The Blacksmith of Bright Star, Texas

"Bird, bring Miss O'Devlin to my office and I'll tell you what I've been doing."

Once they were in the Marshall's office, Enos sat down in his chair and waved his hand at the two chairs in front of his desk.

"Have a seat. This is going to take a while.

"I didn't tell you why I was going to Red Butte to send some telegrams for a reason. I believed most of what Katherine was telling me was the truth because the man who's sitting in my jail cell right now told me this Harrison Smythe had sent all four of them to get Katherine. They were to take her out of town and then kill her. He didn't know why, but he said if they didn't do what Harrison Smythe told them to do, he'd have them killed instead.

"What I wasn't sure about, Katherine, was whether it was you or the wife who killed Alexander. That's what I went to Red Butte to find out.

"I sent a telegram to the Chief of Police in New York City and asked him if they were looking for a woman named Katherine O'Devlin, and said that I had her if they were.

"He sent a telegram back saying they had been, but that they weren't anymore. Then he told me why.

"Katherine, that man's wife did more for you than you thought. She wrote a confession that she killed her husband and gave it to her lawyer with the instructions that if anything happened to her, he was to give the confession to the New York City Police.

"Well, about three months ago, the wife had a very suspicious accident. According to the man who drove her carriage, she'd asked him to take her to a store for some shopping. As they were driving down the street, another carriage pulled up beside hers and someone in the second carriage fired two shots and then drove off. When her driver stopped, he found the wife lying dead from two gunshots.

"When her lawyer gave her confession to the New York Police, they thought it was probably her husband's father who had caused her death. Apparently the woman's father told them he suspected Mr. Smythe as well. They caught the men who'd been in the second carriage and they confirmed that. When they went to Mr. Smythe's house to talk to him, his wife said he'd gone to Little Rock to oversee the construction of the railroad between Little Rock and Dallas.

"The next day, I sent a telegram to the Marshall in Little Rock and told him I had a man in my jail who would testify that Harrison Smythe had hired him to kill a woman here in Bright Star, Texas. I said I'd learned that Harrison Smythe was in Little Rock and that I wanted them to arrest him so I could go to Little Rock and bring him back to Bright Star for trial. After his trial, I'd send him back to New York City because the police there were looking for him too.

"I didn't get a response until this morning. The Marshall in Little Rock sent four men to arrest Harrison Smythe, but when they got to his hotel, he fired one shot through the door of his hotel room that wounded one of the deputies. According to the Marshall, the other three broke down the hotel room door. As soon as they stepped into the room, Mr. Smythe shot at them again. They shot back and ended up killing Mr. Smythe.

"So, what all this means, Katherine, is that Harrison Smythe won't be sending any more men to get you. You can stay in Bright Star and teach school, at least until you find a husband. I don't think you're going to have much of a problem doing that.

"Bird, it also means that I won't need you to be my deputy anymore, but the town will pay you ten dollars for the time you were. I'll also need my Winchester back when you have time to bring it over."

}{

Things settled down in Bright Star after that. The hoodlum Marshall Dunbar had in jail was charged with attempted murder, tried, convicted, and sent to serve out a life sentence in the prison in Dallas.

Bird's blacksmithing business increased once people learned what he'd done to protect Katherine. It increased even more when the railroad came to Bright Star. It didn't come into the town proper, but the station was only about a quarter of a mile from Marshall Dunbar's office and the General Store.

The railroad meant more people traveling through so the hotel did a lot of business. The railroad also gave the farmers in the area a way to sell some of their grain and livestock. That meant the farmers had cash money, and they spent that money in Bright Star at the General Store and at Bird's blacksmith shop.

As for Katherine, it took another six months before she felt like she was safe. The four months in the summer when she wasn't teaching, she'd walk to Bird's shop and sit inside while he worked on a wagon hitch or repaired a wheel or welded a new point on a plow share. Once she started teaching school again, she felt just as safe because she knew Bird was just a few steps away.

It took Bird that same six months to realize he liked the fact that Katherine was always with him. Having her sitting on a chair while he worked was almost like back in Grits with Nanyehi, except Katherine was there all day and didn't have a mother trying to keep them apart.

Bird knew other single men in town had spoken to her when they came to his shop, but he was confused that while Katherine was always polite, she didn't seem interested in any of those men. A couple of those men were working their father's business once he retired or passed on and would have been able to give Katherine almost anything she wanted. The others were farmers, but with the railroad, they were making money too. One day after he finished making a new queen bolt for a farmer's wagon, he asked her about that.

"Katherine, a lot of men in Bright Star would like to know you better. I know at least two who have said you'd make a good wife, but you never pay much attention to them. You really should. You need a man to help you and take care of you or else you'll end up being a spinster school teacher."

Katherine lowered her head and looked at the dirt floor of the shop.

"I don't know any of those men well enough to trust them. I don't know what they'd do if somebody came to get me again."

Bird chuckled.

"Well, after six months, don't you think if somebody was going to do something to you, they'd have already done it?"

Katherine looked up at him then, and Bird saw her wring her hands when she spoke.

"I don't know. What I do know is that I feel safe with you."

"Katherine, if you keep staying with me all day, every day, people will start to talk. You don't want that, do you?"

"From what one of the girls in my school told me, they already do. She told me her mother said it wasn't right for a white woman to spend time with an Indian."

"So, what did you tell her?"

Katherine smiled.

"I told her that where I came from in Ireland, people in the south of Ireland didn't think women should be with a man from the north of Ireland, but that some did and they were happy. Then I said it shouldn't be up to anybody to tell a woman who she could marry."

"What did she say then?"

Katherine looked down at the floor again, and Bird barely heard her voice.

"She asked me if I was going to marry you. I said I didn't know because you hadn't asked me to marry you and that a woman should never be the one to ask a man that."

Bird could only stand there and look at Katherine. When he'd first met her, she seemed like most women -- strikingly pretty, but quiet and maybe a little timid. When she'd shot the man who was trying to kill him, Bird realized that she was a lot more than that. After he'd heard her story, he'd decided she was a brave woman who was determined to make the best of her life. Any man would be fortunate to have Katherine for his wife.

"Katherine, it sounds to me like you just did. It that something you really want?"

Katherine looked up at Bird again.

"If that's something you'd want, I do. I feel safe with you, but that's not the only reason. You're a good man and you work hard. The people of Bright Star respect you for that. I think you'd make a good husband...and a good father."

Katherine looked back at the floor.

"I also like you, Bird. I like you a lot. I hope you like me as much as I like you."

}{

For a couple weeks after their wedding, the women of Bright Star talked mostly about two things -- whether it was right for a white woman to marry an Indian man, and how they both seemed to fit together so well. In the end, the doubters conceded that if a white woman wanted to marry an Indian man, she couldn't have done any better than Bird.

The men of the town didn't talk about Bird and Katherine much. The single men were more than a little jealous of Bird. The married men would just grin and say they figured Bird was happy, women with red hair being what they are and all.

Bright Star did build a real schoolhouse the next summer, an actual schoolhouse with chairs and tables for the students and some books Katherine ordered from Dallas. The women of town were now saying, "You can say what you want about Katherine McGinness, but she sure knows how to teach. My Jimmy reads the Bible now every Sunday, and last week, he showed his dad how to figure out how many corn seeds he needs for our corn patch."

Yes, Katherine convinced Bird to take the last name of his grandpa. The sign on the blacksmith's shop now reads, "McGinness Blacksmith Shop, Repairs and New Ironwork". Bird wasn't sure about the name at first, but now, when people call him Mr. McGinness, he smiles and says he's just Bird.

Bird walled off a small room in the blacksmith's shop where they lived until Bird paid his debt to Hester. It wasn't a very big room, and the Katherine's cook stove was the forge, but it was theirs. The summer after that, he also bought Hester's house. Hester didn't need a house anymore. She was married to the barber who came to Bright Star from Dallas. They live in the back of the barbershop now.

Bird and Katherine needed a house because that spring she told Bird he was going to be a father. Bird was happy and scared at the same time, but when their son was born he was bursting with pride. They named the little boy, "Daley". Bird told anybody who asked that "Daley" was the name of a man he'd met once and that he'd really liked the man. Eighteen months later, their daughter was born. They named the tiny little girl, "Nan". Katherine said she just thought it was a pretty name for a girl. Nobody in town knows any different except for Bird, Katherine, and Marshall Dunbar.

One other thing changed in Bright Star. The stagecoach line only ran for a year after the railroad build the station outside of town. The train was faster and a lot more comfortable, and the rail cars could carry more freight. The Oldham and Murphy Stage Company went out of business, but the buildings and corral are still there beside the Bird's blacksmith shop.

Silas Cooper, the former wrangler for the stagecoach company offered to buy the buildings and corral. Now he runs a livery stable there as well as hauls freight from the railroad station to the businesses in town. He also got married to one of the last women to ride the stagecoach into Bright Star. Lydia Parker was on her way to Dallas and decided to spend a week at the hotel in Bright Star.

The women of the town say it was love at first sight on Silas' part, but why wouldn't it be because Lydia had a rather large bust and all men like a woman with a large bust. Then they say Lydia seems to be a nice woman even if she does seem to wear dresses that show off that bust of hers.

What they don't know is that Lydia was on her way to Dallas to dance in a saloon and it was Silas who convinced her to spend a week in Bright Star.

Silas has never told anybody why Lydia decided to stay in Bright Star. All he'll do is smile a really big smile and say, "You shouldn't never judge nobody by how they look. You should judge them by what they can do."