The Amen Trail

by Sharon Sala

  Eulis wasn’t quite sure what to say, although he knew a remark was needed to settle the air.

  “That was right thoughty of him, don’t you think?”

  She snorted again. “I don’t think that Forney man has the capacity to have two thoughts in his head at the same time, that’s what I think.”

  “Well then,” Eulis said.

  The sound of hammering shattered the silence of the night. Letty wondered what the men trying to sleep in the barn thought about all that noise, then decided she didn’t care.

  “Good night, Brother Howe,” Letty said.

  “Good night, Sister. Sleep well.”

  “I intend to,” she said shortly, and blanked out the sound of the hammering just as she was learning to bury the memories of sleeping with men for money.

  SHUTTING THE BARN DOOR AFTER THE HORSE IS OUT

  Mary Farmer was the oldest of six children, her daddy’s favorite, and the only one who’d taken her looks after her mother, Lillian, whom her father adored. She was sixteen, book smart, and common sense smart—both traits that her father took credit for, although it was her mother who’d schooled all six of her children to read and write.

  Mary worked behind the counter at the family dry goods store in Plum Creek, and was a big draw in getting the local cowboys business on payday. She’d been named the Harvest Queen during the town’s annual fall festival two years in a row, only Mary was certain it wasn’t going to happen a third time. She was pretty sure that pregnant, unmarried girls weren’t named anything but loose, which meant that being Harvest Queen a third time was out.

  She didn’t really mind not being Harvest Queen again. She’d had her two years in the limelight. What she did mind was that her daddy had forbidden her to even speak to Joseph Carver, the wild young cowboy who worked on the Double R Ranch. She’d minded so much that she’d done the unthinkable. Not only had she slipped around to see him, but she’d fallen in love with the dark-eyed wrangler, and made love with him every time they got the chance. Now she was about to pay the ultimate price for her indiscretions.

  Last Saturday night, Joseph Carver had gone and gotten himself arrested for horse thieving and cattle rustling. Caught hands down with the branding iron in his hand, he’d been tried and found guilty. It was bad enough that she’d gotten herself pregnant, but tomorrow morning, her baby’s daddy was going to be hanged. She was not only up a flooded creek and drowning, but going down for the last time. Too heartsick and afraid to admit to her situation, she’d decided to do herself in. It was just the how and where of it that she had yet to figure out.

  She fainted at the sight of blood, so using a knife was not an option, and she didn’t know how to shoot a gun, so that was out, too. Each night when she went to bed she tried to stop breathing, but so far had been unsuccessful because she kept falling asleep, only to wake up each morning to a new day.

  Then it occurred to her that she just needed to wait for the arrival of the next stagecoach and throw herself beneath the wheels. It would probably hurt something awful before she died, but that would be her penance for committing her mortal sins. She didn’t think about the fact that she would be ending her baby’s life before it had a chance to begin, mostly because the baby didn’t seem real. She’d felt nothing but panic since the day she’d learned of its existence, and it was far easier to be a coward than to face the consequences of her actions.

  ***

  Dooley Pilchard walked with a limp and had to squint a bit to see good out of his right eye, but he was a good hand with a fire and bellows, and satisfied the residents of Plum Creek’s needs for a blacksmith just fine. His shoulders were broad, his hands knotted from long hours hammering iron and shoeing horses. He looked older than his twenty-seven years, stood seven inches over six feet tall and wore a beard to hide a scar that ran the length of his neck and chin. He wore the beard short and his hair long, tied back from his face with a thin piece of leather. His deep blue eyes were his best feature, but hard to see beneath dark, shaggy eyebrows.

  He was a lonely man who witnessed life in Plum Creek without any participation beyond the casual hello and goodbye to his customers. Because of his size and his limp, few single women ever noticed him, and none gave him a second glance. By his habits alone, he’d become anonymous, almost invisible, and because of that, he knew way more of the goings on in Plum Creek than people could have imagined.

  He knew that the mayor downed a flask of whiskey every afternoon in the alley behind the saloon, and that Mary Farmer had been sneaking out to see Joseph Carver for several months. He knew that Joseph Carver bragged about his prowess among the other cowboys with whom he worked, and he knew that Joseph Carver’s laughing days were almost over. What he didn’t know was that when Joseph Carver died, he was leaving a piece of himself behind. Ironically, Joseph Carver didn’t know it either, but that was of no comfort to Mary and immaterial to Dooley. What he did know was that when Joseph Carver had been sentenced to hang, Mary Farmer had changed.

  Her pretty face was no longer wreathed in constant smiles, and her demeanor had turned into one resembling a whipped dog. She walked with her head down and her shoulders slumped, and he wanted more than anything in this world, to put his arms around her and protect her forever from hurt or harm.

  However, Dooley Pilchard was a realist and knew that dream was about as far-fetched as a dream could be. So he admired her from afar, watched her when she didn’t see him looking, and wished Joseph Carver to hell for making Mary Farmer sad.

  ***

  Adam Farmer knocked sharply on Mary’s door. When his daughter didn’t answer, he shouted out.

  “Mary! Mary! You need to come down and help out at the counter. Seems like everyone has come to town to see the hangin’ and your mother can’t help because Maybelle is sick.”

  “Yes. All right,” she said. “I’ll be down shortly.”

  “Well, hurry up and get dressed. Customers are thick as flies.”

  “Yes, Father,” Mary said, and listened to his footsteps disappearing as she stared blindly out the window to the gallows in the town square below.

  She couldn’t believe she was in such a terrible fix. The more she thought about it, the more she realized what a fool she’d been. Her mother had told her that wild cowboys weren’t to be trusted, but she’d been so certain her mother had been wrong. She put a hand on her belly, testing it to see if she could feel a difference, but it still felt as firm and flat as always. If only she could change the past, she would not give those cowboys a second glance.

  She looked back down at the street, saw the sheriff climbing up the steps to the gallows and quickly turned away. She was ashamed she’d ever believed herself in love with Joseph Carver, and even more ashamed she’d let him have his way with her.

  “Mary!”

  She jumped at the sound of her father’s voice.

  “Coming,” she said, and hurried out of her room and then down the stairs to the store below.

  The room was packed, mostly with people who were waiting out of the sun for the hanging. She scooted behind the counter and tied an apron around her waist before moving to her first customer, a woman she recognized as the wife of a settler named Myron Reed. The harried woman had a baby in her arms and three young children playing at her feet.

  “May I help you?” Mary asked.

  “I need to fill this order,” the woman said, and slid a grocery list across the counter to Mary.

  “It will only take a few minutes,” she said.

  “Take your time, dearie,” the woman said, then whacked her oldest child on the back of the head. “Stop puttin’ your finger up your nose.”

  The child let out a bellow of dismay that only added to the underlying rumble of voices all talking about the same thing—the man who was about to be hanged.

  Mary blinked back tears and hurried to fill the list, took the woman’s money, and moved to the next, then the next, and suddenly someone yelled.

  “They’re comi
ng! They’re coming!”

  The store began to empty as if the building had caught on fire. Mary’s heart began to hurt and her hands began to shake. She moved to the window in time to catch a glimpse of Joseph’s face. The laughter was missing. He looked scared.

  “Mary! Come away from there!” her father said.

  Mary turned around. There was no one in the store but her and her father. She opened her mouth, wanting to tell him what she’d done.

  Then the crowd roared and she flinched. She could hear the sheriff talking and thought he asked Joseph if he had any last words.

  There was a long moment of silence. She wanted to turn around—needed to see the horror of what was happening, yet afraid she would break down. Her father wouldn’t understand why she was so upset over some thieving cowboy she shouldn’t know.

  Then she heard a solid thump, followed by the faint wail of an infant and wondered if the settler’s baby was the only one who would cry for Joseph Carver this day.

  A few moments later, the crowd in the street began to disperse. A few came back into the store to finish their shopping, while others loaded up in their wagons and buckboards and started the trip home. They’d seen what they had come to see—hard justice in a sparse land.

  Mary lifted her chin and found herself staring blindly at the stock lining the front of the shelves, then at her father, memorizing the studious expression on his face as he posted a line of figures into his account book. Upstairs, she could hear the sounds of her little brothers and sisters playing and the intermittent creak of a floorboard above her head as her mother rocked her little sister to sleep. It was so familiar and so dear. But the innocence of her life was gone and if she told her parents what she’d done, then this would all be gone, too. She glanced at the clock. It was almost time for the stage to arrive. She took off her apron and hung it on a nail by the staircase, smoothed her hands down the front of her dress and slipped out the back door unobserved.

  ***

  When Shorty topped the hill above Plum Creek, he breathed a huge sigh of relief. The preacher and his female companion would be getting off in town, and it was none too soon for him. Sister Leticia was a fine looking woman, but in his opinion, not worth the trouble she had caused. He hadn’t slept in a barn since the night his wife had kicked him out of the house and went back to Indiana to live with her folks. He still had the itch from the damn fleas he’d gotten out of his impromptu bed of hay. He could appreciate Sister Leticia’s feelings, but she wasn’t looking realistically at the ways of men. She shouldn’t expect a man to mind his manners so close when it took everything he had just to survive from day to day.

  Unfortunately, Shorty didn’t come by his name for no reason. Not only was he small in stature, but he was short-sighted as well. Being the man that he was, he completely ignored Leticia’s feelings and expectations as important. It was why he was no longer married and why he had to pay for female favors if he had any at all.

  “Plum Creek, comin’ up!” he yelled, and whipped the horses into a faster gait because he liked to arrive at his destinations with a flourish.

  Big Will knew Shorty’s predilection for speed and held his rifle a bit closer to his chest as the stagecoach started down the hill at a steadily increasing pace.

  Inside the coach, Boston Jones pocketed the cards he’d been flipping, while Morris Field began a mental recital of the sales pitch he used to peddle his laces and ribbons.

  Eulis dusted off the front of his frock coat as he clutched his bible close to his chest.

  Letty felt a twinge of anxiety as they came closer and closer to Plum Creek. She’d never been here before, but she knew cowboys who had. Her worst fear was that in the middle of their new life, a ghost from her past would appear and blow it all to hell. It would be hard to maintain a pious appearance if there were men out in the Reverend’s congregation who’d seen her bare-assed and bouncing all over the place. A few minutes later, the first buildings of Plum Creek came into view.

  Letty lifted her chin and steeled herself for whatever awaited.

  ***

  Mary Farmer was wearing her favorite dress, a pale yellow cotton with tatting around the collar and the edges of her sleeves. The skirt belled around her legs, giving anyone who cared to look quick glimpses of her shiny brown shoes and trim ankles. She’d tied her long blond hair at the back of her neck with a wide yellow ribbon and pinched her cheeks until they stung. She wanted to appear in good health and color when she “fell” beneath the stagecoach wheels, that way her folks would believe that her death was a horrible accident, rather than a coward’s way out of a willful mistake.

  The gallows was empty now, but its’ very presence was a bitter reminder of why she was here. A hot gust of wind caught her skirt as she moved past the alley between the saloon and the barber shop. She lifted her hand to shield her eyes from the dust and missed seeing Dooley Pilchard fall into step behind her.

  Dooley had been momentarily blinded too, but from Mary Farmer’s beauty, not the hot wind and blowing dust. He’d watched Joseph Carver hang and at the same time, took note of Mary Farmer’s absence. Now here she was, walking the streets as if nothing out of the ordinary had happened. He was still trying to figure her out when he caught a glimpse of her face in the window glass of the barber shop. The pain on her face was so vivid he almost stumbled and fell.

  He was still trying to right himself when he heard the stage approaching. He turned around just in time to see Shorty cracking his whip over the horses’ heads and whooping and yelling as they rolled into town. Dust boiled out from under the spinning wheels and he could smell the horses’ sweat and hear their wild, labored breathing as they neared the hotel. He turned his head sideways to shield himself from the worst of the dust and as he did, caught another glimpse of Mary Farmer. Then his blood ran cold.

  Mary Farmer was still walking down the sidewalk, but with every step, she was moving closer and closer to the edge. One misstep and she’d be under the horses’ hooves before Shorty could stop.

  “Miss Farmer! Miss Farmer!” he called.

  To his dismay, she did not slow down or look back.

  He started to move, lengthening his stride as he hurried to catch up.

  “Miss Farmer!”

  He could feel the sidewalk shaking as the horses thundered even closer. She had to know they were there but she just kept moving. Suddenly, he thought of the pain on her face and the man who’d been hanged and his blood ran cold.

  Before he could shout again, the stagecoach was upon them. He could see the lead pair of horses from the corner of his eye and knew that she saw them, too, because without hesitation, she took a short step to the right and let herself fall.

  Dooley saw her arms go up and the skirt of her yellow dress billow outward. Her hair, the color of corn silk, lifted up from the back of her neck and then fanned outward, sending the long yellow ribbon up and out like the tail of a kite. Before he could rethink the motion, he lunged forward, stretching his height to its fullest and using the weight and power of his body as a shield between her and the team and stage.

  She was in mid-air when their bodies connected. Dooley grabbed her with his left arm, and the lead horses’ harness with his right as they continued to fall. They hit fast and they hit hard, before they were dragged along the ground, only a heartbeat away from the thundering hooves.

  Now it was no longer a matter of saving Mary. It became a matter of saving himself, too. He could hear the frantic shouts of both Shorty and Big Will trying to get the horses stopped, and the scream of some female bystander who must be witnessing it all.

  Dirt from the horses’ hooves flew into his face and his arm felt as if it was being ripped from his shoulder. Still, he held on to Mary and the harness with all of his might.

  Through it all, in a small corner of his mind he was horribly aware of Mary’s silence. She hadn’t screamed, she hadn’t fought; she hadn’t moved at all. It was as if she was just waiting for it all to be over.
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  And suddenly it was.

  The absence of motion was as startling as the fact that they were still alive. Once he knew that the team had been halted, he rolled out of the way of the restless horses’ stomping hooves, taking Mary with him. For a few priceless seconds, he felt the softness of her body aligned against him and the thunder of his own heartbeat pounding in his ears. He looked down at the woman beneath him as she slowly opened her eyes and looked up.

  They stared, each into the other’s eyes.

  His widened.

  Hers filled with tears.

  Time stopped.

  Covered in dust and aching in every muscle, Dooley Pilchard knew that he’d just fallen in love. Then he saw the dust and abrasions on her face and neck and thought to ask.

  “Miss Farmer… Mary… are you all right?”

  A single tear slipped from the corner of her eye, leaving traces of its passing through the dust on her face. Her chin quivered. Her lips started to shake. She took a deep breath and then shuddered.

  “Oh Dooley, what have you done?”

  Then everyone descended upon them.

  Big Will began pulling at Dooley, as Shorty and the sheriff yanked Mary out of his arms.

  “Miss Farmer! Miss Farmer! Are you all right?” the sheriff asked.

  Shorty was pale and shaking as he helped the sheriff stand her up.

  “Missy… I’m right sorry… I saw you falling and tried to stop the horses, but it wouldn’t have been in time. If it hadn’t been for Dooley, here, we would have run clean over ya’ and that’s a fact.”

  Dooley dragged himself up and brushed himself off as Big Will began thumping him on the back.

  “Boy… I didn’t think you was goin’ to make it!” Big Will said.

  Dooley straightened. He wouldn’t look at Mary. Couldn’t look at her and know that she would rather be dead, than live in a world without Joseph Carver.

  “I didn’t think I was goin’ to either,” Dooley muttered, and walked away as the stagecoach door began to open.