Short Story Challenge Round One Heat 39, Historical Fiction/a Widow/Sworn Enemies
Title: Claim JumperSynposis: The Widow Chapman, proprietor of The Sporting Saloon in Richman’s Valley, ponders past relationships while considering marriage to Judge Williamson.
Six-Feet Murphy didn’t have six feet nor did Pock Mark Davis have any visible pockmarks. Nellie loved both men equally. Or, as equal as she could under the current trying circumstances.She kicked her mud-caked skirt away from her ankles and got back to work.“Never mind all this jawbowing. Drinks, boys?”“Don’t mind if I do.” “Yes, ma’am.” “A round for the house.”This last comment was greeted with rough cheers and a general shoving towards the bar.Nellie handled it all. She always did.“Whisky for you, Sam. A fine ale for you Doctor Wilkes. A shot of brandy for you, Monsieur?”As the winter night progressed, the fug in the bar got worse. Smoke curled from uncountable cigars, and the black iron stove churned out a bilious concoction made from coal, wood and the occasional splash of kerosene. The piano churned out tune after jingly tune and the hurdy gurdy girls kept up a brisk business. They allowed themselves to be twirled and swirled around the dance floor, their red woolen skirts adding to the heat of the evening. At the end of every dance, strong-armed miners would heft their dance partners to the ceiling so the girls’ skirts swung like bells, exposing their off-white petticoats and black culottes underneath.“A dollar a dance, and no foolin’ around,” the hurdy gurdy girls chimed, their German accents thick and their voices sweet with youth.The men had stripped to their shirt-sleeves, the sweat pouring down their foreheads. It was good for the drinking business, all this dancing, sweating and virtuousness, thought Nellie.Of all the miners, the dreamers, the doctors, the lawyers, the brewers, the thieves and the general populous that lived in Richman’s Valley, about all of them were in Widow Nellie Chapman’s Sporting Saloon that evening. Except for Six-Feet Murphy and Pock Mark Davis. These two fellows never left each other’s side, like a pair of mangy dogs scrapping and growling over one gnawed-up bone. Once the best of friends, and now sworn and sullen enemies, they eschewed the party at The Sporting Saloon, and swore off the drink and the dancing. For they had their claims to watch over, and neither man trusted the other not to jump.With a whoosh and a bang, first the inside swinging saloon door opened, and then the outside log door struggled against the wind and the banked snow and finally groaned to a gap of two feet wide. That was enough. Just wide enough for a drunk miner to take a piss off the frozen boardwalk. Not only was it cold outside, it was damn cold. Cold enough so when a man spit, it turned to a slough-filled icicle, then crumpled on the ground in a disgusting yellow plop. Cold enough so that Old Man Chapman’s nose hairs were white with hoar frost when he stomped his way down the frozen mud of the main street.“You bally fools!” shouted Old Man Chapman to Six-Feet Murphy and Pock Mark Davis, who couldn’t be seen at present, but Old Man Chapman assumed the men to be in the frozen stiff canvas tents propped up on top of the men’s adjoining claims.Old Man Chapman pushed his stubby body through the two-feet opening of the log door of the Sporting Saloon and pulled the door shut behind him as best as he could with just one arm and a hook for a hand. He could tell those young idiots a tale or two about stubbornness. He didn’t bother with a dancing girl, just headed straight for Widow Nellie Chapman, behind the bar in the Sporting Saloon. “Well, daughter, you’ve got a full house tonight,” and pulled his custom-made ale tankard to his mouth. Not a drop spilled, not a drop wasted. “Almost closing time,” she smiled. “Coffee’s on in back, if you want.”“Charmed, I’m sure,” said her father-in-law, gallantly. He narrowed his eyes at his daughter-in-law. Married young, widowed young. Worked hard, canny business woman. Nice looking gal. “Your fellas are still camped out, girl.”“They’re not my fellas, and you know it.”Nellie had her eye on Judge Williamson for betrothal, and it appeared that the feeling may be mutual. She gave a glance out of the corner of her eye, and sure enough Williamson bowed slightly towards her. “Daddy, you’ve got it all wrong. Those fellas aren’t after me. They’re after gold and neither likes the other’s face.”Daddy gave a cackle, followed it up with a bout of phlegmy coughing, and then lit a cheroot. After puffing on it for a minute or so, and contemplating what Nellie had said.“I miss my son.”Nellie stopped. It was as if the music suddenly quietened, and the room faded away and it was just Daddy and herself, back on the ranch, waiting for Billy. William Chapman the Third, now deceased, but then very much alive but no longer, due to a bucking horse and Billy having quite an ego about being a horseman. Stubborn is just another word for stupid, thought Nellie.“As do I, Daddy.”“You going to marry the judge?”“I believe so.”William Chapman the Second, took another puff of his cheroot and removed it from his mouth with his hook. A fair feat, but one he had much practice with. Stubborn, like he said.“My blessing to you, then.”“You’re a good man, Daddy Chapman.”She looked away, then down. The counter could use a polishing, she thought. Not many more months in this place. A Judge’s wife. Well, it was all right for a Judge’s wife to have a past. Everyone did in this place, in this town, in this region, in this territory. In the whole damn place, everyone had a past. The marriage vows would take care of it, and she’d sell The Sporting Saloon for a tidy profit and she’d have her own nest egg plus a judge’s wife’s life besides.As she mused on her future, she didn’t realize at first that the saloon had become quiet not just in her own head. It was silent in real life, too. No piano, no dancing, no shouting, no singing. A few creaks when someone’s boot caught a chair leg. A hiss when a drop of sweat hit the hot stove. An intake of breath when people realized that Six-Feet Murphy and Pock Mark Davis had pushed their way passed the thick log outer door, onto the small frost-covered square of wood that led to the saloon door that led to the saloon itself. “Whisky,” croaked Six-Feet Murphy. In reality, it sounded like “whzhh” because his vocal cords were a little rusty having not been used for a few months now.“Brah,” gasped Pock Mark Davis, and the Widow Chapman guessed correctly he wanted a swig of brandy.Both men sucked back their drinks soon enough, and demanded a second and a third.In the past, Six-Feet Murphy and Pock Mark Davis coming in together to the Sporting Saloon would not have raised a hairy eyebrow. The two men had come to the diggings together after they left California, and had shared a cabin for many a year. They also shared a gold claim and some people said they had shared a woman or two but that’s another story entirely. But years of poverty, scraping to make ends meet, and eventually, a bad case of cabin fever, had led them to this moment.Their drought over, Murphy and Davis, both professional Irishmen, got up on cold-stiffened legs and headed to the piano. Mr. ‘Jingles’ Coxenburg, the piano player, had been dreading this moment. To think he had studied at the Royal Conservatory in Belgium. He imagined his father, The Marquis, and how shocked he would be to see his son playing the piano in the Widow Chapman’s Sporting Saloon. Or any saloon, for that matter. Still, no one in Belgium wanted to pay him to play, and here he was, with an ale glass full of coin, bills and cigar butts, if we’re being honest. But oh how he dreaded the Irishmen and their…“A jig!” shouted the former friends and former enemies and currently friends again. “Play us a jig,” they cried, and began to dance a drunken, bent-legged, rather obsequious jig. Gone were the memories of dividing the cabin in half, complete with death threats and booby traps if the other man dared to pass into the other half of the cabin. Gone were the accusations of claim jumping, gold stealing, and horse thieving.“Let ‘er rip!” shouted someone in the crowd, and The Sporting Saloon was soon hopped up with energy, liquor and stale sweat oozing from the unwashed. It had been a long winter, and only a few establishments offered baths. Most men would rather put their dollar towards a dance or a drink rather than wasting it on cleanliness.“A reel!” and sure enough Mr. Jingles obliged, and Old Man Chapman waved his cheroot, and Widow Nellie Chapman polished the counter, and silently counted the take for the night. Heavy-booted feet pounded on the floor boards, and dishes and bottles rattled as the rhythm got louder and faster.Judge Williamson, who had been playing cards all this time looked up idly. My, that Nellie Chapman surely is a fine looking woman. Good cook, too, I’ve heard. He looked back to his cards, and then to Murphy and Davis. As the judge was 6 foot five in his silk socks, and a successful amateur pugilist, he thought he might get called in for assistance if Murphy and Davis regressed to old behaviour patterns.Six-Foot Murphy, was known as thus because he cleverly found a six-foot no man’s land between two high payout claims, and staked it for himself. He believed himself to be the intelligent one of the pair. Pock Mark Davis, who did have one pock mark, but not on his face, and truly, only someone who’d shared a bed or a bath with him could tell you the location of that pock mark, considered himself the good looking one.Neither was much of a dancer. But the entire saloon was so relieved that a drunken, bloody argument hadn’t broken out, that they received much more accolades than they deserved for their dance.Nellie loved both men equally. Or, as equal as she could under the current trying circumstances. She remembered when Six-Feet Murphy had been Doctor Murphy, five maybe six years ago. His blonde hair and beard neatly trimmed and how he’d doffed his hat when they’d met at the ranch. Her husband William Chapman the Third had been alive then. Her husband had been a stubborn man, and had died as a consequence.Nellie knew where Pock Mark Davis’s pock mark was. It was on his behind. His beeehind, as her former father-in-law Old Man Chapman would say, his cheroot lit and hanging out the side of his mouth. She’d seen that pock mark, one day when she was bringing in some fresh hot water to the bath she kept in the room behind the bar. Davis was a clean man in those early days, and insisted on a weekly bath. An Irishman from Boston, he came from a wealthy family that sent him remittances ‘til this very day. And on that bath day when she’d seen his pock mark, he’d been naked, his white buttocks almost glistening, as he bent over to fiddle with the water taps. He hadn’t been a stubborn man then.
“A jig!” and Mr Jingles, of the Belgian Royal Conservatory obliged, pounding out yet another jig for the two men that Nellie, soon to be the Judge’s wife, loved equally. Or as equal as she could under the current trying circumstances.
Six-Feet Murphy didn’t have six feet nor did Pock Mark Davis have any visible pockmarks. Nellie loved both men equally. Or, as equal as she could under the current trying circumstances.She kicked her mud-caked skirt away from her ankles and got back to work.“Never mind all this jawbowing. Drinks, boys?”“Don’t mind if I do.” “Yes, ma’am.” “A round for the house.”This last comment was greeted with rough cheers and a general shoving towards the bar.Nellie handled it all. She always did.“Whisky for you, Sam. A fine ale for you Doctor Wilkes. A shot of brandy for you, Monsieur?”As the winter night progressed, the fug in the bar got worse. Smoke curled from uncountable cigars, and the black iron stove churned out a bilious concoction made from coal, wood and the occasional splash of kerosene. The piano churned out tune after jingly tune and the hurdy gurdy girls kept up a brisk business. They allowed themselves to be twirled and swirled around the dance floor, their red woolen skirts adding to the heat of the evening. At the end of every dance, strong-armed miners would heft their dance partners to the ceiling so the girls’ skirts swung like bells, exposing their off-white petticoats and black culottes underneath.“A dollar a dance, and no foolin’ around,” the hurdy gurdy girls chimed, their German accents thick and their voices sweet with youth.The men had stripped to their shirt-sleeves, the sweat pouring down their foreheads. It was good for the drinking business, all this dancing, sweating and virtuousness, thought Nellie.Of all the miners, the dreamers, the doctors, the lawyers, the brewers, the thieves and the general populous that lived in Richman’s Valley, about all of them were in Widow Nellie Chapman’s Sporting Saloon that evening. Except for Six-Feet Murphy and Pock Mark Davis. These two fellows never left each other’s side, like a pair of mangy dogs scrapping and growling over one gnawed-up bone. Once the best of friends, and now sworn and sullen enemies, they eschewed the party at The Sporting Saloon, and swore off the drink and the dancing. For they had their claims to watch over, and neither man trusted the other not to jump.With a whoosh and a bang, first the inside swinging saloon door opened, and then the outside log door struggled against the wind and the banked snow and finally groaned to a gap of two feet wide. That was enough. Just wide enough for a drunk miner to take a piss off the frozen boardwalk. Not only was it cold outside, it was damn cold. Cold enough so when a man spit, it turned to a slough-filled icicle, then crumpled on the ground in a disgusting yellow plop. Cold enough so that Old Man Chapman’s nose hairs were white with hoar frost when he stomped his way down the frozen mud of the main street.“You bally fools!” shouted Old Man Chapman to Six-Feet Murphy and Pock Mark Davis, who couldn’t be seen at present, but Old Man Chapman assumed the men to be in the frozen stiff canvas tents propped up on top of the men’s adjoining claims.Old Man Chapman pushed his stubby body through the two-feet opening of the log door of the Sporting Saloon and pulled the door shut behind him as best as he could with just one arm and a hook for a hand. He could tell those young idiots a tale or two about stubbornness. He didn’t bother with a dancing girl, just headed straight for Widow Nellie Chapman, behind the bar in the Sporting Saloon. “Well, daughter, you’ve got a full house tonight,” and pulled his custom-made ale tankard to his mouth. Not a drop spilled, not a drop wasted. “Almost closing time,” she smiled. “Coffee’s on in back, if you want.”“Charmed, I’m sure,” said her father-in-law, gallantly. He narrowed his eyes at his daughter-in-law. Married young, widowed young. Worked hard, canny business woman. Nice looking gal. “Your fellas are still camped out, girl.”“They’re not my fellas, and you know it.”Nellie had her eye on Judge Williamson for betrothal, and it appeared that the feeling may be mutual. She gave a glance out of the corner of her eye, and sure enough Williamson bowed slightly towards her. “Daddy, you’ve got it all wrong. Those fellas aren’t after me. They’re after gold and neither likes the other’s face.”Daddy gave a cackle, followed it up with a bout of phlegmy coughing, and then lit a cheroot. After puffing on it for a minute or so, and contemplating what Nellie had said.“I miss my son.”Nellie stopped. It was as if the music suddenly quietened, and the room faded away and it was just Daddy and herself, back on the ranch, waiting for Billy. William Chapman the Third, now deceased, but then very much alive but no longer, due to a bucking horse and Billy having quite an ego about being a horseman. Stubborn is just another word for stupid, thought Nellie.“As do I, Daddy.”“You going to marry the judge?”“I believe so.”William Chapman the Second, took another puff of his cheroot and removed it from his mouth with his hook. A fair feat, but one he had much practice with. Stubborn, like he said.“My blessing to you, then.”“You’re a good man, Daddy Chapman.”She looked away, then down. The counter could use a polishing, she thought. Not many more months in this place. A Judge’s wife. Well, it was all right for a Judge’s wife to have a past. Everyone did in this place, in this town, in this region, in this territory. In the whole damn place, everyone had a past. The marriage vows would take care of it, and she’d sell The Sporting Saloon for a tidy profit and she’d have her own nest egg plus a judge’s wife’s life besides.As she mused on her future, she didn’t realize at first that the saloon had become quiet not just in her own head. It was silent in real life, too. No piano, no dancing, no shouting, no singing. A few creaks when someone’s boot caught a chair leg. A hiss when a drop of sweat hit the hot stove. An intake of breath when people realized that Six-Feet Murphy and Pock Mark Davis had pushed their way passed the thick log outer door, onto the small frost-covered square of wood that led to the saloon door that led to the saloon itself. “Whisky,” croaked Six-Feet Murphy. In reality, it sounded like “whzhh” because his vocal cords were a little rusty having not been used for a few months now.“Brah,” gasped Pock Mark Davis, and the Widow Chapman guessed correctly he wanted a swig of brandy.Both men sucked back their drinks soon enough, and demanded a second and a third.In the past, Six-Feet Murphy and Pock Mark Davis coming in together to the Sporting Saloon would not have raised a hairy eyebrow. The two men had come to the diggings together after they left California, and had shared a cabin for many a year. They also shared a gold claim and some people said they had shared a woman or two but that’s another story entirely. But years of poverty, scraping to make ends meet, and eventually, a bad case of cabin fever, had led them to this moment.Their drought over, Murphy and Davis, both professional Irishmen, got up on cold-stiffened legs and headed to the piano. Mr. ‘Jingles’ Coxenburg, the piano player, had been dreading this moment. To think he had studied at the Royal Conservatory in Belgium. He imagined his father, The Marquis, and how shocked he would be to see his son playing the piano in the Widow Chapman’s Sporting Saloon. Or any saloon, for that matter. Still, no one in Belgium wanted to pay him to play, and here he was, with an ale glass full of coin, bills and cigar butts, if we’re being honest. But oh how he dreaded the Irishmen and their…“A jig!” shouted the former friends and former enemies and currently friends again. “Play us a jig,” they cried, and began to dance a drunken, bent-legged, rather obsequious jig. Gone were the memories of dividing the cabin in half, complete with death threats and booby traps if the other man dared to pass into the other half of the cabin. Gone were the accusations of claim jumping, gold stealing, and horse thieving.“Let ‘er rip!” shouted someone in the crowd, and The Sporting Saloon was soon hopped up with energy, liquor and stale sweat oozing from the unwashed. It had been a long winter, and only a few establishments offered baths. Most men would rather put their dollar towards a dance or a drink rather than wasting it on cleanliness.“A reel!” and sure enough Mr. Jingles obliged, and Old Man Chapman waved his cheroot, and Widow Nellie Chapman polished the counter, and silently counted the take for the night. Heavy-booted feet pounded on the floor boards, and dishes and bottles rattled as the rhythm got louder and faster.Judge Williamson, who had been playing cards all this time looked up idly. My, that Nellie Chapman surely is a fine looking woman. Good cook, too, I’ve heard. He looked back to his cards, and then to Murphy and Davis. As the judge was 6 foot five in his silk socks, and a successful amateur pugilist, he thought he might get called in for assistance if Murphy and Davis regressed to old behaviour patterns.Six-Foot Murphy, was known as thus because he cleverly found a six-foot no man’s land between two high payout claims, and staked it for himself. He believed himself to be the intelligent one of the pair. Pock Mark Davis, who did have one pock mark, but not on his face, and truly, only someone who’d shared a bed or a bath with him could tell you the location of that pock mark, considered himself the good looking one.Neither was much of a dancer. But the entire saloon was so relieved that a drunken, bloody argument hadn’t broken out, that they received much more accolades than they deserved for their dance.Nellie loved both men equally. Or, as equal as she could under the current trying circumstances. She remembered when Six-Feet Murphy had been Doctor Murphy, five maybe six years ago. His blonde hair and beard neatly trimmed and how he’d doffed his hat when they’d met at the ranch. Her husband William Chapman the Third had been alive then. Her husband had been a stubborn man, and had died as a consequence.Nellie knew where Pock Mark Davis’s pock mark was. It was on his behind. His beeehind, as her former father-in-law Old Man Chapman would say, his cheroot lit and hanging out the side of his mouth. She’d seen that pock mark, one day when she was bringing in some fresh hot water to the bath she kept in the room behind the bar. Davis was a clean man in those early days, and insisted on a weekly bath. An Irishman from Boston, he came from a wealthy family that sent him remittances ‘til this very day. And on that bath day when she’d seen his pock mark, he’d been naked, his white buttocks almost glistening, as he bent over to fiddle with the water taps. He hadn’t been a stubborn man then.
“A jig!” and Mr Jingles, of the Belgian Royal Conservatory obliged, pounding out yet another jig for the two men that Nellie, soon to be the Judge’s wife, loved equally. Or as equal as she could under the current trying circumstances.
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