CHAPTER 19
The days that followed the Billy Duncan trial brought John Bannack back to the courtroom for three more trials, but there was not the drama that was provided at Billy’s trial. Billy’s father, Caleb, was released after three days in Sheriff Roger Nicholson’s jail. And with Billy’s hanging not scheduled for two weeks, there was a constant alertness for attempts to free him by his father and brothers.
For Bannack, there was always a personal obligation to remain alert for any threat on Judge Wick Justice’s life with Caleb Duncan especially in mind. He, like everyone else in town, had heard about the gunfight in the Texas Rose saloon between Trace Every and an unknown cowhand. Evidently Every had regained his pride and his ability with a six-gun. Bannack hoped that Trace would just steer clear of him. He had no need to visit the Texas Rose because he seldom needed anything sold there. When he did have an urge for a drink, he found the Capitol City Saloon more to his quiet taste and bartender Jug Smith a pleasant conversationalist. The Capitol City was Judge Wick’s favorite saloon and the owner, Milton Bailey, a personal friend. Consequently, more often than not, a visit to the Capitol City Saloon for Bannack was solely because the judge felt the need for a drink of whiskey. It was on one of these infrequent occasions when Trace Every finally managed to corner Bannack.
Riding down near the southern end of the town, Trace pulled his horse to a stop when he saw Judge Wick Justice pulling his buggy up to a stop in front of the Capitol City Saloon. It was the large man riding the buckskin horse behind the buggy that captured Trace’s attention, however. This might be the perfect way to spend an afternoon, he thought. I knew you couldn’t avoid me forever. He watched as Bannack dismounted and tied the horses at the rail. Then he waited until they went inside the saloon before he rode over and tied his horse beside the buckskin. He walked up to the batwing doors and looked inside. The judge was walking to a table to join Milton Bailey. The judge’s bodyguard was down at the end of the bar, talking to Jug Smith. Good, Trace thought, the bright sunlight will be shining through the door behind my back.
Trace pushed on through the doors. “Well, well, if it ain’t Judge Justice’s panther,” he said. “You’re a hard man to find.”
“Not hard enough, evidently,” Bannack responded.
“You and I have some business we need to take care of,” Trace said. “And now’s as good a time as any to finish up what we started. You played a trick on me last time that only a coward like you could pull. Well, you ain’t gonna get that chance today. You’re gonna stand to face me man to man, like you were supposed to do in the stable.”
Judge Justice rose up from the table to interfere. “John Bannack has no notion to stand and shoot it out with you. So turn around and leave before I call the sheriff down here.”
“You just set down and shut up, Judge,” Trace told him. “This ain’t no damn courtroom. This is a saloon, and it ain’t against the law for me to call a man out to settle an argument. He assaulted me, and I’ve got a right to call him on it. If you don’t believe me, take a look at my face. So you ain’t got no say-so in this business between me and this coward. You might as well just set down and watch your man in a fair fight.”
“He’s right, Judge,” Bannack said. “I’ll take care of it. Maybe we can take it outside, so we don’t have to bother you and Mr. Bailey while you’re havin’ a drink.”
“Oh, no, we ain’t,” Trace said at once. “We’re gonna settle it right here in front of this bar, you at that end and me at this end, fair and square. And if you try to get any closer, I’ll shoot you down before you take another step.”
The judge was reluctant to give in to the brash gunman and still threatened to send for the sheriff. But Bannack assured him that he would take care of the situation, which amused Trace. “I’m gonna tell you again, you don’t stand and draw that gun you’re wearin’ and I’ll shoot you down like the yellow dog you are.” And I’ll get two thousand dollars for doing it, he thought to himself, which brought a smile to his face.
“Let’s get this over with,” Bannack said. “I know you must be anxious to see what it’s like in hell.”
Trace smiled in response to what he knew was an attempt to mess with his mind. It was wasted effort and desperate as well, for he knew no man was faster than he was. Bannack stepped away from the bar and took a ready stance. Trace, still smiling, did the same at the other end. “Go for your gun anytime you’re ready,” Trace said. “But if you don’t go for it pretty quick, I’ll count to three and when I say ‘three,’ I’ll shoot you down.”
“Fair enough,” Bannack said and they both got set to draw. He knew Trace had to be fast, but he wasn’t sure how fast he was in comparison. The practicing he had done with his Colt .44 tended to make him think he was pretty fast. But fast enough? He was about to find out. He decided he would let Trace start counting and he would go for his gun on “two,” hoping to surprise him enough to disrupt his timing. But he was determined to brace himself regardless.
They stood staring into each other’s eyes for what seemed a long time, long enough for Trace to wonder if the big man actually thought he had a chance against him. There’s no way, he thought, and I couldn’t ask for a bigger target. Then, thinking Bannack was never going to reach for his gun, he started the count, “One, two . . .” Before he said three, Bannack reached, and Trace reacted in lightning-like reflex to whip his .45 out and fire before Bannack’s .44 was fully level. The bullet struck Bannack high in the chest, causing him to take two steps backward, having been braced for the impact. “Ha!” Trace shouted in celebration of his victory, only to discover that Bannack was now taking dead aim with his pistol. Bannack’s bullet struck the center of Trace’s forehead, killing him instantly before he had time to cock his .45 again. He collapsed to his knees, then over on his side. Bannack dropped his .44 back in his holster and walked over to the table next to the judge’s and dropped down on the chair.
The judge, Bailey, and Jug, were all struck motionless by the scene just witnessed. Of the three, Jug recovered first and exclaimed, “Damn! We gotta get him to Doc Bane’s. He’s been hit in the chest!”
“Put him in my buggy!” Judge Justice urged. “I’ll drive him to Doc’s. We’d best be quick about it!” They ran to his side and started to try to lift him from the chair.
“Take it easy,” Bannack said. “I can walk to the buggy, if you just kinda give me a shoulder to lean on.”
They hurried around him to assist him out the door and into the buggy. “Tie his horse to the back of the buggy,” the judge said. “I can take care of him, and while I’m up that way, I’ll see if I can find the undertaker to collect that gunslinger.” Then he drove back uptown at a trot. “You hang in there, John, we’ll be there in a minute.”
“I’m all right,” Bannack assured him.
“I thought you’d lost your mind, standing up to that gunslinger,” the judge said. “Did you really think you would beat him?”
“No, I figured I wasn’t as fast as he was. I figured I’d have to take a shot to get a chance to kill him. But I think I beat him. He’s dead and I ain’t.” The judge looked at the blood soaking the front of his shirt and wasn’t sure he agreed.
By the time they got to Doc Bane’s office, Bannack was feeling a lot more pain, although the bleeding had slowed somewhat. When Doc’s wife, Lucy, saw who it was, she went at once to get her husband and told him Judge Justice was there with a huge man who had been shot. Doc came at once and helped Bannack lie down on his operating table. “Looks like you took a bullet right in the chest,” Doc said unnecessarily. “How’d that happen?” He looked at the judge for an answer.
“That little gunslinger that’s been hanging around the Texas Rose called him out to a duel,” the judge answered.
“And your boy, here, lost, huh?”
“No, John won. I’ve got to go tell the undertaker to pick up the loser,” the judge answered.
“You mean he just stood there and took a shot in the chest, then shot the man who shot him?” Doc was amazed.
“Right between the eyes,” the judge answered.
“Damn,” Doc exclaimed. “You mighta been lucky. You don’t act like it hit your lung and it’s too high and too far to the side to hit your heart. I won’t know for sure till I go in and find where that bullet ended up. I’m gonna put you to sleep for a while. You ever had any chloroform?” Bannack shook his head. “Well, if you can stand up and take a bullet in the chest, a little dose of chloroform ain’t gonna bother you. Let’s get your shirt and your undershirt off.” Lucy came in with a cloth folded into a pad, which she poured the chloroform on, then held it under Bannack’s nose for him to breathe. He was soon unconscious. Doc told the judge that he was going to take a little while, so if he had some place to go, he could leave and come back in about an hour. The judge decided to go see if he could find Theodore Reece, the undertaker, and send him to the Capitol City Saloon to pick up Trace Every’s body. “Just from what I see so far,” Doc sought to reassure the judge, “your man here looks strong as an ox. I don’t expect any problems. I’ll just go in and find that bullet, then we’ll patch him up.”
The judge found Mr. Reece at his place of business and he informed him of the body awaiting him at the Capitol City Saloon. Reece found it quite interesting that Trace Every had been killed in a duel that he had insisted upon. “I just put a nameless cowhand in a box after this Every fellow called him out. Sooner or later, all these fast-draw gunfighters find another one that’s faster than they are and they end up in one of my pine boxes.”
“Just so you know,” Judge Justice told him, “this wasn’t another gunfighter who stopped Trace Every. You know John Bannack who works for me. He’s no gunslinger, and he’s the one who put Every in one of your boxes.”
“Is that a fact?” Reece asked. “Yes, I know who John Bannack is. How’d he happen to shoot Trace Every?”
“Like you said,” the judge answered. “Every called him out and John answered the call. He knew he wasn’t faster than Every, so he stood there and took a bullet, then took dead aim to finish Every.”
“Well, I’ll be . . .” Reece started, surprised. “Have I got another body to pick up?”
“No, John’s over at Doc’s now, getting that bullet taken out of his chest.”
“I declare,” Reece exclaimed, “that’s really something. I’ve seen your man, Bannack. Somebody shoulda told Trace that going after Bannack was like going after a buffalo. Most of the time, you don’t bring one of ’em down with one shot.”
“I don’t want folks to start thinking John is another one of those fast-gun gunslingers. He’s a fine, hard-working young man who doesn’t believe in that quick-draw nonsense. He’s a peaceful man who happens to be able to handle trouble.”
Reece looked at the judge and grinned. “I expect you know that ain’t how Judge Grant describes him. He calls him your panther. But I’ll take my wagon down to the Capitol City Saloon and pick up some of that trouble your peaceful man handled.”
When the judge went back to Doc Bane’s office, he found that Bannack was just coming out from under the chloroform. Lucy Bane was fanning his face with a fan in an effort to flush out the anesthesia with fresh air. “It was like I suspected,” Doc said. “He took the bullet high enough and to the right far enough to avoid any major organs. It was more toward his shoulder and he’s got a lot of muscle in there. That’s where I found the bullet, lodged in that muscle. I took it out and patched him up. He lost quite a bit of blood. He needs to build that back. Tell Lottie to make sure he eats plenty of beef, and he needs to take it easy for a few days and keep that wound clean. It shouldn’t be too long before he can put himself to the test again.”
The judge paid Doc Bane and when Bannack felt like he was over the effect of the chloroform they left the doctor’s office and headed home. The buckskin was still tied onto the back of the buggy, but they both agreed it best if John rode home in the buggy. When they arrived at the judge’s house, Judge Wick wanted to drop Bannack off at the house first, but Bannack insisted on going with him to the barn to make sure the buckskin was taken care of. Lottie saw them pass by the window and was puzzled to see Bannack riding in the buggy with the judge. Stranger still was the fact that he was wrapped around his shoulders with what appeared to be a sheet or half of one. She sent Henry down to the barn to put the horse and buggy away and to help John if he needed it. They had already been gone longer than she expected them to be, so she knew something was wrong.
“Are you going to be all right sleeping in that hayloft tonight?” Lottie asked after the men returned to the house and she learned why they had been late coming home. John assured her that he would. “Are you sure you can even climb up the ladder?” She insisted.
“Yes, ma’am,” he said, “it ain’t that much of a climb to go up that ladder.”
“I reckon I could trade with you for a couple of nights,” Henry volunteered. “I could sleep in the hayloft and you could sleep in the house.”
Nobody said anything for a long moment, waiting for him to think about it before Lottie finally told him. “Henry, you sleep with me in the bed.”
“Oh,” Henry said, “that’s right. I forgot about that.”
* * *
It was not until the next morning that news began to circulate explaining the two gunshots heard the afternoon before. Clark Spencer overheard some diners talking about it when he was eating breakfast at Riley’s Café. It seemed that someone had called the final bluff on that cocky gunslinger who had been hanging around the Texas Rose for months. He knew, even before he heard, who the party was that shot him down. It had to be Bannack. He confirmed it when he asked Riley on his way out of the café. Damn, he thought, it was not a good way to start the day. Judge Grant was presiding over a case of armed robbery today. There was no telling how many years in prison the poor wretch would get after the judge heard the news about Trace Every.
Spencer was reluctant to go to work. So much so, that he went by the hotel dining room to see if Sheriff Nicholson was eating breakfast there as usual. He was in luck. When he stepped inside the dining room, he saw the sheriff sitting at a table, eating. When Jim Davis greeted him, he said he just stopped by to give the sheriff a message. Then he walked back to the table. “Good mornin’, Sheriff,” he said.
“Clark,” Nicholson acknowledged. “Were you lookin’ for me?”
“No, I just stopped in to see if the judge might have had breakfast here this mornin’,” Spencer lied. “I see he didn’t, but I saw you, so I thought I’d check with you to see if what I heard about Trace Every was true.”
“Yep,” Nicholson replied, “Trace Every finally met up with the wrong man.”
“John Bannack?” Spencer asked. The sheriff nodded. “I didn’t think Bannack was fast enough with a gun to take Trace Every,” Spencer said.
“He wasn’t,” Nicholson replied. “He was tough enough to stand up to Every and take the shot, then he took his shot and put one right in Trace’s forehead.”
That could actually be good news, Spencer thought. They shot each other. Bannack’s gone and they wouldn’t have to pay the two thousand to Trace. “So they ended up killin’ each other?”
“No, Trace didn’t kill Bannack,” Nicholson said. “He stood there and took Trace’s best shot. Milton Bailey said Bannack didn’t even grunt when that bullet struck him in the chest. Said he already had his gun out, pointed at Trace, so he took careful aim and put a bullet in the center of Trace’s forehead. Then Judge Wick told him to get in his buggy and the judge drove him to see Doc Bane.”
“I declare,” Spencer remarked, “that sure is something, ain’t it?” Trying not to show any strong reaction to the sheriff’s detailed description, while very much aware that the sheriff was watching him closely, well aware of Judge Grant’s annoyance with John Bannack. “Well, I’d best not disturb your breakfast anymore. I guess Judge Grant must have ate breakfast earlier than I expected. Have a good day.” He turned and walked out of the dining room, passing Jim Davis without saying a word.
Jim walked on back to the sheriff’s table. “What was that all about?” he asked the sheriff. “Him nor Judge Grant, either, don’t ever eat in the dinin’ room.”
Nicholson chuckled. “He was just wantin’ to find out about that shoot-out yesterday. I expect he was hopin’ to hear that John Bannack got killed.”
“Why in the world would he wanna hear that?” Jim asked.
Nicholson looked at him in surprise. “You don’t know?”
“I reckon I don’t,” Jim answered dumbfounded.
“Well, you must be the last person in town who doesn’t,” the sheriff said. “Judge Grant hates John Bannack with a passion, but he don’t hate him as much as he hates Judge Justice. And that’s because Judge Wick got a pardon for Bannack to get him out of prison.”
“John Bannack was in prison?” Jim asked, truly surprised.
The sheriff looked at him as if he couldn’t believe he had to ask. “I swear, Jim, don’t you ever talk to any of your customers that come in here to eat?”
“Not that much, I reckon,” Jim said and scratched his head in wonder. “Judge Justice and Elwood Wilson usually eat at home. But once in a while, they’ll stop in here at dinnertime. Sometimes John Bannack is with ’em.” He paused to picture it. “That big ol’ fellow, so quiet and polite, I can’t believe he was in prison. What did he do to get sent to prison?”
“He robbed a bank when he was eighteen,” Nicholson said. He went on to tell Jim about the robbery and the severity of the sentence given him by the judge. He told him about the extent Judge Wick went to have it reduced and eventually pardoned altogether. Judge Grant considered that a direct insult he told him, and they’ve been enemies ever since. “That’s why Grant calls Bannack Judge Wick’s panther. You knew that, didn’tcha?” Jim shook his head. “I swear, Jim, you need to get outta this dinin’ room once in a while.”
“I ain’t ever told anybody this,” Jim said, “but I’m a little bit hard of hearing.”
* * *
When Clark Spencer arrived at the office, he found the door unlocked, which was unusual because he always opened the office in the morning. Judge Grant was not an early riser as a rule. He enjoyed a leisurely breakfast with his live-in cook and housekeeper in the small house he owned close to the capitol. Spencer sometimes wondered who the live-in cook entertained when he and the judge were riding the circuit. But he never brought up the subject for speculation. On this morning, however, the judge was there before Spencer arrived. “You’re running a little late this morning, aren’t you?” Judge Grant greeted him.
Spencer knew why the judge was early. “Yes, sir, I’m a little later than usual because I stopped in at the hotel dinin’ room after breakfast to see if I could catch Sheriff Nicholson there. I figured you’d want details about the shooting in the Capitol City Saloon yesterday afternoon.”
“Was he there?” Grant asked, immediately interested. “Was it a face-off between two men, like we heard?”
“Yes, sir, he was there and he said that’s what it was,” Spencer replied, reluctant to continue because he knew the judge was eager to hear that John Bannack was dead. “And it was between Trace Every and John Bannack.” He paused then, reluctant to get the judge’s hopes up, thinking there was a double killing to solve his problem, as he had assumed when the sheriff led him through the story. So he spat it out. “Trace Every’s dead. John Bannack’s got a wound in his chest, but he’s alive and breathing.”
Judge Grant’s face blanched and then it became red as he clenched his teeth and the veins stood out on his neck. The oath came from his mouth like an explosion. “Damn!” he repeated four times, the last time loud enough that Spencer was sure it was heard three doors down the hallway at Wick Justice’s office. Grant was forced to pause to inhale some air before he continued in a soft, almost calm tone. “I want that man dead, that damn panther has no right walking around a free man.”
“Killing might be too merciful for the man,” Spencer suggested, knowing the judge would charge him with the responsibility for finding another assassin, a job that he had rather not be involved in. “It might be more fitting to persuade Governor Throckmorton to reverse the pardon Governor Hamilton gave Bannack and let him sit in a prison cell for the rest of his life.”
Judge Grant paused to consider the suggestion. “You could be right. It would certainly be worthwhile to present my case to the governor. It would be highly proper to put that big cat of Wick’s in a cage. Why don’t you contact the governor’s office and make an appointment for me to talk to him?” The more he thought about it, the better he liked the idea. “You may have hit on the solution for our problems with Judge Wick and his panther,” he said.