Setting: Ohio, late 1800's
Genre: American Historical Romance
Title: Olive Drab
Set up: Philadelphia librarian, Olive Wilkins enters her brother's
home shortly after his murder. She is accompanied by her brother's
neighbor Jacob Butler.
© copyright 2006 Hollis Bush
Piles of rags were heaped in a corner, near an unswept
fireplace. The table was piled with filth, its' chairs over
turned. Olive saw scurrying movement under a blanket covering
straw. She picked up a pair of glasses from the mantel with a
shaking hand. Olive closed her eyes and held her brother's
spectacles to her breast.
"As if killing their parents wasn't enough," she
whispered as Jacob Butler came through the doorway.
"Pardon?" he asked.
Olive swept her hand around the squalid room. "Wasn't it
enough that this outlaw killed Mary and John's parents? What
possessed him to destroy their home as well?"
"You think the man that killed Sophie did this to the
house?" Mr. Butler asked.
"So vicious," Olive hissed, staring wide-eyed around the
room.
Jacob Butler closed the gap between them in two strides. He turned
her roughly to face him.
"For the love of God, woman. Don't you get it? Your brother
was a cheating, lazy gambler and his wife a drunk."
Olive's mouth opened in shock. "It can not be. James married
a woman who drank alcohol?" Mr. Butler's hands fell away from
her shoulders.
"Drank alcohol? She could drink any man in these parts under
the table and when she did," Mr. Butler replied, "she
spread her legs for any man in the room."
Olive's hand flew to her mouth and she whispered, "Poor
James."
"Poor James?" he shouted. "He knew what she was. He
didn't care. He gambled with the money she made and drank the
whiskey that was left when she passed out."
"She made money? James couldn't provide for his family?"
"She was a whore, Miss Wilkins," Jacob Butler said
quietly. "It kept food on the table. Jimmy never could figure
out why his crops wouldn't grow, while he spent his days in the
saloon at the poker table."
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