Georgetown.
I walked into the saloon this morning and smiled seeing Sasha. We talked while she worked the bar and served drinks. We talked about John scaring pour Suzy last night in the saloon while he was more drunk than he should have been. I knew I had to talk to Duke about his behaviour because it was deeply troubling. We walked over to the Bowman House to see if there were any rooms available for her to stay in.
Later this morning I was sitting on the balcony of my apartment and waved to a woman riding by. She said her name was Chas. We talked about what we did for a living and about the events going on over in Wyoming.
This afternoon as I continued to sit on the balcony, I saw Duke walking by. I called down to him and told him I needed to talk to him. He came upstairs and we talked about how his leg was getting better.
“I need to talk to you about John.”
“What he do now?”
“He was in the saloon last night getting drunk. Then he was running around shooting randomly and yelling obnoxiously.”
“Was he causin issues again?”
“Yeah he was just shooting off randomly.”
“I talked to him a while back about that,” Duke swore. “Next time he is actually at the office I’ll have to talk with him again.”
“He was shooting down the windows in the saloon too.”
Duke shook his head and said, “HHe keeps it up we ganna have to lock him up. Law isn’t above the law.”
“It was a little bit rude and obnoxious.”
“Don’t worry. He keeps it up he will be fired, and than arrested.”
“He’d better. I had to talk to you as soon as I saw you in town. I’m a bit worry about the reputation he’s giving of the lawmen.”
“So am I. Sheriff Snow Hired him, not me but it still makes me look bad.”
“I told you what he told me when I first met him, eh?”
“I remember.”
“I haven’t trusted him since that day.”
“Nor have I.”
“The whole thing with Jesse being let go... I still don’t know what happened for sure with that. I’ve heard his side of the story but I don’t really trust it.”
“Well when I came in Jesse was on the roof, and John looked like he was watching the stairs,” Duke explained. “It was only till I went up did John start to chase after him.”
We noticed a man walking back and forth down on the street but neither of us recognized him. “Ya look tired,” Duke looked over at me.
“Last night was an exciting night. Chet and I went out to Wyoming with some natives…”
“I haven’t been there in years.”
“Well the natives came out to talk with me and I told them about the chief threatening me… Then the war chief said we had to end this tension between us.”
“That’s good to hear. I’ve been getting worried.”
“So Chet and I went out to Wyoming with them and talked with the war chief and the chief… The chief and I both gave our sides of the story... since I joined them back in November…”
“I’ve had to talk with many chiefs. Most are peaceful men.”
“We decided to agree to disagree that we have different ways of going about justice, but we’re both working towards the same goal towards going against the outlaws. So who knows what’ll happen now but at least there’s some sort of a truce between us I guess.”
“Well that’s better than war. If I need to, I too will visit the chief.”
“Hopefully our war will be against the outlaws and not against us.”
“I hope so too.”
“We were up late last night though so I’m pretty tired... It was the only time to talk with the chief though.”
“Well it is a long trip too.”
“Not as long as the one to the saloon though. Wanna go?” I stood.
We heard the gunshots as John shouted, “Woooo! It’s Big John!”
I jumped and swore under my breath. “He’s back.”
“Well he best start actin like a Lawman or I will fire him. We have laws.”
“If the past night was any indication, Duke…”
“And Law just can’t be breakin’ em. Well let’s go get a drink.”
I followed Duke over to the saloon and we had whiskey while we talked about his leg and how it was getting better. Duke agreed that he needed to talk to John soon.
“You want me there?” I looked at him.
“I am not sure just yet.”
I pointed over to the glass window he’d shot down. “You want to wait until he shoots down more buildings’ windows?”
“If ya wanna come ya can, just stay back a little bit.”
“Maybe best if you talk to him alone, I just don’t want you to be shot down if he gets upset,” I nodded.
“I’ll be back.”
“Be careful,” I said as I watched him walk out and shouted, “Deputy John need ya down at my desk please!”
I sat in the saloon and worked on some writing until the doors swung open and I saw Tex walk in. “Well hey there!” I greeted him with a smile.
“Howdy Trin. How are you?”
“Good to see you, Tex!” I tipped my bottle of whiskey in his direction as an answer to his question. “You want one?”
“Sure.”
I leaned over to get a bottle of whiskey for him and asked, “How’ve things been since we last talked?”
“Just as good as can be.”
“Any more word about Sayler? Last we talked you suggested he might be alive somewhere’s.”
“I think he is, but I still don’t know for sure.”
“How do we find out for sure?”
“I’m working on it.”
I looked at him intently and set the whiskey bottle down on the counter. “Tex... Sayler was my best friend. My soulmate. If he’s still alive…”
“As you might expect, he has his guard up pretty good. He doesn’t want to be found.”
“But…” I sighed and took another sip of whiskey. “Tex... I watched him get shot down. I watched him get dragged out of town. I had to plan his funeral that was never held. I…” I got emotional, wanting to know if my best friend was really alive and why he hadn’t made an effort to contact me to tell me as such. Tex hugged me tightly and I leaned my head against his shoulder, wiping the tears against his shirt. “I’m sorry... it’s been a long, emotional couple of days. And now you’re here and he might be alive and I…”
“Whatever reason he’s hiding out, we’ll have to find out. If it is him he probably has good reasons. He’s protecting himself or someone else from harm.”
“I know, and I trust him I just… You’ll tell me the minute you talk to him?”
“No guarantee it’s him. Don’t get your hopes too high. But I really think it is.”
I nodded, sipping more whiskey as I watched him walk out of the saloon. I sighed, thinking that Duke had been gone a while and went to investigate. I knocked on Duke’s door and he invited me in. “You weren’t coming back and I was getting worried,” I said, sitting down across from him at his desk.
“Well the Deputy is in some type of daze and wont answer me,” Duke smacked his head on the table a few times and swore.
“You look perturbed,” I observed.
“Well the deputy ran up a tab. He drank without payin’. Ya know about the damage he had done to the saloon. That cost us a arm and a leg… and look at theses complaints for the town.”
“Complaints?” I asked and he lifted a large pile of papers. “Geez…”
“Shootin a gun off late at night… yelling at night… shooting at birds…” he handed me the stack of papers.
“Yeah, scared my poor guests near out of their seats. Where’d ya hear these complaints from? Other than me?”
“From the townfolks.”
“You’ve got enough grounds to seriously punish him or even fire him, Sheriff. Just because he’s got a badge don’t give him the right to shoot up the whole dang town late at night.”
“No, no it doesn’t. He is gonna learn the rules.”
“He’d better.”
“And understand we uphold the law not break it.”
“This is ganna take me forever to figure out.”
“What do you mean? Figuring out a punishment?”
“Urinated on horse…” Duke shook his head.
“Excuse me?” I raised an eyebrow.
“One of the complaints. Guess he pissed on a woman’s horse,” he said and I rolled my eyes. “Here is a new one. Tried to ride large DOG, owner is ticked.”
“Wow…” I raised my eyebrows more.
“Wish I could have seen that one,” he smiled. “I mean… that’s awful. Dynamite in the well. Awww here is one from a little boy,” he read. “‘He eight mi wollipop. ANOTHER COUNT OF DOG RIDING… Thank god there is only four left to read. Deputy still probably on the roof doin nothing still isn’t he?”
“Who knows,” I shrugged. I stood, knowing I should check on Suzy after last night’s incident. “I need to go to the stables and check on something, Duke. I might be back later.”
“A’ight. Just be careful out there.”
“Yes sir,” I said and headed outside to find Suzy. She was at the stables as I suspected she would be and I greeted her, “Suzy good, you’re here.”
“Oh, Howdy Trin, were you looking for me..?” she looked over.
“Yeah, I wanted to come over and see if we could talk somewhere. Been worried about you since last night.”
“You have..? I didn’t mean to worry ya... but sure, we could talk.”
“We can go to my place if that’s more comfortable. Don’t have to do it out in the open here..”
“Oh sure, if you’d like too that is.”
“I would” I nodded and we headed for my apartment. We took a seat on the couch at the office and I asked, “So how’d you sleep?”
“Oh I slept alright, about the same as always.”
“I didn’t get to sleep ’till late last night... Went out to Wyoming with Chet and some natives.”
“Oh I see, how did that go..?”
“Had some things to discuss with the Chief. How did it go…” I debated how to answer. “I guess we came to some sort of a truce, if you can even call it that.”
“Oh, that’s good I suppose. They won’t be raiding the town..?”
“At least not against the palefaces hopefully. I think we’ll be working towards the same goal just in different methods. We all want the outlaws taken down.”
“Oh okay. Right, sounds like a good deal.”
I hesitated, shifting on the couch as I tried to segue into the main reason I needed to talk to her. “Suz, last night in the saloon... You seemed a bit uncomfortable.”
“Yeah… I don’t particularly like saloons.”
“If you don’t want to talk about it I understand, I just thought you could use a friend. I know what it’s like to avoid places that bring back painful memories,” I said, thinking of the caves and mines that I still was afraid of going into. Suzy looked down a bit and I gave her time to sort through her thoughts. I decided to open up to her and share a personal experience. “I don’t know if you know this but back in Amiville... I had a very bad run-in with the horsemen gang. They almost held me in their cave and Bill tried to convince me to blame the fire on a lawman, even though I knew it was one of their gang members who did it.”
“Oh yeah? That’s crazy,” she looked up.
“They had two of my friends tied in the cell in their cave and I was tryin’ to get them out…”
“Oh gosh, how scary.”
“But before they let me free, Bill did this to me, to remind me he was serious…” I showed her the knife cut on my forearm.
“Oh my! How horrible..” Suzy’s eyes widened.
“To this day I still can’t go in a cave. Even the mines scare me. I always have to see all entrances to buildings I’m in; so I know there’s an escape. I tell you this, Suz, ’cause I want you to know you can trust me. I care about you and think we’re becoming good friends and I don’t like seeing you like you were last night in that saloon.”
“Really…? Wow… I’m sorry I worried you Trin.”
“You were huddled on the ground like a scared child, Suz. I’ve never seen that side of you before. Was it because of how John was acting?”
She looked down and said, “Yah.. it was because of John..”
“Because you weren’t sure if you were safe, or because he reminded you of someone?”
“He brought back some thing from my past.. yes.”
“Would it help for you to talk about it? I find when I talk about things in the past like a story, it makes it a little less current and threatening.”
“I dunno.. it’s kinda.. hard to talk about..” she ran her finger along the couch.
“You’re safe here, Suz… The door’s locked, no one can get in.” She was still hesitant and I said, “Look, I understand if you don’t want to talk about it right now. I can see that it was something traumatic... I just wanted to tell you that my door is open. Metaphorically speaking of course, but if you ever do feel like you need to talk or run somewhere... Please knock on my door and we’ll just talk about boys or horses or whatever,” I winked at her.
“I don’t really care much for boys.. My horse is all I need,” she giggled.
“Well maybe some day there will be a boy that will steal your heart,” I smiled.
“I doubt it.. I don’t want anything to do with boys..”
“I mean it, Suz. You ever need to talk about something, I’m here.”
“Thanks Trin, it is nice to have someone to talk to. Besides horses…” she giggled.
“Yeah they don’t really talk back much I’m sure. At least not verbally,” I chuckled.
“But they’re great listeners. And they seem to be able to sense the feelings of others.”
“That’s true,” I nodded. “Sometimes I still wish I had a horse or a dog to talk to when it’s quiet around here.”
“Yah, they’re great to have around if you’re lonely.”
There were more gunshots and I sighed. “Must be night time... Guns goin off out there.”
“Looks to be night for sure,” she looked out the window.
I looked outside and shook my head and noticed the sun setting. “Time flies huh?”
“Yeah, sure does,” she let out a sigh. She pulled the knife off her belt and said, “This belonged to my brother..”
I blinked that Suzy was being open with me finally and I turned to look at the knife she was showing me. “You have a brother?”
“Yeah… at least… I hope I still do. We got separated… I don’t know where he is.. or if he’s even alive..”
“How did you get separated?”
“It’s a long story…”
“Okay... let’s start easy... When was the last time you saw him?”
“A couple a months ago.. before the big blizzard..” she said and I nodded, remembering the blizzard. “You see.. Sylver and I.. we ran away after something horrible happened at home.. My blood father.. he was a alcoholic.. he wasted most of our money on beer, gambling and other things... my mother tried hard to always provide for us. One night tho, there was a big argument over money. My dad pulled out a gun and...." She paused for only a moment. Tears slowly filled her eyes, but she tried to hide them behind her hair. "He shot my mother and killed her... My brother handed my his knife and we ran away because we were next on dads list..”
“Oh Suzy…” I shook my head, amazed at the story.
“My brother and I.. we’re from Oklahoma.. and we ran, up through Kansas and then the blizzard hit and we got separated.. somehow i ended up in Georgetown. I seeked shelter in the horse stable because it was so cold.. thats where Downy and Sam found me.." she started to go quiet and looked down at the couch.
“I always thought they were your parents... You three seemed so close and natural as a family…”
“They’re good people and they care a lot about me.. it was hard to trust another father figure tho.. but when I saw how worried Sam got… after that bear attack.. I dunno.. it felt okay to accept him, ya know..?”
“I’ll bet,” I nodded. “Sam’s a good man. I’m honored to work for him.”
“I use to have a locket my brother gave me for my 16th birthday... I lost it in the bear attack.. I try to sneak out there, hoping to find it. But I never did, I bet someone else found it and sold it for money..”
“Suz that’s awful... I remember reporting about that attack... I was so relieved to see you were okay. I was attacked by a bear in the saloon the other day with Chet... I now know how you felt.”
“You were? I’m sorry, I was hoping no one would ever have to experience that.”
“Still a bit sore from it... Hey Suz, we should call it a night and get some sleep. It’s getting a bit dark out there and you shouldn’t walk too far alone in the dark.”
“That’s true.. with all the weirdos that come out at night, I better get on home.. You have a good night?”
“You too, Suz,” I nodded.
“Thanks for listening,” she said as she stood and made her way to the door.
“Thanks for letting me,” I smiled and said goodnight as she headed home.
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