, in a town he had never seen, which might even require him to resign his deputy marshal’s commission, for fifteen bucks a month.

  No. Colter wouldn’t—couldn’t do that. And there was another reason. She was refilling two cups of coffee and sliding two plates, each holding a slice of warm, bubbling apple pie, in front of Tim Colter and Marshal Albert Zeiber.

  “I can’t leave . . . ,” Colter said. “Not after . . .”

  CHAPTER 8

  Winter. January. Three feet of snow on the ground, five below zero, a gale blowing with nothing to stop it from Canada, and Jed Reno had never been so busy since he had left the Green River. The latest U.P. train, following another smoke-churning monster of an engine with a snowplow attached to its cowcatcher, had brought seventeen more settlers—all who were either staying at the Yost & Cutter Hotel or in some of the sod huts that had been erected as temporary homes in the town Aloysius Murden and Duncan Gates had platted.

  Reno couldn’t understand a word any of the women or men said. Flemish, Mayor Jasper Monroe called it. It didn’t matter, though. The sodbusters knew what they wanted, and they paid in silver and gold.

  They weren’t all farmers, though. And some of them spoke English. One extended family—a tough, sunburned army veteran from Texas and his three sons and their wives—planned on filing adjoining claims and ranching down south a ways. Warren was their name. A dentist named Gregory had rented the first office in the first completely wooden-framed house erected in Violence, and another gent named Custer—no relation to the Civil War hero—had started up a bank.

  Violence was growing. Both the town, and the killings.

  “Here.”

  Jed Reno slid the double eagles into his beaded buckskin pouch—he still had not bought one of those newfangled cash registers, or even a moneybox—and smiled at the woman with her hair in a bun, spectacles hanging on the bridge of her nose, and wearing a navy blue woolen dress, with a heavy coat and scarf. Reaching below the counter, he pulled out the jar of stick candy, unscrewed the lid, and held it out to the woman’s mess of kids. Six of them, ranging from what appeared to be five years old to fifteen or so. Fat kids. She must be a fine cook.

  “Iffen it’s all right with you, ma’am,” Reno told her.

  She stared, and then smiled. Probably didn’t understand a single word he had said, but she could see the peppermints, and how wide her sons’ and daughters’ eyes got.

  Each of them timidly took out one stick, nodded at Reno. The last one said something on behalf of all those young’uns, which Reno took as a thank-you. He watched them file out of his trading post, closing the door behind them.

  “That’s right generous of you.”

  Reno turned, and that nice feeling that had settled over him vanished in a heartbeat.

  “Slade,” Reno said as he screwed the lid back onto the jar of candy.

  He wore a Yankee greatcoat—probably one he had taken off a soldier he had killed—with the left sleeve empty, though Reno could see the black sling that held that crippled arm. Slade strode over from the shovels, spades, post-hole diggers, and hoes to the counter. He withdrew a flask from the back pocket of his black trousers. He held it up to Reno.

  “Thank you, no,” Reno said.

  “Haven’t seen you in my establishment lately, Jed.” The man spoke in a thick Southern drawl. He unscrewed the pewter flask, drank greedily, and leaned against the counter.

  “For what you charge,” Reno said, “can you blame me?”

  The gambler grinned. “Two bits for a stick of nickel candy. You want to talk about inflation?”

  “Candy’s hard to get in these parts,” Reno said.

  “So is whiskey.”

  Reno laughed. “Yeah. But not if you heat up pure alcohol and season it with rattlesnake heads, chewing tobacco, peppers, and gunpowder.”

  Grinning, Micah Slade gestured with his good hand toward the closed door. “You try findin’ rattlesnakes when it’s this cold, ol’ hoss. ’T’ain’t easy.”

  “Try taking a glance behind your bar. Plenty of rattlers. Just got to know where to look.”

  The gambler exploded with laughter. “I like you, Reno.”

  “Don’t like you.”

  “I know that. But do you like that greasy little Mick more?”

  Meaning Paddy O’Rourke, who owned The Blarney Stone, that awful gambling den across the street from Slade’s Saloon. The Union Pacific had brought enough supplies that O’Rourke’s joint had expanded. Gone were the canvas walls, which the wind battered,
and the poles, ropes, and rawhide, which tried to hold the joint together. It now boasted a false front and two stories of whitewashed framed wood, trimmed green, made of logs hauled down from the Medicine Bow range, and even a gabled roof with wooden shingles.

  “I don’t give him no business, neither,” Reno said.

  “You’re a man in the middle, Reno.” Slade found his flask again, but did not offer Reno a drink as he took another healthy swallow. “You don’t like me. You don’t like O’Rourke. You don’t like nobody. You don’t even like this town. Why in hell did you start a trading post here?”

  “Wasn’t no town when I started it.” Reno frowned. Actually, he had not expected the swarm of settlers so soon after the tracks had just been laid. Progress of the U.P. line had slowed down substantially with winter, and Violence—or Violet, if you preferred—had become even bigger as a railroad supply stop for the crews off to the west. Railroaders. Farmers. Townsfolk. And men like Slade and O’Rourke. And nowhere to go without freezing to death. Not a healthy combination.

  “So . . . there was a meeting of Violence’s best minds last night.”

  Reno had figured Slade eventually would get to the point of his visit. He had to give the saloonkeeper some credit. Earlier this afternoon, Paddy O’Rourke had sent one of his faro dealers to prod Reno for information. At least, Slade came himself.

  “You wasn’t invited?” Reno chided.

  This time, Micah Slade did not smile. He pushed back the tail of the blue kersey coat, revealing the butt of one of the Alabaman’s Navy Colts.