CHAPTER 25
“The City of the Saints” lay at the base of the Wasatch Range, staring out across the desert to the west. Salt Lake City had grown some since Longarm had been there a few short years before. The outlying houses now extended into the foothills and the party had to ride for more than an hour through the town before they could get to the part they were headed for.
Little kids came out of the somber Mormon houses along the gravel road to stare at the big party riding in. Some of the kids threw sassy words or poorly aimed horse turds at them before scooting behind a picket fence. Longarm didn’t know whether they were just being kids, or whether the Mormons were still telling them bedtime stories about how cruel the outside world could be. As long as they didn’t improve their aim or throw something solid, it wasn’t worth worrying about.
Timberline was leading the mount Mabel Hanks, handcuffed to the saddle horn, was sitting. Mabel had simmered down to a sullen silence, with a just-you-wait! look in her smoldering eyes.
Longarm found himself riding alongside Kim Stover, who seemed sort of quiet herself, since breaking camp. Longarm thought he knew what was bothering her, so he didn’t say anything. They were riding in at an easy walk, for they were too far from the center of town to lope the rest of the way in and Longarm had warned his Wyoming companions not to make sudden motions in sight of the sometimes-truculent Mormon folk they were paying a call on.
After perhaps five minutes of silence, the redhead said with a disgusted tone in her voice “I’d as soon you’d ride with someone else, Deputy Long.”
“Oh? Well, you can drop back if you’ve a mind too, Miss Kim. I’m up here near the head of the column ‘cause I know the way to Main Street and will likely be dismounting first, at the Federal Building.”
“If it’s all the same to you, I mean to head direct to the depot.”
“I never try to change a lady’s mind, but I did offer you and yours a free ride up to Bitter Creek. I figure it’ll take an hour or so to do the paperwork on my prisoner. Then I’ll be free to see about getting all these hands and horses fixed with transportation.”
“You’re not taking that woman back to Denver?”
“Nope. They never sent me to get her. I’ll let the Salt e office do the honors. Maybe ride back to Denver in one of them fancy Pullman cars. Be nice to stretch out between clean sheets for a change and I’m overdue for a good night’s rest.”
“I should think you’d enjoy another night with Mabel Hanks. But I suppose you’ve tired of her, eh? You men are all alike.”
Longarm rode in silence for a time before he sighed, observing, “I might have known you gals would have your heads together on the only subject womenfolk never get tired of jawing about.”
“Don’t look so innocent. She told me everything.”
“She did? Well, why are you keeping it a secret? Where did she say she buried Kincaid and that other feller from Missouri?”
“Damn it, she didn’t talk about any murders. She told me about you and her, in Bitter Creek.”
“Well, I know I can hang the sniping in Bitter Creek on her. I was hoping she’d let her hair down to another woman on the details of her life of crime.”
“Don’t pussyfoot with me, you animal! She says you had your way with her in-in a fold-up bed. She said that’s why her poor little husband tried to kill you. He was defending her honor.”
Longarm fished a cheroot from his vest pocket and lit it without comment.
After a time, Kim asked, “Well?”
“Well what, ma’am?”
“Aren’t you going to deny it?”
“You reckon you’d believe me, if I did?”
“Of course not. Her description was, well, vivid.”
“Funny, ain’t it? Ten aldermen of the church could swear a man was tuning the organ of a Sunday, and if one woman told his wife he’d been at a parlor house instead…”
“Then you do deny it!”
“Ain’t sure. Maybe I better study on it before I say one thing or t’other. I don’t aim to have you think I’m all that wicked. On the other hand, I wouldn’t want you to put me down as a sissy.”
Despite herself, the redhead laughed. Then she recovered and said, “I don’t think she could have made that up about you folding her up in the wall when her husband busted in on you.”
“By golly, that’s a good touch I’d never have come up with! Next time the boys are bragging in the pool hall, I’ll see if I can get them to buy such an interesting yarn.”
He puffed some smoke ahead of him, and addressing an invisible audience, pontificated, “That story about the one-legged gal in Dodge was right interesting, Tex. But did I ever tell you about the time in Bitter Creek I made mad gypsy love to this gal married to a midget?”
“It does sound sort of wild. Are you suggesting she told me a lie? Why would any woman lie about such a thing?”
“Don’t know. Why do men swap stories about Mexican spitfires and hotblooded landladies? Old Mabel’s likely practicing up for when we carry her before the federal district judge, up ahead. Wait’ll she gets to where you helped hold her down while Timberline and all them other riders behind us took turns with me at whatsoever.”
“Oh! Do women play such tricks on you when you arrest them?”
“Not all. Only three out of four. Some ladies who shoot folks are sort of modest.”
“She is a murderess and the wife of a gunslick, isn’t she? I hadn’t considered that angle.”
“I know. Most folks are more partial to dirty stories.”
“I’m sorry if I’ve wronged you, but damn it, she made it sound so real!”
“Do tell? Who’d she say was better at it, me or the midget?”
This time her laughter was less forced. She recovered and grinned, “I daren’t repeat what she told me. As a woman who’s been married, I’m not sure all the… details were possible.”
Longarm didn’t answer.
After a while, Kim said, “Yes, I see it all now. She’s been trying to drive a wedge between us. I’d forgotten she was facing the rope. Tell me, do you think they’ll really hang her?”
“If she’s found guilty.”
“Brrr. It seems so… so awful to think of a woman hanging.”
“Ain’t much fun for anybody. Mary Surratt was a woman, and they hung her for conspiring to kill Abe Lincoln. Some folks figured she was innocent, too.”
“Oh, my what an awful thought! Doesn’t it bother you to think of innocent people getting hung?”
“A mite. But since I’ve never hung nobody, it ain’t MY worry.”
“I can’t believe you have no pity for her. Even after what he did.”
“I feel pity for everybody, ma’am. Mostly, I feel pity for the victims more’n I do the killers. Deputy Kincaid and likely that other feller had families. They’d likely expect me to do the right thing.”
“An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth, eh? Isn’t there something else about mercy in the good book?”
“Sure there is. I’ve read things written by philosophers. They say two wrongs don’t make a right. They say the death penalty don’t really stop the killings out our way. They say all sorts of things. But when it’s their own son or daughter, husband or wife who’s the victim you’d be surprised how fast they get back to that old ‘an eye for an eye!’”
“Someday, we may be more civilized.”
“Maybe. Meanwhile, we don’t hang folks because they’ve killed someone. We hang ‘em in order that someone else won’t get killed. Ever read what Emerson and them have to say about reform? Maybe some killers can be reformed. I don’t know what makes a man or woman a killer. But I do know one thing. Not one killer has ever done it again, after a good hanging!”