by Len Levinson
“Is it good to teach children that life’s fun?” he mused.
She compared him to John Stone, who was gloomy and remote, always bossing her around. Lieutenant Daltry looks splendid in his uniform, unlike John Stone, who’s a mess most of the time. I just crawled out of bed with one man, and I’m thinking about another?
Their banter continued as subterranean streams coursed through the deepest recesses of their hearts. “Is Army life really as bad as they say?” she asked.
“Long periods of boredom.”
“Who’re your favorite authors?”
“Military history is my field. Important lessons can be learned from the great battles of the past. Take Napoleon, for instance …”
He explained the fine points of the Battle of Jena, while she provided rapt attention. Here’s a man who knows what he’s about, unlike John Stone, who can’t figure out whether he’s coming or going. Lieutenant Daltry studies his profession, while John Stone passes his time in saloons, consorting with low company.
The young officer described the exploits of Marshal Ney and General Murat, and the death of Prince Louis Ferdinand of Prussia, as Leticia experienced peculiar sensations, plus generous helpings of guilt and shame.
~*~
With the last morsel of cake finished and a final pot of tea consumed, Leticia glanced at the old grandfather clock standing indomitably next to the window. “Getting late, and I have compositions to read. Afraid I’d better be going.”
Lieutenant Daltry shot to his feet. “I’ll see you home.”
“That’s not necessary. I can take care of myself.”
“I’d rest more easily if I knew you arrived safely.”
Mayor Blodgett and his wife glanced at each other. A maid helped Leticia with her coat, and everyone shook hands. Mrs. Blodgett kissed Leticia’s cheek. “Bring your husband tomorrow night. We’d love to meet him.”
Mayor Blodgett watched them walk into the night. “Somehow I can’t see her married to John Stone. Lieutenant Daltry seems more her type, wouldn’t you say?”
“She’d be an asset to his career.”
“But first she needs to divorce her husband.”
“You could do the paperwork.”
“Mother, we mustn’t poke our noses into other people’s business.”
“Gunfighters are tramps, and we want better than that for our schoolmarm. I happen to know, on the best authority, that Lieutenant Daltry will be stationed here for at least three more years.”
“If she wants to divorce her husband,” the mayor reconsidered, “I wouldn’t dream of standing in her way.”
~*~
The moon shone on the main street of Woodlawn as Lieutenant Daltry and Leticia walked over the sidewalk. The smell of urine came from an alley, while a cat in heat shrieked on the other side of town. “It’s been very nice meeting you,” Lieutenant Daltry said nervously, wishing he could walk with her forever. “I hope we can see each other sometime, but I realize you’re busy with your schoolmarm duties, and your husband.”
“And you have a whole Army post to worry about, but I’m sure our paths will cross again, if God wills it. Do you believe in God, Lieutenant?”
“I’m absolutely convinced Jesus will be waiting for me at my moment of death.”
Lieutenant Daltry reminds me of my father, but in a nice way. He’s a perfect gentleman, as opposed to John Stone, who drinks whiskey out of a bottle and gives me orders as if I were his slave. Why do I let him treat me that way?
Four drunk and disheveled soldiers approached, searching aimlessly for the next saloon. One of them happened to focus on yellow stripes down the sides of blue pants. “The old man,” he murmured.
Although each was at least ten years older than Lieutenant Daltry, they raised their hands in salute. He acknowledged their respect with a highball refined carefully during many hours of training on the parade ground at West Point. It looked easy, but every soldier knows a precise measured salute is difficult to achieve.
Leticia’d never been with a man saluted, and it pleased her. He could become a general someday, maybe even president, like Grant. A girl could have a future with Lieutenant Daltry, whereas John Stone was a failed human being.
They approached the hotel, and Lieutenant Daltry didn’t want to leave her, his bunk at headquarters cold, dark, and morbid. The right woman could make life interesting, but she’s married, or at least I think she is.
“I’m curious about something,” he said. “What happened to your wedding ring?”
She gave him the old story. “Pawned it in the last town.”
He reached for his pocket. “If you need any money.”
“We’re fine now, thank you. Both of us have jobs.”
“I wouldn’t be honest if I didn’t hope your husband went away for good.”
A decent woman pretends she doesn’t hear such things, while he blushed to the roots of his hair, embarrassed by what he’d said. They came to the front of the hotel. Windows were broken and patched with boards until the next shipment of glass arrived.
“This hotel doesn’t have a very good reputation,” he said. “Hope you’ll be all right.”
“I have this.” She pulled the Remington out of her purse.
“I’m tempted to post guards at your door, but I couldn’t trust any of them with a treasure like you. Well, good night, Mrs. Stone. I look forward to our next meeting.”
“So do I,” she replied.
They looked into each other’s eyes, then she turned abruptly and ran into the hotel. He recalled her words. She wants to see me again. I have a chance.
~*~
The Mulgrave gunfighters arrived in town, horses frothing and snorting. Clancy pushed the front of his hat up and issued orders. “Mulroney, keep an eye on the approach to town. If you see ’em comin’, foller ’em in and see where they go. Then git the rest of us at the Silver Spur.”
Other gunfighters took the reins of Mulroney’s horse and led him toward the hitching rail of the Silver Spur, while Mulroney found a house with a chair on the front porch, affording a view of the trail.
Behind him, in the house, a decent American family slept unaware of the dangerous outlaw on the porch. Wanted for murder and robbery in Kansas, Mulroney was the most demented of all Mulgrave’s multifaceted gunfighters. Some killed for money, and others killed out of boredom, but Mulroney killed because he liked to see the expressions on his victims’ faces. And there’d been quite a few of them.
~*~
The lights of Woodlawn flickered in the distance as Stone and Spruance advanced on their horses. They heard Muggs bark at the edge of town, because he spotted Mulroney sitting on the porch. The gunfighter slunk into the shadows and headed for the Silver Spur Saloon.
Back on the trail, Spruance leaned over his pommel. “What’s wrong with your dog?”
“He lives pretty much his own life.”
“Ugliest damn animal I ever saw.”
“Grows on you after a while.”
Muggs smelled danger, but it was gone. He wondered where his new friends were, and searched for their special aromas. Stone and Spruance arrived at the stable and left their horses with the boy. Saddlebags and bedrolls on their shoulders, they strolled into the street. “If you don’t mind, I don’t want to sleep on your floor again,” Spruance said. “I’ll get my own room.”
“We’ll both be safer together.”
“I’m not spending another night on hard wood, listening to you screw your wife.”
Silence for a few moments, then Stone’s ears turned red. “Watch your back. I wouldn’t trust Mulgrave any farther than I can throw the Blue Bottle Saloon.”
“Let’s have a drink.”
“Wife’s waiting for me.”
“One won’t make any difference.”
Stone succumbed yet again to the most treacherous argument in the world. Vengeful eyes watched from alleys and doorways as the two ex-soldiers made their way toward the front door of the saloon. Th
ey walked inside and stepped out of the backlight as their practiced eyes scanned tables, dark corners, and the bar. Soldiers, cowboys, drifters, and desperadoes watched the two ex-officers approach.
“Whiskey,” said Stone, leaning toward the bartender. “Any of Mulgrave’s boys in town.”
The bartender smiled genially. “Wish you’d leave me out of it, Mr. Stone. Ain’t good fer business when a bartender takes sides.”
Stone carried his glass of whiskey to a corner table and sat facing the front door. Spruance joined him, resting his boots on an empty chair, watching the rear door.
“Don’t know what I’m doing with you,” Spruance said. “You’re trouble.”
~*~
Across the street, the gunfighters from the Mulgrave ranch gathered around Clancy, who told them his plans for the bushwhack. Two would cover the back door, the rest in front, deployed in alleys and doorways. “Stay low, and when you see ’em, don’t give ’em time to get set.”
The man deployed around the Blue Bottle Saloon. One lay underneath a wagon on the far side of the street. Another dropped behind a barrel of rainwater. A third lurked beneath the barber’s gaudily painted pole.
Clancy lay in the alley, waiting for Stone and Spruance to appear. Behind him, a crowd of soldiers shot craps against the side of the general store. They paid no attention to Clancy, figuring he was drunk or crazy like most everybody else in Woodlawn.
~*~
Spruance bought the second round and carried the glasses to the table. “Now that we’re alone,” he said, “and the war’s been over for a long time, what’d you think of Old Jeb?”
Stone gazed into his glass of whiskey and saw the laughing cavalier with his fantastic uniforms and the plume in his hat. “We weren’t close friends, and he never bared his heart to me, but if he walked through that door right now, I’d stand up and salute him.”
They turned toward the door, and an astonishing sight caught their eyes. A man wearing a derby and rumpled suit entered the saloon and appeared as though he’d just stepped off the sidewalk of Kansas City. He held a brief conversation with the bartender, who pointed toward Stone and Spruance.
“Watch this dude,” Spruance said, placing his fingers on his gun grip.
The newcomer promenaded toward the table. He was chubby and had a jolly smile. “John Stone?”
“Who wants to know?”
“Abner Shuttleworth, at your service. May I buy you gentlemen a drink?”
“What do you want?”
Shuttleworth sat opposite them without being invited. “Well, it’s like this, Mr. Stone. I’m a newspaper reporter, and somebody told me you were in Woodlawn. I traveled here at considerable expense, and I’ll give you forty dollars in advance for the story of your life. Then we’ll split profits fifty-fifty from the sale of magazine and newspaper stories, not to mention the book I intend to write. Where’s the bartender? Bring a bottle of your best, and three clean glasses!”
Shuttleworth’s gold tooth gleamed in the light of oil lamps. The bottle arrived, and he poured three stiff drinks. “To the success of our venture!”
“I haven’t signed anything,” Stone reminded him.
“I can make you a hero, or the bloodiest killer since Spanish Jack. The story gets writ either way.”
“You write about me,” Stone said, “it’ll be the last person you write about.”
Shuttleworth grinned calmly. “I’ve already done my preliminary research, Mr. Stone. You don’t kill anyone unless they push you to it, and you’re not a hired gun. Besides, you worked for a time as a reporter in a certain small Colorado mining town that since has gone bust. Surely you remember. It’s where you shot Randy LaFollette.”
Stone sighed in misery. “I wish you’d forget me, Mr. Shuttleworth.”
‘Too late for that. I understand you have a wife. What’s her name?”
Stone felt an overwhelming desire to punch the reporter in the mouth, but knew the nature of journalism illness. A good reporter lets nothing stop his quest for the great story. “Leave my wife out of this.”
“I have to get information from someplace.”
“She doesn’t know anything about me.”
“If you won’t cooperate ...”
A gun slid against worn oiled leather and leapt into the hand of Spruance, who leaned toward Shuttleworth and pressed the barrel to the tip of the distinguished journalist’s nose. “John Stone won’t shoot unless provoked,” Spruance said, “but I’m different. How’d you like me to blow your nose off?”
Shuttleworth gazed into the barrel of the most persuasive argument in the world. “What’s your name?”
“Start walking.”
“I can’t even finish my bottle?”
“That’s right.”
“But I paid for it.”
Spruance’s knuckles whitened around the gun. Shuttleworth adjusted his derby and headed for the door. Thunderclouds rolled across Stone’s face. “The world won’t leave me alone.”
Spruance pushed his chair backward, to get out of the way of whatever was coming. Stone raised his boot and kicked the table into the air, while Spruance dived for the bottle before it hit the floor. All eyes turned toward John Stone.
“Hope there’s no problem over there,” said the bartender.
Stone felt the urge to kill someone, and it frightened him. Confused, enraged, uncertain of what to do, he headed for the door. Spruance caught up with him. “Where you going?”
“Damned if I know.”
“The man who doesn’t know his destination is headed for trouble. It’s an old Chinese adage. Maybe you’d better settle down. Have another drink.”
Spruance passed the bottle. Stone pulled the cork, leaned back, swallowed several times, but liquid flame didn’t burn the misery out of his soul. “I’ve got to get out of here.” He reached for the doorknob.
Spruance moved in front of him. “You go out like this, no telling what’s liable to happen.”
The whiskey surged into Stone’s brain, and he felt dizzy. Spruance led him to a chair. “What’s bothering you?”
Stone reached into his shirt pocket and took out the picture of Marie. “Ever see this woman?”
“Who is she?”
“Friend of mine.”
“Must be more than a friend, if you carry her picture around. Are you in love with her.”
Stone stared at the bottle of whiskey. “Yes.”
“What about your wife?”
“Leticia’s not my wife.”
“Then who is she?”
“Friend of mine.”
Stone looked at the picture of Marie, while Spruance took another swig out of the bottle, tobacco smoke swirling around him. The bartender wondered whether to call the sheriff. John Stone looked ready to tear the place apart.
Spruance placed his hand on Stone’s shoulder. “It’s none of my business, and I should keep my big mouth shut, but I bet you’ve built that woman into something no human being could ever be. I’ve been mixed up with a few fillies myself, and it’s not all perfume and roses.”
Stone spat at the cuspidor. “I don’t need perfume and roses.”
“Does Leticia know about her?”
“A little.”
“You’ve got woman problems. Perhaps I can help. Why not let me take Leticia off your hands? Then you’ll be free for the girl in the picture.”
“You’re trying to steal my wife, you son of a bitch!”
“If you had to choose between Marie and Leticia, which would it be?”
Stone couldn’t lie, and didn’t want to say the truth, so he sat silently and brooded. The saloon was warm and smelly, because most of the cowboys hadn’t bathed since summer. “I’ve got to get out of here,” Stone grumbled. He lurched to his feet, wobbled, and headed for the door. Tables spun around him as he tried to find the knob. Spruance, three sheets to the wind, nearly collided with Stone, who thought he was under attack. He spun around and yanked both guns, but lost his balance an
d fell on his butt.
The bartender cleared his throat as he approached, grinning from ear to ear. “Gentlemen, the wife and I’ve invested everything we have in this here saloon. We’d be mighty grateful if you shot each other outside, if’n it’s all the same to you.”
Spruance pulled open the door. “After you, Captain.”
Stone felt ornery and inflammatory. “No, after you.”
“I insist.”
“So do I.”
The bartender, fearful for the security of his major capital investment, humbly suggested, “Why don’t you boys flip for it.”
Stone’s hand dived into his pocket and came up with a penny. “Call it,” he said to Spruance.
“No, you call it.”
“Heads.” Stone tossed the coin into the air, it turned lazily, then dropped to the floor, rolled, wiggled, fell on its side. Stone and Spruance got on their hands and knees and looked at heads. “After you,” Stone said.
Stone grabbed the knob and held the door for Spruance, who teetered into the cold dark night. Stone followed him out the door when suddenly the world exploded with tumultuous flashes of gunfire.
Cowboys and soldiers in the vicinity hit the dirt, and the impact of bullets hurled Spruance backward into Stone’s arms. They dropped to the ground, and then more bullets slammed into Spruance, making his body twitch. Blood dribbled onto Stone, shocked and horrified by the sudden jolting turn of events.
“Are they dead?” asked a voice across the street.
“Believe so,” replied another voice.
Stone lay still, trying to understand the incomprehensible. Figures emerged from shadows across the street. Just come a little closer. I’ve got a present for you. One gunfighter laughed. “Guess the fastest gun alive ain’t so fast after all.”
“It’s my bullet what got ‘im,” another voice replied. “I shot the son of a bitch.”
