Don't Poke the Bear! (an Emmett Love Western)

  “It’s still in the kitchen, by the door, far as I know,” she says.

  “Well, if there’s a bullet hole in each of ’em, I guess we can get back to drinkin’ soon enough,” Ben says. “Someone fetch the garbage bucket.”

  I look up at Rose. I know she had two rats, and know that Bose shot at them. But his gun misfired both times. If they produce two rats with no bullet holes, I’m gonna have some problems.

  Rose’s face gives nothin’ away, so I’m lookin’ around, to see if there’s a way for me to make a break for it.

  There’s not. The whole room is crowded.

  Wing Ding brings the garbage box into the center of the room, pokes around in it, and holds up two gunshot rats.

  “Sorry to question, you, Sheriff,” Ben says. “Please forgive me.”

  He hands me back the cloth badge, and I put it in my pocket and say, “I’m just sorry he managed to claw his way out of my jail hole. I think I need to build a wooden frame around it before we toss the next prisoner in there.”

  “I’ll be glad to help you!” Ben says, and hoists a glass. “To the Sheriff!” he yells.

  Everyone toasts me. While that’s happenin’, I look up at Rose, and notice she’s got a serious look on her face. Before I can work my way to the steps, I hear a scream from the other side of the room, and see Constance sittin’ on the floor, with seventeen-year-old Charlie Stallings’s head in her lap. He looks unconscious.

  “What happened?” I shout.

  “He poked the bear!”

  “Is he dead?”

  “No, but he’s unconscious.”

  “What happened?”

  “Someone dared him.”

  I frown. Charlie Stallings must be a chuckle head. First, one-eyed Mary Burns kicks his ass. Now Rudy. I look out over the crowd and yell, “Who dared him?”

  Everyone looks around. Finally three men at a card table feebly raise their hands.

  “That’s a three dollar fine,” I say.

  “There’s no sign about a fine!” One of ’em says.

  I frown. “Constance?”

  “Yes sir?”

  “Post a sign that says no one can dare anyone to make music or poke the bear.”

  “How much is the fine?”

  “Ten dollars!”

  The crowd gasps.

  “I’m serious!” I yell. “Don’t poke the bear! And don’t dare anyone else to!”

  Then I climb the stairs to see what’s got Rose lookin’ so serious.

  39.

  “LAWRENCE, KANSAS,” ROSE says.

  “What about it?”

  “That’s where it’s going to happen.”

  “What is?” Gentry says.

  “The massacre.”

  Gentry looks confused, so I tell her about the feelin’ Rose had when she entered William Clarke’s room.

  “Who’s that?”

  “The school teacher who spent the night before Rose and Shrug came.”

  “What about him?”

  “Rose thinks he’s evil.”

  Rose says, “I had a bad feeling the minute I entered the room where Clarke spent the night. When I tried to sleep in the bed, I got hit with the worst visions I’ve had since I was a child.”

  “What kind of vision?” Gentry says.

  “I saw people being dragged out of their homes, beaten and shot. Dozens and dozens. I saw their faces, from old men to little boys. They were begging and pleading for their lives. Their homes and businesses were set on fire. Hundreds of men attacked the town.”

  “Indians?” I say.

  “No.”

  “Soldiers?”

  “No.”

  “What type of men?”

  “I don’t know. But William Clarke was in charge.”

  I know I must appear mystified. “The school teacher?”

  “He’s not a school teacher, Emmett. At least, not in my vision.”

  “Clarke said he was gonna join the Missouri State Guard.”

  “The men in my vision don’t appear to be soldiers,” Rose says. “They could be, but that’s not the feelling I get. They’re not in uniform.”

  “Have your visions ever been wrong?” Gentry says.

  “Yes. With regard to the timing. Sometimes I’m off by a year or more, because I see events, not dates. But the events I see always happen, eventually.”

  “If they always happen, there’s nothing you can do to change them.”

  “Maybe. But I’ve never really tried to change them before. This time, I am.”

  I see her set her jaw. “What’re you sayin’, Rose?”

  “I’m going to travel there and warn the town.”

  “You can’t. They’ll think you’re either crazy, or…”

  “Or a witch?” she says.

  I nod.

  “I’m willing to take the chance.”

  “I’ll go with you,” Gentry says.

  “What?”

  “Emmett, Rose can’t go there alone. I want to help.”

  “They’ll hang you both!”

  “Then come with us.”

  “What about Rudy? What about sheriffin’? What about the saloon?”

  “We’ll just be gone a couple weeks,” Emmett. “Wing can keep an eye out, and Constance can run the place for two weeks. As for sheriffin’, you’re allowed a couple weeks off.”

  I can’t see what harm it’ll do to try to warn people they could all be dead soon. “What would we tell the people of Lawrence?”

  “We’ll explain they’ll be fine if they move away,” Rose says.

  I frown. “People don’t like to leave their homes and businesses.”

  There’s a knock at the door. “Emmett?”

  It’s Leah.

  “Just a minute,” I say.

  “They’ll leave their homes and businesses to keep from dying,” Rose says.

  “If we can convince ’em it’s true,” I say.

  The knock at the door is repeated.

  “Come on in, if it’s so damned urgent!” I yell.

  Leah bursts in, breathless.

  “What?” I say.

  “Billy the Kid is out front.”

  I roll my eyes.

  “I’m serious. He’s out there, and wants to kill you.”

  “He said that?”

  “Yes! He yelled it for the whole saloon to hear. Said for someone to come get you or he’d start shootin’ people in the street.”

  I shake my head. “It’s always somethin’,” I say.

  40.

  I WALK DOWNSTAIRS, out through the opening in the wall, and see a kid who can’t be more than eighteen.

  “Go on home, son,” I say, but he’s got his gun half out his holster before I can finish my speech.

  I can see the kid is fast, and he started before I was ready, so I don’t have time to pick my shot. I make my fastest draw, put two holes in his forehead, one in the center of his chest, while yellin’, “I’m not payin’ to bury him!” I turn and start walkin’ back to the Spur before he finishes fallin’ to the dirt.

  “Oh my God!” Leah squeals. “You just killed Billy the Kid!”

  “Oh, shut up,” I said.

  I wish I had a dollar for every Billy the Kid runnin’ around the west, thinkin’ he’s some kind of outlaw. This is the third one I’ve shot in the past ten years, and I know of at least two others. Someday there’ll probably be a real Billy the Kid gunslinger, and everyone’ll think he’s been around for twenty years.

  Gentry meets me inside.

  “I was so worried!” she says.

  “Why?”

  “What if he’d shot you?”

  “Hell, Gentry, he weren’t no more than a child. Don’t know why these kids are so stupid. It really chaps me to kill ’em. He’s probably got a Ma and Pa somewhere, and a brother I’ll have to kill ’cause I killed this one. It’s all so stupid!”

  Them that were about to slap me on the back rightly decide I ain’t in the mood, and they cut a wide path
so I can walk upstairs to our bedroom to be alone. All I can think of is how a boy just threw his life away.

  After a few minutes, Gentry and Rose come in and announce they want to leave tomorrow after breakfast to go warn the folks of Lawrence, Kansas. I can’t imagine anyone packin’ up and leavin’ their homes and businesses because a couple of strangers show up tellin’ tales of hundreds of men sackin’ a town.

  “You don’t have to come, Emmett,” Gentry says. “It’s clear you’re needed here. Shrug can escort us to Lawrence, and keep an eye on us.”

  “Shrug won’t go in the town with you,” I say.

  “In the town, I’ll have Rose to protect me.”

  “I still don’t like it.”

  “We’ll be okay,” Rose says. “Gentry doesn’t have to come, but I have to do this. I’ll never sleep again if I don’t make the effort.”

  I nod.

  Then Gentry says, “But I do want to go, Emmett. Rose has always been there for you. She saved your life at least twice I know of, and probably again earlier today when Bose came up behind you. This is something I can do to help repay her.”

  I say, “Rose don’t need repayin’. She’s our friend.”

  “That’s right, Gentry,” Rose agrees.

  “My mind’s made up,” Gentry says. “I want to go with her.”

  “Gentry, it’s three hundred miles. And after Rose warns ’em, she’ll be wantin’ to continue on to Springfield, to be with Hannah.”

  The women look at each other. “I’d like to go,” Gentry says, “but I don’t want to burden you to have to bring me back.”

  I think on it a minute and say, “If you can wait two days, I’ll get everything settled here, and I’ll go with you. Rose, you can take the wagon, Gentry and I can ride horses, and when we’ve warned the folks of Lawrence, you can go on to Springfield, and I’ll bring Gentry back.

  Gentry’s face lights up. “That’ll be wonderful, Emmett. But we’ll save time if Rose and I leave in the morning, and you can catch up with us.”

  To Rose, she says, “How far can we get each day driving oxen?”

  “Thirty miles.”

  “And you can do how many on a horse, Emmett?”

  “By myself? Sixty. More, if I push.”

  “So if we start tomorrow, and you come two or three days later, we’ll be a third of the way there by the time you catch up to us.”

  Rose starts gettin’ excited. “We’d stick to the main trail. You wouldn’t be able to miss us.”

  “I’ll wear a yellow bonnet,” Gentry says. “Every day until you find us! And Shrug’ll be nearby to take care of us.”

  “I know you’d enjoy spendin’ time with Gentry,” I say to Rose.

  “I would, but I don’t want to come between you,” she says.

  “Can I go with her Emmett?” Gentry says. “Please? It’d be so much fun! And then you’d be with us in three days or so!”

  They’ve boxed me in a corner. If I say no, I’ll break their hearts.

  “Okay,” I say. “But get all your female chat in early, because I just might meet up with you sooner than you think.”

  Gentry’s smile tells me I made the right decision.

  41.

  THE NEXT TWO days are the loneliest I can remember. I work out my schedule with Mayor Ha-a-a-averford and the Town Council, then hire Mary Burns to help Constance oversee the saloon and workin’ girls. Next, I work out a wage for Wing Ding to spend the nights at the Spur to make sure the whores are safe. I run all the errands and solve all the sheriffin’ problems I can without actually leavin’ town. The third mornin’ after Rose and Gentry leave, I saddle Major, and the horse Bose Rennick left behind, a big gray horse I decide to name Steel. When I catch up to the women, Gentry’s backside will be ready for a horse, after ridin’ on a wagon bench all those miles.

  I’m well-provisioned and so eager to start, I can’t sleep. I leave a good three hours before daybreak and cover forty miles before stoppin’ for the first time. I figure the woman have gone about seventy miles by now, which means if I push myself hard, I can catch ’em by this time tomorrow, at around the hundred-mile mark. I wouldn’t stop at all today, but the horses ain’t in shape for goin’ all day without breaks, and I need to keep their well-bein’ in mind.

  I switch horses for two reasons. One, I want to make sure Steel is comfortable with me, and two, Major will benefit from not havin’ to carry my weight all afternoon. The sun is shinin’ bright and hot, and the trail is flat and dry. Steel is just as fine a horse as I thought he’d be, and I’m makin’ excellent time. We’re doin’ so well I hate to pause long enough to eat, so I squeeze out another twenty miles before settlin’ on a spot to water the horses. I figure they’ll want a half hour of rest before we start movin’ again.

  There are hundreds of people travelin’ the trail today, as always, and what was a very dangerous route just five years ago has become so well-populated by pioneers and settlers and travelers, you can scarcely go a mile without seein’ fifty people at any given time. If Rose’s wagon breaks down, someone would be along to fix it within minutes.

  I usually travel my own trail, but don’t want to take a chance on missin’ the women in case somethin’ happened to slow ’em down. The trail to Lawrence runs about four hundred yards wide for nearly three hundred miles. About every hour I see a wagon with oxen that looks like it could be Rose and Gentry, and even though I’m lookin’ for a yellow bonnet on Gentry, I’m not gonna take a chance that she’s removed it at the exact wrong time. So each time I slow down to check, I lose a few more minutes of precious time.

  It’s dusk now, and I’ve come further in one day than the women did in two, which means I’m about ten miles past where they made camp last night. If I’m right, that puts me about twenty miles behind ’em. I know Rose likes to head out at daybreak, so if I leave a couple hours before that, I could catch ’em as early as noon tomorrow. I wonder how often Gentry will look over her shoulder for me tomorrow, and hope it’s a lot. I been cranin’ my neck and concentratin’ my eyes on so many people today I’ve given myself a huge headache.

  The land out here is flat for a hundred miles, and in the dark I can see small fires burnin’ all up and down the trail. I count more than fifty, some as close as a hundred feet away. The night is so quiet and still, I can hear the people from several campsites talkin’ to each other. Most of these folks are friendly by need, but no one is goin’ out of their way to approach me, which is the way I want it. I want to eat some beans, get some sleep, and hit the trail.

  Next mornin’ I get up, fry some bacon, soak my hard biscuits in a little water and push ’em around in the pan, and eat while drinkin’ two cups of coffee. I get the horses ready, and start movin’ along the trail. Then it dawns on me that I might be makin’ a big mistake.

  It’s still dark. What if the women stopped for some reason? Rose’s wagon could’ve needed a minor repair, or maybe she came across someone who needed doctorin’. Maybe they decided to travel with another family, for safety reasons, or because the other family requested help. If they made slower time for any reason, they could be within a few hundred yards of me right now, in which case, by leavin’ in the dark, I might ride right past ’em and never run into ’em till they show up in Lawrence!

  Much as I hate to do it, I decide to wait till daybreak.

  As it turns out, this decision, that seemed so sensible at the time, is the one that comes back to haunt me.

  42.

  IT’S DAYBREAK. I’VE sat for nearly two hours waitin’ for this moment. My horses have to be wonderin’ what the heck I’ve been doin’, just sittin’ in the dark between ’em, quiet with my thoughts of bein’ with Gentry. Funny how you get used to a life with someone, and you just assume they’ll be there when you wake up or go to sleep. Sometimes you have a picnic together and sometimes you bring your bear, and sometimes you’re both too busy doin’ other things to spend much time together, but you’re both a shout away, so you’re still
together. Sometimes things are great and sometimes they ain’t, but you know even durin’ the bad times you can walk a few steps and make things better, or they can walk a few steps and do the same. Or you can both be pig-headed about some silly somethin’ and keep your distance, but you’re even doin’ that together.

  These last three days have taught me what it means to be apart from Gentry. We ain’t actually been apart since we met, ’cept for a few days on our trip out west together, when I had to help carry Gentry’s friend, Scarlett over the prairie by foot. ’Course, we weren’t an official couple at that point, so it weren’t as tough as these last three days.

  I climb on Major and hold Steel on a lead, and before headin’ east, I make a wide circle around the trail to make sure I haven’t missed Gentry and Rose.

  I haven’t, so I start movin’.

  Around one o’clock I’m passin’ the trail that leads to Stafford, which tells me I’m a little more than a hundred miles east of Dodge. One of Emma’s regulars hails from Stafford and swears it’s exactly one hundred and five miles from Dodge. I don’t know how he can be that accurate, but I know his calculation ain’t far off at any rate.

  Every moment of the ride I’m dartin’ my head this way and that, concentratin’ my focus on every wagon in sight, and that’s about twenty a minute. But for the last two hours I know I’m close, very close, so I’m movin’ slower and searchin’ harder. There ain’t no hills here, it’s all flat. But there are some small rises that give you longer views. And it’s right here, just beyond the trail that leads to Stafford, where I see somethin’ a mile ahead that just sort of feels right. I stand in my stirrups, crane my neck, and focus on the wagon bein’ pulled by two oxen, with what appears to be two women, and one of ’em wearin’ what could be a yellow bonnet.

  People are comin’ and goin’ in all directions. I see five Union soldiers headin’ toward me at a trot. I wave at ’em, and they nod as they pass. I spur Major into a quick trot, not too fast just yet, ’cause I don’t want to pass the real wagon while chasin’ the one that might be carryin’ my Gentry. It’d be easy to miss her and Rose, if they’re travelin’ wide, ’cause in this area the trail fans out more than a quarter mile. So I’m lookin’ left and right, but concentratin’ harder on the wagon in front of me, the one that’s headin’ up the next rise. I’m starin’ as hard as I can, and suddenly I realize I don’t have to stare so hard.