The Yank In The Black Stetson Hat (standard:westerns, 3277 words)
Author: G.H. Hadden	Added: Nov 04 2007	Views/Reads: 3782/2547	Story vote: 0.00 (0 votes)
A bold black headline reads "LOCAL HERO AVERTS BARROOM BLOODSHED". And he might have let bygones be bygones, if only the Little Crest Gazette hadn't insisted on calling him "The Yank In The Black Stetson Hat".

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reputations on him.  They want to see him in Stony Mountain yet, 
despite all their legal wrangling.  And he knows why the tavern owner 
fixed it so all involved dropped the charges and freed him.  He's had 
plenty of time to read the paper.  He knows it's no act of charity.  
He's just the scapegoat that Beatrice Whitherspoon and her Temperance 
Movement need to make their case for a dry town.  He suspects that none 
of Little Crest's gentlemen elite old-boy's-network wants THAT by-law 
enforced.  So the powers that be want him and this whole mess to just 
go away. 

"See to it that you arrive on time.  Else the full charges will be
reinstated, and you shall be prosecuted to full extent of the law.  And 
may I remind you; the United States of America has signed an 
extradition act with Canada.  If you fail to turn up in Estevan, 
there'll be nowhere to hide." 

Valentine handed him his empty revolver and instructed him to stow it
away in his saddlebag and ride on.  "I'll be watching you with 
binoculars.  You may not stop to load your weapon. If you turn in a 
loaded gun at Estevan, you will be held over for your court date.  Is 
that clear?" 

"Yesir, clear as the bright blue sky above us."  He nodded.  "No more
trouble." 

"Good to hear it," Valentine said, not really meaning it.  "Now get on."


So The Yank did just that, Got on down the long and lonely dirt road
south, at a flat and reasonable gait under a clear blue sky.  No 
fancy-pants motorcars or scarecrow townsfolk to belittle him neither, 
just the endless rolling prairie rustling in the breeze.  Free once 
again to roam alone, with his horse well fed and watered beneath him, a 
bedroll behind, and a long ride ahead of him. 

Plenty of time to think now, sober and alone on the road with his
thoughts. 

He vaguely remembered being thrown on the cold wood floor that night,
looking up into the barrel of a gun as the cuffs were removed.  
Valentine was the one holding the gun; and Seaton, his clean, baby 
–faced subordinate—-a raw recruit still in his teen years and fresh 
from the parade grounds of Regina; who as it turned out is as yet 
incapable of growing a silly looking regulation mustache—-he was the 
one who removed the cuffs.  He was not much older than that sniveling 
boy, who went prattling on and on.  HE just would NOT fucking shut up!  
ON and ON and ON!  Yes, he very clearly remembered that too, the voice 
of that scarecrow kid—-the tavern-boy who paid him no mind at 
all—-leastways not until he'd had words with the barkeep and drawn his 
weapon to make his point!   Then yes, by God; that got everyone's 
attention right quick!   Put real fear into the boy that night, and 
when the kid ended up with his gun he gave him a look like he'd stolen 
the devil's pitchfork!  Froze him still as a statue.  The Scotsman 
saved HIS life that night.  And that kid kept droning on about how he 
couldn't do it.  He just COULDN"T DO IT!!!   That boy shook like a 
maple tree in a cold November windstorm, and those fucking Mounties 
kept feeding him cups of coffee and telling him he did good. 

That damn boy has no clue how lucky he is to see the sun rise on another
day! 

Then the darkness began to close in.  Perhaps it was the steel cage
slamming shut, or the wooden door closed behind that brought it on.  A 
spinning cage, raging voices—-and he can hear those Mounties taking the 
boy's statement, and all the while laughing at HIM!  Teasing HIM!  
Cursing HIM! 

Then blackness.  He can remember crying himself to sleep like a baby. 
That's when the night sweats and tears began—-when ALL fades to black.  
And he burned alive with feverish dreams of despair.  He can hear again 
the pleading screams of his long dead wife and children.   He smelled 
the smell and felt the pain of searing flesh, and it felt as if his 
eyes were boiling in their sockets again—-so HOT!  He could not squelch 
them closed tightly enough to keep the blinding smoke and embers away.  
His lungs choked up thick char-tasting gobs of phlegm in the hot fumes. 
 He could taste the flames.  Drowning in the black darkness of hell's 
inferno, he couldn't see anything.  He can hear them, but doesn't know 
where they are.  Every move is a blind gasp for breath and a desperate 
struggle for life. 

"Reggie...Re...!"  Her voice is choked into a stammering confused
scream.  But where is she?  Can he save her?  "Bo...!"  He tries to 
call out to her, but every time he opens his mouth he chokes.  At the 
same time he can hear his son's bronchial coughing, as if he had a 
chest cold—-and God, he's bawling for dear life!  Nathan's just five 
years old, and he doesn't deserve to die.  Not like this!  Glass 
smashes somewhere further away, and there's a sudden roar, like a 
million lanterns sparked alight.  But still there's hope.  Still he's 
crying.  Maybe he's with Sara.  Yes, the children are together on the 
other side of the house!  He might have a chance to reach them!  But 
Sara is the baby of the family—-only two!  Why isn't she crying?  Why? 

No time to think.  The voice of his daughter Darla calls from another
part of the house.  She's probably hiding in a closet or under her bed. 
  "DADDY!!!  MOMMY!!  DADDDY!!!"  It's the deathly terror scream of a 
seven-year-old girl—-his sweat precious Pumpkin Pie—-their first-born 
child—-Daddy's big little girl.  It's the scream that goes on forever; 
it gets into the small places of your brain and stays there like rust 
on metal.  Her scream is endless.  But the heat is too much and the 
hungry flames keep him at bay.  She's somewhere on the other side of 
the house, on the other side of the fire. 

He moves slow and graceless, crawling on hands and knees as if tied to
some invisible ball and chain.  And they cried and pleaded and were as 
blind and lost and confused as he was.  Full of panic and terror, all 
rational thought reduced to an animal's instinct to live.  Oh, how they 
suffered—-such unnatural deaths for ones so young and innocent!  And 
he, the coward—-never even tried to save any of them.  NONE!  In the 
end their cries for help went unheeded in the night as the flames 
climbed high with angry sparks on the wind.  The whoops and hollers of 
those savage war-painted riders drowned them out in joyous celebration. 
 They pranced and whinnied their horses and rode off into the night.  
They didn't see him stumble blindly toward sucking air and climb 
through the shattered remains of a window.  They never heard him hit 
the cool ground in nothing but his nightclothes.  They never saw him 
selfishly chose to save himself. 

He only caught a glimpse of them—-ghost riders galloping away into the
wilderness—-back to the Black Hills, to the badlands, most likely.  But 
then again, maybe it was just stampeding cattle.  Firelight can 
sometimes play tricks, and he was not himself.  All the same, come 
morning everything was gone.  Crops in the fields, cows in the barn and 
his family in their house had been engulfed; consumed in flame.  
Nothing was left but ashes and smoldering ruins.  He found their 
charred bodies next day in what was left of their house, and they 
crumbled to the touch and blew away to dust in his arms.  His precious 
wife Bonnie and their little ones gone—-GONE...OH DEAR GOD, THEY"RE 
GONE!!!  Gone like embers on the breeze...gone to brittle black mummies 
and white ashen bones!  And he remembers his appeal to God on his hands 
and knees in those dusty dirty ruins.  A great primordial cry from the 
bowels of his broken heart issued forth from his lips like a wild dog's 
bray at the moon.  It was the cry of a desperate man now alone in the 
world, promising God over and over he would do anything and smite 
anyone...if only he could do it over.  If only he could have saved 
them!  If only he could have them back!  "Please God, OH PLEASE, GOD! 
LET IT ALL BE JUST A BAD DREAM!!!" 

But no amount of tears will ever bring them back.  They and his precious
sweetheart are in Heaven now.   But he—-he lives on to regret the 
split-second decision that damned his precious loved ones to flame. 

And there is much after that that he forgets; and he is glad that that
is so.  After all, human beings can only take so much pain.  After a 
certain point, it all becomes a deep dark hole in his memory.  Perhaps 
a week or more, gone, stricken from the record books—-snap your fingers 
and it's gone--just like that! 

Later, men at the saloon would all buy him a drink.  They all said he
was lucky to be alive.  Even the sheriff and the doc and the U.S. 
cavalrymen said so.  They all said the same bald-faced lie.  "You're 
young, and you'll regain your health.  Time heals all wounds, Sir.  
Even this too shall pass."  But was he—-LUCKY to be alive?  In some 
ways, he never escaped that fire.  In his worst nightmares he's still 
there, trying in vain to save his darling wife and children.  And he 
awakes often to the unforgettable echo of Darla's screech.  No amount 
of drink can quench the flames.  No priests' words of solace can 
silence their screams.  And some twenty-odd years of wandering may have 
healed the scars, but has not healed any wounds—-it only hardened his 
heart.  His soul mate is dead and cannot be replaced.  His wild howling 
prayer to God to PLEASE, PLEASE resurrect his family went unheeded.  
God is dead, or deaf...No matter which; it's all the same. Death is 
final, and Lazarus is a lie.  And God has forsaken him. 

So he had posted two letters—-one for his own family, and one for her
kinfolk back East.  And then he moved on.  Because how in God's name 
could he ever bring himself to face them, knowing he did nothing to 
save his family...nothing at all to help ease their suffering.  How 
many times can a man say he's sorry?  And how could they ever find it 
in their hearts to forgive him?   He cannot even forgive himself. 

Darkness.  There was no escaping that darkness.  It enveloped him in a
stranglehold and would not let go until they opened the wood door in 
the morning—-laughing at his pain.  His head ached, as if his very 
skull were being ground by a stone.  His eyes burned and boiled all 
over again in the light.  Even after all these years, he felt more hung 
over with grief than with drink.  He can never forget.  He suffers pink 
elephants of pain.  Often times he wakes up with a hangover from a good 
long drinking binge wishing he were dead.  If they knew this, they 
would not be so quick to laugh.   They might show some respect for the 
dead. 

And sure they'd given him back his horse and his money (what little
there is left of it) and the rest of his belongings, but they can never 
restore his pride. That was stolen from him in the blink of an eye and 
the flash of a photographer's bulb.  Forever captured in that cage with 
the boy hero pointing over him, and his captors at his side.  He'll 
forever be in that town's folklore as a drunken fool, bested by the 
hometown hero. 

Over a rise and down a dip in the road and the Mountie is now out of
sight.  Out of sight, out of mind.  He has every intention of loading 
his gun, if not to shoot, then just to spite them.  They'll not make a 
fool of him twice though, he'll hand an empty gun to the sergeant at 
Estevan all right!   And if he happens to see a Mountie along the way, 
well then, he'll just have to empty it before then, won't he?   Yah, 
he'll squeeze that trigger and feel vindicated.  No longer a fool to be 
scoffed at and played with like a dog.  Not some mongrel, but a MAN to 
be respected.  And that's all he really wants: RESPECT. 

If they had afforded him some dignity and respect, then perhaps even
now, after all that's said and done, heading south to Estevan along the 
Weyburn Road, on his honor with loaded gun concealed beneath his coat 
and his mount trotting a leisurely pace, he might have found himself in 
a much more charitable, much more forgiving mood when he later chanced 
to meet that scarecrow boy again, riding north to town, just minding 
his own business really, just intending to pass by without any fuss at 
all.   Perhaps the cloudless blue sky above and the endless waves of 
grass rippling in the strong wind might have calmed the savage beast 
within.  Who knows, maybe it would have even cooled him down a notch. 

But we'll never know, because creased into his saddlebag is the latest
copy of the Little Crest Gazette, and he's front-page news.   There's a 
big grinning picture of that simpleton hayseed kid, and a bold black 
headline that reads "LOCAL HERO AVERTS BARROOM BLOODSHED".  And he 
might have let bygones be bygones too, if only they hadn't insisted on 
calling him "The Yank In The Black Stetson Hat". 

The thought of going back to kill Valentine crossed his mind, but that
would be stupid.  He'll be expecting it.  It may even be part of the 
game.  Valentine may even be following.  He wants it.  He's been 
itching for a fight.   But he'll not let Valentine see if he loads up 
fast and moves on quickly.  He'll move on apiece and do it nearer the 
bridge.  The shadows of the steel railway trestle on the horizon can 
hide much.   No hurry.  And maybe in time he'll loose these feelings of 
simmering anger that fill his mind with the fine imaginings of seeing a 
bloodied pulp of Mountie dead on the road, a feast for the flies and 
the prairie dogs.  Bitter experience tells him a little solitude and a 
long dry spell will put everything to rights again.  Those deadly 
imaginings will play themselves out like Klondike gold or simply blow 
away with the wind, and in time he'll find peace and dignity again. 

But in the mean time, the merry thought of that boy's dead carcass or
the Mountie's grieving widow warms his heart and keeps him on the move. 


Lord knows; he can ill afford any more trouble in these parts.  Last
thing he wants is to play into their hands.  He'll not look for 
trouble; but if trouble should find him...if he should be so lucky, 
well then...Devil may care!  A happy thought indeed. 

END OF SEGMENT 

--Author's note 

This story is part of a greater work in progress entitled "The Yank In
the Black Stetson Hat" COPYWRIGHT 2007, Grant H Hadden, All rights 
reserved


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