By Christopher Leeson and Ellie Dauber
Chapter 2, Part 1
December 14, 1871
Irene Fanning slept fitfully in the
infirmary. When slumber finally fled from
her, she climbed out from the cot; it was still dark outside. She quietly went over to Myra's bed and sat on
a high stool, gazing down at the patient in the dim lamplight. “Oh, Myra,” she whispered. “I was so afraid you were going to die. But now… how can I explain what
happened?” Boys were so proud of being
boys, she knew. Myron – Myra – was going
to be devastated. She cupped her hands
and whispered a prayer for her nephew… her new niece, reminding the Lord that
He had promised to make things as easy as possible for him… her?
The sleeper didn't awaken. Stepping to the window, Irene beheld the
gray dawning, realizing that this would be a day like no other day. Letting the shade drop, she went out into the
deserted waiting room. Doctor Upshaw had
returned to his own part of the house once he had removed Myra's stitches, and became satisfied that the patient's
sleep was more or less a natural one.
Later, she had heard him rise and go out. The woman sighed. So much of what had happened the night before
now seemed like a dream. Myron a
robber? Myron near to death? Myron a… girl?
Dream? It
was a nightmare.
Irene began to feel hungry, having missed supper
the night before. A brief inspection of
the doctor's outer office discovered no food, but in a corner of the infirmary
stood a stoneware water cooler and, beside it, a tin cup. She filled the latter and drank.
Minimally refreshed, the farm woman decided that
she should look in on Myra again. 'Oh,
My Lord,' she realized in that instant, ‘I’m thinking of Myron as Myra.' She shook
her head. How could she change her
thinking so swiftly? It was like a fall
of heavy snow on autumn ground. One day
one showed the green grass; the next day it was all blanketed in white. Such an overnight change should always have struck a person as
astonishing, but the average mind accepted it as normal. She sighed.
'I only hope…Myra can get used to her changes just as quickly.’
How had this impossible situation come
about? Irene thought back to that terrible
letter from the War Department. The young wife
had shared so little time with her husband before he had gone away, only to die
of camp fever in Tennessee. Left as an
impoverished widow, she had had to sell
the tiny house that they had purchased together and live in a rooming house, barely
scraping by. How lonely, how empty were
those days. Amos was dead, and so, too,
were her parents and grand parents. By
then, the only family she had left in the East was her sister-in-law, and she
had always been cool toward Irene.
Feeling forsaken, she had sought solace in
prayer. If her prayers were answered,
the answer came in a terrible way. Both
her sister, Addie, and brother-in-law, Edgar, had suddenly taken sick and died,
leaving behind a small Arizona farm and a twelve year old son, Myron Thornton
Caldwell. Raising train and stage fare
through the sale of her last few possessions, she had set out for the
frontier.
At first, Myron had been a moody boy, still
shocked by his abrupt orphaning. He
seldom smiled and rarely spoke more than a couple words at a time. But soon his manner started to change – and
for the worse. He seemed perpetually
angry, disdainful of everything and everyone around him.
He became increasing truant from school. There
had been fights with other boys – a great many fights – and then came the petty
crime. He oftentimes went off by
himself, roaming the hills all the way up to Stagecoach Gap. He used these frequent absences to avoid his
chores, and Irene found that the work of the farm was just too much for one
woman alone.
Talking, and even scolding, did no good, so Mrs.
Fanning had started to hire local boys as day laborers. Myron, instead of merely standing aside, had
picked fights with these youngsters.
Young George Severin had been the only one of the youths who toughed out
Myron's bullying and stayed on the job.
One day, when he was sixteen, her nephew crossed
over to the pasture of Tally Singer, the neighbor whom he liked least, and rode
off on one of the man's horses. His
action had disgraced both his name and his aunt's. People had started acting standoffish. Following long months of awkwardness, things
seemed to settle down somewhat, but Irene's renewed friendships no longer felt
as easy and spontaneous as they once had been.
For the past year, the widow had wondered where
her nephew had run off to, and what he was doing. It worried her that the boy who had such a
knack for finding trouble might be getting into much more serious trouble out
in the world alone. Now, as abruptly as
a thunderclap, the world had changed once again.
Myron a girl?
‘What does that mean?’ she wondered.
What sort of lives were the two of them going to be living from this
moment on?
She continued to stare down at the pretty, even
features of the sleeping maiden. “Myra”
looked about Myron's age, but there was nothing else familiar about her. She bore no resemblance to any member of the
Olcott or Caldwell families. ‘Will she
act like Myron did, still want to spend so much time alone, and yet be
aggressive and abrasive?’
Another
thought. ‘Did this happen by chance, or
does the Lord have a plan?' It was said He knew everything about every
person's life, past, present, and future, from the moment of Creation. Was He guiding her family's fate?
Irene glanced back at the window. It had brightened to nearly full daylight.
'Why hasn’t the doctor come back to check on Myra?' she wondered. She remembered, too, that her horse had stood
hitched behind the office all night, untended.
That was no way to treat a beast.
'If delays keep Myra and me in town much longer, I’ll have to take the
carriage over to the Ritter Livery Stable,'
she thought.
Mrs. Fanning heard a door slamming and voices issuing from the waiting room. “Hello,” she said, stepping out into the short
hall.
“In here,” Upshaw called.
Irene walked through the
curtained arch and into the waiting room. The physician was standing near the
door. With him was a young Mexican woman in a long green dress.
She was carrying a tray with several covered dishes and a steaming coffee pot.
“Good morning,” she said with a smile.
“Irene,” Doc said, “this is Maggie Sanchez. She
runs a restaurant here in town. I thought you and your… niece could use
something to eat. How is she this morning?”
Mrs. Fanning recognized the name. Maggie Sanchez’s restaurant was in Shamus
O’Toole’s saloon, and Maggie was one of the potion-girl outlaws. Irene searched her comely features for any
trace of maleness, but found nothing.
“How do you do, Miss Sanchez?
Myro… Myra’s still sleeping.” She
glanced back at the doctor. “Is that
normal?”
“I hope so,” he said,
turning his attention to Miss Sanchez.
“Please put the food down on the table, Maggie. I'll go check on our patient.” He proceeded through the curtain.
The Mexican gave Irene a friendly nod and
commenced setting up a breakfast for two.
“Is your niece very ill?” she inquired as she worked, her English not
heavily accented. “Myra is her name?”
Mrs. Fanning answered uneasily. She had never spoken to a potion girl, except
for a brief pleasantry to Trisha O'Hanlan now and then. “Yes, Myra.
She fell quite ill last night.
But the doctor says that she's out of danger.”
“That is good. You have a farm outside of town, is that
right?”
“Yes.” Irene didn't know what more to add.
Maggie didn't press the conversation and had
soon finished her task. Just then, the
doctor returned. “If there is nothing
else, Señor,” she said, “I will be returning to my kitchen.”
“Thank you. I'll see that your dishes are returned.”
Maggie nodded and excused herself.
When she was gone, Upshaw said, “The... young
lady... is still asleep. We'll let her
rest until Mrs. O'Toole gets here.”
“Mrs. O'Toole?”
“Yes. As Shamus explained last night, she's getting
some clothes for Myra. And I think that
she'll have some useful advice for you, too.
About what you can expect from the girl at home, for instance.”
Irene nodded, not sure what to say. Her life had once been so simple – sad but
simple. Now, suddenly, she seemed to have
become a character out of Grimm's Fairy Tales.
“Try not to worry,” the
physician urged. “We don't know a great
deal about the potion. Not many people
have taken it. They...the subjects...generally get their strength back swiftly, but in this case, Myron was badly
injured. It might take more time with
him.”
Irene could only return a look of bemusement.
“I think you need a good
breakfast,” the doctor said.
She crossed listlessly to the table to eat. Maggie had provided plentiful hotcakes and
bacon, along with sliced apples. It was
intended for both her and Myra, so she took only her share. Dr. Upshaw used the time to make some notes
pertaining to Myra in his medical records.
“Do you think...” the woman finally asked him, “that we've done the
right thing?”
Upshaw looked up, his brows knitted. “That's a question I've often had to ask myself,
even before I became a doctor. Is it
ever wrong to save a life, even if it means a life of pain and
helplessness? I don't know. With Myra, it will all depend on what she
does with her new life, after she's had time to think things through.”
“She's going to be
terribly shocked.”
“We should both pray for
her. The other potion girls have done
well for themselves. They've made many
friends. It is hard to remember that
they were once desperadoes. Maggie, the
young lady who cooked your breakfast, has two children and a beau.”
“Children?”
“She's technically their
father. Her boy and girl were brought up
from Mexico by the gentleman that she's seeing.”
“She likes... men?”
He grimaced uncomfortably. “I think that Molly O'Toole is the one to ask
about that. She's been very close to
most of the potion girls.”
“Is she close to Pat...
to Trisha O'Hanlan, too?”
“No, not her; Molly is
the matron for the prisoners. Miss
O'Hanlan broke no law and never had to stay at the saloon. Do you know...did you know Mr. O'Hanlan?”
“Only slightly; I’ve
bought supplies from his store, and spoken to him once or twice in church. I've seen Trisha since then, and I still
can't put my mind around it. Tell me, do
any… of the ladies... leave town after their sentences are served?”
“They could,” he replied,
“but none have, so far. I guess they
feel that they have no lives left out there.
They're making new lives here.”
“Is there any way to
change them back?”
“No. The magic seems to be about as final as a
hanging.”
“How do they feel about
being changed?”
“It's not clear. I've mostly talked to them about their
health. But Jessie and Wilma Hanks had a
couple of the worst outlaw reputations in this territory, but as they are now,
I don't think they're bad people.”
“Jessie is the singer,”
Irene said. “I've heard about the other
one, Wilma.”
“Just about everyone has
heard of Wilma,” the doctor observed wryly, but that was a topic that he
preferred to leave right where it was.
#
A girl shouted from the infirmary room. Both man and woman hurried toward the sound.
Myra was sitting up, wild-eyed. The covers were on the floor, but she was
wearing one of the doctor's shapeless gray gowns.
“What the hell! What the hell!” she was shouting.
“Easy, Myron,” Mrs.
Fanning answered. “You'll be all right.”
“You're dreaming, my
young man,” Upshaw suggested. “Settle
down and you'll soon wake up.”
This advice surprised Irene, but it appeared to
have a kind of calming effect on the girl.
Suddenly she looked more uncertain than horrified.
Myra settled down on the cot. She looked at herself, touched herself, as if
wondering how any sort of dream could seem so real.
“Tarnation!” said a woman
from behind them. “Such shouting! Thuir must be a new potion girl somewhere
around.” Upshaw looked back at the door
and saw Molly O'Toole coming in. Her
expression was both knowing and grave.
The taverner's wife was holding a wicker
carryall by its handles. Mrs. Fanning
had seen Molly from a distance before.
The Irish woman was red-haired, handsome, and about the age that her sister
Addie would have been, had she had survived cholera.
“Molly,” the doctor
said. “This – this is Myra. Myra, this is Molly O’Toole, Shamus O’Toole’s
wife.”
“Don't call me Myra!” the
girl snarled.
Molly put her basket down on the floor and came
closer. “Did ye just wake up, colleen?”
Myra reacted to the term “colleen” with a
furious glare.
“Listen, Missy,” Molly
continued. “We'll be getting right
t’work. We're going t'talk, and ye’re
not going t'be flying off the handle while we're doing it. Ye'll keep calm, and we'll be having
ourselves a nice conversation.”
Myra blinked in surprise. The authoritative statement seemed to have
fallen upon the girl like a skeleton's claw.
The doctor had seen that look before; Molly was one of the three that the
girl was required to obey.
“For one thing, I think
it's best to shoot straight w'potion girls.
Ye’re not dreaming, honey pie.
Ye’re wide awake. And ye’re a
girl. ‘Tis also me understanding that
it's yuir own fault. After yuir
tomfoolery of a robbery, ye’re durn lucky t'be so much as alive. Me husband, Shamus, saved yuir life with some
special medicine that he's got. Now,
some medicine is pretty rough to take.
This medicine is about the best thing thuir is for saving a life, but it
also turns a boy into a girl every time.”
She studied Myra for a moment.
“And I'd say it done a right fine job on ye.”
“What did you do to me?”
Myra demanded, but it was not quite a shout.
Something had kept her from shouting.
“I told ye what me
darling Shamus did. Gave ye some special
medicine. The part ye might not like so
much is that ye'll be a lassie from now on.
The better part is that, once ye’re all fixed up, ye'll be an
eye-catcher, for sure.”
Myra leaped to her feet and grabbed at an empty
pitcher.
“Stop!” declared
Molly. The shout hit the girl like a
January blast. She stood frozen in
place.
“How can you do that?”
Irene gasped.
Molly looked back. “It's part of the magic. Me Shamus had ye tell yuir niece to do
whatever ye, me, and Judge Humphreys tells her to. And I'm not about to be letting a headstrong
gal start throwing pitchers and hurting people.”
She folded her arms and regarded the
seventeen-year-old. “Ye really seem t'be
a sour one, Missy, but so was the whole Hanks gang. It was tough for them, and it'll be tough for
ye, too. But robbers go to prison, and
horse thieves get the noose, so ye can consider yuirself lucky – lucky to be as
fit, fine, and as free as ye are. Behave
like a decent girl and ye won't get bossed around so much. And one other thing; don't try to hurt
yuirself in any way. I'm telling ye now
that ye just can't do it. We'll all
going to take good care o' ye and do the best we can to see that ye live a nice
long life.”
Mrs. Fanning made a small sound of protest. “Aren't you being rather harsh?”
“Please trust me, lady,”
the Irishwoman said, “taking precautions is better’n holding funerals. If we want this filly to be pulling the
surrey, ye'll have to keep her in tight traces, right up till she stops fussing about the bit. Let her play on yuir sympathy and she'll be
moaning, complaining, and feeling sorry for herself till the cows come home.”
Irene's expression remained grievous, but she
stood silent.
Molly once more addressed the girl, who was
still clutching the pitcher. “Put that
vessel down gently, gal. It ain’t nice
t’be breaking things.” Myra obeyed with
a dazed look. “Now, in case ye didn't understand what ye was told before, yuir name is Myra. So, no more snapping at people who call ye that. Agreed, Myra?
She said "Yes" through gritted teeth.
"Fine. Come sit back down
on the cot, easy like. Ye'll only have
t'listen; we won't be needing any sass-talk for a while. If I need ye t'say something, I'll let ye
know. Understand?” Myra scowled, but couldn't reply. There were voices in her head that, somehow,
wouldn't let her speak.
Molly nodded.
“If ye understand, say that ye understand.”
Myra wanted to spew a tirade of obscenity, but
only heard herself uttering, “I understand.”
“Good. Remember, politeness gets paid back with
smiles.” The Irishwoman glanced at Mrs.
Fanning and the doctor in turn, just in case either had anything to contribute. It didn't look like they did. Continuing her discourse with Myra, she said,
“I'm going to sit down next to ye. Ye
won't mind, will ye?”
“Yes, I will!” Myra
growled.
“Yuir feelings are yer
own, but I think I'll very well do what I please, thank ye very much. And don't ye try laying a hand on me,
either.”
Molly took a seat. “Let me tell a little story, so ye understand
just how things work. Me man, Shamus,
and his family come over t’America back in the 1830s. They was crossing the plains when his da got
sick. His ma was what they called a
hedge witch back in the auld county, but she couldn’t do nothing t’save
him. They was lost ‘n’ a late season
snow storm that hit at them. It was a
bad one. They woulda died ‘cept they got
rescued by a Cheyenne hunting party.
Mrs. O'Toole didn't have any place to go, and didn't have a thing
waiting for her back in Ireland either, and she so accepted the tribe elders'
invitation to stay for a while. By
winter, Shamus’ ma was married t’their medicine man, and he had taken Shamus
for his son.”
“When Shamus was still a
lad, he worked at putting them Injun and Irish magics together into spells of
his own, but most of them was as useful as a leaky bucket. When they did work, they mostly stirred up
more harm than good. But he found one
spell that neither his mother nor the red men knew, a potion that made the man
who drank it turn into the fetchingest woman that'd ever crossed his path. It always worked right well, but
try as he might, he never could find any way t'be changing a female into a
male. The Cheyenne didn't much care for
that sort of magic, and the elders told the boy to leave be.”
“A few years afterwards,
Shamus decided that he wasn’t cut out t’be no Injun. He said goodbye to his ma and his Cheyenne
family and headed off to a fort a few days away. He took a job in a saloon and found out that
he had a knack for bar-tending. Later
on, he moved out t’San Francisco. Me and
him met when he was tending bar, and I was dancing on stage at the same
saloon. We got married, but, in a year
or so, we decided t'be leaving Frisco.
After a wee bit of roving, we found Eerie and settled in. The town's been good to us ever since.”
“Then, last July, after
ye was gone, a band of outlaws came along, wanting some revenge on Sheriff
Talbot. They wasn't gunned down, like we
told the papers; them outlaws was given beers loaded with the potion. Things worked out fine, and since then the
Judge has been giving lawbreakers the choice to either take a draft of it or go
to territorial prison, or even be hanged if the crime is a bad one – like horse
thieving.” She watched Myra for a
reaction to that last part. “Those that
pick the potion spend two months as waitresses in our saloon, learning manners
and honest work. Then they get let
go.”
“Last month, we found out
that the potion could also be curing real bad wounds. A little boy named Elmer was dying and
Shamus’s potion saved him. He's called
Emma now.”
“That brings us to yuir situation, Missy. Ye’d have died if the potion
hadn't dragged ye back from the devil's gate.
I imagine it will be taking a little while before ye start appreciating
how lucky ye are, but we're patient people.
My advice is t’buck up and be grateful for being alive. Ye’re going on one hell of an adventure. Keep yuir head and take a step at a time
until ye learn to run.”
“Ye're going home soon,
and ye’re going to be Mrs. Fanning's responsibility, just like ye was a wee
tyke. If ye get too frisky and hard to
handle, well, she's welcome to bring ye over to me Saloon. Thuir’ll be plenty of cooking and cleaning
t'be keeping a colleen yer age busy. For
now, though, here's just one piece of advice.”
Molly glanced up at Irene. “And,
by the way, if yuir aunt don't care for anything that I'm saying, she can just
tell ye to do something different. Ain’t
that right, Mrs. Fanning?”
“I suppose so.”
Molly looked back at the girl. “Lassie, have ye stood toe to toe with a
looking glass since ye turned out so pretty?”
Myra felt compelled to answer. “No.”
“Ye might as well get
that over with. Scoot yuirself over to
that mirror and take a gander. Ye don't
have to be shy about touching yuir new parts, either, if ye want to. Thuir's only us ladies and the doctor who'll
be watching.”
Myra couldn't resist. She confronted a reflected face framed with
long auburn hair. It had blue eyes that
made her think of pools of sky-tinted water.
The lips were full and pouty. The
girl in the glass had teeth as white as the pearls on a fancy necklace. But what bothered her, above all else, was
the fact that this face looked familiar.
Myra was so confused by all that had happened that she couldn't place
where she had seen it, but her gut told her that she wasn't imagining the
resemblance.
“Ye’re as charming as a
little red wagon,” Molly adjudged. “Do
ye agree?”
“That's – that's not me,”
Myra stammered.
Molly had heard that sort of thing before and
sighed. “It is now. How do ye feel about it?”
Myra turned, glaring. “Like I want to kill somebody!”
“I was afraid ye'd feel
that way. Come back and sit down.”
When Myra was again seated, Molly said, “Ye
won't try t'kill yuirself or anybody else.
Ye won't even try t’hurt them, except t'protect yuirself, or to protect
someone who's with ye.
“Me Shamus tells me that
ye don't want everyone knowing that ye used to be a boy. Was he wrong?”
Myra thought about that idea for the first time
and then answered emphatically, “He's right!”
Molly nodded.
“That makes things a little more complicated. It won't be such an easy secret for the
keeping. If a new girl shows up out of
nowhere talking like a boy, dressing like a boy, acting like a boy, people are
going to be noticing. Just how long do
ye think it'll be before someone guesses that ye're Myron Caldwell living at
his old home place?”
“No long,” Myra
reluctantly conceded.
“So what are ye going to
do about it?”
The girl turned her face away. “I don't know.”
TO BE CONTINUED IN TREASURE OF EERIE, ARIZONA, Chapter 2, Part 2
