Elijah "Old Man" Murray

Date: Unknown Interviewer: Unknown

Me? You wanna hear my story? No offense, but why in the Sam Hill would you wanna know about where a washed up old saddle tramp came from? Trust me, I can guarantee the other folk I rode with have much more interesting stories. Now, go on, get!

You’re still there, aren’t you? Yeah, that’s what I thought. Lord almighty, you’re as stubborn as I am. Well, fine, I’ll start flapping my gums, but you’re gonna have to get me something to wet them with. Oh, and make it a bottle. We’re gonna need it.

So, I’m from Kansas- You think I look s little too old to have been born in Kansas? Well of course I wasn’t! The white man had barely even seen the place when I was born!

What? The beginning beginning? You’re an odd duck, you know that? But you already bought me the drink, and a man don’t go back on his promises, so I guess I don’t got no choice in the matter.

Right then, I was born January 9th 1826 in a little podunk I’m sure you’ve never heard of called Sweetsprings Illinois. It’s about maybe 70 miles south of Chicago? Eh, somebody from LaSalle County could probably point you in the direction of it, but honestly not sure why’d you wanna go there. I sure as Hell didn’t wanna stay… But I’m getting ahead of myself. My father’s name was Joseph Murray and my mama’s name, God rest her soul, was Mathilda. I was her third child, though my older brother Joe Jr.sadly didn’t survive his first year, so functionally the lineup was my big sister by five years, Hortense, then me, and finally Luke two years later,

Though, truth be told, I almost joined Joey when I was five. You ever heard about the Deep Snow of 30-31? Lord in heaven, that was over half a century ago. I know I ain’t spring chicken, but if that don’t make me feel my age. Now where was I? Hey, if you give an old man permission to ramble you best be prepared to pay the consequences. Right, snow started just after Christmas, and by the time we were into the new year it was tall enough that you could have stacked two of me from back then on top of each other and we still wouldn’t have seen over the stuff. And there wasn’t a day for over two weeks straight where the thermometer went above zero either.

So, we were a family of not exactly well to do farmers, huddling desperately for warmth in a log cabin during a winter so cold we might as well have been in the Ninth Circle, snowed in to the point where my pa just going to get firewood from the pile was an ordeal… And I developed a fever right smack dab in the middle of it. No chance of getting a doctor, obviously, and all my parents could do was lay me in their bed, and watch as I tried to sweat it out. Lord, you could barely have even called me a kid at the time, I remember all I’d thought about was how I somehow started feeling hot and about how my chest felt funny, but looking back now? Jesus Christ.

But I’m here downing my second shot of whiskey, so safe to know you can guess how that ended, eh? One of the reasons why I’m not all that a fan of the cold though, but I’m getting off topic.

That was the first time I cheated death.

My folks were thanking Heaven for months afterward.

Honestly, I’m surprised the second time I cheated death took so long, because when I started to grow up? I thought I was invincible. Well, every young person thinks they’re invincible. That and being all roostered up on liquor accounts for about 90% of all the absolute idiocy they get up to. I should know, I did about all of them back when I was still in Sweetsprings.

Like I said, it was a little podunk. When I was a boy it was fun enough. There were rolling green hills to roll down, a couple of different ponds for fishing, trails for horse riding, and when I was a bit older I even got to go out hunting with my pa and started to learn how to use a rifle. Turned out to be a natural with that too. Loved huntin.’ Wasn’t too fond of my time in the one room learning all that readin’ and writin’ , but I learned it well enough, and the other children kept it entertaining. ‘Course, good chunk of ‘em were probably the reason why even back then I couldn’t go a week without getting at least a little switching. Still, my mischief was mostly harmless back then, even if it did probably make my folks start to go gray early. Hortense too, really. My poor sister was just old enough that she had to more or less be a third parent for me and my and my little brother while we got to play together in addition to chores. Though, between you and me, I think she liked getting to holler at all of us.

‘Course, I didn’t like getting hollered at. Well, not by her. You see, I was a mischievous youngin, but the kinda kid where I can look back and just laugh instead of shaking my head. When I was a youngin I was innocent. When I was a boy who thought he was a man?

I was a $!#%ing idiot.

Fact of the matter was by the time I was in my teens I’d come to the ever so intelligent conclusion that I’d done used up every normal way of having fun in Sweetsprings, and that me and a half-dozen or so other pea-brained hard cases would just make our own by doing whatever we damn well felt like. Given we were a bunch of teenage idjits a lot of that meant getting three sheets to the wind on moonshine, messing with other people’s property, getting into fights, bein’ goddamn bullies if I’m being honest, and of course doing the stupidest bull you can think of just because some hooplehead with more booze in him than blood thought it was a good idea.

Shocking twist, they never goddamn were! Let’s just say jumpin’ off a cliff we called “Dead Man’s Drop” into the water below was the safest bit of foolishness we got up to and leave it at that. Hell, at least with that one only body I was risking harm was my own. In short I was the same kinda piece of work I beat some sense into nowadays.

And Abby was having none of it.

Abigail Waters. In a lot of ways there wasn’t a more “proper” lady you could find in Illinois that didn’t actually have any money. She helped out around her folks’ house and farm like the dutiful daughter, was a model student in behavior and diligence, even if she weren’t no prodigy, attended Church on Sunday without fail, and actually listened to every word the preacher said, especially the “loving thy neighbor stuff.”

Course, even with all that nostalgia, I can tell ya she wasn’t “perfect.” For all her “good girl” behavior, when she was a little girl she liked jumpin in puddles and ruining her skirts, and when she got older and she finished her chores early she’d sneak off to a secret swimming hole just like a lot of the other teens. She was stubborn and she absolutely HATED to admit when she was wrong. Bit of a case of like attracting like there, I suppose…

Had a competitive streak too, real sore loser and that stayed with her her entire life. But really, all of that pales in comparison to the temper she had. When something got her riled up she’d let out enough piss and vinegar to supply a whole doctor’s office. Still, stubborn and as sore of a loser as she was, she wasn’t a quick fuse. Nah, what pissed Abigail Waters off was injustice. You could mouth off to her all you want and she’d give back behind that cute smile of hers and perfectly polite words, but if you were bullying someone or treating them unfairly? That’s when she’d explode on ya.

When I was maybe seven, I pushed Luke down because of some stupid little kid argument I don’t even remember. Abby walked right up to me and socked me straight in the nose. Honestly? I think that was when I got a little bit of a crush on her. But that was when I was a kid and it was just a boy being mean to his baby brother over a dumb bit of nonsense. When I grew up into that hellraiser? Well, they weren’t fists, but she gave me a tongue lashing with both barrels pretty much every time she caught me being’ a no-good ne'er-do-well. Frankly, I just listened, grinned, and enjoyed it. Mostly ‘cause I knew that’d piss her off, though I did also think she was cute when she was mad. But lemme tell you, she was NOT flirting with me. Abigail genuinely hated my guts.

And one day she said as such. There was a fella by the name of Rich. I was ‘bout 16, and he was a year, maybe two, younger. Real timid kid. Shy too. So, “naturally” me and my friends thought it was hilarious to mess with him. He was by that old swimming hole, reading a book under a tree, when me and the boys came down to do some drinking by the water. Well, one thing led to another, and we got the bright, booze-inspired idea that Rich needed to cool off and hefted him into the water, ignoring all of his yelling and hollering for us to stop.

Turned out Rich couldn’t swim.

First we were pointing, yelling taunts, and hooting and hollering it up. Then he went under the water. And we still joked and hemmed and hawed for a tiny bit… And then we stopped laughing. Then we started panicking and yelling at each other.

But it just so happened that Abigail Waters had finished her chores early and felt like going for a swim. She saw Rich’s head crest up above the water for a single moment, and without hesitation ran down the hill all the way to the swimming hole, dived in fully clothed, and after over a minute underwater pulled him out and started pounding the pond out of his chest.

She saved his life and we were the ones who almost got him killed and didn’t even do nothin’ to help…. And the moment Rich started to breath again she told us that. She ripped into us with a screaming , furious tirade about how much of a poor excuse for a human being we all were that would have made any fire and brimstone preacher sit down and blush.

And for the first time she actually got through my damned fool head. I agreed with every single word she said. I couldn’t even look her in the eye. It must have been 15 straight minutes before she finally stopped shrieking, and after she stormed off I went back home without saying a single word to my former pals.

I spent the next couple of months not touching a bottle of moonshine. I did all of the work on the farm without a single complaint, offered to help every single one of our neighbors with any chore that needed doing free of charge, volunteered at the church, started attending abolitionist meetings (thankfully my idiot self believed in that one even before that swimming hole incident, about the one good opinion he did have, but I didn’t actually do nothin’ for the cause really till after), and if I had any spare meat from hunting I gave it to whoever I knew in town was a bit short on vittles. I still got into fights, but they were with my old “pals” whenever I was them trying to make somebody’s life miserable. And I taught Rich how to swim.

Despite all that it was still over half a year before Abigail said another word to me.

Still, gradually, we actually started speaking. At the beginning it was mostly me apologizing and her nodding and agreeing that I needed to be doing so. Eventually though, we started to have short little conversations, and then long ones, and then I started asking her on picnics and moonlit walks.

Then the war with Mexico came.

You know how I mentioned all young men think they’re invincible? Well, at 20 that sure as Hell was the case still for me. I might have been a better person by then, but I was still a stubborn hothead, and I thought it was my duty to fight for our country. But it wasn’t just patriotism. I wanted to see more of the country. I wanted to see folk who weren’t from Sweetsprings or at best a county over. I wanted to get paid. I wanted to earn glory, and go up in the ranks, and prove I was brave and a man.

So I was still an idiot even by then.

I told Abigail that I was going to enlist one night by that pond. It’d become our special place, because apparently the Almighty has a bad sense of humor. Frankly, I have no idea what was going through her head when I said that to her. Maybe she might have been angry, or thinking I was a plum fool, but she didn’t yell at me or tell me that. She just kept on nodding and looking at me as I talked, occasionally skipping a stone across the water. Then I said it. I hadn’t planned on saying it, but it just spilled out. Maybe I wasn’t as convinced of my invincibility deep down as I thought I was.

All I know is that night by the swimming hole, under the moonlight, I asked Abby if she’d marry me.

She said yes.

So we got married right quick, though not quick enough that it weren’t proper, mind you, and I had what was at the time the happiest day of my life.

At the time? Yeah, at the time! I’ve had five more days in my life that I’d call just as happy, but I’m getting ahead of myself!

I ended up serving as a cavalryman in the Illinois Mounted Volunteers under the late Brigadier General John Ellis Wool, because I was probably the best damn horseman in all of Sweetsprings, and for once I’m not gonna try to be humble about it. Can probably blame the, well, I don’t know how many-th shot of whiskey for that.

You know, horses are smart animals. They might spook easy, but reason is they understand the value of their own life. Training a horse isn’t just teaching it to follow orders, it’s teaching it to follow orders from the rider when it’s got an inkling whatever you’re spurring it to do could injure it or get it killed. A right, proper warhorse has been taught, when ordered, to charge down a hill toward a volley of firing rifles, despite every instinct telling it to run the Hell away.

When it comes down to it, soldier boys are trained the exact same way as their steeds.

Lemme set the record straight. The famous speech Sherman gave about how war is Hell? Every single word out of his mouth was right.And with each war it just gets worse and worse, especially thanks to those infernal devices these days that showed up near the end of the latest one. But no, I ain’t waxing nostalgic ‘bout how war was noble and glorious back when I was a young man. It was Hell then too, and as far as I know it’s always been Hell.

Not gonna go into detail about every single little battle I was in, just know I was terrified out one my skull for the two or so, and I saw a lot of dead bodies. I made dead bodies for the first time. But there’s one battle that’s important. It was the Battle of Buena Vista and it was the last one I fought in.

President Taylor was the general on our side while Santa Anna himself commanded the Spanish, though I didn’t see hide nor hair of either. The thing was in a valley, the locals called it “The Narrow Place,” I think. I remember waiting up in reserve as guns and cannons unloaded, and finally the lieutenant sounded the charge. We barreled down, shots firing overhead, men setting bayonets, and then it happened. I took a bullet right where my shoulder met my chest.

First time I’d ever been shot. I remember being stuck by this white hot pain, and I tried to keep my hands on the reins and boots in the saddle, but I couldn’t. Smashed my skull against the ground and passed out. Basically, I took a bullet in the chest, cracked open the back of my head, and was left bleeding out unconscious on a battlefield in the middle of a cavalry charge. Somehow I woke up in a field hospital alive. Woke up beaten to all Hell, but woke up.

That was the second time I cheated death.

I was thanking Heaven for months afterward.

Spent those months laid up too. It wasn’t bad enough they had to amputate, the bullet had gone clean through, but my shoulder was messed the Hell up. Eventually the docs figured if it was gonna heal it’d take even longer than it already had and that I’d be of no more use for Uncle Sam, so they gave me an honorable discharge. Decided I wasn’t ever gonna risk my life if I didn’t have to ever again. I had people who needed me.

I got home just in time for the birth of my first baby boy, Will. Remember what I said about my wedding day being the happiest day of my life “at the time.” That’s why. Looking at Abby smiling at me, holding our child in her arms? Well, that won the contest.

Two years later he was joined by Prudence (Abby’s mother’s name) and already four mouths weren’t exactly easy to feed. We never outright went hungry in the little log cabin of our own I built, but the worry was always there, and well, Abby and I were both so damn prideful and stubborn when it came to some things that we’d accept a bit of familial help and there, but never a full bailout. Wasn’t helped by the fact that what little land we did have, ‘cause by ‘50 it was harder to get acres in Illinois on the cheap, wasn’t the most fertile either, even if we made do. Then in ‘54 Abigail told me she was pregnant for a third time, and that sealed it. Congress had finally opened up Kansas and we were gonna homestead. Packed up everything and headed to Kansas.

Oh, forgot to say, my shoulder healed. Though it hurts like the dickens when it gets cold. Another reason why I’m not a fan.

I’m not gonna get into the details of Bloody Kansas either. Just know that we were free-staters, there were some ugly, ugly folk we had to deal with, and I did what was needed to both protect my family and do what was morally right. Still, the prairies were quiet most of the time, just punctuated by periods of brief, intense violence. Frankly, stayed like that even after it became a state, and that was before the war, but I said I wasn’t gonna bring up Bloody Kansas no more and I mean it.

Now shut up and down some more whisky. Swear I’ve been practically drinking this whole bottle by myself.

Where was I? Right. Settling. Built another house for all of us myself in Peach Creek Kansas, and yeah, it was humble, but I was damn proud of it, and we made it a home. Abigail christened it such when she gave birth to another healthy baby girl, Clare. Then came John, and eventually David to round it out.

I-I could say a lot about my children. Will was quiet but determined and was just as stubborn as me and Abby, Prudence loved to read and always had her head in the clouds, Clare was a tomboy and had a lot more Abigail in her than the wife would ever admit, John was smart as a whip but lazy, and David just seemed to love life. They all had things there were talented at, none of them were perfect and that was fine, sometimes they misbehaved, sometimes we fought (and it wasn’t always their fault), I honestly got along better with some than others, and I loved each and every one of them.

Couldn’t have been prouder watching them grow up, though I wish they could’ve in safer times.I said I wouldn’t talk about Bleeding Kansas, but I gotta mention that it got worse once the war started up, even if Abigail and I weren't exactly as directly involved now. Though, well, let’s just say there wasn’t a single Jesse James dime novel in my house, that no good, dirty, bushwacking sumbitch. No! I am NOT claiming I met Jesse James! This ain’t no tall wild west tale. Just that I made sure a guerilla or two didn’t ever harm a hair on mine or any other family’s head ever again.

Still we were far enough out west that the war didn’t directly hit us otherwise...Up until Will was old enough to be drafted. Union fought for what was right, but that didn’t mean it was easy for us to send our boy off to war when we both knew he might not be coming back. I mean, it was a miracle that I did, and Abby and I both knew it.

But he did come back. It weren’t in one piece, but he did. Didn’t just mean that he came back without an arm when the fight finally ended either. Boy had seen the elephant. Like I said, bad as war was in my day it’s gotten worse. I think Will must have seen one of those flamethrowers, or Gatlings, or gas bombs, or steam tanks, or something like that in action. Don’t know the specifics. He never spoke and I never asked. Maybe I should’ve…

Regardless, the war was finally over, Will came back alive, and each of my sons and daughters had made it to adulthood and grew up to be damn fine ones at that by the time 1880 rolled around. All of them stayed around Peach Creek too except for Clare who went out to the Maze to seek her fortune. Some of ‘em even got married themselves and gave Abigail and I grandchildren. Youngest of them was little Aldin, David’s first boy.

Life wasn’t perfect, and we weren’t rich (even if us Murrays had managed to turn that little homestead into a damn fine farm), but I wouldn’t have traded it for the world.

Then that night happened.

Give me the goddamn bottle.

It was a Sunday night. Bit chilly for Spring thanks to the wind but the moon was out early and full and it looked beautiful. We had an empty nest by that point, but everybody always came over for a big Sunday potluck dinner some hours after church. We’d just sat down, well, almost all of us, David was still trying to wrangle Aldin to get into his chair, when there was a knock at the door. Not a loud, forceful one or anything, just loud enough to hear it over us all chattering. It was a bit out of the ordinary, farms out on the prairie tend to have a lot of space between you and the neighbors, and it was night, but folk had stopped by before sometimes.

Prudence started to get out of her chair, but I motioned to her that I’d get it. Mine was closer to the entryway, you see. I got up with a grunt (old bones) and started toward the door. Heard John make a rude joke and Abby saying he wasn’t too old not to go over her knee and passed by my belt and piece. I put it on just in case. Didn’t expect no trouble, but living on the frontier taught me to be prepared.

Not enough though. Kept the Peacemaker in my holster and my hand off it. It was Sunday, I thought, the family was right in the next room over. They’d knocked politely. It was probably one of our neighbors. It had been them almost all the times before. I had the gun just in case, but I didn’t actually expect to have to use it none. I reached forward and opened the door. I could’ve told them to open it themselves, the door was unlocked. I should’ve. Wouldn’t have to have had my gun in hand, but could've seen ‘em, could’ve gone for it if I’d had to. Hand would've been free. But I didn’t. I just opened that door.

And I got shot.

Didn’t even get a glimpse of who was holding the gun. I just remember the sound of it going off and the feeling of something sinking into my chest. I stumbled back and passed out before I even hit the floor.

Half a day later I woke up. The bullet had went clean through again and my shirt had crumpled up. Staunched the bleeding apparently.

That was the third time I cheated death.

Nobody else did.

Every single one of them had been shot. Men, women, and children. Husbands, wives, sons, daughters, and grandchildren. All of them.

Abigail, Will, Prudence, John, David, Rudolph, Sybil, Maggy, Ned, Charles, Lucy. All of them.

Aldin was three.

I don’t need your $!#%ing pity! Now sit down and shut up. You’re the one who wanted a story, and you’re gonna get it.

When I could I ran outside. Tracks. There had to be tracks. I knew there were tracks. But I couldn’t find any. It’d started to rain sometime in the night and I’d been shot near to death, my vision was blurry. Barely any sign whatsoever.

When I realized that I stumbled to the stables, got on Bess, and rode hard through the night to the town proper. Got there by daylight. Raised all Hell and tried to get a posse together. Didn’t believe me at first, but one of ‘em checked the house. I got my posse after that.

But they didn’t find anything either. Rode for days, looked for tracks all over, asked all the surrounding neighbors and towns if they’d seen even a single goddamn sketchy gunman recently.

Nothin’.

Eventually one group gave up. Then another. And another. Couldn’t blame ‘em. We were running ragged. Riding hard, little sleep, less food. They couldn’t just pull up for weeks to keep searching for somebody who was like a goddamn ghost. They had lives. They had families.

Eventually it was just me.

After what must have been a month my head finally cooled off enough to realize Clare didn’t know. Sent a telegraph to the last place she’d said she’d been in her letters.

Didn’t get a response.

Wasn’t anything in Peach Creek for me anymore. So I wandered. Wandered for four years. Specifics don’t matter. I had a gun and I was good with a horse. No lack of work for a man good with either, though I never did anything that’d make me ashamed to look Abby or any of my kids in the eye. Well, not ashamed that way. But like I said, those years don’t matter.

What mattered was when I drifted on into Brimstone.

Honestly, didn’t seem no different from a lot of towns I drifted through. Rough and mistrusting, filled with folk out to make their fortunes and have a good time, some of ‘em stupid enough not to care about the people getting in their way of either. Only came there because I knew the ghost rock would mean it’d be a lot easier to get some dollars in my pocket.

Some blonde kid who was actually happy to see a stranger told me that if I wanted a cheap place to sleep but didn’t wanna be robbed blind to go to Lopez’s Boarding. Yeah, that place. Smaller than the hotel, maybe a dozen tiny rooms, run by that Spanish widow. Honestly, rooms are cramped and hard to get, and the furniture’s old, but the food’s decent enough for what you pay. Her cobbler kinda reminds me of...

It ain’t nothin’.

Ugh. Rambling again. I blame the booze. Especially since I’ve had to do the lion’s share. Full as a goddamn tick. And I suggest for your sake you make sure I get soaked enough I don’t remember any of this evening.

Bartender! Another bottle!

Looking back, everything changed when I saw notice by the Jumping Jack about a rogue sheriff....