John Holland's Story

The other night at write's group I read these thousand words. General concensus was that it was less a short story and more a novel outline. I guess I could get a 20,000 word novella out of it, but I don't love it enough to settle in and go for 80,000.

Jon Holland's Story


John Holland was not a gun fighter, but he had a gun, an old Navy Colt and it was lying on the ground beside him. He’d had it stuck in his belt but it jammed into his crotch as he sat and he didn’t want to shoot his balls off before he’d had a chance to kill Bertrand Biel.

He’d chosen a spot on the trail out of Taos. Not the one to Albuquerque or the one north to Colorado, but the less used south east route to Fort Union. That’s where Biel would head, as it was the closest thing he had to a home. John had sniffed him out in Taos, but Taos was not a good place to kill a man. It was pretty calm there now and killing was less common than before. Word was that Biel was running short of cash and would likely ride out within a day or so. Better to do a killing on the trail.

And so John Holland sat, his back against a sudden cliff face that rose sharp from the flat plain. It was cool enough not to need the shade, but later in the day, if he was still there, it would be welcome. Ten yards away his horse stood, tethered to scrub, its eyes closed, its ears flicking flies.

If he had killed Bertrand Biel in Taos there would have been a trial and a lot more likely than not, John Holland would have been found not guilty. More than not guilty, he would have been found innocent. Innocent, as in pure. A man who killed the man who raped his sister was committing a pure act. But the trial would have taken time and there was always the slightest chance that the jury would have gone against him. And then things would have come out; things that John Holland wouldn’t have liked to have had made public.

Ella Holland was a simple girl. More than simple, she was downright slow. She could fetch water and gather fire wood, but you wouldn’t have sent her for eggs or to do any actual chopping. She smiled more often than she cried, both for no apparent reason. Most of the time her expression was plain. She had big eyes and was a little pretty. She didn’t speak much and sometimes would bite your hand or snap a chicken neck, likewise for no apparent reason. She might have been about to do that when Bertrand Biel found her in the coop. He liked her big eyes and especially her big breasts, which he said he had just wanted to handle and then he said they were just so damn nice that he had to keep going.

Ella must have had some sense that what he was doing was wrong because she fought back, grabbing his left ear with her right hand and crushing as hard as she could. She would have torn it off if he hadn’t slapped her. After that she didn’t grab any more and he didn’t slap.

There was some talk of sending Ella off to be with an aunt just in case she turned up pregnant. There was also some mention of her living with the nuns in the convent over in Abiquiu. Neither of these things happened. Three days after Bertrand Biel left town, heading north with his broken ear, they found Ella out behind the horse barn with one of the hands from two ranches over. The next night she went missing and turned up just before the next dawn, wandering on the trail, trying to find her way home from the place where that young fellow, and several other young fellows worked. On Sunday her mother found her in the parlor, trying to make friends with the dog. After that they locked her in her room.

Now, if that had been all there was to it, John Holland probably wouldn’t have been sitting in the cliff face shade. The rape was bad enough but might not have caused him to plan murder. There were still things that could have been done and the family would have saved face. There were always the nuns.
The bigger problem wasn’t that Ella was shamed, it was just the opposite. The thing that had been done to her turned into the biggest and best thing in her life. She simply loved sex. Sex with anybody or anything. She’d break out of her room and stop the next man she saw on the trail and lift up her skirt.
Then there was the slicker who told her that if she loved it so much, why he was just the man she needed to meet. He knew a place in Albuquerque where she could meet all the men she wanted and have a place to stay and even maybe have a few dollars of her own. She didn’t even go home to pack. She rode on the back of his horse and he set her up in that special house.

Everybody thought she’d gone off with some young cowboy and was more or less a wife now. Or maybe she’d been killed by a jealous wife, but they’d never heard of a murder like that anywhere about. Probably the cowboy idea was right.

Then things happened fast. John Holland happened to be in Albuquerque and happened to get stupid drunk and happened into the wrong fancy house and it was all real dark and John happened to wake up next to his sister. Then he screamed and she screamed and the old drunk guard busted into the dark room and took a shot at John but hit Ella who died on the spot. Then the madam ran in with her gun out and John managed to yell, “Hey, this damn guy’s crazy!” Not needing more trouble than there already was, the madam whacked the guard’s head with the barrel of her gun and made him get out. There was then some discussion between the two as to whether John should give her a bunch of money to shut her up or if she should give John a bunch of money for the same reason. In the end John walked away and she let him.

Later in the day when the effects of the hangover and all the shooting had let up, John had to consider the fact that he’d just been carnal with his own sister. This was very bad, and when something bad happens, there has to be punishment. And so John Holland sat, waiting for the old drunk guard, Bertrand Biel, to come along. Way up the trail there was a bit of dust rising. Soon, thought John Holland, soon I’ll be clean of it.