“Were you forbidden to go into any rooms?”
“Not specifically. I knew well enough to not go anywhere I wasn't told.”
Cassidy sighed as she thought. She then looked up and toward the lounge with contemplation on her face. “Is there anything else in those secret hallways?”
“Not that I know of. I looked around for days and didn't find anything but doors into other rooms.”
Cassidy thought for another moment, her arms akimbo. “Are there any other lanterns in the lodge?”
“Yes ma'am. In the pantry off the kitchen.”
“Good. Go light me one. I want to search the secret hallway again.” Robert nodded and hurried away. Cassidy walked back to Jebediah and Gideon. “I'm going to search the secret hallways again.”
“Why?” asked Gideon.
“They spent two days searching this place and they didn't find a safe, a secret compartment, nothing. The only place they didn't look, by some miracle, is that hallway.”
“It's desperation,” said Jebediah.
“What else to do we have?” asked Cassidy.
---
Cassidy walked out of the secret door into the lounge, followed by Robert, Gideon, and Jebediah. She flopped into one of the arm chairs. Robert was carrying the lantern and turned the valve off, setting it on the floor next to a cough where he sat.
“And so we are left with nothing,” said Jebediah, sitting in another chair. “No answers. No clues. Nothing.”
“We're going to have to inform the police,” said Gideon. “We can't just leave a building full of bodies here.”
“No,” Jebediah said emphatically. “No. Absolutely not. We will take care of this situation without the aid of locals.”
“Really? How are you going to do that?” asked Cassidy. “Most of your private club around these parts appears to be something other than alive.”
“I sent a telegram from the station upstairs to our men in San Antonio. It's only a few of them, but they will be here tomorrow.”
“Are we waiting?” asked Cassidy.
Jebediah didn't respond at first. Gideon turned his head to face Jebediah. “No,” Jebediah said. “We're not waiting.”
Cassidy turned to Robert. “Robert, do you have a way to get home?”
“Robert will wait here. My men will take him home with his father's body,” declared Jebediah. Everyone looked at him but he just stared ahead.
“Alright then,” said Cassidy. “The decisions has been made. When does our train leave?”
“Whenever we need it,” said Jebediah.
---
Cassidy and Gideon stood by the main door, the late afternoon sun hot and bright in the sky. Jebediah stood in the great hall, by the line of bodies, talking to Robert. Cassidy watched as he spoke, finally handing Robert a small folded wallet. He then shook Robert's hand and started toward the door.
“I can barely stay awake,” said Gideon.
“Same,” replied Cassidy.
“I wanted to tell you that I thought you handled Robert's grief well. You took a rather noble perspective on it all, what with your comment about his wounds being in his chest. Very Spartan of you.”
Cassidy smiled. “Perhaps. There's a part of me that believes that stuff and another part that thought it was what Robert needed to hear. I think his father was a hero, he should be spoken of as a hero.”
Jebediah walked up to the duo. “Alright. Let's go. The train should be ready now.”
Robert walked up behind Jebediah. 'Goodbye Miss St. Claire, Mister Atwater. It was an honor to meet you,” he said.
“And it was an honor to meet you, Robert,” replied Cassidy.
“Yes. The lodge is in good hands,” said Gideon.
“Thank you,” Robert said. “This all seemed... better... than it otherwise would have since you were here.” Robert looked mostly at Cassidy as he spoke.
Cassidy smiled.
“We will find whoever did this and make them pay,” said Jebediah. “I promise you that. A crime of this magnitude will not, can not, go unpunished.”
“I know, sir. I will check in frequently for word.”
“And word you shall get,” replied Jebediah. They all nodded to one another. “Right. No need to waste more time. We have ten hours of travel ahead of us to New Orleans... and to the justice that is well deserved.”
---
The train chugged through the gloaming. The warm glow of the sun just receding past the horizon. The day was already gone as Cassidy, Gideon, and Jebediah wearily trudged back into their car from the dining car. One by one, they collapsed into chairs and the sofa.
“BRAAAAP!” Cassidy belched.
“Ugh. Don't push me now, Cassidy. Not now,” Jebediah groaned.
“Push you? How am I pushing you?”
“You know how.”
“No. I don't. I don't know what you're talking about.”
Gideon looked nervously between the two of them.
“You were rude during dinner and you are being rude now specifically because you know that it upsets me.”
“Jeb, I have never once annoyed you on purpose. Not once.” Jebediah snorted. “What?! I haven't. You, on the other hand, have annoyed me on purpose by keeping secrets.”
“I have every right to keep secrets,” Jebediah growled
“No, you goddamn don't. Not when you're working with other people.” Jebediah didn't respond. “Goddammit, Jeb. I mean, what the hell crawled up your ass?”
“Nothing. And stop calling me Jeb. My name is Jebediah. Jebediah!”
“For which Jeb is short!”
“You are the only person on Earth who calls me Jeb. It's not my name!”
“Alright! Alright! I'll call you Jebediah. Good lord... you sure you don't want me to call you Mr. Ames?”
“That's what I mean! You had to give me that little snide stab! You press people. I can tell. You enjoy it.”
“I enjoy pressing certain people, not necessarily you. I'm not pressing you! You take offense to things I do and say just because I'm not an uptight prude like you. Well, Jebediah, I'm sorry to inform you that most people don't have sticks as large as yours up their asses.”
“Demanding manners and a degree of decorum from people is not having a stick up ones ass! It's basic human decency!”
“Please, basic human decency! Human decency is not hurting other people, not stealing their things. It has nothing to do with making sure that nothing you do insults them. If that were the metric that we're going to use then I couldn't fucking leave my house. A woman just wearing pants is enough to infuriate half the country.”
“An alternative perspective is that, since the majority of the nation feels that way, maybe you should consider dressing appropriately.”
Cassidy's mouth hung open a bit as she formed words. “Oh. Oh. So we're going to take it in that direction, huh? First, fuck you. I can wear whatever I want because dressing like some delicate maid is a degrading prospect. You don't have to worry about that, but I do. I will not be degraded. There is nothing appropriate about being degraded.”
“There is nothing degrading about wearing a proper dress, that's—“
“Really? Would you wear a dress?”
“Of course not, it's not my place.”
“Forget your place! Forget it. Would you wear one if given the choice?”
Jebediah didn't respond.
“Of course you wouldn't. They're hot, heavy, and look ridiculous.”
“They don't look ridiculous. They're elegant, and lovely.”
“They're heavy, hot, and hard to do anything in. There is nothing elegant about being unable to sit.”
“You...” said Jebediah, shaking his finger at Cassidy. “You claim to be a defender of women, but you sit here, now, attacking them and their values. How presumptuous can you be?! You claim to speak for all women!”
“I don't claim to speak for all women. I speak for myself and for the shackles that society puts on them. Just bec
ause some women don't see those shackles... no, no. That's not possible. All women see the shackles. They live them, every damned day! And just because some of them have learned to live in them doesn't mean that they shouldn't be removed.”
“So, you do! You do claim to speak for women. You are arrogant as anyone you inveigh against! More so!”
Cassidy paused as she collected her thoughts. “If a negro spoke out against prejudice in the name of all negros, even though some of them were fine in their place in the world, would you attack him?”
“Don't be absurd. Women are not the same as the colored people in this nation.”
“You're right! We're worse! I can't even believe that I'm having this argument. We can't vote, Jebediah! We can't vote! We aren't people!”
“Well if a black man was making people uncomfortable, then I suppose my criticism would be the same.”
“It's their skin that is making people uncomfortable, you ass.”
“Don't twist my words! There are limits to my criticism. Of course there are. I'm talking about behavior.”
“Really? So how should a black man dress, then?”
“As a man, of course. Now you're—”
“Why? Why draw the line there?! Why say that we can force men and women to dress in certain ways but not negros or Asians?!
Jebediah didn't answer.
“Why?!!” bellowed Cassidy.
“Because! Men and women are different! We look different, we sound different, we behave different!”
“Everything you are saying could be applied to the races!”
“Maybe there is a difference!” Jebediah yelled quickly. “Maybe there is.”
Cassidy didn't initially respond. She just looked at Jebediah with shock. “I'm glad to see that you're a judgmental son of a bitch all around.”
“I'M NOT!!...” Jebediah paused to collect himself. “I'm not judgmental. I recognize that there are things greater than myself, and that my behavior, my values, my thoughts must defer to that greater thing.”
“What an intellectual titan you are, never questioning, just doing.”
“I do question, but I do not question everything. Questioning everything stops the machine from working. If everyone questioned everything all the time—“
“The world would be amazing!” Cassidy interrupted.
“Let me finish! The—“
“Why?! The world would be wonderful—a paradise! No one following orders blindly!”
“And our military would fall apart! Our police would fall apart! Our schools would fall apart! We need a hierarchy of authority, which must inevitably defer to an ultimate authority.”
Cassidy waited to respond as Jebediah breathed heavily. “So, all of your actions defer to this ultimate authority? And I assume you're not talking about God in this scenario.”
Jebediah snorted air out his nose. “Ultimately, yes.”
“So which god?”
“God god. This is America.”
“Yes, but which God god? There are dozens? I hear the Mormons are becoming quite popular. Would you like to defer to their God god?”
“I don't want this to turn theological. I'm not even concerned with it. I'm concerned with society. Society says we should do certain things. The wisdom of the group is the authority. Unlike you, I do not presume to speak for others. I defer to that group. They undoubtedly know more than I. It would require an arrogance of biblical proportions to claim otherwise.”
“And it would require a blind ignorance of equally biblical proportions to ignore it when that society is visibly, obviously wrong! What do you think the damned war was about! People died for what you want to just ignore!”
“That has nothing to do with this conversation! They were trying to rip the country apart.”
“Using the same logic that you are using! Their ultimate authority was different from your ultimate authority!”
“That is absurd. Neither of us is advocating ripping the country apart.”
Cassidy stared at him in surprise, shaking her head a bit. “I KNOW! That's what I am saying! If wearing pants threatened to rip the country apart, I'd probably stop wearing pants. But it won't!”
“In the same vein, wearing a dress is not the same as being a slave, so why not just acquiesce?! Why make life difficult for people!” Jebediah yelled as he began wildly gesticulating.
“I'm not! I'm not!! They are making life difficult for me! You are making life difficult for me because I make you uncomfortable. Well, I'm sorry, Jebediah. I like to live my life as I see fit! That sounds strangely like something this nation was founded on. But oh right! I'm a woman! Haha! I'm not actually a person, because hypocritical, oppressive, sacks of shit like you want to keep women and negros down so we don't rock the boat! You are as bad as this goddamned—“
“I'm a good, goddamned Christian! I love my country! And I love the society in which I live! And I don't assault it at every chance I get because I recognize that it's filled with good people trying to live good lives and that's worth fighting for, not worth trying to destroy!”
“I. Don't. Want. To. Destroy. Anything!” yelled Cassidy, punctuating each word. “Demanding the freedom to wear pants and vote would not destroy society! Loving a country doesn't mean taking everything it has without question! Why the hell is it always one choice or another with you people?!”
“Women voting might destroy... and loving a country means trusting its judgment!”
“Who?! Who is making these judgments?! Politicians? Leaders? The mob?!”
“No... it's...”
“Who?! Because no one that I can think of is qualified!”
“It's the people!” Jebediah.
“Oh right,” replied Cassidy sarcastically. “Except for all the negros, and the women, and going back a bit further all of the people who didn't own land... Oh and Indians! They're not people.” Jebediah just stared at Cassidy, unable to respond. “What's the matter? That stick in your ass making it hard to speak, you arrogant piece of shit?! God damn. I thought after you got laid, you'd be feeling a bit better about things.”
Jebediah looked at her with disbelief. “How did you know?”
“Know?! Know?” Cassidy laughed. “How did I know that you fucked someone? I set it up, moron!”
Jebediah's face turned red.
“What? What? You think that any woman in her right mind would approach a man who's stiff as a goddamned board? You practically have a huge stay away sign around your neck. And you're not a good-lookin' man, either, Jebediah. Most women like their men to be handsome. You should be thanking me. Someone played with your cock.”
Jebediah was shaking with anger. “You... How dare you!!”
“What?! Now you're going to be angry about this? Are you angry that it took another woman to help you, or are you angry that we all know you fucked someone?! Here's some news! WE ALL KNEW! We also know that you shit and piss!”
“You... You whore!”
“There it is! There it is! Say it again!” Cassidy yelled, getting right in Jebediah's face. “Say it again! I want to hear it! I want to hear your insult! I want to know how you hate women, and niggers, and everyone else who thinks that there might be something wrong with your precious fucking nation!” Jebediah's face stayed flush as he twitched, desperately trying to maintain a modicum of composure.
“How the hell did your wife tolerate you? You hated her. Some part of you hated her.”
“I loved my wife more than anything,” Jebediah said stiffly, trying to keep his anger in check. “Do not speak of my wife.”
“The worst insult you could come up with was whore. More news for you, the woman you fucked, she was an old whore. Yep. Her tattered old pussy has seen a whole lot of cocks. Was it overly loose? Or has it been so long that you couldn't tell?” Jebediah continued to fight his anger as he flexed his fists. “The worst thing you could say to me is that I've fucked people. In your mind, I've fucked people and that is so bad that it can be used as an insult
. I've changed my mind. I don't care if wearing pants would rip the nation apart. I want it ripped apart. I want it burned down. We were willing to do it for slavery and I am willing to do it for this! And after it's all done, I will take a shit in the mouth of the nation's corpse.”
“That... that, right there,” Jebediah replied. “That's what infuriates me. That anger, that arrogant anger. You aren't fighting for a cause. You do more than reject manners. You happily, willfully, gleefully do so at every opportunity. You goad people by being as rude and confrontational as possible. You're not a warrior. You're just a bar brawler. You fight not to change society, but because you hate it.”
By this point, Gideon had sunk so far into his chair as to almost disappear.
“I am the equal of every man on Earth and the better of most... and yet I can't vote. So you'll have to forgive me for holding society in a little bit of contempt. You're a man, so you have the freedom to be all prim and proper—to be all uptight. You can act that way and people still listen to you. You still have power. You know what happens to women who act prim and proper? They get married and then put into a room and forgotten! They get forgotten except for once a week when their husband comes to fuck them in between fucking his various mistresses!”
Jebediah winced as Cassidy got back up into his face.
“Is that how your marriage went?” Cassidy continued. “Your wife left you because she got tired of her weekly fucking?” Jebediah's face went white and his eyes widened. “Yep! I thought so! She got tired of having you come in, bend her over, and ram your cock inside! Very romantic! Did you at least help her clean up afterward? Or did you just leave for cigars and brandy with your friends after they had fucked their wives? You know what? I'm glad she left you, because you're a piece of shit who judges others, can't keep his own men alive, and can't keep his own wife around! Wherever she is, she's happier!”
Jebediah slapped Cassidy across the face. She returned her gaze to his face with an animalistic glare. There was a flash of fear in Jebediah's face as Cassidy hauled off and slammed her fist into the side of his head, sending him flying back onto his rear on the floor between the sofa and a chair. She stepped forward to continue to assault but Gideon quickly rose from his seat and held her back. Jebediah got to his feet and rubbed his jaw with his hand before looking at Cassidy with an equally animalistic stare and then lunged at her, knocking her to the floor, with Gideon caught between them. Cassidy tossed them both off and rolled back, getting to her feet. Jebediah stumbled on the overturned table as he rose to face her, taking a wild swing which Cassidy sidestepped. Cassidy then let a fist fly, hitting Gideon in the head as he quickly got to his feet in front of Jebediah. Her face was immediately penitent as she stepped back. Jebediah pushed to get to her, but Gideon shoved him hard to the floor as he held his head, grimacing in pain.
Cassidy St. Claire and The Fountain of Youth Parts I, II, & III Page 50
