Bookshelf Battle

Bill sat on a bench in front of the Grand Central Hotel, puffing away on a long pipe. He watched as the rings of smoke rose up into the night.

A friendly voice broke his concentration.

“Well, hello there,” Charlie said. “I’m sorry to stare. Can I pull up a chair?”

“Howdy Charlie,” Bill said. “Be my guest.”

“I’m glad you didn’t protest,” Charlie said as he took a spot on the bench next to his old friend.

Bill smiled. “Your mockery I detest.”

“I’m sorry,” Charlie said. “It was meant only in…”

The two compadres looked at one another then laughed. “In…in jest!”

Charlie slapped his knee and chuckled. Bill shook his head.

“Money is money, Charles,” Bill said. “There are worse ways to make it than by putting on a show.”

“Save more and you wouldn’t have to demean yourself,” Charlie said.

Bill pulled a small pouch out of his pocket. He took a few sprigs of tobacco out of the pouch, dumped them into his pipe, then struck a match to reinvigorate his smoke.

“Don’t start that, Charlie,” Bill said. “You’re not my mother.”

“I know, I know,” Charlie said. “Jane said the same thing to me this morning.”

The businessman pulled out a few bills and handed them over to Hickok.

“Speaking of, your pay for the latest ride, plus some extra because your name saved the day.”

“It did?” Bill asked as he took the money.

“Bandits,” Charlie said. “They tried to have their way with my brother and I…”

Bill raised an eyebrow. “Their way?”

Charlie nodded.

“Shit,” Bill said.

“Tell me about it,” Charlie said.

“Criminals just don’t have half the respect they used to,” Bill said.

“I blame the dime store novels,” Charlie said. “I really do. Filling their heads with all sorts of unsavory ideas.”

“I take it Jane saved you and Stephen from a terrible fate?” Bill asked.

“She did,” Charlie said. “That woman is worth her weight in gold.”

Charlie sat back and stared up at the stars.

“Something on your mind?” Bill asked.

“Huh?” Charlie replied. “No.”

“Cut the horse shit, Utter,” Bill said. “I’ve known you too long to not recognize when you’re worried about something.”

Charlie sighed. “Jane’s drinking. It’s getting worse. She’s going to kill herself if she’s not careful.”

Bill puffed on his pipe. “Then she kills herself.”

Charlie recoiled. “That’s it?”

“That’s it,” Bill replied.

“So you don’t care?”

“Of course I do,” Bill said. “But what am I supposed to do about it?”

“I don’t know,” Charlie said. “Talk to her. Make her stop!”

“I can’t make her stop drinking no more than I can make a wild mustang stop running across the plain,” Bill said. “She’s a grown woman. Smart. Resourceful. She knows what she’s doing. I dare say she even understands that for the sake of her health, she needs to stop. But she won’t until she wants to.”

“I don’t think she could if she wanted to,” Charlie said.

“Even so,” Bill said. “She’s such a free spirit that she’ll look at us as a couple of men trying to boss her around.”

“Not with you, Bill,” Charlie said. “She worships the ground you walk on. Me? She’d spit at me as soon as look at me.”

“I’m not so sure about that,” Bill said. “I doubt she’d of saved your hide as much as she has if she didn’t care about it, Charlie.”

Bill sat quietly for awhile and puffed. “Do I detect that you seem to be interested in Ms. Cannary’s well-being a bit more than usual as of late?”

Charlie blushed. “What? No.”

“Shit,” Bill said. “You’re smitten.”

“I am not.”

“Bury those feelings deep, Charlie,” Bill said. “You’re a married man.”

Charlie retrieved the divorce papers Louise had sent him from his pocket and handed them over to Bill, who perused them.

“Petition for divorce?” Bill asked.

“Yup,” Charlie said.

“What kind of an incompetent judge would go and let a woman do such a fool thing?” Bill asked.

“I’m telling you,” Charlie said. “It’s the dime store novels. They’re turning people crazy.”

“Its her loss,” Bill said as he handed the papers back to Charlie.

“No,” Charlie said. “Its mine.”

Charlie tucked the papers back into his pocket. “I don’t blame her. A husband should be there for his wife. I am not.”

“Because you’re earning a living,” Bill said.

“Because I like to pretend I’m a frontiersman while paying other people to do my dirty work,” Charlie said.

“Works for me,” Bill said as he held up the bills in his hand.

“Apparently not for Jane,” Charlie said. “She let me have it about that.”

“She doesn’t mean it,” Bill said. “She wouldn’t keep riding with you if she did.”

Charlie spent a few seconds admiring his finely manicured nails.

“We seem to be talking a lot about Jane,” Bill noted.

“Yes,” Charlie said. “Say, Bill…”

Charlie hesitated and scratched the back of his neck to buy himself some time.

“Spill it,” Bill said.

“Suppose I…that is to say…”

“You’ve got it bad for Jane,” Bill said. “And now that your wife has cast you aside like a pile of rancid garbage, you’d like to know if I’d have any qualms about you pursuing our dear colleague in arms?”

Charlie grinned. “Well…do you?”

Bill scoffed. “I’m a married man, Charles. Why would I?”

“I don’t know,” Charlie said. “I’ve always sensed that she’s sweet on you. You probably could have her if you wanted to.”

“‘Wanted’ being the operative word,” Bill said. “I don’t mix business with pleasure. If you want to, be my guest, though I doubt…”

“Oh,” Charlie interrupted. “She’d never go for me I suppose.”

“Don’t take it personally, Charlie,” Bill said. “Like I said, ‘Jane’s a mustang.’ I’m not sure any man could ever tame her, so to speak.”

“And if someone ever did tame her then she wouldn’t be her,” Charlie said.

“You got it,” Bill said.

Bill puffed for awhile longer. “Charlie, if you can win the heart of one Miss Jane Cannary, I’ll be the first to congratulate. Personally, while she’s a fine gunslinger and there’s no one I’d trust more to watch my back, she’s the last woman I’d ever want as a wife.”

Charlie nodded.

Bill checked his pocket watch, then stood up. “And now, my friend, the hour is late, there is money burning a hole in my pocket, and my poker game awaits.”

“Just can’t wait to lose it all, can you?” Charlie asked.

“You’ll never take my advice about women,” Bill said. “And I’ll never take your advice about money. How we’ve stayed friends all these years I’ll never know.”

“No one else will have us I suppose,” Charlie said as he stood up.

Bill put his hand on Charlie’s shoulder. The gunslinger’s face grew grim.

“Listen…Charles. Find Jane and meet me at Nuttall and Mann’s Saloon, will you?”

“Eh,” Charlie said. “I’ll tell Jane but you know I have no interest in poker, Bill.”

“This isn’t about poker,” Bill said. “I have very important business to discuss with both of you.”

“Business?” Charlie asked.

“A grave matter that I must share with the two of you,” Bill said. “And I need to bring Jack and Crick in on it. I need to discuss it with all of you at once.”

“Is everything ok, Bill?” Charlie asked.

“I’ll explain it all tonight,” Bill said. “One hour. Don’t be late.”

Bill left and Charlie spent some time sitting on the bench, his mind lost in his woes.

Soon enough, Charlie’s thoughts were interrupted by an obnoxious lady belch.

“Brap! Well, well, well,” Jane said as she stumbled her way toward the hotel. “If it isn’t good ole Charlie Utter, sitting around like a bump on a…

Before she could finish that thought, Jane doubled over and vomited profusely, emptying the contents of her stomach all over the ground.

“Step right up,” Mortimer shouted. “Step right up and obtain an autograph from Mr. Wild Bill Hickok for the low, low price of twenty cents! All proceeds shall be split between the Vagabond Players and Mr. Hickok himself.”

A table had been brought outside and Bill wiled away an hour schmoozing with his fans, signing his John Hancock on pieces of paper.

Jack McCall tossed back his flask and sipped some scotch as he waited in line. He looked terrible. He smelled worse. There was a voice in his head telling him that he should just go home and go to bed in order to put the miserable day he’d experienced behind him.

But he wanted his hero to sign his book first. So he waited…and waited…and waited.

Texas Jack (not to be confused with Jack McCall) and Crick stood behind Bill, their arms folded, doing their best impressions of security agents.

Merrick plunked down his twenty cents and presented Bill with an old, yellowed copy of the Deadwood Dispatch. It featured the headline, “Wild Bill Hickok Captures the Kincaid Gang.”

“A real pleasure, Mr. Hickok” Merrick said as he outstretched his head.

Bill shook it, then scrawled his name across the newspaper page with a charcoal pencil. “Uh uh.”

People young and old took their turns, meeting Hickok and getting his signature. A few ladies even propositioned him but as he’d explained to Jack and Crick earlier, he just didn’t have the time for such distractions.

Jack McCall was next. He waited as the old lady in front of him droned on and on, boring Hickok about how they were both from Illinois, peppering him with dull questions. “Have you met so-and-so? Did you know this person or that person?”

As the old gal shuffled away, Texas Jack leaned into Bill’s ear.

“You know, if you don’t cut this off, they’ll just keep coming all night…”

“I don’t want to disappoint anyone,” Bill replied.

“Up to you,” Texas Jack said. “If you want to skip poker…”

Those words got Bill. He never skipped poker. He nodded at Texas Jack.

As Jack McCall slapped his copy of “The Life and Times of J.B. ‘Wild Bill’ Hickok down on the table, Texas Jack looked over to Mortimer.

“End it,” Texas Jack said.

Mortimer nodded. “Ladies and gentlemen, thank you, thank you! It has been a lovely evening, but as you all know, Mr. Hickok is a very busy man. If you did not get a chance to meet him, he shall return to the stage next month!”

Jack McCall felt a queasiness in his stomach as if he’d just been slugged.

Throughout the course of one day, Jack McCall had been belittled by his own father, beaten to the ground in a match that ended his boxing career, and been assured in no uncertain times by the girl he loved that she’d never have anything to do with him.

And now, after waiting an hour in line, his hero was about to take a walk without signing his book.

Bill stood up. As he was about to walk away, McCall tapped him on the shoulder.

“Bill!” McCall shouted, trying desperately to get Bill’s attention. “Hey, Bill!”

“Whoa, whoa!” Texas Jack said as he slapped McCall’s hand away. “Hands off.”

“Mr. Hickok’s done for the evening,” Crick added.

“Aw come on,” McCall said. “Bill!”

Bill turned around and looked at McCall. The gunslinger grinned, stretched out his hand and then…tussled McCall’s hair as if he were a boy.

“Nice to meet you, kid.”

“Kid.” The word tore its way into McCall’s soul. He was a man, damn it. A young man, but still a man.

Bill and his boys departed. The line of people behind McCall dispersed.

And McCall just stood there, struggling to hold back unmanly tears as he watched his hero, the man whose life’s story had filled him so often with much needed hope, walked away.

“Bullshit,” McCall said as he unscrewed the top of his flask and took another drink.

McCall yanked on the front and back covers of the book until it was split in two, the binding destroyed, pages soaring in the wind as he tossed his once prized possession into the dirt.

“You ‘aint shit, Bill Hickok,” McCall mumbled under his breath.