Chapter 38



... I stood silently off to the side of the back door until my eyes adjusted to the dimly lit interior of Rosa's Cantina. The back door was the route to the outhouses, and was down a short hallway that had a door on either side. A partition about six and a half feet tall screened the hallway from the interior of the bar.

When I was sure of my vision, I walked quietly down the hall and looked around the partition. George Howard was sitting at a table with two other cowboys and a couple of the saloon girls. George's back was to the wall, but his attention seemed focused on the front door. A couple more cowboys were sitting with two other women at the adjoining table. The cowboys at the two tables seemed to be relaxed and ready to party, but George was only toying with his beer.

I stepped all the way into the cantina from around the partition. Rosa, from her place behind the bar, was the first to see me. She gasped and dropped the glass she was polishing. Everyone at both tables looked quickly in my direction. There was a brief flurry of activity as the saloon women scurried away from the tables, but all of the cowboys seemed frozen in place as they looked at George for guidance.

"Stand up, George Howard, you craven coward, you are under arrest," I said, my voice cold and my tone flat.

Howard looked slightly surprised at what I said, because my pistols were still holstered and I was acting as if it was nothing to me that I was facing five men. Howard gave a tight smile and started to stand up. Although I could see his men edging back from their tables, my focus was totally on George. I could see a fleeting look of indecision cross his face when he was completely on his feet facing me. Suddenly, the indecision changed to a snarl, and down went his hand for the gun that he wore.

I know that time plays a big part in this story, but I swear that as George went for his gun, time just stopped, and everything except him and me became a frozen tableau. It was as if the universe hiccupped. I heard Rosa's front door bang open on its hinges, while behind me, I heard the distinctive sound of a Winchester lever cycling a round into the chamber. Yet all of that was peripheral to me, as my complete focus was on Georgie Boy.

Say what you want about George Howard, but he was damned fast on the draw. His pistol actually cleared his holster before mine. That nanosecond advantage evaporated when his left hand came across his body to fan the hammer back on his Colt. That fanning action looks slick as hell; I even used it in my Black Bart persona for the Sagebrush Show. I have found through experience, though, that there are two big problems with using the fan. For one, it is almost impossible to make your hands meet at the same instant in the same place. The difference might only be a hundredth of a second, but it still slowed down your shot. The second disadvantage was that sweeping your hand across the hammer jiggled the pistol slightly as it fired. Since you are pointing your pistol instead of aiming it, that jiggle could have a huge effect on where your bullet went.

No, I didn't have all these academic thoughts while we were drawing, but both disadvantages bit Georgie Boy in the ass. Our shots were simultaneous, but my pistol was extended and my shot aimed. His round scored a groove in my left side just above my gunbelt; mine punched a hole just to the left of the center of his chest and sent him flying backwards. George had ruined my new shirt, but I ruined his day, because he was dead before he hit the ground.

I had my pistol recocked and was swinging it toward the man who had been on George's left, when the Winchester I'd heard cocking went off about four feet behind my left ear. The left side of my body was catching hell that day, as my left ear went deaf, but the cowboy I'd seen raising his pistol was slumped against the wall, a bullet hole dead center in his forehead. Before anyone else could do something stupid, a voice I recognized as Matt Faulkner's roared "FREEZE!" from the vicinity of the front door.

I glanced towards the voice and saw Matt standing there with his pistol drawn. He was flanked by two nervous looking deputies holding shotguns. I didn't move a muscle, but I didn't lower my pistol either, until Matt disarmed the remaining Lazy H cowboys. With no threat in front of me, I holstered my pistol and turned to thank the deputy who'd shot the other cowboy. I almost fainted when I saw Connie standing there, holding my Winchester at port arms as she closely watched Matt checked both the man she shot and George Howard for any signs of life. Standing right beside Connie was Belle with her shiny pearl-handled revolver in her hand.

I'd like to say that both women rushed into my arms weeping with relief that I was alive, but that's exactly opposite of what happened. Belle frowned as she looked at my bloody shirt.

"I'm getting tired of patching you up, Tyler, especially after you've done something as monumentally stupid as you did today."

I shrugged my shoulders and didn't bother to answer her. How could I tell her that I made the play I did to insure that George would be confident enough to draw down on me? Everything I'd done was to put the two of us together in a way that, at least against him, I had the best chance of winning. That's why I stayed in the dimness at the back of the cantina, instead of advancing on his table. I hadn't made any plans beyond killing George, so the other cowboys at his tables didn't bother me in the least. Yet the ringing in my ears and the pain in my side were letting me know I was still alive. I turned my attention to Connie.

"Thanks Princess, where did you learn to shoot like that?" I asked.

It was Connie's turn to shrug.

"I am Comanche, you are my man, no thanks are needed."

It would have been the perfect little speech had she stopped right then. Unfortunately, she didn't.

"Next time you do something this stupid, I might not think that way," she added.

Of course Matt Faulkner jumped on the 'Ty is an idiot' bandwagon too, and chewed me a new ass for not waiting three minutes for him. I think Matt did that mostly for the benefit of the gathering crowd of onlookers, though, because he didn't look nearly as mad as he sounded.

After the brouhaha died down some, I started thinking about what was supposed to happen to me after I eliminated George. By then, Feleena had come running into the cantina. She saw me, rushed over and kissed me fiercely. As I held her in my arms, I suddenly recalled that according to the legend embodied by the song, Tyler Ringo McGuinn safely made his getaway via the back door and rode off on a horse. It wasn't until the next day that he met his end. I could relax for the moment, but tomorrow might be another story.

With those thoughts in mind, I kissed all three women and told them I loved them. I told them to give me a minute alone out back and then we'd go home. All three of them looked at me strangely, but they let me go. I walked to the back door, took a deep breath, squared my shoulders and pushed the door open.

It had started raining while I was inside Rosa's, a slow steady drizzle that showed no sign of stopping anytime soon. I took three or four steps into the alley and glanced up and down it. I didn't see any one else out there, and started to feel relieved and even a little foolish standing there in the ever increasing rain. I was turning to go back into the cantina when the world exploded. When I say exploded, I'm not gilding the lily here; I mean that there was a blinding flash of light and a deafening percussion. Before I lost consciousness, I felt myself flying through the air. My last thought was that Tyler Ringo McGuinn was making a spectacular exit, no shuffling off this mortal coil for me...

I woke up instantly, still floating through the air. Only this time I was reclined in an airplane seat, with the attractive older woman who had been my seat mate gently shaking my arm. The woman was smiling serenely at me, and it was disconcerting that she looked just like Anna Lopez.

"Time to wake up muchacho, they want you to put your seat upright."

I shook my head to clear it and sagged back in the seat. So it had all been a dream, even the airplane crashing. I pulled my seat back upright and sat there glumly stunned. The woman in the seat next to me looked at me kindly.

"You were having a pleasant dream?" she asked.

I nodded my head.

"It wasn't all pleasant, Señora, but I wish it had been real. I was back in 1877, and you and I were lovers," I blurted.

Her smile turned into that smoldering Lopez look, and she gripped my hand tightly.

"Is that what you truly wish, Hombre, to give up all the modern conveniences for a vaquero's life?"

"More than anything," I said fervently.

"Then so be it, Charro, vaya con Dios," she said as I blacked out again.

The next time I came to, I was in Feleena's bed at Rosa's cantina, and Doc Willis was doing his torture act with the smelling salts. I woke up lucid and clear headed, but I felt some kind of strange. My body tingled from the tip of my hair down to my toenails, and my skin had the hot feeling you get when you over do it at the beach. I opened my eyes and tried to tell the sawbones to give me a break with the ammonia salts, but my lips couldn't wrap themselves around the words. Thankfully, Willis saw my eyes pop open and moved the salts from under my proboscis.

Looking over the doc's shoulder, I could see a half circle of anxious faces, chief among them were Belle, Connie and Feleena. I did that lip moving thing again and managed to get out a garbled noise that I meant to be reassuring words.

"Will he be okay, Doctor Willis?" Belle asked anxiously.

Willis shrugged noncommittally.

"I haven't a clue, Miss Belle. He's the first patient I've ever had that was struck by lightning."

Willis then turned his attention to me. My eyes opened wide when he pulled out his folding knife and jabbed me in the leg with it.

"Feel that, my boy?" he asked.

"@!%&$@&&," I replied, as my leg jerked involuntarily.

Willis' laugh seemed pure evil to me as he cackled at my speaking in tongues.

"I think the lightning scrambled what little brains he has left. I gotta hand it to you Tyler, you are the only man I've ever met who has been thrown from a horse, bit by a snake, run over by a bull, shot twice and struck by lightning. If it wasn't for all these beautiful women loving you, I'd think you had buzzard luck."

I scrunched up my eyebrows inquisitively at that last sentence.

Willis slapped me on the arm and guffawed.

"You know, son, luck so bad, buzzards fly around your head waiting for you to die."

I didn't find his bedside humor even a little amusing, and told him so.

"Awk dirble snarf," I said.

A glass of water, some kisses from my ladies and fifteen minutes were all it took for me to gain control of my vocal cords. I did some heavy duty thinking during those fifteen minutes.

Now I know that I sometimes appear not to be the sharpest crayon in the box, but I swear, except where women are concerned, I'm usually a fairly bright guy. I say that because this time thing was enough to give even you all who are smarter than me a headache. Try wrapping your brain around this. Had the time I'd spent here, about six months so far, happened in the few seconds I'd been asleep on the plane? Was I back here now because I was sleeping again there? Here's a biggie. If this El Paso only existed in my mind, would I continue to exist here until the plane landed in El Paso and I had to disembark? If so, how long did I have to live this life? See what I mean, lots of questions, no answers?

Of one thing I was certain, surviving that lightning bolt meant that my lot wasn't to die just yet, and it finally broke the ties that bound my fate to the song and legend of Great-Great Uncle Ty.

When I regained my ability to speak, I pushed all those thoughts out of my head and decided to just live my life and not worry about what it all meant. I told Belle, Connie and Feleena that I loved them and that I was feeling much better. Then I thought about time in an entirely different way.

"What time is it, Belle? We probably need to get ready for work."

Belle tugged her gold pendent watch out of her décolletage.

"It's six-thirty, but you are in no condition to go anywhere. You're going to stay here with Feleena tonight, and we'll try to muddle through without you. We'll come see you in the morning and if you are up to it, we'll take you home," Belle said.

Well that was a crock of bovine defecation if I ever heard one. I was a big enough boy by now that I could decide if I was able to work or not. I told Belle that very thing and sat up on the bed. As soon as I passed from the horizontal to the vertical, the room started tilting and spinning as if I was on the tilt-a-whirl at the carnival. I could not find my balance and fell back onto the bed with a groan. My equilibrium was as shot as my speech had been.

Belle took my hand and squeezed it, her eyes and voice filled with concern.

"Please, Sweetheart, just stay here for tonight. Rest and let your body straighten itself out. If you are up to it and want to work tomorrow, we won't say a word."

I kept my eyes closed until the room stopped spinning, then told her okay.

Anna Lopez came to see me as soon as the restaurant closed at nine that night. When she came into the room, she asked Feleena if she could have a few minutes alone with me. Feleena knew by then what had happened to Joaquin and Inez, so she quickly agreed. As soon as Feleena left the room, Anna locked the door and climbed into the bed next to me. Once in the bed, she lay on her side next to me and fitted her head into the crook of my shoulder.

"Hold me, mí amor, so that I'll know you are really here," she said softly.

I pulled her tight against me and held her as she wanted. It had been an awful day for her, first losing Joaquin, then nearly losing me. It was a testament to her inner strength that she hadn't broken down, heck, she'd even gone to work. I looked at Anna in a completely new light as I thought back to the vision or whatever it was that I'd had after the lightning bolt hit. It was thinking of Anna and the woman on the plane that made me realize that the vision of the plane had to have been a dream. It had to be, because as I thought back to the plane before it started coming apart, I remembered that a young soldier in uniform had been in the seat next to me, not some woman who looked like Anna.

Once I had that thought sweetly nestled in my brain, I decided that the 'lightning bolt' that came from nowhere was probably the energy released when time slipped back into alignment. I had accomplished what I'd been sent back here for, of that I was positive. Even better, I was a lot banged up but I was still alive. Now I could get down to the business of making life better for those up the line from me.

As an, oh, by the way, the lightning didn't reach down and strike me directly. Instead, it hit the windmill on top of the feed and seed store across the alley from Rosa's. I was on the edge of the ball of electro-magnet radiation the bolt generated. The huge pulse of electricity gave me first degree burns on my face and hands, and literally knocked me out of my boots. I guess the energy from the lightning also short circuited some of my brain cells.

I still couldn't keep my balance by noon the next day, but I did talk the women into taking me home to heal. I loved sleeping with Feleena, she was built for serious cuddling, but I wanted to be in my own bed doing it. Feleena didn't even blink before agreeing when I asked her to come live with us. I think the events of the day before had changed Feleena's whole outlook on life.

I'll let you guess how I felt that morning when I woke up with her sitting on the bed looking at me. When she saw I was awake, she took my hand and kissed the palm the way she'd done before.

"You are the first thing I want to see when I wake up every morning," she said in a voice so sweet it stunned me.

Three days later, I was able to go to work, although I walked with a cane to help me with my balance. By the time I started back working, I had become something of a local legend. The Mexicans called me 'el hombre que no morirá', the man who wouldn't die. My Anglo nickname wasn't as flowery; they just called me Kid Lightning. My scrap with George Howard evolved into the gunfight of the century through the retelling. Before long, every person in El Paso claimed to have either been at Rosa's that day or they knew someone who was.

According to the story that ended up being the best selling dime novel, 'Showdown in Bordertown', I had taken on George Howard and eight of his henchmen. My only help had been my faithful Comanche Indian companion. If that sounds slightly familiar, it should, because that dime novel provided the legend that Zane Gray expanded into his novel, "The Lone Star Ranger", which in turn spawned the radio and television series about the Lone Ranger and his Indian sidekick. Imagine that, Kimosabe, my beautiful Conchita turned into a big, laconic, buckskin wearing Indian brave named Tonto.

The first night back at work for me was Saturday night, the twenty-ninth of September. I think I'll never forget that date, because of what happened that night. That Saturday, my employees and patrons made me the guest of honor at my own club. Once again I had that damned allergy trouble that made my eyes water all night.

The following day was Sunday, and I rode in Belle's carriage to Mass. I wanted to ride over on Melosa, but given my precarious sense of balance, even I knew that was a bad idea. However, Melosa wasn't going to miss Juanita's wedding, because she was hitched to a lead rope behind the wagon, wearing her fancy saddle. She was a little confused by how we were traveling, but she wasn't raising a fuss about it. As strange as it sounds, I knew for certain that Melosa was aware of my injuries and was cutting me some slack, just like my other women. Besides, Connie loved the little filly to death, and Melosa was crazy about her, too, so if Connie and I were both there, Melosa was a happy camper.

Joaquin and Inez had been laid to rest on Thursday. I felt bad that I wasn't in good enough shape to attend the services, but everyone understood why. Anna had insisted that Juanita not cancel her wedding plans, despite the tragedy. According to Anna, everyone needed a joyous occasion to erase some of the grief and strife of the last few weeks.

I was greeted warmly by the Mexican community at both the Wedding Mass and the reception afterwards. Although I denied it, the Tejanos all believed that I had avenged Joaquin and Inez's murder by shooting George Howard. Yes, it was George who killed Joaquin and Inez, and according to one of the cowboys who was talking up a storm to avoid the noose, it was George who raped Inez. The San Elizario residents also somehow knew of the role I played in getting rid of Charles Howard. I was on my way to taking Cardis' place as the de facto leader of the community. Suddenly, I was in a position to start bringing the Anglo and Mexican communities together.

The wedding reception was just the fiesta I needed to pull me out of the funk I'd been wallowing in. I had a great time and the ladies in my life did too. I think that seeing me getting back to my normal self made it even more fun for them. By the end of the day, I was reenergized and ready to tackle the future. I had ideas and plans that were starting to congeal.

That night in the big bed in my apartment, Feleena became a full fledged member of the family when I made love to her with Belle and Connie there. Feleena didn't participate in much girl — girl action, but she didn't freak out when either Belle or Connie paid her a little attention. What Feleena did enjoy, though, was watching Belle and Connie together next to us as she and I made love. Feleena was a long way from being a virgin, but when I spun her around on top of me so we could sixty-nine as Belle and Connie did the same, it opened an entirely new sexual universe for her.

I thought the positive changes Belle and Feleena brought out in each other were great. Being around each other seemed to take some of the hard edges off of both of them. Pretty soon, they and Connie were as close as sisters. I think that they saw a lot of themselves in the other, and didn't much like what they saw, so they mellowed out. Meanwhile, their influence made Connie more outgoing and self confident. It scared me sometimes how much alike those three were starting to think.

Of course, now that Feleena was teamed up with Belle, the pressure really ramped up on me to finally bed Mina. While the three of us were in bed together later that week, a family meeting broke out in which Belle gave me their vision of the future. In the utopia they envisioned, Mina was with us, no surprise there. However, they all insisted that Anna Lopez was one of us in the long run too. Everyone else was a maybe, but they were certain of those two. If they were looking for me to disagree, they were in for a long wait.

Joe J & Wet Dream-Girl

Chapter 39