Disturbing the Peace, page 21
“I’m here,” Halstead called out as he got to his feet, tucked away the empty Colt on his belly, and drew the one from his hip, giving chase to the fleeing men on horseback. Sandborne was running close behind when Halstead yelled, “Take a knee and keep firing. They’re getting away!”
His left arm flopped at his side, slowing his momentum as he ran after the escaping robbers.
He raised his right arm as he ran and emptied his gun in their direction. He had no idea if he had just wasted bullets or if he had managed to hit one of them. All he knew was that both men crossed into the pale light at the end of Baxter Street before disappearing from view.
Halstead continued to run off balance toward the place where he had heard the first shotgun blast. When he reached the end of Baxter Street, he saw the outline of a man on the ground and skidded to a halt. He slipped on the frozen ground but managed to keep his feet as he moved toward the fallen man.
“Don’t shoot,” the man said. “It’s McBride. I’m hit.”
Halstead took a knee beside his fallen friend. He dropped his Colt somewhere in the darkness as he needed his good hand to check the man for wounds.
Ignoring the fire in his own left shoulder, Halstead yelled down Baxter toward Sandborne. “Get a doctor. McBride’s been shot.”
One of the townspeople rounded the corner with a lantern and Halstead told him to come closer. He ran his hand over McBride to search for wounds. It was not until his hand reached the center of the lawman’s chest when he felt the blood. The dim light from the citizen’s lamp showed the hole straight through the middle of his breastbone, but Halstead continued to feel for any other wounds. He had not found any, but the one he had found was bad enough.
The townsman gasped as he began to back away from the dying man. Halstead snatched the lamp away from him and set it on the ground next to McBride. “It’s just a flesh wound, Jack. You’re gonna be just fine. Sandborne’s getting a doctor right now. Just hold on.”
But McBride’s breathing grew shallow, and Halstead covered the wound with his right hand to try to stop the bleeding. To do his best to try to keep this good, brave man alive.
McBride gripped his hand and pulled it away from the wound. “Have them bury me facing west. I . . . was always partial to . . . sunsets.”
Halstead saw him fading but willed him to live. “No one’s burying you for a long time yet. Just hold on, damn it. Hold on! The doctor is on his way.”
But John Joseph McBride, former lieutenant of the United States Cavalry and marshal of the towns of Tucson, Hard Scrabble, and now Battle Brook, had held on for as long as he could before he slowly slipped away.
And not even all of Halstead’s pleas could bring him back.
Chapter 21
Brunet and Zimmerman rode their horses as fast as they dared to go in the dangerous darkness of the wooded trail between the towns. They caught up with most of the men along the way and they all rode together, which had not been part of Zimmerman’s plan at all.
He had told the men to take different routes back to Valhalla and to avoid the main road. But he supposed the shotgunner who had opened fire out of nowhere without warning had rattled the men and, by his count, all but one was now on the main road.
He and Brunet did not halt the group until they reached a clearing an hour later, which put them about halfway between the two towns. He asked Brunet to ride back and keep an eye on their trail in case someone had raised a posse to chase them.
The men gathered around him in a loose circle in the dark clearing.
“All right, boys,” he asked the group in general. “Who are we missing?”
“Pete,” he heard Blackfoot say. “We were riding out of town as quiet as you told us to when Jack McBride cocked his shotgun and told us to stop.”
He had run into McBride and Miss Newman in Valhalla, but did not know that much about him. “How do you know it was McBride?”
“Because he announced himself plain as day is how,” Blackfoot said. “I knew he couldn’t see us too good, even that close, so I was just gonna hightail it around him, but Pete tried to pull on him, and McBride let go with the shotgun. Pete and his horse caught most of it. I got a pellet in the ear, but I think that’s all.”
Zimmerman ordered the rest of the men to check themselves over for holes or other wounds. A shotgun had a way of spreading a lot of pain to a lot of people. He had never gotten around to giving Pete a nickname as he had Blackfoot and most of the others. The outlaw had been so plain that a nickname had not readily come to mind. He should have called him “Imbecile” for all of the trouble he had caused The Spoilers that night.
Blackfoot seemed to read his mind. “Don’t go blaming poor Pete for what happened, boss. That lawman stumbled into us out of blind luck and nothing else. We didn’t make a sound or anything.”
Zimmerman knew they had ridden into Battle Brook quiet enough and figured Blackfoot and Pete had ridden away from the bank the same way. McBride must have stumbled into them the way he was sure Halstead had tripped into the alley.
And he was sure it was Halstead. No one else would have been that daring in the dark.
All of Halstead’s bullets had come close, but none had hit their mark. He would check with Brunet later to see if he had been hit. He certainly had not been riding like a wounded man since they had escaped town.
After he had given the men a chance to check themselves and their mounts for wounds, he asked them to count off in the darkness so he knew exactly how many men had escaped and, more important, how much money had been taken.
Accounting for Brunet who was watching their flank, it sounded like the outlaw named Pete and his horse were the only casualties. That was better news than he had been expecting under the circumstances.
“You boys head on for Valhalla and go straight to the bank. Hubbard will be waiting for you. Me and Brunet will be right behind you.”
The group obeyed his command as Zimmerman rode back to find Brunet and call him to join them. He found his partner a good forty yards away, sitting atop his horse like a statue as he listened to what the wind might tell him.
Zimmerman whispered, “Hear anything?”
“No,” Brunet said. “Strange. Things going to shit the way they did, I figured they’d have a posse after us by now.”
But Zimmerman did not think so. “I saw McBride on the ground as we rode past. Looked like he was mortally wounded. I don’t know which of our boys did it, but that’ll make a posse think twice about coming after us in the dark.”
Brunet leaned over the side of his horse and spat a stream of tobacco in the snow. “Night won’t last forever. They’ll be coming after us come morning.”
But Zimmerman knew better. “Halstead won’t let them do that. McBride surely told them what he saw today. He knows he’ll be a dead man if he does.”
Brunet kept his eye on their back trail. “You think that was him in the alley?”
“Him and a young man who’s his partner. Sandborne was the one with the rifle. Lucky for us, all their shots went wide.”
“Not all of them,” Brunet said into the wind.
Zimmerman looked him over but could not see much in the dark, only the great hide that covered him. “Where?”
“The back on the right side,” Brunet told him. “Came out the left front. Don’t think he hit anything important or I’d already be dead. Still want to have a doctor check it out when we get back home. Just make sure you don’t tell any of the boys. How many made it?”
“All of them except Pete.”
He could see Brunet wince in the dim light of the forest. “That boy had a lot of cash in his pockets. Him and Blackfoot were the first to ride out of town.”
“The rest made it, though,” Zimmerman said. “I’d call that a good night, though McBride’s death casts a pall over things.”
“You mean Halstead.” It was a statement, not a question.
“Yeah.” He tried to listen to the wind in case he might hear something. But all he heard was the cold air in his ears. “He might have allowed McBride to handle the robbery on his own, but now that McBride is surely dead, he won’t let that go. His boss back in Helena won’t want him to let it go, either.”
“The new U.S. Marshal,” Brunet said. “Aaron Mackey.”
Zimmerman let out a heavy breath. “The very same.”
“Heard he’s tough,” Brunet said. “We’re tougher.”
Zimmerman decided to let that statement hang in the wind before they brought their horses around and joined the others on the ride back to Valhalla.
Chapter 22
The early morning sky was gray, and a steady rain was falling as Halstead, Sandborne, bank president James Kendrick, and Mayor Philip White stepped out of the back door of the bank and onto a soggy Baxter Street.
Halstead was glad the gore from the bodies that had been left behind had not upset Sandborne. Kendrick and the mayor were understandably sickened by the scene and had gagged more than once. The cold mountain air did the civilians some good despite the rain.
“Doug Wycoff, dead,” Kendrick said as he held a handkerchief to his mouth. “Charlie and Enoch, too. My God. Wycoff was new, but Charlie and Enoch had been guarding the bank since the day it opened. They used to guard the bank in Hard Scrabble before we opened up here.”
Kendrick looked at the back door that had closed behind them. He laid his hand upon it as if he might be able to learn something from the steel. He paid particular attention to the lock. “Not a scratch on it. How in the hell did they get in?”
Halstead and Sandborne traded glances. They would tell him, but not until after he and White had walked the length of Baxter Street so they could see what had happened for themselves.
“We’ll get to all of that later at the jail,” Halstead assured him. “But for now, I want to show you what happened out here. Sandborne and I came running when we heard Jack’s shotgun from the other end of Baxter Street.” He pointed down at the blood still visible on the base of the bank building. “They’d left the body of one of the guards in the alley and I tripped over him as I ran. I hit the ground and saw two men getting on their horses in the dark.”
The mayor was inspired by the detail. “Then you know who they are?”
“Nothing I could swear to in court.” Halstead was sorry to disappoint him. “It was too dark, and there was a lot of shooting going on. I think I hit one of them, but I’m not sure. One of them returned fire, missed me, and hit your dead guard in the head.”
“A further indignity Enoch did not deserve,” Kendrick said.
“Let’s keep walking,” the mayor suggested. “I want to get in from this infernal rain.”
Halstead pointed out the tracks and horse droppings on the ground as they walked down Baxter. “As you can see, they had a lot of horses with them. Twelve by my count, though I can’t swear to it. They rode into town real quiet, too. Deputy Sandborne asked everyone along Baxter Street if they’d heard anything, but the first sound they heard was McBride’s shotgun going off. A few of them rushed to their windows but didn’t see much on account of the darkness. A few got hit by stray bullets, but none of them were fatal.”
“Thank God for that much.” The mayor frowned as they walked along the deadly landscape.
“Murderous horde,” Kendrick said. “They knew what they were doing, didn’t they?”
“We’ll get to that later.” Halstead focused on the ground. He needed these men to understand what had happened there and how. He needed them to know what they were dealing with.
“The ground is slippery even for us,” Halstead explained. “You can imagine how bad it was for the horses with metal shoes on their hooves. That’s why they came in quiet and tried to leave that way until McBride discovered them.”
“But if they were as quiet as you say,” Mayor White asked, “how did he know they were here?”
“A guess,” Halstead offered. “Intuition. A man tends to get the feel of a town he protects, and I figure he must’ve sensed something was off. It would explain why he didn’t come and get me and Sandborne to back him up. My guess is he caught them just as they were beginning to leave town.”
“Jack had always been a light sleeper,” the mayor added.
By then the group had reached the dead horse still lying at the end of Baxter Street. “McBride took cover behind the picket fence here when he cut loose with his coach gun.” He pointed down at the dead horse. “The blast took off the top of the horse’s head and blew the rider right out of the saddle.”
The ice still bore the blood from the robber and the horse, even though the body of the outlaw had been removed by the doctor hours before. “The dead man was wearing a buffalo hide he had lined with pockets. Each of those pockets was stuffed with bundles of cash. I already gave you what we found on him. I figure the rest of the group was outfitted the same way.”
“He had four thousand dollars in those pockets,” Kendrick observed. “The rest of it gone. God only knows where it is now.”
Halstead was no god and he had a pretty good idea where it was. But now was not the time to discuss such things.
He pointed at the picket fence, which was shattered in several places. “Looks like the robbers returned fire, but most of their shots missed Jack and hit the fence instead. The only bullet we found in him was in his chest.” He brought the group around the corner and pointed down at the spot where he had found McBride. The same spot where he had tried and failed to save his life.
The snow where he had fallen only bore a small amount of the blood he had lost. Most of it had already begun to seep into the ground.
That did not seem fair to Halstead. A good man had died there and soon, nature would wipe away every trace of his sacrifice. It was not right, but that was the way it was.
Halstead tried to tell them his idea of what had happened in the best way he could. “The shot went right through Jack and severed his spine. I was with him at the end, and I don’t think he suffered much, for whatever it’s worth.”
The cold rain beat down on the hats of the four men who looked down at the spot where Jack McBride had taken his last breath. Mayor White patted his eyes that were not wet from the rain.
“Can we please talk in the jail, deputy?” the mayor asked. “I don’t think I can stay on my feet much longer.”
Halstead led him and Kendrick across the thoroughfare and into the jail. Sandborne brought up the rear with his Winchester. The boardwalk was eerily quiet for that time of the morning, save for a few people clustered together farther up Main Street. They were undoubtedly talking about what had happened earlier that morning. Halstead hoped they left him alone. He had no patience for idle town gossip just then.
The stagecoach to Wellspring was parked in front of The Standard Hotel, but Halstead had already told the driver he could not leave without his permission. The driver had not liked it but knew better than to argue with him.
Once Halstead unlocked the jail door, Mayor White and Kendrick sat in the first chairs they could find. Sandborne put his rifle in the rack and sat down beside it.
Halstead went to the stove and poured them three cups of lukewarm coffee. The last pot Jack McBride had ever made. There were not enough mugs for him to have one, but that was fine. He was in no mood for coffee anyway.
After handing out mugs to the others, Halstead sat down in one of the chairs in front of the desk. Sitting in the dead man’s chair did not seem right just yet.
Mayor White pointed at the vacant bed and the chain dangling from the iron ring on the wall. “Where’s your prisoner? Thomas Ringham, I think he was.”
“We let him go to help Doc Potter with the wounded,” Sandborne explained. “Turns out he was a doctor himself before he became a gambler. Figured he’d be of better use helping folks instead of being chained up in here.”
“A wise decision,” the mayor said. “Four townspeople were wounded by stray bullets during the robbery, though I doubt it was intentional.”
One man was dead, Halstead thought. A good man. And that was one man too many.
The bank president cleared his throat and sat up straight. “I know you have a theory about what happened, Deputy Halstead, and I want to hear it. I have a feeling it’s pretty bad, but I want to hear it anyway.”
Halstead was in no mood to be delicate. “Miss Newman says she saw a man matching Wycoff’s description in the Hard Scrabble bank yesterday when she accompanied Jack on a visit there. He was with a big man who Jack believed to be the outlaw Ed Zimmerman.”
Kendrick pounded the arm of his chair. “I knew it. Yesterday, Wycoff told me he had to go home on account of a fever. But when I saw him dead in the vault, I knew he had to be part of this. The guards, too, I imagine?”
“We’ll probably never know for certain,” Halstead admitted, “but since it doesn’t look like they put up much of a fight, I’d say they were probably in on it with Wycoff.” He took a ring of keys from his pocket and handed them to Kendrick. “We found these on him. Looks like he worked the lock to your office and the one on your desk and used these to open the vault.”
Kendrick drew in a ragged breath as he held the keys. “My God. To think my stupidity made all of this possible. I . . . I can’t believe it.”
Halstead had neither the time nor the inclination to soothe Kendrick’s guilty conscience. “Zimmerman is an awfully persuasive man, gentlemen. He probably tempted them with the promise of a big payday if they let him into the bank only to cut their throats as payment.”
“But why?” Mayor White asked. “They had done everything he wanted.”
“Because he didn’t need them any longer,” Halstead told them. “They couldn’t help him with whatever scheme he’s pulling up in Hard Scrabble, so why keep them alive?”
“Bastards,” Kendrick spat. “Barbaric bastards all of them. And you think my money is in Hubbard’s safe right now, don’t you?”
Kendrick might have been careless, but at least he was not a fool. “Probably,” Halstead admitted. “Jack said Hubbard seemed awfully cozy with Zimmerman’s men.”
