Through the Eyes of Another
By BettiAnn
This was written on a rainy November day, two weeks before I begin an eighteen month dearth of cowboys, fanfiction, and, especially, Laramie. This is the last fanfiction story I will write for that amount of time, and perhaps that accounts for the feeling of it. I wish to pay tribute to Moira of the Laramie Relay Station, who authored "The Goodbye," and provided the nature of Andy's career, and to Nachuma, also of the Relay Station, and author of "Haunted." Her vision of Slim and Jess' eternal guard over their ranch inspired the sentiments expressed at the end of this piece.
I also wish to dedicate this to John Smith and Robert Fuller, and to thank them for their portrayal of Slim Sherman and Jess Harper, who, to me, in my funny imagination, are some of the nicest brothers and dedicated friends I could ever ask for, (since I can call them too me whenever I am in need of a little western fun!)
I own none of the rights to Laramie, but it lives forever in my heart, as do Slim and Jess and their heritage.
Somewhere between St. Louis, Mo. and Laramie, Wy.~
It's dark outside my train window. My wife and youngest boys are sleeping on the seat beside me, but I can't sleep. Too many thoughts going through my head. Too many memories. I've made this trip a hundred times before, but now that this is the last one, I feel I haven't made enough. I don't know why I'm writing all this down; must be that reporter's blood in me. Jess ribbed me plenty when I told them I was going to be a reporter for that St. Louis paper. "Nosy Parker," he called me, "Always gonna be stickin' yer nose inta other folk's business. An', more'n likely, gittin' it knocked around some fer yer trouble." I remember he grinned then, the old grin that meant mischief and heck to pay for somebody, and added, "But I reckon ya come by it natural."
I remember it took Slim longer to accept it than it did Jess. I guess he still hoped deep down inside that someday I'd come back to the ranch and run it with him, the way Pa had wanted us to. Mike had been there by then, though, and that helped. Slim never let on that he was disappointed of course, Jess had sort of helped him to mellow in that regard, but I could see it in his eyes. They were sad when he smiled and told me that was great news, but later, after we had had a chance for a real man to man, no, brother to brother talk, he really smiled again.
Now, it's too late. I am one of the last of a race, the last Sherman who really remembers what the old west was really like. The last Sherman of the Sherman Ranch. Of course, Mike's still there, and Jess's boys, but it's different. Because they are not Shermans.
There's not many left of the old days who will be there. Jonesy's been gone a long time; he died when I was still going to school, and we buried him there in St. Louis. Funny, I always felt that he ought to have been buried on the ranch, but it just wasn't practical at the time.
Mort's gone, too. Sheriff Mort Corey of Laramie, the best tin star the town ever saw, excepting Slim and Jess. I never really got to know him myself, but I heard a lot about him in letters. Jess really liked him, and that meant a lot to me, because before Jess came to live with us, why, even for some time afterwards, he never did much care for the law, or the men that enforced it. I guess he knew too many of the bad kind. I never recall him calling a sheriff by his first name, but after Mort came, well, that's all he did call him. I know he had been a good friend to Slim, especially after the war before Slim came home, when he had been sowing his wild oats. I think Mort must have been kind of like a father figure to Jess and Slim both, and for that, I am very glad he was there.
Aunt Daisy has long been laid to rest herself alongside Ma, Pa, and the siblings I never knew. I remember her as a quiet lady with a lot of spunk packed into a tiny, sweet package. Why, she could even make Slim and Jess toe her line, without so much as raising her voice. She was always smiling and going out of her way to do things for others. Along with Mort, she played a big role in Jess's life, becoming the kind of mother he never had. As for Slim, she was oasis of calm, someone too whom he could turn the care of his family over too for a while and know that they would be well cared for.
Slim has always been a worrier. He worried for me; he worried for Jonesy, with his bad back and all; he worried about the ranch, and he worried a great deal for Jess, that he would ride off and not come back, or get himself shot sticking his nose into somebody else's troubles. Before Jess came his worry was taking over more and more of his life. He was getting lost in his worry and forgetting how to be the brother I needed. Jess helped. He taught my big brother how to let go, how to get by on faith that everything would turn out all right in the end. Funny, though, how that was. I would be willing to claim that Slim was really the more religious of the two, and yet it was Jess who taught him about faith.
Of course, Jess never called it faith; if asked, he'd probably just grin and say it was more like a "devil-may-care" attitude, that, and knowing how to deal yourself a good hand when the chips were down, and when I was a kid, I thought that was just what it was. But now that I'm a lot older and a lot more mature, I can see it for what it really was.
Slim taught Jess a few things, too. Like trusting his fellowman and how to settle a fight with something besides a gun or pair of fists. Of course, in the teaching, it seemed as though some of those traits of Jess' had rubbed off on Slim. I remember the first time I found out Slim had actually started a fight, and thinking that it sounded more like something Jess would do instead of Slim. And then there was the time when Jess deliberately and repeatedly dodged a fight, trying again and again to get the hot head to cool down. Again, it seemed as though part of Slim had gotten inside Jess and was out-talking his natural instincts.
Thinking about it, I guess Slim and Jess are a lot like silver and gold. When those two elements are left close enough to each other for a long time, they start to exchange properties, and you end up with a little silver in your gold, and a little gold in your silver. Slim's picked up a few traits of Jess', and Jess has done the same.
We're sitting now at the Cheyenne station, waiting for some more cars to be coupled on. We're getting closer now. It's the hardest trip I've ever made. Harder even then the time I had to go back to school after Boone was killed.
From the old days, Mike and his family will be there, and so will Jess's boys, Matt and Johnny.
Boy was I surprised when I got the invitation to Jess's wedding, and then the one to Slim's a year later. Jess' wife was a ball of fire, spunky and strong minded, and she and Jess used to just go rounds. Slim sure got a kick out of it; said it served Jess right for all the grief he had given him over the years. Jess sure loved her, though, and it shook him up pretty good when she died a few years ago. But it didn't break him up like poor Slim was when my sister-in-law died.
She was a beautiful girl, tall and gentle, soft-spoken, well-read, a perfect match for my serious big brother. She died when their baby was born, and mother and baby were both laid to rest on the hill next to Ma, Pa and the siblings I never met. Slim never looked at another woman after that, just dedicated himself to the ranch, and to being the best uncle Matt and Johnny ever saw and raising Mike up to be a good man.
Mike. My nephew, brother, friend. In a way, he took my place when he came, and I am glad he did. He loves the ranch the way I never could, loves it, and understands it.
Maybe, if things had been different when I was younger, if Slim had been as…less worried…with me the way he was with Mike, if I had been allowed to stay instead of go back to school... I don't know, but I know that if I had, I would not have my wonderful wife and four lovely children, including my two boys who carry the names of the best friends, the best brothers, I ever had, Slim and Jess.
Sherman Ranch~
The place sure has changed since the last time I was here. It hasn't seen a stage for more years than I can count on one hand, and the place seems a lot quieter. That is, it did when we drove up, but then Mike came to greet us and Jess' boys came to take mine off on some adventure. Then we were in the house, with Jess calling me "Tiger" just like he always used to and mussing my hair, and Slim grinning at us from his chair by the fire. He got up to hug us, and for a moment I was shocked. Slim teased me about how I'd grown, but it was more than that, I know. I will never get used to seeing either one of them older, and again I feel bad because I haven't been here to watch it happen. Their eyes are the same, though, and their smiles haven't changed; their hands are still just as work hardened and rough, although the callouses are beginning to disappear.
Tonight I caught Jess in the kitchen teaching my boys to draw; caught him—no—I walked in on it, and felt just as I did all those years ago when Jess drew on me for the first time and I dropped his pie. He's a little slower, but not much, and it is just as awesome to see it now as it was then; awesome and frightening. Slim yelled at him from the living room to cut it out, and said we didn't need any more fast guns in the family, but I could tell he was smiling when he said it.
Slim doesn't leave the house much anymore. No more than he has too. He still worked on the books until about a month ago, a little before I got the telegram. At first when I got here, it seemed as though he relied on Jess in a sort of one-sided reliance. It wasn't long, though, before I saw that I was wrong. Slim may rely on Jess physically, but Jess seems to depend on Slim for something else, something no one can see. I thought it was almost as though Slim is his emotional support, but then, standing on the porch under the bright, starry sky tonight, I understood. Slim is Jess' tie to home. His rock. I may have been the hook that lured Jess out of the wide open, but Slim is the anchor that held him. I know Jess dreads the thought of losing that anchor. I know because, now that they are both widowers, they have gone back to sharing the same bedroom, bunks placed side by side. They both say it's so that one can keep an eye on the other's health during the night, but I know it goes deeper than that.
Yes, a lot has changed, but a lot is still the same. Slim and Jess have done both; they're both so much older, but they are still the same men they always were; "Hard-rock" and the drifter with "one foot in trouble and the other in a barrel of axle-grease;" although now the "Hard-rock" has softened and the drifter hasn't drifted past Laramie for the past one or two years. The other thing that is still the same is Jess' old gun in its hidey hole in the chimney. I know it's still there because I looked. And it's still kept clean, although it hasn't received the same attention it used to when Jess first put it up. I took it out, now that everyone else is asleep, and I marvel as I always do at its perfect balance, the way the hammer and sight have been filed down, the hair-trigger, the deadly perfection that emanates from that gun. And as always, I shiver, for this is more than a gun, this is a symbol of what Jess was, and how he might have died.
I hear noises from the bedroom, and I know it won't be long now. We came just in time.
On the train somewhere between Laramie, Wy. and St. Louis, Mo.~
Somehow, I do not feel as badly leaving the ranch as I thought I would. Leaving them alone was still hard, but I know they are in good hands. Leaving Jess was the hardest, as I knew it would be. He looked so alone, so lost, and it hit me again just how much those two pards meant to each other.
The last thing Slim told me was how happy he was for all of us, for Mike and his family, for Jess and his, and especially how happy and proud he was of me. He said that Pa would have been proud of me, too.
As we drove away, I looked back and saw Jess in his favorite seat on the front porch a piece of whittling in his hands, but they were resting idly on his knees. He doesn't ride anymore, and I know he will spending most of his time there on the porch just biding his time until… Mike was there with him, sitting as Jess used to sit, his chair leaned back and his feet on the rail; his hands were busy with his whittling.
As we rounded the big hill that overlooks the barn, I knew Slim was there on top, astride Alamo, watching us drive away, his familiar wide grin on his face, arm raised in a farewell salute. I don't know when I'll be back, but I know that when I return, he will be there, as much a part of the ranch as the hills and swimming hole, and that someday, the pards who have spent more years together more than apart will be there together, continually watching the ranch. Whenever I return, they will be there, waiting for me, greeting me through the whicker of the horses in the corral, the sigh of the wind in the trees by the house, the chuckle of the stream in the hills. In the meantime, they will always be with me, coming back in memories, showing up in the things I do and say.
They are my brothers, my best friends, my pards; and they will forever ride the ranges of my heart.