In the last part Ben and Beth found a lost (kidnapped) 3-year-old, taking 3 stress-filled days to restore him to his mother.

^^^^^^^^^^

“Sign read Larabee, but I don’t see any buildings,” Beth said

“Gave themselves a generous berth, it would appear.” Ben snapped the reins, encouraging the team to get on up. Grass had been thin lately. If Larabee had a livery, he figured to treat the team to some oats.

A few minutes later they saw a business strip.

“I’m ready for some chicken, or beef, something besides our salt pork. How about you?”

Ben agreed. “If we can’t get a decent meal, I might have to take part of a day and do some hunting.”

Beth nodded.

“There’s a hotel.” She nodded to her right.

“I’ll stop and get us a room, unload what we need, and then take the team to a livery. Just hope they have one.”

They did. Two hours later everyone was fed, put up and ready for sleep, including the sun. And then came the gunfire. At first Ben wondered if they celebrated Independence Day a bit later in the year in Larabee. Then he realized it was guns by the variety of boom noises, meaning barrel lengths.

He couldn’t see anything out the window, and didn’t want to draw attention to it by striking a light. Ben considered dressing and going down. Innocent people might be getting hurt.

“Ben. Come lay down with me. You wouldn’t know the good ones from the bad, no matter what it looked like.”

Ben finally agreed. By then it was over in any case. It was a long while before either of them got to sleep.

“Somebody get killed last night?” Ben asked of the hotel clerk the next morning.

“Somebody ought to.”

Ben studied the young man for more.

“One day I’ll get fired for talking … or shot. Hank Larabee thinks he owns the whole world, nearly everything in this town is his except this hotel. He eats his supper most nights at the restaurant up the street. Whenever he thinks there’s guests in here, he comes out shooting, his Navy Colt .44 in one hand and his famous Schofield .45 in the other.”

“Famous?” Ben asked.

“Claims it belonged to John Wesley Hardin. You know, the man that …”
“Yeah, I know.” Ben knew that Hardin claimed to have killed 42 men and went to prison at the ripe age of 23. Ben also knew that he was the son of a preacher and was named after the famous Methodist, John Wesley. It sickened him. It also sickened him that anyone revered the reprobate enough to want his gun.

“Hank claims his father, Henry P., killed over 60 Wiyot babies with a hatchet at the Indian Island Massacre. I got Bret Harte’s Union newspaper article here if you wanna read it.”

Ben waved off the offer, a sadness consuming him. “There another restaurant besides that one?” Ben pointed indicating the one Larabee ate at.

“Ours opens at eight. Toast an’ eggs’r good.”

Ben took that to mean not to trust anything else on the menu. He smiled a thank you as he left to hitch up the horses and see when his wagon would be ready. The afternoon before, he’d arranged for the axles to be greased, knowing they were due.

Beth was waking up after having fallen asleep again after Ben left to get the wagon and team.

“Good morning, darling,” they said to one another simultaneously, causing both to smile.

“There’s breakfast downstairs in a little while. No hurry. Wagon won’t be ready for another hour.”

“The wagon?” Beth asked.

“Yeah, the axles needed greased. I was hearing them yesterday.”

Beth nodded. “My beautiful, smart husband.”

“You’re the cute one,” he replied playfully, bending down to kiss her forehead.

Beth toyed with the idea of playing with his comment, that he didn’t consider her smart, but decided to save that for another time. “You find out about the shooting?”

“Yeah. Idiot Larabee. Owns most of the town. Beth, I need to do something.” Ben’s tone was somber enough for Beth to pay close attention.

“I’m afraid that I might be growing something I’m not happy about, something I don’t want.”

Beth scooched up in the bed in order to sit up, her back to the headboard.

“The first I noticed it was in prison, a man wanted a ticket to heaven, forgiveness for raping a young girl, his step-daughter.”

Beth couldn’t help but to make a noise reflecting disgust.

“And then that couple that stole our little guy. I wanted to call down the wrath of God. And now… The clerk downstairs told a story about the Larabee man … and his father, too.” Ben paused. Beth waited for him. “I don’t want my heart to grow cold over sinners. We’re all sinners. God loves us all. How can I preach forgiveness and salvation while wishing God’s wrath on the ones that offend me?”

Beth didn’t have an answer, so she kept silent. Neither did she try to make light of the matter by placating him with it will all be better. “What did you used to do when your heart was troubled, Ben?”

Ben looked at her with eyes of love and respect.

“Pray.” After a moment, his eyes grew even more saddened. “Would you mind going to breakfast alone? I’d like to go down by the river and pray. I’ll skip breakfast. Oh, man implied that the eggs were all he’d trust.”

Beth smiled. “Of course. The worst thing in the whole world would be for me to get in the way of the calling. I’ll be right here whenever you’re ready.”

Ben kissed her cheek and left.

An hour and a half later Ben snapped the reins, guiding the now well-trained team northward.

+++

A mile out of town, not even to the north-end Larabee sign, three horsemen stopped their carriage. The smallest of the three said, “Heard you don’t care for the Larabee hospitality. Also heard you got a big mouth.”

Ben didn’t know what he was talking about, but figured who he was and that he was referring to the conversation with the hotel clerk.

“At least that boy won’t be talkin’ any more. Least not the same as he was.” The man reached into his vest pocket, withdrawing a couple of white things. Tossing them toward Ben and Beth, they figured them to be teeth.

“You are an evil man.” Beth said, spitting her words as if bile.

“Maybe you’d like to lose your buck teeth?”

Beth didn’t have buck teeth, but Ben knew that the hotel clerk did. “Mister, I’d turn the other cheek. I’ve done it before. But you’ve crossed a line that God’s telling me to hold.” Ben casually climbed down from the wagon. Of course, he was not wearing a side arm.

The Larabee man settled back in his saddle, grinning.

Ben straightened to his full posture. With his right arm, he raised his hand and pointed toward the other two. “Go back to town.” Ben’s voice didn’t boom with volume, but it did with power. Both men startled as if struck by lightning. Each pivoted in their saddles toward town, their mounts a moment behind them. They took off in a full-out run.

The Larabee man attempted, but failed to maintain his smirking grin.

“Get down,” Ben commanded.

He did.

Ben calmly closed the distance between them, reaching down to take both pistols from their holsters. The shorter barrel, Schofield, Hardin’s gun with the seven-inch barrel cut down to five for quicker drawing, Ben swung over his head and into the middle of the river. The river was well over a hundred feet away, and Ben’s throw was a simple lobbing toss, but it plunked into the river’s current, immediately swept downstream where it would never be found. The other gun Ben emptied of bullets, pitching them into the nearby forest.

All the while the man stood before Ben, his lips trembling.

It was then that Beth witnessed a miracle. In her mind she saw her husband appear to grow to ten feet tall, the man in front of him cowering on feet stuck in place as if nailed.

By the time Ben returned to the seat beside Beth he’d returned to his former, magnificent self in Beth’s eyes. The gun Ben dropped to the ground was run over by the wagon wheels, damaging the works beyond repair.

Hank Larabee remained in place until long after Ben had snapped the reins.