The Vigilance Man Page 4

  ‘Maybe,’ said the man doubtfully, ‘I’ll allow as you don’t sound villainous, but a body can’t be too careful.’

  ‘You know, mister … sorry, but I didn’t catch your name, I work for the District Attorney up in Pharaoh. I’m hardly likely to attack you or aught of that kind.’

  ‘Happen you’re right. Anyways, I can’t carry on shouting like this, I’ll make myself hoarse.’ From the copse, an old man emerged. He wore no hat and both his long mane of hair and flowing beard were snow-white. He was dressed like a trapper and Cutler was strongly reminded of a couple of mountain men he’d once met. By the look of him, the fellow couldn’t be a day under sixty, but Cutler would be prepared to take oath that this man could hold his own physically against somebody half his age. He looked leathery and tough, as though he lived out of doors.

  Having decided that Cutler was not, after all, some wandering bandit, the old man lowered his rifle, strode up to him and thrust a hand up, saying, ‘M’name’s Archie. It don’t signify overmuch what my other name might be; Archie’ll do well enough.’

  ‘I’m glad to know you, sir,’ began Cutler, before the man cut in with the greatest irascibility, saying,

  ‘There’s no “sir” in the case, just my name’ll do well enough. We ain’t in the army nor in polite society neither. What’s your name, son?’

  ‘Brent. Brent Cutler.’

  ‘Brent it is. Well then, young Brent, are you lost or what? I was watching you some minutes from my hide over yonder and I began to suspicion you as being up to mischief. You weren’t heading anywhere and looked to be waiting for something, somebody, maybe.’

  ‘I was just thinking.’

  ‘I’m guessing there’s a story here. You want a pot of coffee?’

  ‘You’re camped out near here?’

  ‘I live here. Come, you don’t look dangerous. Don’t sound so neither. I’ll take a risk and let you come by my house.’

  CHAPTER 4

  Having decided what to do about the man from Pharaoh, Mark Seaton swung into action. He couldn’t depend upon all of those in his band of vigilance men. There were those who would ask awkward questions and maybe baulk at taking the life of some official from the county seat. Well, this was one of those times when men had to be resolute in action and not spend too long debating the rights and wrongs of the case. The sooner this Brent Cutler was out of the way, the easier Seaton would feel. More to the point, the safer the town would be from the creeping corruption of the official legal system.

  As a matter of fact, the methods that Seaton and his followers used were at least as effective as the official judicial system. In the last fifteen years, he and his boys had executed something over a hundred and thirty men. Of those, only two were quite innocent. In short, more than ninety-eight percent of those dealt with by the Greenhaven safety committee were guilty as sin and would have hanged just as readily had they been brought before a regular court. It was a record to be proud of. One of the two men wrongly hanged had been a half-witted drifter, who had been thought guilty of rape. The other was Brent Cutler’s father.

  When Seaton had seen the name Cutler on the letter from the District Attorney’s office, a faint memory had stirred in his mind, but then had slipped away; elusive as a blob of quicksilver. He was sure that he had had dealings with a man of that name in the past. There was accordingly no personal animosity involved in his decision to destroy Brent Cutler; it was simply a matter of the good governance of the town.

  Jack Carlton, who owned and ran the general store on Main Street, was putting up the shutters at about six that morning, when he caught sight of the leader of the vigilance men walking in his direction. He and Seaton had had good business dealings with each other in the past and Carlton knew that the head of the safety committee had a lot of respect for him. He waved and said, ‘Morning there, Seaton. Goin’ to be a fine day by the look of it.’

  As Seaton drew closer to the storekeeper, it was clear to Jack Carlton that something was perturbing his friend’s mind. ‘Something I can help you with?’ he asked.

  ‘You might say so,’ said Seaton. ‘Ezra Stannard’s been shot dead. The man that did it is still on the loose. Heading this way, maybe.’

  ‘You don’t say so?’ said the other man in surprise. ‘What’s to do?’

  The man who called himself Archie, led Cutler through the grove of trees towards a steep hillside. It wasn’t until they were right upon it that what looked like a wooden hut could be discerned. It was only about six feet high and hardly as wide. Bushes grew up to the door of this structure, which meant that unless you were a few feet from it, you would never guess that there was anything to be seen. ‘You live in there?’ asked Cutler. ‘It looks awful small.’

  ‘Just you wait and see,’ said the old man, chuckling. He directed Cutler to dismount and tether his horse on a nearby tree. When he had done this, Archie led him through the door of the hut and Cutler stopped dead in astonishment. He found himself standing in an open space as large as a fair-sized house. It was illuminated with several oil lamps, the light from which barely reached the ceiling overhead, which was lost in shadow. ‘What the …’ he muttered.

  ‘That surprised you, hey?’ said the old man, cackling with pleasure.

  ‘I don’t get it,’ said Cutler frankly.

  ‘S’easy enough. This here’s a cave in the side of the hill. It’s limestone, goes way back. There’s even a freshwater spring back a ways through another one of the caves. I just built my little shack to cover the entrance.’

  ‘It’s just fantastic. You lived here for long?’

  ‘’Bout fifteen years, I reckon. Used to live in Greenhaven, little town nigh to here.’

  ‘Greenhaven? That’s where I was headed.’

  ‘You got business there? You ain’t goin’ for pleasure, I’ll be bound.’

  ‘No, you’re right. It’s business.’

  ‘Well then, good luck to you. Just don’t look to be having a lark there. It’s a place for being sober and Godly, if that’s what your tastes run to. Got three churches and every man, woman and child in that town goes to one or t’other of ’em.’

  Cutler gave the old man a sharp glance. ‘You don’t approve of religion?’

  ‘Religion’s all well and good. I got nothing ‘gainst it whatsoever. It’s when folk make too much of a song an’ dance about how holy and pious they are that I find it sticking in m’craw.’

  ‘That the way of things in Greenhaven?’

  The man who called himself Archie didn’t reply, but walked over to what seemed to serve as a fireplace in his strange home. There were glowing embers, which he blew into life before adding a little kindling.

  Cutler said, ‘I’d have thought that having a fire here would smoke you out.’

  ‘There’s cracks and holes up aways, through the rock. They carry the smoke out. I’ll concede that in the winter, it gets a little smoky here, though.’

  ‘You were talking about Greenhaven,’ said the younger man, as Archie fussed about with the coffee pot. ‘What sort of town is it?’

  ‘The sort of place that I don’t care to live in. I find choking on smoke at odd times is better than choking on having piety rammed down your throat all day.’

  ‘They say that it’s a peaceful town. Some folk like that.’

  ‘It ain’t often as I let anybody through my door,’ remarked Archie suddenly. ‘Liked the look of you, though. Seem like an honest man. You tell me what all this tends toward, meaning why you’re going to Greenhaven, and then I’ll think on how much I’m a goin’ to say.’

  It was a tricky situation. On the one hand, Brent Cutler felt disinclined to be too open and free with a man he didn’t know from Adam. On the other, he had already been waylaid and robbed, presumably by men connected with Greenhaven’s vigilance committee. In the end, he decided to proceed guardedly. He said, ‘I’m working for the Kent County District Attorney. There are plans afoot to install a sheriff in Greenhaven.’ To his an
noyance, Archie burst out laughing at that; laughter which turned into a prolonged coughing fit.

  ‘Ah Lord,’ he said when he had recovered, ‘you’ll find that a hard row to hoe. Anybody in town got wind o’ your comin’?’

  ‘I believe my superior wrote Mr Seaton in the town,’ Cutler said a little stiffly. He did not take to being laughed at like that.

  ‘Wrote Mark Seaton, hey? How’d that go down?’

  ‘I don’t know. I left before a reply was received.’

  ‘Listen, son,’ said the old man in a fatherly way, ‘I kind o’ taken a liking to you. You’re being cautious, which is right and proper, but suppose I tell you a bit about the town you’re heading for? Just to let you know how the wind’s set, so to say.’

  It was while he was on the way over to see Jack Carlton that Seaton had the brilliant idea that might yet succeed in pulling all of his irons out of the fire at once. With no identification, this Cutler fellow would be mighty hard-pressed to prove he was who he said he was. Only to Ezra Stannard had he revealed some of the truth about the man from Pharaoh and now Ezra, God rest his soul, had been promoted to glory. What was to stop Seaton from portraying Brent Cutler as a ruthless and determined, murderous in fact, confidence trickster?

  The more he turned this idea over in his mind, the sounder it seemed. It would be his word against Cutler’s and after the death of such a well-beloved local man as Ezra, nobody would be likely to listen too much to anything the killer had to say in his defence. It would sound like the ravings of a lunatic. With luck, they could have the man disposed of in next to no time and after that, well they’d just have to wait and see.

  So it was that when Carlton asked what was on his mind that fine morning, he was able to tell him quite truthfully that Ezra Stannard had been killed while undertaking his duty as a vigilance man. As he was outlining the matter to Carlton and explaining the need to raise a large posse and track the killer down, a man came looking for him with the news that Tom Hanning’s wound had proved worse than anybody had realized. He had suffered some kind of seizure not half an hour since, which had been quickly followed by his death. Saddened as Seaton was by another death, it was not difficult to see that two deaths like this would serve to rouse everybody in Greenhaven and ensure that when he was caught, the man from the District Attorney’s office would get short shrift. With good fortune, the whole affair might be wrapped up by nightfall.

  ‘Men don’t change their natures,’ said Archie, as he poured out a cup of coffee, ‘not just ’cause o’ what some preacher man says. They might hide what they’re up to, from shame, but they’re goin’ to carry on acting the same way.’

  After the two of them were seated on the surprisingly comfortable chairs that the old man had fashioned himself from the trees growing thereabouts, he continued.

  ‘Greenhaven used to be as rough as all get out. Early years o’ the war, well it was like nothing you ever dreamed of. Guns, liquor, women and I don’t know what-all else. Every comanchero, moonshiner and bandit for miles around made their homes nigh to the town. Men’s daughters and wives weren’t safe on the streets in broad daylight. I tell you, it was a plain scandal the way things got.’

  ‘But it’s not like that any more, is that right?’

  ‘Not since a fellow called Mark Seaton took charge of what they call the safety committee, no. Town’s as quiet as you like these days.’

  ‘So what’s wrong with that?’ asked Cutler. ‘I don’t get why folk wouldn’t be pleased.’

  ‘Like I said, you can hide some things, but you can’t get rid of ’em. All that’s happened is that all the crime and so on has moved out of the town itself. You can still get a woman or buy stolen goods, only now you need to go a mile or two out of town, to some farmhouse. But there’s worse than that. It ain’t just the hypocrisy. More than one of them in Seaton’s blamed vigilance committee are up to all sorts of villainy themselves, but he doesn’t notice. Long as a man goes to church on the Sabbath and refrains from swearing and blaspheming in his presence, Seaton thinks he’s good and righteous. Huh! One or two of those boys who keep order in Greenhaven are worse than any bushwhacker.’

  ‘And Seaton doesn’t know about it?’

  Archie chuckled. ‘Not he. Like I say, with him it’s all outward appearance. Long as men behave right and say their prayers, he thinks they’re fine fellows. I tell you now, there’s things go on out of sight of the town which wouldn’t be tolerated if they were known of.’

  At this, Cutler’s ears pricked up and he asked, ‘What sort of things, sir?’

  ‘Archie. M’name’s Archie. Well, slavin’ for one.’

  ‘Slaving? You’re not serious. You don’t mean here in this territory? Who’s doing it?’

  ‘Mexicans, chiefly. Agents up north get young girls to come down this way. Promise ’em all sort of foolishness. Jobs in theatres, dancing, all manner of things. When they get down here, they’re like then to fetch up working in some hurdy-gurdy house. If not, they end up with a bunch of comancheros who somehow spirit them across the border. They end up in cathouses all over Mexico.’

  Brent Cutler was ashen with horror. He had never heard anything so appalling in his life. He said, ‘You’re certain-sure about this? It’s not just rumour or wild stories?’

  ‘Not a bit of it,’ replied Archie, hugely satisfied with the effect that he observed his news had had on the youngster. ‘They don’t all know of it in Greenhaven, but then they don’t want to know of such things. Long as the streets are safe for their own womenfolk, why should they care?’

  ‘You say the safety committee or whatever they call it there, some of them are in this racket?’

  ‘One or two of ’em, sure. Other things too. It’s what I said, you can hide men’s base instincts, keep ’em out of the way, but you ain’t a going to do away with them. Not no how.’

  ‘Do many people hereabouts know of this?’

  ‘They don’t want to know. Why rock the boat? Once in a while, somebody comes sniffing round, but outsiders don’t generally find out much. There’s accidents; one fell down an old mine shaft; one fellow even got strung up by the vigilance men themselves. Can you believe it? Yes sir, they hanged a US marshal.’

  A strange feeling came over Cutler, as though somebody had walked over his grave. He could feel gooseflesh puckering up the skin on his arms and said casually, ‘Hanged a lawman? That makes strange listening. What happened?’

  ‘It was the damnedest thing. Must have been ten, maybe twelve years ago. Some fellow came down here, only a few years after Mark Seaton took charge of the vigilance men. I was still spending a lot of time in town in those days and soon as I set eyes on that man I said to myself, he’s a lawman or I’m a Dutchman. There was some lively games going on at that time, year or two after the war ended it would have been. Anyway, a stage was knocked over, few miles from here. Up by the High Peaks. Somehow the word was out that this fellow was in on it.’

  ‘I suppose you can’t – I know it was a while back you can’t recollect his name, I guess?’

  Old Archie looked at him queerly and said slowly, ‘That I can’t, son. Not after all these years. Anyways, Seaton and a few of his boys they chased him miles. Tracked him down to a little town and then hanged him on the spot. Word was they found some compromising evidence as clinched the case ‘gainst him. There was the hell of a row, though, ’cause they did this in somebody else’s town and the local people weren’t none too pleased ’bout it.’

  ‘Any idea what town that was?’

  ‘I couldn’t say. I mind that there was a landing or some such in the name of it. More than that, I couldn’t be sure.’

  ‘It wouldn’t have been Grant’s Landing by some chance?’

  ‘Grant’s Landing! That’s it, for a bet. Why, I ain’t thought on that these ten years or more. Yes, it was Grant’s Landing. But how come you’d be knowing that?’

  Brent Cutler shook his head; his heart was too full to speak. All these years he h
ad known full well that his father hadn’t been any sort of criminal. He’d known it, but hadn’t had a speck of evidence to back up his belief. They’d moved on almost immediately after the death of his father and anybody wishing to track them down wouldn’t have had an easy time of it. So terrible had been the fear of something happening to her children after the lynching of her husband, that his mother had wanted to make tracks at once, not even delaying for a funeral.

  Archie was looking at the young man thoughtfully, as though he might be on the verge of saying something further. Then he apparently decided against it, saying merely, ‘You want to sleep on the floor here tonight, then be my guest.’

  There were currently three members of the Greenhaven safety committee who, in addition to their regular employment in the town, moved on the fringes of various criminal enterprises. Two of these men didn’t make anything like a fortune from their crooked activities; they merely received payment from some of those running various enterprises around Greenhaven and some additional money for providing warning of what was planned and misleading the rest of the safety committee about this and that, as occasion demanded. The men they tipped off were moonshiners and similar small fry. The third of the men was a horse of another colour; making a good deal of money from his activities beyond the law. This man was Jack Carlton, who the leader of the Greenhaven vigilance men regarded as his most stalwart lieutenant.

  Most of the crime which took place in the vicinity of the town was run-of-the-mill stuff such as drinking dens, the unregulated buying and selling of gold, a little gun-running to the Indians and so on. Sometimes there was more seriously illegal activity – holding up of stages and so on. In recent years there had also been, as Brent Cutler had lately learned, a growing number of white slavers operating in the area. Now of all crimes, none was viewed with more loathing and detestation by the average citizen than the trafficking of white women.

  There was always a demand for attractive girls in the hurdy-gurdy houses, saloons and musical theatres of the rougher towns, especially those where, for one reason or another, men had plenty of money to splash around. In the wake of gold rushes, such places sprung up like mushrooms. In some of these establishments, prostitution was so rife that there was little to distinguish them from cathouses. All this was dreadful enough, with innocent and inexperienced girls being lured from remote farms on the promise of making their fortune in the theatre. There was worse, though, and that was the transferring of women across the border into Mexico, where they were virtually held prisoner and forced to work in brothels. Anybody detected in this vile trade was pretty well certain to be lynched on the spot; even in districts which boasted a sheriff and properly constituted courts.