David Ohle - The Devil in Kansas

Katie backpedals into the house and watches terrified from the doorway as the wind wagon comes to a halt a mere foot or two from disaster. Peppard and Ratoncito climb out, shake off the dust and the grasshoppers. Katie greets them at the door, speechless, confused. Peppard removes his hat. “Good mornin’ ma’am. Hope all the commotion didn’t give ye’ a fright. But my assistant here ain’t quite got the hang of it yet. Please allow me to introduce myself. The name is Peppard. P-e-p-p-a-r-d. Luther Peppard. And this here little feller goes by the name of Ratoncito, which means “little rat” in Meskin. He ain’t never told me his real name. He can hear fine, but his daddy cut out his tongue when he was a little ole pepperbelly no bigger than that. So he’s dumb as a well bucket.”

Ratoncito bows gallantly and uses gestures to indicate pulling his tongue out and slicing it off with a knife.

“I’m Katie Binder, so pleased to meet you.”

“I see a fresh grave yonder,” Peppard says.

“That’s Mamma. Papa’s dead ten years. Don’t know what became of Jonah, my brother.”

Ratoncito crosses himself. Peppard grasps Katie’s hand. “My deepest condolences go out to you, Miss Katie Binder. I’m afraid we done landed here at the wrong time.” He continues to hold her hand and rub the back of it with his thumb.

“No, no, Mister Peppard. Please come in and enjoy a refreshment. Grieving all alone don’t make no sense at all.”

“Well, now, that don’t sound like a half bad offer. I’m parched as a cornhusk.”

Peppard and Ratoncito enter.

In the parlor a few minutes later Katie pours whiskey for them. “What in all the universe is that contraption of yours out there?”

“Well now, that wind-powered wagon was made by a blacksmith in Hays City. He was murdered and I come into possession of it.”

“Will you take me for a ride?”

He slugs the whiskey. “I’d be honored to. I do have a fear, though. We’re gonna be plum outta wind here when the sun drops off. If we don’t get goin’ soon, we’ll be marooned for the night.”

Katie shrugs, moves her braid to the other shoulder. “We’ll go tomorrow then. You can bed down here. There’s Mama and Papa’s room upstairs, right next to mine.”

The sheriff’s eyes are as big as dollars behind the glasses. “Now, Ratoncito, I ask you, how many times have you met a handsome young woman like this who also had manners?” Ratoncito’s thumb and forefinger form a zero.

Peppard considers his options, chooses deceit. “My dear young lady, I think it would be most improper for the two of us to be sleepin’ in a bed that belonged to someone so recently departed. Me ‘n’ Ratoncito got our bedrolls in the wagon. We’ll just throw ‘em out on the floor and sleep right down here.”

“Suit yourself, Mr. Peppard. But if you need anything, I’ll be right upstairs, the first door you come to. Good night, now.”

Later, Ratoncito sleeps on the floor next to an empty bedroll. Awakened by noises from upstairs, he listens carefully to the squeak of bedsprings and grunts of pleasure tumbling down the stairway. He makes the sign of the cross and goes back to sleep.

After sex, Peppard and Katie lie in bed, a lamp lit nearby. She has a sip of opium tincture, passes the bottle to Peppard, who also indulges. She takes up the volume of Poe and reads. “It was hard by the dim lake of Auber, / In the misty mid region of Weir, / It was down by the dank tarn of Auber, / In the ghoul-haunted woodland of Weir.”

“Yer givin’ me the black twirlies…‘In the ghoul-haunted woodland of Weir.’ I got the chills.”

James plays with a prairie dog head. Nelly salts a pot of beans, often glancing over at Dewey, who now sits upright in a chair, clad in a diaper. His bad foot dangles, blank eyes stare straight ahead. He drools slightly, his hands folded in his lap. The dog sleeps in a chair next to him. Jonah enters, tired, brushes off grasshoppers.

Nelly is almost in tears. “He needs a doctor, Jonah.”

“You reckon the fever cooked his brain?” Jonah waves his hand in Dewey’s face.

“You better go on into Dodge and fetch the Doc. It might be the cholera.”

Jonah takes a long look at Dewey’s face. “Or somethin’ else. If’n it was me gettin’ all that tender love and care, why I’d be awful tempted to stay ailin’ long as I could.”

“Don’t be silly, Jonah.”

“There’s somethin’ awful odd about this feller. What if he’s puttin’ on an act.”

Out of Dewey’s sight, Jonah checks the Sharps to make sure there isn’t a shell in the breech. He holds the barrel at Dewey’s temple, pulls back the hammer and winks at Nelly. “All right there, mysterious stranger, tell me what your name is by the time I count to three or I’m gonna blow yer head off.” Dewey’s placid, mindless expression is unchanged. “One…two…three. All right, then. Don’t say I didn’t give you fair warnin’.” Jonah squeezes the trigger, the hammer falls on the empty chamber with a loud click. Not the slightest flinch out of Dewey. “Reckon he is pretty sick.”

“Maybe he’s got family in town. Go on in, Jonah.”

“I s’pose I could sell some dogs to Mr. Ling while I’m about it.”

The moment Jonah and Nelly turn away, Dewey releases his held breath, breaks a sweat and, although his head remains still, his eyes move back and forth. He’s very conscious now, but not ready to show it.

The next morning, with the collapsed barn in the background, Jonah makes final preparations for the long ride. He ties two cages of prairie dogs to a travois. He puts on the buffalo hide jacket. James, looking sickly, runs into the outhouse. Dewey, still pretending to be semi-conscious, in diaper and boots, sits in a chair near the front door of the house staring into the sun.

Nelly fills a canteen with well water. “Have you got everything you need, Jonah?” Jonah ties off his last knot. “Well, Honey Pie, it looks to me like there might be just one more little thing. Why don’t you and me go on in, git nekid, and I’ll make you happy till I git back.” He grins like a sheep dog and begins to unbutton her dress.

Nelly backs away from Jonah, pulling the hem of her dress away from him. “Stop acting like a billy goat!”

“Gosh darn, Nelly. Don’t you know a man can’t control his-self once a gal gits his Johnny Brown all excited. Don’t make me force you, now. ‘Member how you got hurt that one time?”

He encircles her with his arms and thrusts himself against her. She tries to push him away, but her arms are pinned to her sides. She kicks him in the shin, to no effect other than a slight whimper of pain. He continues thrusting until he ejaculates in his britches, then releases her.

Dewey steals furtive glances at the goings on until a grasshopper lands on his forehead, crawls to his nose and perches there. He struggles against the urge to swat it away by pooching out his lower lip and blowing upward, which only succeeds in driving the insect backward to a new perch just above Dewey’s eye. This is more than he can stand. He pitches forward off the chair into the dirt.

Nelly rushes to him immediately, cradles his head in her arms. A moment later, James staggers out of the outhouse, walks dizzily a few steps and collapses. No one pays him any mind. Jonah mounts his horse and rides off, dragging the prairie dog-laden travois behind him.

Aboard the wind wagon, Ratoncito steers. Peppard lies in the bed with Katie, smooching and drinking rum. “Let’er go, Ratoncito,” he says. “Take the brake off! Full in the wind! Yahooo!”

Katie is drunk. “Sailing, sailing, da da da da da da.”

Peppard shouts, “Open ‘er up, Ratoncito, give ‘er a little more sail! Follow the wind wherever it takes us! More sail! More sail! Let off on the brake!”