From the Annals of a Peace Officer
I never could help making judgments on first appearances; one of my failings, I reckon. Take that instance back in the hot gasser of ‘86. This feller came riding into town. Had all the looks that worried a sheriff. Despite what you might read in dime novels not many men carried hand guns in those days. But this man had himself two––two .44 Army models––dangling on his hips; and a Winchester in a saddle boot.
Bullhide was my town––so, although I had other things on my mind, I had to know why did the man need to go around looking like a mobile armory? He was young, too. Early twenties. In my book the hotheadedness of youth didn’t integrate too good with a brace of side-arms.
That was one reason. Second off, he was unsmiling. You might say that’s no cause to peg a man as suspicious. In one way, you’d be right. In those days, when the tide of settlement was still moving west and each communal habitation was a mixing bowl of folks from every which way, the unwritten code was you kept yourself to yourself––unless invited to make contact; or when somebody plainly needed help. So many folks were mighty cautious of putting on a friendly show.
Lastly, he was a stranger––a time when I didn’t want no strangers on the scene, especially unsmiling, armed strangers. My platter was already full: I’d had a killing on my hands.
It had been two weeks ago. Bill Hendy was a teller at the Bullhide Depository. Been there for years. Quiet, dependable sort. Around thirty odd years of age, we figured at the inquest. The night when it all happened it appears he’d been working over. Business had been good, money had been coming in thick and fast all day, and there were some mistakes in the figuring to be ironed out. Anyways, the sun had gone down when the bank got broke into. Bill must have still been working on his bookwork and put out the light. We reckon that last bit as a fact, otherwise the robber might have been put off if he’d known there was someone still in the bank. Bill must have lain low when he heard the break-in. However it happened, no one knew of the robbery and murder until the next morning. You’d have thought somebody would have heard the shot, but nobody did. Being inside, the report must have been muffled. It was the Depository owner who found the safe cleaned out and Bill, slumped over his ledger, gut-shot.
What the robber didn’t know was that poor Bill hadn’t died immediately. Before his last breath he’d managed to make a final entry in his book. Amongst mixed ink and blood stains we found the message ‘ONE’ in large capital letters. It was plainly unfinished and Bill had tried to complete the word but his death throe effort had resulted in the pen line coming away from the last letter as he collapsed.
No fancy detective work was needed to attach meaning to the dying man’s message. He’d aimed to identify his killer. And he had: the town-no-good, One-eye Dixon. Jed––nicknamed One-Eye––Dixon had lived a full twenty years. And, from the moment he had learned to walk, he’d been in trouble. First, stealing fruit from the Provisions Store. Then, money. He slowed down a-piece after he lost an eye in a saloon brawl but his activities picked up and it hadn’t been long since he’d done a six-month stretch in County Jail for an out-of-town stick-up. He wasn’t too bright and his being a known criminal wouldn’t deter him from trying to heist his neighborhood bank if the opportunity rose and he thought he could get away with it,
There was only one small shadow of doubt at the beginning: someone else could have tried to finger One-Eye by leaving the penned clue. But, for me, his guilt was clinched when I went out with Tod, my deputy, to the Dixon homestead. The son-of-a- bitch denied it, of course, giving us the ‘dog with a bad name’ routine. ‘Allus pickin’ on me’ and that kind of crap. But we searched his room. We couldn’t find the bulk of the haul but we did find some silver certificates stuffed in a pitcher. Later the bank man tallied the numbers with his records easily showing they were from his bank.
So, we arrested One-eye on the spot, Under questioning back at the office, he confessed very quickly––I told you he wasn’t too clever––but he wouldn’t say where he’d stashed the rest of the money. I suppose in his simple way he thought he’d do time in the slammer and then come out to spend it. No amount of questioning could elicit that last bit of information. I know some lawmen who would have beaten it out of him but we didn’t work that way in Bullhide.
We had enough material for a trial and I was hoping that the location of the loot might be forthcoming from cross-examination in court. I knew the public prosecutor and he was a wily smooth-talking man. Plus, the judge, if he’d a mind to, could use his discretion in making some deal with the accused––like commuting a death sentence to life––to draw out the truth. The legal boys know more about those tricks than me. Anyways, I’d done my part.
That was the situation, the trial being a couple of days away, when the stranger rode in. Even by ‘86, Bullhide was off the beaten track; we’d long since been bypassed by the railroad, trails and stage lines. We got very little through traffic. That’s why I was mighty concerned about the stranger.
It was in the morning that Tod and I had watched the mystery man come in. We stood at the sand-pitted window and noted he hitched his grulla outside the Cimarron Hotel. With the trial so close I still had paperwork to progress so it wasn’t until afternoon that I could make time to do some investigating. I left Tod in charge of the Law Office and moseyed over to the hotel.
I asked Phil, the clerk, for the book. The stranger had signed as Jethro Lee. Had no meaning for me. I asked Phil for the man’s room number. He gave it but said there was no use in going up as Lee was out. Looking back, I suppose I could have taken the key and gone up for a look-see but we didn’t run the town that way.
‘You seed him up close,’ I said. ‘How’d you peg him?
‘Can’t say, sheriff. He’s a quiet one, Courteous. He don’t give me the notion he’s on the prod.’
I thought of the saying, ‘Still waters run deep.’ And asked, ‘Any ideas where he went?’
‘Saloon.’
I took my butt over to the Raw Nugget and enquired of the bartender. The stranger had been there, stayed about half an hour. The place was near full but as far as I could ascertain he hadn’t entered into any conversation. The room was a-buzz with talk about the trial and the bartender said the stranger had been quite content to sit and listen to it without participating. This news set me to worrying a mite more about our Mr. Lee. Seemed there could be some connection between the armed man and the impending legal proceedings. But what? Then, I was told, he’d asked the where-at of the cemetery. The bartender had given directions, then Lee had left.
We had been laying our folks for their final rest up on Cottonwood Hill, just out of town, since 1820. I let Tod know where I was going and took a stroll. Before I got there I could see the slight frame of the stranger quite clearly, standing, hat in hand, skylined on the hill near the trees that gave the place its name.
I approached casually, cautiously eying the butts of his Colts from the back when I neared. I made no effort to cover my presence, not wanting to give him cause to start when I got close. Just like you work yourself near a horse, sidling slowly.
The marker on the new grave at which he looked was lettered ‘William Hendy’,
‘Afternoon, mister,’ I said, partly to herald my approach. He turned and grunted.
‘You knew him?’ I went on, thumbing the nickel-plated badge on my vest to justify my enquiry.
He breathed deeply, the hint of watering in his eyes. ‘Yeah.’
He turned back to the grave but I’d seen something in the bone structure of the moving face that told me there was more to the relationship between Hendy and this man than mere acquaintance. I allowed him meditation time and, as he settled his flat hat back on his head, I voiced a guess. ‘Your tag’s not really Lee, is it?’
He looked puzzled, then realization showed in his eyes. ‘Oh. You been looking at the hotel register. It’s your job, I s’pose. Sure, my name’s Lee. Jethro Lee.’
I was stymied. We walked down the path together.
‘Why’d you ask?’ he prompted, as we went through the little rickety gate.
‘I knowed Bill Hendy. Close friend you might say.’ I paused, then added, ‘Putting my cards on the table, I look at you and I can see a younger version of him,’
We’d walked on a-piece before he spoke again. ‘That’s cos we were brothers. My name is Jethro all right. Jethro Lee Hendy. It was a spur-of-the-moment notion to leave my surname off the hotel register. Didn’t want to be some centre of attention in this town of yours.’
We continued to town. ‘Didn’t even know he was dead,’ he went on, ‘until I saw a piece about the trial accidentally in a newspaper. It was a shock. Hadn’t seen him for an age, but we kept in touch with the odd letter. He was more the writing man of the two of us.’
‘I’m truly sorry about your brother,’ I said softly. ‘He was a good man. And I ain’t saying that just ‘cos it’s polite in the circumstances. I mean it. Crying shame his life was ended by a two-bit shitepoke’. I wished I hadn’t added that last bit. I was still worried about the guns Lee Hendy wore. Hoped he’d got no notions about meting out his own justice. So I said, ‘Clear cut case. We got the man, One-eye Dixon. Got him pinned down like a drying hide. Don’t think you should have any worries about your brother’s killer getting let off.’
‘What about that jackleg lawyer I been hearing talk of?’
‘No lawyer is gonna pick holes where there ain’t no holes to pick, Mr Hendy. We got solid evidence and a confession.’
He said nothing and a little further on I put it to him straight. ‘Why you carrying all the hardware?’
He didn’t look at me as he replied. ‘Sheriff, I crossed seventy miles of desert to get here. Ain’t nobody gonna protect me on a journey like that ‘cepting myself and Mr Colt and his pal here.’
I accepted his reply without comment and then he asked, ‘Anything in the protocol about me not being able to see the evidence, Sheriff?’
‘Guess not.’ We were coming up to the first false fronts that constituted Main Street. ‘If you’d like to come over to the office.’
Back in my quarters I opened the safe and took out the three objects that would be used in the trial, each with a stringed identification label: the bullet taken out of Bill Hendy, the numbered silver certificates from Dixon’s place, the bloodied ledger.
‘Can’t be conclusive about the slug, of course,’ I explained, ‘but the certificates are corroborated by the bank records––and there’s the ledger.’
I opened it at the last entry. Lee Hendy fingered his brother’s blood stains, stared at the spidery inscription: ‘ONE…
‘Mmm,’ was all he said. He glanced at the back of the office. One-Eye’s unresponsive figure could just be discerned, stretched out on the pallet in the cell.
I was thinking again of Lee Hendy’s guns when I guided him by the arm to the front door. ‘Look,’ I added in lowered tones, ‘on top of the evidence, One-eye’s got a rep for robbery and violence. There ain’t no way he’s wriggling out of what’s coming to him. Jackleg lawyer or no. I’m saying that because I don’t want you doing anything rash.’
He made no further comment so I was still a mite perplexed when we parted at the door, he to go to his hotel, me to return inside the Law Office.
I saw him the next day. That was in the saloon. He asked about his brother’s belongings and I told him Bill’s landlady had got them and gave him directions how to get to her place.
We chewed the fat some, about circumstances surrounding his brother’s killing, Judging by the information he’d got he’d been doing a lot of talking with townsfolk. He’d formed a picture of his brother’s life here, who his friends were. He’d also found out more about One-Eye Dixon. The latter fact came out when he said, ‘One-eye ain’t the only bum in town, is he?’
‘We got us a quiet town, Mr Hendy. But like all settlements we got our share of hardcases.’
He nodded. ‘Like Mel Green, Pat O’Neill and Cob Blore.
‘Yeah,’ I agreed; I’d had scrapes with all of them one time or another.
‘And one or two of ‘em are very friendly with Dixon,’ he continued.
‘Yeah, what’s the point?’
‘So don’t it worry you none they might fix a break-out for him?’ he asked.
I shook my head. ‘They’re trouble-makers all right. But not that size of trouble. Anyways, I’ve taken on some extra hands. I got enough men watching Dixon,’
I didn’t voice my feelings but I was more worried about Lee Hendy than them. For me, he was the unknown factor.
Now I ain’t much for remembering weather conditions but on the day set for the trial the sky was clear and there was no wind. You’ll see in a minute how come I remember that piece of meteorological information.
Around nine we set out from the Law Office and headed for the Court House a few yards down on the other side of the street
From the moment we’d woken him up, One-eye had not been very talkative. That I expected. But on the other hand, he didn’t give me the appearance of a man about to face a trial in which his life hung in the balance.
The sand of Main Street was hot underfoot. I walked in front. Then One-eye, handcuffed and in between two part-time officers. Tod, my regular deputy, took up the rear. I don’t remember any onlookers on the street, all the local people interested in the affair were already seated in the Court House.
As I’ve said before, on balance we had a peaceable town; this robbery and killing matter was quite unusual. I reckon that’s why I wasn’t on the smell for trouble. And when it came these was no one more surprised than me. It came in the form of a shot.
We all jerked in reflex. One-Eye went down and at first I thought he was instinctively diving for protection. The trouble with false fronts facing each other, they act like a canyon and you know how difficult it is to trace the source of a sharp sound in one of them, when noise bounces all over the place.
My Sharps cocked and capped, I made a three hundred and sixty degree scan; and saw nothing.
‘One-eye’s dead,’ my deputy reported, coming to my side, his Colt hammer thumbed. I made an all-round scan again, this time looking at the tops of the buildings. Then I saw it, a wisp of blue smoke, hanging almost stationary on the still air near the roof of the hotel.
We now had a growing audience as the court emptied. I pointed upwards. ‘The killer was on the hotel roof.’
I nodded to the two part-time deputies.
‘You stay here. Tod,’ I said, ‘cover the back. I’m going in the front.’
Tod did as he was bid. ‘Be careful, boss.’
I nosed into the entrance, Sharps pointed. I heard feet––and Lee Hendy came cluttering down stairs.
‘Hold it there, Hendy:’
He didn’t have the rifle––I guessed it would have had to have been a rifle over the distance of the shot––but he had his six-guns and his hands were mighty close to their handles.
‘Don’t, Hendy, I can stop you from here.’ I’d never been a great shot but the gap between us was close enough for my threat to be a realistic one. He whirled round but Tod was now standing ready at the back door. I stepped forward and, keeping the Sharps trained, one-handedly took Hendy’s guns. He made no resistance.
‘Watch him,’ I said, handing the pistols to another of my men who’d entered. I went up to Hendy’s room, His rifle was under the bed, the barrel still warm.
Lee Hendy protested his innocence all the way to the jail––and then some once he was inside. Said how he’d overslept. That was why he was still in the hotel, he says. What kind of greenhorn did he take me for? I didn’t even bother to argue with him, I felt angry with myself for not keeping a closer eye on him, despite the suspicions I’d had at the back of my mind.
I asked the judge if he could stay for the new trial. He could. We needed only a day to make preparations.
In total I’ve put in thirty years as a peace officer. How I stayed on the wagon with the mistakes I made, I’ll never know. Like that night. The fool peckerwood that I am, I left only one lawman in that jail––by two o’clock in the morning Hendy was out. What a cool-hand he had: He even left a note: ‘I didn’t kill Dixon. I know it’s weak but my story is true about oversleeping. That rifle is not mine either. Mine’s got my initials on the stock––and it’s gone missing.’
Gone missing; Huh, like Hendy hisself, I thought. By dawn I’d got every able-bodied man in town standing outside the Law Office. I delegated one group to search the town and broke the remainder into four groups of riders to radiate out over the local terrain at each point of the compass.
Just after noon, Tod’s posse came across Hendy returning to town with a bound Pat O’Neill in tow; They both bore red and purple signs to show they’d had an argument about something that had gone beyond words. On seeing the law, he made no effort to escape or evade capture. Gave himself up as meek as a broke bronco. In the light of Hendy’s open co-operation Tod acceded to his request to keep O’Neill bound, at least in the interim.
It was evening before I got the chance to try and sort out matters in the Law Office. Things had been happening mighty fast for a cornpoke sheriff like me. At first I didn’t accept Hendy’s yarn. He told it with openness and conviction, moving his hands about like some travelling player in front of the lamps on the Raw Nugget stage––but it had all the branding of a tall campfire tale. Like the claim that the “ONE…”, written by his dying brother had been trying to write O’Neill and not One-Eye.
My cynicism lasted until someone came in with a rifle bearing the initials J.L.H,, found on the garbage dump out of town. At the start of the trail that headed out to the O’Neill homestead. Like it’d been dropped in an all-fire hurry.
Don’t ask me why, but I’d kept O’Neill in custody through all this. Then I got some of the townsfolk to look more closely at the long-arm we’d found in Hendy’s room and it wasn’t long before we found some who could identify it as Pat O’Neill’s. Then the possibilities began to firm up. O’Neill could have used his gun to kill his confederate in the bank job on the way to the court, dropped it in Hendy’s room and shucked Hendy’s gun on the way home. I kept them both in custody and got some men to systematically search the O’Neill place. They found the bulk of the money in a canvas bag down the homestead well.
After a night of documenting all the new evidence, I managed to persuade the confused judge to stay on for yet another, and as it turned out, the last trial.
Deadbeat at the tail end of the next morning I took a drink with Hendy in the Raw Nugget. ‘Did you have any inklings about O’Neill and what had actually happened before you rode in?’ I wanted to know.
‘How could I? No, I came to town, very depressed, with the intention of sitting passively through the trial.’
‘Then when did you get suspicious?’
‘At first.’ he began, ‘I wasn’t suspicious. Merely intrigued at some facts that didn’t sit straight. First, my brother was the more mannered one of us. He’d had a mite more schooling than me. Only a couple of years more––but enough for him to see himself as some kind of toffee-nosed gent. You said you knowed him, you know that about him. Dressed and spoke like somebody from the City.’
‘Yes,’ I agreed impatiently, ‘I’d go along with that––but where’s it leading?’
‘Well, I couldn’t imagine him calling somebody ‘One-eye’. Especially in writing held be more likely to use proper names. There was nothing concrete about it for me but it was just like a sand burr under my saddle. Then, keeping my ears open in here and around town, the name O’Neill came up in the context of being a one-time sidekick of One-eye Dixon. I didn’t make the connection until I wrote the name down. Of course, the apostrophe was missing but it was reasonable to assume a dying man had more to think of than punctuation.’
‘That wasn’t much to go on, ‘ I interrupted again.
Hendy nodded. ‘Agreed, but I also noticed when listening to conversations in the saloon that it was only the young folks who called him One-eye. The older ones called him Jed or Dixon, the way I figured my brother would. But what’s more, I reckoned that defense lawyer coming in was expensive. There was no sign at the Dixon homestead that they had the dinero to spend on that kind of legal sharpshooter.’
That thought had come my way too, but I hadn’t followed it up.
‘So,’ he continued, ‘the big question was––where was the money coming from? Who was paying? I approached the lawyer but he clammed up, claimed privileged information.’
‘So you concluded that there had been an accomplice, it was O’Neill and that he was funding the defense?’
‘Yeah, but it wasn’t quite that simple. You had evidence that pointed to One-eye and you had his confession. You yourself told me sincerely that it was an open and shut case. So, no matter how good the defense was, as long as the trial was straight, One-eye would be condemned. So why would an accomplice waste a big chunk of the proceeds on him? There was only one answer. The accomplice was putting on a show for One-eye so he wouldn’t readily spill the beans on him.
‘After all , he’d already opened his mouth too much in confessing. But O’Neill, like you, knew what the verdict would be and then there was every chance One-eye would break down again and this time, name him. So he had to provide him with a false sense of security before he could work out a way of shutting his mouth forever.’
‘Sorry I made things difficult for you, kid,’ I sighed. ‘No hard feelings?’
He shook my offered hand. ‘No hard feelings, sheriff. Like I said before, you were only doing your job.’
Pat O’Neill was sentenced to hang and justice took its course.
After the trial I never saw Lee Hendy again. I hope he’s doing well wherever he is. He deserves all the breaks that come his way.
I think of him when I see the badly weathered marker on his brother’s grave on the occasions I’m helping put somebody else under the sod up on Cottonwood Hill. At my age, retired now these ten years, I’ve been doing a lot of that lately.