A good person is like a good gun: Reliable to the Last.
"Goodbye, Roland..."
It was two days later, and Roland found recent events weighing heavily on his mind.
His time in Kalispell had taken one strange turn after another. Some of those turns had been amusing. Some thrilling. Some horrific.
And some were a mystery that dwelt deep inside his troubled soul.
His recent quest to hunt down an assassin was the farthest thing from the life he had anticipated when fleeing London on a slow ship to the United States. The outcome of events had been gruesome, even tragic, and had touched him in ways he hadn't expected.
He wasn't the man he'd thought himself to be... and he wasn't sure how he felt about that.
Then, in returning to town, he'd sought out Zenobia. It was really a personal quest for certainty. He knew it was time to put pins in his personal relationships. To come to term with his feelings. To define what he and others wanted for the future.
Zenobia was an unexpectedly thrilling Goddess of Chaos. But who could tell what was lurking in the broiling cauldron of her mind? Love and bitterness seemed entwined around the core of her being like the snakes wrapped around the caduceus staff. Their final, recent encounter had brought him to the heights of pleasure and the depths of confusion. He'd come looking for a sense of certainty, and he'd gotten it.
But not the way he'd expected.
Instead of demanding a commitment from him, she'd called it off. Told him not to return. Called it all a mistake.
And so here he was in the back of his shop, assembling a revolver, his mind dwelling almost entirely on the events of the recent past. He felt like a dumb Ox herded to some corner of a pasture, wondering how he got there and what he should do next.
Never mind the looming violence of Evergreen and Lost Lake.
Never mind the question of what was wrong with him, that he'd found such a taste for violence.
He was brooding, and the only certainty in his life were found in the mechanical clicks of the weapon he was assembling.
"Go ahead and hang me, it was worth it!"
From somewhere without, a man's gruff shout and a woman's pained screech sounded, like a kicked dog, penetrating the walls of Roland's cosy store. Then another screech. And another. There was a horrific regular rhythm to the high pitched screams of female agony.
Outside, in the rainy, muddy street, rutted and churned up by wagon wheels and countless hooves; filthy and stinking with horse manure, lay a figure of black and white and red; now also patched and painted yellow-brown with mud. She was hardly recognisable as Zenobia Matthews. Her father had dragged her from their house by her hair in her stockings and underwear having ripped her dress from her back and started to beat her half to death with his belt indoors. He had then dragged his terrified daughter to the front of the gunsmith's store and thrown her screaming and begging for mercy into the mud, and commenced to beat her again and again with his belt: buckle-end this time.
Each thwack of the heavy metal buckle beat bruises into her once flawless flesh and tore white skin and white cotton alike until red blood stained the rags of her tattered underclothing. With every hit, she screamed out loud and he cursed wildly and drunkenly.
"You FILTHY.... LITTLE... WHORE!!!" he bellowed as she writhed and squirmed and tried to protect herself from his blows with increasingly damaged hands and arms. He suddenly stopped and looked up at the store front door and shouted at the building.
"SMITH!!" he panted for breath, the belt dangling lax in his meaty hand as Zenobia's moaned through split and bloody lips as she tried to crawl away. Her father turned and the belt buckle flew through the air and copped her a shocking blow on the side of her face which made her flop face first into the mire, blood trickling down her face and into the mud where she lay groaning. "STAY THERE, YOU DIRTY BITCH!" Mr Matthews bellowed and turned again to the fancy Englishman's abode.
"Come out you lousy English fucker! Your girlfriend's here to see you! I prettied her up for you! I'll teach you to fuck my girl you dirty bastard!" he swayed a little on his feet, then twisted again to his ruined daughter. "Get up you dirty little slut, you lover boy's coming. Ha! Wait 'till he sees you now! We'll see if he still wants to part your whore legs!!" he slurred.
@[Cuban Writer]
A good person is like a good gun: Reliable to the Last.
In the white noise of the rain outside, it took a moment to clearly discern that there was something happening. When Roland finally did become aware of it, there was a delay in identifying what that 'something' could possibly be. His hands stopped moving at the project he'd been assembling. Then he reached out, setting the partially-assembled revolver down on a table.
Screams.
A woman's screams.
Interspersed with a sound like the beating of a rug.
But it was no rug.
A woman was being beaten outside, and she was screaming.
Roland stood, and reached out to grab his gun-belt which he'd hung up on a peg here in the back room. As he belted it on, a voice penetrated the rain and walls.
"You FILTHY.... LITTLE... WHORE!!!"
It was happening in front of his shop. Roland turned towards the back door as he belted the weapon on. There had been enough violence lately that he was becoming skilled at it.
As the rain poured, and individuals filtered out of various buildings to see what was happening, the terrible scene unfolded and the shouting carried on.
"SMITH!!"
Roland heard his name being called, but the sound of the scene was becoming fainter as distance and buildings stretched between him and the source of the altercation.
"STAY THERE, YOU DIRTY BITCH!"
"Come out you lousy English fucker! Your girlfriend's here to see you! I prettied her up for you! I'll teach you to fuck my girl you dirty bastard!"
Now louder again, as the change of distance altered in the opposite direction.
"Get up you dirty little slut, you lover boy's coming. Ha!"
"Wait 'till he sees you now!"
"We'll see if he still wants to part your whore legs!!"
Roland stood there for a moment, behind Zenobia's father, observing what had transpired.
Then his gun came out of his holster.
He pulled the first of the two triggers on his howdah pistol. This cocked the internal hammer and cycled the striker mechanism, making a loud series of 'clicks' that penetrated the sound of the rainfall. Droplets of water fell on the exposed barrels of the weapon, beading on the surface of the steel as he pointed it mere inches from the monster standing in the streets.
Then he pressed the barrel of the weapon to the back of the man's head. He spared a glance for Zenobia. Her ruinous condition was shocking. It ignited a furnace of ire within him, evaporating everything good and decent that might reside within the Englishman.
His voice was loud, deep, and... calm.
Eerily calm. Roland was past shouting, or growling, or making any frothing show of rage. He was on to the other side of things. His fire had gone from red-hot to cool blue.
"Perhaps I'll part your brains from your body, instead.
Do you wish to explain yourself before you die, old man?
Or shall I just get on with sending your worthless soul straight to hell?"
"THERE'S SOMEBODY AT THE DOOR!!!"
There was an unwritten rule that said not to get involved in other people's domestic squabbles, no matter how nasty and violent they got. And those who had started to gather on the street to hear what all of this hubbub was about seemed more than content to obey that convenient rule, and stood safely on the side lines. Matthews was a notoriously strong, violent and dangerous drunk and there was many a man who would have been glad to stay indoors had they been in Mister Roland Smith's shoes... and been able to get get away with it.
But the Englishman had, it seemed, the sand to come out and not only face his accuser, but to efficiently and effectively deal with the bullying ex-barber. Jemima Wigfall, for one, watched with awe as her new employer (she was to scrub, launder and cook for him two days a week, as she did for 'Professor' Brown) walked out with all of the famed sang froid that the English were famed for and calmly point that rather peculiar looking gun at the back of the man's head.
"Perhaps I'll part your brains from your body, instead.
Matthews span in drunken shock and stared down the business end, or rather ends, of Roland's howdah pistol.
Do you wish to explain yourself before you die, old man?
Matthews threw up his hands and stumbled backwards, dropping the belt. Jemima took her chance and, ducking low, pelted through the mud of the street to kneel down beside the fallen bloody mess of pulp that had been Zenobia and try to help her up, or failing that, bodily drag her through the slimy mire from the danger zone. A cowboy beside her, perhaps stung by the idea of a girl hazarding such a risk to help the beaten victim, where he would not, ran up behind Jemma to help, and they started to get the Matthews girl to her mud covered stocking feet while the drama with her Father played out.
Or shall I just get on with sending your worthless soul straight to hell?"
"You can't shoot an unarmed man!" Matthews pointed out, licking his lips, his anger being quickly replaced by cowardly fear. "That's murder, you'll be lynched!" he declared hopefully. "Man's gotta right to discipline his daughter. Specially when she's whorin' around the place, bringin' shame on her family. Bringin' shame on the head of her poor dead mother!"
He risked a glance over to Zenobia, now on her feet and looking back at him with blood-caked eyes one of which was already swelling horribly.
"You hear that Zenobia? Your Mother! Remember her? Still warm in her grave! Did you think of her when you were whorin' with this man?!!!"
Jemima's memories of the next few seconds were fragmentary and wild when she tried to recall them later, it was hard to remember the order in which those fragments had come. Mr Smith, still aiming his pistol; The cowboy who had helped her, pawing uselessly at his empty holster; The click of a revolver on an empty chamber; The look of disbelief on Matthews' face; The ear-shattering explosive sound of three consecutive shots at close range; The blood patching lazily in two places on Matthews' filthy shirt front contrasting with its haste to squirt out lustily from the side of his neck; Mr Smith, still aiming his pistol; The Cowboy, wrestling his smoking gun from Zenobia's now listless hand; herself, grabbing the girl as she fell, bearing her light weight easily, the bullying girl who she had hated since school days, lifting her, carrying her away from this scene of carnage; Matthews in the mud, staring at the sky, blood pooling in the mud.
People now started to run in.
The trio of funeral parlour vultures dashed out: Mr Jolly hobbling along, undoing his measuring tape, Arabella in black, and Raymond Matthews, his raw young voice shouting "Dad!! Dad!!" as he dashed past her.
She didn't look back, she just looked down at Zenobia, but she wondered vaguely if Mr Smith was still aiming his gun.
@[Cuban Writer]
(or anyone else can jump in now)
A good person is like a good gun: Reliable to the Last.
Roland heard the thunderous reports, and at first he thought that he had pulled the trigger himself.
It took him a moment to realize that it was not he who emptied his weapon into that reprehensible waste of human flesh. He had not lost himself in a moment of murderous passion at the man's continued berating of his daughter. No... the blasts had come from the sidelines...
They'd come from... Zenobia?
Roland stood there like a statue in the rain for a long moment, his head turned to see that she'd stolen away a helpful bystander's gun.
That would be...
That would be murder, then.
Couldn't keep your pistol holstered, could you, his own voice chastised him from within the confines of his skull.
Finally, Roland holstered his weapon. Then, ignoring the other Matthews who was rushing out, he strode over to where Zenobia was. The law would be here in moments. She, half-beaten to pulp. She, with a smoking gun. She, covered in mud and blood and probably tears that had melted in the rain.
There was little dignity to be had in a situation like this. Zenobia's life- if it was worth a spit now- was stained black as midnight. Roland's reputation would be blackened as well, although men never suffered so badly as women in such matters. But whatever dignity could be claimed, he'd find the wilted shreds of it and give them to her.
"When he gets here," Roland said, "tell him where to find her. She won't be armed, and neither will I be."
Roland sought to take Zenobia in his arms and carry her into his shop. He'd get her cleaned, and calmed if possible, before she had to suffer the shame of being marched to jail by the Marshal.
"Everybody can feather their nest, but it's not just anybody that can lay an egg!"
There was a cry from some one to fetch the Marshall or the Deputy or maybe even a doctor. Other started to tell increasingly garbled accounts of what they had seen or hadn't seen. "Matthews beat his daughter and Smith shot him!" "Smith beat Matthews' daughter and then she shot her Pa by mistake" "I think Smith shot Mathews, and then beat up on his daughter"
The stocky and strong Jemima was still supporting Zenobia. A supremely calm, if pale faced, Smith spoke to the Wigfall girl of the, no doubt, soon to approach lawman.
"When he gets here," Roland said, "tell him where to find her. She won't be armed, and neither will I be."
"Yes, Sir." nodded Jemima. She hadn't yet done her first day's work for Mister Smith, yet she already thought of him as her employer and so would put her head on a railroad track for him if he so bade her.
Roland sought to take Zenobia in his arms and carry her into his shop. He'd get her cleaned, and calmed if possible, before she had to suffer the shame of being marched to jail by the Marshal.
"I can carry her, Mr Smith, if you can get the door open..." Jemima started, but then Arabella, seeing where they were taking the victim of the attack, deserted the distraught Raymond, bent weeping over his father's inert form, (and the sombre Mr Jolly, shaking his head, making calculations on his tape measure and muttering in his strong Scots burr "Och, ye ken what a big feller he was. It'll be a custom made box he'll be needing, the noo.") and came pelting up.
"You can't take her in there!!" she hissed, looking at Roland and Jemima as if they were the mad ones, for a change. "Think of the scandal!" She span around for a friendly neutral place to take the injured girl. The obvious place was the saloon, may be her old bed was still free, but that would mean entering the realm of the odious Fortner AND having to get the wilting girl upstairs, there was nearly a grotesque tug of war over Zenobia between the three of them, Jemima still wanting to obey Mr Smith.
The problem was solved by a large black woman who came running out of the Stardust to join the throng "Arabella, get that poor girl into the saloon and put her on my bed!" she ordered. Arabella looked at Jemima with a nod "That's on the ground floor, come on, I'll give you a hand", but to Smith, she shook her head. "Oh Roland, you better stay out o' this for now!"
@[Cuban Writer] or Any
A good person is like a good gun: Reliable to the Last.
Roland's mind was clicking along, making its silent calculations like a steam-powered Babbage machine in fine form.
He was assembling patterns in his mind. Paths, possibilities, and likely outcomes. Most of those likely outcomes weren't good.
They needed to seize the narrative. And hopefully, a narrative that wouldn't paint Zenobia as a whore. The layers of scandal on this were so thick that it seemed silly to try to lift one away. But he was a man of action. If there was a thing he could do, then he'd do it. Even if it only conquered a mile by small inches.
"But she's my fiance," Roland protested, "surely I should be with her-?"
He waited for them to object further, not intending to push his position. He'd just needed them to hear it, and for Zenobia to hear it.
A bad plan was better than no plan, especially if it was vigorously executed.
But they needed to be telling the same story.
"But she's my fiance," Roland protested, "surely I should be with her-?"
Mrs MacMahon, Jemima and Arabella all looked up at Mister Smith in amazement, Zenobia, half conscious, gave a weak smile: not because she now thought her love was going to marry her, but because she knew why he was saying that. For her... decency.
"Well, Mister Fee-Yance-Aay, I reckon you better come along too, then!" the strident black woman decided, large and in charge. "Miss Wigfall, let Mister Smith carry his bride-to-be to my place, Arabella, you get back to you job. Now no arguin' Mister Smith, I got a lot of experience helpin' people what's taken a whippin', that you may believe!"
Arabella looked at her tall friend Mister Smith and nodded, as if to indicate she knew the truth of this, Mammy McMahon had even told her how she herself had been viciously flogged when she had been a slave before the war, for refusing the advances of her Master's son, and her husband sold up-river.
But before she went back to helping Mr Jolly, Arabella grabbed hold of one of her fingers and pulled, then pressed a small circle of tarnished silver, with a small, more-or-less worthless stone of black jet mounted on it, into Roland's hand. She looked up with those strangely hard blue eyes as she closed his big, surprisingly rough fist over it and gave it a warm squeeze.
"She'll need an engagement ring" she explained in a whisper, giving him a tight, brave smile, and then turned back to attend to the fast paling body and the weeping Raymond.
Jemima reluctantly handed Zenobia over to Roland and tried to cover up where her ripped and bloody chemise was flapping open at the front, exposing the semi conscious girl's breasts for the rubbernecking townsfolk to gawp at. With that, the strange trio, toting the broken Zenobia, sloshed through the mud to the raised boardwalk and into the Saloon.
@[Cuban_Writer] + Any
A good person is like a good gun: Reliable to the Last.
Scoundrels, tramps, and thieves had to stick together, and Roland was instantly grateful to have made a friend of Arabella Mudd. He made a slight nod in her direction. A barely noticeable gesture into which volumes of understanding were writ.
Then he hefted up his 'betrothed.' She was wet, muddy, bloody, and beaten. He cradled her with all the care and gingerness his body could summon, and none could doubt that he cared for this woman.
Across the way, into the building, up the stairs. He whispered softly to her, "I am sorry this happened, Zenobia. We'll get through this. You can't see it now, but everything is going to turn out. There is a life for you beyond today's sunset. There is hope beyond this tragedy."
When he finally set her down, he held her hand in his, clandestinely slipping the shoddy yet precious ring onto her finger.
"I promise."
Across the way, into the building, up the stairs. He whispered softly to her, "I am sorry this happened, Zenobia. We'll get through this. You can't see it now, but everything is going to turn out. There is a life for you beyond today's sunset. There is hope beyond this tragedy."
His words might prove to be ultimately meaningless, but they comforted her in her distress: just the sound of his voice and knowing that he was carrying her: if she could have been carried forever in those arms despite the pain she was in, she would have accepted such a fate.
Messalina McMahon led the procession through the front of the saloon, where she was seldom seen. "Who the Hell's that n*****r?!" slurred one drunk, more intrigued by seeing a black woman than the fellow carrying a half-dead girl right beside her.
"That's the woman who makes your supper every night!" answered his neighbor "You lunk!"
In the back of the saloon, next to the kitchen and the tiny laundry room, Messalina had her room.
"Now you put her down nice and gently, Mister Roland Smith, that's right... right on her front there." the ex-slave woman instructed the Englishman.
When he finally set her down, he held her hand in his, clandestinely slipping the shoddy yet precious ring onto her finger.
"I promise."
"Jemima, go get me hot water from the kitchen and Soames Linament, and rip me up some clean linen bandages: have a look what's in the laundry room: use a pair of Miss Caroline's drawers" she ordered the Wigfall girl. So far there was no sign of the law, so Messalina got busy.
"Now Mister Smith, fiance or not, you gotta help me get these dirty clothes off of this girl, see? Cause them's dirty and they're making her hurts dirty and we gotta clean out them hurts."
Trying to cause her as little discomfit as possible, they got to work, removing Zenobia's tattered underwear and, when Jemima got back with the gods, cleaning away the blood and the mud from her naked form. the welts and and the cuts where her father's belt buckle had cut into her flesh looked stark and angry now contrasted with her pale flesh; but overall she didn't look as awful as she had when she was lying outside. The stuff Messalina was cleaning with stung the injured girl like acid and she started to scream and writhe as each new wipe caressed her body.
"Hold her still Jemima!" Messalina ordered "You take her hand, Mister Smith, you comfort this poor girl."
Eventually, they were done: Zenobia lay, still naked bar her bandages, with a quilt over her to keep her warm.
Mrs McMahon turned to Roland.
"You're a good man, Mister Smith" she said, clapping him on the shoulder "And that sure was a nice engagement ring you got Miss Zenobia." she smiled.