[Episode Five]
Arizona Blue – Gunman
The Wolves Nest – in the north
[Episode Five]
Northern Minnesota area
Winter 1877
Chapter one of seven: the north
The area was known as Pig’s Eye [St. Paul, Minnesota]; Northfield has been a bit more notorious since Jessie James robbed 1st National Bank in September of last year, and more so in the West. But that was neither here nor there for Arizona-Blue. He didn’t like this part of the country for no other reason than the cold and unpredictable weather, and it didn’t seem to offer enough freedom, it wasn’t bad thirty years ago, but it had become too tame. Mark Twain thought so. His conclusion as to why he was here was, “Sometimes you just keep riding and riding and you end up where you don’t want to be.”
As he was riding through the dense snow, he had come to a cabin, in an area where the deer ran so wildly, back and forth, like the rebels in Arizona, Texas, and Wyoming. He smelled smoke from a nearby fireplace. It was more than a hundred and fifty miles north of St. Paul, but it looked like it was in the Arctic.
When Arizona reached a cabin, a man walked out the front door onto his porch. Two wolves were at his side, a rifle in their hands. He saw at the back of his house about thirty more wolves tied to the fence; ‘… strange …’ Blue thought.
“Can I help wink at a stranger?” asked the man on the porch.
Blue knew most people in this area didn’t know her name, and that was an unconscious reason she chose the Midwest, I guess, a moment for a break from wondering who was going to shoot you in the back or with whom. you had to get tangled up. next. His reputation in the west preceded him wherever he went, but here, here in the Midwest, who could know his name? No one, he speculated. Northfield was too hot for someone like him, after the James Gang shooting, and St. Paul looked like St. Louis, a conservative little town on the banks of the Mississippi, there wasn’t enough to get up and go for it, besides that they sold little. books about him: “The Fast Gun of the West: Arizona-Blue”. They did it with all the gunmen like: Billy the Kid, Jessie James, Wild Bill, etc.
“I need a place to stay for a day or two. I’m half frozen.”
The man laughed and motioned for Blue to tie up his horse and go inside.
While Blue was getting off his horse, a boy came out and took his horse saying:
“I’ll put him to bed by a spell, I’ll feed him for you, sir.”
Blue heard that the Midwest was quite hospitable to strangers, it had to be, because sooner or later everyone would end up needing each other’s help. This gives a nice feeling to yawning, he told himself.
When Blue entered the house, she saw a slim, middle-aged woman boiling a stew (in her mid-thirties, she supposed).
“Some hot cider, sir?” she asked.
Blue wasn’t sure what that was, but he knew it wasn’t whiskey.
“Sounds reassuring, I guess you’ll be fine, miss …”, not knowing how to address her.
She smiled and commented:
“I guess you’re not from around here, do you have a southwestern accent?”
“My name is Arizona; I guess because that’s where I’m from.”
“Arizona what? She asked.
“That’s it, miss, just Arizona, that’s what my dad called me, no more, no less.”
She smiled again, the man came back through the back door of the house, stomping the snow off his feet.
“Hello, my name is Harry”, he extended his hand to shake Arizona’s, “and this is my wife Feba, she is Spanish, and she is also a beautiful wife.”
“Harry! Stop making me blush.”
“Well,” Arizona said, “it seems there are enough wolves around here.”
“I raise them. They can be useful.” That was all that was said about the wolf’s nest. Arizona understood things, he was private and he was not willing to intervene in the privacy of a man.
“Mr. Arizona, please give your jacket to my boy Tony.” I was standing in the back of Arizona. I hadn’t heard him enter. When Arizona took off her jacket, Harry, Tony, and Feba noticed the guns. Arizona had one tight against her thigh and another tucked into her belt.
“You won’t need them here, sir,” Harry said with a bit of concern.
Arizona smiled. He was not a wanted man in Minnesota, or for that matter anywhere, just a notorious man, and was rarely heard from in the North Country; and this was a new country for him; if this was Wyoming, or Texas, or for that matter Tombstone, or Deadwood, the guns would stay. But he began to undo them; then he handed them over to Harry to keep safe.
“How are the Indians’ problems up here?” Blue asked.
“Sometimes it’s okay, other times you just don’t know. We had several cabins here a year ago, and the Chippewa burned three of them. They beat the women, after getting drunk, and took off. The Indians are over. The place. You never know. I hunt bears and foxes and sell the furs at Fort Smelling. And yaw, some of the wolves you see end up being furs. Yaw has to eat. I hate killing them though. “
Harry noticed that Arizona was looking at where the weapons were hanging; right on the coat rack that leads to the front door.
“If you need them, sir, they’re there to grab them.”
“I have the photo, Harry.”
“Now for dinner, it’s about minus 11 degrees, not too bad for winter. You’d think it was 10:00 pm, but it gets dark fast up here, it’s only 6:00 pm. Not much light of the day in the heart of winter. Tonight it will drop to 20+ below. It’s like the cold turns out the sun early, I swear. It’s going to be a cold, cold, strange winter, I mean Arizona. “
When the four of them sat down to eat, Harry gave thanks, thanking God for his wife, his son, and that the stranger hadn’t frozen like an ice cycle before finding his cabin.
“Let’s eat,” says Harry, and dips into the hot stew.
The stew was great, Arizona though, as she took her third helping.
“My name is Alex, Mr. Arizona. Are you a gunman? You know, like Jessie James and Billy the Kid?”
“Hush,” Feba said, “Mr. Arizona is a gentleman, not a murderer.”
Said Harry, a little uncomfortable with weapons hanging where coats and hats hung:
“Actually, if you don’t mind, what is your line of work?”
“Well that’s a good question. I was a soldier, I fought in the Battle of Chickamauga, and I was a sheriff for a while, and a deputy. And I guess you could say a kind of cowboy. I’m not sure what a gunman is. , but maybe that. “
“I see a lot of trades,” Harry commented.
Feba looked into the eyes of Blues; she was almost frozen by them. But her husband was the jealous type, and he didn’t say anything, just smiled and continued eating his stew.
