The train whistle blew. A single passenger stepped to the platform, valise in hand. The train conductor tipped his hat. Randy LaFollette headed toward the main street of Lode-stone.
The train pulled out of the station, jets of steam roiled into scrub grass alongside the rails. LaFollette pulled his hat low over his eyes, saloons everywhere, tinkling pianos, reminded him of before he met Amanda.
A wild time in his life. One day he slept with three different women. Another five to ten years, he and Amanda could retire, live in splendor. A little Negro boy stepped out of the shadows. “Carry your bag, mister?”
“Bag’s bigger than you,” Randy LaFollette said. He flipped the boy a coin. “Which way’s the Sheffield?”
Five hundred dollars for one fast draw and a few hours in the parlor car. Not bad at all. Randy LaFollette saw the hotel. Thick-carpeted lobby, three well-dressed gentlemen drank whiskey near the front desk. The clerk pushed the register toward him. He signed: Joseph Smith. A bellboy lifted the valise.
“Glad to have you with us, Mr. Smith.”
Randy LaFollette followed the bellboy to the third floor. He looked out the window at a small courtyard and another tall building. The bellboy placed the valise on its stand.
“Where’s the marshal’s office?” asked LaFollette.
The bellboy told him, LaFollette tossed him a coin. He opened his valise, took out his work clothes. The frock coat of a suit impaired access to a man’s guns.
He put on a pair of gray jeans, purple shirt, black bandanna around his neck. Then he strapped on his guns. Before the mirror, he looked at himself, a well-proportioned man, nothing special except maybe his determined cast of eye. A second later his Smith & Wesson flew into his hand, aimed at his chest. He spun around and drew again, dodged to the left, drew, wheeled, fired an imaginary shot sideways, ducked, shot another opponent, rolled to the floor, came up with the gun pointed between his eyes in the mirror.
He spun the Smith & Wesson around his finger and dropped it into its holster. Tilting his hat rakishly over his left eye, he headed for Marshal Kincaid’s office.
~*~
Fully dressed, Gail stood in the dark vestibule of the Madden home, tying on her cape. Her sister fretted in the shadows. “People get killed at night. It’s dangerous out there. This is a completely insane thing you’re doing.”
“I don’t want to be like you,” replied Gail, “wondering why I never followed the man I loved. I can’t live with myself if I don’t at least tell him.”
“You’d better take this.”
Gail stared at a Colt .44. “I’ve never fired one before.”
“Just draw back the hammer with your thumb, aim, pull the trigger. The only women out this time of night are prostitutes, and men consider them fair game.”
“Pray for me,” Gail said.
“I should stop you. Please be careful. Don’t do anything stupid.”
~*~
A blue-uniformed deputy sat behind his desk, reading the Lodestone Gazette.
“I’m looking for Marshal Kincaid.”
The deputy raised his eyes to a man of average height, made of spring steel. Hadn’t heard him enter the office. “That’s his door over there.”
Randy LaFollette entered Kincaid’s office, advanced to the desk, and stood with his legs spread slightly apart, feet rooted firmly to the floor.
“I’m here.”
“Somethin’ to drink?”
“Where’s the money?”
Kincaid opened his desk drawer and pulled out a wad tied with a string. He threw it onto the desk. Randy LaFollette counted quickly, stuffed it into his left boot.
“What’s his name?”
~*~
Gail rushed through an alley, shivering in the cool breeze. A semiconscious drunkard on the ground made a clumsy lunge for her ankle as she passed. She leapt easily over him and continued to the street, ducked into the shadows, peered around the corner of the building.
Miners staggered from saloon to saloon. Horses fretted at hitching rails. One miner punched another in the mouth, the second miner fell to the muck in the middle of the street.
The strange all-masculine world fascinated and frightened her, the worst stretch straight ahead. No point turning back now. She gripped the Colt and angled into the street.
“Hey, pretty lady,” somebody called, “how’s about a little?”
She made her way toward the front door of the Grand Palace. Five men stood in the middle of the street, passing a jug around. They looked like hardened rapists and murderers of the lowest sort. Taking a deep breath, she lowered her head and plowed past them.
One swung from the pack and lurched drunkenly toward her. She placed her thumb on the trigger. The miner was younger than she, with two teeth missing on top and an idiotic maniacal grin. The others turned toward her. I should’ve listened to my sister.
“Lost?” the young miner asked drunkenly. “Can I he’p you?”
“I was on my way to the Grand Palace.”
“That ain’t no place fer a lady. Can I take you home?”
The young miner lost his balance and fell in the mud. He struggled to get up, arms to the elbows in the smelly disgusting stuff. A gigantic miner stalked her, lifting his hat from his big pumpkin head. “I’ll see you home, ma’am. That feller there cain’t even stand.”
“Naw, I’ll look out fer the lady,” insisted a miner with a beer belly. “A decent woman wouldn’t be safe with the likes of you.”
“I’m going to the Grand Palace,” she said. “I want to speak with John Stone.”
“Last time I seen him, he was a-sittin’ alone against the wall. I’ll take you to him. You his wife?”
She followed beer belly into the saloon. Acrid smoke and evaporated alcohol assailed her nostrils, she coughed into her hand. Against the far wall, a line of half-naked women kicked their heels in front of a three-piece orchestra. Chuck-a-luck wheels chattered round and round, the establishment jammed with men guzzling alcoholic beverages, her eyes widened at a miner passed out on the floor. Someone emptied the vile unspeakable contents of a spittoon on him and laughed uproariously.
A man jumped on top of a bar and screamed. The bartender grabbed him by the seat of the pants and pulled him down. A miner and a whore writhed against each other in a booth, his hand up her dress.
“Here he is over here,” the miner said. “Mr. Stone, yer wife’s a-lookin’ fer you.”
Stone snapped out of his reverie and saw Gail Petigru standing in front of him. He jumped to his feet. “What’re you doing here?”
“I had to talk with you.”
Her face framed by the hood of her cape, she peered at his face, trying to catch a hint of his feelings. John Stone, taken by surprise, confused, complexion darkened by a blush, helped her to a chair. She pulled back the hood of her cape, the lamplight catching highlights of her lustrous black hair. She gazed at his strong cheekbones, the cleft in his chin. His intense blue eyes searched her nervously. “Are you all right?”
“I want to tell you something,” she said, trying to control her quavering voice. “It’s not easy for me, so I’ll just come out and say it. I’m in love with you, and if you want me, we can get married. I don’t know why you’d have somebody like me, but thought I’d get your reply for my diary. I make entries every day, you see. The most important things that happen to me …” She caught herself. I’m prattling like an idiot.
Glad I stopped drinking. Stone thought. He stared at the innocent young maiden and wanted to shield her from the cruelty and ugliness of the world. “If I weren’t engaged to another woman, I’d marry you tomorrow.”
The crowd applauded, as a man with a guitar sat on a stool in the middle of the stage. He wore the wide flaring pants of an Argentine gaucho, black hair parted on the side and slicked down, a cigarette dangled from the corner of his mouth. He strummed the guitar and sang a Spanish song in a strong baritone voice.
They saw the sun rise over the pampas, señoritas with roses in their hair. His voice carried the passion and romance of the Argentine cowboy, the love he bore for his wild freewheeling life. Few patrons spoke Spanish, but they knew what he meant.
Gail wanted to bend forward and kiss John Stone. She closed her eyes, his skin fragrant and warm against her lips. He turned to her in surprise.
“Just wanted a little one,” she said, “to remember you by. Now I won’t have to spend the rest of my life wondering what might’ve been. I hope you’re not mad at me for trying.” You’re babbling again.
He reached into his shirt pocket and took out the topaz heart. “I believe this is yours.”
She stared at the jewelry. “Where’d you get it?”
He shrugged mysteriously. “It’s late. I’ll see you home.”
“I came here under my own steam, I’ll leave the same way.”
“I don’t think you understand how dangerous it is out there.”
“That’s what people say, but everyone I’ve met so far has been a perfect gentleman. I think the hazards of Lodestone’ve been greatly exaggerated.” She pulled the gun. “Besides, I’m not as helpless as you think.”
A bartender in a dirty apron approached the table. “We’re runnin’ out of beer. Can you git us another keg?”
“I’ll be right back,” Stone said to Gail. “Wait for me.”
~*~
Randy LaFollette saw the sign: GRAND PALACE. His gait steady, primed to kill, all thoughts banished from his mind, he climbed the stairs, entered the crowded noisy saloon, headed toward the nearest bar, raised his hand. The bartender scurried toward him, wiping his hands on his apron.
“I’m looking for John Stone.”
“Last time I seen him, he was over there.”
Randy LaFollette turned toward a table in the darkness, perceived the dim outline of someone sitting there. He crossed the floor, shoulders squared, ready to draw and fire. To his surprise, a young woman sat at the table, eyes glued to the wailing gaucho on the stage. She turned to LaFollette as he drew closer.
“I’m looking for John Stone,” he said.
“There he is over there.”
A tall brawny man carried a keg of beer on his shoulder. LaFollette angled to cut him off. He leaned against a wall and waited for the big man to draw closer, noticed the old battered Confederate cavalry hat, broad expanse of chest, pants tucked into his boots, cavalry style. Hard to miss a target like that. LaFollette stuck out his foot.
Stone’s ankle collided with LaFollette’s boot, lost his balance, managed to push the keg away before he and it struck the floor. The keg cracked and splattered beer over everybody in the vicinity. Stone rolled, on his feet again, facing the man who’d tripped him.
LaFollette stood with his thumbs hooked in his belt. “Watch where you’re going.”
Stone’s new clothes drenched with beer, licked some off his upper lip, wanted to punch the stranger, but the saloon manager doesn’t fight with customers if he can avoid it. “Sorry.”
Stone placed his hat on his head and turned away. Two bartenders arrived with mops. Randy LaFollette grabbed Stone’s shoulder and spun him around. “I think you’re a stupid son of a bitch!”
“It was an accident. Let me buy you a drink.”
“I don’t want your cheap rotgut whiskey. Where’d you get that hat? I think Bobby Lee was a stupid son of a bitch too.”
The man didn’t appear drunk, but maybe crazy like the one who jumped on the bar earlier. “Mister, I think you’d better go home and sleep it off.”
“I just called Bobby Lee a piece of shit coward.”
Stone wondered what was bothering the man. A crowd assembled in the vicinity. Whores on the second floor lined up behind the banister and watched the confrontation, Slipchuck among them, broom in hand. John Stone faced off with a man who looked vaguely familiar.
A voice in the crowd said, “I think that’s Randy LaFollette.”
Excitement rippled through the saloon. Nearly everybody heard of the famous gunfighter. Slipchuck recalled his face. He’d seen him shoot somebody once in a New Mexico Comanchero town.
Stone recalled saloon conversations he’d heard about Randy LaFollette. They called him The Undertaker. Stone felt warm, his furnace turning up the heat perhaps for the last time. The devil leaned toward him and whispered: “This is your chance to find out how fast you really are.”
LaFollette felt no elation at the fascination he evoked. All business, get the assignment over with. “What do I have to do to make you fight, you goddamned rebel coward?”
I don’t have a prayer against him, Stone thought. But can’t turn around and walk away. “Mr. LaFollette, I don’t know you and you don’t know me. What’s this about?”
Randy LaFollette took a step forward and spat contemptuously in Stone’s face. Stone wiped his mouth with the back of his sleeve. No one ever spit on him before, he thought his head would explode.
“They say Bobby Lee liked to sleep with little boys,” sneered Randy LaFollette.
That old wild combat feeling struck John Stone. I think I can take him. Spit stung his face like corrosive acid. “Let’s go outside.”
“Looking for a chance to run away, Johnny Reb?”
“I don’t run from scum.”
Deathly silent in the saloon, Stone stared into Randy LaFollette’s eyes. They said Tod Buckalew was fast too, and I shot him. Dave Quarternight couldn’t be beat, but I beat him. Let one man spit on you, everybody’ll spit on you. You’ve got to draw the line someplace.
Slipchuck broke through the crowd. “Johnny, you don’t know who this man is!”
“Yes I do.” Stone turned to LaFollette. “Shall we go outside?”
The crowd headed toward the doors, Gail Petigru among them, trying to understand what was happening. Preposterous, barbaric, a nightmare of incalculable proportions, I’ll awake in bed and everything’ll be all right.
Men burst through the doors and spilled into the street.
Belle heard the commotion and ran down the stairs. “What is it?” she asked one of her girls.
“Randy LaFollette just called John Stone out.”
Belle slept with Randy LaFollette once long ago in a Memphis whorehouse. She pushed men out of her way as she ran across the saloon. I’ve got to stop them!
~*~
John Stone looked up at the sky. Something told him it might be the last he ever saw. At West Point they drummed it into his head every waking hour of the day: Cowardice was worse than death.
Randy LaFollette savored the moment. The whole town present, even a bunch of swells wearing evening clothes, best advertising in the world for The Undertaker. His right hand rose slowly, fingers unlimbered, legs spread apart. “Make your move.”
“That’s enough!” screamed Belle, breaking through the crowd. She fought her way forward and ran between them. “Stop it!”
“Hiding behind a lady’s skirt, Mr. Stone?”
“Step back, Belle,” Stone said. “This is none of your business.”
“He’ll kill you, Johnny! You don’t have a chance! That there’s Randy LaFollette! He’s the fastest gun alive!”
“Somebody get her out of the way,” replied John Stone, “before she gets shot.”
Four miners detached themselves from the ground, grabbed Belle, dragged her back as she tried to bite and kick them. “Let me go! It’s goddamned murder!”
Down the street, Marshal Kincaid sat on a second-floor balcony, boots resting on the rail, puffing his corncob. Ready to draw and fire, he had no doubts about the outcome. His John Stone problem would be over in a minute.
Stone and LaFollette measured each other in the middle of the street. Gail watched from the sidewalk, quivering with amazement and horror. Lumberjacks brawled in the barrooms of Bangor, but nothing like this.
“I’ll let you go first, Johnny Reb,” LaFollette said. “Whenever you’re ready.”
Stone grit his teeth and dived his hand toward his Colt. LaFollette saw the crease on Stone’s shoulder, drew his Smith & Wesson, took aim at the massive target, pulled the trigger. A hair before tripping his hammer, Randy LaFollette was struck in the chest by a raging churning cyclone, coughed, his gun fired, the bullet flew over Stone’s head.
John Stone couldn’t believe he was still there. Almost got me. He broke out into a cold sweat. LaFollette staggered to the side, blinded by confusion and pain. He tried to raise his technologically advanced Smith & Wesson, it weighed a ton. How could I lose? His legs gave out and he dropped to his knees. The crowd stared at the widening dark blotch on his purple shirt. Randy LaFollette’s head hung down, blood flowed out his ears, nose, and mouth. He appeared to be bowing before John Stone, as if relinquishing something.
The fastest gun alive fell on his face. All eyes turned to John Stone. Mystified, shaken, but victorious nonetheless, he dropped his gun into his holster.
Belle’s skirts dragged in the mud. “How in hell you do that?”
The crowd gathered around. Mr. Moffitt slapped John Stone on the back. “Good show!”
Gail was paralyzed. A dead man lay in the street, and John Stone shot him before her very eyes! A hand dropped onto her shoulder, she nearly jumped out of her skin. “You all right, missy?” Slipchuck asked, an expression of concern on his weather-beaten features. “Can I take you home? I won’t try nothin’ fancy. You don’t have to worry none ’bout old Slipchuck.”
She didn’t feel very steady. “All right.”
They walked away from the crowd swirling about John Stone. Edgar Faraday, notepad in hand, advanced toward the man who shot Randy LaFollette. “Tell me what you thought when you pulled the trigger?”
Stone felt the world out of kilter. He should be bleeding in the mud right now. Every crazy son of a bitch in the world will try to kill me, to make their reputations. Belle took his arm and led him toward the door. “You’d better lie down, honey. You had a hard night.”
~*~
A group of uniformed deputies sat around the stove in the main room of the marshal’s office.
“Unbelievable,” one of them said.
“Maybe Randy LaFollette wasn’t fast as everybody thought.”
“He looked plenty fast to me. But John Stone was faster.”
They knew the threat John Stone posed. The doorknob turned, Kincaid entered the office, lips set in a grim line. He sauntered toward the table and didn’t bother sitting. “Time to move on, boys. John Stone’s a-gonna be on us like stink on shit.”
“There’s eight of us and only one of him,” Corbelli replied. “Let ’im come.”
“Every lawman and soldier in the territory’ll be here once John Stone starts talkin’. We best clear the hell out. He’s prob’ly wirin’ Fort Logan right now.”
~*~
John Stone lay in the middle of Belle’s bed, arms and legs flung out, eyes closed, alone, all lights extinguished. He tried to calm down. For a moment he’d seen the bowels of hell in Randy LaFollette’s gun. When his Colt fired, he thought it was LaFollette’s Smith & Wesson. He even felt something strike his heart, but the famous gunfighter rocked back on his heels. I don’t know how I beat him, but I did. Maybe I’m the fastest gun alive.
That’s the most dangerous thought you can have. Forget about it. But he couldn’t. Was he unbeatable? Could he walk through the world like a god, because no one could kill him?
He almost beat me. I could be a corpse right now. He felt exhausted. His heart and brain slowed after an unusually long and stressful day. He went slack on the bed, listening to cannons fire at Bloody Sharpsburg.
~*~
Two figures passed through a dark alley littered with garbage. A rat lurking beside a trash barrel watched them pass, twitching his nose. A bad smell came from them.
Jamie carried a tin of coal oil in each hand, Belle dressed like a man in a long coat and cowboy hat. They crossed the street, entered another alley, Jamie muttering and mumbling below his breath, trying to change her mind, she paid no attention to him.
She intended to kill Rebecca Hawkins, nothing would stop her now. The preacher woman went too far. Men killed each other for far less, humiliation kept returning, alternating with fierce hatred for its perpetrator. Dried-out bitch. I’ll teach her to point her finger at me.
They came to the preacher lady’s house, surrounded by a fence. Dead flowers bordered the front porch. Belle nodded to Jamie. He made a griping sound, she responded with a mean face. They glanced around the quiet neighborhood, all lights out. Each took a tin of coal oil and poured it around the wooden base of the house. The night air filled with powerful chemical fumes.
Coal oil splashed onto her boots as she walked along the wall. Belle didn’t falter once. Burn her like bacon in the fire. Jamie appeared around the far end of the house. They moved toward each other, poured final drops of coal oil onto rags they brought with them.
Jamie flicked a match and lit the coal oil at the base of the house. It caught flame and crept slowly around the unpainted wooden shakes. Belle held oil-soaked rags in her hand, Jamie lit them with a match. Belle tossed fire through an open window. They watched tongues of flame creep up the walls of the preacher lady’s house.
~*~
Rebecca Hawkins, naked but for her nail-studded leather belt, knelt on the floor of her room, delirious from lack of food and sleep, her waist a band of festering suppurating pain.
She passed in and out of consciousness. Why have you abandoned me, my Lord? She saw a grotesque monster eating the infant Jesus. Never felt so spiritually bereft, what if it’s all a fairy tale?
A sob escaped her throat. She felt worthless, hopeless, lost. She’d done all the right things in her life. Every day she prayed for at least two hours, fasted every Sabbath, mortified her flesh, denied herself the decent wholesome pleasures of home and hearth in the unceasing pursuit of God’s love. Give me a sign. Otherwise I have no reason to give.
A ribbon of flame danced in front of her. There it is! She reached toward it, her fingertips burned. I dwell within unapproachable fire. She bowed her head and clasped her hands together. “My God,” she uttered, “you’ve shown yourself glorious to me.” Elated, she burst into tears of joy. Dancing flames encircled her, something crashed, sparks sprayed into the air. She coughed, floor hot, tiny whirls of smoke creeping through cracks between boards. I’m coming, Lord.
A lick of flame seared her cheek. Another set fire to her hair. Pain needles dug into her skull. She leapt to her feet and screamed, “This is Hell!” Sheets of flame ran up the walls, her eyebrows scorched, air torrid in her lungs as she tried to breathe. She staggered from side to side. A glimmer of something terrible came to her mind. Judge not that ye be not judged, for as ye judge, so shall ye be judged. Smoke and heat overcame the preacher lady, she fell to the floor, her skin crackled and spattered, she’d never point that finger again.
~*~
Belle and Jamie ran across a deserted street. Behind them, fire reached toward the heavens. They darted into an alley and passed a miner lying on his stomach, a knife protruding out the middle of his back.
Hoofbeats in the street, they pressed their backs to the wall of the alley. Wagons and men on horseback roared past, heading toward the northern part of town. Belle and Jamie waited until they passed, then ran across the intersection, paused to catch their breaths in the shadows on the far side of the street. Whoever they are, they’re in an awful hurry, Belle thought. The sky was bright at the east end of town. “Fire!” A bell clanged.
She and Jamie slunk through the shadows, heading for the back door of the Grand Palace.
~*~
Kincaid rode at the head of the wagons and men on horseback galloping away from Lodestone. He heard the fire bell and turned around to look at the town where he’d enjoyed the greatest success of his life. Hope the whole damn place burns down, with John Stone in it.
Hard to believe John Stone outdrew Randy LaFollette, but saw it with my own eyes. Maybe John Stone’s Jesse James. His wife held the reins of two horses pulling the wagon, money and valuables stored in crates, other supplies at the hideout, ten members of the gang lived there permanently.
Had to end someday, Kincaid thought. He wondered if the cavalry would come after them. No fun to go on the dodge at his age, with a nagging wife. That goddamned John Stone. Of all the trains in Colorado, why’d I have to rob his?
~*~
Belle looked out the window of her bedroom, a patch of sky orange on the far side of town. She heard something click behind her. “Don’t move,” said John Stone from the bed.
“It’s me.”
Stone thought somebody had come to kill him. He holstered his guns. “What’s out the window?”
“A fire.”
He came behind her, placed his hands on her hips. “Where’ve you been?”
“In my office downstairs.”
“I’d better check the saloon.”
“The bartenders know what to do, and if they don’t, I’ll fire ’em. Meanwhile, I need a bath.”
She sat on a chair and pulled off her boots. A strange odor filled the room. She walked in stocking feet to the maid’s quarters. Stone lifted one of her boots. How’d she spill coal oil in her office?