Suddenly a soldier came in and demanded that all the goods be returned, and for Simon to pay for them immediately. Simon’s heart competed with his rapid breathing. He knew all the items were stolen. And then the room filled with smirking faces, accusing eyes and pointing fingers. He looked around frantically for someone to explain his situation to, and saw his mother. She stood at a table, smiling gently, kneading a large batch of dough. Simon felt better as he pulled a chair out and sat, the smell of fresh bread so soothing. She reached over and stroked his sweating brow.
And then he realized he was late for the picnic. With a glance at his mother, he rushed from the sod house and into the prairie. There was no river in sight. Where had it gone? He knew it was at the end of the pasture, but that was gone too. Into the prairie he ran, only to be confronted by large bushes with grasping thorns that caught at his clothes. He fought them savagely, but they finally entangled him so tightly he couldn’t move. He collapsed, exhausted. Then came the scent of lavender again, and Sarah called his name. “Simon, help me. Please, help me. Simon, I need you.” The desperate sound of her voice ripped at his heart, but fight as he might, he couldn’t move. His frustrated rage escaped in a long full-throated scream. “Saaarrrrahhhh!”
“My gawd, Simon. Wake up!” Buell jostled him, and Spud’s front paws bore down on his legs. “Yer having a bad dream. Simon?”
The air felt cold on Simon’s wet flesh, and he stared dumbly at Buell.
“You all right? Ya scared the hell outta me.”
“I—I was caught. Couldn’t get out of the brambles. Sarah called.”
“Just a dream, Simon.” Buell stood and Simon heard the scratch of a match.
In the light, Simon could see his torn-up bed, the blankets mostly piled around his shoulders. He shrugged them off and got to his feet.
“Looks like a boar’s nest,” Buell said.
“Damn, I haven’t had one of those in a long time. Dreamt ol’ Swartz was watchin’ me count cans again.”
“Want to sit up for a bit and talk?”
“Naw. I’ll be all right. Let me put this bed back together.” Simon started to untangle the blankets.
“Okay. You get the light.” Buell climbed back into bed, and turned to face the wall.
Simon made up his bed and sat on it. Spud’s concerned eyes mellowed as Simon petted him, and after a couple of minutes both felt the therapy take effect. Man and dog sought sleep again.
After breakfast the next morning, Simon went into the kitchen. Lori stood washing dishes, and turned her head as he came in. “You’ve been quiet this morning.”
“Offer still open?”
“About what?” Lori turned around.
“Talkin’.”
“Of course.”
“You can finish what you’re doing. I can wait.”
“I’ll never finish what I’m doing, Simon.” She reached for a towel. “And you came in, so you don’t want to wait. Sit down.” She pointed at one of the chairs by the table, then sat on another.
“I had a really bad dream last night. So bad it woke Buell up.”
“About what?”
Simon looked into her clear gray eyes for several moments, and he bit his trembling lower lip into submission. “Sarah,” he said, his voice barely a whisper.
“Ah. The girl.” Lori reached across the table, and laid her hand on the back of his.
Simon nodded. The ache in his throat was actually painful, and he swallowed hard to compensate.
“What’s her name again?”
“Sarah.”
Lori waited while Simon gathered himself.
“I dreamed we were in a fine house, like my aunt Ruth’s place back home, and Sarah was outside waiting with a picnic by the river. I could smell her.” He paused as the dream started to repeat itself, then swallowed hard and told her the rest. His heart raced as he finished.
Lori squeezed his hand. “I’m sorry, Simon. Those helpless dreams are horrible.”
“Do you believe dreams have meaning, Lori?”
“I do. My grandma told me dreams will say things we don’t dare.”
“I miss her. Oh, how I miss her.” He could not stop the misery that ran from the corners of his eyes.
“What happened, Simon? Why are you here and she’s somewhere else?”
“I don’t know. We were together from the time we started school. Then, one day I was goaded into finally asking her if she’d marry me. I’d tried several times before, but could never get the words to come out.”
“Sometimes that’s difficult for a man. You fear being turned down. It’s something we ladies have to help you overcome.” She smiled at him and he appreciated the reassuring warmth of her hand.
“I know that now. But when I asked her, she said no. She just said we were never in love. And I know as sure as there’s a God, that she loved me. And I know I loved her.”
“Simon, look at me.”
He looked up from his hands and into her steady gaze.
“Did you ever go beyond just spoonin’?” The way she tilted her head down asked the real question.
“No,” he said, amazed that he felt no embarrassment.
“And neither of you courted anyone else?”
“No.”
“And she never gave you a reason other than that?”
“I really don’t remember. That afternoon is a complete tangle. I can’t see anything but her standing there, seeming to get farther and farther away, yet not moving her feet. Buell and I decided to leave that very day.”
Lori wrinkled her brow and leaned forward. “Haven’t you written to her?”
“No. And I told my family I didn’t want to hear about her. And I haven’t, except a reference to her by a friend.”
“That’s terrible, Simon.” She puffed her cheeks. “You have to write. There’s more to this.”
“What do you mean?”
“I’ll be blunt. Could it be she was seeing someone else you didn’t know about?”
“Not in a town that size. Everybody knows everything.”
“Then, is it possible a man paid her some unwelcome attention?”
“You mean . . . raped her?” Simon whispered the last word.
“I’ve seen it happen. If it’s true, and I pray it’s not, she’s taking all the blame. She might have seen herself unfit for you.”
Simon sat in stunned silence. It might just be, he thought. The memory of her seclusion, even from her own mother, made his head swim. But who?
“I think she’s left Carlisle,” he finally said. “Our family lawyer mentioned that her father and mother had time for politics now that she was gone. He didn’t say anything else, and I don’t think he even realized he’d said as much as he had.”
“Buell went home. What did he say?”
“I told him to say nothing. So he hasn’t.”
“Why not? Surely, you realize you need to know. Your dream should tell you that.”
Simon groaned. “I don’t think I could take another day like that.”
“Your dreams will tell you things you don’t dare admit, remember?”
“And that’s what has me worried, Lori. The dream wasn’t just about Sarah.”
CHAPTER 21
Waves of noise rolled off the walls and struck Buell with near physical force. Sergeant Barrschott and nearly thirty soldiers had arrived about three hours before to fill the saloon as full as Buell had ever seen it. So far, there had only been one minor scuffle, taken care of almost immediately by Barrschott. The contingent of soldiers split into two distinct groups, about fifteen clustered around three tables with Barrschott, celebrating the sergeant’s upcoming retirement, while the rest sat across the room with a wiry corporal. The corporal’s group wore the yellow stripes of the cavalry. Barrschott raised his glass, and tried to attract the attention of one of the harried barmaids. She finally saw him, and headed toward the table.
As she swept past the cavalry corporal, he grabbed her arm. “Get us
some more drinks here,” he ordered.
She deftly twisted out of his grasp and continued on her way. “I’ll get to ya when I’m done there.” She indicated Barrschott’s table.
“Slut!” The word cut through the hubbub like a fart at a funeral.
Buell had been watching someone near the bar, and he snapped his head around to see who had shouted.
The lanky corporal stood, and waved his empty whiskey glass. “You serve the real troopers before ya serve those rear-echelon sumbitches.”
Barrschott’s head came up, then he stood and turned around. A hush settled over the saloon, and Buell glanced at his Sharps, then over at Twiggs. Max hurried toward the center of the bar.
“I hope ya wasn’t talkin’ ’bout us, Landers,” Barrschott said quietly. The sergeant’s companions murmured their assent.
“Well, matter a fact, I was.” The corporal stood unsteadily, eyes blinking slowly. “Fort sitters are ’sposed t’ wait for the fightin’ men to git theirs first.” His gaze shifted to the barmaid. “So git yer scrawny ass back over here.”
“You!” Buell shouted across the room.
Every head in the saloon turned in his direction, and twenty men cleared a path across the floor as though an invisible plow had been pulled through the room.
“Don’t start any trouble, corp’ral,” Buell said.
The tall soldier looked around at his friends, who were now eyeing Barrschott’s table.
Barrschott smiled. “He ain’t gonna, Buell. I suspect that yellow stripe on his leg runs up his back.”
The whiskey glass flashed through the air, narrowly missing Barrschott’s head. The crash as it carried across the room and into the stack of glasses on the back bar brought a gasp from the room. Barrschott crossed the distance to the trooper in four long strides, and tackled him, carrying both onto the table. It collapsed on three seated cavalrymen. A shout came up from Barrschott’s men, and they charged headlong into the horse soldiers. The front door banged open and several civilians escaped into the night.
Simon appeared in his office door. “What in hell?”
“Better stay out of it,” Buell shouted. “They’re drunker’n pigs.”
He climbed off his stool, retrieved his Sharps from the steps, and headed into the milling crowd. Simon followed.
Fists flew in every direction, and the grunts of pain and shouts of anger combined to drown out Buell’s shouted order to stop fighting. A short, wide-shouldered trooper had hold of a civilian’s shirtfront. He had his fist cocked back, ready to slam it into the grimacing face. Buell drove the butt of the carbine hard into the stocky man’s kidneys. He collapsed with a groan, dragging the other man down with him.
“Buell, look out!” Simon hollered, and Buell turned to find him.
A man with an insane grin on his face swung a piece of splintered tabletop at Buell’s head. Buell ducked, and jammed the muzzle of the carbine deep into the man’s ample belly. The civilian’s eyes went wide, and a gust of foul-smelling breath whooshed out. Clutching his stomach, he fell to the floor, retching. Buell looked up to find Simon again. He spotted him just as a man landed a balled fist on the side of Simon’s head. He collapsed without a sound, and two wrestling men fell over him.
Buell rushed forward and kicked at the two brawlers until they let loose of one another and got off Simon. He glanced around the room. Twiggs stood at the bar with his shotgun resting on top of it, cocked, and leveled at the crowd. Every man in the room fought someone, one-on-one, two-on-one, four men in a heap on the floor, flailing away blindly. Buell cocked his Sharps and pointed it down. The thundering shot had little effect save blasting some splinters into a man’s thigh.
Buell reached down and grabbed Simon by his collar. He struggled to drag him to the office in the far corner, stopping twice to beat a person away. He looked at Twiggs again, and saw the grim determination on his face. “Useless,” the bartender mouthed, shaking his head. “Go.”
The sound of a dog’s bark drew his attention, and Buell spotted Spud standing in the office doorway, hackles up, and ears back. Picking his way through smashed furniture, he dragged his unconscious friend into the office, and hiked him into one of the soft chairs. Simon groaned, and his eyes fluttered open for a moment, and then shut again.
“You stay here, Spud. Stay.” Buell pointed at the floor, and then walked out, pulling the door closed behind.
He cussed himself for not having another cartridge for his Sharps, and looked toward his high chair. A dozen men blocked the way to his extra ammunition. He sidestepped two, furiously pummeling each other, and went behind the bar. Twiggs stood toward the center, and his two helpers were at the far end, each with a bung mallet in their hands. Buell continued down the bar to Twiggs.
“You check to see if that thing is loaded?” Buell asked, indicating the double-barreled Greener shotgun.
“It’s always loaded,” Twiggs said grimly.
“That shot in the floor didn’t even turn a head.”
“It won’t either. All we can do is stay behind the bar, and keep them on the other side.” Twiggs looked at his helpers. “I told them to smash flat anything that touches the bar.”
“So what do we do?”
“They’ll run out of steam. But, it’s going to be expensive.”
A tremendous crash at the right end of the room turned Buell’s head just in time to see the stove tip off its perch, and dump cast-iron parts all over the floor. Slowly, as though reluctant to make a mess, the stovepipe came loose from the ceiling, first one joint at the bottom, then two more, and finally the remaining four or five came crashing down. Fluffy soot flew everywhere. One man took the full brunt of a section that hit him on the shoulder and turned him black as a coal lump. The flying particles of chimney filth started to slow the melee. A pair of fist-fighting civilians near the fallen stove suddenly stopped, pointed at each other, and started to laugh. The effect was contagious. Like a cloud’s shadow on a still summer day, the calm spread slowly from one side of the room to the other. Men stopped punches in mid swing, and looked around. Those on the floor either stood or sat up, and everybody looked around at the destruction.
Of the ninety-plus chairs that once stood on four legs around the twenty-odd tables, it was hard to find a dozen that would still support a person. Not one table remained standing. Miraculously, not a single coal-oil lamp had been broken, but half the glassware on the back bar lie below on the floor, shattered.
“Adolph!” Twiggs shouted.
Barrschott trudged across the room, a half grin on his face. “I know the drill,” he said. “Blaise, Wilkins, you two get the front door. Peterson, Lancaster, you get the back. Move!”
The four soldiers hurried to their assigned posts, and stood facing the crowd.
“All right, you’ve had your fun,” shouted Twiggs. “And now Amos is going to get his furniture back. All you civilians get to the right side of the room. I want you to file past me. You all owe me ten dollars each. Those I recognize and don’t have it, can owe me personally. Those of you that I don’t know, pay me ten dollars now, cash, or kind. Sergeant Barrschott will deal with you soldiers.”
Reluctantly, the brawlers moved to the sooty end of the bar, and formed a rough queue. As they passed the grim bartender, they paid their fine, which Twiggs put in an empty cash box, or in the case of two or three, signed or made their mark on a piece of paper, which he then put in his pocket. Two cowboys had to give up their pistols in lieu of cash. With their restitution made, most walked past the guards at the door and left. A few stayed.
“The saloon is closed,” Twiggs said when he had dealt with the last man. “And from the looks of things, it will be for a couple of days.”
The rest of the patrons shuffled out the door, including most of the soldiers.
“I’d say the army owes us about three hundred dollars, Adolph,” Twiggs said.
The four guards looked at Barrschott.
“You can go,” Barrschott said to the tro
opers. “Tell the rest they better be comin’ up with ten dollars each. We don’t want the old man knowing about this, or it’ll be off limits for a while.” He turned to Twiggs. “You’ll get it.” Barrschott chuckled. “Some party though, don’t ya think?”
Simon stood in the office doorway, leaning against the jamb.
Buell saw him. “You gonna be all right?”
“Yeah. Can’t hear anything in this ear.” He grasped his left one with thumb and forefinger and shook it vigorously.
“I saw the punch,” Twiggs said. “You dropped like a sack of spuds.”
“Who was it?”
“Doesn’t matter, does it?” Buell said.
“No, I guess not.” Simon slowly panned the room. “Damn, what a mess. Amos is gonna be mad as hell.”
“Not really,” Twiggs said. “Happens every few years. Remember that fight you had with them skinners, Adolph?”
“That was a battle. I was stiff for six weeks. Took out both stoves that year . . . and they were lit. Damn lucky we didn’t burn the place down.” Barrschott laughed, then stopped, and grabbed the side of his jaw. “Ouch, that hurts.” He reached into his mouth with two fingers and tugged at a tooth in back. His fingers came out bloody. “They’re all still there, but it’s gonna be sore.”
“Well, I don’t like it,” Simon said. “And Lori’s gonna be furious.”
“Lori is furious.” The voice came from the stairs. “You’re going to help me clean this up.” Her arms, folded tightly in indignation and anger, held her long dressing gown snug around her body. “Did they get into the dining rooms?”
“Uh-oh. I haven’t looked,” Twiggs said. “They’re locked aren’t they?”
Laramie Page 27
