Saved by the Bullet

by Preston Shires

  If I could get a client to pay his advertising fee in my gazette ahead of time, I would survive, but, in order to secure advertisements, I promised my three first clients they would see proof in print before they paid. It didn’t feel right asking my latest and fourth client, Mary, to be an exception, it would be taking advantage of a friendship. No, this had to be done businesslike. So, I creased my brow appropriately, like Washington looking over his bursar’s books at Valley Forge, and tried inventing stratagems for getting early payments.

  I hadn’t gotten very far in generating a plan when a knock on the door blotted out whatever foggy idea was coalescing in my shapely skull.

  It was Teddy. He apparently had been doing some accounting of his own, and it led him to the conclusion that I had more money than he. Considering this, he suggested a donative in his direction, which earned him a frown from me. If not a donative, he then proffered, perhaps a loan, which earned him my doubting Thomas look. He, not being Christ, was unable to shake my skepticism. Finally, he assumed the voice of a businessman and encouraged me to consider a loan with interest.

  “Aren’t you getting paid for that house you’re putting up on Atlantic Street? Mr. Whitt’s?”

  “Yes, I’ll be paid tomorrow.”

  “That’s what you said three days ago.”

  “Because that’s what I was told three days ago. And I’ll probably be told the same thing tomorrow. It’s going to be a hefty sum whenever ‘tomorrow’ arrives, so that’s why I’m willing to pay interest. It’s just for ten dollars.”

  “Ten dollars? That’s five times my monthly rent and nearly all I have left!”

  He sat down opposite me, shaking his head slowly and rubbing his forehead with the palm of his hand. The spirit of the businessman had left him, and he had resolved back into the form of my little brother.

  I put a hand on his knee. “What’s the money for, Teddy?”

  “It’s to pay for some tools. I’m down fifteen dollars at McPherson’s, but ten should keep him at bay.” He looked up at me much like a catfish out of water, just blinking at me with nowhere to go.

  I lifted my waistband and dug into the bottom of my watch pocket, where I kept a little reserve, and satisfied him. “Thanks, Addy,” he said, jumping up. “Who knows, maybe I’ll get paid this afternoon.”

  Teddy is ultimately an optimist, and I knew Mr. Whitt took advantage of this character flaw by delaying payment.

  * * *

  On my way to the Brownville Beacon office, as I walked out into Main Street, I could see down on the wharf more offloaded furniture. Among the articles were another side-table and lady’s chair. Surely Mr. Muir didn’t need two sets. I would have to inquire, but presently I had other business to attend to.

  I reached Mr. Whitt’s drugstore, hoping to find him at his cash register. I fancied myself a collection agent for Teddy. It would be awkward haranguing the druggist in his place of business, especially with customers present, but Teddy needed an advocate, and Mr. Whitt deserved a lesson. Unfortunately, Mr. Whitt’s shop was closed, though I did observe a notice stuck to the door reminding the citizens of Brownville that there would be an organizational meeting tonight at six pm to prepare for the Fourth of July celebration.

  I knocked a few times on the door without result. I resumed my march toward my office, however, turning off Main Street and toward Atlantic, I spied Mr. Whitt advancing toward me; he had a wad of money in his hands and a cigar protruding from his lips. I observed his tailored suit and imagined the expense it must have incurred. So well outfitted he was, and yet soulless in a way, wholly absorbed in this world’s fancies, his own pleasures. If he were to marry, I would pity his mate.

  Mr. Whitt’s attention was presently so absorbed in counting his bundle of bills that he bumped right into me. I snatched the wad from his hand. He snapped to attention while stepping back a pace, his eyes fixed on me like a Britisher cresting Bunker Hill. I, on the other hand, felt like a Pawnee, who, upon coming home from the hunt without a rabbit to show for his efforts, finds a buffalo all cooked up and waiting for him at the wigwam.

  “Oh, Ho!” I exclaimed with a war whoop. “My dear Mr. Whitt, what have I found here? When I think that my poor brother, and I say this not as a figurative of speech, has just borrowed ten dollars, maybe at interest, while you owe him a week’s worth of work. That, by the way, is more work than I can get out of him in a month.”

  “Miss,” remonstrated Mr. Whitt out of the side of his mouth, while clenching his cigar between his teeth and delicately wriggling his fingers in the direction of my loot, “that’s not your money.” Of a sudden he attempted to retrieve his treasure, but my hand was quicker than his.

  “I know, this actually belongs to Teddy,” I explained, “so I’ll keep fifteen dollars.” I handed back the balance, which was as much. “You can thank God I’m a Christian, for, as you know, I’m reasonable, leaving you half.” Although, if Teddy had been wise enough to inform me of the total amount owed, I would have taken the difference.

  “Mr. Whitt,” I continued, “‘thou shalt not muzzle the ox that treadeth out the corn’, for ‘the workman is worthy of his meat’.” I think I had confused myself a bit, wondering whether that meant an ox would eat meat or not, but I didn’t let this stifle me for long. “You should be ashamed of yourself for not paying what is due, when you demand it of your customers.”

  The old nature quickly got the better of Mr. Whitt. “Well,” he said warmly, “for a pretty young lady, nothing’s too costly.” He attempted to brush my cheek with his hand, but there again I was quicker than he and avoided him.

  “Miss Furlough, I assure you at your next visit, you shall have that perfume on my account.” He tipped his hat in my direction, stepped around me and headed toward Main Street.

  I glared at the back of his fashionable suit for a minute before resuming my jaunt. Consumed by my anger, I could not fix my thoughts, which caused me to stumble blindly ahead, right into Mr. Thompson.

  “Pardon me, Miss,” he said, “I was distracted.”

  I gathered he was, for he too had a sum of money in his hands. I supposed he and Mr. Whitt were headed down to invest in Mr. Brown’s new bank. It’s attracting interest because he’s putting up a building for it on Main Street.

  “No, I’m sure I’m at fault,” I said.

  “Good,” he said looking at the fifteen dollars in my hand, “business is well, I see, and I see you have the money for the rent.”

  With all my necessary expenditures approaching, I could hardly part with the fifteen dollars. “Oh, yes, well…” I stuttered, “this is spoken for. It actually belongs to my brother, Teddy. I’ll pay you as soon as possible.”

  “You know,” he said with both eyebrows raised suspiciously, just like Mother used to do when Father offered to do the dishes. “I have an offer to sell the shop,” he continued, lowering one eyebrow while raising the other higher yet, which Mother had never been able to do, “at seventy-five dollars. So, I hope you’re not too attached to it.”

  I was stunned, and I believe my eyebrows now surpassed his. “Whatever do you mean? We have a deal, we shook on it, Mr. Thompson.” He looked at me indifferently, as might a horse who’s been offered hay, when he has a bucket of oats before him.

  Finally, Mr. Thompson conceded that we did have a deal, but he also pointed out that he was a lawyer, a good one, if that can be said of a lawyer, and nothing in the handshake said he could not sell the cabin. The handshake only confirmed he would rent to me on a month-to-month basis. “But,” he ventured magnanimously, “Nothing forbids me from selling it to you.”

  “Well,” said I, which is always how I begin a sentence when I’m buying time. “Well,” I repeated three more times, “mightn’t I rent from the new owner?”

  “As I understand it, he needs the space.”

  I shook my head disapprovingly. “I can’t believe you’d put me, and all my workers,” which consisted of Teddy and myself, though Teddy was only part time,
“out in the street.”

  “Like all,” he explained, pulling from his pocket a gold watch worth more than the land upon which my office sat, “I’m in need of cash. I shan’t want to gain publicity by having my name entered into the rolls of those owing the city’s tax.”

  I proceeded to my next question. “Who wants to buy the property?”

  He studied his watch for a moment, looked satisfied with the results, and told me, “I’m not at liberty to pronounce his name, but I believe you were in conversation with him but a moment ago.”

  Mr. Whitt, I should have reckoned as much. He was probably just trying to stir me up so I would come talk to him. He would do anything to attract the attention of a single woman, but hadn’t a clue as to how to do it properly. He needed a wife and baby to preoccupy him, but it wouldn’t be me or mine. I looked down the street for sight of his suit, but the spectacle had disappeared. What a sapless, sinewless, hopeless, selfish man, I thought.

  “For what possible business reason,” I asked Mr. Thompson, “should Mr. Whitt want that property?”

  “Like I said, I suppose he wishes to expand?”

  “Expand into a little out of the way shack where he’ll get no business?”

  Mr. Thompson said nothing.

  “Well,” I concluded, “you’ll have to give me time. I can’t come up with fifty dollars out of thin air. Good-day, Mr. Thompson.”

  “And good-day to you, Miss Furlough,” he said pocketing his watch. “You’ve got a week or two to think about it. Mr. Whitt has yet to put any purchase money down on it. Mind you it’s seventy-five dollars, as you well know, but I’ll let you have it for fifty, if you allow me space for an advertisement in your publication equal to the difference. Some good work about my own person in regards to electing a justice of the peace.”

  One always speaks of conniving females, but I suppose whoever came up with that observation had never met a lawyer.

  CHAPTER 4

  The head-quarters of the Brownville Beacon consisted of one shabby room and a side kitchen, complete now with stove, chair, and gueridon, set on a sharply sloping hillside. The printing press stood in the left half of the room as one entered from the north door, with Teddy’s trunk behind it, within which I commanded him to dispose of all of his belongings each morning, and my desk with chair occupied the other half. The chair, hard and rough, was a perfect match for my desk. I sat down, put a sheet before my eyes, and dipped my quill in ink.

  In my first edition, I hoped to provide advice, entertainment, and news. I began with advice:

  To bachelors: Is there one that supposes he was created for the purpose of using up woolen manufactures, cigars, and tailors? If he does, he is soulless, and when he dies, will he simply be annihilated, rot in dust, and turn up in time as a part of the terra firma of a cabbage orchard? Man’s destiny is to govern—to rule—to command…every great man has, in the midst of his greatness, a part of his time devoted to the culture of a wife and to the tending of babies. So, ye bachelors, ye that have not withered into sapless, sinewless, hopeless selfishness, brush up the charms of mind and person, that are wasting and fading, and make one grand attempt for blissful days, comfortable nights, posterity, and an honest future.

  My inspiration was broken by hollering and cheering down below on Main Street. Looking out the kitchen window, I could see dust rising in the west, and it was traveling down toward the Missouri. I knew it had nothing to do with the Pawnee, because I could guess what was going on simply by interpreting the mostly impious ejaculations: It was a gang of young men riding fast horses through our town, driving men and women off the street, and putting the lives of our children in peril. However in the world were we to become a civilized city, and a beacon for proper folk, I knew not...unless we brought an end to raucous and juvenile behavior.

  I returned to my desk and drew forth another clean sheet and penned an open letter to the Nebraska Advertiser, calling for ordinances. A twenty-five dollar fine for horse racing, just like for rioting, and another fine for the use of vulgar language in public, to be levied on the parents of disrespectful children. I finished with a flurry: Fathers of Brownville, hear the remonstrations of womanhood, or you will be left to yourselves, and ‘be a story and a by-word through the world,’ to be shunned by every emigrant who calls herself a lady.

  I set my first epistle in a box labeled ‘for print’ on the table. Teddy would take care of them in due course. He had improved as a pressman since the first attempt at an edition, when the end result was a newspaper with bold enticing titles followed by words written backwards. Since that day, he had reclaimed himself by punctually delivering newspapers from the steamers: The Saint Joseph Gazette, the Kansas Herald, the Saint Louis Republican, just to name a few. I had to admit that I’d come to depend on him.

  I sat back looking at the box satisfied. My thoughts then turned toward the Friend murders, and I recapitulated what I knew: A family, all women and children but two, killed in cold blood, then their home set aflame over their bodies to hide the deed. Someone came upon their charred corpses the next day. The coroner deduced they had been murdered. Suspects immediately rounded up, released, but quickly rounded up again, judged, and hanged. All within a fortnight. The chief of the gang, George Lincoln, claimed that some smug man gave him the idea by saying there were no lawmen of any account in Nebraska Territory and that “where there’s no witnesses, there’s no crime.” I paused for a moment and sat up straight, pondering Lincoln’s other comment: “He gave me the means to do it.”

  Whatever could this mean? Did he pay him? Did he give him a firearm?

  I mulled this over a while, staring blankly at the door. I couldn’t have looked too different from Bessy back home, ruminating on some choice grass while studying the motionless horizon. But unlike Bessy, my ruminating resulted in an inspiration: I can understand the motive of the gang. They expected to find money, lots of it; but what was the motive of the instigator? Nothing indicated that George Lincoln and his cohorts were going to share the loot with anyone.

  This called for yet another sheet of paper, upon which I jotted down two words: Instigator, Motive.

  I then realized it was nearly six pm, and there was a meeting to attend. I took up my second missive to the Nebraska Advertiser and made an envelope for it.

  I arrived at the July Fourth planning meeting in good order, though narrowly. A certain William Ruth had blocked my way unintentionally as he enjoyed an altercation, with an Andrew Kountze, over the question as to who had the most legitimate claim to a particular quarter section of land. Each seemed to have established some sort of squatter’s rights. Words, however, failed to resolve the issue, and Mr. Kountze found it more effective to send Mr. Ruth in my direction with a shove. As a gesture, which I thought at the moment to be in favor of Mr. Ruth, I shoved Mr. Ruth’s body back from whence it came. This apparently caught Mr. Ruth by surprise as he made no attempt to counter Mr. Kountze’s next maneuver, which came in the form of a fist to Mr. Ruth’s smallish nose. I had the presence of mind to save Mr. Ruth from any further blow by stepping aside as his body returned once again to me. His fall was cushioned by his spine. He looked up at me and I observed his smallish nose growing considerably in size and color. I stepped away, and the last thing I heard was Mr. Kountze saying something pedagogical. “And let that be a lesson to you,” to be exact.

  * * *

  The meeting was held in the cabin currently serving as Brownville’s foremost schoolhouse and church. As I entered, I spotted Mr. Furnas, who caught sight of me at the same moment. It’s a blessing to be born without the ability to read lips, because as he mumbled something to Sheriff Coleman, the lawman quickly turned his head in my direction like a weather vane slapped by a gust from the frozen north. I rallied my dignity and made a beeline toward the pair, that is, as best a bee can do without wings. There were chairs and benches to circumnavigate but I reached the hive. The two drones smiled politely, although the Sheriff did so anemically. I stret
ched out my gloved hand that held the envelope. Mr. Furnas graciously took it.

  “An invitation to your wedding, perhaps?” offered the sheriff.

  He was forever hoping some man would take me in charge, but I think he had in mind a taskmaster like they cultivate in the cotton fields of the South rather than the gracious Mr. Davenport.

  “How could you think I would offer such an invitation to Mr. Furnas without equally addressing you, Sheriff? Although, upon consideration, I think the letter will be of interest to you both, if you deign to do your duty as I’m sure you do.”

  Mr. Furnas turned the envelope over once or twice, as if trying to find which end to tear open. Satisfied that any side or end would serve the purpose, he extracted its contents and perused them. I saw a small curl taking shape on the left side of his mouth. It was in the same shape of a curl often seen on Teddy’s face whenever he finds a solution to some conundrum that’s been badgering his mind for a day or two.

  He folded up the letter, turned to Sheriff Coleman, and with a nod in my direction murmured mysteriously, “I’m now more certain than before that our little issue has been resolved.”

  Sheriff Coleman’s eyes darted in my direction. “You really think it wise?”

  “I think it genius,” came the reply.

  Having said this, the pair departed before I could inquire as to what was wise and ingenious. At the same time people began populating our little public venue and Stewart Winslow courteously placed himself beside me.

  “Have you seen Teddy about?” I asked, looking around as I did.