by Paul Bagdon
“But we do have something every minister needs, regardless of his age.”
“What’s that?”
“We have a growing number of believers who need a leader and a teacher.” She paused for a moment, and then her smile returned. “Maybe this Duncan Warner fellow is the answer to our prayers. Maybe his calling doesn’t send him to big cities and masses of people. That’s possible, you know.”
Ben thought for a moment. “Of course, it’s possible,” he said, forcing more enthusiasm into his voice than he felt. “You’re right—I need to put more faith in the fact that the Lord will help us. Maybe I need to spend more time on my knees and less time complaining.”
“Couldn’t hurt, now, could it?” She reached over and squeezed his hand.
Lee had a special place on the Busted Thumb Horse Farm that she sought out when she needed to be alone, when she was confused or concerned, or when she simply wanted to reflect on and give thanks for the blessings God had given her. The land beyond the two barns—the large one housing horses and hay and tack, the smaller housing stalls for ill or injured horses and mares nearing motherhood—sloped gently uphill. Atop a grade a mile from her house, she had found a cluster of desert pines and a series of boulders that offered flattened surfaces to sit on. A year ago she’d taken Ben there for the first time.
This night, after a meal with Carlos and Maria, Ben and Lee sought fresh air and a time to talk. The night was dark but there was a half moon, and the stars glittered above them like diamonds tossed from the hand of God. As the couple walked, their hands found one another easily, comfortably, and neither Ben nor Lee said much as they meandered up the hill. The air was sweet and carried the aroma of buffalo grass. When they stood on the plateau at the top of the rise, they gazed down on the barns and the two frame houses—Lee’s and, across the corral, Carlos and Maria’s—for several minutes.
When Ben put his hand gently on Lee’s shoulder to turn her to him, she moved closer. They kissed silently, lovingly. After a few moments, Lee stepped back. “Let’s sit on the big rock,” she said. “I have some things I need to say.”
“Sounds serious.”
“It’s just some things that’ve been on my mind.”
A boulder with a wide, flat top still held some remnants of the day’s heat. They sat side by side, shoulders touching, hands again together.
Lee cleared her throat before speaking. “We’ve known each other for over four years, Ben.”
“An’ those four years have been the best and sweetest ones of my life,” he replied. “You know that. I . . . I don’t know what I’d do without you in my life. I really don’t.”
“I feel the same way about you. The thing is, I sometimes wonder what things are going to be like for us in five years—or fifteen. This—what we have—is good. But I . . . oh, I don’t know.”
“We’ll be together if I have any say in it, just like we are now.”
“Well, that’s what I’m talking about,” Lee said. “I just wonder if there should be more to our lives together than dinner a couple of times a week and some church meetings and Bible studies.” She sighed. “You’ll ride back to Burnt Rock tonight, and I’ll be here.”
For the first time since he’d quit smoking almost six years ago, Ben craved a cigarette. He could almost feel the satiny surface of a leaf of rolling paper between his fingers and smell the heady aroma of burning tobacco. “What are you saying?” he asked quietly.
For a long moment, Lee didn’t reply. She cleared her throat again and at the same time gently removed her hand from his. “I wish I could tell you, but I’m not even completely sure myself. At times I wonder . . . well . . . maybe I wonder about the future a bit.”
It was his turn to clear his throat. “I see.”
“You see? Is that all you can say? Don’t you feel any of what I’m feeling?”
“Of course I do, Lee. I love you more than I thought I could ever love another person. You’re more important to me than air and food and water and anything else in the world. The fact of it is, I love you with all my heart an’ all that I am or ever can be.”
“Then what—”
“You need to hear me out,” he interrupted. “Look . . .” Suddenly he was without words. He rose from the boulder and stood in front of her, his hands hanging self-consciously at his sides. The tips of his right fingers brushed the bone grips of the Colt in its holster. “I’m not real sure how to say this.”
“Just say it, whatever it is. I want—I need—to hear it.”
“OK. I’ll do that. When I stood up a second ago, my fingers automatically checked to make sure my pistol was where it’s supposed to be. I carry a gun, Lee, an’ I’ve carried one weapon or another for a lot of years. I was maybe sixteen when I first strapped on a gun, an’ I’ve never taken it off since.”
“It’s your job. You’re a lawman.”
“That ain’t what I mean. What I’m sayin’ is that I’ve led a violent life, an’ guns an’ fighting an’ bloodshed an’ death have always been part of it. The things I did at Shiloh and Gettysburg and near the end at Richmond were ungodly and evil and horrible, and they tainted me. They changed me. They marked me and made me into . . . I dunno . . . some kinda machine. I guess it’s like the rider we read about in Revelations who brought death wherever he and his three partners went.” His voice broke. “I don’t want to bring hurt to you.”
Lee’s voice was soft and slightly husky. “Do you really think that’s what would happen if we shared our lives?”
Keeping his eyes on the ground, he shook his head. “I don’t know. But it scares me.”
“War is a hideous, hateful thing. But the War Between the States is over.” Her voice strengthened and became a bit louder. “Ben—I do love you, and I need to say this: Maybe it’s time for you to come home from Shiloh and Gettysburg.”
His right hand began to move upward to her shoulder, then dropped to his side. His voice was lower when he spoke again. “Remember the day Rev was killed an’ you and me were in my office an’ Missy Joplin’ came bullin’ through the door like she always does? Do you remember that?”
“Of course I remember it. She startled both of us, and you . . .”
“And I what? And I drew on her, Lee. That’s what I did, and I did it from instinct, just like a snake strikes out at an enemy out of instinct.”
“But Ben—”
He waved off her words. “An’ suppose I was standin’ in our kitchen an’ you dropped a dish or somethin’ an’ it smashed on the floor an’ my nerves was tight that day for some reason an’. . .” He took a breath. “And there’s this, Lee—my job is to face drunks and drifters and outlaws who hate everyone else as much as they hate themselves. One day I could come up against a man who’s a little luckier or a little faster than I am. Or a coward with a buffalo rifle could drop me from a half mile away. Then what would you have as my wife? A husband shot fulla holes who doesn’t even own a suit to be buried in, and no one to take care of you.”
“But Ben, I don’t need anyone to take care of me. You know that. I own a horse ranch and I breed the best horses in Texas. I’ve been able to look after myself almost my whole life, and I’ve done a good job of it. It’s a man’s world out here on the frontier, but I never let that slow me down, much less stop me. I don’t want a caretaker—I want Ben Flood to be my husband and my life-partner.” She turned away quickly, as if to hide the tears that were flooding her eyes.
Ben stepped back. He felt as if he’d just taken an unexpected punch to the gut. “Lee,” he said, “I didn’t mean it that way. I understand your independence and grit—it’s a big part of what makes me love you. Remember when you rode Slick in that race? I was so proud I could’ve busted wide open with it.” His words came faster now, tumbling over one another. “I wouldn’t want anythin’ about you to change. I didn’t mean what it sounded like. You gotta believe me. I never met a woman like you before, an’ I thank the Lord for each minute I have with you.”
Lee used the back of her hand to dry her eyes as she turned toward him. “You came to the Lord years ago, but it seems like you haven’t heard a word that’s been said about forgiveness, Ben. What it sounds like to me is that you believe that even though God forgives you for what happened earlier in your life, you need to carry all your guilt in your heart and in your mind forever.”
Ben clenched his fists. “I was talking about my work, my job, and what it’d mean to us in our lives together. About how I’ve lived my life and who and what I am.”
“There are other jobs. Lots of them. You’re a fine horseman. You could train at the Busted Thumb. Or you could do whatever else you want to do. I don’t care—I really don’t.”
He swallowed his first response and held himself in check for a moment. When he spoke, his voice was conciliatory. “Wouldn’t work, Lee. I’m real good at what I do. I’m the best lawman Burnt Rock has ever had, and that job is what I want to do. It’s part of who I am—how I see things.” He swallowed hard. “Look here, Lee—I’d never ask you to give up bein’ who you are for me, and I’d never ask you to give up the Busted Thumb. Maybe me bein’ a lawman is like you bein’ a rancher.”
Lee seemed to slump into herself, as if her bones had lost their strength and could no longer carry her weight. “We’ve needed to say these things. It was important for you to hear what I said, and I needed to hear what you said.” She paused. “Let’s go back. It’s cold up here.”
“Not before I say this again: I love you, Lee Morgan.”
She sighed and swiped at her eyes. Ben moved in front of her. They stood facing each other for what seemed like a very long time. The breeze ruffled through the trees and rattled the stalks of dead buffalo grass as it swept past. The other night sounds were strangely hushed.
“Lee . . .” Ben’s voice was tentative and weighed with sadness. He reached out for her, but she was already moving toward him, a sound escaping from her that made tears spring to his eyes. They embraced urgently, as if not to do so was unthinkable, impossible. He felt her heart beating against his chest.
The X-Bar Cattle Company hit Burnt Rock the next morning with eight hundred head of Texas longhorn stock, most of which had lived their lives on thousands of acres of open pasture, not having seen a human being since the day they were branded. Even seven weeks on the trail hadn’t acclimated them to being moved by men on horses. Longhorns by nature weren’t tractable animals. They seemed to be born with the temperament of angry hornets, and they were difficult and dangerous to be around. The expanse of their horns—a four-foot spread wasn’t at all unusual—took a bloody toll of good horses every year, and during many drives at least one wrangler’s body was buried in the sandy dirt of the prairie, with a wooden marker that wouldn’t last through the winter.
There seemed to be only one difference between the cowboys and the longhorns they herded: The men walked upright. The X-Bar cowboys filled Ben’s four cells and kept them filled with double and triple occupancy for a week or so after the cattle were penned at the railroad junction.
Ben sat behind his desk, red-eyed and weary. There was a purple-and-yellow bruise just under his left eye, and his nose was swollen to a grotesque mass that was more than a little off-center on his face. He sipped at his coffee and cringed when the hot liquid touched his split lower lip. He grunted in pain and looked down at the ledger in front of him, reviewing the list of the crimes for which the X-Bar cowboys had been arrested.
Misdemeanor
Name
Fine/Sentence
* * *
Discharging weapon
in mercantile
Myers
$5/5 days
Fistfight
Hamm/Torpey
$5/1 day
Fistfight
Hamm/Torpey
$10/3 days
Roping chicken
on Main Street
Hogan
$5/no time
Riding horse into millenery
Vasquez
$5/no time
Public intoxication
Marini
$5/1 day
Roping banker
Drumm
$10/2 days
Bathing in horse
Wilson
$10/2 days
Theft of beer wagon
trough—public nudity
Various
$70/no time
Consumption of contents
Various
(too many to
hold)
Horse racing on Main Street
Stapp/Franken
$10/no time
Ben began to turn to the next page of offenses, sighed, and then closed the ledger. He was lifting his coffee mug to his mouth when Lee walked in from the street.
“Oh, Ben! You look terrible!” She closed the office door behind her and hurried to his desk. “What happened? Are you all right?”
He forced a feeble grin. “The X-Bar crew is what happened. Nothin’ serious. Some of the boys get a little silly at the end of a drive, that’s all.”
Lee touched a tentative finger to the bruise under his eye. “I’ll fetch Doc. He should have a look at this, and at your poor nose.”
“Don’t do that. I’m fine. Doc’s more of a mother hen than you are. He’ll paste me up with that stuff that smells like udder balm. I’m fine—just a little banged up is all.”
Lee stepped back from the desk. “A little banged up?”
Ben stood from his chair, not completely masking the grimace of pain that crossed his face as he did so. “Those guys are the best cowhands I’ve ever seen. Kurt, the young kid with the flashy buckskin gelding, roped a running hen from that good horse of his without disturbing a feather on her. It was somethin’ to see.”
“But Ben, I heard all about that. The poor bird will probably never lay another egg in her life! And where did those hooligans get the chickens to rope?”
“Well . . . Kurt and his partner kinda opened a crate on a freight wagon. But they paid for the chickens later.”
Lee crossed her arms over her chest. “It sounds to me like you’re justifying what a bunch of drunken fools do to Burnt Rock every year, Ben, and that’s not right.”
Ben sighed, picked up his mug, and walked to the coffeepot on the potbelly stove across the room. “The boys raise some dust,” he admitted. “But there’s no meanness to it. If I’d been doin’ what they have for the past couple of months and eatin’ chuck wagon grub every day, I might do some whoopin’ myself when I hit civilization.”
Lee looked at him appraisingly. When the slightest sign of a grin appeared on her face, she turned to the door. “I don’t doubt that you would,” she said. “But if there’s no meanness in those crazies, what happened to your face?”
“I kinda got between a couple fellas named Hamm and Torpey who were arguin’ about politics is all. They—”
“All right, I see what you mean,” she protested, holding up her hands. “Listen, I’m going for the mail. Meet me at O’Keefe’s in a few minutes.” She eyed his coffeepot. “At least the coffee is drinkable there.”
She closed the door more strongly than she needed to. Ben watched some papers flutter to the floor. He sighed again.
Only a few of the regulars were in O’Keefe’s. The morning crowd had long since left, and it was too early for lunch. The lingerers—and Bessie—greeted Ben as usual. He noticed that everyone kept their eyes from his face as they spoke to him, jacking up his self-consciousness about his battered appearance at least another notch. He took a rear table where he could sit with his back to the wall and asked Bessie for a couple cups of coffee.
A moment later, Lee hustled into the restaurant, her chestnut eyes snapping as she sat in the chair across from him and tore open the envelope she’d carried into the café. “It’s from Duncan Warner,” she said.
Bessie brought the coffee and then stood next to the table, waiting for Lee to read the letter. Lee wasn’t much for whooping in public places,
but today she made an exception.
“He’s coming to Burnt Rock!” she hollered. “Reverend Warner is coming to Burnt Rock to meet with us about the job!”
Bessie squealed, and a wide smile spread across Ben’s face, even though it hurt more than a little bit. “That’s great,” he said. “When will he be here?”
Lee read the rest of the letter quickly. “About three weeks, depending on the train and stage schedule. He’ll wire us when he’s a couple of days out. He doesn’t say much else—just that he’s prayed about our church and believes the Lord has directed him here. He says he’s closing up his affairs in Chicago. If we like him, he’ll stay here, and if not, he’ll move on to another town that’s interested in him.”
“This could be so good for us,” Bessie said, almost bouncing up and down as she spoke. “Thank the Lord, we may finally have a preacher in town!”
But Ben merely sipped his coffee. All the others begged off in a hurry. This fella seems awful anxious—maybe too anxious. He tried to join in Lee and Bessie’s happiness, but only his mouth smiled. His eyes didn’t.
* * *
4
* * *
Missy Joplin had her teeth in, and it wasn’t even Sunday.
Lee stood next to her elderly friend, the pair of them waiting on the wooden sidewalk in front of the Wells Fargo depot to welcome Duncan Warner. Both women were dressed in their Sunday finest, and each wore a large sunhat. The midday sun pounded down on them, but not with the unrelenting power it had possessed in the heart of the summer. Now that August was in its final days, the white-hot fist that had clutched West Texas since early May slowly was releasing its grasp. A vagrant breeze meandered through town, putting dust and grit into the air when it touched the rutted dirt of Main Street. Ben stood waiting off to the side, his arms folded across his chest, his eyes in a continuous sweep about his town.
