Trail of the Hanged Man Read online

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  It was early morning when Lawless rode into Deming.

  Originally shunned by settlers because it was home to numerous outlaw gangs and frequently attacked by marauding Apaches, the dusty, sun-baked town had become prominent once the Atchison, Topeka and the Santa Fe completed its junction with the Southern Pacific railroad in 1881. Named after Mary Deming Crocker, wife of the railroad magnate Charles Crocker, it had finally shed its bad image and become a safe place to live with gas street lights, hotels, stores, cantinas, law offices and one of the most elegant Harvey Houses west of St Louis.

  Lawless rode along Silver Avenue, a broad dirt street lined on both sides with planked sidewalks and wood and brick buildings, looking for a place to water his horse. There were water windmills everywhere, reminding him of the town’s nickname: Windmill City.

  Near the end of the street Lawless saw Jud Halloran’s shingle hanging above a stairway leading up to his office. Guessing the lawyer wouldn’t be open for business at this early hour, he rode on. At the next corner he passed the Baker Hotel, an impressive two-storey brick building that was Deming’s most important meeting place. Lawless crossed Spruce Street and reined up outside a large livery stable with mission-style parapets and a decorative brick front.

  There was a public water trough by the entrance. Lawless dismounted and stretched the stiffness from his back while his horse drank. Then, taking the hardboiled egg sandwiches Ingrid had fixed for him from his saddle-bag, he sat on the edge of the trough to eat. She had also given him two oatmeal cookies and after wolfing everything down Lawless went to the pump, cranked it and drank from the spout.

  As he straightened up he noticed the hostler watching him from the doorway of the barn. He was an old, bald man with a snuff-stained white beard who leaned on a crutch and had a splint on his right leg. ‘’Morning,’ he said to Lawless. ‘Just git in?’

  Lawless nodded. Then thanking the hostler for the use of his water, he asked him if he knew what time Mr Halloran opened his office. The hostler shrugged and said it all depended on how hungry the lawyer was. Taking out an old silver timepiece, he snapped open the cover and checked the time. ‘’Course, if you’re on fire to see him, mister, reckon you can catch him wolfing down flapjacks right about now.’

  ‘Where would that be?’ Lawless said.

  The hostler pointed up the street. ‘Oro Fino, on Railroad Avenue ’cross from the railroad tracks.’

  Thanking the old man, Lawless stepped into the saddle and nudged his horse on up the street.

  Thanks to simple, wholesome food at reasonable prices – reasonable when compared to the price of meals served at the large, fancy Harvey House next to the train station – the wood-framed, family-owned restaurant was always crowded with railroad men, drummers, and cattlemen.

  Entering, Lawless stood just inside the door and searched the faces of the customers, looking for a man fitting Sven’s description.

  He spotted him quickly, a big chunky man with thinning dark hair and long sideburns in a tan business suit sitting at a rear corner table.

  ‘Mr Halloran?’

  Jud Halloran waved him away without looking up, ‘Not now,’ and continued forking syrupy pancakes into his mouth.

  ‘It’s important,’ Lawless said.

  ‘So’s my breakfast,’ Halloran said with his mouth full. When Lawless didn’t move the lawyer finally looked up, patted his mouth with a napkin and pointed to a clock on the wall. ‘I’ll be in my office in thirty minutes. We can talk then.’ He returned to his eating.

  Lawless took out Sven’s letter of introduction and set it on the table beside Halloran’s plate. ‘Maybe you should read this,’ he said.

  Halloran glanced at it and was about to continue eating when he saw Sven’s signature at the bottom of the page. ‘I’ll be damned,’ he said. Putting his fork down, he gave Lawless a friendlier look and then indicated the chair across from him. ‘Join me, Mr Lawless. Coffee?’

  ‘Thanks.’

  Halloran turned in his chair and motioned to a waitress serving three grimy, bearded miners at a nearby table. Rather than shout above the noise of everyone talking, he pointed to Lawless and then held up his coffee cup. The waitress nodded to show she understood and headed for the counter.

  Halloran turned back to Lawless and sized him up with shrewd, glittery eyes. ‘So you’re a friend of Sven Bjorkman’s, eh? How is that big lumbering ox, anyway – still as cheerful as ever?’

  Lawless nodded. He’d already decided he didn’t like Halloran and was puzzled that Sven was associated with him.

  ‘And Ingrid – how’s she doing?’

  ‘Fine.’

  ‘By God, sir, that is one handsome, lusty, desirable woman, wouldn’t you agree?’

  Lawless considered knocking Halloran across the room, but managed to restrain himself.

  ‘To this day,’ the lawyer continued, ‘I hate to think of her rotting away in the desert, getting old and ugly before her time. I told her that when they were passing through. Said she and Sven ought to settle here. I even offered to put her to work in my office at good wages. But she’d have none of it. Said she was determined to help her husband raise horses. I could see she thought the sun rose and set on Sven, so I didn’t try to change her mind.…’ He paused, gave a disgusted grunt as if he’d let a prize escape him and then said, ‘Ah, well, that was then, this is now. No good crying over spilled cream, is there?’ Belching behind his napkin, he pushed his plate away, took a cigar from a leather cigar case, cut off the tip with a gold clipper and slowly wet the end between his lips. He then flared a match, lit up and peered at Lawless through exhaled smoke. ‘All right, Mr Lawless, what’s this about?’

  Lawless started to explain, but as soon as he mentioned Stadtlander’s name Halloran cut him off.

  ‘Wait – hold it right there. Before you go any further, Mr Lawless, does the reason you’re here, talking to me, have anything to do with Mr Stillman Stadtlander?’

  ‘Everything,’ Lawless said. ‘And none of it’s good.’

  ‘Well, then, I have to tell you, sir, we have a conflict of interests here. You see, I represent Mr Stadtlander—’

  ‘You’re his lawyer?’

  ‘One of many, yes.’ Halloran paused as the waitress arrived. Setting a cup of coffee in front of Lawless, she asked if he wanted to order breakfast. When he shook his head, she gathered up Halloran’s empty dishes and took them into the kitchen.

  ‘So you can see, can’t you,’ Halloran continued, ‘I’d be violating the law if I represented you or Sven as well.’

  Lawless sipped his coffee and studied the lawyer over the cup. ‘How long you been in his employ?’

  ‘I’m not at liberty to reveal that, Mr Lawless.’ He got up from the table, adding, ‘Now, if there’s nothing else I can do for you, sir, I have to be getting along.’

  ‘Sit down,’ Lawless said, so softly he could barely be heard above the customers talking around them.

  But Halloran heard. He heard and he sat quickly.

  ‘How about another lawyer, Mr Halloran?’

  ‘You mean someone I’d recommend?’

  Lawless nodded.

  ‘I’m afraid I don’t know any other lawyers.’

  ‘You mean none that would risk a face-off with Mr Stadtlander?’

  Halloran smiled condescendingly. ‘Those are your words, sir, not mine. Now, I really must go.’ Rising, he threw money on the table for the meal and hurried out.

  Lawless finished his coffee and left the restaurant.

  There were two other lawyers in Deming. Both were suddenly ‘too busy’ to listen to Lawless once he mentioned Stadtlander’s name. They added ‘confidentially’ that they doubted if any of the local judges would rule against Mr Stadtlander even if Mr Bjorkman was lucky enough to find a lawyer to represent him.

  Angry and frustrated, Lawless watered his horse at the livery stable, filled both his canteens and rode out of town. It was almost noon and
the sun hammered down on him. He dozed in the saddle for a while, in no rush to get back to the ranch and give Sven the bad news, and finally decided to rest up until sundown. Finding a sliver of shade beside a rocky outcrop, he removed his saddle, hobbled the horse, and stretched out on the warm sand.

  He was asleep within moments.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  A silver dollar moon guided him back to the ranch. But as he dismounted outside the barn, the moon ducked behind the clouds and it became dark, so dark he had to light the lamp hanging by the door in order to put the horse away.

  The other horse was missing. Puzzled, Lawless went out back and saw that the wagon was also missing. Yet a light glowed in the window of the house. Someone was home. He walked down the slope to the front door. It wasn’t much past supper but he couldn’t hear anyone talking inside. It made him uneasy and he sensed something was terribly wrong. He rapped on the door. ‘It’s me, Ben,’ he called out. When no one responded he knocked again, harder. ‘Sven … Ingrid … it’s Ben … Ben Lawless.…’

  Still no answer.

  Fears escalating, he drew his Colt, opened the door and stepped inside.

  The room was empty. Still. Silent.

  Then he heard a faint tapping that drew his eyes to the hurricane lamp on the table. A Miller moth hurled itself repeatedly against the glass shield protecting the wick. The charred remains of another moth lay near the flame.

  Hoping that the moth was the only dead creature he was going to find, Lawless cautiously entered the back bedrooms. They were also empty. Holstering his gun, he returned to the main room and looked around. There was no sign of violence anywhere. He put his hand on the stove. It was cold. Not wanting to be a target, he blew out the lamp and inched open the door.

  Nothing stirred.

  Somewhere far off a coyote sang in the night.

  Lawless stepped outside. He stood there, looking around, trying to see in the darkness, ready to dive back inside if there was any trouble.

  The moon now slid from behind the clouds, turning everything silvery bright. He looked about him. There were no signs of an attack by renegades, white or red. Everything looked undisturbed, as if the ranch had suddenly been abandoned. A cold wind blew in from the desert. It spun the vanes of the windmill and their creaking made him look up.

  That’s when he saw a figure slumped over on the little platform just below the vanes. He moved closer and realized it was Raven, knees drawn up, face buried in her arms.

  ‘What the hell you doing up there?’ he called out to her.

  She showed no sign of hearing him.

  ‘Raven – you hear me? Where is everybody?’

  Again, she didn’t respond.

  Hurrying to the windmill, he climbed up the rickety ladder until his head and shoulders were above the platform. Raven still didn’t move. Not wanting to add his weight to the flimsy structure, he reached out and gently grasped her arm. ‘What’s wrong, sprout? Why won’t you talk to me?’

  After a long pause, she said tearfully, ‘’S’all her fault.…’

  He knew she wasn’t finished, so he remained quiet.

  ‘If she hadn’t kept after him about it … made him take her into town for that stupid dress, he’d still be alive.’

  Lawless felt a chill that wasn’t the wind. ‘Who would?’

  ‘Pa.’

  ‘Your father’s dead?’

  Raven nodded.

  ‘When? How?’

  Raven lifted her head and looked at him, her big black eyes raw from crying. ‘Yesterday morning, in Santa Rosa … just after Momma and me had come out of the store.…’

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘Pa was still inside, talking to Mr and Mrs Melvin … when suddenly there was all this shooting and hollering and everybody started running … you know, taking cover, ducking into doorways … hiding behind wagons, and then, then the three of them came riding up from Lower Front Street—’

  ‘Which three?’ Lawless said. ‘Who’re you talking about?’

  ‘Mr Stadtlander’s son, Slade.’

  ‘Who else?’

  ‘The Iverson brothers … hired hands who work for Mr Stadtlander. They’d all been drinking at the Copper Palace when—’

  ‘What about Violet and Joey – where were they?’

  ‘Over at the McNallys’.’

  ‘Your neighbors?’

  Raven nodded. ‘We dropped them off on our way into Santa Rosa. It was Mrs McNally’s idea. She and Mr McNally were old friends of Violet’s folks.…’

  A gust of wind hit the windmill, cranking the vanes so violently the platform shuddered. Raven gave a tiny gasp and clutched Lawless’ arm. He waited until the wind died down and the windmill stopped swaying and then pulled her toward him. She resisted momentarily. Then when he told her to relax, to trust him, she crawled to him and let him help her down the ladder. Once on the ground, he picked up her and carried her into the house.

  Sitting her at the table, he lit the lamp and took a half-empty bottle of whiskey from a cupboard beside the pantry. Pouring a little in a cup, he insisted she drink it. He then sat across from her and swigged from the bottle as she finished her story.

  Hearing all the wild shooting, she said, her father came running out of Melvin’s Haberdashery to see who was doing it. Just then Slade and the Iversons galloped past, guns in one hand and whiskey bottles in the other. They were whooping it up and firing at everything in sight. Bullets flew in all directions. One shattered the store display window behind her mother. Glass showered over them. Her father shouted for them to get back inside. But bullets kept them pinned down. Finally he grabbed them and tried to pull them into the store. But before he could he was hit by one of the bullets. He staggered backward, blood pouring from his head, and collapsed on the boardwalk. By then, Raven continued, Slade and the Iversons had stopped shooting and ridden on up the street. She and her mother tried to pick her father up, but he was too heavy for them. Her mother screamed for help, but everyone was too scared or busy hiding to answer her cries. Eventually, Mr Melvin and his assistant, Aaron Brock, rushed out of the store and between all of them they were able to carry her father to the doctor’s.

  ‘What happened then?’ Lawless said as Raven paused.

  ‘… P-Pa … died.…’

  Lawless felt a rare sense of loss. He tried to squelch it. But the feeling fought him and reaching across the table, he gently pressed his hand over Raven’s. ‘I’m sorry.…’

  He expected her to break down, to burst into tears. But she was all cried out. She sat there, motionless, numbly staring at the lamp.

  He said quietly, ‘What about your mother? Why isn’t she here with you?’ When Raven avoided his gaze, he added, ‘Is she still in Santa Rosa?’

  ‘Y-yes…with Mr and Mrs Melvin. They made us stay. Said we shouldn’t be out here all alone—’

  ‘But you ran off and left her?’

  Her guilty look confirmed it.

  ‘Want to tell me why?’

  ‘’Cause it’s her fault Pa’s dead,’ Raven said hotly.

  ‘That’s crazy talk.’

  ‘No it ain’t. If she hadn’t made Pa go into town he’d still be alive. Her and her stupid dumb dress! Who cares if it came all the way from St. Louis? I don’t. And neither does – did Pa and … and now he’s dead and I h-hate Momma for it! Hate her … hate.…’ She buried her face in her arms.

  Rising, he came and rested his hands on her shoulders. ‘Sprout, listen to me. I know you’re hurting right now. And you got a right to. But hating your mother for something that wasn’t her fault won’t get rid of the pain. People die. Good people, bad people. I don’t know why. It’s just God’s way. If he puts your name on a bullet it’ll find you no matter where you are.’

  ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

  ‘That when it’s your turn to die, you die. Like your pa. If he’d stayed home yesterday or ridden to Deming instead of me, it wouldn’t have made any difference. He still would’ve d
ied – wherever he was – just in a different way.’

  Raven looked up angrily. ‘How do you know? You ain’t God.’

  ‘No, but I’ve seen enough death to know how God works.’

  ‘You’re just saying that ’cause you love Momma and don’t want me to blame her.’

  ‘No,’ he said quietly, ‘I’m saying it because it’s true.’

  ‘I don’t believe you. I’ll never believe you.’

  ‘Then believe this.…’ He unbuttoned his shirt, revealing the ugly rope scar around his neck. ‘What other reason could there be for me being alive?’

  Raven grimaced and quickly turned away. She made no sound, but he felt her shoulders shaking and knew she was crying. He wanted to help her, to make her feel better, but he knew only time could do that. Bending down, he gently scooped her up and carried her into her bedroom.

  She didn’t fight him; didn’t even look at him. Her black, normally expressive eyes were empty. Putting her on the bed he covered her with a blanket and pulled a chair up beside her. The room was dark save for a shaft of light coming from the lamp in the other room. Lawless pulled the door almost shut, making the bedroom darker, and sat in the chair.

  When his eyes grew accustomed to the darkness he saw she was staring blankly at the ceiling.

  ‘Go to sleep, sprout.’

  She turned her empty eyes to him.

  ‘It’s OK,’ he assured her. ‘I’m not going anywhere.’

  She looked at him for another moment. Then she turned on her side facing him and closed her eyes.

  Lawless shifted on the hard wooden chair, trying to get comfortable.

  Instantly she opened her eyes, anxiously looking for him.

  ‘Don’t worry. I’m still here.’

  She hesitated, afraid to close her eyes.

  ‘Trust me, sprout. I won’t leave you.’

  ‘Why should I trust you?’