Chapter 2

Harmony Junction was a prosperous town, everything considered. We had finally gotten rid of the last of the carpet baggers, and, except for slavery, things had pretty much returned to the sleepy pulse of life before the War. One big advantage we had now was that the Comanche wars were a thing of the past. Most of our problems, at least the ones that I was officially interested in, were confined to White bandits or White idiots. Among the idiots are those that can't seem to have fun without drowning in alcohol.

I feel sorry for those few poor souls who have gotten themselves trapped into living in a whiskey bottle. We had five of those people in Harmony Junction; four of them are men and one is a woman. Society is bad enough on the male alcoholics, but it is hell on a woman alcoholic. The men just get put into jail if I happen to see them overly drunk in public; they stay where they are safe until they sleep it off.

But the women, ah, the women. Any woman seen drunk in public is ruined forever. Her friends and family disown her, and she might as well kill herself, because her life is only going downhill into a life of prostitution, and that is without what little protection the saloon whores have. If they are lucky, the alcoholic women can find work in a brothel until the alcohol or a customer kills them, but there is not that option in Harmony Junction. Our town just is not large enough to have a dedicated brothel, so there is nowhere for the poor woman to go.

Our alcoholic woman is lucky in one respect, her family is well-to-do, so they can afford to keep her isolated at home and hidden from the public. They do provide her with the whiskey she needs, but they don't dare let the world know of her illness. Most of our townspeople tend to mind their own business, so it is easy to keep her hidden, but sometimes things get out of hand. I would not even know that she exists except for an accident.

Sarah is her name, I will use no more of it in this narrative in case the story might leak out, and I don't want to cause her or her family any unnecessary trouble. Generally, I make a sweep of the town starting about 9:00 PM and I usually finish about 10:30 or 11:00. I concentrate on the business district, since that is where I expect to find trouble if there is any, but I sometimes sweep out into the more residential areas as I have the time.

Anyway, one evening as I was walking through the more affluent section of town, and I was about to turn for home, I spied a figure walking unsteadily along the street. This person did not appear to be one who would cause trouble, so I thought, at first, to forget it and simply leave the person to whatever fate might have in store. However, I changed my mind and went up to the person to offer what aid I might have to give.

As I got closer, I saw that the figure was that of a woman. It was obvious because she was nude from the waist down. Furthermore, she was bleeding from the crotch. My first thought was that she must be a rape victim, and that was why she was bleeding and staggering about. At that moment, I was so unlucky as to catch a whiff of her breath. I swear, she had so much whiskey on her breath that she could breath out a stream of flame if someone would only hold a lit taper up before her mouth.

In dodging back to escape the fumes emitted by her mouth, I happen to get a better view of her crotch and legs. This caused me to revise my estimate of the likelihood of rape; I thought that it was more likely that she was simply in the midst of her monthly flow.

The shirtwaist that she was wearing was of obviously higher quality than one would normally see a common person wearing, so she must belong to one of the richer families in the neighborhood. If so, I wondered why I did not recognize her. I did not move in the richer social circles, but I did see most of them at church, so I should have been able to identify this woman.

I needed to identify her as soon as possible because I wanted to get her off the street, both because she was drunk and because she was practically naked. I couldn't do anything about either problem at the moment, but I might be able to help if I could find out where she lived. I asked he for her name and where she lived.

She answered that her name was Sarah --, and she lived on Bucknell Street. I recognized her name immediately, so I knew where she lived, though I had no idea that there was a woman living there by the name of Sarah. We were standing on Bucknell Street and only two houses down from where she must live. I resolved to deliver her to her house before returning to my own home.

I had nothing with me to use to cover her nakedness, so all I could do was to hope that we did not see anybody before I could get her home. Naturally, there were no sidewalks out here away from the business district, so we walked to one side of the street, but not in the gutter, being careful not to step in any animal droppings.

It only took a couple of minutes to reach Sarah's house, so we turned in at the gate and walked up to near the front door. I did not want to embarrass the woman unnecessarily, but I saw no alternative to taking her to the front door with me. She had a tendency to wander away unless I held an active grip on her arm, and I didn't want to have to search for her in the next few minutes.

We mounted the steps and stood on the front veranda. I twisted the lever to the doorbell and waited as patiently as possible for someone to come to the door. Well, nothing happened in what I thought was a reasonable length of time, so I rang again. After another long wait, I rang again. I could hear the bell through the door, so I knew that we were being ignored. This irritated me to the point that I started ringing the bell, and this time I didn't stop. I rang for a continuous five minutes or more before somebody finally came to investigate.

I was really pissed off by this time, so I was ready to launch into a real tirade when the door opened. The door was opened by an obvious servant, and I was taking a breath to start my lecture when the woman screamed. The woman flung the door open and reached for my companion. "Miss Sarah, what on earth are you doing out there and why are you dressed like that?"

Apparently, Sarah recognized the woman who answered the door. She said, "Helen, I was thirsty, and I was looking for a drink. I got lost and this kind lady found me. She helped me get home. Please, can I have a glass of water?"

The servant started gibbering as if she was in a full panic. I certainly didn't know what was going on, so I said to the servant, "I am the marshal of Harmony Junction. Please tell me what is going on. Also, please step out of the way so that this lady can come into the house before somebody sees her in her state of undress."

I couldn't break through the servant's hysterical panic, and I was about to slap her face to get her attention when a very elderly woman showed up at the door. She asked, "Helen, what is going ... Oh my gracious goodness! Sarah, come inside immediately."

This time, it was Sarah who froze in panic. I'd had enough! I urged Sarah through the door and followed her in. My curiosity was killing me, and I had to know what was going on. I addressed the elderly woman, "I am the marshal of Harmony Junction, and I found Sarah wandering the street undressed as you see her. Please tell me what is going on."

At last, I was talking to someone who was not going to descend into hysterical panic at my questions. The woman told me that Sarah was quite ill and was kept in her room most of the time, except for meals. She claimed that she didn't know why Sarah was dressed as she currently was, but that could be easily repaired. She sent Helen to Sarah's room to fetch a robe for her to wear.

When Helen returned and Sarah was decently covered, we adjourned to the ladies' sitting room where I was given a quick rundown of Sarah's problem. At a very early age, Sarah began stealing whiskey from her father's store of wine and liquor that he kept in the gentlemen's sitting room. Nobody knew how long Sarah had been stealing liquor, but she was finally found actually taking a drink directly from a bottle of whiskey. Up until then, it had been thought that the servants had been the ones stealing the liquor, and several had been unjustly discharged as a result.