Matt Jensen: The Last Mountain Man Purgatory Read online

  “Hello, Judge,” someone said, interrupting Dempster’s reading.

  Looking up, Dempster saw three men. All three had been regulars in the courtroom during the trial, but he only knew the name of the one who spoke. That man’s name was Carl Mason, and he was the brother of Jed Mason, the defendant in the trial. Jed Mason was being tried for murder in the first degree.

  “Mason,” Dempster said.

  Mason didn’t wear a beard, but neither was he clean-shaven. He had yellow, broken teeth and an unruly mop of brown hair.

  “Nobody is supposed to be in here at this hour. How did you get in?” Dempster asked.

  “You need to have the lock fixed on the front door,” Mason replied with a chuckle. “It didn’t cause us any trouble at all.”

  “You have no business here.”

  “Well now, Judge, that ain’t the way I see it,” Mason said. “The way I see it, my brother is goin’ to get hisself hung if this here trial don’t come out like it’s supposed to. So I figure I got the right of a lovin’ brother to be here.”

  “You are welcome in court tomorrow for closing arguments,” Dempster said. “I think we will also have a verdict tomorrow.”

  “What will that verdict be?” Mason asked.

  “Well, Mr. Mason, I have no way of knowing what the verdict will be.”

  “Sure you do. You’re the judge, ain’t you?”

  “Yes, of course, I’m the judge.”

  “Then see to it that my brother gets off.”

  “Mr. Mason, I don’t think you understand. I am bound by the decision of the jury. If they find your brother guilty of murder, I will have no choice but to pronounce sentence on him.”

  “Yeah? And what would that sentence be?” Mason asked.

  “That he be hanged by the neck until dead,” Dempster said.

  “That ain’t goin’ to happen,” Mason insisted.

  “It very well may,” Dempster replied. “As I told you, it is up to the jury.”

  Mason shook his head. “You better find some way to make it be up to you. If you don’t…” Ominously, Mason stopped in mid-sentence.

  “Are you threatening me, Mr. Mason?”

  “You?” Mason said. He shook his head. “No, Judge, you ain’t the one I’m threatening. I’m threatening them.”

  “Them?”

  Reaching into his pocket, Mason pulled out something gold and shiny, then lay it on the desk in front of Dempster.

  “You recognize this, Judge?” he asked.

  “It’s Tammy’s locket,” Dempster said with a gasp. He had given his twelve-year-old daughter the locket last Christmas, and she was never without it.

  “And this,” he said, putting a wide gold wedding band down. Inside the wedding band were the names “Bob & Lil.”

  “Lil’s wedding band,” Dempster said with a sinking feeling. “What have you done with my family?”

  “You make the right decision tomorrow, and your wife and daughter will be fine,” Mason said.

  “Please, don’t hurt them.”

  Mason chuckled. “Like I said, Judge, that’s all up to you.”

  Dempster went home to find his wife and daughter missing. There was a note on the receiving table in the foyer.

  IF YOU WANT TO SEE YOU WIFE AND KID ALIVE AGAIN CUT MY BROTHER FREE

  Dempster did not sleep a wink that night, and when he showed up in court the next day, he was exhausted from lack of sleep and sick with worry. As the courtroom filled, he looked out over the gallery and saw Mason and the two men who had come to visit him on the previous night. Mason held up a ribbon that Dempster recognized as having come from his wife’s hair, then smiled at Dempster, a sick, evil smile.

  Dempster fought back the bile of fear and anger, then cleared his throat and addressed the court.

  “Last night, while going over the transcripts, I found clear and compelling evidence of prosecutorial misconduct,” he said.

  The prosecutor had been examining his notes prior to his summation, but at Dempster’s words he looked up in surprise.

  “What?” the prosecutor said. “Your Honor, what did you say?”

  “Therefore, I am dismissing all charges against the defendant. Mr. Mason, you are free to go.”

  “What?” the prosecutor said again, shouting the word this time at the top of his lungs. “Prosecutorial misconduct? Judge, have you lost your mind? What are you talking about?”

  “Are you crazy, Judge?” someone shouted from the gallery, and several others also shouted in anger and surprise.

  “This court is adjourned!” Dempster said, banging his gavel on the bench. Getting up, he left the courtroom amid continued shouts of anger.

  “Judge, what happened?” his clerk asked when he returned to his chambers.

  “I have to go home,” Dempster said.

  “Is something wrong?”

  “My wife and child,” Dempster said without being specific. “I must go home.”

  Dempster’s house was four blocks from the courthouse, and he half-ran, half-walked, calling out as he hurried up the steps to the front porch.

  “Lil! Tammy!”

  Pushing the door open, Dempster stopped and gasped, grabbing at the pain in his heart when he saw them. His wife and daughter were on the floor of the parlor, lying in a pool of dark, red blood. They were both dead.

  “No!” he cried aloud. “No!”

  The Missouri Supreme Court offered condolences to Dempster for the loss of his wife and daughter, even as they removed him from the bench and disbarred him. After that, Dempster had no choice but to leave town. He took a train to St. Louis and there boarded a train heading west. He had no particular destination in mind, settling in Purgatory because he felt that the name of the town brought a sense of poetic justice to his own situation. As he explained in a letter he wrote to his brother; “If I could have found a town named Hell, I would have settled there.”

  Dempster forced the memories away, returning to the present—a run-down office in a flyblown town. He looked at the broken bottle and the whiskey stain—which had become symbolic of his life. In the beginning the drinking seemed to help ease the pain, but as time went by the whiskey, which had once helped him by temporarily blotting out the memory, took over his soul. The man who had once been the odds-on favorite for appointment to the Supreme Court of Missouri was no more. That man would never be back.

  Dempster put his head down on his desk and sobbed until his throat was raw and his tears were gone.

  “Dear God,” he said. “I cannot get any lower than this. I want to die, but I don’t have the courage to kill myself. Take me, now. Please, dear God, help me beat this or take me now.”

  Incredibly, Dempster’s “prayer of relinquishment” had an almost immediate effect. A sense of calm came over him, a peace that passed all understanding, and he knew what his first step had to be on the long road to recovery.

  Getting paper and pen from his desk, Dempster wrote a letter.

  To the Honorable John C. Frémont,

  Governor of Arizona Territory

  Dear Governor Frémont:

  My name is Robert Dempster. I am an attorney at law, practicing in Purgatory. I feel it incumbent upon me to call to your attention the condition of affairs here in Purgatory. We are a town that is literally without law, except for the law as administered by Andrew Cummins, who is acting as both marshal and associate judge.

  I could list a catalogue of offences he has perpetrated and is perpetrating against the citizens of our town, such as draconian taxes and heavy-handed application of the laws he chooses to enforce. To help him, he has a force of no fewer than eight deputies, all this for a town of less than three hundred people.

  However, it is not to seek relief for our own condition that I write this letter. Rather, it is to point out a specific incident that is so glaring that I believe intervention is in order, either from your own resources or the resources of the federal government. I am talking about the trial, conviction, an
d sentencing of a man, all within one hour of the alleged violation.

  The man in question, Matt Jensen, rode into town innocently enough, and was accosted by Moe Gillis, one of Marshal Cummins’s deputies. Gillis ordered Jensen to pay a five-dollar visitors tax, but Jensen refused, saying he would ride on out of town. In the resultant disagreement, Gillis was killed. Jensen was arrested and brought to trial within minutes of the incident, and I was appointed to defend him.

  I must in all candidness report to you that I am an alcoholic, and was debilitated by an excessive use of alcohol. Despite the fact that I was in no condition to mount an adequate defense, I was appointed by Marshal Cummins, who, for purposes of the trial, abandoned his roll of marshal and assumed the mantle of associate judge.

  During the course of the trial, Jensen claimed that Gillis drew first, and my personal knowledge of Moe Gillis is such that I do not find that claim unrealistic. I was given only fifteen minutes to prepare for this case, which did not allow me to look for eyewitnesses. Later, an eyewitness came forth to testify that he had seen the incident, and the eyewitness’s story confirmed Jensen’s claim, thus making the killing an act of self-defense. When I took the report to Marshal Cummins, he dismissed it out of hand, and in front of me, ordered one of his deputies to perjure himself by signing a statement that he had also been a witness.

  I call upon you, Governor, to please intervene in this case to stay the man’s execution (he is to be taken to Yuma), and if that is not possible, to please appoint someone to look into the conditions in this town.

  This town has some decent people, Governor, and could be a vibrant and productive community, if only the tyranny of an evil marshal and his minions could be removed.

  Sincerely

  Robert Dempster

  Chapter Seven

  The metal bit jangled against the horse’s teeth. The horse’s hooves clattered on the hard rock and the leather saddle creaked beneath the weight of its rider. The rider was a big man, with brindled gray-black hair, a square chin, and steel gray eyes that could stare through a man.

  United States Marshal Ben Kyle’s boots were dusty and well worn; the metal of his spurs had become dull with time. He wore a Colt .44 at his hip, and carried a Winchester .44-40 in his saddle sheath

  He dismounted, unhooked his canteen, and took a swallow, then poured some water into his hat and put it back on his head, enjoying the brief cooling effect. He was running low on water, but figured to reach the monastery before nightfall, and he knew there would be water there.

  There were no natural sources for water at the monastery, but its water was carried in by barrel from a small, not always dependable, river twelve miles to the east.

  Kyle was after Emil Taylor and Bart Simmons. Three days ago, the two men had held up a stage, and because the stage was carrying United States mail, Kyle, as a U.S. marshal, had jurisdiction. The trail had led Kyle here, and he was now convinced that the two were headed for the monastery. That wasn’t a hard conclusion to make because anyone coming this way would have to stop at the monastery since there was no other source of food or water within several miles in any direction.

  Stagecoach robbery was not the only crime for which the two men were wanted. Kyle believed they were also involved, along with Cletus Odom, in the attempted robbery of the Bank of Wickenburg a few weeks earlier. No money was taken because of the actions of the bank teller, but those same actions also enraged the robbers so that the teller was killed. Kyle was after Taylor and Simmons, but the one he really wanted was Cletus Odom, the outlaw who had planned and led the robbery attempt. The murder in Wickenburg was not the only thing Odom was wanted for. He was a desperate fugitive whose face was plastered on reward dodgers all across the Southwest.

  Kyle reached the monastery just before dark. The abbey was surrounded by high stone walls and secured by a heavy oak gate. Kyle pulled on a rope that was attached to a short section of log. The makeshift knocker banged against the large, heavy gates with a booming thunder that resonated through the entire monastery. A moment later, a small window slid open and a brown-hooded face appeared in the opening.

  “Who are you?” the face asked.

  Kyle was a little surprised by the question. The monk on the other side of the gate was Brother James, and because Kyle had been here many times before, he was absolutely certain that James knew who he was. Why was he pretending that he did not know?

  “My name is Ben Kyle. I’m a United States marshal.”

  “What do you want?”

  “I’m looking for a couple of men—outlaws—who might have come this way,” Kyle said.

  Pointedly, the monk cut his eyes to his left. He did that twice. “I’m sorry. This is a holy place. I can’t let you in,” he said. He cut his eyes to the left again.

  Kyle nodded once, to let the monk know that he understood.

  “But, Brother, I am out of water. You cannot turn me away,” Kyle said, continuing the charade.

  “I am truly sorry,” the monk said. “God go with you.” The little window slammed shut.

  Kyle remounted, and rode away from the gate.

  Taylor and Simmons were standing just inside the gate.

  “What’s he doin’ now?” Taylor asked.

  “He’s ridin’ off,” the monk answered.

  Taylor chuckled, then put his pistol away. He looked at the short, overweight monk. “You done that real good, Padre,” he said. “I don’t think he suspects a thing.”

  “I am not a priest,” the monk said. “Therefore I am not addressed as Father.”

  “Really? Well, hell, it don’t matter none to me what you’re called,” Taylor said. “I don’t care what I’m called either, as long as I’m called in time for supper.” Taylor laughed at his own joke. “You get it? As long as I’m called in time for supper,” he repeated, and he laughed again.

  “Yes, that’s quite amusing,” Brother James said without laughing.

  “Yeah, well, speakin’ of supper, what do you say we go see if the cook has our supper finished? I’m starvin’.”

  The three men walked back across the little courtyard, which, because of the irrigation system and the loving care bestowed upon it by the brothers of the order, was lush with flowers, fruit trees, and a vegetable garden. There were a dozen or more monks in the yard, each one occupied in some specific task.

  The building the three men entered was surprisingly cool, kept that way by the hanging gourds of water called “ollas,” which, while sacrificing some of the precious water by evaporation, paid off the investment by lowering the temperature by several degrees.

  “Brother James, who was at the gate?” Father Gaston asked.

  “A stranger, Father. I do not know who he was,” Brother James replied.

  “And you denied him sanctuary?”

  “I had no choice, Father,” Brother James said, rolling his eyes toward Taylor and Simmons.

  “You sent him away?” Father Gaston asked Taylor.

  Taylor was a small man, with a ferretlike face and skin that was heavily pocked from the scars of some childhood disease.

  “He was a United States marshal,” Taylor replied. “A United States marshal ain’t exactly someone we want around right now.”

  “I see,” Father Gaston said. “Still, to turn someone away is unthinkable. It is a show of Christian kindness to offer water, food, and shelter to those who ask it of us.”

  “Yeah, well, there’s enough of that Christian kindness goin’ on now, what with you takin’ care of us ’n’ all,” Taylor said. “Now, what about that food? How long does it take your cook to fix a little supper?”

  “Forgive me for not mentioning it the moment you came in,” Father Gaston said. “The cook has informed me that your supper is ready.”

  “Well, now, that’s more like it! Why didn’t you say somethin’?” Taylor said. “Come on, Simmons, let’s me ’n’ you get somethin’ to eat.”

  Brother James led the two outlaws into the dining room. Th
e room was bare, except for one long wooden table, flanked on either side by an attached wooden bench. On the mud-plaster-covered wall, there hung a large crucifix with the body of Jesus, clearly depicting the agony of the passion. Simmons stood there looking at it for a moment.

  “I tell you the truth, that would be one hell of a way to die,” Simmons said.

  “What would be?” Taylor asked. Unlike Simmons, Taylor had not noticed the cross.

  “That,” Simmons said, nodding toward the crucifix.

  Taylor looked around, then shrugged. “Yeah? Well, I doubt that hangin’ is any better, and more than likely me ’n’ you both are goin’ to wind up gettin’ ourselves hung.”

  Almost unconsciously, Simmons put his hand to his throat, then shuddered. “Don’t talk like that,” he said.

  Taylor laughed. “I’m just tellin’ you the facts of life is all,” he said. He looked at Brother James. “What about that supper that’s supposed to be ready?” he asked.

  “Here it comes now,” Brother James said.

  Another monk, who, like Brother James, was wearing a simple, brown, homespun cassock held together with a rope around his waist, came into the dining room then, carrying a tray. Their dinner consisted of a bowl of beans and a crust of bread.

  “What the hell is this?” Taylor asked.

  “This is your supper,” Brother James said.

  “Is this it? What about that Christian kindness you were talkin’ about? You didn’t offer us no meat,” Taylor said with a disapproving growl.

  Brother James shook his head. “I’m sorry, in this order we do not eat meat. We cannot offer you what we do not have.”

  “Yeah? Are you telling me this is what you people eat?”

  “Only one day in three do we get beans,” Brother James said. “The other two days we get bread only.”

  “Hell, it ain’t that bad, Taylor,” Simmons said, shoveling a spoonful of beans into his mouth. “It ain’t bad at all. In fact, it’s kind of tasty, and it sure as hell beats jerky.”