It was a bright, sunny spring morning. Everything looked fresh and new. Although it was only a few minutes after eight, there was plenty of activity in Barker’s Crossing. On Main Street, the stores were raising their shutters, and even the saloon had its doors open to air the place of the fug which had built up the previous night.
The main thing on Brown’s mind that morning was putting together a band of men who would go with him up to the Parker ranch and bring in those responsible for last night’s lynching. Before that, though, he would need to ride out to Patrick’s home and see if there was any evidence that would serve to connect Randolph Parker or his employees with last night’s events. J
ack Brady was already up and about. He said, ‘You’ll be wanting your horse, I reckon. What’s afoot this morning? Not teaching school?’ In all the alarms and excursions of the last few hours, Brown was horrified to realize that he had completely forgotten about the school. After his mare was tacked up, he rode to the school and waited to turn away the pupils as they arrived. This took some time and a few of the children appeared to suspect that something untoward had happened. It was hard to keep anything secret in a little town. It wasn’t until a quarter after nine that he was able to get off and ride to the McDermotts’ home.
When he got there, the scene was every bit as ghastly as he had feared. During the course of his career, Mark Brown had seen the aftermaths of a few lynchings. They were always ugly and the men who suffered such deaths invariably died hard; choking and struggling as they kicked out their lives on the end of the rope. Never yet though had he seen a woman treated so.
The faces of both Aggie McDermott and Linton Avery were suffused with blood until they were a dark purple. Their eyes were open and bulging from the sockets. Brown forced himself to dismount and begin searching the ground around the hanging bodies carefully. There were plenty of hoof prints, but nothing to distinguish one from another. Other than that, there were a couple of burnt out pine torches. These, he examined carefully and then stowed in his saddle-bag. There was an outside chance that he might be able to match these up with some tree over at Parker’s spread. It was a slender enough hope, though. There were plenty of pine trees in the area.
When he had satisfied himself that there were no clues to be found, Brown went into the soddie and found a sharp kitchen knife. This he used to cut down the bodies. They fell to the ground with a bump and he wished that there had been somebody there to ease them down and treat the corpses with some respect. It was hard to know what to do with the bodies. In the end, he decided to take them back to town. There was a light cart at the back of the soddie and he managed to harness his own horse up to this, after a fashion. Having done this, the teacher tried, in the most dignified way possible, to lay the mortal remains of Aggie McDermott and Linton Avery on the back of the wagon. He felt terrible about dumping them down on the dusty wooden surface like that, but it seemed better than to leave them hanging from the tree or lying there on the ground. Once the bodies were loaded up, he headed back to town.
The sight of two corpses with horribly contorted faces, both lying on the back of a farm cart, was not a common one in Barker’s Crossing. Mark Brown was perfectly well aware of this and was by no means displeased at the attention which this awful sight attracted when he parked the cart right bang in the centre of Main Street. He didn’t make a big production out of the business, just halted outside the Chivers’ store and then waited. At first, those passing along the boardwalk could scarcely believe their eyes. One or two people paused to double check that they had really seen two dead bodies at the back of a wagon driven by the town’s teacher. Within a quarter hour, something of a crowd had begun to develop, although a very small and constantly changing one. Brown himself said nothing. He just sat there on the buckboard, ready to answer questions and give his views and opinions about the matter.
‘Is that Aggie McDermott?’ asked one man.
‘That it is,’ Brown replied, offering no further information. He wanted to rouse these men and this seemed as good a way as any to stir their curiosity. He felt a little uneasy about making use of the bodies in this way, but then the end in this particular instance surely justified the means. He would need at least a dozen or more men if he was going to be challenging Randolph Parker’s boys.
‘What happened to them, Mr Brown?’ asked another man.
‘They was lynched by men working for Parker,’ Brown replied baldly. ‘A man and woman, murdered in cold blood.’
There were murmurs of disgust and disapproval. Nothing, though, which sounded like anger; merely a sense that those viewing the two at the back of the cart felt that this was all a bit much. He wanted stronger emotions than that and his heart began to sink. He had a dreadful feeling that the folk of Barker’s Crossing were likely to dismiss this as some species of private quarrel between Randolph Parker and the homesteaders.
Parking the cart outside the store where Mr Chivers had been shot, was a calculated move on Mark Brown’s part. The window shattered by gunfire was still boarded up and he hoped that displaying the corpses here would serve to remind the townsfolk that they too were the victims of Parker’s men. His strategy though, did not appear to be working. No large and angry crowd was gathering around him, ready to swear vengeance. What was happening was rather that men and women were drifting up, tutting with dismay at the sight of these two dead people and then wandering off again. There were a dozen people standing around the cart, but they only looked for a few minutes and then went off again, to be replaced by newcomers. There was disgust and pity aplenty, but not the kind of anger which would make them likely to join a posse.
Of course, even if the men stopping to view the mortal remains of Aggie McDermott and Linton Avery had been so inclined, that would not be the end of the story. The fact was, Brown had no idea how he would be able to pay them even a nominal sum for riding with him in pursuit of justice. The more he thought about it, the more it struck him that he should have settled this matter with Avery, while that worthy man was still in the land of the living. Brown didn’t even know how he would get any money himself for his lawkeeping activities, let alone pay a bunch of men ten dollars a head to ride with him in a raid on Parker’s ranch. This was a regular conundrum, and what the answer could be, he had not the least notion.
Slowly, even the small and variable group that had been congregating round the cart, evaporated and Mark Brown was left sharing the farm wagon with two dead people. There didn’t seem a whole lot of reason to hang about any longer and so he decided to see about getting a funeral arranged. He only hoped that the parson at the church wouldn’t expect him to pay for the job.
The Reverend Phillips was more than a little taken aback to find that the teacher, whose ambitions to join the ranks of clergy he knew about and approved of, was now turning up outside his home with a couple of horrible-looking corpses loaded on the back of a cart.
‘Mr Brown,’ said the minister, when he answered the door, ‘It surely is good to see you. Have you come to talk about your plans?’
‘In a sense, sir,’ said Mark Brown, ‘But first there is a little matter which I need to clear up.’ It was then that he explained to the Reverend Phillips about his cargo. As he spoke, Phillips noticed the inconspicuous badge on the teacher’s jacket and realized that the afternoon was not going to be pleasantly spent, being godly and holy in a self-satisfied way; but would rather entail some unwelcome action from him. He listened to Brown’s account of the recent tragedy, agreed that it was terrible and that something needed to be done.
At first, the minister had a dreadful fear that it was Mark Brown’s intention to draft him into a posse. When he learned that it was only being asked of him that he read the burial service for the dead over the two graves, he was mightily relieved. He said, ‘Only thing is, Mr Brown, the fellow that usually digs the graves for me isn’t in town right now.’
‘I’ll dig the graves,’ said the teacher at once. ‘What can we do about coffins, though? We’ll want to get these two in the ground as soon as may be.’
‘We generally use winding sheets, rather than coffins,’ explained the minister. ‘There’s not enough people living and dying round here to tempt anybody to set up trade as a coffin-maker. If you’re going to dig the graves, then you might care to prepare the bodies too. There’d be no occasion to remove the clothes of course. Just wrap the winding sheet round each of them.’
The hard physical exertion of digging two graves served to focus Mark Brown’s mind. It was obvious to him that the citizens of Barker’s Crossing were hoping against hope that if they just kept quiet and ignored what was going on a few miles from their town, then the struggle between the rancher and the homesteaders would not affect them overmuch. Even old Mr Chivers’s death had not shaken them in this belief, nor had the increasingly outrageous actions of Parker’s men in demanding free drinks from the Luck of the Draw. They honestly thought that this would all blow over without harming their own interests. And to that end, they were prepared to see one woman driven from her own land and another murdered in cold blood.
One aspect of that scene today in Main Street had struck Brown, and that was the lack of curiosity shown by the town’s inhabitants about the details of Aggie McDermott’s death. It was almost as though if they didn’t enquire too closely, then they might be able to persuade themselves that this was not quite such a foul crime after all. This indicated to the teacher the path that he should take. Accordingly, when once he had finished preparing things for the funeral, he put his jacket back on and made his way to Miss Clayton’s house.
Young Patrick was up and about. His eyes were red from weeping, but he seemed to have got over the worst of it. Miss Clayton had got him to read to her, which was evidently having a calming effect. ‘Patrick,’ said the teacher, ‘I have been up to your farm. It was all as you said and I have made arrangements for the funerals of your mother and Mr Avery.’ It seemed to Brown that there was no point pussyfooting around and that speaking plainly in this fashion might be better for the boy.
So it proved, because Patrick McDermott replied, in an almost adult tone of voice, ‘That’s right good o’ you, sir.’
‘If you’ve no objection, I intend for your ma to lie next to Linton Avery. I gather they were great friends?’
Incredibly, after such an ordeal, the boy smiled faintly at this delicate way of putting the case. He said, ‘He was sweet on Ma, if that’s what you mean, Mr Brown.’
‘Good, that’s that settled. The funeral will take place tomorrow morning. I’ll say a few words then, if you’ve no objection?’
‘Thank you, sir. Ma always thought well of you.’ The use of the past tense in referring to his mother was too much for the child, and his eyes began to fill with tears. Miss Clayton clucked sympathetically and went over to put her arms round the distressed boy.
Feeling it better to take no notice of Patrick’s display of grief, for fear of embarrassing the boy, Brown addressed Miss Clayton. ‘I have a job for you, ma’am, if you’d care to take it on. It touches upon obtaining justice for your brother-in-law and Patrick’s late mother. I mind you know most everybody in this here town. I want you to spread the word far and wide that the funerals will be conducted tomorrow at eleven in the morning. You might venture to suggest as it would be fitting for as many people from the town to attend as possible.’
‘You’ll have a full house, don’t you fret about that, Mr Brown,’ said the old woman firmly. ‘They’ll be there if I got to drag ’em to the burying ground by the scruff of their necks. Anything else you want I should do?’
‘I wonder if you might have such a thing as some paper and envelopes, ma’am?’
‘You want to catch up with your correspondence? I’d have thought you had more pressing matters to concern you right now.’
Brown smiled. ‘This has some bearing on the matter in hand,’ he said. ‘I’m not planning to write to my folks back home, describing the weather or telling them about the scenery here or anything of that sort.’
He didn’t feel it necessary to mention the matter to Miss Clayton, but the teacher had already made some provisional plans for dealing with things if the rest of the town felt inclined to sit tight and hope that the trouble with Randolph Parker would blow over. He certainly hoped to deliver a moving eulogy on the morrow and stir up the folk in Barker’s Crossing to such a pitch that they would join him in bringing justice to the dead woman and her friend; but the wise man does not place too much hope in the variable and constantly changing opinions of others. Brown already knew at least two or three people in town who might be of practical assistance to him in his endeavours and it was upon them that he intended to rely.
Pete Cartwright opened the door and did not appear to be at all surprised to see the teacher standing on the step. Indeed, he looked rather as though he had been expecting him. ‘Oh, it’s you, Mr Brown. Won’t you come in?’
Cartwright’s wife was also at home and she once more gave him fulsome and effusive thanks for rescuing their daughter from her difficulties. Fact was, with all that was going on, Brown had all but forgotten about that little episode. Once she had stopped talking, Pete Cartwright despatched her to the kitchen to make some coffee. He said, ‘Take a turn around the garden with me, Mr Brown. We can talk easier in the fresh air.’
The Cartwrights’ garden was scarcely bigger than their kitchen and Brown rightly gauged that he had been brought out here, not so much to admire the little patch of herbs growing by the back door, but rather so that Emma Cartwright couldn’t hear what was being said.
‘Like my wife said, we’re in your debt for what you did the other night for Lily-May. Happen I misjudged, but you have the way about you of a man about to call in a debt.’
‘I wouldn’t put it so. I came to ask you a favour.’ Cartwright looked a little uncomfortable. True, he had, on the spur of the moment and in his relief at hearing about the fix from which his daughter had been rescued, promised to help the teacher if needed, but from all that he was able to apprehend, events were moving swiftly towards a bloody climax and he had a family to think of. He surely hoped that Brown wasn’t going to ask him to volunteer as a deputy.
Something of what was going through the man’s mind must have shown on his face, because Mark Brown said hastily, ‘I ain’t about to ask you to fight by my side, you needn’t fret about that.’
‘What then?’
‘I want you to run an errand for me. It’ll take two or three days, there and back. Can you do that?’
‘I reckon. What is this errand?’
‘You know the army base, away over east? It’s called Fort Jackson and it’s about twenty-five miles from here.’
‘Sure I know it. Been by there a couple o’ times. That where you want me to go? What for?’
‘I want you to deliver this letter to the officer in charge of Fort Jackson. Nobody else, mind. Only the fellow in charge. Think you can do it?’
‘Sure. Is that all? I was afeared you might have it in mind that I would ride down with you on those bandits and have a set-to with ’em.’
‘You got young’uns to care for. I wouldn’t ask such a thing of a family man.’
Brown produced a long, thin envelope from his jacket and handed it to Pete Cartwright. He said, ‘This could mean life or death, not just to me, but others in this town. Ride hard.’
As soon as he had laid eyes on the hanging bodies of Cattle Aggie and Linton Avery, the teacher had known that things had gone far beyond what one man could deal with, however tough and resourceful that man might be. No, he needed help and urgently at that, if he was to be able to prevent the deaths of any more innocent people. As he rode back to Barker’s Crossing, Brown’s mind had worked furiously, trying to come up with a plan. By the time he had reached the outskirts of the town, he thought that he had at least the germ of an idea.
As a marshal, law had never been Mark Brown’s strong suit. He was handy enough with his fists, could use most any firearm to be found and was utterly without nerves. His usual procedure was to bring in the man he was hunting and then leave it to others to decide on the finer points of the charges against him. Still and all, he had some knowledge of statutes, including the ones passed in the aftermath of the War Between the States.
The Enforcement Acts had provided for the use of Federal troops to come to the aid of the civil power. Although they were primarily designed to cope with problems in the defeated Confederate states of the south, they were applicable to the whole of the United States. A representative of the civil government could request military assistance against rebel forces, the Ku Klux Klan and so on. It was surely worth trying to call for the help of the army against these Southerners. It was a question of making the appeal look legal and urgent. After a lot of deliberation and much racking of his brains for the correct spelling of various words, the document which Brown had written in Miss Clayton’s house and now required Pete Cartwright to deliver to the military at Fort Jackson read thus:
To Officer Commanding, Fort Jackson
April 15th, 1875
Sir,
I, Sheriff Mark Brown, am the only representative of the Civil Power in the town of Barker’s Crossing, Wyoming Territory. A band of armed marauders, consisting of irregular forces of the former Confederate Army, have arrived in the neighbourhood and begun to commit various acts of warfare, including murder, mayhem, looting and rapine. Four individuals have been deprived of their civil rights by being hanged or shot to death. One of the victims of these actions by Rebel Forces was Justice of the Peace Linton J. Avery. I am accordingly the only representative of the Civil Power in this part of the Territory of Wyoming. Under the powers vested in the Federal Army by the Enforcement Acts of 1870 and 1871, I call upon you to provide urgent aid and assistance to suppress this rebellion.
I have the honour to remain, Sir, Your Obedient Servant, Mark Brown, (Sheriff).
When he had finished writing this appeal, Brown read it through and wondered whether or not he had laid it on too thick. Then he recollected himself and thought, well, it really is a matter of life and death. Not just my own life and death, either. If it gets the army to act, then I can argue the legality of the case afterwards.
Old Mr Brady looked pleased to see him when Brown fetched up at the livery stable. ‘What’s amiss? You looking to take your horse out or you want a deputy?’ the old man asked shrewdly. ‘That’s a hell of a thing about Linton Avery and Aggie. Hell of a thing.’
‘Miss Clayton tells me that you’re quite the crack-shot with a scattergun. That right?’
‘I told you that already. What, you didn’t take my word for it?’
‘Mr Brady,’ said Brown wearily, ‘If you’d been in law enforcement as long as me, you wouldn’t take anybody’s word for anything in the world. I tell you now, if my own brother told me that the sun was shining, I’d still look out the window to check. That’s how you get when you work as a marshal or sheriff.’
‘No offence meant or taken. Yeah, I reckon I’m the best shot with a scattergun for miles around.’
‘You still in practice? You ain’t gone rusty or aught?’
At this, Jack Brady burst out laughing. He said, ‘You not heard o’ my little sideline? When I ain’t running this place, you’ll like as not find me up in the hills, hunting. Birds, deer, jack-rabbits. You name it, I kill it and sell it to folk around here. You ask anybody, don’t take my word for it.’
Mark Brown stared out across the rooftops of Barker’s Crossing, gazing at the distant hills. Without turning his eyes to the owner of the livery stable, he said, ‘You still want to be a deputy?’
‘Wouldn’t have offered, else.’
‘Well then, like as not I’ll swear you in tomorrow, straight after we bury Mrs McDermott and Linton Avery. I tell you straight though, things are apt to get damned hot. You sign up and you’re putting your life at risk.’
‘It’s been a long one so far and I took a whole heap o’ risks in it. You want a gun, then I’m your man. ’Side’s which, Linton Avery was a good friend o’ mine and kin to Jemima Clayton into the bargain. I’m your man.’
By good fortune, Brown didn’t need to hunt out the next person he wished to see. Mrs Clayton’s nephew Andy was sweeping the boardwalk in front of one of the little stores that fronted on to Main Street. He smiled and waved when he saw the teacher, crying, ‘Hey there, sir! How’s it doing?’
When he was a little closer to the boy, Brown said, ‘You told me the other day as you wanted to be a deputy. You still game?’
‘Why, I should just about say I am, sir,’ said the youth, a broad, open and good-natured grin spreading across his face. ‘Golly gosh, I reckon I can help you. Ain’t nobody handles a rifle like me.’
There was something so artless and innocent about the boy, that Mark Brown felt a sudden misgiving, like he was fixing to take advantage of a child or something of that sort. He said, ‘Listen here now, Andy. This is a serious business. You ride alongside of me, you could end up being shot. Killed even. You understand what I’m telling you?’
‘I ain’t a kid, Mr Brown. Course I understand and I’m tellin’ you that I’ll do it. I heard about Mr Avery. He was my great uncle twice removed or some such. Leastways, I know he was family to me and I ain’t about to let his death go without doin’ something about it. I’m in.’
‘Good lad.’ It had been observed in the town that none of the hands from Parker’s ranch had been in for a time and this had encouraged regulars to return to the Luck of the Draw. All in all, it felt like things were returning to normal and if the price of that normality turned out to be a couple of people who weren’t really citizens of Barker’s crossing at all, well then, so be it. This callous attitude was due to be rudely shaken the next day.
The morning of the funeral dawned with an overcast and leaden sky, heavy with the promise of rain to come. Patrick McDermott was still staying at Miss Clayton’s and nothing Brown could say would persuade the old woman that her duty lay otherwise than in caring for a poor orphan child. She too, like the teacher, was very familiar with those passages in Scripture touching upon the care of widows and orphans.
True to her word, Miss Clayton had succeeded in rounding up an impressive congregation for Linton Avery and Aggie McDermott’s burial service. There were so many mourners that the minister chose to hold the whole thing in the burying ground, rather than the church. It was, thought Brown, open to question how many of these folk had come because they wished to pay their respects to the dear departed and which of them had just turned up to see what might be said during the interment. Well, that was fine. He certainly had a few things to say, and the more of the inhabitants of Barker’s Crossing who heard them, the better.
There was something distinctly lacking in dignity about the way that the wrapped corpses were placed in the open graves. With a coffin, you can make the whole process look very solemn and lower the casket gently into the grave. When you’re handling a corpse in a winding sheet, the sight has a horrid fascination about it; it is so very plainly a dead body. It somehow looks far worse when you can see the shape of a head and feet when placing something like that in the ground.
First they sang a couple of hymns, starting with Amazing Grace and then said the Lord’s Prayer. After that, the two bodies were somehow manoeuvred into their respective graves and the minister read the service for the dead. ‘I am the resurrection and the life . . . whosoever believeth in me . . . in my father’s house there are many mansions. . . .’
When the service was finished, everybody filed past and threw stones or handfuls of earth into the open graves. Then the minister asked if anybody would like to say a few words. As agreed, he looked directly at Mark Brown when he asked this question and the teacher stepped forward at once. He had given a great deal of thought about what to say. On the one hand, he didn’t want to upset Patrick McDermott, who was doing his best to bear up manfully. On the other, though, he wanted to make his views quite clear and try to get these people raised to the right pitch of indignation.
‘Friends,’ he began, ‘There’s some of you known the departed for a lot longer than I have. I’m speaking now, though, in my position of sheriff, which some of you may know about. These two good folk were killed unlawfully. They didn’t have a trial, they was just lynched. A woman lynched! I was a lawman for ten years and I tell you now, I never heard of such a thing before. Already, those as did this crime are causing trouble in this town. I see the owner of the Luck of the Draw over yonder, Mr Dowty. He knows what I’m talking about.’
Brown paused for a second, observing the crowd narrowly to see how they were taking his address. It didn’t look any too promising, because most of the people were shuffling and looking around uneasily. A few were glancing up to the sky, as though hoping that he would finish and be done with his speechifying before the rain started. He continued, ‘I know that all you men, like me, would scorn to let such a crime as this go unpunished. I know who was involved in the murders and I’m riding out to bring them in, either today or tomorrow. I’m asking now, who will join me and be sworn in as deputies, just ’til this matter is settled?’
In truth, Brown hadn’t expected a mad stampede of volunteers to ride to the Parker ranch. He had expected some, though. None of the men at the graveside would meet his eye and those at the back were showing a tendency to slink away without anybody marking their departure. He said, ‘Is there not one man here?’
There was no answer and slowly, the crowd broke up and drifted away from the burying ground, leaving only Miss Clayton, Patrick McDermott, the minister and Brown himself. It began to rain and by the time that the three of them got back to Miss Clayton’s house, it was pouring down in a veritable torrent.