Snake River Slaughter

Chapter Nine

Medbury, Idaho

Poke Terrell woke up with a ravenous hunger and a raging need to urinate. The whore still asleep beside him had the bedcover askew, exposing one of her breasts. One leg dangled over the edge of the bed and she was snoring loudly as a bit of spittle drooled from her vibrating lips. She didn’t wake up when Poke crawled over her to get out of bed and get dressed.

The whore was not one of the women who worked at the Sand Spur, nor even at Flat Nose Sue’s. She did business out of a very small, one-room house called a crib. Poke walked through the alley to the Sand Spur, which was about two blocks from the whore’s crib.

He used the toilet behind the Sand Spur, holding his breath against the terrible odor. As he started into the saloon, he saw someone lying in the alley behind the building. At first he thought he might be dead, then he saw him move, and knew that it was just a saloon patron sleeping off last night’s drunk.

Once inside, Poke took a seat at his table. The main room of the Sand Spur saloon was big, with exposed rafters below the high, peaked ceiling. Although there were several tables in the saloon, most of them were empty as it was still fairly early in the morning and there were only a few patrons at this hour. A couple of all-night customers for the whores came down the stairs, looking a little sheepish at being seen by the few who were in the saloon. A few minutes later the two girls came downstairs, laughing uninhibitedly. There were several large jars of pickled eggs and pig’s feet on the bar, and the two women walked over to the bar, then stuck their hands down inside the jars to pull out a couple of pickled eggs each for their breakfast.

The Sand Spur was one of two saloons in town. The other saloon was called the Mud Hole, and it catered to a lower class clientele, serving cheaper whiskey and beer in an establishment that no amenities of any kind. It was behind the livery, whereas the Sand Spur had the more choice location, at the end of Meridian Street, right next to the Union Pacific track.

Poke had ordered breakfast and it was just being brought to his table as the morning train rolled in. With its whistle blowing and its bell clanging, the heavy engine caused the saloon to shake. As a result of the shaking, the bottles of whiskey that were lined up behind the bar began to rattle when they banged together. It sounded, and felt, as if the train was about to come right through the building, but the arrival and departure of the daily trains, both freight and passenger, was such a routine event that no one in the saloon paid any attention to them.

After a few minutes of sitting in the station, the train blew its whistle then moved on. Shortly after the train left the station, Sam Logan stepped into the saloon. Seeing Poke, he walked back to his table. Yesterday, Poke had sent Logan, Madison, and Jernigan to American Falls to deal with the Matt Jensen issue.

Poke didn’t interrupt his breakfast and he took a bite of biscuit as Logan approached his table.

“Well, you are back I see. Any trouble?”

“Yeah, we had trouble. We had a lot of trouble,” Logan said.

“What kind of trouble?” Poke looked toward the door, expecting to see someone else. “Where are the others? Where are Madison and Jernigan?”

“That’s the trouble. Madison and Jernigan? They’re dead, Poke.”

“Dead? Are you sure?”

“Damn right, I’m sure. I seen both of ’em lyin’ out on the floor of the Red Horse Saloon back in American Falls. And they was both of ’em deader ’n a door nail.”

“How did that happen? There were three of you. Matt Jensen is only one man. How hard could it be for three of you to take care of one man?”

“Yeah, well, Madison had his own way of doing things, only it didn’t work out quite like he planned.”

“What happened?”

“Matt Jensen is what happened. You ever run into him, Poke? Or heard tale of him?”

“I’ve heard of him, I’ve never run into him,” Poke replied. “Why do you ask?”

“Well let me tell you somethin’ about him that maybe you don’t know. Matt Jensen is faster’n greased lightnin’ I believe he’s got to be about the fastest man with a gun there is—I mean the way he shot ’em both.”

“So, you did see it?” Kincaid asked. “By that, I mean you were a witness to it?”

“Yeah, I seen it. I had left the saloon a minute earlier but I come back and was standin’ just outside the door, watchin’ it when it happened, so yeah, I seen it all right.”

“What do you mean you were standing just outside the door watchin’? I sent all three of you over to take care of him. If you were there with them, and they are both dead, how is it that you are not?”

“I ain’t dead, ’cause I ain’t a fool, that’s why. You can’t blame me. Like I told you, it’s all Madison’s fault,” Logan said. “Madison, what he wanted to do, was brace Jensen head on. He figured, what with Jernigan up in the balcony and all, that he’d have an edge.”

“Why did Madison want to do such a fool thing as that?”

“Why? Because he wanted to become a big shot, that’s why,” Logan answered.

“Even so, that sounds like a pretty good plan, what with Jernigan bein’ up in the balcony and all. So, what happened?”

“Somehow or the other, and I don’t know how, Jensen figured out what was goin’ on. And once he figured it out Madison didn’t have the edge no more. Jensen shot Jernigan first, then after that, he still had time to shoot Madison before he could even get his gun out. The next thing you know, Jensen was standin’ there holdin’ a smokin’ gun, and Madison and Jernigan was both of ’em layin’ dead on the floor. It was all over before you could even blink your eyes.”

“Where were you during all this time?”

“Like I told you, I was standin’ just outside the door, watchin’.”

“Why didn’t you help?”

“I tell you true, Poke, if I had stuck my nose into it, I’d be dead too. Jensen is that fast. Besides, I didn’t figure you sent us over there for no duel.”

“I sent you over there to take care of Jensen, and I didn’t care how you did it.”

“Your complaint is with Madison, it ain’t with me.”

“Really,” Poke said sarcastically. “How am I going to complain to Madison if he is dead?”

“You can’t, I guess,” Logan admitted.

“That leaves only you.”

“But think about this. Iffen I had got myself kilt as well, then how else would you know that Jensen and Gilmore will be takin’ the train to Medbury this mornin’?”

“How do you know they will be taking this morning’s train?”

“What I actual know is just what I found out from the station agent. And that is, that Gilmore bought hisself two tickets for this mornin’s train. I’m just figurin’ that the other ticket is for Jensen.”

“I think you are right. Good job, Logan.”

“Thanks.”

“I just imagine that if you were on the train most of the night, then you probably haven’t eaten, have you?”

“No, I ain’t. I ain’t et nothin’ since lunch time yesterday.”

“Would you like breakfast?”

“Yeah, I believe I would.”

Poke spread some butter on his biscuit but as Logan reached for it, Poke took a bite of it himself. “Go over to the bar and grab yourself a pickled egg and pig’s foot,” he said. “Then after you eat, come back and see me. I’ve got another job I want you to do.”

“If it has to do with Matt Jensen, there ain’t no way I’m goin’ to do it by myself,” Logan said.

“You won’t have to be by yourself.”

Although the tracks of the Union Pacific generally follow the Snake River west across Idaho, when they reach a point twenty miles west of American Falls, the railroad is at the farthest distance from the river and the Snake can no longer be seen. On the north side of the tracks is a lava desert that is black and craggy, leading northward toward a barren and ugly escarpment that thrust upward as if in some way the land had formed waves, like the sea.

Matt sat next to the window, looking out at the barren land. He had read, somewhere, that this desert was what the surface of the moon might look like if one could take a balloon high enough to ever reach that heavenly body. But as he continued to study the denuded and uninviting terrain, he wondered how anyone could ever suggest that this was similar to the moon. The moon was bright and shiny, sometimes silver and sometimes gold. This was dark as coal.

“When you see land like this, it makes you wonder what would ever have attracted someone to settle out here, doesn’t it?” Gilmore asked, noticing the intensity with which Matt was studying the terrain outside the train.

“Oh, I don’t know,” Matt replied. “In a way the area holds some appeal just in its awesome starkness, and, if not appeal exactly, then it certainly creates interest.”

Gilmore chuckled. “I’ve never heard it put that way before, but you may have a point.”

“Tell me about this man, Poke Terrell,” Matt said.

“He used to be on the right side of the law,” Gilmore said. “Sort of,” he added.

“What do you mean, sort of?”

“Poke Terrell used to ride with Clay Sherman and the Idaho Auxiliary Peace Officers’ Posse.”

“The Idaho Auxiliary Peace Officers’ Posse? What is that? I’ve never heard of it.”

“Supposedly, they are sort of a permanent posse, and from time to time they have made their services available to one sheriff or another. But there are some who say they are nothing but a bunch of mercenaries, willing to sell their guns to the highest bidder.”

“What do you think about them?”

“If Poke Terrell is any example of the caliber and quality of the men who belong to the Idaho Auxiliary Peace Officers’ Posse, then I would say that mercenary is not a strong enough word for them. I would say they are a band of hired assassins.”

“What about Marcus Kincaid?”

“Marcus Kincaid? He isn’t a problem. Why do you ask about him?”

“Katherine mentioned in her letter that he wanted her ranch.”

“Yes, but he isn’t her problem. Poke Terrill is. Poke is the dregs of the earth, and one wonders how he has avoided prison all these years. But Marcus Kincaid is totally different. If you met him in a social setting, in someone’s home, say, or at a club, or in the lobby of an elegant hotel, you would no doubt think him to be a fine fellow. He is affable, charming, wealthy, well-read, everything one needs to be a first class citizen,” Gilmore replied.

“That’s the kind of description you would give to someone who is running for governor,” Matt said.

“Yes, I suppose it is, isn’t it? But Idaho is sure to be a state some day and when it is, I would not be the least bit surprised to see Marcus Kincaid running for governor.”

“And he is Katherine’s stepson?”

“Katherine? Oh, you mean Kitty Wellington. No, he was never her stepson.” Gilmore chuckled. “That would have been awkward at any rate, since Marcus Kincaid is two years older than Mrs. Wellington.

“The way this relationship came about, is that Kitty was married to Sir Thomas Wellington, and prior to his marriage to Kitty, Sir Thomas Wellington was married to a woman named Mary Kincaid. Mary Kincaid came into the marriage a widow, and with a young son, Marcus. Sir Thomas never officially adopted Marcus Kincaid, but he treated him as his own.

“Mary died four years ago, and shortly thereafter, Sir Thomas married Kitty, but by that time, Marcus Kincaid was on his own, having received a ranch and a rather large sum of money, in the form of an outright gift, from Sir Thomas.

“Sir Thomas and Kitty were married for only one year before he died. His will left Coventry on the Snake to Kitty, and that is what started the trouble. Marcus Kincaid was convinced that the ranch should have gone to him.”

“Katherine’s husband was called Sir Thomas?”

“Yes, he was British, and since he never became an American citizen, he was able to keep his title. I must say though, that he wasn’t vain about it. He never insisted upon being addressed by his title, though his friends and business acquaintances did so out of respect for him. He was a fine man.”

“What, exactly, did he leave to Katherine?”

“He left her Coventry on the Snake and Coventry Manor. Unfortunately, as you read in the letter, he left her land rich and liquid asset poor. He had less than five thousand dollars in his American account—he was used to transferring funds here from England, as he needed them. But once his brother learned that Sir Thomas had died, he went to court and got an order preventing any more funds from being transferred.”

“What is Coventry Manor?”

“It’s the house where Mrs. Wellington lives. That is, if you can call it a house. It’s bigger than any house, or hotel for that matter, that I’ve ever seen.”

“If I understood her letter, Katherine didn’t start raising horses until after her husband died.”

“That is true, and she had to take out a loan in order to do it,” Gilmore said.

“Is she having trouble meeting the loan?”

“She is not in default yet. But don’t get me wrong, Mr. Jensen, taking out the loan was not an imprudent thing to do. Mrs. Wellington is a very good business-woman. In fact, she is a much better business person than Sir Thomas ever was. And, of course, that makes Marcus Kincaid’s claim that it should all belong to him, even more untenable. He actually took his claim to court, you know, suing Mrs. Wellington for ownership of the ranch. The court decided in Mrs. Wellington’s favor.”

“Good job,” Matt said. “I take it you represented her.”

Gilmore cleared his throat before answering. “Uh, no, I didn’t,” he said. “I—uh—represented Marcus Kincaid in that petition.”

“And now you represent Katherine?”

“Yes.”

“That’s interesting.”

“It may be even more interesting, once Kincaid learns that I am working for Mrs. Wellington.”

Matt laughed.

“What is it?”

“Even if I didn’t know Katherine from before, I would be tempted to take this job, just for the sheer fascination of it.”

Coventry Manor

The ornate and baronial home looked more like a castle than a house, and that was by design. Though smaller than the Coventry Palace, Coventry Manor had the same design as the Palace on the Wey River, back in England. It was complete in every detail, including the towers, lacking only the moat that surrounded the original building.

As spectacular as the house was though, it was the grounds that attracted the most attention. The lawn spread out over at least five acres, with an artfully designed maze of shrubbery, neatly trimmed, weed-free grass, and flowers, which grew in colorful profusion in several well-tended islands. At the moment almost a dozen groundskeepers were working on the lawn, a few pushing lawn mowers, others sculpturing shrubbery, while still others were digging out a new flower garden.

Kitty Wellington was in one of the flower gardens, cutting flowers in order to make a bouquet. She was being assisted by the head of her household staff, Frederica Bustamante.

“Senor Yensen must be a very important man,” Frederica said.

“Why do you say that?”

“You have Maria cook a big meal, you have Manuel find the best wine in the cellar, and now you take the most beautiful flowers for a bouquet. I think you would not do this if he would not be a very important man.”

“He is an important man,” Kitty said.

“Have you met him before?”

“Yes,” Kitty said.

“Has he been here before? I do not remember him.”

“No, he has never been here before. I met him, many years ago. I met him when I was a young girl.”

Frederica chuckled. “You were in love with him then, I think.”

“Don’t be silly, Frederica. I was only nine years old.”

“But you were in love with him, I think,” Frederica insisted.

Kitty laughed, easily. “Well, maybe I was,” she said. “I thought he was the most handsome boy I had ever known. He was brave too.”

“Brave?”

“Yes. I told you once that I lived in an orphanage, remember?”

“Si, Señora, I remember.”

“We were always hungry then. Pease porridge, that’s all they ever fed us. Pease porridge, except for one time. One day, Matt told us to follow his lead and eat none of our supper.

“No one asked why we should do such a thing, everyone knew and trusted Matt. So when we went through the line for supper, we accepted our bowls of pease porridge, then went back to our tables. Looking toward Matt, he let it be known by sign and signal that we were not to eat our porridge.

“There were two other orphans who were different from all the others. Their names were Connor and Simon and, because they worked for Captain Mumford, who was the head of the orphanage, they never had to go through the line. Instead, they were served at their seats.

“On that night, one of the kitchen workers brought two bowls of pease porridge out to them and set them on the table in front of Simon and Connor.”

As Kitty told the story, she relived the moment so that it was as real to her, as it had been on the day it actually happened.

“Here, hold on!” Simon called out as the woman started back toward the kitchen. “Is this a joke? What is this?”

“It’s your supper,” the woman answered.

“The hell it is. We’re having ham tonight.”

The kitchen worker shook her head. “No ham,” she said. “We didn’t cook a ham tonight.”

“You didn’t have to cook it, it was already cooked. What’s going on here? What happened to our ham?”

“I haven’t seen any ham,” the woman answered.

Though none of the other residents laughed out loud, they all repressed giggles and smiles while they watched the frustration of the two oldest of their number as they tried to eat the pease porridge.

“What is this?” Connor shouted in anger. “Nobody can eat this shit!”

Again, there were repressed giggles from the other residents. Then, at a nod from Matt, everyone got up from the table and took their untouched bowl of porridge to the garbage can. There, they dumped the porridge, turned the bowls in, then filed out of the dining room.

“Connor, did you see that?” Simon asked.

“Did I see what?”

“None of them ate.”

“Yeah, well, who can blame them?” he replied, looking at his meal with disgust.

“No, you don’t understand,” Simon said. “None of them ate so much as one bite. They always eat.”

“Yeah,” Connor said. “Yeah, you’re right. I wonder why not. Why don’t you follow them, Simon, and see if you can figure out what’s going on?”

“Yeah,” Simon said. “I will.”

Simon slipped out of the dining room, then hanging back a little, watched as the others went into the chapel. Curious, he moved up to the door of the chapel, then looked inside. Everyone was sitting quietly in the pews, with their heads bowed and their eyes closed.

“Simon,” Matt called, seeing Simon standing at the door. “It’s so good to see you here. Come on in.”

“What?” Simon asked.

“Why don’t you go get Connor and bring him with you? We would love to have you two join us.”

“Join you for what? What are you doing? What’s going on, here?”

“You may have noticed that we ate none of our food tonight.”

“Yeah, I did notice. Why didn’t you eat?”

“Because we are having a night of fasting and prayer,” Matt said.

“What do you mean fasting and prayer? How can you have a prayer service if there ain’t no preacher here.”

“You don’t need a preacher to have a prayer service,” Matt said. “Remember, the Lord said ‘When two or three are gathered in my name, there I shall be.’ I noticed that you fasted as well tonight. Won’t you please join us?”

Matt reached out as if to grab Simon and pull him into the chapel.

Simon held out his hands as if warding off Matt. He shook his head no.

“No,” he said. “I ain’t doin’ no prayin’.”

“What about Connor? Won’t you ask him to join us?”

“You’re crazy,” Simon said. “There ain’t neither one of us goin’ to be comin’ in here and sayin’ a bunch of prayers.”

“Then we will pray for you,” Matt said.

“You’re crazy, I tell you. Every last one of you.”

Matt waited for a moment, then he looked over at Eddie. “Make sure he’s gone.”

Eddie went to the door, looked through it, then turned back. “He’s gone,” he said.

“Let’s eat,” Matt said, and with that, everyone crowded up to the altar where, from beneath the pulpit, Matt pulled out a large ham.

“Oh, this looks so delicious,” Tamara said. “Where did you get it?”

“The ladies of the Methodist Church cooked it especially for us,” Matt said. “I just happened to be outside Mumford’s office when they brought it in to him. Mumford thanked them for it, then told Connor that he and Simon could both have a little of it before he took it home.”

“Took it home? He was going to keep a ham that was supposed to be for us?” Katherine asked.

Matt nodded. “Yeah. You think pease porridge is all we ever get? Churches and the like have been bringing us food ever since I got here, only we don’t ever see any.”

“That ain’t right,” one of the boys said. He had only been here about six months.

“I agree, Billy, it isn’t right, so that’s why I decided to do something about it,” Matt said. “I waited until Mumford stepped out of the office, then I took the ham and brought it here.”

“I wouldn’t have had the nerve to do that,” one of the others said.

“Sure you would have,” Matt said. “All you would have had to do was smell it when you were hungry.”

“When is anyone not hungry in here?” Katherine asked, and they all laughed.

“Oh, that ham was so delicious,” Kitty said. “I have had many fine meals since that time, but never have I had a meal better than that one.”

“Senor Matt sounds like a very good man,” Frederica said.

“He is a good man, Frederica,” Kitty said. “That’s why I sent for him. I think he is just the kind of man I need now, to help me through this difficulty.”