Home
>
Poetry
>
Arizona Blue--Gunfighter: The Wolves Nest [Chapter One of Seven: The North]

Arizona Blue--Gunfighter: The Wolves Nest [Chapter One of Seven: The North]

[Episode Five]

Arizona Blue-Gunfighter

The Wolves Nest-in the North

[Episode Five]

Northern Minnesota Area?

Winter of 1877

Chapter One of Seven: The North

The area was known as Pigs Eye [St. Paul, Minnesota]; Northfield was a little more notorious since Jessie James robbed the 1st National Bank, in September of last year, and more to the West. But that was neither here nor there for Arizona-Blue. He didn't like this part of the country for no other reason than it was cold, unpredictable weather, and he didn't seem to offer enough freedom, it wasn't bad thirty years ago, but it had become too tame, Even Mark Twain thought so. His conclusion of why he was here was: 'Sometimes you just keep on riding and riding and end up where you don't care to be.'

As his rode through the thick of the snow, he had come to a cabin, up in an area where the deer was running as wild-to and fro-as the mavericks were down in Arizona, Texas and Wyoming. He smelt the smoke from a nearby chimney. He was a hundred and fifty plus miles North of St. Paul, but it seemed like he was in the Artic.

As Arizona came to a cabin, a man came out of the front door onto his porch. Two wolves stood by his side, a rifle in his hands. He noticed in the back of his house about thirty-more wolves tied to the fence; '?strange?' thought Blue.

"Can I help yaw stranger?" asked the man on the porch.

Blue knew most everyone in this area did not know his name, and that was one unconscious reason he chose the Midwest I suppose, a time for a rest of wondering whom was going to shoot you in the back, or who you had to tangle with next. His reputation out West was preceding him wherever he'd go, but here, up here in the Midwest who could know his name? No one he speculated. Northfield was to hot for anyone like him, after the James Gang shoot out, and St. Paul looked like St. Louis, a conservative little city on the banks of the Mississippi, not enough get up and go for him, plus they sold little books on him: "The Fast Gun of the West: Arizona-Blue." They did on all the gunfighters such as: Billy the Kid, Jessie James, Wild Bill, and so forth.

"I need a place to lodge for a day or two. I'm half frozen."

The man laughed and motioned for Blue to tie his horse up out side and come in.

As Blue descended his horse, a young boy came out and took his horse saying,

"I'll bed him down a spell, feed him for you sir."

Blue heard the Midwest was quite hospital to strangers, they had to be, because sooner or later you 'all ended-up needing the others help. 'This kind of gives yaw a nice feeling,' he told himself.

As Blue entered the house, he noticed a slim middle aged woman, boiling some stew (about thirty-six years old he'd guess).

"Some hot cider Mister?" she asked.

Blue was not sure what that was, but he knew it wasn't whiskey.

"Sounds warming, I guess that'll be just fine Miss?," unsure how to address her.

She smiled, and commented:

"You're not from around here I gather, you got a Southwestern accent?"

"I'm called Arizona; I guess because that is where I am from."

"Arizona what? She asked.

"That's it Miss, just Arizona, that's what my pop called me, no more no less."

She smiled again, the man came back in from the backdoor of the house, stomping the snow off his feet.

"Hi yaw, my names Harry," he extended his hand to shake Arizona's, "and this is my wife Feba, she's Spanish, and a little cute wife at that."

"Harry! stop making me blush."

"Well," said Arizona, "it looks like you got enough wolves around here."

"I raise them. They can come in handy." That was all that was said about the nest of wolves. Arizona got the drift of things, it was private, and he wasn't about to step in on a man's privacy.

"Mr. Arizona, please give your jacket to my boy, Tony." He was standing in the back of Arizona. He hadn't heard him come in. As Arizona took off his jacket, Harry, Tony and Feba noticed the guns. Arizona had one tight against his thigh, and one tucked into his belt.

"You won't need them here sir," said Harry with a little concern.

Arizona smiled. He was not a wanted man in Minnesota, or for that matter anyplace, just a notorious man, and seldom heard of way up in the North Country; and this was new country for him; if this was Wyoming, or Texas, or for that matter Tombstone, or Deadwood, the guns would stay. But he started to unbuckle them; then handed them to Harry to put away for safe keeping.

"How are the Indian problems up here?" Blue asked.

"Sometimes it ok, other times you just don't know. We had several cabins up here a year ago, and the Chippewa's burned three of them down. Rapped the women, after getting drunk, and took off. The Indians are all over the place. You just never know. I hunt bear and fox and sell the furs down at Fort Smelling. And yaw, some of the Wolves you see, end up being furs. Yaw got to eat. I hate killing them though."

Harry noticed Arizona watch where he hung the guns up; right on the coat rack that lead to the front door.

"If you need them mister, they're right there for the grabbing."

"I got the picture, Harry."

"Now for the dinner, it's about 11-below zero out there, not too bad for the dead of winter. You'd think it was 10:00 PM, but it gets dark quick up here, its only 6:00 PM. Not much daylight in the heart of winter. Tonight it will get down to 20 + below. It's like the cold knocks the sun out early I swear. It's going to be a cold, cold winter, stranger, I mean Arizona."

As they all four sat down to eat, Harry said grace, thanking God for his wife, son, and that the stranger did not get frozen like an ice cycle before he found his cabin.

"Let's eat," says Harry, and plunged into the hot stew.

The stew was great, though Arizona, as he took his third helping.

"My name is Alex, Mr. Arizona. Are you a gunfighter? You know, like Jessie James, and Billy the Kid?"

"Hush," said Feba, "Mr. Arizona is a gentleman, not a killer."

Said Harry, a bit uncomfortable with the guns hanging where the coats and hats hung:

"Mater-of-fact, if you don't mind, what is your line of work?"

"Well, that's a good question. I've been a soldier, fought at the Battle of Chickamauga, and I was sheriff for a while, and a deputy. And I guess you could say a cowboy of sorts. Not sure what a gunslinger is, but maybe that to."

"Jack of many trades I see," commented Harry.

Feba looked at Blues eyes; she was almost frozen by them. But her husband was the jealous type, and said nothing, just smiled and continued to eat her stew.

Dennis Siluk is finishing up his most recent book, "Peruvian Poems" it shold been done shortly, and published in the following months [29-poems in English and Spanish] look for it. You can see his other works at or

In The News:

Los Angeles Times
Wislawa Szymborska, a Nobel Prize-winning Polish poet, dies at 88
Washington Post
Wislawa Szymborska, a Nobel Prize-winning poet who used the imagery of everyday objects and a mordant style to explore dramatic themes of human experience including love, war and death, died Feb. 1 at her home in Krakow, Poland. She was 88.
Wislawa Szymborska, Nobel-Winning Polish Poet, Dies at 88New York Times
The World Remembers Wislawa SzymborskaHuffington Post (blog)
Wislawa Szymborska dies at 88; Nobel-winning Polish poetLos Angeles Times
Philadelphia Inquirer -Hindustan Times -Wall Street Journal
all 274 news articles »

Flush Poets Society: Donnelly's 'Cloud Corporation' Wins Six-Figure Prize
NPR
by David Orr "Poetry" and "money" are rarely found in the same sentence, unless a practitioner of the former is lamenting his dearth of the latter. Most poets get by on odd jobs, occasional grants, adjunct teaching, snippets of journalism or â€” in the ...
Timothy Donnelly of Brooklyn wins Kingsley Tufts Poetry AwardNew York Daily News (blog)
Brooklyn man wins Kingsley Tufts Poetry AwardWall Street Journal
Claremont Graduate University Announces Winners of 2012 Tufts Poetry AwardsPR Newswire (press release)

all 142 news articles »

Wigan Today
Poetry night reads well
Wigan Today
WHILE it seems a quiet one this week for music, sample some poetry from local writers instead. Write Out Loud (WOL) will take place next Thursday at the Tudor House Hotel. The open mic nights, which are run by local poet John Togher, give Wigan writers ...

La. poet laureate to be in Leesville
Alexandria Town Talk
Louisiana Poet Laureate Julie Kane will make two stops in Leesville on Feb. 13 to offer presentations on humor in poetry and sign copies of her poetry volumes. Kane, a professor of English at Northwestern State University, makes public appearances and ...

Telegraph.co.uk
Scotland referendum: We need a poetry of the Union to defeat Salmond's freedom ...
Telegraph.co.uk
Not that Labour's role in the campaign won't be vital â€“ I'll come back to this, because it's related to those shocking deprivation figures in Glasgow â€“ but Tories are the natural romantics of the Union, and should develop and articulate a poetry about ...

and more »

Poetry adding cheer to go with your beer
This is Kent
FOLLOWING last week's performances by Olympic poet Lemn Sissay in Thanet alongside Burns Night, Brown Ale takes a look at wordsmiths providing punters with purple prose to punctuate their pints. Spoken word has taken off in recent years with lyricists ...

and more »

SGGP
HCMC to host 10th Vietnam Poetry Day
SGGP
The 10th Vietnam Poetry Day will be held at the Ho Chi Minh Museum in Ho Chi Minh City on February 5, organised by the Ho Chi Minh City Writers' Association and Sai Gon Giai Phong Newspaper. Members from poetry clubs from various Districts, ...

and more »

Louder Than a Bomb Tulsa: Local teens' slam poetry resonates
Tulsa World
Heavy subjects for teenagers, who some think are too preoccupied with texting, video games, social networks and being cool to write such personal poetry, let alone perform their works in front of each other. Kent Martin, director and co-founder of ...

DNAinfo
Nepali Poets Share Love of Homeland at Jackson Heights Festival
DNAinfo
Noted Nepali poet Govinda Giri Prerana will read his works at the Nepali poem festival on Sun., Feb. 5, in Jackson Heights. (Govinda Giri Prerana) JACKSON HEIGHTS â€” When Anjali Roka came to the United States in 2003, she tried to fit in with ...

Victorino Kanda presents poetry book
AngolaPress
In presenting the book, Lopito FeijÃ³ said that this literary work is a poetic narrative that focuses on the pre-colonial and colonial epoch, in which the colonial political police of Portugal used to repress in a very brutal way the Angolan patriots ...

Google News