The Brother
Chapter 10
Dillon had been considering how to handle the case against Billings and more importantly Lou Gannon. Technically a murder or attempted murder of a US Marshal would be heard in a federal courtroom, but there was some leeway between the state and federal circuit courts in this case, after all Kitty had been a target too. Using the federal court would mean he would have to escort two prisoners not to mention several witnesses to Topeka or Wichita, and then he would be gone from Dodge for at least two weeks. In the end he decided that the evidence against Gannon was not sufficient to lead to a death penalty, he would stick with the regular circuit court if Judge Brooking was amenable to that. After sending and receiving several telegrams, the Judge agreed to hear the case and set a date that he would be in Dodge.
Matt had taken a good deal of time to organize what evidence he had against Lou Gannon although now he looked over it he had to admit it wasn't very much. He had sent a wire to Max Lemay telling him the date of the trial and that he needed to be back in Dodge a day or so before hand, but that may not be enough. He needed Billings to talk.
Both his prisoners were locked back there in the cells, and he knew that Gannon had spent a lot of time talking to Billings, but there was not a lot he could do to stop that. Finally the day before Judge Brooking was due to arrive in town, he took a room at the Dodge House and shortly after lunch escorted Billings across the street to the new accommodation.
Billings was pleased to be away from the jail and from the man who had been his boss for more than two years.
He looked around with questioning eyes, but said nothing as the Marshal fastened one loop of the handcuffs to the bed head, leaving the other on Billings left wrist, then he deliberately locked the door locked and turned back to place a steady gaze on his prisoner.
Dragg Billings was a big man, incredibly strong and had never felt intimidated by anyone – except perhaps Gannon, but the man that stood across from him now, had that effect also. The steely blue eyes were looking straight through him. Maybe he had only been moved from a bad situation to one that could be worse.
"What do you want Marshal?" Matt could see the man's nervousness in the way he sat stiffly on the edge of the bed. He couldn't move much because of the handcuff, but he seemed to be holding his body in as small a space as possible. Good, he thought, he needed to scare him a little.
"I brought you over here, Billings, because I wanted to talk to you. I need to ask you a couple of questions."
"You planning to beat me up?" Matt had never seen such a tough acting man become so timid. He decided to play along a little.
"Let's just plan on talking and see how far we get." He let the silence hang in the air for a minute or so.
"Suppose you tell me why you tried to ambush me."
The man was half afraid, "I told you that wasn't me, it was Lemay." The words were said in a soft mumbled voice.
Matt got to his feet and walked around the room, he was giving himself time to think and for Billings to understand the situation he was in. He wanted the truth if he had to scare it out of the man. Not so much for himself as for Kitty. If Gannon did not get convicted of plotting a murder, if he went home a free man, he would send other gunslingers to follow and maybe they would better with a rifle than Billings had been.
The Marshal took off his gun belt and his badge and making sure that the outlaw could see what he was doing, laid them on a small table near the door. The man looked at him, fear in his eyes, but was that fear great enough to overcome Gannon's threats?
Matt came back and stood in front of the man.
"Now suppose we try again, you tried to kill me and I want to know why."
Billings looked up at him, especially at the place on the faded shirt where the badge had been. Dillon was angry and he could almost feel the fire in hard blue eyes that bored into him. He took a shaky breath,
"If I talk, Gannon will send some of his men to kill me."
"Not if he hangs, he won't."
Dillon reached forward and grabbed the man's shirt pulling him up off the bed.
"One more chance. I take it personally when someone shoots at me from ambush. Now tell me what happened."
Those eyes were even closer and the way the Marshal was working his fists did not look good to Billings. He was scared enough of Gannon, but it was this man that was in front of him now.
"I know you are the one that fired that rifle, several people saw you ride out of town with it on your rig. I have the bullet, and it came from a rifle, not the pistol that Lemay carried." Most of this was bluff but Billings didn't know that.
"Okay, don't hit me, I'll tell you. Gannon had a grudge against you and that saloon woman. He wanted you both killed. He sent that kid Lemay with me for some reason – I could have done it better by myself. He was going to pay me $500.00."
"So Lemay didn't fire that rifle?"
"No," the dejected man admitted, "he said he couldn't shoot a woman. I didn't want to either, but Mr. Gannon wanted you both gone."
"Are you willing to get up in court and tell the Judge that?"
"I can't."
"Listen to me Billings, you are in big trouble, you tried to murder a US Marshal and you could hang for that alone. If you tell the Judge what happened I'll speak up for you. I am sure you'll serve some prison time, but at least I can keep you from being hanged." Dillon let go of the man's shirt and pushed him back down to the bed
Billings thought some more.
"You'll keep me here so I don't have to go back to jail and face Gannon?"
Matt slowly nodded his head. "You can stay here till the trial."
"Can I think about it?"
"I need your answer now Billings."
"All right I'll do it, but you'll have to protect me."
"I'll see to that." The Marshal turned and picked up his badge and his gun. "I'll have Chester come check on you in a while," he added, pinning his badge back in place and holstering his gun.
He had nothing else to say and the prisoner was sitting on the bed as he left the room and locked the door behind him.
-()-()-()-
The trial was set for two days from now. Lemay was supposed to be arriving on the afternoon stage, and the Judge was supposed to arrive the following morning. Matt had several small civil cases for him to preside over, mostly for his opinion on property rights, water rights and such, just squabbles between farmers and land owners but mostly he wanted time to discuss the case against Gannon. He was anxious to get things underway because he had the feeling that if any of Gannon's men had found out what had happened to their boss, they might be headed his way to break their boss out of jail.
He crossed the street to his office,
"Go check on Billings later and take him some lunch," he said as he handed his assistant the room key, "just don't tell him where Billings is. I don't want to give him the opportunity to send someone after him."
Chester had had his fill of Lou Gannon, the man was constantly yelling demands and threats and generally making a nuisance of himself, especially since Dillon had taken his henchman away from the jail.
"Is he gonna co-operate Mr. Dillon?"
"Well he said he would – we'll just have to wait and see. Meantime just make sure they are kept apart."
-()-()-()-
It was noontime and the usual crowd of Dodge's businessmen were propping up the bar in the Long Branch. The small table at the back of the saloon was hosting its familiar occupants.
Kitty and Matt had been sharing a plate of sandwiches and two half empty beer mugs were still in view. Their quiet conversation was centered on the upcoming trial. Matt was concerned that Kitty's name would be inevitably drawn into the proceedings. He felt guilty about it and thought it would expose her to even more danger. Doctor Adams had made his way across the room to sit in one of the empty chairs at the same table and interrupted the Marshal's self recrimination.
"You look like you've been working, Doc," Matt said teasingly. Doc just gave him a look and muttered something under his breath. Kitty took pity on the older man and called Freddie to bring him a whisky.
"Here you go Curly," she passed the glass across to him, then noticed him staring at the empty sandwich plate.
"Don't worry, I'll go fix you some more." She touched the physician on the shoulder then left the two men to make her way back to the bar.
Matt turned to the Doctor.
"You know that trial will be starting in a day or so. I hope you are going to be in town, I may need your testimony. Mostly I need you to be able to say that the bullet was fired from a rifle. I can pretty much prove the rifle belonged to Billings and that all Lemay had was a pistol."
Doc was chewing on an old toothpick he found in his pocket, he removed it from his mouth and looked carefully at his friend the Marshal.
"I am pretty certain that it was fired from a rifle. At the distance you described, a pistol shot would not have had enough force to make such a long track in your shoulder."
Matt looked at him quizzically.
"Its like this," the physician continued, "It hit you at an angle and travelled about four or five inches through skin and muscle. The reason it didn't do more damage was because of the angle, it skimmed along just beneath the skin. If it had hit you straight on it would have been a different story. I just don't think a bullet fired from a pistol at that distance would have had enough force to do that."
"Do you think you can explain that to the court, Doc."
He chewed on his toothpick for a second or two. "Don't see why not."
About this time Kitty returned with more sandwiches and the conversation ended.
Two days later the trial got underway. Somehow Gannon had brought a well known defense attorney into town, and Matt was a little nervous about what the man might have up his sleeve. He did not want to have to put Kitty on the stand to testify about the card game that took place several years ago, he did not want to make her any more vulnerable to anyone else with a grudge, but he did talk with her about the possibility and of course she was only too willing to help put Gannon away.
Wilton and Max Lemay had also arrived in town and the Marshal sat down with both of them to explain what he thought was going to happen and to tell Max just to recount his story telling the truth about what had happened about his encounter with Gannon in Pueblo, and how he had finished up working at the Blazing G ranch, the trip to Dodge and how Billings had pointed out who the targets were to be. He warned him to be especially careful about re-counting what happened on the day of the shooting. Max was a little reluctant about the upcoming events, but Wilton encouraged him on because he was outraged that someone like Gannon should virtually imprison his younger brother. Wilton himself was not a fan of the law because sometimes he thought it interfered with his business plans. On the other hand he did not approve of killing and steeling and above all he kept most all of his own transactions on the right side of the legal line.
TBC