Dead Aim

by Dusty Richards

  “Oh, Mother, I hate to tell Father my plight.”

  “Don’t hate anything. Charles is an understanding man when you get past his crusty side.” She handed her a hanky made from an old bed sheet. Skirt in hand, Jenny Coble went up the steps and inside for her items.

  Lily had gone on, too.

  What would she do? No man to marry and support her newborn. How had she ever been so dumb to let him love her that cold night? He did the same exact thing to Lily’s cousin. Another ignorant stupid country girl probably just like her, and him convincing two of them to let him sow his wild oats inside both of them before he ran off.

  Well, she’d know from here on that it took very little for a man to plant a seed in her body. Little good that knowledge would do her at this point in time. His lies, his fabrications, all came back to her. He either practiced his prepared speech on Lily’s cousin or her. Either way they’d worked for him.

  All her dreams and plans evaporated into the cloudy sky. Someone was talking to her, and she turned to see that a great stallion and a blond-headed man—Hiram—on his horse had stopped right beside her. One thing was certain. He wouldn’t make that mistake again, to stop and talk to her when he learned the news that she had a breed in her belly.

  “Your name is Easter, right?”

  With her hand she shaded her eyes against the bright overhead sun. “Yes, and you are Hiram O’Malley.”

  He bounded off his horse. “Glad we have that straight now. I must warn you that gangs are raiding again, and I want you and your folks to be ready in case they raid your place.”

  “We will try our best. Mother is in the store.”

  “I wanted to talk to you if I may. You’ve been crying. Is it serious?”

  She shook her head. He could not be interested in her problems, not in the least. And if he knew her true condition he’d spur that great horse and ride off as fast as he could, to get away from such a wanton woman. Soon everyone would know about the foolish whore from Cincinnati. She couldn’t be seen in public. Shunned for her sinful ways and to be avoided by all good men. But, not knowing, he simply stood there before her with his hat off.

  “I am going to ask. Would you go to a social at Cane Hill with me next Saturday night?”

  “No.”

  “Why not?”

  “I can’t say, sir.”

  “I have honest intentions.”

  He would not be convinced of anything she told him. So damn persistent. She finally leaned over and jerked him by the sleeve up close. “Because I am pregnant.”

  He looked at her so funny and asked, “Who is the lucky man?”

  Damn him anyway. “He’s dead.”

  “Then you have no excuse not to attend that social with me. I am alive.”

  “Why would you want a-ah stained woman?”

  “Easter, we both live in a violent world. I lost my own wife six months ago. She drowned in a river and I couldn’t save her. You have lost your man and I bet you could not have saved him, either.”

  “But you were married to her.”

  “I will be by your place for you about four thirty Saturday with a buggy. That is a nice enough dress for you to wear to that event. Now will you go with me?”

  Before she could answer him her mother walked up, obviously hearing his words.

  “Easter, tell the nice man your wishes, please.”

  Her hands clasped before her, she broke them apart. “Mother, I already told him I was with child. He won’t listen to me.”

  “I heard, ma’am. Her ex had died and I would not take that as an excuse.”

  “We learned that only thirty minutes ago—here. Easter, tell the man yes or no.”

  “If he’s that hardheaded I will go with him.”

  “There, Mr. O’Malley, she will attend your social.”

  “May I be presumptuous?” he asked.

  “How is that?” Jenny asked, amused at his insistence.

  “I want to kiss both of you on the forehead for being so generous with me.”

  “Won’t bother me, sir.”

  He kissed her mother and smiled, then turned to Easter.

  She shook her head in disgust. “Go ahead. Chances are good you’d do it anyway.”

  After his quick kiss, which still burned on her forehead like a brand, he leaped into the saddle, reined his horse around, mentioned some things he must do, and repeated the time that he’d be there for her on Saturday evening. Anything past noon was evening in Arkansas.

  “Well, now he knows; let’s go tell your dad and hope he is so forgiving.”

  “Mother, I was not bragging I swear. He was so persistent for an answer, I told him my condition.” She threw her hands up like tossing chicken feed. “That didn’t bother him one bit. He is a tough man to tell no to.”

  “Remember that Saturday night when you go with him.”

  “What could it hurt? He can’t get me with child. I already am that.”

  “My dear, you are not some scarlet woman.”

  “Who decides that?”

  “The man you might marry.”

  “He’s not going to marry me. Not him. I don’t believe he wants to marry anyone.”

  “Just sit tight on your butt and keep your legs crossed.”

  “I will try.”

  Their talk with her father went smoothly enough. They never mentioned Lily’s cousin’s similar condition, only that Norton had been killed. They did tell him about Hiram and the invitation, and that, even with him knowing the information of her condition, it had not shocked O’Malley away from asking her out.

  “I can hardly believe you told him and never told me?”

  “I was coming home to tell you, Father. That straw-headed gentleman would not take no even after I told him.”

  “I can see why he would not take no for an answer.”

  “Why?” She frowned at him.

  “Easter, baby and all, you have blossomed into a lovely young woman. His last wife drowned, and he sees in you the beauty I see in you. Jenny looked like you when I married her.”

  “But she was not with another man’s child.”

  “I really think he is a frank, honest man. But you will learn more about him, right?”

  “Saturday night. The first time he hugs me he will realize and know for sure, won’t he?”

  “I am sure then he will.”

  “I am sorry I hid this from you, Father. I was ashamed but I believed Norton would come back rich and marry me. I am a dumb stupid daughter who could not wait or listen. I must pay the price, but I thank you for your support and your promise to help me and my son when he comes.”

  On Saturday evening, O’Malley drove up with two fancy, sparkling black horses and a luxurious buggy to take her to Cane Hill. Easter’s dress, washed and ironed, looked very nice on her. Her mother pinned her hair up, and the black wool shawl would keep her warm going and returning.

  She knew, when his powerful hands were on her waist to easily lift her up on the buggy seat, he could tell her son was hiding there. But he was unshaken by anything, and once Easter was safe on the seat, he waved at her parents, ran around the buggy to the other side, and took command of the horses.

  “Well, how are you today?” he asked.

  “I feel like a fairy-tale princess sitting high up here on this seat and those wonderful horses pacing along to the jingle of the harness taking me to a castle in the Alps.”

  “You write storybook fables?” he asked.

  “No, but these are not your horses or rig are they?”

  “No. I borrowed them to impress you as to how serious I am.”

  “I am impressed. I never saw a rig this nice or fancy on the road before in my life. Be careful. If we wreck it you will spend the rest of your life repaying the owner.”

  “I could have hired a driver, but I wanted us alone to talk with no one around. I have no crazy ambitions or needs, but I feel you need to know that nothing in your past bothers me—tomorrow will be a new day
and I hope we can walk hand in hand down the path of life together. I knew that day I saw you in the garden, I wanted to know you better.”

  “You don’t understand it all.”

  “I know you told me he, like my Ruthie, is gone. So the living must continue.”

  “I agree, but he was a Cherokee. His son—” He’d swapped the reins to his other hand and put his finger softly on her lips to silence her.

  “His son will be our son, red or white. Our son. I will never let him know he isn’t mine and yours. And when he is grown I will tell him or you can tell him about his true father. That is not an issue for me. If you have children that are half out of their heads, you love them. His skin color will not bother me.”

  “Hiram O’Malley, you are so persistent that I am beginning to believe all you are saying.”

  “Good. When will you become my wife?” He halted the team where the road passed through some dense hardwood forest.

  She blinked her eyes at him in utter disbelief at his words. “I have no idea.”

  “There will be a minister there tonight. Marry me tonight. We can go back and tell your folks we are married and go home to my house and farm.”

  “You have not even seen me and what I look like. You may be shocked.”

  “Why?”

  “I look horrible.” She searched both ways and found the road hidden by woods, and no one stirred. She unbuttoned her dress, then raised the slip to show him. “My bulging belly is disgusting to look at. I saw it so in the mirror in Mother’s room.”

  “May I touch it?”

  “I guess that won’t hurt him, but don’t you see how ugly my body is?”

  “Oh, honey.” He swooned. “It is gorgeous.” His calloused hands were softly running over all her skin. His fondling of her belly almost made her sick. She couldn’t understand his joy.

  “Marry me?” he said, sounding excited.

  “You will regret it all your life.”

  “Never. Never. Never.”

  “Folks will think we’re crazy . . . What are you doing now?” she asked.

  “Kissing your wonderful belly.”

  Oh, my God, he did, and she about peed. What a wild crazy man.

  They were married an hour later. Two hours afterward they drove back and relayed the news to Easter’s folks. They acted a little set aback but wished them good luck. Three hours later she was in his wonderful feather bed and she let him kiss her all over wherever he wanted. Here was where she also found out what real love was like—oh, she would always regret her one transgression from before, but she was so excited about the real man who loved her homely swollen belly and her. She thanked God that night for his deliverance of her from her sorrow and depression.

  * * *

  Hiram taught her how to shoot and load a .30-caliber Colt Paterson. She learned she had to cock the hammer back on the pistol to get the trigger exposed. It didn’t take long before she could shoot it and bust all the bottles set on a rail fence. Her being alone worried him when he was gone trying to stop the raids by outlaws on country folks in western Washington County, Arkansas.

  Her pregnancy went well and a midwife delivered her son easily.

  Long John O’Malley was born on May 5th that year. The afterbirth was buried and the midwife sent home that evening. The baby boy was in the bed with them, but she knew Hiram wanted her and despite being sore, she wanted him. She decided not to say that she had heard that nursing a baby was good birth control, and good that she didn’t. Nine months later, February 5th, in a snowstorm, her second son Harper Alan came in their world screaming. Another long baby son, with blond hair this time. Two babies nursing at the same time was enough for any woman, but she had the milk so they flourished.

  Easter and Hiram couldn’t be apart, but it was three months later when she realized that nursing two boys must have made for birth control. Apparently God said that was enough. They laughed about it but kept trying for more though none ever came. Both sons, at age six, went to the first grade in the three months’ school held in the one-room schoolhouse near their farm. But when the teacher moved on to another rural school, by the third year, Easter had already taught them to read aloud from the Bible, do the multiplication charts, and write in a good penmanship. They read every book they could find, beg, or borrow.

  One day Easter was home alone. The boys and their dad had gone to buy a horse for one of them, when an outlaw came by and dismounted at the yard gate. She saw and appraised him out of the small window and immediately went for her loaded Colt Paterson.

  He pounded on the door.

  Holding the cocked pistol out ready, she warned him, “I am going to blow your head off if you come through that door.”

  “Bullshit, you whore—” He broke the door down and it fell inside on the floor.

  She saw the shock written on his face as he saw the gun and right before the fiery blast came from the gun’s muzzle. He wore the look of a man who really regretted what he’d both said and done. She shot him again in the chest before he slumped down in the doorway. With the room full of gun smoke, she decided to go out the back door of her house because she didn’t want to step on him to get outside.

  Later she harnessed their gentlest mule and tied a lariat to the dead man’s feet. She clucked to the mule, and Jasper began to drag him out of her doorway and to the yard gate, making sure he didn’t block the gate. Unhooking the rope, she coiled it up, drove Jasper back to the barn, unharnessed him, and laid the harness in the hay. When Hiram and the boys came home, they could put it up on the holder. Then she turned Jasper loose in the pasture again, went back into the now smoke-free house, and finished her dishes. Hiram could fix the door, too.

  Her men came running into the house shouting, “Who was he? Are you okay? What happened?”

  “Some bad-mouthed man broke in my front door. I warned him I’d shoot him. Now he believes it. You boys can repair the door, and you need to hang up the harness that I used to drag him out to the gate.”

  “Why did he do that to you do you reckon?” Hiram asked her.

  “He called me a whore. I knew he had the wrong house.”

  Her husband wrestled her into his arms. “Baby, he sure was at the wrong house.”

  Not long after that Hiram heard about Texas. Nothing could change his mind, so he sold their place and the four of them loaded up—lock, stock, and barrel—and headed there in two wagons. The homestead land Hiram found for them was west of Fort Worth right in Comanche country. To tell the truth, in Easter’s opinion, Texas was no richer farmland than Arkansas.

  Those boys grew up fast. They became Texas Rangers at fourteen. Oh, they didn’t go chasing down outlaws, they were part of a poop patrol on the outlook for Comanche that snuck down in their country and killed folks, kidnapped teens, and generally raised hell.

  The brothers rode all around looking for scattered horse apples, which meant Comanche were in their midst. They learned quickly that a barefoot range horse stops to poop in a pile and an unshod Indian pony scatters his as his rider goes on. If that sign showed up, they and their neighbors were fixing to have a whole lot of trouble with war parties.

  They wore .30-caliber Colts and had a Spencer under their stirrup. Of course by then the Civil War was on, and most of the men and even boys had been called up. Hiram and his team of rangers were left at home as point people to protect all the man-less settler families living in their county. Hiram didn’t like it, but someone needed to be in charge.

  Coffee got so high priced they did without it. And sugar, too. Even cloth for new clothing became extinct.

  One day, when the boys were attending a three-month school session, they came home all beat up, and one of Long’s overall suspenders even had been torn loose. The sight of them shocked Easter. Black eyes, noses bloody, their clothes in rags.

  Her hands on her hips she demanded to know what they had been doing.

  “Mom, three grown men rode up and called Miss Shepherd a-a whore,” Harper said
. “And for her to come outside—I remembered the man called you that and made you so mad you shot him. Well, my gun was out on my horse, so me and Long went outside. We had to clean their plows.”

  “Who won?”

  “We threw them on their horses and they left bawling,” Long said.

  “What did the teacher say?”

  Harper answered. “She said she didn’t think them men will be back.”

  Long nodded. “They got the worst of it from us I am sure.”

  “Let me dress your cuts and then you two change into some work clothes. I am sure I can fix these to wear again.”

  “Mom, there wasn’t a thing else we could do.”

  “You boys did the right thing. I am just not used to seeing you two so beat up.”

  “They were big as Dad.”

  “I understand. Let’s wash those cuts. I’m proud of you two. I bet the teacher is, too.”

  “Oh, she told us so,” Harper said.

  She was proud of her boys.

  Around then, rumors started that the dreary war was going to soon be over and maybe things in everyone’s lives would improve. Texas was broke and sinking. Hardly anything was on the shelves in stores, and what little could be found was at sky-high prices. No one had any money left. Hiram traded for another place farther from the persistent Comanche threat, to near Camp Verde above Kerrville.

  A nearby rancher, Captain Emory Greg, had been by talking about taking a large herd of Texas cattle to the nearest railhead up at Sedalia, Missouri, and sell them as soon as the armistice was signed. But if the war did not end he said he thought he could get past those Federal troops who might stop him up around Fort Smith, Arkansas.

  The former Confederate captain said that during the war they had eaten up every chicken and hog in both the north and south parts of the country. Yankees had money, and if they wanted meat it might as well be Texas beef. But the trip to Sedalia would not be an easy one. Lots of outlaw bands and freeholders roamed the mountainous region of Arkansas and Missouri and would surely try to steal a large herd of cattle—or anything worth ten cents for that matter.

  “Can he deliver them do you think?” Easter asked her husband.