Brianroy's August 23, 2015 Sunday Sermon: Comparing the Miracles of Jesus and Elijah with the false prophet Mohammed

 On September 2, 2014, the UK Daily Mail noted a story on how Muslims are worshiping the corpse of Mohammed, and notes how that Muslim view him as their deity's "Last Prophet" when he was their deity's ONLY alleged prophet that they can legitimately point to without going back into ancient Assyrian times and picking out other fellow idol worshipers.  

Elijah was taken up to Heaven alive before 51 witnesses while Mohammed is a small pile of bones of what used to be his corpse. 

 Jesus died upon the Cross, was buried in a tomb 3 days and nights and rose again from the dead in full capabilities and in full mental faculties, was seen by over 500 who knew exactly who He was, and witnessed by at least 120 as He too ascended to Heaven.  And considering Jesus ascended from one of the Mount of Olives 4 peaks at Jerusalem, it is very likely He was seen ascending into Heaven by hundreds of others, including Levites and Priests and Guards (Jew and Gentile) at the Holy Temple when He ascended, not to mention many others new archaeological and/or historical manuscript finds may yet one day affirm.  

In Matthew 9:27-31   Jesus healed 2 blind men;

Jesus healed another blind man in Mark 8:22-26;

Jesus also healed a man who was born blind in John 9:1-7;

Jesus healed a blind and dumb (i.e., speechless)  demon-possessed man in Matthew 12:22 and Luke 11:14;

and Jesus also cured 2 blind men in Matthew 20:30, Mark 10:46, Luke 18:35.

The historical record is that Jesus healed not only these 7 people, but many more.  

In contrast, Mohammed healed no one,  not even a single time or in other words, not ever.  Mohammed could do no miracles, but Mohammed could (as a sex pervert)  get high off a 13 year old girl's menstruating vagina, literally rubbing his nose in it as his head lay on Aisha's naked thigh facing it and then hallucinate and dictate a Quran he could neither read or write.  

In Matthew 9:32-33 Jesus cured a dumb man, one who was unable to speak  (which type Scripture infers is as a severe mental retardation, and NOT  one of those who are in a form of hysterical emotional or hysterical psychological shock, but in some cases demon possessed); in this case, a demon spirit causing the dumbness was cast out by Jesus under his own personal authority, an authority reserved to GOD.  The miracle was an event NEVER done before nor ever heard of, which implies someone who was severely retarded was made into a fully functional and normal intelligent interacting person.  The miracle was affirmed by a healing of an even more severe case that included blindness as well as dumbness (the inability to speak) when Jesus healed a blind and dumb (i.e., speechless)  demon-possessed man in Matthew 12:22 and Luke 11:14 (the same blind man mentioned earlier as one of the 7 mentioned blind Jesus healed)  as our examples.  

Mohammed never healed anyone, but he did grab a couple of guys from behind and rape them up the anus when his various wives and concubines made themselves unavailable to him.  Mohammed could have homosexual hot flashes, but his followers aren't supposed to imitate Mohammed's gay urges.  Maybe if both men and women weren't around, Mohammed had sex with his goats and camels.   Considering Mohammed drank camel urine and passed this ritual down for women to drink and vomit even in our present day,  Mohammed having sex with animals when he was alone is not out of the realm of likelihood since he always felt he could not sexually contain himself and had to intercourse with what was "readily available" according to the Hadiths.  

Jesus healed leprosy, whether singly as in Matthew 8:2, Mark 5:1, Luke 8:26;  or in a group of as many as 10 Lepers at once, as in Luke 17:11-19.  

Jesus healed a paralyzed man in Matthew 9:2, Mark 3:1, Luke 6:6; Jesus in Matthew 8:5 and Luke 7:1 by a spoken acknowledgement of His Authority only, and at a distance of perhaps hundreds of yards away, also cured  with "the palsy", likely having suffered a stroke and was muscularly incapacitated, even though that man was likely a Gentile while in the service of a Gentile Roman Centurion master.   

     In 1 Kings 17:14-16, Elijah gave the miracle of multiplying food perhaps several thousands of times over, if one makes two small loaves per person as many as four times a day for about 2 years or more, a double portion being made on the day prior to Shabbat and none on the Sabbath, for an estimated let us say 800 days period over which there were at least 14,400 small loaves of bread that the widow woman likely produced.  But let us round it up to the next thousand and say for the sake of argument that it was 15,000 small loaves.    

By contrast, we see Jesus multiplying bread for thousands of people of like figures (when you include women and children with the men in the counts) as he breaks and multiplies in one morning or afternoon a dozen loaves of bread or less as well as the meat of fish a lesser number of fish to multiple thousands  in the historical accounts in Matthew 14:17-21, 15:32-38;  Mark 6:38-44, 8:1-9; Luke 9:12-17;  John 6:1-14.

By contrast, Mohammed's apparent best was that he told people to drink the poison of camel urine and milk (Sahih Bukhari, Ablutions (Wudu'), Volume 1, Book 4, Number 234) as if it were his answer to nutrition and as a medicine.

Meanwhile, Mohammed's bondage and submission religion of Islam also knowingly promotes the concept of  cannabalism, even as in 2012, Egyptian High School Text Books taught Muslim kids that 

https://youtu.be/wQF7JXXPwgA

"We are allowed the eating of flesh of dead humans under necessary conditions.  It must not be cooked or grilled to avoid doing wrong.  And, he can kill a murtadd  [an apostate, that includes Christians and Jews] and eat him. "

-- Al-Azhar al-Sharif, Azhari Colleges Section, Central Administration for Books, Libraries, and Teaching Aides for 3rd Year High School, page 256. 

So what would you rather have, the miracle food of delicious miraculously multiplied bread and fish that leaves you satisfied, happy, content...or would you rather much on uncooked human flesh with a cup of camel urine and milk mixture and try to call that insane and evil activity worthy of immediate annihilation as in any way as holy or in any way normal?  

In 1 Kings 17:17-22, Elijah raises a dead child from being a corpse to being a living being again.

By contrast, before many witnesses, Jesus raised the dead son of the widow of Nain to life (Luke 7:11-17) ; Jesus raided the daughter of Jairus from the dead (Matthew 9:23; Mark 5:23; Luke 8:41); and Jesus raised the 4 day dead and rotting corpse of Lazarus back from the grave (John 11:43-45), again before many witnesses. 

By contrast, Mohammed could do nothing but steal, kill, and destroy...and the religious Mohammedans have nothing to offer but a religion of death that reflects that same mostly useless ideology.  

Jesus, when his enemies sought to slay Him before the appointed time and means by which he was to offer Himself up, found themselves on more than one occasion being struck with the same temporary blindness that the angels sent to Lot at Sodom struck that crowd with in Genesis 19:10-11.  We see this when Jesus was taken by a mob to be cast down a cliff side of a large hill at Nazareth in Luke 4:28-30, and then when He blinded those who wanted to stone Him in the Court of the Gentiles at the Temple in John 8:59, as well. 

Elijah, by miracles of the Creation (which some may call miracles over Weather or Nature) initiated by the spoken word, twice called down fire (lightning) from Heaven in 2 Kings 1:10-12.    Jesus, by contrast, was able to walk on the waters of the stormy inland Sea of Galilee (Matthew 14:25; Mark 6:48-51; John 6:19-21); and Jesus was able to immediately rebuke stormy winds and waves to an instant calm with just a spoken word of command (Matthew 8:23-27; Mark 4:37-39; Luke 8:24) and in the two separate historical accounts of Matthew 8:23-27 and  John 6:19-21, Jesus fulfills Psalm 107:28-30 as YHVeH to whom they cry out to, not realizing also the prophecy actually begins in verse 23 of Psalm 107, and this explains the purpose of the miracle and how it came about…by a both an unspoken word and will of command as well as spoken word and will of command that both involve a before state (unseen) and an after state (a state of being seen)…even as those who believe into GOD will believe and trust into the unseen Almighty and one day with joy see Him. 

Mohammed, by contrast, offered no miracles in GOD’s Creation as in anyway showing even the remotest sign of preternatural approval.  On the contrary, by his own admission, Mohammed thought he was demon-possessed, knew himself to be a liar, a sexual predator, a fraud, and a base illiterate who knew nothing but how to steal and kill and destroy and deceive and play on the greed and envy of others. 

So if anyone wants a distinction of what we can expect of someone who is the genuine article as one sent from Heaven, we need look no further than to Jesus Christ.  He is preceded in the sense of His incarnation appearance on Earth in type and prophetical but lesser example by Elijah and his miracles.  

Those who follow Mohammed, follow a liar and a murderous lunatic fraud who deludes people on a fast road to hell and eternal damnation.  That is an eternal fact.  It will be proven to everyone after they die off by whatever means in this current mortal existence.  Most will find this out in a bad way to their hurt by their own unbelief, and it is by belief and a trusting faith into Jesus by which you are labeled as the called and chosen by GOD.  For even as Jesus forewarned, “many are called, but few are chosen.”  

Fictional Story: Recollections of a Western Deputy (1871 -1897): August 6, 1880 Different Journeys, Of A Sort

Fictional Story: Recollections of a Western Deputy (1871 -1897): 
                       Different Journeys, Of A Sort



August 6, 1880

       Me and the Mrs. just got back from a just less than 2 month trip in which we went to her birthplace in Denmark. and later to her paternal grandparent's home in Maastricht.   The old battleaxe, her mother, is breathin' fire because I wouldn't take her and pay for her to come along on the trip.  My sentiments was to take that dang mother-in-law  to Denmark and leave her thar', but the old Norse fisherman might have mistook her blow and harpooned her for a whale.  (But don't tell the wife I said so.)  

In fact, just before the trip me and the Mrs. had words regardin' her mother, and I was perfectly content to spend my last $1500 from rewards and savin's I collected  that I was savin' here in the States for the kids and any needs they had while we was gone, I was willin' to spend all that just to buy the wife's  mother a very nice small place that she could manage herself  for up to $500 gold in Denmark, pay $200 in advanced taxes, and leave her the rest or $800  and say "Good Riddance", as I get tired of her blamin' me for not payin' to send her and her whole family back to Denmark, as if I had 20 times what I've got.  

While I enjoyed seein' Denmark, after a brief  day and night stop in London with some sight-seein' first, still I really enjoyed seein' Denmark by rail car with the wife snuggled close in for near the whole way, and then visitin' her Danish family awhile before driftin' about to see how the town and harbor was.
I was taken aback at how curious they was of a stranger, especially one from the States dressed the way I was: normal, unlike these gazin' harbor foreigners who seemed more dressed for whale huntin' and blubberin' than just normal fishin'.    I found myself havin' difficulty communicatin' as alot of the fisherman wonderin' who I was, as so many of them seemed to speak a real old Germanic dialect I wasn't familiar with.  Apparently, the language some of these fishermen from the islands and Jutland was usin' was itself dated back as far as the Vikings, I came to find out.   Luckily, Lars the Blacksmith and my Mrs. and her late  father (when he was alive) taught me just enough Norwegian  to make myself understood, and they also used that Norwegian language to make themselves known to me, although more than half the time I had no idea what they was talkin' about and didn't quite make out so many of the words, even after gettin' the rhythm pattern they was speakin' in.  Even a big 7 foot 2 inch giant Swede did the same in comin' over and speakin' to me in Norwegian and happily makin' himself my new friend, and we were only able to functionally abide in communicatin' by way of Norway.   The palm of his hand was so big, I thought it was almost as big as my whole face when he held it out in front of me and said somethin' about his callouses and knowin' the wife's uncle by way of his business at the wharf.  (He had seen me and the Mrs. greet them, and one of their family had already passed the word before we arrived that we was comin'.)   In fact, these Danish and other nationalities of fishermen accepted me so well, afore I knew it, I was crowded in and grabbed and pushed into a bar, and soon found myself buyin' near 30 of them 5 or 6 rounds of drinks (and the giant Swede near 20 steins of beer he glugged down in just under a half an hour all by hisself) before I could wrest my way out from those overly friendly folk slappin' and rubbin' up against me with their fish slime. 

 Of course, I came back nose clogged up, red faced tryin'  and red nosed from constantly blowin' my nose out,  smellin' like fish and booze (even though I only had perhaps a sip of just one drink of Schnapps, which the rest of it spilled all over me as they slapped my back red), and the wife saw red.  She got hold of a more than 20 pound fish that someone in her family just brought home and left on a barrel in front of the place, and did she let me have it: first with a cricket swing in the mouth and cheek that picked me right up off my feet and back another 5 or more down onto my rump!  What little I do remember after that  whack upside the mouth with that big foul tastin' slimy fish, was that as soon as my back end hit the ground, I looked up and she was wieldin' it like a sword, following through with a couple quick steps even as she half eight circular motioned it round and over her head, and like some sort of Viking Warrior Queen crashed it down so hard on my head, all I know is the next mornin', I was already bathed and redressed and on a train goin' to another set of her relatives who recently moved from thar' and south to a part of the Country taken over by Prussia some decades earlier or somethin'.  All I know fer sure is that it almost took me 3 days to come full back to my senses to know more than half of where I was and what was goin' on around me.  The swellin' knot on top of my head was near 3 inches high, and her relatives kept wantin' to treat it and nick-name me the "knot-head" of the family.  


Then after less than 2 day later, we made our way to Holland, and visited the wife's Dutch grandfather, whom I thought I got along real well with.  He was of the old Dutch Guard, and a Garrison Commander or somethin' at one point for King William I.  But that part of Holland called Limburg thought themselves somewhat more akin to Belgium, but this was where the wife's paternal grandparents moved after havin' come from family livin' at the dikes and windmills outside Amsterdam at various towns and settlements along the ocean for 300 years and more.

While the wife's father's father and me  was out shootin' the breeze, walkin' up a small road through a field between two woods, we saw this bearded grandfatherly lookin' fella with someone I took to be well along and carryin' child at first to be his grand-daughter, and then the way they was actin', that didn't quite appear to be correct.  It was something other than that they was blood kin.  She got tired and since I was carryin' a stool for the wife's grandfather, and a large goat wineskin of water with just a touch of wine to make it safe for me to drink, we saw the poor gal get the wobbly legs.  So we rushed over and gave her the stool to sit upon, and the Mrs. grandfather produced two collapse-able silver cups, and I poured them both 4 or 5 cups as we talked a while.   It was one of the nicest and polite chats I've had in quite a long time, and we spake  about all sorts of things from the weather, to Holland, to what I saw in Denmark and how life was back in the United States, a bit about the wife and kids, and even a little about the Great War.  Somewhere in thar' the gent spoke about baby names, and the young lady says that if it's a boy they will name it Willem, and if it's a girl, she shall be Willemina.  They both obviously were extremely happy and had a close bond of happiness just lookin' at one another.  I reckon it was close to an hour, if not more, as we enjoyed a very soft and comfortably partly cloudy and fine sunny just right in coolness day.  Then the wife comes from one direction and bows and curtsies, and stay down with her head bowed.  It was the Dutch King,  Willem Alexander Paul Frederik Lodewijk (William II) and his 41 years younger wife, Emma.  

The wife's grandfather bowed and begged his majesty's pardon, as the beard was only a recent thing, and he only remembered him with always a clean shaven face and smart mustache.  The good king smiled and gently laughed, being happy and fully amused, and touched the Mrs. grandfather and spoke how he had recognized him from many years ago, and on many occasions havin' seen him since when he too was a young man, but could not help findin' not bein' known by him right off so delightful (and I think the good king even said that he even found it "delicious", if I heard him correctly).  

Then from out of a wood from one direction, a troop of 20 Cavalry, and from the other another 30 with a horse and carriage from some other place of concealment.  He then shook my hand and then gently patted me on the lump still on top of my head and said, "You're a good boy" as he wife gave us a "Bless you" afore they was helped by their military guard and servants and rode off.   After he rode off and was long out of earshot, I turned to the wife and her grandfather who were also standin' up, and said, "You hear that?  He called me boy!  Not a good man, but boy!"

The wife replied, "Well, what do you want ME to do about it?  Either stomp your foot now or grow up, I don't care." Then she turned to her grandfather and invited him back to the house, and told me after I called out for her to "Wait" that I was not invited, and to go have supper in Maastricht and be back no later than 2 hours after dark if I know what's good for me.   I pulled a sling shot her grandfather and I had just made that earlier that day out of my pocket,  and then I grabbed a smooth stone from the other pocket, and I was tempted to aim for the wife's rump.  I debated this in my mind for perhaps 20 seconds.    But alas, instead, I threw the slingshot and the rest of the smooth stones I had in my pocket away, and then looked at them goin' further and further away.  

So I stood thar' and watched as she and her grandfather marched off arm and arm, and when she was out of sight, I went to the big city, and ate at a place where there was nothing but music and singin' of a lot of songs I never knew, and learned a few of.   Most all of Maastricht is into Popery or Roman Catholicism.  And of all things, I saw a hungry couple of priests who was prayin' for bread or somethin', and bought them not only enough for themselves, but enough to take back to more than 4 others they made hints regardin' to one another.  I thought we would be able to talk religion and history, but they wasn't interested as I wasn't "Catholic" I wasn't one of them.  But they was at least grateful for the food, and did pray I find my way, or somethin' or other.  

I went astray on my bearings, and spent an extra two hours tryin' found my way back to the Mrs. grandfather's place in the dark, and arrived about two hours after midnight, and as the door was bolted shut, I pitched myself a bed in a haystack.    I found the wife's homelands fertile and a well-watered green and saw many places for good livin', but I wasn't free like I was back in the States, and I wasn't a block that would fit in the wall of citizenry for either of her childhood countries.  And in many ways, I think the wife knew after livin' in the States and becomin' a Citizen through marriage, and bein' free herself, she no longer was totally at home in either place here in Europe as well.   She found that by goin' home to a home country most of her closest relatives that she left behind as a child weren't so close to her as they once was, so that home wasn't really home anymore; but it was with me, and the children, and her nearby mother and sisters and brothers and cousins and aunts and uncles and the like.   It took her thousands of miles and weeks of travelin' back to find we was her real home now, and at the first, it was very unsettling to her, and took most of the way back home afore she could finally let it all go (in spite of her mother's refusal to do the same).     For her to realize this and to settle that down in her mind was worth every penny and every hour we spent away.  

We got back to town and settled in, and on the mornin' of August 4th  I was back to work as a Deputy Marshal assistin' the town Sheriff, so that Marshal Jackson could also get revenue on the side for arrests I would bring in (usually bein' mostly gamblers and rowdies of all types passin' through).  

About 7 in the mornin' I was lecturin' a group of 10 year olds on how NOT to get rid of a bee-hive, such as with the brick.   I really don't know how young 'uns get such ideas as the one of them who intended to use a brick on a huge wasp bee-hive  from 10 feet away.  The wife's mother came by in a carriage and said some things to me in Danish that really set me off.  When she laid into profanities, the children saw her rage and flingin' spit as she chewed those words out like she was a mad cow chewing the cuds, and ran away.  Then, Sheriff Bond passed me at a trot goin' one direction and the old battleaxe seein' him passin' and lookin' went in the other direction with a vengeance, whippin' the horses furiously, leavin' a trail of dust one would think a witch would leave behind ridin' through the night sky on her broom-stick in a child's tale or somethin'.  I was so mad.  I fumed there for about half a minute, maybe more.  Then, in a fit of rage, I took that brick, and flung it full force right into that wasp's nest fom near 15 feet away.    It was a loud crack and a "POP!" sound, and then a huge black cloud with that angry buzzin' hum.  I ran like blazes west toward out of town, and hurriedly warned Sheriff Bond "Sink spur!  Nest of wild bees a comin'!"   He sunk spur, but I guess I outran his horse. Afore I knew it, he was off his horse divin' into a water trough, as his horse was stung to death more than 800 times (I was later told). 

About a half hour later, the Marshal himself angrily  brought me into court at gunpoint, and a puffy faced Sheriff Bond who was stung 43 times, refusin' as yet to see a doctor, glared at me as he cocked his revolver and kept half-pullin' it from his holster and puttin' it back.  Judge Hollister berated me for actin' like an overgrown child in bein' so stupid as to toss a brick at a Wasp nest like I did.  Then he gave me 6 suspended sentences, and fined me $100 payable immediately to the Sheriff  for the 19 year old horse Sheriff Bond was ridin', another $50 payable to him for any medical expenses and sufferin',  and 30 days or $30 for disturbin' his honor's afternoon nap.  Although yesterday on August 6th I made the money back gunnin' down 2 rustlers of U.S. Army horses and arrestin' 3 more and collectin' a reward of $50 a head on these, still it would have been nicer to have had a $250 profit than just $70.  But I can't complain, as the average field labor earns only about 70 to 75 cents a day, and very few not in business for themselves or card sharps will  earn more than 8 or 10 dollars in a good week.     After two days the wife has forgiven me, and liberated me of $50 of that $70 profit.  Most likely, as I always pay all the bills myself, I'd bet that of the $50 I gave the wife,  it's almost all goin' to that old battleaxe who upset me enough to through that dang brick into the Wasps nest in the first place.  

-- Deputy B.     

Fictional Story: Recollections of a Western Deputy (1871 -1897) Tuesday April 20, 1880 Fire at the Ostermiller's House

 Tuesday   April 20, 1880            Fire at the Ostermiller's House

Entry of  Saturday May 1st, 1880

  

       I am still amazed even after the events of last week's Tuesday that I am still here to record anything about what happened.  Bruno Ostermiller and his wife had 12 children, and lived just a few doors south of the closed up Pete's Snake's Eyes Tavern, which has since been bought and will turn into a place to eat or somethin'.  At least that's what the rumor on good authority is.   Last year I had shot a varmit shootin' in my direction from inside the outhouse behind the Tavern, and when I shot back, had I missed, I might have shot through and accidentally shot one of these Ostermiller family folks, as the entire 12 children was home when that shootout happened.  

     Unknown to most all the folks in the town, for whatever reason, Bruno Ostermiller took up with a married woman who was not his wife, and was found out by his own wife about it.  So Mrs. Ostermiller had relations with that woman's husband for spite, allegedly told her husband what she had done, and then threw a birthday party startin' at 2 o'clock in the afternoon  for her triplet daughters aged 11.  A few days afore the party, Mrs. Ostermiller had  invited near a score of other children and their parents to accompany them.  6 mothers would attend with 15 more children, including one of my nieces, Beth's child, though I didn't know it at the time. 

  The day started out well enough.  I spent 4 hours in Court testifyin' as to various facts and arrests for near 62 folks that Judge Hollister processed through like a man in a chicken feather pluckin' contest.  Get them in, get the facts, fine them, generate revenue by takin' it away from that other fella he had just fined and tell them to hurry up and pay or get fined some more, have them leave, do the same to the next fella that was comin' in.  As I watched the Judge in action like some Carpetbagger, I sneaked out while he stopped to look up something in Blackstone and imbibe about six or eight snorts.  I quickly selected and sent 14 folks home and returned, and told the Judge I had dropped the charges upon those numbers of citizens I had scratched from the list to be brought before him.  I let it be known that I personally dropped the charges as they was my arrests, and I sent them home with a warnin'.  He was none too pleased, but as we had no town prosecutor at present, and the Marshal was away testifying at the Capitol, he was  just drunk enough to accept that he just had to take my word for it.    Court  that day had commenced at 10 in the mornin', and we ran through without rest except for the 5 minutes pause I so stated, and continued until about 1:55 in the afternoon, according to the Judge's 2 foot long and 1 foot wide clock. 

   As Court broke, with only one prisoner given 30 days hard labor for bein' unable to pay his fine for brawlin' and bustin' up private property worth $12.30 that  I had to confine to the Jail and give over to Sheriff Bond who would decide who he owed favors to have repairs and chores done for, after deliverin' him to Sheriff Bond, I went to the outhouse after that for about 10 minutes to rid myself of last night's dinner.  Having finished, and washed up in soap and water, ready to call it a day, only then did I hop Reindeer and then headed over to Beth's General Merchandise Store for some things the wife wanted me to pick up afore I came home.  As I was going over the things to buy inside the store with my nephew, who was behind the counter waitin' on me with an odd look, across the street and two doors further south, was the two story Bruno Ostermiller place, habitation of 14 souls.  The Ostermiller house was notable as it was the first two-story house in town that was built, and also it was the first house in town that was built with a cellar.   Bruno Ostermiller generally used that cellar to run his still, and he mostly made liquor from corn, from potatoes, and from rye. He generally made anywhere from 40 gallons to 200 gallons of liquor a month, folks wantin' more label on the bottle liquor from back East, so business was gettin' slower of late, and his stock was a pilin' up.  

About 10 minutes after 2 o'clock, while I passin' through in the outhouse, Bruno closed up and storm latch sealed  and locked the last of theextra heavily fortified against tornado windows of his house from the outside, while the social event was happenin' inside.  He then went in the back, and out of sight and hearin' of the guests, he took a hatchet and brained his wife, leavin' her on the floor.  I reckon I probably had just entered the General Merchandise Store just as Bruno killed his wife at the back of and inside of his house.  He then barricaded the back door to prevent anyone from leavin' that away, and as I was goin' over the list, I looked out and saw Bruno put 3 locks on the front door of the house.  He then walked to the one side and began throwing buckets of what looked like water on the house, as if he was washin' off the dust from the house.  "He's washin' his house?"  I mused to myself.  

I turned for a moment and asked if anyone knew if the birthday party was called off, and there were several replies of "no" inside the store.  As I looked back, I faintly caught a whiff from a breeze all of a sudden startin' to blow and blow hard, and noticed an odor of coal oil and corn liquor.  And at that moment, the whole outside of the house, and one room on the second floor lit up in an explosion of fire. "BOOM!" 

Suddenly, things were a poppin' in the same kind of sound as if you threw jugs of corn liquor into a camp fire, a poppin' and a "fhoomin"  in the one second story room and then the other next to it nearest the street, and screams could be heard comin' from inside.  I bolted out the door knockin' 2 women and a man aside, and ran like blazes across the street as hard and as fast as I could, and made a runnin' kick at the front door, breakin' only one of the latches through fer sure and seriously loosenin' a second almost free.  About 5 or six kicks later, I was able to force the front door all the way through, as thick hot black smoke billowed out like from a furnace already from waist high on up, and counted I 19 children and 4 women come past me.  I bent over to see if there was more and called out as I heard at least two women and some children in a large room to the right of the front door.  I made my way about on my knees, and guided the 2 women out, and had to tear off two layers from one of the women's dresses when it caught fire and began to rapidly spread over her outer lower dress.  

There were yet 8 children that were left who were tryin' to make it out the back, and were now screamin' in terror as they found Mrs. Ostermiller's corpse as well as findin' that this wasn't a safe way out, as smoke began to pour that way and fill up the back of the house with thicker and thicker burnin' hot black smoke mixed with white smoke from somethin' or other as well.  

Suddenly, there was an explosion over the front doorway, and flames licked up the walls and across the ceilin'.  I grabbed a chair, took a deep breath, and tried breakin' the glass of the nearest window I could reach with my foot from the floor and kickin' through, but it was no use.   I guided the children to the hallway in the middle and back of the house by the stairway, a hallway that lead directly to the front door, and noticed that if one were to make a runnin' slide past the now  near 16 feet long path of flames, they might make it through just toasted and singed a bit.  But even I didn't think I could make a runnin' slide across an unvarnished floor not made slick, and perhaps might not make it even if it were slick.  

I heard Beth callin' out my niece's name and she called back to her mother from behind me.  I then called out to Beth to get 2 ropes, tie them together and have it tossed low through the front door as far back as someone was able, and loop the rope about the horse hitchin' post and the other end of the rope to the horn on Reindeer's saddle.    I needed him to bolt and someone to cut the rope with an axe or something as soon as we got the children clear of the house.   

I didn't realize how hot it was outside, as the flames were sunburnin' Beth and anyone anywhere near the house, so that it was difficult to even be 7 rods close, let alone 1 to 2 rods close as Beth and one of the men of the town, who I could not identify merely by his boots and no spurs, was.   I think it was he who threw the rope, and it was a really good throw, with 4 feet of rope to spare, from whoever he was.

At about this time, the whole town was seein' the black plume of smoke just a chunnelin' up in great fury, and even my Danish in-laws had made it over toward my place and was watchin' in awe with the wife, when a shout relay made mention that I was trapped inside with a bunch of Ostermiller children bein' burned alive.   The wife lost no time saddling her mare Hannah in a Confederate minute, like I showed her and had her practice last year, and was soon a gallopin' my way as my in-laws instinctively looked after our children.  

While the wife was gallopin', I had by this time tied a back hall rug about all 8 of the children, and we was all coughin' and chokin' somethin' awful. I ordered them to hang on extra tight, as it meant their lives to hang on and to do so.  Then I had a coughin' fit just as I finished shoutin' that.    I was unable to shout to Beth to bolt Reindeer now, so I sounded off two slugs from my right .45 six gun, and the children was off like a shot.    Just then, the floor opened up where the children just was, and there was Bruno, havin' a look of insanity and anger and lost desperation all in one look.  He left the 3 foot by 3 foot cellar access wide open and kicked free the ladder underneath him, as he leaped upon me and we struggled as he grabbed for my gun with his left hand, and tried to knife me with his other.   The smoke grew lower and lower to the floor so that it was maybe less than 4 inches off the floor, when the face was driven down, that you could blurrily see any clearness past the burn of the smoke in the eyes, and the ash that was now flyin' and swirlin' about.   The walls on either side was aflame now by feel, though we could no longer see.  Bruno Ostermiller drove me into the flames twice, and I pushed him against the flames of the wall once, and then, just as I did this, I fell through the openin' in the floor into the cellar.  

My wife had now just rounded the corner of Main Street into South Road when the still and whatever else was in the basement and the whole house blew sky high into smithereens.  18 folk were injured just in bein' knocked to the ground, 7 from wood shrapnel, but thankfully none were wounded seriously.  Every window within 30 rods in most any direction was blown in by the blast, and "the Earth", those that were there outside on South road and the part of Main Street connectin' to it said, "it rippled like water and knocked man and beast all off their feet."   When the explosion happened, I was just clearin' the hole in the floor, as if suspended in time and space.  I blacked out, and awoke under a 16" by 12" thick rafter beam and some debris, and what was left of the house on top of me was still on fire.  The townsfolk rushed off to put out debris spread fire on at least 5 rooftops, and lost one tree that was also set ablaze near the barber shop that had hot baths available for 25 cents a bath.   

The wife ran about the circumference of what used to be the Ostermiller's place, and called out my name.  I felt a burning of my left shoulder, and awoke what was probably about 6 or 7 minutes after she first called out, and answered her.  Then, all of a sudden, it began to rain down in sheets outside, even as she moved this and that board and was quickly joined by about 18 men of the town, until they pulled an opening where I was and I could see through that openin' that there she was. The wife threw down a lasso and tied it to Hannah, and slowly pulled me clear.  I remember I felt a couple of sprains, but at least I had no broken bones, and was sure glad I hadn't got caught on a nail or a sharp broken board.  The top left of my clothin' was gone, and as she touched my shoulder, a whole section of skin, 6 inches by 8 inches just all slid off and I screamed in agony several times over afore regainin' my wits and composure, seein' stars, and then passin' out again.  

That was Tuesday of last week.   Since then, the Ostermiller children have been placed in the care of their maternal grandparents, who then packed up and took them back to Wisconsin to live and settle among other relatives there.  The wife has told me she is expectin' again, and if things work out right, I should be back to Deputy Marshalin' the first week of June.  I can still hear alright, but I lost some of the finer senses of it, and they still haven't come back yet.  I notice a loss in certain very high pitches, especially.  

-- Deputy B.

[June 15, 1898 -  One mention of note.  The land that was owned by Bruno Ostermiller was defaulted to the town based on tax delinquency.   Later, that land was scraped away, filled and leveled,  and put up for sale.  Folks claimed that the ghost of Bruno Ostermiller haunted the land, and later it was purchased at a very low price and a Church was built on that same spot.  As soon as the land was accepted and then consecrated with holy water and blessings and prayers by the new minister, the ghost of Bruno Ostermiller was never again seen, but probably went to hell where he belongs. 

Oh...and in case you wondered, it took near 8 months for all my burnt off skin I lost on my left shoulder from that Ostermiller fire to grow back.  

-- Deputy B., (Retired). ]   

  

Fictional Story: Recollections of a Western Deputy (1871 -1897): "November 21st, 1879 - Bloody Friday, and its before and after events"

Recollections of a Western Deputy (1871 -1897)


Friday, December 12, 1879   

"November 21st, 1879  - Bloody Friday, and its before and after events"

     On the 25th of September,  there was a fire in the town of Deadwood out in the South Dakota country, where more than 300 buildings burned down and over 2,000 folks was made homeless. 

 On or about a frosty November 20th, after coming back up from the badlands with the lone surviving fugitive of 5 I arrested, as me and the Marshal was comin' up middle of the town from the south, 3 wagons was comin' through Rustler's Pass in the east.  --


We originally had 5 men on a fugitive warrant dated September, but was late gettin' to us and didn't arrive until the mornin' of October 26th.  It arrived with a new Judge named Jedidiah Smyth who brought 7 cocky 20 - 23 year old and one near 30 year old who was professional gunslingers with badges.  I didn't like either their looks or attitudes, and something was amiss that I just could not quite put into words, or quite know clearly what was wrong.  It was more than a feelin', but the Marshal was now back out in the street with me givin' me orders and a job to do, even as I kept a dead eye on these fellas and had my loops off the hammers of my six guns, my hammers cocked, and instinctively ready to draw even while I was listenin' eyein' them as they wouldn't stop starin' at and eyein' me.  

The Marshal gave me an hour to saddle up and make preparations with Beth at the General Store and another hour to go home to say goodbye to the wife and see she had what she needed.  I waited a few moments until the hired guns with badges followed the judge into a house to let, and then put my guns back to safe at rest and secured in the holsters, afore carryin' out the Marshal's directive.  In less than an hour and a half, me and the Marshal was saddled up, and ridin'  at a good trot to where we was a goin', as it looked like rain would be rolled in by late afternoon or early evenin'.  

In a growin' new city called Dallas, havin' hightailed it part of the way by trail and part of the way by train as we tried to beat returnin' when snow and ice was on the ground, though we arrived on November 3rd, on November 4th we picked up 5 rustler - murderer - stage robbers captured in a crooked card game by 3 Texas Rangers.  While we was there me and the Marshal helped stop a back-shootin' of a Texas Sergeant, who thereafter took us under his wing as his personal guests until we could have a local judge sign off the release we needed for out of state extradition at 9 am the mornin' of the 4th.   That Texas Ranger Sergeant  talked us into buyin' two extra 16 round Henry repeatin' rifles with sleeves at $10 apiece, and then and extra 300 rounds apiece for them guns.  They was brand new and rarely used, and we would find out later that they was confiscated off these same fellas we was bringin' back, who had just bought them (they said) with money from a poker game.  The Sergeant had told us that these was confiscated and sold to us as the hotel these fugitives stayed in was owed money for bills they accrued through the meals, rooms, and liquor supplied to them.  

While passin' the time until we could get our extradition and receipts of prisoners signed off, I showed the Texas Ranger Sergeant a few pointers on sharp shootin' I learned durin' the war, and he showed me two new things I didn't know myself that helped make me even better.  Those two pointers both helped me and the Marshal at about 3:30 in the dark mornin' hours of the 7th, when 11 others of the gang  of the 5 fugitives we was arrestin' bushwhacked me and the Marshal in a wood outside a train depot somewheres in western Missouri,  and whether accidentally or intentionally, they  killed 4 of their boys in our custody in a furious 6 minute gunfight in which me and the Marshal fired off near 200 rounds apiece, while we killed 8 of theirs and 3 got away (we know at least 2 bein' shot, and both of them at least twice or maybe even 3 times based on the blood spray onto a few of the trees and leaves on the ground where they was).    

The Local Sheriff came out and we stayed another 6 hours filin' reports and fillin' out paperwork, and then caught the late mornin' train headin' where we wanted to go, and rode in the mail car to keep out of sight and spare any passengers as much we could of any danger we might put them to if we was in their midst.  

-- Now regardin' those 3 wagons that left Deadwood, South Dakota way.  They came from the East Road and me and the Marshal had just cut through the middle of town from the south.   We both met at the same juncture of where South Road and Main Street meet, and out of habit in greetin' new and passin' through folks, got to talkin'.   Even as we was talkin., I casually noticed that a new Tavern had taken over what was just a Hay and Feed Store on the Southeast corner of where South Road and Main Street met.  It seems that the Marshall was familiar with two of the men and one of the women folk in one of those 3 wagons, and after I got our lone fugitive put behind the bars, I was to take these folks up to Marshall Jackson's house and get them familiar with the place afore I could get home and see the wife and my children.   I came home and found a very happy and joyous family greetin', which made me feel like I was really home in a way I wanted at that moment to last forever.  Then,  I noticed the wife had a limp she was hidin' and I was concerned, but she didn't want to spoil the moment.  That night, I saw the reason for her limp.  There was a huge black and blue mark that covered most of the wife's left outer thigh, hip area, and up to her side below the ribs.  It looked as if it was done by stomps and kicks.  She refused to talk about it, and in my mind I was determined to find out what had happened.  



How Friday November 21st will be remembered in our town as "Deputy B's   Bloody Friday" 

   We was now dealin' with a Judge named Jedediah Smyth, who made even  Judge Hollister a deeply feared of him and cowardly regardin' that man.  The Marshal and me were given a bunch of writs piled up signed off by Judge Smyth while he was out drinkin' all night in a Saloon, and the oldest of his gunslingers with a badge came in just after 6 in the mornin' and plopped the whiskey smellin' writs on the Marshal's desk  and told the Marshal the Judge was wanted them all to be to be served before Court commenced at 11 am that mornin'.    Near as I could tell, there must have been 60.  I was wrong.  That turkey trottin' coot of a Judge had signed off 86 writs that needed to be served to every single business and some of the residences on Main Street. 

The Marshal and I spent 20 minutes goin' through them all, and then he muttered some profane words, grabbed up his new Henry repeatin' rifle, loaded a last 4 shells into it, and then told me to come with him, as we was gonna have words with this new Judge.  

Judge Smyth was walkin' west, held up in his swagger by Judge Hollister, as they staggered toward the home Judge Smyth had rented on the south side of main street.   Marshal Jackson stopped him at the front two foot high white picket fence gate, and Judge Smyth was infuriated that we would dare question his authority and tried to claim we was in contempt of lawful writs, refusin' to process serve them.  

Judge Smyth stated that the town folk had no say in taxes, and that in spite of it bein' raised without a vote or notification of those bein' affected at any open Town Council Meetin' (but done in secret somewheres), beginnin' January 1 of 1880, a new tax of $1 a month was being charged on businesses and 50 cents an month on residences.  But the way these wrong form documents was worded, it most certainly wasn't the way it was claimed by Judge Smyth.  The way the document read, there was to first be a charge of $1 in January, followed by a $1 increase every month to infinity.  February 1880 would be $2, March 1880 would be $3, and so forth.  By December 1880 it would be $12 for that month, by December 1881 it would be $24 just for that month, and so on.   Marshal Jackson refused to serve illegal taxation notices, filed on even the wrong kind of forms, needin' to be a summons, and then contradicted the verbal testimony given of their intent by first quotin' the erroneous language from these unlawful documents, and then Marshal Jackson in a red faced rage tore them in pieces and threw them in Judge Smyth's face.  Judge Smyth was so errant in the due process of the Law, that we both doubted if he ever had a license to practice or that he was even a Judge. 

 As Marshal Jackson  turned, Judge Smyth began pullin' a lady deringer to shoot the Marshal in the back, and I broke Judge Smyth's nose with a quickdraw backhand strike of the barrel of my 6 gun near and onto the bridge of his nose, as I  then stepped my right leg into his standin' leg spread sideways past where his crotch was, tripped him backward to the ground while walkin' through, and grabbed his right wrist with the deringer with my left hand, and pressed my right .45 into his left eye and ordered him to drop it, as I was arrestin' him for attempted murder of a Federal Officer in the performance of his duties, and that he was personatin' a Judge.  My hammer was cocked, my finger on the trigger, and then for whatever reason, I smiled.

Judge Hollister screamed,
"For godsakes Jed, he means to kill you if you don't drop that gun.  Let it go or he'll surely send you to hell!  He's got that look I told you about!"   
Judge Smyth dropped the derringer, and said while lookin' at me, "I'll kill you first, and then the Marshal later.  For now, the Marshal can wait."  

The gun was on the ground, and even Marshal Jackson was tellin' me not to shoot the skunk.  I then pulled the gun out of the Judge's eye,  brought it about 4 inches to the side of his head, and fired off a round next to his ear, and said,
"Any time you want to kill this Federal Officer, you remember, that sound you just heard will be the last sound you hear if'n you are jackass enough to try it."

By this time, there must have been a hundred or more early mornin' townsfolk a gathered to witness what was goin' on.  Judge Smyth got up and whimpered away into his rented house while bein' helped by Judge Hollister.  As me and the Marshal was talkin', and unusual like we was walkin' a good ways up Main Street for a change instead of ridin', just before we hit South Road.  We stepped to the side and up on a boarded walk that hadn't been covered with an overhead yet, but had the frame in place, and the Marshal pulled out a cigar and decided to have a smoke as we kept talkin' as to what our next series of actions was to be and what resistance we might expect and what to do to out maneuver and outflank, and so on. 

As me and the Marshal was chewin' the fat and flappin' the breeze a bit,   9 year old  "Fanny" (I forget her first name) Magnusson, came runnin' up and told me and the Marshal what had been happenin' for the last week and a half.  While me and the Marshal was away, Judge Jedediah Smyth brought in a gang of 9 gunslingers.   We had seen 8 when we left, but now there was a 9th who was head louse of the gang.   They was a terrorizin' the town, and folks that was a gettin' hurt wasn't talkin'.   On November 1st, while makin' a trip for supplies at beth's General Store, 5 of them gunslingin' skunks pushed around my Mrs,  knocked her down, and then one of them kicked her repeatedly in the side and left leg.  My nephew and one of the boys from the war was pistol whipped and kept back by another 2 of the gunslingers, and an 8th backhanded Beth to the ground as she was pullin' a double-barreled 20 gauge shotgun.  The Sheriff and the rest of the town did nuthin' but stood and watched from a distance from either the middle or across the street until it was all over, afore takin' the Mrs to the doctor and then home.    For a few days the boys from the war and a few of the neighbors got together and did an armed vigil over the wife and my children, so that until the 5th of November there was always 2 or 3 armed men at the house and others close by.  But the town militia, which could have planted these vicious and rabid wolves 6 feet under, the town militia was not initiated because the sentiment was to wait for Marshal Jackson, who also was head of the Militia.  It also seems that November 5th was when it was made clear that these 9 skunks was only interested in terrorizin' specific locations and people that Judge Smyth would announce beforehand who and what and where the night before at Pete's Snake's Eyes Tavern, the townsfolk night riders (whoever they was) organized listeners at any of 11 different points in and even under the buildin' to hear who - what -where and to move that individual or family into hidin' and safety until the danger was past.  

Then Fanny told me that the leader of the gunslingers, the one who pushed my wife down, had also had one of his men put a revolver to my 6 year old Winchester's head with a threat to kill him if she fought back, afore kickin' and kickin' her on the front board walk of the General Store in front of scores of town folk, and that the one doin' the kickin' of my wife had a hideous laugh. 

 Then, from across the street, we heard it.  Me and the Marshal and Fanny looked over to the Snake Eye's Tavern, as "Fanny" got scared and said,
"That's it.  Please don't go Deputy B.!   They're all in there!  All but the Judge!  You'll get killed!"  

Then the sound of 7 or 8 other men could also be heard laughin' along with that hideous laugh, which was like a horse-like whinny with an inhale "haw" of a jackass to finish its breath.  It was beginnin' to be a bright not white cloudy mornin', and already my fury and rage was wellin' forth up in me, so that I was seein' black and to me it was almost like early evenin' with the sun almost down.  

   They was all at the bar in the newly opened Pete's Snake Eyes Tavern, which was also owned by Judge Smyth.  I had only one thing in mind at that moment...but I was so far along in a state of rage, I forget what it was.  

I do remember that I looked at how close we was to the General Store owned by the Widow Bennett, one door up at the corner, and her place bein' but 71 paces from Pete's Tavern and how what seemed greatly far away that the jail was.  It may have only been 230 paces back the way we had come, maybe a bit more, but it might as well have been 5 miles the other way at that moment in time.  

  I told Fanny to get on home to safety with all haste, and to mind herself as she crossed the street.  Without lookin' to see if she'd gone,  I then quick marched round the corner over to the General Store, oblivious that the Marshal was quietly followin' behind me,  and told its store owner, Beth, I was takin' some .45  six guns after fumblin' around for a few moments to find them, and makin' sure they was all the same caliber.  I loaded 2 and put them Alamo style in the belt behind and against my back, and another two up front in the belt against the bladder.  I put my last 5 double-gold eagles I was carryin' on the counter in order to pay Beth, and then emptied two boxes of .45 shells in my left and right leather vest pockets so that they was bulgin' and ready to spill out.  I then went across the street to where those skunks was.  Folks in the street at first froze in their tracks and looked at my face, then ran for cover like the shootin' had already started as I marched them 71 paces from the board walk at the General Store across South Road to the open double doors that went into Pete's.  

When I entered the tavern, there was 7 of them all lined up at the bar, drinkin' whiskey and rye, while 1 other  was at a table, playin' cards with hisself.  One of the gunslingers with a badge was missin'.    No one else but them and the one bartender was in the bar, and there was recent bullet holes was in the walls of that Tavern just about everywheres.  Those bullet holes wasn't there afore I left with the Marshal for Texas weeks earlier.  

   Even as I came in, one of them in the middle was braggin' how they "kicked around the wife of Deputy B". and how they "own the town", and that I was "probably home hidin' behind her skirt afraid to come down", or words to this effect.   Just then, the bartender looked over and dropped and broke a bottle of rye, as the skunks let out a roar of laughter.  

I loosed the hammer loops off my holstered .45s.  I then placed my hands behind the back onto the rear .45s and cocked the hammers and stood thar' perhaps 5 paces past the doorway, a round wood table with no chairs a pace behind and to my right a pace over.  I felt my face go into a murderous death sneer, and it was somethin' I felt sure as some people feel a smile.  

The bartender raised his hands, and said, 
"Deputy B.   Please.  I had nothin' to do with what happened to your Mrs."

Right as he said that, they all stopped laughin', as they hesitated perhaps 2 or 3 seconds and drew breaths and suddenly began to draw and either turn to their left or whirl out and around their fellows a little out from the bar to fire. Providence had ordained it for me that they wasn't near as fast or accurate as I thought and didn't care (at that moment in time) if they was.  

 I drew the rear .45s, emptied them into the nearest 3 of them straight ahead of me at the bar,  dropped those empty two 6 guns to the floor, and pulled the two front 6 guns afore they could hit the floor,  and  shot the one at the table and two scatterin' for the middle of the room with the other 12 slugs.  The sounds of a gunfight inside were not only deafenin', but they gave off what seemed to be like a strange disorientin' triple echo, and my eyes was a vibratin' like they was in an earthquake, never mind that they and my nostrils was beginnin' to feel the effects of acrid smoke and all the sparkin' goin on!

 I let go of those two empty 6 guns and started to lose my field of vision, even though I doubt that more than 4 or 5 seconds had passed since I first began firing those rear guns at the first.  The one at the table, even though I shot him 3 times in the middle, he only bent over hard, a bit, and still was able to begin runnin'  away and out the back, firin' wildly and missin' the whole way.  The last two fellas along the bar was makin' for the far end of the bar as I pulled my holster six guns and emptied the last 12 slugs in their sides at the heart and heads, missin' 2 shots which lodge in the bar's ledge.  But by now, I was havin' serious vision problems to see anything more than a 5 or 6 foot wide path.  I tried to scan the room, as I holstered my right 6 gun and  furiously was strugglin' to reload my left 6 gun, but by now, my hands were shakin' like I was stripped to nothin' but my long johns with the rear squatin' flap down and unbuttoned , and as if I was bein' out in the mountain snow before a cold wind passin' through a glacier near the Arctic somewheres and suddenly I get hit with that draft.  WWWWWhoa!!!.   

As I slipped the 4th round in my left 6 gun, everything was turnin' black.  I finished the last two, and switched which 6 guns I was loadin', as I quickly tried to reload past my now uncontrollable hand and now body shakes as I was just standin' thar', movin' only a step or two over toward the middle of the room.  Just as I slipped the 5th bullet into my right holster's 6 gun, suddenly there was a child's scream out in the street.

I ducked down and whirled about, strikin' my right cheek bone against a table I didn't see, and at the same time my cheekbone struck and rapped the table, I heard a rifle shot just outside the door and very close.  A body of a man holdin' a double-barreled 12 gauge shotgun fell through the doorway, and I more or less fell to my left as I was facin' the doorway now, fallin' back away from the door to the side and out of the way.   The dead man fell forward with a double cocked back shotgun until  his  face and shotgun came down about knee high as he was fallin' prostrate, and then at that point both barrels let loose, shot through the bar wall, and killed the crouchin' bartender behind it.  The man with the shotgun was Judge Smyth.  Marshal Jackson had saved my life by shootin' the man intendin' to shoot me in the back.      


I made my way through the room I was in, past the bar and to the back exit of the Tavern, and found that the man with 3 bullets in his middle who ran this away, well he was able to then cut out over to Main Street and run near 88 paces eastward afore collapsin' and dyin'.   He reminded me of a couple wild game I've shot that can run more than a quarter mile afore dyin' of their wound(s).

The lone survivor of the gang was in an outhouse back of the tavern, tied in by rope that some children led by little "Fanny" Magnusson (who had double backed while I went to the General Store, and who, with three other children of her like age, had slip-knotted and wrapped the one man buildin' with before the gunfight had even started).    Since that outhouse was weighted down with a wide base and heavy lumber to keep it from tippin' over in high winds, even though it was behind buildin's and out of the wind, still the last gunslinger was unable to get out. About a dozen folk was gatherin' around and behind me, but as soon as they heard the gunslinger beatin' on the door, they all took cover.  I motioned "Fanny" and the children to get back, and waited a few seconds for them to get behind solid cover before continuin'.  

After the children were safe, I called out to the fella in the outhouse.  No answer.   I then identified myself and asked who he was, and he began shootin' through the door.  I couldn't tell if it was at the rope or at me, as he was firin' in the same general direction, so once again, I emptied both six guns, and got off 12 to his 5.    All 12 went in as direct hits.  Liver, center of chest, heart.  Only then, I realized there was a house full of 12 children in the line of fire behind this very same outhouse I was shootin' at, and could have accidentally hit had I missed.  I felt so ashamed that I almost could have killed an innocent child, that I resolved that I would make sure that I would do my best to never make that kind of reckless mistake again if it at all could ever be helped, and pass that as part of the trainin' along to those in the Militia, in the family, or whoever else I showed how to handle and properly use a gun.    Then I realized...what if the judge and these fellas weren't fakes?  

Today would go out like wildfire and spread in reputation for hundreds of miles around, but most likely in whispers, and I knew I most certainly could hang for what I've done this day, if these fakes weren't fakes after all.  

I was so tired of killin'.  Ever since the first year of the Great war, I sometimes felt like I wore this strange guilt that comes from killin' and livin' after, as if I wore that ethereal sense like an invisible cape while my mind was able to often fold it up and put it away, because every killin' I did was an act of defense and righteously savin' the lives of others  in their defense. And with marriage and a family, each time, I was able to go home, leave any guilt like it was just a boot print in the road to be washed away, and to enter my house justified.   Perhaps that is all a man can ask.  To be able to come home in peace, even after killin', and to enter his house justified.  

But I was tired of killin', and I wasn't even sure what the legal consequences was from what happened this day.  I was so distressed, that I spent too much of the next 4 days in the outhouse losin' piles of weight over it.  

Both me and the Marshal traveled to the Capitol and turned ourselves in and were placed under arrest and under suspension  until a tribunal of 3 judges could investigate and report back their findings to the Adjutant General. 

 On Monday December 1st, this year of 1879, both me and the Marshall was exonerated, and was only to forfeit any pay for the duration we was suspended.  We were both restored and the Marshall decided that I would enter into a new arrangement he made with the town, in which while I was still a Federal United States Deputy Marshal, I would stay mostly in town and report to Sheriff Bond and be his ramrod and trouble shooter.  For each arrest, I would get $2, plus $50 a month and found, plus whatnots.   However, the Marshall would likewise get $2 for any arrest I make from the town as well,  and this would be collected in fines at sentencing and payable from that which was collected.  I talked it over with the wife, figurin' maybe she would encourage me to do carpentry or own a Livery and Black-smith business, or find somethin' else,  but after a lot more talkin' than we was used to doin' with each other, she counseled me to please stay a Deputy Marshal.  I gently put my hand on her outer left thigh, where she had been so badly bruised and asked her if that was why.  She nodded a bit, and I knew.  So without any more hesitation or doubts, I agreed.   I would go to work more or less as a town trouble-shooter under Sheriff Bond, and keep the Peace as best I could.


My day of return was to be December 10th.  
  

On Wednesday December 10th, I felt like I was off to a good start.  I broke up 3 dog fights, rescued a cat out of a tree for a group of new children moved to town, resolved a billin' dispute between a merchant and a family by makin' a barter's trade that made both content,  shot a large garden snake at the Widow Rose's place and made her feel better, and delivered 3 sets of groceries at 5 boxes apiece for my Cousin Beth as my nephew took sick and wasn't able to go.   

Yesterday, December 11th, I didn't do so well.  At 8 am somebody stole my horse Reindeer, and it wasn't until 4 in the afternoon that I found it was Kenneth Beavers who did it, and then quickly found my horse again.  His mother agreed to beat him with a switch, and just as she was about to lay into him, I was robbed of the pleasure of seein' and hearin' it when I got called away to a scuffle at a 30 cow Dairy on the East part of town on Main Street between 5 women.  A crowd of more than 120 had gathered when I got there and more was a comin'.  The Dairy, bein' what it was, and two of the women bein' those washin' cows, we was in a part of the corral where in the midst of my tryin' to break up the scuffle, I tripped and that sent me rear first, and  then face first,  into a  2 foot high and 4 foot wide cow patty at Howell's Dairy.  Of course the women all forgave each other, and a crowd of what was now near 180 folks blocked me from gettin' at them as they scurried away from arrest.  It took me near two hours to fully clean up under a water pump that I had to prime 4 times and each time with a quarter bucket of clean water, and then I had to take two baths with soap and water down at the new Barber Shop which had hot baths for 25 cents for each bath besides.  I had one bath with my clothes on to wash my clothes, and then one without the clothes.  Unfortunately, the barber misunderstood about my pants, and sent them to an Irish lady who did Chinese Laundry, and I was stuck in a tub for 45 minutes afore someone got my cousin Beth to bring me a new pair of britches.  I guess she was mad, 'cause she stormed in, hurled it like a ball into my face, sendin' my head back to whack the cast iron bathtub with a loud thud, as the pants bounced off my face and went out an open window.  A few minutes later a very polite little 5 year old boy who was just outside the window when the pants bounced through them and outside, well he brought them around and up to the Barber, and the Barber , after rewardin' the little boy with a shiny penny, well the Barber was able to give me my pants so I could finally get out of the tub decent like, get dressed and go home.    

When I got home, it was past 5 pm, and once again, with soap and water and 8 towels, I had to bathe outside.  It was near 8 o'clock at night afore the wife would let me back in the house, a givin' me the smell test, and then washin' my hair in a wash basin besides, and even addin' some kind of barber shop hair tonic I didn't know she had bought me once more for good measure.  

This mornin', Friday December 12th, I had to take one more bath while standing in a tub and usin' soap and water for the wife's sake.  Only after this last bath, after I dried and dressed, she let me know I would have to undergo one more hot bath with soap at the Barber's afore she would hug and kiss me again.  What's more, even as I left all dressed for work, the children did the "sniff, sniff," test afore lettin' me hug and kiss them for the mornin' goodbye.     Then when I went to saddle up my horse, even  Reindeer gave me the "sniff, sniff," test three times, as he kept nudgin' me away afore he would let me saddle him up. 

 Yes sir...it seems as if life has sure got back to normal right quick.

-- Deputy B.