The Price of Freedom
by Dick Derham
Will Murfee stared across the gray-blue waters as the Yellowstone River clickety-clackedby and feasted his eyes on the grasslands rippling in the breeze in all their springfreshness, grass no cows had chomped on yet this season. He relished the sight of thewhite-barked aspen leafed out in its new finery, he counted more than a dozen variegatedshades of green from the window of the train, green—a color absent from his existencefor two years past, as anyone observing his loose-fitting fresh-from-the-rack suit of clothesor his close-clipped blonde hair would surmise.
What a difference six hours can make. A normal morning began, like the eight hundredthat had preceded it, awakening to the din of the screw banging his swagger stick on thebars as he strode down the corridor; then shivering outside his cell in his well-worndrawers for roll call; then the march to the regimented two-minute shower, one squad at atime; stand under one of the nozzles and brace for the blast of cold water; out the otherdoor; pull on the formless dish-water gray trousers and shirt and march to the mess hall forthe usual tasteless, barely nourishing, gruel; formation call, and finally disperse to hissteamy duty in the prison laundry. One more day, one more dollop of bitterness splashedon his soul, no chance at all that he was growing "penitent." Two more years to go.
"Murfee report to the Superintendent's office." Even if the call relieved him from his tediouswork, it was a summons never to be welcomed, not when it routinely resulted inpunishment for some petty infraction of incomprehensible rules the only purpose of whichseemed to be to provide the autocrat of his confined world a pretext to inflict pain.
That this time was different was clear from the surly snarl on the Super's face while Murfeeslouched before his desk in a sullen semblance of attention, showing as much hostility ashe could without drawing down more punishment upon himself. This day, Murfee quicklylearned, his petty tyrant was reluctantly relinquishing his hold on one of his playthings, butonly after assuring Murfee "I'll keep your cell for you. Your kind is never gone for long."
Once he realized why the Super was unusually dyspeptic, Murfee relaxed and let himhave his fun. As soon as he was dismissed, he tossed his prison grays on the discard pileto be reassigned to the next caged animal the "justice" system consigned to the Devil'sIsland that was Deer Lodge Penitentiary. From the quartermaster he obtained the requisiteissuance of clothing, from a new pair of clean cotton drawers out to the gabardine trousersand brown twill jacket he now wore, choosing from the two sizes the prison offered: too large or too small. Finally, he signed the receipt for the ten dollars cash the law requiredeach convict be provided on release, and was handed the train ticket. And here he was.
Why? There was reason to ask, to worry perhaps. His sentence still had three years torun. He had steadfastly snarled at lawmen, government men, attorneys from the Bureau ofIndian Affairs all of whom offered him freedom. "Freedom" he snarled the word. There wasno freedom worth the price he would have to pay to get them to turn the key. Some thingsa true man never did. He had not asked for reasons from the convict-clerk who handledthe out-processing paperwork. Why risk a discovery that it was not bank robber WillMurfee, as they called him, but one-horse thief Bill Murray, due to be released? Let them find their mistake out later. Let them catch him if they could.
Meanwhile, the free air of Montana served as a tonic, its freshness unpolluted by the intangible stink confined men always exuded. Already the dullness that had oppressed hissoul in Deer Lodge was giving way to the eagerness of resuming a man's life. And to the anticipation of something important about to happen. For whatever the reason for hisrelease, it had not been a confusion between him and Bill Murray.
The engine chugged to a halt at a minuscule station house. The signpost said only Mile349, a whistle stop on the mainline. Why here? Because a passenger was getting off at this backwater place Murfee had never heard of. Murfee rose to his feet as the train jostledto a stop and walked down the aisle.
They were supposed to give a man a ticket back to where he had been arrested. Thatwould be Billings. But his passage had been paid only to Mile 349. Someone wanted himhere. Someone who had bribed Murfee's passage out of his Purgatory. Someone with motive and wealth enough to make the underlings of the prison system jump to his will. What kind of someone remained to be seen. There were two options, only one of them good. A smarter man would have traded the ticket in for a horse and ridden in the oppositedirection. But he owed his freedom to someone, and Murfee prided himself on alwayspaying his debts.
The depot consisted of nothing more than a squat 10' x 10' waiting room, an empty roomnow, but he expected that. Across the rutted wagon road, a building tried to dignify itself asa hotel—he knew the kind—communal sleeping rooms and, in the rare event more thanhalf a dozen sought accommodations, communal beds. And one or two rooms in the backthat served the carnal needs of cowhands for miles around.
A few yards from the hotel was a small general store that likely overpriced customers foreverything from tins of Arbuckle's Coffee, to work shirts any color a man wanted as long as it was blue, to sacks of Bull Durham. The one thing he most needed, it would have. A short-barreled Harrington and Richardson's pocket revolver. Two dollars by Sears andRoebuck mail order, but five dollars in the store. And maybe, just maybe, the bestinvestment he had ever made. Beyond the store stood a livery stable with a corral outback where three horses stood hipshot and showing no more interest in him then he had in them.
The final building, a dingy room, a pinewood bar, tables scattered throughout the interior, asaloon that did so little business that it lacked even the reassuring stale beer smell. Butone of its stained tables sat in a welcoming corner darkness. So it met his needs.
For now, the saloon was empty. Whoever had manipulated him to this desolate whistlestop craved privacy for what he planned and would not show himself until ready.
Murfee pounded a fist on the bar until a frazzled man scurried out from the back room,pulling up his suspenders as he came. "Whiskey," Murfee ordered. "I'll take a bottle andyou can go back to your snoozing."
He paid for the bottle with his remaining cash, took it and two shot glasses over to thecorner table and settled himself in the shadows, back to the wall, where he could eyeballanyone coming in, front or rear. As he felt the long-denied burn of the whiskey lubricatinghis throat, he began to calculate who would spend so much effort to get him here, andwhy, and more important, what he could do about it.
Even in prison he had heard of the change of the political party running things. The newcabal came in like they all do, proclaiming their commitment to root out corruption. Heknew what that meant. They wanted to banish the thieves and grafters of the old party andmake room for their own "reformers." Nothing ever changed, and a man who thoughtotherwise would swap one set of friends for two sets of enemies. Will Murfee would notplay the fool. The lawyers, the investigators, who had insulted his honor by repeatedlypestering him at Deer Lodge, all wanted one thing and were willing to pay for it byspringing him from the lockup. But he had kept his mouth sealed tighter than one of thosenew bank vaults. Was he here today as a reward for his lockjaw? Or had the man heworked for grown tired of worrying about whether he would crack.
A horse clomped down the road and stopped by the hitch rack out front. One horse only.Did that mean he wasn't expected to ride away from Mile 349? Had he made a fatalmistake in loyally following the bread crumb trail they had left for him when he could havedisappeared any place a stolen horse could take him?
Murfee watched as the bat wings slammed open to reveal a man who believed thatclothes made the man, dressed as he was in black shirt, black trousers, black plainsman'shat, even a black neckerchief, everything black except for the shiny polished gun-metalgray object that rode securely in his holster, Denny Stiles, the last man Murfee wanted tosee, but the first man he had expected. Not a good beginning. The revolver in his lap hadbeen a good investment.
"Enjoy your rest cure, Murfee?" the newcomer asked, his supercilious smile unchanged from the last time they met.
"You should try it sometime, Stiles. For a while, Montana would be a better place."
"I see spending time with your betters hasn't changed you none." Stiles swaggered acrossthe empty saloon, his thumb suggestively brushing his holster with each step. Murfeenoticed the keeper thong had been flicked off.
"I thought maybe they'd send a man to meet me," Murfee said. "'Pears I was wrong."
Stiles' fake smile was replaced by a snarl. "You always sniffed down your nose at the realmen drawing our pay from the Crazy K. Like you was better. You stole other men's cows.You ran a scam on the Bureau of Indian Affairs. But you thought you was too good to dirtyyour hands at good manly gun work."
"Mr. Kershaw gave me my assignments, Stiles. Jobs that required a man with more thanhair under his hat."
Murfee had always had a way of enraging Stiles. The gunman dropped the air ofcondescension as his face clouded over. "How about you and me just go for a walk, andthen I report that no one got off the train."
Murfee let his hand fall below the table to the revolver resting on his lap. "You got aproblem, Stiles. You can't see my back."
And so, his new life began where his old life left off, an angry confrontation with Mr.Kershaw's side-pocket gunman, the man who would kill him as soon as talk to him, andmaybe wouldn't even need an order to do so.
"Empty that glass, Murfee. I want to be five hours on the trail by sundown."
"I only heard one horse, Stiles. Are you my new daddy, fixing to carry me on your lap allthe way?" Or, ... Murfee pondered the alternative. His small revolver would be littledefense against the brutal professional killer, but it was all he had. Ostentatiously, Murfeeused his left hand to lift the glass to his lips.
Stiles slammed a wad of bills on the table. "Buy yourself a nag and tack at the livery. Get some duds that won't reek up my trail camp with prison stink."
And so, in thirty minutes, Murfee was trailing behind Stiles on the road out of town, on agray mare with an unfamiliar brand, dressed properly for the first time in two years withcowhand Levi's, a maroon flannel shirt, riding boots, his Texas origins proudly proclaimedby his cream-colored Stetson, and most important of all, bouncing against his thigh, aman-sized piece of equipment favored by cowhands, lawmen, and men of other lines ofwork from the banks of the Rio to the frosty north.
"Number 1074." The number on his shirt back had reduced him to nothing more than afungible bit of human protoplasm denied the dignity of individuality. An inmate has twochoices, go along and forget that you're a real flesh-and-blood man or resist, assert yourown individuality, demand your dignity, and be crushed. Either way you emerge as a shell,a once-man devoid of spirit. Either way they win.
Murfee had tried to negotiate the narrow path between the depths of the abyss on oneside and the jagged rock face on the other, but even that struggle changed him in ways he didn't yet understand.