Welcome To The Bullpen
A Woman's Work
Laura K Johnson
He rode in from the East.
With his hat lowered and his body slumped on his horse, he looked like a puppet, his head bobbing haphazardly on his shoulders. We watched him from the frozen mud packed road, three people familiar with his evil black heart.
If there was a way, I swear I would have stopped myself from looking at him straight on. But there was no help for it. His entire being nearly pulled my eyeballs out of their sockets. It was like he carried a divining rod made of his bones and aimed it right at me.
My imagination went wild with the fear of him. I stood next to my mother holding her hand tightly. Dread, hot and angry fell across my shoulders and I broke out in a sweat despite the coolness of the day.
“Walter, Walter, let go.”
She pushed at my arm but I couldn’t seem to release my hold on her. She anchored me to the world of the living. If I let go of her I was doomed.
The man’s horse slowed in front of the saloon and he slid from the saddle. He stumbled inside and the swinging doors broke the spell I was under. I let go of my mother’s hand and backed away from her.
“Walter,” she whispered, her voice filled with concern, “are you all right?”
I nodded my head and turned away, forcing myself to look in the direction he had gone. I kept thinking that he was going to come marching out of those doors as mean and strong as ever.
But he didn’t.
I felt my body tense as the rage rumbled to the surface and despite the icy coldness of the day, my blood began to boil. How dare he come back here? How dare he return dead or alive to force his family to relive the horror of his existence.
I saw the fear on my mother’s face and I recognized the telltale signs of her carefully controlled panic. I hated him for it. I hated him enough to want him dead, to want to be the one who killed him.
For a brief moment I felt a sense of power surge through me and I wondered how it would feel to kill a man.
**************
Evil rode in from the East.
His body bent over his horse, beat and broken, a fact not lost on those of us who knew his meanness firsthand. He was folded nearly in two, a human accordion without the ability to emit sound.
As I watched his misshapen body lumber up the road on the back of his horse, I realized there was nothing he could do to us anymore. Any hold that he had over the town, over my family was ended, over and done with by the grace of God and the hand of the person who had been brave enough to put him down.
I turned to my daughter, Lilly and smiled, a real smile. For the first time in her young life there would be no worry over her future. There would be no fear that this monster might take her from me in the middle of the night.
She was barely seven years old and had yet to enjoy the freedom of her childhood. I kept her that close.
My son stood next to me, his fear palpable in the hotness of his breath. He had known too much of his father’s temper, his childhood all but over, he had lived in constant misery.
When the man slid from his horse and made his way into the saloon my heart stopped. I had been so sure that he was dead. He gave every appearance of being a dead man. Yet dead men didn’t get off their horses and walk into saloons.
I looked at my children. My son, so gentle and smart but too serious for one so young. And my daughter, beautiful and sweet but too soon they would be victims.
We stood there, our feet sinking further into the mud, our breath sending tiny clouds into the air. Despite the cold, despite the fear, we held our ground.
If nothing else we could do that.
Until he knocked us down.
*************
He rode into town with barely a breath left in his body.
No one knew how he had survived the attack that had so obviously mutilated him. But I knew that it was his meanness, his hatred and cruel nature that gave him the strength to live.
I watched, nearly hypnotic with disbelief as he fell into the saloon. Despite my initial surprise at the sight of him, I couldn’t help but smile as I watched him struggle up the one step to the boardwalk. The swinging door hit his back as he fell inside.
He was broken.
Even though he was still alive, still mean and brutal, he was broken. And I had done that. With all that he had taught me through his fists and his drunken assaults, I had gathered the strength and the knowledge to give him a taste of his own poison.
I watched his children as they clung to each other adrift in a sea of mud and fear. His son and daughter were the most innocent victims of his wickedness.
I, on the other hand understood cruel men. I had grown up with them, my father, my brothers and later, my husband. I knew what drove them to terrorize and bully. They were monsters to be sure but they were childish monsters. Hidden inside them there was always a weak spot, a place where their own fear lived.
And I had finally found his.
I crossed my arms over my chest and waited for him to realize that he had been beaten. I gave him time for one drink then I slowly crossed the street and headed toward the saloon.
The weight of the gun beat against my thigh and I tasted vengeance, felt it singing in my blood.
His little girl watched me from her place next to her brother. Our eyes met and she smiled at me. We had a moment of connection. She knew me and she knew what I was about. Our unspoken link to each other gave me courage. It made me happy to know that someone else would feel the triumph of what was about to happen.
I pushed open the door of the dim, dirty saloon and stepped inside. As my eyes adjusted to the light, I searched the bar for his wicked, black soul. He stood at the far end of the long wooden counter, his body leaning heavily on it. I could hear his ragged breathing in the empty room.
It felt bittersweet, this final moment as I drew the gun free from the folds of my skirt and aimed. Even as I pulled the trigger I felt a huge relief sweep over me.
Finally, it was done.
***************
The sheriff walked toward us, his long strides and large smile in contradiction to the seriousness of the moment.
I clutched the hands of my children, my heart pounding heavily in my chest. They had heard the gunshot and the resulting backlash as a few men overwhelmed the shooter dragging her toward the jail as if she were the one who had committed the crime.
Neither of them said a word as the sheriff approached us.
Over the years I had begged this same man for help, I had come into this town so battered and bruised that no one not even Doc would look me in the eye. My husband’s death was a blessing to more than just me.
The sheriff held out my husband’s saddlebags and looked at my children sympathetically. Finally he looked at me and I saw nothing but relief on his face.
He quickly apologized for our loss and wished us well. As he turned away I asked him who had shot my husband. I had a right to know.
In the cold light of the winter afternoon he shook his head solemnly. The shooter had gotten away. There were only two men in the saloon at the time, both drunk and slippery-handed. She had managed to escape their grip just as the sheriff had arrived.
He looked at me hard as if he were trying to recollect something. I took my husband’s belongings and thanked him under my breath.
The question of whether or not to go after her hung between us and I decided not to help him ask it. We both knew that she had done the only thing that could have been done. Besides a hearty storm was brewing and she’d probably end up dying from exposure. Why should he waste the manpower on a mere woman?
I turned to head back home, the children so close to me I nearly tripped over them. I gave the saddlebags to Walter then reached over to pull Lilly’s shawl tighter around her shoulders.
The clouds were opening up and large heavy snowflakes fell from the sky. Walter went to the side of the road and opened the bag cautiously. I imagine he half expected a rattler to rush out at him. The sound of coins clinking as they fell to the ground at his feet stopped us all.
I looked down into the pale, white face of my son and saw him smile. He picked up the coins and dropped them into my upturned hands. There was enough to keep us for quite some time.
The three of us stood there reveling in this sudden turn our lives had taken. We were free. Finally and thankfully free of the brutality that had haunted our lives.
Walter gathered up the money and held the saddlebag close to his chest. He came to stand next to me and I felt a calmness wash over me.
I took Lilly’s hand and we headed for home.
***************
On the day of my father’s funeral, a light breeze drifted up from the South. It made the cold day a little warmer as the weak winter sun tried to shine its own warmth into our blood.
The three of us stood, vigilant and solemn at his grave as the minister finished his brief sermon.
A rider approached from the East sitting tall and commanding in the saddle. We watched, cautious and somewhat tender from recent events. My mother squeezed my hand and stepped away from the grave.
As the stranger came closer I could see the mass of long dark hair beneath the hat. Cautiously at first, my mother moved away from us. She shielded her eyes as she went to meet the newcomer. And then as if freed from the chains that held her, she broke into a run.
She yelled into the wind and flung her arms wide. The woman slid from the horse and ran to her. They embraced, two dark heads leaning in toward each other. My sister’s own dark little head cocked to one side and she looked up at me. “Who is that?” she asked.
I grinned at the sheer boldness of what I was seeing.
It was my mother’s sister, my mother’s twin sister. I watched in awe as my aunt stepped back from her sister’s embrace and pulled a gun from beneath her skirt. The two women turned and walked back toward us, smiling and talking, their words blown away by the wind.
The minister had left as soon as he’d seen the rider approaching. He wasn’t a man who stuck around for trouble. He had said goodbye to my sister and I, his hands held out to collect the coins he’d been promised.
My mother stepped away from her sister’s embrace and knelt at my father’s uncovered grave. She dropped the gun into the cold, wet earth. It landed near his hip with a quiet thud.
She turned to me and nodded. I picked up the shovel and began to cover up any evidence of this cruel man’s life and death. As we walked back to the house, a thunder strike broke the silence of the still air.
And I heard my mother’s laughter for the first time in my life.
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