Big Blue Valley

                The sound of galloping horses across the ridge-line made Maggie clutch at the locket around her neck. She knew the galloping could only mean her Jackson had not made it back from town. It was as she feared. What she always feared. These were desperate and lawless times with lawless and angry men constantly prowling through the dirty town streets looking for the easy mark. The low down dirty godless heathens of Butcher’s Bay and Whiskey Alley were a constant murderous threat to the peaceable folks trying to scratch out lives in Big Blue Valley. The murderous ruffians in town could be coerced into the dirty work of anyone willing to pay for their evil intentions. Maggie was all too aware of the blood lust gold can wring.

                The neighs and whinnies of the posse’s horses echoed through the small valley Maggie and Jackson had staked for themselves as their homestead. It was a peaceful spot. It had a small brook running along the North end that fed into a grove of small trees and would likely become an orchard someday, god willing. The soil was dark and fertile with room for all sorts of crops. Jackson had said he hoped to grow corn and wheat as high as an elephant’s eye. She now had her doubts.  Maggie looked up along the edge of the valley and could see the dust wafting up through the air as the hooves pounded along the edges. It was a lot of riders, more than she knew who had left with Jackson two days ago.

                There was a dispute with a banker in town. Jackson and the other homesteaders were being cheated on their saving deposits and they were going to town to make it right with Mr. Charles Tisdale. The man who owned nearly everything in town, except the church of course. Jackson and the other men around the settlement and valley had enough of Mr. Tisdale’s greed and corruption so they headed into town to talk sense to Mr. Tisdale. Hot leaded sense if need be. Maggie had warned Jackson not to tangle with the likes of Mr. Tisdale but he told her she was being foolish and that any man that had worked so hard to get to where they are should be entitled to a reasonable conversation with other reasonable men. Maggie could not convince Jackson that Mr. Tisdale was not a reasonable man. Plus, her husband was a fool. A romantic fool. He was romantically arrogant and it was what she had loved about him. But now, it was his practicality she needed, not his taste for romantic heroics. In fact, she hoped she would have anything of him at all.

                The posse of settlers rode along the fence line of Maggie and Jackson’s homestead and turned up toward the main small cabin. The men, nine of them, stopped their horses and dismounted in silence. The tenth man did not dismount. He was lashed over the saddle like a sack of flour. Blood trickled down the edges of the saddle and dripped to the black dirt. Maggie approached the men as they turned toward her and removed their hats. They bowed their heads in silence. Stupid cowardly silence. Maggie looked across their dirty faces and felt nothing but pity for their stupidity. The brashness they left with two days ago was now gone, completely replaced with red faced embarrassment and fear.

                “So, this is my husband, carelessly left slumped on his saddle,” said Maggie.

                “Yes Ma’am. Sorry ma’am,” said John the Slav.

               

                Maggie folded her hands in front of her apron and took a deep breath. She tasted the warmth of the soil blowing in the breeze and could smell the coppery odor of blood mixing with it. The men stood still and frozen with confusion and emasculated fear.

                “Well, you men get my husband down from there then. Bring him to the house so we can lay him out for his funeral I reckon,” said Maggie.

                The men jumped at the command. They were useless without any direction. Maggie watched as the nine men struggled to lift her large husband off his horse and drag him to the house. They dumped him on the table like a potato sack and wiped their hands on their dirty denim pants. Maggie followed them in to the house. She was already out of patience with these unkempt men, dusty from the road, stinking of sweat and foulness reeking in her small house.

                “Get out you men. You get out of this house,” Maggie said.

                “Ma’am, don’t you want to know what happened,” asked Steve McLawson.

                Maggie looked at Steve. She saw he had obviously been crying at some point. The tracks of his tears lining his sunburned face, cutting through the dirt on his cheeks.

                “I know what happened. I know what foolishness you men got into. I don’t need you damn fools to tell me how my husband died. I can see he was shot. I can see that he doesn’t have his own gun. I can see that he’s dead. What else is there to know,” said Maggie, “Now get out. All of you get on your horses and get out of here.”

                The nine men looked at each other and seemed not to understand English. It seemed they had lost all ability to communicate with Maggie or with each other. They shuffled out of the house in a silent parade of dirty, stupid men.  Maggie practically pushed the last man out the door before she slammed it behind him. They mounted their horses and galloped away as speedily as they could.

               

                She looked at her dumb dead husband on the kitchen table. The table they brought all the way from St. Louis. The table that had made the journey with her mother from New York. The table that had been the scene of happier meals. ‘It was stained with the blood of stupid men,’ thought Maggie.

                Maggie sat on the bench next to the table and clasped the dead hand of her husband. She felt the lifelessness of it. The coldness of a vessel emptied of any spirit. His rough hand, worn and calloused, would never swing her around and always manage to catch her hand as they danced at the barn socials. She did not cry. She did not have to mourn long. Jackson had been dead for a while now and he was already beginning to stink. Maggie dropped her dead husband’s hand to the table and stood.  She looked out of the one window toward the rolling valley they had so carefully selected. The green frontier grass swayed gently like calms seas in the breeze. It was a pretty spot. It was such a shame.

                She spent the rest of the day packing her things and carefully loading provisions onto their old wagon. The wagon they had taken all the way from St. Louis. She quickly went about the work. It was just another move, another thing to do. She found her husband’s rifle, still in the saddle sleeve. She made sure it was cleaned and oiled. She was headed to town in the morning; after she set fire to the cabin as her husband’s funeral pyre. She’d see Mr. Tisdale. She’d get her savings from him or put him in the grave.