Three Kings, Part 1 of 2
by Michael Matson

Part One



Coming home



Sometimes to complete a journey you have to return to the place you started from. At least that was the idea that brought Dee Bandy to the hills overlooking Clinton.

He had ridden through Bridger Pass four days before, wending his way slowly, not pushing the bay stallion but moving steadily southeast until he reached these low, forested, granite-rock-covered hills. Now he leaned forward on the bay, forearms resting on the broad pommel of his Mexican saddle, looking down at the distant, gray, weathered buildings of the town and considered what to do.

It was just going on toward dusk. Still early enough to ride down and get a room in the hotel. Get the bay a rubdown and a meal of corn for once. He could treat himself to a bath and have a good meal. Sleep in a real bed. The idea was appealing but there were still some things he had to work out in his mind.

He turned the bay and moved back into the forest of pine, oak and white ash to the face of a sheer, rocky bluff. There had been a slide there at some time years ago. Portions of the bluff eroded by rain had torn away and tumbled to the forest below, bowling over trees and creating a small open spot. Grass had grown in the clearing, enough for the bay to graze. Bandy hobbled the stallion and spread out his bedroll behind the largest of the rocks then gathered some dry branches and lit a fire. He was protected and far enough back in the trees so its glow wouldn't give him away. He brewed his coffee, heated the few beans he had left and ate.

Tomorrow he'd ride into Clinton. He'd been fifteen when he left seven years before, fed up with his hard-headed father, hating the drudgery of ranch work and longing to see more of the world than branding irons and digging strays out of tangles of shrub birch. Clive Bandy's spread, the Double B, was the biggest in the valley. There was ample water from both the Fox River and Diablo Creek. In spring and early summer there was lush grass for the stock and plenty for cutting to hay for later. The old man had carved it out of nothing, fighting for it, even killing a few who tried to take it away from him. Dee knew it would be his someday but he hadn't wanted it. Not then and maybe not now. He needed to think on it.

What he did want was to make peace with his old man, see his sister Caitlyn, his younger brother Ben and Feather, the half-Indian girl his father had taken in when Dee was a kid.

It had been a long seven years. He'd worked for a time for a stage company, first as a hostler, later as a guard on runs north to Montana and south to Oklahoma. From that he'd drifted south to Texas, rustled a few head of cattle across the border from Mexico. Half the men he met did the same thing or worse. Earning whiskey money, they called it. Or money to spend on the women who worked in the saloons and bordellos in the dusty towns dotting the border. More than once, he'd had to use the Russian .44 he'd taken with him when he left home. Men in that part of the country were hard, quick to anger and slow to back down. Sometimes there was no alternative but to settle arguments with bullets. He was no gunman but he'd learned if he wanted to live, it paid to be quick. He practiced until he was.

Tired of Texas, he'd ridden north on a cattle drive, ended up in a small Kansas town on the Sabine River west of Abilene and signed on as a town deputy. He might have stayed there but the sheriff, a man named Dwight Cobb, was an outlaw. It wasn't uncommon for western lawmen to have a history shaded toward lawlessness. They lived by the gun and often they died the same way. The cattle drives that came up along the Chisholm Trail from Texas to the railheads in Abilene were ripe pickings and Cobb organized a gang that preyed on the drives. Dee learned about it and fretted about it but in the end decided to look the other way. But holding up stage runs was another of Cobb's endeavors and on one of his hold-ups a guard was killed. Bandy called him on it and Cobb went for his gun. Much too slow. A locked drawer in Cobb's desk yielded a bit more than $4,600 and Dee took it. He guessed it was money gained by thievery and if he didn't take it someone else would.

Whether Cobb was a crook or not, it wasn't good policy to kill lawmen. Dee headed north.

It had grown dark. He put a few more branches on the fire, rolled himself in his blankets and drifted off.



Joseph



Sometime before dawn, Dee Bandy came awake knowing someone was watching him. He spun over, reaching for his Colt 1873, a reliable single-action model he'd traded the Russian for back in Kansas. He rolled back, drew aim and froze.

The figure sitting quietly on the other side of the glowing coals hadn't moved. It appeared to be wrapped in a blanket and to be chanting softly. Dee squinted into the darkness, then slowly rose to his feet.

"Joseph?" he said.

There was no response but he was sure the man was Joseph Broken Arm. But that was impossible. Joseph had been an old man twenty years before when he had stumbled into the Double B, carrying a small Indian girl. In halting English he had told of a Pawnee raid on an Arapaho camp that killed everyone except himself and the girl. She was half white, he said, the daughter of a white trapper and an Arapaho woman. Her name was Feather.

Clive Bandy had taken them both in and raised the girl as if she were his own. But that was so long ago. Joseph Broken Arm had to be dead.

Dee turned and thrust a short dry branch into the fire's dying embers. When it caught he turned back and held it up. The Indian was gone.

Dee built up his fire and brewed the last of his coffee, considering what he'd seen. Or what he thought he'd seen. He didn't believe in ghosts but a man would have to be a fool to ignore what his own mind told him. When he was a boy, Joseph Broken Arm had taught him to read weather signs, to track game as good as any Indian and to believe in things the mind taught you, things other men ignore that sometimes let you take a peek at the future. The lessons had saved his life more than once. Maybe that's what he'd seen, a sign sent to warn him about the days ahead.

As light began to filter through the surrounding forest, Dee saddled the big bay and retraced his steps of the previous day. Sun was just breaking over the Two Sisters, the twin buttes that held down the far eastern edge of the valley. Dawn crept across the rich grassland, painting the meadows a dusty gold. To his right, south of where he sat, the Fox River tumbled out of the mouth of Mustang Canyon and wound its way toward Clinton's north side. To the north, hidden in an outcropping of granite, Diablo Creek glittered like the links of a silver chain as it left the concave protection of Devil's Bowl.

Joseph had told him that ages ago the underground spring that fed the creek had gushed clean, sweet water. But one day an evil spirit entered the spring and it stopped flowing. Many of his people tried to trick the spirit into leaving but all failed. Warriors tried to kill it but the spirit could assume different shapes and was too quick to be hit with arrows or lances.

Finally, a famous medicine man came to the dry bowl where the evil spirit lay at the bottom in the form of a great lizard. The medicine man rode three times around the bowl, chanting words only he knew. As he completed the third turn, the lizard assumed the form of a white heron, flew to the rim of the depression and was changed into an immense white rock. Immediately the water returned to the spring and flowed off across the valley. True story or not, the white rock still stood at the edge of Devil's Bowl.

As a boy, Dee Bandy had believed all the stories the old man told. He knew now they were myths and superstitions. Even so, he couldn't help but wonder what Joseph Broken Arm was trying to tell him.



Danny Spiller



Dee Bandy left the bay at Bergman's Livery with instructions to rub him down good and give him a well-earned meal of corn.

"Corn's extry," Bergman's hand told him, eyeing the stranger's trail-worn clothes. He was about to say Dee looked like a drifter and, handsome Mexican saddle aside, which he could have stole anyway, how did he know Dee could pay for anything?

"Don't recall askin' what it cost, did I?" Dee said. There was something hard and dangerous in his eyes and the stableman decided to back off.

"Guess not," he said. "Corn it is."

There was a boy standing outside the stable as Dee Bandy stepped out carrying his hand-tooled Mexican saddlebags and his Winchester.

"Whatcher horse's name, mister?" the boy asked. He looked to be maybe about nine, with unruly brown hair. He was barefoot and wearing dirty corduroy trousers and a thin flannel shirt with a rip in one sleeve. Dee had seen a hundred like him—Mexican, half Indian or white—in towns from Lubbock to Abilene.

"What makes you think he's got a name?" he asked.

"Don't all horses?"

"Some don't," Dee said. "What would you call him?"

"Well," the kid pondered. "He's big and strong. I guess somethin' like Hero, maybe."

"That's a good name," Dee agreed. He started off toward the Clinton Hotel. The boy trailed along behind him.

"You here to kill someone?"

"Why would I do that?" Dee kept walking.

"Your gun's tied down," the boy said. "You a gunfighter?"

"Nope."

"Well, which one of 'em you gonna back?" the boy persisted.

Dee stopped. "You got more questions than a field full of grasshoppers, don't you? What do you mean, one of 'em?"

"Well, either the Double B or Lindsley's spread."

The name wasn't familiar. "Who's this Lindsley?"

The boy cocked his head and looked at Dee. "I guess you don't know, then. Lindsley come here 'bout two years ago and started building him a spread. Right off he had a run-in with old Bandy. They been fightin' ever since."

So that's what I've rode into, Dee thought. It's what Joseph was tryin' to tell me. A goddam range war. "What's your name, boy?" he asked.

"Spiller. Danny Spiller."

There was a Spiller used to ride for the Double B, Dee recalled. A big, hard-fisted man and a good worker whose wife had died giving birth to a baby boy two years before Dee had lit out. This could be the kid but Spiller wouldn't allow no kid of his to wander the streets of Clinton. "Any relation to Big Ed Spiller?" he asked.

"My pa," the boy answered. "They kilt him."

"Lindsley?"

Danny Spiller nodded. "Yessir. His hands did. Well nigh a year ago."

"Who's feeding you, Danny Spiller," Dee asked softly.

"Bergman sometimes," he said. "Sometimes I get something from the café. Stuff they throw out. If I go out to the Double B, they feed me good."

I suspect they do, Dee thought. And that's where the kid belonged. But with his pa dead, the boy preferred to stay in town for some reason. He dug in his pocket and came up with a ten dollar gold piece. "I thank you for your information, Danny Spiller," he said. "We'll talk again, like as not." He turned and walked off toward the hotel.

"Say, what's your name mister?" the boy called after him.

Dee Bandy didn't answer. The town would find out soon enough who he was. Then there'd be all hell to pay.



The Three Kings



It was his first bath in weeks and once rid of the sweat and trail dust, Dee felt about five pounds lighter. He put on a clean shirt and jeans and used the scissors he always packed in his gear to trim his rust-brown beard close to his jaw.

There was an old full-length mirror in his room, its silvered backing worn away in spots but still capable of giving him a clear enough image of himself. It was unlikely anyone would mistake the man who looked back at him for the raw, fifteen-year-old kid who'd left the valley seven years ago. He'd added a couple of inches and maybe thirty pounds since then, all of it hard muscle. Pale blue eyes looked out of a tough, weathered face not incapable of laughter. Other than a few small lines at the corners of his eyes, caused by squinting into southern distances parched by the sun and faint lines that marked the steely set of his mouth, his face was unmarked. More than a few women had told him he was handsome. He'd never thought so, but was glad to accept their opinions and the affection that went with them when offered. Man'd be a fool not to, he thought.

With trouble between his father and this Lindsley, it was clear what he needed to do. But not yet. He needed a day or two to figure out the lay of the land. If he could keep people from knowing who he was, he might be able to learn just what his family was up against.

But first he needed to eat. He strapped on his holster and tied it down tight to his leg then picked up his Stetson and regarded it ruefully. Once a fine gray, it was encrusted with dirt and stained beyond redemption with sweat and rain. He'd buy a new one later.

The town had changed. Maybe not as much as Dee himself, but there were differences: Clinton's side streets and alleys were still packed dirt but the main street had been caliched to make wagon passage easier. There were more stores selling clothing, leather goods and ranch supplies, two attorney's offices, a real doctor's office, a new bordello. The stockyards, now empty, south of town next to the Union Pacific station and the telegraph office, had been expanded, an indication ranching was prosperous. There were two more cafes and an honest-to-god tea room for ladies.

Dee picked one of the new cafes at random and tucked away a meal of inch-thick sirloin, four eggs, coffee and biscuits with pan gravy then walked over to Hoffman's Dry Goods. There were people on the street now and all of them regarded him warily, watching him out of the corners of their eyes or staring boldly. Two customers in Hoffman's, women pawing over bolts of cloth and sorting through boxes of buttons and ribbons, fell silent as he entered and moved as far away from him as they could. Hoffman himself, a gray-haired stooped, hollow-faced man wearing blue galluses over a wrinkled white shirt, waited on Dee courteously but nervously, obviously eager to avoid conversation or provocative questions.

It was clear Clinton was as edgy as a long-tailed cat in a roomful of rocking chairs. They feared something was going to explode and the appearance of a gun-toting stranger did nothing to allay their fears.

It was not yet quite noon when Dee Bandy entered the Three Kings saloon. The place was empty aside from two old men playing cards, the piano player and Ivars Gudson, the town drunk. None of them bothered to look up when he pushed open the door,.

In Kansas when he was looking for information, Dee had found the easy way to loosen folks' tongues was to offer them a drink. He bought a bottle from McKendry, the pasty-faced mustachioed bartender, and took it to a table near the piano where the music man lounged dozing. He hung his new hat on the back of a chair, poured himself a shot of whiskey and put his boots up. He remembered the piano man from trips he'd made to town with his father to buy supplies for the ranch. He was a short corpulent man dressed in black trousers and a red shirt, over which he habitually wore a gold, brocade vest. He was practically hairless with an unusually wide, lipless mouth and slightly bulging eyes, features that led to his inevitable nickname.

Frog Addams was a silent harmless fellow who had wandered west some years before from Chicago for some unknown reason. He'd made it as far as Clinton where his urge to travel deserted him and he stuck like a cocklebur. He lived in a room over the saloon and spent his afternoons and evenings at the piano, sipping beer and thumping out old show tunes, perfectly content it seemed to do nothing more.

Dee's plan took a turn for the worse almost immediately. Shouts of men hurrahing it up outside were followed by the echoing clatter of shod hooves on the wood sidewalk in front of the Three Kings. There was another shout and two men burst through the door yelling for whiskey. The shorter of the two spotted Dee and grabbed the other's arm.

"Wall, looky there, Johnny," he said. "That jasper's got a damn-near full bottle."

The west was full of men like these. Rough ranch hands with the day off, looking for a good time, plumb full of themselves and reckless. Sometimes that recklessness took the form of foolhardy unreasonableness. The sheer difficulty of the west attracted such men; men who took without asking. Men who bullied lesser men into giving them what they wanted. You didn't back down from men of that sort. To do so was to be branded a coward, to wear a sign around your neck that said you didn't have the spine to stand up for what was yours.

Dee slowly lowered his legs and watched the pair approach, a stocky weak-chinned waddy with a sharp, beak-like nose and long, oily black hair and a big fat man well over six feet tall with a brutal unshaved face scarred by childhood acne. Not his choice of drinking companions.

"You boys care for a friendly drink?" he asked.

The rowdies exchanged quick glances and smirked. "Sure do," the fat man said. "But I reckon we'll just take the whole bottle."

He reached for it and Dee struck like a rattler, pinning the bully's left wrist to the table. The man jerked back, trying to pull away but the hand that held his wrist was like steel. Furious, he went for his gun but Dee already had his out and clubbed him to the floor with the Colt's butt. The other man had his gun half out of its holster when Dee leveled the .45 at him.

"Go for it," he said. "Hell ain't half full."

Beak nose let go of his gun and held his hands open at belt level. The fat man lay dazed beside the table and Dee put his boot on him to keep him pinned. He stooped, pulled the man's gun from its holster and tucked it in his gun belt.

"Now you," he told beak nose. "Take your gun out with your left hand. Do it real slow and put it on the table." The man glared at him but did as he was told. Dee tucked it in beside the other.

"I figure you're both stupid enough to want to come after me so I guess I got to fix it so you can't." Dee said. "I could kill you but it sure would spoil my day." He took his foot off the fat man's back and drove the heel of his boot down hard on the man's gun arm. He heard the bone crack as the man screamed and passed out. Beak nose was backing up hard, his hands held high and a look of sheer horror on his face. Without seeming to aim, Dee sent a bullet through the man's gun hand, the big .45 slug blowing away half his fingers.

He turned. Frog Addams and the old card players were staring at him open mouthed and McKendry had ducked down behind his counter. He picked up his bottle of whiskey and took a pull then poured the contents on the fat man's body.

"You wanted it," he said. "Enjoy it."



The Double B



After the dust-up at the Three Kings, Dee Bandy's options had dwindled to just one. He retrieved his gear from the hotel, saddled the big bay and headed for the Double B.

The ranch straddled the Fox River and he rode through lush meadow enriched by the spring rains and the frequent run-off from the western hills. Occasionally as he rode, he came upon bunches of grazing cows, many of them with unbranded calves. That was half the problem, he thought. Unlike the southwest where barbed wire staked out the boundaries of each man's herds, northern ranchers were stubbornly free-range. Any puncher with a rope and chaps could start his own little empire by culling a few of another man's calves or digging strays out of the brush. If a man had a big enough spread, he might tolerate a bit of larceny but too much of it could lead to bloodshed. Like as not, that was the root of the war between the Double B and this newcomer Lindsley.

The main buildings and corrals of the Double B lay on a rise just ahead, visible beyond the jagged, up-thrust rocks of Bear Tooth Ridge. Joseph had told him they were the teeth of the first bear, killed by Found-in-Grass, the Arapaho hero who grew from rags to become a great chief and who led the first buffalo hunt. Dee was about to spur the bay into a canter when a bullet pinged off a rock ten feet to his left and went singing off into the distance.

He pulled up and leaned on his pommel. ""If you were tryin' to hit me, you could sure as blazes use a few lessons," he called out.

He was answered with another shot that knocked his Stetson off into the grass. "Now, gol darn it," he yelled. "I just bought that hat."

"Come any closer and you won't ever have to buy another." The voice, a woman, came from Bear Tooth Ridge. Even after seven years, he knew who it was.

"Caitlyn?"

"How come you know my name, you ugly saddle tramp?"

"Ugly? Why, you used to think your big brother was right handsome."

There was a girlish squeal and a slender strawberry-blonde woman wearing a battered brown hat, jeans, a man's work shirt and carrying an old Spencer repeating rifle stepped out from behind the rocks, shading her eyes with her free hand.

"Dee? Is that you after all these years?"



Lord Lindsley



Any idea that Clive Bandy had mellowed over the years disappeared like chickens in an Oklahoma twister. His greeting, "'bout time you showed up," told Dee he was as bullheaded, intractable and incapable of showing emotion as he'd ever been. All that the passing of time had done was add a streak of gray to his thick brown hair, hang a few useless pounds around his already stocky frame and wind-and-sun-cure him until he was as unbendable as old leather.

Never a voluble man, his version of the current difficulties were brief and as unadorned as a shroud.

"This Lindsley fella showed up a few years back," he told Dee. "Right off he started pushin'. Lord Lindsley, he calls himself." In disgust, Clive spat into the dust of the corral where they talked as Dee unsaddled the bay. "Lord my left foot! God only knows where he got that from. Some book like as not. I had no crow to pick with the man but he come at me wantin' to buy some of the Double B's best river pasture. When I told him no, he set his punchers to stealin' my calves and strays. Big Bill Spiller caught 'em at it and got shot for it. I killed the man who did it 'n Lindsley's been fannin' the flames with his hat ever since."

"Where does Ben stand in this?" Dee asked.

It was a delicate question. His younger brother had never been a fighter. He was a handsome devil and bright as a new penny, slight of build with his father's thick brown hair and striking gray eyes. Ben was his father's favorite and as such, he'd been spared the rough toil Dee had endured as the daily price of his place at the table.

He was surprised when his father rounded on him like a bee-stung bear. "Don't be askin' about Ben," he growled. "You'll find out soon enough."

As they walked back to the ranch house, a striking young woman dressed in an emerald-green dress with white ribbons laced through the sleeves, stepped out on the broad porch and stood smiling shyly at Dee. Catching sight of her, Dee Brady was struck suddenly as dumb as if he'd been hit with a fence post. He had seen stunning women before—dark-eyed Mexican beauties, the lovely, pale, perfumed daughters of Kansas businessmen—but never a woman as heart-stopping beautiful as the one who stood watching him, a vision with long, shining obsidian hair, long-lashed, gray-green eyes and a trim figure.

It took a minute for him to find his voice, lost as it was somewhere down near his stumbling heart, but he finally managed to croak out her name. "Feather?"

"So you remember me, Dee Bandy," she teased.

"What I remember," he said, "is a dirty-faced little girl with skinned knees. Not some heavenly angel in a green dress."

Feather's face broke into a broad smile, "Well, Mr. Dee Bandy, you've certainly learned some fancy words since you've been gone." She turned and stepped back into the house leaving Dee as thunderstruck as a just-branded calf.

Throughout the midday meal that followed, even as Dee puzzled over the absence of his brother Ben and his father's angry reaction, he couldn't take his eyes off Feather, a fact she rewarded from time-to-time with shy smiles. It wasn't until he and Caitlyn were sitting together on the broad ranch-house porch after eating that Dee brought up the subject of Ben's absence. Caitlyn grew silent and sad for a moment before answering. "I'm afraid Ben is part of our problem."

"Ben? How could he be?" Dee rolled a smoke and lit it with a match struck on the rough leg of his jeans.

"Lindsley has three children," Caitlyn said. "Two daughters and a son. The son, Jacob, and one daughter, Ella, are cut from the same cloth as their father. Both of them are sneaky and as nasty as cornered bobcats. There's a Mrs. Lindsley, too. But back east. She came out, decided she hated cows and cowboys and took her fancy dresses back to Philadelphia."

There was movement behind and to one side and Dee realized Feather had joined them, sitting quietly in the swing hung from the porch roof.

"And the other sister?" he asked.

"Emma. She must have been switched at birth because she's a sweet girl without a mean bone in her body."

"Just a year younger than Ben," Feather added. "Pretty too, if you like 'em buxom."

Dee turned to look at her, a big grin on his face.

"Well, she is," Feather said, blushing a bit.

"Yes, she is pretty. All blonde and pink and Ben fell for her like a collapsing chimney," Caitlyn said. "I don't know how they did it but they managed to meet in Clinton and maybe out riding . . . anyway . . ."

"They ran off together," Feather finished.

"Where to?"

"Probably Laramie at first or maybe some place farther east. Three months ago Ben sent a wire from Cheyenne saying they were married. I guess they sent one to Lindsley too and he went up like a scalded moose. He swears he'll kill Ben on sight if he ever comes back."

Dee finished his smoke and flipped the butt end out into the yard where it was immediately attacked by one of the ranch hens. This was bad news and it explained his father's gruff reply. But maybe it wasn't as bad as it could be. "Well, if no one knows where they are," he said, "Ben's safe."

"Dee, that's just the problem," Feather said. "We got another wire from Ben just two days ago, saying Emma was with child. They're coming back. They're going to stay at the Clinton Hotel and try to make peace with Lindsley. They'll be here in five days and Lindsley knows it."

"Surely, Lindsley will change his mind about Ben knowing there's a child on the way, won't he?"

Caitlyn shook her head. "Any other man probably would. The news just made Lindsley madder than a wet hen."

The Pride of the Apache
by Dick Derham

"He's coming in!"

U. S. Marshall Clive Jefford looked up from his desk as the excited Commissioner of Customs brandished the new issue of the Tucson Sentinel. Jefford pushed aside the stack of wanted posters he was perusing, read the article and grinned. That was the word they'd been waiting for since that cavalry shavetail led his detachment down to the border to squat on their haunches.

"Statehood for sure, now that murderer's treed."

Pete Fenton pulled back a chair and sat down. "Good for businessmen across Arizona. Question is, can we make it good for us?"

Both men were at the cusp of their lives, early forties, the age where a man realizes that the limits of his ability can never match the extent of his ambitions. Already starting to broaden around the waist, to recede at the forehead, not yet gone to seed, but not far from it, each faced a declining middle age as his vital energies waned.

And, soon, a forgotten old age unless they seized the opportunity that now lay before them. Jefford crossed the small office and eased the door closed. Back at his desk he lowered his voice. "Reach out and it's in our grasp, Pete," Jefford said. "We have to plan this out carefully."

"Or watch life pass us by."

In a few minutes, the talking done, Fenton passed over a celebratory cigar. "When the hangman steps down from the gallows, we'll be the heroes of Arizona. You for Governor, me for the Senate. We're set for life."

Lt. Britton Davis, twenty-three years old, two years out of West Point, Class of 1881, with all the weight of the peace of the border burdening his shoulders and his alone, had little to do in his encampment at the mouth of Skeleton Canyon but school his patience. The Apache renegade had promised to lead his band north from Mexico "in two moons." The time had come. And it had gone.

"Apache time is not white man's time." He had heard that truism declared by his fellow officers, by experienced sergeants, and by men of the frontier. Now he probed its truth. General Crook had given him his mission: escort Geronimo's band back to the San Carlos Reservation quickly, protecting them from attack by blood-lusting Arizona civilians, and show the proud Apache leader the honor one warrior always accorded to another. Give him no cause to back out of his surrender agreement and return to raiding.

And so Lt. Davis waited, his small detachment of Indian scouts from Company B with him. Waited and watched the opening of Skeleton Canyon, the much-traveled passage between Mexico and Arizona favored by smugglers of both American and Mexican disposition, by raiders, Army patrols, and anyone seeking a quick passage across the border. Here was the spot where Geronimo had sent word he and his band would return north, would cross the border, and submit to reservation life.

Until, as Davis well knew, they decided to go a-raiding again. But the future was not Davis's challenge. Not yet. The immediate challenge was getting Geronimo from Skeleton Canyon the one hundred seventy-five miles to the San Carlos Reservation in the quickest possible time, while avoiding any hostile contact with Arizonans that could spark Geronimo to feel disrespected and leave a swath of destruction as he returned to Mexico.

For Davis had no elements of coercion. The scouts from Company B were barely sufficient as route guards. His force would serve as no more than a symbolic defense against Arizonans who might think twice before fighting through the blue uniform of the U. S. Army to extract their vengeance on Geronimo and his band, a vengeance that Davis knew would be as savage as the depredations of the Apache. His small force might deter Arizonans but he could never force Geronimo and one hundred men, women and children to follow Army orders.

And now Geronimo was overdue.

Two moons turned into three. Then into four. And still Lt. Davis waited.

Geronimo's name was feared, and it was hated. Not without reason, at least as the white settlers of Arizona saw it. Decent hard-working farmers struggled to bring cultivation to the arid land, to scratch their meager living out of desert soil made fruitful only by their sweat. What was Arizona before them? Little more than a home for scorpions, Gila Monsters and other wild animals, chief among them the naked and savage Apache.

Of course, the Apache, the People, saw the world through a long history reaching back to the time Usen, the Life-Giver, had brought First Man forth from the depths within the earth. For centuries the People had lived by hunting, their hunting fields now including the free-ranging cattle generously brought into Sonora by the Spaniards, now Mexicans, whom Usen had sent to serve the needs of the People. Then the White-Eyes had begun to infest the People's homeland, only a few at first, but then more, drawn by shiny metal in the mountains, by sparsely grazed grasslands. White settlers in Arizona could be looked at as hostile invaders, conquerors, if left to their way, seeking to drive the People from the land Usen had given them. But enterprising Apache could take a different view: the white settlers served their needs by bringing objects for their raids conveniently close. Even better, the White tribe's great chief Washington provided tribute to the People for permission to construct their villages, tribute in the form of blankets and food, relieving the People of the need of hunting for themselves. That the nantans from the White-Eyes tribe pressed the warriors of the People to do squaw work, forsaking the bow of manhood for a hoe and plow could be ignored, so long as the tribute arrived on time.

Then came days when the White-Eye's tribute was withheld or was insufficient to serve their wants. In such a day, Geronimo would obtain supplies in the manner of his ancestors. Was not the land theirs? By what Power had the White-Eyes stolen the land from the People and ordered them to remain within the confines of the barren San Carlos Mountains? As for farmers and ranchers left dead in the wake of any raid, such had always been the stakes in the Apache world. Those who defended their herds and showed themselves worthy received a warrior's respect. But those who resisted ineffectively and surrendered their scalps were of no value, not even to their own tribe. Why could not the White-Eyes understand that simple truth?

But the White-Eyes insisted that their Great Spirit had so little discernment that it valued even the feckless creatures who had turned their backs upon others of their tribe and lived in isolated cabins, tempting even the youngest of Apache warriors to count coup and return victorious. The White-Eyes talked of names. They printed them in their papers. Names such as Judge McComas and his wife, "murdered" as the White-Eyes would say, in a routine raid in New Mexico, his young son Charlie taken captive to be given a productive life as a member of the tribe. Such names were preserved and recounted for time past memory, for winters and summers, even as the river of Apache life rolled on.

And so, in 1883 Geronimo led his band off the reservation again. They lived as the People always had, moving from site to site in the Sierra, providing for themselves by their bows, seizing the cattle put there for their purposes. Geronimo dodged the American Army and outmaneuvered the Mexicans until he grew tired of the game, ready for a rest, ready to receive the accolades that would be his from the dirt-scratchers at San Carlos who lacked the boldness to live as a true Apache.

He headed for the border.

Finally Lt. Davis felt the weight of waiting slip away. He sat on a slight hillock at the international border and watched Geronimo, some older Apache men and several scores of women and children make their way between the lips of the canyon to the broad plain beyond. Perhaps he should have wondered at the lack of men of fighting age accompanying Geronimo. But this was not the time for concern; this was the time for relief.

Davis met Geronimo and confirmed the agreement the Apache leader had reached with General Crook: he and his band would return to the San Carlos Reservation, not as prisoners but retaining their weapons and with no sanctions for having left the reservation. Experience told Davis that such a small band could reach the reservation in four or five days, before angry Arizonans could learn of their arrival and make plans to take revenge. His assignment would soon be complete.

Then a cloud of dust appeared, slowly advancing up the canyon, and raising the alarm of a new problem. "The Mexican Army is on your heels," Davis said. Just as the American Army crossed the border after Apache raids, the Mexican Army might as well.

"Ganado," Geronimo grunted. And cattle they were. Three hundred fifty head the Apache had stolen from Mexican ranches just below the border, herded by Geronimo's warriors. Davis's plans for rapid marches of forty miles a day, keeping away from towns and citizens, had just been destroyed. Instead of avoiding ranches, Davis would be compelled to seek them out for water and easier travel for the cattle.

Still, as they moved north, the Chiracagua Mountains to their east, the Dragoons to the west, the first days on the trail passed quietly enough.

Cpl. McKinsey had been dispatched to Bisbee with the coded telegram to Gen. Crook reporting that Geronimo had arrived and that Davis was leading him to the reservation. McKinsey returned with the latest issue of the Tucson Sentinel. He handed it to Lt. Davis, folded open to highlight the important article.

Justice for Arizonans

The vicious murderers of hard-working Arizonans have too long been shielded from justice by our nation's "esteemed public servants" as the politicians in Washington City would have you think they are. Easy it is for them to deny the just claims of non-voting residents of a remote territory. Does murder become benign when performed by "wards of the state?" Tell that to the scalped and mutilated victims in farm house after farm house across Arizona.

How long will the United States Army protect these vicious sub-human animals? When will our government come to the defense of Americans?

Word has reached Tucson that the worst of the predators that have ravaged Arizona are now returning from their Mexican depredations under promise of safe conduct back to the San Carlos Reservation, where they will rest, be fed by the largesse of taxpayers, and prepare for their next venture into death and destruction.

The people of Arizona demand that the forces of law seize Geronimo and bring him to justice, lest the long-suffering honest citizens of Arizona be forced to take up their arms in their own defense.

Any official who executes his oath to "preserve and protect" with the expected zeal will gain the undying support of this paper, and of the people of the Territory of Arizona.

Sulfur Springs had long been an Indian camping ground valued for its fine water and grass. Now Henry Clay Hooker had appropriated it for his ranch, thirty miles west of Fort Bowie, twenty miles southeast of Willcox. The Sulfur Springs Ranch house itself was a one-story Adobe building in the center of an unbroken prairie of Sulfur Springs Valley, a level plain, devoid of trees or brush, with visibility for many miles. Davis let his pack train go into camp for the night fifty yards from the ranch house. The Apache, their cattle, mules and ponies, were sent to graze half a mile away where the grass was thicker.

This close to potential troublemakers in Willcox, the Sentinel's clarion call for citizen vigilantes pounding in his brain, Davis knew the two days ahead needed to become a forced march. As the cattle settled for the night, he rode over to announce his plans for an early start in the morning. Geronimo had his own ideas.

"We stop three days. Cattle driven hard. Mexican ranchers chase to border. Need rest."

"No rest," Lt. Davis said. Three days for citizens to organize. Three days to build into a confrontation where he would have to stand between the Arizonans and the Apache, the best outcome that could be hoped for from such a confrontation was that Geronimo would lead his band back into Mexico and then, angered by what he would call "white man's betrayal" would concentrate his raiding on the ranchers and farmers of southern Arizona.

"Cattle tired," Geronimo persisted.

Explaining that the Army could not control the citizens would not make his task easier. "One day, then," Davis finally conceded.

Back at his campsite, Davis pitched his tent, and let himself relax. One day's stop might not give citizens enough time to organize. It was the best he could do. Once past Willcox, the country remained largely unsettled except for the civilians clustered around Camp Grant. Soon the risk of trouble would be behind him. He determined to enjoy the rest himself.

As he waited for the company cook to sound the dinner call, two civilians, notable by their paleness as city men, emerged from the ranch house and approached him. Without introducing themselves, they welcomed him to the area.

"Lt. Davis, how big a herd would you say they have?" Pete Fenton asked.

"The Apache herd, sir? About three hundred fifty head."

Fenton looked at his companion."Hooker's hands should have no trouble handling a herd that size."

"The Apache can get the cattle to San Carlos," Davis said.

"They're not going to San Carlos, Lieutenant. I'll market them in Tucson."

"Sir, the Apache—"

"Those cattle are contraband, smuggled across the border without payment of import duties of close to a thousand dollars. As Commissioner of Customs, I am seizing them to pay off the taxes and fines owed."

Davis had visions of a new round of Indian wars breaking out right there, right under his command. "I don't think you understand what Geronimo will—"

"He won't be a problem, Lieutenant. He'll be in irons as my prisoner." The Commissioner's companion drew back the lapel of his coat revealing his badge. "I am U. S. Marshall Clive Jefford. Geronimo is under indictment for murder of Arizona citizens." Marshall Jefford looked directly at Davis. "I order you to arrest him and to direct your men to escort him to Tucson for trial."

"I take orders from Gen. Crook, sir," Davis protested. "Do you have written instructions from him?"

"There is a higher authority in these parts, Lieutenant. You are a U. S. citizen. Your duty is to the law." Marshal Jefford withdrew a paper from his pocket, scribbled in Davis' name and handed it over. "I am subpoenaing you to join a posse to assist in the arrest and transfer of a dangerous prisoner to Tucson."

As Davis read the subpoena, Jefford continued. "If you refuse my order, tomorrow I will go to Willcox and organize a posse of every willing man in the area." He paused. "And there will be many such men, I assure you. With that posse we will make the arrest. The people of Arizona are demanding justice."

"Sir, if you do that, the people will get war."

"Suppressing or exterminating the savages is the Army's responsibility," Jefford said. "If you men in blue can't do your job, don't come whining to me."

The vision of a whiskey-fueled Willcox posse appeared before Lt. Davis' vision. Could he stand aside and let the Indians under Army protection—under his protection—be slaughtered by Arizona civilians? Could he order his men to shoot down Arizona citizens acting under the authority of a U. S. Marshall? His West Point studies of the tactics of Hannibal at Cannae and Napoleon at Austerlitz had poorly prepared him for the complexities of frontier service. It was the worst he could imagine.

Then it got worse.

"And to be clear," Jefford continued, using the practiced words that would ring with patriotic fervor when quoted in the Sentinel, "if you force me to raise a civilian posse, I will place you under arrest for failure to obey the orders of a Federal Officer. The U. S. District Judge in Tucson will decide whether this nation still rates civilian authority as the source of law, or whether we must all bow down to a military dictatorship."

A dejected Britton Davis contemplated his fate as the two civilians returned to the house. The Apache judged a man by whether he kept his word. What could he tell Geronimo? The truth? And see Geronimo flee back to Mexico? How would he explain that to General Crook? Or catch Geronimo by surprise in the morning, assist Marshall Jefford in placing him in irons? And destroy any trust the Apache might ever have for General Crook and his army? Leave at once with Geronimo and seek to outrace the Willcox posse to the safety of the San Carlos Reservation? And be brought up on criminal charges before the Federal Courts?

"Why so glum, soldier?"

Brit Davis perked up at the hearty baritone voice out of an easier past. "Bo," he greeted as he leapt to his feet. "I'd forgotten you were riding over to visit."

"Forgotten your best chum in the entire U. S. Army? Like a mere thirty-mile ride through Apache-infested country could hold me back? Now what kind of friend would that be?"

Davis pumped the outstretched hand with unfeigned welcome.Through years on the plain of West Point, Bo Blake, Class of 1880, had become as good a friend as Davis had. For the moment, Davis welcomed the distraction from his insoluble problem. "I'm glad you came, Bo."

"I had no choice, Brit. I have an unopened bottle of Scotch. I couldn't find anyone at Fort Bowie I'd rather drink with."

The two young Lieutenants sat and shared Blake's whiskey as they traded news of old classmates from West Point, of George Goethals and Jack Biddle, of Auggie Hewitt, dead from his wounds in the Ute War, of Al Griffiths and his death in Montana. They talked of Bo Blake's adventures leading the scouts in the chase after Loco's breakout. But, inevitably, talk turned to the present. Davis handed over Jefford's subpoena. "Got your tail in a crack, Brit," Blake said. "Go to jail for disobeying the U. S. Marshall, or get court-martialed by General Crook for violating military orders."

"Or get killed in the crossfire between the Arizona posse and the Apaches," Davis added morosely.

They talked a long time, trying to see an exit to the maze. Finally, they could see only one path: When the ranch house fell silent for the night, Lt. Blake, who was not subject to a civilian subpoena, would lead Geronimo and his band, moving out silently, leaving the cattle behind, and race north toward the reservation.

Their simple solution had one small problem.

"No leave without cattle," Geronimo insisted.

Davis explained the situation. He cajoled. He persuaded.

Geronimo was unyielding. "White man give word. White men keep word or Apache burn Arizona."

Finally, Davis surrendered to the rock-hard stubbornness of the Apache. "I should have expected this, Bo," he told his friend. "Geronimo knows the Apache aren't crafty enough to move at night without waking up the whole ranch."

"Apache can move while you sit here and you not hear us."

"Well, one thing's sure," Davis said as he got to his feet to return to his tent, "Apache are champion braggers. Sure would have been a good joke on everyone if they were gone when folks woke up." He shrugged. "But it can't happen."

"They're gone."

Pete Fenton rubbed the sleep from his eyes, as Marshall Jefford's shout brought the ranch house to attention. "Not the cattle too?"

"All of them."

"Can't be," Fenton protested as he reached for his trousers. "Cowhands sleep with one eye open. They couldn't get away with it."

"See for yourself."

So far had the herd traveled that as the two men emerged from the ranch house no telltale smudge of dust clouded the horizon. Even the grass had sprung back to its upright position, leaving no trace of the herd's passage.

There was a convenient object for their rage, Lt. Davis sitting disconsolately on a rock by the side of his tent. Jefford turned on him. "The Willcox posse will run them to ground. Tell me where they went or I'll slap you in irons."

"Maybe east to Fort Bowie. Maybe north to the army post at Camp Grant. Geronimo talked about going back to Mexico. Could be any of those."

"Damn you. It's your men with them."

"Not my men, sir. Lt. BIake outranks me." As Davis studied the dirt between his boots, his voice bore the weight of an army officer's greatest humiliation. "I've been relieved of command."

Frustration welled up in Marshall Jefford as he saw his ambitions crumble into dust. He turned to Fenton. "We'll be the laughing stock of Tucson."

At about the same time, eight hour's drive north of Sulfur Springs Ranch, Geronimo paused so the muffles on the lead bells could be removed.

As Lt. Blake watched, Geronimo turned to him and laughed deep from the belly as only the Apache do. "Big mistake," he said, "Lt. Davis claiming Apache cannot move cattle at night."

"Big mistake," Lt. Blake agreed. "You certainly showed him."

Blake watched Geronimo ride off. By the time Marshall Jefford could gather a posse they would have an insurmountable lead, with support from Camp Grant if needed. It had worked out just as Davis planned.

Justice and the Law
by Steve Myers

The trial was held in the Lucky Lady saloon at ten o'clock in the morning. The air stank from bad whiskey, cheap beer, and stale tobacco. The plank floor was worn and scarred by years of hard boots, and stained by blood and tobacco juice and spilled whiskey.

The judge stood behind the bar and banged his gavel on a wooden block to get the crowd quiet. Several men were seated in the rows of chairs three deep and the rest stood up behind them. "All right now, let's settle down. This won't take no time at all and we can all get back to our businesses or work or loafin', which is most likely for the majority."

That got some laughter from a crowd that was all men except for the woman at the back. She was nervous, shaking, and kept squeezing a handkerchief. The man next to her, his eyes bloodshot, his thin face white as paper, his chin and neck raw from a dull razor, patted her shoulder and mumbled something that caused her to shake her head.

"All right, Marshal, bring the prisoner to the bar." He paused and pointed his gavel at the crowd: "You all can laugh at that one. I thought it was pretty good myself."

A few forced laughs was the only response.

The marshal, a man of fifty with a gray mustache, stood to the side with his deputy. The deputy held a double-barreled shotgun, and the marshal held the arm of a skinny boy of fourteen. He led the boy in front of the judge. The boy looked down at the floor.

"Your name is Daniel O'Brien? Is that correct? Look up and answer me, boy."

The boy raised his head and stared hard at the judge. "Yes."

"Now you're not denying the facts in this case, are you?"

The boy didn't answer.

"We have witnesses to the whole thing, you know. You did stab, with full intent to do harm, one Charles Cornett. You're not denying that?"

"Nope. I meant to kill him."

"Well, boy, you sure to God succeeded. Now you are fully cognizant that deed was morally and legally wrong, are you not?"

"I don't understand."

"You do know the difference between right and wrong?"

"I guess so."

"You do know killing a man is murder and murder is wrong?"

"He had it comin'."

"Are you claiming it was self defense?"

"Nope. He was bothering Ma."

"You claiming Mr. Cornett assaulted your mother?"

The boy shrugged.

"That is not what witnesses said nor what Marshal Webster saw when he stepped out of his office. Charles Cornett was facing you and had his back to your mother when you stabbed him."

"He was no good. He had it comin'."

A man in gray suit and vest jumped up in the front row. "That's a damn lie! It was that dirty whore that chased him."

The judge banged the gavel. "Easy there, Robert. Just sit down."

"Judge, everybody liked Charlie. He was a decent man and a good son. This son of a whore—"

The boy turned and started for the man, but the marshal grabbed him.

"All right now. That's enough. Don't worry, Robert, your son will get justice."

Robert Cornett sat down but still muttered about his son and that whore.

The judge pointed his gavel at the boy. "What were you going to do, kill the father as well as the son? Now, how do you plead?"

"I don't understand?"

"You saying you're guilty or not guilty?"

The boy didn't answer.

"God damn it, did you kill Charles Cornett?"

"I told you I did. Ain't you been listenin'?"

The judge shook his head and looked up at the ceiling.

"So it's guilty," and he banged the wood block with the gavel. "No need for anything fancy then. It's plain what has to happen. Daniel O'Brien, I sentence you to be hanged by the neck until dead."

The saloon was quiet except for the sobs of the woman at the back.

"Well, Daniel, you have anything to say?"

"Nope."

"All right. Marshal, take the prisoner back to jail. We'll hang him tomorrow morning."

"What's wrong with right now?" Robert Cornett asked.

"Yeah? What about right now?" others called out.

"We don't need no gallows. A limb of an old oak will do," someone said.

The judge banged the gavel and said, "Enough of that. We're not lynching him. This whole thing is going to be according to the law. I say tomorrow and tomorrow it'll be, unless there's someone here who thinks he has more authority than I do. He hangs proper and that's that. Now, Marshal Webster, take the prisoner out of here."

Webster latched onto the boy's arm and slowly led him to the door. The deputy walked directly behind the marshal. All eyes followed them.

The boy glanced at his mother and father as he left.

"Now," the judge said, "court is closed and the bar is open. The first drink is on me, the second is on the Lucky Lady, and the third is on you."

Laughter and shouts filled the saloon as the crowd rushed to the bar.

The boy's mother and father quickly went outside.

The deputy gave the boy a spoon and a tin plate full of beans with pieces of ham fat, then set a cup of water on the stool next to the bunk where the boy sat eagerly spooning the beans into his mouth.

"You want anything else just yell or bang on the bars with that cup."

The boy nodded and kept eating.

The deputy closed and locked the cell door and walked down the hall to the office.

Webster sat behind the desk pretending to read a handbill on a pair of gamblers, a man and a woman, wanted for a shooting in Red Ridge. He looked up when the deputy sat down in a chair against the wall. "Tom, he say anything?"

"No. He don't speak much."

"That's the truth."

"It don't even seem to bother him he killed a man and is going to hang."

Webster leaned back and locked his hands behind his head. "He thinks he done right. He did what his old man should've done."

"That drunk? He's about worthless. I can't say much for the woman either. Old Cornett is right, she is a whore."

"No, Tom, she didn't take any money from Charlie. And when you think how her old man has been and everything, you can see how it happened."

"You saying she did right?"

"No. I'm saying I can understand."

"Not me. My Sally did something like that she wouldn't have enough teeth left to chew oatmeal. And the one she was cattin' with would be pushing up daisies."

"Like Charlie Cornett."

Tom was just about to answer when a cloud came over his face. He stood up and went over to the window and looked out at the street. Then he turned around to say: "No wonder the kid thinks he done right."

Around two o'clock Webster walked a block from his office and turned down an alley. Ahead of him were three men watching another man nail a supporting plank to a beam fastened to a tree with spikes. One of the men turned and nodded to Webster. "It's about done, Marshal. It should hold him."

Another said, "Been a long time since we used that tree."

"Near on ten years," the first man said. "Ain't that right?"

Webster said, "Close enough."

"I remember it took Curly Bill two hours to die. His last wish was for a bottle of whiskey and you gave him most of a pint before we strung him up."

Webster turned away and walked back up the alley. When he got to the street two men nodded to him and a woman in a bonnet said, "You going to hang that boy, Del?"

"Yes, I suppose I am."

"Some folks think you're hanging the wrong person."

"Miriam, I don't decide that."

"Well, if she knows what's good for her she'll leave town the first thing."

"Before or after her son's buried?"

"Delmar Webster, you sound like you're on her side. Everybody knows she went after Charlie and what do you expect? He was a decent man . . . but still a man."

"Miriam, I don't want to hear any more. Let your husband deliver the damn sermons."

He walked away from her before she could say anything. He went straight to his office.

Tom said, "She's here. She's in the back with the boy."

"You let her in the cell?"

"No."

"Toss me the keys."

Webster went down the hall, past two cells and stopped next to Mrs. O'Brien. She held her son's hand through the opening in the bars. The marshal unlocked the cell and opened the door.

"You can go inside, ma'am."

She rushed in and took the boy in her arms. She held him as tight as she could. She kissed his face and didn't try to wipe her tears.

Webster left the cell door open and went back to the office. He hung the key ring on a nail and said, "Tom, get yourself something to eat. I'll keep watch."

Tom looked down the hallway. "The cell's open."

"I know that."

"You're not thinking of doing something stupid, are you?"

"What's she going to do, smuggle the boy out under her dress?"

"I didn't mean that."

"Tom, if I was going to do what you're thinking, I sure as hell wouldn't do it in the middle of the day."

"That'd be real stupid and you're not that dumb."

"Thank you for the compliment. Now go . . . and say hello to Sally for me."

When Tom returned he said he'd stopped by the Lucky Lady to see how rowdy it was getting.

"And?"

"Lynching talk was gone but there was quit a bit about 'stripping the whore' and chasing her out of town. I went down to the river to that shack of theirs O'Brien calls a house but nobody was around. I don't know where he is. Probably hiding out with a bottle somewheres."

"I suppose so. Or he already took off."

"She still here?"

Webster nodded.

"She going to stay all night?"

"I expect so. It's the boy's last one."

"I'm surprised the parson hasn't been by to preach at the kid . . . at the mother too."

"He'll be at the hanging. He won't miss that."

"And old Cornett?"

"Oh, you know he'll be there. He'll want to pull the cart out."

"That going to be my job?"

"No, Tom. I'll do it."

The undertaker came by and said the grave was dug in the Paupers Plot. He'd have a plain wood coffin waiting at the gallows. "I'd like to be paid, you know. That's a man-sized coffin and I got to pay the diggers."

Webster said, "See the Judge about that. The town council will pay you."

"I just want to be sure. I'm not burying anybody for free, you know."

Webster was slowly and carefully filling a paper with tobacco from his pouch. He folded the paper, licked the edge, and wrapped it. He twisted one end, struck a match on the corner of the desk, and lit his cigarette. "Brackett," he said, "I should think you would do it for free considering the boy got you a real paying customer in Charlie Cornett . . . or at least the old man Robert."

"I don't see what that's got to do with it. A man has to make a living."

Tom looked up and asked, "What's wrong? Not enough people dying to suit you?"

The undertaker gave Tom a hard look, grunted, and left.

"When I die," Webster said, "throw me out in a field or dump me in a ravine and let the vultures cheat him out of his money."

Tom laughed.

At dusk the deaf mute Henry brought the dinners from the restaurant: one for Webster and one for the prisoner. Webster kept the coffee pot for himself but he took the dinners back to the cell. The mother was pale and worn out, cried out. The boy was quiet, holding her hand.

"Here you go," Webster said.

"I don't want anything," the woman said.

"Lady, you have to eat sometime so you might as well have something now."

"Yeah, Ma," the boy said. "C'mon, eat with me."

Webster started to leave but stopped. "Look, if you or the boy need to use the jakes, it's just out the back door. Me or the deputy will make sure nothing happens."

"Happens?" the woman asked.

Webster shrugged. "Just let me know."

Tom watched Webster closely when he came back.

"It's getting dark," Tom said.

"Yep," and Webster lit the lamp in the hallway and Tom struck a match to light the one on the desk. "Not that one, Tom. The one by the door. I'd make a good target sitting there."

"You think somebody might try that?"

"They get enough liquor in them they're liable to try anything."

"That's the truth."

The boy and the mother came down the hallway. The mother had the dinner plates and spoons. She handed them to Tom. She said to Webster: "Danny needs to go outside."

"Sure. Tom, put that down and take the boy out back."

Tom set the plates and spoons on the desk and took the boy by the arm and left by the back door. The woman stood there looking off to the side, her nervous hands trembling. Webster looked at her there in the lamp light, the soft warm glow on her face and hair. He could see why Charlie Cornett got interested, she had a good clean face, now lined some by work and worry, with large blue eyes and a mouth with a full, puffed-out lower lip. Her shining yellow hair was in a tight bun but he could guess what it looked like when she let it fall loose.

"I would like to stay here with my boy tonight, if that's all right."

"It's all right."

"That's kind of you. I do appreciate it."

"Mrs. O'Brien, if there is anything I can do?"

She looked him straight in the eyes but said nothing.

Tom came back with the boy and the boy and the mother went back to the cell.

Webster said, "All right, Tom, you can go on home. I'll see you in the morning."

"Maybe I better stay."

"No reason. I'll lock the doors, but nobody'll bother me."

"That's not all I mean."

"I'm an old man. I been in some mighty rough places in my time and I got lucky more than once. I need two hands to count the number of men I shot and nearly that for the number of bullets that hit me. I barely escaped hanging during the War. I grew up in Clay County and I ran with those boys. Lucy broke me of all that. This is the last stop for me. My Lucy is buried here, along with our daughter. And, yes, I don't want to do it . . . but he did kill the man."

"See you in the morning," Tom said and left.

Webster bolted both doors, sat down at the desk, and rolled a cigarette. He struck a match on the desk and lit up. He opened a drawer and took out a worn deck of cards. He shuffled and dealt out a hand of solitaire.

A few hours later he went back to check on them. The boy was asleep and the mother sat on the stool next to the bed. She looked at Webster with those large eyes.

"You need anything, ma'am?"

She shook her head.

"I wish I could do something."

"Will you let him go?"

Webster turned around and went back to his desk. He tried to play solitaire but could only stare at the cards. He got up to turn the wick low in the lamp in the hallway. He took the shotgun from the rack, got out a rod and cotton and oil, and cleaned it. He went through the handbills again. He rolled and smoked another cigarette.

He sat there thinking about his life, going over those years with Lucy and Rosemary, both lost to cholera, and he said, "I suppose I'm just waiting to die."

It was a gray dawn, the sun barely shining through the clouds. By the time there was knocking on the door it had started to drizzle.

Webster let in Tom, who carried a pot of fresh coffee, and took the pot of coffee to pour himself a cup.

"Sally?"

"Yep," Tom said. "How was your night?"

"Probably about as good as yours."

"Yes, I didn't sleep either. I couldn't even eat breakfast. How's the kid and the mother?"

"Last I looked he was asleep but she wasn't."

"You going to wake him?"

"I'll let you have that privilege."

Tom went down the hallway to the cell.

Webster refilled his cup and drank. When Tom came back Webster said, "I'm going out back. Is he up?"

"Yes."

"And her?"

"Sitting there like a ghost."

"Did you knock on the Judge's door?"

"Yep. He was with one of the whores from the Lucky Lady. He cursed and said he'd be along soon enough."

Webster went to the outhouse and looked around as he came back. Already, even in the increasing rain, people were stirring on the main street. A hanging was a big event.

When he got back to the office the clerk from the general store was there with a length of rope and a short flour sack. He said, "Cornett paid for the rope. He said you wouldn't mind. We couldn't find a hood. Will this do?"

Webster nodded and the clerk set the rope and sack on the desk and left.

"Damn," Tom said. "Cornett says you won't mind."

"I'm not surprised. It doesn't make much difference, I suppose. One rope is as good as another for this." He held up the sack with the writing: "Diamond Brand Whole Wheat Flour."

Tom said, "I don't think the boy'll care about that."

"No. The hood isn't for him anyway. It's for us watching. You never want to see what a hanged man's face is like. You'll never forget it."

"And you have?"

"I come on a man just lynched before they set him afire. It was too late to stop them."

Henry brought over a bowl of cooked oats for the prisoner. The boy ate it quickly, sitting on the bunk next to his mother. She was pale and looked ready to collapse as she sat there holding herself as if she wanted to shrink.

The Judge didn't bother to knock. The minister, Melvin Foster, carrying a bible, followed.

Foster said, "I'm going to try to save that boy's soul, Marshal."

Webster pointed down the hallway.

The Judge looked around, picked up the flour sack, and shook his head. "Say, Del, you got anything to drink here?"

"Might be some coffee left."

"Del, it's not friendly not to have a serious drink around for guests."

"If the town council will pay for it I'll keep a bottle here for you."

"You don't touch it yourself, do you?"

"Not for years, not since I hanged Curly Bill."

The minister came back and said, "The prisoner is ready, Marshal. He shows no remorse at all. He says that Charlie deserved killing. That boy is on his way to Hell. Of course, it's easy to understand with a father and mother like he has. I hate to lose a soul, but it's no use trying to save him now."

Webster took out a thin leather cord from the desk, stuffed it in his pocket, and took his gun and gun belt with holster from a hook on the wall. He walked back to the cell where the boy was sitting on the bunk and the mother had an arm around her son. The empty bowl was on the stool.

"It's time, boy."

Danny stood up and the mother put her fist in her mouth and bit hard.

"Mrs. O'Brien, I think you best stay here. It's not for you to see."

Webster took the boy's arm and started to lead him out of the cell.

The woman made a sound like a choking sob and then: "Marshal?"

He turned around.

"Can you make it so he . . . he won't . . ." Then she had to bite her fist and she looked away.

Webster led the boy down the hallway and through the office and past the Judge and minister and Tom. Tom picked up the rope and flour sack.

The rain was coming down hard and the ground in the alley was turning to mud. Webster and the boy led the way. The others followed and five or six men followed them.

There were fifteen or so men getting soaked standing there by the tree with the gallows beam. Old Cornett was there in a yellow slicker and a broad hat. His face was like stone. Brackett, the undertaker, was over to the side with the coffin, the lid on loose, set in the back of a wagon. The horse was trying to find fresh grass at its feet. The boy only glanced at the men before fixing his gaze on the beam.

The cart was waiting and Tom got on it and threw the rope over the beam. He made a noose in one end and tossed the other end to the ground. He jumped down and picked up the loose end.

Webster led the boy to the cart and the kid jumped on it. Webster had some trouble getting on and the boy reached down and helped him up.

"Put your hands behind your back, Danny."

The boy did and Webster tied the hands with the leather cord. Tom tossed him the flour sack and he put it over the boy's head. He lifted the noose and dropped it over the head and tightened it so it was snug on the boy's neck. Suddenly the boy sneezed. He sneezed again. Webster loosened the noose and lifted the sack. There was flour dust on the boy's face. Webster removed the sack and turned it inside out. He shook it several times. The boy's hair and face were wet from the rain.

Webster let the rain soak the sack, turned it right side out, and put it back over the boy's head. Then he tightened the noose and nodded to Tom. Tom took the loose end and wrapped it around the tree until the rope was taut. He tied it to itself and stepped back.

Webster patted the boy on the back and then jumped down. Two men came forward but he shook his head. He picked up the short wooden tongue and jerked hard and took several fast steps backward. The cart rolled a few feet and Webster slipped and almost fell. Tom ran over and grabbed hold of the tongue and the two men pulled it far enough that the boy's body dropped a half foot or so as the rope stretched tight.

The boy started kicking his feet and tried to break free as the noose tightened. He twisted and kicked as he strangled. A wind came up and the rain came down hard at a slant. Men turned their backs to the wind.

Webster pulled his revolver and cocked it. He raised it and fired and shot the boy in the chest. He turned to the Judge: "There, he's hung and he's dead. You satisfied?"

The Judge looked at the ground.

Webster went over to Cornett. "And you? You satisfied?"

Cornett tried to look him in the face but couldn't.

Webster put his revolver in the holster and called to Brackett: "Cut the boy down and bury him. Tom, see that he does it."

He walked through the wet grass and heavy rain, his hat and clothes soaked. He had to get a woman safely home, if that shack she lived in could be called a home.

Tank Mullins is Coming!
by Lowell "Zeke" Ziemann

They loitered in Smokestack Hattie's Saloon waiting for something to happen.

Kelly sat behind his Faro table and played Solitaire. Today, like most days, few came to "Buck the Tiger"; at least no one showed up with money.

Hattie stood by the bar. She wore her favorite gown, a long black strapless frock. Held up by her abundant bosom, the dress dropped straight to the floor. With graying blond hair piled high on her head, Kelly once told her she looked like the smoke stack on a railroad engine. The moniker stuck.

Kid Foxx sat alone at a table. His baptized name was Alfred Foxx, but ever since the notorious William Bonney became known as "Billy the Kid", every young would-be gunslinger preferred to be called "Kid". Foxx always stopped in after lunch and usually cleaned his Colt revolvers while he sipped a beer.

It looked to be another quiet day. Only sporadic ongoing enterprise existed in Phantom City. Inside Smokestack Hattie's Saloon no arguments or even gossip took place. This afternoon's activity in the saloon could have been mistaken for a wake.

Suddenly the swinging doors flew open. It was old Mulie Sanford. Mulie usually just stumbled in absentmindedly, but today he seemed agitated. He wore his usual long-handles with baggy pants held up by one yellow suspender. The red underwear served as his shirt. His boots didn't match as he had taken two different styles from the trash. Completely out of breath, his blood shot eyes were wide with fear. "He's—he's comin'. I seed him and he's acomin' fer sure!"

Kid Foxx set his beer down, wiped his mouth with his sleeve and winked at Kelly. "I s'pose you saw that killer monster Tank Mullins again."

Mulie panted, leaned against Kelly's Faro table and slowly got the words out. "Yeah . . . I was ridin' my mule up in the Dragoon Mountains when I seed him. He said,' Tell all the folks in Phantom City I'm comin' to town to get drunk and wreck the saloon.' I lit out quick to warn y'all."

Kid picked up the two six-shooters from the table. "If Tank Mullins is comin' here, reckon I'll have to give him a taste of lead." He laughed and waved the guns in a circular motion. "Bang! Bang! You're dead Tank Mullins!"

"You can joke if'n you want to Foxx, but I'd bet you'll be the first to skedaddle when Tank Mullins gets here. He don't abide no smart-ass kids."

Kid Foxx laid the guns back on the table. "Why don't you go sober up, ya old Coot."

Kelly stood up and took the old timer's arm. "You must've let the badger loose again, Mulie. You probably been seein' pink elephants too. We ain't never seen no such monster as Tank Mullins in Arizona Territory."

"Well I seed him this mornin'! Last winter he shot up Contention City and strangled two people in the saloon there. Now Tank Mullins is comin' down from the mountains and he's acomin' here!"

Hattie decided to join the fun. "We ain't ever seen him, " she said. "Tell me Mulie, what does this Tank Mullins plan to do when he gets here?"

"He's mean as cornered Grizzly! When he sets foot in a saloon it creates such a ruckus that it makes an ordinary barroom brawl look like a prayer meetin'".

Hattie shook her head. "Mulie, what does this monster look like?"

"Miss Smokestack, Tank Mullins is about seven feet tall. He rides wild animals. Holds his britches up with a log chain. Eats raw meat. Catches rattle snakes for pets—"

The rest of his description was drowned out by laughter of his audience.

"Go sober up," said Hattie.

Mulie stomped toward the door, turned back and yelled, "Laugh if'n you want to, but I'm leavin' town. I warned you, you cain't stop him. Tank Mullins is acomin' here! He'll wreck this saloon and squash you all like bugs."

Kelly looked at Foxx and Hattie and shook his head. "His brain has gone plumb haywire."

Soon, the saloon settled back into a scene of boredom. Kelly folded his deck of cards and considered going up stairs for a nap. Kid picked up each of his guns from the table and slowly began to polish them. Hattie walked to the mirror behind the bar, tugged at her frock, primped and combed her hair with her fingers.

Suddenly, the comfortable silence shattered. A nasty voice boomed from the street. "Whoa, whoa there. Blast yer stubborn hide Sampson, hold up. Ah said whoa!"

The piercing shout sent Hattie to the batwing doors for a look outside. "Oh my God!" she shouted and then fainted dead away.

Kid Foxx and Kelly rushed to her, dragged her to the nearest chair and propped her upon it. She mumbled incoherently and pointed to the louvered doors.

Kelly and Foxx hurried to the front window of the saloon and peeked out.

A huge black-bearded man, wearing dirty buckskins and a coonskin cap dismounted from the big shaggy buffalo he had ridden into town. He carried a big .50 caliber Sharps rifle. A Bowie knife, unsheathed, was stuck in his snakeskin belt. He led an immense gray wolf tethered with a chain. He tied the buffalo to the rail and approached Hattie's swinging doors.

Kelly slinked back from the window and moved behind the bar. His eyes widened. He straightened his brocade vest and fingered the derringer in his pocket.

Foxx ran back to his table, forgot about his six-shooters and slinked to the corner shadows near the back stairs.

Hattie, half-awake now, sat like a stone at a table. Kid Foxx stood like a statue in the semi-darkness.

The swinging doors flung open with vicious purpose, rattling as they banged into the side walls. The giant walked in. He stood still for a few seconds, apparently letting his eyes accustom to the dim light, then set the Sharps against the door frame. The wolf sat down, stared with piercing yellow eyes, growled, and readied himself to guard the big Sharps.

In three quick strides, the stranger was at the bar. "Beer!"

With a shaky hand Kelly picked out a stein, walked to the tap and poured a beer. He forgot to draw the beer slowly and the stein was half filled with foam. The giant blew the head off the beer. It splattered all over the front of Kelly's fancy vest. In two gulps the beer was gone.

A deep bass voice uttered an urgent demand. "Another. Now!"

A second stein was drawn, more slowly this time. The glass filled with no foam.

Ham-like fingers surrounded the stein and raised it toward the black beard. The beer was swallowed in three gulps followed by the sound of broken glass as the stein was thrown to the hardwood floor.

Kelly peeked at Hattie who flinched at the sound. Then she took a deep breath, sat as if in a trance, and stared at the stranger.

The Kid edged back farther into the shadows, and pasted himself against the back wall.

The big man took his right fist and pounded his chest. A deep belch sent a rumble throughout the saloon. No one uttered word. No one expected a polite "excuse me." For several seconds, it became eerily quiet.

Kelly forced a nervous titter. He looked down at the broken stein and spoke softly. "D-D-Don't worry sir, I'll get a broom."

The barrel-chested Goliath wheeled around. With determined strides he stomped in haste toward the big Buffalo Sharps by the door. He picked up the gun and jerked the chain on the wolf. With a scowl he turned back and surveyed the entire saloon.

Kelly took a quick glance at his friends. Kid Foxx fell to his knees, folded his hands and looked heavenward. Hattie pinched her eyes shut.

Kelly forced a shaky smile. "Sit, sir, would, would, would you like another beer?"

The mountain of a man spoke in a gruff, but crystal clear deep rumble. "Are you loco? I'm gettin' out of here. Tank Mullins is comin'!"

'Lo Midnight
by Steve Evans

Tance Trodder's boots had to work to stir a cloud of excitement from the well-packed street. Despite the packed earth of the thoroughfare running the length of the town between the wooden boardwalks—like everything else in this booming "modern west"—Trodder was coated in a thin coat of dust from boots to hat.

Not that it would matter, even if Tance had ever been the kind of man to mind such a detail. Nothing but the moon shuffling gradually west (as if it too were searching for a fool's lot of gold) and one of those new sputtering gas streetlights did anything to offer relief to the black purity of the night. Besides, as far as Tance could tell, there was no one to witness him in the execution of his particular line of work apart from the stranger entering east at the edge of town. And it was that stranger, guiding a ware-worn chestnut mare by a hard-used leather lead, who was most likely to be the focus of his specific occupation this night.

Tance Trodder preferred to do his work by the apathetic light of the stars.

Gripping the smooth handle of his tool of trade, flexing the muscles of his callused hands until he felt at one with the simple machine, Tance reflected—and not for the first time—how his was a work that needed no audience. Standing in the middle of the near-deserted road, watching the oncoming stranger ambling into his town, that familiar feeling of anticipation stole over him.

Sometimes at moments like these, when Tance was feeling particularly introspective (although this was a word Tance Trodder would never recognize if heard over the course of any conversation), he worried that despite the sheath of night that usually hid him at his work, he might still have an audience made up of the one person he least wanted to think might be privy to his actions. Never a very proud man, with nary much reason for pride in his life and comfortable with that fact, Tance nevertheless always felt a sense of reddening shame at the thought his Mama—God rest her in His peace—might be looking down and seeing him going about the way he made his living.

His was a work his Mama would never have approved. She had aspired for good things, if not great, on his behalf. His Mama who knew him and loved him was aware he didn't have as much trappings upstairs as many other boys his age. Instead, the life he had chosen was one that by its very necessity immersed itself in the very excrement of this world.

But now wasn't much the time for such considerations. As the stranger moved closer, crossing into town, Tance took his own step forward, closing the distance a heartbeat at a time. As the man came even with the first of the town's Inns, Tance stepped forward, placing the General Goods to his left. As the stranger advanced to the darkened Sheriff's Office, Tance put the batwing doors of the saloon to his back. The man had spurs to his boots, and with each step the ching, ching danced across the breeze to Tance's ears, sounding with each chime like the music of two coins ringing together. The horse keeping pace nickered at the sound, antsy in the knowledge of their purpose. The exhalations of her flaring nostrils were visible in the rapidly cooling desert air, and discomfiture was plain in her large eyes.

The moment of Tance's purpose was nearing. He had a sense for these things; it was his knack in life. Not the most worthy of knacks, but it was what he had. What he was.

He stopped in the street, shifting his weight and readying his hand on his tool of trade. The other man advanced another two paces, but then his horse shied up, planting her rear legs and centering her weight under her croup, and the man settled his own advance just eight or nine strides short of Tance. The two men looked at each other under the maternal moonlight for a pregnant pause.

And then the mare raised her tail by the dock and let go with her breed's particular brand of fertilizer. The manure hit the packed dirt with a flat plop, and four or five pounds lighter she shifted her weight back to her shoulders and, thus relieved, started forward again. Once more heading west to the far end of town, where the second and better of the two Inns kept itself, the stranger greeted Tance as he passed him in the dark.

"H'lo."

"'Lo," Tance offered back, drawling out the word as automatically as he now gripped the haft of his shovel, just as he had a thousand times before and would a thousand times hence, bending at last to his work.