Saved by the Bullet

by Preston Shires

  DEDICATION

  This novel is dedicated to

  my great-great-great grandfather, Wyllys Hill,

  and those like him, who brought the plough

  to Nebraska Territory and transformed the wild prairies

  and rolling hills into the farms that now

  supply much of the world with its daily bread.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  I thank my wife, Sylvie Shires, for her enthusiastic support

  and for reading through my final draft and making thoughtful

  suggestions to improve the manuscript. I also extend my

  gratitude to my granddaughter, Kaliantha Shires, for

  meticulously reading through the rough draft and identifying

  unclear passages and grammatical mishaps.

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and

  incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are

  used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales,

  or person, living or dead, is coincidental.

  Copyright 2019, Preston Shires. All Rights Reserved

  Cover designed by Julius Broqueza

  www.prestonshires.com

  “ Having the last word is one of the tokens of victory. “

  Catharine Maria Sedgwick

  Hope Leslie

  CHAPTER 1

  Summer of 1857

  Being on the receiving end of a bullet makes one think about a lot of things. About the brevity of life for one, but that’s just a thought in passing. Thinking about who sent the bullet, that’s a more enduring one. I pondered this well and came up with a solution that has not humored everyone.

  For you to understand my conclusion, of course, I must begin at the beginning, shortly after I found my heart entwined in the embrace of Mr. Cameron Davenport, my beau. Although he’s not tall, dark, and handsome, he is tall enough, fair in hair and eye, and increasingly handsome.

  His profession is known to few, but assuming my future grandchildren to be my readers, I doubt that it produce much harm to announce it in these pages. He is an engineer of sorts, working on a railroad that moves sable passengers from the deep South northward, up into the free air of Canada.

  I understood that if his employ became known to others, it would mean danger not only for him but for his loved ones as well. And he professed his devotion to me as unsurpassed; so, I sensed my life would not be without peril.

  The adventure that led to the bullet began innocently enough, out on the porch of the Nebraska House, the nearest thing we, in the nascent frontier town of Brownville, have that resembles a hotel. It was the seventeenth of June, a warm and pleasant Wednesday, and I sat there, alternately enjoying the flow of the wide and muddy Missouri, with its steady current transporting the occasional tree trunk, and the story of Hope Leslie in my lap—she’s a fictional character of Puritan pedigree whose sister weds among the Indians. Fiction the story may be to others, but for me, whose Aunt Adeline, my namesake who shares my red flowing tresses, lives no doubt beyond the pale of civilization as an honored squaw, it is relevant, and therefore full of truth. She was kidnapped in her youth, and I dedicate myself, when time allows, to discovering my Aunt Adeline’s whereabouts, and I feel that out here in Nebraska Territory, I draw closer and closer to her.

  But then, as I had sunk back into the tale of Hope Leslie, there arose a whinny that startled me and caused me to lift my eyes toward the street before the wharf. Little Dermot Brightly, who couldn’t have been more than a year over ten, led a pony toward Main Street. The druggist, a Mr. Thomas Whitt, who fancied the little boy’s elder sister, but not elder by many years in my estimation, stopped him and enquired about the horse.

  “Oh, he ain’t mine, sir,” Dermot explained. “He don’t belong to nobody. He be estrayed.”

  The conversation grabbed my attention, which made me study the horse in some detail. It was a strawberry roan, with a star on its forehead, and a roached mane. I guessed it to be younger than the boy by about three years. Little did I know at the time that this pony would help me unravel the mystery surrounding my would-be assassin. And how could I have known? The attempt on my life had not yet been essayed.

  “How’d you come about to have him?” asked Mr. Whitt.

  “Sheriff Coleman gave him to me to take up to the livery stable. He’s gonna hold him there ‘till the owner shows up to claim him.”

  As I was in earshot, I called out to Mr. Whitt. “Well that’s mighty nice of the Sheriff to offer his livery stable to keep the lost soul.”

  “Isn’t it, though,” said Mr. Whitt as he quickly abandoned the boy and stepped in my direction.

  “Of course, the Sheriff will have to charge boarding fees if the owner wish to reclaim his animal.”

  “Nothing gets past you, does it, Miss Furlough?” he asked rhetorically upon reaching the porch and doffing his hat.

  “Or close to me, I would hope.”

  “Not with that beau of yours keeping you from enjoying your youth and fine looks.”

  I really could not stomach the druggist’s manners; they were as distasteful as his medicines. So, I suggested, as I noted the pony yanking back on the rope attached to the halter, he help the boy out lest the horse become the leader of the pair.

  “Oh, Dermot can handle a pony, Miss. I was wondering….”

  I cut his wonderings by saying, “I suppose he’ll manage, especially with his sister coming down the street to help.”

  At this pronouncement, our town druggist turned sharply in the direction of the pony. “I reckon I oughta lend a hand,” he said stiffly, as if his mind were disconnected from his vocal cords, “that little pony’s got a will of its own.” And with that said, he jaunted off to the rescue.

  I concluded Mr. Whitt’s own willpower was very weak when confronted with a feminine presence. It is one of the duties of womanhood to rebuff male weaknesses and educate men that they might live useful and purposeful lives. It does seem, does it not, that too few women take their God-given role seriously enough.

  As journalist, editor, and owner of a promising newspaper, the Brownville Beacon, I felt I had a platform from which I could harangue the masses and create a polite order out of a frontier chaos.

  Imagining my well-written prose for my upcoming first edition, I espied on the wharf Sammy and his crew unloading cargo from the Alonzo Child. The items that caught my eye were a red-cushioned side chair and a sizeable and well-sculpted side table, perhaps of cherrywood. These seemed to be necessary articles of business for a female editor.

  From the corner of my eye I caught the approach of a familiar face, my brother Teddy, whose practical nature is balanced out by a tendency to take cross cuts, usually inspired by a desire to finish a job before it starts: What some people might refer to as laziness. But as he is generally my only resource, I depend on him, and under my guiding spirit, I do believe he progresses in the right direction.

  He noticed what attracted my attention, and his hazel eyes fell on me as he said, “You’ve got your mind on furniture, Sis.”

  “I can’t imagine writing my stories on anything less becoming than a side table like that one.”

  “You’ll have to be quick, then,” he said running his fingers through his curly hair, which never did decide to be either quite red or quite brown. “Those things are headed up to Mr. Muir’s abode. Should be safe there, seeing how he’s now in the business of selling fire insurance.”

  “Is he now? I thought he ran the Nebraska Settlement Company.”

  “Well, nearly everybody who’s anybody is a shareholder in the Nebraska Settlement Company. That doesn’t keep Mr. Furnas from being the editor of the Nebraska Advertiser, or Reverend Wood from
being a doctor of both body and soul.”

  My friend, Katherine Sturwell, or Kitty, who does up rooms and minds meals at the Nebraska House, and who stayed with me at my house until the hotel offered her a small room free of charge, came out on the porch to greet Teddy.

  Kitty is one of those rare beauties whose dark hair and eyes, that might make a stolid woman appear severe, are sharpened into gaiety by her natural vivacity. Imagine the true and faithful Athena filled with the joy of a playful Greek nymph. Kitty and Teddy are very dear friends, but each has another’s heartbeat. Teddy is partial to Mary Turner, the milliner, and Kitty to Mr. Stewart Winslow, entrepreneur.

  “What exactly does the Nebraska Settlement Company do?” asked Kitty, unconsciously twirling a loose strand of her brunette hair around her index.

  “They invent towns,” I informed her, “and then charge people to live in them.”

  Teddy looked at Kitty with one of those soft smiles that betrays a thought. I knew what amused him. How could Kitty be so pretty on the one hand, with her brunette hair highlighted against her ivory skin and her beaming dark eyes, and so clueless on the other. It wasn’t a mocking smile, because Kitty was not dull witted. Rather she just didn’t pay attention to the things that interested her least and wasn’t afraid to admit her ignorance.

  “You do know that Stewart hopes to buy shares in the company,” Teddy finally said.

  “I suppose so, he does so like owning land.”

  “Yes,” I agreed, “but only until another man comes along who likes owning land twice as much and is willing to pay the difference.”

  Kitty gave me a knowing look. She knew she had perhaps the best catch along the banks of the Missouri. Stewart was a proper man. No need for an etiquette book to train him. Like some of the clothing you now find in stores, he came ready-made.

  Speaking of Stewart Winslow sufficed to bring out the man in person. He appeared in the doorway and acknowledged me with a kindly nod. “Miss Sturwell has finished her duties, I understand.” He came beside her and she slipped her arm under his elbow. “Why don’t we all retire to my . . . ” he paused. “I would say home, but I don’t know if my little cabin qualifies as such, and not just because it is deficient in pillars and lawn, but because it lacks a mistress as of yet.” He said this with a kind and suffused gaze that he bestowed upon his beloved.

  Mr. Winslow’s cabin was a temporary structure put together last week. Behind it, he was leveling out the lot and hoped to have a regular house standing tall by fall. No one wants to face a Nebraska winter in a windswept cabin.

  The anticipated marriage would take place back in Saint Louis in mid-August, both hailed from the city, but the couple insisted on making their home on the frontier, where profits are as great as the risks.

  We all made it up to Stewart’s cabin and settled down around a lone table, and as Kitty discovered there were coals yet alive in the stove in the summer kitchen, an enclosed back porch to be more precise, she offered to boil up some coffee.

  Stewart began our conversation. “So, when is the debut for your newspaper, Miss Furlough?”

  “Soon, maybe in a week or two. As you know, my original idea was to have a story about Mr. Davenport’s doings, but I’ve dropped that notion.”

  “I don’t doubt it, seeing that you two seem to have buried the hatchet and extended the hand of friendship, a most cozy one by all observances.”

  “Yes, well, it’s hard to confess one’s error of judgment, but we Christians must. And I believe I was of the wrong opinion about him formerly. He’s not the criminal I imagined. Quite the contrary.”

  “Still is a mysterious figure.”

  Teddy, who knew Cameron’s business, began to defend my beau, but when he saw my eyebrow raised, he desisted.

  “Well,” said Kitty, putting saucers and cups on the table, “I think you should publish a lady’s gazette rather than a newspaper like what Mr. Furnas puts out. Really, there’s hardly room for two such papers, and his, as would be yours, is so full of boredom. The whole first page is but the doings of foreign powers and the like. There’s nothing much for the ladies, and I believe we need our own news.”

  Stewart looked up at his beloved a bit surprised. “You know Addy is determined to stand shoulder to shoulder with Mr. Furnas. I hardly think she would, well, would want to leave the field to the likes of him.”

  Some time passed before I realized everyone was looking at me. Kitty had touched a nerve. I hadn’t any deep-seated ambition to compete with Mr. Furnas. To put out a single edition and tease him by challenging some of his wayward views, yes; but to carry on such an enterprise week after week, no. I was not one of those Seneca women calling out for equality with men. I am not a man. And for the first time I realized the flaw in my newspaper enterprise. Kitty spoke truly. I needed a woman’s magazine so that I might encourage those of my kind to take on their responsibilities in the reformation of society.

  “Sis?” Teddy said studying my face. “I can see your mind’s at work, but I can’t see what the work is.”

  I turned to Kitty. “You’re perfectly right.”

  “Well, I never.” I heard this from Stewart’s side of the table.

  “Yes,” I insisted. “I can still call it the Brownville Beacon, but it will be a gazette for the ladies. Once a month.”

  Stewart repeated another “Well, I never.”

  “Nonetheless,” I informed them, “I shall still have an investigatory article squeezed in between those of instruction and edification.”

  Kitty looked confused. “You mean like that murder story you’ve been going on about?”

  “Which one’s that?” asked Stewart.

  “You know,” Kitty explained on my behalf, “the Friend murders that happened a year ago. Just down on the bottom. Mother, father, son, two children, infant, and a seventeen-year-old maiden. All massacred in their cabin, then set afire. They say a Mormon was in on it.”

  “I can’t see the interest in that,” remarked Stewart. “They caught the villains and gave them their due.”

  “I don’t think that’s the whole story,” I said in a whisper.

  Teddy cocked his head, then looked around. “Why are you whispering?”

  I hadn’t the faintest idea why I was whispering, but I continued in the same tone, “Like I told Kitty, a reverend and his wife told me about a week ago there was more to the murder than meets the eye. Those where his very words. He said the Sheriff rounded up the suspects quickly, got a confession out of them, and then, just as quickly, a sentencing by the judge.”

  Teddy objected. “Why just because something’s done quickly doesn’t mean it isn’t done right.”

  “I would expect you to say something of the sort,” I retorted.

  Stewart sat back in his chair pleasantly, as if surveying a plantation in the deep South, his cravat well starched and the chain of his pocket watch visible on his vest. He asked, “Where did you meet this reverend and his missus?”

  “I met Reverend Cannon on the stage, coming back from Bellevue.”

  “What were you doing up there?”

  “Gathering information about our aunt,” I said looking at Teddy, “from the Indian mission there. I think she might be among the Pawnee.”

  Stewart kept to the subject of the Friend murders. He knew how to remain focused, and I appreciated this simple quality given to men. Of course, no one could run a household with such a limitation.

  “Now,” he suggested diplomatically, “I wouldn’t want to discourage you from doing what you will, but I wouldn’t want you wasting your time either. But really, the word of a reverend is of consequence coming from the pulpit, but coming from a stagecoach? He was just making conversation, no doubt. Simple as that, I wouldn’t bother my head about it.”

  I felt that silence was the best defense, and I performed it well with my lips tightly drawn in against each other for as long as I could hold my breath. “That’s just like a man!” I exploded. That’s generally what g
oing silent results in. “Trying to keep things simple just so he doesn’t have to think. Well I’m no man, and justice must be served. The whole plate.”

  Kitty gave me a sidelong glance, the way she does when she actually puts her mind to work, and invariably with result. “I know what’s got you ticking like a seven-day clock. It’s because that Judge Kinney who was riding with you in the stage told you to leave the story alone. That’s what’s got you wound up.”

  “I applaud you, Addy,” said Mr. Winslow, conceding with a chuckle. “You just let us know how we can serve you in this noble endeavor, and we’ll be at your side.” Kitty did oblige him by clapping and uttering further words of encouragement.

  I judge this is how you separate true friends from the fair-weather variety. True friends, perhaps like Phaedra’s nurse in Seneca’s play, come over to your side, whether they agree with you or not, when they see you’re committed.

  I knew I had Teddy’s support, whether he wanted to give it or not. Such is family.

  * * *

  On Thursday morning, the eighteenth of June, I was awakened by the hammering going on in town. At the rate they’re pounding away, I thought, we’ll have another fifty homes and businesses built before the year’s out. The carpenters’ zeal kept the birds flittering and chirping about, continually surprised by the novel activities going on in their ancient riverside paradise. Nature was obligated to give way to our Manifest Destiny.

  I sat up in bed, placing my pillow behind my back and lifting the Bible from my nightstand. There is a ritual to facing the new sun, and though I am not superstitious, it is best to follow it. A dutiful reading from the Good Book and a heartfelt prayer are necessary preludes to a successful day. Mind you, it doesn’t mean you’ll achieve your earthly goals, for God has the power of veto, but if you exclude him from your mind, you will have no progress at all, here or hereafter.

  The next ritual is more mundane: make my bed. This done, I possess a sense of accomplishment, and have the day under control, at least for the moment.