CHAPTER 38
Two weeks later, Mackey and Billy stood at the window of Judge Forester’s office, looking down at the gallows in the yard of the jail across the street.
“Do you agree with the newspapermen, Marshal?” the judge asked. “Do you think I’m a fool for not allowing them to cover James Grant’s hanging?”
Mackey had never liked hangings. He thought it a morbid way to kill a man. The waiting to die. The building of a gallows. The rope hanging there waiting to be employed for only one use. He knew some people needed killing and figured a bullet in the belly in the middle of nowhere was cruel enough punishment for any offense at hand. But hanging just did not sit well with him.
“I’m under the impression that my opinion doesn’t matter to you one way or the other, your honor.”
The judge looked at him through cigar smoke. “Your opinion matters when I ask for it.”
Mackey looked back at the gallows. “Never liked hangings personally, so I’d say you were right to keep it private.”
Judge Forester looked at Billy, who was also looking out the window at the gallows. “Do you agree, Deputy?”
“I wished I’d shot him six months ago when I had the chance,” Billy admitted. “But I think a man deserves some dignity when he dies, especially when it’s the court doing the killing.”
Forester grunted as he puffed on his cigar. “Justice is supposed to be blind and bare for all of the world to see.”
“Justice would’ve been me letting Billy shoot the son of a bitch like he said. The papers just want pictures for their readers,” Mackey said. “But like Billy said, a man deserves some dignity in death, even James Grant.”
“It certainly would have saved a great deal of bother, all things considered. Then, of course, I would’ve had to hang you two for murder.” The judge glanced back at the large clock in his office. It was almost eight in the morning. “Five minutes until the proceedings start. You boys sure you don’t want to be down there and look him in the eyes one last time before he’s shown across to the other side?”
But Mackey had decided the last time he would look at James Grant was that moment the deputies led him from the courtroom after Judge Forester handed down his death sentence. To go down there now would only be self-serving. If the events at Dover Station had taught him anything, it was that he should try to be above such things if he wanted to be marshal of this territory.
“Lynch can handle it,” Mackey said. “Besides, my place is up here in case you or the governor decide to delay the execution, remember.”
“No one’s going to be delaying anything,” Forester said. “We want this skunk dead and buried before he stinks up the territory any further than he already has.” The judge winced. “I’ve got to admit, I thought you’d be the one who’d be swinging today, Mackey. I didn’t think you had it in you to let him live after what he did to your daddy. I don’t know if I could’ve done it myself.”
Mackey had tried not to think too much about his father’s death since returning to Helena. It had been better for him. Better for Grant’s prospects of meeting the hangman’s noose, too, lest Mackey decide to do something stupid. “I try not to think about it, sir. There was enough killing to last that town for a long while.”
Forester took another puff on his cigar. “I’ve heard people say they don’t know if the town will ever come back. With Mr. Rice putting everything up for sale, who knows what’ll happen to the place?”
Mackey could feel the old questions and the old anger beginning to rattle around in his mind. Was he angrier at Mr. Rice for abandoning the town or building it up in the first place? If he had been scared off by Darabont that first week he was in town, none of this would have happened. Dover Station would have gone on being the sleepy Montana town it always had been, and Pappy probably would still be alive.
But he would not have been the territorial marshal, and Katherine would not own the nicest hotel in Helena. Billy would not be a federal lawman, either, nor Jerry Halstead nor Josh Sandborne. They’d all be growing stale on the front porch of the old jailhouse on Front Street, watching the world ride by.
And, as was his custom, Billy Sunday filled in the silence left by Mackey’s brooding. “Dover Station’s not our town anymore, Judge. Helena is. Everything that counts is here now.”
Forester looked at Mackey. “He speak for you, too, son?”
“He’s the only man who can,” Mackey said.
“Glad to hear it.” Forester leaned against the window frame as they watched Sean Lynch and his men lead James Grant out from the jail and into the yard. One deputy with a rifle led the way while another trailed behind him. Lynch brought up the rear where the preacher would normally be, but Grant had declined to have one present at his hanging. In fact, he had not spoken to anyone since Forester had handed down the sentence of death the previous week.
Mackey watched them lead Grant up the thirteen steps to the platform before Lynch placed him squarely in the middle of the trapdoor that would open beneath his feet once the rope was secured around his neck.
Although they could not hear anything from so far away, he could see Lynch pause and ask Grant if he had any final words before his sentence was carried out.
Mackey imagined he must have said something along those lines, for Grant’s head snapped up toward the window where Mackey and Billy and the judge now stood. He glared up at them with all the hate and fury a condemned man could possibly muster.
But hate and fury were all he had left, and neither could hurt anyone any longer. And Mackey knew that with one nod of Judge Forester’s head, James Grant would never hurt anyone ever again.
Obviously realizing Grant had nothing to say, Mackey watched him slip the burlap hood over Grant’s head while two deputies tied his feet. That task done, Lynch slipped the noose over Grant’s neck and pulled it tight. The knot was just above his right ear and appeared to have just enough give in it to end Grant’s life quick once he threw the lever.
Lynch took five steps back and put his hand on that lever before looking up at the window where Billy and Mackey and Judge Forester were standing. He needed final confirmation before he pulled the lever that dropped James Grant to his doom.
Mackey began to step aside so Forester could move in and signal the order, but the judge placed a hand on the marshal’s back. “The honor belongs to you, Marshal Mackey. God knows if anyone has earned the right to send him to hell, it’s you.”
Mackey remained where he was. He tried to feel something for all Grant had done. All of the killings and all of the pain he had caused and all of the blood he had spilled in his quest for more. He was never content with the generous wages Mr. Van Dorn had paid him. He was not satisfied with a healthy share of power. Because men like him were never satisfied. They wanted all of the money and all of the power, and when that ran out, they would find something else to desire so they could have it. Men like Grant built things up just so they could tear them down and start all over again, just as he had done with Dover Station.
Men like Grant drew men like Nathan Rigg to their side, men who desired the same thing.
More, whatever that meant.
But on that particular morning in Helena, Montana, James Grant’s days of wanting more were about to come to an end.
The marshal of the Montana Territory gave one curt nod.
Deputy Marshal Sean Lynch pulled the lever.
And James Grant dropped through the trapdoor before jerking to a halt. The angle the noose snapped his neck, left no doubt that he was dead.
Mackey closed his eyes.
And did not feel a thing.
Judge Forester popped the cigar into his mouth as he turned away from the window. “Good way to start the day, don’t you think, boys?”
Billy turned away from the window, too. “Don’t know about good, your honor. But it sure was necessary.”
“Certainly was, wasn’t it, Mackey?”
He decided it was time to stop watching Grant’s body dancing at the end of the hangman’s rope. He was as dead as he was ever going to be. No sense in gawking at it.
He moved away from the window and approached the judge’s desk. “Like Billy said, it was necessary.”
Forester resumed signing the thick stack of warrants he had piled on his desk. “Glad you think so. If you’d like to take some time off, spend it with your wife, I’d be amenable to it. You probably could use a few days to yourself, now that it’s over.”
Billy stepped forward and picked up some of the warrants Judge Forester had just signed. “Looks like we’ve still got plenty of work to do, your honor. As long as you’ve still got paper on people, nothing is over. Not by a long shot.”
Forester looked up as he folded a warrant closed. “Billy speak for you on that, too, Marshal?”
Mackey grinned at his deputy, who grinned back. “Always has. Always will.” Mackey nodded at the sheaf of warrants Billy was holding. “Who’s next?”