It was evening when I stepped free of the jail. Time to make my evening rounds. I smiled hollowly at the reality of how I of all people had been elected to the position of keeping the peace.
I made my way past people enjoying the cooler air and received cordial hellos and introductions, which I responded to in kind. I kept the conversations to a minimum and I revealed as little about myself as possible.
If these people only knew half of what I’d been caught up in. That didn’t matter in the here and now.
I needed a horse and some money and while I was at it I would do my best to be the Marshal this town needed. My life had no real direction or purpose to it so why not do something meaningful and risk my life in the protection of others from the rougher element of humanity such as myself.
A wolf guarding the flock from danger so to speak. I’d never fit in with the pack anyway. I’d always been a loner.
In the world of wolves they had a name for such a loner, lobo. If a pack of wolves came across a lobo wolf they would do their best to kill it, but lobo wolves didn’t go down easy. There was always the chance that the lobo wolf might kill the alpha male and take over the pack.
In the end it was usually best to just leave the lobo wolf alone, but men like wolves were always challenged by those few who didn’t adhere to the law of pack mentality that the majority of individuals found themselves constantly bound up in.
They should try being out on their own more, I mused absentmindedly. They might take a liking to it.
The town was already shaping up for me into a visual representation of hierarchy. There was at least one roving pack on the fringes of the herd represented by Doug Stryker.
There were likely others, maybe even a few lobos.
The herd in town was more complex. You had those filling their faces over at the café content to be led wherever the best grazing was to be had. Then you had the store owner Angus that kept to himself like a lone bull content to let another boss the herd, while possessing of all perhaps the best attributes for leadership.
Thaddeus the blacksmith featured himself to be the he-bull, but he lacked the mental capacity to lead the herd well and the town as a herd seemed well led. So who was the unseen hand directing the course of events?
Edgar? I doubted it instantly. He had intelligence, but he was more interested in discovering the story than writing it.
There were a lot of people I hadn’t met yet and I had no doubt that the pieces of the puzzle would fill in with time.
Stopping my walk I listened to the sounds of music on the night breeze. Surprisingly it wasn’t coming from the dance hall saloon just up the street from me. I turned down the side street beside me and the source of the sound became clear as I saw a small church, which had light streaming from all its windows.
It was Wednesday. I turned back as I acknowledged that the town had a significant element of faith to it to be going at it like they were on a weeknight.
Reaching main street I noticed I was beside the general store. It was closed, but the hours indicated that it closed early on Wednesdays. Angus therefore no doubt was a part of the church fellowship.
It only confirmed what I already thought of the man. The preacher very well could be one of the leaders of the community as was often the case in small towns.
If he was though he wasn’t favored by the main headship, as he would’ve been involved in the hiring process and I no doubt would’ve been sworn in over a Bible. I stopped as I thought deeply for a moment, Angus hadn’t been involved either and I felt very sure that Thaddeus hadn’t had the bright idea or the clout to make such a big decision on his own.
I started walking again, maybe I was overthinking it all. But the more I thought about it my hiring seemed to originate from the darker element within the town.
No one knew anything about me. So who would leap at the opportunity of hiring a recovering snakebitten individual?
Someone who expected me to be an easy target for execution if need be. I was also a man without money. Nodding to myself I made a mental note to keep track of whoever was the first to offer me money in order to look the other way.
I stopped, as I felt that I was the source of someone’s focused gaze. Slowly I turned to face a shadowy form alongside of some barrels.
“Glad to see that you made it!” The shadowy figure said rather jovially.
“What is going on?” I asked roughly, as I stepped up to the old indian from the desert.
I would’ve grabbed a hold of him, but well, I wasn’t sure that was a good idea. He had after all disappeared on me before and then there had been that freak thing with the lights that floated on air. Then the freak sandstorm when I tried to go south instead of west. Then…….”Did you sick that snake on me?” I asked, as the question dawned brightly in my mind.
“No my friend.” The old man said completely serious.
“You’re not my friend!” I affirmed roughly.
“Perhaps I am not, but then again perhaps you will find the need to have a friend. Taran things are not what they seem.”
“How do you do that? How do you know my name?”
“It has long been prophesied among the indian people that you would come and now you have.” The old man said with a smile before he turned and started to walk away.
“What did you mean that everything isn’t what it seems?” I asked a little desperately.
“This place is a gateway Taran.”
“A gateway for what?” I asked puzzled, as to me this was nothing but a backwater town of little importance to anything.
“Not so Taran. You would do well to continue looking for what lies hidden. That which is done in secret can’t bear the light of day and things done in darkness bear no good deed to mankind.”
“Evil? A gateway of evil?” I clarified and smiling the old man nodded approvingly, as if rewarding me for being a good student.
At a loss I asked, “What kind of evil?”
“All kinds Taran. You would do well to read 1 Timothy 6:10 in your Bible back at the jail.”
He began disappearing and stepping forward I grasped a hold of nothing but air. I spun around, but nothing moved. The old man was gone.
A Bible verse? What indian knew enough of the white man’s Bible to reference Scripture? This one apparently.
Spooky. The whole disappearing thing, how he set me up with helping a woman that didn’t even exist, and now this town. What was he up to?
What did he have to gain in all of this? And why was he pointing out Bible Scriptures to me and speaking of great evil? A gateway of evil?
Shaking my head I headed toward the building that I expected would be the source of most of my grief as a marshal, the town’s dance hall saloon. Combine whiskey and women and you had a recipe to turn the tamest of men into a bull on the prod eager to tear down and destroy anything that got in his way.
The sound of the laughter of women and the notes of a terribly off key piano reached out to clamor against my nerves. I had no love for saloons or the women they offered.
I preferred to do my drinking in private and as for women……… it had been a long time.
*****
My hands closed over top of the batwing doors, as I stared into the festive scene of the saloon beyond. Thaddeus was there, but not Edgar. That was good to see. I didn’t know why, but it just was.
Things were beginning to add up and the old man, indian or not, had taken the high road with me. In fact I didn’t think that I’d be alive right now if not for his intervention at the cave.
Intervention from what I did not know, but the fact remained that he’d been a friend to me. His appearance just now out in the street surely couldn’t be coincidental, when in fact, he had halted my approach to the den of wickedness inherent to every city of man.
If God was behind all the strangeness that had suddenly come to full bloom in my life then surely He’d made a mistake this time in order to send a messed up case like me into a situation that needed fixed. Funny how my mind leapt to the fact that God must be involved somehow.
I pushed on into the bar and immediately became the focus of all eyes. It was a new experience for me.
I was always looked on as a threat, but never had I felt such instant hatred by so many. The silver star on my chest carried a weight of its own.
I made my way off to the side and sat down at an empty table and the barroom scene soon picked back up into the usual ebb and flow of a night dedicated to the usual debaucheries.
A barmaid came close to my shoulder and leaning in close so that my cheek almost grazed her mostly exposed chest she asked softly, “What can I be getting yuh handsome?”
Her overuse of perfume was on the verge of choking me and I didn’t care for the much groped view she offered. I raised my eyes to hers and all the false joviality fell from hers as her face reflected the need to escape from the unknown that I represented.
“Whiskey.” I said flatly.
She nodded and hurried off quickly.
Thaddeus sat down heavily at the table beside me. His face was flushed from drinking and his demeanor was even more jovial than earlier in the day. He was the happy drunk version apparently.
“How did the funeral go?” I asked casually.
He blinked at me before responding, “Ahhh well…….well as you can expect for a funeral anyway.” He finished with, as he floundered about with what to say.
I nodded.
I wanted him gone from my table. I didn’t like him.
My whiskey was set down before me without the view this time and I said, “Thank you.”
She nodded and hurried away.
Thaddeus was talking about what I wasn’t sure as I was intentionally doing my best to ignore him. I had something else occupying my attention. Someone was watching me.
Many people were looking at me off and on, but this was different. I was being studied, even probed by some unknown source within the room. I didn’t like the predatory feel of it at all.
Every nerve within me felt alive and throbbing with the alarm I felt at the presence of the unknown watcher.
“Aren’t you going to drink that?” Thaddeus asked blearily.
I glanced to him, “No. I don’t have any money yet. Would you mind taking care of this for me?”
“Not at all my friend!” Thaddeus said greedily, as he reached out and grabbed up the shot glass of whiskey and brought it to his lips to slurp noisily at it.
I missed the numbing affect the alcohol would’ve had, although in truth it would have taken most of the bottle to forget for a moment and enjoy peace from my memories of the past. Now was not the time to drink though, if there ever was a time for that.
I stood up to leave and noticed Thaddeus staring moodily at the chipped surface of the table. Perhaps not the happy type after all.
I turned to leave and that’s when I saw her. She’d sat off in a booth to my rear out of view.
Her eyes were calculation itself and her beauty was far from the usual sordid prettiness common to these saloon environments. She smiled and I sensed the predatory feeling I had felt before all over again.
She crooked a finger at me and I found myself rather hesitant to move forward toward her. There was just something different about this woman.
She was to fine in appearance for the place and yet she seemed at home here. I walked to her booth feeling every bit the lackey for obeying her command, but I was curious.
“Welcome to my establishment Marshal. I trust that you have found all in order?”
Everything about her was eye-catching and yet I found her off-putting. Why was that?
Forcing myself to nod I said, “You run a tight ship. I’ve noticed only a minimal amount of dealer fraud on the part of your blackjack dealer and the whiskey smells genuine and not the creation of a bar of lye soap dropped into a bucket of swamp acid.”
She laughed out loud. She had very white teeth.
Smiling again she showed me all of them as she said, “You do paint a rather grim picture of establishments in my profession. I do hope you come to enjoy yourself here anyway. I have a lot to offer.”
Her eyes drifted down me and then back up to mine and there was little to be not guessed at what she meant by that.
I started backing away, “Alas I am a man of limited means and what money I will make, should I survive, is best put elsewhere.”
She shook her head, as her dark brown hair coasted about her bare shoulders, “Your credit is good here Marshal. Come as often as you like. Play cards, have drinks on the house, and enjoy all my girls have to offer at no charge.”
“What if I prefer to enjoy something more expensive?” I asked suggestively letting my eyes run down her and all that the red dress partially exposed and yet still hinted at.
She laughed again and with that predatory look back to her eyes she said, “Now that Marshal will cost you.”
Meeting her eyes I said, “I thought as much.”
I turned and left the saloon quickly. The cool air outside on the street was a welcome relief.
I looked back at the double doors of the saloon and shivered. I’d rather cuddle up with the snake that had bitten me then stroke my hand down that woman’s form!
There was just something about her that said playing with a serpent would be safer than what she held secret behind her hard to read eyes. I walked away in deep thought as I realized that I had gotten my answer from earlier.
I’d had my first offer of money, booze, and women. The staple delights of most men in these Western lands. No thanks.
The temporary forgetfulness of alcohol was never enough and money beyond fulfilling the necessities of life, only ran to acquiring more trouble for oneself and life was already full of that. As for women……….I was kind of weird in the fact that I preferred a woman that was exclusively mine and no one else’s.
Those kind of women were rare. I’d never met one yet, which included the wife that I had once had. Memories beckoned and I found myself caught up in them, when a commotion up the street drew my attention.
“Elizabeth! I’m sorry! Please stop! We need to talk!”
A young woman of the decently dressed sort and not at all hard to look at hurried past me. Edgar followed along close behind.
Reaching out I arrested his flight of pursuit after the woman. He tugged to be free and angrily said, “Let go Marshal! That’s my fiancé and I need to….”
“Women respect strength Edgar.” I said cutting in before adding, “Going after her and continuing to beg does not serve you well my friend.”
“But I hurt her feelings! I need to make it up somehow!” Edgar protested.
“No doubt you have blundered, but such is the way with men when it comes to women. You’ve no doubt apologized a thousand times already, but I tell you now Edgar if she will not forgive you then she’s not worth having.”
He stared at me his eyes continually blinking with surprise. No longer did he struggle to be free and so I let go of him.
Glancing after the escaped focus of all his fantasies Edgar said, “Perhaps you’re right.”
“I know I’m right Edgar. Now I ask you this, what are you going to do when one day you find out that she’s lied to you about something of importance?”
Momentarily looking, as if in lack for words, he managed to say after a moment, “Why, I’ll forgive her.”
I patted him on the back, “I hope you do. If you don’t you’ll end up like me and that is something to be avoided my friend.”
I left him there staring after me. I’d revealed too much with that last statement. It was best to tell no one anything of oneself.
It was better to keep everyone distant, because the chances of being hurt were far less if one never allowed oneself to care deeply for another. The side effect of that however was a life with little left worth living for.
I climbed the jailhouse steps and moving inside I locked the door and turned one lantern up higher. Picking the lantern up I went toward the cellblock and snatched the old Bible up off the corner of the desk as I went.
Reaching the first cell I entered it and hooking the catch of the lantern on the overhead bars I lay down and cracked open the Bible in search of the book of 1st Timothy in the New Testament. I wanted to know more. I already had forgotten so much over the years.
Tonight I truly had seen a gateway of darkness open up. The saloon keeper’s eyes haunted me yet and I didn’t know why. Finding the verse the old indian had mentioned I read, “For the love of money is the root of all evil: which while some coveted after, they have erred from the faith, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows.”
How true that was. I continued reading and the torment that I had felt from earlier ceased, until eventually I slipped off into peaceful rest.