Authors: Loren D. Estleman
The High Rocks (18 page)
“How long before he can be moved?” asked Trainer.
“Couple of days. This is twice you've booted me out of my bed, Murdock. This time I hope I get paid.”
“I'll settle my bill before I leave town,” I assured him. “For the rest, you'll have to talk to the captain. He's his prisoner, not mine.”
The captain adjusted his slicker. “If you're not too tired, Deputy, I'd like to see you in the sheriff's office in a few minutes.”
“I'm not paying the bill.”
“Your sense of humor wears thin after a while.” He strode toward the front of the shop and the exit. “Sergeant, I want a guard posted in front of this building at all times. I'll send someone to spell you in an hour.”
The sergeant grumbled something unintelligible, which may or may not have contained the words, “Yes, sir.”
I remained behind a few minutes to make sure Bear was resting comfortably, then left to join the captain at the jail. At the door, I almost bumped into a big trooper who was on his way out. I had never seen this one before. He had a coarse face overhung by massive black brows and shoulders like a workhorse; by most standards I suppose he was huge, but I had just spent ten days with the biggest, so I was less than impressed. He brushed past me without a word.
Inside, Henry's coffee pot was sizzling away atop the stove, filling the room with its familiar acrid
odor. Henry's rifles and shotgun were locked in the rack where he'd left them. Captain Trainer, still wearing the slicker, was sitting behind Henry's desk smoking one of Henry's cigars and reading one of the wanted circulars Henry had stacked there. A puddle was spreading beneath Trainer's hat where he had dropped it atop the desk.
odor. Henry's rifles and shotgun were locked in the rack where he'd left them. Captain Trainer, still wearing the slicker, was sitting behind Henry's desk smoking one of Henry's cigars and reading one of the wanted circulars Henry had stacked there. A puddle was spreading beneath Trainer's hat where he had dropped it atop the desk.
“Who's the buffalo?” I asked.
“That's Corporal Patterson. He's been filling in as sheriff in my absence. He'll be back after supper. Sit down.”
“He looks capable.” I dropped into the chair before the desk and tilted my hat forward over my eyes. Moisture seeped from the brim down into my collar; I let it.
“He should be,” he said. “He was a sergeant-major before I broke him for striking an officer.”
“Anyone I know?”
He let that one slide. I heard the water dripping from his oilskin to the floor.
“We're both exhausted,” he began, “so I'll make this short and sweet. Will you agree to testify against Bear Anderson at his trial?”
That sank in slowly. “What do you care one way or the other?” I asked finally. “You won't have anything to do with it once you turn him over to the civil authorities.”
“I'm not turning him over to the civil authorities. As soon as he's well enough, he'll be tried in military court-martial.”
I straightened my hat and sat up. “Anderson's a civilian. The military has no jurisdiction over him.”
He sent a jet of blue smoke toward the darkened ceiling. “It's perfectly legal. Federal law states that the military may intervene in cases where the civil courts have ceased to function. Staghorn has no permanent judge, and the circuit judge can't get in until the passes are cleared. Technically, due process of law has been suspended.”
“Nothing in the law says you can't wait until spring.”
“Nothing in the law says I have to.”
“Whoever heard of a captain presiding over a military court-martial?”
“The circumstances are unique. There will be no peace between the Indians and the settlers while Anderson goes unpunished. Delay on our part will be construed by Two Sisters as official sanction for his actions. And it's not just him. The Blackfeet are getting restless and so are the Crows. The fact that they're no friends of the Flatheads means little as long as a renegade white is allowed to go around killing Indians. If we don't act now, next year's thaw will bring a full-scale war like this territory hasn't seen since the Little Big Horn. A wire to General Clifton should remove most of the legal obstacles that remain.”
“You've got it all figured out, haven't you? All that's left is to measure the rope.”
“Fifteen feet, I should think, allowing for the knots and Anderson's height and weight.”
I showed him my gun. His expression didn't change.
“That's not your style, Murdock. Even if it were, you'd have no place to go afterwards.”
“Murder is relative,” I told him. But I put the gun away. Instead, I gripped the edges of the desk and leaned forward until our faces were only inches apart. “I'll tell you what is my style. I'm no lawyer, but I've seen my share of them in action in Judge Blackthorne's court. When that court-martial convenes, I'm representing Bear Anderson.”
The twisted smile returned. “Suit yourself. The outcome will be the same regardless of what you do or say.”
I straightened. “You're the enemy,” I said. “Not Bear. Not the Indians. You.”
His cigar had gone out. He relit it, lifting the chimney of the lamp on the desk and leaning forward to engage the flame. “That's all for now, Deputy,” he said, between puffs. “I suppose we'll meet again in court.”
H
e was scheduled to hang shortly after dawn on a bleak day in December.
e was scheduled to hang shortly after dawn on a bleak day in December.
As expected, the trial had been a joke. Chief witness for the prosecution was old White Mane, whose whiskey-roughened voice shook as he described the aftermath of what was already being whispered about abroad as the Spring Thaw Massacre, and repeated the dying words of its sole survivor. It mattered little that this was pure hearsay, or that a significant number of the details had changed since the first time he had recounted the story to Bart Goddard, or even that every time he opened his mouth the air reeked of the profitable side of Goddard's mercantile. It didn't matter at all that I raised objections remarking upon each of these points. Trainer turned such arguments aside with the grace of a boxer feeling out his opponentânever actually landing a punch, but rendering mine
ineffective through simple footwork. The emotion-swaying tricks I'd learned observing the transplanted eastern attorneys in Helena were useless in the stylized atmosphere of a military court-martial. Bear was twisting in the wind before the first bang of the gavel.
ineffective through simple footwork. The emotion-swaying tricks I'd learned observing the transplanted eastern attorneys in Helena were useless in the stylized atmosphere of a military court-martial. Bear was twisting in the wind before the first bang of the gavel.
Before the trial, I had made several attempts to wire Judge Blackthorne to inform him of Trainer's unorthodox proceedings, only to be turned away each time by armed guards stationed at the door of the telegraph office. The captain, they told me, had declared martial law in view of the “Flathead danger,” and put a stop to all messages traveling into and out of town. The restriction was eventually lifted, but by that time high winds had taken down the telegraph lines, thus severing Staghorn's last link with civilization. Trainer couldn't have planned it any better.
But weather is a fickle thing that recognizes no ally.
For two weeks following the passage of sentence, blizzards kept the troopers from carrying it out. Even then, two of the men assigned to construct a gallows behind the jail were killed when a sudden blast of wind from the North tore the supports from beneath them, hurled them to the ground, and brought half a ton of fresh lumber crashing down on top of them. Not counting the Indians we'd slaughtered back at the crossing, that made it nine dead just since I'd renewed my acquaintance with
Bear Anderson. Bringing him to task was proving an expensive proposition for whoever tried it.
Bear Anderson. Bringing him to task was proving an expensive proposition for whoever tried it.
At length, however, the gallows were built, and beneath a pale sun the citizens of Staghorn gathered in the old firebreak behind the jail, stamping their feet and pounding their shoulders with gloved and mittened fists to keep the circulation moving while they waited for the back door to open. It was an impressive gathering; merchants had closed their shops, and farmers, trappers, and cattlemen had braved the arduous journey to town in order to see history in the making. It wasn't every day you got to see a legend die.
And they were not the only spectators.
Since dawn they had begun to accumulate along the rocky ridge overlooking town, and by the time the jail door opened, the skyline was filled with mounted Indians decked in all their ceremonial finery. For the first time in memory, the Flatheads had not made their regular migration to the plains west of the Bitterroot to await the spring thaw. Two Sisters had chosen to winter in the mountains rather than miss the hanging.
On the gallows itself, backs to the wind, stood Captain Trainer and Corporal Patterson. Patterson was a last-minute substitution for the sergeant, who, upon learning that he was to be the hangman, had gotten drunk and started a brawl that wrecked Goddard's saloon just after the old bastard had finished repairing the damage wrought by Ira
Longbow. Trainer had locked him up in the cell adjacent to the scalp-hunter's pending possible court-martial. I saw the sergeant come to the window of his cell from time to time to glance down at the proceedings; from the expression on his face I wondered if he had been as drunk as he'd seemed, or if his one-man riot had been staged to keep him from being the one who sprang the trap.
Longbow. Trainer had locked him up in the cell adjacent to the scalp-hunter's pending possible court-martial. I saw the sergeant come to the window of his cell from time to time to glance down at the proceedings; from the expression on his face I wondered if he had been as drunk as he'd seemed, or if his one-man riot had been staged to keep him from being the one who sprang the trap.
The local ministerâpudgy, bespectacled, and mumbling from a Bible held open in his mittened handsâwas the first to descend the long flight of wooden steps that led from the back door of the jail to ground level. Behind him walked Bear, bareheaded and in chains, his hands manacled behind his back. A chorus of mingled gasps and murmurs greeted him as he ducked his head and swiveled sideways to get through the doorway; most of those present had never seen him, and to a generation that considered a man over six feet tall to be gigantic, the sight of Anderson's nearly seven feet of gristle was beyond belief. Trailing him were the remaining eleven troopers. The captain wasn't taking any chances here, as the odd man followed at a safe distance with his side arm in hand, while behind him the others marched in a column of twos with their rifles in parade position at their shoulders. There was no drum; the condemned man was a civilian, after all, and some of the conventions had to be honored. So silence reigned.
Fourteen steps led to the scaffold. The extra had been added as an afterthought to compensate for Bear's great height, even as the strongest rope in town had been sought to support his tremendous weight. He mounted them with ease in spite of the chains that linked his ankles and wrists. His expression was impossible to read.
The first trooper followed him to the top while the others took up a position of attention on the ground in front of the gallows. There, a buckboard with an empty coffin on the back and a teamster with a bad cold waited to transport the body to the cemetery south of town. At intervals the teamster helped himself to a healthy swig from a bottle he had on the seat beside him to relieve his sniffles; the gurgling noise it made as he tipped it up sounded ridiculously loud in the charged atmosphere of the firebreak.
I was standing in the alley between the jail and the deserted dress shop next door, a vantage point the crowd had overlooked, probably because of the icy gusts that whistled unhampered through the narrow gap. From there I had a good view of the scaffold and the Indians on the ridge. I spotted Two Sisters mounted at the northern end of the line, wearing ceremonial feathers and a coat pieced together from the kind of pelts the Flatheads considered too fine to waste in trade with the other nations. His feelings concerning the scene unfolding below him must have been mixed; no doubt he
was pleased to see his people's killer punished, but at the same time he was losing the one excuse he needed to unite the northwestern tribes in a war against the whites.
was pleased to see his people's killer punished, but at the same time he was losing the one excuse he needed to unite the northwestern tribes in a war against the whites.
“Any last words?” Trainer asked Bear, as the noose was slipped over his head.
“I come here to die, not make a speech,” he said. “Let's ride.”
The reply was a disappointment to some of the spectators, who had evidently been hoping to hear something of historical or biblical origin. I saw Jack Dodsworth of the Staghorn
Republican
flip shut his notepad with a disgusted gesture. They couldn't know that those last two words were a summary of Bear's whole life.
Republican
flip shut his notepad with a disgusted gesture. They couldn't know that those last two words were a summary of Bear's whole life.
There was nothing else to do, but do it. A glance passed between Trainer and the corporal, and at a nod from the captain the noose was drawn tight and a black cloth hood was tugged down over the magnificent leonine head. Patterson stepped away from the trap and stood with his hand on the wooden lever, waiting. Trainer's arm came up, stopped. For a space they might have been puppets on a miniature stage, Goliath and his armorers in a biblical reenactment, awaiting David's entrance. Then the arm came down. The lever was released with a squeak.
The trap fell, banging at the end of the leather straps that held it. Bear plunged through the opening. The rope jerked taut, stretchedâand broke.
The shattered end sprang upward, wrapping itself around the gallows' wooden arm. Bear, still wearing the noose, hit the ground hard and lay kicking in the mud and slush. He was strangling.
I was halfway down to the firebreak when Trainer recovered from his initial shock and ran down the steps, taking them two at a time. By the time he got there, Ezra Wilson, who had been standing by waiting to sign the death certificate, was kneeling beside the body and struggling to loosen the noose with his hands. The officer reached past him and sawed at the rope with his knife. It parted and fell. Wilson tore away the black hood.
“Pierce!” shouted the captain. “Another rope! On the double!”
A trooper left formation and took off at a sprint up the slope. The others dropped their rifles to hip level and moved forward to drive back the pressing crowd. I slipped past them.
“You tried once,” I panted, reaching Trainer. “Isn't that enough?”
He turned his vague gray eyes in my direction, but said nothing.
“Somebody'd better do something, and fast.” Wilson was straining every muscle to hold down Bear's heaving shoulders. “His neck is broken.”
“Hurry up with that rope!” the captain roared.
The trooper returned a moment later bearing a coil of rope, and he and Patterson secured one end and slung the other over the gallows arm. While a
noose was being fashioned, Trainer, another trooper, and I lifted Bear to his feet and hustled him up the steps. If I couldn't help him any other way, I could at least help him die.
noose was being fashioned, Trainer, another trooper, and I lifted Bear to his feet and hustled him up the steps. If I couldn't help him any other way, I could at least help him die.
This time Patterson didn't bother with the hood and he didn't wait for the order to drop the trap. As soon as the noose was in place he tripped the lever.
This time the rope held. The gallows creaked, the scaffold swayed; for a moment it seemed as if the entire structure might collapse. Bear kicked twice and dangled.
A gust of wind caught the gallows arm and twisted it around, straining still further the nails and pegs that held the structure together. Then it died. The great body swung in silence.
The minister remembered his job suddenly and began reading from the Book of Genesis.
I think it was that first failure on the part of the hangman that led to the rumor, which persists, that Bear Anderson survived that day, and that someone else was hanged in his stead. It doesn't seem to matter that any attempt to sneak him out would have had to have taken place in front of more than a hundred witnesses, not counting the Indians, and that nobody but a perfect double could have taken his place the second time, as that time he was hanged without the hood over his head. Legends don't perish that easily. As late as last year he was seen in St. Louis driving a trolley, and there's no
indication that these sightings will cease until time makes his further survival impossible.
indication that these sightings will cease until time makes his further survival impossible.
I do nothing to discourage such talk. Although I stopped carrying a badge six years ago, when Judge Blackthorne died and they brought in an assistant district attorney from New Hampshire to replace him, people still seek me out on occasion to ask about Bear and the time we rode together up in the Bitterroot. When the conversation approaches the hanging, I change the subject. They'd resent me if I tried to force the truth down their throats, and in any case they wouldn't believe me. It's easier among the Indians, where there is no written history and the storytellers can leave out the last part in order to keep the myth going. Now that Two Sisters and most of the braves who were there that day are gone, and the Flatheads themselves are socked away on reservations, it's an easy thing for them to believe that Mountain That Walks still prowls those rocks on the back of his big dun horse, his belt a tangle of bloody scalps, looking for fresh victims. He's become part of their heritage, and when the bad feelings are done between red and white, and scholars begin collecting these stories and putting them down on paper, you can bet that Bear will be there in some form. That's when he'll prove to be as indestructible as the legends say.
On that day, however, there was no doubt. When it was certain that the rope had done its job, Captain Trainer undid the knot that anchored it and allowed
the body to fall of its own weight to the ground. Wilson bent over it, pried open each eyelid, and straightened.
the body to fall of its own weight to the ground. Wilson bent over it, pried open each eyelid, and straightened.
“He's dead.”
The statement carried up to the ridge, and after a few minutes Chief Two Sisters wheeled his horse and led his braves back into the shelter of the high rocks.
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