The Bond Unbroken
Page 30
"Is this where I click together the heels of my ruby slippers and say, "There's no place like home?" Katlin asked.
Sing chuckled, "You return as you came, only in reverse."
Katlin had to ask Sing one last question. "I still don't understand how this all works. Was I Katlin McKinnen sent into the past to become my own great, great, grandmother, or was I Katlin Cameron first?"
"What comes first, Little One, the chicken or the egg?"
* * * *
Once they had returned to the security of her balcony in Texas, to the time to which she now belonged, Katlin found herself bombarded with unanswered questions. Namely, the invisible barrier at the pond when she first came into the past, the boulders, and the protective dome under which she and Mitch had made love for the first time.
"What makes you think you didn't do it yourself?" Sing answered her unasked question with a question of his own.
It still unnerved Katlin that he could traipse around in her thoughts, knowing what she was thinking almost before she did herself. Then she realized what he had intimated. "What did you say?"
"I said, what makes you think you didn't do it yourself?" Sing repeated.
"I heard what you said the first time."
"Then why ask me to repeat it?"
"Are you suggesting that I . . . ?"
"I am not suggesting, I am merely stating a fact." The air around Sing began to sparkle brightly then dulled to a faint shimmer of light.
"Oh no you don't," Katlin demanded. "You can't drop a bombshell like that then disappear on me." Even as she said the words, Katlin knew from experience he was likely to do just that.
"Don't forget, Katlin, you were once Megan McKinnen. A white witch with great powers." The shimmer of light, the only remaining trace of Sing's image dissipated, leaving nothing more than his irrepressible chuckles to carry back to her on the gentle breeze. Sing was gone, again.
"Her powers obviously weren't all that great. She was hung for Christ's sake," Katlin muttered under her breath and reached down to stroke Bart's silky head. "Come on, boy, lets go to bed."
Katlin McKinnen in the future and Megan McKinnen from the past were totally separate women. Katlin Cameron had her own life to live. What mattered was she was home at last, and she was here to stay.
She barely had time to pull the quilt over her before, with a contented sigh, Mitch had her in his arms, snuggled up close to him. With her head resting on his chest, the steady rhythm of his heartbeat was music to her ears as Katlin closed her eyes and drifted into a deep, peaceful sleep.
Historical Information
Ben Thompson 1843 - 1884
Confederate Calvary officer, secret agent behind federal lines, major in Maximilian's army, Indian fighter, marshal of Austin Texas, gambler, and a precise and ruthless gunfighter.
As an actual historical figure, Ben Thompson's life was filled with adventure, intrigue, excitement and controversy. The few points mentioned in this book regarding his life are as accurate as my research can make them.
1. Ben's father, reported to be a sailor with a drinking problem, was said to have gone to sea never to return, leaving Ben and his younger brother Billy to take care of their Mother and two sisters.
2. In June of 1871, Ben arrived in Abilene, Kansas. With another gambler from Austin Texas, Phil Coe, as partner, the men purchased the infamous Bull's Head Saloon.
3. The carriage accident in Kansas City Missouri was reported to have occurred, as were the resulting injuries described. (Conflicting accounts state Ben telegraphed his wife to join him, while others claim he went back to Texas and brought his wife and son to Missouri himself).
4. In the fall of 1879, Ben ran for the position of marshal of Austin Texas. He was defeated but elected the following term. It is said while Ben Thompson held the position, Austin was considered to have the lowest crime rate in the west.
5. Bat Masterson who wore a tin star in Dodge City during its wildest years was
quoted in his autobiography as stating, "It is doubtful whether in his time there was another man living who could equal Ben Thompson with a pistol in a life and death struggle."
6. On March 11, 1884, along with J. King Fisher, a dashing young gunfighter, Ben Thompson was shot and killed at the Vaudeville Theater in San Antonio, Texas. Controversy still surrounds the death of Ben Thompson and King Fisher. There were several versions of the incident, with conflicting accounts from the witnesses. Ben was quoted as stating that he knew the Vaudeville Theater would one day be his graveyard.
Any relationship or interaction between Ben Thompson and the fictional characters in this book is entirely the product of this writer's imagination.
Wild Bill Hickok 1837 - 1876
On April 15, 1871, James Butler (Wild Bill) Hickok was appointed marshal of Abilene Kansas by the town council. His salary of $150.00 per month was supplemented by twenty five percent of all fines imposed in court.
On the afternoon of August 2, 1876, Wild Bill Hickok was gunned down while playing cards at Nuttall & Mann's #10 saloon in Deadwood, South Dakota. Always careful to see that his back was to the wall, on this fateful day he made the fatal mistake of being careless and leaving himself exposed. He was shot in the back and killed by a young drifter by the name of Jack McCall who was later tried and hanged for Hickok's murder.
Wild Bill Hickok died holding a poker hand of two pair, Ace of Spades, Ace of Clubs, Eight of Spades, and the Eight of Clubs. Aces and Eights, later to become known as the "The Dead Man's Hand."
Phil Coe - 1871
In Abilene, Kansas, on October 5, 1871, in the street in front of the Alamo Saloon, the animosity between Phil Coe and Wild Bill Hickok erupted in gunfire which left Coe
mortally wounded. In the confusion, upon hearing someone running up behind him, Hickok turned and fired, killing his young deputy Mike Williams by accident. Ssome accounts state Phil Coe was killed instantly, while others report he lingered for days, actually dying on
October 8, 1871.
Despite Hickok's dislike for Texans in general, it is believed the true friction between Coe and Hickok was the result of the attention bestowed upon both men by a pretty young tart named Jessie Hazel.
Abilene, Kansas
By 1871, the booming cowtown was reported to have at least ten boarding houses, four hotels, ten saloons, and five general stores (one of which was J. Karatofsky's Great Western Store). There were two attorneys, a newspaper, a bank, union land office, real estate office, a lumber yard, livery stables, a drug store, a new brick school house and a theater that sat three to four hundred people. (See advertisements in THE ABILENE CHRONICLE attached).
Although Abilene was founded in 1857 by settler Timothy Hersey, it did not thrive until it became America's first "cowtown" under the guidance of Joseph G. McCoy. After visiting several towns along the newly established rail route, McCoy settled on Abilene as the shipping point for Texas Longhorn cattle. He began construction on the stockyards and the
Drover's Cottage Hotel and in September of 1867 the first cattle arrived.
During the next five years, some 3,000,000 head of cattle were driven up the Chisholm Trail to Abilene, the "Wildest, Wickedest, Cowtown in the Old West." Chisholm Trail
The Chisholm Trail was the greatest cattle route the world has ever known. It was the cattlemen's first "interstate" highway system, stretching 1,000 miles from Brownsville Texas to Abilene Kansas. Abilene became the northern terminus of the trail in 1867, and for five years reigned as the rip-roaring cattle capital of the west.
One of the oddities of the Chisholm Trail is that trader Jessie Chisholm, the man for whom it was named, died without knowing his connection with it.
Bull's Head Saloon
The most notorious gambling house in Abilene's history. Purchased by Ben Thompson and Phil Coe in June of 1871. City officials demanded that Thompson and Coe change their sign, an exaggerated painting of a Longhorn's sexual organ. When the gamblers ignored the complaint, Hickok m
arched to the saloon and stood outside with a shotgun while painters made the necessary alterations. ("gain, there are conflicting descriptions of the infamous sign. The sign described in this book is how this writer pictured it in her own mind, making no claim to the accuracy of the description).
Alamo Saloon
Said to be one of the finest saloons in Abilene, second only to the bar at the Drover's Cottage. The "lamo was Marshal Hickok's unofficial headquarters and hangout.
Drover's Cottage Hotel
Built by Joseph McCoy and was run by J.W. Gore and his wife Lou, the Drover's Cottage served two purposes. Built three stories high, it had one hundred rooms, serving as both a hotel and meeting place for cattlemen and buyers who conducted business there. It also boasted a laundry and was regarded as one of the finest hotels of its type in the west with an adjoining barn large enough to house fifty carriages and one hundred horses.
Fisher's Addition - Abilene's "Red Light" district.
Acting upon the protests of the decent citizens of Abilene, the bawdy houses, and loose women of Texas Street were forced to relocate outside the city limits, approximately a quarter of a mile southeast of Texas Street. This addition was known as the Devil's Addition, and later Fisher's Addition, or, the Sin Den, among other things. In this quarter, hell reigned supreme with little or no supervision from the law. If one of the "girls" ended up missing or dead, few questions were asked.
THE ABILENE CHRONICLE
V.P. Wilson began the publication of The Abilene Chronicle February 25, 1870. The issue of March 3, 1870, contained the following advertisements:
KANSAS PACIFIC RAILWAY
Open to Sheridan
405 miles west of the Missouri River
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DROVER'S COTTAGE
J.W. Gore, Proprietor
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JOHN H. MAHAN
Attorney at Law
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JAMES CLUBERTSON
Attorney at Law
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J. Augustine C.H. Lebold
Union Land Office
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DR. H. C. BROWN
Apothecary
Dealer in Drugs
Patent Medicine
Paints, Oils, etc.
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J. B. SHANE T. C. HENRY
County Treasurer County Recorder
SHANE AND HENRY
Real Estate Brokers
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MAHAN AND COX
Agents for
National Land Company
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JOSEPH G. McCOY
Proprietor of The
Great Western
Stock Yards
Abilene Kansas
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ABILENE LUMBER YARD
Kuney and Southworth
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Abilene Historical Society