King of Spades (32 page)

“At last.”

Katherine slammed the door to the bedroom upstairs. Hard. Violently. The green house rang with it.

Again the slamming set him off. A frenzy of primitive rage flashed all through him. He came up out of his easy chair moaning with it. He grabbed up his gun from the table and in three bounds was up the stairs. He kicked open the bedroom door.

She had just turned up the lamp. She whirled around. “Magnus!”

Old words burst loose in him. “You're a bad woman!” He took hold of his gun with both hands and deliberately aimed it at her belly, at where that wrinkled smiling scar would be under her dress, at their coming baby. “Better that we both should die.”

“Help, help! My husband is killing me! Oh, God, God!”

He fired.

She dropped.

He stood over her and emptied the rest of his gun into her, five more shots, one of them into her good eye. “Now for sure I'm never going to get out of this.”

 

At dawn neighbor ladies came to lay out Katherine.

Later in the morning a committee of miners came to get Ransom. The committee was led by Troy Barb.

Troy Barb said, “This time you have went too far.”

Ransom handed over his gun.

“Well, I see you agree.”

Ransom said nothing.

“Well, pard, I guess it's my duty to tell you that we're gonna hold court on you at the foot of Mt. Moriah.” Troy Barb took Ransom firmly by the arm. “Come along.”

Ransom went along quietly.

A committee member said, “We boys should've held court on him the first time.”

Troy Barb said, “I thought of it personal.”

“Why didn't you talk up then?”

“Because we was partners. But now he's just went too far.”

Another committee member said, “I like the kid. Is this gonna be a kangaroo court?”

“This'll be a miners' court.” Troy Barb's moon eyes couldn't quite hold up to the committee man. “Fair and square.”

The first committee member said, “Good. Because it's high time he took the big jump, the way he's killing off people.”

They tied Ransom's hands at the wrists behind his back.

 

A green sun shone on staggered pines. The granite peaks glistened. The October sky bloomed blue. The town brook trickled. A downhill breeze touched the cheek.

The bad news spread like a great stage whisper. Miners streamed down out of the Hills. They gathered in a black mass at the foot of Mt. Moriah. Some stood on stumps. Some climbed partway up the sides of Mt. Moriah to get a better view of the proceedings. Their dust-rimmed eyes were grim. Most were armed.

Across the brook, women in long dresses also formed lines on high ground.

A dozen men worked at setting up a gallows.

Ransom stood waiting. Troy Barb's grip on his arm was tight.

Clusters and groups of men kept coming down out of the Hills. The crowd thickened and thickened. The multitude of men was like a great thunderhead gathering weight and dimension.

At last the gallows was ready. A noose hung dangling over an upright salt barrel.

Then four well-dressed men came striding down the gulch: Sumner Todd, the judge, Clifford Maule and John Clemens, the lawyers, and Carleton Ames, the newspaperman. Their black top hats stuck out above the crowd. All four wore six-shooters under their black coats. Maule had a gimpy leg and had to hurry to keep up with the others. The black crowd made way for them. The four stepped toward Ransom solemnly.

“I got 'm!” Troy Barb cried. “He came as meek as a mouse.”

Judge Todd nodded, and stood off to one side a little. Lawyer Maule glared darkly at Ransom. Newspaperman Ames watched with darting eyes.

Only John Clemens had a kind word for Ransom. “I'm sorry, son.”

Ransom's lips remained silent in his black beard.

Maule hopped up on a stump. He surveyed the grim crowd.

Silence spread through the gulch. A half-fallen pine creaked where it hung caught on another pine.

Maule lifted his right arm. “Men!” His heavy voice resounded in the gulch with gravelly effect. “Men, this is a sad day for us all. As I need not remind you.” He turned to all sides, limping as he did so. “But we must do our duty.”

Solitary crags glistened gold in the sun.

“Men, one of us has killed his wife. This is a crime in any society.” Maule stared each man in the eye. “We are still not
legally a part of the United States of America, so we cannot call on the law of the States to handle this matter. Yet law we must have in this out-of-bounds territory. If we do not behave as a law-abiding people in this place, with such natural law as we already have in our hearts, we can never expect the States to accept us in time as an equal, a sister state among sister states.”

Silence. Pines. Stones.

“There is no doubt that the eyes of the country, yes, the world, are upon us to see what we shall do in this matter.” Maule's large lips writhed. “And in particular our attitude toward our women will determine what our sister states will think of us. All men know that the eternal feminine is needed to draw men upward.” Maule's eyes seethed. “Therefore we have gathered together in a miners' court to render justice and to punish the guilty. Is this agreed?”

All the black hats nodded.

“Now in the matter as to how we shall conduct this miners' court, what is your wish?”

There were various shouts. “We got a judge here in the crowd. Let him preside. He knows the business.”

“Sumner Todd?”

“That's the one.”

Again Maule held up his hand. “Then it's agreeable to you that Sumner Todd shall serve as judge?”

There was a general shout of assent.

“Let's have a show of hands. Those in favor of Sumner Todd serving as judge raise their right hand.”

Right hands came up like flights of arrows.

“Against.”

The hands fell down.

“Carried.”

Maule turned to Sumner Todd. “Judge, now it's your show.” Maule stepped down off the stump.

Judge Todd looked slowly around. He spotted a light
spring wagon standing off to one side. “Somebody roll that democrat over here. We'll use that as the bench.”

“Good idee. Hurray for the judge.” The democrat was rolled forward.

Judge Todd climbed solemnly into the democrat and sat down on the spring seat up front. He took off his top hat and placed it carefully on the seat beside him. He had a forehead like a horse hoof. He took his gun and placed it on his top hat. “Now. As to the first order of business. We shall have to appoint a prosecutor. Anybody have any objection to Clifford Maule as prosecutor?”

There were no objections.

Judge Todd looked down with a crinkly smile as Maule, pleased, stepped up to the democrat bench. “Will the counsel for the state kindly remove his hat in respect of the law?”

There was a cheer. “Hurray for the judge. That's letting him know who's boss.”

Maule obeyed the request. The sun shone gold on his bald head.

Judge Todd pursed his mouth until his upper lip touched the point of his nose. “Who'll serve as counsel for the defense?”

John Clemens removed his hat and stepped forward. “I will, Your Honor.”

“Is that agreeable to all assembled here?”

It was.

“And who will serve as hangman?”

All eyes flicked from the judge to the condemned and back again.

“Anybody?”

Troy Barb raised his hand. “I will, if nobody else will.”

Judge Todd stared down at Troy Barb. “I understand that you're known as the best knot-maker in town.”

“I try my best.”

“It is so ordered.”

The second committee member spoke up. “What have you got against the kid, Troy?”

“Nothing. Just that he's starting to kill too many people.”

“Now as to the jury,” the judge went on. “Shall we pick twelve men good and true? Or shall we let the entire assembly serve as jury?”

There was a tangle of voices.

The judge asked for another show of hands.

Most wanted the gulch to vote on it as a whole.

“So be it.” Judge Todd looked down at Ransom. “The prisoner will now climb the salt barrel. Help him up there, you.

Ransom was helped onto the barrel.

Troy Barb climbed up beside Ransom and dropped the noose around his neck. Then he jumped down.

“Poor feller,” the second committee member murmured. “It's gonna be no breakfast forever for him.”

A cortege came from behind Ransom's green house and headed down the street toward them. In a moment there was a commotion at the far edge of the black mob.

Judge Todd sat up. “Hold on, what's that coming?”

Maule looked. “I fear that's the body of the victim, Your Honor.”

“Ah.” Judge Todd stood up. “Rather an odd time to be holding a funeral. But since the fact is a fact, we'll take advantage of it.” He raised his voice. “Hey you, out there. Bring the body to the bench.”

The cortege hesitated; then pushed into the crowd.

“Set it down in front right there so that it may be part of the evidence. Corpus delicti.”

The pine coffin was set on a couple of stumps for all to see. Although cut but an hour before, the boards of the coffin were already sweating rosin.

“Open the coffin,” Judge Todd ordered.

“But judge,” one of the pallbearers protested, “she ain't fit to be seen.”

“Why not?”

“She's all shot up.”

“All the more reason to put the body on view.”

“Well, if you say so.”

The coffin was opened. Katherine lay eyeless under the sun.

Ransom closed his eyes.

Judge Todd nodded down at Maule. “You may begin for the state, counsel.”

Maule reascended his stump. He faced the crowd. “Friends. Fellow miners. The fate of a fellow miner is in your hands. Listen carefully to the evidence and the pleadings. Then consult your heart and your conscience and render justice according.” Maule next turned to Ransom. “I too am sorry that it had to come to this.” Maule paused for emphasis. “But!” Maule made a pass over his bald head with his hand. “You, Earl Ransom, you finally went too far!” Maule took a deep breath. “Yes, you did the community a favor, in a way, when you got rid of both Bullneck Bill and Curly Griffin for us. We all agree that they were no good to anyone any more and that they deserved killing.” Maule paused for another big breath. “But when you killed a wife and possible mother”—Maule tolled his head—“no, no, that was going too far. No matter what the cause may have been to make you do it, that was going too far.”

A far voice hallooed down the gulch. “Here comes the stage, gents!”

Everybody turned to look.

A plume of dust appeared at the far turn of the main dugway.

PART FOUR

Magnus King

1

Magnus rode up on the boot beside the driver.

As the stagecoach rounded the last curve above Dead-wood, Swifty the driver let the ribbons out some and cracked his long whip just once. The six bay horses, already scenting fresh grass below, surged into their collars like cyclones.

Swifty allowed himself a slow weathered smile. “I always likes to give my horses their head on this last stretch.” The smile crinkled all the way back up under his ears. “It's a good way to jolt the cricks outof your back. My passengers always appreciates it.

”Magnus didn't smile much. He had a bad back. It was the
main reason why he'd asked for a seat up on the boot. He wanted to know when the bumps were coming.

The clicking yellow wheels began to spin faster and faster, until they became the color of gold. Twenty-four hoofs beat a swiftly increasing snare-drum cadence on the pocked road.

Soon the wind of their going tugged at Magnus' black hat. His white beard flattened out against his cheeks, away from his lips. He braced himself. Dust rose above the boot. He had to slit his eyes against the exploding tan plumes. The worst dust always came right after they'd hit a puffhole.

They whirled past the first log cabin on the outskirts of Deadwood.

Then Magnus spotted a thick black crowd of people at the foot of a steep hill. He sat up. That accounted for the deserted look higher up the gulch.

He next spotted the gallows. Ah, a necktie party. “Let's hope that's not my boy, after all the hunting I've done for him.”

Swifty spotted the hanging too. “Another poor bastard born to be hung,” he called over the rattle of their going.

Iron knuckles of rock protruded into Main Street. Three dogs challenged the lead team.

Swifty, manipulating the lines, added, “Well, for his sake, let's hope the drop is deep and the rope tender.”

The Franklin Hotel entrance hove up ahead.

Swifty hauled up on the ribbons and let go with a great “Whoa!” Knots of muscles as big as potatoes popped out on his forearms. He kicked the brakes on with his free foot.

The red stagecoach squealed to a stop precisely in front of the hotel and directly across from the Pillbox Drug Company.

For a fleeting second all the black figures below swiveled white faces toward the stagecoach; then, all seeming to blink at once, turned back to the business at hand.

“Hello,” Swifty said, “nobody here to take the horses. That hanging down there has got down to where somebody's
gonna need religion real soon.” Swifty stared at the black mob a moment longer, then thrust the reins in Magnus' hands. “Here, hold these while I go tie the lead team to a hitching post.” Swifty more fell than jumped to the ground.

A cowboy jumped out of the coach first. He let down the steps, then helped a woman and two children to the ground. The woman took one look at the gallows and then hurried the children into the hotel. The cowboy stopped to roll himself a cigarette, lit up casually, and then, with a swift look up at the blue October sky, bowlegged toward the black crowd.

Swifty came striding back. “You can tie the ribbons on the butt of the whip there, Doc, if you wanna.”

Magnus did as instructed, and then climbed down.

Swifty looked down at the crowd again. “Bet there's a woman at the bottom of that.”

Magnus nodded. “Some poor fellow's got over onto somebody else's range.” Magnus' voice was rough and rusty. To himself Magnus thought: “By the Lord, it better not be the son I'm looking for.”

“Same difference.” Swifty also threw a quick look up at the October sky. “Let's amble over and get in on the drop at least.”

“Lead on.”

They followed the cowboy into the crowd.

Magnus walked with slim courtly grace. He combed his bush of a white beard with a quick lightly touching whip of his fingertips, almost absent-mindedly. His white hair made him stick out in the crowd. He was like a white ram in a drove of black sheep.

Magnus climbed a pine stump for a better look at the young man up on the salt barrel. Magnus winced to see that the noose was already around the young man's neck.

After a long hard look, Magnus heaved a sigh of relief. “No, thank the Lord, that's not my boy Roddy. Too old. Roddy would have been twenty this year. While this fellow
is at least twenty-five.” Magnus' black eyes crinkled in memory. “And this fellow is too tall. Roddy would never have got to be this big. No, thank God, it's not Roddy.”

Again Magnus casually touched a hand to his beard. Magnus' beard wasn't quite smooth, suggesting that the skin beneath was rough, like deep meadow grass barely covering old pocket-gopher mounds.

The judge was speaking from his perch on the democrat. “Just a moment, counsel. I think at this point the bench should make it perfectly clear that while this may be a miners' court, that does not make it any less a court of democratic law.” The judge had eyes like two curls of cigar ash. “I want it clearly understood right here and now that this man will have a fair trial. If you the jury give him this and find him not guilty, he goes scot-free. Even if I have to defend him myself.” The judge touched a gun lying on his top hat. “But if, after a fair trial, you find him guilty, he shall hang, so help me God, and I'll be the first to help kick the barrel out from under him. If necessary.” The judge's teeth came together for a second like the jaws of a vise. “But until you find him not guilty, or guilty, the man who touches a hair on his head will have to do so over my dead body.” The judge touched his black gun again. “There shall be true buckskin justice here in Deadwood today.”

A voice nearby said, “Judge Todd is a swell stiff, ain't he? It's good to know we got us a real lawman running this show.”

Another voice said, “Oh, I don't know. I'm pretty much against courts myself.”

The first voice said, “You don't believe in the law?”

The second voice said, “Sure I believe in the law. It's just that I'm plumb adverse to courts.”

“But that's blasphemy, man.”

“Oh, no it ain't. And I'll tell you why it ain't. It's because of them law Wolves that gets into 'em. When them law wolves can't get you through a gate they've fixed up specia
to catch you, they puts up another fence and lays for you cross lots.”

Judge Todd nodded down at a baldheaded man. “You may continue your opening statement for the state, Mr. Maule.”

Maule went on from his stump. “Yes, you Earl Ransom, you finally went too far. Oh, we admit our indebtedness to you, that besides getting rid of two of our bad men for us, you also found our true mother lode for us. But this”— Maule pointed a long arm at an open coffin—“this murder of your own sweet wife in a crime of passion … no!”

A dead woman in a coffin? Magnus rose on his toes to see if he could catch a glimpse of her. But from his vantage point he couldn't quite manage it. All he could see of her was the white point of her nose.

“Told you there was a woman at the bottom of it,” Swifty said.

Maule limped about where he stood. “It's not that the state is in a black passion for revenge. No. It's more that the law simply cannot tolerate the philosophy that says, ‘Pistols for two and whiskey for one.'And of course the law certainly cannot tolerate the killing of a woman by a crybaby lover. This is real life and not life as lived by a character in a red-cover novelette!”

“Let's hang him and get it over with,” a hard-looking stiff called from the rear. “We've got more important things to do than stand around all day listening to you, Mr. Maule.”

“Don't worry,” another stiff cried, “our killer is going to get it right straight along.”

Judge Todd glared in the direction of the interruption. The democrat squeaked as he shifted positions.

Maule went on. “Human society has learned that the only preventative of crime is a swift and terrible retribution. To cure the killer in us, the only prescription is a stout cord and a good drop. All men finally learn that there is no place on earth so desolate and remote but what the vengeance of mankind will find him out. We, even here in this off-limits
territory, simply cannot tolerate the notion that the crook, the robber, the assassin, the blood-stained murderer are nature's favorites.”

Magnus grimaced to himself. Ha. That was where the fellow was clearly wrong. The robber and the murderer once were nature's favorites. In fact it could be argued that the robber and the murderer were thoroughly bred into mankind. “And that part of us, the Old Lizard, now lives in a paralyzed state in all of us. And if it wouldn't be for pain, we'd still worship blood stained winners.”

Swifty spoke up, soberly, more to himself than to Magnus. “It is pitiful to see such a fine fellow, a fellow Mother Nature surely intended to be a hero, about to die like a dog with the rabies.”

Words continued to issue relentlessly from Maule's wide mouth. “Earl Ransom, the state will seek to prove that you murdered your wife, that you did so most foully, that you did so most cruelly. Women are women, yes, that we all know. But we also know that for the sake of the perpetuation of the race, we've got to learn to live with them just as they are. Bless 'em, the women just can't help it if their hearts be of quicksand. Yet just because they are fickle by nature, that doesn't mean we men have the right to kill our women if they stray a little from the straight and narrow. Ha, actually, as we probably all know, most times it is just as often the fault of the man. It is he who leads her astray. It is he who is mostly the blackhearted monster, not she.”

Magnus' black eyes turned somber. “Well now, here our good counsel has got a point. I'll go along with some of that.”

Maule continued. “Because, truth to tell, in the man the sin of sex is as pernicious as the seed of the bull thistle, seemingly taking root sometimes even in midair.”

A gruff voice behind Magnus muttered, “All we seem to get out of this Maule fellow is a lot of wind pudding.”

A second heavy voice agreed. “That baldheaded fellow surely can keep himself in a fume for along time.”

Tears appeared in Maule's darting eyes. “The annals of crime have no record of a murder which more fully awakens the deepest execrations in the human heart than the murder of a sweet wife by a husband gone berserk. And especially so when this husband has killed a wife who was soon to bear him his firstborn. Lord God in heaven!” Maule wept audibly. “At the same time the annals of crime have no record of such a murder in which the guilty party was of such personable and likable nature. Look at him. Doesn't he look like a fine young man? A god among men, in fact? Friends, therefore it is that while my soul is revolted by what he did, at the same time it also is dissolved in pity for him. For this dark, lost, self-ruined life.” Maule wept aloud some more. “Ah, God, look at this ruin of a man. Whom we must nevertheless hang by the neck until dead.”

The young man up on the salt barrel with the knotted rope around his neck waited motionless.

Magnus' heart went out to the young man. Magnus thought: “Sure is a nice big-looking young fellow all right. Fine tower of a back. Handsome black beard and head of hair. A pity. A pity that so fine a stud of a man should have to die. With no offspring. What a waste.”

Maule limped as he gyrated on his stump. “Your Honor, the state calls up as its first witness the defendant, Earl Ransom.”

Judge Todd sat up. “Hold on here a minute. You have no other witness, counsel?”

“None, Your Honor.”

“The defendant need not testify against himself, you know. Unless he agrees.”

“That is understood, Your Honor. But he has already freely confessed.”

Judge Todd peered across at Ransom. “You have no objection to testifying against yourself as a witness for the state?”

Instead of answering, Ransom tried to make room for his bearded chin inside the prickly noose.

“Did you understand the question, prisoner?”

Ransom looked up at the high hills.

Judge Todd sat very stiff. “Now we're not going to have it that you're not going to talk. That's contempt of court.”

A red-bearded miner cried, “Aw, hell, judge, just give him a snort of red whiskey and swing him off.”

The spring seat quivered under the judge. “You there, you with the red-hot beard, you shut up.” Then to Ransom, the judge said, “Speak up, son. This is your chance.”

A milky film slowly spread over Ransom's green eyes. “I have it coming.”

“What?” Embers came alive in the judge's gray-ash eyes.

“I have it coming.”

“You mean, you will be a witness for the state then?”

“If that's what you want.”

“You're sure now that this is what you're willing to do?” The democrat rolled under the judge's motions.

“Yes.”

“You're sure now?”