The next day, just before the hour of twelve, Chakotay walked from the dusty hotel to Sandrine's Triple S lounge. He was dressed as the day before, but everyone could see - that is, those who were brave enough to stand on the porches of the bank, the provisions store that sold bullets and apples, the post office that doubled as an estate and land surveyor's office, Adele's Tea House, the jail and the Sheriff's house - that Bella Torres and her dancers had taken the night off to launder his clothes, as they refused to let Harry Kim's Laundry Room take on the tender of dealing with the finest trousers and shirt and waist coat this side of Wyoming. They took no chances with the Kims on that score.
Anyways, Chakotay walked to the Triple S, where Sandrine was for once on duty in her own establishment. Children were quickly dragged out of the way by worried mamas and jealous papas with fat bellies who scowled at the way the Indian's belt lazed around his waist - the man was all lean muscle and bone - and housed on top of that, his two holsters carrying two Smith&Wessons with 7˝in barrels and rosewood grips. Chakotay's hat was tipped low over his brow. He walked slowly, long loping strides that meant he meant business. By last night everyone in Goose Creek knew he was the meanest sharpshooter in the west, and he had come looking for Calamity Janeway who often passed through Goose Creek hunting down varmint, and who stopped by Sandrine's Triple S to stir up trouble with the men.
By the time Chakotay stepped onto the porch of the Triple S, a small posse of children who had escaped the evil clutches of their mamas and their papas and who all dreamed of one day wearing just such a black Stetson and owning just such a pair of Smith&Wessons and looking just as mean - why, they had hardly known him a day and everyone wanted to look mean - were walking behind him and stopped just short of the porch and the horse trough.
"Scat! Vamoose!" cried the Sheriff who stood on the porch. Then he turned to Chakotay and tipped his hat. "Howdy, Mr Flatfoot - "
"Idiot..." muttered Chakotay under the brim of his Stetson and pushed the swing doors without looking at the Sheriff. The Sheriff laughed, but it sounded like a little boy sniveling to get on the big man's good side.
Inside the Triple S there were the same people sittin' and watchin' and drinkin' and smokin' them cigars. Pipe Gantry was there, Anonymous Cowboy whose pappy's name was E. Pennesitum Romania, Tracy Donahue and Kid Papa and Kid Paris as always at his honky tonk, with Annika Hansen busily rustling up some rods so Sandrine will get her money's worth, and Pock Face.
Something was gonna happen today and everyone could sense it. It would be unfair to state in fact that they sensed anything, since their senses were dimmed by liquor. It was really because Chakotay himself, after the third bottle of "High Valley Apple Wine" said that the golden haired virago called herself Calamity Janeway - truth was, everyone else called her that, said she caused calamity just with her flamin' hair - would make her appearance today in Goose Creek.
So, Chakotay walked right past the cowboys who all sported guns in holsters but none of them - maybe Kid Paris could, but him always hiding his credentials, no one really knew his worth - could draw fast enough for Chakotay or Calamity Janeway or even, the great open skies forbid, Pock Face.
Chakotay looked at the clock perched right above the mirror behind the bar.
"It's almost the hour hath cometh," said Tuhbe Shakespeare Truman. "O", said Tuhbe again when he saw Chakotay remove his fob watch hanging on a silver chain from his pocket and checked the hour against the clock.
"Say, that there watch is mighty smart," Kid Papa said, thinking it was time he honoured his dead papa by wearing his dead papa's fob watch too.
"Hey, where'd you get that?"
"Stole it from the Captain of a British vessel anchored off Boston Harbour - "
"Why, you lying b - "
"Wanna challenge an Indian on that?" Chakotay asked and no one asked how he had drawn his pistol so fast and made the Questioner smell the barrel. Chakotay pressed the gun harder and the Unidentified Questioner started looking like a pig, see? And Bella Torres who had been watching from the Pianoman's stool, laughed out loud.
"I told them they were all pigs!"
"So, where did I get this watch?"
"There ain't no British vessel in Boston harbour. No one's seen a warship. No one," sputtered the unfortunate individual whose snot ran off on the barrel and Chakotay calmly leaned forward and wiped it clean on the man's shirt.
"That be good, punk. Ask yourself: do you wanna feel lucky today?"
"No! Yes...Mama!!!"
"Damn fool!"
For the next few minutes it was dead quiet in the saloon, and even Sandrine, who had never seen the Indian and preferred to admire him from a distance just in case her neck got wrung like Bella's, whispered, "Merde, the man is beautiful...", then kept her mouth shut and watched Annika Hansen and Riley - whoever gave a fool man's name to a woman - sit on the laps of their clients and kept them straight. Sandrine's eyes though, kept stealing sideways where the Indian was standing at the counter, rolling his thumbs and waiting.
The clock ticked.
When the doors swung open, everyone swerved round to look who had entered, but it was only the Sheriff. The Sheriff coughed then exited quickly when he heard about twenty pistols cocked and aimed at his head.
That was when they heard it.
The sound of hooves from the far end of the road, down towards the centre of Goose Creek. Louder and louder the clippity-clop could be heard. Then they heard the horse whinny as it was brought to a halt. It halted in front of Sandrine's Triple S lounge. They knew that because they heard the Sheriff call out, "Howdy!" and even as their hearts beat faster and their lips dried out from the anticipation of the kill, the Sheriff did not add "Missus" to his "howdy!", although everyone knew it was a "missus" who rode into town.
The hearts of many continued to beat faster.
Annika Hansen ducked under a table swearing the next stage coach passing through, she'd get her to the nearest nunnery, whatever that was. Kid Papa held his breath for fifteen seconds before it whooshed out. Bella Torres grasped around and found Kid Paris's ready hand. Pipe Gantry took his bottle of gin and downed the contents so he could be already drunk by the time whoever - that being a "missus" - was on that horse, entered the Triple S. He would willingly lose being drunk under the table by a yellow haired virago whose hair smelled like apples and brandy combined, than face the barrels of two Colts and two Smith&Wessons. Unidentified Pourer who tried to warn everyone the last time the missus stopped by Sandrine's, that no one should call Calamity Janeway 'missus', and no one should look at her like she wanted lookin' at, missed the glass again, and Anonymous Cowboy - that is, son and heir of E Pennesitum Romania - stared in outrage as he watched his gin soak away in the dusty floor.
The doors burst open.
Calamity Janeway stood just inside the doors, planted her feet wide, held her hands close to her pistols. Everyone could see that, but no one could see her hair. Everyone who dared to look, could see the skunky look in her eyes.
"As soon as she moves, I'm outta here," whispered Pock Face who was closest to the door and who prayed to high heaven she didn't see him.
Bella Torres said to Kid Paris, "Today is a good day to die..."
"Two dollars he'll take her in round three," said Kid Paris with a smirk.
"Make it ten, says she'll take him in two."
"You're on. I win... I've been wanting to smell your skin..."
"I win, I get to shoot your peepee off, pig..."
"Chakotay! You varmint. Come outside and let me kill you!"
Silence.
Chakotay remained as he was, and all the menfolk calling themselves cowboys wanted to shoot him for remaining as he was and not hold the name of "men" up high. Some who sat where they could see the Indian's profile told later how he rolled them thumbs like he was counting to ten - or fifty - maybe, because - this they would also tell later to whomever was going to listen to this new legend being born right here in Goose Creek, Wyoming - they could see the great thunder clouds gathering in the Indian's face.
"You listenin' to me, varmint!" it came from her again.
Chakotay still didn't turn round to look at her. Pipe Gantry wondered why in God's good heaven didn't the man just turn his behind and get it over and done with, because the next moment, a shot rang out.
Chakotay's hat flew off his head and landed on the bowler hat of Kid Pianoman Paris.
"Thanks, Calams!"
"My pleasure, Kid."
Chakotay Fleetfoot turned to Kid Paris and he held his dagger in a throwing action.
"You gonna give me my hat and count yourself lucky, Kid, or shall I collect it?"
Next moment, the hat was back on Chakotay's head. Only then Chakotay turned to look at Calamity Janeway. A nerve twitched in his jaw. Kid Papa didn't know what it meant; Annika Hansen couldn't see the nerve twitching on account of her industry under the table. The only person who looked - he got to tell everyone the juicy tale llater - saw her head positioned in the crotch of her client. They would also laugh at this young cowboy, green as he was - because he asked stupidly, "What was she doing with her mouth there?"
"You gonna come outside, punk?" Calamity Janeway.
"Out of my way, woman."
Tuhbe whispered to Bella Torres and Sandrine, "It is almost on the hour of twelve. Now is the winter of our discontent..."
They just shook their heads. The clock above the mirror showed ten minutes to the hour.
Outside, the sun was high, the ground was dry and death was nigh.
Calamity Janeway looked at Chakotay "Angry Warrior" Fleetfoot as she stepped all the way backwards till she stood in the middle of the dusty road. Chakotay followed, facing her till he too, stood opposite her in the dusty street. Then a procession of cowboys followed from the saloon, and they were followed by Sandrine's Other Girls and Bella Torres's dancers. Even Annika Hansen released her client's rod rammed in the depths of her mouth and she too, in a daze, joined the others in the glaring sun.
This is what they saw. Two individuals stood facing one another. They stood close, maybe about two paces. Their hands hovered just inches away from their holsters. They stood, legs planted apart in the dusty road. Their wide brimmed Stetsons shielded their faces from the sun, it being overhead so neither faced the glare and could claim later that the glare made them miss whatever they were aiming for.
"You got somethin' belongs to me, varmint."
"You belong to me, woman."
"I am not your possession, punk."
"I got you fair and square."
"Infidel!"
"Beautiful."
Calamity Janeway thought to pull her gun and shoot him right there. She had ridden all the way from Echo Creek, Montana to get what belonged to her. What belonged to her, was not this Indian who smiled and who had dimples no man should be proud of. He smiled!
"I was engaged to another man."
"He was a weasel."
"I'll grant you that. He lost to you, didn't he?"
"Marcus Jeremiah Johnson was a loser before he lost the poker game, Katie."
"You tricked him."
"To get you? I play good poker."
"Why else could you stoop so low, you dog!"
"You were in my blood. I had to get you."
"That way? I'm not merchandise."
Her hand crept to her pistol, same time as Chakotay's hand crept to his. Chakotay stared at his woman who had been in his blood since he saw her standing next to that weasel who was her fiancé. Fiancé! That Marcus Jeremiah Johnson was weak in the knees, with yellow blood like a coward and altogether too insipid for the likes of a fiery haired virago like Katie Janeway. What did she ever see in that weasel? But Chakotay kept his counsel on account of his promise he made to that same weasel, but he had something else that was proof the man was a weasel. He owned two ranches and pokered his way through both of them. What did Katie know? She could shoot ten cans in ten ticks of the third hand of his fob watch from a wooden picket fence; she could wipe all the pimples off Pock's face with her eyes closed; she sure was handy with a pair of Colts. But she knew nothing of what a coward weasel her Marcus Jeremiah Johnson was.
Chakotay didn't want to shake his head or make any kind of movement, else Katie Janeway would think nothing of shooting his balls off in the blink of an eye. So he stood, and only his lips moved, and his teeth were clenched.
"No, you are not merchandise. But we got wed before the padre, Katie, and I come to collect."
"You played poker! You made Marcus drunk!"
"He was drunk before he played, Katie. He - "
"Shut up, you lousy peashooting punk. Stand back!"
"Why, Katie? You're in my blood. I'm in yours, admit it."
"I'll kill you first before I do!"
"Fine. Twenty paces - "
"Thirty."
"Twenty five."
"Done."
"Turn round, Katie. This punk's gonna shoot your brains out."
"We'll see about that."
"Hey, Sheriff! Over here!"
The Sheriff ran to them and he made them stand back to back. Katie Janeway, alias Calamity Janeway, just about reached Chakotay's shoulder, but she did like the feel of his back against hers. Only, she was never going to let on that he affected her that way. She had to get the shame of being pokered for in a seedy, third grade Double X Bar in Tombstone out of her system. Now was her chance. She'd kill the rat and move on. It's all he deserved. But, heaven's bells! The man did feel good against her back.
Now, it must be said that just at that moment, when the two stood back to back, a wagon rolled into town and stopped near to where they were about to duel with pistols. On the box sat the Medicine Man who told everyone the last time he rode into town to sell his quack medicine, that his name was Robert Zimmerman. Now, Doctor Zimmerman, when he took off his hat, had a bald pate. Funny thing about the Doctor. When he kept on his hat and wore his black suit, he might have resembled a rabbi, but everyone knew he was the Medicine Man who only looked priestly. Doc Zimmerman smiled and what teased the people of Goose Creek thinking something was missing from his face, was that they realised he had no moustache, so his lips looked like they were part of his nose. When he smiled, no one knew whether he was going to sneeze or throw up.
Doctor Zimmerman got off the box, a bottle of elixir in each hand and shouted, "Roll up! Roll up! Good medicine to cure all ills. A lifetime guarantee!. It's the wonder cure of the century! Roll up! Roll up! Ro - "
He never finished the last "Roll up!" because two guns were pointed at each bottle and the next moment, two shots rang out and the bottles shattered and scattered and Zimmerman's Wonder Cure soaked into the dusty earth of Goose Creek.
"Back away, Doc, or I'll blow your balls off," Chakotay shouted. Calamity Janeway looked at the doctor and grinned.
"Better listen to him, Doc. He's mad as a spittin' cobra. Don't make him madder - "
"Thank you, Katie."
"You're welcome, punk."
"Sheriff, you ready?"
"Ready! Twenty five paces, then turn. Lord help you both..."
****