CHAPTER 1
Dover Station, Montana Territory, late summer 1889
“Looks like they’re coming,” Deputy Billy Sunday said from the jailhouse porch. “A whole lot of them, too.”
But U.S. Marshal Aaron Mackey had already known that. Adair had begun to paw at the ground a few moments earlier, when the wind along Front Street had shifted and carried the smell of men and torch fires her way. He knew the Arabian was not fussing out of nervousness. The warhorse was fussing because she was anxious to ride into the fray, just like her rider.
Despite the approaching darkness, Mackey counted about forty torches among the men marching down Front Street toward the jailhouse. He pegged the actual size of the crowd to be more than sixty or so.
He and Billy had been expecting something like this since word spread that Dover Station Police Chief Walter Underhill had finally succumbed to the belly wound that had been plaguing him for weeks. Mackey knew the townspeople blamed James Grant and Al Brenner for Underhill’s death. Mackey blamed them, too.
But unfortunately, Grant and Brenner were currently his prisoners, awaiting extradition to Helena on the morning train. Underhill’s death was only one more charge to be added to the numerous other charges they already faced in Judge Forester’s courtroom.
But the big Texan had always been popular in Dover Station, and people did not want to wait for the scales of justice to tip in their favor. They wanted blood for blood, and they wanted it right now.
Aaron Mackey and Billy Sunday had never lost a prisoner to a mob before. They had no intention of starting now.
“I’ll head out to meet them,” Mackey said. “Turn them if I can.”
“And if you can’t?” Billy asked.
The marshal glanced down at the big Sharps rifle leaning against the porch post of the jailhouse. “Then you’re going to have a busy start to your night.”
Billy grinned as he picked up the fifty-caliber rifle. “Ride to your left so I can have my choice of targets. They’ll start dropping on your right if it comes to that.”
“Let’s hope it doesn’t.” Mackey had barely lifted the reins before Adair began walking up Front Street on her own steam. She was moving at a quick pace, and Mackey saw no reason to make the mare move any faster.
Mackey could not swear to it, but the mob looked like it slowed down just a bit as the lone rider on the black horse moved toward them.
He reined Adair to a stop about thirty yards in front of where the mob had stopped. He angled her to the left, so the butt of the Peacemaker on his belly pointed right. He could draw, aim, and fire quicker that way if it came to that.
He looked over the crowd and saw few familiar faces among the torchlight. So many strangers had moved into his boyhood town so quickly that he hardly knew anyone anymore.
“Evening,” he said to none of them in particular. “What are you boys up to tonight?”
“Justice,” a tall thin man in a slouch hat and long face said. “Justice for our friend and yours, Walter Underhill.”
“Me, too,” Mackey said loud enough for the crowd to hear him. “That’s why we are scheduled to take Grant and Brenner to Helena tomorrow. To stand before Judge Forester for what they’ve done and answer for it. That was before Underhill died, and I promise his death will be added to the charges read out to them.”
“Charges,” one man in the middle of the crowd said. “Courts. Judges. Juries. A lot of folderol and fuss over a couple of cold-blooded killers. We’re here to string ’em up, Marshal. String ’em up right here and now and save you the trouble of a trip to Helena.”
A murmur of assent went through the mob.
“On behalf of Billy Sunday and myself, I appreciate the sentiment, boys. But the judge would look poorly on us and this town if we were to hand them over to you like this. I think he’s looking forward to hanging them himself. It’s never a good idea to disappoint a federal judge, believe me.”
“Judge Forester is way down in Helena,” came another voice in the crowd. “And we’re right here right now ready to dispense justice. We aim to do that this very night, Marshal.”
Adair raised her head, sensing a change in the air.
A change that Mackey sensed, too. “No.”
The gaunt man who had spoken first said, “We’ve got a lot of respect for you, Marshal, and we hate to go against you like this, but we’re taking Grant and Brenner with us, and there ain’t a whole lot you and your deputies can do to stop us.”
“And don’t go countin’ on Chief Edison to back your play, either,” said another voice from the crowd. “They was all mighty partial to Walter and are as anxious to see Grant swing as the rest of us.”
He had not seen any of Edison’s men coming to break up the mob, even though this was technically a town matter. He had not counted on their support, either. Grant and Brenner were his prisoners. His responsibility. His and Billy’s. And they would defend them, just like they had defended all of the other prisoners they had held over the years.
“Doesn’t matter what Edison and his men do,” Mackey said. “Only matters what Billy and I do. And we say you can’t have them. You boys best put out those torches and go home before someone gets hurt. We’re burying Underhill at first light. No sense in having more men to bury tomorrow.”
“Only one around here who’ll get hurt is you, Marshal,” said yet another voice from the crowd. “If you know what’s good for you, you’ll move out of the way.”
Adair blew through her nose and raised her head higher. The men on the left side of the mob flinched.
Mackey felt Adair’s muscles tense as she was getting ready to respond to his command.
Mackey’s hand inched closer to the butt of the Peacemaker. “I’m not going anywhere, boys, and neither are my prisoners. I told you to go home. I won’t tell you again.”
Then Mackey heard the unmistakable sound of a hammer being cocked on his right side.
In one practiced motion, he drew, aimed, and fired, striking a man who had raised a pistol at him. Mackey’s bullet struck him in the chest and put him down against the boardwalk.
Mackey shifted his aim to a man behind the fallen man, but Billy’s big Sharps boomed as a fifty-caliber slug punched through the rifle stock and obliterated the neck of the man holding it. He was dead before he hit the boardwalk.
And despite the gunfire, Adair had not moved an inch.
Mackey brought the Peacemaker back and aimed it down at the gaunt man who had spoken for the mob. “Anyone else want to die?”
The gaunt man glowered up at Mackey. “Damn it, man. Underhill was your friend, too.”
“He was,” Mackey told him. “And he wouldn’t want this. He’d want Grant and Brenner to stand trial, which they will. I promise you that. But if any of you take another step, you’ll die. I promise you that, too.”
The gaunt man and the rest of the mob did not move, though he could sense their resolve beginning to fade. Watching two of their men die had that effect.
Their resolve may have been fading, but Mackey wanted to wreck it altogether.
He kept the Colt aimed at the gaunt man and thumbed back the hammer. “I gave you an order. Move.”
Another murmur went through the mob. Their torches sagged a bit. They were having second thoughts.
The gaunt man took a step back, but no further.
Mackey fired into the air, making the men jump. “I said move!”
He picked up the reins, and Adair shot to the left side of the mob. The men scrambled out of the way and moved backward. Mackey brought the black horse around and rode along the front of the crowd, pushing them back even farther. A few on the right side held their ground until he turned Adair sharply, and her flank knocked them back.
She snorted again as Mackey began riding back the other way, pushing them some more. The gaunt man broke first and the rest of the men followed. None of them wanted any part of the dark mare or the man who rode her.
The mob broke slowly and began to slip backward, back up Front Street.
Mackey brought Adair back to the center of the thoroughfare and stood in the spot where he had turned them, watching them go.
The gaunt man picked himself up off the ground and glowered at Mackey. His mob may have been broken, but his resolve had not. “You’ve made a whole lot of enemies for yourself here today, Marshal.”
Mackey kept the Colt aimed at him. “They’re in good company. Now get going while you still can.”
The gaunt men looked at the two dead men on the boardwalk. “You just gonna let them stay like that in the street?”
“I’ll stay with them while you fetch Cy Wallach to fetch them. The quicker you move, the quicker they’ll be tended to.”
The gaunt man pushed the mud of the thoroughfare off his clothes as he backed away. “You’re a hard man, Aaron Mackey. And that ain’t a compliment, neither.”
Mackey had not taken it as one.
He holstered his Peacemaker when the man moved out of sight and stood watch over the men he and Billy had killed while he waited for the mortician to come.
He may have won the battle but knew he had lost the town. But he did not bother about that. He had lost it long ago.
* * *
As soon as Cy Wallach brought his wagon to pick up the dead bodies, Mackey turned Adair and rode back to the jailhouse. He climbed down from the saddle and wrapped Adair’s reins around the hitching post. He patted the horse on the neck. “Good girl.”
The Arabian nudged him before lowering her head to drink water from the trough in front of the jailhouse.
Mackey climbed the front steps and found Billy waiting for him. “That went about as expected.”
Mackey walked into the jailhouse. “Didn’t count on having to kill anyone. There was a time when we wouldn’t have had to.”
Billy followed him into the jailhouse. “Time was they wouldn’t have formed a mob. The town’s changing, Aaron. We’re smart for changing along with it.”
Inside, young Joshua Sandborne locked the heavy jailhouse door behind them and was eager to talk about what had just transpired. “You turned them, Aaron. Turned them all the way.”
He knew the young deputy looked up to him and Billy. He did not want the young man to get the idea that gunplay was the first order of being a lawman. “Turned them after two of them got killed. That’s nothing to be proud of, Josh. Things could’ve just as easily gone the other way. Let’s just be glad it didn’t.”
He broke the cylinder on his Colt, pulled out the spent round, and replaced it with a fresh bullet from the rifle rack. He snapped the cylinder shut and placed the pistol on his desk. “Come on, Billy. Time to get the prisoners ready for tomorrow.”
The young deputy looked like he had more questions, but he always had questions. Mackey was not in the mood to answer them. He and Billy still had work to do.