Arizona Blue—Gunfighter, in—“Death along the Canyon’s Rim!”
(Part one of two: episode #27)

  “Trouble along the Grand Canyon”

The Author’s first story of Arizona Blue in over eleven-months
(Arizona Blue stores are on over 226-internet sites)

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:
  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, its 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 questioning our motives and actions.

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

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