The Vindicators

Chapter 3

In the end, Joe Palmer did as he was told, because he knew that McBride had the ear of the Territorial Attorney-General as well as that of the Governor in Santa Fe. Not to mention where he owed his own appointment as sheriff to Angus McBride. He wasn’t easy in his mind about the affair, but there seemed little enough to be done about it. He arranged to meet McBride outside town the next day, so that they could ride over to Patrick Sweeney’s ranch and levy distress on his goods.

The sheriff had examined the writ issued in Santa Fe and it was, he had to concede, a properly issued and legally binding document; no matter how it had been obtained. It laid upon him, Joe Palmer, a duty to assist in removing $10,000 worth of goods and chattels from Sweeney’s place. McBride had promised to provide the men necessary to enforce the thing, but to comply with the legal niceties, Sheriff Palmer would need to deputize all the men involved. He’d no wish to do this in his office, which might have alerted one of Sweeney or Taylor’s men to what was in the wind. If this was to be accomplished, then the way to do it was to swoop down on the Sweeney spread and take what was needful swiftly and neatly, by main force.

It was when he first set eyes upon the men that he was expected to swear in as deputies, that it dawned on Joe Palmer precisely what a crooked piece of work he had become mixed up in. There were fourteen of them waiting with Angus McBride and his two sons, and every mother’s son of them were vaqueros of the wildest appearance. All the men with the McBrides were heavily armed, and Palmer thought that never in all his born days had he set eyes on such a villainous-looking rabble as this. They looked like a regular set of bandits.

‘Mr McBride, may I have a confidential word?’ asked Palmer. When the two of them had moved out of earshot of the others, the sheriff said, ‘You really want that I should deputize all these fellows?’

‘Yes, what else?’

‘I don’t know, sir. I don’t know these men. They ain’t householders or nothing of the sort.’

Angus McBride rode his horse up close enough to Palmer’s that their knees were brushing. Then he leaned over so that their faces were only twelve inches or so apart and said, ‘I set you in that post and I can tip you off it again soon enough. That what you want?’

‘No, of course not. It’s just that…’

McBride cut in with great irritation and said, ‘You with me or agin me, Palmer? Straight choice, it’s up to you.’

When the case was set out as bluntly as that of course, it was really no choice at all. Who, in his right mind, would decide to stand against Angus McBride and all the power that was behind him and his company?

‘I’m with you, sir,’ said Sheriff Palmer.

The fourteen men working for the McBride Trading Company were deputized en masse; which was in itself a mite irregular. Not that anybody other than they, the McBrides and Joe Palmer himself, were ever likely to know aught of the precise circumstances. The only one of the men who Palmer knew by sight was the foreman, whose name, improbably enough, was given as Francis Xavier. Once the swearing in had been undertaken, the whole body of them set off to Patrick Sweeney’s ranch.

So far, Palmer was thinking, he had been party to nothing which couldn’t be explained away, should the need arise. It was when they came across Chuck Taylor and one of his boys escorting a string of ponies that Sheriff Palmer’s worst fears were realized.

Patrick Sweeney’s involvement in the store was chiefly that of sleeping partner. His time was fully occupied with ranching and although he was by way of being an old friend of Taylor’s, he didn’t really want to be actively concerned with the project. Sweeney had fish of his own to fry right at that moment; he was investigating rumours that in order to fulfil his contract to supply the army with beef, Angus McBride had been rustling cattle himself. Since he was always the first to accuse others of this and had been instrumental in a number of lynchings for that very offence, Sweeney was intrigued by the idea that it was really McBride himself who was up to those tricks.

When the posse, which was nominally under the command of Sheriff Palmer, came upon Chuck Taylor, he was leading nine ponies away from Sweeney’s place. These were loaded up with provisions for the store. Riding alongside Chuck Taylor was a boy called Ralph Moore. Ralph was devoted to Taylor and had been pleased earlier that day to be asked to accompany the boss to Sweeney’s place. As the two of them rode along with the heavily-laden ponies, they were both feeling light-hearted and gay.

It was young Ralph who saw the line of horsemen ahead of them. He said, ‘Look, sir. Ain’t that the sheriff with those men?’ He was about to add that he could see Angus McBride and his foreman as well, but Taylor cut in right sharp and spoke with an urgency.

‘Ralph, you ride off now. Fast as you like and make for home.’

The boy stared at him uncomprehendingly, and Chuck Taylor reached out and slapped the rump of his horse, saying, ‘Go on now, ride!’

Hardly knowing what was happening, but in the habit of following Taylor’s orders, the youngster spurred on his mount and headed off, away from the oncoming riders.

As soon as Angus McBride recognized Taylor as the man in charge of the ponies, he knew that he had just had the most tremendous stroke of luck and that he was now in a position to deal with another of his difficulties without a lot of fuss and bother. Having Patrick Sweeney poking about into the ways in which the McBride Trading Company acquired its steers had precipitated McBride’s action through the Santa Fe court, but now there was a golden opportunity to kill two jackrabbits with one shot. McBride turned to Joe Palmer and said, ‘Those ponies are coming from Sweeney’s spread, I’ll be bound. This is an attempt to hide his goods and defeat the ends of justice. You see for yourself what’s going on. He’ll be hiding all his livestock on Chuck Taylor’s ranch, so you can‘t seize it. Those two are as thick as thieves.’

‘Hey, I don’t know about that,’ said the sheriff uneasily, ‘We got no legal right to take anything ’cept what’s actually on Sweeney’s land. I can’t just guess where Taylor got his ponies and seize ’em from him.’

Palmer smiled nervously at the grim-faced old man at his side, hoping that he’d made his position plain about this. Why, he thought, it’d be tantamount to highway robbery if they were to ride down on Taylor now and take those beasts from him! It was a measure of Sheriff Palmer’s fairly decent, but essentially weak nature, that his thoughts should turn to nothing worse than robbery at that moment.

As the posse drew closer to the string of ponies, one of the men riding alongside the ponies suddenly galloped off. Two of McBride’s vaqueros started forwards, thinking perhaps to head him off, but at a shouted command from Angus McBride, they reined in and rejoined the others. Chuck Taylor had stopped now and was evidently waiting for the men to come close enough to exchange words with them. He seemed to be quite at his ease; he didn’t look at all to Joe Palmer like a man who was up to no good. Besides which, he knew Taylor to be an honest, if tough, fellow. Palmer, like everybody else in Mason, was aware of the friction between Chuck Taylor and Angus McBride over the new store, but that was merely a matter of business.

‘Morning, McBride,’ called Taylor, as they came within hailing distance. ‘Sheriff, good to see you. What brings you all out here? Nothing amiss, I hope?’

‘Those ponies are Patrick Sweeney’s property,’ announced Angus McBride loudly. ‘Sheriff Palmer here has a distress warrant, meaning that he can take anything belonging to Sweeney.’

Chuck Taylor had had a slight premonition of trouble, which was why he’d sent young Ralph Moore off, but this was quite unexpected.

‘The hell are you talking about? These ponies are mine. They’re nothing to do with Sweeney. Sheriff, are you a party to this?’

‘I got a writ as was issued in Santa Fe. Gives me a duty to help levy distress on Patrick Sweeney’s goods. That includes livestock,’ said Palmer miserably. He knew now that McBride had played him for a fool and that he was presently up to his neck in something which was likely to end very badly. He continued, ‘Listen, Mr Taylor, why don’t you just let me and the men here check out those ponies and see what’s what? Happen it’s all a misunderstanding.’

‘Misunderstanding is about right,’ said Chuck Taylor slowly. ‘My understanding ’til now was that your job is upholding the law. Looks like I was wrong, since you’re now acting like some kind of road agent.’

At this accusation, Joe Palmer blushed deep crimson like a schoolgirl. Taylor had hit him where it hurt, and the words he spoke mirrored just exactly what Palmer himself was thinking. He struggled to frame a reply, but before he could do so, McBride’s foreman rode forwards and peered closely at the lead pony.

He looked up and announced firmly, ‘I know this creature. I see it before at Sweeney’s ranch.’

‘What are you talking about?’ asked Taylor, his bewilderment obvious. ‘When were you ever at Patrick Sweeney’s spread? He would have turfed you out soon as he set eyes on you.’

The man who called himself Francis Xavier announced slowly and clearly, as though he had been coached in the form of words to use, which was in fact the case, ‘I was there when Mr McBride lent $10,000to Sweeney.’

‘What nonsense is this? I never heard the like. Why would Pat borrow $10,000 from your boss?’ Taylor turned to Palmer and said, ‘Sheriff, don’t tell me you’re going to go along with this foolishness?’

‘Says here on the writ that Mr McBride lent Patrick Sweeney$10,000. You’d best take it up with the court in Santa Fe. I ain’t authorized to investigate the matter now.’

While this conversation was taking place, the vaqueros were, at a discreet signal from Angus McBride, fanning out and surrounding Taylor and the ponies. Sheriff Palmer had a horrible feeling that things were slipping out of his control. As for Taylor, he decided that this had gone quite far enough, and he wasn’t going to be pushed around and deprived of his own belongings, especially when the whole thing was based on such a lie as that. The idea of Sweeney borrowing thousands of dollars from McBride was so obviously a bare-faced falsehood. He reached down to pull the rifle from where it nestled in the scabbard by his knee.

Joe Palmer saw this action and moaned, ‘No, no, for Christ’s sake, don’t do that!’ It was too late.

Before Taylor had even pulled his rifle clear of the scabbard, three or four of the Mexicans had already reacted. The truth was, Taylor didn’t think that he was taking part in some showdown or gunfight; he only intended to cradle the weapon in his arms to indicate that he was not about to be pushed round by these people. Angus McBride said a few words in Spanish to his foreman and then there was a single shot. Sheriff Palmer watched in slowly fading disbelief as a neat hole appeared in the front of Chuck Taylor’s plaid shirt. Then there was a fusillade of shots, too many to count individually; the roar of gunfire melding together like a rumbling clap of thunder. Taylor fell backwards off his horse, which then bolted in terror, dragging its rider along by a foot tangled in the stirrup.

As abruptly as it had begun, the shooting ended and in the eerie silence which followed, the sheriff heard McBride remark with satisfaction, ‘Well, I guess that finishes that.’

Up on a ridge of high ground, two miles away, Ralph Moore heard the shooting and paused to look back. At that distance, he couldn’t see much, but he certainly knew that something terrible had happened to the boss. He spurred on his horse and galloped off towards Taylor’s ranch. He was eager to tell the other hands what had occurred, but there was also an element of self-interest in the case; he guessed that some of those greasers might be dispatched to silence the only witness to what he strongly suspected would turn out to be a murder.

Sheriff Palmer stared in horror at the scene. One of the vaqueros had fetched Taylor and his horse back to where the posse was waiting. The foreman dismounted and disentangled the dead man’s foot from the stirrup. Most of the bullets had taken Chuck Taylor in the chest, but two had hit him in the face. One of these had struck him a little below his left eye, which had as a result been blown clear of its socket. It hung down on the cheek, looking to the sheriff’s eyes like an over-ripe grape.

‘Oh, God,’ he groaned. ‘What will we do? Why did they kill him?’

‘You saw him going for his gun,’ said Angus McBride, ‘They were acting in self-defence. It was plain as a pikestaff. Don’t be such a girl.’

‘I’ll have to write up a report on this. A man’s dead.’

‘Yes,’ said McBride, ‘a man who was dealing in stolen property, trying to hide another man’s assets from the court. You’re a law officer, you ought to be glad we got him. Anyway, they’re your deputies, so you alone are answerable. If you didn’t trust them, you shouldn’t have deputized them in the first place.’

This aspect of the thing had not yet occurred to Palmer, but now he considered it, there was something in what McBride said. It was in his own best interests to help cover up what had happened here. After all, he had deputized those damned Mexicans. He said, ‘This needs thinking on. I have to get back to Mason now.’

‘You best think on your own future while you’re about it,’ said McBride. ‘No reason why you and me should fall out here. Mind though, I tell you for now, if we do, then things likely to get damned hot. You take my meaning?’

Ralph Moore’s news created a sensation, with most every one of the young men who worked for Chuck Taylor getting ready to ride off at once and rescue him from his enemies.

It was Ben Drake who managed to stop this, by saying, ‘If what Ralph here tells us is true, then I’d say the boss is already dead.’

‘Then what?’ said another boy. ‘You think we should let those bastards get away with it?’

‘I don’t say so,’ said Ben patiently, ‘I’m thinking as we ought to take advice from somebody who knows about these things.’

‘What, the law? You heard what Ralphie said. Sheriff Palmer was there as well.’

‘No, I was thinking of Mr Sweeney. Him and the boss are right good friends. He’ll know what’s right.’

From the look on their faces, it was plain that none of the others had thought of taking this step. They were so fired up with the lust for vengeance, that seeking a little bit of impartial advice was the last thing on their minds.

‘It can’t do any harm,’ said Ben, ‘Mr Sweeney’ll help us, like as not.’

In the end, it was agreed that all of them would ride off at once to Sweeney’s ranch.

Having killed the man who was the driving force behind the store, which promised to break his monopoly on the county’s trade, Angus McBride was now in no hurry to go up against Sweeney and his men. He figured that he had accomplished enough for one day. With Taylor dead, the store would most likely fold up in any case and that had been his main concern. He was well aware that Patrick Sweeney had men sniffing round, trying to find evidence of rustling or other sharp practice.

That could wait, though. One killing was as much as that soft fool Palmer could be expected to countenance in one day. More than that today and there was always a slender chance that the man would revolt and take the Lord knows what action on his own initiative.

‘All right, you men, now listen up,’ said McBride. ‘We’ve finished now for this day, at least as far as this affair goes. There’s a heap of work to do back at my place. Sling Taylor over his horse and we’ll take his body to town. Leastways, some of you men can do so.’

‘What’ll we do with him when we get to Mason?’ one man was incautious enough to inquire.

‘You can take him to The Silver Dollar and stand him a drink,’ snarled McBride angrily. ‘Why, you fool, I don’t much care what you do with the cow’s son. Dump him in the middle of Main Street for all I care. I just want every man in Mason to see what happens to those who set up in opposition to me.’

Patrick Sweeney was standing outside his house when he saw in the distance a troop of what looked to be at least twenty riders galloping hell for leather towards his property. His first thought was, not unnaturally, that these were men working for Angus McBride who had been sent to murder him. He knew that McBride would have some inkling that his dealings with cattle were now under covert investigation and he was the kind of man to take that very ill. Without further ado, Sweeney darted into the house and took the loaded Winchester that he always had laying ready at hand. Then he went back out onto the porch to see what would develop. His hands were all at work and if this truly was a gang of men intent on harming him, then he was altogether lost. The most he could hope for was to take one or two of them with him.

As the troop of riders approached, Sweeney saw to his relief that he recognized one or two of them. They were Chuck Taylor’s boys. Relief washed through him; it is always pleasing to discover that you are not, after all, about to die a bloody and violent death. He walked forward to meet the men.

‘Well,’ he said, ‘what’s the case? Why aren’t you boys about your work? Wait ’til Taylor finds you making holiday, he’ll let you know all about it!’

‘It’s about Mr Taylor that we’ve come, sir,’ said Tim Johnson, a man of perhaps twenty-three; one of the oldest of Taylor’s boys. ‘We think he’s been killed.’

‘The hell he has! What makes you think so?’

Johnson ushered forwards young Ralph Moore, who explained what had happened, and what he had seen and heard. After he had spoken, Sweeney said nothing for a space and then announced, ‘You boys stay here. I’ll ride into town and see what’s being said.’

‘You want that some of us should ride with you?’ asked Tim Johnson.

‘No,’ said Sweeney at once, ‘this is a time for cool heads. I don’t want any of you youngsters doing anything. Leastways, not ’til we know if there’s aught needs doing.’ He went off to the nearby barn and fetched out a saddle and bridle. After he’d brought his horse in from the field and tacked her up, Sweeney said once again, ‘I don’t want one of you fellows to leave this ranch. You all pledge your honour on it?’

There were nods and grunts of agreement, upon which Patrick Sweeny mounted and set the mare off at a canter towards Mason.

Even the rough and ready Mexicans working for Angus McBride baulked at simply dumping a corpse unceremoniously in the middle of town. Devout, if unobservant, Catholics to a man, they had a superstitious dread of the dead, so they carried Chuck Taylor’s lifeless body to the church and laid it carefully outside the gate to the burying ground. This action was observed by a number of folk in town, who didn’t feel inclined to challenge the men and ask where they had acquired their grisly load. When the vaqueros had ridden off, people gradually drifted over to see whose body this was. It was recognized almost immediately, and there was intense and prolonged speculation about what this could all mean.

By the time that Patrick Sweeney hit town, Taylor’s body had been carried into the church itself and placed on a trestle table. Even the minister himself appeared at a loss to know how to deal with such an unexpected arrival. Word had been sent to Sheriff Palmer, but he was not in his office and nobody knew where he was or when he’d be back. Until he returned, nobody could think of any more fitting place for the bullet-riddled corpse than to leave it lying on that table in the church.

As soon as he rode into Mason, Sweeney could tell that something out of the ordinary had happened. People were standing in little huddled clusters, talking in low voices. When they caught sight of him, they fell silent. He knew then that what Taylor’s boys had told him was almost certainly true. The Silver Dollar acted as an information exchange, and it was to there that Sweeney directed his steps and soon learned the grim news from the barkeep. His heart filled with dread anticipation, Sweeney left the saloon, his mare tethered to the hitching post, and made his way to the church. From far off, he could see that although it was a week day, the church looked to be having a constant stream of visitors.