December, 2014

Issue #63

The Colonel's Lady, Part 2 of 2
by Steve Myers

That evening Wethers arrived with two other men, both old mountain men who knew every trail and pass through the Rockies. I told Wethers I'd like to leave at dawn and he agreed. He and the two men went to the tavern next to the store room and I spent my last night with the Brickers.

We had a good meal and played checkers and dominoes after. Once the girls had gone to bed I told Sam and Bess that I would be leaving in the morning.

Bess said, "Annie will be destroyed but it is best she doesn't know. But, John, I do hate to see you go."

Sam said, "I'll see you get off to a good start. I know Wethers. He's an honest man. You just be careful. I see you have a carbine. Can you use it?"

"I can hit the side of a barn."

"Well, there won't be too many barns along the way. Try to stay clear of a band of Indians. One or two won't give you trouble, but if there are four of five and there's no women or children with them, that's something else again."

In the morning Bess gave me a poke filled with rolls and gave me a kiss as I went out the door. Sam carried my gear and my folded tent to the stable and helped load the mule. He said, "Those lumps in your sack is somethin' I slipped in last night while you were snoring to beat the band. The one is to sip and remember me; the other is a loaded Army Colt."

I gave him two large envelopes, each one holding the full face drawing and copy of my pencil portrait of Abbie. I said, "One of these goes to the Colonel's Lady and the other to Lieutenant Zwick."

"I'll take care of that. And you, John, you take care."

Wethers and the two mountain men, all three not feeling so fine, appeared.

Wethers said, "Well, I see you keep your word. Looks like the sun is near up already."

They saddled their horses and loaded a pack animal and we set out in a line with me and my mule in the middle. I looked back and waved to Sam. I don't know how long he stayed watching because I never looked back again.

The sun was rising fast and we turned away from it and headed west.

This is not the place to recount the details of my adventures on the long, twisted trail to the Pacific. Somehow that path went through Fort Laramie and down into New Mexico. Wethers was killed on the way by Deacon Lynch, a whiskey peddler, in a fight over a young squaw. One night the two mountain men disappeared with my mule. Eventually I reached California.

On an evening in late September in 1880 I happened to find myself in Red Ridge, California. I was on assignment for The Californian to interview a local millionaire named James Randall. He supposedly was the future of the new California. I had to wait until the next morning for the train to Showdown, where Randall lived and owned nearly all the property and industries.

I obtained a room at the hotel and then went out to find a good restaurant to have dinner. As I walked along the street I came to a place with a sign that read "Bricker & Dugan, Food & Drink." I entered to find a small tavern with several tables to one side and a bar along the other. Behind the bar was a man with black hair parted down the middle and a mustache that curled up at the ends. Two young women, in white lace caps and white aprons, were carrying plates of food to a table with four customers. All the tables were full and there were only a few places at the bar.

I sat on a stool and when the bartender came over I asked, "Is it possible to have a sandwich here at the bar?"

"Of course, sir. The sandwich menu is posted there above the mirror, but the special today is hot corned beef."

"I'll take that."

"Fine. And what will you have to drink?"

"Whatever beer you have on tap."

He went to call my order through a window and then filled a mug of beer. When he set it before me I asked, "Could you be Bricker?"

"Oh, no, sir, I'm Dugan. The place was my father's before I partnered with Bricker."

"There is no chance that Bricker is Sam Bricker, once sergeant in the U.S. Cavalry?"

"It certainly is. Why, do you know him?"

"We met maybe twelve years ago at a fort on the Missouri. Is he anywhere about?"

"He certainly is. He's in the kitchen taking his ease. He tends bar most of the time. Do you want to see him?"

"He might not remember me, but could you tell him that a John Worth is here. Tell him it's the sketch artist."

"I will do that very thing."

He passed a man asking for a refill, raised an index finger and said, "In one moment," and called through the window: "Man says he's John Worth, an artist. Says he knows you, Sam."

A loud explosion of sound came out of the window: "John! John? Here?"

The swinging door to the kitchen flew open and out came Sam Bricker, as big and as loud as ever, with only a little gray in his hair. He came down along the bar and stopped in front of me. He reached over the bar and grabbed my hand and nearly crushed it. "Ah, John, it's good to see you alive and breathin'. I worried many a nights about you travellin' like you were. Bess, too. Oh, how she chewed my ear off complaining about me not making you stay. She said she'd never forgive me if anything happened to you. Now, what's that you're drinking? Beer? Not in my establishment, my boy." He turned around and grabbed a bottle of whiskey and a glass. He poured a double shot and said, "Now you drink that down. In fact, although it's against my principles-I mean Bess's principles-I'll have one with you."

He wanted to know what I'd been doing and I covered it as quickly as I could. My sandwich came and as I ate he told about the last five years at the fort. He said he got out of there before the worst of it and the disaster at the Little Bighorn. He had nothing but contempt for Custer and felt it was a shame the fool got his men killed. He and Bess and Mary moved here to Red Ridge, where he bought into this place with Jimmy Dugan, who's Mary's husband and a decent man.

I asked, "What about little Annie?"

"Ah, John, let us not talk about her. It was a bad winter that year and she didn't make it through. She wasn't strong, you know. It was hard on my Bess, terrible hard. We don't ever mention it. Too many times I saw her sittin' there staring out the window, holdin' the child's book, and crying. It's too sad to speak of."

"Where is Bess now? I'd like to see her."

"For certain you will, John, for certain you will. She's looking after Mary's little one, a boy not yet four but with the grip of a man."

"Which he got from his grandfather."

He laughed. "He has hands, the boy does, and the Irish temper to go with it. He got that from Bess and his father. I'm only half Irish-on my mother's side-but my gentleness comes from my mother and these mits from the old man, God bless his cantankerous soul. Anyway, drink up. We've a long night ahead of us."

"Sam, I'll have one more but I can't throw them back like you."

"Well, you can switch to beer if needs be, but I'll drop a shot in it."

"Then I best just sip it. I have a question, Sam, whatever happened with that Charles Gordon the Third character? He was a strange man."

"Ah, my man, it was terrible, I'm tellin' you. A bad business."

"What happened?"

"Well, you know, in a way it was because of your picture."

"My picture? What picture?"

"The one of the Colonel's Lady. I gave the one to her and the other, on the sly, to Mike Zwick . . . like you asked. Well, somehow the word got around that Zwick had a drawing of Abigail and one day, when he was out on a detail, some no-good swiped it. That would be bad enough, you know, but somehow or other it got into the hands of that Gordon. I suspicion he was the one behind the theft and probably paid some private to steal it. So this Gordon goes to the tavern and takes chalk and draws the shape of a naked woman on the wall. Of course all the lowlifes are cheerin' him on, you know. Scum, they are. More than once I took my fists to their like. Then Gordon pins the face of Abigail above his chalk drawing. Well, I tell you, there was a howlin' and hootin' from that drunken scum you could hear all over the fort. Then Gordon buys drinks all around and tells all he'd been doing with the lady. Oh, it was a bloody awful deed, I'm telling you, John.

"Well, Zwick hears of it and runs to the tavern. He goes to remove the lady's face from the wall and Gordon grabs him by the collar and says to let it alone. Zwick tears the picture from the wall and hits Gordon smack on the nose. I came into the place just when that happened. Blood was pouring out of the son of a bitch's nose and drippin' on his fancy white shirt. He was about to hit Zwick when I stepped in and said, 'That's enough of that.' The place got so quiet you could hear a pin drop. Gordon takes a handkerchief to his nose and says, 'I want satisfaction.' Zwick says, 'Any time.' I says, 'That's enough of that. The only one getting' satisfaction is myself.' Gordon says, 'Tomorrow at dawn, in the grove.' Zwick says, 'Agreed.' I says, 'The hell it is. I'll lock you up in the guardhouse.' 'No, you won't, Sergeant Bricker. I'm an officer and this is a matter of honor. He dragged a lady's name into the dirt.'

"He had me there. The damn fool was going to fight a duel-at dawn yet-what stupidity! So I said nothing to Bess about it and I agreed to be there to see all would be fair and square. Of course, there was nothin' fair about it. I'd seen that Gordon shoot. Anyway, the next morning Zwick and Gordon and two enlisted men as witnesses and me met out in that grove of trees by the stream to the east of the fort. I tried to talk them out of it, but there was no way. Poor Zwick's hand was shakin' as he stood there with his revolver at his side. Twenty paces away Gordon, in his hat with a feather and wearing his red hipboots, was smiling. He said to me, as he cocked his revolver: 'Sergeant, toss a stone into the air. When it hits the ground it begins.' God help me I did that and no sooner did the stone land that Gordon fired as Zwick brought up his pistol. The bullet hit his hand, knocking his gun away and rippin' through his palm. He yelled and grabbed his hand with his left. Then Gordon cocked his revolver and brought it up to fire again. I said, 'You do that, you low son of a bitch, and I'll beat you to death with my bare fists.' He laughed at that, don't you know, but he turned and walked away. We took poor Zwick to Doc Porter. He saved the hand but it wasn't much use. Zwick never even tried to play the piano after that. The Colonel called me to report and I lied and said it was an accident. Of course, he had to know otherwise. Zwick was sent back to a camp outside of St. Louis."

"And after that? What happened to Gordon and Abigail?"

"You would think she'd be through with him, but she just was more open about it. Everyone knew where she was spending her nights and she'd be seen crossing the parade ground in the dawn as she went back to the Colonel's bed. It was as if she didn't give a damn who knew. All the time the Colonel acted like he didn't know a thing. He was in a tough spot. What was he to do? Challenge Gordon to a duel? Admit his wife was a slut? Of course, everyone had contempt for him and laughed behind his back."

"What about you, Sam?"

"I felt sorry for the old man. It's true he should've taken a belt to her and sent her back to Cincinnati. Then he sure as hell should've visited Gordon with a shotgun loaded with slugs."

"But he couldn't do that."

"No. The Colonel was a sorry soldier-that's why he was put training recruits after Shiloh. You need to be hard in a way he just couldn't be, I suppose. Anyway, he didn't have to do anything to Gordon. A month or so after the duel Gordon went out on one of his excursions. He was gone over a week and nobody thought too much about it. Abigail would go to his room and then stand there inside the gate looking, waiting to see if he was coming. Then Corporal O'Malley was out on a wood cutting detail with four men and they came back with a body. It was Gordon. O'Malley found him laying there in the woods with his throat cut. His hat and hipboots were gone but he wasn't scalped. Indians, for certain. I suppose they wanted his horse-it was a beauty-and couldn't pass up those boots or the hat with the red feather. I don't understand why they didn't scalp him."

"Maybe it wasn't an Indian."

"Who else? A trooper would've put a bullet in him. That'd been my way."

"So that was the end of it."

"Almost. Abigail saw them bringing back the body and her face went white and she turned away. By then, too, she was startin' to show and the situation was clear to everybody. So the Colonel resigned and by the end of summer the two of them were gone and a Major Reynolds came to replace him. He got along well with the men. I guess because he drunk near a quart a whiskey a day. Which reminds me, let me pour you another."

"Sam, is it possible that I could see Bess before the morning?"

"Possible? It's as good as done. Jimmy, you're in charge for the rest of the night, I'm takin' John here to see Bess."

We went out through the kitchen where Mary was busy cooking and cutting corned beef. I said hello and she even hugged me. I asked how she'd been and she turned sideways.

She said, "Just fine. I have a boy now near four years and another in the oven."

Outside Sam said, "She's a grand girl, that one. Spittin' image of Bess at that age. Her man Dugan's a good sort-honest, hard working, and worships the little one."

It was a comfortable night with no moon and only a slight breeze. We went a short way down the street to a two story house. The light shone through the curtains of the windows in the front and I followed Sam up the steps to the porch and to the front door. He eased the door open and called, "Bess, my darlin', we have company."

She was quickly at the door and said, "Shush shush. Little Jimmy has gone to sleep. Now, who is that with you?"

I followed Sam in and Bess, wearing spectacles and with gray hair in a bun, stepped back and put her hand to her mouth. "I don't believe it. Sam, I don't believe it."

"Bess, don't you recognize John?"

"Of course I know John." She grabbed me and gave me a warm hug, stepped back some to look at me, and then hugged me again.

"He showed up at the tavern, come out of nowhere and big as life."

"Oh, John," she said, "I was so worried about you. You out there with the wars starting up again. I let Sam have it, I'm telling you, for letting you go."

"That's the God's truth," he said.

We went into a parlor.

"Sit, sit, John. Can I get you anything?"

"No, thanks. I've been fed and have drunk enough already." I sat in a chair by a window.

She gave Sam a look and then the two of them sat down on a hard-backed couch.

"You in town for some time?" she asked.

"I just got in this evening. I have to catch a train out tomorrow morning."

"Oh, that's not much of a visit. I wish you'd stay longer."

"I can't. I have to make a living."

"As an artist still?"

"I do illustrations but write articles too. I get by."

"It's been such a long time. Twelve years, I think. Yes, nearly twelve since . . . " And she looked away.

"Yes. I was asking Sam about what happened after I left. About the Colonel's wife and the man Gordon."

"I can't think of a word low enough for that man. I was tempted to cut his throat myself. So help me God, I was. And poor Abbie, the poor forsaken fool. What could she do? He knocked her off her feet with his ways and fancy clothes and air of excitement. And her man a cripple with no fire in him at all. That's how it was. And poor Lieutenant Zwick . . . A woman needs a solid man, someone like my Sam."

"And a man needs an honest woman," Sam said.

"And what about you, John? Do you have yourself a woman?"

"Not an honest one, I'm afraid. But I'm not a solid man."

"Pshaw, I won't hear none of that. You stay around here long enough I'll find a good woman for you. I'm serious."

We talked for some time about what I'd been doing and how things had gone for them. Then we were quiet, just sitting there, and Bess stood up. "I've something to show you, John." She left the room.

Sam looked down at the floor.

She came back carrying a small ledger. She crossed the room and handed it to me.

I opened it to pages of a child's drawings. They had labels: Mommy, Daddy, Mary. Mommy and Mary had long lines for hair around circle-faces and triangle-shaped dresses. Daddy was large with long thick legs and arms. All of the faces wore smiles. There was something that looked like a coffee pot and several drawings that seemed to be fields full of flowers. There was a fine drawing of a running horse. The details and proportions were crude but I got the sense and feel of motion. There were pages of dried flowers held by spots of glue. Then many pages of drawings of flowers that gradually became accomplished. Those were followed by outdoor scenes where she tried shading and cross-hatching to suggest shadows. She had not grasped perspective but I'm sure that would have been coming soon. The last page had this sentence written in an elegant script: "I love morning and sunlight." Underneath was a circle behind trees with lines shooting out like rays of light.

I closed the ledger quickly and walked over to return it to Bess.

"I would let you have it, you know, but it's all I have now."

I nodded. "I think I best go and get some sleep."

Sam walked me to the door. "You will come back to see us won't you, John?"

"Yes, I will."

The walk to the hotel seemed very long and I didn't sleep for more than an hour or so the whole night. I caught the train that morning and I never went back.