(Lots of talking in this episode. Lots of action coming soon.)

“Holy shit, you’re awake,” Doctor Elroy said. He put down the small bottle he was carrying and rushed to Cecil’s side. “I didn’t think you were gon’ make it.”

            Cecil squinted to see the doctor in the dim light filtering through the thin curtains. “Ah, Doc, why am I here?”

            “You don’t remember?” The doctor checked Cecil’s leg. “We went out to find Floyd for killing Rufus. We shot him dead, but not before he got you in the leg pretty good. You passed out and we brought you back here. That was three weeks ago.”

            “Damn! I’ve been out for three weeks?” Cecil pushed at the bed, struggling to get up. He got to a sitting position before he felt dizzy and Doctor Elroy stopped him.

            “Don’t you dare try and get up right now. You haven’t moved for three weeks, there’s no way your going to be able to walk,” the doctor said.

            “You don’t understand, Doctor,” Cecil said, trying to swing his legs over the side of the bed. “Three weeks in this town without a sheriff, Maddox will have everyone at gun point.”

            Doctor Elroy sat in the chair next to the bed. He looked Cecil in the eyes, “Sheriff, you have no idea.” Cecil, surprised by the doctor’s grave tone, stopped trying to escape the bed. “The day after you got shot Charlotte disappeared and Maddox went crazy. He sent men to find her and when they came back empty handed he killed ‘em. He broke Rebecca’s nose trying to beat out Charlotte’s whereabouts. He even came here trying to wake you up to get it. I had to chase him out with your gun.”

            Cecil saw the revolver and his sheriff’s star on the bedside table next to him. “Mr. Brady?”

            “I don’t know. His place was ransacked last week and he hasn’t been seen since. I think Maddox killed him too.” The doctor stood up and looked out the window above Cecil’s bed.

            The sliver of sky Cecil could see from the bed was darker than when he woke up. He guessed it would be dark within the hour.

            Doctor Elroy pulled the gauzy curtains closed. “I know where she is. She’s been sneaking back into town to get food from me,” he said. “She’s also been checking on you every time she comes.”

            “Where is she?” Cecil asked.

            “Oh, right,” the doctor shook his head sharply, “She’s been hiding out in Floyd’s old shack. I guess she figured Maddox would never look for her out there, considering he killed Rufus and all.” He glanced at the window again and stepped to the other side of the room. “In fact, she should be coming back tonight for supplies.” He grabbed a sack and put a few things inside. “Hmm,” he said sharply, “I think I have an idea.”

            Cecil watched as the doctor put down the sack and rummaged through a closet. The doctor pulled out a pair of shabby looking crutches and brought them to Cecil. “I thought you didn’t want me to move, Doc.”

            The doctor smiled, “Once Maddox finds out you’re awake he’s gon’ be here with a dozen men to find out what you know or kill you. We need to get you out of here. I bet you could ride a horse behind someone, as long as you can hold on.”

            Cecil’s arms felt weak and he didn’t know if he had the strength to ride. “Are you suggesting Charlotte brings me to Floyd’s shack?”

            The doctor tossed Cecil a shirt and a pair of pants, “Put those on.”

  12:46 pm  |   February 18 2011   |  4 notes  

Oh, hello there

Letter Y

I didn’t see you

Behind letter X

Are you the

Least loved vowel

Or the most

Loved consonant?

Either way

You are my favorite

  6:42 am  |   January 18 2011  

The gravel crunched as Charlotte shifted her weight.  Wind blew dust into the hole in the ground in front of her.  She sobbed quietly as men hired by Pastor Thurman shoveled dirt from a pile into the hole.  Each rock made a hollow sound as it hit Rufus’s coffin.  The sounds sent Charlotte into hysterics.  She grabbed Rebecca next to her and wept into the younger woman’s blonde curls. 

     Charlotte felt the pastor’s reassuring hand on her shoulder.  Pastor Thurman’s eulogy was short but beautiful.  He’d spoken about Rufus’s regular attendance to services and his seeking to glorify the Lord everyday.  Pastor Thurman read Rufus’s favorite passage, “It is of the Lord’s mercies that we are not consumed, because his compassions fail not. They are new every morning: great is thy faithfulness.”

     Rebecca led Charlotte back to the saloon.  Charlotte heard only the sounds of soil being shoveled.

     That morning, when she had gone to say goodbye to Rufus, Charlotte had seen Sheriff Cecil at the doctor’s.  She knew he’d gone to find Floyd, but she hadn’t heard he was hurt.  Doctor Elroy had wrapped one leg, but blood was soaking through the bandages.  The doctor seemed doubtful of the sheriff’s chances.

     At the saloon Charlotte saw Maddox at the bar.  He was talking loudly with the bartender, crude jokes for all to hear.  Disgusted, she pulled out of Rebecca’s arms and marched up to Maddox.  “It’s your fault he’s dead, and now the sheriff’s going to die too,” she said.

     “Well, all the better for business.  You’re not looking so nice today,” Maddox said.  He leaned in and lowered his voice,  “Maybe you should go clean yourself up before you get to work.”

     Adrenaline rushed through Charlotte’s chest.  She slapped Maddox at hard as she could, knocking him off the stool he sat on.  “You’re trash,” she said.

     Maddox stared at the woman in front of him for a moment, confusion and rage in his eyes.  He stood up straight, brushed off his vest, grabbed Charlotte by the arm, and dragged her to her room.  He opened the door and threw Charlotte inside.  She stumbled into the room and tripped over a chair, catching herself on her bed before she hit the ground.

     Maddox slammed the door and Charlotte heard the jingle of keys followed by the lock shutting.  She heard footsteps fade and Maddox’s voice yelling some muffled profanity.  Tears already dotted the floor in front of her as she sat on the edge of the bed.  Her arm burned where Maddox had grabbed her.

     The sounds of townsmen grew outside the door as the day passed.  The day slipped away into night.  Charlotte heard other women working for Maddox in the rooms upstairs.  She felt dirty and claustrophobic.

     The sounds of the brothel eventually died around Charlotte.  People must have been asleep.  She looked out her window.  The faintest touch of purple lined the eastern edge of a black sky.  She gathered all her resolve and decided she had to get out.  She took her knife out from under her mattress, which she kept in case any clients got too violent, and tucked it in her belt.  She laced her riding boots and put on her coat.  Fear struck her as she lifted the vanity chair.  She didn’t know what would happen if she was caught, but she knew she needed to leave.

     The chair passed easily through the window.  Glass showered the ground as the chair crashed on the street.  Charlotte heard shuffling in the room above hers.  She grabbed the blanket off her bed and threw it over the glass that stuck out from the window frame.  She slid down the wall.  The horses of the men still inside the brothel were tied up around the corner.

     Charlotte picked the one that was lean and fast looking.  She untied the horse, jumped onto the saddle and rode south.

  1:19 pm  |   January 14 2011  

Dancing With You

I remember dancing with you.  One hand

on your back and the other holding yours

in the air.  The bar was full and the band

was playing rockabilly music.  Hours

might have passed while we were on the dance floor,

but my watch stopped and I lost track of time.

The song was over.  “My feet are so sore,”

You said, but I knew the truth.  In your mind

we were already step-step-rockstepping

to the next song, and with a gentle push

on your back you were already spinning,

jumping, and laughing.  The drums, with a rush

     of rock and roll, started the next song and

     we were gone. The best dance I’ve ever had.

  4:28 pm  |   January 4 2011  

     The furor of Kansas City filled Cecil’s ears.  A carriage swept by, nearly hitting the wagon loaded with everything Cecil and his family owned.  He had told his wife, Martha, that the city was too fast, too hectic a place to raise a family.  After months of arguing, Martha changed her mind, or gave up fighting, and let Cecil buy a wagon.

     Their daughters, Ruth and Esther, ran around the wagon.  Cecil grabbed them both and placed them in the wagon’s seat.  “You girls excited?  We’re about to have the adventure of our lives.” The girls giggled. “It’s going to be tough though and Daddy is going to need you two to be tough young women, ok?”

     “Yes Daddy,” the girls said.  They hopped down from the wagon and continued their game of tag.

*   *   *

     Blue plains stretched in all directions.  The moon shone dimly on the wagons.  Cecil and his family had joined in with a wagon train of about fifteen families, entrepreneurs, and men looking to find gold in the western territories.  The riding had gone well for the first two weeks, no sickness or quarreling until this night.

     One of the men with prospecting equipment in his wagon had taken to drinking.  As the night wore on he got louder and eventually the others in the train began asking him to quiet down.

     Cecil sat with his family around the campfire they’d started next to their wagon.  Martha held the girls next to her.  Esther, the younger of the girls, whimpered something Cecil couldn’t hear.  Martha pulled her in closer, kissed the girl on her forehead, and looked worriedly at her husband.

     The fight started quickly.  Cecil couldn’t see the scuffle from that side of their wagon.  He stood up and grabbed his rifle from the under the wagon seat.  He looked between their wagon and the wagon in front of theirs, hoping to catch a glimpse of the situation.  Cecil could only see shadows dancing on the grass.

     The sound of fighting grew louder, two men panting and grunting.  Cecil heard the drunk man yelling curses at his opponent.  Cecil’s wagon shook with the weight of a man being thrown against it.  Cecil still couldn’t see anything.  The crack of gunfire rang in the plains.  The girls screamed behind Cecil.

     Cecil jumped over the yoke between the horses and his wagon and found a man lying dead and another struggling to stand up and put a revolver back in its holster.

     Cecil grabbed his rifle by the barrel and hit the drunk man in the jaw with the stock.  The man fell limp on the ground.  Cecil checked to see that he was still breathing, then tied his hands and feet.  He picked the man up and tossed him into the man’s wagon with his prospecting equipment.

     One of the young men who was watching the fight offered to sit with the man and make sure he didn’t cause any more trouble.

     Cecil walked back to his wagon.  No one was weeping over the body.  Cecil thought he was probably traveling alone and wondered if he’d had any family.

     He walked to his wife and daughters and sat with them around the fire.

*   *   *

     A few weeks later and the train was a day or so from a small town called Braxton.  The trail had turned from plains to wooded foothills.  The nights got colder and the trail got rougher.  Three people had died from sickness, two of them children, which worried Cecil, but there were no more fights.  The man who had gotten drunk disappeared one night into the forest.

     Cecil woke up to the morning sun shining through the trees on his face.  The smell of fire meant breakfast was waiting.  He opened his eyes and uncurled himself from his blanket.  He sat up and before his eyes adjusted he knew something was not right.  He couldn’t hear the normal morning sounds of the other families, the breakfast cooking, the children playing.

     Cecil stood up and rubbed his eyes.  The whole wagon train was on fire.  Every wagon was either covered with flames or knocked over.  Horses were lying dead still lashed in their yokes.  Children screamed behind Cecil.  He ran to his wagon, which was almost an inferno, and couldn’t find his family.  He grabbed his rifle before it caught on fire.

     Cecil turned around and looked for his wife and children amid the chaos.  People were pulling others from burning wagons, running for the forest, or trying to save whatever they could from the fires.

     He remembered that the girls had stayed with the Albert family that night.  They had made friends with their two little girls and wanted to tell ghost stories.  Cecil ran to the Alberts’ wagon.

     The wagon was already a pile of ash.  Mr. Albert stood helpless, tears streaking through the soot on his face.  He turned to Cecil as he ran up next to him.

     “I’m so sorry,” Mr. Albert began weeping, “I couldn’t save them.”  He fell to his knees in the dirt and his back shook with sobbing.  He had a poppet that one of the Albert girls had made for Ruth in his hand.

     “Where’s Martha?” Cecil asked.  Mr. Albert sobbed uncontrollably on the ground.  Cecil picked him up and shook him. “Where’s my wife?”

     “She ran to the woods when she couldn’t save the children,” Mr. Albert said.  “She went that way,” he pointed.

     Cecil ran to the woods.  “Martha!” he called, “Martha, where are you?”

     He ran for several yards into the woods before he heard a muffled scream to his left.  He turned and called again.  Another muffled scream and shuffling sounds came from behind a bush.

     Cecil rushed around the bush.  He saw the man who had gotten drunk weeks before on the ground over Martha.  She saw Cecil and struggled harder against her assailant.  He held his hand over her mouth and shushed her until he noticed she was looking over his shoulder.

     He glanced back and Cecil saw a smirk when he realized who it was behind him.  He reached for something at his belt and Cecil shot him in the head.  The man fell dead and rolled off to the side of Martha.

     Martha whimpered but didn’t get up.  Cecil saw the handle of a knife sticking out from her abdomen.  Martha’s yellow dress turned red around the knife.  Her face grew pale.  “Cecil,” she whispered.

     Cecil dropped to his knees next to her.  He kissed her.  “I love you,” he said.  He held her for hours after she stopped breathing.

*   *   *

     That afternoon Cecil took his rifle, found a horse from the wagon train, and began riding for Braxton.  He slept on the ground that night and the next morning he rode out of the hills and saw the town in the distant desert.

  12:41 pm  |   December 31 2010  

Chopping Wood

-

Without this work we

Will freeze through winter

Our warmth hides

In these logs asunder

Cords of muscles shout

In discord with the wood

Each piece falls

To a different note

A symphonic cacophony

-

Seeking sleep in the cedar

The blade sinks through the grain

Breaking it free

I deny its rest

There’s more wood to chop

-

Stepping back

Piles of pine at my feet

Lines of lumber loaded

Longing for a light

To sacrifice itself as

We watch it burn

My back burns

Long before the wood does

What satisfaction

Is the air in my lungs

And a job well done

  12:42 pm  |   December 28 2010  

Charlotte tucked a loose strand of hair behind her ear.  She hadn’t slept at all the night before and she felt the exhaustion pressing on her eyes.  She stood up from her vanity, brushed the wrinkles out of her dress and walked out of her room.

            She crossed the casino floor, which was always empty in the morning, to Maddox’s office.  She stepped inside without knocking.

            “I’m going to the doc’s,” she said.

            Maddox glanced up from his accounting book, “Fine.”  He continued writing as if she wasn’t in the room, “Be back before the evening rush.”

            Charlotte left the office and walked toward the front door.  She saw Rebecca watching her from across the room.  Charlotte had taken a liking to Rebecca when Rebecca first came to Braxton.  An orphan, her parents likely murdered by the Sioux on their way west, the seventeen year old had nowhere to go except to work for Maddox.  Charlotte convinced Maddox to hire her as a serving wench and keep her out of the bedrooms until she was older, but that was a year and a half ago already.  Rebecca was almost twenty, the age Charlotte started working Maddox’s ‘business’.  The men in the town had begun noticing Rebecca.  Charlotte was afraid for her.

            Charlotte waved a “Don’t worry, I’m fine,” wave even though she didn’t feel it.  She walked into the morning sun.  The brightness overwhelmed her and for a moment she was lost in the light and noise of the town.  Her eyes adjusted and she walked down the street.

            The way to Doctor Elroy’s went past Mr. Brady’s dining hall.  Charlotte considered taking another, longer, route but that would mean going through the oriental district.  She never felt safe there, the strange smells, all those people, and no one spoke English.  She grit her teeth and took the shorter way.

            With every step she felt pain from her scraped knee.  Each jolt of pain reminded her of Rufus.  He rarely came into Maddox’s, but she’d seen him around town.  How could she not notice him with his brown frock coat and his moustache?  He said he wished he could take her away, away from whoring and away from Maddox.  She wished he had.

            Two men in front of the general store saw Charlotte and one leaned toward the other’s ear.  They both looked at their feet when she smiled at them.  She continued around the corner and saw the dining hall.  It looked busy, full of people eating breakfast before going to pan for gold in the hills.

            Maddox had seen her with Rufus at Mr. Brady’s once.  He’d given her the night off and two dollars for “something nice.”  However, he didn’t like his girls fraternizing with men outside the bordello, even on their nights off.  The next night Maddox had her in a bedroom with Floyd.  Charlotte hated Floyd and his insatiable appetite for gambling and drink, but it was either Floyd or another black eye from Maddox.  During the transaction Rufus opened the door, looking confused.  Charlotte heard Maddox laughing with the bartender, “Stupid bastard forgot he loves a whore!”  She saw disappointment and embarrassment fill Rufus’s face before he disappeared.  She couldn’t bear the shame of seeing Rufus for weeks.

            Charlotte glanced at the dining hall as she passed.  Mr. Brady was watching her from the doorway.  He wore a look of sad understanding.  She wanted to run to her friend and cry for hours, but she looked away and kept walking.

            Tears burned her eyes.  She rounded the last corner and saw a blur of brown and grey.  She wiped her eyes and saw a tent next to Doctor Elroy’s.  From the tent she heard sawing and hammering.  She couldn’t breath for a moment when she realized they were making a coffin in the tent.

              The sounds from the tent rang in Charlotte’s ears as she crossed the road.  She felt dizzy.  She was at the door.  Her fingers reached out and wrapped around the cold, greasy doorknob.  Turning the knob would mean the end of Rufus.  She could turn back, go to Mr. Brady, or spend the rest of the day hiding in bed, but she had to say goodbye.  She couldn’t make herself open the door.

            The knob pulled from Charlotte’s grip.  Doctor Elroy stood in the doorway, his face grave but friendly.  She couldn’t hold back the emotion any longer and wrapped her arms around the doctor’s chest.  A moment later she felt his arm around her shoulders.  He led her inside and sat her in a chair next to a bed covered with a rumpled white sheet.

  9:19 am  |   December 24 2010  

A Sonnet for the Future

Since 1985 it’s been foretold

that you would be an old man.  You always

had potential to be a lawyer or

physical trainer, but I think these days

of you more as a plumber or mailman.

I hope you always say mailman, never

mailperson.  Political correctness

seems out of character for you.  Ever

will you hate the sound of loud rap music.

“Turn that down!” you’ll yell, then you’ll reminisce

of grand old days then Pepsi was thrown back

to before even your time, old man.  This

unfortunate young man waits to meet you

in the future, old and mean, through and through.

  8:00 am  |   December 20 2010  

(Warning: This episode, and pretty much every episode in the future, is rated R. Enjoy at your own discretion.)

            “God dammit,” Maddox said, pounding his desk, “I told that whore to keep away from that damn Rufus.  Bad for God damn business.  This is your fault you know.”  Maddox pointed at Cecil.  “You should have put that drunk Floyd in your little jail weeks ago.”

            Cecil leaned on Maddox’s desk, letting his jacket shift to show off the star on his chest, “Who sold him drinks until he could barely walk?  Who took his money every night at the poker table?  Who let Rufus walk in on him and Charlotte during a ‘business transaction’?”

            “Are you threatening me, Sheriff?” Maddox asked, standing up.

            Cecil stood up straight, “All I’m saying is unless you want me taking a good look into where all the opium in this town comes from, you’ll help me round up your friend Floyd.”

            Maddox ran his hand through his greasy hair and pulled on the front of his coat, “You’re an asshole, Sheriff, and a God damned bastard.”

            Forty-five minutes later Cecil, Maddox, Doctor Elroy, and Mr. Brady were closing in on the South Hills, where Cecil knew Floyd had a shack hidden.  The town faded in the dust behind them and the sun had begun its long descent over the desert.  The men didn’t talk much as they rode.  They listened to the constant percussion of the horses’ hoofs on the gravel and the occasional cry of some desert bird.

            The hills loomed above them and Cecil veered left to a rock out-crop behind which the shack sat in a small valley.  The men dismounted and tied their horses to the few bare bushes and pulled out their rifles.

            Cecil peaked around the rocks to check the land around the shack.  The shack was a small house tucked in the crook of two foothills, but the land in front was clear and level.  To the sides and behind the shack the banks were steep and covered with low brush.  He came back and drew a map in the dirt.  “Mr. Brady, you go up the bank to the right, here.  Hide in the bushes and shoot him if he comes out at me with his gun.  Doc, you and Maddox go around the back of the shack.  I expect him to run that way, so keep a sharp eye on the back door.”

            Cecil watched as the men disappeared into the dry brush and waited a few minutes for them to get into their position.  He checked his rifle, the wooden stock warm and familiar.  The gravel crunched under his boots as he shifted his weight.  He closed his eyes and listened to a desert bird’s shrill cry in the distance.

            Silently Cecil recited the only psalm he remembered, “Yea, I walk through the valley of the shadow of death.” He stepped out from behind the rocks and walked toward the shack.  “I will fear no evil for thou art with me.”  His footsteps echoed off the sides of the valley.  His shadow stretched to his left.  “Thy rod and thy staff, they comfort me.”  The revolver in his belt felt heavy on his hip.  He stopped about twenty paces from the small building.

            “Floyd,” he called, “This is the sheriff.  You’re under arrest for murdering Rufus.”

            “Fuck you, Sheriff,” Floyd yelled back, “That bastard stole my money.”

            “There’s no evidence of that, but I happen to know you shot Rufus in cold blood and he never pulled his revolver.” Cecil tightened his grip on the rifle.

            He heard movement and something shatter in the shack.  He looked around for something to take cover behind when he heard the door creak open.  In the darkness within Cecil could see the outline of Floyd’s head and shoulder.  A flash of light burst from the darkness and a crack of thunder rang between the hills.

            Cecil dived as he heard another shot.  He landed on the rocky gravel, aimed his rifle where he’d seen the flash, and fired.

            Floyd yelped.  Cecil heard the back door swing open and several gunshots from the hills behind the shack.  Pain rushed through his leg as he began to stand up. Cecil pushed himself up and limped to the back of the shack.  He saw Mr. Brady jump up in the brush to his right and run toward the back of the house.

            The gunfire stopped before Cecil rounded the back corner of the building.  Each step sent a bolt of pain from his thigh up his spine.  He leaned with one hand against the shack.

            Floyd lay facedown in the dirt.  Doctor Elroy, Maddox, and Mr. Brady carefully made their way down the hill toward the sheriff, dust rising behind them.

            “We heard the gunfire and thought you got him,” the doctor said.  He looked at Cecil’s leg, “Shit, Sheriff, you’re losing blood fast.  We need to get you back now.”

            Cecil looked down and saw blood running over his boot.  The sun shined brighter and his vision began to spin.  He remembered the end of the psalm, “Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life.”  The hand holding the side of the shack slipped, “And I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.”

  2:05 pm  |   December 17 2010  

Inciting a Riot in Paris, May 29, 1913

We will need this warmth.

Awake! My muscles,

Shout in discord

Awake! No more sleep!

Blade, your job is to break

This pine into piles,

Stack it against the fence in lines.

The “Rite Of Spring” sacrifice

Waiting to burn.

I’m awake. This is satisfaction.

  2:09 pm  |   December 14 2010