William Johnstone: A Rocky Mountain Christmas

“Yea!” one of the boys shouted and the class, which had been so motionless a moment earlier, scattered like leaves before a wind.

Jenny picked up her chair and carried it back into her classroom. The principal and the superintendent of schools were waiting for her.

“Mr. Gray, Mr. Twitty?” she said, obviously surprised to see them.

“Miss McCoy, or should I say Mrs. McCoy?” The expression on Twitty’s face was grim.

“I’m not married.” Jenny paused for a moment. “I’m a widow.”

“You were married to Nate McCoy, were you not?” Twitty asked.

“Yes, I was.”

“It has come to our attention that Nate McCoy was a gambler of, let us say, questionable ethics. And, while you were married, you followed him from gambling den to gambling den. Is that correct?”

Jenny looked down. “Yes,” she said quietly.

“I’m sorry to have to tell you this, Mrs. McCoy. The school board has asked for your dismissal.”

“On what grounds?” Jenny asked.

“Moral turpitude.”

“What? But I . . .”

“Please take your things and leave,” Mr. Gray said.

“My class?”

“They are no longer your class. We have already hired a replacement teacher,” Mr. Twitty informed her.

“Can’t I at least finish the year? We’ve only one month to go. For the children’s sake, don’t you think it would be better for them to keep the same teacher until the end of the year?”

“Good-bye, Mrs. McCoy,” Gray said coldly.

Jenny fought hard to keep the tears from welling up in her eyes. She stood and turned away from them, determined not to let them see her cry. She walked into the cloakroom, removed her coat, and left the schoolroom. There was nothing else she wanted to take from there.

Red Cliff, Colorado—July 8

The sign out front of the store read RAFFERTY’S GROCERY. One of three, it stood at the very edge of town. Michael Santelli stepped into the little store, and a bell attached to the top of the door announced his entry.

“Yes, sir, what can I do for you?” Mr. Rafferty asked. Mrs. Rafferty looked up from sweeping the floor and smiled.

Santelli took a quick glance around. Seeing nobody else in the store, he pulled his gun and pointed it at the shopkeeper. “You can give me all your money. That’s what you can do for me.”

“Yes, sir,” Rafferty said nervously. “Just don’t be getting trigger happy there.” He opened his cash drawer, took out thirty dollars, and handed it across the counter.

Santelli counted it quickly, then looked up at Rafferty, his face twisted in anger. “What is this?” he demanded.

“You said give you all my money. That’s what I did. This is all the money I have.”

“Thirty dollars? Do you expect me to believe that all you have is thirty dollars?”

“That is all I have,” Rafferty said. “We deposited yesterday’s receipts in the bank last night. I always start the morning with just enough money to make change.”

“You’re lyin’!” Santelli pointed his pistol at Mrs. Rafferty. “You better come up with more money fast, or I’ll shoot the woman.”

“Please, I don’t have any more money!” Rafferty shouted desperately.

“I warned you.” Santelli grabbed Mrs. Rafferty, pulled the hammer back on his pistol, and held it to her head.

With a shout of anger, Rafferty climbed over the counter toward him.

Santelli shot him, then turned his pistol back toward Mrs. Rafferty and shot her. Quickly, he went behind the counter and looked through the cash box, but found no more money. With a shout of rage, he picked up the cash box and threw it into a glass display case, smashing the case into pieces.

That done, and with no more money than the thirty dollars Rafferty had given him in the first place, Santelli left the store, mounted his horse, and rode away.

Sixty-seven-year-old Burt Rowe witnessed the entire thing from the back of the store. Santelli hadn’t seen him when he looked around. But Rowe recognized the gunman, Santelli, having seen him before.

As soon as he was certain Santelli was gone, Rowe stepped out in front of the store and began shouting at the top of his lungs. “Help! Help! Murder! The Raffertys have been robbed and murdered!”

Within moments the store was filled with townspeople, including the sheriff and deputy sheriff.

“You are sure it was Santelli?” the sheriff asked Rowe.

“I’m absolutely positive,” Rowe said. “I’ve seen him before.”

“When he left here, which way did he go?”

“I seen him heading south, but that don’t mean he kept going that way. By the way, he only got thirty dollars.”

“Thirty dollars?” the sheriff asked incredulously. “You mean he murdered Mr. and Mrs. Rafferty for no more than thirty dollars?”

“Yes, sir,” Rowe said. “I know that’s all he got, ’cause I heard ’em talkin’ about it.”

“What are you going to do about it, Sheriff?” one of the townspeople asked. “Mr. and Mrs. Rafferty were two of the finest people in the world. We can’t let that animal get away with this.”

“He won’t get away,” the sheriff promised. “I’ll get the word out to other sheriffs and city marshals. We’ll get him, and when we do, we’ll bring him right back here to hang. I promise you that.”

One week later Michael Santelli rode into the town of Kiowa, Colorado, sizing it up as he went along the main street. The little town was made up of whipsawed lumber shacks with unpainted, splitting wood turning gray in the sun. A sign over the door of one rather substantial-looking brick building identified it as the BANK OF KIOWA. Still angered by the slim pickings from Rafferty’s Grocery, Santelli figured the bank might offer some promise for a bigger payoff.

So far, he had over five thousand dollars he’d stolen from a bank in Greeley and hidden in the bottom of an old abandoned well near Gunnison. His plan was to put together enough money to buy a saloon in Texas. The idea of owning a saloon appealed to him—unlimited access to whiskey and beer. And the whores working for him would be available to him anytime he wanted them. But he figured he would need at least ten thousand dollars . . . to set himself up for the rest of his life.

Santelli was a wanted man. There was so much money on his head every bounty hunter in the state was looking for him. The sooner he was able to put together enough money to get out of Colorado, the better it would be. Once he got to Texas, he would be a model citizen. He smiled. He might even run for mayor.

Santelli rode up to the hitching rail in front of the Silver Nugget Saloon, dismounted, and patted his tan duster a few times, sending up puffs of gray-white dust before he walked inside. The saloon was busy, but he found a quiet place by the end of the bar. When the bartender moved over to him, Santelli ordered a beer, then stood there nursing it as he began to formulate a plan for robbing the bank.

Matt Jensen stood at the opposite end of the bar with both hands wrapped around a mug of beer. Something seemed familiar about the man who had just come in, but he couldn’t place him. Studying the man’s reflection in the mirror behind the bar, he took in his average height and weight and unkempt black hair. He had dark, obsidian eyes and a purple scar starting just below his left eye and disappearing in a scraggly beard.

The scar helped Matt make the identification. He had seen drawings and read descriptions of the outlaw Michael Santelli and just that morning had heard that Santelli had killed a grocer and his wife for no more reason than that they didn’t have as much money in their cash box as he thought they should have.

Matt was neither a lawman nor a bounty hunter, but he didn’t plan to let Santelli walk away. Before he could make any move, Deputy Sheriff Ben Mason came into the saloon, and Matt decided to wait and see how things played out.