CHAPTER 22
Less than an hour later, Jerry Halstead sat next to Chief Edison in the deep leather chairs of the mayor’s office of the Municipal Building.
Pappy Mackey sat behind the big desk with an enormous painting of Dover Station above his head. His top hat and sash were nowhere in sight, and he stroked his beard while Mr. Bishop ranted.
“A mess,” the businessman said as he paced back and forth in front of the window overlooking Front Street. “An absolute, unmitigated disaster. An embarrassment that has set this town back at least ten years.”
“Paul,” Pappy said. “It’s been a long day for everyone, and it ain’t even past lunchtime yet. Yellin’ about it won’t make it any better.”
Bishop turned on him. “There’s a time for whispering, Brendan, and a time for yelling. The Record’s reporters tell me ten people were trampled to death and dozens more were injured. Dozens! If this isn’t a time for yelling, then I don’t know what is.”
Bishop glared at Jerry, who had decided it was best to look at the painting. He was not accustomed to having people yell at him. He was not fond of it, either. “Well, Deputy Halstead, what do you have to say for yourself?”
Jerry knew Bishop was in no mood for details, so he kept it simple. “I saw a blond-headed man with a Sharps rifle up in the turret of this building. I saw him aiming down at you people on the platform. I shot at him just as he shot at all of you.”
Bishop seemed to be waiting for more and grew frustrated when more did not come. “That’s it? That’s your answer?”
Jerry was getting annoyed by his tone. “That’s what started everything, so yeah, that’s my answer.”
“And what is your answer for the fact that none of Chief Edison’s men found anyone up in the turret, even though they were up there in a matter of seconds?”
“Not seconds,” Jerry said. “They got here as fast as they could, but the crowd held them up. It took them a minute or two to get in here. It took me even longer to make it through that mess. That’s plenty of time for a gunman to get clear of a building.”
“Assuming there was any gunman at all,” Bishop sniffed.
“My boys did find boot prints up there,” Edison said. “I saw them, too, and they looked mighty fresh.”
Bishop did not look convinced. “You sure they weren’t from your men, Chief? Are you willing to stake your job on that?”
Edison looked away. “They looked fresh, but I’m no expert. No one is.”
“That’s just wonderful!” Bishop yelled. “I’ve got dozens of people hurt and killed and all I can get from you is muddy footprints you think are ‘mighty fresh.’”
Jerry looked at Bishop, meeting his glare. “There was a gunman, mister, or I wouldn’t have fired. I’m not one for cutting loose with a Winchester in crowds unless I have a reason.”
“Is that so?” Bishop asked. “Then how do you account for the fact that no one else appears to have seen this gunman you claim was in the turret?” He looked at Edison. “Any of your men see a man with a rifle up there, Chief?”
Edison shifted uneasily in his seat. “My men were looking at the crowd. We were afraid of the Hancocks trying to take a shot at Pappy. We weren’t paying much attention to the rooftops.”
Bishop turned on Jerry. “Seems like you’re the only one who saw anyone on that turret, Deputy Halstead.”
Jerry went back to looking at the painting. “I can’t account for what other people saw or didn’t see. I only know what I saw. A blond man in the turret with a rifle. A Sharps, from the sound of it.”
“A sound only you seem to have heard, because I only heard one shot,” Bishop said. “From a Winchester. Your Winchester.”
Jerry’s temper slipped out from under him. “They got a lot of Winchesters back in Manhattan, Mr. Bishop? Because I’m betting they don’t, so I figure you couldn’t tell the difference between a rifle shot and a shotgun blast. Well I do know the difference, and I’m telling you it was a Sharps.”
Bishop clasped his hands behind him. “I may not be able to tell the difference, Deputy Halstead, but there are plenty of people in town who can. Including Chief Edison here. No one heard two shots. They only heard one. One that came from your rifle. How can you explain that?”
“Enough,” Pappy said from behind his desk. “If Jerry said he saw a rifleman, then he saw a rifleman. His word is good enough for me.”
Bishop looked at the mayor. “Brendan, I think you’re allowing your friendship with the deputy’s late father to cloud your judgment here.”
Pappy stopped stroking his beard. “My friendship with Sim isn’t clouding anything. A man can’t help who his father is, good or bad. My boy would tell you that if he was here. And if he was here, he’d be tellin’ you he knows and trusts Jerry with his life like I trust him with mine. He trusted him enough to leave him here to keep an eye on the Hancocks instead of taking him to Helena with him where he could’ve done more good. If Aaron trusts him, then so do I.”
Pappy went back to absently stroking his beard. “If he says there was a man with a rifle in the turret, that’s good enough for me. I don’t know how he got away, but he did. And if he said there were two shots, then there were.”
“Even though you didn’t hear them, either,” Bishop said.
“I was a bit busy at the time,” Pappy fired back. “And so were you. The crowd cheerin’ like that. How could we know? The shot could’ve gone wide.”
Bishop looked at Jerry. “Or there wasn’t a second shot at all. Maybe the deputy here just panicked.”
Jerry had been hoping it would not come to this. He had been hoping his word would be enough, but it obviously was not. He decided it was time to lay his cards on the table.
He dug into his shirt pocket, pulled out a slug, and tossed it on Pappy’s desk. “To use one of your phrases, Mr. Bishop, how do you explain that?”
Edison and Pappy pitched forward in their chairs to get a closer look at the lump of lead on the desk.
“Looks like a bullet to me,” Pappy said. “Fifty-caliber to my eyes.”
Edison picked up the leaden bullet head in his fingers and examined it as if it was a gold nugget. He looked at Jerry. “Where’d you get this?”
“I dug it out of the mud in front of the platform,” Jerry told them. “It took a lot of prodding with my bowie to find it, but I did. Just to the left of where all of you were standing.” He looked at Bishop. “The shot went wide when I shot at him.”
Pappy sat back in his chair. “Well, it sure looks like Jerry was tellin’ the truth, just like I said he was.”
Edison said nothing, examining the bullet instead.
Bishop did not bother looking at it. “How convenient. He probably placed it there to cover himself.”
Jerry felt his anger beginning to build and it took everything he had to remain in his chair. “And just how the hell could I have done that?”
Bishop shrugged. “You could have planted it to support your story.”
Jerry would have laughed if it was not so ridiculous. “That’s right, Bishop. We’ve got a whole box of old fifty-caliber slugs just sitting in a sack over at the jailhouse. I tucked it in my pocket and brought it over here just to satisfy you.”
Edison gently placed the slug back on Pappy’s desk. “I think you owe the deputy an apology, Mr. Bishop, and so do I. There’s no way he could’ve planted that. A spent round up on the turret? That’s easy. But to fake this, he would’ve had to grab a Sharps and fire it into the thoroughfare. My men were watching him the whole time, so that leaves only one conclusion. There was someone up there, and Jerry saved our lives.”
Edison extended his hand to Jerry. “I’m sorry for not backin’ you stronger.”
Jerry shook his hand as Bishop fumed. “He could’ve fired it days ago and palmed it, claiming he found it just now.”
“Why would he do that?” Edison said before Jerry could answer. “He had no cause to want any bloodshed today.”
Bishop surprised him by having an answer ready. “He had a run-in with the Hancocks at the station a few days ago. Killed one of them. Probably wants to pin this on them.”
Jerry sprang out of his chair and faced the businessman. “You taking the Hancock clan’s part already, Bishop?”
Bishop took a step toward Jerry, his hands still clasped behind him. “I want that bunch wiped from the streets of Dover Station forever. Every last one of them. But the bad blood between you and that family is no secret. And, according to Chief Edison here, he narrowly saved your life today when he pulled you away from Nathan Rigg at The Ruby.”
“I said I pulled him out of there,” Edison said. “Never said I saved his life.”
“But you did just the same.” Bishop pointed at the slug on Pappy’s desk. “That may very well be the evidence you claim it is, Deputy. It may not be. I don’t know. But I do know we’ve got at least ten people trampled to death and dozens more hurt and dying. I know that word of what happened here today will be in every paper in the territory by this time tomorrow. And, within a week, every paper in the country. That means New York. That means Mr. Rice and Mr. Van Dorn will be very upset, which means I’ll be upset. They may reconsider their investment in this town, which would cause irreparable damage to my career and reputation.”
Jerry finally saw the truth. “You don’t care about the dead and the dying, do you? You only care about yourself.”
“I care about what happens to this town!” Bishop yelled. “I care about the investment my company has made here. I care about my betters calling me home and abandoning this place to the likes of Grant and the Hancocks. And I don’t want that to happen. None of us do.”
He took another step toward Jerry, his hands still behind his back. “So no, Deputy Halstead. I don’t just care about my career. I’ll always be able to find employment elsewhere. But I didn’t come all the way out here from New York City just because I was told to. I came here because I wanted to help build something that lasts. And what happened here today puts all of that in grave danger.”
Pappy eased out from behind his desk and laid a hand on Bishop’s shoulder, breaking the tension in the room. “What happened here today was a tragedy, but not of Jerry’s doin’. Lay the blame at the feet of those behind it. The same people who’ve been tryin’ to undo all that good work you just talked about. James Grant and the Hancock clan. And, while you’re at it, you might want to thank Jerry here for savin’ your life.”
Bishop unclasped his hands from behind him and let them drop at his sides. For the first time since he had walked into the office, Jerry thought Bishop looked exhausted and much older than he really was.
“That’s the problem, Brendan,” Bishop said. “It’s not up to me to lay this at anyone’s feet. I’m not the sheriff or the chief of police or a judge.” He looked at Jerry. “And no, I don’t really think you planted that slug in the dirt, Deputy, but I’m an attorney by training. I don’t think you knew that about me. I have a habit of asking questions, even the most wild, baseless questions, because I need to be ready to answer them. And everything I said here today will be repeated in every saloon and every parlor and around every dining table in town, so we need to be ready to answer that kind of talk when it starts. Because, if we don’t, it’ll take on a life of its own that not even I will be able to stop.”
Bishop let out a long breath. “Now, if you gentlemen will excuse me, I have a telegram I need to send to Mr. Rice about what happened here today, followed by a detailed report that will be carried back to New York on the next train.”
He walked around Jerry and Edison but stopped when he placed his hand on the office door. “I’m not going to apologize for what I said here today, gentlemen, but I’m grateful to Deputy Halstead for probably saving our lives. Now, let’s pray I can find a way to save this town.”
He opened the door and closed it quietly behind him.
The two lawmen sat again as soon as Bishop left the office.
Pappy sat on the corner of his desk. “Damned mess, boyos. The lot of it.”
“I want you protected,” Edison said to Pappy. “I’ll have five of my men guarding you every minute of the day from now on.”
“You’ll do no such thing.” He opened the cigar box on his desk and selected a cigar. He motioned for Edison and Jerry to take one, too, but neither felt much like smoking. “I’m the mayor of this town now, and I can’t run things behind a line of gunmen. I do that, I’m no different than that ninny Grant.”
“Someone tried to kill you today,” Jerry said. “If you don’t want Ed’s men around, then let me watch you.”
“As if I could stop you.” Pappy bit off the end of his cigar and spat it into the cuspidor beside his desk. “But I have a feelin’ you boys’ll be plenty busy with other things for the time bein’. The Hancocks don’t like me bein’ mayor, and they’ll be lookin’ to raise as much hell as they can.”
He thumbed a match alive and brought the flame to his cigar. He looked at Jerry as the flame took. “You really think Rigg was the one who tried to shoot me?”
“I’m sure of it.” Jerry punched the arm of his chair. “But I didn’t see his face, so I can’t swear to it in court.”
Pappy waved the match dead and dropped it in the cuspidor as he pushed himself off the desk and walked to the window. “All the more reason why we should keep this out of a courtroom, wouldn’t you say?”
Edison and Jerry traded glances before the chief said, “You mean you want me and my boys to take on the Hancocks?”
Pappy parted the heavy drapes and looked out on the ruin that was Front Street. “No, Stephen. I want you to take them down once and for all.”
Pappy puffed on his cigar as he looked out the window. “Good name, Stephen. Patron saint of horses and coffin makers. Both’ll come in handy with the work that’s before us now. Got a church to him in Ballykilmore back in the old country.”
He glanced back at the lawmen. “Know the best thing to come out of Ballykilmore? The road to Dublin.” He laughed at his own bad joke. “Gets me every time.”
Edison did not laugh. “What you want will mean more men.”
“Hire them.” He took a long puff on his cigar. “Hire as many as you need. Just make sure they’re good and know what they’re hired to do.”
Edison grinned. “Don’t worry. Grant didn’t hire me because I’m pretty. They’ll be killers, every one of them. I can have them here within a week.”
Pappy nodded. “See to it, then.”
But Jerry had shorter goals in mind. “The Hancocks will be coming after you a lot sooner than a week, Pappy. I won’t let that happen.”
Brendan Mackey went back to looking out the window again. “The whole Rebel army tried to kill me and Old Sherman once and look at where it got them. We burned Atlanta down.”
He looked back at Jerry and winked. “Don’t worry, son. I’m not so easy to kill. But we’ll kill them for what they did here today, won’t we, boys?”