“Innkeeper, I am Colonel Clay Sherman, and we are the Idaho Auxiliary Peace Officers’ Posse. We are here on official business, and I shall need nine rooms.”
“Nine rooms?” The clerk shook his head. “Oh, I’m sorry, but I’m afraid that is impossible. I don’t have nine rooms available.”
“How many rooms do you have?”
“I only have six rooms available, but the Union Pacific asks me to keep at least two open until the late train arrives. That’s for any passenger who might need one.”
“You are telling me how many rooms you have available. But the question I am asking you is this. How many rooms does this hotel have?”
“Well of course the hotel has ten rooms, but four are…”
“You have ten rooms? That’s perfect. Like I told you, I only need nine.”
“And I am trying to tell you that four are permanently occupied,” the clerk said, speaking slowly as if explaining something to someone who clearly didn’t understand what he was trying to say.
“Move them out.”
“I beg your pardon?” the clerk replied, blinking his eyes in surprise, not sure he had heard what he clearly heard.
“I said move them out.”
“Move them out? Sir, I can’t do that.”
“My men and I are here to enforce a territorial law,” Sherman said. “I am exercising eminent domain. Move them out.”
“Eminent domain? I don’t understand. I don’t know what that means.”
“That means you have to give me the nine rooms I asked for, even if you have to move someone else out. Otherwise, you are in violation of the law, and I would be within my rights to enforce that law.” He pulled his pistol. “By any means necessary,” he added, ominously.
“Take the rooms, take the rooms! You can have them!” the clerk said, his voice on the edge of panic.
“A very wise decision,” Sherman said. He put his pistol back into his holster. “Lieutenant Scraggs, go upstairs. Take Grimes with you,” Sherman ordered. “If you find anyone in any of the rooms, turn them out.”
“Yes, sir, Colonel,” Scraggs answered. “Come along, Grimes.”
Scraggs and Grimes went upstairs to carry out Sherman’s orders.
Up on the second floor, there was a long hallway that ran from front to back. Ten doors opened onto the hall way, five doors from either side. Scraggs started down one side, and Grimes the other. The first four doors they opened were empty. Then Scraggs tried a door that was locked. He banged on it loudly.
“Who is it?” a muffled voice answered. The voice was obviously that of a woman, thin with age, and hesitant with fear.
“Open the door.” Scraggs called out in a gruff voice.
“Go away,” the woman’s thin voice replied.
Scraggs stepped back from the door, raised his foot, and kicked hard just beside the doorknob. The door popped open and the woman inside screamed.
Scraggs stepped into the door way, filling it with his presence. The occupant of the room, a woman who appeared to be in her seventies, cowered on the other side of the bed.
“Get out,” Scraggs ordered.
“What?” the woman asked.
“I said get out,” Scraggs said. “We need this room.”
“I won’t get out. This is my room,” the woman insisted.
Scraggs stepped quickly into the room, crossed to the other side of the bed, grabbed her roughly by the arm, then pulled her out into the hallway. “Get out,” he said shoving her so hard that she hit the wall on the opposite side of the hallway and fell to the floor. She cried out in pain.
“Get up,” Scraggs ordered, again grabbing her by the arm and lifting her from the floor. “Downstairs with you, you old hag. Get out of here.”
By now Grimes had also dragged a woman out of the room. The two women moved quickly away from the men and, clutching each other in fear, watched as a third woman and an elderly man were pulled from their rooms. Like the first two women, they stood in the hall, terrified and confused.
“Who the hell are you? What are you doing?” the man shouted angrily. When Grimes reached for him, he pushed his hand away. “Get your hands off me, you son of a bitch!”
Scraggs laughed. “He’s a scrappy old shit, ain’t he?”
“Down the stairs,” Grimes ordered. “Go downstairs now before I kick you downstairs.”
More than anxious to get away from the frightening men, the four occupants of the hotel hurried down the stairs to the hotel lobby. They halted when they reached the bottom step and saw that there were several other men in the lobby, all of whom were dressed exactly as the men who had rousted them were dressed.
“Elmer,” the first old lady said to the hotel clerk. “Elmer, who are these terrible men? Why did they come into our rooms and tell us we had to leave!” she complained.
“I’m sorry, Mrs. Rittenhouse, I had nothing to do with it,” the clerk replied.
“Who are these men?” Mrs. Rittenhouse asked, looking at all the men in the lobby.
“I apologize, ma’am,” Sherman said, dipping his head slightly. “I am Colonel Sherman of the Auxiliary Peace Officers’ Posse. We are here on a matter of the law and I require quarters for my men. By the law of the United States Government, as well as the law of the territory of Idaho, I have the right of eminent domain. I have exercised that right to take your room, and all the other rooms in the hotel. I’m sorry if this has inconvenienced you, but it is a matter of necessity.”
“But, where will I go? What will I do?” the woman asked. “I have no place to go!”
“I’m sorry, ma’am, but that isn’t my problem,” Sherman said.
“All the rooms are clear, Colonel,” Scraggs said.
“Thank you, Lieutenant,” Sherman said. “Burnett?”
“Yes sir, Colonel?”
“See to my horse. The rest of you men, get your horses boarded, then come back and find your rooms. We’ll meet here in the lobby in thirty minutes.”
All those who had come into the hotel with Sherman now hurried outside in response to Sherman’s orders.
“Elmer, I’m holding you responsible for this,” the old man said.
“I’ll find a place for you, Mr. Pemberton.” Elmer promised. “Don’t worry. I’ll find a place for all of you.”
Chapter Twenty-one
The arrival of Clay Sherman and his Idaho Auxiliary Peace Officers’ Posse was the subject of conversation all over town for the rest of the day. It was discussed in stores and shops, talked about at the barbershop and in the meat market, at the train station and the stage depot, and by housewives over the back fence.
“They say they put poor old Mr. Pemberton out of his room at the hotel. Where will he go?”
“I heard he has a room upstairs at the Sand Spur. But the women are still lookin’ for a place.”
“Father Pyron is putting up one of ’em.”
“I’ve got a room where one of ’em can stay.”
“Me too.”
“That will take care of all of ’em.”
“Yeah, but it still don’t say why Sherman and that bunch of his has come to Medbury.”
“You want to know what I think? I think they come here to get even for Poke gettin’ hisself kilt.”
“Why would they do that?”
“Terrell used to ride for ’em.”
“Yeah, but he war’nt ridin’ with ‘em when he was here. I heard he had been fired.”
“Maybe, but he prob’ly still has a lot of friends among ’em. Wouldn’t surprise me none at all if they war’nt here to settle scores with Matt Jensen.”
“Yeah? Well from what I’ve heard of Matt Jensen, he can pretty much take care of his ownself.”
“But they’s seventeen of ’em, countin’ Sherman. There can’t no one man go up ag’in seventeen men. Not even Matt Jensen.”
“I don’t know, I wouldn’t sell Matt Jensen short if I was you.”
“I ain’t sellin’ him short. But I’ve heard a lot about Posse folks, and there ain’t nothin’ I’ve heard about ’em that’s good.”