Little Lou from Mizzou
by Tom Sheehan

He was small but noticeable as he leaned at the end of the bar in the Miner's Saloon in Hatfield, New Mexico. Like a stark comma out of place in a short sentence he was. Every person in the saloon had earlier taken note of him because of his size, representing more of weakness than strength, and appearing to be no more than a boy not yet fully grown. His pale green eyes, as if gentled by a caring person's palm, carried the innocence of a colt. And he drank in a dignified manner, sparingly and deliberately.

Only a few patrons at the time knew much about him. One of them, Herb Goznoski, was spending his weekend break time from a ranching job, playing cards with a big man, Junker Whitzel, who was very curious about the little man at the far end of the bar he'd noticed occasionally looking his way.

Whitzel, with a wide smile on his face and a full house in his hand, was ready to lay down his cards, when sharp-eyed Goznoski across from him said, "I bet I got your full house beat, Junker. You're smiling like you just kayoed the champion in the territorial match that Bat Masterson was pushing all over the territory and making money with every punch tossed. Almost made that Grubbins famous but that Irish punching bag had the old tunes beat clean out of him."

Junker said, "Not a chance, Herb, my friend. Only one card beats me. And what I was smilin' at was wonderin' how much the little guy down there at the end of the bar weighs." He nodded toward the bartender serving up a beer for the small man, barely taller than the bar he was leaning on. "I bet he ain't weighin' what my saddle weighs, that little fella down there gettin' a drink. You sure raise 'em small around here. I bet he's the second shrimpy gent I've seen in my two days here. Maybe I'm seein' him for the second time. Who's he? He work here in town?" He tucked his cards against his shirt, the usual move when jumpy card players suspect collusion reigns around them.

Herb Goznoski said, "You got none like him in Texas, Junker?" Beat Junker on his own grounds was tough to do. Best do it with brains.

"Hell, no. They wouldn't last for one drive with longhorns. We run 'em all out with the Comanche."

"You didn't run him out of Texas," came the retort. Quick repartee was good ammunition: run him into foreign ground.

"Is that so? Who's he?"

"Oh, we call him Little Lou from Mizzou." And a little humor, too, might be appreciated.

"Sounds like a kid's story coming with the cards." His accompanying smile was authentic, relaxing his table opponent.

Herb Goznoski smiled in return and gave off a nod. "He's little, he's bowlegged, he's scrawny, but he can see through a keyhole from 10 feet, his eyes are so sharp." He paused to let that sneak in, gather more information, arrange it and say, "His name, his real name, is Edward Joseph Wozni, gunman. People in Missouri have always called him Little Lou from Mizzou. At least the people around Jefferson City call him Little Lou from Mizzou, the ones alive I mean. That's where he came into this world, in a wagon on the edge of the road when his mother called out to her husband to get ready for the baby. Everybody knows the story out my way, at least all the Polska folk. They were on the trail and the mother said, 'Lepsza przerwa (zatrzymanie si?) wagon, Walter. dziecko spieszy si?. On jest prawie tutaj.' She said it twice. 'Lepsza przerwa (zatrzymanie si?) wagon, Walter. dziecko spieszy si?. On jest prawie tutaj.'"

"Walter Wozni, the father, heard it as, 'Better stop the wagon, Walter. The baby is in a hurry. He is almost here.' He knew it was to be a small baby, for Maria had shown very little change in her body. The baby came as quickly as possible, and Maria was back at work before the day was over, the three of them on their way to Jefferson City to see her brother Pauli, on the north side of town. They stayed at her brother's place, mind you, doin' what newcomers got to do, until Edward Joseph was 15 years old. He was called Edjo at first and then renamed Little Lou from Mizzou by his Uncle Pauli because he hadn't grown much at all. Little Lou by then was expert with a pistol hangin' on his belt like a bodily weight. But his hand, from exercise, long use, constant practice, became so adept at handlin' the weapon it frightens his mother who keeps having visions of what's to come to him, as it does to all gunmen."

"I bet he don't weigh no 90 pounds."

"You'll never know."

"Hell, I won't. I'll pick him up by the neck and stick him on the scale. They got one here?"

"Out back, but you won't get to use it, not with Little Lou."

"C'mon, Herb, you're not gonna scare me off like that. Talk don't do none of that."

"It's funny you say that," Herb said, "way you talk."

"You sayin' I'm too mouthy, Herb? We go too far back for that." The statement was understood by those who heard it.

"I'm sayin', don't mess with him, Junker. It won't pay." A word of warning to the wise ought to carry the day; for those who don't see enough of the big picture, it should be sufficient, or they're really dumb as Hell.

"Is this some of that 'I'm from Missouri' stuff? Hell, you can't beat us Texans with your own Mizzou stuff. We're one shot ahead of you all the time and one hard ride finished before you rub your horse down."

Whitzel apparently was puffed up for a reason, so it was only fair he should be warned. Goznoski said, "What I ought to do, Junker, is rush you out of here right now, before the guns come out. It'll be best for all of us." One eyebrow was raised and his head was tipped, in the manner of saying, "Don't lose what I'm saying to you, if you know what's good for you."

"Herb, you play that alarm bugle all over the place. It ain't in my band. I never stood down from no gunman and no midget at that, not once in the whole Texas territory, so go jam all that stuff in one box and ship it out with the next freighter. I don't need none of that. Fact is, it's gettin' a little bothersome where I'm sittin' right now. Time's ripe for action."

"You keep comin' at me like the dumb card player you are, Junker, givin' it all away all along the line, from the first card you get that's got the first dab of color on it."

And at that, Little Lou from Mizzou, keen of ear and having heard the whole conversation, turned about and looked back along the bar, directly at Junkers Whitzel.

Escalation, with some people, takes minor seconds and with others takes long simmering and slow recall of something just heard but set aside for weighing, for evaluation.

Little Lou had already queried the bartender, "Al, who's that big fella down there with Herbie who keeps looking at me like he knows me from somewhere else?"

"Don't know him, Lou, but he came in first time like he was a hero born just at the edge of town. Noisy as hell. Brash as a new gold piece or a gun ain't fired yet. Like he's loaded with the promise of Hell itself."

"Stares like he ain't seen a small man with a quick trigger. Ought to know better."

"I'd say that's a fact, Lou, seeing as he's pretty new around here in his new diggin's. Ain't been here a week yet and some folks got a good idea of what he's like. I just serve 'em and roll 'em out when they got no more dough or no more dust."

"You never did that to me, Al," Little Lou said.

The bartender said, "You ain't the type, Lou. You're as smart as that gun of yours . . . which is nothin' more than good business for you and for me." He managed a friendly smile that would last some folks for a month or more.

So it happened in the first instance that night in the Miner's Saloon, for Junker Whitzel, tired of the banter, tired of the mouthy exercises and no proper action deemed of manhood, "Texas manhood" from where he sat, stood up, shifted the weight of his gun belt, and started to walk down alongside the bar. He was a Texan in New Mexico and would act accordingly, his mind bent by a stance odd to begin with.

It is so well-known and yet so hidden, especially to us in later days, how some men of the west were aware of the first steps of death . . . when they saw them from a good observation post and when those observations were loaded or fueled with a wealth of experience in murder, mayhem, death all around. War, since forever, has been like that, whole battalions at it, or squad or patrol-size encounters of men in seemingly insignificant small-size combat battles, or the entry of a single bullet into the heart and soul of one man caught up in any kind of duel with another man, life hanging in the balance on one end of a see-saw life, death hanging on the other end.

Little Lou from Mizzou knew it all from the beginning, that the first infraction of a contest in wills or beliefs was enough to throw life's balance to the will of the wind, to the interminable dust, to the engorging fleets or armies or colonies of ants waiting on man to come underground, to come to them who seemingly had been in the Earth forever waiting on the next meal. Such fates, destinies, queries, realizations come to the smallest of all creatures called man. A quick trigger made the difference in some such destinies.

Junker Whitzel, moving cautiously, but steadily to the other end of the saloon, bravado in his mien, bravado in his intentions, appeared to be the biggest man in the Miner's Saloon where he hoped one day to unload a sack of nuggets on the bar and buy the saloon as a favorite toy. A part-time dreamy miner now, the traits of a Texas longhorn driver stood out on him; his shoulders were barn-wide, his arms were like limbs off a full grown tree, and his legs appeared strong enough to carry any horse he rode. The bearded jaw he toted made him look wider, bigger, and somewhat fearsome. Nobody called him "Dude" or "Pard" or "Old Pal of Mine" unless he was a friend of long standing, had done a great favor, or was related by trade, blood or marriage. He was brute strength on the move, even as chairs shifted on the bare floor of the saloon, boots pushed for room, breaths held on many counts, scoundrels all knowing the drill of a Hell-on-the-go Texas cowboy filling big britches.

Little Lou from Mizzou had seen him before or, rather, his type, the ones who carried a big wagging tongue in a big wagging mouth, who made noise when it was best to be quiet, who spoke before spoken to, and who knew how to spoil a nice quiet time in a nice quiet saloon after a long day of work . . . or looking for work, as such things go in cow towns, miner's towns, near-ghost towns where it only takes one trick to make a town pass itself on to eventual dust. He was well-versed, since he was 15 and went about packing a gun on his small belt, with men who looked upon size as spectacular marks of manhood… If you had size, you made a ready difference. If you did not have size, were too small, miniature in presentation, did not measure up to the standards of normal men, you therefore had to be less than a normal man, did not carry sufficient manhood about with you . . . and were fair game for taunting.

Little Lou from Mizzou, as it was, was actively seeking a new job and had simply been pondering his options when the voice, the loud voice of the braggart Whitzel, traversed the width and length of the saloon, and sat with a sting on his ears. He hated to be bothered by the tomfoolery of a big mouth when his own serious considerations were of another kind of survival, food to feed his appetite, a place to bunk under suitable cover, all as payment for tasks he was very capable of handling: he was a cowboy.

Of course, he'd rather work with cattle than dig in the earth, but all this in front of him in Hatfield, New Mexico was in between those two options where shovels and picks, and guns and ropes were tools of the trade. Choices were part of life, except for the beginning, where a person had no options about where and when he came to this life . . . not at all like the opposite end, often full of choices, or slight deviations in the matter of time.

Little Lou from Mizzou never feared his choices, for his size made him adamant as much as it caused him the endless taunting. The choices in a man's life paved the way to the end of all things.

The silence in the saloon fell on his ears as sharp as cannon fire. He believed those patrons holding their breaths seemed as loaded as those cannons he imagined. When the itch started at the back of his neck, whole images of other encounters came back to him as sharp as the painting of a woman on the wall behind the bar. Coming again was the remembered line of men he'd known in those mini-wars: Jackson Frostly falling in front of him and dead forever, as did Pug Manders and Brittan Coszlet, both who once had been taunting friends, and other big mouths, braggarts, quick guns, gunmen with and without badges, who had accosted him one way or another about his size, or his lack of size, and paid for it.

The trade-offs, the restitutions, the payments, were costly; and all that was left of those quick-minded and slow-handed gunmen were the slim crosses stuck on odd hillsides in the occasional shade of a few cottonwood trees. They could have been, if publicized, a parade owing to a small man in a big man's world.

Whitzel was pointing at him, his insufferable voice, deep as the bottom of a cave, saying, "Hey, Shorty, they tell me you own a quick gun, ride a big horse, and knows his way around a duel. I'm gonna throw my gun at your little feet and if I pick it up again, you better go for your gun. I don't like little guys who pretend they're big men. What do you say to that?"

He tossed his pistol on the floor at Little Lou's feet.

"If you dare to pick it up," Little Lou said, "Big Mouth that you are, don't aim it at me or you're dead." Little Lou was spread-legged, looking like a toy cowboy, his boots tiny on the floor compared to the gun laying there big as life itself. His bandy-looking legs poked up out of his boots thin as twigs, his poised hands at his waist looking like a baby's hands in a crib. He was poised as harmless to the young men in the throng, like a kid out of his sandbox, lost in the neighborhood.

Whitzel looked around the saloon with amazement on his face and in his voice as he spoke. "You gents believe the little tot, the way he talks to a much bigger man? Do you? Speak up. Tell me how surprised you are."

But the older patrons, the long-toothed ones, the ones who might have been there from the beginning, different from the young in the crowd, heard and saw the crack in the lines of the big man. They heard the doubt in is voice. Saw the shaking difference in a man as it began its development.

"C'mon," Whitzel said, "tell me what you're thinkin'. Spill it. He worth it, this little man?"

"All you gotta do," said an older voice, surety abounding, Fate holding onto each syllable, "is pick up that gun you dropped there and see what he can do. That's simple to all of us."

Whitzel, in amazement, looked around to see who had spoken, but could not pick him out. And even as he could not pick out the speaker, Little Lou kicked his gun closer to his feet.

It all hung in the balance of one motion that might have come, that might have been measured, that might have been contemplated.

But reason, even when lost, buried in character, buried in braggart noise, buried in doubt, sometimes has a mind unto itself, and it spoke to Junkers Whitzel who dared not pick up his gun.

That's why this story, whatever way you take it, came down the family line right to where I caught it, heard it all, saw it just the way my distant uncle Little Lou from Mizzou left it for one of us to find, and repeat, all because I once noted a twitch in my index finger, right hand, as I passed westerly through Missouri and then again in New Mexico on a trip to the Far East in uniform with another uncle, this one named Sam.