Part
Five: Oh, honey, did I hurt you?
It was the Sheriff who counted out loud so everyone could hear. It was not as if they didn't do any counting in their heads, see? Only Tracy Donahue, who was named after a girl in Dodge City and whose mother said his name will go down in history as a boy's name, he counted on his fingers. So he was the only one who didn't really see how Chakotay's paces were bigger than Calamity's as they measured out their steps on account of Chakotay being much taller than the lady. No one smiled, as each person who watched, from the Sheriff who oversaw the proceedings, to Sandrine who oversaw her Other Girls, watched with their hearts in their mouths, and their mouths were open.
Only one person smiled. Mister Reaper, the Undertaker, stood in the doorway of the Dead House, and he kept looking at two coffins, one very big and one smaller; once or twice he had run inside and stroked the coffins as if they were the last things he would see on Earth before he died. Lovingly he touched the pine boxes which he hammered and nailed together throughout the night, because it was said that undertakers never slept. Then he would run outside, rub his hands together and occasionally slap them against his side. His black greatcoat would protest from all the dust that had settled in it. He had never taken off his greatcoat, even when he went to bed, because he knew that if anyone was shot dead in a duel in the middle of the night, he'd have to be ready, hence the dust in the greatcoat. That had happened often enough, but not as often as when the circuit judge came to town and ordered the execution of them that were caught by bounty hunters.
Yes, Mister Reaper smiled, and if his Vulture called Wolfgang Amadeus that always sat on the eaves of the Dead House looked as if it too enjoyed the spectacle of Hangings and Death by Duels, it was because he was like his master: greedy to make his living off the dead.
Twenty...
Twenty one...
Bella Torres wanted to run inside the Triple S and duck under a table. She didn't want to see her cousin die and she didn't want to see Calamity Janeway die. She wanted to win her bet. Calamity had to live, on account of her being the example for the womenfolk of Goose Creek to rise up against their men.
Pipe Gantry, having enjoyed the fruits of his winnings and intending to beat his companion again after the Great Duel, stuck his thumbs under his braces and stretched them all the way past his fat belly. Good thing no one looked, because his trousers gave way and exposed his pink long johns that once belonged to his mother.
Twenty two...
Tracy Donahue missed a finger and cried "twenty three!" Kid Papa who stood next to him, hit him upside the head for counting wrong and confusing a few issues with his arithmetic.
Three more steps.
Doctor Zimmerman, who just lost two bottles of his best medicine, gawped at the spectacle. He figured he was about to corner the market after one of the duelists bit the dust. He figured he'd walk up to the dead man or woman and pour the elixir down the throat and command him - or her - to get up and walk. Yes, he was thinking that. Never mind that he thought he was Someone Incarnate who could raise people from the dead. This doctor boasted some, and he was going to show the people of Goose Creek a miracle like they have never seen.
Yes, Sir.
Twenty four...
Twenty five.
Count done.
"Turn!"
Chakotay turned to face Calamity Janeway. He didn't really want to kill her on account she was his wife and she was in his blood. She looked like the sun came out of her hair. He could still feel the heat - it was no accident of sunshine that - of her back against his. It was enough that he almost wanted to embarrass himself right there in front of the people of Goose Creek.
Hands hovered above a pair of Smith&Wessons with rosewood grips and a pair of Colts with mahogany grips. Katie Janeway's eyes never left Chakotay's hands. She watched every move, even the way his chest rose and fell the way he breathed. Didn't the punk know anything? On the third rise of his chest, it was going to happen. She just knew it. She knew him from way back when he pokered for and he had been in her blood only he was never going to know that. Her fingers itched. She already flexed them during the count down, now they felt double-jointed like.
No movement.
Watch, Chakotay. Your lady's gonna shoot that smirk right off your face.
No movement.
Watch, Calamity. Watch.
No sound. Deadly silence hung in the air. Even Wolfgang the Vulture of the Dead House paused his breathing long enough for the Big Bang.
Bang! Bang!
Oh, my galloping galoshes!
Wolfgang Amadeus Vulture gave the loudest squawk as he flew up from the Dead House eaves.
Calamity Janeway felt a sharp sting, and then the pain hit her after the sting. Her wind was knocked from her and her head got woozy like. She dropped her guns, because her fingers got right royal limp, and she gripped her right upper arm. Calams looked; she looked, saw blood trickling through fingers; she felt that there was no bullet lodged there, and then was glad her arm was only grazed.
When the dizziness passed, Calamity thought that she couldn't have missed the punk. So why was she bleeding? Didn't she move first? Her finger curled round her Colt's trigger faster than Ellery McIntyre could blink. Of that she was real dead certain. She looked in the distance, fifty paces in the distance. Far it was, but not impossible to hit Chakotay.
Then she saw something as she picked up her guns and sheathed them with limp right arm and all. Calams walked slowly towards the varmint who gave her so much grief in the last two years.
Chakotay stood upright, feet still planted apart, and his guns hanging by limp fingers. She knew him from way back and knew he would never let go of his guns. Chakotay took a step forward, quite drunken-like, as Bella Torres would later tell her grandchildren, and then Chakotay Angry Warrior Fleetfoot stood still. Calams held her breath. Chakotay, he took another two drunken steps, but he didn't release his Smith&Wessons. He could be lying half dead in the dust, but he would never let go of his guns.
Finally, Chakotay stood still after his upper body swung to and fro, but not losing his balance completely. He clutched at his side and when Calamity was about ten paces away from him, she could see how the blood dripped through his fingers and soiled his rosewoods butts. Chakotay looked at her, and she looked at him, and everybody else looked at them.
"You shot me," he croaked, and Calamity could swear he looked surprised.
"I'm very touched, you varmint."
Chakotay just stared, then his eyes glazed. He sank to his knees, and he still looked surprised. He pitched forward slowly and fell face down into the dusty road.
Only then The Choir of Onlookers rushed forward, and all sorts of cries came from them.
Pipe Gantry snorted in disgust because Chakotay didn't kill Calamity Janeway right away; now he would have to suffer being drunk under the table by her again. Bella Torres ran right out of the saloon, lifted her shirts when she jumped over the step of the porch and into the road, brushing aside Kid Paris who was still standing and gaping and looking like he was going to throw up. Tracy Donahue threw up.
Calamity Janeway pointed her gun with her good left hand at the Sheriff and said, "Back off, or I'll kill you." The Sheriff scurried out of the way. She knelt down at the body of Chakotay and shook him. He lay still. Then it was that the Medicine Man ran towards them with a double dose of Zimmerman's Wonder Cure.
"Make way! I can give him somethi - "
He was not allowed to finish his sentence since the good hand of Calamity that held the Colt, rammed the barrel of the Colt into Zimmerman's mouth. With the bad right hand, and with it aching like she was in the fires of hell, Calamity turned Chakotay's body over on his back. He was still breathing, but she knew that a bullet made its home deep in his side. Funny how he still didn't let go of his guns.
Calams looked at Zimmerman who looked stupid with the barrel of a pistol stuck in his mouth.
"Cut the crap. Get a knife and cut out the bullet."
The Medicine Man mumbled and mumbled, with his arms flying about and the bottles of Wonder Cure shining with its wonder cure liquid. Calamity Janeway turned back to her man, and touched his roughened cheek with her bad right hand.
"Oh, Chakotay, did I hurt you?" she asked the Warrior, but he wasn't talking anything because he was still moaning and groaning.
Medicine man continued to mumble and when Kid Papa pointed to his mouth, Calamity only then realised the barrel of her gun was still lodged there. When she pulled her gun out, Medicine man stammered, "Thank goodness! What must I do?"
"I said, get that there bullet out, punk."
"I - I don't do surgery. I - "
"Doc, this here man is dyin' some, by my gun. You be dead if you don't get a knife and get the bullet out. Don't worry about him feelin' anything. Hey! Someone, gimme gin!"
The gin appeared from nowhere, and Doc Zimmerman produced a sharp thin knife like it was magic.
"I'm a quack, not a surgeon," he mumbled as he cut Chakotay's fine black shirt and under the watchful eye of Calamity Janeway, cried "Eureka!" when he at last stood up with a bloody bullet between two bloody fingers. "I'm a surgeon! I'm a surgeon!" Zimmerman cried with heavenly joy.
"Now, your work is done, you can go on your way - "
But the interruptions were not over yet.
Sandrine, who found the voice of her Other Girl outrage at last, ran to the road, burst through the people and went for Calamity. She stood - Sandrine, that is - with her hands on her hips, her flounce skirts very flouncy, and huffed and puffed, spewing mud at Chakotay who was a prospective customer and who slighted her best Other Girl, Annika Hansen. She pointed an accusing finger at the unconscious Chakotay.
"Sie
haben das Duel verloren!"
"Hey, Sandrine, wasn't your grandmammy from Paris, France?"
Sandrine recanted instantly, pointed again at the unconscious Chakotay.
"Vous
avez perdu le duel!"
Which meant "You lost the duel!", according to Doc Zimmerman who once saw Lily Langtree sing in Paris, France.
Tuhbe "Shakespeare" Truman, not to be outdone by Sandrine, also took centre stage. Lifting his hand dramatically to the sky, and the other hand pointing to Chakotay, who still lay moanin' and groanin', Tuhbe opened his big mouth. His voice quivered with emotion.
"Here lies a noble Prince! Good night sweet Prince, might flight of ang - "
"Shurrup!"
"What dreams may come when we have shuffled off this mortal snot - "
But, be was not allowed to complete his ranting because someone else ran towards them and pushed everyone aside. It was the Grim Reaper and he wasn't smilin' no more.
"I shall kill the man! Where is he? Where is he?"
He looked down and there the man was lying. Mister Reaper the Undertaker had cried out as he ran all the way from the Dead House to where Chakotay lay on the ground where cowboys from Sandrine's Triple S still stood hangin' round, chiefly 'cause they wanted to hear what the Indian would say when he woke up and realised his wife shot him in the stomach. The dust billowing from his greatcoat and in his hand, hanging by its lifeless legs, Mister Reaper held his beloved Wolfgang Amadeus Vulture, who by all accounts was as dead as a doornail, by the hand of Chakotay Angry Warrior Fleetfoot.
That was when Calamity Janeway got really spittin' cobra mad. She had been bending over her man and caressing his creek and calling out, "Oh, honey, did I hurt you?" over and over. But when everyone in Goose Creek thought to immortalise them names in the historical evidence that there really was a Goose Creek, Wyoming, Calams rose to her feet and within seconds - her cousin Ellery McIntyre would have had to say his name real fast to see those bullets coming - she opened fire. All the Stetsons of the menfolk who stood around the body of an almost dead man went flying off their heads. No one was really surprised that Doc Zimmerman was bald, or that Mister Reaper had ears the size of saucers.
"Get your Shakespeare shootin' butt over there, punk. And you!" Calams pointed to Mister Reaper with his very dead Wolfgang Amadeus Vulture. "You think your vulture got hit by accident? Think again. The man meant to graze me arm and hit the bird. Now, scat! Scat!"
Yes, she was flamin' mad, her face almost as red as her hair. Her Stetson had fallen back over her back and everyone could see the flamin' hair and the flamin' temper.
One person still stood her ground against Calams. It was Annika who pressed her almighty bazooms in Calamity's face.
"You have what I want..."
"I'll give you what you need," said Calams, and with that Calams stuck the barrel of her Colt right in Annika's...well, that part is sure risky to recount because Annika Hansen never did live down the day she went up against Calamity Janeway.
"Hey, Kid!"
"Calams!"
"My horse! Let's get this varmint to his hotel..."
And so, Kid Paris who rushed his feet off to untie Delta Lady and bring her to Calamity Janeway and helped Calams get her man lying stomach down over the horse's back and walked with them to Chakotay's hotel and helped to put the almost dead Chakotay on the bed and further, ripped some white linen from the sheets on the bed and bandaged Chakotay's side. Kid Paris fell in love with Calamity Janeway and vowed he would always be hers whenever she needed his assistance. He ran back to Bella Torres that same day, took his bowler hat off on account he was going to make a very important announcement and went down on his knees.
"Bella Torres, will you marry me?"
"Oh, alright, Pig."
She forgot about the bet she won.
Outside the hotel Delta Lady and Chakotay's horse Grey Eagle, they were tied up side by side near the trough, snorted some and fell in love.
In his room Chakotay groaned, opened his eyes and stared straight in the face of Calamity Janeway.
"I aimed for the vulture," he said.
"I aimed for your peepee, but I figured, that be my investment for the future."
Chakotay smiled with the full force of his dimples, then his eyes widened as Calamity pointed a gun at him.
"Okay, punk, now where is my hundred year old microscope?"
"Later. Come here, woman," he ordered, holding out his arms to her. A good thing his belt with broad buckle and holsters and guns was removed. Calamity Janeway hovered some. She stepped closer, inhaled his smell, liked it and then took his hand. He pulled her down on the bed, no matter that he almost died by her own hand, caught his fingers in her golden tresses and said gruffly, "A man's gotta do what a man's gotta do..."
And Calamity Janeway came.
****