Arizona Blue--Gunfighter: Episodes by D.L. Siluk

Arizona Blue—Gunfighter, in: Colorado Death-jackal

2007-08-13T12:47:00.000-07:00

Arizona Blue—Gunfighter, in: Colorado Death –jackal

((1869)(Colorado Territory, by Mesa Verde)) It was a dim, cold night, not excessively cold, perhaps five above,--and the moon seemed to diffuse within the mist of its light, which covered up a good portion of the stars. The ground was a pale-greenish brown, from the dim radiance which exhaled its due. As the night creped on, it ploughed overhead into a heavy ghostly blacker descent, almost like ash. A commotion was nearing, a twisted one, with an angry roaring to it, the sky all around seemed to brood, right and left, under his feet, then came a silence, and several howls, long drawn out howls, that would have brought shivers to most men. The man in him was aware of the Colorado lands, the wolfs, and tornados or twisters the dark nights, the cold it produced, the vague whispers, and shadows that appeared out of nowhere and vanished, as if burning up with the stars.
Ebbing was the beast as if to the rhythm of Blue’s his heart, a glimpse now and them from the luminous fragments of light from the moon, into the campsite. The canopy of purple mist mixed with a deep purple-blended in, interwoven around the man, as the night flourished. Even he was airily shaken. As he looked up from his spot, there seemed to be a dome over head, immense, and the stars blinked one by one, the sounds of he wolf-beast mourned once more. He was a wanderer like Blue.
Arizona Blue, was only a gunfighter, bred of a long line of shooters, mean and carnivores, and his ethics were as crude and simple as his any jackal. And his long periods of no-contact with civilization had given him an insight into the ways of a contemptuous secret world, the Indians and the lone gypsies, and other gunfighters, and gamblers, he knew their secret soul, and perhaps even the wolfs and jackals. He had previously worked for many ranchers in one way or another, response to the hard times, and needed money. He was perhaps considered at times lax but vigilant. He was all this and more, and the wolf that neared his campsite, was his equal, at least under these circumstances.
Ha-how, is what he named the large circling jackal (more like a wolf), it looked up and down his camp, and at him, their the heavy veil of mist of the night made them both barely distinguishable to each other, yet the beast could smell his flesh, but could not see his eyes, while his hat looked like a hood to the wolf, effectually concealing his eyes.
On the other hand, all Blue could see was the outline of the beast, it was huge, perhaps six feet on all its fours, a few more feet if it leaped backwards onto its hind legs; it had a long dark black body, slim with a powerful chest, and large head, and saber teeth, incased, and rooted deeply into its gums, and ascended upwards, drooping inches outward.
The jackal passed again, looked cunningly at the campgrounds, as if looking for a crack, one that would allow him a moments advantage; on the other hand, Blue not too familiar in the vague outline of the beast, tried to keep focused on its eyes, once the light of the fire hit it, they looked a deep glowing red, and he learned the unmistakable pose of the beasts head when it bobbed back into a fixed position as if it was zeroing in on him, for a shot in the dark, thus, Blue moved so he was not a standing target.
Then Ha-how’s eyes went blank, dark, it fled into the thick of the foliage, running around the camp wild like, inspecting to see if life would emerge. Blue’s own brain soared in a disorder of confusion, his emotions were bewildering, abstractions—nothing but marred facts, and unerringly he moved back closer to the fire expecting the beast to leap out of the woods and onto him, at any time, his gun in hand.
Blue was now talking to the beast, but could not see it, informed the beast he was ready for a showdown (he talked like a gunfighter, perhaps he was thinking like one, maybe this was not good, possibly the beast knew this), but the beast would now show himself. With even and friendly tones Blue beckoned the beast to come and fight get it over with.
“Much better we go this way quickly, than sit around waiting,” informed Blue to the Ha-how, as if he was human. Then he added, “Much better if you go,” and repeated, stolidly.
The beast scowled from the woods, as if it was taunting Blue. Perhaps was thinking also, who was this man to think he is the superior race at this moment; Blue, he had not shaken off the grip he had on the handle of his gun. The beast simply took notice of it, and started running again around the inner rim of the camp. Blue glanced expectantly at the wolf-jackal in dismay. Gripping the gun, wanting to aim it, but not quite knowing where, and even when.
Ha-how grunted, and howled, for he could not withhold it anymore—a haunting sound it was, and the beast knew it brought shivers to mankind. And Blue shot a bullet in that direction; it fell to the ground, but got back up. An accident or wound thought Blue. Did the sound startle the beast, I mean, they don’t reason—right?
In the next sweep, the vision of the beast dimmed, and it fell again, and Blue shot again. And again, Blue thought: another accident, or another wound? He extended his body closer to see, the foreground was empty of foliage, just dainty grass, sweat rolling off his forehead, his nostrils sucking in the cool night air, his own boyhood rose up in front of him, and smote him as he turned his head, bleak eyed to every nook and corner of the woods.
“I’m glad you came,” Blue was saying, “But do come out of the cold and get some warm heat from my fire, please.” So he said, almost sarcastically, as he looked into the woods, yet, all he could think of was how thick it was, and perhaps he could use the beast for its fur after he killed it. Thus, he was counting on the shrewdness he had learned in life, and I suppose, he figured the beast never got any brighter beyond its incapable limits, one that God Himself put upon beast, and gave to man.
The beast now sank down into a low –seated posture, with grace almost, he did not want his prey to escape, and it was the beauty of the kill, the capture that was enthralling: it was warrior against warrior; seldom did Blue or even the Beast find a good opponent, an equal. And with a proud pose head sticking out of the woods, silent eyes, tongue, inside its mouth, it listened for the movements of Blue, the seconds ticked away; both observed one another, almost in amusement, painful toil.
“What have you come for…?” asked Blue; for usually such beasts would simply move on. A slip, Blue fell on one knee; he had stepped on ice, and then resumed to get up. The beast could sense Blue’s warm blood, and vulnerable moment, and leaped its sleek body across the unfathomable gap, from the woods to the nearby fire, onto Blue.
Abruptly, the beast’s face was unheralded into a grinning form, over Blue’s, and Blue’s hand quaver, dropping the gun, sailing three feet in back of him, next to the fire.
It all happened in less than a minute, Blue’s mind flooded with definitions, on what he did wrong, those black red rosy eyes rosy and perturbing tongue, in front of him, over him, in a point of immobilization, its teeth next to his neck.
Then the beast moved back off Blue, it’s faced blazed. As if to say, I have a heart.
Blue stood up warmly, slowly, left his gun where it laid. When Blue looked at his gun, the beast sneered. He had won the battle fairly, thought Blue, both now clear-eyed. Blue tapped a finger to his forehead, as if to wipe sweat off it. The beast moved backward into the woods, and that was that.

Perhaps the Beast sensed Blue was a wonderer like him, a warrior like him, or perhaps it had seen him before, but it didn’t kill him, it was in essence telling him, he was on his territory I would think, and it was just a useless test of dominance, and perhaps the beast knew Blue was not afraid of death per se, for who ever lives like Blue or the Beast, lives more lives than one, and thus must die more times than one, die each time until death captures him completely. Whatever, Blue learned (for in 1869, he was young, and just out of the Army four years), pride comes before destruction.

Notes: it might be of interest to the reader, that in most every story Dennis writes, or poems, he himself has visited that area; to include Colorado a number of times, and Mesa Verde, once (Written 8-12-2007 (10:00 PM) Huancayo, Peru). Episode No: 38

Arizona Blue—Gunfighter, in: Stranger at Pig's Eye

2007-08-01T14:15:00.000-07:00

Arizona Blue rode old Dan along the banks of the Mississippi from St. Louis, to St. Paul, Minnesota, better known to old timers as Pig’s Eye, it was November, 1885. The last time he had been in Minnesota was back in 1877, in the far north country, in the dead of winter.
The air was filled with smoke, and there had been a break in the water, the ice had thinned, and some flooding was taking place, it was unusual, in that flooding took place in Spring, but it was a early winter, and December was around the corner, and Indian Summer had crept in late, it would last a few weeks, then the harsh winter would roll back to stay until March or so. The levee was flooded with ice water, and the sixty or so homes on it seemed to be packed in among the mud. Carriages were hard to pull even with two horses in front. The mud was soaking into everyone’s shoes except for the high rubber ones.
It was a bad summer also, bad harvest, there would be a shortage of corn, wheat and sugar this year, things looked a little bleak. His quick eye saw two Indians canoeing down the Mississippi. The whole river would freeze over by the end of December, or early part of January.
A few folks were fishing on the banks of the River, ice fishing, the high cliffs behind them, and the city on the mesa above the cliffs. He greeted a few passers-by, and he was sure no one in this part of the country knew him by sight, perhaps by reputation; he had been in most every paper in the country at one time or another.
In the bottom of his jacket pocket, he had a leather pouch; it was filled with silver and gold, perhaps five-hundred dollars worth. On the back of his horse, he had a sack, it had some grub left in it, and a coffee pot, and a frying pan. He knew he had to find a place quick to warm up; his hands were numb, cold as the ice on the river. He saw a wooden sign, it read “Pig’s Eye Trading Post,” under the sign was anther one, that said, ‘Hot whisky and food…!”

“Whiskey Stranger,” said a giant of man behind the wooden bar, he must had been 250’pounds of muscle, “Big Ace is the name,” the barkeeper said.
“Yup…!” replied Blue, a whisky sounded good, it would warm up his insides, “and how about some soup?”
“Sure,” Ace said, pouring whisky in one small glass, and handing a hot glass of water to wash it down, Blue pulled out a twenty dollar gold piece, grabbed the whiskey, and walked over by the wooden stove that was in the middle of the saloon, and warmed himself up, drinking from the bottle.
The bartender kept a close eye on him, he wasn’t from Minnesota, he knew that, and therefore, was suspicious.
“The bluffs around here are pretty high,” commented Blue. Ace shook his head as if to agree. To Ace, the first omen was he simply walked away with the bottle, he looked like trouble to him, and he could handle trouble. But as Blue opened up his jacket, he noticed he had two revolvers, one on the right hand side of him, the other in a holster upper left-hand side of his belt, a bit slanted so he could make a quick draw with his left right hand either way.
The barmaid brought the soup over to Blue, moved a table over by the stove, so he could sit down and eat, she did a double take on him, Blue barely noticed her, but he did notice she was checking him out, and it wasn’t the face of a whore, or prostitute. She went to serve a few other folks, but kept looking back a Blue, and Ace kept looking at her looking at the stranger.
Blue took another look as she walked around the stove slowly, staring, she was in her late 30s or early 40s he guessed. A shapely woman for her age, and still some beauty in her face, but she had scares he could tell, a hardness to her eyes, and chin, as if suspicious, or guarded.
The bar was filled with the levee folks, Italians and the Irish, not a good combination when they got drunk. An Indian and his wife were also at the end of the bar drinking some beer, perhaps 20-folks in this early morning bar, on Saturday. It was half past ten AM.

Blue’s body was becoming unthawed, his hands no longer numb. The soup was gone, and the once full bottle was half gone. Again the woman looked at Blue, a glimpse here, there. He stood back up, put his hands closer to the stove, also his knees, and feet, then he took his boots off, sat back down to warm his feet up, socks and all.
She now was starting to look familiar (he had saved her life back in the winter of 1877, and perhaps she saved his also, it was an Indian raid in the north of Minnesota).
‘Yes,’ she said to herself: I know this man…then as if she had awaken from a dream, a spark flooded her insides, and she leaped on Blue, who was standing by the fire, and put him into a bear-hug, saying “It’s me, Feba, you know, the one with the wolves nest…” Then it dawned on him, yes, it was her alright, and he started thinking while in that bear-hug:

((Blue thinking)(Winter of 1877)) As Blue reached for his thoughts, he now remembered her, Feba, from the Northern Country of Minnesota, it was the winter of 1877 when they met, when her and her husband gave him shelter, as he had rode through the thick of the snow of the woodlands, he had come to a cabin, up in an area where the deer was running wild—to and fro—; he remembered smelling the smoke from a nearby chimney. He was a hundred and fifty plus miles north of St. Paul at that time, but it seemed like he was in the Artic. He had asked Feba at that time, why she kept wolves and she had said, “I raise them. They can come in handy.” It was Indian country, Chippewa’s, and he supposed it made sense. In the back of their cabin was where they kept a nest of wolves. Yes, he remembered her quite well, and her boy, Tony, whom the Indians killed. It was near Christmas time he recalled. Many of the Indians had burned the cabins of neighbors. Her whole family was dead, and they had to make it back to civilization in the middle of winter. Yes indeed, those memories were flooding his cerebellum.’

“Gentlemen,” she screamed loud, her giant of a husband behind the bar, Ace, who was almost ready to jump over the counter, but was unsure who to battle with for his wife was the aggressor. She then said with a trembling lip, “This is my friend, my dear, dear friend who saved me …” everyone seemed to know what she was talking about, and there was great pride on her face, and Ace stepped back from the bar to catch his breath. Blue put a comrade smile on his face, and for that following moment, everyone seemed to know Blue better than he knows himself.
“Mr. Blue…” said Ace, “catch,” and he threw the gold piece he gave him back to him, “Your money is no good here, you can have what you want, you saved my little wife from…” and he had to wipe his eyes.

The bear-hug was over, and Blue just stood there idle moment thinking, how well she mended her wounds. I mean she had lost a boy, a husband, a home, everything. Somehow in Blue’s mind he was not surprised in Feba’s recovery, he had classified women into three categories, Good, Evil, and half good and evil, and usually the half turned into the full evil if you allow it to; and women were strong when it came to survival after a grieving process, they cried it out, men usually got angry and tried to battle it out, and it took much longer, if ever to get over it. Another one of his beliefs were: good or bad women wanted to change good or bad men into incontestable men, but they liked to marry the strong and demanding man usually in the beginning, fickle he called them.
Thus, he said cordially, “I need to check on my horse Dan; he needs to be fed and put up for the night…”
Feba responded by saying, “You will be our guest here as long as you wish; we can talk about old times.”
And he walked out to his horse, never to return, lest he parish, for no man wants competition.

Blue had strange ideas, he figured life is given to every person with so much energy to spend, and once used up on one thing, there usually is none left for the other. He was not true to his thinking, but he made his escape, he felt people are usually good because of the circumstances, evil because of opportunity, envy, and jealousy. And who can read a man’s pretense. He had fought over the air he breathed ever since he was a child, thus, he had not cared to have his energy spent on Feba where would it go, at his age now, and there was no surplus energy, and why uncover old wounds, she had healed well, and so he felt, leave well enough alone.

Note: St. Paul, Minnesota was referred to (for many years) as ‘Pig’s Eye,’ dating back to the 1840s thru the ‘60s, when a saloon owner opened up one on the banks along the cliffs of the Mississippi, first in a cave like abode, and then as time went on into a wooden structure. It was a drinking place, as well as a trading post of sorts. Thus, the name has stuck onto the city. Now there resides a dump that is referred to Pig’s Eye, in the lower part of the city. As the city grew in the 1870s and 1880s, Pig’s Eye, now refereeing often to the city of St. Paul, created a levee to slow down the Mississippi, and on this levee, Italians lived, and at one time the Irish. In the early 1960s, the last house was torn down, because of the constant flooding, plus the levee was not useful any longer, for dams were built to control the water flow. Mark Twain visited St. Paul in the 1880s, saying in essence: what a growing city. Well, likewise, Arizona Blue visited the city in 1885, it was for a short period of time, but he was there.

Written 7-30-2007, Huancayo, Peru on the Platform.

Arizona Blue, Gunfighter, in: The Strutting Negro (1883(36))

2007-07-07T12:38:00.000-07:00

Arizona Blue, Gunfighter, in: The Strutting Negro (1883((36))

Now we come to the story of Thomas Jean Le (he never gave his last name to the guards, or police), a stocky, credulous, creature with whom few folks would have nothing to do with. But whose tales of Paris—outrageous as they seemed—gave amusement to the inmates in jail the first night he was there, and to his whites of his eyes they were always gleaming; he would read when bored. His kinky hair was always standing on end, and he had great angrily for dancing, among other things. He was content by himself, playing cards, or games or whatever, as I said, reading, an educated Blackman for his times: himself, perhaps too beguile for the times, in wanting to know and see what he could, and at the same time, not be taken advantage of. I should mentioned, while in jail in New York City, the few days he was there, he did have one friend, a Belgian, whom spoke only when spoken to, never completely happy, unless that is, he was reading (a bookworm you could say, and a scared one at that, fearful like a rabbit looking to be eaten at any moment by rats), so you see, both Thomas and the Belgian had this in common, not much else, and so they clicked, but again I must stress they had little time to click.
He was brought to the jailhouse by two guards, clubs in their hands—as if they were fearful of him, as the tall heavy Negro fumbled about, he was then thrown into the cell with a half dozen other folks, a few whites, an Italian, the Belgian, and a few Irish folk. Arizona Blue was kept in the cell next to this one, alone. Blue was snoring when they brought the big guy in, a huge strutting man, muscles from ear to toe, a young man, perhaps twenty-eight or so (born in the mid-1850s). When he smiled he had the whitest display of teeth god had ever given to any man. As the guards brought him face to face, toe to toe with the members of the cell, they had to throw a cot into the center of the cell, for there were no beds left: he plowed politely through the bodies standing alongside the archway of the iron bared door.
When he spoke, it sounded funny. It wasn’t English completely, but with something foreign connected to it, something his cell mates could not make out, “French;” said Thomas, with a big smile, and cautious eyes.
“I’m called “Sneaky Jack, I’m from down in New Orleans, what’s with the accent, it’s no French thing, and you coming in strutting like a peacock.”
Thomas wasn’t sure if that was a statement or a question, so he paid little attention to it, and broke eye contact, and sat lightly on his cot, the Belgian introduced himself to Thomas, and he commented on the book the Belgian was holding, and that started a conversation.
Blue had gotten drunk the night before and he got two days in the county jail, he was simply getting over a hangover. Then Blue was woke up, as was the evening guards disrupted by the laughter and brawling inside the cell of Thomas’. Sneaky Jack, had hit the Book Worm, the Belgian, a surprise knockout punch, and took the change he had in is pocket to buy some tobacco later on. No one said a word, except Blue looked at the Negro, and the Negro looked at Blue, and the two Irish brothers, known as the Fighting Irish Boys from Dublin, they both looked at Blue and Thomas, looking at them.
“Don’t say a word,” said the two Irish, “Sneaky Jack is alright, who cares about a bookworm anyhow, he don’t need a dime in here, doesn’t smoke or drink.”
Well, Blue was not going to say anything in the first place, but he didn’t like being told he couldn’t. And the Negro just laid back, didn’t say a word either, he knew he needed to sleep and if he got involved with such things, he’d never wake up.
It was December in New York City, and the cells were cold, and the Belgian woke up, and didn’t say a word of his several dollars in change missing, and Jack was now chewing tobacco, he knew Jack didn’t have a dime, and here now, he was chewing.
It was the third day for Arizona Blue, and he was to be let out of jail, he paid a small fine, but before he could leave, he had to wait for the jailer to go to the bank and get his money and guns out, they kept them in a safe deposit area for the inmates, during there incarceration period, and now, during this interval of less than an hour Thomas had woke up, and Sneaky Jack was drinking down a pint of booze. Where again did he find the money, Thomas put his hand inside his pants pockets, and his three twenty dollar gold pieces were missing.
It was a rule of the jail you could keep money up to $100-dollars in the jail, but beware they told the inmates, lest someone sill it, and they would not be responsible. With this they could buy extra items, those who were in for long term, like Sneaky Jack, who had six months, and Thomas that was to be bailed out that very afternoon, his second day.
“Sneaky Jack,” said Thomas, in a calm quiet way, “it is best you give me back my gold pieces.”
“I didn’t take them,” he commented.
“Then let me check your pockets?” Thomas asked.
“Not today negro, maybe tomorrow,” then he laughed, looking at the Irish brothers, and they started to laugh also.
Then Thomas quicker than a normal man, hit Jack several times, and he flew against the bars, the depth and power of his blows were remarkable, and the two Irish went to help, and before they could put their fists up, Thomas threw several blows to their stomachs, heads and as they went down, they hit the floor like timber falling in the forest. Carelessly, Jack got back up, put his fists up again as if to continue the fight, “What a fool you are,” said Thomas, because he could reason at this point, so Thomas felt, his opponent must be a professional fighter, and then as Jack leaped to throw a punch, Thomas connected to Jack’s right side of his head, and Jack fell to his feet, as if he was hit with a bullet.
The guards now came in, gave Arizona his guns and money, as they tried to wake up Jack, only to find out he was dead. Then a stranger came into bail out Thomas, and the guard on duty said, “This negro just killed this white man…!”
Said this French looking older man, “But it must had been in self defense, and plus he has a sparing, fighting engagement with John L. Sullivan this very afternoon.
Said the guard, “I think before sunset, he’ll be hanged, if I know the judge, and I’m sure the Irish brothers saw it all, and I doubt it will be self-defense, and I would guess the Belgian wants to keep reading his books, so I think the odds are against him, he’ll make the boxing ring ever again.
Blue walked out of the jail, he knew the people, the laws of the land, the laws nobody looks at, and the people who—for a laugh over a few drinks down the road—would sacrifice a life or two, that was a part of America, the French fighter didn’t know about, but would learn quickly.

Written 6-8-2007, in Lima, and rewritten 6-28-2007, in Huancayo, Peru

Arizona Blue--Gunfighter, in: "The Baby-snatcher" (#34)

2007-06-08T10:01:00.000-07:00

Arizona Blue—Gunfighter, in:
“The Baby-snatcher” (#34)

(Galveston, Texas, 1882)) Heading towards Yellowstone)) He came down the street escorted, hands tied to each other. The delegation that followed him consisted of two deputies, one sheriff and the mayor, in addition to the culprit of course, Ned Mace (he snatched babies from their cribs, in stores, whenever he had a chance: sold them and bribed all and everyone who wished to stop him).
The winds were heavy in Galveston that summer, the ocean seemed to have produced waves as high as houses, and the winds seeped through the streets. Ned Mace, obeyed every word the Sheriff said, as if he was a toy, but that was not Ned’s nature of course. During this journey, which consisted of walking several hundred feet in the twilight, to a stagecoach, that would take him to a prison the ropes were not once removed.
One of the two deputies, by the name of Allison, had to urinate, and asked the others to halt, and he ran in an alley to do his thing, during this time, the culprit complained of his wrists were swelling to a point it was unbearable. The sheriff took a look, ever so attentive it seemed, then the deputy examined the rope closer together with the Sheriff, it was over-tightened, but the duty said, “So what, this isn’t a beauty contest…so they’re red and swollen…!” and the Sheriff left it alone. Then suddenly a bullet hit the shoulder of the sheriff, he fell back, and a great array of bullets came—one after the other—at the rest of the entourage, the conclusion was: all but the sheriff and Ned were dead, and the shooter, the deputy, took off like a bee after honey, and so did Ned Mace. The sheriff stood up looked about and yelled for help, as if he was feeble with his wound, which was a very light wound indeed, just scratching the flesh.
It would seem to an onlooker, accuracy and speed helped this escape, thus it was planned, but who saw it? Who witnessed it, it was twilight, and no one could say for sure, and so the sheriff of course knew this, and it would remain a mystery for which the slayers were, but one could say it was the deputy, not even the town drunk could have seen this.

There were many side streets, dark and dingy around that area of twon, and the one the deputy ran down, was next to a hotel, and in the morning, Arizona Blue, walked out of the front door of the hotel, he was on his way to Yellowstone, stopped for a moment to rest up. Now in the bar he saw the sheriff, quietly he walked up to him, asked how he was, the sheriff knew who Blue, was, and simple said, “A bit of trouble last night!” And perhaps the sheriff should not have, for Blue responded, “I know, I saw it all!” The sheriff took a swallow of his beer, “All you say…? too bad the deputy got away and Ned!”
So, said Blue, “The deputy was the bad guy?”
“Of course, he even shot me here in the shoulder!” Then the sheriff pointed to his shoulder.
Said Blue, “I killed the Deputy.” And the sheriff become lost for words, and just at that time, “Ned Mace came down the street, his horse aimlessly crisscrossing main street, his body was like a sack of potatoes laying over the saddle, tied to the horse, the town folks all ran to Ned, looked at the sheriff. The barkeeper overheard the conversation. And Blue went on to Yellowstone.

6-6-2007 (EP/Lima, Peru)

Arizona Blue: Scarlet with Rage (1844)

2007-06-08T09:27:00.000-07:00

Arizona Blue:
Scarlet with Rage (1844)

(1844) He hadn’t forgotten his gun, it was in his hand—although he looked at it, but the sight that greeted his eyes was greater, his mother, and that was more important to focus on, she had vivid eyes, the man behind her made him grip his gun tighter, he would be her brave man, if need be, he set every nerve in his noble body on alert, truthful to the tingling he was but twelve-years old at the time,—expectantly he knew he had to do it.
“Attention,” screamed the voice behind his mother—rapidly he pointed the gun upwards, “Fire” the drunk said, as if he didn’t care, then a smug remark followed, “…if you can!” The drunk was scarlet with rage, the boy cool as steel, his gun heavy in his hand.
“Pa—step back from Ma…!” he demanded, taking aim, his mother bloody, broken nose, bruised ribs, weakly wobbling on her knees back and forth, sideways, and her eyes both closing from the red soreness that circled around them: the old man was drunk again, Blue had seen this before, but not quite like this, and now he knew how to fight back, his father taught him.

Blue made one last appeal—which would be his last in his lifetime, he so generously lent; then out of the corner of his eye he saw his father reach for a weapon (alongside him, believed to be a hunting knife he kept in his boot). A few seconds after this, with his father’s last fleeting glimpse—of insanity, and insensitivity, and a last look of devotion from Blue, a bullet penetrated his father’s flesh: he fell over backwards, and as he fell, Blue heard a cry, “Too late!”

(1882) Arizona Blue sat back by his fire, against a rock in Yellowstone National Park, Camping by himself with his horse Dan, now fifty-years old, and this reelection came back. Then he remembered his mother’s hands, and lifting her up from her knees…then going into the back of the wagon, and her tucking him in tightly with blankets to keep him warm for the night.

6-7-2007 (AP/Lima, Peru)

Arizona Blue--Gunfighter, in: "The Written Word" (#33)) 1843))

2007-06-06T15:32:00.000-07:00

Arizona Blue—Gunfighter, in: “The Written Word” (#33)

The Summer of 1843 (A Story out of Chicago)

Arizona Blue, could not of course, write or read for that matter any language whatsoever, and he was but eleven years old; he pronounced words of one to two syllables for the most apart, as was his vocabulary simpler.
Subsequently, he wanted to learn, but he was too anxious, busy fighting at school, working at home, always anxious, restless—unstill.
Every morning he’d consequently direct himself down a path to the school, with good intentions to go, but in the interest of truth, I must say, he seldom make it to the school, Sid Milliard, a close friend, a year older, would be waiting somewhere along that path, waiting for him, and most of the time he found Blue, and they’d go get drunk in the nearby crematory, putting their homemade whisky jugs on the tombstones, talking, drinking, until they’d pass out from the moonshine Sid’s father made in the back of his store in Quincy, Illinois. His mother, Maria, simply said “Son like father,” but it worried her to the marrow of her bones that he was not getting any worthy education in reading or writing. But again she confessed to her sister Sally by letter, “In my life so perfectly I understand, Blue is like his father, in many ways, he is a most exquisite nuance for a son, but I love him.”
And in the summer of 1843, Sally invited the family down to Chicago, both sisters had an idea. (It should be said, Maria was cleaver indeed, well read, and knew the written word well, and perhaps to a high degree the unspoken word as well, for she was a survivor; her vocabulary was a master of intricate words if she wanted to use them; she was breed at an all female college, one a famous poet attended during her times, in New England.)
Blue often thought, ‘If I had one third, just one measly third of my mother’s intellect, I’d be ranked high among my peers, but he liked the art of fighting, and shooting, similar to his father. And he was torn on the drinking part, but he drank nonetheless, often, but at his young age, it seemed more of an emulating thing, than anything else.
I suppose one could say, Blue’s father—in comparison to his mother—was extraordinarily simple, and many of his words were unutterable, thus, communication lay very deep in respect for his father, and the son gave it (father like son; or the other way around), and of course this concerned Maria.

—One day after their arrival in Chicago, Maria introduced Blue to his Aunt Sally Cowden, and her daughter, Sheila. She was all of seventeen years of age, and Blue of course six years younger, but he was big for his age, and serious in his composure, they took a liking for one another, like white on rice, right away. In any case, the two sisters enjoyed the summer together, as Blue’s father was working on a farm outside of Quincy trying to get enough money together to head out west once they got back to the city, in early September.
As a result, the secret of Blue’s learning was really connected to his attraction to Sheila, one Blue would never forget. That summer proved to be an intense study into words, reading, spelling, and Blue concentrated very deeply on this, it would be a period of time he’d never replicate again.
It began and ended with an innate and homogeneous tactile liking between Sheila and Blue—one that seemed to appear with an almost unspeakable ease. As always his mind raced, and thus, picked up her daily lessons quite easily, and in time, she would become a teacher, her life’s goal.
But it would be back to Quincy for Blue and his mother, and then out west, as his father was buying the wagon and supplies needed for the long journey, and on that journey is where Blue would earn his future reputation.

Written EP, Lima, Peru, 6-6-2007

Arizona Blue--Gunfighter, in: The Shooter from Lima (1881))#32))

2007-06-05T22:52:00.000-07:00

Arizona Blue—Gunfighter, in:
The Shooter from Lima (1881))Episode #32))

Advance: They had all gathered outside along Main Street, Abilene was the town: Amos—from New Orleans had just got into town, heard the commotion, a gun fight was about to start, he stood by his horse, hung on tight to its bridle, and Bill the Bartender from the local saloon, stood scratching his thick neck, and Zelda, the prostituted was hanging over the balcony, trying to get focused from a long drunken night, it was forenoon, and a cold darkness, a silence crept over the muddy street, through the soupy sky…(It was the day his father died, which was July 1, 1844, he was only 46-years old back then. His Mother Margaret Teresa Dalton, had to raise him then after. It was a rough childhood, coming west from Quincy , Illinois, he couldn’t remember the exact year he was born, he thought his father once said it was 1832 (he would die in 1885), now standing in the sun, he felt like the kid said, ‘Old man’ to him, he was 49-years old to the best of his knowledge, longer than most gun fighters ever got to be (Wyatt Earp, would grow old, but not many like him did, he had met him once in Tombstone). Anyhow, today was a hot day in Abilene, and some kid from the far south had come up through Mexico, he said he was from Peru, Lima to be exact, and he had just killed someone in the bar. But Arizona was really thinking about his dad, and his mother, but not for long, not after the kid smack into him.

[The Shooter from Lima] He wore a clad shirt, the young shooter from Lima, his long lean muscled legs were planted far apart in the mud, in the middle of the street, he shook his head from side to side at the recumbent (the tall man he called to have a shootout with ((His name was Manual something…no one got his last name, they just called him, ‘The shooter from Lima)).
Curiously enough (at least to Arizona Blue), the Peruvian said in English
“Go for it Mister!” then he added “Mister Blue…or whatever they call you!”
Blue murmured ‘I’ll kill you sunny…go on while you can to wherever that place called Lima is…!’
And the Shooter laughed, slowly laughed, and Arizona said in his whispering voice, ‘Enough of this nonsense…!” and like a drummer, he shot four holes in his chest, faster than you could blink an eye; the shooter barely got his gun out of his holster.
As Blue’s bullets climaxed in a thundering push, knocking the young kid down into the mud, steadily cramming through flesh and bone and internal organs, Manual’s voice echoed a producing, but dim vocal cry, “I’m actually dying…!” He said. The young man’s laugh became less and less as Blue approached him—the demonstration was over, complete, Arizona told himself. The shooter from Lima was dying, slowly.
His lips became yellow, his face expressionless, his feet, jerking as Blue approached him with his rawhide look, it had been a long ride from Mexico to Abilene, and he was tired, wind and sun burnt, and now he seemed to produce a fascinating grimes, as he stood over the dying lad, “Old, you say, haw…” commented Blue to the dying man. “I see you got no more profanity for me.”
The Peruvian puffed gently as he lay, internally gasping for air, helpless with miner gestures, and Blue, pitiless with grace; thereat, Blue turned to walk into the bar, allowing the shooter delicately to escape for an abstracted interest, his dying wish, quietly and quickly he removed the gun from under his leg, with a burningness in his chest, and his last efforts, he lifted the gun a few inches, shot it off, and a bullet plunged into the left back thigh of Blue. He stopped, hesitated, then without acknowledging the wound, he walked into the bar as if nothing happened, ordered a drink (he’d not allow himself, or the kid, nor the onlookers a show…he’d take care of it later, and suffer the pain now).

Afterward: The Sheriff was in his office looking out the window, holding a curtain with his left hand, and outside his office was Judas, the drunk of the town sweeping the wooden sidewalk clean, and around the pole, his attire—rages. The sheriff shook his head, murmured ‘had not the young man learned a lesson in the bar, when he nearly got his gun out and shot old Zulu, and then bumped into Blue, and called him on, Zulu was not half as fast as Arizona Blue, alas, no one counseled the Kid from Lima.’

Written in Lima, Peru, 6-5-2007

The History of writing: Arizona Blue—Gunfighter

2007-05-11T19:47:00.000-07:00

The History of writing: Arizona Blue—Gunfighter

( I think the original idea for the stories of Arizona Blue, were invented in my mind, back when I was perhaps ten or eleven years old, those far off dreams come back do them not.)

The Arizona Blue stories: first imagined, and were written down in 1990, was but two stories, and put into a stack of papers in the basement of my house in Minnesota, and forgotten for the most part (today, May, 2007, there are now 31-stories, and on 226—internet sites, and three of the 31, are in a book called, “Everyday’s an Adventure,” and perhaps someday all will be put into a book, should I find someone willing to publish them).
The first story was suppose to be the last story 1) “Lady in White,” (six chapters) being the first of the two, although if I recall right, in 2001, and 2002, I reconstructed it a little. And the second one was 2) “Wild Flower,” which was not it’s originally name; it was really part of the first and original story. Then I wrote the third in 2001, and completed it in 2002 called “Deadwood,” (after I went to Deadwood) I added as a subtitle 3) “The Mexican Stand off (Deadwood)” and in July 2005 (was created in episodes, but made in chapters: for example: ´Showdown on Main Street,’ and ‘The Barber Shop’ and ‘Chickamauga’ and ‘The Rooming House.’ Thus, we have five episodes individually published but later on sewed together) I added to the five part story, about 2500-more words, making the four parts more of a five part short story, connecting to one another, instead of one interconnecting long story, which it is in essence, if one wishes it to be. So Episode four could really be #8.
In the third story, originally called “Deadwood,” which later on became part of the full title “The Mexican Stand off (Deadwood)” a story of Chickamauga was added to the narrative. The rock of Chickamauga was put in after review of the battle. The author me, during my Army stay in Germany, prior to going to the war in Vietnam, in 1970-71, I was stationed at a military base, called Reese Compound, in Augsburg, Germany 1/36 Artillery, where there was a huge rock their with the inscription, “In Memory of the Battle of Chickamauga.” This I never forgot some how, and so out of respect and memory I added it to his story, or series as it has now turned out to be.
I spent 11-years in the military service. In the first part of August 2002, when I was editing the three stories for the book “Everyday’s An Adventure,” of which many of my short stories were put into the book, my wife Rosa of three-years, at the time, liked the stories so much, I wrote a forth story, called 4) “Arizona-Blue, and The Wolf Nest (in the North)”. I completed it except for the conclusion, which it was already designed to be a two part story; but felt later on it was not necessary, and entered a short summation to the story.
Thus, it was revised, and is as you see it now; it surfaced August of 2005, and became very popular on the internet.
I did start to write another Arizona-Blue story, my fifth, called 5) “Another Town,” in 2001, but it was just an outline and until this day, has never surfaced beyond that; in July of 2005, I did revised it and added about 300-words to it, it was meant to be a chapter within a story, or an Advance for a story.
Consequently, all the stories are new for the most part, with the same themes or topic, and plot, but perhaps, better motifs [or designs].
July, 2005, I added the sixth story to the ongoing series 6) “Crazy Sam,” and in August, 2005 (which I wrote on a napkin and can’t find), added number seven, 7) “A Rough Year—1844” which was really an extension of “Another Town,” and “Crazy Sam,” an extension of “The Mexican Stand-off” 8) Purple, Gray Skies (1844—Flagstaff, Arizona) 8/2005; 9) In the Wagon (1844) 8/15/05; 10) Abilene-Loreto (Arizona-Blue, 1887) written 9/15/05 and 11) A Fools Draw (1870s) Written 11/29/05. 12) “At the Red Dog,” was rediscovered 1 December, 2005, the idea was planned out on the computer 1/2005 (after visiting the Red Dog Saloon, in Juneau Alaska, where the Idea came from), but never fully constructed; when discovered in my files #2 out of #9 files where at that time I kept some of my stories I put it on the internet. Number #13 “One Horse and Six Men,” was written on 12-12-2005, spontaneously, as most of these stories were written, especially the later ones (2001-2007).
In 2006, I wrote several more Arizona Blue stories, such as (#23) “Rawhide and Whale Bone,” written on: 6-2-2006. “Roofless Hades, in Mexico”; Episodes number #24 & #25, (written on: 6-24-2006)

and up to May of 2007, I wrote four more short stories ¨#27 thru #31, all interconnecting (linking that is) with the theme and plot constructed in number #27, “Death Along the Canyon’s Rim!”

Most all the places, locations I’ve mentioned in these 31-stoires I’ve visited, such as Deadwood, and the boarder towns, Cheyenne, Minnesota. The only one I can think of I have not been to would be El Paso.

By the author, Dennis L. Siluk May 11, 2007

Arizona Blue—Gunfighter, in: Maggie O’Brian’s Quest (Episode #31)

2007-05-11T18:37:00.000-07:00

Arizona Blue—Gunfighter, in: Maggie O’Brian’s Quest (Episode #31)

Arizona Blue was on his bed half asleep, when someone knocked at the door of his hotel room, it was May of 1877, a year since he had been down around the rim of the Grand Canyon. He was in El Pasco. He reached for his holster, and started to pull out his gun. Who it could be, he wondered, who knew he was here, no one to his understanding. He knew Tom Brady, the Sheriff, he would not be knocking, or Doc Fremont he was an old friend, taken a few bullets out of his back, legs and chest in years past, he wasn’t him, he was always coughing. It wouldn’t' be that sheriff either, the one from Falstaff, Arizona; he didn’t have the guts to try to bring him back for an inquest. He shook his head; he felt a bit washed up, empty from the drinking and card games the night before, a bottle of whisky by his bedside, half full.
The knock came again.
“Who’s there?” Blue called, thinking no one with any sense perhaps, because if they knew him, they were putting their lives on a hot iron.
“Sure glad I found you,” said Maggie, as she opened the door, saw Blue on the bed. “You took a long chance coming back to save me, and tell me about my husband being dead, I saw the grave you dug for him, when the Indians captured me they showed me. You are a very brave man, I wish I would have taken your advice but I just couldn’t at the time.”
Then abruptly, and curious, Blue sat up along side of her on his bed, she stood meekly close to him, and he said “I don’t see how you could have gotten away from the Indians…?”
Maggie shrugged from her stillness, resenting her captivity, and somewhat embarrassed by standing next to Blue, yet gratitude were on her face. It seemingly was to her kind of a kindred sharing moment, and meeting, and Blue not quite understanding the why of it all.
“I was looking for you for two months.” She stated. “I was always thinking you were going to hightail it back to find me, but you didn’t.” Blue was a tinge embarrassed, “Since the last time we met, it looks like you have been busy,” she said with an odd flat voice, almost annoyingly.
Blue smiled, she sat down on the side of the bed by him. “I don’t really have anybody, I mean, when they captured me, I got pregnant, and they didn’t want me to take care of the child, so they left me at my husband’s gravesite to die: they wanted my boy to be raised by them, to be a warrior. All of a sudden I was in the way. Then a camper came by, a hunter of sorts, smelly he was, and took me for his mate, until I got away from him, and heard you were in Texas. It was odd how the memory of you came to mind, a devil man like you, a hunter and killer of men.”
Blue buckled on his gun belt and stood up, she was still pretty and slim and eye catching he thought.
“I didn’t know were to go, and life could be lonely, you know, a lonely thing, and I knew you could protect me, and perhaps you would like some companionship?”
Blue looked out his window, the sheriff was going down his steps, Sheriff Tom Brady walking onto the road, talking to a few passerby’s; Blue he picked up the quart bottle of whisky, took a swig, looked at Maggie, she sure was cute, and he knew she had her pound of bad luck, there was a tense tone to her face and voice now, one he didn’t recognized before, one you acquire from hard times.
“Come with me Maggie, let’s have breakfast.” She smiled, figured it was all right now, as Blue was utterly astonished, in disbelief of what had just taken place. As they crossed the street Blue bumped into Sheriff Tom Brady, “Come along Sheriff, join me and my sister for breakfast.”
Maggie looked at Blue strangely, as Tom Brady said, “Did you say sister?” Blue nodded his head—yes. Tom was perhaps 35-years old, but a good man, and tough, Maggie, perhaps 23 or 26, but it seemed to Blue, a good fit, Blue was in his 40s.
As they sat and ate, Blue looked at both Tom and Maggie, it seemed to Blue it was inevitable they would like one another, he was similar to Blue, but just not as dangerous, more stable you could say, and younger.
After breakfast Blue told Tom, in his ear, when Maggie went to the powder room, “What you waiting for?”
“Right now!” said Tom, “I don’t even know her.”
“Listen, I brought her all the way down here from St. Paul, Minnesota to marry you.”
“Really?” he asked.
“Yes,” said the gunfighter. This was really the most unexpected words Blue had ever said, and he was wholly confused when he said them, but he said them nonetheless spontaneously. When Maggie rejoined him, Blue got up walked outside, and Maggie was about to follow, when Tom grabbed her hand, “Your brother said he invited you down from Minnesota to meet me, now seeing you, perhaps we can…(he hesitated),” Blue came back in the café, patted Maggie on the shoulder, “Sis, he wants to marry you; he’s a good man, and tough, he knows the west, and no one fools around with him, you’ll be safe with him, and he has a little house at the end of the street, but I can’t force you to take him, it’s up to you, think about it.” Now she was taken off guard, as she had done to Blue.
They both ended up smiling and just looking at one another, Tom to Maggie, and Maggie to Tom. “I think Tom, she’s got you,” said Blue, laughingly with a smile. Her lips were moist, sweet and they both knew there’d be no more chances like this one, ever.

Note: Episodes #27 thru #31 are interlinked. #31, written: 5-11-2007

Arizona Blue—Gunfighter, in: Last Card Game in Falstaff (Episode #30)

2007-05-10T22:25:00.000-07:00

Arizona Blue—Gunfighter, in: Last Card Game in Falstaff (Episode #30)

(Arizona Blue, over 226-Internet sits have picked up on these Episodes, this being the 30th)

Arizona Blue was always proud of his skill in shooting, and not timid to display it. He always looked a bit ready, or like a man preparing for target practice. It was July, of 1876, when Blue was in Falstaff (had been there going on five weeks or so), Ernie Hard, a gun-slinger out of Abilene was in town, Arizona knew of him, a young buck, not too young, was playing cards at the Do-drop-Inn. He was a tall man, with large teeth, buck teeth, and red hair, he had itchy-fingers, so his legend goes, which precede him, eager to kill, and he always muttered, so no one could tell what he was saying, somehow that seemed to put his opponent off guard.
“Go to hell,” said Tom Doyle, a local farmer, and one of the five card players at the table, in the bar, he was speaking to Ernie Hard; Ernie had told him he had won without showing his cards.
“Put down the cards,” said Tom “I want to see them!”.
“Do what you can, or shout up…!” ordered Hard, and he started to take the money from the pot in the middle of the table, no one said a word, and Tom started to turn frigid in his face.
Tom pulled out a forty-five with a cut-off barrel, tucked deep into the side of his belt; it was hidden by his jacket. Ernie, eying the farmer boy, saw his snub-nosed muzzle, which meant he had to be in front of him to shoot it with any accuracy, thus, he smiled and held his breath, then muttered a tinge, the next moment (seemingly a gap in time) the sound of loud gun against a moment of silence came abruptly, and the guy next to Tom spat tobacco onto the floor as if in shock,Tom fell backward, dead, and surprisingly, Ernie fell flat onto the table, the discharge of Tom’s gun had shot through his shoulder.
Said the barkeep running up to Tom “What in hell did you do that for?” Of course he could not speak, he was dead. At that very moment, Arizona Blue turned about, he was watching everything from the bar mirror, for once he wanted to stay out of harms way, but he was cursed, as many folks had told him in the past, wherever he went, seemingly he could not avoid trouble.
He walked over to the table, $400.00 was in the kitty, Ernie knew of Blue, his reputation anyhow, saw him shoot a few times, and he was perhaps 15-years younger than Blue. Blue looked at Ernie, plainly, then chuckled, as Ernie went to take the money, but Blue pushed them back—Ernie’s hands back, looked at his cards, he had two kings, one pair that was all, then he looked at Tom’s, three jacks…”You lose,” said Blue.
“Wait until my shoulder’s better, we’re going to have a shootout.” Said Ernie; but that was not a good thing to say, evidently he did not pay all that much attention to his reputation.
“You’d never guess, sunny boy, but the shootout is going to be now.”
“But I can’t,” said Ernie, his face transforming into grief and dread.
“Then I’ll shoot you dead right here, or get on you knees and beg for your life!” The entire bar was watching.
The bartender nodded to the table of card players to move, and they did.
Blue knew the game, if he let him live, he’d just follow him, so he put Ernie in a cowards position, and to his surprise, he got on his hands and knees and begged for his life. Then Blue turned around, got thinking: there’d never be a better chance than now, he waited a moment, hoping Ernie would go for his gun, and then Blue threw down his second pistil in front of Ernie, “Sorry, but one of us will have to die this evening!” Said Blue.
It seemed hopeless to Ernie, but he knew that was the deal, and therefore, he leaped for the gun, and clutching it grimly he shot off one round, Blue simply dodged back, then fired his gun, that was it. He knew he’d be clumsy, and let him take the first shot, that way; there’d be no question of who was in the right.

The fight was over, Blue shrugged. There was only one thing to do now, leave the city, it was futile to try to explain to the law every detail, the folks saw it all, it would all come out in the wash, he knew, thus he swung his jacket over his shoulder, finished his drink, and bid the barkeep farewell.
Out of the bar he jumped on his horse, Dan, then shouted, “Give the money to his wife!” then out of the city he rode, in kind of a zigzagged galloped, he was a bit drunk, but happily drunk.

5-20-2007

Arizona Blue—Gunfighter, in: Maggie O’Brian, Compromised Episode #29

2007-05-09T22:00:00.001-07:00

Arizona Blue—Gunfighter, in:
Maggie O’Brian, Compromised
Episode #29

Blue was resting, lying, elbows down, motionless, undisturbed, examining his thoughts (on the bar), bruised knuckles from the fight he had a few weeks ago along the rim of the Grand Canyon. Just a few trifle thoughts, is all, his whole body was aware of the endurance it had taken, soreness throughout his whole body, he was getting old, he told himself. Maggie O’Brian came to mind, the gal that he met at the log cabin, along the rim of the canyon, her husband had died, and she was taken captive by the Indians, he could not sleep peacefully because of that, because he was questioning his actions, his motives. He had confused dreaming, and he questioned his mind, his cerebellum you could say, I suppose it did its trick, it maintained balance and muscular alertness. (It was now June of 1976.)
It occurred to Blue, that this impetuous girl named Maggie, had compromised herself in more ways than one by staying in a cabin on the rim of the canyon after the odds of her husband being alive was ten to one. He told her to leave, but she wouldn’t hear of it. He could have played the angle of mercy and tried to get her back, but it was too dangerous, again the odds were one in ten, and he was a gunfighter, not a mercenary.
He was contemplating her face now, relaxed at a bar in Flagstaff. She was prompted by strong impulses, he told his second self, you know, the one we all talk to, and the one that tells us our desires of a woman, wanting a woman, he had really never felt an itch for a woman as he did this one, hell, he kind of was hoping he’d find her husband dead, that is why he returned, thinking he could perhaps comfort her, and then, who knows what. Well, this is what was going on in his mind.
“You sure you want another drink?” asked the barkeeper, knowing Blue got mean when he drank too much, or was in a depressive mood. “How do you feel?” he asked, smiling.
Jake Cody, wound the clock, and gave Blue another beer with a shot of whiskey, squint-eyes, watching Blue in case he gave a sign of craziness, and he’d simply duck; he noticed Blue’s ungentle fingers rubbing his gun, he did that when he was thinking, unfocused; simply as it may be, it reminded him, he was unfocused, a life saving tick you might say, he picked up along the way.
“Oh, I should have, should have?” question Blue to himself.
“Should have what?” asked the barkeep.
Angelina sat down abruptly by Blue, yawned a bit, it was close to midnight, “Honey, we can if you want?” said the young prostitute. She was pretty thought Blue, but her sleep-swollen eyes were defacing, and his mind was too busy thinking, and his thirst was too intoxicating to make love, so he smiled and said nothing, but ordered a drink for her nonetheless.
In a clap of an eye, Blue shot out the lamp near the bar, the several folks in the bar jumped up, then trying to move away from his blind spots they stood stone still against the wall, puzzlement filled the bar, it was quiet, why did he do what he did (thought the wall folks), but no one cared or dared to ask. Blue shook his head, Angelina still sitting next to him, “I never saw one like you,” she told Blue. He looked at her, she must had been less than 20-years old, he told himself, but there was something in her eyes that reminded him of Maggie, a proper looking girl (but this one was a prowler).
“Sure,” he said in a mild tone, “let’s go up to my stall, I mean room honey, and do it, it’s number #13, I like that number, it follows me around.”

Note: This can be considered the third part to the story of “Death along the Canyon’s Rim,” but to be honest, it simply was not written with that excuse in mind, so I have not categorized it that way. It was meant to be a story of its own, simple as it is about Arizona Blue, reflecting, as often we all do, and question our motives and actions.

Written at home, 5-9-2007, 11:39 PM

Arizona Blue--Gunfigher, in--"Death along the Canyon's Rim" (Parts one and two)) Episdoes: #27 & #28))

2007-05-09T10:22:00.000-07:00

Arizona Blue—Gunfighter, in—

“Death along the Canyon’s Rim!”
(Part one of two: episode #27)

“Trouble along the Grand Canyon”

The Authors first story of Arizona Blue in over eleven-months

The burning Arizona sky by the Grand Canyon, horse-smelling sky held a passive look for Arizona Blue, gunfighter (1876); wrapped in a grew Army shroud riding his horse Dan, thinking of a fresh-baked pie, any kind would do, his saddle loose. His mother Teresa disliked having him ride at night, so he remembered, as he rode this noon dust, and sun into evening, she was purely pound of him when he was a boy. And he heard her once say to his cousin, “Blue just never got a chance like you boys did, and he and I aren’t beholden to no one, like you boys are…” he remembered how she stood up like a fighter for him, like he was or turned out to be, but she died, and now it was July, and he was remembering, in the desert heat, that was turning cold as twilight was turning into night, night, but it was a peaceable night for once, but it never stayed that way for him, he was always guarded, life had taught him so, experience you could say, too many falls, and each one had a lesson for him, one he never forgot; and so he keep up with the evening stars, “Hold your tongue Dan (he always talked to his horse).” Arizona knew Dan was getting tired, but he was all mixed up, he always got mixed up in July, his mind never seemed to focus, perhaps thinking of his mother; it was the month she died in, 1873.

There was light in the far-off cabin, and now he observed a woman walking back and forth, vague shape, a few horses outside the cabin, and the woman was pushing a man away, the other two men were standing outside in the yard, watching through the window.
“Pull her down Charlie!” said one of the men. The other got closer to the window to watch, that is when Blue knew they were unwelcome trouble makers—and then he heard a chair break, and the man in the cabin grabbed the girl, and down she went, and the fence right next to the house, old Dan jumped it, and startling the two men, Arizona struck them with the butt of his rifle, and the impact of the physical blow, dropped them both, and right thou the door, swiftly Dan charged, and the man now on top of a young woman, a child in a crib next to the table, , , easing his horse back into a standstill, Blue dropped his rifle, and pulled his six shooter out, and shot the man three times in the legs, disabled him before he could take flight or fight, crippled him for life most likely, he would never forget this day for sure, and that is how Arizona Blue fought: give them something to remember before they think about doing whatever they were doing again: the woman couldn’t ignore his quick and abruptness (but she was safe, and she gave Blue an exhausted smile). Blue said in a calm voice, to the blond haired young woman, with her blouse torn, and scuffed up knees, “I would have preferred a different way in, but…” and he said no more.
“I’ll get these men on their horses, or bury them alive (the man he shot looked in shock), and if you don’t mind, I’ll have a nice quiet dinner with you, and leave tomorrow morning, I’ll sleep wherever you wish.” (Blue was a man, not a thief, or a person that would take what did not belong to him, that included women, he was taught that is not what a man does).
Dismounting, Blue placed his hands on the man, dragged him outside, and told his friends, whom were now waking up, to take him along with them, or face his guns, and gave them three minutes, no more. And they all left like wild and wing flopping hens.

Written 5-9-2007, 2:21 AM (Lima, Peru)

Arizona Blue—Gunfighter, in—
“Death along the Canyon’s Rim!”
(Part two of two: episode: #28)

“Gunfighter’s Advise”

In the morning, Blue had circled the cabin, noticed it was next to the rim of the Grand Canyon, and that Maggie O’Brian, from Minneapolis, Minnesota, had come down to the Canyon, on kind of an experiment trip (so she had told Blue), her husband was a geologist, a professor, young as he was from the University of Minnesota, and was studying the rocks and formation of the strata within the canyon walls. They had been married just two years, with a new born, but three weeks old.
Maggie watched Blue as he eased cautiously around the cabin, looking for snakes, and perhaps one or two Indians, and /or those cowpokes, that had halfway raped her the night before.
But what he really wondered was, her husband had been gone going on two weeks now—and as he had told Maggie over breakfast, “I hate to say, but most likely your husband is dead, especially if he’s always come home within a few days, you can’t stay out here all alone,” said Blue.

Now they were standing at the edge of the canyon, both looking down its north rim.
“You were lucky last night,” said Blue, “These men would have taken you along for sport, had I not shown up, and used you until they were tired of you, and left you for the Indians when they had no more use for you.”
With a conflicting impelling voice, Maggie O’Brian conferred, “I’m most grateful for your coming at such a needed moment, but I can’t just leave him, and expect he will follow us, he is no tracker, or hunter per se, we’ve lived here going on six months, and he has done some hunting, but as you can see not much, but I have enough food for a few more weeks, until he comes back, I can’t go, no I won’t.”
Blue a tinge astonished saw no hope for her, with his left hand, he rested it on her small shoulder, wiped the dust from his forehead with his right, “Ok, Mrs. O’Brian, but I got to go, if I see him along the rim… (he hesitated, then finished by saying) I’ll ride that way a few days, as you mentioned, perhaps he is doing some of those experiments, looking for rocks and all, but I may not have the time to get on back here if he is…you know, as I expect he is, dead.”
Wide-eyed she was, almost in wonderment, Blue thought, he was a fighting man—a real, go to hell part of trouble for anybody to handle, and could be brutal, but never with a woman, or weaker individual, he’d just walk away, with his broad-jawed face. But today it was hard to walk away from this pretty little housewife, that wished to stay, happily stay, he knew she was going down, should he leave, that her husband was dead somewhere along the rim.

As he had come, so abruptly he left, the stone faced rider, waved his hand at Maggie, and bellowed, “Take care.” And rode off, spit out some tobacco juice, “let’s go Dan…” he commanded and slowly they left, his hands gripped his Winchester.
It was on the second day of riding along the rim, he had noticed scattered items, cloths, etc., here and there, then a body laid in front of him, it was Maggie’s husband, it fit his description, he lay along the rim, his head on a rock, and snake bites in and on and all over his body, a nest of rattlers nearby, and his horse, lay several feet away, also dead. He conjured, that the horse must had got bit, threw him, and when he landed perhaps the rock killed him instantly, if not the snakes did the job.
“That’s how it happens out here,” he told Dan, and dug a grave right there.
“Come on, come on Dan! We got to get back to the lady before the Indians do, or someone one else.” After that, for a time Blue never said a word to Dan, and his horse knew there was trouble in the air. He rode fast and rigidly braced himself against the saddle, even kicked Dan, which he normally did not do.
He got back in 18-hours, it was briskly hot, he noticed coming in from the side, the kitchen window open, and instinctively he knew something was wrong. There was a discarded rifle in the yard, “We’ve got to get to her Dan,” Blue said, hoping it was those three men that took her and not a group of Indians.
As he rode further on, he saw ahead of him several Indians, he kept his distance, and he was dizzy from the lack of food, the heat, the long ride, as was Dan, whom was almost ready to drop. Pain–racked his brain when he saw them wrap her up in rope, they had just had there fun with her (what ever fun that was, for they were laughing), her cloths in fragments; now she was thrown over the back of a horse like a sack of potatoes. Twenty of them, she glanced back, the Indians didn’t notice Blue they were two busy laughing and drinking and looking at her, he was some three hundred yards behind them by a towering rock, he was but a shadow between the sun and the wind, but she knew who he was, and she new she was doomed, she understood he could not do anything, and perhaps she didn’t care, for there was only one shadow she saw, not two, and her baby was dead.
Pain slashed his side, like sharp claws, there was no clarity to his mind, should the Indians see him, neither his horse nor he could out run them, escape, they were awfully tired.

Written 5-9-2007 (11:57 AM)

Arizona Blue - Gunfighter, in: "Lady in White": The Next Day [Chapter Three of Six]

2006-07-14T18:30:00.000-07:00

Arizona Blue - Gunfighter, in: "Lady in White": The Next Day [Chapter Three of Six]

They had fallen asleep in the hay; the rooster woke Blue up in the morning. He shook her, to wake her. He thought as he gazed down on her stretched out body: I do lover her, be it lust or real love: what a beauty.

“You can’t leave town, Blue,” said Ella stretching her arms; “I’m going to marry you.”

Blue’s eyes opened up: “Spunky woman,” he answered.

Ella, almost in shock herself, acting like: where did it come from, smiled with a big huge grin.

“Do what you will with your life. I want to marry you and if you don’t you will never make love to me again,” said Ella with a self assured look.

Almost in disbelief, Blue looked at Ella, as if to say, is this for real? He felt close to her though, but no one had ever asked him to marry him, in such a short time, he thought. I’ve only known her for a day, he told himself, but what a night. Blue chuckled in the uneasiness and trying event, an event that struck him to the bones; as they put their cloths on. He then started thinking out loud, saying:

“Why not, I’m getting along in years, the trail is dusty, she’s young and pretty, can’t lose; nothing wrong with marring above you.”

“Why not then,” replied Ella with a soft smile, adding, “my father will go crazy but he’s been after me to get married for sometime.”

“Today,” said Ella, adding, “in a church!”

“You’re short and quick with your words, lady, but okay.” Her face glowed, and her smile was unbreakable. Then blue thought, did I really say that. What kind of madness is in me, in this. But he smiled at himself; then asked Ella, “Is there really such a thing as ‘love at first sight,’ or loving a person at … meeting a person, then falling in love, since it wasn’t at first sight, although you were attractive; to be honest, I’m getting all mixed up.”

Replied Ella, “Yesterday I would have told you no way, there’s no such a thing, but I’ve heard of stories with such beginnings, and ending: fairy tails that is. And so we are living in a fair tale romance. But it is good, so why break it apart, if it is destined to be let it be.” Then she added, almost spastically: “Can you stay alive long enough for me to buy and put on a white dress, and then get the preacher?” asked Ella.

“Sure,” answered Blue. “You go ahead and do all that while I go to the hotel and bathe and go over and get a shot of whiskey at the saloon. “I’ll meet you at noon at the church.”

Arizona Blue - Gunfighter: Lady in White [End Chapters #4]

2006-07-14T18:23:00.000-07:00

The Saloon
Chapter Four

He had checked into the hotel: shaved, took a bath, and put on the cleanest dirty shirt he had. Combed his hair and wiped his boots off with spit and the shirt he was about to put on. He then looked out the window; it was 10:00 AM on the clock above the saloon he was in yesterday. Then tightening his gun belt, he went down stairs of the hotel, out the door, across the street to the saloon, then as Blue walked through the door he walked up to the bar, ordered a whiskey with a beer to wash it down. Two young gunmen were standing along the bar: fiddling with their shot glass. He hadn’t seen them in the saloon the previous day, although he recognized most of the others—regulars.

A young man at his right, blond hair, medium build, about five food eight inches tall, perhaps 22-years old or there about was checking Blue out; first his height, his build, and then how his holster was, and his gun handle. Then his partner, a little taller and heaver pointed to a picture on the wall.

“Is that you, old man?” the black haired fella said.

Blue jerked off his leather hat, saying, “Does it look like me?”

“I heard of you, Arizona Blue. Fast as fast can be but not faster than my friend standing by you,” he said with a cocky voice.

They were part of the new breed Blue thought, as he looked at both of them, one on each side of him. The blond next to him and the black dude farther down the bar. They’d shoot you in the back that was the kind they were, thought Blue.

The blond stepped back: “Meet you in the back of town, Mr. Blue. See how good you really are.”

Blue stood there with his whiskey in one hand, the other close by his gun handle; the hell with it take this kid out he told himself, but on my wedding day (?) so he questioned himself.

Said Blue with a hesitant voice, one he never had before,

“I’m getting married, flea’s, so it’s your lucky day, go home.”

Momentarily he felt odd, he should take care of these two, right here and now, it was his style. Why let another man have a chance to plan your killing.

The two men walked out of the bar, and then Ben asked,

“A local lady I gather?”

“Yaw, your sweet little Ella,” answered Blue.

“Ella,” replied Ben surprised, “she’s a pretty one all right.” Ben thought he best leave it at that, in case something wrong came out of his mouth, and he might not live to regret it, remembering what the previous day had brought.

Blue looked at the clock in the bar, it was 11:00 AM. He then took his second drink: he drank it down quick, and walked outside.

The blond kid stood in the middle of the street, said,

“I wish somebody would tell me, Mr. Blue, the true story of you, the coward part”.

Nobody had ever dared call him a coward before, and lived to tell about it.

“Where is your buddy,” asked Blue.

No response.

Blue turned to face the bond gunfighter, his hand going slowly down to his gun side. Both were thinking: would it happen here. It was becoming too much for Blue to back away he couldn’t take it.

“Okay, kid, I’ll meet you in that empty lot by the outskirts of town, no need to mess up the street here with blood.”

This was not what he wanted at all though. He wanted to marry that woman that made him laugh. She would be a good sidekick, a good wife he thought.

Ella
Chapter Five

Ella came up from the church hearing there was to be a gunfight. She stopped at the edge of town and stood by an old broken down shack that once housed slaves. Several townsfolk were there already, but she moved a little farther away from them, standing alone for a moment. Behind her were two houses with backyards and fences dividing the three acreage [open area land], where the two men stood twenty-five yards apart.

Blue looked to his right, there was Ella: she was pretty as a sparrow, and all dressed in white. He smiled; she had decided he was the one she wanted to marry and that as long as he married her he could do what he did best.

Never had she known such empty stillness, as she stood there. Her body was like a storm that wanted to break open the clouds.

“I’m ready boy, go for it, “said Blue. The boy went for his gun but before he could clear his holster, Blue shot him in the heart. The boy went back a foot but not down. Blue looked dumbfounded. He knew he hadn’t missed.

The boy was laughing so hard he didn’t even aim the gun now dangling in his hand. He had on a metal vest that started to shine as one of the buttons broke off his shirt. Blue looked closer, squinting his eyes, trying to make heads or tails out of this drama.

Something else was wrong: Blue didn’t see the black guy. He looked over to the fence; there were now a dozen or more people watching. The sheriff, Ella, and her dad stood by the shack on the right. All of a sudden Blue caught a glimpse of a gun pointing at him coming out from behind the fence. It’s the other man, thought Blue, but before he could pivot his body to position himself, the fragments from the shotgun hit his chest like a dying buffalo: thus, he rocked back and forth, and then fell to his knees and then flat on his face.

The dark young man jumped out from behind the fence,

“I killed Blue,” he yelled.

Ella, frozen in shock, grabbed the sheriff’s six shooter, and aiming it carelessly at the man, shot him four times, once in the foot, then in the shoulder, and as he fell to his knees, a bullet hit his chest, and his eye. The youth was blood soaked on the ground, next to dead. Her eyes lifted up and over to the blond, he knew if he shot her, the town folks would hang him but if he didn’t, she’d shoot him. Within ten seconds a bullet hit her forehead and she dropped to the ground. Then the fire works started, several guns started shooting at the blond. The gunfighter went down hitting the dirt like a chicken with his head snapping every which way.

Ella’s father, picking her up, with her last words she asked to be put by Blues side and buried next to him. And her father did as she asked, putting her hand into his, and turning him over so she could see him. He had a smile on his face. As she laid there: 10-seconds of life left, she whispered to her father,

“You know daddy, one day out of my life, today, was better than all the rest.” And she died, and was buried by him. Their tombstone read, Mr. and Mrs. Blue: Sidekicks.

Originally written: Originally written in 1990; Rewritten: 4/2002; Revised during the months of November and December of 2005 First time in publication.

Arizona Blue--Gunfighter: The Wolves Nest [Chapter One of Seven: The North]

2006-07-14T18:17:00.000-07:00

Episode Five]

Arizona Blue—Gunfighter

The Wolves Nest—in the North

[Episode Five]

Northern Minnesota Area–

Winter of 1877

Chapter One of Seven: The North

The area was known as Pigs Eye [St. Paul, Minnesota]; Northfield was a little more notorious since Jessie James robbed the 1st National Bank, in September of last year, and more to the West. But that was neither here nor there for Arizona-Blue. He didn’t like this part of the country for no other reason than it was cold, unpredictable weather, and he didn’t seem to offer enough freedom, it wasn’t bad thirty years ago, but it had become too tame, Even Mark Twain thought so. His conclusion of why he was here was: ‘Sometimes you just keep on riding and riding and end up where you don’t care to be.’

As his rode through the thick of the snow, he had come to a cabin, up in an area where the deer was running as wild—to and fro—as the mavericks were down in Arizona, Texas and Wyoming. He smelt the smoke from a nearby chimney. He was a hundred and fifty plus miles North of St. Paul, but it seemed like he was in the Artic.

As Arizona came to a cabin, a man came out of the front door onto his porch. Two wolves stood by his side, a rifle in his hands. He noticed in the back of his house about thirty-more wolves tied to the fence; ‘…strange…’ thought Blue.

“Can I help yaw stranger?” asked the man on the porch.

Blue knew most everyone in this area did not know his name, and that was one unconscious reason he chose the Midwest I suppose, a time for a rest of wondering whom was going to shoot you in the back, or who you had to tangle with next. His reputation out West was preceding him wherever he’d go, but here, up here in the Midwest who could know his name? No one he speculated. Northfield was to hot for anyone like him, after the James Gang shoot out, and St. Paul looked like St. Louis, a conservative little city on the banks of the Mississippi, not enough get up and go for him, plus they sold little books on him: “The Fast Gun of the West: Arizona-Blue.” They did on all the gunfighters such as: Billy the Kid, Jessie James, Wild Bill, and so forth.

“I need a place to lodge for a day or two. I’m half frozen.”

The man laughed and motioned for Blue to tie his horse up out side and come in.

As Blue descended his horse, a young boy came out and took his horse saying,

“I’ll bed him down a spell, feed him for you sir.”

Blue heard the Midwest was quite hospital to strangers, they had to be, because sooner or later you ‘all ended-up needing the others help. ‘This kind of gives yaw a nice feeling,’ he told himself.

As Blue entered the house, he noticed a slim middle aged woman, boiling some stew (about thirty-six years old he’d guess).

“Some hot cider Mister?” she asked.

Blue was not sure what that was, but he knew it wasn’t whiskey.

“Sounds warming, I guess that’ll be just fine Miss…,” unsure how to address her.

She smiled, and commented:

“You’re not from around here I gather, you got a Southwestern accent?”

“I’m called Arizona; I guess because that is where I am from.”

“Arizona what? She asked.

“That’s it Miss, just Arizona, that’s what my pop called me, no more no less.”

She smiled again, the man came back in from the backdoor of the house, stomping the snow off his feet.

“Hi yaw, my names Harry,” he extended his hand to shake Arizona’s, “and this is my wife Feba, she’s Spanish, and a little cute wife at that.”

“Harry! stop making me blush.”

“Well,” said Arizona, “it looks like you got enough wolves around here.”

“I raise them. They can come in handy.” That was all that was said about the nest of wolves. Arizona got the drift of things, it was private, and he wasn’t about to step in on a man’s privacy.

“Mr. Arizona, please give your jacket to my boy, Tony.” He was standing in the back of Arizona. He hadn’t heard him come in. As Arizona took off his jacket, Harry, Tony and Feba noticed the guns. Arizona had one tight against his thigh, and one tucked into his belt.

“You won’t need them here sir,” said Harry with a little concern.

Arizona smiled. He was not a wanted man in Minnesota, or for that matter anyplace, just a notorious man, and seldom heard of way up in the North Country; and this was new country for him; if this was Wyoming, or Texas, or for that matter Tombstone, or Deadwood, the guns would stay. But he started to unbuckle them; then handed them to Harry to put away for safe keeping.

“How are the Indian problems up here?” Blue asked.

“Sometimes it ok, other times you just don’t know. We had several cabins up here a year ago, and the Chippewa’s burned three of them down. Rapped the women, after getting drunk, and took off. The Indians are all over the place. You just never know. I hunt bear and fox and sell the furs down at Fort Smelling. And yaw, some of the Wolves you see, end up being furs. Yaw got to eat. I hate killing them though.”

Harry noticed Arizona watch where he hung the guns up; right on the coat rack that lead to the front door.

“If you need them mister, they’re right there for the grabbing.”

“I got the picture, Harry.”

“Now for the dinner, it’s about 11-below zero out there, not too bad for the dead of winter. You’d think it was 10:00 PM, but it gets dark quick up here, its only 6:00 PM. Not much daylight in the heart of winter. Tonight it will get down to 20 + below. It’s like the cold knocks the sun out early I swear. It’s going to be a cold, cold winter, stranger, I mean Arizona.”

As they all four sat down to eat, Harry said grace, thanking God for his wife, son, and that the stranger did not get frozen like an ice cycle before he found his cabin.

“Let’s eat,” says Harry, and plunged into the hot stew.

The stew was great, though Arizona, as he took his third helping.

“My name is Alex, Mr. Arizona. Are you a gunfighter? You know, like Jessie James, and Billy the Kid?”

“Hush,” said Feba, “Mr. Arizona is a gentleman, not a killer.”

Said Harry, a bit uncomfortable with the guns hanging where the coats and hats hung:

“Mater-of-fact, if you don’t mind, what is your line of work?”

“Well, that’s a good question. I’ve been a soldier, fought at the Battle of Chickamauga, and I was sheriff for a while, and a deputy. And I guess you could say a cowboy of sorts. Not sure what a gunslinger is, but maybe that to.”

“Jack of many trades I see,” commented Harry.

Feba looked at Blues eyes; she was almost frozen by them. But her husband was the jealous type, and said nothing, just smiled and continued to eat her stew.

Arizona Blue—Gunfighter [The Wolves Nest: Chap 2 of 7]

2006-07-14T18:11:00.000-07:00

Arizona Blue—Gunfighter

The Wolves Nest—in the North

[Episode Five]

Northern Minnesota Area–Winter of 1877

Chapter Two of Seven

Nightfall: and the Hearth [Chapter Two of Seven]

“Mr. Arizona, you can sleep on the hammock, my wife and I will fix it up for you by the fire place.” He started to tie the ropes of the hammock to the logs of the upper roof leading into the loft of the house, where the boy slept. Feba and Harry slept in the room next to the back of the house where the Wolves were, the wolves being outside; two wolves stayed in his bedroom, one upstairs with the boy. Arizona thought this quite unnatural, but let it pass one quickly; he was, if anything, in a curious position; and it was new country for him. He was here for a day or two, and that was that. Whatever the reason it would pas, and eventuality would sooth it out later, he was tired. He looked at his guns, wanting to put one into his belt, like Harry sleeping with the wolves for protection, but he figured he slept light anyways. If the Indians decided to come, he could jump up and race to his guns.

As twilight turned into to night, he started to dream of Christmas when he was a young boy… his mother, and him bringing home a Christmas tree from the market, or chopping one down, when he got older, in someone’s backyard when they were sleeping, and dragging it home. She loved putting candy and things on the tree, his mother. It was December 18th, getting close to Christmas—yes indeed, a solitary man, with old Christmas memories of his mother. She had passed away now, and his father was dead, also. But Christmas was always special for him, as it was for his mother.

While he was slipping, falling into a deep sleep, he seemed to be counting the money Jessie James had robbed from the bank in Northfield. He woke himself up shaking his head, checked his pockets to see if he had his five twenty-dollar gold pieces. They were there, tight in his front pocket. ‘What a dream he told himself,’ and counted his several silver dollars as well.

He just couldn’t sleep, he got up, looked out the window, and as the moon reflected on the white snow he saw people tracks, thinking they were Tony’s. Then he rubbed his eyes, and saw tracks next to them tracks—more people tracks, circumstance changed: there was movement out there, he told himself.

If one thinks about snow, you know you can’t hide tracks until it snows again. He shook his head, pulled his gun out from their holsters by the door. He heard a thump, he looked at the hearth, the fire was almost out, and he saw legs, two shots went into the fire place, and the legs turned into Indian knees, and then an arrow went through the window, and an hatchet.

After the next arrow came through the window, Arizona started shooting out it—a cold wind came seeping in; Harry and the wolves ran out to see what was happening. Up in the loft, the wolf was chewing on an Indian’s arm; he had gotten through the upper window.

Said Harry with anguish,

“I was waiting for this; Feba, let the wolves loose,” and she ran with a knife in her hands to the back and started cutting all the ropes holding the wolves together, and they started running around the house like wild beasts jumping on the Indians, chewing on their flesh and into their bones, ripping flesh and bones out of their sockets.

The Indians started climbing up on the house’s roof, trying to get away from the wolves, and spotting their horses called for them, and some did jump onto them, white others remained on the roof fighting the wolves, as their horses tried aimlessly to stop on them, only to get chewed up, and run off.

At this point Arizona grabbed his holster put it on, and was using two guns to kill the Indian after Indian, shooting at shadows, and at their horses likewise. None came through the backdoor, for that is where the wolves were; and to the wolves, the Indians were simply mortal clay.

Now Arizona knew why this family was keeping so many wolves.

“You’re a good shot, Arizona,” said Harry, “you got four savages, and my dogs only three.”

The band of Chippewa’s left in a hurry; there were about fifteen totals, to the group. Five were dead, and two were being eaten alive by the dogs.

Arizona observed to if Harry was going to stop the dogs, but he didn’t. They continued to eat the body’s right to the bones, and chewed the marrow out of the bones, cracking them with their strong jaws.

Arizona Blue—Gunfighter [Ch: 3 of 7: Wolves Nest]

2006-07-14T18:07:00.000-07:00

Arizona Blue—Gunfighter

The Wolves Nest—in the North

[Episode Five]

Northern Minnesota Area–

Winter of 1877

After the Battle [Chapter Three of Seven]

“Glad you were here Arizona,” said Harry.

“This is quite a different place to live,” commented Arizona

“Why not asks Arizona to stay a few more days, Harry?” said Feba.

“Good idea. We could use your gun, and you could use a rest, and you still need to get some nourishment into your body if you plan on moving through this cold. The cold you know takes it all out of you, your energy.”

Arizona knew he was right, and he needed sleep, he just didn’t want to get into any more battles, but the enemy was all-round him, different than what he was used to, perilously so, but on the other hand, he didn’t have much choice.

“You’re very kind; sure, I need a few more days sleep.”

The Morning

Arizona never did get back to sleep, although he felt the worse was not over; why should it be, he told himself, they had burned out a few settlers hereabouts, killed some, and scared some off; leaving only a few left in the whole area. Why on God’s earth did Harry want to keep his family here, he asked himself: this place was doomed he figured. Another storm of Indians, and it was judgment day for all in this little log cabin.

His wife was forty or younger, and her husband was also getting up in age. Their son was around fifteen, figured Arizona. Eighty miles South was Pigs Eye a bar and trading center; also a city that did a good business on the Mississippi (St. Paul, Minnesota). Open up a shop or bar, that’s what he could do there, he thought. Get out of this territory.

As Arizona put on his boots, Feba came out with water for him to wash up with. She was pretty, but aging quickly he could tell, it was a life of drudgeries out here to told himself. The worry of the land would put wrinkles on any person’s face, Arizona thought.

“Do you care if I put some firewood on the fire Mrs.’” Arizona asked. She caught eyes a few times, as if she was attracted to him. But he knew better, he was interesting, that is all. She had a good looking husband, and he was a good father to her children. And people are more interesting when you show up out of nowhere, and you fight for them, a hero type. You trust the other person more. You got more in common then. Just a human thing deliberated Blue.

“The winters in Minnesota are really bad sometimes. But the deer and the fox and the bears are plentiful. They bring a fair price for our living.”

Blue looked at her. She was trying to convince him that they needed to stay here for the money. Hell, it was cold, and isolated. No one in their right minds would travel five miles to help you fight Indians.

Then came Harry in, from out of side, he had used the toilet shed, he hit Feba on the ass, saying,

“She’s a beauty, a good wife. How about breakfast honey?”

She blushed a bit, then she started to make the breakfast, the wolves and dogs were starting to bark and squeal. Harry ran through the bedroom, Feba looked at Arizona. The boy ran down stairs with his wolf. Arizona grabbed his holster again, and put his pistols in his belt, and checked his colt to be sure it was loaded.

Harry did not come back, so Blue ran to the outdoor shed, Harry was dead on the floor with an arrow in his head; the wolves were on fire, but still alive with arrows in their spines, legs, backs, stomachs. They were being used for target practice. The roof was on fire and was starting to fall in. Just then Blue turned around, three Indians came through the door; they had used a tree to break through the door. A wolf jumped on the first Indian, and the boy looked about for the rifle, but before he spotted one, an hatchet went into his chest. Blue started shooting wild like, reloading, and shooting; he got the two Indians that where pushing the back of the tree against the front door. All three were dead. As he looked out the open window, there were about six more Indians looking through the doorway, but didn’t proceed to force their way in. They simply waited for the house to burn down and out. They were holding rifles in their hands. It would be a slaughter, as they wanted.

Feba was in shock, she was walking in circles, looking at her dead boy and into the bedroom at her dead husband. Arizona grabbed a rope, and Feba by the hand, ran up into the loft, the lone wolf, the boy’s wolf ran after the six Indians, as did three or four that got away out in the back from being tied to the fence. They also ran through the house towards the Indians. For the time being, they fled, but the house was burning, and they simply went into the woods but a short distance away. As soon as they’d go out of the house they’d shoot.

There was an entrance to the roof, and Feba and Blue got on top. It was burning, and so Blue grabbed the rope tied it around the chimney, and lassoed a nearby tree. He grabbed Feba and they both swung into the deep snow bank against the tree in back of the one they had lassoed.

The Indians still thought they were in the house, for when they came back after shooting the wolves, they stood by and watched it burn down, thinking everyone was dead, and there were no tracks running out to the woods. Blue took the rope off from tied around them; Feba had a sweater on from the morning, but no jacket. And she had slippers on her feet.

Blue had his boots on, his guns, a leather jacket, and his gold in his pocket. All the horses were taken by the Indians. They had 80-miles of snow in front of them to go to find help.

Feba started crying, and as she was about to scream, Arizona put his hand over mouth.

“Listen, if the Indians hear us, we are dead. And if we do not find a place to stay we are dead. And if we do not make it to the city, Pigs Eye, we will also die somewhere along the way. And so please grieve later,” cold as it was, the elements seemed to fill her mind, and pulled herself together.

She looked up at Arizona, wiped her tears from her eyes and nodded her head as if say, I’ll try; and Arizona, gave a smile, and sad smile, it was all that was left inside both of them.

As they started to walk South, Blue knew he had to do something before her feet got frost bitten. They would not last in the cold. He took his knife out and cut the top of his boots off, and then he cut his leather sleeves off of his jacket, and put the boot parts under Feba’s feet, tying them with the sleeves. It was the best he could do. She smiled.

“We’re gonia make it?” asked Feba.

Blue never had to face nature in this way, it wasn’t a gun fight, he really didn’t know.

“I’m not sure Miss, but we’ll give it a good try.”

Arizona Blue—Gunfighter "Lady in White..." [Chaptders 1 & 2 of 6]

2006-07-14T17:57:00.000-07:00

*Arizona Blue-Gunfighter: Lady in White [Chapter One of Six)

(1885) The man called Arizona Blue was a man by himself and before him laid a town in Wyoming. Behind him were scars and memories. Each one had a name. He forgot them, but he remembered the count. It was thirty-six dead. Most all of them shot though the heart, except for a few in the head. He was known as the fastest gunfighter that ever lived.

The gunfighter didn’t mind his aloneness or fear of it. He did although ponder on his loneliness. He was 44, middle aged, a gunfighter from the age of nineteen, onwards to this very day; when he shot his first of thirty-six, he got his real, I mean real first high. He became so fast he could shoot a rattler in the head at twenty-five yards before the rattler stuck his tongue out a second time.

Some men were addicted to sex, others whiskey, and still others money but not Blue, he liked them all, but was really addicted to the showdown, the quick draw that ran like alcohol in his veins; it was his climax if you will.

Women were like a newspapers to him: cheap, easy to get and throw away, and he did just that: they could never compare to a good showdown; nonetheless, he remembered his upbringing, and respected them, or at least gave them regards, and kept his distance.

He was known as Arizona Blue because Arizona was where he came from and he had the deepest blue eyes any man ever had.

He had a lucky streak as well, for picking up quick money. He was a bounty hunter, sheriff, deputy, ranch hand, foremen, and anything that it took a swift gunslinger to do.

He stood six feet tall, had broad shoulders and a wild look to his tan, muscular face. He had big hands with a grip like a wolf’s. He wore a buckskin coat and was clean-shaven but had thick long busy sideburns, the same as his hair, and thick eyebrows. He had deep-pitted eyes, high cheekbones, and a thick-looking jaw.

His horse, Dan, a solid creature with a long mane, was all a cowboy could ask for. He was brownish in color with legs like a deer and a heart that could outlast the best of the Indian horses.

With such men came the tired look. As he sat on his horse, allowing himself to catch his breath before he entered the small Wyoming town, he thought of the lonely journey he had coming up from Pueblo along the Continental Divide that stretched from Colorado to Canada. The mountains he captured sight of and the long dusty cactus along the way.

“Another town,” he whispered to himself and old Dan, as his eyes made a one hundred eighty degree circle. He had seen most of them in the Montana, Wyoming, Arizona territories; this town he hadn’t been to.

As he looked up towards the hot summer sun, he thought of his old friends in his life though he knew none of them personally. There was John Wesley Hardin, like him, a loner, and a profligate killer.

‘They say he shot 44-men’ he mumbled. ‘More than me,’ Blue grinned at the sky. He had heard he went to prison in ‘78, some years back.

Then there was that wild kid he met down in Mexico called Billy. He too was a loner of sorts, who shot most of his prey in an ambush setting or else they were unarmed. Not my style he thought.

There was Doc Holiday and the Earp‘s of Tombstone and Dodge City and Black Jack Bill and Six Towed Pete, and Three Fingered Dave, and that wild Indian turned gunsmith from bank robber, Ted Christie. He met them all.

Then he thought of the new breed of gunfighters like Billy the Kid, that ambusher, or Bob Ford, who shot Jesse James in the back. He’ll get his some day thought Blue.

“How yaw doing Dan,” said Blue patting him on the thigh. “We’ll be headed in shortly.”

He checked his holster on his right side: tight against his upper leg an embossed holster that held a Colt 44 ivory handled revolver, silver-plated, scroll engraved. It was a classic from the 60s, thought Blue but it had served it purpose. It had killed thirty-four of the thirty-six men he out drew.

As he looked down Main Street, he looked at all the several building to his left and a dozen on his right. The street was of hardened dirt that looked like a dried up river bed with its mounds. It had just rained the day before so the sides of the street had streams running along it by the sidewalk.

He noticed a bar, an old school house, and a brick building at the end of Main Street on his left side. Many of the other wooden frame buildings had porches. The right side of the street was more residential with houses and fences. There were several wagons on the street.

“We’re bound for here, old Dan. This will be home for awhile, more likely than not.”

Thus, he continued to ride down Main Street.

“Seems a drifter is coming in,” said old Hank, the town’s stable owner and blacksmith who was sitting outside the one of the main saloons on the left side of town.

“Looks Spanish,” said George.

“No, he’s just sunburned and weather beaten. He’s a…”

“Say, Hank, looks like he could be a gunman. He rides prouder than he should for a simple stranger all beaten to hell.”

Blue dismounted his horse, tied it to a pole, and walked towards the two gentlemen.

“His eyes are sunken in and when he gets close I bet they’re as blue as the river.”

“He’s coming, George.”

Blue was the best of the gunfighters and all who knew his reputation knew of his eyes. The difference was Blue could do all the time what all the others gunfighters could only do on a special day; that is, have a fast draw and aim next to perfect all the time.

Blue wasn’t a bragger like most of them. He didn’t shy away and let his reputation build by some ominous situation like it did for Wyatt Earp at the OK Corral. He didn’t like shooting, he craved it.

“George,” said Hank, “he’s no tenderfoot.”

“I’m going to talk to him,” said Hank to George.

“Be careful, he could be in a nasty mood, looks like he’s got some dust on his face.”

“Hi fell a,” said Blue.

”It’s really him, George, Blue,” said Hank.

“Mr. Blue, it is you, isn’t it?” asked Hank [softly].

“Sure is, “replied Blue, with a smile.

“Saw you in Cheyenne some ten years back, a gunfight with the three Conley brothers. Seen pictures of them after you killed them; one bullet hole in the upper chest, one square in the heart and one in the upper part of his arm (he hesitated, looked at blue than added:) something like that.”

“Yaw,” said Blue. The first one moved a little quick for me that day.” The two chuckled, and then asked, “You going in for a whisky?”

“Yaw, I could use a whiskey,” responded Blue.

“Well,” said Hank, “Ben is a real nice bartender. He serves a good shot of whiskey.”

A smile filled Blue’s face as he entered the saloon. As he held the door open, he noticed a female, young, in her mid-twenties, had walked up to Hank. He called her Ella. Whom were you talking to?” She asked.

“Arizona Blue,” replied Hank.

“What started it.”? She asked again.

“Just simple conversation, honey,” Hank replied. And he let go of the door, and it closed.

That must be his daughter thought Blue; a pretty one at that with short curly hair with circles like bangs covering most of the upper part of her forehead. She had thick eyebrows that got smaller as they curved downward, and a light creamy complexion with an oval shape to her jaw and chin. Her eyes were big and her nose straight and short. There was a peaceful strength to her countenance. Her neck was covered with a feminine dress of white lace.

Blue’s eyes wandered over the drab and low lit saloon. A picture filled the upper portion of the three walls some of gunfighters, bullfighters, presidents, and women.

A banjo picker was sitting to the left of Blue with his knee over the arm of a chair. Three men were around a pool table, smoking. The one with a cigar was pondering his shot. Four men were to the left at a table playing cards and Ben stood behind the bar. He had on a derby hat and a cigar in his mouth also.

Blue walked up to the bar. “What yaw going to have, stranger? “Asked Ben.

“Whiskey, a double shot,” said Blue.

Ben started to pour the shots putting them in two separate shot glasses, catching a glimpse of his pistol and trying to figure out just who this person was.

As Blue looked to the left of Ben, he noticed newspaper clippings on the wall. They were of gunfighters, such as, Bat Materson, the Younger boys, John Marshall, Jesse James, clay Allison. Then, to his surprise, there he was, a picture taken of him several years ago; when he was a deputy for a U.S. Marshall in Indian Territory. The caption read:

“Arizona Blue uses his quick gun for against outlaws.”

He remembered that year well. He used his gun that next year though, with the outlaws, kind of a turnabout. It was the only year he went against the law though. He didn’t like prison so he got out of the business of robbing trains, although his part had only been that of a backup gun incase things got too hot.

Ben caught Blue, looking at his picture but didn’t say a word. He figured if he wanted his name exposed he’d do it himself.

A wiry man with a strong grip grabbed Blue by he shoulder, “Buy me a drink stranger,” said the rough-rustic voice. He was hard looking, like a lumberjack coming out of the woods. He caught Blues eyes, and starred as if nothing could harm him. “I said a drink mister…now…!”

Blue stepped back away from the bar, “No,” he said, “but you can buy me one.” Blue lowered his right hand to the side of his holster. “Now, big man,” said Blue with a simple whisper, starring towards the middle of the man’s chest to see every movement of his body, it was his way to a close draw. No distractions from his opponent’s eyes. No one moved in the bar, it is like everyone was frozen; --as if they all wanted to know when the firing started which way to run, that being the other way of the bullets.

The wiry heavy set, six foot-two man, tried to look into Blue’s eyes, but could only find his forehead. “Johnny Barton is my name stranger. I’m pretty good with my Colt, Mister. I dont wants to kill yu over a drink, “he said with his heighten voice, as if to tell the world, and now coward out of the fight. But sweat was starting to roll down the sides of his ears. Blue was as calm as a bird on a branch.

Replied Blue, “I really don’t mind dying for one –Draw!”

Johnny starred at the man’s face, his buckskin jacket and his fancy gun with a name in copper across its handle imbedded into the wood. Then all of a sudden Blue raised his head a fraction of an inch, and Johnny caught his blue eyes, as bright as the sky. He knew now it was Arizona Blue:

“Good, good god,” he sighed from the upper part of his chest to his stomach, trying to catch his wind, “Blue, it’s Arizona Blue,” he said out loud. “…if I kill you, I’ll be famous.”

Blue smiled. “Go for it,’ he commented; adding, “You’ll be famous and dead. The whole bar started hugging the walls, and whispering to one another. The name Blue came out a half dozen time within the following twenty-seconds.

“He’s a big one,” said one of the pool players.

“Join him if you think he’s got a chance, mister,” responded Blue without moving an eyelash. “Right where you stand; both of you go for your guns.”

The pool shark laughed. “Just who do you think you are?” He said sarcastically.

“He’s Blue, mister, unbeatable; I suggest you move away from Johnny, and fast,” said Ben with a lump in his throat.

The pool shark stepped back a foot, “Listen, mister, I’m sorry. I don’t want to be next.” Then he put his pool stick down and ran to the door and into the street.

“Hell, why not, “said Johnny. “I don’t want to fight you; you might be able to beat me.”

“You’re a dead man,” said Blue. The big man fell to his knees, tears started coming from his eyes, and he started pleading. “Really mister, I don’t want to fight; I’m a coward.”

“Didn’t think he was a wimp,” said a man who was playing cards.

“You want to join him, whoever said that,” said Blue. Not a sound was heard. Blue shifted his body back to the bar and picked up his whiskey with his left hand, taking his eyes off Johnny. He could still see him in the dark mirrored reflection of a picture.

Kneeling, Johnny quickly went for his gun. Blue caught the hand movement, leaned his left hand against the bar. Lifting his right leg up and to the side, he shot through his holster and caught the wiry man thorough the upper part of his heart.

“It was a fair shooting,” said the man who had previously made a negative remark, as if he didn’t want to be on his black list.

“Why?” The bartender said shaking his head.

The Meeting of the Lady in White Chapter Two

*Arizona Blue - Gunfighter (The Meeting of the Lady in White; Chapter Two)

Blue finished his second whiskey and left the bar. He looked about. It was becoming dusk. As Blue looked to his left, there was Hank and George standing against the building. The woman was there also.

“Meet my daughter, Ella, Mr. Blue,” said Hank.

He shook hands with her. She smiled. Her dress was pretty. It was black with white flowery looking designs on each side of the blouse, extending from the shoulders to the full length of the dress. They caught each other’s eyes. Then Blue quickly look away figuring, he just didn’t need anymore trouble, but he found himself slowly turning them back to hers. Then as he talked to Hank and George, his eyes would shift to see if Ella was looking, and she was. His heart started beating faster. Matter-of-fact, the meeting was scarier than the gun fight for Blue, or was becoming so. She was as pretty as a golden sparrow; better yet, let me describe her: nice hips, a pelvic cavity area that seemed perfectly formed; slim shoulders, deliciously molded into her breast area, which were like blossoming buds, and a buttocks narrow, small and spreading as she turned and the dress stuck to her, in all the right places; her spine was tender to the eyes, as her blouse was tight against it.

She was about five foot tall, rather short, but it was fine. Nice and healthy looking. Her bosom to her lower curves had less then ounce of fat, so he quickly calculated in his mind. He wanted to grab her right there but his manners controlled his body. He was many things, but not rude or disrespectful, although his temper could be raised quickly.

“You’ll need to put down yor horse while yor here, Mr. Blue. My father owns a stable,” said Ella.

“Yaw, if you could take one more on, I’d appreciate it,” replied Blue. Whereupon, the three: Blue, Hank and Ella walked to the stable.

“Mr. Blue,” asked Ella, “evidently you won the gunfight in the saloon but dont yaw think yor going to lose one someday?”

“No ms, I hav never thought that way. Ya see, I live to shoot. Those others shoot to live.”

“Then you really enjoy it?” said Ella.

“It’s something I’m really skilled at. Yes, I enjoy it,” responded Blue.

After they bedded the horses, they went outside onto the porch. Hank went in the house, which was attached to the stable.

“I’ll bet one will get you,” Ella exclaimed; adding, “I never heard of any gunfighter going on forever.”

“I can use something to drink mis,” said Blue. Ella went to fetch him some lemonade. They both sat on the patio.

“Where are you going to sleep tonight?” asked Ella.

“Right here,” replied Blue. “If you don’t mind I’ll get a blanket and in the morning I’ll find a boarding house.”

The more Ella talked to the gunfighter the more she saw the tender and honest side to him: the side she wanted to see of course. Most of the tenderness escaped men because they hid it so well but he wasn’t afraid to share his feelings of hurt, pain and love; for the most part, yet he was blunt and that in itself could wreck a good relationship. He had loved his mother, who had died at the hands of her drunken husband when he was but eighteen; thereafter he left home; or shortly after. He had come from a family of farmers.

In the minds of each of them ran passion so deep their hearts were on fire. Ella’s thoughts turned into questions that probed into his past. Respectfully, she thought here is a man who never really fell in love or had the opportunity to. The caretaker and nurturer side of her was coming out.

Blue was easy to talk to, but hard to lead. The trail was long, and he was eroded. Too many things to express in one night he thought, too many emotions to deal with. But he liked telling them to Ella, nonetheless.

He stood up, wiped the dirt and dust off his pants, then said with a sigh from his chest,

“I need to check on my horse. Come with me!” They both walked into the stable, and then into the horse stall where Dan was tied up.

Ella knew if she stayed in there with him too long, or just long enough, life would not be the same, yet as he gave his horse water and some oats, and grass, he didn’t seem like the gunfighter he was. Then she shook her head, and told herself: I’m enchanted with this tough gunfighter, why? He’s all of fifteen years older than me, and deadly. She stood up—up from watching Blue water the horse—, off the stool her feet hit the floor, and Blue’s hand grabbed hers, and they walked side by side to a ladder in back of the horses that led up to the hayloft. As they sat in the hay, she stood up, unbuttoned the front of her dress, and lifted one side of the full dress; she shoved the other side in back of her shoulder and let the dress drop. ‘…what am I doing,’ she thought. But couldn’t stop herself, the dress fell on the hay like a feather, she was naked. Gently, Blue did the same with his shirt and trousers. She was all he thought she was.

The Next Day
Chapter Three

"One Horse and Six Men" (Arizona Blue - Gunfighter)#13

2006-07-14T17:42:00.000-07:00

Had he not gone into that backyard, or was it a corral? I’m not sure, I wasn’t there; had he not gone into that bar and just stayed at that hotel, until the wedding took place, that forenoon day he’d not have gotten killed, is what I’m talking about. Heart breaking it was to the city folks, that forenoon day, the day he got himself killed: well, I think most of the folks felt that way for his wife to be, it wasn’t Arizona Blue’s death I don’t think that they cared about so much. Anyhow, he had gone into that town, like it or not, and had he not gone into that town he would have gotten killed anyhow in another; everyone knew that; especially you folks.

No, it wasn’t his nature to live by such rules—any rules, and of course now he can’t go back can he. His bride to be is now in the grave with him. With all respects intended, he knew such a day was coming; the only thing he didn’t know, was how, when and where, not if. He killed something like 36-peple, so there can’t be a whole lot of sympathy for the guy; oh, I liked him myself, but he lived in a silent life of his own anyhow. Not many people in it, something on the order of anti social almost; or so a psychologist would call it. He liked the hear the sweeping winds of the mountains, and plains, and prairies. He knew people would not understand his ways, and so he shied away; you know, better alone, being alone, than in a crowed and being alone and not feeling free to be yourself; something like that.

He was a hermit on a horse you could say. He never asked for anything, such as, money he didn’t work for and gave very little mercy to his neighbor. He kind of felt I think, if you can walk, and talk, and bend your back, you didn’t need any—mercy that is. You probably know all this already, but if you don’t it’s a handful of nothing, but he had a charm about him. People resented him for being who he was; or who they thought he was. Even the women took his side. And there really was only one woman he loved, “The Lady in White.” Other than that, every time he opened his eyes he either saw Dan his horse, the sun, rain, snow, or mud. But I guess he made his own life, his own way, and that is saying a lot.

He saw many things in his life, and for a man of his day, he traveled a lot: he saw the ugly, the improvised, the greedy, and what he’d do most often was kick his boots to get the sand off, and leave town, usually after he killed someone. That was perhaps his plight.

He was either frozen half to death or overheated, there normally wasn’t an in-between. And towns, he saw many of them, so many he stopped counting long before he got killed, I assure you; and he left them all a little more mixed up than when he arrived.

—I am an old friend of his (kind of), and I tired to imagine how he died, but of course as I said before, I wasn’t’ there, but I was fifteen years before he died by his side, back in the 1870s, and this is where my story begins.

As I was saying, it was a long time ago, perhaps sixteen years ago, now that I think of it, since he’s been dead a year or so. I had walked out of my house, left my wife inside, and seven year old son, a crowed was accumulating by my door steps; I was the town marshal, back then.

I saw him in the crowd, he was standing in-between several of the fifteen or so men, no one noticed him, he wasn’t as famous then, as he was, afterwards. I suppose you could say this helped his infamous status, grow, and put a few notches on his belt buckle. Incidentally, my name is Shawn Cody Liberty; I was the town marshal in this little Ol town in Wyoming. He actually came through here a few times, this perhaps was his first.

As I was saying, or about to say anyhow, here I stood on my porch, looking at a hungry crowd, I had a drunk gunman in the towns jail cell, and the folks wanted me to let him go, in fear his father, with his gang would rape and shoot up the town. I can’t blame them, now that I think back, when I reminisce, but back then I was young, and this wasn’t the first time this happened.

This fella in the cell had been shooting up the town every time he and his father and gang members rode on through, even killed an old drunk back in 1867, a Veteran of he Civil War, likewise he had killed another drunk in a bar this time; I had to overlook it back then, and call it an accident, after he threatened several town folks he’d rape their wives and daughters should they not back him up; and I suppose they felt I could not protect them, and the old man would not be missed. So you see, things were not pleasing to me, when I saw this crowd, and I felt this was my fate, to die this evening, and I would have, I assure you. My wife tried to pull me back into the house, and the guys laughed at me, and it made me all the more stubborn to stay out and assure this would not happen again; that this man would face trial.

George Conrad, was the boys name in the cell, his father a big rancher about a hundred miles someplace outside of town, the Ranch was called: The Diamond C. A nice ranch I heard, the old man inherited it from his father, who was not a drunk, like him and his kid.

As the crowd started demanding his release, Arizona Blue, came up to me, whispered:

“Let’s kill them all….” Then he smiled at the folks, I’m sure they thought he was threatening me, informing me I should go along with the crowd, they kind of gave a grimace and low laugh. What could I say; they were here to kill me. Had I said ok, I’m not going to let them have George, I’m sure Blue would have walked away, not said a word, it was his style. These folks had guns standing in the street. Among them his brother Godfrey and father Tabasco, that’s what they called the old man, not sure of his real first name was, just his last, Conrad. Anyhow, they we were.

Yes, I trusted the man, he said he was Arizona Blue, and I had heard of the name, being a lawman, but was he that good, as good as it would take to outshoot all these folks.

Then I heard Mr. Conrad’s voice say (rough and bleak): “We want the keys to the cell or we’ll come in your house and find them, one way or the other.”

And Blue said, “Good, that’s what I’m waiting for….” Thus, he confirmed it, and I had to sand up now to the crowd, a lot of wisecracking going on as I looked at their faces; I knew this was it: the showdown.

—It was a shadowy twilight so I don’t know who shot first, but Blue skinned his gun so quick by the time I got to shoot, everything, and everyone was silent: voices, dogs, horses, no birds, no sounds: I shot one round, that was it, Blue shot six, and pulled out another revolver, and was ready to shoot some more, but all the folks hightailed it out of the street.

I looked about, six folks lay dead, and yes it was the brother and the father among the six.

“Listen,” I said to Blue, the crowd now gone, I was ready to ask him: did he have to shoot so many people, but before I could say another word, he said:

“Had to shoot the ring leaders first, they were the hot heads, and the ones next to them, they were kind of too close so I had to take them four down, couldn’t help it.” Then he added, “I see you got one!”

“Which one,” I asked, and he pointed toward the dead horse. He smiled at me, and that was the only time we both kind of had business together. Oh I had seen him pass through, and he always had a smile for me, so I kind of liked him. That George character, well, he ended up in prison for ten years, got out and became the town lawyer, believe it or not. He never really blamed Arizona Blue for killing his father or brother, he had said: it was like war back then: but I know he had some hidden resentment.

Notes: written 12/12/2005; note by the author: “I think my wife was very sad I published his death, and so, because the series went quite well, and many folks came to read him on the internet, here is one last glance into the chronicals of Arizona Blue, unless she harps on me again (I may have some episodes someplace around here if I can find them, and if I do, I’ll let you know; thank you all for your interest, it was fun; incidentally, I’ve been to all the locations, as I have for all my writings, or 97% of them). DLS” Dedicated to Rosa

Arizona Blue—Gunfighter [Ch: 4/Wolves Nest: South Bound]

2006-07-14T17:32:00.000-07:00

Arizona Blue—Gunfighter The Wolves Nest—in the North

Southward Bound

[Chapter Four of Seven]

On our way through the thickness of the woods, they followed Feba’s memory on how to get to the next cabin about five-miles away. It was on the way to the city of Pigs Eye [St. Paul]. Her legs were getting cold, but the movement kept her from freezing. And Arizona was starting to lose his lung capacity. It was colder than the night before.

It was about 2:00 PM when they got to the McKinley’s cabin, it was by a big lake, but then to Blue, all there was in this land were lakes.

As they looked beyond the wooded area, they noticed in the distance the cabin was on fire. They looked at each other. Then stayed hidden, looking for the Indians. But none came out.

Said Arizona, bigheartedly, “It will be better we stay here I’m afraid to say, because we can start a fire, and the Indians will think it is from that cabin, plus I can get some of the burnt firewood and see if there are any furs left about. Maybe some hidden frozen meat out by the fur house,” which was sill standing for some odd reason behind the burning cabin. After the Indians experience with the wolves at Feba’s place I do not think they’d want to repeat the event, and possibly just leave it alone.

Feba exhausted, leaned against a tree, as her back slid down its rough bark she was half sleeping. Her body fell into the nest of leaves under the tree. There was no snow there. And as Blue looked about, he thought it would be a good place to camp. He left her there as he went to the cabin to see what he could collect.

As he approached, the cabin it was already on the ground burnt completely down, to cinders, smoke and ash: it was just residue all about; bodies where charcoaled in the ruins. He walked to the back of it, opened the door to the slaughterhouse, and there was no wolves alive in it. But there were about twenty-furs. Two bear skins, three or four wolves skins, and the rest were fox, and beaver. A horse was standing about forty-feet behind the house with a rope around its neck, as if someone had tried it to a fence. But no body was found, and the fence was nonexistent now. Blue took the two bear furs, and the wolf ones, the horse, tying the furs together with a rope he found nearby in the ashes, and threw them over the back of the horse. Then he looked about for food. He went to where the kitchen would have been, had the house not burnet down, and noticed a wooden door in the ground, he opened it, and it was full of meat. He grabbed several pounds of it. It was wrapped up in paper. He took one of the furs and used it as a holder for the meat, and swung it over the horse. Then he picked up two pieces of wood, still with the ambers of fire in them, and headed back to Feba. She was sleeping now, when he arrived back. Blue quickly kicked her in the foot, “Wake up!” you can’t sleep like that in the cold, your body will drift off, and you’ll die.”

She didn’t care it seemed, but her eyes opened nonetheless, and she stayed alive for the moment out of respect for Blue.

He then built a fire, spreading the leaves out, ran back to the house to get some more fire wood. Finally he took the two bear skins and built a shelter out of them, along side of the fire, and put the other furs over Feba, her bones were starting to unthaw.

About three hours thereafter, Blue noticed it was getting dark already; as he examined her face, color was coming back within it. And then Blue leaned back against the big spruce tree Feba was leaning against. And there they slept in the wild of the frozen North, fire burning, and meat cooking on a stick hanging from a tree branch tied to a rope. And night cast it shadow over the trees which cast a shadow onto the snow, and the full moon came out. Blue’s eyes opened automatically every ten or fifteen minutes to see if the moon would show any shadows. He felt there were Indians about but he was too tired to get up and search the area: too frozen, and weak, plus, he would be no danger to them, no great battle, so he figured if they wanted him, they could have him any time really. If they wanted to fight like this, so be it, it would be a cowards way. And they were brave if anything. This would not be a brave person’s style. Even Arizona-Blue, the great gunfighter would not take that much advantage of a situation. Nor would the soldiers at the battle of Chickamauga shoot a person in such conditions. And if the Indians decided to, so be it. Hell could not get much worse.

Rawhide and Whale Bone (Arizona Blue-Gunfighter-1867) 23rd Episode

2006-07-14T17:23:00.000-07:00

[Dodge City—1867] Arizona Blue had no chance to pull out his six shooter in Dodge City’s main saloon, leaning against the bar a little tight from the several shots of whisky he had, looked at the tall heavy set man next to him—perhaps five feet away, he stood next to a short stubby looking man he called his ‘manager’ better dressed than he: the big palooka, had a hairy chest, big hands, smashed in nose, ugly, but tough looking, also confident looking, too confident for his own good thought Blue, and they caught each others eyes; and Blue just stared at him, noticed he had no gun, and the man, the palooka, took it for sizing him up for a fight. Thus, Doug Lindamen, the San Francisco Hammer, short tempered as he was, stared back at him; this gave him reason enough to take it an inch further, it triggered something in the big man’s brain, perhaps he thought he was back in the San Francisco ring ready to fight again: instead of on his way to New York City for a title match.

The short stubby man, looked at the two staring, pulled Doug by his massive biceps, “Nothing to prove here, he’s just a drunk stranger, no time to waste here, let’s drink and get back to the hotel, got to get up early, head on out… he said. The big man listened closely, but Blue was too drunk to turn about, and stood looking, not staring anymore, just looking at the two fellows, shifting his eyes a little up and own, but mostly at them.

“No gun,” he said quietly. Everyone in the bar knew Blue’s reputation, everyone but these two fellows that is, and I suppose most wished he’d get his due someday, and was silently hoping it was today. Blue had come to the notion, he was perhaps a boxer of some sort, never heard the name before today, then as the big guy looked in the mirror behind the bartender, seeing Blue was still somewhat staring, it triggered the palooka, and like a bull, he turned about and hit Blue square in the jaw, as if a fifty pound hammer at a hundred miles an hour hit him, Blue took the full impact of the punch, blood spurted out of his mouth and nose: the stubby man went to grab his fighter, but it did no good, he pushed him out of the way like a horse swatting a fly with his tall, off his ass.

The punch was a surprised, Blue was wide open now, and the fighter saw this, and hit him hard, very hard in the ribs, you could her one crack, snap, like a whale bone after someone hammered on it with a slug hammer, surprisingly he was still standing, his skin like rawhide absorbed the punch also, and he fell to one knee. He groaned, and staggered back up to his feet, trying to find some kind of balance; some one in the bar crowd looked unemotionally and said, “It’s about time that gunfighter got his due!”

The fighter was about to hit Blue again, when his manager had over heard that statement, and quickly grabbed his arms hoping to stop the fight, and Doug turned about as if to listen to him, and as he started to say something “He’s a…” he just pushed him away again, which was a mistake, for Blue pulled out his six shooter… And as the man started to turn about to face Blue again, things had changed:

Arizona was hurt, hurt badly, and had pulled out his pistol, now you could hear it go: smash, smash, smash! On the turning head of the fighter: the flashing pistol ripped open the backside of the giants quivering head. The bar folks looked on with amazement and freight, one man said, “No man could survive through this.”

The way Arizona Blue hit the fighter, was likened to an iron hammer pumping away, across the head, now the jaw went his pistol, he broke his jaw and it sounded as if a oak rib had busted.

Still the fighter stood up, no one had ever knocked this rock of man to his knees (his manager was now running from table to table crying for someone to help his fighter: lest he get killed in a damn bar brawl and not make it to New York City for the big one; but no one dared, they looked at this little man as if he was crazy, one man said,” You know who that blued eye fellow is…if you did you’d not be asking such a dumb question.”)

Blue’s opponent saw through the blood and mist of his mind, and eyes, as he looked in Blues: death speaking, approaching, not an inch pulling back, as Blue’s hand slugged away with the butt end of his gun at the raw face of this fighter, kicked his ribs, iron ribs he had, thought Blue; none would break, deeper and deeper into his flesh his boots went, but the boxer still stood.

No one dared to step forward to stop the fight, caution thrown to the wind, every one remained stone still, and they had been yelling for the fighter, now it was for Blue. Everyone knew it wasn’t a fair fight, but then it wasn’t when the fighter first hit Blue either. And a good fight, with a bottle of whisky, and a good cigar, was worth its weight in gold so why stop it: especially with the fasted gun alive, and a boxer that was going for a title shot: these would have been priceless tickets, had they been sold. The big mans arms were down, like great timbers, they had lost there strength, then he fell to his knees, as he weakened little by little, his eyes rolling upward: he looked at his manager, for the last time, and fell face down, flat on the floor.

“I saw it all, a fair fight considering,” said the bartender to Blue, as Blue leaned against the bar, grabbing the bottle of whiskey out of his hands. “I should have shot the giant,” said Blue, “he had rawhide and whale bones,” said Blue, as the bar now cheered him.

6/20/2006

Arizona Blue—Gunfighter: Roofless Hades: in Mexico [Episode: #24]

2006-07-14T17:10:00.000-07:00

Roofless Hades: in Mexico
Arizona Blue—Gunfighter
Episode: #24

[Mexico, Boarder Town—1868] Back across the boarder, from the Mexican Boarder Town Blue dashed, lest he end up in the roofless jail, in which he was in no shape for more punishment. Sheriff Diez was no one to fool with; he had his soldiers looking for him.
Blue, was vaguely aware of what he had done, but he knew he had plunged into his drinking vice—often remembering only fragments of his goings-on; for three-years after the Civil War, this blinding spree only showed him more ghosts of his past. He was now coming out of the haze, semi-consciousness from extreme intoxication as he hovered back and forth on his horse, crossing the Rio Grand, as if in oblivion. He had gained a little stamina after the fight, and pulled his body away from the bar, grimly making it across the boarder, in fear of being put into a Mexican jail, which he knew had only four tall walls, no roof, no breeze, just sun, and most men were left to die—more simply, forgotten by the local authorities, better than feeding bums and deadbeats. There was no sympathy in Blue’s cold eyes for the-men he killed, he thought them swine.

Blue’s head was still throbbing. He had drank too much tequila when he entered the adobe saloon, and was soaked and tired from a long ride crossed Texas to this Mexican boarder town of sorts, and into this small saloon, he had entered. That’s when it all started. His eyes looked like they were redden by the full dust of the ride, and drink. After several drink the bartender, said, in a questioning way: “That’s enough liquor Gringo! Why not just go sleep it off at the hotel…?” and before he could say another world, Blue commented, “And what business is it of yours?” putting a $20-dollar gold piece on the bar, “I hate to see someone drawn himself dead of alcohol, but if you insist…” and Blue whispered, “I insist…” and was given another glass of Tequila.
Blue’s face was that of a wild mans, hard looking and finely molded.
“After this gold piece is spent, you’re done here gringo!” said Lopez the bartender, and owner of the little adobe saloon. Lopez was a keen observer of men, being a bar owner for some thirty-years, and this man he was observing was no tenderfoot, but unstable, bad news, he told himself, ‘…best to get rid of him,’ he told himself in a mumbling way: before too much trouble starts and I’ll have to repair chairs and tables in the morning from the ruckus.

The Sordid Dive

Arizona Blue seemed out of place in this sordid dive, to everyone but himself. His blue eyes were fast as cats, he saw every movement in the bar.
“I should kill you just for you talking to me the way you have,” he told the bartender, staring at him with inflamed eyes, “your rotten–gut Tequila isn’t fit for swine.”
Blue was just getting his reputation, and few knew of him across the boarder, although the name was not unheard of, it was not as prominent as it would be after this occurrence. Like a snake leaping for a rat, he grabbed Lopez by the shirt, wildly, he pulled him halfway across the bar, his heart pounding, eyes glaring into Blues eyes, the wind knocked out of him for the moment, he had pulled his gun out so quick no one saw it until it was at the head of the bartender, “Who do you think your talking to! I’ve taken enough orders in the war, I’m not taking anymore from the likes of you!” commanded Blue.
Lopez’s face was likened to a red mask, terror sunk into his flesh. His legs were trembling, chest heaving.
Crash! From behind Blue came three men with chairs, a ferocious attack on Blue. One chair hit him to the right of the head, Blue fell to his knees, his knees buckled, but just as everyone thought he was through, he straightened back up, standing in front of the three men, whom had parts of chairs still in their hands.
Everyone was blinded by the red and blue flashes, from of Blue’s guns; two of the Mexican’s, fell to their knees, the third flew backwards over a table, all dead.

Someone had run out to get the sheriff; everyone else sat in horror wondering if they were next. That’s when Blue decided to go out the back way, and as the sheriff went into the bar, Blue had jumped on his horse, and headed for the boarder a mile or so away.

6/24 & 25/2006 [Lima, Peru]

Arizona Blue—Gunfighter [Episodes 1 thru 12]

2006-07-14T16:45:00.000-07:00

Arizona Blue—Gunfighter

By Dennis L. Siluk

1) “Lady in White,” [1885]
2) “Wild Flower,” [1882]
3) “The Mexican Stand off,”
4) Meeting at the Red Dog [1884-85]
5) “Arizona-Blue, and the Wolf Nest” (in the North)
6) “Another Town,” [1878]
7) “Crazy Sam,” [1884]
8) “A Rough Year—1844”
9) In the Wagon [1844]
10) Purple, Gray Skies [1844]
11) Abilene-Lorato [1867]
12) A Fools Draw (1870s)

Index
*Two stories created by demand for the series to continue on…

1—Lady in White, [1885] Episode One, written 1990; revised 2001, published 2002; revised August, and November, 2005

2—Wild Flower, [1882] Episode Two; written l990; revised 2001, published 2002; revised 2005

3—Mexican Stand-off [1884] Episode Three; 2001; published 2002; revised July 2005; Deadwood, South Dakota

4--Meeting at the Red Dog [idea written out 1/2002; story written out 1 December, 2005] The Forgotten Episode

5—Wolves Nest [In the North Country] Episode five, written 2002, revised 2005 (Part of the North)

6—Another Town—l878 [1844] Episode Four; 2002/Revised July 2005;
Cheyenne, Wyoming

7—Crazy Sam 1884; Episode Six; written July 2005; Deadwood, South Dakota (lost chapter: story)

8—A Rough Year—1844 [1878] Episode Seven; Written August 2005; Cheyenne, Wyoming

9—In the Wagon (1844) 8/15/05

10—Purple, Gray Skies (1844-Falstaff, Arizona) 8/2005

*11—Abilene-Lorato (Arizona-Blue, l887) written 9/15/005

*12—A Fools Draw (1870s) written 11/29/05

∆

Arizona Blue—Gunfighter
A Rough Year—1844
[Episode Seven: August 2005]

Arizona Blue, remembering his family leaving their homestead in Quincy, Illinois, now looking down at Cheyenne, about to head on into town; it was a rough year, he told himself; looking at Dan, his horse. Cheyenne was just another town, no big thing. It was 1878; he leaned on the mane of his horse, thoughts coming to his mind. His mind was like a blackened out room, now it was filled with his youth.
It looked like a parade with the eight wagons, dogs, horses, children, livestock and all. A few folks came by to see them off, and then they were gone. His father at the time was 46-years old, his mother, a tiny woman, was twelve years younger. Grandpa was 70-years old. It was fathers 3rd marriage, and his best.
Blue, noticed the oxen didn’t seem too interested in the journey, as the teamster cracked his bullwhip, and the train started. Blue was a handsome lad, as was his father, in his younger day—that had a square jaw, which made his face handsome, and mannish. His face was well trimmed, his beard that is, and was fast with the gun, so people had said.
He used to drink a lot, mom said, and served time in the Kansas state Prison. He had a bent, or that damn broken nose, he looked more like a boxer than a gunfighter, retired gunfighter that is; mom made him stop, or gave him good reason to. Had a $500-Reward on him at onetime. His nickname was Scotch; he drank so much of it I guess. Someone said he robed an old lady, him and gang of other men, and was too drunk to hightail it out of town. The booze makes a man do stupid things I declare.
Blue’s mothers name was Margaret Teresa Dalton. And I suppose Scotch will do for his father. At that time, Scotch had a daughter from a previous marriage; she was 14-years old. And at that time people were itching to move west. Scotch had a horse named Dan and Scotch seemed to talk to him all the time. Matter-of-fact, sometimes he preferred to carry on a longer conversation with him, than with anyone else.
Sarah was the only young girl on the wagon train. Scotch and Blue drove one wagon; Scotch couldn’t see the road too well, so Blue became his navigator. Caddy and Margaret kept each other company in the back of the wagon; avoiding the flying dust, insects and prairie sounds.
“Farwell, my good friends,” Scotch said to the St. Clair’s, outside of Quincy, as he passed their farm.
There was a storm in the mid-afternoon; a flood of rain slapped against the wagon train, and the passageway was thickening with mud. It wasn’t long this second day they had to stop the wagon train —, it was sunset and 90F out. That old Mrs. Jason, everyone called her that, not sure if that was her husbands first name, or her last name, but everyone called her that; anyhow she died of a heatstroke, so I heard; no matter what it really was she died. She was 59-years old. She suffered it seemed (painfully) from the scorching heat: she was helping her husband drive the team of horses. It was my first time I saw death so close, so clear that is, like looking through ice and seeing a dead fish.
Yes, it was an arduous trip—the prairie travel, wagons, a drenching thunderstorm the second day, emigrants encamped here and there on their way to California, or Organ.
We left a sign back a-ways on the prairie road for Mrs. Jason, a headstone made out of wood, and an old family bible. It only read: ‘Mrs. Jason, l844’; nothing else.
Father liked to swear when things went wrong, and he was swearing like a chayote hollers throughout most of the trip, especially when we crossed the creek, and the wagon fell into it—: mud up to the wagon’s seats; it sunk like quicksand. It took a week to fix everything on it again and the family had to walk that week along side the wagon, run a bit, ride the oxen, and Dan. Some supplies were left in the mud behind. That was a rough year—1844, it would be my first year dad would teach me how to shoot.

Arizona Blue-Gunfighter
In: Another Town

[Cheyenne - l878]

The Man called Arizona-Blue

He was known as Arizona Blue because Arizona was where he came from and he had the deepest blue eyes any one had ever seen. In a gunfight he never blinked them once. It was amazing folks would say after watching him have a showdown with another gunfighter. It was as watching a bullfight; that is to say, Arizona being the picador and the matador: the wind would circle his feet, his hand would fly off, and the sun might even be in his way, but he never blinked, nor smiled, nor moved his hands once situated, unless to draw. That is what his opponents feared the most. No bluff.
He was a tall man, medium build, had broad shoulders and a wild look to his tan a muscular face with a bronze reddish-brown penny look.
He had big hands like John L. Sullivan, who he had met once in a barroom fight in Boston. He had just become Heavyweight Bare Knuckle Champion a year earlier. Blue liked following the news when he could; and he liked Sullivan because he claimed he could lick any man in the house, and he did. Although Sullivan was about 2 ½ inches taller then blue, Arizona could put up a good fight himself he felt with John L., but his forte was guns, not knuckles, he’d tell himself. And in a similar manner, like Sullivan, he claimed he could out draw anyone, anywhere; and he did. Therefore, he always felt they had something in common.
Arizona wore a buckskin coat and was clean shaven, but had thick long busy sideburns, the same as his hair, and thick eyebrows; He had deep-pitted eyes, high cheekbones, and a thick-looking jaw; he was mean, handsome and boisterous; a deadly combination in any town.
His horse, Dan, a solid creature with a long mane, was all a cowboy could ask for. He was brownish in color with legs like a deer and a heart that could outlast the best of any Indian horse. What Blue didn’t want was to ride into a feud between sheep and cattle ranchers, and homesteaders; and he knew each town had its demons.

—With such men came the tired look. As he sat on his horse, allowing himself to catch his breath before he entered the small Wyoming town in front of him; thus, he thought of the lonely journey he had coming up from Pueblo along the Continental Divide that stretched from Colorado to Canada. The Marianne Bow Mountains, he captured sight of and the long dusty cactus along the way. He was nasty dirty:

“Another Town,” he whispered to himself, as if waiting for old Dan to comment (his horse).

His eyes then made a half circle [18--degree circle]. He had seen his share of these dusty little towns in Montana, Arizona territories, and Wyoming; Deadwood in the Dakota’s; the old trail town of Cody; and of course Tombstone, to mention a few. This one he hadn’t been to, call Cheyenne. He knew it was a cattle area although. He had met some time ago, a woman called ‘Cattle Kate’ while in Cody. She was quite plane he thought, but had her charms, and Blue knew she’d have her day because she was always ending up with a few extra mavericks, but could never prove she was the rustler. Thoughts just circled his mind as he scanned the territory and town around him.
It was back in the l860s, the Homestead Act that allowed men to buy land as cheap as a $1.25 an acre; it made many a man rich. And still were making men rich. The thought of lots of jobs around this area crossed Blue’s mind as he looked up towards the hot summer sun, its blinding beams. He wiped the sweat off his brow. Moved a bit within on his saddle trying to catch a glimpse of a supply store—what the sign read on the building; his horse was wet with sweat, and thirsty. He looked down to the horse’s profile, and smiled. He didn’t smile much, but to old Dan he made it a point to do it often.

“Ok, old Dan,” said Blue, “let’s sees what the town has to offer!” And he kicked his horse lightly, and down the hill he rode, toward Main Street. He arched his back, his plaid shirt opened to catch the breeze as he rode down; he pulled a little tighter on the reins, to control his horse a ting; put a flat affect on his face, so no one could read him.

Arizona Blue—Gunfighter
Wild Flower

[Tombstone - 1882]

[Tombstone, Arizona—1882] Arizona-Blue wiped the dust off his pants as he dismounted his horse, Dan. Another town he said to himself. He hadn’t been back in Arizona going on four-years. It was nice to be back in Tombstone, it was a place he usually avoided though, because of the gunfighters and he loved them dearly, but when they got together in a town like Tombstone, or Deadwood, the law was never orderly. But why look for them, they’d find him if need be. He was like an alcoholic when it came to shoot outs, or show downs. He knew it. He couldn’t avoid a fight. So like a good alcoholic, he was a loner, it was best to be alone he’d tell himself: ‘…better to be alone than be caught in the grips of your fancy.’ But Tombstone was on his way to Wyoming. He had just left New Mexico. Things were pretty hot for him down there; after a shootout in a saloon that is. The bartender started a fight where four-men had lost their lives, he had shot one. They hung the saloonkeeper. It was best to get going before too many minds got together and thought of lynching him.
Tombstone sprawled across a treeless plateau in the southeastern part of Arizona. And Blue, remembering the cockfights held in a roped-off area on the outskirts of town from years back, and needing to make a few bucks, some spending money, it would be more favorable on him for reentering the town, broke. Maybe he could make a few more bucks. And maybe some of his old friends were around. He also needed to land a job for a season, and often times there was need for a man with his skills, and talents.
He remembered a few years back in l879, how the fever of the silver mines was in every ones conversations, and money was but a handshake away—like in Deadwood. Many mine owners needed guards, gunmen to protect them. In the surrounding hills there were many mines, and miners back then. But now he had heard of some mines that were yielding ore, and making the town even richer.
Blue pulled up to a wooden post in town, he tied his reigns to it, and started heading to a saloon but a few feet away. Three men were standing on the wooden sidewalk, one tall with a derby hat, long beard, white shirt and old suit jacket. The one in the middle wore kind of a conductors hat, and the one on his left, a bit taller than the one in the middle, mustache, and a small rounded hat, standing with his right hand in his pocket, like a chair ready to fall back at the least bit of wind. He stood with a hand in his pocket as if he it was frozen as he stared at Blue walking toward him on the wooden sidewalk.
Blue was close to five food nine inches tall a rugged looking fellow, especially when unshaven, with dusty close and hat. His gun hung heave on his side, and low. He wore his colt pistol tight against his body though, especially before he’d go into a down like this, so there’d be no flopping of his holster; cleaned shaved for most occasions, except for now, as he had just arrived in town—with his bushy auburn sideburns, natural waves to his hair; square chin, a good looking fellow most woman would say.
The saloon was next-door to a pawnshop—two, stories high. Blue looked up and down Allen Street, sizing up everything. A man with a tie and dressed in black was making his way across the muddy street to the other side, from Macalister & Company, not far from a shoe store. He was a natural for details. Maybe that was why he lived so long he thought. Thirty-four men he killed since he left home at the age of eighteen. He was considered the fastest gun alive. No exceptions to the past either.
The saloon had three windows in front, one on the right hand side and one above the door and another one on the left hand side of the building. He often liked not to be too close to windows. Too many people new his face in Arizona; and outside of Arizona, too many knew his name. And too many people would like to shoot him in the back, as they had done to Wild Bill Hickok, back in l876, in Deadwood. Blue remembered that well. He was in Deadwood that day, but missed the action he had already been shot. Matter-of-fact, he hadn’t been back there for a spell; he never liked the narrow streets, but he was thinking of heading on down there, or up there, he knew Lola, an old girlfriend.
Blue walked past the three men, slowly. The tall one whispered:
”Looks like one of the Masterson Brothers except for the mustache.”
The middleman turned to look; he caught Arizona’s eyes, and then quickly turned away:
“It’s Arizona-Blue, just look at his eyes, they’re as blue as the sky.”
The third man noted also, saying:
“Yaw, could be, could be, I saw him in town some years back—a loner, a mean kind of loner.”
Arizona swung the door to the saloon open, a few eyes from within turned towards him. He checked the place out as a matador would prior to entering a bullring or a prizefighter checking out his prey, just before the bell rang. The bartender stood behind the bar squint-eyed, trying to see if who the stranger was: cleaned shaved, white shirt, hair groomed with axel grease, about 5’9”, a vest of white and black silk, and a gun in a glass case behind him, as to imply he was ready in case of trouble.
To the right, a man was smoking a cigar, leaning in a chair with only two legs of the chair supporting him, as he laid his right hand on the table, the other dangling to his side. He was playing with some silver dollars, by himself. To his right, a card game was going on. Five fellows were playing, not paying much attention to the breeze coming through the door. Standing not too far from the card game another man watched the players as if checking out a few of the fellow’s hands.
Just then the tall man from outside looked in with another fellow, pointing at Blue:
“Yaw,” said the tall man’s friend, “that’s Blue all right.”
The words echoed into every ones ears in the bar. Even the card game stopped. Silence filled the long slim barroom. You could tell they had all heard of his reputation, and Tombstone was just a place where a crazy gunslinger could practice his trade with out too much trouble. It was just a year ago [1881] the gunfight took place at the OK Corral. Blue had met the Earp’s some years back. He was more of a shrewd businessman he had thought than a gunfighter. He thought it funny Wyatt made it out of the OK Corral alive.
Pulling his hat off, Arizona commented: “I’m just here for a drink, fellows, not looking for trouble.”
Blue starred at the bottles of whiskey across from him scotch to be exact.
“The names Jake, Mr. Blue,” said the saloonkeeper.
“Glad to meet you Jake,” replied Blue, “give me a double shot of the scotch, and beer to chase it down.”
From the backdoor, an Indian woman came in. She was caring some wood for the cast-iron stove that stood against the wall of the left side of the room. She was tall, taller thought Blue, taller than the average Indian woman. And he knew most of the tribes in the area.
She couldn’t be Sioux, or Chippewa; they were too far to the north. She didn’t look like a Comanche he told himself, because she wore buckskin. She had tinsel and beads as ornaments around her nick. She was very pretty, strong looking, and warrior like. There was grace in her movements, and pride he told himself, in her face. He liked looking at her, and he liked her make up.
As he stared at the Indian woman putting the firewood down, it brought him back to memories of his childhood. His father had beaten his first wife to death while drinking one night, he was a drunk—his mother was his third wife; and on a number of occasions swung at him, but missed most of the time, he was fast in the ducking. It was hard to keep your head up he remembered, after being hit a few times, but he died when Blue was fourteen, too much booze or something. His heart just stopped one day, and that was it. They were tough times then and after; he then went into the Civil War, he was 25-years old then. He was kinder to his mother than he was to his previous wives, he thought. He drank on occasions, but not like he had prior to meeting his mother. The love he wanted, he probably never got, but then he’d think, he could had been worse, he could had been born to one of his other wives and beat to death as a child, although he never beat his daughter Sarah, his step-sister.
It seemed to Blue, as he watched her every move; she was trying hard to get that respect also. She tried to keep her chin level with her shoulders, to show at one time she possessed dignity. But Blue noticed it fell short of what she wanted, as she glanced at his starring.
“Say Jake, who’s the Indian woman?”
“The squaw belongs to Todd Lukas, the gentleman sitting down over there.”
Blue looked. It was the man playing with the silver dollars, a checkered suit coat, vest, and timepiece with a golden chain hanging so everyone could see it: a big cigar in his mouth.
“A big shot, haw!” Blue mentioned lightly loud, somewhat under his breath, but enough to make a little echo. Todd looked towards the bar, not sure if he was or was-not, part of Blues conversation.
“Curiosity Mr. Blue,” said the bartender.
“You could say that. Can’t figure out what tribe she’s from.”
“Save you some time, she’s Osages,” said Todd Lukas. From afar, as if he had ears as sharp as Blue’s eyes.
“She does odd jobs around here,” said Jake the bartender, almost reluctantly, yet hoping there wouldn‘t be any trouble; as if he helped with the conversation so Blue’s mind would be off Lukas.
He added: “I pay” Jake hesitated, then commented: “Mr. Lukas for it.”
“I thought slavery went out in ‘65,” commented Blue.
“Well, if you must know mister,” replied Todd, “I own her, heart and soul. Ok!”
“How’s that?” asked Blue?
“That’s none of your business, even to you, gunslinger,” said Lukas as he stood up from his chair.
Blue look about, he noticed there wasn’t much room in the bar, and right by Jake was his cash register, and right by that his gun and rifle in the glass box; mirrors on each side. Blue took a quick look into Jakes eyes, made a little smile, almost a sneer, and Jake moved closer to the cash resister, and away from the guns. Blue then shifted his focus to Todd, although Jake knew Blue could still see him with his peripheral vision.
“I don’t, like your attitude, Mr. Lukas.”
Blue’s hand was already lowered to his holster. His double shot of whiskey was already finished. Blue added with a calm vice, as steady as a cats purr: “You better be fast mister,” adding, “I love to shoot, I’m like an alcoholic, can’t help taking the next step—early…eee.” and he slurred the early part of the word, like a cat.
Blue looked about the room. Everyone remained silent. No one moved. They knew the game. Any movements would be taken for assistance on Mr. Lukas’ behalf. And it looked to Blue; he didn’t have a lot of friends in the bar. Plus out of the several people in the bar, only a few had guns on anyway; and they looked more like farmers and ranchers than gunfighters. And he knew by the looks of things, they were not going to protect a vulture, not with their lives anyhow.
“You know how to use that Smith & Wesson Schofield .45?” asked Blue.
Todd was silent. And he did know how to use the gun. Todd was somewhat known throughout the area as not being afraid of Wyatt Earp, or for that matter Bat Masterson, but then Blue wasn’t either. Blue new the name Lukas, although he didn’t let on. To him he was simply another cowhand who thought he was quick with skinning his gun.
Todd looked at his gun on his hip took a step away from the table.
“You know Todd,” said Blue “Jesse James’s choice.” Todd looked dumfounded, not knowing what Blue was saying. “The gun mister,” said Blue as if insulting his knowledge about guns. Now Todd knew, Jesse hand the same kind of gun.
“So what,” said Todd with irritation? Than looked at Blue with burning eyes.
“Let’s get down to business, Mr. Lukas, go for it, and skin that gun. Go oooooooo!”
“Listen Blue,” said Todd with a shaky voice, “the sheriff in town is a good friend of mine…”
“He can die just as fast as you can,” responded Blue with a low voice, calm as still water.
“So walk away big man, but leave the girl behind, she’s free.”
“I can do that,” replied Todd.”
“Mr. Lukas,” commented Blue, “…it’s only money, and a woman. She’s not worth your life is she?”
“Maybe I can beat you,” said Todd.
Blue shock his head, said to himself: he took my grace as weakness.
Just about this time Todd got more confidence, and took another two steps to position himself according to his aim to be.
The woman looked sharp at Lukas—, almost wanting him to start shooting. At that moment, the woman ran to Jakes guns behind the bar, broke the glass with her hands, cutting them, and pulling a gun out, and dropped the pistil on the floor. She was full of tears, yelling:
“I want to kill him, let me!!”
The whole saloon was on edge now; the bartender still standing by the cash resister, the Indian woman bleeding at the end of the bar, looking at the gun on the floor. The card players looking at their hands, and making sure no one switched cards, as they watched the gunfight about to take place. And the two from outside the bar gawking through the crack of the door.
“Let’s go Mister Lukas, were loosing time, I need another shot, and some food, I had a long ride.”
“Answer question Mr. Blue,” asked Todd Lukas, “listen, there is really no need to fight. I’m not a gunfighter, although I’m not bad with a gun. I won the Indian down in a card game in Arkansas. She was married to a drunken Indian; I gave him $100, for her. She’s simply working the money off.”
“How long she was working the money off, Mr. Lukas?”
“That’s none of your business again,” said Mr. Lukas with a smirk.
“So she’s a married woman?” inferred Blue getting more irritated and about to push Lukas to shoot.
Now the whole bar was looking at Todd and Blue’s hands, as if one would surprise the other with a quick draw; perhaps thinking, Todd was talking to Blue to distract him, for they had seen him do that before.
Said the woman (with a crying voice):
“He killed my husband—he, he gave money to drink to my husband, he do, he-e drank much, he swell tongue in night. He took me then. My husband and I went to get supplies, Fort Gibson.”
“I saved you from that drunken bum, bitch!!” Said Todd, with a roaring voice.
“You save-me for you—for who-ore. My husband bad… but not bad-a like yu.” She stopped and wiped her eyes, kicked the gun away from her feet, as if to tell Blue, she was over her emotional hate. That she would not get in the way.
Blue looked into her deep black eyes. She had lovely features; long black hair. But she was tired. Worn to the point she looked ten years older then her 20’s, an unhealthy looking skin color, but strong features. There was now a little hope in the glitter of her eyes. She held herself up by the end of the wooden bar, as her legs seem to be like noodles fighting to gain strength, and tighten the elasticity—.
She was all of five foot seven inches tall; large bosom, and a shapely figure beyond that, if one looked beyond her silted clothing, and scabbed legs, and cut feet that is she was lovely. Her hair touched her waist, uneven, and with some snarls. She had strong looking hands; veins perturbing from her reddish-brown skin, coffee colored check bones.
“What’s your name?” asked Blue, as he pretended not to notice Todd, making him quite insufficient for the moment, and posing as being off guard; two could play the game he thought.
“It is Wild flower,” she responded with a half smile, as if it took all her energy to talk.
“And where is your tribe. I’ve heard of your band. Though they became extinct years ago, I thought?”
Responded Wild Flower, calmly, after catching her voice from all that was happening:
“Yes, we are not many; all that is left is one-hundred or so, maybe less. But many years ago, there were 5000-of us; maybe more, so many I could not count them all.” She coughed a little, got some more air into her lungs, and continued, “…small-pox killed many. War …and the tribe split, years ago. I was just a kid then. We were mighty warriors.” She ended proudly, pushing her chin back with the little strength she had left.
Blue had heard many things about her tribe, and what she had said was mostly true he thought. It is too bad he thought how a mighty tribe passes with the wind, as if time ate it up. As if it never was. Who would know?
“Well,” Blue said with a confirming voice: “you are free to go wherever you want, back to wherever, go Wild Flower…while you can.”
She looked at Todd. His face was as red as her lips. His eyes were filled with anger, hate, and revenge. Todd stared at Wild Flower as if his prize was being taken away. Blue could see all his movements from his peripheral vision, as he centered in the middle of his chest. Every twitch he made with his leg movements were caught by Blue.

“NO WAY…GUNFIGHTER!” [Screamed Todd] —then he went for his gun, as Blue’s stance was half to the girl, and half to Todd. But even before Todd could get his gun out of his holster, Blue had pivoted, lifting his holster upward slightly, which had a hole where the barrow of the gun was in the leather for a bullet to pass through without loosing any velocity. And his bullet raced across the room like a bolt of lightening, lodging straight in the upper part of the chest.
“It was a fare fight, short lived, but a fare one,” commented the bartender, as nervous as a squirrel with stolen nuts. He was so panicky; he was starting to stutter he was so wound up.
Then gathering up his composure, he said with a swallow:
“It’s a shame; it seems it didn’t have to end up this was, a… a darn shame. “

Then the tall man outside of the bar, talking loud to his friend now—a few spectators about, said:
“I told Todd just let this squaw go, tilled been-his death, and darn well it has been, damn, fool!”
“Yaw,” said Blue, taking a deep breath, as he often did after a gunfight. For two reason, one because he stopped breathing every time he went for his gun, it gave him better aim, and second, to capture the excitement, the moment, the high:
“Yaw,” he said again, “I suppose it was fare, as fare as his stealing the Indian woman.”
Blue looked at the Indian woman She didn’t move Blue knew she was a little in shock, disbelief She was free though
Wild Flower, it’s true, no one has a hold on you its best you find your way back home
With that, Wild Flower seemed to catch her breath. Put on a big smile, kicked the gun, and brushing her hair back with her hands—used as a brush—looking one last time around the dingy and narrow smelly bar. There was no goodbyes, she simply walked past the bartender, around Todd’s dead body, and stopped by Blue, not saying a word—, then out the door.
Blue, put a silver dollar on the bar counter, said Jake with a smile:
“What’s that for?”
“Tell the preacher man to bury him with a bible. Too bad he didn’t have time to read it before him drew.”
—Having said that, Blue walked out the door. As he looked about, Wild Flower was nowhere to be seen. Blue smiled—said to himself: Smart gal. Jumped on his saddled horse, and bid farewell to the tall man, and his friend. He knew the town had jumpy nerves after that, and it was best he be headed north.

Arizona Blue – Gunfighter:
The Mexican Standoff
[La Pelea del Mejicano]

Deadwood: Chickamauga

Writings of D.L Siluk
Revised From the 2002 version;
July 2005 [four chapters]

[Deadwood - l884]

Chapter One
The Mexican Stand Off

The man called Arizona Blue was a man by himself and before him laid another town, this time in South Dakota; behind him were scars and memories. Each one had a name. He forgot them, but he remembered the count. It was thirty-six dead. All shot through the heart except for a few in the head. He was known as the fastest gunfighter that ever lived.

As Arizona Blue dismounted his horse, standing outside by the town cemetery, he paid his respects to Wild Bill Hickok. I guess if he had anything close to a hero, it was he and John L. Sullivan. His grave wasn’t made up of anything great, a gate around it, white with a black epitaph. He stood starring at the grave. His horse Dan by his side, he whispered; yet one might think he was talking to his horse; no it was to Wild Bill, as he said:
“Here lies Arizona Blue, faster then Wild Bill, because death got him soon…err, -- or first; deader then a doornail, by a coward. “
He took his hat off, bid him farewell and mounted old Dan, riding into town. The town hadn’t changed much, thought Blue, as he combed the streets up and down, kid of scanning it to see what was what, sizing it up. It was a lawless town, a town with little pity, and folks wanted to know who was who there.
It wasn’t more wild than up North, in Alaska, at the Red Dog Saloon; come night, it would be lively enough he pondered. Blue was thirsty, mighty thirsty after riding a thousand-miles through more states than he could count.
Matter-of-fact, as he tied his horse to the saloon pole, swung the door open, as if he owned the place, the first words that came out of his mouth was:
“A cold beer, now…!” his face had flat affect with a few days growth—he looked mean.
He had five $20-dollar gold pieces in his pocked, along with several smaller gold pieces. He didn’t feel rich bay far, but he had enough for a long stay and a big hoot in town; and knew where some fine looking women, who didn’t ask any questions, could bath him.
The bartender looked, and then looked again:
“Ho, yes sir, Mr. Blue,” with a low murmur, and went for a tall glass, put a few cold ice cubes in the glass, and filled it with beer:
“You remember how I like it, haw Sam?” Blue remarked.
“Yup, I guess I do…sir, I sure do—glad, glad to see yaw back in town, yup sure am.” The bar tender knew it was better to answer him than to start a conversation by asking a question; questions were not always the best way in such places to carry on a conversation; too many folks looking for too many things, and everything in Deadwood was based on information, and money.

As Blue poured the beer down mouth wide open looking from his peripheral vision—to the side of him, he steadied himself one hand dangling by his gun the other half in the air letting the beer run down him like a overflowing river; he told Sam to fill it up again. And Sam knew it was better he not have to ask twice. He was like that Wild Bill when he got demanding, and it was best to accommodate him with a smile.
“Lola, still in town, Sam?” asked Blue.
“She sure is Mr. Blue; --most likely at her rooming house, down the street.”
“She’s a fine gal, Sam,” replied Blue.
“Yaw, she’s getting on with age, but she’s still a looker,” they both laughed. Lola had lived in town for ten-years. She was from Alaska. Had come down around the same time Blue did to Deadwood. But she stayed. They were old drinking pals and sleeping pals as for the time Blue lived in Deadwood, back then.
Blue looked around the saloon, there were two cowboys sitting down at a table towards the end of the bar; drinking down shots of whisky with a beer for a chaser. They had the bottle sitting in front of them. Just then two Mexicans came in and sat at the opposite side of the bar from Blue.
“Señor, dos cervezas, por favor,” the big nosed one said. And Sam went to get the beers.
“Speak-a-the English, wet-backs,” yelled one of the cowboys. The Mexicans looked at one another, and just shook their heads. They didn’t have guns on, and Blue knew, Deadwood was not the place to be without guns, be it Chinese, Mexican, Indian, or white, guns were the only thing everyone had in common besides drinking, gold, and whores
“Pay them no attention,” said Sam, to the Mexicans “they’re not the friendly type; but nobody is really around here, perhaps you should leave before trouble starts?” And he slammed the two beers down on the table.
The Mexicans continued to speak in Spanish, and it was starting to irritate the two cowboys:
“You guys talking about us, cas if ya R, your dead meat buddy…!” Said one of the two mean at the end of the bar; Blue understood Spanish somewhat, and they were talking about finding a job and possibly trying to rent a room out for a few months, then going back to Mexico and giving the money to their families. Jobs were hard to find in Mexico, and they, perhaps like everyone in Deadwood, wanted a piece of the gold everyone was talking about. It was in all the papers, and just a few years back, a big strike was found not far from town. Matter of fact, Deadwood was a camp for many years, not a town at all, and was the original spot to mine for gold, but now folks went far out into the surrounding hills. It was really all-Indian country, for the most part, but none of the white men were recognizing it.
The drunk stood up, pulled his gun out and shot the Mexican in the chest. He dropped head first onto the bar. The other Mexican ran out of the bar
“Cowards, they’re all cowards,” the angry tall white man said in the back of the bar, as he was putting his gun back into his holster, and everything was fine-and-dandy again, or so he thought.
The bartender stood upset, looking at the dead man on the counter, the drunk at the end of the bar, and Blue. He wasn’t sure what to do. Blue took his beer with his left hand to drink it—his right hand was a little freer in case he needed it. The tall drunk’s friend, with a beard suggested they go before something else happens. The tall man just laughed, saying:
“He drew first!”
“No, he didn’t have a gun,” his partner said.
Then the tall man looked around and said:
“Now who is here to say he didn’t!” Again I say, it was a lawless town, yet some order needed to be, and for the most part, the saloon owners paid bodyguards to take care of such dealings. A sheriff was elected by the towns folks, the elite that is, and it was only for show and tell, not for law and order. The two men now were looking at Blue and the bartender. At that moment the Mexican that ran out of the bar had grabbed a rifle, and was charging in through the doors. He was swearing in Spanish:
“Te voy a matar, bastardo, matar…matar. “
Blue understood what he was saying, but the drunks were thinking he was joking. The Mexican was out for blood. As a result, as the tall man stood up, the Mexican shot him in the chest and he dropped to his knees, and as he was about to shoot the sheriff came in. He seen the tall man on his knees and pulled his pistil out aiming it at the Mexican. The tall man just dropped over dead then. The other drunk started rambling that his pal had to kill the Mexican because of this crazy behavior. The sheriff was about to take the Mexican away, because it was a white man against a Mexican, it would stir up the town should he not do something, yet he did not want a court or any kind of jail time for the Mexican. Either kill him or hind him. Blue said:
“Not today my little makeshift sheriff.” Blue knew the rules of the town: order only to keep the business going, no more than that. The sheriff had intentions of killing the Mexican once he got him in his office, but this restricted matters. The owner of the bar was not happy, business had stopped, and the musical piano had stopped playing; nobody was buying whores or drinking.
“What’s that Mexican to you?” asked the sheriff; not knowing it was the notorious Blue. The bartender just shook his head, knowing more sparks were coming. The sheriff caught the sight of that. Blue didn’t know this young sheriff from Adam, and didn’t care to get to know him, and then he added:
“Self defense I seen it all. He killed the Mexican over here he had no gun. And when he went to get his rifle, to take his brother out, or pal or whoever he was, the tall one stood up to shoot him; revenge and self-defense—you understand Sheriff?”
The other drunk stood up:
“Liar, “he said, “He came through the doors with the rifle aiming to kill my partner.” The sheriff then looked at the bartender:
“Sam, you had to see it all, which way was it?” Sam didn’t care for Indians, Chinese or Mexicans, but he did for his life, and responded accordingly:
“It was as the man said self-defense.” The owner still looking down from his office on the second floor, laughed a bit, knowing who Blue was, and the bartender trying to save his life by backing up Blue’s statement. He didn’t care one-way or the other, he just wanted business to start up again.
Having said that, the other drunk went for his gun to put a bullet into the Mexicans head; thus, as he lowered the gun, and as quick as an eye can blink, Blue shot the gun out of the hand of the drunk, leaving a hole in the middle of his palm, and the drunks eyes wide open like an owls.
Said the Sheriff to Blue:
“That’s some good shooting stranger.”
“That’s Arizona Blue, sheriff,” said Sam.
Even the sheriff knew of him, he just didn’t know how he looked, and so did the drunken man standing at still at the end of the bar looking at his hand know of Blue. But when his name was announced, they both looked at him as if life was about to end. Both saying at the same time:
“Arizona Blue…!” The bar tender nodding his head, yes, as if it was about time.

“Well,” said the sheriff, as the drunk ran out of the saloon holding his hand, “I’m glad to meet yaw, I’ve heard a lot about you. God knows I can’t outdraw yaw so I hope we can be friends?” [He said smiling].
Said Blue with a returned smile: “I’m here for a spill, got to get some rest. I wasn’t looking for trouble; just trying to help up with the times.”
The Mexican said with a soft voice:
“Gracias Señor,” and asked the sheriff if it was ok for him to leave, and take his brother. And the sheriff nodded, ok
As Blue walked out of the saloon to take his horse to the stables, and have Dan attended to, he whispered to Sam:
“Not bad for the first day in town, Haw?” Sam’s eyebrows went up, but he never made a sound.

Lola

As blue walked to the stables, his mind got full of Lola: it was a year or so since he’d seen her, but she never left his mind when he wanted female companionship—; she was short, long black hair, had a little Spanish blood in her, and some say a little Chinese blood. She spoke both English and Spanish. And boy could she kiss. She was as pretty as the day was long—never ever, married. Was a business woman, who owned a boarding house; the last time he saw her she was having an extension put on to it—and was renting cats out for boarders who wanted such company; surprisingly many wanted a cat with a room, and she’d charge fifty cent a day more. Blue could never figure out how she could make money doing that, but she did.
She would cook their meals, and wash their cloths. You could pay by the day, week or month. She took a three-room house and made it into nine-sleeping rooms, a nice size boarding house. And with that extension, it looked more like a hotel now then a house. But she worked hard, and Blue respected that. Why she liked him, he never new; maybe because he met her in Alaska, once, and saved her hide; and then again twice in Deadwood.

Arizona Blue-Gunfighter
Showdown on Main Street
[Chapter Two, to: ‘Mexican Stand-off’]

Blue, he—after tending to his horse went down Main Street towards the end of town, where Lola’s Boarding House was. She had a fancy sign outside, and the extension she was working on some years back was already built. She was looking out her front bay window when Blue pulled up. The place had a walkway going halfway around the building now it hadn’t before. It was impressive, thought Blue.

As she noticed Blue standing outside looking in, she ran to the white picked-fence along side her wooden sidewalk, and opened up her arms to hug him, saying:
“OH Dios mío, mi amorcito volvio.”
After the hug, she commented:
“Que bueno verlo de nuevo señor Blue,” then shifted to English: “…do you plan on staying for a while, oh I hope so!” She was smiling with a tear in her right eye.
“Yes my dear pretty young española gal; for the winter months at least.”
Thought Blue as she let go from the hugging him: she really knows how to hug— “Do yaw hav a roo-mm far rent?”
“Sure enough do—tienes suficiente dinero para pagar el cuarto?”
“You do haw… (a murmur0 good!” replied Blue.
“Come on in, sírvete café, its still early. “
Replied Blue: “Gracias, querida”
And so Blue followed her into the house. As he looked about—sure enough, there was the Seth Thomas Clock he bought for her when she first opened up her house doors to the public; it was a fancy 1870 model, he was proud to see she had it hanging on the wall in the hallway.
“Do you miss Juneau?” asked Blue, which was the city in Alaska, where they first met.
“Sí, siempre extrañare Juneau, Mr. Blue, it was a beautiful place, and time, bonito lugar”
“Yaw, it sure was, especially that lovely glacier you liked. “
“You mean the Mandenhall?” asked Lola.
“Yaw, I guess that sounds like the thing, it was a lot of ice on ice. “

—They both sat in the kitchen having coffee. Lola was as happy as a ten-year old school girl who just got her first boyfriend; same her Negro help was in the barn with her father milking the cow and cleaning out the stalls. But Lola would tell them when they came in the good news, or perhaps not so good, as her father did not like gunslingers, in particular; but Lola was no dumbly; she knew he was a wanderer. He would never stay in one place too long, but it would be long enough for her she felt, plus she was lost in the moment. He was the fist man she had ever made love to—the very first. And she could never find another quite like him.
“Got to find a job before winter comes, and settle down for a spill, I guess,” said Blue.
“There’s a horse rancher outside of town cerca a dos millas de aquí, he seems always to be hiring and firing cowhands and so forth, you know repair men for the fences and all.”
Blue thought about the two cowboys in the saloon, “Yaw, I had a run in with a few guys in the…” before he could finish Lola commented:
“Todo listo…” she said [All ready?] Then she went quiet.
“I’ll show you to your room. Necesitas bañarte [both], Baja cuando estes listo, Calentare agua.”
“Where’s the wood kept now?” asked Blue. She laughed. He laughed.
“In my room?” [‘si quieres calentarte, tienes que ir alli’].
-–Blue smiled, saying: “Aw, you’re still my gal I see!”
“Blue, it’s always been you, sólo tú.” And she grabbed a key, and they walked to the second floor, room #4.
Blue fell, face first down unto the bed, fell to sleep like a dead mouse on the prairie, roasted by the sun. It was three hours later when he woke up; he heard some talking going on in the street. He looked out the window, up the street, there were five men chatting to a lady.
“Looks like trouble,” Blue mumbled somewhat to himself—, wiping his face with a hand towel; he looked about Lola must had went out for a spell.

As Blue readied himself to go up the block the makeshift-sheriff was standing in his office, about 200-feet from the happening, where the five men had cornered a Chinese woman in the middle of the street. It was an hour past noon, and they had just left the Gem Saloon. The sheriff didn’t budge from his window to get involved. Chinese were not the most protected to him, matter-of-fact, they were quite the opposite. Plus these guys were a bad bunch, as was the whole town, and his belief was, keep them off the streets or they are fair game for any drunk wanting a free whore, although she wasn’t a whore. But the way the town folks thought in Deadwood, was simple: there is no law, and so if I can I will, and if you can’t stop me, the entire better. They worked at the Golden T. Ranch, just outside of town. The one Lola had suggested Blue find a job at.
Lola now was standing out by her gate looking up the street. The men were pushing the Chinese woman around; she was but sixteen or seventeen thought Lola. She was tripping to her knees as they were having a game with her, pushing her, and grabbing her as they fell into their arms. She was getting bruised and dirty from the dusty road, thick with dried up mud. She was caught in the middle of their circle in the middle of the street, laughing, and pulling at her blouse and dress; saying:
“Give me a little.”
She didn’t understand what was happening, or what they were saying; but she was telling them something in Chinese. As Blue came out the door, Lola asked what is she saying, Blue listened he had been around enough dope houses to understand some Chinese and the woman kept yelling; said Blue to Lola in Spanish:
“Oh Dios mío too, me quieren violar, ayúdenme…ayúdenme, help me!” [Oh my God help me] Lola knew the woman was being rapped.
“She’s saying, ‘Oh my god…’ Blue,”
“I know.” Said Blue again, “The men are starting to rape her.”
“I know, “she started to cry, both Lola and the Chinese cried. He knew he shouldn’t get involved with the towns affairs, Chinese were to the whites were a lesser breed, and some may not take kindly to interfering. On the other hand, it was being done in public, and could start a little town war, for there was a section of Chinese, that could hold their own, perhaps not against the whole town though.
Blue stood still, not wanting to get involved, and Lola’s tears started coming down her cheeks. She couldn’t look at Blue, if she did, she knew he would go on her behalf and help the woman, and she really didn‘t want to be beholding to him in such a manner, and cause trouble. The men could burn her house down also, and that was her livelihood, burn it down after Blue left. The young lady was now on the dirt, dress half up, and the men closing in on the circle.
“I got to go get a shave, Lola, be back soon,” said Blue.
She couldn‘t say a word, she was stone still, beguile on the whole thing; there had been many rapes she heard about, but she was never so close to one, and helpless. As Blue walked up the street, about to walk past the circle in the middle of the street, the men had torn her blouse half off, her breasts were exposed, and another man had tripped her to where she had fallen back down again, for the umpteenth time, and another had opened his pants, and jumped on her as if he was ready.
Two of the men held her, one holding her head, another her two her legs, as the bearded one, tall and heavy, turned to look at his fellow comrades, with a smirk on his face about to say something, and she started screaming. Several women standing by watching with their husbands started pulling them away, in case they decided to help, or in anyway get involved.
Several other young men stood by in curiosity, but started to back off as Blue stepped in. No one helped. The man was doing what he came to do, as she screamed, as all the other four drunks were watching; now Blue came behind them. With one had he pulled the mans hair back and pistil whipped him, and the woman rolled over to her side, the man did not complete his task, and then as he lay bloody on the ground, he asked the other four drunks:
“Who’s next!” and shot a hole in the foot of one for saying “Me.” And the three ran like snakes that were being drowned out of their holes; jumping running falling as Blue shot two bullets past their heads. You could her breeze of the bullets.
The woman started to push her body up; she was thin, with long black silky hair; too young to be walking along Blue thought. She was breathing hard, but had spunk, she spit at the men as they ran, and at the man lying down pistol-whipped.
“Kick him!” Blue told the lady, and she scratched his eyes so bad they tore open the eyelids.
“Me name Ming,” she said, drying her tears with her long hair. Had she not been beaten so bad—thought Blue—she was a foxy looking young lady; but Blue was old enough to be her father, he was born the same year, Mark Twain was, 1835, so his mother used to tell him.

— “It’s about time sheriff, where yaw been, watching the show?” said Blue.
“That’s not even nice,” replied the young sheriff.
Right about now, Blue had enough of the sheriff and backtalk,
“You want some?” asked Blue, stepping back as to give them room for a shootout. The sheriff just looked. He was being called on. That was not what he expected. Blue turned a half-foot.
“I said you want some, sheriff.” Everyone looked; the man on the ground crawled as fast as a wounded squirrel to the nearest sidewalk.
“No, no, I guess I should have been out here, I, I…don’t know.” I mean, I get really don’t get paid, I mean the bar owners and a few of the city businesses own me, I’m no real sheriff, I’m just their secret image they want to show folks who come into town, like the government. This is all Indian land.”
Blue knew all this already, that is why he was calling him on, he was a nobody, trying to play a somebody, with it suited the businesses, or ranchers; and hungry gold suckers in the mountains; all illegally trespassing on Indian land.
“Well I do know you’re a coward, or a bad sheriff,” said Blue, to add more injury to the previous insult. But Thomas Adams knew well enough, he was not getting paid to fight a troubleshooting gunslinger that had been totting guns for twenty-five years. The name of the game was getting rich and staying alive. He knew Blue, like Wild Bill, and Billy the Kid, and the rest of the gunslingers would all have their day, he didn’t need to bring it on any sooner.
“I think I’m more of a bad sheriff, than the coward. But no one would want a showdown with you—that is, no one in their right mind.” Said Thomas.
The other men having heard that quickly left well enough alone also, for a few were thinking of stepping in. Plus, the white man was alive, and a good beating never hurt anyone, so was their new thinking.
Said the sheriff [with a low voice] “It’s best you boys are on your way now—” as he approached the three drunks, and he added, “Pick up your buddy on the way out, you can drink tomorrow when things are a little quieter, ok?” They didn’t answer, they just found their horses, and threw their buddy over his saddle, grabbed the reins, and left town.

—Lola came running up. “Estás bien? You ok, Blue?”
The sheriff now standing on the wooden sidewalk by his office a hundred feet or so from them, sarcastically said,
“He’s the only one ok,” and left to go into his office before Blue could retaliate.
“ Gracias Blue” Lola cried. “Nadie quería ayudarla” Right in the middle of day a rape, what is this place coming to…? Lola said with a kind of refreshing voice.

As Blue headed to the barber shop, he thought in his head, ‘when will this day ever end.’
“Blue!” called the Sheriff, “you need a job, be my deputy.”
“What,” said Blue? [Rhetorically]
“I’d make you sheriff, but it has to come by a vote of the town. But I’ll do as you say and we can both kind run the town, and get paid. This town is getting too wild for me and you need a job unless you want to dig for gold, or mend fences?”
“I’ll think about it,” said Blue.
“Please do,” said the sheriff, “I don’t like what happened, but sometimes you know if you step in you’re dead. And a dead sheriff only ends up on boot hill. “
Blue knew he made sense, but didn’t like the coward part of him,
“Yaw, perhaps, for four or five months—only.”
“Thanks come down to the office when you’re done. If you’re going to the barber, tell him to put it on the city’s tab.”
Blue smiled, it was the only thing other than Lola that was the good part of the day, and a free haircut and now he’d add a shave onto it. And being a lawman for a few months was better than running horses, or mending fences or digging for gold, and he wasn’t much of a gambler; a drinker he was. But he was just going through town, just needed a job for winter, around the corner. Plus his chance for working at the Golden T. Ranch was most likely in question now anyhow.”

Arizona Blue-Gunfighter
The Barber Shop
& Chickamauga
[Chapter Three to Mexican Standoff]

Blue had two guns he always carried. One a belt gun, keep snug up against his belly, a 1860 .44 caliber Colt Army revolver and a matching holster cut down to create a powerful but concealable belt weapon; and his sidearm, a Colt .45 single-action, l880’s model—which he got when they first came out in ‘84. His .44 he got while serving in the Army during the Civil War.
He was a soldier from 1860-to-l865 and fought at the battle of Chickamauga. As Blue sat in the barber’s chair, and the barber started to cut his hair, his mind went back to those army days. The barber stopped for a second to sharpen the raiser for his cut and shave, and then went back to cutting his hair.
He sometimes had old memories—flashbacks—of the battle at Chickamauga. It would bring him to having bad sweats. It was in Virginia his Company of one-hundred and sixty men had to march into many houses to inform the residents they were about to burn them out of their homes. Their faces were horrifying. It was one thing to kill a man on a belief they were fighting a war for the country they lived in, but to burn a person out of his whole life in front of him, especially if he was in his 50s or 60s, was against most anyone’s values.
—It was in August of l861, Blue was just a young man back then. Blue was with his friend Smiley, he was a good man he recalled. Said Blue to the Barber:
“Watch the razor!”

Then Blue started to relive the battle again:
“‘Smiley, he was a good man, soldier. I got him out of trouble. I was just a kid. I thought the world was coming to an end. Smiley didn’t make it to Gettysburg, but he did to Chickamauga, sure enough, with me. Too bad I lost track of Smile when I, I got assigned to go to Gettysburg…with—I just lost track of Smiley. I never could find him afterwards. Maybe he’s dead. In any case, Locust Gap, yaw, we marched into that didn’t we, sure did and took the damn train from there. Then word comes back while on the train, we were headed for Kentucky.
“On the train, Smiley was caught in-between two soldiers, I remember now. He wasn’t a fighter you know. I came along and asked if they wanted to test me out. Smiley was as happy as a hog to see me. He said to the two guys: ‘You’re not so brave now are yaw!’ The two knew I wasn’t a bluffer, yaw, that’s right, and decided to leave well enough alone. Smiley and I walk to another car, no sense in provoking trouble.
“Smiley got a hit [flesh wound] at the battle of Shiloh, I again was lucky, as always. But Chickamauga was different. It was a big fight. The bloodiest fight I had ever seen. I wish I had known Lola back then, I needed some comforting. If ever I thought I was going to die, and had an ounce of fear I didn’t want, it was then.
For some reason, winter always scared me since then. It was the only time of year I wanted to be safe and sound. Have a warm place—you know. Not take cold baths in the river, like at Chickamauga Creek, things like that stick with you for a life time.””

“You say something Mister Blue?” asked the barber.
“I must have been dreaming out loud.” Said Blue.
“You mentioned Chickamauga, I lost a brother there.” Said the barber.
“Is that what I said, yaw,” said Blue, adding “and I lost my youth there,” and then closed his eyes again.
War is war not matter what thought Blue. It is the battles you remember. The area was big—a few miles each way; he was now starting to relive it again: “North to South, and East to West. Smiley and I fought up and down the area. We came in, us Yankees on the 18th, the confederates, were already there. When the fight began, we fought for two days in the woods, straight; cedar ticket was dense, like my hair back then. Bullets were flying every which way. It seemed to be hitting every leave in every tree. You can hear them wheeze by you, you can even hear them coming; if you turn, you either turn into them or you’re saved by an inch, its best not to stand still.
Smiley woke me up, 2: OO AM the first night. You always sleep with one eye open; I was up in a heartbeat. ‘Yaw, Smiley,’ I said, ‘where are you?’ it was dark. ‘Right here blue.’ He said.
‘How many you think we’ve lost?’ Smiley asked me.
‘Too hard to tell in this dark thick abyss of a forest,’ I replied.
‘We’ll see each other in a few days, when it’s all over I suppose.’ I added.
That afternoon, we fought on Lafayette Road. It was another bloody hit. We had fought back and forth on the road all day long. Would it ever end…yaw, that’s what I was saying back then. We named the road afterwards Bloody Lane. Then morning came. Bragg knew where everyone was, it seemed. It was foggy that morning I remember— late in the morning, in and out of the woods, up and down. Would it ever end? The worse frighten was on my line, what they called Thomas’s Line. Thousands were being killed. Some soldier’s running back across the Ridge. But old Thomas stayed there like a rock.
“It seemed our Company was blown to smithereens (he moaned a bit, the barber started to tremble but calmed himself down)…scariest moment for both Smiley and me was when it was dark and we had to run right up to the muzzles of their guns. I didn’t mind dying, but I didn’t want one in my mouth either. We were told the next day to retreat to the nearest town. We were getting beaten pretty badly. At the end very few men came out of the woods alive. For a number of days I had not heard any birds singing. Now on that last day, the guns silent, I could hear the birds again. Maybe that was the best part of the battle, them damn birds singing again. Like Smiley said, ‘…when you’re wounded and thinking you’re about to die, the grass looks so much greener.’ It is all so strange now, so many years gone by”’.

“You ok, Mr. Blue,” said the sheriff as he walked through the door—the barber stopping instantly from shaving, still a little nervous.
“Blue,” said Blue franticly.
“Yes,” replied the sheriff jumping backwards and to the side. “I just came to see if you were still my deputy, and let the barber know he can put the bill on the cities counsels’ bill.”
Blue now opening up his eyes, sweating: “Yes, yes, yes…” don’t spook me.
Said Andy the barber, “I’ll fix the bill the way you said, but I think you best leave Mr. Blue alone, he’s been having some rough dreams, that Chickamauga battle Mr. Blue, it was a bad one.”
Blue rubbing his eyes, focusing them, commented: “Had an old dream, Chickamauga, yaw, that’s right…”
Said the Sheriff, “I heard it was quite the battle?”
“Sure was,” answered Blue—getting up from his shave. The barber was just going over a section of his face a second time. And Blue knew the barber was too scared now to continue.
“Hello Sheriff,” said Blue, “let’s go check the town out, I want to get drunk, maybe you got some more credit?”
“Sounds good, Mr. Blue, or should I say Deputy Blue?”

Arizona Blue-Gunfighter
The Rooming House
[Chapter Four to: Mexican Standoff]

It was a long day; Blue went to the Boarding House to get a good sleep. The Sheriff introduced him to everyone in town, as if it mattered, it was more for letting everyone know what Blue looked like, for few did, only his reputation preceded him. If anything, he didn’t seek notoriety. They seemed to be quite torn on giving him a badge, that it might go to his head, in the since of law and order, and they didn’t care for the law to be frank, only the order—and that was only for business. But it didn’t matter to Blue, a job was a job, and it paid for his room and board at the Boarding House, and his haircuts, and winter was coming along, thereafter he’d be on his way someplace. Thus, that evening Blue went to sleep for the first time in a long time, with his guns completely off, one under his pillow. He felt safe for on this one occasion; perchance, he thought—: there could be a few more.
In the morning, Blue came down about 9:30 AM. Breakfast was warm the rest of the house was at work, or gone someplace.
Said Lola,
“I was hoping you would get up early so we could talk. But I knew you were tired. Dormiste bien? “
“Just like a new born baby, Lola; I slept very well. Even with my guns off.” She smiled.
The coffee was black, strong, and hot. Just the way Blue liked it. He was now clean-shaven, and the tired look he brought with him, had on his face the day before was half gone, he even looked a ting younger. He was actually good looking. Lola eyed him up several times as she went back and forth in the kitchen, giving him some eggs over-easy, no butter on his toast, and some good old potatoes.
Said Lola in a low voice walking around the table:
“You goen to see me tonight or to work? —cuando salgas de tu trabajo?” Blue laughed, thinking (she always speaks in Spanish and English at the same time), then said:
“I’m no banker, Ill see yaw maybe some time this afternoon; got to see if the sheriff has any surprises for me, if truly he is a sheriff. ”

Arizona Blue-Gunfighter
Abilene-Lorato
[1867]

Questions plague a man all his life, one being: why was so much of it wasted.
—A rhetorical question at best.
As he rode into Abilene [he being: Arizona Blue], the heat increased on his face and hands especially on Dan. He had learned long ago how to live. Let the night, let the day, and let each minute form its own shape. Like a weed—yes, like a wild weed, let it grow naturally. When Arizona-Blue rode into town, he had not stuffed his head with things to do. He rode in slowly on his horse Dan; a worried man—NO!
“I was thinking,” he said to Dan—his fist and jaw extended over the saddle, leaning forward by Dan’s ears, “I reckon a man should be able to expect the best—Hoh! But it seems only a few get it.”
Dan’s eyes turned with his mane, to the right, not all the way, just a morsel, and a ‘HAUAoaa…’ came from his throat-juggled horse pipes.
“Here I thought you were asleep,” he stated to Dan. Then looking about he noticed a few women having a pleasant discussion as he rode by the hardware store. An old Mexican spit out some tobacco on the wooden sidewalk. The sun was low overhead, bright. His peripheral vision was sensitive and perfect. He noticed a few men walking about, went into a bar. The sheriff, he was standing out by his jail compound, the stables nearby. He did a double take on the sheriff, as the sheriff did a double take on him: they gave each other a lukewarm look. A thought amused him: the sheriff looked like Loreto, a foe from long ago. Long, long ago, when he was quite young, just out of the war, the Civil War, perhaps it was 1867, when they first met, if not, thereabouts. It was a hot day like this to, but it was in Wichita he met him: no, no he pondered, he thought: perhaps Phoenix: yah, he told himself, it was Phoenix
He was young back then, and he shot a postal out of his hands, out of the Mexican’s hands, the hands of Loreto. Had he not, he’d be dead: not riding down this dirt trotted street. But that is not where it stopped, oh no, not at all. Once he turned around, once Blue made a complete 180-degree turnabout, the Mexican tried to stab him, tried and failed. ‘Yes,’ he told himself, ‘that’s Loreto, and he’s baffled at who I am, or perhaps, wondering if I recognized him…’ it was twenty-years ago that that wrangle took place, or so—it was to too long ago to remember all the details, but he was not to be trusted too to dangerous.
As Blue got off his horse a voice said: “Buenos tardes, Senor!”
“Is that you Loreto?” asked Blue.
“It is me, senor, me, me, me, the ghost of yor past!”
“SO IT is,” Blue said bobbing his head a ting, twice, “so it is.”
“I by-you whiskey señor Blue, make thinks ok?” He hesitated, waited for a response, but Blue just tied his horse slowly, taking off the saddle now.
“No!” said Blue.
“A man learns young how unfair a world can be senor, I want to be friends, you, me, friends—no?”

“No,” replied Blue.
Loreto wiped the sweat off his face, a dirty rag with a sweaty dirty face, and a badge that he forgot he had on.
“You are she to cause me trouble señor?”
Blues foot steps strengthened.
“Satisfaction, you want satisfaction,” said Blue.
Loreto jerked his hand to his pistil, almost on his pistil, by his pistil, so close, you almost though it had touched it for a millisecond, and the lightening in Blues eyes put an awesome look of doom on Loreto’s face, and he went for his draw—Loreto went to skin his gun— Loreto’s stomach turned dark red: through his shirt, flesh and almost out his back—a hole was created. He then dropped to his knees, —said Blue in a bewildered way,
“Even you knew how poor you are in respect to my draw…” and again nodded his head in disbelief: in skepticism, not knowing, but acting out of some kind of automatic reflex, perhaps thinking about it for 20-years, he drew on me (murmured: Blue)— He was in disbelief, complete disbelief, that he’d even consider to draw with him.

9/15/05

Crazy Sam
Arizona Blue - Gunfighter

The lost, now found
Written July, 2005

[1884: Deadwood]

The Barn

“Yessam,” said Crazy Sam “you are tired, because I is. Don’t let dhem white folks work you da death!” Sam in the barn talking to a horse, moving a carriage away from Tasma.
“Keep me wake up till I get ya fed ol girl,” said Sam.
Sam jerked on the horse’s mouthpiece, to move Tasma away from the carriage, clutching her by the bridle.
Sam now paced the barn with his hands in his pockets, Tasma was not yet in her stall, which was open, “You ant git no free er,” Sam mumbled to Tasma.
The floor was dry, a few holes in the roof where you could see the sky, Sam looked up, and it was a star lit sky, a warm night.
“Come back this way,” Sam told the horse, but the horse was headed back outside. He walked the horse around the barn to slow her heartbeat, she was sweating (Lola had run the horse hard), and she still needed to cool down. The cow was in the back of the barn she was making noise. The wind came through the open door, rattled something, and spooked the cow, and then Tasma, both were uneasy.
Sam looked over the horse to see if she was cooled down, “Dhem foks hit you sho! Loa, she dhink ya can fly…. You com her and et,”
Crazy Sam, as he was known, started singing some old southern songs (he was originally from Alabama); said Sam as he fed Tasma again, “I goes my way and lets white folks go dheirs; I reckon.” Sam was born in 1823. He’d always tell folks he was born before the Mexicans shot up the Alamo.
“Dhey still dhink dhey own us,” Sam told the horse; now the barn door just shut, “Cant nobody hear down here, from dhe house, no-ways and folks dhink I is crazy anyhow; taint no joke in it, cus I talks to myself all dhe time.”
The cow was making noise again, as Sam put the horse in the stall, again; then all of a sudden, Lola’s voice could be heard:
“Sam, Sam!”
“I sho doneit now; I declare if I aint in trouble. Shut up that cow,” said Crazy Sam, annoyed.

The Rocking Chair

Sam was sitting back in his rocking chair, on the porch of his small shack of a house, in back of the livery stable he worked; Lola’s house, in the front, she owned the huge barn that was now used for a stable. It was in years past, a miners house, with a shaft, for streams of water to sort the gold from the dirt, with the water running down through the wooden shaft; now it was just horses, cows and whatever someone wanted to leave for a day or so, to be fed, bathed or rubbed down; or a combination of all.
Arizona Blue was in town and folks were talking about him, Crazy Sam had met him, a few years back, Lola had dated him. Lola owned a boarding house that was also connected onto the barn, and in back of it, fenced in corral, with a cow in it; and in back of that, Sam’s shack. She had done well for herself in the years past.
Sam was sitting back in his rocking chair, had finished most of his chores: his little shack was in back of the corral, he had two kids, older kids, one sixteen the other seventeen; it was Sunday and his wife and two children had just arrived back from church.
“Hush up,” said Sam’s wife, “go fetch your papas whisky jug, by his rocker, he’s had enough for Sunday morning,” she told the older boy (Matter).
Said Sissy, “Come on in the house Sam!”
“No, I’m going to the creek.”
“Whys that…?” said Sissy.
“dhey git company,” Sam said.
“Who is dhey…!?” said Sissy.
“Dhe town got that gunman back, yous know, Arizona Blue, and when hes in town, threes no tellin what goin to happen. Best ya stay indoors to.”
“I reckon we can plan on Lola seeing him haw pa?” said the younger boy.
“I don’t care,” Sam replied.
“I’m hungry Sissy,” said Sam, pausing to look at his old Negro wife, forgetting the creek.
She didn’t say a word, she was tired, and then they both saw Blue and Lola walking up the walk; Blue smiled at them as he checked his back, as often he did, he liked Sam and Sissy, and the kids, it was something he would have liked to have, a family. Blue’s figure was a blur for the old Negro though.
“Yah, that’s him alright,” said Sam, adding: “I’ll eit super out her tonight.”
“Whers my stew, my Sunday stew!” yelped Sam (getting irritated).
“Shhhh,” said Sissy. And she brought out a bowel of steaming hot stew for her husband. “Eit yor dinner now!” she looked about, said (looking at Cotton, her younger boy): “Git his spoon, “the steam of the stew was going up his nostrils, and some dripping from his lips.

Stew

Crazy Sam now was humming and rocking back and forth in his chair by his wife’s side, she in a stationary chair; then suddenly she got up and walked to the corral to check on the cow: normally Sam would do it, but he was half asleep.
“Ya’ll eat yor supper now,” she commented, while in motion, to her kids inside of the shack sitting at the table.
Cotton mumbled in the kitchen, ’I dont want anymore,’ and pushed it back out of his bowl, and it broke the cast-iron cooking pot over the heath.
When Sissy came back, it was now dark, the air was cool: said Sam as he stood up, “git yor nightie on, I wants to go to bed early, got to fix that wall clock in the moron….” Then they both walked into the shack, together.
In side, Cotton was cleaning fish, and the older son, Matter was playing on a bingo, “Dont ya come pesterin, ya hear me boys…?” Sam said as they went into the bedroom; both boys looking at one another; Sam never looking back to see if they heard.
Said the older boy to Cotton, “…yous got to tune up that bingo some!”
“Its too early to stop playing,” said Cotton, adding, “I thought I did tuned it up.”
“You is tonight,” said Matter.

Meeting at the Red Dog
Arizona Blue - Gunfighter

Forgotten Episode

Writings of Dennis L. Siluk
Compiled and written 1/2002
[Finished 1 December 2005]

[Juneau, Alaska - l884-85]

The Man called Arizona - Blue

The man called Arizona Blue was a man by himself and before him laid another town, this time in Juneau, Alaska. Behind him were scars and memories. Each one had a name. He forgot them, but he remembered the count. It was thirty-six dead. He was known as the fastest gunfighter that ever lived.
He had come up river from Seattle, heard about some gold up in the hills, over in the Yukon, area. He figured it would all become bigger as time went on: should someone hit a big strike, then half of San Francisco and Seattle both would cross the ocean to get here. In any case, he was now in Juneau, and would get supplies in a week or so, cross the Canadian boarder and find his way. But first things first he said, to the Red Dog Saloon.
He had not been in Juneau for more than a few hours and had noticed bears lingering out the outskirts of town, eating garbage from a few neighbors’ garbage cans. Brown bears. He was a gunfighter, but panning for gold could be a new beginning, so he thought: thinking if a farmer really put his mind to it, he could be a bank president, maybe, in any case he’d find out. So to the Red Dog he went. Not many people up her he told himself should have heard of him, this was a new beginning.
Tammy Oakley was in the back kitchen making breakfast for the few of the hunters.
“Close the door,” said the bartender to Blue, as he waked in, leaving the door opened a bit and the cold air come in. “Can’t you fellow’s ever read the damn sign,” said the bartender. Blue looked around, no one paid any attention to him, or what the bartender said.
“Sorry,” said Blue, with cough, hoping no one would recognize Him, trying not to make a disturbs, lest he be the spot light, and he had too more of that in his life time.
“What can I get you stranger?” said the bartender.
Tammy nodded to Henry, the barkeep, saying: “here, here’s the food, got to get the rest ready, come and get it…” it wasn’t his job of course to dish out the food, but he had a yearning for Tammy, and didn’t mind helping.
“You think a moment what you want stranger, and I’ll be with you in a minute.” And Henry went to fetch the dishes and handed them to the hunters sitting at a table nearby.
“Oh, now what were you going to have?” asked Henry to Blue.
He looked at Tammy, Tammy looked at him, Henry looked at both of them, thinking, here we go, more grief has been caused by such smiles and looks than gossip.
“Does it concern Tammy, because if it does, you best hightail it out of her stranger!” said Henry.
Blue looked into the bartenders eyes, there was no fear there, and he didn’t know Blue, in a way, Blue liked his reputation: it got in his way, but he liked it, and now would he have to tell him who he was? I mean this was not expected, no peers here, or fearing someone. Tammy didn’t say anything. Should he say he was “Arizona Blue,” they might laugh and put some of those big guns in front of his face.
“No Mister Bartender, it only concerns my two shots of whisky, and where can I buy some equipment for going north to the Yukon to pan for gold?”
“Well, here’s the whiskey,” he said “and as for the information, find it in another bar, after you’re done drinking these two drinks.”
“Another whisky,” said Blue.
“You didn’t here me stranger, beat it”
“You mean you’re involved with Tammy?” Blue said, rudely, looking him straight in the eyes; His hand by his gun. Henry’s face got all red, several of the guys in the bar looked at Henry, started laughing: said a voice, “Even strangers got you figured out, but not Tammy yet.”
“Get out of here strange,” Said Henry, “before I…”
“What?” said Blue?
Henry went for his gun under the bar, and put it in Blue face. Now the bar was looking at Blue, and Henry, and no one was laughing.
“Better beat it Mister, Henry is pretty good with that gun, and started laughing.” At this point Blue had to face the question, is it worth it, thinking about it, the man started to pull back the hammer; scandalous it could be, thought Blue; if I kill him, the hunters could kill me, follow me up to the Yukon. Blue shook his head, and with the long part of his eye saw the hunters, and when Henry went to blink his eyes, Blue pulled his gun out so fast no one saw it coming, and shot Henry in the head. The several folks in the bar looked about to see who was with Blue to have done the shooting, and noticed his gun smoking. They started to shift their rifles, and Blue, shot a hole through one of the palms of the hunters, and everyone throw their rifles and guns on the wooden floor.
Said that same voice, “It was self defense, stranger, but we liked Henry I’d not go up to the Yukon if I was you.”
Blue walked out of the Red Dog, and just narrowly caught the same boat going back to Seattle, and got a ticket. Said Blue to himself: perhaps a farmer can never be a banker.

End of the Episodes

1) “Lady in White,”
2) “Wild Flower,”
3) “The Mexican Stand off”
4) “At The Red Dog”
5) “Arizona-Blue, and the Wolf Nest” (in the North)
6) “Another Town,”
7) “Crazy Sam,”
8) “A Rough Year—1844”
9) In the Wagon
10) Purple, Gray Skies
11) Abilene-Lorato
12) A Fools Draw (1870s)

Notes on the making of: The Arizona-Blue stories: first I imagined, wrote in l990, the first two stories, for the most part put to rest, them two being, 1) “Lady in White,” being the first of the two, although if I recall right, in 2001, and 2002, I reconstructed it a little, not much. And the second one was 2) “Wild Flower,” which was not its originally name; it was really part of the first and original story. Then he wrote the third in 2001, and completed it in 2002 called “Deadwood,” he added as a subtitle 3) “The Mexican Stand off,” and in July 2005, he added to the four part story, about 2500-more words, making the four parts more of four short stories, instead of one interconnecting long story, which it is in essence. In the third story, “Deadwood,” Chickamauga was added to the story. The rock of Chickamauga was put in after review of the battle. The author during his stay in Germany, prior to going to the war in Vietnam, in 1970-71, was stationed at a military base, called Reese Kasarine, in Augsburg, Germany 1/36 Artillery, where there was a huge rock their with the inscription, “In Memory of the Battle of Chickamauga”. And so out of respect and memory he added it to his story. The author spent 11-years in the military service. In the first part of August 2002, when he was editing the three stories for the book “Everyday’s An Adventure,” of which 21 of his short stories were put in the book, his wife Rosa of 3-years, liked the stories so much, Dennis wrote his forth story, called 4) 4) “Arizona-Blue, and the Wolf Nest (in the North). He completed it except for the conclusion, which it was already designed out in part one but was suppose to linger on in part two, which now the author feels is not necessary. Thus, it was revised, and is as you see it now; which surfaced August of 2005. He did start to write another Arizona-Blue story, his fifth, called 5) “Another Town,” in 2001, but it was just an outline and until this day, has never surfaced beyond that; in July of 2005, he did revised it and added about 300-words. Thus, all the stories are new for the most part, with the same themes or topic, and plot, but perhaps, better motifs [or designs]. July, 2005, added the sixth story to the ongoing series, 6) “Crazy Sam,” and in August, 2005 (which he wrote on a napkin and can’t find), added number seven, 7) “A Rough Year—1844” which was really an extension of “Another Town,” and “Crazy Sam,” an extension of “The Mexican Stand-off” 8) Purple, Gray Skies (1844—Flagstaff, Arizona) 8/2005; 9) In the Wagon (1844) 8/15/05; 10) Abilene-Lorato (Arizona-Blue, 1887) written 9/15/05 and 11) A Fools Draw (1870s) Written 11/29/05. 12) “At the Red Dog,” was rediscovered 1 December, 2005, the idea was planned out on the computer 1/2005, but never fully constructed; when discovered in file #2 out of #9 files Dennis keeps his stories, and perhaps a several hundred inner files, he discovered a story he had put away almost four years ago.

Notes by Rosa Peñaloza: Writings by Dennis Siluk/2001; unpublished; number four of the series of five episodes. Three episodes published in the book, “Everyday’s an Adventure”2002. This one was taken out of mothballs, and rewritten; it was supposed to have been the first of the series, four years ago, and not fully completed. The author is still looking for number two, which also has not been previously published and would compliment this one I expect. 7/2005 Revised. As with most of Mr. Siluk’s stories, he was in Cheyenne, in l969, and that is a story of its own. What I remember him telling me was: “I was on my way back with a friend from California to Minnesota, we stopped and picked up a few other friends in some desert town and John was drunk all the time. When we got to Cheyenne, he was walking down main street urinating on the side walk, by a grocery store, it was noon or so, and I had to grab him so the police would not put us all in jail for being stupid kids, I was 20-years old, and was traveling around the country; he just happened to go with me this time.” There is more to the story but that was the funny part I thought.

Novalyne, the Feast is Over(Laredo Texas) Arizona Blue--Gunfighter Episode: #25

2006-07-01T10:06:00.000-07:00

Novalyne, the Feast is Over
[Laredo Texas]
Arizona Blue—Gunfighter
Episode: #25

Part Two to: Roofless Hades

[Texas, Laredo—1869] Arizona Blue found himself, barley, back across the Mexican boarder, wiping his brow, and thinking: he’d not spend any time in that roofless jail. The problem now was, he needed to find a bar and a quick drink: so he told himself. But before he could get off his horse and make it the bar, he fell off it, in front of a grocery store, Sam Howard’s Grocery. Looking out the window was Novalyne, Sam’s daughter, of 24-years. She quickly rushed sternly out to see the youthful ex soldier on his back, chocking on his own vomit. She moved him a bit, onto his side on the thickly grooved mud street, then asked a walker by—a friend of sorts—to assist her in bringing him into the back storage room of the store, the old Mexican, Tony, did as she asked: but looked deeply into Blue’s eyes, at his gun, Blue’s army shirt on, and came to the conclusion he was the one the Mexican authorities were looking for.
“Miss Novalyne,” he said in a sympatric way, “I think this is the critter they’re looking for across the boarder; he’s just drunk, I think he’s been drunk since the war ended with the states, he reeks like swine.”
Miss Novalyne was not surprised, and wittingly said, looking Tony sternly in the eyes, as if to say—should we take inventories, and said instead, “You’re probably right, too many drunks around here, maybe we can use him to build the clinic, Doc Belington, from Houston, said he’d not come down here until he had a clinic built, so until then, whose the doctor?”
Tony wasn’t sure if that was a question or a statement. So he said nothing.

It was all of three days before Blue could get to his feet and walk straight, Sam Howard had gone to Houston to gather up some store items, and wouldn’t be back for a week, enough time thought Novalyne, to sober up this critter, and see if he’d help with the clinic.
As it was, Blue did heal, it was on the forth day, and as she said closely on the cot by his side, she inform him:
“Stranger, you owe me, and I am to collect, you need to help build the clinic down the street, and you can’t do it drunk, or hurt. You had a rib broken, I did what I could for you, and you’ll breath better, and I fed you beans and bacon, you couldn’t swallow any meat, you were beat pretty bad, I suppose those Mexicans are still looking for you across the boarder. Give me your word you’ll not drink while in town, and you’ll help with the clinic, a man’s word is his honor, and you’d not like to be owing to a female, now would you?”
Blue was taken back a bit by her behavior, she was a bee, a stormy bee, with a long sting, but had pretty long light brown hair, slender and petite, as smiley and assured of herself as the day is long; with just enough spunk to make things worth while thought Blue. And she was right; he did not want to be owing to any man, and especially a woman.
“Ok, it’s about time the feast is over, time I suppose to stop drinking, if I can, it’s been one long drunk, a lot of ghosts from the war. How about money, I need to make money and a place to say?” he asked her.
“In your spare time you can work here, in the store, my dad was going to hire someone anyhow, so why not you. And as for sleeping (she hesitated looking into his deep blue eyes) you can sleep back here on this cot for a few more days, get some fresh air from the windows; it will scare any robbers, make them think twice, especially when they know Mr. Blue is in town.”
“How did you know my name?” asked Blue.
“You’re becoming famous Mr. Blue, and dangerous.” She smiled when she said the last word, and walked away, to allow Blue to get dressed.

It was as she said, Sam took a liking to Blue, and he helped build the clinic down the street, and the young doctor from Houston, came to town and set up practice. Blue remained in the back storage room; for the time being it was fine. And weeks turned into months.
A stormy and affectionate relationship developed between Blue and Novalyne, Sam saw it developing, but his daughter was too strong for him to control, in is old age, as often determined young adult daughters can be. She showed her interests in marriage often to Blue, and Blue, showed his, not as often but showed it nonetheless, the problem was, they never showed it as the same time. When he thought he was ready for love and marriage, she pointed out their differences, and she pointed out a lot of them. When she was insistent she was in love, he needed more freedom, and time to think; both passionate but fiercely independent, which made for an intense and exciting bond, but a rocky relationship. One Blue felt was impossible to sustain.
Under her caring he did sober up, but she had new plans, she told him, she was going to a graduate program at the University some place in Minnesota, and she’d be gone a while. She was if anything, a woman warrior of her day, thought Blue, and equal in fighting spirit to him; but a teacher, as she was, and wanting to be a higher grade did not fit into his plans, nor hers.

6/25/2006 [Lima, Peru]

Blood-Crazed in St. Louis [Arizona Blue—Gunfighter] Episode: #26

2006-07-01T09:56:00.000-07:00

Blood-Crazed in St. Louis
Arizona Blue—Gunfighter
Episode: #26

Part Three to: Roofless Hades

[Missouri, St. Louis—1870] Arizona Blue, he made aimless motions with dazed eyes, he fixed them on his assailant, they blazed with fury of a killer, and a killer he was.
A crowd started building up by him he was in St. Louis Missouri, just passing through, perhaps do a little gambling, some light drinking, when he had rode up near the Capitol, a blast from a gun went off and his horse fell under his feet, dead, Blue was stunned; sober and stunned—sober for a year, and this was to be his new lease on life, not to drink so much, but St. Louis was full of bars, and he had intentions to test out a few of them, if he had time, but not like in Mexico, or Laredo; those days were gone, so he told himself.
A young Mexican man, wavy dark hair, and deep dark rooted eyes, about five foot six inches tall, with a smoking pistol made a hurried retreat, as Blue grabbed for his guns, and quickly shot off two rounds: one bullet grazed his chin, to the point of lifting it up, as he pulled his head back to the side, right in the pathway of the second bullet (on the other side of his face), which smashed alongside his jawbone, crashing his face taking with it flesh to the point you could see inside his mouth, his upper and lower teeth showed, leaving a hole in the backside of his jaw (flesh hanging loosely like old laundry); lipped he fell against a pole, wobbled a bit and fell onto the wooded sidewalk, on his knees.
Blue was moving like a man in a trance, walked slowly over to his young attacker, his horse dead, blood oozing out of its head: the horse had fallen so quickly and suddenly, it went under Blue’s feet, but over an old man and his grandson, bystanders, the crowd didn’t know who to blame, and everyone was in a daze, shock. Blue’s iron hands gripped the young man’s face—under his chin, lifting it to get a good look at the boy, no more than fourteen years old: it resembled someone he saw, someplace, then it dawned on him, it was the Mexican boy he saw in the boarder town when he shot the three Mexicans