Two days after I had been brought home by Al, it being now Saturday, my mother expressed the wish to attend church the following morning. This did not altogether suit my father, who said, “Is the Lord not here as well as in the church, Martha? If you would pray, cannot you do so right here and the Lord will hear you?”
“You know well enough Ebenezer, that praising God is not a solitary activity. I wish to sing hymns and pray in the company of other God-fearing folk. I will go to the church in town.”
“There is but one church in Zion and that is not a Catholic one.”
“Never the less, I will still go there on Sunday. This family have not attended church for some good long while.”
I have an idea that Ma thought that a few prayers might be in order and she doubted the efficacy of appeals to the Deity that were not made in the correct place. She was not on intimate terms with the Lord as my father was, but every so often she recollected herself and visited church to make up for lost time and ensure that the maker of Heaven and Earth had not forgot us and our affairs.
“I have heard from Al where the pastor of this church is in Anderson’s pocket. I am not sure that it would sit well with me to worship in such a place.”
My mother looked at him scornfully. “There have always been bad priests as well as good. I dare say that the congregation will in the main be composed of good people. I will go to church tomorrow”
“So be it.” said Pa.
I thought that I might be able to exploit this situation to my advantage, saying, “How about I look after little Davy so that the two of you can attend church together with no distractions? The baby‘s crying might otherwise disturb you or, as it might be, annoy others trying to pray.” This I thought right cunning, and a way in which I could have a morning to myself. My father though was not easily taken in by such stratagems. He looked at me without speaking for a few seconds and I could tell that he was amused by my barefaced attempts to evade divine worship.
“This is kind of you Maybelle, but no true Christian would object to the sound of a child in church. Did not our Lord himself say, ‘Suffer the little children to come unto me and forbid them not’? And does it not say in Mark’s Gospel, chapter ten, verse fifteen, that we must receive the kingdom of God as little children? No, if your mother goes to church, then we shall all go. But I am sure your offer was well meant and I thank you for it.”
We did not take Dollar with us the next morning, but all walked along, my mother and me taking it in turns to carry Davy. My father did not take his gun with him, saying that even unprincipled roughnecks would be unlikely to start a gunfight on the Lord’s Day. I felt this to be optimistic and so I think did Ma, but we neither of us said anything.
Zion’s one and only church was a neat, white painted wooden building, surrounded by flower beds and with a burying ground at the back of it. It was cool and restful inside and the fittings and furnishings looked new and costly. The story my father had heard was that Anderson paid for a lot of the stuff in the church and that the minister was “in his pocket” as the saying goes.
In fact I did not dislike the service. It was more easygoing than the Catholic church and everybody was welcome to this place. There was though no communion or incense or choir or any of the other things that made the Catholic worship so interesting. Anderson was there with his wife and children and he sat in a prominent place at the front in a pew of his own. I could see my father viewing this arrangement with disapproval. He was not one for anything which set some of God’s people above and over others, which was I suppose why he preferred to pray with a few other like-minded men and not generally in a church like this.
The preacher’s message was a simple one and also did not endear him to Pa. His theme was that we should all be content in that station of life which it had pleased the Lord to call us to. I could see Anderson nodding his head in agreement. Have you ever noticed that the sort of men who teach this doctrine are always those who the Lord seems to have called to a pretty comfortable station in life? You never find beggars and homeless folk declaiming about this virtue of Christian humility and acceptance of your lot in life.
After the service was over, we all filed out of the church and the pastor stood at the door saying parting words to everybody in a comfortable and self-satisfied fashion. Pa shook his hand and then asked him, “Do you know what the prophet Amos said about protecting the widow and the orphan? He said nothing about them accepting their station in life.”
The minister looked taken aback by this and mumbled something about it needing a good deal of learning to interpret the Good Book correctly. This answer was not to my father’s liking and he said, “It is not book-learning that is required, but a humble heart, open to the Lord’s instruction.”
As we moved off, Ma said to him, “Ebenezer, why must you shame me in this way? Have you not heard that there is a time to speak and a time to remain silent?”
“Ecclesiastes three, verse five.” said my father absentmindedly. He was looking ahead of us to where a fine carriage was waiting in the road. Standing by it were the man he knew as Jack Mayes and the redheaded young man who had accosted me in the store, the first time I visited town. Ma followed his gaze and sighed.
As we passed them, the young man with red hair muttered something quietly. I could not take oath as to his very words, but they ended with “juicy”. Young and juicy or fresh and juicy, perhaps. I felt instinctively that he was passing a personal remark about me. My father though heard clearly, as perhaps he was meant to. He stopped and turned towards the young man. He did not look angry, more surprised and a little disgusted, like you might be if some uncouth person broke wind next to you while you were setting at table. He walked slowly over to the red headed boy, who was grinning as if at a private joke. Ma and I watched to see how things would develop.
My Pa said, “I will not dispute with you on the Sabbath, nor yet before a house of God.”
To which the red headed man replied, “Yellow, eh?”
My father looked at him carefully, still not angry but as if he was examining a rare freak of nature, like the six legged calf I once saw at a carnival sideshow. He spoke again, still in that even way, “We may, if you so desire, discuss the colors of the rainbow. My idea though was that we might rather meet behind the livery stable tomorrow morning at eleven.”
The man looked doubtful, but Georgia Jack laughed and said, “Go to it Red, I’ll second you.”
Pa turned to him and said quietly, “Do you want to involve yourself in this affair?”
“Someone got to see there’s no foul play.”
Pa nodded and said, “So be it. We will each bring a companion to see fair play.”
Then he turned from the two ruffians and we continued walking. When once we were out of earshot, my mother said, “So it has come to this, Ebenezer. You propose to brawl in public with a dirty cowboy. This is not a development which I hoped to see.”
“I have fought with my fists before Martha, as we both know. It is not something I make a habit of, but you know this will not be the first time. Besides, there need be no fighting at all. If that young man offers an honest apology, then I shall shake hands with him and the matter will be closed.”
“Is that how you expect it to be?”
“To speak plainly and without chasing round the woodpile, I do not. I spoke softly to that fellow when first I met him and he was troubling our daughter here. He is one of those who takes politeness and forbearance as weakness. I must show him his error.”
I could not at this point restrain myself from adding my own contribution to the debate. “Pa, suppose that a bunch of fellows turn up and you end up fighting not one, but twenty men.”
He smiled at me. “Maybelle Louise, I have lived by a wood too long to be scared by the hooting of an owl.”
This did not make any kind of sense to me and seeing my bewilderment, he tried another old proverb. “When you live with wolves, you must learn to howl.”
This was too much for my mother, who remarked, “Quoting various old sayings will not profit you if a dozen men fall upon you tomorrow brandishing pick-handles or, Lord forbid, one man with a rifle.”
“I have thought on this.” said my father.
The incident with the redheaded man cast somewhat of a shadow on the rest of the day.
Next morning, my father was up and at his work early. If you did not know him that well, you might suppose that he had forgot the challenge he had issued to Anderson’s man. I could see though that he was especially thoughtful. I guess he was figuring out how to protect himself against any sort of low dealing or double-crossing which other men in Anderson’s pay might be inclined to get up to. Not only that, he was also surely still considering the gunfight in which he had been involved a few nights back.
At about half past nine, he set out on Dollar. I waited til he was out of sight and then without asking Ma’s permission, which she would not have granted, I set off on foot for Zion. I felt both afraid and excited, not knowing how events would unfold. I was also anxious that Pa would get there before me and it would all be over by the time I arrived.
I need not have worried though, because I got to town before my father and the reason, as I later learned, was this. He did not feel easy in his mind about trusting those rascally cowboys and so had called on Al and asked him to come along and keep a friendly eye on the proceedings. After all, if the man they called “Red” was to have a second, why should my father not also have one fulfilling that office for him?
Behind the livery stable was a fenced off enclosure like a small corral. Sometimes horses were kept here, but today it was empty. I was surprised to find a fair crowd of loafers standing around waiting for the fight to start. I guess that when you lived in a one horse town like Zion, an event of this nature was something of a crowd puller. I wondered how they had heard about it, but I don’t suppose I will ever know the answer to that at this late stage. All I can tell you is that there were many men, a few women and even children standing around, to see the fun.
I mingled in with the crowd, hoping to make myself inconspicuous. I did not think my Pa would take kindly to finding me here in direct disobedience of his instructions. A few minutes later, the red headed young man fetched up, accompanied by Jack Mayes and a half dozen other cowboys. There looked to be too many onlookers from the town for them to try anything to villainous and I took it that they just come to cheer on their workmate. They joshed with “Red”, making jokes of the, “You show him!” variety. Then Pa arrived with Al.
They dismounted and Al reached out of of his saddle a beautiful, bright, new looking rifle. It was a Winchester, the 1873 model and I guess it must have cost Al a fortune. He did not wave it around, but walked with my father over to the group of Anderson’s men with it tucked casually under his arm. There were a few words exchanged which I did not hear. My father later told Ma that he had requested the young man to apologise for his insulting words about me and that Red had declined to do so. Al and my father then walked a short distance to the other side of the corral and prepared for the contest.
Pa unbuckled his belt and left it, with his pistol in Al’s keeping. He then took off his shirt as well and advanced into the enclosure, which now took on the aspect of some Roman arena, where a bloody combat was to take place. Red also discarded his shirt and walked up to my father. There had been a low hum of conversation, but this died away as the two men squared off. Red was taller than my father, but whereas Pa had a quiet and reserved dignity about him, Red had the air of a man who was reckless and arrogant. He turned to his friends and smiled. Then he swung his fist at my father’s face. Pa knocked the arm aside gracefully and then delivered a mighty blow to the young man’s jaw. Red staggered backwards and my father followed up this first blow with another, which connected with the red headed man’s eye. He keeled over, unconscious and the fight looked to be over.
My father turned away from the scene and began walking back towards the corner where Al was waiting. Jack Mayes had in the meantime scrambled through the wooden railings and come up behind my father.
“Cade!” he called to him. Pa stopped and turned to face him.
“I have no desire to fight you. That fellow was exceedingly discourteous to my daughter and I felt need to reprove him. The matter is ended and I have plowing to do.”
“Discourteous, hey?” said Mayes, “Well I say you’re a lying, yellow-bellied coward, your wife’s a pox-ridden whore and your daughter looks to be following the same road as her ma, consorting with niggers and such. That discourteous enough for you?”
This was all said loudly, so that all those hanging on the fence could hear every word. There was little my father could do after this except take the challenge. He said to Mayes, “Will you take off your shirt and set to with me?”
“You’re damn right” said Georgia Jack, removing his shirt and tossing it aside. Then he and my father went at it.
Now I dare say that you have from time to time seen men throwing punches at each other in a bar-room brawl. They trade a few blows, maybe kick each other and then the thing subsides. This was not at all what happened between Jack Mayes and my father. Pa may have had an advantage in height, but what he lacked in size, Mayes made up for in wiriness and grit. It was a fearful thing to see two strong men striking at each other’s faces in a protracted bout of violence. You could hear the sound as their fists struck home and after a few minutes blood began to flow from my father’s nose where one of Jack Maye’s blows had caught him.
I would say that the two men were fighting fairly for around five or six minutes. There was of course no timekeeper and so they did not break every few minutes. The end of the fight came when, as I have so often observed to be the case, a wicked person’s actions recoiled upon him.
Jack Mayes had fought pretty fairly, as had my father. There was in those days for fights of this nature an unspoken agreement that the fighting would be limited to blows with the clenched fist and that there would be no kicking, head-butting, strangling, eye-gouging or any other such tricks. I do not know what prompted him to attempt such a thing, but after one flurry of punches had taken place and they had backed off from each other, Georgia Jack tried to kick my father between the legs. The consequence was not as he had expected, because Pa not only knocked his leg aside, he also grabbed hold of Mayes’ ankle and twisted his leg sharply to one side, causing Jack Mayes to fall to the ground and lay for a moment on his back. In an instant, my father was standing over him, with his boot pressed down on the fallen man’s throat. He stood like this for a few seconds, looking down gravely at his vanquished adversary.
“How are you doing down there?” enquired my father solicitously, “You getting enough air?”
In truth, it did not look at all as though Jack Mayes was getting anywhere near enough air, because he was beginning to go purple in the face under the pressure of my fathers foot. He clasped at the ankle, but Pa was putting much of his weight on his Mayes’ neck and so the effect was ineffectual.
“I will tell you a thing,” said my father, “I don’t look for you to cross my path again Mayes. For me, this affair finishes right now. Did you say something?” This was, I assume meant in a jocular way, as the man could not breathe, let alone speak. “I hope we are clear now.” said my father, lifting his foot and walking back towards where Al stood.
Then things happened very fast. As Pa walked awy, Jack Mayes choked and coughed and then his hand dived down towards his boot. At the same moment, Al vaulted over the fence, ran to Mayes and, reversing his Winchester, drove the butt hard into the side of Mayes’ head, so clubbing the man insensible. As he did this, a couple of the more hot-blooded cowboys jumped over the fence into the corral. Al’s response was to hold onto the cocking lever of the rifle and then kind of flip the Winchester in the air while keeping ahold of the lever. This had the effect of cocking his piece and he then, with one smooth motion, brought the butt to his hip so that he was covering the cowboys. He shook his head warningly at them. Then, while everybody was watching, he reached down and lifted something from Mayes’ hand. It was a little Derringer pistol. The murderous rogue obviously carried it in his boot and had drawn it with the intention of shooting my father in the back.
Al held the pistol aloft so that everybody in the crowd could see it and understand both why he had acted as he did and also what sort of man Jack Mayes was. Then he dropped the Derringer and went over to my father, arriving just as I did.
“Maybelle Louise, you will be the death of me,” was my father’s greeting to me, ”Did you not hear my express instruction that you were to remain at home? What am I to do with you?” Then he turned to Al. “You saved my life this day. My family seem to cause you little but trouble and draw you into danger, but I am right grateful to you. You have been a true friend.”
Al treated what had happened lightly, saying, “You would do the same in my place, Ebenezer.” He turned to me, saying, “Maybelle, you are always at the eye of the storm, how is that?”
I did not reply. On the way home, I expected Pa to be angry with me, but oddly he was not. In fact he ruffled my hair and said that I was a torment to him and he wished he had had a boy instead. I think the way of it was this. Although not a boastful man or given to showing off, he had not been displeased for his daughter to witness how he had bested two ruffians, one after the other.
My Ma was more forthright in her denunciation of my conduct, telling my father that this was a direct consequence of his never having whipped me as a child. However, she too was keen to hear the details of the fight and I could see that she was as proud of Pa as I was myself.
Excellent chapter.