Western Tale: Chapter 1

The stagecoach was hot.  Fortunately--though I hardly knew it at the time--I was wedged between two other passengers, facing the rear.  To my left an old lady the name of whom, to my shame, I never discovered.  To my right, a carpetbagger, with a touch of satin to his coat collar and a smile that never struck me as genuine.

When I wasn’t looking out the window, to try to suppress the nausea brought on by the coach’s constant movement, I could see three people opposite me.  Two were cow-hands, headed out to a cattle drive; the third was a pastor.  I don’t know how, but he seemed to spend his time reading from the good book.

Outside was mostly flat grassland.  Occasionally we’d pass a tree or two, and once we’d forded a small creek.  The sun beat down and baked the ground along with anything that wasn’t in the shade

We had left the last town as soon as we’d all finished our breakfast, and had been on the trail for a couple of hours.  I was the only continuing passenger.  Everyone else was just setting out.  The hotel was about what I had come to expect from small midwest towns.  I was sure the carpetbagger and the cowboys had played poker all night.  And judging by their expressions, the cowboys had come out the losers.  The sun was beating down on the stagecoach and the old lady was fanning herself.  My elbows were pressed against my sides; as I looked out of the window I saw plains stretching out in all directions.

All of a sudden I heard the driver whip up the horses, and felt the stage going faster.  I tied on my bonnet and tried to brace my feet against the floor, but as we were going slightly uphill, I started sliding down my seat.

The carpetbagger held on to his beaver skin hat and stuck his head out of the window.  He called out to the driver, “What in tarnation is going on?”  Before the driver had time to respond we heard gun fire and that, it seemed, was our answer.  When the carpetbagger pulled his head back in through the window it was minus his hat.  

“Wooeee,” said one of the cowboys, “They pulm shot your hat right off of your head.”

The carpetbagger looked white as a sheet, and I can’t say I blamed him.  I’m sure there was no color in my cheeks either.  The stage bounced over what must have been an almighty big rock and I was pitched forwards onto the floor.  My bonnet was askew and I was all a fluster, but I reckon falling down there saved my life.  A moment pater, more shots rang out and the old lady had a neat hole in her forehead.  I suppose it was a mercy that she died so quick--and that she fell forward on top of me.

The pastor started reciting the Lord’s prayer  and the cowboys both drew their guns.  One jumped over and sat where the little old lady had been, so they covered both sides of the stage.  More shots were fired, some from outside, some from inside.  It was all chaos, confusion and gunsmoke.  

“I got one,” shouted one of the cowboys.  “I got one of them varmints.”

Strange that those were the last words he spoke.  Though I was getting bounced around on the floor and could barely see what was going on, it looked like the carpetbagger grabbed the fallen cowboy’s gun and started shooting.  It was less than a minute before he got himself shot.  I saw a shape go by the window--a man on horseback--and then the stage seemed to be slowing down.  I guessed that one of the bandits had jumped astride a coach horse to slow it down.  That could only mean the driver his shotgun were gone.  Me, the cowboy and the pastor were the only ones left.

When the stage came to a halt, I lay still.  A voice broke the silence, “Throw out your weapons, and no one’ll get hurt.”  The accent was Mexican.

“I am unarmed,” yelled out the pastor.  The cowboy, at first reluctant, threw out his six shooter after the bandits fired warning shots into the air.

“Alright, alright,” he called, and threw out his gun.

If I was going to play possum, I needed to do it with my eyes shut.  But just before I closed them, the cowboy pushed a derringer into my hand.  I closed my hand over the small gun, wondering whether I’d have the steel to use it.  The blood was pounding in my ears; my heart was in my throat. How could anyone think I was dead?  

I heard the pastor open the stagecoach door and step out, followed by the cowboy.  There were voices outside, but only three of them.  Perhaps there was only one bandit now?

“You keeled my brother,” said the growling Mexican voice.

“Well, he killed my best friend.  So I guess we’re even,” replied the cowboy.

“An eye for an eye,” muttered the pastor.

I heard a scuffle; goodness knows what was happening.  Then all of a sudden there was another gunshot, and the sound of a dead weight hitting the ground.

“Good Lord,” said the pastor; clearly he was still alive.

“Seems we killed his brother and him,” said the cowboy.  Then his voice was closer: “You can come out now little lady,” he said.  When I opened my eyes, the broken smile of the cowboy was at the window.  

“Is he dead?”

“All them outlaws is dead now, ma’am,” he replied.  “But so’s Buck, and that feller in the beaver hat, that poor little old lady, the driver and his shotgun.  Reckon we came out the wust.”

There was a shovel tied to the side of the stagecoach.  More to dig the wheels out of mud.  But the cowboy and the pastor took turns digging graves for the dead.  Once I had tied up the riderless horses and unhitched the team, I tied twine to make crosses.  When that was done the men were tuckered out and thirsty.  We found water and passed it around until is was gone.  The pastor insisted on a service for the dead though he only paid lip service to the bandits.

Afterwards, I walked a little ways from the trail up a slight rise and saw a creek not to far away.  The three of us agreed to walk the stagecoach off the trail across the flat ground to the creek and make camp.  Joe, the cowboy, made a bed for me in the stagecoach, but he and the pastor made up bedrolls next to the campfire.  

"Has anyone got anything to eat?" Asked Joe.

No one did, so Joe climbed onto the roof of the stage and started throwing down the bags and boxes.  When he climbed back down he started looking through them.  There was a crate of apples--we each started eating hungrily.  Then Joe opened a carpetbag and started rummaging through it.  

"Well well," he said, "What have we got here?"  He pulled out what looked to be a stack of postcards and started looking through them.  "I'll be darned."  

"What is it?" I asked.

"These is..." He hesitated, "Them French postcards."

I looked quizzical, "You speak French?"

"No Miss," he replied with a grin.  He looked over at the pastor, who, based on the look he gave Joe, did not approve.  Then he turned to me, and held up one of the postcards for me to see.  I was not prepared for what I saw.  In fact at first I didn't realise what I saw.  But it was undoubtedly a sexual act.  I gasped and turned away and Joe laughed heartily.

"Well I reckon I've never seen anyone blush so red, Miss... Miss...  What is your name?"

"Mary.  Miss Mary Blythe."  I couldn’t meet his eyes.

"Pleased to make your acquaintance Miss Mary."  He turned to the Pastor.  "And you?"

"Brown," he replied. "Reverend Samuel Brown."

None of us could bear to eat a third apple and, when the sun went down we turned in.  Sitting on the makeshift bed in the stagecoach, I took off my bonnet,  boots and stockings.  I wiggled my toes to try to get the blood circulating again.  I took off my jacket and breathed in to try to loosen my corset enough that I could remove it as well.  I knew I’d be too uncomfortable to sleep with it on.  With my corset off, I could breath again properly, and lifted my skirt to untie my hoop skirt.  Perhaps now I could sleep.  I pulled a rough blanket up over myself and closed my eyes.  As I lay in the stage, dog tired and trying to sleep, it wasn't the events of the day but that French postcard which kept me awake.  There was a man, lying on a bed on his back, naked.  Naked!  But next to him knelt a woman, also naked.  She was bending down towards his waist and had had something in her mouth.  I gasped when I realised what it must be.