Shooting For Justice by G. Tilman (top 100 novels txt) 📗

to hit the trail. Sarah had watched and helped Pope pitch camp under various and often bad circumstances. She knew how to survive. The weather in Northern California in her counties never got as bad as they had faced on the plains and mountains further east.

She went through her case file at the office. She had six investigations related to claims, either false or exaggerated, against Wells Fargo. Though boring, these legal matters to be investigated were the bread and butter of Wells Fargo detectives. They kept her in a job between stage and train robberies.

Pope walked around town, greeting merchants as they unlocked doors and flipped their signs to “open”. He planned to go to each town in the county at this time of day and do the same thing. The two years before the next election would come quickly and he wanted to start off right. More importantly, he thought, it was simply good policing. Even at Martha’s age, patrolling San Francisco, he had done the same thing. It paid off for him many times.

During his patrol, he spotted Kane and Rita coming out of the café where they had breakfast.

“All set?” Kane said.

“All set. I’ll be heading out before two,” he responded, not sure of what Rita, or rather Sally, knew. Kane nodded.

They picked up Sarah for lunch. An hour later, Pope told Chief Deputy Bill Isakson he would be riding north some this afternoon and rode out of town.

He found the tree described as the meeting place. There was a small, but thick copse of trees about a hundred yards further on. He tied Caesar in the middle. Pope took his poncho and carbine. He set up behind a tree facing the meeting place. He was sure Booth, now going as David E. George according to Kane, would not be able to see him or the horse. He put a feed bag with some oats on Caesar. It all but guaranteed the horse would not snicker or whinny.

Pope settled into his hide and waited. Twenty minutes before the appointed meeting time, he saw a small rental carriage called a shay. It was approaching from the direction of San Rafael.

One man was in the two-seater. He wore a black suit. It matched his hair and thick mustache. Pope had seen newspaper photos of Booth. In them, he was a handsome young man with dark hair and a thin mustache. This man was just an almost twenty years older version. He was surprised the man had not used his theatrical talents to disguise himself. Under cover during the kidnapping case, he and Sarah had both used professionally applied disguises. Pope was made to look older and Sarah to look pregnant. Why wouldn’t, ostensibly dead or not, the most wanted man in America not disguise himself?

The man climbed out of the shay and tied the reins to the tree. He walked in a circle, checking for watchers hidden by nearby trees and undergrowth. He walked part way to Pope’s hide but turned around before getting there.

Almost exactly at three, Pope saw a tall man in black approaching on horseback. He knew from the way he was sitting in the saddle it was Kane.

Kane dismounted and shook hands with Booth. Pope could not hear a word of the conversation.

“Wilkes, I came. What’s all the hurrah about?”

“I want to know why an imposter is pretending to be my Ogarita!”

“Then, you need to talk to your Ogarita. But I will save you the trouble.”

“Go ahead, Kane.”

“After the rescue in Mexico, your daughter asked me to help her drop out of sight. She had an idea. Her best friend was an actress who looked passably like her. Her friend was willing to assume her identity and act for a while. After, she planned to fade away. As it ended up, fading away was marrying me. Your daughter is happily living in Texas. She is with the young man she met from the posse.”

“Where in Texas?” Booth demanded. Kane was getting more riled by the minute at his demeanor.

“Send the Circle in Dallas a letter for her. They will make sure she gets it. It’s not up to me to tell you.”

“You sure as hell will!” Booth screamed, almost loud enough for Pope to hear.

“Or, what? You’ll make me kill you dead right here, right now?” Kane asked.

Booth reached inside his suit and Kane drew the long barrel Colt and smacked Booth’s hand hard with it.

Kane reached into Booth’s coat and removed a Remington revolver. He tossed it into the bushes.

“You had your one chance to draw on me and live. You don’t have another. You are looking a gift horse in the face and are too damn crazy to know it. I am helping your daughter hide from the horrendous legacy you laid on her.

“You have three options to consider right this second. One is to consider yourself lucky and ride away, never to contact me again. Two is for me to kill you, make it look like a robbery and I’ll ride away. Three, my friend the sheriff could make the greatest arrest in American history and put the man who shot Abraham Lincoln on the gallows. He’s just the man for the job. He worked in Washington for Robert Todd Lincoln. The secretary of war would say your trial is an extension of the ones for the conspirators hung at the Navy Yard. He’d pull the lever himself.

“Think fast, Wilkes. I am giving you far more than you deserve. My choice would be to just kill your ass right now.”

Booth turned and untied the shay. Booth favored the sore hand. He would return and get his revolver later. Without a word, he rode out of Kane’s life.

Once Booth was out of sight, Pope joined his friend.

“I guess it went alright. You didn’t kill him.”

“No, John. But I wanted to. Really badly. This way he suffers every day the rest of his life for what he did for