Saloon justice, p.3
Saloon Justice, page 3
Jerry Freeman stood staring after the girl as she made her way down Main Street and it was in this uncouth attitude that his first paying client discovered him. There was a discreet cough behind him and when he looked round, Jerry found that a man who had ‘farmer’ written all over him was standing at his elbow. ‘May I help you, sir?’ he enquired politely.
‘You really a lawyer?’
‘That I am. Qualified this year.’
‘Know aught about wills and such, do you?’
‘Why yes, I’m pretty familiar with the law of probate. Why do you ask?’
‘My name’s Coolidge and I got a will to make. I’m ill, like as not dying, and want to get my affairs in order. I’ll pay.’
‘When would you like me to call, sir? I’m afraid I have no office.’
‘Don’t want you to call. I wants you to come with me now. You got paper and pen? I surely have none such in my house.’
‘I have some in my bag, but we’ll have to go by the saloon to fetch it.’
The man who wanted to make out his will didn’t, to Jerry’s eyes, look particularly sick. Still and all, he wasn’t a medical doctor and was really no sort of judge of those things. When they got to Mr Coolidge’s house, he proved to be living alone; having, at least according to his own account, fallen out with every living member of his family.
Once they got to the farmer’s house, which was the better part of a forty-five minute walk from town, it didn’t take above half an hour to complete the man’s will, which essentially left all he possessed to an old drinking companion. ‘Not that I like the fellow over-much,’ confided Coolidge, ‘but I’ll be damned if I let my family get a sniff of me money.’ After they went to a neighbour to find two people to witness the will, Coolidge asked how much he owed. This put Jerry Freeman into something of a quandary, because he was too embarrassed to tell this man that that he was the very first client of Jerry’s professional life. The farmer noticed his hesitation and said, ‘You done this before? No? Thought as much. Anybody can see that you’re full young to be a lawyer. What would you say to five dollars?’
‘I’d say thank you very much, Mr Coolidge,’ said Jerry, grateful to the man for easing him out of an embarrassing dilemma.
Chapter 3
Over the course of the next week or so, Jerry Freeman began to get a feel for the way that Mineral Springs was run and the more he saw, the more he realized what an anachronism the little town was.
To begin with, there was no official law enforcement. Clayton Singer might be an officially appointed Justice of the Peace, sanctioned from the county seat, but his real authority lay in his having been the leader of the vigilance committee which until a few years ago ran things in the town. There was no sheriff or marshal within fifty miles of Mineral Springs, which meant that if any criminal needed to be captured, it was done in an informal way by several men banding together into a posse. In fact, the administration of law and order in the town had not really changed over the last fifty years or so. Singer’s trials were all but indistinguishable from the kind of kangaroo court one might have seen forty years earlier during the California Gold Rush.
Towns like Mineral Springs though were slowly being forced to change. The tentacles of civilization were spreading out from the east and north of the nation, until they would eventually bring a regulated legal system to every nook and cranny of the United States. Although he didn’t realize it at the time, Jerry Freeman himself was a harbinger of this change. There had never been a genuine lawyer in the town, a man who knew what the legal position was in the better regulated parts of the country. Although appointing him to a semi-official position, attached to his ‘court’, had been a whim of Singer’s, it also marked the beginning of a change in attitude of the men and women in the town. Although a lot of those who lived in Mineral Springs were semi-literate and ignorant of many of the finer points of civil society which might be taken for granted in and around Washington, they had a respect for learning and recognized in the young attorney a representative from a different and more sophisticated world than that which they knew.
Before Jerry’s arrival, those with a dispute over land or property would bring their grievances before Clayton Singer on Monday afternoons at The Texas Rose. The problem was that everyone knew of the Justice of the Peace’s partiality and deep-rooted prejudices. It was also widely known that he was a corrupt and venial man; one who was not at all averse to being slipped a bribe before he pronounced judgment in civil cases. Worst of all, despite his impressive ability to parrot great chunks from the Revised Statutes, Singer had no real understanding of law and the legal system.
It was immensely flattering for a young fellow of just twenty-three years of age to find himself being consulted and listened to respectfully by men old enough to be his grandfather. In New York, a newly qualified attorney of Jerry Freeman’s age would have been a very small tiddler in an exceedingly large pond. Here, he was treated as a combination of Coke, Blackstone and Solomon!
Many of those wanting advice, pumped Jerry in a way that they evidently thought right cunning, asking him hypothetical questions along the lines of, ‘My friend has a difficult problem’. This of course enabled them to consult a qualified lawyer for nothing. He didn’t mind this, because like so many young folk, he was glad of the chance to show off a little. The week wore away in this fashion, until Sunday came round and Jerry found himself looking forward with interest to appearing once more in Judge Singer’s court. Before that though, there was a sensational incident.
Fortunately for Jerry Freeman, he was walking in the hills around Mineral Springs and so was not a witness to the events which led to the trial for murder the following day of Xaviera Ramirez. Had he seen what happened, then he would have thought himself duty-bound not to take part in the subsequent trial in any capacity, bar that of witness. In fact, after attending church in the morning, Jerry had offered to walk Maria Fallon home; a proposal which that young lady accepted with alacrity. Like most everybody else in town, she was intrigued by the good-looking young lawyer and wanted to know what made him tick.
In England and on the east coast of America, the ‘New Woman’ was just beginning to be talked about, but Maria knew nothing of such developments. She was only aware that the traditional role of women was not too inviting and she was sick and tired of the countless restrictions which were placed upon her life and conduct. This manifested itself in her being a little more forward in the way that she spoke and behaved than was acceptable in a small Texas town. Some of the older and more conservative women had already privately passed judgment on the girl and their verdict was that she was ‘bold’ and ‘fast’.
As they walked towards the farm where she lived with her father and stepmother, Maria said suddenly, ‘You know, they say that you have fetched up here because there’s a woman in the case. That you’ve been crossed in love or some such.’
To his chagrin, Jerry felt himself blushing like a schoolgirl. The girl walking at his side shot him a sidelong glance and then said saucily, ‘Ah, you needn’t say any more on the subject, Mr Freeman. I see that there’s something in it.’
‘It’s not a matter of saying anything more,’ he replied irritably. ‘I’ve said nothing at all so far, so I can hardly say anything more.’
‘You mean you couldn’t have said anything less,’ said Maria and then immediately regretted her pertness, because she saw that the young man was genuinely put out. She reached out her hand and touched his arm, saying, ‘Don’t you mind me. I always talk too much.’
There was an uncomfortable silence until they reached the edge of the fields owned by the Fallon family, when Jerry found the tables neatly turned. Anybody wondering where Maria Fallon got her outspokenness from, or her impatience with what she saw as petty restrictions and foolish conventions, would only have to spend five minutes or so in the company of her father Albert. It was he who had taught his daughter to be an independent creature and he who encouraged her to seek a little more from life than that of the average farmer’s daughter in that part of Texas.
Albert Fallon was hoeing a field by the side of the track which led to his house. He was a hale and broad-shouldered man in his mid-forties. Notwithstanding his age, he could outpace many a twenty year-old when it came to working or drinking. When he saw the young couple approaching, he stood up and walked over to them. Putting on a forbidding look, he said gruffly to Jerry, ‘Now then, young man. Are you a-courting of my daughter? Should I be asking you your intentions?’
At this, Maria flushed deep crimson and struck her father hard upon the arm. ‘Hush now, Pa,’ she said. ‘What will Mr Freeman think of us?’
‘Meaning, what will he think of you,’ said her father shrewdly. The blush did not leave her cheeks and she saw that Jerry Freeman had observed it, which threw her into even greater confusion.
‘Only kidding, Mr Freeman,’ said Fallon amiably. ‘There’s not all that much in the way of amusement in this district and so we are forced to provide our own. No offence meant.’
‘None taken, sir.’
‘Would you be wanting to come to dinner, later in the week?’ asked Albert Fallon. ‘I’m tolerable familiar with most of those as lives round here and a new face might make a pleasant change. Eh, Maria?’
But the girl was seriously annoyed with her father and made no reply. Jerry said, ‘That’s very good of you, sir. What day had you in mind?’
‘What about Thursday?’
Just as Jerry was about to assent to the arrangement, there came from far away the sound of a volley of gunfire. ‘Hallo,’ said Fallon. ‘What’s to do? That came from town, or I miss my guess.’
Ramirez had tracked his one-time partner for over three hundred miles now. He had followed him across the border into the United States and pursued him remorselessly, with the single-minded determination of a wolf or other beast of prey. Had it just been the money which Cordero had taken, then perhaps Ramirez would have given up after the man who had betrayed him crossed the Rio Grande. But that had not been all that had been stolen from him. When word had come that Cordero was gone, Xaviera Ramirez had seen something unmistakable in his own wife’s face.
It had taken over an hour for Ramirez to beat the truth from his wife and when he had done so, he felt as though his whole life was ruined. His best friend had betrayed him, stolen his fortune and also destroyed his marriage. But he had left him one precious gift, something which nobody could snatch away from Ramirez: the chance of revenge.
For almost a month, Ramirez had trailed his one-time friend across Texas. At times, the trail had gone cold and he was obliged to double back and search for signs of the man. Cordero had an instinct which must have told him that he was being followed, because he rode like the wind, weaving back and forth, never keeping a straight course. But everything comes to an end eventually, and Ramirez came across his quarry in the first light of dawn. The first that Hector Cordero knew of his impending death was a sharp, metallic click in his ear, as Ramirez cocked his pistol.
At first, Cordero had it in mind to go for his weapon, but then he saw that his old friend had taken the precaution of removing all his clothes and even his boots, in which Cordero habitually secreted a little muff pistol. The devil of riding with a man for so long is that he is apt to learn all little secrets of this kind.
‘So Hector,’ Ramirez had said, ‘are you ready to die?’
‘All things are with God,’ said the other, piously. ‘If I die today, then tomorrow it will be your turn.’
‘Get up and remove the rest of your clothes.’
There seemed to Hector Cordero little choice but to obey. When the fear of death is upon you, even the few extra seconds that it takes to remove your socks is a welcome respite. ‘What, then?’ Cordero asked, once he was standing there completely naked.
‘Now, you run. I will give you ten minutes’ start. Then I will come after you and kill you slowly. I will come on foot, I would not wish to finish the game too quickly.’
‘But. . . .’ said Cordero.
‘The clock is running, old friend,’ said Ramirez implacably.
Incredibly, it took the hunter over five hours to run down his prey. The idea of the frightened, naked man running in terror from him had appealed to Ramirez and it had not occurred to him that his would be anything other than a few minutes’ sport: a cat playing with a helpless mouse. But Cordero had run into the little wood which lay alongside his camping place and, skilled as he was in reading the tracks of men, Ramirez was foxed now. A man’s boots leave a far clearer trail than that of the bare foot and Cordero, it must be remembered, was playing for his very life.
It was almost midday before the game came to an end, when Ramirez arrived at the crest of a hill and saw his old friend stumbling towards a little town. The hunter quickened his pace and practically ran down the hill, reaching the main street of Mineral Springs at the same time as his adversary.
Cordero was in a pitiful state, with his feet bloodied and torn. He was panting from exhaustion and, to Ramirez’s eye, he had the look of a hunted animal on the verge of collapse. This was just precisely what Ramirez had been hoping for. When he caught sight of the man who had been pursuing him so remorselessly, Hector Cordero shrieked aloud in English, ‘For the love of God, help me! Murder!’
It being Sunday, there were not as many people in and around Main Street as usual, but his cries brought a few people out to see what all the shouting was about. ‘Mother of God, have mercy upon me!’ shouted Cordero frantically.
The wife of the man who ran the general store had come out of the living quarters at the back of the store and she went over to the desperate man, buck naked though he was. Then she saw the man standing in the shadows, perhaps twenty yards away. She said, ‘What’s going on? What are you threatening this poor fellow for?’
Hardly were the words out of her mouth, when Ramirez raised his rifle and fired once at Cordero, hitting him in the belly. Blood splashed onto Mrs Cartwright and she watched, paralysed with fear as Ramirez drew his pistol and fired again at the naked man beside her. This shot took him in the thigh. Her husband had come out and was yelling at her to get away out of it, but she could by no means reconcile such a course of action with her Christian duty and attempted to shield Cordero from further harm, by moving in front of him and blocking him from the view of the gunman.
It was at this point that Ramirez made the move which sealed his death warrant. Even at this point, with a bloody murder actually being committed on the streets of the town, it was possible that the citizens of Mineral Springs might have overlooked the affair and regarded it as a private quarrel between two excitable foreigners. After all, if one Mexican wanted to shoot another, it was no great matter to most of those living thereabouts. All that went by the board when Ramirez walked forward and then raised his gun and again fired at the wounded man. This time, the bullet hit Cordero in the chest, killing him on the spot. Before it entered the man’s heart though, this bullet sliced through the arm of the good woman who was doing her best to protect the helpless victim from his attacker. It wasn’t a serious wound, more like a deep graze than anything else, but it was more than enough to excite the indignation and wrath of those who were now gathering in Main Street, attracted by the novel sound of gunfire.
Before Xaviera Ramirez could get off another shot, he was jumped from behind, knocked to the ground and disarmed. When it was seen that the popular Mrs Cartwright, one of the kindest and most inoffensive women in the town, had been wounded, the men around Ramirez began knocking him about.
Now ten years before this incident, it is highly likely that the Mexican would have been hoisted from the nearest tree and the entire business would have been over and done with in a matter of minutes. Times had changed though. At the very least, when they had finished kicking and punching Ramirez, the men who had caught him felt that it would be necessary to take him to Clayton Singer to see what he wanted to do. Jerry Freeman would perhaps have been surprised to know that his presence in town too had a moderating effect on the behaviour of the men. Knowing that they had in their town a genuine, honest-to-God New York attorney made everybody slightly more careful about legal niceties than they might otherwise have been. It was almost like they were in some way being on their best behaviour.
It wasn’t needful to drag Ramirez all the way to the saloon, because Judge Singer himself appeared on the scene. He too had been drawn there upon hearing the shots. When he realized that Mrs Cartwright had been injured by the damned Mexican laying in the dust, Singer had an almost irresistible urge to order the fellow’s summary execution. Strange to relate, he too paused, wondering what the boy from New York would make of such a proceeding. He settled for lashing out savagely with his boot at the man’s head. ‘Hogtie him and bring him along with me,’ he said. ‘He’ll hang all right, but let’s do the thing properly.’
It was while the Mexican was being bound hand and foot that Jerry Freeman turned up, having sprinted all the way from the edge of the Fallon farm. ‘What’s happening?’ he asked.
‘Happenin’?’ said Singer. ‘I tell you what’s happenin’. Yon savage has killed a man and hurt one o’ the best women as ever took breath.’
‘What are you going to do with that man? He looks hurt as well.’ There were some grounds for saying this, as Ramirez had been kicked almost senseless by the men who had surrounded him after he was disarmed. Jerry noticed to his disgust that there were three gleaming white teeth laying in the road, each nestling in a shining pool of spittle and blood. Ramirez’s face was also bloodied, from where a blow had connected with his nose.
‘Hurt, is he?’ asked Singer. ‘Well now, we ain’t got no hospital in this town, so I reckon as he’ll have to make do with the next best thing.’
‘Where’s that?’ asked Jerry innocently.
