Deadly Road to Yuma (10 page)

“That of well-educated men, you mean?” Sam asked.

“No, I figure His Honor there savvies Cheyenne, too.” Matt chuckled. “Of course I meant he went to college, too.”

“You’re not as uneducated as you like to make out, Bodine.”

“Maybe not, but you’d never catch me at some faculty tea party neither.”

“Not that you’d ever be invited to such a gathering.”

“Thank the Good Lord for that.”

They continued bantering as they rode along, but that didn’t keep them from watching the landscape around them with keen, alert eyes. They weren’t out of danger yet, and they knew it.

In fact, the threat of Joshua Shade still hung over Arizona Territory, and it would continue to do so…

Until Shade himself dangled at the end of a hang-rope.

It was just about the noon hour when Matt and Sam rode back into Arrowhead behind Judge Stanfield’s buggy. Matt eased his horse up alongside the vehicle and pointed out the squat, stone jail.

“That’s where Shade is,” he said.

“I’ll see Shade soon enough,” Stanfield said. “Where’s the courthouse?”

“Well, there’s not one,” Sam said from the other side of the buggy. “Sheriff Flagg was figuring that you’d hold court in the town hall, which is right down yonder.”

He pointed out that building.

“All right, let’s go have a look,” Stanfield said. “I’ll see if it’s suitable.”

As they drew up in front of the town hall, the commotion that was growing in the street because of the judge’s arrival—and the dead men on the horses being led by Matt and Sam—brought Flagg hurrying from the jail.

“Howdy, Judge,” he said as Stanfield was looping the reins around the buggy’s brake lever. “I’m Sheriff Cyrus Flagg. I don’t think we’ve met.”

“No, I’ve only recently been assigned to this circuit,” Stanfield said. He climbed down from the vehicle and shook hands with the sheriff. “Let’s have a look inside, shall we?”

Flagg hung back as Stanfield strode on into the building. He waved a pudgy hand at the corpses and asked Matt and Sam in a low voice, “What the hell happened? Are those some o’ Shade’s men?”

“Nope,” Matt replied. “Just some young saddle tramps who decided to turn owlhoot.”

“It was an unfortunate decision,” Sam added. “For them.”

“They tried to hold up the judge just as you boys came along and met him?” Flagg guessed.

“That’s right.”

Flagg shook his head. “Trouble’s like a bunch o’ rocks rollin’ downhill. Once it starts, it just keeps pickin’ up steam.”

He went on into the town hall after Judge Stanfield, and Matt and Sam took the bodies to Cassius Doolittle’s undertaking parlor. The undertaker, a round-faced man with thinning brown hair and a jolly smile, said, “My business has sure increased since you fellas hit town.”

“It’s not our doing,” Matt said. “Well, I guess in a way it is…but we haven’t gone looking for any of this trouble.”

“Actually, we did,” Sam said. “Remember how we stuck our heads out of those windows in the hotel when we heard something odd on the roof?”

“Well, yeah, but it’s a good thing we did.”

“No doubt about that,” Doolittle agreed. “The citizens of Arrowhead are lucky to have you two around right now.”

They stabled their horses and returned to the town hall just as Flagg and Judge Stanfield were emerging from the building. Stanfield declared that the hall would be satisfactory for the trial.

“We’ll begin the proceedings at one o’clock,” he said. “Is that all right with you, Sheriff?”

“Whenever you want to commence tryin’ that skunk is fine with me, Your Honor,” Flagg replied. “The sooner he’s convicted and out of my jail, the better.”

Stanfield frowned. “There’s such a thing as the presumption of innocence in this country, you know.”

“Well, no offense, Your Honor, but if you’d been here the night Shade and his bunch raided the town and saw all the suffering they caused, you wouldn’t presume anything except that he’s a low-down rattlesnake in human form.”

Stanfield grunted, but didn’t say anything else except, “I’d also like to clean up a bit, if someone will point me toward the hotel.”

“Right down here, Your Honor,” Sam said. “Matt and I will escort you.”

“Why would I need an escort here in town? Surely I’m in no danger here.”

“You wouldn’t think so,” Flagg said, “but there are a heap of folks in town today because word’s got around about the trial. Some of ’em are strangers to me, and we can’t be sure that none of ’em are part of Shade’s gang.”

A worried look crossed Stanfield’s face, as if he hadn’t considered that possibility. He nodded and said, “Very well. In that case, I’d be glad for you and Mr. Bodine to accompany me, Mr. Two Wolves.”

They started toward the hotel, with Matt and Sam being as watchful here on the main street of Arrowhead as they had been out on the trail. In a situation this volatile, there was no telling when or where danger could strike, so the blood brothers wanted to be ready in case it did.

Both of them noticed the weary-looking man on horseback plodding slowly down the street, but he wasn’t even armed so they didn’t pay that much attention to him. From the looks of him, he was no threat at all.

Ike Winslow saw the two men striding along the street, flanking a distinguished-looking gent with a beard, and wondered if they were Matt Bodine and Sam Two Wolves. The outlaw called Garth had told him about Bodine and Two Wolves. They were gunfighters who had aligned themselves with the townspeople and were helping to bring Joshua Shade to justice.

From what Ike had seen of Shade’s gang, the man probably deserved hanging. Anyone who could lead such a group of brutal hardcases had to be even worse himself.

A shudder went through Ike as he thought about his wife Maggie and son Caleb being in the hands of those varmints right this minute. All he could do to help them was follow the orders Garth had given him and hope to heaven that they weren’t being mistreated.

Ike had never felt more helpless in his life than when that bandit Gonzalez had charged up out of an arroyo and stuck a gun in his face. He hadn’t even had time to reach for the old single-shot rifle behind the wagon seat. Gonzalez had ordered Maggie to take it out and cast it aside, then forced Ike to drive at gunpoint toward the place where all the other outlaws were gathered.

His fear had grown even stronger as he saw those rough, ruthless men crowding in around the wagon and leering at Maggie. Working on the farm they had lost back in Ohio had toughened Ike’s muscles, but even so, he knew he was no match for even one of those men, let alone twenty-five or thirty of them. They could do whatever they wanted to and he couldn’t stop them.

They hadn’t molested Maggie while he was still there, however, and so he clung to a shred of hope that they would leave her alone if he did as he was told. They had given him a horse, told him to ride on into Arrowhead as if he were just a saddle tramp.

Then, when he had found out what the situation was with their boss, Joshua Shade, he was to drift out of town again, making sure that no one noticed him leaving. Garth had promised that as soon as he returned, they would let him and Maggie and Caleb go on their way.

Ike didn’t really believe him, but he had to hope that Garth was telling the truth.

What else could he do?

If things were similar here to the way they were back in Ohio, the best place in town to hear all the gossip would be one of the saloons. He reined the horse to a halt in front of the biggest one he saw, a place called the Ten Grand. With his pulse pounding in his head, he dismounted, looped the reins around the hitch rail, and went inside.

The saloon was crowded, with men lining the bar and occupying most of the tables. Young women with painted faces and gaudy, low-cut dresses circulated among them, delivering drinks and bawdy comments. Laughter and loud conversation filled the room.

Ike paused just inside the batwings and took a deep breath of the boozy air that was also scented with sawdust, tobacco, and human sweat. He steeled himself and made his way to the bar, finding a place among the men crowded there.

He ordered a beer from the jolly-looking bartender who greeted him. “Town’s boomin’ today, looks like,” he said as the bartender placed a foaming mug in front of him.

“Well, of course it is,” the man replied with a grin. “Joshua Shade’s going on trial today. This is the biggest day in Arrowhead’s history, my friend.”

“Joshua Shade?”

The bartender’s grin disappeared and was replaced with a frown. “You never heard of Joshua Shade? He’s the worst outlaw in these parts. The worst in the whole territory.”

Ike realized he might have made a mistake by pretending ignorance of Shade. He tried to correct it by saying, “I’ve, uh, been up in Colorado for a while. Just rode down this way to look for work.”

The bartender’s forehead smoothed as he nodded. “In that case, I reckon it was just luck that brought you here on the big day, friend. Stick around for the festivities.”

“Festivities? Is this fella Shade gonna be hanged after the trial?”

Garth and the other outlaws had known that Shade was going to be put on trial, and the crowds gathering in town made them suspect that today was the day. Ike had picked up that much from listening to them talk with each other. They had wanted Ike to confirm that, though, along with finding out when the hanging that was bound to follow the trial would take place.

“Well, you’re assuming that he’s gonna be found guilty.” The bartender chuckled. “Which, of course, he is. But I don’t think the hangin’s gonna be here. There’s talk that Shade will be taken somewhere else for the sentence to be carried out. But we’ll be celebrating anyway, let me tell you, just knowing that he’s gonna get what’s comin’ to him.”

That was news to Ike, so it would be to Garth and the other outlaws, too. And probably welcome news, because it would mean they would have more time and opportunity to rescue Shade before his neck was stretched. Ike was certain that was what they planned to do, even though they hadn’t said as much while he was around.

To be sure what was going to happen, he would have to stay in town longer. If he went back now, he couldn’t tell the outlaws anything that they didn’t already suspect. So even though he hated the idea of leaving Maggie and Caleb alone with those bastards any longer than he had to, he didn’t have much choice.

“Anything else I can do for you?” the bartender asked. He had other customers along the hardwood demanding attention.

Ike shook his head and lifted his mug of beer. “No, thanks, I’m fine,” he said.

It was probably the biggest lie he had ever told in his life.

Matt and Sam came into the sheriff’s office and nodded to Randy Johnson, who had been left in charge at the jail.

“We’re supposed to take Shade over to the town hall for the trial,” Matt said.

Johnson nodded as he stood and picked up the shotgun that lay on the desk in front of him. “We’ll go along with you,” he said, referring to himself and the other two guards who were posted just outside the building.

Matt got the keys from the nail on the wall, unlocked the cell block door, and then swung the door open. Shade was at it again, ranting and raving inside the cell.

His voice was hoarse and not as strong as it had been when he was first locked up. He had slept some during his incarceration, but not much. Nor had he eaten all that well. He had to be getting a little weaker by now.

That was all right, Matt thought. Shade was less likely to cause trouble that way.

With their rifles at the ready, Matt and Sam went into the corridor between the cells. Johnson stood just outside the door with the shotgun in his hands.

Matt unlocked the door of Shade’s cell and stepped back quickly, leveling the Winchester at the door. “Come on out of there, Shade,” he called.

Shade kept talking. He wasn’t praying now. Instead what came out of his mouth was the vilest profanity as he heaped curses on the whole town and everyone in it. Matt reached out with the rifle and used its barrel to shove the door open.

“Come on out,” he said again, “or we’ll have to come in and get you. And we won’t be gentle about it.”

Shade spewed more obscenities. He seemed to have forgotten all about his claims of being a man of God. If he ever really had been, those days were far behind him now.

He came toward the door, raising his arms so that his clawlike hands were extended toward Matt and Sam, who kept their rifles trained on him. Shade’s long hair was tangled and matted, as if he had been running his fingers through it constantly all the time he had been locked up in there. His eyes seemed to be sunken even deeper in their sockets, and they blazed with an unholy fire.

Shade’s steps were unsteady as he emerged from the cell. Matt didn’t trust that the outlaw was really as weak and shaky as he appeared to be, though. Shade could be pretending, hoping to catch them off guard.

“Randy,” he said to Johnson, “get those shackles and leg irons Sheriff Flagg has in the cabinet.”

At the mention of the restraints, Shade’s head jerked up. He threw himself at Matt with a speed and ferocity that he hadn’t seemed capable of a second earlier.

The blood brothers were expecting that, though. In fact, Matt had spoken in the hope of goading Shade into revealing his true colors.

Before Shade could reach Matt, the barrel of Sam’s rifle came down on his head with a solid thud. Shade stumbled and went to his knees. Matt took a quick step to the side and planted a booted foot in the middle of Shade’s back, driving him facedown onto the stone floor.

He kept that foot there while he and Sam each grabbed one of Shade’s arms and forced them over his head. Johnson rushed in and snapped the shackles into place around Shade’s wrists. Once those heavy cuffs with their six-inch length of chain between them were secured, Johnson took the pair of leg irons that was draped over his shoulder and fastened them around Shade’s ankles.

The blow to the head had stunned Shade enough so that he was quiet while the restraints were being put on him. His senses came back to him, though, and he started cursing again as Matt and Sam each grasped an arm and lifted him to his feet. The outlaw was slender enough so that the blood brothers were able to handle him without much trouble.

“You reckon we’d better gag him before we take him out?” Matt asked Sam.

“It might be a good idea,” Sam said. “Otherwise, the ladies out there are going to hear things that they don’t have any business hearing.”

They took off their bandannas. Matt wadded his into a ball and shoved it into Shade’s mouth, jerking his hand back as the outlaw tried to bite his fingers. Sam used his bandanna to tie Matt’s into place.

“We’ll have to buy new ones,” Matt commented. “I don’t want that bandanna back after it’s been in the mouth of a hydrophobia skunk like Shade.”

“Ask over at the general store,” Johnson suggested. “I’ll bet the owner would replace ’em free of charge after everything you fellas have done to help the town.”

With Shade gagged, shackled, and in leg irons, Matt and Sam led him out of the jail. When they reached the street, Shade quit cooperating, and they had to drag him toward the town hall, where his trial would take place. Johnson and the other deputies surrounded them, shotguns held at the ready.

A hush fell over the crowd in the street as Matt, Sam, and the other men emerged from the jail with their prisoner. Folks stared wide-eyed at the notorious bandit leader, their expressions a mixture of curiosity, anger, and nervousness. Joshua Shade was probably the most hated man in the territory, as well as the most feared.

People stood aside to create a lane through which Matt and Sam dragged Shade. He grunted, but couldn’t force any coherent words past the gag, and his struggles didn’t avail him anything against the strong grip that the blood brothers had on him. They reached the town hall, forced him up the steps and inside the building.

The jury had already been agreed on by the lawyers, and the twelve men were seated in a row of chairs against the wall. All the other chairs were full already except for one at a table up front.

Matt and Sam recognized the elderly, white-bearded man sitting at the table as Colonel J.B. Wilmont, who was going to handle Shade’s defense. At another table sat Mayor Wiley and the town prosecutor, a slender, fair-haired man named Finch.

Sheriff Flagg was waiting beside the empty chair at the defense table. He nodded to Matt and Sam as they manhandled Shade up to the table.

“No need to sit him down yet,” the sheriff told them. “Just hang on to him for a minute, if you would.”

Flagg turned and shouted over the talking that filled the room, “Everybody hush up! All rise for the Honorable Julius Stanfield!”

As the spectators came to their feet, Stanfield emerged from a door in the back of the room and walked to the table that would serve as his bench. He carried his gavel with him. He took off his hat and placed it on the table, then banged the gavel.

“Be seated. This court will come to order.”

Matt and Sam each put a hand on Shade’s shoulder and forced him down into the empty chair. As soon as they let go of him, though, he bolted up again, grunting and thrashing and staring in pop-eyed hate toward the judge.

Stanfield banged the gavel down on the table several times and said, “Sheriff, take whatever steps are necessary to restrain the prisoner so that we can have order and decorum in this court!”

“Yes, Your Honor.” Flagg turned to Johnson. “Randy, go get a rope!”

“No need.” The voice came from Stan Hightower, who was in the front row of the spectators. “There’s a lariat on my saddle, and my horse is right outside. I’ll fetch it.”

Flagg nodded for the rancher to go ahead. Hightower left the town hall, and returned a moment later with a coiled reata of braided horsehair. He handed it to Flagg, who wrapped the rope around Joshua Shade as Matt and Sam forced him back down into the chair.

When that was done, Judge Stanfield frowned at Shade and declared, “I dislike being forced to these measures, sir. It’s undignified, and I don’t like such things in my courtroom. But you’ve forced us to this point.” He whacked the gavel on the table again. “Counsel is ready to proceed?”

Finch got to his feet. “The prosecution is ready, Your Honor.”

Wearily, Colonel Wilmont rose. He had flinched away from Shade as the prisoner was being secured, and it was obvious he didn’t like the job he had been handed. Matt would have been willing to bet that Wilmont’s belief in and devotion to the legal system was the only reason he had let himself be dragged into representing Shade.

“Counsel for the defense is ready, Your Honor,” Wilmont said.

Stanfield nodded. “I’ll listen to opening statements, if either side cares to make one. Mr. Finch?”

“Yes, Your Honor.” Finch launched into a speech that lasted several minutes, all of it devoted to declaring what a vicious, bloody-handed owlhoot Joshua Shade was. He wasn’t saying anything that everyone in the courtroom didn’t already know, but that didn’t stop him from saying it anyway.

When Finch was done, Colonel Wilmont got up again and said, “The defense has no opening statement, Your Honor.”

Stanfield nodded. “Very well. Mr. Finch, call your first witness.”

“I call Sheriff Cyrus Flagg, Your Honor.”

Flagg took the witness stand—which was a ladder-back chair at the end of the table where Judge Stanfield sat—and told what he knew about the events of the night when Shade and his gang had raided Arrowhead. Colonel Wilmont had no questions for him.

Following Flagg’s testimony, Finch called half a dozen other leading citizens, all of whom had witnessed the atrocities committed by Shade’s men. Even though all the spectators knew what had happened, they listened in rapt attention as that violent night was recreated in the words of the witnesses.

It was all a little boring to Matt, who had never been long on patience to start with. Finally, Finch called Matt himself to the stand to testify about how he and Sam had discovered one of Shade’s men on the hotel roof after the outlaw had killed Charlie Cornwell, the lookout.

“You and Mr. Two Wolves were still on the roof of the hotel when the rest of the bandits attacked the town?” Finch asked.

Matt nodded, feeling a little ill at ease with the eyes of everyone in the room on him. “Yes, sir, that’s right.”

“In your own words, tell us about the battle that followed.”

Matt wondered briefly whose words he would use, if not his own, but he didn’t voice that thought. Instead, he did as Finch asked and described the parts he and Sam had played in the defense of the settlement.

After Finch thanked Matt and Wilmont said he had no questions for the witness, Stanfield told Matt to step down. Finch said, “I could spent the rest of the day and all day tomorrow calling witnesses who would tell the same story, Your Honor, and I see no point in that. The prosecution rests, having proven its case.”

“That will be up to the jury to decide, Counsel,” Stanfield said with a frown.

This was a waste of time, Matt thought. Everybody knew Shade was guilty. Everybody knew he deserved to be hanged. They were just going through the motions.

Stanfield was determined to do everything legal and proper, though. The judge turned to Wilmont and said, “Colonel, you may call your first witness.”

Shaking his head with its mane of white hair, Wilmont rose to his feet and said, “The defense has no witnesses, Your Honor.”

Stanfield leaned forward sharply, his frown deepening. “Colonel, as an attorney, I’m sure you need no reminder that your client has a right to the best possible defense you can give him, regardless of the circumstances or your own personal feelings about the case. You have asked no questions of the prosecution’s witnesses, and now you say you intend to call no witnesses of your own?”

“That is correct, Your Honor.” Wilmont stood straight, his shoulders square. “I cannot present witnesses to call the facts of the case into question, because they are so clear-cut and because the testimony of the prosecution’s witnesses cannot be refuted. Therefore, our defense will consist solely of my closing statement.”

“Your client won’t even testify on his own behalf?”

Wilmont shook his head. “I deem it inadvisable, Your Honor, considering the inflammatory statements he’s been known to make. I fear he would simply prejudice his own case that much more.”

“Very well,” Stanfield said, although it was clear that he didn’t like this unorthodox course of action from the defense. “Does the defense rest?”

“It does, Your Honor.”

Stanfield looked at Finch. “I’ll hear closing statements.”

There wasn’t much Finch could say other than what had already been said. He repeated what a varmint Joshua Shade was, although in more high-flown language, and sat down. Wilmont rose again.

The elderly lawyer clasped his hands behind his back and gazed at the jury. “Gentlemen, take a good look at my client. He’s wearing shackles and leg irons, and he’s been gagged because otherwise he would have subjected this courtroom to a stream of profanity and obscenity and threats the likes of which none of us need to hear. We all know what he’s done, the deaths he’s been responsible for, the deaths he has carried out with his own hands, the suffering he has inflicted on the citizens of this territory. I deny none of that. But I would have you ask yourselves a question…Why? Why has Joshua Shade done these things?”

One of the spectators in the back of the room called out, “Because he’s loco!”

Laughter burst from the crowd.

Wilmont turned as Stanfield hammered for order. “That is exactly correct!” Wilmont said, raising his voice to be heard over the clamor. “He’s as crazy as an animal with a belly full of locoweed! You wouldn’t hold an animal responsible for its actions if that happened! Neither should you hold Joshua Shade responsible for his. He should be locked up someplace where he can’t hurt anyone else, not executed!”