Slow John

by Petit, C. J.

  He looked at Melissa’s smiling face and smiled back.

  “I’m sorry Melissa, I just got carried away.”

  “No, that’s fine, Slow John. I’m just happy for you. You love her very much, John. Don’t you?”

  John nodded, but then he sighed and said, “We were almost there, Melissa, when she just left me. She was just getting past all the bad things when she discovered she was pregnant and tried to kill herself. I stopped her when I grabbed the gun she was holding against her stomach. Then, she just went away. I have to wait for her, Melissa.”

  “I’d be ashamed of you if you didn’t, John. Did you want to stay here tonight?”

  “If you don’t mind. It’s kind of late.”

  “Of course, you can.”

  “I’ll go and take care of my horse. I’ll put him around back.”

  “Okay. You go ahead.”

  After he unlocked and walked out the back door, Melissa watched him and just smiled. She was a bit jealous, but not of Kate. She was jealous that John had found what she had hoped to find, someone she could love without reservation.

  John led Cross around the back of the house and stripped the horse, let him drink from a large rain barrel and then just ground hitched him for the night. He walked in the still open back door with his saddlebags over his shoulder and closed it behind him. He hadn’t exaggerated when he had told Melissa how sore he would be, and knew it would be worse in the morning. Then he spotted the Manhattan Navy sitting on the table, reached over and picked it up, smelled the barrel and knew it hadn’t been fired recently. He checked the cylinders and found them all loaded, and was certain that Jack had never fired the pistol.

  Melissa returned to the kitchen and saw John with the pistol in his hands, still inspecting it.

  John heard her enter, looked at her and said, “He never fired it. I doubt if he even knew how to use it.”

  “Does that mean he wouldn’t have killed me?” she asked quietly.

  “No, I think he would have found a way, even if he didn’t figure out how to shoot it. He was just too out of control. When he raped Kate and Ida Mitchell he used a knife. He killed Ida with a rock. If he hadn’t shot you, he would have tried something different. I was going to come after him even before I received your telegram. Speaking of which, I had a chat with Elmer Garson just before I arrived here. It seems that Jack had already told him that I was coming to kill him, so I told him to leave you alone and I believe he will.”

  “Thank you for that, John. Are you leaving tomorrow?”

  “I have to, Melissa.”

  “I know.”

  They talked about other, less painful things for another hour before Melissa gave John a kiss on the cheek, went to her bedroom and closed the door.

  John kicked off his boots and just stretched out on the rug in the main room.

  _____

  The next morning, after Melissa made breakfast, John saddled Cross and led the horse as he walked alongside Melissa into the main part of town. As they passed the hardware store, she stuck her head into the doorway and told her father that she and Slow John had to go to the sheriff’s office and she’d be back in about a half an hour.

  John and Melissa wrote reports for Sheriff Everton who said he would notify law enforcement downriver to search for Jack’s body. John told him just to bury him in whichever town found his body and send him the death certificate.

  They left the sheriff’s office and John turned to Melissa.

  “Thank you for everything, Melissa.” he said as he gently touched her cheek.

  Melissa leaned forward and kissed him softly.

  “Go and make Kate happy, Slow John.”

  John smiled at Melissa, nodded and stepped up on Cross, gave her a wave and turned north for Omaha.

  Melissa watched until he disappeared, her smile never leaving her face.

  CHAPTER 9

  John rode to the train station in Omaha and walked to the station master window to find out when the next train was going west to North Platte. He was told that a regular passenger train would be leaving in forty-five minutes, so he bought a ticket and passage for Cross on the stock car.

  After leaving Cross with the stock handler, he spent five minutes in the Western Union office.

  An hour later he was on his way back to North Platte.

  _____

  Back at the Flynn house, Catherine Walsh and Maggie were in Kate’s room and Maggie was talking to Kate. When Catherine had arrived that morning, she had made a startling discovery and Maggie was trying to get word of what she had found to the still comatose Kate.

  Her mouth was just inches from Kate’s ear as she began talking loudly.

  “Kate, this is Maggie. Your monthly arrived. You’re not pregnant. You’re not going to have a baby! Do you hear me, Kate? No baby!”

  Kate heard the voice telling her that there was no baby and wondered how they knew. She tried to concentrate on the voice, but it was hard.

  Maggie didn’t stop saying it over and over.

  Kate then began to understand as the voice kept saying over and over that she wasn’t pregnant, and that there wasn’t a baby. After a minute, she recognized the voice. It was Maggie. She smiled. It was her sister who was telling her that she wasn’t going to have a baby, and she should know.

  Her eyelids fluttered open and she saw her mother’s face and heard Maggie still telling her she wasn’t going to have a baby, and the horrible curse that had driven her inside herself floated away, leaving her feeling weightless and free.

  “Good morning.” she whispered.

  Maggie snapped her head up a few inches and saw the smiling eyes of Kate looking at her.

  Maggie almost fell on Kate to hug her as she erupted in tears as their mother joined her. Mary was doing the laundry in the kitchen, heard the hubbub, quickly dried her hands on her apron and trotted to Kate’s room.

  She was startled to see Maggie and Catherine in tears and Kate smiling at her.

  “Good morning, Mrs. Flynn.” Kate said.

  Mary put her fingers over her mouth and added her tears to the others.

  “Kate, darling, you’re back!”

  After a minute or so, the rivers of tears were reduced to a trickle, and Catherine and Maggie hurried to the kitchen to cook something for Kate.

  Mary took the seat next to Kate and asked, “How are you feeling, Kate?”

  “I’m hungry, but I’m so much better now. Where’s Slow John? I need to talk to him.”

  Mary sighed and said, “He’s gone to Bellevue. He received a telegram from Melissa Blake and left yesterday on the train.”

  Kate’s heart shrank as she listened to Mary. Slow John left her to go visit Melissa? It was beyond belief. He said he’d stay with her and protect her, and after just a single day he’d left her to go back to Melissa?

  “Why did she want John to come back?” she asked in a squeaky voice.

  “Elmer Garson was scaring her, and she wanted Slow John to help her.”

  Kate let out her breath, and in a voice barely above a whisper, almost afraid of the answer, asked, “Do you think he’s coming back?”

  “Of course, he’s coming back. He had to go after Jack, too. Jack and six other men attacked the farm, and Slow John stopped them all, but let Jack escape. He told me that he felt like he had failed you and needed to make it right.”

  “Was anyone hurt?”

  “All of the attackers were killed, but no one in the families was even scratched, including Slow John.”

  Despite Mrs. Flynn’s telling her that he was worried about failing her, she was still saddened that John wasn’t there and had gone to help Melissa.

  Catherine and Maggie returned with some food, and Kate’s stomach reminded her how long it had been since she ate.

  As she was eating, there was a knock at the front door and Maggie left to discover the source of the interruption.

  Just a few second later, Maggie trotted back into the room with the almost e
xpected yellow sheet.

  “It’s for you, Mama.” she said as she held out the paper to her mother-in-law.

  Mary accepted the sheet and opened it up.

  “John’s on his way. He’ll be arriving on tonight’s train.” Mary said with a smile as she handed the sheet to Kate.

  Kate read it and smiled when she read ‘my Kate’, but wondered why he had asked his mother to tell her that he was glad to be home.

  “Mrs. Flynn, why would John ask you to tell me that he was glad to be home?”

  Mary looked at Kate curiously and took back the sheet and reread it.

  “Where did you see that, Kate?”

  “He asked you to tell me ‘Tá mo chroí agat’. Why would he do that?”

  Mary said, “Because he loves you, Kate.”

  Now, Kate was flummoxed, and Mary could see it in her face.

  “Kate, why do you think it means ‘I’m glad to be home’?”

  “When I asked him to tell me something in Gaelic, he looked at me and told me ‘Tá mo chroí agat’. And when I asked him what it meant, he said it meant ‘I’m glad to be home.’”

  Mary laughed. “No, dear, it means ‘you possess my heart’, not ‘I’m glad to be home’.”

  Kate closed her eyes and began to softly cry as she recalled the look in his eyes when he had told her that night they were almost home. Then, she remembered the voice saying it to her when she was so lost inside herself and knew it was John.

  She opened her eyes, wiped away the tears, and said, “I’ve got to get out of bed.”

  Despite all their arguments, Kate was adamant, but agreed to eat and drink as she began to prepare for the arrival of the 6:40 train from Omaha.

  _____

  As the train rolled west across the almost limitless plains, John just stared out the window at the mostly empty land and thought about his future. There were only two possibilities: a happy future with Kate or an empty, pointless future without her. He had already decided to accept the position of sheriff, because he had to stay in North Platte to be near Kate if she ever came back from whatever place in her mind she was living. But he also needed to be there to protect his family and all the other good people from the likes of the Murphy or the Handy Lewis types that preyed on them.

  Probably the worst of it for him, was that he had never been able to tell her that he loved her. He had been so close so many times, but there was always that fear of hurting Kate that held him back. She needed time to heal her wounds, not some immediate plunge into having a man in her life. Her slip into her distant realm showed just how fragile her recovery had been. Yet, still, John felt cheated in that he had never let Kate know just how much he loved her except for the short Gaelic lesson, and that wasn’t really the same, because she didn’t know what it meant.

  John smiled remembering how she had beamed at him after repeating the lesson to the assembled families. She had said it perfectly, not knowing that it had been meant for her ears alone. Now, she may never know the meaning behind those tongue-twisting words – the same words he had spoken to her while she had crawled into that deep sanctuary in her mind.

  _____

  Kate was feeling much, much better. It was as if she had been storing up life while living inside. She was clean, dressed in one of the new dresses that John had given her and had brushed her hair until it flowed in a long, shiny river down her back. As she slid the brush through her hair, she remembered how surprised and pleased she had been with his thoughtfulness when John had given it to her. Even then, when she had been at her worst in the way she treated him, he had tried to make her happier. Well, she was much happier now than she could ever remember. The final piece of her wardrobe was an emerald green ribbon that she tied around her hair.

  When she was eating dinner with the combined families at the large table in the Flynn’s kitchen, everyone was completely astonished at her recovery. Kate had gone from comatose to effervescent in eight hours. Her bubbly nature infected everyone as they all talked excitedly of Slow John’s return and how they would prepare for his arrival.

  _____

  John could hear the screeching of the locomotive’s drive wheels spinning in reverse to stop the train from overshooting the platform at North Platte. The trip on the passenger train had taken an hour longer than the eastbound empty construction train, but it was more comfortable, if only marginally so. The railroad would have to take more steps to improve the comfort for their passengers.

  John was staring at the platform that was sliding into view, hoping against all hope that Kate would be waiting for him, but not surprised to see it empty. Sending the telegram was just to let Kate know he was returning to her, in the unreasonable supposition that she would have been able to read it. Seeing the empty platform was just confirmation of the reality of her situation. But, the absence of any of his family did surprise him somewhat.

  Yet, even as his eyes told him that no one was waiting for him, his mind was telling him something different. He began to see Kate, his Kate, smiling and running to him. It was an immensely powerful image and it took hold of him.

  The train was slowing down to less than walking speed when John stood and walked to the front of the car to exit. There were only three passengers left, and all were disembarking at North Platte, which made sense because all that was left to the west was end of track. They’d be reaching Ogallala within the week, though.

  John stepped onto the passenger car’s platform, his saddlebags over his shoulder, then hopped onto the station’s wooden deck, walked rapidly across, and then jumped down onto the ground. He jogged over to the stock corral and waited while the stockman unloaded Cross from his rolling stable. John smiled when the big black caught his eye and almost ripped the reins from the stockman to trot over to him. Maybe he liked the name after all.

  The stockman wisely released his reins as Cross reached his human friend. John didn’t even have to hand the claim tag as he opened the gate and led Cross out. He tossed his saddlebags over the back of the gelding, put his left foot into the stirrup and swung into the saddle.

  After a leisurely trot through the town, he decided he’d do something he’d never done before and let the gelding run. He let him race home because all logic be damned, he knew that his Kate was awake and waiting for him with her dancing blue eyes and a welcoming smile.

  Cross didn’t need any encouragement as he felt John’s weight shift forward, he simply exploded away from North Platte, throwing large divots of Nebraska dirt into the air as his hooves dug into the earth and propelled him and John across the ground like a bullet.

  _____

  The families were gathered in the main room, aware of the arrival of the train minutes before. It was Eliza, looking out the window who spotted the giant dust cloud trailing the charging Cross.

  “My God! I can’t believe how fast he’s coming! He’s leaving a dust cloud that must be a hundred yards long.” she shouted to the assembled families.

  They all hurried to assume perfectly mundane, after dinner positions. They had worked out a surprise when John entered the room. No one was going to let on that Kate was back and feeling well. They’d let John enter the room normally, and when he asked how Kate was doing, as they knew he would, they’d pretend she hadn’t changed and let him go in and find her smiling at him.

  It was the mothers’ idea, and no one would dare challenge them.

  _____

  John was thrilled with Cross’s power and speed, but he was even more excited about getting home because he knew he’d be with his Kate soon and feeling her in his arms. It was that totally irrational image that his mind created that now overflowed his soul as the gelding pounded the ground. He knew he might be brought crashing back to reality when he walked into the house, but it didn’t matter. In those 240 seconds that he had let Cross fly across the prairie, the remote possibility of a happy, healthy Kate, the one he had grown to love, his Kate, was the only reality he allowed himself.

  The imaginar
y Kate was so powerful by the time he brought Cross to a trot and then a short walk to the front of the house, he expected to see her on the porch. When she wasn’t there, it didn’t shake his firm belief in the impossible at all, as the vision of his joyful Kate just shifted from the porch to inside the house. He left his saddlebags on his horse as he leapt from the saddle, took two long strides then one long jump onto the porch and yanked open the door.

  Then, the planned surprise that the Flynns and the Walshes had developed simply vanished as Michael Flynn prepared to begin with, “Why, Slow John, we didn’t expect you so soon.”

  He never got past the “Why…” as John shot past the whole family and had almost reached the hallway when an equally unrestrained Kate came running out of her bedroom, her face radiant, her blue eyes laughing.

  John wasn’t even surprised, he was just elated to see his Kate’s iridescent face. They were sucked together like magnets as they plowed into each other. Both had so much they wanted to say, but neither could manage a syllable as they shared their first, meaningful kiss that said much more than any words ever could.

  The assembled Flynns and Walshes all watched the scene with varying levels of smiles. Their planned emotional reunion couldn’t match what they were witnessing. The question on everyone’s minds was: how did John know?

  When Kate and John finally let their lips separate, Kate was the first to speak when she looked up into John’s blazing blue eyes, barely touched his cheek with her fingers and whispered, "Tá mo chroí agat.”

  John cupped her face with his large hands and said softly, “You know what it means now, Kate. It means much more than even a simple translation. It means that I love you, Kate Walsh. It means that every part of me, including my soul, belongs to you.”

  Kate felt tears of complete joy slide down her cheeks as she quietly replied, “And I am yours, John, forever.”

  Their second kiss was much softer and shorter, but just as powerful. After one more deep exploration into each other’s eyes, they both sighed, and turned to the waiting twenty eyes looking their way.