The Man Who Shot Out My Eye Is Dead

by Chanelle Benz

  You papa?

  I shook my head, Dead from the war.

  Solo Jackson, she said.

  Hey Rosa, what if sumthin bad happened that I did?

  The door handle turned, then came a knocking and my brother: Hey Rosa, lemme in there. I gotta see her. Lavenia?

  I scrambled up.

  Rosa put her finger to her lips, Lavenia no here.

  She’s gotta be—hey, Lavenia, Lavenia! C’mon now. Come out and jest let me talk to ya for a minute, honey.

  I swallowed more whiskey’d laudanum. Hey Rosa, I whispered, holding out my free hand.

  No now, Jackie, Rosa said, taking it.

  If you did a bad thing but you didn’t mean to? Cause he was gonna die anyways either way. I pulled till her head went under my chin. But he was alive and then he wasn’t and I did that, I did.

  Jackson no good.

  No, no good, I said.

  You have money? You take and go. Far.

  But I’m no good, I said.

  Open this damn door! Jackson pounded. Listen Rosa, your pussy ain’t worth so much to me that I won’t beat your face off.

  Hush up! I shouted, Shut your mouth! The shaking door stilled. I don’t want you, I said.

  Lavenia, I heard him slide down the door. Hey, don’t be like that.

  I leaned my forearm and head onto the wood. Why? I asked.

  Baby girl, he said, don’t be sore. Not at me. I cain’t.

  Why did you make me? I asked.

  Darlin, those men seen our faces. What we did we had to do in order to save ourselves. That there was self-defense. Sure, it’s a hard lesson, I ain’t gonna falsify that to you.

  But I’m wicked now, I said, feeling a wave of warm roll me over. I slid.

  Hey, I heard him get to his feet, Hey you lemme in there.

  Rosa put her hand over mine where it rested on the lock. The augury of her eyes was not lost on me. As soon as I opened the door, Jackson fell through, then tore after her.

  Jackson don’t, I yanked him by the elbow as he took her by the neck. You—she didn’t do nothing but what I told her to!

  He shook me off but let her go. Go on, get out, he slammed the door and galloped me onto the bed, tackling me from behind and squeezing until I tear’d. I did not drift up and away but instead stayed there in what felt to be the only room for miles and miles around. He spoke into my hair, saying, We’re in this together.

  Jackson, I sniffed and kicked his shin with the back of my heel, Too tight.

  He exhaled and went loose, The fellas are missing you down there.

  No, they ain’t.

  They’re saying they cain’t celebrate without the belle of the Bell’s.

  I rolled to face him, pushing the stubble of his chin into my forehead, Why do you want to make me you?

  Would you rather be a daughter of sin?

  I am a daughter of sin.

  You know what I mean. A . . . Jackson searched his mind, A frail sister.

  I could not help but laugh. He whooped, ducking my punches till he wrestled me off the bed and I got a bloody nose. You hurt? he asked, leaning over the edge.

  Lord, I don’t know, I shrugged in a heap on the floor, sweet asleep but awake. I cain’t feel a thing. Like it’s afternoon in me, I said.

  Jackson glanced over at the laudanum bottle and backhanded me sharp and distant. Don’t you ever do that again, you hear?

  My nose trickled doubly but I said, It doesn’t hurt. I tried to peel Jackson’s hands off his face, Hey it truly truly doesn’t!

  I laughed and he laughed and we went down to the saloon drinking spirits till we vomited our bellies and heads empty.

  The next night two deputies walked into the saloon and shot out the lights. In the exchange of dark and flash, a set of hands yanked me down. I’d been drinking while Jackson was with Rosa upstairs. I got out my six-shooter but did not know how to pick a shadow. A man hissed near my head and I crawled with him to the side door.

  Out of the fog of the saloon, Colt stood, catching his breath, saying, There ain’t nothing we can do for Jackson and Sal. If they take them to the jail, we’ll break them out. C’mon.

  No, I said, getting up.

  A couple bystanders that had been gawking at the saloon were now looking to us.

  Lavenia, Colt took me tight by the shoulder, and swayed us like two drunkards into the opposite direction. In the candlelight of passing houses, Colt’s hand, cut by glass, bled down my arm.

  At the end of the alley, Colt turned us to where three horses were on a hitch-rack. We crouched, untying the reins, and tho my horse gave a snort, it did not object to the thievery, but we were not able to ride out of town unmolested. The sheriff and his deputy were waiting and threw us lead. Buckshot found my shoulder, and found Colt, too, who slid like spit down his horse and onto his back, dead.

  Hey there Deputy, said Jackson through the bars, How much for a clean sheet of paper and that pen?

  The men outside the jail began shouting louder. The silver-haired sheriff sat at his desk, writing up a report, ignoring us all.

  This un? the deputy stopped his pacing.

  I’ll give you twenty whole dollars, Jackson said. I’ll be real surprised if I make it to trial, so least you could do is honor my last request.

  There were a few scattered thumps on the door.

  Won’t we make it to trial? I asked.

  Well darlin, there’s a mob out there that’s real upset bout me shooting that bank teller and that marshal and that faro dealer and that one fella—what was he? A professor of the occult sciences!

  I laughed. The men kicked at the door. The sheriff checked his Winchester.

  Jackson chuckled, I’m writing against the clock. The windows smashed as if by a flock of birds. Jackson didn’t look up from writing.

  Now sheriff, you won’t let them hurt my baby girl will ya? You gotta preach to them like you was at Judgment Day. Gotta tell them that this young girl here was jest following me, was under a powerful family sway. Deputy, would you kindly give this to her.

  The deputy took the letter.

  The sheriff said, Son, there are about forty men out there with the name of your gang boiling in their blood. By law the two of us must protect you and that child. I jest hope we don’t die in the attempt.

  Thee Dream—

  Dremp’t I was with you, Lav,

  near yur breth so dear.

  I never new no one lik you

  and I wisht you wer near.

  No Angel on earth or Heven,

  could rival your Hart,

  no Deth or distunce can Us part.

  If any shud tell you

  they love you eternully,

  there is no one you tell em

  who Loves you lik Me.

  Fare well! My sister and frend,

  Allso my Bell of Bells,

  Yors I Hope,

  Jackson Bell

  The forty exited the street and entered our cells.

  They dragged Jackson and I into the dogs the stars the cool and the night. Their hands in what hair I had; my hands underbrush-burned and bound together in bailing wire.

  In an abandoned stable somewhere behind the jail, they made Jackson stand on a crate and put the noose hanging from the rafters round his neck. They were holding down the deputy and the sheriff, who looked eyeless cause of the blood, having been beaten over the head.

  I was brought to Jackson and saw the rope round his neck weren’t even clean.

  Hey gal, my brother said, You’re my final request. Now what do you think? Don’t you think I kept my promise to you? You’ll be all right. If you cain’t find Sal, Rosa will take care a you.

  I nodded and the men pulled me back.

  Hey you ain’t crying, are ya? Jackson called out, swallowing against the rope. C’mon, quick—you got any last thing to say to me?

  The men brought me to a crate and tied a noose around my neck.

  What the hell’s going on? Jackson asked.

&
nbsp; You all cannot murder a woman without a fair trial, the sheriff started up.

  Now fellas, it ain’t s’posed to go like this. Listen to the sheriff here—Jackson said and the men walloped him in the belly.

  Lavenia Bell, the men asked, crowding me, What is your final request?

  Sometimes I wish I were just a regular girl, not a whore or an outlaw or playacting a man. I had a father for two years and a mother for three, but I cannot remember what that was like, if they care for you better or hurt you less or if they keep you no matter what it costs them.

  The girl first, the men said.

  I am not afraid, I said. You kept your promise good. Thank you for you.

  Have you no wives, no sisters or daughters? shouted the sheriff.

  I felt the thick of hands on my waist.

  Wait! Don’t y’all see? She would never done nuthin without me not without me—

  The noose tightened.

  The sheriff was struggling to get to his feet, hollering. Boys this will weigh heavy on your souls!

  Hey I’m begging you to listen—look boys, it weren’t her that killed them tellers it was me—only me!

  Up on the crate, it was that hour before sun, when there was no indication of how close I was to a new morning. I waited for the waiting to break, for the dark of the plain in my face to bring me to dust.

  Adela,1 Primarily Known as The Black Voyage, Later Reprinted as Red Casket of the Heart

  by Anon.

  1829

  We did not understand how she came to be alone. We wished to know more, the more that she alone could tell us. It was well understood in our village that Adela was a beauty, albeit a beauty past her day. But this was of little consequence to us, no?2

  We came not to spy and discover if indeed her bloom had faded; we came because Mother did not nod to Adela in the street when so rarely she passed, under a parasol despite there being no sun; we came because we knew that on occasion Adela had a guest of queer character who alighted in her courtyard well past the witching hour; we came because Father fumbled to attention when we dared mention our neighbor “Adela” at supper, piping her syllables into the linen of our diminutive napkins; and finally, we came because Adela alone welcomed us: we, the unconsidered, the uninvited, the under five feet high.

  Uncountable afternoons that year, after we had gotten our gruel3 —some of us trammeled up with the governess, others, the tutor—we raced en bloc to the back of beyond, letting ourselves into the bedimmed foyer of Adela’s ivy-shrouded, crumbling house. She who was alone could not wish to be, yet she alone had made it so, and we altogether wished to know why. Fittingly, we slid in our tender, immature fingers to try and pry Adela open. Perchance she felt this to be a merciless naϊveté; as if we, Edenic formlings, did not yet have the knowledge of our collective strength.

  What is it, the youngest of us ventured to ask, That has caused you to cloister yourself all through your youth? A thwarted wish to be a nun or a monk?

  It was easy for us to envision Adela pacing down a windowless hall, needlework dragging over stone, her nun’s habit askew.

  Her stockinged toes working their way into the topmost corner of the divan, Adela fluttered in her crinoline. She pressed the back of her hand to a crimson’d cheek, laughing, Oh dearest children, why it has been years since I have blushed! I suppose I must confess that it was as lamentable a story as any of you could wish . . .

  One with pirates, we asked, One of dead Love and dashed Hope? Then we all at once paused, for her eyes summoned a darkling look as if she had drifted somewhere parlous, somewhere damned.

  Pirates? Adela? Pirates?

  No, she cried with a toss of her head. The lamp dimmed and the window rattled, lashed by a burst of sudden rain.

  Adela, we did chorus, Adela?

  Her silhouette bolted upright, Children? The lamplight returned restoring Adela’s dusky radiance. You curious cherubs, why it’s a foolish tale of romantic woe. I was in love and my love turned out to be quite mad, and well we know, no candle can compare to fire. And so I have chosen to remain alone.

  But for us the mystery had only begun. Who was this Unnamed Love? Was he of our acquaintance? Had he wed another? Was his corpse buried in the village graveyard? Was he locked in a madhouse wherein he paced the floors, dribbling “Adela” into the folds of his bloodstained cravat? We wished to know and demanded that she tell us.

  Oh, he is quite alive, murmured Adela languidly, pouring herself a glass of Madeira, meio doce, to the brim, stirring, spilling it with her little finger, passing the glass around when we begged for a driblet.

  Is he married? we asked, our lips stained with wine.

  He is not. Though I have heard it said that he is betrothed . . . to a lovely heiress of a small but respectable estate in North Carolina.

  We choked on our commutual sip, Won’t you stop him if indeed you love him? You will, won’t you? Tell us you will, Adela, do!

  No indeed. I wish them happy, she said with a deep violet tongue.

  We did not think she could mean what she did say. We pressed her as we refilled her glass, Do you love him still? Was it not a lasting attachment?

  Oh yes. I’ll love him forever. But what of it? she asked.

  How was it possible, we mulled aloud, That Love did not rescue the day? Was this not what she had read to us from these very volumes by which we were surrounded? What of The Mysteries of Udolpho? Lord Byron’s Beppo?

  Adela nodded in affirmation yet was quick to forewarn, Do not forget the lessons of Glenarvon!4

  But should not Love and Truth strive against aught else, ergo it is better to Perish Alone in Exile? Adela, you must be mistaken, we assured her, the oldest patting the top of her bejeweled hand, For if your Love knew you loved him in perpetuum, he would return and return in a pig’s whisper!

  That would be ill-judged, nor would I permit such a thing, she snapped. As I said, he is quite mad and impossible to abide. Please, let us not speak of it, it was all too too long ago.

  Adela, we wheedled, Won’t you at least tell us the name of your lost love? Don’t you trust us, Adela? Why there is nothing you do not know of us! Nothing we have not gotten down on our knees to confess! You know that we borrowed Father’s gun and we shot it; that we broke Mother’s vase and we buried it; that we contemplated our governess and tutor in the long grass giving off strange grunts and divers groans till their caterwauling ceased in a cascade of competing whimpers.

  Now hush! Didn’t I tell you not to speak of that? Very well. His name is Percival Rutherford, she yawned, entreating us to close the blinds.

  It was a bad plan. A wicked plan. We did not know if it came from us or the Devil so full was it of deceit. At home, milling in the library, in perusal of our aim, we selected a volume of Shakespeare’s Comedies, since they all ended in marriage and marriage was by and large our end. The Bard, we suspected, had a number of strategies upon the matter.

  We set about with quill and ink and put our nib to paper. Sitting cross-legged on the dais of a desk whilst we huddled below in consternation, the oldest clapped us to attention to declaim, feather aloft:

  • Dressing as boys or the boys of us dressing as girls!

  We were uncertain as to what this would achieve and thus struck it off.

  • Dressing Adela in disguise so that she can visit Percival and get high-bellied!

  We were equally uncertain as to whether Adela was past the fecundating age.

  • Have Adela rescue her love from a lioness thereby making him everlastingly indebted to her!

  While there was no doubt in our collective hearts that Adela could, if put to the test, best a lion—was she not the owner of a mighty sword that hung on her wall belonging to her long-deceased father?—we did doubt we could procure a lioness in this part of the country. The second oldest elbowed their way up to the desk, chastising the oldest for bothering to scribble down a strategy that was so abominably foolhardy. The oldest sneered back that the second was the one wit
h no veritable sense of Byronic ideals. To which the second scoffed, Airmonger! But the oldest merely chose to employ a snub and concluded:

  • Fake Adela’s death and give Percival report of it? Or! Send a false missive to each, swearing that one loves the other!

  Enough, barked the second oldest, crossly claiming that no remedy to our ails could be hit upon in the Comedies. Thus, we began undividedly to search elsewhere in the Canon and quickly fell upon our consensual favorite, Othello.5 We conferred, then confirmed by a show of hands: we must find Adela a beau to make her lost love jealous; Percival, in turn, would wrestle with the arrogance of his tortured soul until goaded into a violent show of love, which would cure him of his madness, whereupon they would be wed, us serving as the bridal party.

  Our unanimous impetus was thus: one day, someday, one by one, we would leave this village and behind us, Adela: a tawny, companionless outcast. This we found insupportable.

  It had come to our attention that the ladies of the village were increasingly fond of the new architect, Mr. Quilby, who had taken a lodging above the apothecary. Our aunts were made prostrate admiring his finely wrought neckties and excellent leg. He is not quite Brummell,6 the second oldest of us had quipped, not thoroughly convinced of Quilby’s suitability let alone his foil status. However, the oldest had been quick to counter that Adela was a spinster by most everyone’s calculations—though no lamb dressed in ewe’s clothes, with a countenance that was beyond pleasing to the eye—still most of the unattached gentlemen would think her a Tabby. However, Mr. Quilby, the oldest had gone on to expostulate, Has streaks of silver in his sideburns plainly visible. A man of his years will be less concerned by Adela’s being a Thornback.7

  The following afternoon we tromped through the fields and into the village square, where we found Mr. Quilby at his drafting table, his sleeves rolled high. Under our arms we had baskets of fresh-baked bread and preserves, for we knew how to be satisfactorily winning children, to lisp and wreathe smiles when such a display was demanded.

  Mr. Quilby was intrigued by our description of the enchanting recluse with whom all men dangled and yet no man had ever snared. He quizzed us as to why we thought him the one to win such an elusive prize? Though Quilby admitted he well understood that as the village’s newest bachelor, matchmaking mamas would be upon him, he owned he was surprised to find that they would recruit their children to employ such endeavors.