“Breathe In”

“I am breathing in.”

The woman laughed and pulled the corset laces a bit tighter.

“Oommpphhh” gasped the man.

“It is still not enough. If you want to escape that posse by appearing to be a Saloon girl then you are going to need to have a lot more waist.”

The man looked at her with hatred in his eyes. He loved her but this was pure torture.

[A few days before]

Jed Butcher rode into town on his favourite Piebald mount. It was the end of the month and he’d been paid for his work on the ‘Circle T’ ranch. Twenty-five dollars were burning a hole in his pocket and he was determined to spend it all on Jenny May, his sweetheart who worked in the Saloon, that very saloon what was right in front of him.

After seeing that his horse was taken care of in the Livery Stable, Jed headed for the Bank. He deposited ten of those hard earned dollars into his account before walking across the street to the ‘Lucky Horse’ Saloon for a well-earned beer and hopefully, the company of Jenny.

As he downed his first glass of beer in two weeks he saw Jenny walking down the stairs with a smile on her face. She joined Jed at the bar and then together they went at sat at an empty table.

Jed was different to all the other hands that frequented the saloon. They were after a kiss and if possible a night in her bed. Jed wasn’t after that. He was a quiet well-spoken man who listened to her and engaged her in excellent conversation. Not once did he demand ‘his way’ with her and for that she was eternally grateful. She’d developed a soft spot for him and was always cheered up when he came into town every other week. Jed didn’t get blind drunk like most of the other hands. Instead he deposited money in the back and had a couple of beers with her before returning to the ranch.

Jed had explained to her that he was saving up to buy a small ranch just outside of town. He’d more or less hinted that he’d like her to be his wife. If he asked her then she knew that she’d say yes. Jenny was sick to death of being groped by almost everyone who frequented the saloon. It was time for a change.

That day started no differently from pretty well any other.

The two of them were enjoying each other’s company when another ranch hand entered the saloon. He saw Jenny sitting with Jed and he became jealous. He considered Jenny to be his girl.

His name was Lou Travers and worked for the ‘Bar H’ ranch. This was the main competitor to the ‘Circle T’. Lou was foreman at the ‘Bar H’ and therefore considered that if he wanted a girl, no plain ranch hand was going to stop him from getting what he wanted.

“Jenny, get your sweet ass over here this instant. You are my girl and don’t you forget it!’ called Lou as he stood at the bar waiting for the bartender to pour him a Whiskey and a beer.

Jenny didn’t move from where she was sitting with Jed. Instead, she took hold of Jed’s hand and squeezed it lightly.

“Get your ass over here this instant!” shouted Lou.

Jenny turned to look at Lou and shook her head.

“I’m with someone Lou.”

Lou went red in the face.

“Come here bitch before I make you.”

Jed made to stand up.

Jenny looked at him and shook her head.

Then she turned to Lou and said,

“I’m with Jed and I’m staying with him.”

Lou downed his shot of whiskey in one gulp and started to walk towards the couple.

“Now Lou, don’t be hasty,” said the bartender. His plea was ignored.

“You!” shouted Lou pointing his finger at Jed.

“You, let go of MY GIRL. You are nothing more that an ordinary hand. Jenny is reserved for foreman.”

Jenny is my girl. We are going to get married,” replied Jed.

Jenny beamed a smile back at him. Her heart was pounding.

That did it for Lou.

He made a move to draw his pistol. Jed saw this and dived to his left pushing Jenny away to his right.

Jed was unarmed. He never wore his gun in town unlike most of the other hands from local ranches. He had no defence against someone armed.

“Lou. Stop right there,” shouted the barman as he cocked a double-barrelled shotgun.

“Jed is unarmed and clearly does not want any trouble. I suggest that you put that gun away and find another saloon for your drinking,” said the barman.

Lou looked angrily at Jed and the barman.

“This ain’t over. I will make sure that Jenny never marries you. She’s mine understand!” said Lou defiantly.

He slowly put his gun away and backed out of the saloon into the street.

There was virtual silence in the saloon. The only noise was the ticking of the clock on the wall by the bar.

“I’d best be going back to the ranch before there is any more trouble,” said Jed.

Jenny looked back at him.

“Did you mean what you said just then?”

Jed smiled.

“Yes I did. I’ve been meaning to ask you for a while.”

“Ok. I accept.”

Jed broke out into a beaming smile.

“Do you mean it?” asked an astonished Jed.

“I do,” replied Jenny before starting to giggle.

A little while later, Jed left the saloon and headed for the Livery Stable. He was on top of the world as he saddled his horse and left town.

Jed was little more than a mile from town when a single shot rang out. Jed’s horse reared up as the bullet whistled past its head. Jed ended up on the ground slightly winded.

Jed was lying on the ground wondering what to do next as his horse disappeared over the hill and out of sight when he heard another horse approaching.

Jed rolled over and began to get to his feet. He’d just done that when he saw the horse and rider. It was Lou.

“Now, you just keep your hand away from that gun and we will get along fine,” demanded Lou waving his ’45 at Jed.

“What do you want Travers?”

“I don’t want nothing. I’ve already got it, or I will have when you leave town and don’t come back. I’m going to marry Jenny not you?”

“You are wrong Travers. You heard her in the Saloon. She accepted my proposal.”

“If you don’t want to end up on Boot Hill, you had better get walking. If you start now, you can be back at the Circle T before sunrise. If I ever see you in town again, I’m gonna kill you. Got it!”

Jed stood and looked at Lou. He thought for a second about drawing on Lou but thought better of it. Instead he stooped down and picked up his hat, dusted it off and put it on his head.

Travers waved him off on the trail with his gun.

Jed walked away muttering to himself, “One of these days Travers, I’m going to kill you but not yet but one day, I will do it.”

Jed reached his employers ranch just before midnight with sore feet. He crept into bed feeling bitter and angry.

The following morning, he cut out a new horse from those reserved for ranch hands and set off to find his own mount. Dai Davies, the owner of the Circle T was very understanding when Jed explained what had happened. Most people in town had scores to settle with the loud-mouthed Lou Travers.

It was late the next day when Jed returned with his horse. He arrived to find a posse from town waiting for him.

“Jed, I hear that you had a run in a day or so ago with Lou Travers?” asked Marshall Sam Towne.

“Yes Sir. He bushwhacked me outside town and my horse ran off. I walked back here and went to bed. Mr Davies loaned me a horse so that I could go and look for my own. I’ve just gotten back.”

“Dai, can you confirm that?”

“Yes Marshall. Jed was here yesterday morning. There is no way he could have been way over on the other side of town first thing to kill Lou. God knows, there are enough people who would like to see the end of Lou. He was nothing more than a bully.”

“I know but as Jed here had the most recent run in with Lou, I have to check him out first.”

The posse rode off leaving Jed relieved but puzzled. Somehow he didn’t think that he’d seen the last of them.

Jed’s boss, Dai was a canny man. He assigned Jed duties around the Ranch House so that there was always an alibi close at had should something else happen in the vast open spaces of the Wyoming Range Country.

Jed’s feeling about the Sherriff proved to be true when early the following afternoon, he rode up to question Jed once more.

“Jed, go over what happened after you left town once again.”

Jed was prepared for this.

“Sherriff, why don’t we all go and I’ll show you where things took place?”

“We?”

“Yes, You, me and a few of the hands from the ranch. Just so that no one from the Bar ‘H’ gets any funny ideas about holding a lynching party.”

The Sherriff thought for a few seconds.

“That sounds good. I’ll be able to check how far you were out of town and from here.”

An hour later, the Sherriff, Jed and three hands from the ranch arrived at the spot where Lou had bushwhacked Jed.

“Here you are Sherriff. Lout came out from behind those rocks. My horse went off in that direction, towards the Adams place.”

The Sherriff studied the terrain. The spot was almost half way between Town and the Circle ‘T’ ranch.

Jed added.
“I started walking off towards the Ranch. If you look here, you can see my footprints in this dried out puddle.”

After a few more questions, the Sherriff pronounced himself satisfied that Jed could not have killed Lou.

“Jed, I’m satisfied that you didn’t kill Lou but I can’t say what those who work for the Bar ‘H’. They were all for Lynching you on the spot when I was there yesterday. You might like to consider moving on to somewhere new.”

“Thanks Sherriff. I like it here. My woman is here and we want to buy a small place near here.”

“Son, until I arrest the real murderer this neck of the woods is not going to be safe for you, I won’t hold it against you if you do decide to take a vacation until this all settles down.”

The Sherriff left the men and headed for town. Jed sat in his saddle watching him disappear along the trail towards town.

He turned to one the men who’d come from the ranch with him.

“Kyle, can you go into town and give Jenny a message from me?”

Kyle smiled back at Jed.

“Sure thing Jed.”

“Tell her what is happening and say that I’m going to have to go away for a few days.”

Jed dug into his pocket and tossed Kyle a coin.
“Have a cold one on me.”

Kyle tipped his hat and took off in the same direction as the Sherriff.

Jed and the others rode back to the ranch. Jed was in deep thought. He didn’t want to leave Jenny and the place he now considered to be his home. Neither did he want his past to be revealed.

As the party neared the Ranch, Jed decided that he’d leave in the morning.

As Jed was making preparations to leave the next morning, he heard the sound of a buckboard pulling up outside the bunkhouse. He looked out of the window and saw the one person he really didn’t want to see that morning, Jenny.

“Jenny, what are you doing here?”

“I’m going to go with you,” said the woman he loved in a voice that told him that she was determined not to take ‘no’ for an answer.

“Why? It could be dangerous, the Bar ‘H’ are certain to come after me, after us.”

“I know that is why I’m coming too.”

Less than an hour later the couple left the Circle T ranch in the buckboard. Jed’s horse was tied to the rear rail of the buckboard. Their first destination was the town of Cheyenne. It was a railhead of the Union Pacific. There, they’d take the train east to Kansas City in the hope that they would be safe there.

It was early evening when the couple arrived in Cheyenne without incident and after stabling the horses, they checked into the ‘Regal Hotel. The name was a bit of an exaggeration as it was anything but ‘Regal’. The rooms were small and hardly the cleanest but at least there was a bed for ‘Mr & Mrs Clarke’ as they registered themselves.

Jed started to relax as he took Jenny to dinner. He had just enough cash to pay for the meal. He made a mental note to get the Cattlemen’s Bank in town to telegraph the bank in their town for the funds he’d deposited in the bank there.

The following morning, Jed presented himself at the bank and duly arranged for the funds to be transferred to Cheyenne. The manager promised that the money would be available the following day.

Early the next morning, Jed and Jenny checked out of the Hotel and made preparations to take the afternoon train east. Jed walked the short distance to the bank to collect his money.

When he emerged from the bank, he got the shock of his life. Most of the crew of the Bar ‘H’ ranch were riding into town. He ducked back into the back until they’d passed by and dismounted outside the biggest saloon in town.

Jed breathed a sigh of relief when all of them went inside the saloon to wash down the trail dust. He was still worried that they were not going to take the murder of their foreman lying down and they were going after him. Not wanting to temp providence, Jed made his way back to the Hotel via the back alleys.

“All the Bar ‘H’ hands are in town. That can mean only one thing, they are after me,” explained Jed to Jenny when he arrived back in the hotel.

“We will never be able to get on the afternoon train now,” he added with more than a hint of sadness in his voice.

Jenny took hold of his hand lightly and smiled back at him.

“I’m not going to sit here and let that bunch of animals tell us what we can or can’t do.”

Jed saw that she was pretty angry. He guessed that their behaviour towards her in the Saloon was not that civilised. The actions shown by Lou just a few days before might well have been just the tip of the iceberg.

“What can we do? The will be looking for us. Most if not all them know you by sight?”

Jenny grinned back at him.

“Leave that to me. Go an get our room back and I’ll be as quick as I can.”

With that she dashed out of the Hotel leaving Jed sitting there with his mouth wide open.

Some forty minutes later, Jenny returned to the Hotel with a large bundle under her arm. Jed was waiting expectantly in the room they’d shared the previous two nights.

“Where have you been?” he asked Jed.

“Shopping for our disguises. Help me with this lot?” said Jenny as she put the obviously heavy package down on the bed.

Jed’s first reaction when he saw what he was supposed to wear was one of surprise then followed by horror.

“I can’t wear that! It’s a dress?”

Jenny allowed herself a small giggle.

“Yes you can. They will be looking for a couple, not a mother and her pregnant daughter.”

“I’m to be your mother?”

“Yes. Well until we get to Kansas City you will be…”

Jed sat down on the bed and put his head in his hands.

Jenny sat down beside him and tried to comfort him.

After a minute or two Jed stood up and started to get his gun out of the saddlebag where he’d put it when they came into town.

“I can’t do this to you. I need to sort this out once and for all.”

Jenny took hold of his hand.

“Jed…”

He looked at her puzzled by her reaction.

“I know about ‘Little Joe’.”

Jed’s mouth dropped open in surprise.

“How…?”

“I grew up in Abilene. I saw you shoot the three Doolan Brothers.”

“You never said anything? All this time?”

Jenny took his hand again and nodded.

“You came into the Saloon and I could tell that you had changed. You never wore your gun in town. You were always nice to everyone. I wrote a letter home and asked about you. My cousin Pat wrote back and told me that you’d retired and dropped out of sight. He said that you got fed up with young guns trying to take you down.”

Jed tried hard but couldn’t stop a small tear forming in his eyes.

“All this time and you never let on?”

“Because I knew that I was falling in love with the real you.”

Jed leaned over and kissed Jenny. He was feeling totally confused by now but he knew deep down that the only chance they had of getting out of town was to disguise themselves. He knew that if they had to disguise themselves as women then ‘so-be-it’.

Jenny disappeared out the back of the hotel on a shopping trip while Jed paced back and forth wondering if there was the faintest chance that they could get away with this….

Jenny sorted out the bundle of clothes into two piles.

“These will have to do. You will be my mother,” she said trying to suppress a giggle.

They spent the next hour donning their disguise. Jed complained at having to wear a corset but that was the only way the dress that he was supposed to wear would fit him.

He stuffed his feet into some boots that were at least two sizes too small and finally, he let Jenny apply some makeup to his face after he’d had a really close shave. Thankfully, he didn’t have a very heavy beard so in the end he felt that they hat at least a fighting chance of making their escape.

Jenny looked at least 10 years younger in her outfit. He wanted to kiss her there and then but decided to wait until they had left town.

Half an hour before the train was due, the couple left the hotel with Jenny really playing the part of a reluctant daughter. No one took much notice of the couple as the made their way slowly to the Railway Station. Along the way, Jenny made a point of stopping outside a couple of stores just so that they could look at some ‘women’s wear’.

Jed stood head bowed on the platform waiting for the train to announce its presence with a whistle. He hoped that the heavy bonnet that Jenny had made him wear would keep any unwarranted attention away. He’d noticed three ‘Bar T’ hands hanging around the Depot waiting for him to appear.

Jenny went to purchase the tickets while Jed tried not to look too much out of place on the platform.

She returned just as Jed heard the whistle of the approaching train. Jed’s heart started to beat a little faster as other people arrived on the platform. He hoped that this would make spotting him a little harder.

“Did you get the tickets?” whispered Jed.
“Yes, two tickets to Kansas City. We have to change in Omaha. We get there early tomorrow morning.”

Jed groaned. He really hated travelling by train but this time, there was really no other option.

With a whistle and a load of steam, the Union Pacific train rolled into the station. It was only half an hour late. That was pretty standard in this part of the world.

Jenny acted the part as the dutiful daughter as she helped Jed get onto the train. They found some seats on the far side of the first carriage and settled down to wait for the train to depart.

After what seemed an age, the Locomotive let out a long whistle and the train jerked forward. They were off.

Soon, the town of Cheyenne was left far behind. Jed breathed a sigh of relief.

Dawn broke just as the train slowed down as it arrived in Omaha. This was the next test for the couple. According to the schedule that Jenny had obtained in Cheyenne, they had more than six hours to wait for their connection to Kansas City.

As they alighted from the train, Jenny said,

“There is a hotel close to the depot. Why don’t we get a room there until the train arrives?”

This made sense to Jed.

“Yes. Lets’ do that,” he whispered.

Arm in arm, the couple walked the two blocks to the ‘Ritz Hotel’. Jenny rented a room until the next train to Kansas arrived. A little more than 15 minutes after the train from Cheyenne arrived they were in their room. Jed breathed a sigh of relief. Well, as much as the corset he was laced into would allow.

“What do we do now?” asked Jed as he sat on the edge of the bed.

Jenny smiled.

“You don’t have to do anything my darling.”

Jed looked at her rather puzzled.

“What do you mean?”

“What I mean is that it is time for me to kill you. My real name is Margaret Dolan. Luke Dolan was my husband and you gunned him down in cold blood.”

As she said this, she removed a Colt 45 from her purse.

Jed was stunned. He felt betrayed, let down and a million other things.

“Why?”

“Why didn’t you let the thugs from the ‘Bar T’ take me in Cheyenne?”

Jenny smiled.

“Because I would not get the satisfaction of killing you myself.”

“They asked for it. They drew down on me.”

“That does not matter to me at all. You killed the man I loved. Now I’m going to kill you.”

Then she pulled the trigger.

Jed collapsed to the floor in a heap.

Jenny grabbed her purse and the money that Jed had saved and disappeared into the busy street. She didn’t look back; a great weight had been lifted from her shoulders.

Well, it was until she reached the next hotel along the main street.

When she walked into the foyer, she greeted a man with a kiss.

“Hello darling. It worked like a dream.”

“Well done my love. The next mark is in Dodge City.”
Jenny sighed.

“As long at it won’t take a year?”

“It won’t.

“Will this be the last one?”

“How much did we get this time?”

“Nearly two grand.”

The man smiled back.

“I think so. We have nearly thirty grand now.”

“What tale do you tell him before you shot him?”

Jenny giggled.

“I told him that I was married to a Dolan and I was getting my revenge.”

“That was good. Very thoughtful.”

The pair kissed once again.

Jenny then sat down and drank some tea.

“He did look pretty good as a woman though,” she laughed.

[The End]