The Rumor and the Raven

By Jfclover

I pulled my collar tighter around my neck to ward off the night chill.  I wasn’t fond of riding this late.  So many things could go wrong and strand a man far from the warmth of his home hearth.  Pa told me not to be late, but there had been circumstances although he’d never understand.  He’d be mad at the late hour, and I’d be in for a long talking-to.  There was no getting around that, but I dreaded having to tell him the reason behind my late arrival.

Rumors get started and I was part of the tall tale this time.  Me and my brother Hoss had happened upon a dead man when we’d taken the buckboard into town for supplies last week.  Being the men our father had taught us to be, we hoisted the guy onto the back of the wagon and delivered him to Sheriff Coffee.

“Do you know him, Hoss?”

“No, Sir.  Found him on the road into town.  Never seen him before.”

“Little Joe?”

“Sorry, Sheriff.  No clue who the man is.”

Roy scraped his fingers down his mustache before looking up at Hoss.  “Would you mind taking him down to Jensen’s.  He’ll take care of the rest.”

“No, Sir.  No problem.  I’ll meet you at the mercantile, Joe.”

“Sounds good.”

That’s all there was to it.  We found a dead man.  Hoss took him to the funeral parlor, and we picked up supplies.  After a beer at the Bucket of Blood, we headed home.  End of story.

But it wasn’t.  It was only the beginning.

When Saturday night rolled around, rumor had it that I had killed the stranger in a gunfight but was afraid to tell Roy what I’d done.  It was so far from the truth, it set my teeth on edge.  Hoss and Adam had come to town with me and all three of us tried to dissuade everything that was said, but the rumor only grew larger as it spread throughout the city.

By the time I rode in three days later, I found out the extent of the rumor and was informed by my friend Seth that a man had ridden into town to take on the newfound gunfighter who was hiding out on a ranch near Virginia City.

“Why didn’t you ride out and tell me?”

“I don’t know.  Figured you’d come to town sooner or later and you did.”

“Thanks a lot.  Who is this guy?”

“Don’t turn around but he’s sitting in the corner dressed in all black.”

I wanted to turn and look but didn’t want to give myself away.  I wasn’t a gunfighter.  Never planned to be a gunfighter.  Wouldn’t step so low.  What else did I need to tell myself to make it all come true?

“I gotta go.”

“You just got here.  Ain’t you going to finish your beer?”

“No.  See you later.”

When I got to the batwings, the worst thing that could’ve happened, happened.  “Don’t be a stranger, Joe,” Seth hollered from across the saloon.

I rolled my eyes then slipped out onto the boardwalk, but it was too late.  The gig was up and the man in black followed me out the door.  His bootheels sounded close behind.  I was being tailed by a gunslinger, and I didn’t know what to do. Beads of sweat dotted my forehead, and a flush of heat rushed through me.  Fear was a funny thing.  There was no controlling the effects or the changes it brought to a man’s well-being.  The day began with sunny skies and birdsong.  A quick trip to town to deliver a contract to Mr. Raymond for Pa, pick a few things up for Hop Sing, and ride home.  That was the plan, but the plan had gone south, and a gunman was following me for all the wrong reasons.

“You!”

The man’s voice was gruff and insistent.  I turned to face the man in black.  Ten feet in front of me on the boardwalk stood a gentleman I didn’t know and had no desire to deal with.   A senseless rumor didn’t mean I had to uphold the Code of the West.  It was a silly concept.  Fight or be deemed a coward.  

Joe Cartwright killed on Virginia City’s C Street for fear of being called a coward. 

The Enterprise loved a good headline although I didn’t care to be the subject.  If the gunfighter didn’t kill me, Pa would have my hide for stepping into the street in the first place.

His eyes dipped to my left-handed holster before meeting my eyes and calling out my name.  “You Joe Cartwright?”

“That’s right.  What’s it to you?”

“You killed my brother.”

“I killed no one.  It’s all a lie.”

“Sure, it is.”

“My brother and I found a dead man on the way into Virginia City.  That’s all I know.”

“That’s not what I heard.”

“You heard wrong.”  The gunman hooked his thumbs over his gun belt and stared at the man he thought shot his brother.  If someone shot Hoss or Adam, I’d feel the same, but this guy had it all wrong.  I wasn’t to blame for his brother’s death.  “I’m sorry your brother’s dead, but let’s just forget it and move on.”

“That’s not how it works, Sonny.  I’m calling you out.”

“Are you crazy?  I don’t want to fight you.”

In a matter of seconds, I had to choose.  Men began to gather outside the saloon and more would show up if the gunman and I stepped into the street.  I couldn’t ignore the code.  A man who ran would be ostracized for the rest of his life, but a man who was stupid enough to step into the street with a known gunman was a fool.

When I moved off the boardwalk and walked out onto C Street, Fool became my middle name.  A day that started out warm and beautiful had turned cloudy and a cold wind blew down from the north sending a violent chill up my spine. 

My gun was always in tip-top condition.  It was clean and ready to fire but facing a man in the street was never the plan. I stood my ground, dug my heels into the soft dirt the wagons had churned up during the day, and waited for a signal that the man in black was ready to fire.  Any sudden movement was a surefire sign that it was time, that my life could be over, and that my family would grieve over a calamity that never should’ve happened.

He flinched and I fired.  Smoke filled the air but was absorbed by the cold breeze that slithered across my face and burned my eyes.  I remained standing but the gunman lay sprawled on the ground.  The ragged breath that ran through me was a sure sign of relief.  I beat death today.  And then the man slid his hand along the dusty street and tried to reach the pistol he dropped when he fell.

Roy had run out of his office when he heard the gunfire and was able to kick the gunman’s Colt away from the man’s hand.  “You two.”  He pointed to two onlookers.  “Take this man up to Doc’s.”

More stunned than anything else, I hadn’t moved.  I watched Roy pick up the .38 and tuck it in his waistband before he turned in my direction.  When the sheriff stood in front of me, I finally came back to myself and holstered my gun.  It was over.  The whole damn thing was over, and I was alive to tell the tale.

“Better come to my office, Son.  I need to make a report.”

“Sure.”

Roy offered me a cup of coffee … with muscle, which I needed.  He wasn’t born yesterday and he knew what it took out of a man to shoot another.  Whether there was a death or not, it was the same beginning.  Just a different ending to a story that should never happen to begin with.

“Who was the gunman, Little Joe?”

“I don’t know.”

“What?”

“He said I killed his brother.”

“Oh, the rumor?”

“Yeah, the rumor.”

“I had no idea it went that far.”

“It’s over now.”

“Let’s hope so.”

“What does that mean?”

“You shot him in the shoulder.  You didn’t kill him.  Shoulder’s heal, Little Joe.”

“Oh, I see what you mean.”

“I wouldn’t worry too much.  He’ll probably ride out of town and—”

“And what, Roy?  Let bygones be bygones?”

“Let’s get this down on paper so you can go home.”

““`

“That’s the whole story, Pa.  There’s nothing more to tell.”

I tried to find relief in my father’s eyes, but it wasn’t coming without effort.  Nothing about today’s events was easy to swallow, and Pa was at a loss for words.  Even though he was stuck in a place that made him think of what might’ve happened, my brothers didn’t hold back. 

“Did you have to have a gunfight, Joseph?  Couldn’t you have thought of another way?”

“Like what, Hoss?  What other way was there?”

Adam piped in with his stupid remark.  “Just walk away.”

“Right, Adam.  Easier said than done, don’t you think?”

“No, I don’t, Joe.  You could’ve been killed.”

“Don’t you think I know that?”

Pa stood from his chair.  “That’s enough, Boys.”

A knock on the front door startled all of us.  “I’ll get it.”  I crossed the room and opened the door.  “Roy?”  The wind howled.  “Come in.  It’s cold out there.”  Roy doffed his hat and held it with both hands.  He seemed to find it hard to look me in the eye.  “What’s wrong, Sheriff?”

“The man you brought in … the man you and Hoss found on the road is missing.”

“What do you mean, missing.  He was dead when we brought him in.  A dead man doesn’t just walk away.”

“That’s right.”

I glanced up at Pa and back at Roy.  “Is this some kind of joke?”

“No joke, Little Joe.  I know it doesn’t make sense, but the man that you and Hoss found simply disappeared from Jensen’s Funeral Parlor.”

No one knew what to say so no one in the room spoke. Roy turned and walked toward the door.  He held the latch longer than needed as if he had more to say, but he shook his head instead and left the house without another word.

“You and me was there, Joe.  It ain’t like we picked up a ghost from the side of the road.”

I laughed at Hoss’ comment.  Even though it was that time of year when ghosts and goblins were alive and well, I had to agree.  We didn’t lift a ghost onto the buckboard and drive him to town but for some odd reason, I recalled a poem Adam read aloud last year.  Hoss hadn’t been amused, but I begged my brother to finish reading.

Nevermore.  The raven repeated that word throughout the poem.  Every time the man asked a question, the raven would answer.  Nevermore.  Nevermore.  Nevermore.  It was eerie, but it stuck with me.  I wanted to say the word out loud but that was silly and Hoss might pound me.  The poem and the missing man had nothing to do with each other though I felt they were connected somehow.

“We best get some sleep, Boys.  We can discuss ghosts and disappearing men in the morning.”

““`

Hoss agreed to go to town with me the following morning.  We were both skeptical of Roy’s investigating skills and wanted to make sure what he’d said the night before was true.  Dead men don’t get up and walk away.  Perhaps the gunman took his brother to be buried and didn’t tell anyone.  That made more sense to Hoss and me than a dead man leaving a funeral parlor on his own accord.

We tied Chub and Cooch in front of the mortuary and walked inside.  Jensen greeted us and revealed the same story Roy had given us the night before.  The man Hoss and I found was missing, but that wasn’t all.  When the undertaker checked with Paul Martin to see if the man’s brother had come to get him, the doctor was dumbfounded by the question.

“Certainly not,” he’d said.  “That man is recuperating in my back room and couldn’t get up and walk much less carry a man out of your funeral parlor.”

We had no more to discuss with Mr. Jensen.  We thanked him for his time and left his office to check in with Doc Martin and the man I shot.  A shoulder wound was nothing to fool around with, and Doc was right when he said there was no way the man could carry his brother.  After stepping inside Doc’s office, we found a rather odd predicament.  Paul sat behind his desk holding a shot of whiskey in his right hand.

“What’s the occasion?”  From a trance-like state, it seemed he had trouble connecting the dots.  Bewildered that the two of us were standing in his office, he didn’t say a word until Hoss spoke up again.  “Anything wrong, Doc?”

“He’s gone.  My patient is gone.   His brother is missing.  Both men vanished without a trace.”

“That’s impossible.”

“You’re damn right, Joe.  But look in the back room.  No one’s there, and I stayed awake all night.  I would’ve heard something, a commotion of some sort, but no.  Nothing.  No sound.  No movement.”

“There must be a logical explanation.”

“Fine.  When you figure things out, let me be the first to know.”

“I will.  Come on, Hoss.”

We left Paul’s office and walked down to the livery.  That’s where we’d find our logical explanation.  It couldn’t be more obvious.  The gunman rented a buggy and toted his brother down to the cemetery.  We’d fill Doc in on our discovery, grab a cold beer, and head back home.  End of story.

“Hey, Manuel.”

“Hola, Joe, Hoss.”

“Did a man with his arm in a sling rent a rig from you last night or this morning?”

“No, no such man come here.”

“Are you sure?”

“I been here all night and all day.  No one rent rig, sling, or no sling.”

Hoss turned me away from Manuel.  “This is kinda creepy.  It’s like neither man ever existed.”

“Don’t be silly.”

“I ain’t being silly, Little Brother.  I’m telling it like it is.  It’s dadburn creepy.”

“You’re saying we never found a dead man on the road?”

“I ain’t so sure.”

“Well, I am.  And I didn’t dream that I shot that man in the shoulder either.”

“Joe!  Joe Cartwright!”  Roy Coffee stood on the boardwalk waving papers over his head and hollering my name.

“Come on, Brother.  Let’s see what’s up.”  By the time we got to Roy’s office, he’d stepped back inside and sat behind his desk.  He held a poster and a smaller piece of paper in his hand.  He passed the poster to me, and I tilted it so Hoss could read it too.  “Wanted?  The man I shot was wanted?”

“That’s right.  Same likeness.  He and his brother were wanted for armed robbery down In Placerville.  There’s a thousand-dollar reward for their capture.”

“Joe won’t be collecting no reward, Sheriff.  The man he shot ain’t captured no more.  He’s gone.”

“What do you mean gone?  Isn’t he in Doc’s back room?”

“Not no more.”

“What’s the other paper all about, Roy?”

“This is when I don’t like being sheriff, Little Joe.   I got no explanation for this at all.”

“For what?”

Roy handed me the paper.

John and Jeremy Mathews, wanted for robbery in Placerville, were killed, and buried in Carson City on October 23, 1863.  Reward canceled. 

“Ain’t today the 31^st?”

“Sure is, Hoss.”

“So the man we found in the road …”

“Jeremy Mathews.”

“And the man I shot?”

“John Mathews.”

“Come on, Sheriff. Let’s not play games.”

“It’s true, Little Joe.  Their likeness on the poster says it all.  Them fellas was dead before you and Hoss … ”

“Fine.  I shot a dead man.”  I looked up at Hoss.   “We thought the first rumor was bad.  Wait till this one makes the rounds.  I’ll be the laughing stock of Storey County.”

“Come on, Little Joe.”  Hoss rapped me on the shoulder.  “Let’s go home.  Ain’t nothing good happening here.”

I did as my brother asked and mounted my horse but after leaving Virginia City, I couldn’t help but remember Adam’s Raven poem and wondered why the man insisted on talking to his dead wife.  It was a chilling poem, but it stuck with me, and with the dead outlaw business lurking about, the peculiar poem came to mind.

As a hard-hitting wind bit at our unprotected skin, Hoss commented that a storm was brewing, and we better get home before we got soaked to the skin.  I couldn’t agree more, and we eased our mounts into a gentle lope.

Hoss also felt it was necessary to tell Pa and Adam everything that Jensen and Paul and Roy had to say.  I sat in silence.  There was nothing to add to the story.  Hoss got it right the first time.

Pa had questions I couldn’t answer.  Adam tried his best to drag the ‘truth’ out of us, but Hoss insisted that everything he said was pure fact. 

“The story doesn’t make sense, Son.”

“You’re telling me.”

“Do you have a better explanation?”

“Nope.”

The four of us stared into space as if the answers may suddenly appear, but they did not. There was no logical explanation.  There was no reasoning things out until they made sense. The story had to stand as it was told.

“I’m for bed.”  I stood and stretched my arms.  “See you in the morning.”

After closing my bedroom door behind me, I heard the wind howling outside and was glad we made it home before the storm hit in full force.  I kicked off my boots and added wood to a fire Hop Sing had started earlier.  Though I was too tired to dig out a nightshirt, I flopped down on the bed, tucked my hands behind my head, and tried to forget the day’s events.  It wasn’t long before I was curled on my side, knees to my chest, and my hands palmed under my left cheek. 

A knock on my bedroom door woke me from a sound sleep.  Even though there was nothing more to say, Pa wanted to get to the bottom of the fiasco, and I couldn’t disrespect my father.

“Come in.”  I slid my feet to the floor and sat on the edge of my bed.  “I said come in.”

Frustration came fast.  Didn’t my father realize how tired I was?  I crossed the room and opened the door.  Nothing.  No one. I stuck my head into the hallway and looked left and right.  I must’ve dreamed the whole thing.  Pa wouldn’t wake me at this time of night anyway.  He’d wait till morning to continue the discussion. 

I laid back down on the bed, but there was a chill in the room and I pulled the quilt up over my shoulders, closed my eyes, and cleared my mind of gunmen and death.  That’s until I heard the tap-tap-tap on my window and that’s when I remembered Adam’s dreary poem.  Tapping on the door.  Tapping on the window.  Was I losing my mind?  Perhaps it was only the rhythm of the storm.

I stood, walked toward the window, and threw open the sash.  Nothing.  No one.  Not even a tree branch was near enough to make the eerie sound.  I couldn’t let a silly poem ruin my life and drive me insane, but was I there already?

I turned out my desk chair and centered it between the violent storm outside my window and the closed bedroom door.  No one would dare to enter without my knowing.  Not the gunman or the dead man lying in the road or even Lenore, the poor man’s deceased wife.  The woman may have haunted him, but she wasn’t about to frighten me. 

I was stronger than the man in the poem.  I had family to protect me.  One loud scream and they’d all race down the hall to my room.  One loud scream.  That’s all that was needed, but couldn’t I deal with demons on my own?  Were the spirits of dead men lurking on the Ponderosa or was it just my imagination?

When a cold breeze blew through the open window, I shivered.   Did ghosts fly in on the tail of a northern wind or did they have other means of travel?  Were dead men standing in my room waiting for a chance to escort me to my grave?  Would either of them rest while I was still alive? 

While I told myself there were no dead men and there wasn’t a raven tapping at my window or door, I wouldn’t close my eyes.  I wouldn’t sleep a wink. 

I prayed that I might see the light of day and that the spirits who lurked in the shadows of the powerful storm would find a home far away from the Ponderosa.  We had no use for dead men or ghosts in this house.  If the two unlikely creatures would fly away and leave me alone on this night known as All Hallows Eve, I would remain alive and could rightly say out loud that this was the end of the story.

Halloween Challenge – 2024

Thanks to Edgar Allen Poe for The Raven