One Man's Calling : One Man's Calling by Wayne Fowler A First Book Chapter contest entry |
It was a calamity of quirky happenstance. “Hey, Lil’ Missy!” The drunken miner crashed through the double doors of the saloon, the remains of his meal mixed with beer and rotgut whiskey having exploded all over 17-year-old Livvy, Elizabeth Tolsen. Livvy’s timing could not have been more perfect for catching every putrid drop and chunk of the young miner’s spew. The offender had just begun his first drinking experience beyond his father’s Tennessee farm wine. Batwing saloon doors were hard to come by in 1883 in Colorado mining country. The drunken man crashed through the doors of the Gold Stake Saloon. His spraying vomit arced vertically, missing the boardwalk entirely, but not, unfortunately, Livvy, who he’d sent flying into the street's muck. The odor was horrid, nearly gagging Livvy immediately. The sour stench was very close to causing her own disgorge. She imagined her hair saturated with the filth. Though far too decorous, her instant impulse was to shed herself of the vile filth, leaving her ruined clothes to the street and fleeing to her mother’s protecting arms, as well as her bath. The torrent caught Livvy totally unaware, blasting her into the mud and mire. Feeling somewhat better immediately, the poisonous rotgut evacuated, the staggering twenty-eight-year-old man attempted a clumsy rescue of the thoroughly tousled Livvy. His efforts were extremely inappropriate for a female above the age of five or six. Livvy’s first concern, once she returned to more practical thought, was the kitten she carried, the busted flour sack and ruined flour ignored. She quickly fought to protect her decorum one-handedly, fending off hands far too forward as she rose from her backside. Her attention was in a civil war between the cat and her honor. Livvy was a grown woman by any standards, excepting the girlish appearance of her freckled and innocent face and the pony tail. Her mother thought the child somewhat more safe made out to be as young as possible. She chose that side of the drying, but still muddy street as preferable to the boardwalk opposite after having been rudely spoken of, and to, once too often by customers of the two saloons on the uphill side. Proposals of marriage and the like were easily ignored … but not all the time. Sometimes the tones cut through her stony defense. Sometimes unpleasant and occasionally insistent remarks cut like knives. She hated that she couldn’t hide her fury. With a leap, Livvy could have cleared the boggy mud in the street, knowing that the entry to every saloon posed certain risk. The Gold Stake Saloon side seemed to cater to the gentler, friendlier stock of miners, men from decent families who’d left wives and mothers and sisters in search of wealth sufficient to return with farming funds, their integrity undiminished. These men, Livvy felt, though fully capable of any and all misbehavior while away from the guiding hands of their network of friends and family, were a far better risk than the Bawdy Queen or Avalanche Saloon customers whose bent was for the working girls within, as much as for the cheap liquor. Those men’s actions belied any feminine raising or influence, more like wolves than people. Graciousness was not their forte. Livvy was carrying a yellow kitten given to her by the general merchandiser’s wife, and the ten-pound sack of flour her mother sent her for, began her gingerly skip past the Gold Stake Saloon entry, wary of would-be suitors regardless of their level of gentlemanliness. The kitten matched Livvy’s hair color on sunny days when her hair brightened considerably from her normal tawny shade. The pony tail was her mother’s idea, a way of declaring the child too young for lonely, amorous men. The coast was clear, no one coming or going on the newly planked walkway except those entering and leaving the various shops and businesses along the hundred-foot section of town buildings that were anchored on one end by a rough-built jail. The jail itself was down from the walk way and securely pinned to the ground. The other end of the strip housed a dentist, who also served as the year-old mining town’s only doctor and barber, performing all services to the occupants of his multi-purpose chair. The normal street traffic of horsemen, mule men, miners leading donkeys, and waggoneers managed the muddy street, most of them favoring the dryer high side. Then the drunk's filth followed by his hands in her hair, on her face, and her chest. Her mortification was one second from explosion. Ben Persons fairly jumped from his horse, leaving it to wander. As hungry as a skinny vulture, Ben had skipped breakfast that morning, breaking camp as quickly as light allowed and hurrying to town for reasons he couldn’t fathom until he saw the young lady being manhandled by a drunken man. Bounding over a miner’s mule-pulled two-wheel cart, he gently wrestled the foul-smelling salooner’s hands from Livvy. “Hey, Buddy. Whoa there. Maybe you’d wanna hobble yonder to the creek and clean up some, huh?” The stumbling drunk, his unfocussed gaze darting from Livvy to the spilt flour and back toward the saloon, finally settled on Ben’s eyes. “Uh, yeah. ‘Kay. You shay so.” With that the man staggered across the street toward a gap between two buildings, heading for the creek a short distance beyond. “Miss, I could walk you home, then fetch another sack of flour,” Ben offered. He stood a gentlemanly arm’s length from her, one hand extended as if in offer to help her rise to her full stature, which would bring her eyes to his prominent Adam’s apple level. After an aborted attempt to salvage some of the loss, Livvy looked up to her savior. In the instant it took to note the flour and simultaneously secure her agitated kitten, she noted the robust health and vigor of her rescuer. In her toe-to-head scan, she felt herself linger on his natural smile and what she interpreted as genuine concern in his slightly furrowed brow. His sparkling blue eyes invited friendship and trust. She smiled at his comic choice of the word fetch. Being on the tall side for a woman, she had only to lift her gaze slightly, taking in the young man’s trim but muscular build. Beginning to speak, she caught herself in a coughing fit, a drop of saliva inadvertently sucked into her lungs as she nearly gasped at the gentleman’s beauty. Beauty was the right word. Once fixed to his eyes, she was struck dumb. Despite the youthful two- or three-day stubble, his more than pleasantly ruddy appearance was nearly blinding. His crystal blue eyes were magnetic. Not much older than herself, she’d instantly determined his prospects, subconsciously calculating his compatibility as a lifelong companion. The resonance of his soft, but masculine voice melded with her pulse. She could sleep to its charm, or scale the mountainside in pursuit. She reckoned his age to be within courting range. It was his eyes, though, that brought an automatic smile to her own. In the instant between thought and deed, she imagined herself swooned into his arms, nestled into his welcoming embrace. All this in the moment before the dream-of-a-young-man spoke. “Miss?” Ben asked, wishing to, but unwilling to clap her on the back as he might a person caught between breaths. “Can I go get you the flour?” Blinking back tears of strain as she recovered from her spell, Livvy managed to croak out, “You know where I live?” suddenly chagrinned that she’d yet to thank him. “Soon’s you tell me, I will. And don’t you worry none. I’ll give you plenty of time to, uh …,” Ben glanced at the mess made of her dress. “And give you a chance to get cleaned up.” “The livery. My Pa’s the wheel-wright. He rents part of the livery from Mr. Tobbs. We have the place behind the livery.” “Well, that’s just where I was headed. Guess I’ll hafta find some way to kill some time,” he said. “I’m Ben Persons,” he said, tipping his hat, his too-long tawny hair curling behind his ears beneath his Stetson. His bow, an inch more than a nod, was not lost on Livvy. “Long as it isn’t there, or there, or there,” Livvy replied with waves toward the three saloons. “I’m Livvy, and we’d all be proud to share our supper with you, my parents and I. Give me a chance to work up a proper, more grateful thank you.” Ben rubbed his chin, his gentle pleasantry soothing her spirit. “The dentist up yonder allows men to shave and such for a nickel. Or he’ll do it for you for two bits.” Livvy bit her lip at her forwardness. “Not that you need to on my account. Be there ‘bout the time the sun hits that peak over there,” she said, pointing to the west. “But come as early as you’d like.” With that, Livvy fast-walked to nearly a run as she attempted to out-distance her embarrassment. “The mercantile closes at five,” Livvy shouted over her shoulder. Ben smiled broadly at her departure, watching to see if she’d look back. Looking to fetch his horse, no easy task since both he and the horse were new to the town of misaligned blocks, he finally located it on the rise toward the creek where it had found a patch of some kind of rye grass. The flour, a shave, and a visit to the livery where he was bound in the first place, and he would welcome home cooking, the first real supper since he’d left the wagon train more than two weeks past. +++ Again, Ben dismounted on the fly, arriving at the livery and jumping in as a horse attempted to tear a chunk from the ferrier, the livery stable owner, Mr. Tobbs, who’d been bumped to the ground. “Whoa, Big Feller,” Ben calmed the horse, intervening by slowly moving his hands in an effort to soothe the excited animal, its head and neck nearly rearing, its eyes bulging. “Easy, Big Boy.” The horse settled. Livvy’s father appeared in time to help Mr. Tobbs who was rolling in the dirt as if on fire. “Are you all right?” Livvy’s father, Ralph Tolsen asked, his words drowned by Mr. Tobbs’ curses. “That, whatever his name is, can shoe his own horse!” Tobbs bellowed. “I’ll not go near that beast! “Put ‘im up,” he ordered Ben, as though an employee. Tobbs brushed dust from his clothes, ridding himself of his embarrassment. “I’ll do it,” Ralph offered, understanding Tobbs’ impropriety. “That’s all right,” Ben replied. “I don’t mind. No offense taken,” he added with a smile toward both men. The horse snorted, shaking his head as if in victory. Snot and mucus clouded the air around the animal’s head as he cleared his sinuses with a huff and lip babble, as a man blowing his nose to the ground – times ten thousand. The men watched to see whether the horse survived. “Mr. Tobbs, is it?” Ben asked of the calmed lumberjack-of-a-man. After proper introductions all around, Ben handed the flour sack he crudely set on the ground before rescuing Tobbs to Ralph. “For your wife,” he said to the bewildered man. Turning to the livery owner, Ben said, “Mr. Tobbs, in trade for a day’s room and board for me and Red here, I’d be proud to finish that job for you.” Ben nodded toward the stallion. “That beast needs cut, worsen shod. Do it for free, I was sure I wouldn’t be shot dead.” “Oh, he isn’t that bad,” Ben said, reaching up to scratch the horse’s head behind his ear as he would a dog. The horse snorted in response. “I learned that I could handle most any animal on the wagon train. You talk me through it, and I’ll shoe my first horse.” “Fella, you have a deal. And I won’t care if you hammer that knothead to tears.” Ralph laughed hysterically as he glanced at Ben’s amiable smile. Looking at the sack of flour in his crotched arm, he headed to the house in the back where he knew he’d hear the rest of the story from Livvy. +++ “Tobbs, he came from the north, way north, Michigan, or Wisconsin, or somewhere,” Ralph said, passing bread to Ben, encouraging him to eat heartily. “Says their snow was heavy, wet heavy. Ours is powder. His family was dairy, but Tobbs, he doesn’t like animals. You could tell, right?” Ralph continued without response. “He told me how a cow kicked him in the head, sideways. You know how cows can kick?” Ralph asked, his eyes fixed on Ben. “Straight sideways,” Ben answered, smiling at Livvy, who showed signs of barely tolerating her father in a kind and loving manner. “Pa said that was the reason milk stools always had just three legs – so’s you could skit clear right quick any direction.” Ralph chuckled. “Yeah, well, Tobbs, he don’t know any other way to make a living, but he don’t like animals.” Ralph, hearing his wife clear her throat, paid more attention to his plate. “Alpine needed a livery. Tobbs, he was going to strike gold, but … Where was I …? We came from Missouri. Just after those raiders came up from …” Ralph stopped mid-sentence, catching Mae’s scornful look. “Where was I?” “Tobbs doesn’t like animals,” Ben answered, glancing at Livvy with his infectious smile. “He lets you have as much of his barn as you need,” Livvy’s mother said, defending Tobbs. Ralph harrumphed, stamping his feet like they were in protest. After the simple meal of bread, beef and potatoes was finished, Livvy and her mother began cleaning up. The women allowed Ralph the honors of interviewing Ben, knowing that he would ask all the questions they had, and then some. “Didn’t see no gear on your horse? What brings you to gold and silver country?” Ralph preferred a story to an answer, believing that he’d already provided the response, meaning that every Alpine traveler was a prospector. “Following God’s lead,” Ben said. “And the mountains. Round one, and another, even more majestic fills your … your whole self. I can’t hardly believe what I’m seeing.” “Hah! Your neck wants to freeze looking at them, sometimes. Sometimes I hear ‘em talking, talking like my departed father.” May, Ralph’s wife harrumphed herself, wanting to hear Ben’s story. Never having heard anyone mention following God, the women’s wide eyes and gaping jaws bid Ben to continue. Knowing that their hospitality and their downright friendliness deserved as much, he told his story. “My pa died at Manassas. Some call it Bull Run,” he began, knowing that Yankees referred to the first real Civil War fight as the Battle of Bull Run. “The man that brought the news was my pa’s best friend in the army. He lost his arm on the same day Pa died. He married my mother before I was even born. That was near Flippin, Arkansas, just a spit from the White River.” “That the same as what bounded the Cherokee to the north?” Ralph asked, ignoring the fact that the lad omitted all references and descriptions of the boy’s family life. He understood that the rough Ozark Mountain country would have been physically demanding, but no more so than for millions of other primitive families. “The same. ‘Til they were escorted to the territory. I was determined to go to Bible College…” “You’re a preacher?” Livvy exclaimed. After a moment’s pause, Ben answered in the negative. “Naw, I was trained to, and could, but that wasn’t my calling. I knew it all along, but …” “You have a calling?” Livvy’s mother asked, dumbfounded. Livvy’s gaze to Ben would have been embarrassing had he caught her eyes. Ben’s smile halted further questioning. “Before I graduated, my grandpa sold his mill and died soon after. He left me nearly three hundred an’ fifty dollars. So I paid off the rest of my tuition, bought my horse, Red, and here I am.” After a pause, he added, “And that’s why I won’t allow you to pay me for the flour.” “Well, Son,” Ralph said, a title not missed by Livvy, “Tobbs could use a little help, not full time, I’m sure, but enough to pay for you and your horse’s puttin’ up. And you’re welcome here every evening for supper. Isn’t he May?” Ralph glanced to his wife. “A’course he is. Ain’t he Livvy?” Livvy melted, unable to respond, thoughts of matrimony and motherhood flooding her being. Ben’s smile melted them all. At a loss for words, it took his full concentration to keep from reaching to Livvy and hugging her tightly. +++ As Ben settled into the family routine, Mae offered her blessing for the two to take walks. Though nearly full grown, her folks still practically insisted she return by dark, despite being with Ben, the most trustworthy man they’d ever met. Though she could have broken free at just about any time, Livvy preferred after supper chores were finished and she’d had a chance to clean up. “So tell me about a calling,” Livvy asked on their first evening walk just off the road to the neighboring town of Wagonwheel. “What exactly is it? How do you know what it wants you to do? Is it a voice? And when did you first know about it?” Ben stopped and turned to face her fully. Grinning large, “Anything else?” Nonplussed, she added another question. “Was it like God called to Samuel while he was asleep in bed?” Turning back to continue their walk, hand-in-hand, Ben explained, “Naw. Wasn’t like that at all. I was nine when I first knew something. A spitfire of a travelin’ preacher come through. They built him a brush arbor and he preached twice a day for a week. He was a hellcat, I’ll tell you. Sit too close and you caught his spittle, him screechin’ an’ screamin’. Demons ‘round there didn’t stand a chance.” “That was your calling, him screaming.” “No. Truth is, I didn’t hardly hear a word he said. But the first night he preached … it was while he was praying. He even screamed that. Like God was deaf. That first night, I felt it. Here, in my chest, and in my throat. My head was full of God. And when I said yes, well that was it. I knew.” “So, you started preaching when you were nine?” Livvy asked. “No. Mostly what changed was that I liked to pray. It’s like talking to God …” “Shouting and screaming like the preacher did?” Livvy asked. Ben grinned. “I kind’ve think God plugs his ears with his fingers,” Ben laughed. “No, but I learned from that night on how my doing wrong hurt God. It got real easy to know what to leave alone.” “Like girls?” Livvy said, releasing Ben’s hand, her head tipping toward the ground, unsure whether she wanted to hear his response. After a moment of silence, Ben caught her hand again, smiling at her with his eyes. “Did you have girlfriends, then?” Livvy finally asked. “Sure, but before I could even guess if it was right, they’d up and marry somebody else.” Livvy’s laughter was contagious. “I can just see you,” she said. “You taking long walks with a girl, shining up to her, then go sit on a stump and stare at the sky for a month waiting for a sign from heaven.” She began to laugh again. Ben finished her thought; “Meanwhile, Joe Bob makes off with Sarah Jane. Over and over again.” “Until everybody’s married but poor Ben.” Livvy squeezed his hand, winking playfully. “How about in college?” Livvy asked. “Any girlfriends there?” “Too busy. There was a gal on the wagon train, though. Rebecca. But two days after we got to Santa Fe, her parents loaded the wagon back up and they left out for California.” Ben became solemn. “There’s an example. I would have gone on to California with them in an Ozark second, but my head kept turning north, toward the mountains. I just sensed an urging to Colorado. I didn’t feel right until I was on Red and headed here.” “To me,” Livvy said, squeezing Ben’s hand. “Did you love her?” Livvy returned to being more serious. “No, I don’t think I loved her, but … The calling isn’t like handwriting in the sky. I’m like most everybody else, I’d guess. Just do what seems right.” “I don’t think most people do,” Livvy replied. “Were you called to come up here, to Alpine? What was that like?” After a pause, Ben explained. “You ever seen a water dowser, the way his willow fork pulls? Or play with two magnets, the way they repel and pull? It’s not like that, but I do sense a strong, compelling urge. In Santa Fe I could have gone with the Sundersons, but the road north out of Santa Fe to Colorado was as strong as a magnet, drawing me. It wasn’t until I took my mind off Rebecca and focused on God that I knew, though. Soon as I got headed on a course, I felt a peacefulness all over. Heading here just seemed right.” “To me,” Livvy offered. Ben smiled with his whole self, gently squeezing her hand. “Matter of fact, that day you got …” “The kitten,” Livvy filled in, saving Ben from describing the sordid details. Ben smiled. “Yeah. Well, I woke with a start. Packed up, doused the fire, and kept Red at a pretty good clip all the way to Alpine.” “To me.” “Never got down from Red ‘til I saw you,” Ben finished. Livvy sighed, leaning her head on Ben’s shoulder. +++ “Town needs a church,” Ben said to agreeing nods everywhere he went around town, fitting it into every conversation. “Could double as a school and town hall,” he added to those less enthusiastic. “I could send for a preacher from the William Jewell College in Liberty, Missouri, where I graduated. Could be here, time we had it built,” he said to the generally accepted leader of the town, who was elected mayor as soon as the community was incorporated. Heads nodded assent among those gathered in front of the mercantile. Chorused among them were shouts of, “Why not you?” +++ “Heard you turned down the preacher position,” Livvy said. “Could be a real fine career. A real good thing.” Livvy was, and not for the first time, somewhat disappointed and confused, the same feelings as those that followed Ben’s reluctance to pursue her more physically. His kisses, though impassioned, lacked follow-through. Not that she would follow far, but he failed to live up to her expectations of behavior that might indicate an impending proposal. Livvy had already made her decision and was ready. She literally ached for him. “Not my calling. Don’t know what, but I know God’s got another plan for me.” Not wanting to hear what she felt coming, Livvy interjected, “Nothing wrong with being a church builder, and maybe deacon, or whatever they call ‘em. “Tell me again, Ben, what exactly is a calling? Are you to be a big city preacher? Or is it to another woman? One that will give you five hundred children,” Livvy’s tone clearly expressed frustration. Ben hesitated. Livvy continued. “Or something between? How do you know about a calling? Maybe sometimes a person could get it wrong.” Ben pulled her hand to his lips, kissing it gently. “You know how you are to one day marry, have children, raise a family? You know how certain of that you are? Well, it’s something like that. I just know that I have things to do. Who knows what small, insignificant things affect the next moment? I don’t know, maybe my intervention with you and that saloon drunk saved him from being shot by someone else. Maybe he never takes another drink. Maybe he goes home to his family and one of his sons becomes the president of the United States, or a war hero who saves hundreds of men. Who knows what a calling is. Maybe it’s none of that. I know I was called to you. And I sense that that call is … done. I’m called to move on, Livvy.” Livvy couldn’t quite contain a hiccup of a sob, choking it back. Her chest ached, pain that hurt more like a house fell on her than her previous ache. “I laid awake all last night. I’ll be leaving soon as your preacher gets here.” Livvy bolted before Ben could mouth the words, “I love you, but …” Her confusion devastating, she ran from their favored creek side park setting the hundred yards to her home, avoiding him the remainder of his stay. After the extremely awkward mealtime that next day, Ben took his remaining suppers in town. His heartfelt good-byes and departure from the family were tear-filled. Livvy, silent the entire time, offered herself in a lingering embrace, innocent but still intimate. Finally gurgling a farewell, Ben understood that he was welcome to return any time.
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Wayne Fowler
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