Northfield by Johnny D. Boggs Page A

doorstep. Lord knows, we haven’t had much time to enjoy ourselves of late, and we have been rather quiet, don’t you think?”
    I doubted that. You hear a lot in my line of work, and I had heard much over the past few days, rumors and bits of stories that did not concern me until seeing Jesse, and now Frank.
    A First National Bank gentleman I entertained had mentioned how he happened upon two men sleeping at Sibley and Fifth, well-dressed men, not saddle tramps, but wearing so much iron it frightened him. Another story, out of one of Chinn’s gambling dens, went that two men, before sitting down to play five-card stud, had removed their coats and gun belts, placing revolvers on the table while one of them announced—“Just want to make sure you sharpers don’t play us for fools.”—and I could hear Cole Younger’s voice. Some stranger had bought a black horse off a farmer right in front of a mercantile for $110, then raced his new purchase up and down Wabasha Street. I heard of flashy men in dusters tipping far too much at the Nicollet House and Merchant’s Hotel. I heard of men dropping fifty-cent and dollar coins from their balcony at the Nicollet on passers-by, simply to amuse themselves.
    Quiet? Not Jesse and Frank. Not hardly.
    “Did I tell you I have married?” Frank suddenly blurted out.
    “No.” Of course, many of my customers had wed, but Frank seemed overly proud of his accomplishment, and I have to give him credit, for he remained downstairs, enjoying showing off with his wit, not his wick.
    “Yes, a lovely lass from Jackson County…used to teach school…though her father despises me. We eloped.”
    “My best wishes for happiness to the both of you. Sometimes marriage tames the wildest, though it never turned out that way for me.”
    “Nor for my brother,” Frank said, and I detected a trace of sadness in his voice, though he tried to hide it with his grin.
    And here is something you might find peculiar, especially if you read below of what happened later that evening, but, as I headed back upstairs, I realized Frank unnerved me more than Jesse. Jesse I could never predict. He would be laughing one minute, then exploding, but Frank, he always seemed so calm, and that scared me. Jesse could not hide his emotions for long, but Frank, he bottled everything up, and I feared I would be in his path when the cauldron finally boiled over.
    As soon as I closed the door, Jesse’s small hands felt like iron as he struck me in the back, and the air rushed from my lungs as I fell.
    “Whore!” he shouted. “Whore of Babylon!”
    He picked me up and threw me on the bed, straddling me, slapping me left and right. I tasted blood.
    “You tell anyone we’re here, whore, and you’ll be deader than Hattie Floyd, you miserable whoring bitch.”
    “I would never….”
    He hit me again. Blood rushed from both nostrils.
    Someone pounded on the door, and I heard Fish’s concerned voice. “Mollie! Mollie! You all right?”
    I also heard the click of one of Jesse’s revolvers.
    “I am fine, Fish!” I called back.
    “Open the door!” he yelled, unconvinced.
    “He is a paying gentleman, Fish. Go away. Everything is all right.”
    Then I started laughing. Hard to explain. Maybe I went a tad crazy, but, with a man-killer beating hell out of you on your own bed, I imagine most women would lose control of their faculties. Jesse stared at me, bewildered, but I just laughed till my ribs hurt, looking at the little sampler on the wall, the one I had packed with me from brothel to brothel from Missouri to Minnesota:
    IF AT FIRST YOU DON’T SUCCEED,
TRY, TRY AGAIN
    “How you feel?” Jesse asked later, as close to an apology as he would ever come. I pressed his handkerchief against my nose till the bleeding stopped. A little rouge would hide the bruises, and I could lie away the split lip.
    “I have been hurt worse. This is nothing.”
    A light tapping sounded on the door again, and Jesse leaped for his arsenal,