by Sharon Sala
“Uh… thank you for the food and the hands that have prepared it?”
He hadn’t meant to end the brief prayer on a question, but it didn’t seem to matter to the hungry men. They all echoed an ‘amen’ then fell to eating like starving pigs at a trough, while Eulis looked at Letty for confirmation.
She nodded primly and picked up her spoon.
He sighed and reached for a piece of cornbread. The stew looked a bit thin, but the cornbread would be good for soppin’ up the juice.
They were nearly done with the meal when something hit the front door with a thud. Letty flinched and then jumped to her feet. She recognized the sound and wasn’t going to be caught sitting down again, no matter where she was.
“What is that?” she asked.
Forney frowned. He was hoping the evening would pass without having to explain what had happened at the outhouse, but it looked as if he wasn’t going to be so lucky after all.
“What was what?” he asked.
Another thud sounded and the door rattled on its hinges.
“That!” Letty said, and pointed toward the door. “That’s what I kept hearing right before the outhouse tipped.”
Forney’s face turned red. “Well now… I reckon that might be ole Rolly.”
Letty reached for the fireplace poker leaning against the wall and approached the door with trepidation.
“Here now, lady… what do you think you’re doin’?” Shorty asked.
Forney jumped to his feet. “You can’t…”
Letty opened the door.
“Baa… baa.”
Eulis’s eyes popped.
“Ole Rolly is a goat?”
Forney grinned. “Yeah, he’s right stubborn, but—”
Letty swung the poker and hit the goat on the large hump of bone between its horns. The goat reeled as if it had been pole-axed and sat down with a thump.
“Buuu.”
“Same to you,” Letty said, then slammed the door in its face.
She set the poker back against the wall, poured herself a cup of coffee, and then sat down as if nothing untoward had happened.
The men stared at each other, then at Forney, waiting to see what he was going to do. Both Shorty and Big Bill knew that Forney was right fond of that goat.
Forney glared at the woman then cleared his throat.
Letty looked up, letting her glance slide over him as if he mattered not at all, then let it settle on Eulis.
“Brother Howe, I think I will retire to my bed and leave you men to your visit.”
Then she stared at Forney, daring him to speak against what she’d done. “It’s been a very tiring and disappointing end to a long, dusty ride. I certainly hope my sleep will not be disturbed as our arrival and meal has been.”
A red flush spread from Forney’s neck up his face and disappeared in the thick brush of hair on his head. He kept thinking of Rolly sitting out there on the porch and wanted to tell Sister Leticia what she could do with herself, but he didn’t dare. Gibson Stage Line had hired him to take care of the passengers, and letting an outhouse collapse on one, and a female at that, wasn’t what they’d had in mind.
“I’ll be back in a few minutes,” Forney said, and got up from the table.
“Where you goin’?” Shorty asked.
“Reckon I’ll tie ole Rolly up for the night.”
Letty blew on her coffee and then took a small, dainty sip, grimaced from the strength of it, and then downed it like a field hand before disappearing behind the curtained off corner of the room where the sleeping cots were set up. She chose the one against the wall and crawled beneath the cover and lay down. The bed clothes smelled like wood smoke and didn’t feel all that clean, but she was too weary to care. She was almost asleep when a thought occurred. She got out of bed, dug through her bag for her pistol then put it beneath her pillow before getting back into bed.
A short while later the others began to retire. Eulis took the cot next to Letty while Boston and Morris chose cots closer to the door. Shorty and Big Bill took the ones that were left, while Forney climbed the ladder to the single bed in the loft.
A few minutes ensued of boots hitting the floor and belts and buckles coming undone. Letty heard Shorty and Big Bill converse briefly about tomorrow’s journey. After that, someone hiccupped as another burped. Someone else cursed softly about the length of the cot versus the length of his body, and then all went silent.
Letty waited until their breathing slowed and they were on the verge of sleep. Then she took the gun out from under her pillow and sat up in bed.
“Gentlemen, I have endured the stench of men’s bad digestion, and even ruder behavior in sharing it since seven o’clock this morning. As if that wasn’t enough, I was buried beneath an outhouse full of crap. So I want you to know that my point of endurance has come and gone. Sleep well, but know that I will shoot dead the first man who passes gas within my vicinity tonight.”
Boston Jones sat up with a jerk.
Morris fell off the cot, hitting the floor with a thump.
Shorty muttered beneath his breath while Big Bill just gathered up his bedclothes and headed for the door.
“Where you goin’?” Shorty muttered.
“To the barn,” Big Bill said.
“Wait a minute,” Boston called. “I’ll go with you.”
“And me,” Morris added.
Shorty sighed then sat up in bed and looked at Letty.
“Lady, you wouldn’t really—”
She cocked the gun.
He grabbed his covers and his boots and lit for the door.
“What’s goin’ on down there?” Forney called.
“We’re sleepin’ in the barn,” Shorty said, and shut the door behind him as he went.
Letty pointed the gun at Eulis.
“What about you?”
“What about me?” Eulis mumbled.
“Aren’t you afraid I’ll shoot you in your sleep?”
Eulis snorted softly in his pillow. “No, ma’am.”
“Why not?” Letty asked.
“If I’m dead, then you’re without a preacher, which means Sister Leticia is dead, too.”
Letty thought about it a minute and then stuffed the gun back beneath her pillow and laid down. A few seconds later, she raised up again and whispered.
“Eulis.”
He frowned. “Brother Howe, if you please.”
Letty rolled her eyes and then tugged at the neck of her nightgown.
“Sorry. Where do you reckon we’ll wind up next?”
Eulis sighed. “I suppose wherever the Good Lord leads us.”
Letty thought about that a moment, then nodded. Satisfied by the godly answer, she laid back down.
An owl hooted outside the station. She caught herself waiting to hear if there was an answering hoot from somewhere else then thought of how she used to listen for the call of the whippoorwill, waiting endlessly in hopes of hearing the mate’s answering call.
Disgusted with herself for still being a dreamer after all the wasted years, she poked the thin, lumpy pillow into a different shape in hopes of making it more comfortable. She was a reformed whore and well past the marrying age, even though there had been one man, a gambler, who seemed to care for her despite her disreputable past. After he’d died in a gunfight, she figured it was her punishment for even imagining she could deserve such happiness. Now she considered it her penance to follow a man who’d dedicated his life to bringing the word of God to the territories. Even if Eulis wasn’t a real preacher, and even if he hadn’t made the decision on his own, she was in a better place now than she had been last year.
Something banged beyond the curtain as lamplight suddenly glowed.
“Something wrong?” Eulis called.
The bale on a bucket rattled as Forney pulled it out from beneath a bench. It had a hammer, and what he hoped were enough nails to do the job he had planned.
“Seein’ as how we got ourselves a woman on the prop
erty, I reckoned I’d go put the walls of my outhouse back together before someone had the need to use it again.”
Letty snorted.
Forney jiggled the bucket, taking satisfaction in the clank and clatter of the nails to punctuate what he’d left unsaid, then slammed the door behind him as he left.
Eulis wasn’t quite sure what to say, although he knew a remark was needed to settle the air.
“That was right thoughty of him, don’t you think?”
She snorted again. “I don’t think that Forney man has the capacity to have two thoughts in his head at the same time, that’s what I think.”
“Well then,” Eulis said.
The sound of hammering shattered the silence of the night. Letty wondered what the men trying to sleep in the barn thought about all that noise, then decided she didn’t care.
“Good night, Brother Howe,” Letty said.
“Good night, Sister. Sleep well.”
“I intend to,” she said shortly, and blanked out the sound of the hammering just as she was learning to bury the memories of sleeping with men for money.
Shutting The Barn Door After The Horse Is Out
Mary Farmer was the oldest of six children, her daddy’s favorite, and the only one who’d taken her looks after her mother, Lillian, whom her father adored. She was sixteen, book smart, and common sense smart—both traits that her father took credit for, although it was her mother who’d schooled all six of her children to read and write.
Mary worked behind the counter at the family dry goods store in Plum Creek, and was a big draw in getting the local cowboys business on payday. She’d been named the Harvest Queen during the town’s annual fall festival two years in a row, only Mary was certain it wasn’t going to happen a third time. She was pretty sure that pregnant, unmarried girls weren’t named anything but loose, which meant that being Harvest Queen a third time was out.
She didn’t really mind not being Harvest Queen again. She’d had her two years in the limelight. What she did mind was that her daddy had forbidden her to even speak to Joseph Carver, the wild young cowboy who worked on the Double R Ranch. She’d minded so much that she’d done the unthinkable. Not only had she slipped around to see him, but she’d fallen in love with the dark-eyed wrangler, and made love with him every time they got the chance. Now she was about to pay the ultimate price for her indiscretions.
Last Saturday night, Joseph Carver had gone and gotten himself arrested for horse thieving and cattle rustling. Caught hands down with the branding iron in his hand, he’d been tried and found guilty. It was bad enough that she’d gotten herself pregnant, but tomorrow morning, her baby’s daddy was going to be hanged. She was not only up a flooded creek and drowning, but going down for the last time. Too heartsick and afraid to admit to her situation, she’d decided to do herself in. It was just the how and where of it that she had yet to figure out.
She fainted at the sight of blood, so using a knife was not an option, and she didn’t know how to shoot a gun, so that was out, too. Each night when she went to bed she tried to stop breathing, but so far had been unsuccessful because she kept falling asleep, only to wake up each morning to a new day.
Then it occurred to her that she just needed to wait for the arrival of the next stagecoach and throw herself beneath the wheels. It would probably hurt something awful before she died, but that would be her penance for committing her mortal sins. She didn’t think about the fact that she would be ending her baby’s life before it had a chance to begin, mostly because the baby didn’t seem real. She’d felt nothing but panic since the day she’d learned of its existence, and it was far easier to be a coward than to face the consequences of her actions.
Dooley Pilchard walked with a limp and had to squint a bit to see good out of his right eye, but he was a good hand with a fire and bellows, and satisfied the residents of Plum Creek’s needs for a blacksmith just fine. His shoulders were broad, his hands knotted from long hours hammering iron and shoeing horses. He looked older than his twenty-seven years, stood seven inches over six feet tall and wore a beard to hide a scar that ran the length of his neck and chin. He wore the beard short and his hair long, tied back from his face with a thin piece of leather. His deep blue eyes were his best feature, but hard to see beneath dark, shaggy eyebrows.
He was a lonely man who witnessed life in Plum Creek without any participation beyond the casual hello and goodbye to his customers. Because of his size and his limp, few single women ever noticed him, and none gave him a second glance. By his habits alone, he’d become anonymous, almost invisible, and because of that, he knew way more of the goings on in Plum Creek than people could have imagined.
He knew that the mayor downed a flask of whiskey every afternoon in the alley behind the saloon, and that Mary Farmer had been sneaking out to see Joseph Carver for several months. He knew that Joseph Carver bragged about his prowess among the other cowboys with whom he worked, and he knew that Joseph Carver’s laughing days were almost over. What he didn’t know was that when Joseph Carver died, he was leaving a piece of himself behind. Ironically, Joseph Carver didn’t know it either, but that was of no comfort to Mary and immaterial to Dooley. What he did know was that when Joseph Carver had been sentenced to hang, Mary Farmer had changed.
Her pretty face was no longer wreathed in constant smiles, and her demeanor had turned into one resembling a whipped dog. She walked with her head down and her shoulders slumped, and he wanted more than anything in this world, to put his arms around her and protect her forever from hurt or harm.
However, Dooley Pilchard was a realist and knew that dream was about as far-fetched as a dream could be. So he admired her from afar, watched her when she didn’t see him looking, and wished Joseph Carver to hell for making Mary Farmer sad.
Adam Farmer knocked sharply on Mary’s door. When his daughter didn’t answer, he shouted out.
“Mary! Mary! You need to come down and help out at the counter. Seems like everyone has come to town to see the hangin’ and your mother can’t help because Maybelle is sick.”
“Yes. All right,” she said. “I’ll be down shortly.”
“Well, hurry up and get dressed. Customers are thick as flies.”
“Yes, Father,” Mary said, and listened to his footsteps disappearing as she stared blindly out the window to the gallows in the town square below.
She couldn’t believe she was in such a terrible fix. The more she thought about it, the more she realized what a fool she’d been. Her mother had told her that wild cowboys weren’t to be trusted, but she’d been so certain her mother had been wrong. She put a hand on her belly, testing it to see if she could feel a difference, but it still felt as firm and flat as always. If only she could change the past, she would not give those cowboys a second glance.
She looked back down at the street, saw the sheriff climbing up the steps to the gallows and quickly turned away. She was ashamed she’d ever believed herself in love with Joseph Carver, and even more ashamed she’d let him have his way with her.
“Mary!”
She jumped at the sound of her father’s voice.
“Coming,” she said, and hurried out of her room and then down the stairs to the store below.
The room was packed, mostly with people who were waiting out of the sun for the hanging. She scooted behind the counter and tied an apron around her waist before moving to her first customer, a woman she recognized as the wife of a settler named Myron Reed. The harried woman had a baby in her arms and three young children playing at her feet.
“May I help you?” Mary asked.
“I need to fill this order,” the woman said, and slid a grocery list across the counter to Mary.
“It will only take a few minutes,” she said.
“Take your time, dearie,” the woman said, then whacked her oldest child on the back of the head. “Stop puttin’ your finger up your nose.”
The child let out a bellow of dismay that only added to the underlying
rumble of voices all talking about the same thing—the man who was about to be hanged.
Mary blinked back tears and hurried to fill the list, took the woman’s money, and moved to the next, then the next, and suddenly someone yelled.
“They’re coming! They’re coming!”
The store began to empty as if the building had caught on fire. Mary’s heart began to hurt and her hands began to shake. She moved to the window in time to catch a glimpse of Joseph’s face. The laughter was missing. He looked scared.
“Mary! Come away from there!” her father said.
Mary turned around. There was no one in the store but her and her father. She opened her mouth, wanting to tell him what she’d done.
Then the crowd roared and she flinched. She could hear the sheriff talking and thought he asked Joseph if he had any last words.
There was a long moment of silence. She wanted to turn around—needed to see the horror of what was happening, yet afraid she would break down. Her father wouldn’t understand why she was so upset over some thieving cowboy she shouldn’t know.
Then she heard a solid thump, followed by the faint wail of an infant and wondered if the settler’s baby was the only one who would cry for Joseph Carver this day.
A few moments later, the crowd in the street began to disperse. A few came back into the store to finish their shopping, while others loaded up in their wagons and buckboards and started the trip home. They’d seen what they had come to see—hard justice in a sparse land.
Mary lifted her chin and found herself staring blindly at the stock lining the front of the shelves, then at her father, memorizing the studious expression on his face as he posted a line of figures into his account book. Upstairs, she could hear the sounds of her little brothers and sisters playing and the intermittent creak of a floorboard above her head as her mother rocked her little sister to sleep. It was so familiar and so dear. But the innocence of her life was gone and if she told her parents what she’d done, then this would all be gone, too. She glanced at the clock. It was almost time for the stage to arrive. She took off her apron and hung it on a nail by the staircase, smoothed her hands down the front of her dress and slipped out the back door unobserved.
