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  “I read it whenever I’m in need of a nightmare.”

  “The Lord sure could hold a grudge.”

  I grinned. “Who hasn’t had a boss like that?”

  He went on twisting out the cigar. “Reason I asked, I’m a God-fearing man myself and can use more in my camp. World out here’s changed. There’s no room in the service for men without some kind of standard. Those who have it are too slow to strike, and those who don’t, strike without regard to the penalty.”

  “You don’t want me. You want Frank Merriwell.”

  “Hear me out. The man Jack Rimfire and those others used to write about, that’s not a man I’d have. The man I’d have is the one I’ve been hearing about these last several years.” He looked up at me from under his black bar of brow. “We need you in the Dakotas. I could talk to the marshal.”

  “Thanks. I’ve got a job.”

  “The one you said the lady offered? Kind of tame for you, isn’t it?”

  “I meant the one in Helena.”

  “Be working for some thinned-out bureaucrat, no Blackthorne.”

  “Blackthorne wasn’t Blackthorne when I met him. Not quite. I put on the finishing touches.”

  “Back then you had that kind of time.”

  A flatulent horn sounded outside, accompanied by the cough and sputter of a combustion engine.

  “Back then we all did.” I drank my beer.

  * * *

  Funerals bring out the worst in me; the worst kind of man, that is. I always expect the minister to be smooth-faced and glib, his selection from Scripture as bland as boiled fish, the sobbing of the mourners timed to the moment, as in a play that had run too long.

  The graveside ceremony in the Presbyterian churchyard in Wilmington was therefore a disappointment. The clergyman was young and devout, and although he could not have known the deceased personally—having been born several years after the Blackthornes had decamped to Montana—he had done his spadework, and found positive parallels between his devotion to duty and the sixth book of the Old Testament:

  And when the Lord raised them up judges, then the Lord was with the judge, and delivered them out of the hand of their enemies all the days of the judge; for it repented the Lord because of their groanings by reason of them that oppressed them and vexed them.

  There was little weeping, but all heads bowed and no impatient congress with pocket watches. I recognized among the pallbearers two senators (one a sworn Blackthorne enemy) and a member of the House of Representatives by their likenesses in newspapers, and guessed a similar affiliation in the others by their dress and shaped whiskers, and Mrs. Blackthorne told me that she’d found a wire waiting for her sent by President Cleveland expressing sympathy and apologies that affairs of state would not allow him to attend the service. Officers with the District of Columbia Police Department, mounted and on foot, kept crowds of the curious from passing through the surrounding iron fence.

  The sky was bright, something that always depressed me when someone was laid to rest beneath it. The Judge would have found wry satisfaction in a scene of cerecloth clouds, icy rain, and black umbrellas. He’d have said, “At least it’s one pleasant day I didn’t miss.”

  When the box was lowered by straps into the ground and the last of us had deposited his fistful of earth on the lid, Beatrice Blackthorne took my arm in her gloved hand and we walked away, pausing from time to time while she accepted condolences with an obligatory nod and wan smile.

  “It would have amused him to know Claypool was forced to support him in the end,” she said.

  Claypool was the name of the senator who’d spent most of his time on the floor of Congress denouncing the Judge.

  “Don’t try to fool a fooler, ma’am. It wouldn’t have happened if he hadn’t arranged it at the same time he roped me into this trip.”

  “Nor would that have happened if he hadn’t anticipated danger of some kind. You were the man he considered most worthy of his trust.”

  “I was the one who supplied the danger, don’t forget.”

  “I have not forgotten. I remember also that you were the one who brought it to an end. I am sorry you turned down my offer. It would have pleased Harlan to know I was still in your care.”

  “Don’t try to blackmail me, ma’am. He’d have busted a gut to know I fell for it.”

  She raised a hand to her veil, touching the bruise on her cheek. “No man ever struck me before. He would have taken a horsewhip to any who did.”

  I fancied I could hear waves walloping the shore of the bay, my first experience of the Atlantic Ocean. It was probably the Delaware River flowing round a snag.

  “Is it always like this here?” I said. “I’d thought it a rainy place.”

  “You are a most infuriating man. To attempt to move you to anger is to invite a comment on the weather. Of course I know you saved my life. Might you have found a better way?”

  “I’m sure of it. I’m sloppy when pressed.”

  Before helping her into our waiting carriage I took a long look at the driver. He was the same one who had brought us.

  I said, “Where to, the townhouse?” She’d checked out of the hotel.

  “I would have to sleep on the floor. All our—my furniture is still in Helena, and I have had my life’s portion of hotel life and berths aboard trains. I will direct you to my sister’s house.”

  We clip-clopped along the well-ordered streets. The air was a mix of piped gas and coal smoke. An army of streetsweeps bore away horse-apples before they could contribute much to the atmosphere.

  She seemed to have followed my thoughts. “Is it so horrible here? Too settled a place for so shaggy a wolf as you?”

  No place for one that would kill its own flesh.

  Aloud I said, “You’ve been reading the Hearst press. I’m as homebody as they come. It isn’t my fault home’s not here.”

  She patted my arm.

  “You are more like Harlan than you care to admit.”

  First class, I thought; though I didn’t say it.

  Books by Loren D. Estleman

  AMOS WALKER MYSTERIES

  Motor City Blue

  Angel Eyes

  The Midnight Man

  The Glass Highway

  Sugartown

  Every Brilliant Eye

  Lady Yesterday

  Downriver

  Silent Thunder

  Sweet Women Lie

  Never Street

  The Witchfinder

  The Hours of the Virgin

  A Smile on the Face of the Tiger

  Sinister Heights

  Poison Blonde*

  Retro*

  Nicotine Kiss*

  American Detective*

  The Left-Handed Dollar*

  Infernal Angels*

  Burning Midnight*

  Don’t Look for Me*

  You Know Who Killed Me*

  The Sundown Speech*

  The Lioness Is the Hunter*

  Black and White Ball*

  VALENTINO, FILM DETECTIVE

  Frames*

  Alone*

  Alive!*

  Shoot*

  Brazen*

  DETROIT CRIME

  Whiskey River

  Motown

  King of the Corner

  Edsel

  Stress

  Jitterbug*

  Thunder City*

  PETER MACKLIN

  Kill Zone

  Roses Are Dead

  Any Man’s Death

  Something Borrowed, Something Black*

  Little Black Dress*

  OTHER FICTION

  The Oklahoma Punk

  Sherlock Holmes vs. Dracula

  Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Holmes

  Peeper

  Gas City*

  Journey of the Dead*

  The Rocky Mountain Moving Picture Association*

  Roy & Lillie: A Love Story*

  The Confessions of Al Capone*

  PAGE MURDOCK SERIES

&nb
sp; The High Rocks*

  Stamping Ground*

  Murdock’s Law*

  The Stranglers

  City of Widows*

  White Desert*

  Port Hazard*

  The Book of Murdock*

  Cape Hell*

  Wild Justice*

  WESTERNS

  The Hider

  Aces & Eights*

  The Wolfer

  Mister St. John

  This Old Bill

  Gun Man

  Bloody Season

  Sudden Country

  Billy Gashade*

  The Master Executioner*

  Black Powder, White Smoke*

  The Undertaker’s Wife*

  The Adventures of Johnny Vermillion*

  The Branch and the Scaffold*

  Ragtime Cowboys*

  The Long High Noon*

  The Ballad of Black Bart*

  NONFICTION

  The Wister Trace

  Writing the Popular Novel

  *Published by Tom Doherty Associates

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  LOREN D. ESTLEMAN has written more than eighty books—historical novels, mysteries, and Westerns. Winner of four Shamus Awards, five Spur Awards, and three Western Heritage Awards, he lives in central Michigan with his wife, author Deborah Morgan. You can sign up for email updates here.

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  CONTENTS

  Title Page

  Copyright Notice

  Dedication

  Epigraph

  I. The Judge Heads East

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  II. Deeper Toward Dawn

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  III. The Court Adjourns

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Books by Loren D. Estleman

  About the Author

  Copyright

  This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

  WILD JUSTICE

  Copyright © 2018 by Loren D. Estleman

  All rights reserved.

  Cover art courtesy of the Library of Congress

  A Forge Book

  Published by Tom Doherty Associates

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  The Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available upon request.

  ISBN 978-1-250-19709-2 (hardcover)

  ISBN 978-1-250-19719-1 (ebook)

  eISBN 9781250197191

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  First Edition: November 2018