Brutal Night of the Mountain Man Read online

  “I’m not in the least worried about it,” Smoke said. “I’m here for a different reason.”

  “And what would that be?”

  As Smoke began to make an appeal for bail for Kate Abernathy, Boykin blew his nose, then stuck his handkerchief back into his pocket, doing so in such a way as to indicate his complete disdain for the idea.

  “Are you a lawyer, Mr. Jensen?” Boykin asked.

  “No, Your Honor, I am not a member of the bar.”

  “But you have read for the law?”

  “No, Your Honor, I have not.”

  “Then tell me, Mr. Jensen, what right do you have to apply for bail for Miss Abernathy?”

  “That would be Mrs. Abernathy, Your Honor. And she has designated me as her personal representative.”

  “Well, Mr. Jensen, whether you have been designated her personal representative or not, I’ll tell you here and now, that I’m denying her bail.”

  “For what reason?”

  “Reason? Reason, Mr. Jensen? I don’t need a reason. I am the judge, and it is within my purview to grant or not to grant bail. In this particular case I choose not to grant bail, and no further justification for my action is required. I know you have only the most rudimentary knowledge of the law, Mr. Jensen, but do you understand that?”

  Smoke smiled. “I do, Your Honor. And I thought you might deny her bail.”

  “If you thought that, then why did you even bother to apply?”

  “I guess I just wanted to see if it was true what people say, that you are a fawning sycophant who jumps at Atwood’s bark. I can see now that you are.”

  “How dare you, sir!” Boykin said angrily. “If you were in my court right now, I would hold you for contempt.”

  “Funny you would say that, Judge, because we don’t need to be in a court for me to hold you in contempt.”

  “Mr. Jensen, as our business is complete, I am going to ask you to leave my chambers.”

  “All right, I’ll go. I guess I’ll just have to find another way to get Mrs. Abernathy out of jail.”

  Boykin’s eyes narrowed, and he pointed a bony finger at Smoke. “You wouldn’t be suggesting that you are going to try to break her out of jail, would you, Jensen?”

  “Judge, if I decide to do that, there won’t be any trying to it. I will succeed.”

  “I intend to instruct Marshal Witherspoon to keep his eye on you.”

  Smoke chuckled. “Oh, I expect he is already doing that. Yes, sir, I’m quite aware of the marshal’s scrutiny.”

  * * *

  When Smoke and Pearlie returned to the Pretty Girl and Happy Cowboy, they were met by Cal.

  “Miz Sally is back there, by the piano,” Cal said.

  “Hey, Mr. Peterson, what’s the story with that cannon?” Pearlie asked.

  “Just like the sign says, Pearlie. When Fort Quitman shut down, they gave the cannon to the town.”

  “Will it still shoot?”

  “I’ll say it does. We fire it off every Fourth of July. It makes one hell of a racket.”

  Pearlie hurried on to join Smoke, Sally, and Cal.

  “So he said no?” Sally was asking as Pearlie joined them.

  “He said no, but I wasn’t really expecting him to say anything else,” Smoke said.

  “I was talking to Mr. Peterson,” Cal said. “He told me that Boykin is as crooked as a dog’s hind leg. I’m not surprised he found Rusty guilty and won’t grant bail to Miss Kate.”

  “Well, we won’t worry about Rusty yet,” Smoke said. “He’s safe for the time being. It’s Kate we need to get out of jail. We’ll do it legally if we can. But if we can’t get it done legally, we’ll break her out. There’s no way we’re going to let them hang her.”

  “Yeah, well, we’re probably going to have to break Katie out because there’s no way we can do it legally if Boykin won’t even grant bail,” Pearlie said.

  “There’s a federal court in El Paso,” Smoke said. “I’m going to go over there and try to convince the federal judge to overturn Judge Boykin’s ruling that put Kate in jail in the first place.”

  “How is a federal court going to help?” Pearlie asked. “They’re holding Katie for accessory to murder, and murder is a state law.”

  “Going to the federal court was Sally’s idea,” Smoke said.

  “Your idea?” Pearlie asked.

  “Yes,” Sally answered. “You are right, murder is a state law, but what they are doing here is a violation of the Fourteenth Amendment, which says that no state shall deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law, nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws. The incarceration of your sister, Kate, is in direct violation of that amendment, and that is all the justification a federal judge would need to order her immediate release.”

  “Yes, but even so, won’t it just be our word against Boykin’s word?” Pearlie asked.

  “I suppose it will be,” Smoke admitted. “But I’ve got to try.”

  “It need not be just our word against Boykin’s word,” Sally said. “Smoke, a moment ago, you said not to worry about Rusty yet. But if we can get Rusty’s conviction overturned, that will automatically apply to Kate as well, wouldn’t it?”

  “Well, yes, I’m sure it would.”

  “I think we can get his conviction overturned under the same argument.”

  “How? I can see how your idea might work with Kate, she didn’t get a trial.”

  “We can show that Rusty’s rights to a fair trial were violated, so we can use the Fourteenth Amendment in appealing his case, as well.”

  “Do you have an idea how to do that?” Smoke asked.

  “Yes, but we’re going to have to talk to Mr. Peterson about it.”

  “I’ll bring him over to the table,” Cal offered.

  A moment later Cal returned to the table with the bartender. “Yes, ma’am, Cal said you wanted to talk to me about somethin’?” Peterson asked.

  “Mr. Peterson, you saw what happened in here the night Rusty killed Calley, didn’t you?” Sally asked.

  “Yes, ma’am, I saw every bit of it.”

  “Do you have a pen and paper?”

  “A pen and paper? Well, I . . . wait a minute. Dolly does. She’s always writing poetry and such.”

  “Would you ask her if she would bring paper and pen to me?”

  “What have you got in mind, Sally?” Smoke asked.

  Sally smiled. “I intend to validate the story we are going to tell him.”

  “We?”

  “I’ll be going with you,” Sally said.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  “You wanted this, Miz Sally?” Dolly asked, bringing a pen and a few sheets of writing paper with her.

  “Yes, Dolly, thank you,” Sally replied. Sally looked up at Peterson.

  “Now, Mr. Peterson, if you would please, tell us what happened that night, and be as accurate as you can.”

  Peterson began talking, and as he did so, Sally recorded his words. Peterson told the story in exact detail, chronicling how Calley had put a pistol on the piano stool, then began counting to ten, declaring that when he got to ten he was going to shoot.

  “He looked away when he got to eight, ’n that’s when Rusty grabbed the gun and shot him, just as he said ‘nine.’ But if he hadn’t done that, Calley would have kilt him sure. You see, Calley had some reputation as a gunfighter and Rusty? Well, as far as I know there weren’t nobody that ever even seen Rusty wearin’ a gun at all. He didn’t have no choice but to do what he done.”

  “That’s true, Miz Sally,” Dolly, who had been listening, said. “Calley would’ve killed poor Rusty, if Rusty hadn’t taken the opportunity to shoot him when he had the chance.”

  “Then, when it come to the trial, Judge Boykin, he wouldn’t let anyone who actually saw what happened tell their story,” Peterson said in conclusion.

  “How many others were in the saloon that night?”

  “Well, Dolly �
��n the girls was all here. That makes five. ’N there was at least six or seven more that was here that seen what happened.”

  “We, who affix our signatures hereto this document, do affirm that the particulars as recorded above are true and accurate in every detail,” Sally said aloud as she penned the validating statement.

  “Now,” she said. “Let’s get as many of the witnesses to sign this as we can, then we’ll take this document to see the federal judge in El Paso.”

  “Sally,” Smoke said with a big smile. “That is positively brilliant!”

  “I just wish we could get them notarized,” Sally said.

  “Oh, you can get it notarized all right, there’s no problem with that. I can do it for you,” Dolly said.

  “You can? How?”

  “I’m a notary public,” she said with a broad smile.

  “You?” Sally asked in surprise. “You are a notary public?”

  “Yes, ma’am, I sure am. Miss Kate asked me to do it so I could notarize things for her.”

  “That’s wonderful!” Sally said.

  Within an hour, they had the signature of every witness but one.

  “Who’s missing?” Smoke asked.

  “Deputy Calhoun was here,” Peterson said. “But it won’t do any good to get his signature.”

  “Well, even if he rebutted the testimony of the others, it would still be,” she counted the names, “eleven to one.”

  “Oh, he wouldn’t refute it,” Peterson said. “He couldn’t. He was passed out drunk that night and didn’t see anything.”

  “Besides, he most likely wouldn’t refute it anyway,” Dolly said.

  “Why not?”

  “Deputy Calhoun is a good man, don’t get me wrong. I mean he is Marshal Witherspoon’s deputy ’n all, but he isn’t a mean man like Witherspoon.”

  “That’s true,” Peterson said. “Calhoun’s actually a pretty good man.”

  “Why does he stay on with him, then?”

  “To be honest, I don’t think Calhoun could get a job anywhere else. And Witherspoon keeps him on because he’s a drunk and easy for Witherspoon to control,” Peterson said.

  “He didn’t testify at Rusty’s trial,” Dolly said. “He coulda said that Rusty murdered Calley, but he told the judge he didn’t see anything.”

  “Who did testify against Rusty?”

  “The marshal did.”

  “But he wasn’t even here, was he?”

  “No, he wasn’t. But that didn’t stop him from testifying,” Dolly said.

  “Lying, you mean,” Peterson added.

  Eagle Shire Ranch

  Silas Atwood lived on the Eagle Shire Ranch in an antebellum house, three and a half stories high, topped by a large cupola, with Corinthian columns across the front. It was an exact replica of Colonel Raymond Windsor’s mansion, Windsor Hall, on Moss Point Plantation in Demopolis, Alabama. Atwood had grown up on Moss Point Plantation, the son of the white overseer. Atwood hadn’t built the house to honor Colonel Windsor, but to prove to himself that he was just as good as Windsor was.

  Windsor had not treated Atwood’s father any differently than he had his slaves, nor had he treated Atwood any differently from the young blacks on the plantation. That’s not to say that Atwood was mistreated, because Windsor had actually treated everyone well, but that wasn’t the point. The point was, Atwood was white, and he felt as if he should have been treated better than the slaves.

  Raymond Windsor had supported the Confederacy to the point that he raised and equipped a regiment of cavalrymen from his own funds. But before he left for the war, he converted half of his money, which was a considerable amount, into gold as a hedge against the Confederate dollar.

  Atwood and his father had both joined the regiment, and his father had been killed at the Battle of Tupelo in July of 1864. Five months later, Colonel Windsor lay mortally wounded at the Battle of Franklin. He sent for Atwood, who he had recently promoted to lieutenant.

  “Lieutenant Atwood,” Windsor gasped. “I’m releasing you from the army now because I want you to take care of something for me. Return to Moss Point to look after my family. Wait until the war is over, and when everything has settled down, dig on the north side of the center silo. There, you will find the gold that I hid. Give it to my wife and children so that they aren’t left destitute by this cruel war. And keep one thousand dollars for yourself.”

  “You are being very generous, Colonel,” Atwood said.

  “You have earned it, my boy. And if you do this for me, it will be money well spent. Do I have your word that you will do this?”

  “You have my word, Colonel,” Atwood promised.

  Atwood returned to Moss Point, stayed for a few weeks, just long enough to earn Mrs. Windsor’s trust, then, in the middle of the night, left with a horse and a pack mule. The pack mule was carrying one hundred fifty pounds of gold . . . or 2,175 troy ounces. At nineteen dollars and eighty cents a troy ounce, that came to just over forty-three thousand dollars.

  When he arrived in Texas two months later, he was far from the closing battles of the war. And he was a rich man.

  * * *

  Now, more than twenty years later, Silas Atwood was much wealthier than he had been when he first arrived. At the moment he was sitting in a library, surrounded by books, none of which he had ever read, lighting a cigar and talking around puffs to Marshal Witherspoon and Judge Boykin.

  “What do you know about these men who have come to town?” He puffed a few times until the end of the cigar glowed red, and his head was wreathed with aromatic smoke before he finished his question. “I am particularly interested in the one that killed Rufus Pardeen.”

  “That would be Smoke Jensen,” Witherspoon replied.

  “I was paying Pardeen more than any of my other special cadre because he had the reputation of being exceptionally good with a gun. This man, Jensen, did he beat him fair and square?”

  “That’s what all the witnesses in the saloon say,” Witherspoon replied.

  Atwood pulled the cigar from his mouth and examined the end of it. “One of the newcomers is Kate’s brother, I understand?”

  “Yes, and she is why they are here. Kate’s brother, and Smoke Jensen, came to my office trying to get me to set bail for her.”

  “What did you tell them?”

  “I said no, of course.”

  “Well, what with the shooting of Pardeen, and the humiliating and disarming of Willis and the two men who were with him, I’m sure that Kate’s brother . . . what is his name?”

  “Fontaine,” Witherspoon replied. “Wes Fontaine, though he calls himself Pearlie nowadays.”

  “Pearlie,” Atwood said. “Yes, Pearlie. Pearlie and Smoke, they with their colorful names, may feel that they have the upper hand for now. But when all is said and done, I’m sure Kate Abernathy’s champions will give us no real difficulty.”

  “It may not be as easy as all that,” Judge Boykin said.

  “Why do you say that?”

  “Apparently this man Jensen has earned somewhat of a reputation as a hero.”

  “A hero?” Atwood replied. “What do you mean, he’s a hero?”

  “When he came to visit me I thought that, perhaps, I had heard his name before, so I walked down to the newspaper office to look him up. There have been several articles written about his exploits, which have been notable enough to warrant syndication by the Associated Press. They’ve even written some books about him, I understand. He is quite well known in Colorado where it is said that there is no one who is faster, or more accurate, in the use of a pistol.”

  “Colorado?” Atwood removed his cigar and used it as he gestured. “Well, that may be. But he is in Texas now, and he is going to have to deal with me.” The tone of Atwood’s voice displayed his incredulity that anyone would dare challenge him.

  “Yes, sir, he will have to deal with you, but he is already aware of your position here,” Judge Boykin said. “He mentioned your name while we were in conv
ersation.”

  Returning the cigar to his mouth, Atwood smiled around it. “He mentioned my name, you say? In what way was my name used?”

  “He . . . uh . . . questioned the relationship I had with you, suggesting that you may have an undue degree of influence over any judicial decision I might make.”

  Atwood chuckled. “You mean he knows that I have you by the balls?”

  Boykin cleared his throat in embarrassment. “Well, uh, I wouldn’t exactly say that.”

  “How would you say it?”

  “I would say that, uh, your interests and mine coincide.”

  “Yeah,” Atwood said, chuckling again. “You might say that. And Jensen pointed that out to you, did he?”

  “Yes.”

  “Well, it could be that this man, Jensen, isn’t as dumb as I thought. But what I want to know is, why is he getting involved in the first place? What does he have to do with Kate Abernathy?”

  “Wes Fontaine works for Smoke Jensen,” Marshal Witherspoon said. “Apparently he and his sister haven’t seen each other in many years.”

  “If they haven’t seen each other in a long time, what do you suppose made him show up now?” Atwood said.

  Witherspoon smiled. “Well, he showed up now because, somehow, he learned that she was in trouble. And, I suppose he feels guilty about not seeing her for all these years. Who knows why he’s here? Whatever the reason he is here, he and Jensen are bound to make trouble for us.”

  “You say Fontaine works for Jensen?”

  “Yes.”

  Atwood studied the end of his cigar for a moment. “Then that’s how we’ll handle it. If we get rid of Jensen, that will take care of Fontaine and the other man who is with them. To kill a snake, you cut off its head.”

  “Mr. Atwood, you aren’t actually suggesting that we kill Jensen, are you?” Boykin asked. “That would be murder.”

  “Perhaps not,” Atwood replied.

  “What do you mean?”

  “You did say that he is a well-known gunfighter, didn’t you, Boykin?”