Yankton

Chapter 56

Chapter 56 Welcome To Real Life

"Oh, by the way," added Wendy, I've been brushing up on my history as you suggested, if nothing else, I at least know who all the players are."

"Well at least that's something," muttered Mark, who then shrugged, and added.

"Look Wendy, I apologize for acting like a jerk, Brian and I ware getting married, pure and simple, Mel and I were originally going for a spring wedding, but things change." His sister cast a suspicious eye at him,

"Melonie isn't pregnant is she?"

"No Wendy she isn't, believe me, but with Brian and Montana getting married as well, we just decided to move things up is all. Like I kept trying to tell mom and dad, we plan on having the traditional June wedding in 2015 and maybe run over to Yellowstone for the honeymoon. Everyone will naturally be invited to that one, but we've got to get everything "official" for both women first."

"Well it only makes sense," replied Wendy. She then turned to me and asked,

"Is your sister at home?"

"No, she's gone "camping" as she likes to call going back in time, but she will be very glad to see you." Wendy smiled,

"Well she's a little "rough" around the edges, but her heart is in the right place, I rather like her. So tell me you two, you mentioned something about a couple new women working at the saloon?" Nodding, I replied,

"Yeah, in fact one of them, Annie O'Donnell has already been here in the future. Surprisingly, she seems very interested in it; she's looking for a husband, and thinks she can find him here in our time."

"Well I wish her good luck with that!" Chuckled Wendy. Then Mark spoke up.

You're welcome to return with us Wendy, but I want to warn you, about the kinds of attitudes you're going to come across, you might also want to get in the habit of checking your personal opinions at the door especially around Narcissa."

"Who's Narcissa?" She asked,

"Narcissa Yancy, a rather unique lady if I do say so. If you've been brushing up on your American history as you claim, then you're aware of "Southern Belles."

"I know a little about them," replied Wendy.

"Well she's right out of "Gone with the Wind," not bitchy like Scarlett but she's still fighting the civil war. Born and raised in "Nawlens" ran away from home to marry a riverboat gambler, spent several years traveling up and down the Mississippi, making and spending fortunes. Well dear old "hubby" gets it in his mind to come west and check out the "hills," guy gets shot and killed for his efforts. Anyway she came to us courtesy of Dora DuFran, Montana hired her, to run the Faro table and deal cards, damn good at it I might say. The point is…Don't try to correct her opinions, I know it will be hard, but just be polite and keep your mouth shut. Talk to Klara Meijer, she's more interesting anyway, she's European aristocracy fallen on hard times, I think you'll like her."

"Anybody else I should be aware of in this Purgatory?" Asked Wendy.

"Well aside from Melonie and Montana, there's Kitty, Maggie, and Annie, if you know any dirty jokes, put them into old west terms, they are always up for that kind of thing."

"Let's see, oh yeah, there's Oliver Whitworth, he's from Britain, his family sends him an allowance to stay the hell away from them. He did something to earn their disfavor, but he won't say what. If you're into Dickens, talk to him, he claims he actually knew the man, I don't know if that's true or not, but don't talk to him if you've only read the Cliffs notes versions of Dickens's stories. There's Colin Murphy, our acting sheriff, he's first generation Irish, so naturally he and Oliver don't get along. We even have kids, there's Inge and Steiner, who we think watched as their parents were murdered by Indians, but they are starting to come out of it now, they are Swedish I think, so's Sockie, the bartender. Then there's young Caleb who Brian has taken under his wing. So Wendy as you can see, we've got quite a collection of people in Purgatory."

We packed up everything we were returning with as much as we could, Mark found some things from our "slop" chest for his sister to wear. Then making sure she left her phone and any other identification in a lock box, we all took our places in the transfer chamber and began the process that always made me nervous. With a big sigh of relief, we arrived back in 1877 again two days from when we left. The clock on the wall told us that is was a little after nine in the morning, going outside Mark spread his arms for his sister's benefit,

"I give you the garden of good and evil!"

"What is that wretched smell?" Asked Wendy,

"Aahhh the smell of horseshit in the morning!" Exclaimed Mark, "It smells like…Victory!"

His lame attempt at humor went way over Wendy's head as she asked,"

"How are we getting up to Purgatory?"

"On that pretty little surrey with the fringe on top," replied Mark pointing at our buckboard.

Once again carefully loading the wagon with the cake shielded with boxes, and everything carefully strapped and tied down, we set off. Mark drove, with his sister sitting next to him, while I sat directly behind them. Wendy constantly remarked on the passing scene, noting the same things we had done on our first visit.

"Where's all the roads, and the power poles?" There was a lot of horse and wagon traffic on the road, then about a mile out of Deadwood, I happened to turn around and saw four men on horses coming up fast. Rather than try to outrun them I shouted for Mark to stop the buckboard and prepare for action. He yanked up hard on the reins, and threw on the brake, quickly tossing him his AK; I grabbed my M4 Benelli shotgun and charged it. Wendy became frantic not understanding why we were drawing our weapons.

"Stay where you are Wendy, don't say or do a f*****g thing" growled Mark, get ready to drop down on that seat if I yell. By now the men had started to surround us, I rolled off the back and stood up pointing my shotgun at them.

"Well look who we have here!" Announced one of them, "Because of you our brother is in Bullock's jail." I know knew these guys at Little Bob's brothers,

"You know that ain't very friendly pointing that scattergun at us," Said another brother, "Looks to me you'll only get one shot with that thing before we fill you full of lead." Then someone else said,

"What the hell is that, ain't never seen no long arm like that!"

"If you boys know what's good for you I slowly announced, "You will leave now, leave or die!"

They all started laughing, trying to distract me as one of them started to pull his pistol. That was all it took, both Mark and I opened up. When they thought my shotgun was a single shot, and likewise Mark's AK, I knew we had an edge, albeit a slim one, but a little is better than nothing.

In less than a heartbeat, three inch double ought buckshot as well as 7.62x39 hollow points were tearing men and horses to pieces. With a quick little double tap, I could dump all six rounds out of that shotgun almost as fast as full auto; Mark emptied his twenty round magazine even faster. The first man I hit took a full blast in the chest knocking him back and out of his saddle. I was concentrating on killing the others, but out of the corner of my eye, I caught a lifeless body being dragged by the panicked horse. Wendy was hysterical, screaming and covering her ears, as we unloaded everything we had at them, leaving two men literally blown apart, and another lying on the ground trapped under his dead horse. It was a scene of absolute chaos, two horses were flopping on the ground and screaming, one had run off dragging one of the men Mark's sister was screaming, Mark and I were shouting, trying to make sure there were no more threats.

Mark jumped off the wagon dumping his last remaining rounds into the dying horses as well as the man pinned under one of them. It was all over in a matter of seconds, with nothing but the sound of Wendy sobbing in the fall air. Suddenly two men rode up on us, being out of ammo for my shotgun; I drew my .45 and pointed it at them.

"Oh please don't shoot mister, we only came over here 'cause we saw them fellers come up on you folks like that." I studied them for a moment before lowering my pistol.

"Oh sweet Jesus!" cried one of the men, "I ain't seen that kind of death since the war, them boys look like they been hit with cannon fire."

"If you two are heading into Deadwood tell the sheriff where we are, my name's Yankton. Tell him that the Wilber boys came after us on the road here, and…Well, you can see what happened, tell him to bring a wagon."

"We'll tell him," said one of the men as they quickly rode off.

Mark continued to hug and comfort his crying sister, as I inspected the bloody mess.

"Oh please take me home, oh my god! Oh this is awful!" wailed Wendy, as Mark gave me a grim look, then addressed his sister,

"I warned you Wendy, but if you want to go back to your own time, we'll take you back."

This seemed to snap her out of her shock, as she stopped crying and looked upon the scene of horror.

"No," she hesitatingly replied. "I'll…I'll be fine, but you shot those men, you killed them all, oh my god what have you two done?"

"Those men were coming to kill us Wendy," growled Mark, "Didn't you realize that? There's no 911 to call here, so cops to come running, Bullock is the only law around here, and he's in Deadwood, unfortunately you don't have the option of talking them out of it, there are some pretty violent men living out here sis, I thought you knew that?"

"I don't know what to do, or what to think," she sniffed, "I didn't think it would be like this."

"Just calm down," assured Mark, "When we get to Purgatory, everything will be fine; we have to wait for the sheriff first." In the meantime Mark and I policed up the area as best we could, I took no weapons, as I wanted the sheriff to see what we had been up against, along with the fact that I didn't want him to draw any wrong conclusions. Every so often riders would come by, see our handi-work and then just as quickly leave. About a half our later, the sheriff and two deputies showed up with a wagon, I also noticed the doc was with him as well.

Stopping nearby, everyone dismounted, and came over to inspect the c*****e. Bullock said nothing, but glared at Mark and I, finally,

"You are very lucky that I have witness's who will testify that they heard these boys bragging on how they was going to kill you two over at the Gem, Swearingen was encouraging them as well. Now listen, you two, I don't want you going down there and doing anything to him, just stay away!"

"You know I can't kill him sheriff, and you know why. We take the loop around town when we have to pass through, but they rode up on us hard, they were out for blood." Frowning, the sheriff replied,

"Well you warned me, Little Bob as well, before we left, I told him his brothers were all dead, no guessing there was it?"

"No sheriff," I replied, "It wasn't Bullock then realized he had never seen Wendy before,

Tipping his hat, he said,

"Ma'am so sorry you had to get caught up in all this." Wendy glanced at the dead men, who Doc Cochran was examining,

"Sheriff, this is Mark's sister, Wendy, she's here for the wedding, which by the way, you and your wife are invited, I believe invitations were sent. Your deputies are likewise invited, you too Doc!" I called out. "Oh yeah, let Calamity and Charlie know they're invited as well."

"Are you planning on keeping their saddles and guns?" asked Bullock, pointing to the bodies.

"No sheriff," I replied, "You sell all their stuff, use the money to pay for the burying." Before we left, Mark and I helped Bullock and his deputies drag the dead horses well away from the road down into a gully, as well as load the bodies into the wagon. No one said anything for the rest of the trip, but as we came in sight of Purgatory, Mark asked his sister once more if she wanted to go home.

"No, I'll be fine, really, I will, I could certainly use a drink though."

"Nothing too fancy," replied Mark, the fanciest drink Sockie can fix is rum and coke, sorry."

We pointed out to her, the various buildings, including the boarding house, and the new foundation for the miner's barracks. Caleb and Steiner were coming from the boarding house as they spotted us, running over to us I called out.

"Hey guys, what's happening?" Both boys were eager to see Mark and me but seemed unsure about Wendy. Hopping down from the buckboard, Mark introduced her.

"Wendy this is Caleb and Steiner, guys this is my sister, Wendy, she's here for the wedding. Wendy put on a smile and shook each of their hands.

"Shouldn't you two be in school?" She asked.

"Well we don't have a real teacher just yet," I said, Melonie and Klara do what they can, but we're on the lookout for one."

"Well I would be glad to help out," replied Wendy, "Would you boys like that?" I knew what their answer would be, but they were polite and thanked her. I then asked the boys to carry the food minus the cake over to the kitchen,

"I'll take care of that cake, you two stay out of it, and you'll each get a piece when the time comes."

Moving over to the clinic, we met Melonie coming out the door, she gave mark a big hug and a kiss, then reached over to hug Wendy as well.

"Please you must inspect our clinic, please, do come in."

With both Mark and Melonie giving the $1.98 tour Wendy's attitude seemed to change, she was smiling more, but then said to Mark,

"If you don't mind, I'd just like to sit here, decompress and talk to Melonie." Melonie then put on a pot of coffee while Mark and I went to take care of the horse as well as the rest of the supplies. As we started to unhitch the wagon, Caleb showed up and said,

"I have to go to town for Sockie, and Miss Maggie is asking for her things as well." Then he stopped what he was doing and asked,

"Are you and Mr. Sedgwick really getting married?" Both Mark and I chuckled,

"Looks that way Caleb, and guess who's going to hand us the rings." Caleb saw us staring at him, then got very nervous,

"Oh no!"

"Oh yes, we need a ring bearer and guess who just volunteered!"

"I don't know nothing about weddings," he offered in defense.

"Inge's going to be in it, so's Steinar although he doesn't know it yet," I replied.

"Don't worry about it Caleb, before you know it, you'll be standing before a preacher telling some lovely young lady "I do." This sent Caleb running away in horror, as Mark and I laughed.