Slow John

by Petit, C. J.

  Kate looked furtively to the west and then back at John. She was going to take a big risk, but how much worse could it be? Besides, if he found his family, then hers would probably be close. But the sudden rush of relief from being rescued was quickly extinguished by knowing who he was. There was more danger here. She had to use him to find her family, but be ready to defend herself.

  “Please get me out of here. The other Murphys will be back soon. I have to get away.”

  John had already decided that he would get Kate away from this hovel. Not only was it the right thing to do, but she knew his family and he guessed that if they found his family, they would find hers.

  “Where are they?”

  “The three of them went to town to drink at the saloon.”

  “They can’t do anything to you anymore. Give me a few minutes to think of the best way to do this. Can I guess you don’t have any more clothes?”

  “No, this is all I have. I sleep in it, too.”

  “Are you hungry?”

  She really didn’t have to answer after John saw her reaction. Her stomach actually growled at the suggestion of food.

  All she said was, “I could eat.”

  “Let me get some food out of the panniers and you can eat something while I come up with a plan, alright?”

  She nodded.

  He went to his panniers and began taking out some food and handing it to a suddenly silent Kate.

  Kate was shaken to her core. She had finally been rescued from her nightmare, and he was the lost Flynn.

  _____

  At the Plum Loco Saloon, Kevin, Pat and Joe Murphy were sitting at a table, deep into their drink and it was exacerbating their already foul mood.

  “It ain’t right, Kevin. The old man is just takin’ over and we ain’t gettin’ our share anymore. It ain’t right.”

  Kevin kept his eyes focused on his nearly empty glass and replied, “I think he’s believin’ that Kate’s his wife now and we ain’t got any rights anymore.”

  “What’ll we do, Kevin?” asked Pat.

  Kevin hadn’t had Kate in two weeks and knew that the others hadn’t either. All of them were getting randy and didn’t want to go upstairs and spend the money that they needed for their whiskey. Besides, the three whores were tired and didn’t come close to Kate, especially when she tried to fight them off. It made it more exciting.

  Kevin replied, “If you boys promise to share and don’t start gettin’ all possessive about Kate, I say we kill him.”

  Kevin half expected one of the two, probably Pat, to object. He knew Joe would be behind the idea, so he was pleased when both nodded their agreement. Joe even smiled.

  Joe asked, “How we gonna do it, Kevin? He keeps that shotgun close. He’ll see us comin’ with our rifles.”

  “We wait till it’s dark, then we sneak over there and kill him while he’s sleepin’. Then we can all share Kate right away, too.”

  His brothers grinned. It was a good plan.

  _____

  John was sitting in a rickety chair that creaked any time he moved, so he kept his movements to a minimum. John had cooked a quick dinner of beans and bacon, and he could tell it was a Thanksgiving feast to her with the way she was eating.

  “What do you want to do, Kate? I can take you back to Fort Kearny and give you some money, so you can head back to Omaha, or you can come with me to find your family and mine.”

  Kate stopped her spoonful of bean and bacon mix halfway to her mouth and thought about it for almost a minute, weighing the two levels of risk; traveling with a Flynn or going back to nothing.

  Finally, she replied, “I have nothing back there. I want to find my family.”

  She pushed the spoon into her mouth immediately after the last word left it.

  John noticed the pause and saw something else in her eyes. It seemed that she was afraid of him; not to the level of Thomas Murphy, but it was still there.

  “I just thought I’d ask. Now, I’d like to get some more supplies in town, but I don’t want to stay here. So, what we can do is to ride north to the Platte and set up camp along the bank of the river. Tomorrow morning, we go into Plum Creek and get supplies and you can get some more clothes. I’ll give you a coat, a pair of pants, a shirt and some socks to keep you warm in a few minutes.”

  “Do I have to go into town? Can’t I wait until you get the supplies?”

  John had to think about it. What if those other three came back and found their tracks? They could find Kate easily. But he could understand her reluctance to go into town.

  “I’ll tell you what we can do. Tomorrow morning, after I saddle the second horse, I’ll leave him with you. I’m worried about those other three Murphys following our tracks. You keep an eye out for them and if you see them coming, get on the horse and race into town and look for my horse and mule. Okay?”

  “Okay.” Kate replied between bites.

  After they had finished eating, John left the sod cabin, went to his pannier where he kept his spare clothes, then pulled out the socks, the pants, a shirt and took out his uniform coat. He cut a three-foot length of cord, then walked the clothes back into the cabin and set them on the table.

  “Go ahead and get changed. I cut some cord you can use as a belt to keep the pants up. I assume you have nothing you want to take with you?”

  “No.”

  He left the cabin, closing the door behind him. Then he waited for her to come out, and when she did, he let her pass Murphy’s body and told her to go to the horses and wait. She didn’t look back once as she walked away. John thought it was because of the body, but it wasn’t. Kate needed to keep distance between herself and John.

  After she had gone past, John reached down and grabbed Murphy’s corpse by the bib of his overalls and dragged it into the house. Once inside, he flipped the wool blanket from the bed and lifted the body onto the mattress and then covered it with the blanket. If it wasn’t for the smell, someone might think he was sleeping. Of course, there were already so many foul smells in the cabin it wasn’t as noticeable as would have been in a clean house. His last act in the house was to take Kate’s old dress and hurl it into the cook stove. It was so light, it felt like his hand had gone through a large spider web.

  He stepped back outside, closing the door behind him, picked up the shotgun, then spent a few minutes kicking dirt onto the bloody ground before he headed back to the horses.

  When he reached them, he could see that Kate was wondering why he had moved the body inside, but she didn’t ask. So, he volunteered an answer.

  “I put the body on the bed and covered it with a blanket on the off chance that the brothers, if they came here and were still drunk enough, would think he was asleep and let him be.”

  She nodded but still said nothing.

  John unhooked the trail rope to the second horse, attached the mule to Arrow, then handed the horse’s reins to Kate.

  Kate stepped up in the saddle and swung her left leg over the saddle, looking awkward in her hodge-podge outfit, but managing it well.

  John shook his head at Kate’s ludicrous outfit and climbed aboard Arrow. He decided to follow his own trail back to the fields to disguise them as much as possible and when they had reached the end of the field, he turned them north. He estimated their distance to be about five miles from the river.

  They reached the river an hour later and John picked out a good location for their camp. First, he walked Arrow and the mule down to the river’s edge and let them drink. It had been a long day, and the animals needed the rest. Kate did the same with hers. After they had finished, he turned them back around to a large grassy area nearby.

  He stepped down and began stripping Arrow as Kate stepped down, not even looking in his direction. She hadn’t said a word the entire ride.

  John ground-tied Arrow and began to unsaddle Kate’s horse. He had seen her walk slowly to the bank of the river, and when he finished unsaddling the horse, he watched as Kate stood gazing at the Pla
tte flowing to the east. The Platte was a broad, shallow river, but during the spring rains, could spill over the banks. But this season wasn’t so bad, so the Platte looked like a normal river, but it still wasn’t very deep.

  John continued to watch her as she stared at the flowing water and didn’t know if she was staring recalling her episode with the wagon train that had ended with her being thrown into its silt-filled flow, or just letting her mind wistfully wander.

  He ground-tied the second horse twenty feet from Arrow before starting to unload the mule. He would glance over at Kate every few seconds wondering what was going through her mind, knowing it must be an incredible mix of horror and revulsion, and was amazed she could function normally at all.

  Kate had been staring at the river for several reasons; the first was exactly as John had first surmised, recalling that night when her life had undergone such a dramatic change and the continuing horrors over the past month and a half, the second reason was much more relevant – she desperately wanted a bath.

  The problem was that young man who had just taken her away from Thomas Murphy and the rest of his sordid clan. John Flynn may have been polite and saved her from that horror that had been her life, but she suspected it was only a matter of time before she was right back in the same predicament. She was tormented by the need to clean off the layers of filth that encrusted her and the fear that it would start the cycle of abuse all over again, especially with him being a Flynn.

  John had continued to set up the camp, digging a hole for a fire pit. There was plenty of old wood lying around this close to the river, so that wouldn’t be a problem. The problem was standing over by the river deep in thought.

  He was completely sure that taking her away from there and back to her family was the right thing to do, but he knew how many problems it could cause. She had been subject to daily assaults by those men for more than a month and probably trusted no one; men least of all. Hopefully, they’d be able to find the families in a few days and she’d be able to get help from them. For now, all he could do was continue to provide food and protection.

  Kate finally just closed her eyes for a moment, mentally pushed her memories and distrust back into a corner of her mind and turned back to the camp. She didn’t realize that she had been standing there so long. Either that or Slow John Flynn was the fastest camp-setter-upper on the face of the planet.

  She had also decided she had to make sure she could protect herself and began to look around for a weapon among the supplies. She could see the rifles, but she wanted a pistol, and was unsure if he had a second one.

  John knelt over the fire pit and began putting kindling into the hole before setting some bigger sticks and then two short driftwood logs on top. There was no need to use it yet, though, there was still plenty of light and they had eaten just a little over an hour ago.

  He had seen Kate searching through the supplies, and thought she was looking for something to eat, until she reached into his weapons pannier and pulled out his spare Remington.

  He shouted, “Be careful with that, Kate!”

  She snapped her head back toward him and replied, “I know how to use guns.”

  “Not that one, you don’t. It and the one I’m wearing have been modified. If you aren’t careful you can shoot yourself.”

  Kate thought he was lying just to get the gun back, and wasn’t about to put it down.

  “What do you mean when you say it’s been modified?”

  “I had a gunsmith back in Omaha alter it, so it could use cartridges instead of ball and cap like it used to use. But that’s not what makes it dangerous to those who don’t know about the changes. It’s also been converted to a double action revolver.”

  Kate really didn’t know anything about guns other than you point it and pull the trigger, but she wasn’t about to give up this easily.

  “I don’t care. I can handle it.”

  John sighed. “Alright, if you want to hang onto it for protection, that’s fine. Just remember it’s a double action so you don’t shoot your foot off.”

  Kate looked down at the Remington and couldn’t see any difference, but kept it in her hand as she sat down on the ground away from the saddles, supplies and the horses, and a good fifty feet away from John.

  John had no idea what was going on, but simply continued setting up the camp by unraveling the bedrolls, leaving them ten feet apart. He glanced over at the river and decided that despite Kate’s obvious discomfort, he needed a bath.

  Without saying a word, John walked to one of the panniers, picked out a towel, clean clothes and a bar of soap and walked down the bank to the river. He headed east a way until he found a pool of deeper water that was conveniently out of sight of the camp and stripped. He gave one more look around for water moccasins and then slipped into the four-foot deep pool of swirling water. It was icy cold, as he expected, but still stimulating to the skin, as he scrubbed off the accumulated dust from the last three day’s ride. It didn’t take him long, as taking a quick bath was a habit he had developed in the army. If there was clean water nearby, he took a bath while he could. There were some of his soldiers that had gone over a year without bathing, and he had made it a point to have them always in the back of the column.

  He stepped back out of the water, dried and dressed quickly, then belted on his Remington and headed back for the camp glad he had taken the bath.

  When he climbed the bank, and could see the camp again, he spotted Kate watching him. He didn’t say anything, just walked back to the pannier and set the bar of soap on the top and then hung the damp towel on a nearby branch.

  Kate was jealous when she had seen him walking back with wet hair and freshly scrubbed skin. She wanted a bath badly, and was imagining the cold water and soap flowing over her removing the filth that had been on her skin for months, and knew her hair was even worse. But how could she safely take a bath?

  John watched as she glanced from soap to towel and figured out that she saw him as a threat, and it was holding her back from scrubbing off the enormous amount of dirt that encrusted her. He could understand how she would fear any man after what she had told him; one attack at the wagon train and six weeks of constant violation and abuse. He was surprised she didn’t shoot him as soon as she found the Remington.

  He walked to the pannier, pulled out a fresh towel, grabbed the soap and set them down on her saddle.

  “Ma’am, if you want to take a bath, just go down to the river and take a right about a hundred feet. There’s a nice pool down there that’s hidden from view. The water’s cold, but you’ll be able to get clean again. You can take the Remington with you for protection. Just to let you know what a double-action pistol is versus a single-action, that pistol in your hand will fire just by pulling the trigger. Most pistols have to have the hammer pulled back before you can pull the trigger. Now, it’s harder to pull than a single-action, but you can probably do it. So, go take your bath and I’ll just stay here. You have my promise.”

  Kate was just about to tell him ‘no’, but the lure of a bath was too great. Besides, she had the gun.

  “How do I know you’re not lying about the pistol?”

  John blew out his breath slowly.

  “If you don’t believe me, stand up and face the river. Aim that way and hold the pistol with both hands and then pull the trigger.”

  John thought she might just accept his word for it, but she didn’t. She turned to face the Platte, pulled the pistol straight and braced it with her left hand before pulling the trigger.

  Kate was shocked when it went off. The heavy pistol kicked back in her hands and she barely maintained control. The flame from the muzzle lit up the camp in the fading light.

  John was expecting some comment, but none was forthcoming as she walked to the saddle, picked up the soap and towel and stepped away from the camp with the still-smoking Remington in her hand. As she left, John wondered how he was going to be able to clean the pistol. She sure acted like she wasn�
��t about to give it up.

  Kate walked down to the bank and followed John’s footsteps. Every few steps, she’d glance behind her, expecting John to be stalking her. She finally reached the pool, scanned back toward the camp and finally quickly began removing her makeshift clothing. As she removed each item, she would glance back toward the camp, before taking it off and setting it down on the bank. She stepped down into the water and took a deep breath as the cold wet enveloped her.

  She dipped her head underwater and let her hair soak it in, but surfaced quickly, facing the west to make sure that John didn’t suddenly pop out of the brush. She began to scrub and watched the lather float away the scum. She was stunned to see pink under the dirt. Despite her foul mood, she almost giggled. She began to scrub in earnest until she was clean everywhere except her hair. She began working up a momentous amount of lather on her hair and worked the soap deep down into the roots. It felt so good until she suddenly recalled where she was, and her eyes quickly swiveled back toward the camp. There was no one watching her, so she relaxed and finally dunked her head under the water and let her hair’s massive accumulation of dirt and now soap float away. She came back to the surface and repeated the lathering and rinsing.

  Now, it was time to leave the pool and stepped out, but she spent almost a minute surveying the area for prying eyes, before she picked up her clothes and hastily put them back on. She knew she needed more clothes, and John Flynn said he’d buy her some, but she was uncomfortable with him doing that, as necessary as it was. He’d just think she would owe him something, not realizing just how much she already did.

  John had the fire going and the coffeepot heating, having filled it with from the canteens to avoid going down to the river and confirming Kate’s fears. Although they had eaten just a few hours ago in that poor excuse for a dwelling, he thought Kate would still be hungry, so he had some more food out and was putting a pot on the grate when he heard Kate returning. He never even turned around, not wanting her to think he had been watching her.