Emerson's Wife and Other Western Stories

by Florence Finch Kelly

"We were in dead earnest, and we meant to get his political scalp and drive him out of the Territory with his tail between his hind legs, before he knew what had happened to him. I won't say," and the man grinned and his eyes twinkled, "I was n't expecting to be appointed Governor myself afterwards. Anyway, I did n't care to be roped into a trial for murder just then. It would have interfered with my plans. And if the Governor had seen us apparently lynching a man right under his eyes, he could cinch us if he wanted to.

"I called the Mexicans up to the door, told them I didn't know how the body got there (I didn't, either), but it must have been put there by some of my enemies. Then I gave them money to take charge of it, say the dead man was a friend of theirs, and do the proper thing. So the poor cuss was in luck by the affair after all, for he got a mass said over him. Then I sent word to my friends who 'd been with me, and we all just quietly skipped, on the minute. At sun-up that morning there was n't one of us in town. I had urgent business in Texas for the next week.

"You see, we 'd all of us thought our new Governor was just a highfalutin' tenderfoot, and it would n't be any job at all to buffalo him. But this move of his gave us a suspicion that maybe we 'd sized him up wrong. It was just the kind of quiet warning that we 'd be likely to give if we had cards up our sleeve that the other fellow did n't know about. It looked as if he really could and would strike back good and plenty if we pushed him too hard. So we sent word to our crowd all over the Territory to keep quiet a while. And let me tell you, life in New Mexico was not nearly so exciting for the next few weeks as some of us had planned it should be.

"Still, I was n't quite satisfied about it. Somehow, the Governor did n't seem to pan out to be just the kind of man who would give that kind of a jolt to his enemies. He was too Eastern. I was still chawin' it over in my mind, when one day I met Mrs. Coolidge, two or three weeks after it happened and the first time I 'd seen her since. She was lively and cordial, as she always was, and is; but as I shook hands with her and looked her in the eyes she suddenly dropped her eyelids, and a queer expression crossed her face. She had hold of herself again in a second and was looking at me and smiling and talking. But that second was enough. It flashed into my mind that she was the one who 'd done it. I reckon I would n't have dared to bone her about it if I 'd waited two minutes. But the impulse took me, and I just asked her bluntly right then and there if it was she who had transferred that Greaser from her husband's window to my door.

"She threw up her head and looked me square in the eyes—you know that straight, frank gaze she has—frowned a little and said, 'Yes, I did it. I thought your doorway was the rightful place for that corpse to be found in.'

"Well, the joke of it and the pluck of her just struck me right where I lived, and I fairly roared. 'Put it there, Mrs. Coolidge,' I said, and stuck out my hand, as soon as I could speak. 'You 're a regular captain! No, you 're bigger than that—you 're a colonel! Shake, and let's be friends!'

"Well, I just thought it would be a shame to drive a woman with as much pluck and sabe as that back East to live. So I passed the word down the line in our party that we 'd give the Governor a show—let him have fair play anyhow, and, if he could make good, all right, the pot should be his. I was so tickled by Mrs. Coolidge's trick and the way she won out on it that I never called her anything but 'Colonel' after that, and, somehow, the title stuck. Anyway, she deserves it."

For a long time after this affair, so I learned from Mrs. Coolidge when I asked her about the story her friend had told me, the Governor thought it was that interview and the stern spirit he displayed in it that had made the change in the opposition's attitude toward him and had seemed to affect the feeling of the whole Territory. For his official path became unexpectedly easy. There were few attempts to balk him in his administration of affairs and there was a general manifestation of tolerance, and even of willingness to see how his ideas would work out.

But the time came when, understanding better the people with whom he had to deal, he knew that that interview ought to have had just the opposite result. One day he said to his wife how surprising it was that it had not landed him in the hottest of hot water, and how puzzled he was to account for what seemed to have been its effect. Then she confessed to him what had happened on that crucial night, how she had taken the body away and hung it in front of the other house, and what she partly knew and partly guessed about the results of the affair. At once he realized that her instant and audacious retaliation was what had made possible his success and his growing popularity. Nevertheless, he was shocked at first, for New England was still but a little way behind him. But amusement soon overcame every other feeling, and he laughed heartily in admiration of her daring, just as his opponent had done. After that, he seemed to take particular pride in her sobriquet, and himself often called her "Colonel Kate."