Keep reading for a special excerpt of another
thrilling Western adventure by TERRENCE MCCAULEY . . .
thrilling Western adventure by TERRENCE MCCAULEY . . .
DARK TERRITORY
A SHERIFF AARON MACKEY WESTERN
A SHERIFF AARON MACKEY WESTERN
In the boomtown of Dover Station, Montana, tracks
have been laid and everyone’s looking to make a fortune,
lawfully or not. And the law has something to say about it—
one bullet at a time . . .
have been laid and everyone’s looking to make a fortune,
lawfully or not. And the law has something to say about it—
one bullet at a time . . .
DOVER STATION—WHERE DEATH RIDES
FASTER THAN THE WIND
FASTER THAN THE WIND
A rash of deadly train robberies has the chief investor of Dover Station feeling itchier than a quick draw without a target. And he wants Sheriff Aaron Mackey to scratch that itch with every bullet his battered badge authorizes him to shoot. When Mackey and his men gun down four kill-crazy bandits, they uncover a plot cooked up by a respected citizen of Dover Station—someone who can pull enough strings to replace Mackey with a disgraced marshal from Texas. Now Mackey’s badge may not say much, but his gun defies all fear. Anyone who stands between Mackey and the future of Dover Station is about to become buried in the pages of history . . .
Look for DARK TERRITORY on sale now.
CHAPTER 1
Dover Station, Montana, late fall of 1888
Sheriff Aaron Mackey and Deputy Billy Sunday came running when they heard the shotgun blast from Tent City.
Mackey was not surprised to find one of the Bollard twins blocking the end of the alley between the new Municipal Building under construction and the old bakery on Second Street.
Since the man was facing the other way, Mackey could not tell which Bollard twin it was, not that it mattered. Both buffalo skinners were as big as they were mean, with the same bald head and long greasy black hair that hung practically to their shoulders.
Whichever twin this was, he was holding a smoking double-barreled shotgun at the end of the narrow alley. He was most likely drunk, too, given the way he was swaying.
The crowd that had gathered booed when the sheriff ran toward him and slammed the butt of his Winchester into the back of the bigger man’s skull. Bollard timbered forward into the dense mud of Second Street. Mackey yanked the shotgun from beneath the fallen man and handed it to Billy.
His deputy opened the shotgun. “Both barrels are spent.” He cast the shotgun aside. “I’ll cover you from here.”
The sheriff stepped over one Bollard twin to confront the other on Second Street, the heart of what had become known as Tent City. He almost gagged at the stench of overboiled meat and drying laundry filling the cold air as he pushed through the bedraggled crowd that had gathered to watch the spectacle.
The rapid growth of Dover Station thanks to investment from the Dover Station Company had attracted too many people looking for work and not enough places to live, hence the creation of Tent City. Many who lived there had plenty of money in the bank, but nowhere to spend it except the saloons and joy houses. Such squalor tended to breed a misery of its own devising, and Tent City was no exception. They never had much occasion to cheer and made the most of it when they did.
They were cheering now.
Mackey saw the other Bollard brother was putting on quite a show, standing over a man bleeding from the kind of chest wound only a shotgun blast could make. Surprisingly, the victim was not dead yet and was doing his best to squirm free from the giant looming over him with a skinning knife.
Mackey, tall and lean, turned sideways to make himself harder to hit if Bollard pulled a gun. It also made it easier for Mackey to draw and fire the Peacemaker holstered next to his buckle if it came to that. But the sheriff made a point of keeping the barrel of the Winchester down. No sense in forcing Bollard to act and make a bad situation worse.
“Drop the knife and step away from the man, Bollard,” Mackey called out. “Right now.”
The crowd booed, and the big man held his ground. “Not on your life, Sheriff. Not after what he done. Stabbin’ my brother? Sneakin’ around, stealin’ other people’s goods? T’aint right and you damn well knows it.”
Mackey kept his eyes on Bollard when he heard Doc Ridley yelling from the boardwalk across the thoroughfare. “That man is still alive. I might be able to save him, Aaron. Get that animal away from him!”
Bollard pointed his knife at the acting mayor of Dover Station. “Don’t go calling me no animal, you little bastard. Check on my brother’s wounds if’n you want to be useful.”
Then he pointed the knife at Mackey. “And you had no call to buffalo my brother like you done. Tom’s already hurtin’ and was well within his rights to shoot this son of a bitch I got right here.”
The crowd of Tent City grumbled in support. Keeping his eyes on Bollard, Mackey spoke over his shoulder to his deputy. “Check on Tom for me.”
“Already did,” the black man whispered. “Given the amount of blood pooling into the mud around his belly, I’d say he was gutted. Can’t tell for certain, but I think he’s dead. Slamming that rifle butt into him probably didn’t help much, though.”
The sheriff was glad Billy had kept his voice down. The crowd might riot of they knew Tom was already dead, and the situation would quickly spin out of control.
Despite Mackey and Billy’s best efforts, the law had a tenuous grip on Tent City. A riot would make him lose control of the ragtag settlement forever. He had no intention of allowing that to happen.
“I told you to do something, Bollard.” Mackey raised the Winchester and placed the butt of the rifle on his right hip, careful not to aim it at him. “I won’t tell you again.”
“And I ain’t heeled like you,” Bollard yelled. “Toss yer guns and we’ll talk.”
“That’s not going to happen.” Mackey switched the Winchester to his left hand, once more keeping it aimed down at the mud. But his hand was on his buckle, near the Peacemaker holstered at his belly. “Now we’re even. Drop the knife like I told you.”
But Bollard refused. “Not good enough. I seen what you can do with a pistol and that cross-belly draw you got. You and that Negro ya brung with ya.”
Emboldened by a cheer from the crowd, Bollard said, “Both of you toss all yer guns and we can parlay.” He grabbed a handful of the dying man’s hair and yanked up his head to the delight of the crowd. “Or, so help me, I take me the scalp I intend on gettin’.”
Doc Ridley jostled to keep his place in the bustling crowd. “Aaron, there’s no time for this!”
Mackey agreed.
In one fluid motion, he drew his Peacemaker and fired. The shot slammed into the center of Bollard’s chest and sent the big man tumbling backward into his makeshift tent, snapping the post as he fell. He was quickly buried by the scraps of tarp and rags and animal hides he had used to make his home.
Mackey aimed the pistol at the crowd of men barring Doc Ridley’s way. Every one of them froze. “Step aside and let him through.”
The crowd reluctantly separated enough to let the doctor stumble into the street with his black medical bag at his side. The smallish man forgot about his own dignity as he ran as quickly as he could manage through the dense mud of Second Street to tend to the victim.
No one stepped forward to help him, including Mackey or Billy. The two lawmen eyed the crowd steadily. The Tent City residents were an unfamiliar bunch and in a damned restless mood. Mackey knew they were unhappy that the sheriff had disrupted their show. And given how badly Mackey and Billy were outnumbered, the best they could do was watch the doctor’s back while he tried to save the shotgun victim’s life.
Mackey kept an eye on the crowd as Ridley ducked under the collapsed tent and knelt beside his patient. He and the town doctor had never gotten along until recently. Ridley was a pious, religious man who had helped settle Dover Station after the War Between the States. Ridley often objected to Mackey’s strict enforcement of the law, claiming his methods were against God’s law. Doc Ridley had often told him, “Just because it’s legal doesn’t mean it’s right.”
But after Darabont’s siege of the town, the two men had attained an unspoken respect for each other. He was the town’s acting mayor until a new one could be elected the following month. But Ridley had never been a politician. He was a believer in humanity and in his own skill at easing the suffering of his patients. That was what he was trying to do now as he knelt in the mud, struggling to save the life of a stranger.
Mackey could see by the way the proud doctor’s shoulders sagged that the struggle had ended.
Ridley slowly stood, looked over at Mackey and shook his head. “He’s gone. The blast took out half of his throat. I’m surprised he managed to hold on for as long as he did. He must have been a very strong man. Young, too.”
He glared at the people looking at him from their tents and their spots along the boardwalk. “Like most of you. Young and in a bad way, fighting against the world. It isn’t bad enough that you have to live like this, do you have to kill each other, too?” His voice rose to a shrill. “I hope you bastards are happy. You certainly got your show, didn’t you?”
Mackey called out to the crowd. “Anybody know the stranger’s name?”
A man in the crowd said. “I see three dead men, Sheriff.” The man was tall and skinny with a misshapen hat, a scraggily gray beard, and clothes that were little more than rags. “Three hardworking men ground to dust in the machinery of this place. The gears of greed have been oiled today by the blood of the workers.”
A murmur went through the crowd, and the man continued. “We must make sure their deaths were not in vain.”
Another murmur went through the crowd. It was clear they knew him, but Mackey had never seen him before. “Step forward. I want to talk to you.”
But the gaunt man did not step forward. “And what if I don’t, Sheriff? Will you shoot me, too? I think you’ve done enough of the Dover Station Company’s bidding for one day, don’t you?”
The man stepped back, and the crowd shifted to block Mackey’s view of him. The sheriff decided not to push the matter.
The quicker they got out of there, the better. He gestured toward six young men standing near Doc Ridley. “Go fetch a flatbed, load up the bodies, and take them over to Cy Wallach’s place for preparation for burial. And make sure you bring the wagon back where it belongs after you’re done.”
The six men looked at each other and laughed, embarrassed by the sudden attention and unsure of what to do.
But Mackey didn’t laugh. He hadn’t holstered his Peacemaker yet, either. “You boys just saw what happens when people defy me.”
The six men bolted like scared horses. Mackey tucked the pistol back into his holster and shifted the Winchester to his right hand. “Go with them, doc. Make sure they don’t forget what they’re supposed to be doing.”
Ridley looked down at the dead young man, whose worn shoes were sticking out from beneath the ruined tent. “What are any of us supposed to be doing, Aaron?” He looked at the half-built buildings and the tents and shacks of Second Street. “This used to be a fine place to live. Now look at it. Being torn down and rebuilt, only to be made worse than it was before. People living like pigs in the mud and squalor? Workers dropping from exhaustion? Is this what progress is supposed to look like?”
First, a bunch of nonsense from a mouthy stranger, now poor Doc Ridley was getting in on the act. Mackey had no intention of discussing weighty subjects in the middle of Tent City. The longer they stood among the mob, the more likely they were to become targets.
“There’ll be plenty of time for questions later, doc. Right now, we have to clear these bodies off the street, and I’d appreciate your help doing it.”
As Doc Ridley reluctantly followed the six men, Mackey turned his attention to the Bollard twin he had hit.
Billy had managed to roll the big man onto his back, despite the thickness of the mud. There was a large gash at the man’s belly.
“Looks like I was right,” Billy said. “Bollard, too. His brother wasn’t staggering because he was drunk. He caught a bad one in the belly before he blasted that man.”
“Didn’t give him the right to scalp anyone,” Mackey said, “but at least we know why it happened.”
Mackey felt all the eyes of Tent City on him and decided this was no time to leave. It was dangerous to turn away from a mob, especially when it was watching your every move. He had to say something.
“I know none of you wants to be living like this, but it’s the best any of us can do until more houses get built. A lot of people want me to break up this place and send you up to the old mining camps and logging camps Darabont burned out when he attacked the town. Since the company hasn’t rebuilt them yet, I don’t want to do that.”
He made a point of looking as many of them in the eye as he could. “But I won’t have a choice if things around here get out of hand. You’ve all got a hard time of it here. I know that. But don’t make it worse by stealing and killing each other. Don’t make me come back.” He looked at the collapsed tent that partially hid the two corpses. He pointed at the dead man in the mud at his feet. “You won’t like it if I do.”
Mackey stood alone as he watched the grumbling crowd slowly ebb away, ducking back into their tents or shacks or moving elsewhere. He made a point of stepping up onto the boardwalk and walking back toward the jailhouse. When the crowd had thinned out enough, he looked down at the dead man at his feet.
“Big son of a bitch, wasn’t he?” Billy observed.
Talking about it would not make him any smaller. “You grab one arm, and I’ll grab the other. Drag him over to the others. Might as well let Doc Ridley and his new friends make one trip of it.”
With their rifles in one hand and one of Bollard’s arms in the other, the men grunted under the weight of the corpse.
Billy said, “Can’t believe we lost both Bollard boys in a single morning. The world may never recover.”
Mackey struggled to keep hold of his rifle as they dragged Bollard’s deadweight through the mud. “I’m sure they’ve got brothers. Bastards usually do.”
When they had finally dropped the corpse next to his brother, Mackey noticed ten or so stragglers scattered around the boardwalks and the alleys along Second Street. He recognized the look in their eyes. They might not have been sporting feathers, but they were vultures just the same.
Billy had noticed them, too. “How long after we leave before they strip these bodies? Tent, too?”
“Fifteen seconds after we turn our backs,” Mackey said. “At most.”
Mackey and Billy raised their rifles as a group of men came barreling toward him. Mackey thought an angry mob from Tent City had come to avenge the death of the Bollard brothers. The riot was finally starting.
But they quickly lowered their weapons when they recognized the men as some of the ironworkers who were building the Municipal Building.
Mackey called out to them. “What’s going on?”
Another man said, “You’d better come quick, Sheriff. Jed Eddows is fixing to hang Foreman Ross right now before God and everyone!”
Billy trailed behind Mackey as they ran. “So much for a quiet morning in Dover Station.”
CHAPTER 2
A stiff wind blew up Front Street as Sheriff Mackey gauged the situation.
It was not good.
Three stories above, framed against the gray sky of a coming storm, Mackey saw the wiry Jed Eddows had not only bound and gagged the portly foreman Jay Ross. He was also holding him at the edge of the scaffold by the back of the foreman’s pants.
Eddows had cinched a noose around Ross’s neck, and the sheriff had no doubt the other end had been secured to one of the many iron beams of the building. Mackey hoped Eddows was stronger than he looked, or Ross would be dead before they had a chance to talk.
The wind took most of what Eddows shouted down at him, but Mackey caught the gist of it. “You stay right where you are, Sheriff. And that buck you have for a deputy best stay on the porch where he belongs. Either of you take one step toward this building, and I swear to God my oppressor will hang!”
Mackey squinted to make sure this was really Jed Eddows talking. He had always considered Eddows to be a quiet, forgettable man who came and went from his job at the Municipal Building construction site without incident or notice. He had never spent time in jail for being drunk or disorderly. In fact, Mackey only knew his name from hearing it called out so often during the summer while Mackey and Billy sat on the jailhouse porch, watching the future of the town rise across the street.
But judging from the amount of blood he could see on the foreman’s shirt and the swelling about his head and face, Mackey now knew that a quiet fury had been building inside Eddows for some time. He had given his foreman one hell of a beating before trussing him up and bringing him outside to hang.
There would be plenty of time to find out why this had happened. Right now, he had to find a way to keep a skinny man from allowing a fat man to hang from the biggest construction site in the territory.
From behind him, Mackey heard Billy call out, “I’m not going near you, Eddows. I’m just going to speak to the sheriff about how to keep anyone from getting too close to you. I won’t go an inch past him, I promise.”
Eddows stammered before saying, “You try anything, black boy, and Ross hangs. Understand?”
Billy stopped a few paces behind the sheriff. “Let me shoot this son of a bitch, Aaron. I can take his head off with the Sharps, even in this wind.”
Mackey had to hold on to his hat by the brim to keep it on his head. He had no doubt Billy could hit him, especially with that buffalo gun he carried. Billy Sunday had been the best shot in the outfit when they had served together in the cavalry, and his skills had only improved in the years since.
But there was a time for gunplay and a time for other things. “Can’t shoot him. Look at the way he set it up. If we shoot Eddows, he lets go of the foreman’s belt and Ross hangs. He’s also got Ross too far out over the edge so we can’t try to wing him and knock him back inside.”
Mackey looked over the setup again in the hopes that he had missed something, but he had not. “Looks like Eddows is a more complicated man than we thought.”
“Then what are we going to do?” Billy asked. “We can’t just stand here and watch like everyone else.”
Mackey looked out at the crowds beginning to gather on the boardwalks. Whether it was Tent City squatters over on Second Street or old-line Dover Station townsfolk on Front Street, everyone enjoyed a spectacle.
“I think we can talk him down,” Mackey said. “If Eddows wanted to kill Ross, he could’ve shot him or just thrown him off the building. He didn’t. He’s doing this because he wants an audience. He has something to say. Let’s give him the chance. Maybe the more he talks, the longer Ross lives.” He grabbed his hat again before it blew off his head. “Besides, there isn’t much we can do about it anyway.”
Billy held on to his hat, too. “Might not be able to stop him anyway if the wind stays like this. And when Grant finds out what’s going on down here, he’s liable to turn this into a goddamned circus.”
Mackey knew the general manager of the Dover Station Company was not one to shy away from public events. He knew Grant would be here the moment he heard of it. If Eddows hated his foreman, it stood to reason he probably hated Grant even more.
Mackey did not want that to happen. Three men had just died less than a block away. But, then again, Mackey knew he rarely got what he wanted, especially when it came to James Grant.
To Billy, he said, “Hang back by the jailhouse with the Sharps. If we have to, you hit Eddows, and I’ll take Ross. In the meantime, watch the crowd, and steer Grant clear of this place until we know what Eddows wants.”
Billy slowly took a few steps back toward the porch. “I will. I’m right here if you need me.”
The number of spectators cramming the boardwalks around the site had nearly doubled in the short amount of time Mackey had been speaking with Billy. The horror of the townspeople was only rivaled by their curiosity about what would happen next.
The cluster of workers at the base of the building had begun jockeying for position for the best view.
With the storm kicking up and Grant on his way, Mackey decided it was time to get Eddows talking. “All right, Jed. You’ve got your audience, and you’ve got my attention. No one’s coming near you, and Billy and me are in plain sight. How about you pull Mr. Ross back from the ledge and tell us what’s on your mind?”
“No way,” Eddows shouted back. “I know what that black bastard of yours can do with that Sharps of his. I swear to God, I see him so much as look in my direction, Ross swings, understand?”
“No one’s aiming anything at you and no one’s going to, either, as long as you don’t do anything stupid. You’ve obviously got something on your mind, so might as well say it.” He motioned to the crowd that now jammed every available space on the boardwalk. “You’ve got plenty of people here willing to listen.”
Eddows looked away. He still held on to the foreman’s belt but clearly hadn’t expected the chance to say anything.
One of the workers clustered at the base of the building yelled to Mackey, “Just shoot the son of a bitch and get it over with.”
“Yeah,” another called out. “Blow his damned head off and let us get back to work. This nonsense is costing us money.
Still another yelled, “There’s ten men in Tent City who’d take Jed’s place, and the company’s got other foremen they can send to run the job.”
Mackey ignored them. He didn’t think Eddows had heard them because of the wind, but the man had been quiet too long to suit him. “Come on, Jed. Speak up and let’s talk this through.”
Eddows looked confused, as if he had only just realized what he had done. But his grip on Ross’s belt never faltered, and the foreman was still pitched dangerously at the edge of the scaffold.
“It wasn’t any one thing that done it, I guess,” Eddows yelled. “It was a whole bunch of things balled up into a knot. Him yelling at me, screaming all the time. Threatening to fire me or throw me off the goddamned building because I wasn’t working fast enough or because I’d made a mistake. You know how long I’ve been working here?”
“Not exactly, but it’s about four months near as I can figure.” He decided it would be a good idea to add, “Billy and I remember sitting in front of the jailhouse seeing you go to work. Saw you here every single day, rain or shine. Heard good things about you.”
“That’s a lie!” Eddows screamed. “The only time you heard my name was when this cruel son of a bitch screamed at me over something I’d done or hadn’t done yet. Nothing I do is ever good enough for him. He’s an oppressor. He feeds off my labor and does none of his own. He needs to be stopped.”
He pushed Ross closer to the edge of the scaffold. The foreman screamed and so did many of the spectators, as much out of excitement as fear.
Mackey kept his rifle aimed at the ground. The wind was still too strong.
Eddows laughed as he eased Ross back a bit from the edge. “This is the quietest I’ve heard him since I started working for him. For once, he ain’t yelling at me about staying on his goddamned schedule so he can make his goddamned bonus. None of us get any bonuses, Sheriff. Only him. That sound fair to you?”
“No, it doesn’t. I didn’t know about that. I can talk to Jim Grant about that if you want.”
But Eddows had not heard him. “You know how many houses I framed for him? Ten in three weeks. Ten! A lot of us did. He worked us like dogs and whipped us worse, but we got it done, didn’t we, boys?”
Some of the workers cheered up to him. Most hurled curses at him.
Eddows went on. “And now he’s working us even harder to get this damned building open in a month. This place look like it’ll be done in a month to you, Sheriff?”
One of the ironworkers called out, “It would be if you weren’t pulling this shit now, you crazy bastard.”
Mackey had to yell over the ensuing argument to get Eddows’s attention. “I know you’re tired, son. A lot of people have been working real hard to change this town, and we appreciate it, even if Ross doesn’t. You remember seeing me and Billy on the porch all those mornings, don’t you? So you know I’m not just saying that.”
The sheriff couldn’t be sure, but he thought Eddows pulled Ross a little farther away from the ledge.
Mercifully, the wind had died down, so Mackey didn’t have to yell as loud when he said, “I know you’ve had a bad time of it. A lot of people have, so how about I make a deal with you? Take that noose off Ross’s head and pull him back inside, and I promise I’ll talk to Jim Grant about easing up their schedule some. I know my head could stand a little less banging and I’m sure yours could, too. A bump in wages and a slower pace. Sound fair?”
“Sounds like a bunch of bullshit, if you ask me,” Eddows yelled. “I know all about you, Mackey. You’re just as bad as the cruel bastard I’ve got strung up right here. I saw you riding around with Mr. Rice after Darabont hit us. His company owns you like it owns everything else in this damned town. There ain’t no way I live after what I’ve done. Hell, even I know that, and I’m an idiot.” He pushed Ross to the edge and the foreman screamed again. “Ain’t that right, Mr. Ross? Ain’t that one of them pet names you’ve got for me?”
Mackey gripped the Winchester at his side a little tighter. If he let Ross fall, Mackey would have no choice but to shoot Eddows. And he’d have to do it fast before the wind picked up again.
He had to give it one last try. “I don’t think you’re stupid, Jeb. I just think you’re tired and scared and need some rest. And there’s no reason to kill you over what you’ve done so far. Who cares if you hurt Mr. Ross? Hell, I can’t think of a soldier or a workingman who hasn’t dreamed of hurting his boss at one time or another. I know I have.”
Eddows’s face grew scarlet as he yelled, “I want him dead! I want my oppressor dead! I want fair pay for fair work and I want to be treated like a human being!”
Despite his rage, Mackey could see Eddows changing somehow. He could not tell if that was good or bad, but he knew he had been given the chance to end this.
“But you’re not a killer,” the sheriff continued. “If you were, you would’ve done it by now. You’re doing this because you want to be heard and you want help. I’m offering all of that to you right now. All you’ve got to do is pull him back inside and end this peacefully.”
Eddows surprised him by stepping back and pulling Ross with him. The foreman was now practically standing on the scaffold, though the tips of his feet were still over the side. Ross would still hang if Eddows let go.
But he was safer than he had been since the entire mess began, so Mackey kept pushing. “That’s a good start, Jeb.”
“It’s not going to end too well for me if I end up in jail,” Eddows yelled back.
“I’m sure he won’t press charges against you,” Mackey lied. He didn’t know Ross at all, except that he worked on the Municipal Building. But there was a time for the truth and a time to lie, and this was no time for the truth. “You’ve got everything you want, Eddows. You’ll have accomplished something for you and your friends. All you’ve got to do is pull him back inside and take that noose off his neck.”
“That true?” Eddows nudged Ross closer to the edge again. “That true about what he said about you not pressing charges? I want to hear you say it.”
“Of course!” Ross screamed. “I-I was wrong to say those horrible things to you, Jeb, and I’m sorry. Things will get better, I promise. Just don’t let me hang. Please. I’ve got a family to feed. Please.”
“Family?” Eddows’s rage seemed to spill over as he yanked his boss all the way in from the ledge so that they were practically standing next to each other. “You don’t think I have a family? What about my wife and my kids? You think I take the strap from you all day every day because I like it? You think I let you treat me like a dog just because I think that’s all I am? You talk about your family, you miserable . . .”
Mackey saw Eddows shift his weight.
His anger had finally won the battle.
He was going to throw Ross off the scaffold.
Billy had seen it, too, because both lawmen raised their rifles and fired at their chosen targets at exactly the same time.
The impact of the fifty-caliber slug from Billy’s Sharps threw young Eddows back into the building.
Mackey’s shot struck Ross high in the right shoulder and sent the bound man spinning before he fell back and out of view. The amount of slack on the rope still hanging over the edge of the scaffold told him that the foreman had not been hanged.
Mackey joined the flow of ironworkers and townspeople running into the building. He yelled back to Billy, “You stay here and try to keep everyone back. I’ll go check on Ross.”
* * *
Mackey raced into the building, but found the way clogged with carpenters and ironworkers scrambling to get back into the building. He yelled for them to clear the way, but it was no use.
By the time the sheriff forced his way through the crowd and up to the third floor, he saw the workers cheer as they cut loose the last of the foreman’s bindings.
A small group had gathered around the spot where Eddows’s body had landed. Billy’s fifty-caliber round had made a massive hole in the left side of his chest, probably killing him on impact. They might not have seen what a gun designed to kill buffalo could do to a human body before, but Mackey had. It was never pretty.
Mackey quickly made his way over to Ross and found one of the workers had already rigged a tourniquet for the foreman’s right arm from some of the rope that had previously bound him.
The wounded man smiled up at Mackey. His nose had been broken, and a couple of teeth had been chipped, but he looked happy. “That was some damned fine shooting, Sheriff. I owe you and your deputy my life. Which one got me?”
“That was me,” Mackey admitted. “I tried to wing you, but . . .”
“No need to apologize. I thought that crazy son of a bitch was going to kill me for sure.”
“Just be grateful you’re still alive.” To the worker who had tied the tourniquet, he asked, “How bad is it?”
“You hit him through and through,” the man told him. “Nicked the bone some, but I saw worse on the trail out here. Me and the boys will get him to Doc Ridley right quick, don’t you worry.”
Mackey stepped aside as six men scrambled forward with a wooden plank to carry Ross down to the street. Eddows had screamed that he hated Ross, but enough of the other workers seemed fond enough of the man to make sure he got medical attention.
That told Mackey something about Ross. But it didn’t say much about the man who had threatened to hang him. What had driven Eddows to the edge of murder? And to do it so publicly? And what of his talk about oppressors and fair wages? Eddows had sounded like the mysterious stranger at the shooting at Tent City. Mackey knew there were malcontents in any outfit who enjoyed complaining, but to try to kill a leader was something else.
As he stood aside, waiting for the men carrying Ross to pass, he realized he had never seen Dover Station from such a height, at least, not this close.
From up there, all of the other original buildings looked smaller than he had expected. Even the jailhouse looked tiny by comparison.
It was one of the few stone structures in town, built by a former sheriff who had been a mason. He wanted a building that would stand up well enough to fire, should one start in a town where most of the other buildings were wooden. The walls were over a foot thick, and the heavy ironwood door facing Front Street was the only way inside. There were no windows in the cells, only the barred window from where Mackey and Billy could look out on Front Street.
The jailhouse had long been seen as the only permanent building in town until the Dover Station Company began to build the iron and brick monstrosity where Mackey currently stood across the thoroughfare.
From where he stood, Aaron Mackey could see what Dover Station had been. The town he had known as a boy and as a captain returned from the army. He saw the streets and avenues Billy and he had patrolled and the stores whose locks he checked each night. They were the old Dover Station. They were the past.
The Municipal Building and all of the other new construction symbolized what the town was to become. A town he no longer recognized. A town filled with strangers who didn’t know him, only of him. He was Sheriff Aaron Mackey, formerly Captain Mackey, the Hero of Adobe Flats. Lately, and over Mackey’s objection, James Grant had taken to calling him the Savior of Dover Station. The general manager of the Dover Station Company saw it as some kind of attraction to draw people to town and make them feel safe, as if news of Frazer Rice’s interest in town was not enough of a draw.
From the third floor of the iron building, Mackey wondered if this new town held any attraction for him. He wondered if there would be any place for him in this building after it was finished. He wondered if he even wanted one.
When he heard another commotion down on the street, he rushed to the edge of the scaffold. “Christ,” he muttered to himself. “What now?”
He was not surprised to see James Grant on the boardwalk in front of the jailhouse, waving at the cheering crowd. He had Walter Underhill and two other men with rifles standing by him. Brandishing firearms was illegal in town, even for employees of James Grant. Underhill, a former United States Marshal from Texas, had helped repel Darabont’s raid of the town six months before, so Mackey often let his indiscretions slide.
None of the townspeople seemed to notice this violation of town law. Everyone cheered Grant like a conquering hero. Given that he represented the company that had made many of them wealthy, Mackey could understand the adulation.
But understanding James Grant proved a much harder task for the sheriff. Grant was older than Mackey by more than a few years, which put him in his mid-forties. His sandy blond hair and full beard had begun to gray in all the right places, making him look more distinguished than old. What he lacked in height, he made up for in powerful build; he was broad shouldered and thick around the chest. He looked more like a laborer than a man who worked in an office all day. Mackey imagined this was part of his appeal for the public. For, Mackey knew, James Grant had not always worked in an office.
He had been a rancher in a neighboring town, and before that had owned a stagecoach station after he had run a telegraph office. Rumors abounded that he had once served as a lawman in some capacity in Nebraska, though the town and the time of his service was a matter of some debate.
But there was no debate that Grant had managed to amass a lot of influence since Mr. Rice’s partner, Silas Van Dorn, hired him to manage the operations of the Dover Station Company. The reasons for Grant’s hiring were as obscure as his past, and Mackey did not care how he got the job, only that he had it now. Grant had quickly established a reputation for not only setting aggressive construction deadlines, but beating them.
As he watched the ironworkers gently carry Ross down to the street, Mackey began to wonder if Grant’s ambition had caused Eddows to snap. He wondered how many other men like Eddows were ready to fall.
In Mackey’s experience, ambitious men needed to be watched.
Grant held his hat aloft as he bellowed from the jailhouse boardwalk. “Ladies and gentlemen, I have just learned that Jay Ross is alive and expected to make a full recovery. Let us have three cheers for Jay Ross. Hip-hip. Hooray!”
Underhill and the two riflemen had formed an arc in front of Grant to keep the crowd back as they cheered.
When the echo of the last hurrah died away, Grant pointed up at Mackey on the scaffold. “And three cheers for the brave man who saved that good man’s life. The Hero of Adobe Flats! The Savior of Dover Station! Sheriff Aaron Mackey! Hip-hip.”
The crowd chanted “hooray” without any prompting from Grant.
Mackey saw Billy taking in the whole scene from the doorway of the jailhouse. The black man smiled up at Mackey, touched the brim of his hat, and went inside to make a fresh pot of coffee.
Grant waited for the crowd to quiet before continuing his speech. “Now, I’m well aware that you good people have been tolerant of all the changes the Dover Station Company has been making here in town. But change isn’t easy. It never is. But we’re more than halfway through our initial phase of work and that much closer to undoing all of the damage Darabont left in his wake when he attacked this fair town. This morning I received a telegram from Mr. Rice in New York City, wherein he gave me permission to inform you of some wonderful news. Later this week, the Dover Station Mining Company will be reopening the living quarters at the mines, the Dover Station Lumber Company will reopen their living quarters, and the Dover Station Cattle and Land Company will be hiring fifty more cowboys, farmers, and more.”
Hats were thrown in the air, and the people clapped and cheered.
Grant spoke over them again, struggling to make his voice heard over the euphoria. “My friends, our work has not finished. Indeed, it is only beginning. But men of vision and generosity like Mr. Rice and his partner, our neighbor Mr. Silas Van Dorn, cannot be relied upon to do everything. We have an election for mayor coming up in a month, and we are distressed over the lack of interest among all of you to run for office. We thank Doctor Ridley for filling in as mayor after Brian Mason resigned the office to join the company, but we need the good people of Dover Station to elect a good, strong leader, lest all of our hard work goes for nothing. Look to yourselves, and I implore you to consider running for this noble office.”
Mackey looked over the crowd as one man yelled out, “Grant for Mayor!” A few more people took up the chant and, within seconds, it echoed as if one voice through the narrow streets of town.
Mackey saw a few familiar faces in the sea of people, but most were total strangers. The rapid growth of the town over these past six months had served to change it so much that he hardly recognized it anymore.
Four men had just been killed a block away from each other within twenty or so minutes. But no one he saw seemed to care about that. They were cheering for a man they hardly knew to run for an office no one wanted. Grant waved it off, of course, but he accepted it all the same.
No, Mackey decided, he did not know these people anymore. People he considered outsiders, even though the town did not belong to him.
Mackey ducked back inside and began heading downstairs.
He needed a mug of Billy’s coffee more than he needed the adulation of strangers.