AN: References to Matt's hanging and he, Kitty and Doc being with Frank and Maria (Season 14 Exodus 21:22) in this and the previous chapter are from my story Is This How It Ends set five months earlier. Also, I hope this chapter clarifies what charges Shumway was found guilty of.
Relaxation Then Home
Judge Kendall accepted the jury's quickly rendered guilty verdict. Taking but a moment to read the paper the foreman handed to him, he addressed the three on trial.
"Will the defendants please rise. Gordon Clarkson and Flint Iverson, you have been found guilty of murder, kidnapping and armed robbery," he told them once the three stood up. Bradford Shumway, you have been found guilty of those same charges and the additional charge of attempted murder of a federal officer. If any one of you wishes to make a statement before I pronounce sentence, you may do so now."
Gord and Flint looked at the judge long enough to shake their heads no before dropping their eyes to stare at their feet. Shumway, glared defiantly at the judge, then the jury and finally toward Matt as he took advantage of the opportunity Judge Kendall offered.
"I regret me and my two pals didn't get rich 'cause your friend, another scumbag law dog, jailed me but I'm used you to get my revenge on your kind for what Sheriff Tug Murphy did to ma and me startin' when I was the kid's age. Killin' the driver and shotgun guard was a small part of the plan I set in motion in Larned. I don't know why the kid failed to see you for the dog you are since his pa was in jail and his ma dead 'cause of vermin like you. I merely gave him a taste of his future while showin' him rabid animals can be slowly killed. I didn't reckon he'd give me up or be believed if he did. I sure didn't count on you testifying. I underestimated you. It went wrong when I let you pick who'd deliver the ransom. The doc and redhead saved your worthless hide with help from the kid's kin."
When he finished his rant, Shumway continued to glare at Matt who sat between Kitty and Doc in the front row of chairs reserved for witnesses. The Dodge City lawman, his posture erect and face expressionless, didn't give any outward indication the events leading up to this trial had any other effect than the physical damage. His attention was on Judge Kendall.
"Your remarks aimed at Marshal Dillon rather than this court removed any lingering doubt of your intentions or that all actions taken by your codefendants were on your orders, which they chose to obey," Judge Kendall began. Therefore, Bradford Shumway, Gordon Clarkson and Flint Iverson, having been found guilty by a jury of your peers, I sentence you to be hanged by the neck until dead at ten o'clock tomorrow morning, September 29, 1870. Court dismissed."
Doc and Kitty noticed Matt's eyes followed the three condemned men as Frank and his deputies led them back to their cells and that he leaned heavily on his cane as he walked out of the courtroom toward the hotel. His physical and emotional fatigue weighed heavily on him and them. It was particularly apparent when he used government funds to pay for last night and tonight for the two rooms used by Mr. and Mrs. Rod Gilbert, their nephew and Doc. All they'd need to do before using their return tickets on the next morning's seven o'clock is drop off the room keys on their way out the door.
Only Matt and Kitty would stay on in Hays with their closest friends. The marshal welcome the rare chance to be open about his relationship with Kitty and to follow Doc's orders to remain in Hays until he could walk around comfortably all day without the cane. Despite his patient's apparent cooperation and Kitty looking after him, Doc, taking no chances, enlisted Maria's medical training as well. He knew her sharp eye and knowledge of that overgrown public servant's tendency to falsely claim full health would know if his leg was completely healed and, along with the local doctor, monitor progress with his shoulder. However, for now they gathered for supper. Once the waiter left to fill eight orders, Frank took it upon himself to bring up the subject that brought them together.
"Now that the trial's over, Judge Kendall's released the stolen and ransom money from evidence. In addition to y'all gettin' your money back, the War Department left it up to me to decide who receives the $10,000 reward for helping capture and convict those responsible."
After supper they waited for a reply to the telegram Frank sent to Mr. Bodkin concerning distribution of the reward money Washington sent directly to his bank in Dodge City. $2,150 of the government check would go into Doc's account while the Gilberts account would increase by $3,450. The remaining $5,000 would be deposited into Kitty's account. It was time to go their separate ways. Those leaving in the morning entered the hotel while the two couples continued on toward the jail and Maria's small house. Along the way and once they arrived hosts and guests chatted about those small things close friends share who've been apart for five months until Matt turned the conversation to business as the wall clock chimed ten.
"What's your plan for getting the ransom from the Hays bank to Dodge, Frank? Can it wait until Kitty and I take the stage home?"
"I reckon the Dodge bank can wait until you get there with a cashier's check for Mr. Bodkin to appropriately divide among yours, Kitty, Doc's and the Gilberts' accounts."
"Thanks. One more thing before at least I turn in for the night," Matt said stifling a yawn that hid a sly grin aimed at the redhead beside him. "I'll be at the hanging."
"Matt, there's no need," Frank replied knowing how his friend felt about hangings and why. "You were the main witness not the one making the arrest."
"I gotta, for me," he stated as he stood and started for the guest room, waiting the half step it took for Kitty to catch up.
Once they were alone in their bedroom Kitty snuggled up against Matt, being careful not to lean on his injured collarbone or put pressure on his nearly healed leg. She was ready to pleasure her man for the benefit of them both and to coax him into talking about what she knew was bothering him.
"Matt, I'm going with you tomorrow," she purred, sensing his mind connected his treatment in Quinton to what Shumway did. "I won't let you face that hanging alone."
"There's no need Kitty. Frank will be there."
"He'll be there officially, not as your friend," she said as she nestled even closer to him, her hand stroking his neck. "Frank may be your best friend, but he can't understand – not the way I do or the way Maria understands him."
The next morning Matt and Kitty waited in the house until Frank and his deputies escorted the three prisoners from the jail toward the gallows. Only then did they stroll arm in arm down the street to join the crowd already forming. Shumway, still being led to the scaffold, noticed the crowd part so the couple from Dodge could stand where he could see them. The abused child turned robber and murderer managed, despite his slender build, to halt a foot from the noose and prevent the hangman and the assigned deputy from forcing him to the spot above the trap door. He turned toward where Matt stood with Kitty, glared and began to speak.
"I shoulda done what was done to me more than once with the kid forced to take my ma's part. That woulda kept you and maybe him from sayin' anythin' in court and the redhead from stickin' by you. Then again, maybe I did do it while you was out cold. A thing like that makes a man's always ashamed and keeps everyone thinkin' he's not worth a plug nickel. Got you thinkin," he jeered, offering his final insult while thrusting his hips towards Matt and making sucking noises as the noose encircled his neck.
Kitty responded by moving closer and putting her right arm around her man's waist while grasping his cane so both their right hands rested on the knob of a handle. Matt, in turn, wrapped his left arm around her slender waist. Shumway's revenge was thwarted one last time as the hangman opened the traps to drop three bodies through them with a quick jerk, breaking their necks. He would have felt even worse had he seen the couple walk away arm in arm, Kitty holding the cane six inches above the street.
Matt pinned his badge on his shirt above his heart and buckled on his gun belt four days later on October 2 when he met Doc's conditions for returning home. Tucking the now unnecessary cane under his right arm and carrying her carpetbag in his right hand, his saddlebags resting on his left shoulder where the unused sling was still tied, he and Frank hefted Kitty's trunk between them. His friend held Matt's carpetbag in his left hand while the ladies carried the hatboxes and other purchases that didn't fit into the luggage Kitty had initially brought with her as they made their way to the depot.
As soon as he and Kitty were seated in the coach Matt gladly slipped his left arm back into the sling to ease the pain caused by the strain of sharing the burden of toting the overstuffed trunk. Nobody but the woman beside him would have noticed had they been alone. Alas, seated across from them was a friendly, scrawny man in his mid 20s dressed like a shopkeeper with an unruly curl of dark blond or very light brown hair drooping under his bowler hat onto his forehead. He and Kitty exchanged a quick glance communicating her understanding and their disappointment.
"I'm Ham Holbird, clockmaker by trade like my pop, headed for Dodge to repair the grandfather clock in Jake Worth's nearby ranch house. No need to introduce yourselves. I know who you are from the trial. That's where I saw Brad for the first time since we were boys back in Springhill, before Pop made us leave at the end of school after Sheriff Murphy married up with his ma and adopted him. He must have gone back to Shumway once he got away from that bastard. It's why I'm quite sure I know what's behind him acting like he did, down to the last bit before he was hanged. I was at the hanging too."
"I know what you're hinting at. No need to spell it out, especially in front of Kitty," Matt declared.
"I'm not a sheltered society women, Matt. I know what Shumway meant. We need to hear Mr. Holbird out," she retorted in hopes what they learned would help the big lawman sort out his feelings.
Deep down Matt knew she was right. It was the only way he could come to terms with both the abuse he suffered leading up to his near death by hanging in Quinton and the similar abuse he suffered at Shumway's hands. He reluctantly agreed.
"Brad and I were friends even though I'm almost a year older. Maybe it was because we lived next door to each other. Their home above his pop's hardware store stood between our house and the sheriff's office in our little town near Olathe until Mr. Shumway refused to pay protection money to the new sheriff, Tug Murphy. It came as no surprise he was killed in an attempted holdup. Within a month Sheriff Murphy married Brad's ma and took over the store, though he left runnin' it to Mrs. Murphy. That was a month before my ninth birthday, two months after Brad turned eight. My friend grew timid and thinner before school ended and my pop moved us to Hays. I was curious as to why he changed so I peeked into their kitchen window one night after supper. What I saw horrified me."
"What did you see?" Kitty asked in sympathy. "It must have been terrible if it still bothers you."
"It was. I've never told anyone until now. I shoulda told my pop back then so he'd report it on his next trip to Olathe. Brad's hands were handcuffed high behind his back and a rope around his chest held his arms tight to his sides and bent his knees smack up against his chest so he could only sit or kneel. His ma was takin' up a bowl of scraps and another of water from the floor in front of him that spilled to wash them. That's when I shoulda left, but I was too scared of what Murphy might do to my family if I told and too afraid to move."
"Everyone would have been better off if you had told," Matt uttered quietly, thinking of what he might have been spared.
"Your right Marshal. I wouldn't have seen the rest and Brad and his ma would've been spared more of what they suffered. Murphy yelled at Brad, callin' him a worthless cur of a dog in need of punishment. Then he balanced him over a corner of the table, threatening to treat him even worse and beat her if she didn't pull his pants down to his ankles and sit under the table so she could take his wonker, sorry ma'am, into her mouth while our so-called sheriff sodomized him. Then he ordered her to stand where he and Brad could see her and strip while he lifted Brad's shirt and took a strap to his bare back and buttocks before tossing him onto the floor and dragging her into the bedroom."
Kitty's face turned pale. At the same time she clutched Matt's arm, appalled at the barbarity of the abuse suffered by the young Shumway and his mother. While she'd previously sensed what was bothering him she now understood why Matt was so affected by it all, the mere implication he may have been sodomized without knowing it only making things worse. The stoic lawman, angry that Kitty knew what he was and might have been subjected to, brought his right arm up and forward, striking Holbird with a backhand hard enough to knock the clockmaker onto the floor unconscious. He finally came to with a groan at the relay station where they spent the night because of a late fall cloudburst.