Left Hand of the Law

Suddenly feeling very tired, Ben leaned back against the trunk of a tall pine tree and stared down at the black coffee in his cup, setting his mind free to wander. He had never killed a man before this past summer. To take another man’s life was something he had always hoped he would never have to do, and now, at this point in his life, he had killed many, both white and red, men. The thing that troubled him most was his lack of remorse for any of the lives he had taken. How could he square things with the Man Upstairs? He gave that question a few moments’ thought, and decided there was no way he could be absolved of these sins. Then he thought of Mary Ellen and Danny. Would he see them in another life when this sorry tale was ended? “I doubt it,” he concluded aloud, “’cause I’m gonna kill one more son of a bitch before I cash in my chips.” He stared at the small fire before him until his eyelids became too heavy to remain open. After a while, the coffee cup dropped from his fingers, spilling his coffee on the ground. He was not aware of it, for he was fast asleep, exhausted, and still sitting with his back against the tree.

She picked up the coffee cup and rinsed it in the stream, moving carefully so as not to wake him. She had brought bacon and biscuits for him, but she decided that it was better to let him sleep. He could eat them cold when he woke up. She then picked up the tattered blanket lying by his saddle and very gently draped it across his shoulders. Satisfied that she had done all she could to let him rest, she sat down beside the tree and kept watch while he slept.

With the first rays of sunlight filtering through the branches of the plum trees by the stream, he suddenly awoke with a start, realizing that it was morning and he had fallen asleep. Startled for a second time, he almost recoiled when he discovered Victoria sitting next to him, breathing heavily in deep slumber. How the hell . . . ? he asked himself, trying to remember how she could possibly be there, but he hadn’t a clue.

As carefully as he could manage, he struggled to his feet, trying not to wake her, still mystified as to how she happened to be there. Pressed tightly against the tree trunk and hugging herself against the cold, she looked about to start shaking at any moment, so he took the blanket from his shoulders and wrapped it around hers. The weight of it was enough to awaken her. Sleepy eyed and shivering from the chill of the morning, she scrambled to her feet when she realized that she had fallen asleep on her voluntary watch. With a look of alarm, she glanced all around her, looking for signs of danger. With everything apparently all right, her expression immediately changed to one of chagrin, feeling as if she had been caught in a frivolous act.

Quickly regaining her composure, she busied herself rekindling the fire while she answered his questions. “It didn’t take much thinking to know who killed those two murderers at the house night before last. Malcolm talked to the sheriff yesterday morning, and he sent someone to move the bodies. James was there when they took them. They found a campfire beside the graves and James said they figured the man who killed them had been camping there. I knew it was you and I was afraid you might have come back last night and the sheriff might have been watching for you. So I went there to tell you not to camp there.”

“Well, I didn’t know for sure,” she said. “But I thought you might be here, because this is where you always took your horse to water him.” She smiled then. “I brought you some biscuits and bacon, but you were asleep. You can have them for breakfast.”

With fresh coffee working on the fire, she questioned him while he shared the biscuits and bacon with her. “As soon as we heard the gunshots the other night, I knew you were involved,” she said. “Like Malcolm said, why would anybody else be around the place? What are you going to do now?”

“Well, you already know what happened. I got two of ’em, but there’s still one on the loose. Just like I figured, they came lookin’ for me,” he answered matterof-factly. “But all they killed was that blanket wrapped around your shoulders.”

Still alarmed that he would risk his life in such a manner, she said, “Oh, Ben, let this be the end of it. Let the sheriff go after the other one. Malcolm can tell him who the other man is.” She closed her eyes momentarily while she shook her head in exasperation. “When I think about you hiding in that burnt-out mess waiting for those murderers—”

“Look at you,” she exclaimed. “It wasn’t hard to guess. You’ve got soot smeared all over your clothes and your arms, even some on your face.” She reached up and wiped a black smear from his forehead with a corner of the blanket. He immediately drew back, a reflex since the day his face had been transformed into a hideous mask. “Be still,” she admonished. “I’m not going to hurt you. You need a bath and some clean clothes.”

“I can’t do that, Victoria,” he said at once. “That feller is probably lookin’ for me as hard as I’m lookin’ for him. I can’t take a chance on leadin’ him back to Malcolm’s house. I made him a promise that I wouldn’t involve him or James, and I sure don’t want to drag you and the boy into it. I just hope to hell nobody saw you comin’ here.”

He grimaced, embarrassed to have been reminded of that lapse of vigilance. “Well,” he responded, “I’m all caught up now. That ain’t likely to happen again. So now I reckon it’s time to get on with what I’ve got to do.”

He reached down to help her to her feet. “I can’t now,” he said. “I started somethin’ that the feller with the long ponytail is gonna wanna finish, so I couldn’t call it off if I wanted to. I expect you’d best get along back to Malcolm’s now, before they start out lookin’ for you.”

She stood gazing at him for a long moment before deciding; then she stepped quickly up to him and kissed him on the cheek. “You take care of yourself, Ben Cutler,” she said, then promptly spun around and left him standing there dumbfounded.

“Much obliged,” he mumbled, long after she was out of earshot. Puzzling over the entire surprise visit, and especially the good-bye kiss, he was left to wonder if the young lady actually cared what happened to him. She acted as if she did, he decided. Then his focus returned to the dangerous job ahead. He took the cardboard piece from his pocket and struck a line through two more names, Shorty Fagen and Bull Lacey. That left one, Sam Cheney; then his work would be done. He gathered up what remained of his bedroll and saddled his horse. There was one more message to be delivered.

“Victoria!” her mother exclaimed when her daughter walked into the kitchen. “Praise the good Lord you’re safe!” At first registering the relief she felt when seeing her daughter, she quickly furrowed her brow to scold. “James told us where you went. Have you taken leave of your good sense? I didn’t get a wink of sleep all night, listening for you to come home,” she lied. “And this morning you were still gone. I’d already told Malcolm that we had to search for you.” When Victoria casually tossed it off with a shrug, Mary continued. “All night,” she exclaimed. “What would self-respecting people say?”

“Oh, Mama,” Victoria responded impatiently, “what people? Who cares, anyway? All right, I slept with him. Is that what you’re worried about?” Mary clasped her hands together and pressed them to her breast, as if about to have a heart attack. “Oh, Mama, stop it. When I found him last night, he was sitting up against a tree, sound asleep. I sat down and leaned up against the same tree, and I fell asleep. We woke up and had breakfast; then I came home.”

Feeling relief once again, Mary chastised her daughter. “You’re gonna cause the death of me yet. I declare, I don’t think you’ll ever get old enough to where I can stop worrying about you.” She couldn’t help recalling that the last, and only, time a man had taken advantage of her poor plain daughter, it had resulted in the tragic situation they now found themselves in, although, she had to admit, their marriage had produced a fine grandson. Lately she had found herself praying that Caleb had inherited more traits from his mother than he had from his father.

The man who had come to Mary Marple’s mind was at that moment drinking coffee in the tiny dining room of Felton Price’s Silver Dollar Saloon. Seated to his right, Angel Lopez picked unenthusiastically at a small half-done steak. “When are we going to get out of this dump and go find a real hotel?” she whined.

“When I say so,” Garth replied sharply. Then changing his approach, knowing she would punish him later if he was short with her now, he said, “We’ll just be here till we can find someplace to start again. This was the best I can do right now.”

“Just be patient a little while longer,” he said. He wasn’t fond of the rooms they were renting upstairs over the saloon, but he deemed it prudent to remain in Lead close to the Homestake Mine since Deadwood was burned out. His only prospect for future success was to stay in close contact with Arnold Freeman at the mine. He was about to explain that to the pouting prostitute when they were interrupted by the arrival of an uninvited guest.

“Damned if you ain’t a hard one to find,” Sam Cheney announced loudly as he strode over to the table. “I’ve been lookin’ all over Deadwood, what’s left of it, anyway, tryin’ to run you down. We’ve got some talkin’ to do.”

Cheney was not in a patient mood. “Is that so?” he replied. “It’s all right,” he said sarcastically. “I ain’t worried ’bout ruinin’ my reputation.” He pulled out a chair and before he sat down, turned to yell at the one woman who waited tables, “Bring me some of that coffee over here, and a plate of them potatoes he’s eatin’.” He plopped down in the chair then and reached over to pat Angel on the arm. “Maybe me and you’ll have a little tussle after breakfast, honey.”

Turning his attention back to Beaudry, Cheney flashed a bitter smile. “Well, I ain’t retired, and I’ve got some crazy bastard tryin’ to shoot my ass. He’s already done for Shorty, Bull, and Frank, and he damn near got me the other night. And you ain’t paid me for that other job.”

“I don’t suppose you’d be too tickled if I was to tell it around that you was the one that paid Shorty and the others to kill them two fellers up on the hill, would you?” He paused to enjoy the look of alarm on Beaudry’s face. “Well, that’s just what’s gonna happen if I don’t get two hundred dollars, gold, to keep that little secret to myself.” When Garth started to object, he cut him off. “Now, that’s a good deal for you. You promised five hundred for the fire, and eight hundred if we had to kill them two fellers, so you owe three hundred. I’ll let you off at a lower price since we didn’t get the jasper you wanted, but a killin’s a killin’, so you owe for it.” He glanced over at the bored woman sitting with them and grinned. “You sure you don’t wanna change your mind ’bout bein’ retired?” She favored him with a look of disgust and turned away.

Cheney offered a cantankerous grin in response. “By God, you’re right. Blackmail, that’s what it is, all right. Maybe you wanna go see Sheriff Mannin’ and report it. Or maybe you’d be better off just payin’ up what you owe and be done with me.” He turned toward the other end of the dining room and yelled, “Where’s that damn coffee?”

“How do I know I’ll be done with you?” Garth asked. “You might decide you want more later on.” He had the money hidden away, gold dust he had confiscated from claims he had been instrumental in acquiring for Homestake, but he didn’t care to see it wasted on scum like Sam Cheney. “Most of what I had went up in the fire in Deadwood.”

“Now, Mr. Beaudry, don’t try to play me for a fool.” His malicious grin disappeared, replaced by a threatening sneer. After a moment, the grin reappeared. “You don’t have to worry about me comin’ back for more. I ain’t in the habit of hangin’ around places that ain’t good for my health, and this place ain’t healthy for me no more. I’m fixin’ to head back down to Cheyenne as soon as you gimme what I’m due. I got a brother down that way, and I need that two hundred to see me through.” He paused when the waitress placed a cup of coffee before him. After giving her a thorough looking-over, he told her, “If I had a mule as slow as you, I swear I’d shoot him.”

Beaudry did not reply at once, waiting for the waitress to leave while thinking over his options. There seemed to be only two, pay up or have Cheney taken care of by more permanent means. The problem with the latter choice, which he favored, was that Cheney was the man he always hired to take care of those jobs. On the other hand, he thought, there might be another option after all. “All right,” he said, “I’ll give you the money, but I haven’t got that much on me. Where are you going to be tonight?”

When Garth and Angel walked into the dining room that evening, they found Cheney already there, seated at a table, well along with his dinner. There were only a few patrons in the room, most of them employees of Homestake. Cheney broke out his standard grin when he saw them. “Well, I was beginnin’ to think you mighta forgot where the dinin’ room was,” he said. “You can set down right here.” Then he called out for the waitress, loud enough for everyone to hear, “Hey, woman, get your lazy ass over here.”

Beaudry paused by the table for only a moment. “Damn it, it’s not good for us to be seen together,” he said, almost in a whisper. “We’ll sit at another table.” When his remark brought a frown to Cheney’s face, he hurried to reassure him. “I’ve got your money. I’ll send Angel with it to your room after we’ve eaten.”

Obviously offended by his boorish behavior, the waitress, a matronly woman of perhaps forty years of age, arrived at his table in answer to his call. She had really hoped his earlier visit to the dining room would be his last, but here he was again, and his offensive manner was no better than before. “Was there something you wanted, sir?” she asked.

He lay on the bed, stripped down to his long johns and socks, wondering if he was going to have to go looking for Beaudry after all. He was about to decide that to be the case when he heard the tap on his door. As a matter of habit, he pulled his .44 from the holster on the dresser and went to the door. “Who is it?”

“Sure ’nough, honey” He turned the key in the lock and quickly stepped to the side, his gun leveled at the door and ready to fire. “Come on in. It’s unlocked.” She opened the door and walked into the room. He stuck his head out and took a quick look up and down the short hallway before closing the door and locking it again. “Where’s the dust?” he asked.

With an expectant smile, he opened the pouch and peered inside. Satisfied that it was of sufficient weight to be about two hundred dollars, he said, “Now that you ain’t got your daddy lookin’ over your shoulder, how’d you like to take a pinch or two of that dust back with you?”

She slipped out of her clothes while he stood watching the show with obvious anticipation. When she was undressed, she placed her clothes on the bed and lay down beside them. “Are you coming or not?” she asked, since he was still in his underwear.

The transaction proceeded in typical fashion, since both partners had experienced many such couplings. Angel did her part in taking him where he wanted to go. And at what she deemed to be a climactic point in the animalistic struggle, she slipped her hand inside the folds of her skirt beside her and withdrew the dagger hidden there. Seemingly lost in his passion, and oblivious of the stealthy hand, he continued his assault upon her body. Slowly, she raised the dagger above his shoulder and with a grunt of exertion, she brought it down, only to find her wrist ensnared in the viselike grip of his hand.

Breathing heavily from the exertion, he bared his teeth in a sadistic smile. “I ain’t as dumb as you and your boyfriend think,” he snarled. “You think I’m gonna let you come in here, stab me in the back, and take the gold back to Beaudry?” With eyes filled with contempt, she spat at him. “Now, you shouldn’ta done that,” he said, and grabbed her throat with his free hand. Slowly and steadily, he increased the grip on her throat, enjoying the sadistic execution, as she fought for her life, helplessly flailing and clawing at him. “Say hello to the other whores in hell,” he taunted when she began to weaken until the dagger fell from her hand and her arms flopped limp at her sides. Still he clamped down on her throat until he was doubly sure she was dead.

Getting to his feet, he walked to the tiny mirror on the dresser. “Damn bitch,” he swore, looking at the marks on his face left by her fingernails. Then he grinned at himself in the mirror. “You gotta get up pretty damn early in the mornin’ to get the best of Sam Cheney,” he said in smug satisfaction for having anticipated just such a double cross from Beaudry and his whore. After wiping some of the blood from his face with Angel’s blouse, he climbed back into his clothes, put the pouch of gold dust in his saddlebag, and went out the door, headed for the stable to get his horse. Selfsatisfied and pleased with the way things had turned out that night, he looked forward to putting Lead, Deadwood, and the scar-faced messenger behind him. “By the time they find that dead whore in my room,” he said aloud, “I’ll be long gone from this gulch.”