Gentle Readers: Now we begin in earnest. This is the Prologue and it serves as a taste or preview of the series. Jesse Blue made an agreement with this writer and the deal was just too good to pass up; if I agreed to let him write the prologue to Mannysmoke, he agreed to go on hiatus for two weeks. The rest of our episodes are written by yours truly.
Fall 1873
Hello, my name is Jesse "Chester Goode" Blue and I am the deputy Marshall in Dodge City. The purpose of this prologue is to provide you with the facts leading up to the time when Marshall Danny "Matt Dillon" Santos came to be a changed man just by meeting up with a schoolteacher. Now don't go to worrying that I am going to tell you all of this story, I've just been asked to tell you the part leading up to the Marshall fetching the little filly to Dodge City.
Our story starts when Miss Drew "Kitty Russell" Jacobs walked into one of her best private salons and found the town's school marm, Miss Carla Ray, laying in pool of blood. She sent Sam Kershaw, her barkeep, over to fetch Doc Rick "Galen Adams" Bauer. The Marshall and me were with the Doc and went to check on the victim. Doc bent over the woman's body and checked for a pulse. He looked up at the Marshall and shook his head slowly up and down. "Someone shot her but she will live. Good thing we found her when we did, otherwise, in a week or so, she might be dead. We will have to amputate though."
That is how we came to need a new schoolteacher for Dodge City. You see the town's school marm got shot through the foot with a sawed off rifle. She was not telling anyone how it happened and no one much cared. What people did wonder about was why the town's schoolteacher had been at Miss Drew Kitty's in the first place. Moreover, people's tongues got to wagging about what Miss Carla Ray was wearing that night; nothing more than what the good lord gave her and a dirty ivory colored lace corset. Some of the town folk speculated that she was a hot house tomato but I am not sure exactly what that might be. I do know that some said if you did not work for Miss Drew Kitty or some other establishment in town, hanging around private salons was not exactly an attribute that was desired in a lady resident of Dodge City.
Miss Carla Ray left town as soon as the amputation of her little toe healed and well, she never looked back. She caught the Tuesday stage back to the Northeastern State of Massachusetts. Frankly, Miss Carla had been suspect for some time in our fair city of Dodge. Although she was a mighty fine lady and taught the children real interesting stuff like that Frenchy language and all about fine music like Choppin, she never did fit in with the rest of the townsfolk who wanted school learning for their kids to include just the three R's; Reading, Riting and Rithmetic.
The prime suspect in the shooting was the same man that the Marshall always suspected, Mr. Ben Warren. He was the president of one of our banks, Dodge R Us Savings and Loan, and the town's resident gambler. Marshall Santos will spend time in future episodes trying to catch Mr. Warren and get him to confess to this shooting and some of his other corrupt activities.
Doc Rick "Galen Adams" Bauer formed a schoolteacher search committee of two; the newspaperwoman, Mrs. Holly Read and himself. They came up with the idea of employing Doc's little sister who finished her schooling at the St. Louis (pronounce this as Saint Louie) Institute for Teaching and Farming. Doc sent her a telegram offering her the job. She wired right back and said that since Doc was the only kin left to her in this world; she would be glad to come and sign a two year contract with an option for an additional year.
Marshall Santos agreed to meet Miss Michelle "Galena Adams" Bauer at the stagecoach line office in St. Louis. Danny would meet and greet with the school marm and then follow the stagecoach back a ways on his own horse. He was in St. Louis delivering a delusional bank robber to the St. Louis Penal Institute for the Criminally Insane. The bank robber man had been all right until Doc started giving him some of his special fancy medicine for bad tempers, cocaine. I am somewhat glad I have a good temper because Doc sometimes does not check you out real good before he goes to prescribing his cures. Anyway, Danny agreed to meet Doc's sister because he and the Doc go back to a ways. They both served in the Union Army eight years ago.
Meanwhile, I met the stage and helped a pretty little widowed woman settle on her ranch. She is the widow of poor old Mr. Jessup. He had gone back east to fetch his own bride and keeled over on their wedding night at the very sight of this little lady. Her name is Miss Cassie Lane Jessup and she kept telling me she was going to turn her ranch into a farm. I just laughed and laughed; didn't she know that old man Jessup's ranch had trouble even when used as grazing land? Her talking about farming the land was downright hilarious. That land was full of that dark poison the Indians call liquid grease. I had to laugh as I was taking Mrs. Jessup out to her ranch, er, farm and saw Ray Santos (or was it Mick Santos, they are the Marshall's identical cousins), out of the corner of my good eye. He/well one of them is not as nice as the Marshall; he'd/well one of them had been eyeing that spread of land for a long time and now that Mrs. Jessup was in Dodge City, he/they seemed to be eyeing her spread as well. More about the whole lot of them in future episodes.
Next up is the introduction where you will meet the rest of the townsfolk and Episode 1--Where the Marshall meets the teacher and shares a real interesting ride with her.
Take me to the Introduction...partner...
