Showdown at the Gold Digger Saloon

Showdown at the Gold Digger Saloon

            When Jeremiah Jones rolled into town that bleak September morning he brought trouble with him. Riding his hips were six shooters, a dull gleam in the light of the midday sun. The mustang he rode was salty with trail dust and stained with sweat. His hat was worn and gray and his trail coat of rough brown leather draped over the back of his horse. The dust rolled around in his wake like mist blurring the light from the ponderosa.

            Singing Bird looked up from his work shaving the boards for coffins long enough to give him a nod as Jones rode by the Sagebrush Funeral Home. Jones tipped his hat at the Cheyenne as he rode by on towards the Gold Digger Saloon in the gold rush town. The town had been built from imported pine and painted in garish colors now bleached by long exposure to the sun. The vibrant yellows and oranges had faded to a more mellow sandy hue.

            Word spread like wildfire as people saw and recognized the infamous gunfighter from the wanted posters as he rode through the streets. Many stood in wide eyed wonder to be witness to the passing of such a man. The townsfolk were astir with the prospect of why this famous gunfighter had come to town on this day in Montana. What had brought this notorious killer to Sagebrush and who had he come to kill.

Jones came to a stop outside the saloon and hitched his horse. His hands checked his guns and he adjusted his belt. The spurred boots jingled as he strode across the creaking boards of the walk.

            Lady Caroline looked down at the swinging doors of the Digger from the balcony above the bar, as Jones sauntered through.  He came to a stop in front of the bar. All talking stopped in the saloon as he shifted his coat to free his guns. Jones smiled, thin and sharp as he soaked in the fear that slithered through the room like a snake.

            Her hands became clammy with sweat. Lady Caroline dried them on her skirts as if smoothing a crease. She reached down to pick up the purse that lay on a small table by the stairs and clutched it at her side. It was heavy like her heart that trembled as she gazed down at the man who rode death next to the bar. Jones followed the swift glances of the few patrons that got enough courage to look away and up to where Lady Caroline stood. She smoothed her skirts down with her hands and regally crossed the balustrade to the wide stairs. Jones looked up at her with his flat grey almost colorless eyes.

            She froze in place as the memories of that desperate flight from Chicago, one step ahead of a posse in 1868. Since that night she had known fear, living with chance and doubt. She had fled with a gambler, her lover, away from the trouble that had hounded her since. He had died last winter, an outcast, near Poker Flats. Now the cold fear ran up her spine, goose-fleshing her back. Her eyes had gone wide at the thought but Jones took it for himself, his grin became a leer.

            “Howdy Miss Caroline.”

She stood rigid but the thrill of fear had ceased, replacing by a new feeling. She looked at him narrowly. With a calm that surprised her, she answered him.

“So, you’ve come at last.”

“Yes’m I have. It’s time for a whore like you to atone for your crimes.”

He spoke to her still leering, the smile of which never reaching his cold eyes.

            Now she could feel the eyes of all present turn upon her, for a moment she looked back at each of them in turn. What she saw was amazement and surprise and shock. She felt their shame at this gunman’s label, their dismay at the news of her torrid past. Her past! No, her past was over, there was only her now, the present. She looked back at Jones and took a long breath.

            “The Lady Caroline is no whore.”

            All eyes turned to Singing Bird, the old medicine man stood in the doorway, hands at his side. Her eyes flew to the old Injun who had been such a good friend to her since she had come to High Plains. Jones spun at the man’s words, his six shooters a blur of silver and steel. Bird stood there unafraid as the gunslinger drew bead on him. The patrons were not as confident as the Injun and fell over each other and the tables and chairs as they scrambled for the walls. A space emptied around Jones like sand sifting through a sieve, leaving the gunslinger and the Injun alone in the center.

            “I don’ care what she is now- but what she was then.”

Jones waved his right pistol around in a flippant gesture.

            “You live in the past. You have no future.”

            “I have no future?”

 Jones laughed and looked around glaring at the cringing townspeople.

“You and that whore have no future!”

With a snarl he brought both pistols to bear and shot. The Injun stood as the bullets hit him as if he were in a windstorm. The impacts made holes but the man withstood it until Jones was finished. Then he sank to his knees with her name on his lips before he crumpled to the floor. There was blood on the swinging doors.

            She heard a sob and realized it was hers as the gunslinger turned slowly around the smoke poured out of his twin barrels. The patrons took their cue to dash for cover behind tables and each other. She heard glasses and a few bottles shatter as the ones at the bar went diving over it.

            “Now who’s going to save you Miss Caroline?”

She started forward then stopped and glared down at this monster.

“The Gambler’s dead- shot himself out there in the snow.”

            “I guess you could get the sheriff...”

 His smile was triumphant and with that she raised the colt and shot Jones in the chest. Stunned, he glanced down at the smoking hole in his chest. Then he fell to his knees, he looked back at her in bewilderment and surprise, his guns pointing at the floor.

“I am the sheriff.”

She said it with all the rage of those lost years. She shot him again between his flat grey eyes.