The Stranger by Suzy

From afar in heated desert air, Chris could tell the town was booming for the wedding. Newcomers— possibly family— only Louisa’s— rode into town either in carriages, on horses, and some just plain walking.

Carriages were full of antiques, saddle bags, garments, decorations it looked like from the gunslinger’s point of view.

Pony quickened his pace more than Chris liked and before he knew it he was amongst the wedding guests. He slowed his horse down, pulling on the reins and at his destined stride into town, a few of the guests tipped their hat at the man all dressed in black. Not something that was normal to the guests or to Chris when each man, woman kept their stare on him as he passed by.

Shaking his head, Chris went along into town, realizing why the guests wouldn’t leave him alone. Why they wouldn’t keep their eyes off him. It was a wedding, and Chris just wore black. Laughing inside to their snobbery opinions about his clothes compared to their whites and blues, he unsaddled his horse in front of the saloon, watching guests pass behind him.

And like everything else, he didn’t care.

Chris turned around and looked beyond the saloon doors when he heard the usual hoot and holler of any drunk. Then before he knew it, those hoots from within the saloon came outside, making the guests more nervous in the dusty town where they couldn’t believe the wedding was going to take place.

Feet cress-crossing, one of the three drunks toppled over on his stomach by his own mistake and another tripped over him, landing in the dirt at Chris’s boots. And the third, without noticing the young gunslinger behind him, pushed him forward and his whole body jolted into a wooden post.

Adjusting his hat and shifting from hip to hip, Chris looked at JD with a crooked grin. “Problem, JD?”

The youngest gunslinger of the seven held his pistols in the holsters and had circling anger in the eyes and his nostrils flared. “Not a thing, Chris, except these men tried to make trouble for Inez. Demanding free drinks.”

“Looks like you took care of it,” he said at the same time moving to switch JD positions where as he stood with his back to the saloon now and JD stood looking at it.

“Yeah, sure did,” JD released heated breath from his lungs then kicked one of the men in the leg as he started to walk off. Chris gave a nod of satisfaction and just when he was about to disperse behind the saloon doors, JD asked, “Have you seen Buck?”

Chris turned around placed his hands on the swinging doors, “Can’t say that I have.”

“Okay. Just thought you might’ve seen him.”

“It’s still early, kid, he’s probably sleepin’.” And Chris didn’t wait for another question or answer when he walked into the saloon.

Turning around, JD released his hold on his pistols and damn near got the wind kicked out of him when a massive arc of lilies passed over his head.

“Sheesh!” he gave a hoot with cool breath passing through his closed lips and he reached for his hat when it about toppled off his head from the gusty wind the lily arc brought. He figured they never saw him for how short he was.

Damn. Being short did bring some disadvantages. Especially if you were a short gunslinger.

He looked back inside the saloon doors for Chris but he was already swallowed in the cigar smoke, the piano keys, and all the hearty women. He moved his stare across town and landed on Mary and Louise standing outside The Clarion.

Odd seeing the two women together, JD thought, when all they did was fight over Statehood, and now over anything arguable that continued to show how different they were.

Despite their differences, how both despised the other for what they believed in and what they stood for, Mary found she wanted to be helpful to Louisa with this wedding and to get her the Hell-Out-Of-Dodge before her mind changed about she and Buck leaving for her business expedition.

That must have been Mary’s plan. To assist Louisa with the wedding, hurrying the bride along so she wouldn’t think of anything else about her rights and her ways and help her leave the following day.

JD adjusted his hat to those thoughts of Mary, wondering if that’s really what her plan was. Knowing Mary for nearly two years now, he should be right on the spot. Her convincing and sedate manners coated layers over her snappy tongue and her mapped out routines.

Looking over the two women, Mary held a pad of paper as the wife-to-be talked her ear off about what she wanted for the wedding, JD only supposed. Reading lips wasn’t exactly helpful from where he stood and that with locals and guests passing across his stare.

Then watching them shift from their standing pose in front of the Clarion doors, Louise began a pace across the floorboards before reaching the hardware store and Mary followed behind indolently, as if mouthing a word or two about how she needed to slow down with her chatter.

Laughing inside, JD turned his feet to another angle and saw a new outlook of the town, beginning to really shine with whites, sapphires and crimsons dyed decorations.

This was really happening. Buck was really getting married and he knew it right away when JD found him at last at the end of the lot, stretching and jumping his muscles and bones alive for the lively mid-morning scurries. He was dumb struck with a dumb grin smacked across his lips, his mustache rising with each corner of his mouth and JD had to laugh out loud.

Untamable Buck Wilmington was getting married in less than seventy-two hours. No wonder that smile looked the part.

If Buck could be tamed and married, sticking to one woman for the rest of his life then it was damn possible for anyone in the world to fall in that line of love. To find their soul mate.

Watching Buck step off the hotel’s front boards, JD smacked the side of his pants to rid of the dust the wind so voluntarily left on him. He couldn’t take the hustling of the usual day-to-day controlled rounds of the town and JD just had to be by Buck’s side to flow into the jovial music, the live babble as wedding guests continued to arrive from the town’s entrance, and be noticed when he gave a hop of rolling, uncontrolled laughter to show how excited he was. To let everyone know he’d never attended a wedding before.

Getting ready to run and do all the motions he’d promised himself to do and be one of the crowd, that’s when he saw her…

Pass Virginia’s hotel; pass the hardware and Mrs. Potter’s general stores, walked, more like glided, was a dark haired angel. With reins in her hands and two, full bred, whiskey golden horses attached to those reins, followed behind.

She was simply beautiful. Extravagant. Different from any woman he saw in these parts of the country side. Not like the female bounty hunters, or Lydia and her bunch of beauties, or Ella Gaines. This mysterious woman in town, a newcomer or a guest apart of the wedding ceremony was different. This woman was in his town, the town he help protect.

Moving his eyes down the length of her body she wore a smoldering purple, silk cape that swayed up and down her legs from hip to ankle as she walked against the wind. The richest dark hair curled around her face underneath a hood and that dark, slender dress beneath the cape, showed every other time as she walked. The dress that clung to her body, her curves, the v-neck sliding right down to her…

“JD!”

Lost in ecstasy with amazing gorgeousness, JD hadn’t realized he moved away from the saloon doors, walked out in the middle of the lot to keep that mesmerizing woman in his path. But when he heard his name being shout, he snapped back into veracity when he recognized the holder of the tone.

“Mary!” he stopped to a sudden halt when he saw now a light, blond haired woman so close to him that he thought she might read his mind about what made him lose his sense for those thirty seconds.

Balancing her arms that held the ashen, pearled wedding gown Mary backed up from the young gunslinger with a startling laugh. “Almost had this custom made dress in the dirt there, JD.” She regained her steadiness with the weighty gown.

“I’m sorry, Mrs. Travis.” JD apologized when he noticed, yeah, he almost did another useless mistake.

“No, it’s fine.” She forgave him straightforwardly. If she had dropped the dress, JD knew, Mary probably wouldn’t have care. By the look of her generous smile, her quick forgiveness, and the walk around him, she figured if she dropped it, there would no other way to get another wedding dress delivered in due time for the ceremony. And Louisa would simply have to wear it dirty.

Turning around after she walked around him, thoughts spiraling around in his head about what just happened there about the woman and now Mary. He opened the doors of the Clarion, Mary’s home and business, for the editor and she merrily took it.

After Mary walked all the way in, he tried to decide whether to follow or stand outside and just observe like he’d been doing. He decided to stay out front and when he looked down the town lot for Buck, where he last saw him departing from the hotel, the soon married-man-to-be was nowhere in sight. Having a hunch of where he could have ran off to, that dark, mysterious beauty popped right back in his head, coming up front to cloud his eyes when before the thoughts were hidden somewhere in the back of his head. He did a quick turn around to see if he could catch that woman all dressed in purple but like Buck, she was gone too.

And just that quick from a short ten second run in with Mary. He huffed out a short, annoyed breath when he couldn’t find her. Oh well, he thought, if she was here in town for the wedding, Louisa’s maid of honor or something, he lived with the thought that he would see her again and soon…maybe.

Then his thoughts did a big u-turn and he wondered where Casey was. And those thoughts didn’t last long either when Buck ran into his shoulder.

Ah Buck… there he was.

“Buck, where did you go? I just saw ya.”

That ear to ear smile never left Buck’s mouth, “Hey you, JD.”

“You nervous?”

“About what?”

“Marrying Louisa. You’re no longer gonna be a bachelor, Buck. You can’t hang around anymore women. This is it for ya.”

“I know this is it for me, and I’m glad I made the right ‘it’ choice.”

JD closed his mouth, his eyes widened. “So, this is really gonna happen for ya, ain’t it?”

Buck nodded willingly, “Can’t wait, pard.”

JD put his hands back on his pistols. A habit of his when he was nervous, or just didn’t have anywhere else to put his hands. “You took my advice then, didn’t ya?”

“I’m a fool, JD. I think you gave me the best advice anyone could give.”

“Even after that major put down you gave me in return when I suggested about marriage in the first place?”

“Yeah because right after you said that to me I asked Louisa if she would.”

“And…” he lifted his chin in the air for acknowledgement and gratitude from the great and powerful Buck Wilmington Buck thought he was.

“Thank you, JD.” There he said it out, blunt and loud for anyone passing by to hear. A lightweight of frustration from pass time arguments with Buck, a stunning feel of glee lifted off his shoulders to those three simple words, Thank you, JD.

And what was left to say except, “You’re welcome.” There was no need for banter, or teasing, or even a laugh. A good smile would do for Buck, for JD when that smile curled the ends of his mouth in response.

Buck tipped his hat at his comrade, and began to open the door to the Clarion but Mary poked her body out and pulled the doorknob from him.

“No men, you are not allowed in here.” She said then turned to Buck particularly. “You can see your bride later. We’re fitting her in the wedding gown.” And that was that and she shut the door. Buck gave a twinge and JD laughed when they heard the click of the doors’ lock.

“Well, that’s not fair,” Buck pouted.

“Nothin’s fair anymore, Buckling.” JD gave his friend a pat on the back and they together turned away from the locked Clarion doors. “Don’t you know its bad luck to see the bride in her wedding dress before the wedding?”

“That’s superstitious, JD.”

JD shook his head, “Just like you said when I bought that potion from that Chinese man? You believed me then.”

Buck adjusted his hat, felt beaten from his question. It was true. He believed in that potion, but hell, that was a long time ago. Times have changed, he’s changed. He kicked some dirt on his boots and walked off the Clarion floorboards.

“Yeah, well, that’s just between you and me.”