Blaze! The Christmas Journey

by Stephen Mertz

  Billy sent a nod Mrs. Mitchell's way and said, "Takin' in a prisoner, eh? Looks harmless enough but you never can tell." Billy remembered his manners and removed his hat, adding for Mrs. Mitchell's benefit, "Begging your pardon, ma'am."

  Kate slipped an arm around the older woman's shoulder and gave her a hug.

  "Naw, Billy. Alma is anything but a prisoner. She's our friend."

  J.D. added, "The mission we're on is getting Mrs. Mitchell to Lordsburg."

  Billy said, "Then let's get to rollin'! We'll make the Pass easy if the good weather holds. And it will, leastways for a spell. But these old bones of mine tell me the weather's fixin' to bring us a norther." He called over to the other passengers. "All right, folks. Let's load up!"

  The passengers boarded while stable boys tended to the horses. This close to Christmas, most folks who were traveling for the holiday had already reached their destination. With no one aboard from the previous leg of the run, those boarding at Horseshoe had ample room inside the stagecoach. The whiskey drummer's valise was secured atop along with everyone else's luggage.

  J.D. and Kate took the forward bench seat, Mrs. Mitchell seated comfortably between them, facing the army girl and the whiskey drummer.

  The army girl sat as far to her side of the bench as possible. A glance swept her fellow passengers and you could practically see her nose lift in distaste. Polly only exchanged goodbyes with her mother and aunt.

  Mr. Meek retained possession of his sample case, nursing it gently on his lap. He sat morosely, studying a photograph of his wife and seven children.

  Billy Combs kicked off the brakes.

  He shouted, "Hiyah!!"

  The horses broke into a trot. The stage lunged forward on its fore and aft springs, leaving town in a cloud of dust.

  Polly was the only one to lean out of the coach and return goodbye waves to those waving farewell with their hankies, the men doffing their hats, a display not for Polly's benefit alone. The arrival and departure of a stagecoach was big doings in a remote community. And yet Polly seemed to prolong her waving to the world of family and hearth that she was leaving behind for barracks life. Then she resumed sitting stiffly, primly, eyes straight ahead.

  Presently the stage was rocking full speed down the trail that cut through a seemingly endless high desert prairie hemmed in by mountains to form the broad valley. The vistas and the incessant swaying of the coach soon grew monotonous.

  J.D. loved this country. But it was one thing to traverse it astride a horse and in charge. That was the J.D. way. This business of being boxed into a stagecoach like sardines in a can and whisked about with no control over what happened next...it wasn't a sensation he was accustomed to nor much cared for.

  He considered asking the whiskey drummer for a glance at his wares. Maybe a sample. Just a taste. Kate could read his mind. Another of those penetrating glances make him realize that would not be such a good idea.

  What the heck.

  He told himself, Merry Christmas, J.D.

  He drew his hat down over his eyes, settling in as comfortably as he could for this first leg of their journey.

  Chapter 9

  Kansas. 1860.

  They called it Bloody Kansas.

  A Civil War was brewing.

  While the Confederate attack on Fort Sumter in Charleston Harbor, the opening hostilities of four years of carnage, strife and more than a half million lives lost, was still a year away, in the fertile farmland of Kansas, sides had already been drawn.

  North or South?

  Secession or preservation of the union?

  Free state or slave state?

  Hostilities had already commenced. Brother against brother. Father against son. Neighbor against neighbor. Killings. Burnings. Massacres. An ineffectual military presence. The prelude to war.

  But on Christmas day, that world beyond the Blaze family farm could have been a million miles away.

  J.D. and his pa had cut down a pine tree the week before. J.D. was eleven years old and Pa was his hero. At first it seemed that the tree might be too big for their small home until Pa cut it down to size. By the time it was finished being hung with heirloom decorations and tinsel, it was most likely, Ma herself opined, the most beautiful Christmas tree in the world.

  Christmas morning. Meager presents in place beneath the tree. A turkey roasting in the oven, filling home with its mouth-watering aroma.

  The family gathered around the tree. Ma told the Christmas story, same as every year, and they were about to begin opening their few precious gifts to each other when Pa noticed something outside. His eyes narrowed.

  Ma was a frontier woman through and through. A hard life had etched deep lines in her face.

  "What is it, Tom?"

  Pa had wide shoulders. Big hands. Friendly. Hard-working. Well liked.

  He said, "You kids stay inside here with your ma. I'll tend to this."

  Pa stepped outside.

  A rifle hung over the hearth for hunting game. A pistol in its scabbard hung from a wall peg near the door in the event of rattlesnake or some rabid animal that needed putting down. Pa took neither when he stepped outside.

  J.D.'s little sisters drew near their mother, sudden alarm in their eyes.

  J.D. followed his father as far as the door. There he stopped to see his pa standing tall on the front porch.

  Three horsemen drew rein in front of the house.

  The ground was covered in white from yesterday's storm. Cold sunlight sparkled off the snow.

  Ma whispered, "Jehoram, get away from there."

  Even as a child J.D. hated being addressed by his given name. He did not respond to his mother except to close the door until it was only cracked open wide enough for him to peer through, transfixed.

  The riders were a scurvy lot. Unshaven. J.D. could tell they were drifters from the bedrolls behind their saddles and from their disregard for personal appearance, something Ma always stressed as being second only to Godliness.

  The rider in the middle addressed Pa.

  "Howdy, mister. Figured we'd set a spell."

  He started to dismount.

  Pa said, "Hold it right there. Move on, the lot of you."

  The rider regained his place straight up in the saddle. He sneered.

  "Well now, if that ain't inhospitable." He spoke with a deep Southern accent. "Well boys, what say ye?"

  One of the men snickered.

  The other snarled something about damn Yankees.

  Pa said, "None of that. Y'all don't look to me like farmers, nor like honest working men. Look like scavengers looking for mischief. Looking for easy pickings."

  The man in the middle, the talker, spat.

  "Sodbuster, that ain't no way to be talking on Christmas morning. What kind of Christian are you?"

  "Reckon I'm the kind that doesn't go looking for trouble. But I don't shy from it, neither. There's a roadhouse up the trail. They ain't particular about who they rent rooms to from what I hear. Now get, the three of you. Me and my family are celebrating here. Move on."

  The talker edged his horse forward.

  "Know what I think we got here, boys?" He spoke to his companions. His sneer grew wider, meaner. "We got us a Yankee nigger-lovin'—"

  Pa stepped down from the porch.

  The thing J.D. would always remember, watching through the crack in the doorway, was Pa not appearing to expend any effort. He simply stepped forward, toward the horsemen towering over him, as if routinely heading off for the day's chores. Then he reached up with one of his big farmer hands clasping callused fingers about the big talker's belt. He yanked the man out of his saddle with one brisk tug.

  The man hit the frozen ground with a thud.

  The other two riders reached beneath their coats.

  Pa stood over the fallen man. He placed a boot to the man's throat. Both of the man's hands gripped the boot, trying to dislodge it. But he was pinned, and his face was turning red.

  Pa said, "Mister, unle
ss you want me to snap your neck like a twig, tell your boys not to draw their weapons."

  He spoke in a dispassionate voice with a steel edge that J.D. had never heard his father use before.

  The fallen man croaked at his confederates.

  "You heard him. Put your damn guns away!"

  They sullenly abided the order.

  Pa stepped away. He allowed the man to shakily regain his footing. The man rubbed the fresh red mark on his throat from where Pa's boot had nearly crushed his windpipe.

  Pa said, "All right then. Get back on that mangy nag. Haul yourselves off my property to somewhere else. Do it now."

  No more words were spoken.

  Within minutes, the riders disappeared from sight down the trail.

  J.D. spoke aloud a lesson he'd just learned.

  "Dang, Pa. You chased those rascals off without firing a shot. And it was three to one! I reckon a man don't need a gun to win an argument."

  Pa said, "True enough." Then he winked and spread open the pocket flap of his denim jumper to reveal the four-barrel Derringer hidden there. "But always remember, son. When the stakes are high, hedge your bet. Now then, let us return to Christmas."

  Chapter 10

  When J.D. next opened his eyes, dusk lay upon the land.

  The stage was slowing, Billy's voice calling out to his team. This had drawn J.D. from his reverie. From images real enough to touch and words spoken by a man, his father, no longer alive except in the memories of those who loved him...and in the life of his son. The Blaze policy of apprehending fugitives alive unless circumstance dictated otherwise was in large part the legacy of a lesson learned that Christmas morning so long ago.

  J.D. took stock of his fellow passengers.

  Mrs. Mitchell sat beside him, erect, stoic and resolute of demeanor.

  Beyond her sat Kate, who greeted his look with a smile.

  "You slept right through Red Bank Pass, you lucky cuss. That stretch even had my heart hammering."

  Some called the pass The Widow Maker. Red Bank Pass was infamous for its sheer wall reaching to the sky abutting one side of the trail, while no more than two feet beyond the other side of the road, the mountainside dropped straight down in a sheer granite cliff.

  The army girl sat prim and proper. Mr. Meek, the whiskey drummer, appeared a shade paler than the last time J.D. had eyed him.

  Mr. Meek said, "It's a wonder how you slept through such an ordeal! When I tell my wife what it was like—why, we almost slid over twice. I could feel the rear wheel on my side going over!"

  The stage rocked and rolled gradually to a halt.

  The girl, Polly, said, "Why are we stopping?"

  "Rivas Station," said Kate.

  J.D. added, "Rosa's chili."

  Billy leapt from the box. He swung open the door and produced a short stepping stool for the ladies. The sky was burnished silver to the east. The temperature was dropping by the minute.

  Mike Rivas, a squat, barrel-chested Mexican, came out to greet them. Stable hands materialized to unhitch the horses and lead them to the barn to exchange for a fresh team.

  J.D. greeted Rivas with a smile.

  "Buenos noches, Miguel."

  Mike Rivas greeted Kate with a wave.

  "Too bad Billy and you two wasn't here a little while ago."

  Kate said, "Trouble?"

  Mike's response was an expressive Hispanic shrug.

  "It could have been, si. I let Rosa tell you about it."

  He went about helping his men change the team.

  Billy stepped aside, holding open the door for the passengers to enter the relay station, a big room with rough but comfortable furnishings, dominated by a long wooden table with a bench on either side. A log burned in a stone fireplace. Other rooms branched off from the main room. Cooking smells came from one of them.

  There was a man seated in an armchair near the fire. His chin rested on his chest. He seemed to be asleep.

  Rosa Rivas was short and round and happy. She gave J.D. and Kate each a warm familial hug.

  They always dropped by when they were passing through. Rivas Station was a place to get good eats as well as pick up information that could come in handy in their bounty hunter work. Sometimes they were accompanying a prisoner aboard Billy's stage.

  Rosa gave Billy Combs' broad chest a playful slap with the back of her hand.

  "And you don't want a hug, eh, Gringo Billy?" Brown eyes danced. "You want the bottle and you know where it is, eh?"

  Billy smacked his lips. "I can smell it from here!" He headed straight for a row of cabinets, from one of which he extracted a whiskey bottle. He partook straight from the bottle, emitted a lengthy sigh and a burp. He rubbed the excess from his wooly moustache with the back of his sleeve. "There. That oughta get me the rest of the way to Contention. But just to make sure." He took another swig before replacing the bottle in the cupboard.

  While this was going on, Rosa warmly seated the travelers at the table.

  J.D. took the opportunity to cast a closer look at the man slumped in the armchair.

  A man of the cloth.

  A preacher.

  The preacher's appearance was dejected and forlorn. There was a fresh, empurpled welt at his left temple. The smell of alcohol hovered about him almost strong enough to be a visible haze.

  J.D. thought, Seems harmless enough.

  He joined the others at the table. He sat next to Kate and Mrs. Mitchell, across from Polly and the whiskey drummer. Billy Combs sat at the head of the table.

  As she set earthen bowls of her tasty stew before each of them, Rosa supplied the conversation in heavily accented English.

  "It is so good to see you. To have good company for a change." Her chin indicated the preacher. "It began this afternoon with him. He walk up to the station. He is muy drunk, no? He say he ride a mule all the way from Yuma. He say the mule lay down and die and he walk until he comes to Rivas Station. I feed him and there he sits. He pass out after his meal! But that is only beginning. Two men ride up. Badmen. They come in all mean and evil. Demand I serve them food."

  Kate asked, "Where was Mike?"

  Mike Rivas stepped inside in time to overhear.

  He said, somewhat sheepishly, "I am taking my siesta in the back. I should have been protecting my Rosa."

  Rosa patted him affectionately on the cheek.

  "You are a good man, Miguel, and a modest man. Let me tell them what happened. The two men—"

  J.D. interjected, "Did they look like brothers?"

  "Si. Hermanos. I see it in their faces."

  Kate swallowed a mouthful of stew.

  She said, "Their name's Waddell. They held up the bank in Horseshoe today."

  Rosa crossed herself. "I knew they were badmen. The preacher, he suddenly leap to his feet and he begin shouting at them. He preaches to them. He tells them they are sinners who will go to hell." She took a breath. "He is right, I think, the preacher, no? The big one—"

  J.D. said, "That would be Lester."

  "He hit the preacher in the head with his gun barrel. The little one—"

  "That would be Skid."

  "He like nasty little boy. He hit the preacher when preacher already falling." Rosa's lower lip curled. "He is mean little cabrone, Skid. The preacher has not moved since. Then they demand I give them all the money and silver in the station."

  Kate said, "Skunks. Them with two sacks full of bank money."

  Billy Combs wore as much stew in his untamed moustache and beard as had gone into his vigorously chomping mouth.

  He muttered, "So what happened?"

  Mike Rivas said, "I happen. The shouting wakes me from my siesta."

  The Army girl, Polly, sniffed and said, "About time, I daresay."

  Rosa stared daggers at her.

  "My Miguel deserve his rest. He work hard."

  Mike patted his wife's arm.

  "She means no harm, meija. Remember, we serve them." He said to the others, "I came in with my shot
gun. Both hammers cocked."

  "When they saw Miguel and his shotgun," said Rosa with a small smile, "they become very polite."

  Mike said, "I walked those banditos out to their horses. I kept the shotgun on them until they were out of sight."

  Rosa spoke to Polly. "You see? I hope your man is as brave as my man."

  The preacher unexpectedly sprung to his feet as if someone has prodded him with a red hot poker. He raised both hands away from his sides, palms up, to shoulder level, crying out at the top of his voice.

  "I was a coward! Beaten down, as I deserved to be. A small atonement for the many sins of The Reverend Jeremiah Erasmus Sullivan."

  Chapter 11

  The preacher man doffed his hat in an exaggerated, theatrical bow, then replaced his broad-brimmed hat slightly askew.

  He continued at the top of his voice, "I once was found but now I'm lost. Aye, a weary pilgrim strayed from the shepherd's flock." His eyes searched the faces at the table, each one turned in his direction. "You should all be in church, I say! Every one of you! Praying for your eternal souls; for the damnation and ruination that has or will befall us all."

  Billy Combs said around a mouthful of stew, "Speak for yourself, pilgrim. I ain't sinnin'. I'm livin'. Sometimes them two ideas get mixed up." Billy sent Kate and J.D. a look. "Reckon we got us a handful here unless Rosa and Mike decide to take him in."

  Billy thought this funny enough to be worthy of a horse laugh, his gaping mouth dribbling stew. Not a pretty sight, nor a pretty sound.

  Mrs. Mitchell regarded the inebriated preacher with sympathy.

  "Sir, you represent the Lord here on earth. I implore you, desist from this unseemly behavior."

  Reverend Sullivan momentarily stumbled before regaining his balance.

  He said, "The Lord does not want me, madam."

  "That is hardly true. Our Lord receives all who would receive Him."

  The Reverend sneered. "He tested me. He offered temptation and I took a bigger bite than Adam could ever take from that apple in the Garden." Again the arms rose. "Oh woe is me, for I fell under Satan's spell and lost everything, never to be regained." His arms dropped. "To be fair, that little redheaded so-and-so was one mighty temptation. The Devil, he knows how to work his game. I am the sorry proof of that. The Devil worked me. He put that...that woman in my congregation. She sat in the front pew every Sunday morning, next to her husband. Making eyes at me as if she was hanging on every word I was preaching but those eyes had something else in 'em too and...I failed the test. When she came to me to seek comfort, she said her husband was no good, cold. She began to cry..."