...And Justice For All
July 25,2023
The setting sun had reached the far mountain top when I recognized Mattie McDonald’s horse camped under the ledge on the far side of the canyon. Easing my horse to a slow walk, I approached the camp.
“Hello,” I called quietly so as not to scare her.
She looked up over the fire she was tending, trying to get the flames hot enough to boil water. She leaned back slightly on her haunches as she slid the rifle closer to her.
‘“Relax, ma’am. I come in peace. I saw you and figured you had coffee and hard tact.”
She shifted slightly, and the rifle was almost in her hand. Then she recognized me. “Jim. I didn’t expect to see you in this part of the world anytime soon.”
I stopped just outside the glow of the fire and eased myself down from my horse, taking care not to make any sudden moves. “I’m only passing through, but I have extra rations.” Still acutely aware that the rifle was in easy reach of her. I carefully opened my saddle bag and extracted a sizeable chunk of bacon wrapped in oilcloth.
“I have way more than I can eat.” I held it up.
She relaxed a little and let the rifle lay. I didn’t blame her for not trusting anyone.
Bending slightly, I picked up a few larger twigs and added them to the fire, and it flamed up a bit more with the extra fuel. I handed the package to her. She unwrapped it and smelled it. Nodding with approval, she reached behind her and found a small fry pan. She sliced bacon strips from the slab and laid them in the pan.
“I also have extra coffee.” I volunteered, trying to get a response from her as I tossed a couple more twigs on the fire.
Matty wasn’t a talker. Over the next half hour, as the sun worked its way past behind the mountains, we ate in silence. She didn’t seem to mind my being there, but she wasn’t inviting conservation either.
About the time we’d finished, I remembered I had some cookies stashed in my saddlebag. Telling her I had forgotten something extra, I dug deep into the bottom of the bag.
Opening a paper bag, I pulled out a smaller bag of cookies, once round but now broken into pieces. Sitting down next to her, I handed her a couple. “They used to be cookies, but they’ve been riding around in the bag for a while.”
“Where’d you get these?”
“Dry goods store in the last town I stopped in.” I munched on one and found that despite being stale, they weren’t bad.
As the sun disappeared, so did what little warmth it had provided. The temperatures quickly dropped as the moon started to make its appearance. I tossed bigger logs on the fire, which roared back to life, providing us with needed heat.
Mattie still hadn’t said two words, but she hadn’t threatened to put extra holes in me, either, so I took that as a sign I was permitted to stay. But I kept my distance and laid out my sleeping bag on the fire's far side.
I woke up with the sun in my eyes. Sitting up, it took me a minute to remember where I was. I glanced around and found Matty saddling her horse. I rose from the hard ground.
“Morning, Mattie.” I held her horse’s reins as she tightened the cinch on the saddle. She nodded in my direction and continued packing her camp on her horse's back.
We had spent the night sleeping under the stars and staying warm by her fire, but she’d barely said a word to me. I shuffled my feet in the dirt and finally found something to say.
“Look, Mattie. I wanted to thank you for not shooting me last night and letting me eat with you. You heading back to Broken Bridge.” It was more of a statement than a question. There was only one reason for her to be in this part of the country.
She straightened up and turned to face me.
“Luke Small needs to be dealt with.”
“I know.” I saddled my horse and mounted it.
Swinging up on her horse, she reined it to a sharp left and turned in her saddle. “You coming?”
“So Matty, for sure, where are we going?” I asked, knowing full well where she was heading.
She grinned at me. Her light blonde hair bounced under her old hat, and her horse seemed to liven up as she told me.
“Straight into hell.”
~~~
We rode in silence. Mattie didn’t need to explain what the hell was. The town of Broken Bridge and Mattie McDonald had a long and violent history which I suspected to be coming to a head very soon. My history with Broken Bridge was almost as violent as Mattie’s. It had ended several years before when I managed to scrape together enough stakes to leave town. Mattie had been forced out by Luke Small, who had taken over the town as his playground and ran the town as he saw fit with his appointed sheriff John Brown. Being that Luke Small owned the mine, and folks either worked for him or depended on his mining operation for a way to survive, folks didn’t push back except Mattie.
Mattie had almost killed him in a fight several years ago, and Sheriff John Brown had a warrant out for her. Except that half the town saw the end of the fight when Mattie finely beat him senselessly in front of the townsfolks. Luke had the sheriff file assault charges against her, but no one dared to stand with Mattie and fight the charge. So, Mattie had left. I had overheard some of the fight and, at the time, didn’t come forward, but later tried to set the record straight. Luke had the sheriff run me out of town. I disappeared and borrowed enough money to stay gone. I’d spent the last several years drifting and working on whatever ranch or farm I could. I was tired and felt the anger boiling every night when I thought about how Luke treated me, Mattie, and the town. I’d heard that Mattie was coming back, and I’d made sure I found her before she got to town.
The trail eased out of the valley at the far end, the grade gradually increasing until we had to walk the horses to get them up past the loose gravel. The drop-off on the side was increasingly sharp and high. Not a fan of heights, I stayed as close to the inside as possible. Mattie never seemed to slow down as she led her horse up over the worst loose gravel and fallen debris from recent rains.
Once we made the top of the ravine and turned to look at the spot where we'd camped was a tiny clump of trees on the far side. Remounting her horse, she pulled her hat low and settled herself in the saddle, and I noticed she loosened the rifle in its scabbard. As I got back on my saddle, I followed suit and made my rifle loose where it rode. I also settled the revolver on my hip. It was then I noticed the revolver she had on her hip. Instead of the popular single-action army, or six guns as it was called, she carried a Smith and Wesson Schofield. A break-open revolver that let her reload the entire gun quickly and easily. I’d seen them but never got to use one. From the size of it, it was chambered the same as her lever action rifle, in 44-40.
“You know where we’re heading?” She eased up under a large maple tree near the trail. A small stream that ran not far away.
I didn't answer as I led my horse to the stream and let her drink.
“You ride in with me, and you’ll probably die with me.” That was her way of telling me I could back out if I wanted. I considered her statement for a minute as we remounted the horses.
“I’m gonna die anyways. I’d rather die fighting for what's right.” I rode up next to her. She nodded yes, and we never said another word about Broken Bridge.
About a mile outside town, we passed the bridge the town was named for. A small wooden bridge that had collapsed from heavy use and bad building techniques. The newer, stronger bridge spanned the ravine the old bridge had originally crossed.
Matty pulled up her horse to a short stop just before the bridge. Tunning in her saddle, she looked me straight in the eye.
“You cross this bridge with me, and your mine.”
“Nowhere I’d rather be.”
Mattie whipped the reins of her horse, and we thundered across the plank bridge. The clomping of our galloping horses' hooves echoed across the ravine and the hills surrounding it.
Drawing up sharply, she stopped the horse about a quarter of a mile from the bridge. And slid the rifle from its scabbard and worked the lever below the stock, chambering a new bullet into the firing chamber of the rifle.
I followed her example and readied my rifle.
As we rode the last few miles into town, memories of the last time I’d been in Broken Bridge came back to me. It hadn’t been a pleasant place to be. I knew it still wasn’t a good place to have to live. I’d barely gotten out of there alive. Returning now, especially with Mattie, would not go down well.
Mattie McDonald was well known in the area as a tough cookie, and she was. She could shoot better than most of the men in the county, and her hunting skills were not bad either. She often got game when no one else could, which had saved a few families in the dead of a cold, windy winter several years ago. Outside of Broken Bridge, she was considered a bit of a hero, having tried to stand up to Luke and improve the county and helped a lot of poor families survive some bad winters.
Broken Bridge hadn’t changed much in the few years we’d been gone. Except that it looked even more run down than it did back then. The faded paint on the general store and saloon was now nearly gone, and there was more bare wood than painted wood on the buildings. Several storefronts with businesses in them, when we left, were now empty—a couple with broken windows and boarded-over doors. The main street was still a muddy mess, and the hitching rails along the boardwalk looked like a good pull from a horse would pull them down. Generally, the place looked like it needed to be torn down and rebuilt. Not that anyone had the money or desire to do so. It would be a ghost town in another few years after Lukes's mine played out. I’d heard the mine was barely producing as it was.
We stopped in the middle of the street and waited. Someone would scurry and tell Luke we were here. I noticed several people disappear as soon as they realized who we were. The streets were more deserted than before.
I hadn't said anything to Mattie about how we’d handle this.
Sheriff John Brown emerged from under what little shade was on the boardwalk. Standing in the middle of the street, facing us, he started to reach for his gun. I leveled my rifle at him.
“Don’t even think about it, Sheriff.” He let his hand drop away from his holster and coughed a couple of times.
“Mattie McDonald. I never thought I’d see you again. You know I have a warrant for your arrest.”
“That warrant ain’t worth the paper it's written on, and you know that,” I replied. “I was there that night. I saw the whole thing, as did half the town. Everyone here knows Luke provoked her and pushed her into fighting him. And she nearly killed him. In self-defense. I’m here to testify to that.”
Mattie hadn’t said a word, but I caught a sideways glance at me before she narrowed her eyes at the sheriff.
“Luke put you up to the warrant because a woman beat him in front of the town. He had you doing his dirty work because he hasn’t got the balls to do it himself. Your badge makes it legal to harass people and bully them.”
“Where’s Luke?” I chimed in.
“Right here.” A voice came from behind the sheriff. We turned our attention to the new voice for just a second, and I caught a movement. Firing the rifle where it sat in my lap, the bullet caught the sheriff in the chest as his hand dropped the revolver he’d pulled the instant we weren’t looking at him. Before the echo died from the half-dead town, I’d worked the lever and chambered another round.
Not far behind the body of his puppet sheriff stood Luke Small.
“That was murder.”
“That was self-defense. You and the whole town know it.”
I got down from my horse and let the reins drop. Easing around, I covered Luke so Mattie could get down from her horse. Once both of us were down from our mounts, we stood facing Luke.
Mattie and I stood in the middle of the muddy street, slowly shifting so we could see most of the street on either side of us and keep Luke in sight. I knew from experience that Luke had several hired guns that worked for him as “deputies” and had helped the sheriff dispense his kind of justice. Shifting slightly to my right, I caught a movement on the boardwalk under the awning. The sun was with me this second, and I spotted the glint of a gun barrel. My lever action rifle barked as flames exploded from the barrel and the cry of a man being hit with a bullet and slumped over the hitching rail. At the same time, Mattie’s rifle fired at another man on the other side of Luke.
“How many more of your deputies want to try to take us?” I called out to Luke.
Footsteps on the boardwalk behind us made us turn quickly to see who was there. I recognized the shopkeeper and the bar owner, both standing with shotguns, pointed in Lukes's direction. On the other side of the street, more men came out. Each of them had a gun of some kind.
Mattie scoffed. “I left because after you tried to rape me, and I beat you off of me. It happened right over there.” Her breathing was heavy as she relived the memory. She pointed with her rifle barrel at the narrow alleyway between the livery stable and the cluster of buildings where the saloon and general store stood. “All you all saw was the end of the fight when we landed in the street. By then, I’d beaten him off, and we were both a mess. I took off that night. The next thing I know, there's a warrant for my arrest of assault put out by him.” Mattie pointed her rifle barrel at the dead sheriff. She turned back to Luke, the gun barrel aimed squarely at him.
I spoke. “I know what happened because I was in the livery stable and heard some of the fight and your voice and Mattie’s. But I didn’t say anything that night. I know I should have, and I’m sorry I didn’t. But later, I went to the sheriff and tried to tell him what I’d heard. You told him to run me out of town. I’m surprised you didn’t tell him to kill me outright and make it look like self-defense. We all know you’ve done that before.” I glanced at Mattie, never losing sight of Luke.
“Luke, you’ve all but run this town into the ground. People are tired of being scared and being bullied by you.” I continued indicating the men behind me with guns. “It's time this town knew the truth about you. You cheated this town. They were supposed to share in the profits of the mine. You conned them into working for you and barely paid anything back. You have a choice to make. You can either drop the charges against Mattie and leave town, or I can have the circuit judge here in a day, and I can testify to what I heard from the livery stable, and the whole world knows what happened. Either way, this is over.”
Luke shifted on his feet and looked round at the men with guns pointed at him.
“This town is a dump. It always was. I barely tolerate being here. As for you, Mattie, do you really think anyone will believe that story? That I tried to rape you? You? You’re only a cowboy, and it was how long ago? How come you didn’t come back before if it's true?” He taunted.
“I didn’t come back because… hell, I don’t have to justify myself to you or anyone else. You and I both know what you did.” She looked at me out of the corner of her eye. “Jim, they still have a telegraph office here?”
“I think so. I wasn’t looking that close.”
From behind us, we heard a voice. “I run the telegraph office.” An older bald man stepped forward.
“Can you send a telegram to the US Marshal's office in Allen and get the marshall out here? I want to charge Luke with rape.”
“Yes, man, right away.” The old man started to turn away.
“You send that telegram and ..” Luke shouted to the old man.
The old man turned and looked at him. He didn’t blink, stared at Luke, stood a little straighter, and headed for his office.
“Well, Luke, you’ve got a choice. You can drop the charges against Mattie and me, and we maybe not let the town have you.” The crowd behind us had increased over the last several minutes as word of the standoff got out. Farmers, miners, and anyone Luke had bullied came out to stand with us. “Or take your chances with the circuit judge and see how that goes when everyone gets done testifying. Either way, you're done here in Broken Bridge.”
As much as a bully and blowhard as Luke was, he knew when to cut his losses. Carefully taking off his gun belt, he bent to lay it down on the ground next to him.
“Fine. I give up.” The flash of light on steel came just as he raised a hidden gun from behind him. Mattie and I fired at the same time.
The sound of the rifles echoed over the town, and he fell to the ground.
Mattie and I met with the US Marshal when he arrived a few days later. After hearing statements from the witness of the events, the marshall shook his head. “You don’t need me. There has been justice for all here. You need to elect a new town council and appoint a new sheriff.”
Within a couple of weeks, I had been elected as the new sheriff of Broken Bridge. The first thing I did was appoint Mattie as my deputy and then ask her to marry me. We discovered a new vein in the mine, and businesses began opening again, including a bakery Mattie insisted on having in town. She loved the cookies I shared with her on the trail.
The wedding took place in the middle of Main Street, where the buildings sported fresh coats of paint. We said our vows surrounded by the townsfolk of Broken Bridge. A town broken no more.
The setting sun had reached the far mountain top when I recognized Mattie McDonald’s horse camped under the ledge on the far side of the canyon. Easing my horse to a slow walk, I approached the camp.
“Hello,” I called quietly so as not to scare her.
She looked up over the fire she was tending, trying to get the flames hot enough to boil water. She leaned back slightly on her haunches as she slid the rifle closer to her.
‘“Relax, ma’am. I come in peace. I saw you and figured you had coffee and hard tact.”
She shifted slightly, and the rifle was almost in her hand. Then she recognized me. “Jim. I didn’t expect to see you in this part of the world anytime soon.”
I stopped just outside the glow of the fire and eased myself down from my horse, taking care not to make any sudden moves. “I’m only passing through, but I have extra rations.” Still acutely aware that the rifle was in easy reach of her. I carefully opened my saddle bag and extracted a sizeable chunk of bacon wrapped in oilcloth.
“I have way more than I can eat.” I held it up.
She relaxed a little and let the rifle lay. I didn’t blame her for not trusting anyone.
Bending slightly, I picked up a few larger twigs and added them to the fire, and it flamed up a bit more with the extra fuel. I handed the package to her. She unwrapped it and smelled it. Nodding with approval, she reached behind her and found a small fry pan. She sliced bacon strips from the slab and laid them in the pan.
“I also have extra coffee.” I volunteered, trying to get a response from her as I tossed a couple more twigs on the fire.
Matty wasn’t a talker. Over the next half hour, as the sun worked its way past behind the mountains, we ate in silence. She didn’t seem to mind my being there, but she wasn’t inviting conservation either.
About the time we’d finished, I remembered I had some cookies stashed in my saddlebag. Telling her I had forgotten something extra, I dug deep into the bottom of the bag.
Opening a paper bag, I pulled out a smaller bag of cookies, once round but now broken into pieces. Sitting down next to her, I handed her a couple. “They used to be cookies, but they’ve been riding around in the bag for a while.”
“Where’d you get these?”
“Dry goods store in the last town I stopped in.” I munched on one and found that despite being stale, they weren’t bad.
As the sun disappeared, so did what little warmth it had provided. The temperatures quickly dropped as the moon started to make its appearance. I tossed bigger logs on the fire, which roared back to life, providing us with needed heat.
Mattie still hadn’t said two words, but she hadn’t threatened to put extra holes in me, either, so I took that as a sign I was permitted to stay. But I kept my distance and laid out my sleeping bag on the fire's far side.
I woke up with the sun in my eyes. Sitting up, it took me a minute to remember where I was. I glanced around and found Matty saddling her horse. I rose from the hard ground.
“Morning, Mattie.” I held her horse’s reins as she tightened the cinch on the saddle. She nodded in my direction and continued packing her camp on her horse's back.
We had spent the night sleeping under the stars and staying warm by her fire, but she’d barely said a word to me. I shuffled my feet in the dirt and finally found something to say.
“Look, Mattie. I wanted to thank you for not shooting me last night and letting me eat with you. You heading back to Broken Bridge.” It was more of a statement than a question. There was only one reason for her to be in this part of the country.
She straightened up and turned to face me.
“Luke Small needs to be dealt with.”
“I know.” I saddled my horse and mounted it.
Swinging up on her horse, she reined it to a sharp left and turned in her saddle. “You coming?”
“So Matty, for sure, where are we going?” I asked, knowing full well where she was heading.
She grinned at me. Her light blonde hair bounced under her old hat, and her horse seemed to liven up as she told me.
“Straight into hell.”
~~~
We rode in silence. Mattie didn’t need to explain what the hell was. The town of Broken Bridge and Mattie McDonald had a long and violent history which I suspected to be coming to a head very soon. My history with Broken Bridge was almost as violent as Mattie’s. It had ended several years before when I managed to scrape together enough stakes to leave town. Mattie had been forced out by Luke Small, who had taken over the town as his playground and ran the town as he saw fit with his appointed sheriff John Brown. Being that Luke Small owned the mine, and folks either worked for him or depended on his mining operation for a way to survive, folks didn’t push back except Mattie.
Mattie had almost killed him in a fight several years ago, and Sheriff John Brown had a warrant out for her. Except that half the town saw the end of the fight when Mattie finely beat him senselessly in front of the townsfolks. Luke had the sheriff file assault charges against her, but no one dared to stand with Mattie and fight the charge. So, Mattie had left. I had overheard some of the fight and, at the time, didn’t come forward, but later tried to set the record straight. Luke had the sheriff run me out of town. I disappeared and borrowed enough money to stay gone. I’d spent the last several years drifting and working on whatever ranch or farm I could. I was tired and felt the anger boiling every night when I thought about how Luke treated me, Mattie, and the town. I’d heard that Mattie was coming back, and I’d made sure I found her before she got to town.
The trail eased out of the valley at the far end, the grade gradually increasing until we had to walk the horses to get them up past the loose gravel. The drop-off on the side was increasingly sharp and high. Not a fan of heights, I stayed as close to the inside as possible. Mattie never seemed to slow down as she led her horse up over the worst loose gravel and fallen debris from recent rains.
Once we made the top of the ravine and turned to look at the spot where we'd camped was a tiny clump of trees on the far side. Remounting her horse, she pulled her hat low and settled herself in the saddle, and I noticed she loosened the rifle in its scabbard. As I got back on my saddle, I followed suit and made my rifle loose where it rode. I also settled the revolver on my hip. It was then I noticed the revolver she had on her hip. Instead of the popular single-action army, or six guns as it was called, she carried a Smith and Wesson Schofield. A break-open revolver that let her reload the entire gun quickly and easily. I’d seen them but never got to use one. From the size of it, it was chambered the same as her lever action rifle, in 44-40.
“You know where we’re heading?” She eased up under a large maple tree near the trail. A small stream that ran not far away.
I didn't answer as I led my horse to the stream and let her drink.
“You ride in with me, and you’ll probably die with me.” That was her way of telling me I could back out if I wanted. I considered her statement for a minute as we remounted the horses.
“I’m gonna die anyways. I’d rather die fighting for what's right.” I rode up next to her. She nodded yes, and we never said another word about Broken Bridge.
About a mile outside town, we passed the bridge the town was named for. A small wooden bridge that had collapsed from heavy use and bad building techniques. The newer, stronger bridge spanned the ravine the old bridge had originally crossed.
Matty pulled up her horse to a short stop just before the bridge. Tunning in her saddle, she looked me straight in the eye.
“You cross this bridge with me, and your mine.”
“Nowhere I’d rather be.”
Mattie whipped the reins of her horse, and we thundered across the plank bridge. The clomping of our galloping horses' hooves echoed across the ravine and the hills surrounding it.
Drawing up sharply, she stopped the horse about a quarter of a mile from the bridge. And slid the rifle from its scabbard and worked the lever below the stock, chambering a new bullet into the firing chamber of the rifle.
I followed her example and readied my rifle.
As we rode the last few miles into town, memories of the last time I’d been in Broken Bridge came back to me. It hadn’t been a pleasant place to be. I knew it still wasn’t a good place to have to live. I’d barely gotten out of there alive. Returning now, especially with Mattie, would not go down well.
Mattie McDonald was well known in the area as a tough cookie, and she was. She could shoot better than most of the men in the county, and her hunting skills were not bad either. She often got game when no one else could, which had saved a few families in the dead of a cold, windy winter several years ago. Outside of Broken Bridge, she was considered a bit of a hero, having tried to stand up to Luke and improve the county and helped a lot of poor families survive some bad winters.
Broken Bridge hadn’t changed much in the few years we’d been gone. Except that it looked even more run down than it did back then. The faded paint on the general store and saloon was now nearly gone, and there was more bare wood than painted wood on the buildings. Several storefronts with businesses in them, when we left, were now empty—a couple with broken windows and boarded-over doors. The main street was still a muddy mess, and the hitching rails along the boardwalk looked like a good pull from a horse would pull them down. Generally, the place looked like it needed to be torn down and rebuilt. Not that anyone had the money or desire to do so. It would be a ghost town in another few years after Lukes's mine played out. I’d heard the mine was barely producing as it was.
We stopped in the middle of the street and waited. Someone would scurry and tell Luke we were here. I noticed several people disappear as soon as they realized who we were. The streets were more deserted than before.
I hadn't said anything to Mattie about how we’d handle this.
Sheriff John Brown emerged from under what little shade was on the boardwalk. Standing in the middle of the street, facing us, he started to reach for his gun. I leveled my rifle at him.
“Don’t even think about it, Sheriff.” He let his hand drop away from his holster and coughed a couple of times.
“Mattie McDonald. I never thought I’d see you again. You know I have a warrant for your arrest.”
“That warrant ain’t worth the paper it's written on, and you know that,” I replied. “I was there that night. I saw the whole thing, as did half the town. Everyone here knows Luke provoked her and pushed her into fighting him. And she nearly killed him. In self-defense. I’m here to testify to that.”
Mattie hadn’t said a word, but I caught a sideways glance at me before she narrowed her eyes at the sheriff.
“Luke put you up to the warrant because a woman beat him in front of the town. He had you doing his dirty work because he hasn’t got the balls to do it himself. Your badge makes it legal to harass people and bully them.”
“Where’s Luke?” I chimed in.
“Right here.” A voice came from behind the sheriff. We turned our attention to the new voice for just a second, and I caught a movement. Firing the rifle where it sat in my lap, the bullet caught the sheriff in the chest as his hand dropped the revolver he’d pulled the instant we weren’t looking at him. Before the echo died from the half-dead town, I’d worked the lever and chambered another round.
Not far behind the body of his puppet sheriff stood Luke Small.
“That was murder.”
“That was self-defense. You and the whole town know it.”
I got down from my horse and let the reins drop. Easing around, I covered Luke so Mattie could get down from her horse. Once both of us were down from our mounts, we stood facing Luke.
Mattie and I stood in the middle of the muddy street, slowly shifting so we could see most of the street on either side of us and keep Luke in sight. I knew from experience that Luke had several hired guns that worked for him as “deputies” and had helped the sheriff dispense his kind of justice. Shifting slightly to my right, I caught a movement on the boardwalk under the awning. The sun was with me this second, and I spotted the glint of a gun barrel. My lever action rifle barked as flames exploded from the barrel and the cry of a man being hit with a bullet and slumped over the hitching rail. At the same time, Mattie’s rifle fired at another man on the other side of Luke.
“How many more of your deputies want to try to take us?” I called out to Luke.
Footsteps on the boardwalk behind us made us turn quickly to see who was there. I recognized the shopkeeper and the bar owner, both standing with shotguns, pointed in Lukes's direction. On the other side of the street, more men came out. Each of them had a gun of some kind.
Mattie scoffed. “I left because after you tried to rape me, and I beat you off of me. It happened right over there.” Her breathing was heavy as she relived the memory. She pointed with her rifle barrel at the narrow alleyway between the livery stable and the cluster of buildings where the saloon and general store stood. “All you all saw was the end of the fight when we landed in the street. By then, I’d beaten him off, and we were both a mess. I took off that night. The next thing I know, there's a warrant for my arrest of assault put out by him.” Mattie pointed her rifle barrel at the dead sheriff. She turned back to Luke, the gun barrel aimed squarely at him.
I spoke. “I know what happened because I was in the livery stable and heard some of the fight and your voice and Mattie’s. But I didn’t say anything that night. I know I should have, and I’m sorry I didn’t. But later, I went to the sheriff and tried to tell him what I’d heard. You told him to run me out of town. I’m surprised you didn’t tell him to kill me outright and make it look like self-defense. We all know you’ve done that before.” I glanced at Mattie, never losing sight of Luke.
“Luke, you’ve all but run this town into the ground. People are tired of being scared and being bullied by you.” I continued indicating the men behind me with guns. “It's time this town knew the truth about you. You cheated this town. They were supposed to share in the profits of the mine. You conned them into working for you and barely paid anything back. You have a choice to make. You can either drop the charges against Mattie and leave town, or I can have the circuit judge here in a day, and I can testify to what I heard from the livery stable, and the whole world knows what happened. Either way, this is over.”
Luke shifted on his feet and looked round at the men with guns pointed at him.
“This town is a dump. It always was. I barely tolerate being here. As for you, Mattie, do you really think anyone will believe that story? That I tried to rape you? You? You’re only a cowboy, and it was how long ago? How come you didn’t come back before if it's true?” He taunted.
“I didn’t come back because… hell, I don’t have to justify myself to you or anyone else. You and I both know what you did.” She looked at me out of the corner of her eye. “Jim, they still have a telegraph office here?”
“I think so. I wasn’t looking that close.”
From behind us, we heard a voice. “I run the telegraph office.” An older bald man stepped forward.
“Can you send a telegram to the US Marshal's office in Allen and get the marshall out here? I want to charge Luke with rape.”
“Yes, man, right away.” The old man started to turn away.
“You send that telegram and ..” Luke shouted to the old man.
The old man turned and looked at him. He didn’t blink, stared at Luke, stood a little straighter, and headed for his office.
“Well, Luke, you’ve got a choice. You can drop the charges against Mattie and me, and we maybe not let the town have you.” The crowd behind us had increased over the last several minutes as word of the standoff got out. Farmers, miners, and anyone Luke had bullied came out to stand with us. “Or take your chances with the circuit judge and see how that goes when everyone gets done testifying. Either way, you're done here in Broken Bridge.”
As much as a bully and blowhard as Luke was, he knew when to cut his losses. Carefully taking off his gun belt, he bent to lay it down on the ground next to him.
“Fine. I give up.” The flash of light on steel came just as he raised a hidden gun from behind him. Mattie and I fired at the same time.
The sound of the rifles echoed over the town, and he fell to the ground.
Mattie and I met with the US Marshal when he arrived a few days later. After hearing statements from the witness of the events, the marshall shook his head. “You don’t need me. There has been justice for all here. You need to elect a new town council and appoint a new sheriff.”
Within a couple of weeks, I had been elected as the new sheriff of Broken Bridge. The first thing I did was appoint Mattie as my deputy and then ask her to marry me. We discovered a new vein in the mine, and businesses began opening again, including a bakery Mattie insisted on having in town. She loved the cookies I shared with her on the trail.
The wedding took place in the middle of Main Street, where the buildings sported fresh coats of paint. We said our vows surrounded by the townsfolk of Broken Bridge. A town broken no more.
