Chapter 39
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Early the next morning, Doc sent Sheila to fetch Caleb, who was drinking coffee by the campfire, keeping an eye on Lucas, and trying to decide what he wanted to do with the boy and his mother.
Sheila told him that the fever had broken, and Mrs. Fields was awake. The woman was weak, but Caleb could speak to her if he promised not to wear her out.
By rights, he knew he shouldn’t be thinking about it at all. He should simply truss them up and haul them back to Elkhorn to face justice. They were stagecoach robbers and accessories to murder, even if he believed Lucas and the stories Zeke and Preacher told about them.
If he did take them back to face the judge, however, Elkhorn would be having a mother and son hanging.
That was the punishment for murder. No matter how he thought of the Fields gang, two men were dead in the last stagecoach robbery.
And there were no witnesses who could testify Dodger had actually been the one who killed them.
A hanging like that would sure as hell draw a crowd.
It would be an interesting trial, though. From the talks he’d been having with Lucas and the one Doc had with the mother, those two would be testifying under oath that they alone were to blame. Neither one wanted the other to be dancing for the hangman.
Sheila stayed outside the shack with Lucas while Caleb and Doc spoke to the patient.
Mrs. Fields knew what was going on. Doc had filled her in with what had happened while she’d been unconscious.
Caleb guessed that the flush in her cheeks was not all caused by fever.
She’d lost men she was responsible for, and the future for herself and her son wasn’t looking all that rosy either.
She had to be feeling sadness, anger, worry, desperation.
Doc introduced him and told her what Caleb had been sent to do. He also told her that her son had confessed to their past crimes, where they came from, and what they’d been doing since her husband was killed.
She spoke directly to Caleb. Her voice was not strong, but she was clearly a bright woman.
“If Lucas has told you anything that makes him look responsible for all that has happened, it’s a lie.
I’m the leader of this gang. I’m the one responsible for the robberies of the Wells Fargo stages.
I’ll swear that he never participated in any holdup.
He just arrived here after I was wounded.
I’ll swear to that on my husband’s grave.
I’m the one who should be punished for those crimes. ”
She paused, trying to catch her breath. She was growing paler, but she still clung to a hope of saving her son’s life.
Caleb had seen men lie to save their own hides. This was different. Every word cost her, and every word was meant to buy Lucas another breath.
“Lucas admits he was part of the gang,” he told her.
“He’s only seventeen. He was a child when I got started. For all the years I’ve been robbing those villains, I kept him away. And he did what I told him to do.”
Caleb had no doubt this was all a lie, but he understood her fierce determination to save her child.
“Ma’am, I ain’t no lawyer or judge or jury.
But in this last robbery, you were sitting inside that stagecoach.
Your blood was left on that seat. So there’s no way you can take responsibility for shooting the driver and the guard riding shotgun.
They’ll hang you for robbing those stagecoaches, but murder is the most serious of everything that you’ve done. And Lucas was outside holding a gun.”
“It wasn’t him.” She closed her eyes, and long lashes lay on the pale cheeks. “That was Dodger, acting against orders.”
“So you say. But your word ain’t gonna be good enough. I seriously doubt Judge Patterson will believe you. And I know them Wells Fargo men chirping in the governor’s ear in Denver will be calling for your head…and for your son’s.”
She tried to sit, and Doc helped her, propping her up with a folded blanket behind her back. Caleb didn’t know what she looked like before being shot, but right now she seemed shrunken and spent, a frail slip of a woman. Her right arm was bound in a sling.
“I’ve already told you what I’ll tell the judge and jury, Mr. Marlowe. I will take the blame, and I’ll say whatever needs to be said. I won’t have my son wrongfully accused. But would you like to hear the whole story?”
Despite the days she’d spent in this cot, her eyes were clear when they met his, and her voice was growing stronger.
There was a hard edge to it, but Caleb also took notice of the motherly tone of command.
Right then, he understood how she ran the tough men who worked for her, minded her orders, and remained devoted to her.
How many men were capable of disrespecting and ignoring their mothers?
She had a quality in her manner that made any half-decent man sit straight and listen.
“I’d like to hear the whole story…if it’s the truth.”
She nodded with satisfaction. “I want you to forget, just for a moment, this last robbery on the Denver road and those poor dead men. I want to tell you exactly how we’ve conducted our business for the past five years.”
“I’m listening.”
As she shifted her weight, trying get comfortable, she gasped and clutched her shoulder. Whatever color remained in her face drained away now. It took her a few moments to recover, and Caleb waited. Doc was watching her carefully.
“For each robbery,” she said when she could continue, “I’d choose one of my men to take the lead. That person would wear a long duster and a flour sack over his head. We’d cut holes for eyes, and he’d wear a special derby.”
This was why there was no description of the faces of this gang, Caleb thought. There was no possible way for anyone to describe them.
“My man would jump out from behind a large boulder or tree on whatever route we’d chosen for the robbery. He’d wave his shotgun at the driver.”
“Why would they stop? Why didn’t they run him down or shoot him dead?”
“Because at that very moment our other men were hiding in the brush or behind trees or boulders at the side of the road. We chose our spots carefully. My men would have their rifles pointed at the driver, and the weapons would be conspicuous, even if my men weren’t.
When we started our campaign against Wells Fargo, we made it even more daunting.
We’d use carved pieces of wood painted to look like rifles, wedged into the brush.
We made it look like there were dozens of us. ”
“Go on.”
“My man would tell them to throw down the strongbox.”
“And they always did.”
“If the stage driver hesitated at all, my man would yell out and instruct the group in the bushes. Something like, ‘Give him the solid volley, boys.’ Or some words to that effect. Once or twice, we had to shoot into the air to get their attention, but never once did we wound a driver or a guard or a passenger.”
To be a stagecoach driver on these dangerous roads, men took their lives in their hands. Caleb understood that seeing rifle barrels pointed at them from the bushes would seal the deal. A driver would gladly throw down a strongbox if he thought it would help him live to see another day.
“Very quickly, word got around. Five years we robbed Wells Fargo, and no one was ever shot. Not one drop of blood shed. They always did what they were told, and no one got hurt. During one robbery, a woman passenger even stepped out to voluntarily surrender her purse, but our man declined, saying that we only wanted the Wells Fargo box.”
This was starting to sound like some fanciful Robin Hood tale. But there was blood.
“You lost a man in a recent robbery,” Caleb asked. “What happened?”
“Jeb’s older brother was the one picked to step in front of the stagecoach. After the driver dropped the strongbox to the ground, the stage guard shot him.”
Mrs. Fields’s face sank. She was obviously still upset at the memory.
“What happened then?”
“He was hit, but we thought it wasn’t serious. My men started shooting to scare them, and the driver whipped up his team. We only found out later that he was badly wounded. He died within the hour.”
She used her left hand to rub her forehead.
“That’s when Dodger joined your outfit?” Doc asked.
She nodded. “We should have quit right them. Ended it. But as a group, we decided on one final holdup. To do that, Wendell felt we needed another gun, so he rode to Denver. That’s where he found him.”
Caleb glanced at the place where the bullet had struck the woman. “Why were you inside the stagecoach for this last robbery?”
“My gang was breaking up. I planned to ride the coach to Elkhorn and make arrangements for going on to California. There would be no reason to suspect me. What was taken in this robbery was to be divided amongst the men. I wanted no share. Once my son was done, he was to go Elkhorn. The others were to split up and go east or north. From here, Lucas and I would travel west and never look back.”
“Were there other passengers in the coach?” Doc asked.
“I was the only one.”
“What went wrong?” Caleb already knew who was killed, but he wanted to hear how it happened from her pale lips.
“Everything went wrong. Wendell went out into the road, and the stagecoach stopped. The driver was ready to throw down the strongbox, but Dodger stepped out of hiding. There was no reason for it. I’d like to think panic hit him, but whatever possessed him, he started shooting.”
“Who shot you?” Doc asked.
“It had to be Dodger. I don’t believe any of the others fired a shot.” Her brown eyes looked up at the doctor. “I don’t recall what happened afterward. They carried me here somehow. When I opened my eyes, you were tending to my wound.”
It all made sense to Caleb. Dodger had been hired by Horner to become part of this gang.
They were after the loot accumulated during the years of holding up stagecoaches.
Horner may even have taken the job of sheriff in Elkhorn for that reason.
It was possible that shooting Mrs. Fields was an accident, but Dodger may have thought Lucas knew where this treasure was hidden.
No way to know what was going on in that killer’s head.
“You don’t need to tell us what you’ve done with all the money you took in those robberies over the years,” Doc said. “But you said you haven’t a dollar to your name. You told me straight out that there’s no money or gold left. I’d like to know why you told me that…unless you were lying.”
“I wasn’t lying,” she asserted as vehemently as she could manage. “I sold my husband’s claim and our ranch in Montana. I used that money to buy some land for a new ranch south of San Francisco. That’s where I planned to settle.”
“And the rest?” Doc asked.
Mrs. Fields paused, looking from Doc’s face to Caleb’s. She looked like she was trying to choose her next words carefully.
“The rest went to charity,” she said finally.
“What charity?” they asked at the same time.
“When my husband went to war, I almost lost him. A great many other women did lose their husbands. That money has been going to two widows’ funds, one in Pennsylvania and one in Virginia.
They help war widows and their children, women who may have lost everything in that fighting.
Lost their men. Lost their future. I lost my own husband and all my children except for Lucas to company of gunmen in a single night.
Mourning my family was one thing, trying to survive was quite another. ”
Mrs. Fields’s attention turned to Caleb next.
“I can give you the names of the directors of those two charities. They can tell you how much money I’ve sent them over the past five years. And they can tell you the good it’s done.”
She was not asking forgiveness. Caleb understood that. She was asking him to see the whole of it. The wrong done. The wrong returned. The lives broken. The lives helped. Nothing about it was clean, and maybe that was what made it feel true.
Caleb stood and went to the door of the shack and looked out at the remains of the deserted mining camp and at the hills and mountains beyond.
Laws were made in cities like Denver and Washington, and the people who made the laws mostly lived in them places.
Out here, it was a rough and violent country.
The laws from back East didn’t always work, and the truly guilty never felt the hand of justice.
Wells Fargo’s hired men were responsible for four deaths in the Fields family. Over five years, she had—without bloodshed—exacted what she felt they were due. Because of Horner, blood was spilled, and two men were dead at Dodger’s hand. Now, the killers themselves had paid the price.
And who came out ahead? Caleb thought. Widows.
Frontier justice. It was rough, and maybe not what the judge was looking for, but sometimes life had a way of working things out.
Behind him, Doc said nothing. Caleb knew his friend well enough to understand the silence. The doctor was waiting to see what kind of man Caleb intended to be.