The Encounter

by Norman Fitts

  Lawrence was fully awake now. "Ah... Yes... Give us a moment."

  "Don't be too long." Erma's voice came back. "Breakfast is gettin' cold."

  He pushed himself up on his elbows. "Thank you", he called back. "We'll be right there."

  He flopped back down on the pillow and looked over at Margaret. She watched him. "What", he asked.

  "Nothing..." She moved back up against him and snuggled down. "It's just that humans are so... well... warm blooded. I slept pretty well last night, How about you?"

  He wasn't sure how long it had taken him to finally ignore the fact she was there. "I'm fine", he answered, sat up, pushed back his side of the covers and became aware of the fact he needed to go to the bathroom. She saw and he blushed. He swung his feet off the side of the bed and sat trying to loose the urge long enough to get dressed.

  She lay there watching his back. She could smell him. She wanted to touch him. She reached under the covers and rubbed herself. Things were going to have run their course and soon.

  Erma had cleared the table. She and John had finished their meal. John looked in on his patient, and then went to his office out front.

  Margaret and Lawrence entered the dining room. Lawrence was used to going in the woods, but an outhouse was a new experience for him. He preferred the woods.

  Erma looked at them and smiled. "You folks have a seat. I'll have some eggs and bacon out here in a jiffy."

  "No bacon for me, please", Margaret said.

  Lawrence yawned. "The coffee smells good."

  Erma looked at Margaret, "How about you, Miz Casey?"

  "Just water and would you please call me Maggie. How's Mr. McKenly?"

  "He's still with us, Sarah’s sittin' with him. Poor girl, she's gonna have a hard time acceptin' this."

  Erma continued into the kitchen. Lawrence and Margaret just sat, each wondering what the other was thinking. Erma reentered the dining room. The plates were piled high with eggs and a biscuit each with a fork on the side. She placed the one with bacon in front of Lawrence the other in front of Margaret.

  "Let me get your coffee and water", Erma said and started back toward the kitchen.

  "Looks good", Lawrence called after her. He began picking at his eggs with his fork. He looked at Margaret who was looking at her plate. "You have eggs on your world?"

  She picked up a fork full. "Not yellow ones." She took a bite, made a little face, but kept eating.

  Anyone who could eat that stuff in her bag, he thought, or drink the crap that came out of that little box, could certainly handle eggs.

  She reached into her shirt pocket, brought out two gold disks and placed them in front of him. "Blue, if they have it."

  He picked up the coins and looked at her. She went back to her eggs.

  ***

  After breakfast Margaret offered to help Erma in the kitchen, but she wouldn't hear of it. So, she decided to look in on Sarah while Lawrence handled the currency exchange.

  Lawrence stepped onto the wooden sidewalk in front of the doctor's office. It was a bright, cool, cloudless morning. A freight wagon made its way down the rocky, dirt street. He looked at his watch and calculated it was about nine am. His watch; there weren't too many battery operated, LCD wristwatches around here. His sleeve covered it, but just to be safe he took it off and put it in his pants pocket.

  The doctor's office appeared to be about the middle of town. He decided to try to his right and look for a bank. He was wearing his gun. He still wasn't used to walking around armed. He could feel the weight shifting around on his right thigh. It felt like cowboys and Indians when he was a kid. He heard what sounded like a church bell, or a school bell, tolling in the distance. Children began appearing in the street moving toward the sound. He settled on school bell.

  He came to a saloon. This must have been the source of the music and laughter from last night. The doors were open. He wondered where the little swinging doors were that were always in the movies. He stopped and looked in. Three women were sitting at a table eating breakfast. They were in bedclothes. A man was sweeping. The bartender wiped off glasses and lined them up behind the bar in front of a large mirror. In the upper, right hand corner of the mirror was a spider web crack. It could have been a bullet hole. No one seemed to notice him so he kept walking.

  After making several journal entries, Margaret eased the door open to Martin's room and looked inside. Sarah was sitting in a chair next to the bed holding her father's hand. She looked around at the door. Her face was flushed and her eyes were red and wet.

  Margaret stopped at the door. "If you'd rather be alone I understand."

  Sarah motioned her in. Margaret stepped inside and shut the door. There was only the one chair so she walked up behind Sarah and put her hands on her shoulders.

  Sarah put her hand on Margaret's hand and began to sniffle. She looked up at her. "He's gonna die, ain't he?"

  Margaret squeezed her shoulders. "You don't know that. The doctor doesn't know that for sure. Did he tell you that?"

  "No, but I know he is." Sarah began to cry. She released her father's hand, stood up and faced her. "I just don't know what we'll do when he does." Tears rolled down her cheeks.

  Margaret reached up with her hands and wiped the tears away with her thumbs. She opened her arms. Sarah stepped in and they hugged each other. Before Margaret realized it was a mistake to let her get so close, Sarah's hands touched her spine.

  Sarah immediately pushed away. "What's wrong with your back?"

  "It's a birth defect", Margaret quickly answered. "I was born this way." It was a quick explanation the first thing that came to mind.

  "Does it hurt?"

  Margaret smiled. "No. It doesn't hurt. It just looks funny."

  "Can I see", Sarah asked, with a child's curiosity?

  Margaret decided to satisfy her curiosity. At least it had taken her mind off her father for a moment. "Okay..." She turned her back to Sarah, opened her shirt, slipped it off her shoulders and pulled her arms out of the sleeves. She then opened her long johns pushed those off her shoulders and let them go about halfway down her back. "Move my hair."

  Sarah reached out and pushed her hair aside. She gasped and let go. "Is this why you're so strong?"

  The question took Margaret by surprise. She pulled the underwear up and turned around. "Why do you ask that?" She began to fasten her clothes.

  "I saw you lift the wheel yesterday. I don't think Joseph could have done it that easily."

  "Well, I guess you know all my secrets now. If you want, I'll get a chair from another room and sit with you."

  "I'd like that."

  Margaret left the room. Sarah returned to the chair and picked up her father's hand again.

  "I have a new friend", she said to her father. "I think you would've liked her."

  Sarah finally began to accept the probable loss of her father.

  ***

  Lawrence wore his gun low on his thigh. Several men had taken note of the rig and the unorthodox method of wearing a sidearm but no one had questioned him. He noticed that most of those who carried a gun wore it high on their hip or tucked into the front of their pants.

  The bank was at the far end of town, across from the hotel. He paused at the door to let a man and woman out. He nodded to the man who nodded back.

  The bank lobby, if you could call it that, was small. Two teller cages were built into the back wall. There was no way behind the cages from the front. A protection against being robbed he supposed.

  He walked up to the teller on the right. The man was slightly built and dressed in what was a business suit for that day and time. "Good morning", Lawrence said.

  "It is", the teller answered.

  Lawrence reached into his shirt pocket and produced the two gold disks. He slid them through the teller cage. "I'd like to exchange these for paper."

  The teller picked them up and turned them over in his hand. He reached down behind the counter and brought out a scale. He wei
ghted the two disks, and then returned the scale. He opened his cash drawer and brought out several paper notes. He began to lay them out counting to himself.

  He slid the paper forward. "There, sixty-five."

  Lawrence picked up the notes. "Thanks..."

  "Don't you want to count it?"

  "No. Looked like you did it right." He didn't want to linger too long for fear of questions he couldn’t or wouldn’t answer. He turned to leave.

  "Good day", the teller said.

  Lawrence looked back. "You too."

  He paused on the sidewalk outside the bank. There had to be a dress shop or somewhere women bought clothes. He hadn't passed anything on the way to the bank. There were two women approaching him on the sidewalk. He waited for them.

  "Pardon me ladies; is there a dress shop in town?"

  Both of the women grinned. Not many men would have asked that question. They directed him to the General Store at the other side of town. There was a seamstress with a little shop in the back. He thanked them and they walked off grinning and looking back at him.

  He followed their directions and wound up standing in the middle of a true-to-life General Store. It had everything from needles and thread to fire arms.

  The Storekeeper was rolling out a new flour barrel from of his storeroom when he looked up and saw Lawrence. "Hi, be right with you."

  Lawrence walked over and picked up a hat. She hadn't furnished him with a hat. It wasn't something he needed, but it would complete the look, so to speak.

  The Storekeeper walked up, "Just got those last week; first class beaver."

  Lawrence had found one he liked and that fit, "How much?"

  "Three dollars... I know that's a little high, but that hat'll last you for years."

  A little high, that hat would have cost a hundred dollars at a Western Wear store back home. "I'll take it."

  "You won't regret it, anything else, today?"

  "Yes, I need to buy a dress."

  "A dress?"

  "Yes, a dress, for my wife. It's a surprise."

  The Storekeeper walked back behind the counter with the hat. Lawrence took out a five-dollar note. He placed it on the counter and began looking over the rifles displayed against the wall.

  The Shopkeeper picked up the bill and opened his drawer to make change. "If you'll walk around to the side of the building you'll find Miss Connie's. She's a first class seamstress. He handed Lawrence his change and looked back at the rifles. "You need a rifle to go with your pistol?"

  "No, just lookin'"

  "If you don't mind my sayin', I've never seen anyone wearin' one so low and tied like that."

  Lawrence was getting caught up in this cowboy thing and reacted without thinking. He drew the gun twirling it forward out of the holster and brought it up cocked in front of the Storekeeper, "Makes it easier to get out."

  The man behind the counter wasn't as impressed with the show of dexterity as he was with the workmanship on the gun. "You mind if I see it?"

  "What, the gun?" Lawrence realized what he had done, but now he had to follow through. "No. He lowered the hammer and passed it over."

  The Storekeeper knew firearms and he had never seen the likes of this one. "Where did you get this?"

  "It's from somewhere back east. My brother gave it to me as a gift," sounded good.

  "You don't know where back east?" He operated the mechanism and noted how smooth it was. "You wouldn't want to sell it, would you?" Before Lawrence could answer him he said, "I'll make you a good deal. Twenty five dollars and I'll give you the choice of any other gun in the store."

  Lawrence held out his hand. "No, really I couldn't, it bein' a gift and all, sorry."

  The Storekeeper reluctantly handed it back. "If you could find out where, I'd like to order from them."

  Lawrence took the gun back and holstered it, then picked up his new hat. "You said around the corner for the seamstress?"

  "Yes, down the right side and I really wish you'd reconsider about the gun."

  "Sorry, I can't. Thanks..."

  Lawrence left the store and walked to the end of the building. There was a little awning over a door leading to MISS CONNIE'S DRESS EMPORIUM.

  A bell sounded above the door when he entered the dress shop. A middle-aged lady, he supposed to be Miss Connie, was pinning dress segments to a form. There were several completed dresses displayed around the shop. One in particular caught his eye. It was light blue with lace trim. It looked like it might fit.

  Miss Connie turned out to be Lucy Garfield. She'd taken the name from a dress shop in St. Louis where she'd learned her trade.

  All of the dresses in the shop were custom made for other women and weren't for sale, but she would be happy to take measurements and make something for Margaret. He explained they wouldn't be in town long enough for that.

  Even in eighteen seventy-five, money talked. When he offered her three times the asking price for the blue dress she wrapped it up and threw in the foundations free. She told him that if it didn't fit to come by and she would make the alterations while they waited. He thanked her and left with his bundle.

  ***

  Earlier that morning Joseph had driven the wagon to the Blacksmith's shop at the edge of town. The Blacksmith was an old friend of his father's and wouldn't require payment in advance to repair the wagon. A smoked hindquarter delivered in a few days would cover it.

  The Smithy was bringing up his forge. Everything had to wait for that. He'd have to grease the wheel hub and fit a nut to the axle.

  Joseph needed to think things out. He'd walked away from the shop toward the foothills just behind the town.

  He found a spot on a rise overlooking the Blacksmith shop and sat down. He removed his hat and wiped his forehead with his hand. In his mind he had accepted the imminent death of his father. All his thoughts were centering on that fact.

  He'd lay his father to rest next to his mother. He'd carve the marker the same as he'd done for her. The horses in the corral still needed some work before the buyer showed up. He had to make a count of the spring calves. The branding would have to start. He'd need help with that. Sarah could ride and since he didn't have the money to hire anyone, she'd have to pitch in. Anyway, there was no one left on the mountain and he wasn't about to ask anyone from the valley. Not that anyone would help if he did.

  He lay back, with his hands behind his head. He closed his eyes and in his mind he began to relive some of the times with his father and mother. He began to cry. It was the one and only time he would ever allow that to happen.

  ***

  Joseph was asleep. The Blacksmith kicked the bottom of his boot. The wagon was ready. They walked back to the shop where a deal was struck for the beef.

  Joseph got on the wagon, released the foot break, picked up the reins and slapped the horses. The wagon jerked ahead. He had to get back to Sarah.

  Henry Morton had finished his breakfast, had his morning drink and had just stepped out of the hotel to light up a fresh cigar. He drew the flame from the match through the end of that cigar. He spotted Joseph on the wagon.

  Joseph glanced at the hotel and saw Henry eyeing him. He slapped the horses to pick up the pace. Henry Morton was the last person he wanted to deal with this morning.

  Henry stepped back to the door of the hotel and looked inside. "Jake, come here."

  Jake, the man who had accompanied Henry to the McKenly place, joined him on the porch.

  "You see that wagon?” motioning with his cigar. "McKenly’s in town. I want to know why."

  Jake nodded and walked off down the sidewalk following the wagon.

  Lawrence had left the Dress Shop and started back toward the doctor's office. He paused now and then to take in the history around him. It would probably be the only chance he'd ever have to do this, he hoped.

  Lawrence walked reached the doctor’s office just as Joseph pulled the team around between the buildings to get the wagon off the street. Lawrence followed him.


  The wagon creaked to a stop. Lawrence walked over and looked at the wheel. "Well, looks like you got it fixed."

  "Yeah", Joseph said, as he climbed down. He walked around the front of the team. "I been wonderin' something. What were you and your wife doin' on the mountain with no horses?"

  Lawrence had waited for this to come up. "We stopped few days ago for water. Something spooked 'em. We’ve been on foot ever since. Just our luck we bumped into you and Sarah." He was getting better at thinking on his feet.

  "The stallion probably run off with 'em."

  "What stallion?"

  "The one that hurt my father and killed my best friend."

  They walked toward the front door of the doctor's office.

  "Just to set things straight", Joseph said, "it was our luck you came along, but you keep dependin’ on luck and these mountains'll kill ya."

  "I'll keep that in mind."

  They stopped at the door. Lawrence started to open it. Joseph stopped him. "It ain't straight in my head yet who you really are. You don't look much like prospectors, but no matter, you and yours are always welcomed at our fire."

  Lawrence looked at him. That was probably the most he could offer and it was clear he meant it. "We really appreciate that."

  They both entered the office. Jake stepped up to the back of the wagon and rubbed his chin. After a moment to think about it, he started back toward the hotel.

  Erma was dusting the office furniture. Margaret wasn't around. She looked at them and smiled.

  "Where's Maggie", Lawrence asked.

  "She's takin' a bath, last door on the right." She looked toward Joseph. "You best go see to your sister. She's with your father."

  Joseph didn't answer. He walked off toward Martin's room.

  Erma looked at Lawrence. "He knows. John talked to him this morning. Guess he needed some time alone to think it out... Well, to other things. There's a town social at the schoolhouse tonight. It might be nice if you and your wife came along. Meet some of the town's people."

  "We'll think about it. Thanks for askin'"

  Lawrence walked down the hall toward the washroom. It was a shame. All nineteenth century medicine could do for Martin was wait for him to live or die. He paused at the door and started to knock.