He Told a Good Story by Lori Olsen

Chip obediently shushed, and the two boys crept up to the window of the house and peered in.  Two freckled noses pressed against the glass as they looked into the room and the two boys sighed in relief.  This would make their search and rescue mission all the easier.  Inching up to the door, Travis grabbed the doorknob with a sweaty hand and carefully, and excruciatingly slowly, turned it.  When the door creaked as it was halfway open, he tensed and clamped his eyes shut.

He knew it was silly.  The house was empty, but the occupant of the house somehow always knew when he was up to no good, and so he half-expected the old man to appear out of nowhere.  A nudge at his back conveyed Chip’s impatience and also his edginess.  Travis gave a brisk nod and pushed the door open just a little bit more before he slipped inside.  His friend quickly followed, and then softly closed the door.

“Come on, it’s this way,” Travis whispered, and they made their way into the study.

“He usually puts it in one of these drawers,” Travis directed as he began searching one side of the desk.  Chip began looking in the drawers on the other side and a short time later gave a squeal in triumph.

“I found it, Travis.  Let’s go.”

But Travis had unearthed a mystery.  In the bottom drawer he found an odd collection of papers and tin badges.  But it was the old daguerreotype that had Travis captivated.  A beautiful woman with flaxen hair stared back at him with an intensity he had only seen in one other person before.

“What are you two boys doin’?”

Busted.  Guiltily, Travis stood and met the same gaze from the daguerreotype staring back at him from the wrinkled face of his grandfather.

“Uh…we didn’t mean to bother no one, Mr. Hunter,” Chip said as he turned beet red and it looked like his flame-red hair had suddenly spread down his face.  “We was just tryin’ to get…What I meant was, was just lookin’ for…”

Grandpa drew his arms back and hooked his thumbs under his dingy suspenders.  “You just thought you’d sneak in here and retrieve Travis’s slingshot.  Huh?”

“Yes, sir,” Chip mumbled, now sounding like he was ready to burst into tears.  “Are…are you gonna tell my pa?”

Travis gulped.  If Chip’s pa got wind of this he wouldn’t see his friend for a week.  That’s what happened when their teacher Mr. Spellman told Mr. Buchanan that Jenny Tillman accused Chip and Travis of putting a frog in her lunch pail.  The boys hadn’t, they’d actually been innocent that time, but Mr. Spellman was still smarting over the snake they’d put in his bag and had marched straight over to the print shop.  Mr. Buchanan hadn’t been happy at all.

When Chip finally returned to school, Travis could still see the bruises on Chip’s arms despite his long sleeved shirts.  Grandpa couldn’t tell Chip’s father they’d snuck in, and Travis raised his eyes to plead with his grandfather.

Grandpa cleared his throat and his eyes looked suspiciously damp.  “No, Chip, I ain’t gonna tell your pa.  But I think you best head on home ‘fore your ma misses ya.”

“Thank you, Mr. Hunter.  Thank you so much,” the redheaded boy exclaimed and dropped the slingshot to the ground before tearing out the door.

Grandpa walked over, retrieved the object and placed it in his desk.  Travis didn’t even blink as his treasure was taken away again.  Guilt over his best friend nearly getting in trouble was too great.  When his grandfather finally came near, he launched himself at the older man and latched his arms around his waist.

“Thank you, Grandpa,” he choked out.  He had been so frightened for his friend and what would happen if Chip’s father found out.

Grandpa wrapped his arms around Travis and smoothed his hand over the boy’s head.  He led them over to the chair and then sat down, pulling Travis onto his lap.  “It’s alright,” he soothed.  “There was no need to tell.  Chip didn’t do anything wrong.”

Travis sighed and relaxed.  “I’m sorry, Grandpa.  We just wanted to try and get my slingshot back.  We didn’t mean to get into trouble.”

“I know, kiddo.  But I took that slingshot to keep you out of trouble.  You and Chip nearly hit Mrs. Mason’s horse.  But, Travis,” Grandpa’s voice turned from slightly amused to disappointed, “you know your pa and ma told you to mind me and Grandma while they were gone.  That means you shouldn’t come in here snooping around.”  

Travis closed his eyes as he felt tears prick them.  He knew it had been wrong to sneak into Grandpa’s study, no matter how much he wanted his toy back.  He twisted and threw his arms around the silver-haired man’s neck.  The picture frame knocked them both in the head.

“Ow, whoa, what’s that?” Grandpa questioned as he pulled back.  

“I found it, Grandpa,” Travis answered as he showed the daguerreotype.  “She’s pretty.  Is she one of your other wives before Grandma?”

A chuckle rumbled through Grandpa into Travis.  “No, no, she’s a looker, but she wasn’t my wife.  She was my ma.”

“Your ma?” Travis asked in wonder.  There was a story behind it, if Grandpa’s soft voice meant anything.  “What was she like, Grandpa?”

“Oh,” he said as he looked beyond Travis and into the past.  “She was an amazing woman.  Strong, a fighter, beautiful, caring.  She met my father when she and her family were crossing through Texas with a wagon train.”

”Whoa there!  Everybody stop.  Pass the word.”

The calls were echoing down the line of wagons, and seventeen year old Anna Petersen looked up from the game of hide-the-button she was playing with her little sister Marie as their father slowed the wagon to a stop.  The canvas had been pulled tight against the rain, and what she could see out of the opening was nothing more than a gray sheet of water.

She told her sister to stay still while she crawled over the quilts and belongings in the wagon to the front.  As she peaked her head out, her hair was immediately soaked from the driving rain.  Her father and brother were standing with the other men from the train, and the wind carried snatches of their conversation toward her.  It was, as she and her father had feared.  The rains had washed the trail out and they were floundering in mud.

A brilliant flash of light illuminated the leaden skies and Anna peered out at the distance.  Someone was out there.  Was it their guide returning to the wagons…or was it a hostile?  Lightning flashed again, the storm appeared to be intensifying, and the lone rider was now even closer to the group.

“Papa!” she shouted to alert the men on the ground.

The men looked up, startled by her frantic cry and turned to look where she was pointing.  Immediately the cluster of men broke, spreading out, as they reached for their weapons.  Several feet away from them, the rider pulled his horse to a stop.

“Howdy.  You folks lost?” he questioned.

“We are,” her father admitted cautiously.  “We seem to have lost our trail.”

“Well, you’re not too far off,” the stranger told them.  “But if you keep going this way, you’re gonna head into a blind canyon and won’t be able to turn around.  There’s a town not too far the other way.  You folks can ride out the storm there if you want.”

“We appreciate that, mister,” her father told him.

“My pleasure to help.  Name’s Hunter.  Zacharias Hunter.  Where you folks headed?” he asked while he watched the men head towards their wagons.  “You men’ll want to lead your teams on foot.  The terrain’s pretty tough, ‘specially with this mud, and they’ll be easier to handle that way.”

“You heard the man,” one of the others instructed.  “Thank you again, Mr. Hunter.”

Anna sat there; her head still poked out through the canvas opening as the stranger directed the wagon train to safety.  He was young, but spoke with a calm and easy assurance that everyone listened to.  And as they reached town and he enlisted the townsfolk to care for their teams and put them up for the night, she saw he appeared to be a natural leader in the town as well.  People more than twice his age deferred to his gentle tone, his instructions and requests.  He was also very handsome, very different from any man she’d ever met.  And as she lay in bed that night, she knew she would never meet anyone like Zacharias Hunter ever again in her life.

Over the next eight days, Zacharias Hunter felt like his life had been turned upside down.  All because of a girl with wheat colored hair and amber eyes.  Anna Petersen haunted his thoughts day and night.

The wagon train was stranded in La Paloma because of the rains, the swollen streams and muddy trails.  Everyone was using the time to do repairs and maintenance and stock up on some fresh supplies.  The town was happy was help, and the travelers were getting anxious to soon be on their way.

The only ones hoping for more time were the Petersen family.  Ralph Petersen had seen the looks his daughter and the town’s lawman had shared, and had commented to the lawman about it.  Zacharias never thought he’d be a man to fall in love or think about getting married, but that was until he talked to Anna’s father.  The lawman wanted Anna to stay with him in La Paloma and he wanted her to be his wife.  Ralph Petersen thought it was too soon and Anna was too young, but finally he consented.

The wedding was set for the next day.  The train couldn’t afford to delay any longer.  So the padre was all prepared to marry them, and Zacharias couldn’t wait.

“They really only knew each other for eight days?” Travis asked, interrupting Teaspoon.

“There abouts,” he replied.  “I know it seems short, and how could they know they were really in love?”

“Uh-huh,’ Travis nodded.  “I mean, Ma says that Pa courted her for nearly forever before he asked her to marry him.”

Teaspoon laughed and ruffled the boy’s hair.  At eight years old Travis had a good head on his shoulders.  Sometimes, Teaspoon reminded himself.  And this time he was right.  Teaspoon had watched Jimmy skirt around Jess forever and a day.  “Your pa’s a special case, Travis.  He knew he loved your ma, he was just a little skittish about actin’ on it.  But I knew from pretty much the time she arrived, that somethin’ was gonna happen ‘tween them two.”

He paused and looked down at Travis.  “You know, we’ll save the story of your ma and pa for another day.  I was telling you about my folks.”

“I’m sorry, Grandpa,” Travis laughed.  “What happened next?  After they got married.”

“Well, they had me,” Teaspoon said as he puffed out his chest.  “We lived in La Paloma, and my pa was the town’s lawman.  But this was before The Alamo and there was a lot of fighting with Mexico and Mexican banditos.  And one day, it happened.  What my ma had feared from the day she married my pa.”

Anna Hunter stood in her kitchen, kneading the bread dough.  Little Al was off at school and she only hoped that he didn’t bring home another note this week.  Boys will be boys, she knew, but lately he was becoming quite a handful.  He was so much his father’s son that he wanted to be at his father’s side constantly.  He loved the summer months that he spent with Zacharias in his office, and often asked why he had to go to school.  Couldn’t he just spend the day with pa, instead?

Anna smiled to herself as she grabbed the towel and opened the oven to put the bread in.  She was glad school had started up again.  Tension was rising again between the Mexicans and the white settlers.  If it wasn’t that, then cattle rustlers and robbers would be causing trouble.  Zacharias was constantly busy and in need of a deputy who wasn’t his nine-year-old son.

The area was a tinderbox, and she fear La Paloma was at the center of it.  She loved her neighbors, white and brown, but others didn’t feel the same.  All that was needed was a spark, and the tensions that had been boiling under the surface would come rising up in full force.  She could feel something coming, the way Dona Rosa could tell when a storm was coming, and it made her check the rifle this morning after Al had left.  She’d even gone so far as to move the gun to a place where it would be easier to get to if the need should arise.

As she walked into the front room to work on the mending, she stopped in her tracks as she saw the Padre and Mr. Wintman approaching the door. Anna opened the door, preparing herself for what she knew was coming but praying that she was wrong.  But there could only be one reason for the mayor and the priest to come in the middle of the day.  How would she and Al deal with Zacharias being dead?

“Aloysius Hunter, you get back in this house this instance!”

Eighteen year old Al Hunter heard his mother calling after him, but he ignored her.  She was mad.  What else was new?  He was a man now, why couldn’t she understand that?  He would be the first person to say she was an amazing woman.  She had raised him by herself after his father’s death. She didn’t leave town like many expected her to, she stayed in her home and she kept the family together.

But he was eighteen now, a man, and he was tired of her holding him back.  He wanted to join the fight for independence like his other friends, but she didn’t want him to go.  He didn’t really want to leave her, but he didn’t know if he could stay in La Paloma.  He wanted some adventure, and he certainly wouldn’t get that in this sleepy little town.

Rounding a corner, he paused in the fading evening light and watched as the sheriff stood next to the jail talking with the mayor.  Word had come to the sheriff that men who killed his father were rumored to be back in the area.  There was never any proof they’d killed his dad, though the whole town knew.  Al clenched his hands into fists at his sides.  These men were just going to waltz back into town and never even blink, despite what they’d done.  Well, he wasn’t going to let them get away with it.

Over the next few days, Al planned.  The current sheriff wouldn’t do anything, he knew that.  But he would.  There was no way he could let his father’s death go unpunished.  He also knew he’d never be able to leave his ma while these men were back in the area.

His mother wasn’t weak.  She was strong, but he knew how much she missed his father.  He had heard her crying late at night, alone in her room when she thought he was asleep.  She had given him so much, and he owed this to her.  He owed it to his father.  And he owed it to himself.

So late on the fourth day after hearing the news, as the shadows stretched long across the ground, he walked into the center of town and waited.  The men were in town, he knew it.  And he made sure they knew he was looking for them.  It was easier to tempt a snake out of his hole by offering him enticing bait instead of waiting for him to show.

The batwing doors of the saloon swung open on a creaking moan of wood, and Al squinted in the dusk as two figures stepped out.  An eerie silence settled over the town, or perhaps it was just the rush of blood in his ears.  His hand flexed at his side, and his fingers itched to grab cool steel.

Then the sound of steel against leather whispered down the street.  Shots exploded in deafening percussion, and then as quickly as it began it stopped.  The smoke drifted away in the darkening light and the people slowly ventured into the street.  Al Hunter stood, blood seeping through his fingers clamped over his arm.  The men were dead.  Multiple bullet wounds ensured the nightmare was over.

He stood there, numb, as the sheriff came and appraised the scene.  The men were loaded into a wagon to go to the undertaker’s office before they ended up in an unmarked grave.  He looked up as his mother rushed up to him and fussed over his injury.  She never asked about the men or what happened to him, she merely took him home and patched him up.

As he lay in bed that night, his mind refused to slow down and quiet enough for him to sleep.  He had taken a life.  Two lives actually.  Part of him knew he shouldn’t relish in it, but another part of him was glad that the men were dead.  They’d killed his father, taken the man he looked up to and adored out of his life, and now he’d gotten the revenge he’d vowed as a child.  It didn’t change much though, he realized.  His father was still dead, he and his mother were still alone, and Al still felt stifled by the town.

Finally sleep began to claim him, and Al pulled at his blanket.  The shootout still ran through his mind, and something tugged at him.  He thought he heard a gunshot from the alleyway to his right, just after he’d fired his last bullet.  Just before his eyes drifted shut, he thought about his mother when she rushed up to help him, and how he thought he smelled gunpowder on her…

Travis looked up at Grandpa as the silver-haired man stopped speaking and a distant look clouded his eyes.  “Grandpa?”

Grandpa cleared his throat and blinked his eyes a few times.  “Yeah?”

“Your ma, did…the shootout, was she in the alley?”

Grandpa shifted in his chair.  “I don’t know, Travis.  I never asked her.  I took off the next morning and ended up fighting with the revolutionaries, Bowie, Crockett, those men.”

“But,” Travis paused, noting how his grandfather looked uncomfortable and wouldn’t meet his gaze.  “Did you think she was?”

Grandpa didn’t say anything.  He was quiet for so long that Travis was convinced he wasn’t going to answer the question.  Finally, Grandpa shifted Travis so the boy was standing on the floor facing him.  With a small shrug he said, “It’s hard to say.  The light, the confusion…  Anyway, I think you’ve finagled out of your punishment long enough.  You go do your chores.  And when you’re done with those, I think Grandma will have a couple you can help her with.”

Travis was about to speak when Grandpa raised his finger to stop him and continued on.  “Aaaannnd, then you can spend the rest of the time ‘fore your parents get home tomorrow with me.  I’m sure I can find plenty of things to keep you busy and out of trouble.”

Travis hung his head and sighed.  “Yes, Grandpa.  I’ll go do my chores.”

His grandfather chuckled and gave his hair one last ruffle before Travis headed outside.  As he closed the door behind him he wondered when exactly he’d been drafted into the Express.  He felt just like how Pa described it used to be when Grandpa would give ‘em extra chores to teach them a lesson.

Heading out to the chicken coop, he saw Chip who was waiting at the edge of the back yard.  His friend cast a glance at the house and then at him and quickly hurried over and grabbed a handful of seed.  While the two boys spread the food for the birds Chip asked, “Did you get into trouble?”

“Not really,” Travis shrugged.  “I got extra chores, but he wasn’t really mad.  What about you?”

“No,” Chip said in relief.  “I got home before Ma missed me.  But if you wasn’t getting yelled at, then why was you in there for so long?”

Travis looked over his shoulder at the house and then back to his best friend.  “Grandpa’s always told a good story.”
 
 

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