Few though the words were, their scrawl took up most of the sheet.
Longarm could get most of it easily enough. The letter—and it was not signed—purported to come from someone who claimed to have seen Windy Williams alive within two days of his mailing the letter. Whenever that might have been. Certainly, though, it was after Williams’s body was discovered or the incident would not have been deemed noteworthy.
Windy Williams. Alive. “Tell A.T.” It took Longarm a moment to work that out. Then he recalled that Sheriff Dillmore went by the initials A.T. Tell A.T. Tell the sheriff. Windy Williams was alive and therefore Gary Lee Bell could not have murdered him, should not hang by the neck until dead come the dawning Monday.
“Where’d you get this, Maddy?”
“I … is that important?”
He gave her a hard look. And waited for her to answer.
“Somebody left it at my house. Inside, on the table. I was out … I don’t remember where, down inside the mine probably looking for a little high-grade I could turn into cash to pay Tyler with …”
“Excuse me, that’s twice you’ve mentioned somebody named Tyler. Who is he?”
“Our lawyer. Tyler Overton. I owe him … I don’t know how I will ever be able to pay him all of it. If I ever can.”
“Sorry for the interruption. You were telling me about how you came by this letter.”
“Yes. Like I said, I was out of the house. When I came in, the letter was lying on the table. I never saw who left it there. I suppose it was misdirected somehow and eventually someone realized where it was supposed to go and just … brought it by as a kindness. Something like that.”
“But you didn’t get it from the postmaster here like you normally would.”
“No. In fact I asked afterward if it had come to somebody else through the regular mail. He said he didn’t remember seeing it before. Not that that necessarily means anything.”
“Why’d you ask him about it to begin with if you didn’t think it was important?”
“Tyler said I should. He thought it could be important, I think.”
Longarm grunted. Tyler was right. “And this was how long ago?” he asked.
“Last Thursday, I think.” She paused, reflected, and then nodded firmly. “Yes, it was definitely on Thursday. I came into town Friday to let Tyler see the letter, but he was away. I saw him Saturday morning. That’s when he told me to take the letter to Mr. Burnette, and we did. Tyler wanted to know as much as he could before he went down to Cheyenne to ask for the stay of execution. He went—I forget if it was Sunday or Monday that he left, Sunday I think—but he told me he wasn’t really very hopeful. He felt he had to try, but he didn’t think the letter would do much good. It didn’t, of course. He gave it back to me this afternoon. He came back on the same stage you did, actually. That was why I was in town today, to see Tyler and see if he had good news for me.”
“So he’s already taken the letter to Cheyenne and showed it to whoever needed t’ see it?”
Maddy nodded. She sighed and looked off into a far corner of the small room, her thoughts and her gaze quite obviously going far beyond these confining walls. “Tyler said the courts wouldn’t consider this to be evidence. Not without a signature or—I forget what he called it—something to back up what it says.” She turned to look at Longarm. Her eyes were huge and moist, pleading. “You can make them listen, Custis. I know you can.”
“Not t’ this, I can’t. Your lawyer is right in what he told you about that. This paper here isn’t anything close t’ being the sort o’ evidence that a court of law would need. And believe me, Maddy, it takes a heap o’ proving before any court will back up an’ reverse the decision of another. In order for this note t’ do any good for your husband, Maddy, the court would pretty much have t’ see your pa himself. Or at the very least see real proof that he’s still alive. Not some note from somebody claiming to’ve seen Windy but Windy himself. Why, even if this letter is true— an’ you can understand how anybody much less a judge would be skeptical when it’s the condemned man’s wife that claims to’ve found such a proof—but even if it’s true, Maddy, the court would have t’ think it could be a case o’ simple mistaken identity. Just like what brought me here t’ Talking Water now. We got a tip from a fella who honestly believed he’d seen a wanted man. Turned out to be somebody unlucky enough to look a whole lot like this murderer but innocent as could be. Well, this could be that same sorta deal. So no, I can’t imagine a court agreeing to block an execution on the basis o’ this here letter. I’m sorry, Maddy, but the only way a court or the governor is likely t’ believe Gary Bell didn’t kill your pa would be for somebody to produce your pa for them alive an’ well.”
“Then that is what you will have to do, Custis. Isn’t it?”
“Pardon me?”
Maddy tossed her head and clamped her lips into a tight, thin line. “Why, you will simply have to go to the Medicine Bows and look for him. You know Daddy. If you find him you can take him to Cheyenne with you. You have to go past the Medicine Bow diggings and through Cheyenne to get back to Denver anyway. It wouldn’t be all that much out of your way.
“And there is time enough. This is only Tuesday night. The execution isn’t until Monday. There would be plenty of time for you to reach the discovery field in the Medicine Bows and just … you know … look around. You know Daddy. He can’t resist any new find or rumor of a find. He always has to see whatever is on the other side of the mountain. That’s what has happened. I know it. He isn’t dead. He just decided one evening to go someplace else. He’s done that sort of thing before, you know. He always turns up eventually. But this time …”
“If you don’t think your father is dead, Maddy, how d’you explain the body that was in that mine shaft?”
“it was in water, Custis, and all they recovered were some bones. Somebody decided it was Daddy because he’s the only person who was missing from around here at the time. But it could have been anyone. Tyler argued in court that the skull was that of an Indian who probably fell into the shaft by accident. Tyler claims there is a way a scientist can look at the teeth on a skull and tell if the person was white or Indian. But we didn’t have any scientists around here to testify about that, and we couldn’t afford to send back East and hire one to come all this way. Tyler talked to the sheriff and the county commissioners about it, but they said they didn’t have any money to waste on something like that, especially when they didn’t believe it was true to begin with. The judge wouldn’t even let Tyler tell the jury what he believed—about the teeth, I mean—because there wasn’t any evidence to support what he said. Tyler read about it somewhere, you see, but he couldn’t find the article again and couldn’t remember exactly where he’d read it. So anyway, there was no evidence that the judge would accept and the jury never heard that argument. And that was the best defense Gary had. Tyler never got to say a word about it in court. Just in …” She frowned.
