Marshal to handle prisoners for a U.S. Court.'
'I can only catch me one bird at a time and right now I got my net on the prize of them all.'
'On Tom Harrow? Have you lost your senses, Sheriff?'
'Just getting 'em back, maybe,' retorted the sheriff. 'Come along with me over to my place, Judge, while I put Tom in the log jail. There's been an injustice and I thought you might want to straighten it out.' He looked at Jeb Donnelly again, his eyes glinting. 'You heard what I said, Donnelly. You walk soft until I talk to the judge. If he says what I think, I just might be back after you.'
The sheriff left the horse in front of his modest home and the three of them went through the front yard with its beds of carefully tended flowers. His wife had always loved mountain flowers and Stovers still grew them in profusion during summer. In the front room he removed the handcuffs from Harrow's wrists and nodded for him to sit down.
Judge Eaton sank his gaunt frame into a deep chair, thinking it would soon be time for supper at Clara's, and took a cigar from a box on the table. He lit it and leaned back, drawing slowly on the long cheroot; listening while the sheriff told him the whole story as he had reconstructed it from the very beginning.
Stovers told it with a blunt, steadily rising anger. He reminded the judge that he had wanted to hang Kerrigan and that he, Stovers, had threatened to resign as United States Marshall and wire President Grant.*
* Author's note: This was a common occurrence in those days when there was no Appellate Court to appeal to. It was the only recourse left to a man condemned to the gallows, and President Grant received many such appeals from men condemned by U.S. judges in the various Territories.
Tom Harrow smiled and smoked his own cigar and said nothing. Eaton glanced at him now and then, but mostly he watched the sheriff's blazing eyes.
'So that's about it,' Stovers finished. 'I've been digging away at this thing for two years, but never could get any concrete proof of what I knew to be the truth. Not until Tom got caught in a corner down there in the old fort a little while ago and admitted the whole business in front of witnesses, after which he figured to kill Lew and then make a run for it. I couldn't get hold of any bronco Apaches to prove he sold them guns and ammunition to kill innocent men and women and kids. Not any more than I can prove he shot Bear Paw Daly after the old fellow led him to the new strike. Judge, you drove down here in your buggy and brought the U.S. prosecutor with you and held awful damn' quick court when I sent you word I'd captured Lew Kerrigan. I told you Tom had collected the territorial reward for some reason that turned out to be the strike, but you refused to admit it in court as evidence. Now what I want to know is where's the prosecutor and how soon you're going to bring him down here again to hold trial?'
Judge Eaton didn't answer for a few moments. He finally removed the cigar from between his few remaining front teeth and said quietly, 'And what I wish to know, Marshal Stovers, is what you're going to do about Kerrigan having complete freedom in Clara's house, after killing two more men right here in the settlement? You've arrested one man you claim is a murderer, but what are you going to do about the other?'
'LeRoy was a notorious California horse thief taking Harrow's money to catch, cripple, or even kill outside the law,' snapped back the angry sheriff. 'I've arrested Pete Orr a half-dozen times during the past two years, for everything from drunken fighting with deadly weapons to killing a miner. But you always ruled in your court in Dalyville that direct evidence was insufficient. Well,' he added in grim satisfaction, 'I reckon I won't have to get you any more evidence on him now. I'm asking you again what you're going to do about clearing Kerrigan's record and what you're going to do about this smooth scoundrel sitting here?'
'And I'm asking you again what you are going to do about the gun-fighting killer in Clara Thompson's home,' Eaton thundered. 'Coming in here with an Apache Indian I always regretted not sending to the gallows. An escaped murderer who killed a brave prison guard, using a file the murderer Kerrigan smuggled into his cell.'
He was, Joe Stovers saw resignedly, working himself up to the fine pitch of outraged anger that had made him both famous and feared among the thirty-one thousand whites in Arizona. 'I'll do my duty toward this man. You do yours toward Kerrigan and the Apache. Let me remind you again, Stovers, that my appointment as U.S. District Judge came straight from President Grant, as did that of Judge Parker of Fort Smith, Arkansas, who but recently sentenced six foul murderers to hang from the gallows all at the same time!' *
* Author's note: This occurred in September of that year, 1875.
Joe Stovers let out an angry blast of breath and jerked on his old hat, something he never did in the presence of his wife's picture above the fireplace. 'I'm going out and saddle up my other horse. Will you accept the responsibility for the prisoner's custody while I'm gone, or do I take him out in the back yard and throw him in the log lockup?'
'I assure you he won't escape,' Judge Eaton replied acidly.
'Good. With Tom in custody awaiting trial, I can talk Lew Kerrigan out of burning Dalyville, and if the troops get here from Fort Stanton, Loco will lit for one of his hideouts.'
He went out and closed the door behind him. Judge Eaton reached over and de-ashed his cigar tip and then puffed thoughtfully. He looked an inquiry as Harrow laughed softly.
'I refuse to see anything amusing in your present situation,' he remarked coldly.
'Just wondering,' Harrow smiled, 'having had considerable experience with the opposite sex, if Joe isn't mooning over Clara Thompson and badly frustrated because she won't forget her husband, and him being so old and ugly anyhow?'
But Eaton only frowned disapprovingly, holding that such a coarse remark was entirely out of place. He waited a moment, frowning again, and then looked straight at Harrow.
'This situation,' he said severely, 'has gotten completely out of control, for which I hold you solely responsible. How could you have conducted yourself in such a stupid manner over there in the old fort?'
'I slipped badly, no doubt about that,' Harrow admitted worriedly. 'But I can still come out on top if the cards fall just right.'
'I'll overlook your obvious assumption that I'll free you; something you'd better not depend upon, my friend. Just what 'cards' are you referring to, may I ask?'
'You've got to free me,' Harrow said almost desperately. 'I can't depend upon the Governor now. He's under fire from every little newspaper in the territory for selling political jobs, and he knows I can't help him put out that fire with any more money.'
'And just what do you propose that
'Free me of all charges because of hearsay evidence not being acceptable to a United States Court. Kerrigan is still alive, isn't he? Jeb Donnelly is here in Pirtman, a sworn-in deputy sheriff. You have the judicial power to appoint him a United States Marshal, as you did Stovers—at six cents per mile to walk over to Clara's house and arrest Kerrigan and ten cents a mile to bring him back,' he added with a forced laugh.
'And you have Ace Saunders and three more men to swarm in on the Apache hiding over in the fort,' the judge added with unconcealed sarcasm.
'I tell you, we can get Kerrigan alive! He knows the location of another pocket, when it might take years of combing those canyons down south of here to find it. If you give him the choice of hanging or revealing the location, he'll take us there in a hurry. And this time I won't gamble at making a mere three hundred and fifty thousand. I won't be buying railroad stock. I'll go back to Wall Street and sell a million dollars' worth of gold stock to the robbers who fleeced me! I'll beat them at their own game!'
Eaton laid aside the dead cigar, as though it suddenly had become bitter in his mouth. He uncoiled his gaunt frame from the depths of the chair and began to pace thoughtfully back and forth in the comfortable living room, black coattails rustling around his thin knees.
He said aloud, looking at the walls with antelope and deer heads staring from bright glass eyes, 'You're a criminal, Harrow. Your money is gone, you've lost a very lovely lady, you're a thief and a—'
'I can get Kitty back anytime,' Harrow interrupted, laughing.
'That's the second time you've brought up a subject of which I heartily disapprove,' Judge Eaton answered curtly.
He stopped in front of Harrow and his gaunt shoulders straightened themselves, and the same fanatical gleam too many men had seen in his eyes just before sentence was passed flamed down. Harrow had the sudden, panicky feeling that he was already tried and convicted.
