Chapter 31 

The men surrounded the porch, wolves circling their prey.  To William’s amazement and Buffy’s credit, she showed not an ounce of fear.  Indeed, even through the flickering torchlight he could see that she radiated a kind of power.  He supposed it was the form her madness had taken.

Before William could alert her to his presence, a voice from the crowd shouted out.  “We got no quarrel with you.  But if you don’t git yourself offa that porch, we will.”  William squinted into the darkness to find the speaker, but he was lost in the fading light. 

“Yeah, I heard you the first few dozen times, and I’m not moving.”  Buffy glared out into the crowd, and William had to wonder if it would be more or less terrifying if she could see their faces.

“If I had my druthers, I wouldn’t hurt you, lady, but I reckon you’re just as flammable as the yella bastards.  And unless you aim to find out, you need to light out.”

Buffy refolded her arms across her chest, fixing a threatening scowl in the crowd’s direction.  “You’re not touching the people behind this door.”

“Don’t plan on touching ‘em.  Intend to torch them,” a slurred voice came from the crowd.  “Since there are a dozen of us and one of you, how do you reckon you’re gonna protect all four sides at once?” 

A torch sailed through the air, end over end in a long arc.  Cinders and flame followed in a trail as it skidded along the wooden boards to land at Buffy’s feet.  A bright orange finger of flame danced along the edge of her skirt.  Though she smothered the fire quickly, the sight of it was enough to startle William into action, and he began to roughly shove his way through the crowd.

“Fire bad,” Buffy said, picking up the non-business end of the torch.  With a flick of her wrist, she tossed the sputtering flame back to the crowd, sending a few men stumbling backwards in the dirt.

When William reached the porch, it was dark enough that Buffy did not immediately recognize him.  As he approached, she leaned back on her heels in a fighter position, her face a mask of brutal determination.  Her expression, far more than their circumstances or the grim reality of the mob, squeezed something near his heart cruelly. 

It was only a heartbeat before recognition dawned across her expression; her features relaxed, and she once again appeared to be his Buffy.

“William?” she asked.

Not knowing what else to say, he simply answered, “Buffy.”

“Oh, William, you so shouldn’t have come.”

Before he could respond, the restless crowd pressed closer to the porch.  William turned to face them, his palms extended outward.  “Gentlemen, please.”

“Gentlemen?  Please!”  Buffy blurted.

“Who the hell are you?”  A bony man stood at the forefront of the mob, barely visible in the thin light.  He gripped a rifle in one fist and was drunk enough to sway on his feet.

“I am William Pratt.” His voice was firm, and he forced his hands away from their nervous habit of tugging on his hair.  “This is Elizabeth, my wife.”

He looked at her standing there in the twilight, fierce expression on her face, scorched skirt still smoldering, and felt completely lost.  What could he say to the drunken mob to convince them to depart?  Could he beg for some thin slice of mercy?  Plead that his wife had been driven mad?  She watched him, her green eyes bright with determination…and trust.  Could he do that to her?  Wasn’t she worth more than that?  To barter her safety with these mad dogs, to plead for their lives by declaring her insane.

As helpless as she might be with this strange madness, it was up to him to protect her – not only from the crowd, but from any sort of cruelty, even from him.  Even with so much at stake.

He reached out to hold her hand.  Her eyes gleamed at the gesture, and even in the chaos she managed to grace him with a smile.  Her hand was so small and warm, and it anchored something that had been fluttering madly about in his chest.

“I don’t suppose you’d consider returning to the station and trusting me to sort this out?”  William murmured.  He knew better, but he had to ask.

She shook her head.  “There are twenty-five people behind this door.  I won’t leave them.  I can’t.”

He nodded and took a deep breath as the mob’s mumbling grew louder.  Unsure of his path even as he took it, he turned to face the crowd again.

“In true dime novel fashion, I believe what we have here, gentlemen, is a stand-off.  You desire to light this building on fire.  You intend to, let’s not put a glossy coat to it, murder the helpless inhabitants hiding within.  My wife and I have as our most fervent desire to prevent that outcome.”

“Now that’s a surprise.  A whole lot of fancy talk to say that you’re above us.  That you’re better than this,” the bony man called.

 “No,” William said firmly.  “It’s not that I’m better than this.  It’s that you are.”

The crowd stilled at that.  The only sound was the pop and crackle of pine as the nearby homes continued to burn.  He squeezed her hand tightly, realizing as he did it that he was wringing courage from her steady grip.

“The men inside this building are no threat to you.  If you took some time to truly consider the situation, you’d not harm them.  Sometimes, in the heat of the moment, we behave rashly.  We all do, myself included.  But gentlemen, please, consider what kind of man it is that you want to be.  What kind of man did your mother hope you would become?  The kind of man who would murder innocents who have not raised a hand against you or the kind of man who would choose a better path?”

Darkness served to isolate the crowd, just as daylight had worked to congeal the mob.  He could only take their silence as a good sign, and he continued to look into the darkness, hoping he didn’t look as terrified as he felt. 

He watched the shadows shift, and the edges of the group began to waver.  Even in the dark, he could tell the group was thinning as, one by one, men slipped off into the darkness. 

After a lengthy silence, the few remaining men sought one another out, stepping closer to the porch.  William was stunned to see that only five men remained. 

Bony was still in the lead, however, and he placed his boot on the first porch step.  “You won’t stop us,” he slurred.

“I agree, sir.  We won’t stop you.”  William stepped between the man and Buffy.  He was now a mere arm’s length away.  “You’re the only ones who can do that.”

“Who the hell are you, Pilgrim?  To tell us what to do?”  Bony lifted his rifle butt so quickly that William barely had time to register the movement before the metal-trimmed stock cracked against his left eyebrow. 

William crumbled down the porch steps as though his legs were made of paper.  His stomach did a strange flip, and his vision clouded suddenly; he couldn’t tell if it was due to the blow to his head or the thick red liquid pouring into his eyes.

The instant he fell into the dirt, an indistinguishable blur rushed down and flew against Bony.  William saw a buzz of color and heard a snapping sound but he couldn’t for the life of him tell which came first.  Bony was suddenly lying in the dirt; his forearm was bent at an impossible angle, and he howled in pain. 

Buffy?  Someone who looked a great deal like his Elizabeth had attacked the man.  Her scorched skirts settled back down around her ankles, and she looked over her shoulder to William, assessing his condition. He tried to fix his face in the expression of a reassuring smile.  It must have worked, because she immediately turned back to face the remaining men.

“You asshats need to step off.  Right now.”  The men stepped backwards as she leveled a ferocious glare their way.

She rushed towards a man on her left, lifting her leg to an impossible height and cracking it down on his hand, which had just reached his gun belt.  A pistol went spinning into the dirt and the man crumpled to the ground with a yowl of pain.  “And reaching for your gun, John Whine?  A really dumb idea.” 

Buffy kicked the pistol beneath the porch of the Joss House.  “I’m about seven levels past pissed off right now.  If you pack up your guns and your torches and leave in the next minute I might not kick all of your sorry, racist asses.”

Even through the rapidly gathering fog, he made out dark figures picking up Bony and his friend and fading from sight without so much as a mutter. 

She spun around to face him, moving to his side at an impossible speed and dropping to her knees beside him. 

“Oh, William.”   Her green eyes were swimming with concern, and she reached tentative fingers toward the gash on his brow.  Suddenly it grew darker, very rapidly.  Blackness began to chew away at the edges of his vision, eating up the frightening scene with increasingly larger bites.

It occurred to him, just as he began to lose consciousness, that he’d likely hallucinated the entire scene – Buffy taking on and beating western outlaws with two simple kicks?  Yes, it had to be the blow to his head that had caused him to imagine such … then the last bit of light had been swallowed and he knew no more.

~*~

He swam out of unconsciousness to find himself in a darkened room.  Sputtering gas wall lamps revealed several Asian men huddled around him.  The interior of the Joss House.  While one man bandaged his forehead, another tilted a steaming cup of foul-smelling tea into his mouth.  William gagged on the vile liquid, but the Chinese man held his lips closed, and William was forced to swallow.

“Buffy?” he choked once his throat was clear.

The man holding the cup pondered what William said, then moved aside and pointed a knobby finger across the room.  He could just make her out.  Buffy.  She was talking in urgent tones to several people, some of whom were white.  The foul tea man blocked his view again and lifted a fresh cup to William’s lips.

“Buffy, good bakguai.  You good bakguai.  Drink now.”

With no option to refuse, he let the tea slide down his throat.  The bitter liquid tasted a little less shocking the second time around, and he felt a pleasant numbness spreading outwards from his throat and stomach. 

When darkness claimed him again, he went willingly.

~*~

William was jostled awake to find himself strapped onto a blanket that had been tightly bound to two long, wooden poles.  What was the Indian word for the device?  Travois.  Craning his neck he could see he was being carried, or rather dragged, through the stony dirt streets by the foul tea man.

His head throbbed mightily, and he squinted through the darkness.  He appeared to be in the center of a long line of approximately twenty people, making their way down a narrow ravine.  Their voices were hushed, urgent.

When the travois bumped against a particularly large stone, William’s head thunked against the top of the pole and all went black in his world again.

~*~

3 a.m. - In a sparsely furnished hotel room – right outside the train station in Ogden, Utah.

“Oooh, the Shining Man is going to be very, very cross,” Dru purred.

“Is that so?” Billy mumbled.  It was terribly difficult to focus on what she was saying when what she was wearing held his groin’s full attention.  His dark seductress had killed a young prostitute earlier that night, and after they’d dined Dru had slipped into the unfortunate girl’s gown.  The dress was tighter than skin on Dru and pushed her white breasts up in a most tantalizing fashion.  He reached out to slide his fingertips across her satin-covered hips, urging her down to his lap.  She complied, and his cock gave a sharp tug of happiness.

Dru slid her arms around his shoulders and leaned over to kiss his neck, her cool licks quickly turning to painful nips on his earlobe.  It hurt, but in such a good way, he could only grin.

“The Shining Man thought the white demons would slow them down, but the slayer got in their way.  Like gumdrops in gears, she is.”

“Is that so?”  Billy asked, sliding his fingertips across her tight bodice.  The pebble of her nipple taunted his tongue and fingertips, poking out the satin.

“They’ll be coming to Ogden next.  And they’ll be coming with Another.”

“More the merrier,” Billy groaned.  He leaned down and began to flick his tongue back and forth across her satin-covered nipple.

“Tomorrow.” Dru pulled away from him, holding up a finger.  A stern nun in a whore’s dress.  “When we catch the wrong William tomorrow, we’ll lead the slayer on a merry chase.  Then we’ll teach Shining Man a perfect new game, won’t we, William?”

“Yes, Dru.  Tomorrow.”  He shuddered with need as she ground her crotch against his erection.  “But for now, can we please …?”

“Why yes, my William, I’d love to have this dance.”  Dru giggled and stood.  She slid her underwear to the floor before wriggling back onto his grateful lap.

~*~

7 a.m. – Rock Springs, Wyoming – Train Depot

When William woke, it was different than his last few wakings.  For the first time, he felt refreshed, as though he’d had a genuine sleep and not simply fought his way up from unconsciousness. 

He recognized the room immediately; he was in the Rock Springs train depot.  By the way the sun’s rays slanted across the room, he could tell it was very early morning.  He turned his head slowly and winced as a blade of pain sliced through his eyes. 

She saw he’d awakened and her lips curved into a smile, but it didn’t reach her tired eyes.  “William, you’re awake.”

He tried to respond, but his throat was far too raw to comply, and he collapsed into a fit of coughing.  A worried line etched a path across her forehead.  She quickly reached for a canteen and poured a small amount of water into a tin cup.  Cautiously, she lifted his head with one hand while the other held the cup to his lips.

The sight of the cup held to his lips made him flash to a memory from the previous night.  A Chinese man had tended to him in a similar manner – or had it been a dream?  Half-expecting to find the cup filled with foul-smelling tea, he was relieved to find nothing but water and gulped it down.

Though his throat felt marginally better, bright pain continued to slice into his head, just behind his forehead and through his eyes.  He closed his lids and lay back on his makeshift bed on the floor.

Once the wave of pain subsided, he worked to recall what had happened the night before.  His memories were oddly fragmented.  It felt as though he was reading snippets from a novel, with no connecting narrative.  Since he was already fighting the sharp pain behind his eyes, pulling together the strands of last night’s events seemed a Herculean task.

The man with the foul tea.  It wasn’t his imagination.  It was a real event.  There were others there, too.  An entire room full of people.  A … Joss House full of them.  He remembered.  Some of it, anyway.

“The Chinese?”  he asked, before dissolving into a series of dry coughs.

She reached down and placed her hand over his, squeezing gently.  “They’re fine, William.  We got them out before the mob came back and torched the temple.  There are a few ‘good bakguai’s’ in Rock Springs.  They helped get everyone to Bitter Creek and then escorted us back to the train station.” 

“So I didn’t dream it.”  His voice was raspy and unfamiliar.

“You had a knock on the noggin, William.  Do you remember that?”

The gun stock, crashing against his forehead.  Yes, he remembered that.  He nodded cautiously; the slight movement sent a nauseating bolt of pain through his head.

He lifted his hand up to his left brow, but it was covered in a thick bandage.

“The barber gave you a few stitches while you were out.  It’s going to leave a scar, but you’ll be okay.”

“And you, Buffy?  Are you all right?”  He tilted his head at her, but her hands busied themselves pouring him another drink from the canteen, and she would not meet his gaze.

He remembered … something else.  It dodged just beyond the edge of what he could remember.  Just after the gun had knocked him to the ground.  Something about Buffy.  What was it?  Why did it give him such a feeling of unease every time he tried to remember it?  And why wouldn’t she meet his eyes?

“Buffy?”

She ignored him and lifted the cup to his lips.  “Here, have another sip.”

He resisted, asking instead, “Darling?”

She raised her chin at him, looking as guarded as she had last night when he found her on the porch ready for battle.  Battle.  That was it, wasn’t it?  She had battled with the men; with just a few simple kicks, she’d left several of them lying in the dirt road with broken bones.

“Buffy, what happened last night?  What did you do to those men?”

She looked at him and inhaled deeply, but said nothing.

“I remember now Buffy.  Everything.  Who … who are you?”

Her lips thinned to a line and she spoke.  Her voice sounded foreign and cold.  “The Slayer.”

“What?  How?”

“I don’t know how, William,” she sighed, sounding more like herself at least.

“When?”

“A few days ago, actually.  When I got my memories back.”

“Days?”  He could only repeat stupidly.  He felt as though he’d landed in the middle of someone else’s story, and he was trying desperately to catch up.  “This vast change happened days ago and you … kept it from me?”

“Well, I …” She trailed off miserably, tears brimming in her eyes.

“Who are you?”

“I … we …” She paled and stood.  “This isn’t the best place to talk, William.”

“No.”  His voice was laced with bitterness. “You wouldn’t have kept something like this from me.  You couldn’t.”

“I’m going to get the barber.  He’ll want to check the stitches now that you’re awake.”  Without waiting for his reply, she’d fled across the room to retrieve a short, elderly man with a wide, friendly face. 

“Name’s Stephen,” the man said as knelt on the floor next to William.  The older man gently unwrapped the bandage on William’s forehead.  “We made introductions last night, but after the Chinese dosed you with their magic tea, I don’t expect you’re much for rememberin’ makin’ my acquaintance.”

William grimaced as the bandage pulled at his tender skin.

“Sorry about that,” Stephen mumbled as he removed the last of the wrappings.  He squinted and surveyed William’s wound with a critical eye.  “Not too bad, if I say so.  You’ll have a shiner for a few days and a scar, but the ladies always go for that kind of thing.  I’m sure the missus won’t mind.”  He gave William a roguish wink and began to carefully apply a fresh bandage to William’s forehead.

“Quite a little lady you married yourself to,” Stephen said, looking at William appraisingly.  It was only then that William realized in his shock he’d neglected to say a word to the kindly man.

“Indeed, she is … something else entirely.” William wondered how much the older man had actually seen of Buffy in action.  “What did she do, exactly?”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, as I was unconscious, I’m quite vague on the details of the evening,” William clarified.

Stephen laughed good-naturedly.  “I didn’t catch a lot of it myself.  When the fellas from the union hall got liquored up and started killin’ folks, some of us didn’t cotton to it very well.  We’d gathered up toward where the Chinese were hidin’ out, up in the Joss House.  We figured they might have half a chance making it out of town if we had their backs covered.  Before we could even talk to the mob, your wife jumped right down their throats, and they lit out.”

The older man looked down at William apparently expecting some kind of response, so William gave a painful nod.

“By that time, you’d been knocked out cold, so she drug you into where we was.  She was like a general in there.  Little Napoleon.  Wasn’t but three minutes of peppering me with questions, and she’d got herself a plan.  Said the mob would be back and we had to set out for Bitter Creek.  She was dead right, too.  We weren’t out of the Joss House five minutes before they torched it.  Damned fools didn’t even bother to check if we was still inside.  Made it that much easier to set the Chinee fellas on their way.”

“She didn’t fight anyone?  Hurt anyone?”

“I didn’t see that gal raise a finger to anyone.  What the hell is the matter with you?  Your wife is a god-damned hero.  Pardon my French.”  The barber stood and gave William a wary glance.

“Stephen,” Buffy interrupted.  “I hate to ask, but … William’s clothes are a little, eh, well, bloody.  We left his suitcase on the train, and he hasn’t got anything to change into.   I was wondering if you know where he could …?”

But Buffy didn’t even need to finish.  “By my reckoning, you’re the god-damned Hero of Rock Springs.  Pardon my French.  According to the Chinee you’re far more than a ‘good bakguai.’  You’re the goodest bakguai that ever was.  Hell yes, we can find some gear for your husband.  Pardon my French.”

“Thank you,” Buffy said, and she flashed a veneer of a smile at the old man, who began to walk toward the depot’s door.

“Wait,” William said, causing both Stephen and Buffy to turn towards him slowly.  “I’d like to come with you.”  Suddenly, he felt overwhelmed with the need to get away for a moment, to clear his pain-filled head and stand on his own two feet.  He sat up and tried to appear casual as he kept his head above a tidal wave of pain and nausea.

“Should he …?”  Buffy trailed off.

“Might as well,” the barber shrugged.  “Be good for him to walk around a bit.  Sooner he’s up and around, the sooner you can catch a train out of these parts.”

William stood shakily.  Unsure if his legs would hold his weight, he steadied himself with a hand on the wall.  After a moment, he took a tentative step forward, then another, trailing behind the old man who continued his path toward the door.

“See you in a minute, William.”  He heard Buffy’s voice at his back.  “We can … talk then.”  Torn between wanting to nod and shake his head, he did neither, and merely followed Stephen out the door and into the still smoking remains of Rock Springs.

The thought of getting out of his filthy clothes and taking care of the mundane details was strangely soothing to him.  It reminded him of how he felt after his mother had died.  He’d been lost in pain and found that the best response was to focus on taking care of the details of daily living.  It wouldn’t be a way to bridge the chasm that had suddenly yawned in the midst of his marriage; it would merely be a way to function, to get through the immediate, and he took it gratefully.

Stephen led him down the block and into a men’s clothing store.  For being a frontier shop, it was startlingly well stocked.  The barber looked at the pale, jumpy clerk behind the counter and greeted him with a nod.

“This here is William,” Stephen grunted.  “He helped sort out some of the trouble from yesterday.  You’re gonna get him outfitted.  Top of the line, no charge.  Comprende?”

The nervous clerk apparently understood quite well and gestured for William to follow him into a curtained changing room in the rear.  Wordlessly, the boy sized William, only to return in a moment with an armload of clothing.

William slowly unbuttoned his ruined shirt. His blood-soaked collar stuck and tugged where it had dried on his skin, and he gingerly worked to loosen it.  He heard timid footsteps approach the curtain, and the clerk slid a metal basin of water beneath the curtain.  After William pulled the water into the small room, the clerk’s hand appeared holding two washcloths.

“Thank you,” William said as he took the folded cloth, but the clerk did not respond.  Damn strange town.

He dabbed the cloth in the water, cleaning his neck and chest as thoroughly as he was able.  The amount of blood soaked into his stiffened suit was shocking.  He knew that head wounds tended to be difficult to staunch, but between the blood and the soot and grime, his entire suit was ruined. 

Since even small movements caused his head to throb, dressing took far more time than usual.  The boy had supplied him with a complete western style ensemble.  By the time he’d finished, he was feeling more than a little light-headed.  His legs had been supporting his weight for over thirty minutes, and they were beginning to tremble in protest.

He made his way out of the dressing room and headed toward the front of the store.

“Sir?” the clerk finally spoke.  He gestured toward the large mirror mounted on the wall, and William complied.

Standing before the mirror, it took William a moment to recognize himself.  The expression ‘the clothes make the man’ had never seemed more apt, as they seemed to have made him into a different creature entirely.  The proper English gentleman had quite departed.  In his place, William saw a frontiersman, not terribly unlike the outlaws they’d faced last night.  He wore a blue western-cut shirt; low slung, chocolate slacks with a black leather belt; and thick soled black leather boots.  The sales clerk handed William a dark brown leather duster and William shrugged into it.  The duster’s hem unfolded against his shaking calves and it felt oddly comforting. 

When he looked up to his face, he saw the lined face of a very weary man.  He looked terribly pale.  The bandage over his left eye was only marginally lighter than his skin; the white cloth of the gauze only served to bring out the contrast in his rapidly purpling eye. 

He’d asked her who she was, but he very well might ask who the bloody hell he was.

The mirror-image of him wobbled, and William realized that he was more unsteady on his feet than he’d thought.  He turned and nodded at the clerk.  “Thank you.”

“Certainly, sir.  Sorry for your … trouble.”

The barber waited for him by the door.  He gave William a quick once over and shook his head.  “You’re whiter than titties on an albino nun.  Pardon my French.  I best get you back to your missus before you melt.”

The older man opened the door, and William followed him the few steps up the street to the depot.

In their short absence, the room had transformed with the arrival of the eastbound train.  Word of the riot had apparently reached larger cities in the vicinity, and they’d responded vigorously.  The small station was absolutely bursting with activity.  A group of approximately thirty soldiers were assembling on the track side of the building, while inside the depot several politicians and reporters held conversations with Rock Spring’s citizens.

William looked around for Buffy, holding onto the wall for support.  His legs, which had begun to tremble in the clothing shop, were now quaking violently, and he didn’t trust them to hold his weight for much longer.

Even though the building was loaded beyond capacity, it wasn’t a large structure and finding her should have taken but a moment.  Keeping a steadying hand on the wall, he orbited the interior of the depot, searching for her.   She couldn’t have snuck out again, could she?  She wouldn’t do that. 

Who was she?

“Mister?”  A familiar hand reached up to tug on his pants leg.  He looked down and saw exactly who he was expecting to see: the pig-tailed girl from the day before.  “Your missus?  She tends to rabbit off, don’t she?”

“Do you know where she is?”

Pig-tails nodded.  “A big fella got off the train and started talkin’ to your missus.  She didn’t much care for him, by the look of it and drug him off into the station master’s office.”

William swallowed down a lump of fear and made his way back to the small office in the rear of the building, leaning on the wall for support.  Would this day ever end?  It seemed as if today had lasted a week, and it wasn’t even yet nine a.m. 

The office window was small enough that he’d overlooked it during his search for her.  As he approached the door, he peered through the small rectangle of glass.  Buffy’s back was to him, but her voice was raised in agitation.  The noisy din from the depot’s new arrivals made it impossible to hear what she was saying, however.   The man that faced her was striking enough that William stopped and took a moment to examine him.

The stranger was dressed in a manner that William hadn’t seen since leaving London.  He was clothed entirely in the Aesthetic style:  a purple brocaded waistcoat, striped trousers and a paisley frock coat.  He was as out of place as a sapphire in a crow’s nest.  In addition, the size of the man was somewhat startling.  It wasn’t that he was tall, though he was easily six foot three; it was that he was simply proportionately larger than average men, but without an ounce of fat.  The man’s long brown hair framed his very serene face.  His sad, brown eyes were trained on Buffy, and his full lips were pursed thoughtfully.  Though Buffy sounded angry, the man remained quite placid, nodding and listening to her.

William opened the door without hesitation, without knocking.  When Buffy turned to see who’d entered the room, she let out a gasp of surprise. 

The stranger worked to assess William, quickly.  “Do you need something, sir?”  He had an Irish brogue, but one that held the vowels of a well-educated man.

“Yes,” William said, folding his arms across his chest in what he desperately hoped was an authoritative sort of gesture.  “I would be needing my wife.”

“Your … wife?”  The man blinked at William, incredulous, before turning to look at Buffy.  “His wife?”

“Like I said,” Buffy folded her arms across her chest defiantly.  “It’s complicated.”

William felt the room sway and leaned his back against the wall.

“Allow me to introduce myself.  I’m William Pratt.”  He hoped he appeared commanding, but he was willing to settle for sounding like a man who wasn’t on the verge of fainting.  “And, as appears you’ve already made introductions to my wife, I’d like to know who you are.”

“Forgive my manners, please.”  The tall man executed an obligatory bow, which William hadn’t seen since landing in America.  “Oscar Wilde, at your service.”

“Oscar Wilde?  Winner of the Newdigate Prize?”

The man looked surprised and smiled shyly.  “The very same.  Though I’m quite unaccustomed to the experience of people having heard of me in America, I must confess.  Especially in the frontier.”

“I … well, yes …” William stammered.  “I’d read that you had a lecture series in the colonies.”

Buffy continued to gape at William and he pressed on while he was still blessed with consciousness.  “As remarkable as it is to make your acquaintance in this setting, Mr. Wilde, the thing I’m curious about  is – how is it that you know my wife?

“Oh, I …”  Oscar pursed his full lips.

“Could this day suck more?”  Buffy lifted her eyes to the ceiling.  “William, I just now met him.   He came up from Ogden because he heard about what happened last night.”

“Oscar Wilde interrupted his lecture series because he heard about the riot?”  William asked.

“Well, sort of.  He heard about … what I did.   He came here to introduce himself to me.”

“I completely fail to follow.”  William shook his aching head.  “Why would the night’s events require an introduction?  Who is he to you, Buffy?”

“Oh.  He’s my … oh, hell.”  She sighed and met his eyes.  “William, Oscar is my Watcher.

-------------

Oscar Wilde?  Seriously?  And here I invoke Dora’s Corollary for the final time.  Oscar Wilde did tour America, but in 1881.  I bumped his timeline, gently (along with the publication of his first book). 

The last word on that riot.   The Rock Springs newspaper defended the massacre, as did other Wyoming papers. The New York Times, on the other hand, said of the town, "the appropriate fate for a community of this kind would be that of Sodom and Gomorrah.”

Though 28 were confirmed dead, the true number is estimated closer to 50.  Along with newspaper reporters and soldiers, the Governor arrived the following morning, which worked to calm the situation.   There were no reports of ‘good bakguai’ – in fact there were stories of women and children helping to kill Chinese in the streets.  I like to hope that, as in so many of these situations, a courageous few stood against the crazy.

After fleeing along Bitter Creek and ending up 100 miles away in Evanston, the Chinese workers were promised safety in California.  They trustingly boarded a train only to find they’d been tricked and were  back in Rock Springs – trapped, burned out and still indebted to the mine. 

Damn you, history!