Prairie Fire, Kansas

by John Shirley

  “I ain’t some little lost calf, Franklin.”

  “Ain’t you, though?”

  The two cowboys headed out to the dusty street. It was still warm, the day’s heat rising from the aggregate road, but a fresh breeze was blowing in off the prairie. As they strolled down the main drag, Seth observed the town had the common layout for frontier settlements, with a main street right through its middle. The street was rattling now with a procession of high-sided freight wagons carrying the first summer wheat harvest, and the sounds of a laughing girl in a frock and pinafore rolling an iron hoop. Shops lined the road at the center of town, mostly small false-front stores. Beyond the stores, two cafés, and a tailor shop, there was a pool hall called Henry’s, a grange hall, a modest two-story building that looked like a city hall, and a church steeple sticking up down at the end of the street. Apart from that, there were houses set on side streets and not much else of note.

  “Anyhow, here’s the general store,” said Seth. “I don’t think it was open last time we was here. Had to buy from a farmer selling out the back of his wagon.”

  A small brass bell on the door jangled when they entered the Prairie Fire General Store, F. Dubois, proprietor. A vinegary-faced man in a long white apron was counting out change to a lady in a yellow bonnet. She watched the process with an eagle eye. The man was F. Dubois, Seth assumed. He looked vaguely familiar. And Seth reflected that he’d known a family named Dubois back home in Texas when he’d been a boy. The shopkeeper’s oiled black hair was parted in the middle, his small black mustache overwhelmed by heavy cheeks. The lady departed, primly avoiding eye contact with the dusty cowboys. Dubois twitched his long nose and looked markedly unenthusiastic about the two cowboys approaching the counter.

  “Yes?” he asked, in an accent Seth had heard before. French Canadian . . .

  “Evening,” said Franklin. “Need us a pound of cornmeal, two pounds of bacon, quarter pound of sugar, two pounds of coffee—”

  Dubois was scribbling the items on a pad. “Ground coffee or unground?”

  “Don’t usually ride with a coffee grinder,” said Franklin. “Make it ground. Now, sir . . .”

  Franklin went on with the order, but Seth couldn’t seem to hear him anymore. The young woman coming in from the back room had arrested every last speck of Seth’s attention. She was a small woman, her tawny hair half up and curled. Compact, perfectly proportioned, she was almost like a child’s porcelain doll, with her elegant little Cupid’s bow lips the color of bing cherries and her large blue-green eyes.

  It can’t be her. She was so like the little girl he’d known in childhood, but grown into a womanly figure. After a moment, he was sure of it. This was Josette Dubois.

  “May I assist you, sir?” she asked Seth as she reached behind herself to tighten her frilly pink-and-white apron.

  Seth was staring at her delicate white fingers. There was no wedding ring.

  Should he tell her who he was? Would she remember him? Somehow, he felt it might embarrass her.

  Seth cleared his throat. “Ma’am, my friend is . . . is ordering our goods but, ah—I was considering on”—he was suddenly self-conscious of his patchy red calico shirt—“on a new shirt.”

  “We do have one left,” she said. “The milliner also does some haberdashery and such like and would have more.” She, too, had an accent, though not as pronounced as her father’s. She said “such” like “sooch.” Seth found it to be most charming. “But we do have a nice new blue cotton shirt.”

  “I’ll take it,” Seth blurted.

  She looked startled. An adorable sight. “Well—I have only one, and I’m not sure it would fit you. Might be a whisker too big.”

  “Oh, I could adjust that. We cowpokes, why, we learn to mend and such.”

  “I see!” She smiled. “That is most admirable. Most men do not seem to trifle with sewing.”

  “’Course, I’m not just a cowpoke—I’m starting a considerable business of my own”—he licked his lips—“down in Chaseman, Texas.”

  “Chaseman! I lived near that town when I was a”—she blinked and peered at him, head tilted, lips pursed—“a child.”

  “Josette—”

  “Josette!” Dubois roared.

  She jumped a little at that, and her shoulders tensed. Seth had to suppress the urge to take her hand and comfort her.

  Josette turned to her father. “There is no need to shout, Papa.”

  “I was calling to you twice, girl! You ignore me, no? Go—” He pushed the list on the pad to her. “Fill this!”

  “Yes, oui, certainement, Papa,” she murmured, consulting the pad. She glanced furtively at Seth and made a small gesture to Seth—it was just a hand motion that said, Wait a moment. But it made his heart leap.

  Seth found he was breathing hard as he watched her bustling about the shop, gathering up the order.

  “Seth?”

  He thought about asking if he could carry those things for her.

  “Seth!”

  He turned, blinking. “Well—what?”

  Franklin seemed amused by something. “You look a mite petrified there, Seth. Like you seen something that’s froze you on the spot.”

  “It’s Josette, Franklin,” Seth whispered.

  “It’s who?”

  “You knowed her. She went to our school.”

  “Why, I seem to remember the name. You’re saying she’s from our corner of Texas?”

  “I spent most of a summer running with her—chasing round with our dogs, trying to get kites to work, making a raft on the Pendleton River—we near to drowned. Had a fine time. Then her Pap . . .” He nodded toward Dubois, who was seeing to a heavily bearded man with the look of a prosperous farmer. “Well, he had to leave town. Dragged her off with him. Ran up here, I expect.”

  “How old were you two?”

  “Eleven.”

  “Seth, I’m mighty impressed with your memory,” said Franklin. He joined Seth in watching Josette tie up their purchases in brown paper. “She must’ve had quite an effect on—”

  Seth made a slashing motion with his hand to shut Franklin up as Josette came over to him with two packages.

  “Thank you, ma’am . . .” Franklin said. “What’s this package here?”

  “Why, your friend bought a shirt.”

  “Will wonders never cease,” Franklin said.

  She once more looked at Seth with her head crooked to one side. “It cannot be . . .”

  “It’s Seth Coe, is what it can be,” said Franklin.

  “Oh! Seth! That was it!”

  Seth winced. She hadn’t remembered his name.

  “I went to the same school as you did myself, ma’am,” Franklin said.

  “Josette!” her father barked, slapping another list down on the counter.

  “Excuse me. . . .”

  “Close your mouth, Seth,” Franklin said, “before you catch a fly. Let’s go.”

  Seth drifted numbly after Franklin to stand on the sidewalk outside. “There you were, Franklin, pretending you remembered her from school—!”

  “Why, I almost remember her. There was a tiny little female with legs like sticks running after you.” He chuckled. “I noticed she couldn’t remember your name, Seth! But you sure remembered hers!”

  Seth looked over his shoulder, ducking his head a little to look through the window in the door for a glimpse of Josette. “She signed me to wait and talk to her later.”

  “Sure, she did. A pretty girl like that? She probably wanted you to introduce her to me.”

  “Now you’re the dreamer round here.”

  Franklin handed Seth his wrapped-up shirt. “Seemed to me that pa of hers didn’t like our looks.”

  “For some reason, fathers are right prejudiced against cowboys,” Seth said. He looked down the street. “
Eastern Road Inn, it says there. Let’s get us a room.”

  “What happened to sleeping in the damn bushes again?”

  “My back was hurting me some this morning.”

  “Oh, is that what it is?”

  “Franklin, shut your piehole, and let’s go get us that room and some dinner.”

  * * *

  * * *

  Old Mundy was bringing Fisher and Diamond their supper, whistling a tune between the space in his front teeth. He was careful to keep a step back from the bars as he set the tin plates and cups on the floor and slid them through the horizontal slot. “Fried chicken tonight, Diamond,” he said. “You’re getting the fine eats to set you up good for hanging.”

  “Twelve days to the hanging,” Diamond said. “That’s a lot of good meals.”

  “That lying bounty hunter get his blood money from the sheriff?” Fisher asked, picking up his plate. He gave a nod to Diamond as he did so: the sign that this would be their chance.

  Diamond gave a small nod without looking at him. Fisher had the knife tucked into the back of his belt, and the timing seemed good, but you never knew. Mundy might not fall for it. . . .

  “Ruskett got paid an hour ago,” said the old jailer. “Headin’ out this very evening. In a hurry to get out of town. Owes some money over to the gambling hall.”

  “Now who’s the crook?” asked Diamond. He remained standing, not far from the bars, as he ate. Fisher sat on the edge of his bed. They had this all worked out.

  He and Fisher ate their chicken with their hands and used wooden spoons for the fried potatoes. Diamond washed his food down with well water.

  “Condemned man should get whiskey,” Diamond observed, looking disapprovingly at the tin cup.

  “When we’re fixing to hang a man, we don’t waste good whiskey on him,” said Mundy, chuckling.

  “Bad whiskey be all right,” Diamond said, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand.

  Fisher finished his meal, drank a little water, put the cup on the plate, and stepped up close to the bars. Diamond put his plate, spoon, and cup through the slot.

  “Here you go, you old coot,” he said. “Tell ’em I want pie next time.”

  “Pie now, is it?” Mundy shook his head, coming closer for the dirty plates.

  Fisher waited till Mundy was about as close as he usually got, then shoved his plate clumsily at the slot, purposely knocking it into a crossbar. “Damn it!”

  The plate and cup clattered down, the mostly full tin cup sloshing its water as it rolled under the slot. Acting on reflex, Mundy bent to pick it up—having to bend closer than usual.

  Fisher’s hand went to his knife as Diamond lunged, his hands darting between the bars, one hand clapping over the old jailer’s mouth, the other forcing him closer—as Fisher’s knife swept up and sliced through Mundy’s throat and windpipe.

  Gurgling on blood, squirming, Mundy tried to pull free—but it was no good. Fisher had him by the beard now, and the two men held him fast till enough blood gushed out so that the old jailer sank, shaking, to his knees. His eyes fluttered . . . and he died.

  They let him fall, and it was the work of a moment to pull the keys from the jailer’s belt and two moments more to unlock the door. Sadly, Mundy had no gun to seize, but Fisher found six dollars in his pockets, which was some consolation.

  The two men, stepping around the spreading pool of blood, went to the door to the hall outside the little cellblock. This being a courthouse, Fisher hoped the sheriff wouldn’t have an office on this floor. And this time of night he’d be off getting his dinner.

  Fisher’s luck was with him at last—when they opened the door, they saw no one in the hall. “We’ll walk out cool and calm,” said Fisher. “We’ll steal us some horses and see if we can find that Ruskett. He told me where he lives—we’ll find him on the road going east.”

  “What we want with him? He’s just trouble.”

  “He’s got guns, for one thing, and he’s got four hundred dollars on him. . . .”

  “Alls of a sudden, meeting up with him does sound appealin’. . . .”

  CHAPTER THREE

  Seth, what’d old man Dubois have to leave town over? I never heard much about it.”

  “My pa told me. He knew Josette and I were pals.” They were finishing their dinner at the Prairie Fire Café, Seth relishing the tartness of the green-apple pie. “Dubois was supposed to supply the Apache reservation with flour and potatoes and such. He kept back half of it and charged for the whole amount. Sold the extra on the side.”

  “That’s plenty crooked! Taking food from the mouths of them families!”

  “That’s about the size of it. He got found out, left town one night before he could be charged. And here we come to find he’s started a store all the way up to Kansas.” Seth poured a little more coffee into his cup. “I never liked him—’cause he didn’t like me. Didn’t want me around his daughter. But when I heard that story about the reservation, why, I sorrowed that Josette was stuck with such a man. She has no mother—he worked her to death, seemed like—and no one else but Dubois.”

  “They were talking French, weren’t they? Where they start out, New Orleans?”

  “Nope. French Canada. Quebec. She taught me a few words in French. I remember ’em, too. Como-tally-voo.”

  “What’s that mean?”

  “Means ‘how y’all doin’ or some such. Well, that was a good meal. I expect the store’s closed now. . . .”

  “You going to buy another shirt?”

  “Just hoping to walk her home, not that it’s any of your never mind.”

  “I expect he chased her off home to make his supper. Have it ready when I get there, he’d say.”

  Seth nodded. That sounded exactly like F. Dubois.

  He paid his share of the tab and went to see if the store was still open. Nope, it was closed. Seth stood there on the street, telling himself that this could be an omen. Likely Josette was closed to him altogether. He ought to just ride on out in the morning with Franklin. . . .

  * * *

  * * *

  Josette was still stirring the gravy when her father came in. He stumbled into the back of a chair, and it fell with a clatter. She knew at once he’d been drinking. He often told her, when they closed the store, that he would stay there a while to do his business sums, but she knew he would soon be off to the saloon out to the edge of town. Sometimes she made supper for him, and he didn’t get home till late, and then he complained the food was cold and inedible. Last time he’d thrown the pot at her head.

  He needed to be wrangled like a horse into the locoweed at a time like this. She commenced spooning dumplings onto his plate, to go with the wine-cooked rooster, so she could get the food to him quickly and keep him calm. The plate was china, blue cornflowers decorating it. Her mother had picked it up, and sometimes, looking at the china, Josette felt an aching loneliness deep down inside. Josette missed her mother badly. Mama had died of the pneumonia, maybe brought on by overwork in the cold, for her father had had Mama out in the barn every night, no matter how cold it was, churning butter to sell along with the goods he’d lifted from the reservation.

  Josette looked out the warped glass at the waning moon rising over the prairie. It made her think about what a big world it was and how there was surely something more for her out there, somewhere.

  She’d thought about leaving her father. She was of age, after all, and he could take care of himself if he had to. She had little devotion to him. More than once he had hit her—as when she’d tried to walk out with Jeff Koenig. He had struck her mama when he was in his cups, too.

  What would she use for traveling? He had sold her horse, and he did not give her a salary for working at the store—it was simply expected of her. “I give you house, food, clothing. I raise you. That’s enough!” her father told her. H
ow was she to move away with no appreciable money? She had managed to save some money by doing some sewing for neighbors and selling extra butter and eggs, but—it was so very little. Perhaps she could save a little food up and take the weekly stagecoach with what little money she had to Kansas City. There she might find work. But—she might not. She could end up wandering like a ghost on the street. Would the Church help her? Josette, like her parents, was Catholic. Her father had almost never gone to Mass, and there was no Catholic chapel in Prairie Fire. She missed going to Mass, hearing a Catholic choir, being able to pray before the Holy Virgin. In Kansas City, surely there would be a Catholic church. Perhaps—

  “Josette!” Dubois barked. “Où est mon souper!”

  “Voilà,” Josette said meekly, placing the plate and the silverware on the table before him.

  “Sit down,” he told her in Quebecois French.

  “I will eat later, Papa,” she replied in the same language.

  “I said, sit down!”

  She sighed—and sat. “Is this good, or would you prefer me to sit with my hands in my lap?”

  “Do not talk peppery to me, girl!” He was chewing with his mouth open as usual and talking at the same time. “I will have you listen now. I’ve found some property I wish to make my own. It is on this side of the Cimarron River where cattle herds are forded across. I want that land so that the trail boss will have to pay a toll to take his herds across. I will begin a new store there, too.” He swallowed a great lump of food and then crowed, “Maybe I even start a little town! Imagine that, eh? Dubois City!”

  Josette nodded patiently. She was used to her father’s harebrained schemes. One of them had almost landed him in jail in Texas, so they’d had to ride out in the night and start over here. That memory put her in mind of Seth Coe. Curious, his coming into the store today. He seemed to glow when he looked at her. She remembered their time together as children. Funny, how—

  “Josette!”

  “Yes, Papa?”

  “You are making the wool gather! Listen to me! Now, this land I want, I cannot afford. It is owned now by the Kelmers.”