Left Hand of the Law Read online

  Once the fire was right, Cleve took over the preparation of the meat. Soon the aroma of roasting antelope filled the circle around the fire until most of the fear of another hostile attack was all but forgotten. Everyone ate their fill of the freshly roasted meat, and then some. There was no bother with anything else; no biscuits, no beans, no dried apples, nothing but coffee to wash it down. By the time Mary and Victoria were ready to retire for the night, all parties had backed away from the last pieces of antelope. With eyelids weighed down by full stomachs, sleep would not be difficult to come by.

  Primarily to give the women peace of mind, Cleve and Ben decided it best to post a guard, even though both men thought it unnecessary. “I’ll stand the first couple of hours,” Ben volunteered.

  Feeling a much greater part in the protection of the party, Jonah at once piped up. “I’ll stand a watch.” His ego was inflated with a newfound pride for having helped repel the hostiles with his shotgun. He had not hit anything except the hind end of an Indian pony, but he had gained a great deal of confidence, knowing that he had stood firm and fired his shotgun.

  “All right,” Cleve said. “In that case, why don’t you take the first watch? Two hours—then I’ll take the next two, and Ben can finish up.” He glanced at Ben for his okay, and Ben nodded. Cleve figured that, if the Indians had any notion of trying again, it would be later on, in the early morning. So it was best that Jonah take the first watch, and Ben, whose eyes were sharper than his, could take the watch just before dawn. The watch settled, Jonah got his shotgun from the wagon and positioned himself beside the fire until Ben advised him that he would be better situated outside the fire’s glow where he could see better. Within a few minutes, the camp was quiet except for the steady drone of Cleve’s snoring and the occasional whinny of one of the horses.

  It had been a long day, climaxing at the frightening attack by the hostiles. It was a day like no other Jonah had ever experienced. He had often wondered if he would respond heroically if put to the test. While he had been terrified at first, and thinking only of flight, he had answered the call to defend honorably, and in his mind, accounted well for himself. Peering out into the darkness of the prairie beyond the opening in the cottonwoods, he thought that he would remember this day as one of his finest. And what better way to celebrate it than with a feast of freshkilled meat? These thoughts danced around in his mind until there were gradually no conscious thoughts at all, and aided by his full belly, he drifted into peaceful sleep.

  Even though Barrett had left his horse to stand with reins on the ground some forty or fifty yards behind him, the Morgan’s presence was sniffed out of the evening air by the horses in the camp and announced by inquisitive whinnies. The communication between the horses went unnoticed by those sleeping near the fire. Pausing for a few moments to listen, Barrett knelt on one knee while he scanned the unsuspecting camp. Satisfied there was no one alert to his presence there, he got up and walked into the circle, stopping only briefly to look down at Jonah, dead to the world at his guard post. He carefully took the shotgun from the sleeping man’s hand, then continued toward the two bodies on the other side of the fire. Peering down at Cleve, he paused for only a moment, long enough to take the handgun from the holster beside him and draw the Winchester from the saddle sling behind Cleve’s head.

  A thin smile of satisfaction formed upon his face as he moved several yards farther to stare at the face of the man he hunted. There was no doubt that this was the right man, for the tragic scar shone in the firelight like a jagged flame. Collecting Ben’s weapons, as he had done from Jonah and Cleve, he stood silently over the sleeping man, savoring the moment, almost reluctant to wake the camp in order to enjoy his triumph longer. With an unconcerned glance at the wagon, for he anticipated no trouble from the women, he broke the breech on Jonah’s shotgun to make sure it was loaded. When he clicked it shut again, Ben sat upright, alert. Barrett slammed him in back of the head, swinging Jonah’s shotgun like a club. Ben went facedown in the dirt, knocked senseless. When there was no response from the rest of the camp, Barrett held the shotgun up and fired a load of buckshot into the night sky. Then he stood unmoving while he watched the wild scramble of confusion that resulted. Cleve’s frantic fumbling for his missing weapons and the dazed reaction of Jonah reaching for his shotgun served to amuse the big lawman as they soon discovered they were helpless before him.

  He stood there, with their weapons piled at his feet, while the camp woke up to what had just taken place. Three heads appeared under the canvas sheets of the wagon as the women and boy peered out at their grim visitor. “You ladies best stay right where you are,” Barrett ordered. “This is police business.” Returning his attention to Cleve and Jonah, he cautioned them, “I’m a United States deputy marshal, so I advise you not to interfere with this arrest unless you wanna go back in chains with the prisoner.”

  His mind still reeling, Ben struggled up to his hands and knees, trying to make sense of what had just happened. Barrett watched his efforts dispassionately for a few moments before suddenly swinging the shotgun, knocking Ben to the ground again. The act caused a scream of alarm from the horrified women in the wagon. “I’m arrestin’ this man, Ben Cutler, for the murder of a deputy sheriff in Crooked Fork, Kansas,” Barrett stated.

  Mary Marple was the first to protest. She scrambled down from the wagon, disregarding Barrett’s orders to stay put. “You’re making a mistake, Marshal,” she said. “You’ve got the wrong man. If it wasn’t for him and his friend, we might have all been killed by savage Indians!”

  A wry smile parted Barrett’s lips. “Oh, I’ve got the right man, all right. There ain’t too many runnin’ around loose with a scar like that on their faces.”

  “Even if he is the right man,” Victoria said as she climbed down to join her mother, “you’ve no reason to treat him like that.” She found it almost impossible to believe Ben could be a cold-blooded murderer. The man had a gentle nature. She thought of the way he had been since joining them, and the way he was with her son. Surely there must be some mistake.

  “That’s the way I treat all murderers,” Barrett replied, then swept all of them with a warning gaze before adding, “and anybody that tries to help ’em.” He then pursed his lips and whistled two sharp notes. In a few seconds, the dark Morgan gelding trotted into the camp, its reins dragging on the ground. Victoria started to run to offer some aid to Ben, who was struggling to get to his hands and knees again. Barrett stopped her with a warning shot from his revolver, kicking up dirt a few feet in front of her. “Leave him be!” he roared, pointing the pistol directly at her. Her mother grabbed her arm and held her back, terrified that the marshal might come closer with the next shot.

  When his horse came up to him and stopped, Barrett untied a coil of rope from the saddle. “Get up from there,” he ordered. Still woozy from the blows to his head, Ben staggered to his feet to stand swaying while a trickle of blood ran down the back of his neck. “Stick out your hands,” Barrett commanded. Knowing he had little choice, Ben did as he was told and stood there on shaky legs while the marshal bound his wrists.

  Watching helplessly to this point, and getting madder by the second, Cleve took a step closer to the pile of weapons at Barrett’s feet. Barrett immediately responded. “Try it! Goddamn it, I wish you would!”

  “Don’t try anythin’, Cleve,” Ben managed to say. “No sense in gettin’ yourself killed. This son of a bitch will shoot you.”

  “Now, that’s a fact,” Barrett crowed, “and damn good advice.” He cocked an eye at Cleve and asked, “What’s your name? I might have paper on you.”

  “None of your damn business, that’s my name,” Cleve responded. “You ain’t got no paper on me, and you ought not have none on him. He shot that low-down deputy in Crooked Fork in self-defense after the deputy killed his wife and child and left him for dead.”

  Barrett gave Cleve a dismissive glance and said, “I expect that’s his story, but it was hardly self-defen
se. Cutler walked right up to the deputy while he was havin’ his supper, and shot him down without no warnin’. We don’t call that self-defense in Kansas.”

  “You ain’t even in Kansas,” Cleve retorted. “You ain’t got no jurisdiction here.”

  “I’m a U.S. marshal. I’ve got jurisdiction wherever the hell I happen to be. Now, you’d do yourself a favor if you’d just back down and keep your nose outta official business.”

  Somewhat recovered from the blows that had knocked him senseless, Ben said, “Back down, Cleve. There’s no sense for you to get mixed up in this. Looks like he’s got all the cards.”

  “That’s right,” Barrett said with a sarcastic smile. “I’ve got all the cards. Now, we’ll get the prisoner on his horse and we’ll leave you good people to enjoy the rest of your evenin’.” Guessing that it would be too much trouble to spar with Cleve, he locked his gaze on Jonah, who was still in a state of shock from the startling episode. “You!” Barrett ordered. “Fetch his horse over here. From what I’ve been told, it’ll be that buckskin yonder.”

  With no notion to defy the formidable lawman, Jonah did as he was told and brought Ben’s horse into the small clearing. Upon Barrett’s instructions, he saddled the horse, then helped Ben up in the saddle. “I’m sorry, Ben,” he muttered before he stepped back out of the way, laden with the guilt that if he had not fallen asleep, things might not have turned out this badly.

  “Don’t fret over it, Jonah,” Ben said. “Cleve will get you to Deadwood. I hope you find your son-in-law all right.”

  “Well, folks,” Barrett announced grandly, “it’s been a real pleasure meetin’ you, but I’ve got a long ride ahead of me, so I reckon we’d better get started.” He pulled a length of rope from the coil and ran it through the lever of Cleve’s Winchester, then through the buckled gun belts holding his pistol. He took the end of the rope and looped it around his saddle horn. Next he ejected all the cartridges from Ben’s rifle and put it back in the scabbard—the pistol and belt he hung on his saddle horn along with Cleve’s weapons.

  “You can’t leave us out here with no weapons,” Cleve complained.

  “I ought to,” Barrett replied, “for harborin’ an escaped prisoner.” He let that sink in before continuing. “I’ll drop ’em off yonder, by those three tallest cottonwoods. You oughta be able to find ’em when it gets light enough in the mornin’.” Having completed what he came to do, he rode out of the camp, leaving them to stare in shocked silence until he disappeared into the darkness.

  “I can’t believe we were traveling with a murderer,” Mary said, still finding it hard to think of Ben as a criminal.

  Cleve immediately spoke up in Ben’s defense. “He ain’t no murderer. He killed a deputy, but he ain’t no murderer.” He then told them how the incident occurred, as Ben had told him, and which he believed was the truth. “That deputy sheriff had left Ben for dead,” he concluded, “along with his wife and kid, burned his home to the ground. When Ben got back on his feet, he went after the deputy—anybody would have. And it ain’t right to send a man to prison for that.”

  There was a long silence after Cleve had finished talking, as Jonah and his family absorbed the tragic story of the man they had so recently embraced as a friend. Victoria’s thoughts immediately went back to the times she had seen Ben holding the silver chain. Young Caleb was the first to breach the void. “Then he didn’t really fall on a crosscut saw, did he?”

  “No,” Cleve replied. “That deputy hit him with a sawed-off sword.” There followed another long period when no one could say what to do now. “I reckon I could try to trail ’em, but there ain’t much I can do to help Ben. I doubt that marshal will make it very easy to find my guns in them trees. I’ll probably have to wait till daylight to find ’em.” He was in a quandary when it came to making the right decision. He had heard Ben tell Jonah that he would see them through to Deadwood, and Cleve felt that responsibility. He didn’t like Jonah’s chances if he left them alone and went back to try to help Ben. Then, too, he had to consider the fact that Barrett was a U.S. deputy marshal, doing his job, even if he was wrong as could be, and a son of a bitch to boot. Right or wrong, Cleve didn’t like the idea of going after a marshal.

  To enforce that concern, Jonah spoke up. “What can you do, even if you trail them? You can’t help Ben unless you shoot the deputy marshal—and you can’t do that.”

  “I know it,” Cleve said, obviously distraught, “but it don’t make me feel no better.”

  Caleb was the only member of the party who finally fell asleep that night. The others stayed awake, discussing possibilities for Ben’s salvation over and over, finding none that would solve the problem. In the end, as daylight approached, the only conclusion that could be reached was that life was not fair, and Ben was the unfortunate victim of one of fate’s unkindest plots. “Well,” Jonah finally declared, “I guess we should break camp and get started again.”

  “What about this meat we’ve got all cut in strips and ready to dry and smoke?” Mary asked. The antelope had been forgotten in all the chaos of the night before.

  “Yeah,” Cleve mused as he looked over the racks he and Ben had devised, “we’re gonna wish we had some of this meat if the bacon starts to run out.”

  “I say we should stay here and dry it,” Victoria declared. “After last night, we could all use a little more rest, anyway.” She had to admit to herself that she was a bit reluctant to move on without Ben. Maybe staying over an extra day or two, until the meat was ready, would make the departure easier. Cleve shrugged his indifference and her father and mother nodded their agreement with the suggestion. That settled, Victoria put more coffee on to boil and Cleve went to look for his firearms.

  Ben rolled with the buckskin’s even gait, his wrists tied together and bound to his saddle horn, staring monotonously at the broad back of the deputy marshal. His head ached as a result of the blows he had received, but he felt pretty sure now that nothing was broken. They had ridden late into the night, and Ben knew that Barrett was going to have to stop soon or he would tire the horses to exhaustion. Ben’s buckskin was still pacing smartly, but the Morgan Barrett rode was beginning to droop. He had plenty to think about during the long hours of the night. Without question, escape was the only option he would consider, but he was not sure if he would be given much opportunity. Barrett had far too much experience in the transport of prisoners, and he had already demonstrated his ability to control a potentially dangerous situation when he took over their entire camp with little trouble at all.

  Finally, when they came to a tiny stream that seemed to materialize from nowhere, Barrett announced that they would stop there to rest the horses. A man not accustomed to carelessness, he untied Ben’s wrists from the saddle horn and checked the knot tying his hands together. Satisfied, he backed away a couple of steps and ordered Ben to dismount. Ben grabbed the saddle horn, swung his leg over, and dropped to the ground, staggering a step because of the lack of circulation in his legs. Barrett watched him closely as he ordered him to find kindling for a fire. Now that he had his man in custody, and headed to prison, Barrett’s attitude toward him was no longer so bitterly antagonistic, seemingly replaced by one of bored indifference. There was no evidence of concern, however, for the injuries he had caused to Ben’s skull, and no effort to clean away the blood already drying on the back of his neck. When Barrett decided to catch a couple of hours of sleep to make up for riding all night, he bound Ben hand and foot, then tied him to a tree. Satisfied that his prisoner was helpless to escape, Barrett drifted off to sleep right away. With Ben, however, trussed up like a lamb for the slaughter, sleep would not come, no matter how hard he tried. It was of no concern to his captor. In fact, he had a notion that this was part of Barrett’s strategy, to keep him in a state of exhaustion to diminish thoughts of escape.

  With thoughts of Jonah, Mary, Victoria, Caleb, even Cleve, far behind him, Ben’s only concern was the opportunity to escape before reaching Lansing an
d the iron bars that would lock him away. Reverting to the indifferent frame of mind he had possessed before crossing paths with Cleve, when he had no dread of death, he was prepared to risk even the smallest opportunity, no matter the odds. With his family gone, death was better than prison. So far, however, there had been no possible break in Barrett’s routine for handling a prisoner.

  After the first night and the next morning with virtually no words from the somber lawman, other than direct commands, Ben was surprised when Barrett decided to make conversation when they stopped again to rest the horses. The spot Barrett picked was a shallow valley with a free-flowing stream down the middle. The thing that made it unusual was the mature cottonwood tree standing by the bank, the only tree in sight in any direction. “I’m damn glad you’ve got some provisions,” Barrett suddenly blurted as he searched through Ben’s saddlebags. Holding a bag of coffee beans he had just found, he turned and pointed a finger at Ben. “That’s the reason you’re gonna have somethin’ to eat on this trip. I’ll fix food for you as long as you supply it. Hell, most of the murderin’ scum I escort back ain’t got shit. Hell, I ain’t gonna feed ’em.” He cracked that thin smile Ben had already been accustomed to when Barrett was about to say something sarcastic. “But you’re gonna be fat and sassy when I get you back where you can get you some of that good prison food.”

  Thinking that the big lawman might be letting up on his intensity of purpose, Ben decided to make an attempt to engage him in further conversation. Maybe, he thought, if I get him to think I’m resigned to serve my time, he may get a little lax in his rigid routine. “Whaddaya think my chances are they’ll make me serve the full ten years?” he asked.

  “Ten years?” Barrett responded. “Is that all Judge Blake gave you for killin’ a deputy sheriff? If you had any sense, you’da just gone ahead and served the time. You stepped in a big cow pie when you ran. Hell, boy, I’ll bet they’ll double your sentence now—might even hang you.”