1 July 4, 1880
"Look! That damned rascal is bringing his own coffin!" Senator Lance Falkland laid down his dueling pistol and turned toward the sound of crunching gravel. "By God, Pa," the senator's son Gaddis shouted again. "You got that editor right where you want him. That scoundrel can't back down now!" People in the center of the crowd, dressed colorfully for the holiday, began clearing a path as the farm wagon approached. The whooping and hollering fell off when the people could get a glimpse of the coffin. Hushed now, the crowd was stunned by the unexpected sight. Then murmurs followed in the wake of the wagon and its cargo. It wasn't even a respectable coffin. Just a plain pine box. Homemade. Some of the nails had even been bent by nervous hands. Yep, those scrub pine boards were hastily cut. Look at the rosin glisten in the sun.Worse than a pauper's coffin from the county court house. The wagon creaked up the hill, forcing a family to hastily pull aside their picnic plates and quilt on the ground. Blazoned across the sideboards of the wagon were large gold letters proclaiming "The Journal - We Tell the Truth". Editor Aaron Dunmore was driving the wagon himself. He used light flicks of a buggy whip to urge the ancient mule to the top of the hill. The sight of the editor, dressed in his best black suit, made the senator's son squeal in his grating high pitched voice. Gaddis Falkland shouted to the stunned crowd. "I hope he wrote hisself a good obituary!" This caused a man in the crowd to spit before remarking to a companion. "So this is what the senator meant when he invited everyone to come see the fireworks!" Editor Dunmore stepped from the wagon and pulled a polished box from under the buckboard. He opened the box and inspected the weapon he had purchased on the way to the holiday picnic.The dueling pistol was heavy, heavier than Dunmore had imagined it could be. His hand went clammy at the touch of the cold steel. Elegant engravings on the long barrel belittled its purpose as an object of death. Dunmore put a hand to his head, smoothing down some grey hair stirred by a sudden breeze. His permanently ink-stained fingers trembled. He nodded to his closest friend, the town druggist who had
agreed to serve as his second. "Ready," Dunmore said. He coughed and forced his voice to be a little louder, a little stronger. “I’m ready.” But the druggist, Jason Barr, held up his hand. "End this before it's too late," the druggist said. "Just make a retraction before all this people and then go home. We all know the senator has blown this thing out of proportion." Dunmore pointed to his newspaper's motto on the wagon. "I've vowed to tell the truth." His friend shook his head. “Well, maybe you shouldn't tell so much of it." The editor tightened his jaw. "I said I'm ready." Jason Barr sighed. He turned toward the three men waiting in the shade of a tree. He felt Dunmore tug at his coat sleeve."Just a minute," the editor whispered. "Am I loading this weapon correctly?" "Sir, you've never fired a pistol before?" "Not this pistol," Dunmore said. He tried to line up the pistol sights on a bush. "No sir. Not a dueling pistol. Not any pistol." The druggist touched his friend's lean shoulder. Barr felt the sweat across the back of Dunmore's broadcloth coat. Barr pointed to the senator's son Gaddis, who was changing his shirt that was blackened by gunpowder. "Gaddis stood in as the target for the senator's practice shots this morning," Barr said. “The senator loaded his one-shot pistol with blank cartridges containing only cotton wadding. He practiced for over an hour until he could put six wads on his son's chest." Shooting practice on the day of a duel is against the dueling code, Barr pointed out to the editor. "It would be proper to request a delay for a day or two so you may practice with an unfamiliar weapon. Why, things might cool down with a little more time." Dunmore shook his head. "No delays. I'm weary of this quarrel. For the past six months I've seen nothing but the senator's damned posters across this county. You've seen them. Posting me as a poltroon, a liar.” Barr had seen the posters. Everyone in three counties had seen them nailed to trees at road junctions, on the side of public buildings. TO THE PUBLIC, announced the signs. The following words chilled the heart and soul of everyone who read them:: “When a man makes his appearance before the public, upon occasions of this kind, it is necessary, that his grounds should be good. Mr. Aaron Dunmore, Editor of the Temperance Hill Journal, assailed the reputation of my wife in the most villainous and most infamous manner in his newspaper. Circumstances of attending to public business in the Congress of the United States prevented me from calling on Mr. Dunmore until today, January 13, 1880, when he, in the MOST COWARDLY AND DASTARDLY manner, refused to give any satisfaction, for the outrage committed on my wife’s reputation. “I therefore pronounce the aforesaid Aaron Dunmore, to be a most infamous SCOUNDREL, RASCAL & COWARD, and notify the world accordingly.”
The notice was signed Lance Falkland, U.S. Senator. It was sad, Barr thought. There was only one way an honorable man could respond to the despicable signs. If he wanted to hold his head high in the community, he was forced to challenge the senator. So now, two aging men, once friends in the Civil War, were meeting on a field of honor. Senator Falkland now held the upper hand, Barr admitted. By forcing the editor to challenge him, the senator got to select the field of honor and the weapons. But everything else about this showdown rang false. Under the Code Duello, a duel was supposed to be held at an isolated spot, away from witnesses.Now here they were on the national holiday, with throngs of families invited by the senator for the “fireworks.” The editor spilled some black gunpowder as he finished loading the pistol. "Go now! Let me get this over with!" Suddenly he fumbled in his coat pockets. "Wait a minute," Dunmore whispered as he pulled out a dog-eared notepad. "Give me your pencil. Whoever writes this story might need a few notes." A few moments later they approached the senator's second, his law partner Wallace Marsh who acknowledged them with a curt nod. "Does Mr. Dunmore," Marsh inquired, "wish to make a public retraction of his newspaper's slur against the senator's wife." Barr shook his head. "Mr. Dunmore has been pointing out for some six months now that there has been no slur against the lady's character or reputation," he said. “That’s a damned lie,” Senator Falkland shouted. He charged between the two seconds. His face was livid red. His anger was uncontrollable. “That damned scoundrel called my wife an embezzler.” Barr kept his voice calm. “The editor merely reported that a civil suit had been filed for an accounting of her father’s estate.” Senator Falkland shook his massive fist. “The implication was there.Even a blind man could read between the lines.” The editor shouldered his way in front of the senator. “All I wrote,” Dunmore said, “was that a court suit had been filed. Period.” He pointed an inkstained finger at the senator’s massive chest still heaving with rage. “And I buried that short sentence on the bottom of an inside page.” Senator Falkland shook his head so hard that spittle flung into the air.“Buried,” the senator sputtered. “You put that purtid statement right beside an article about a nigger!” He turned toward the crowd that had been watching the men as if they were horses thundering toward a finish line. Senator Falkland waved his arms toward the sky. “A nigger! There was my wife’s name right alongside the name of a nigger drunkard!” “Quit grandstanding, senator,” editor Dunmore said. “This isn’t a nominating convention.” Senator Falkland whirled around to face the editor. “Not this time, sir,” the senator said. “This is not the convention two years ago where you so grandly opposed my candidacy.” He shook his fist in Dunmore’s face. “This time you can’t hide behind your
editorial page.” The senator’s idiot son was shaking with excitement.“Git him, Pa,” Gaddis Falkland shouted. “I knowed if you’d talk long enough you’d even get a sheep to fight!” The senator was pushed aside by his second, Wallace Marsh “Enough of this nonsense,” Marsh shouted. “I must warn you, senator, that the dueling code prohibits combatants from injecting personalities or politics into a matter or honor.” Senator Falkland pushed him aside. “I’ll put an end to that damned newspaper once and for all. Let this duel begin!” Young Idiot Gaddis rolled his eyes and clapped his hands with glee. The seconds Marsh and Barr made the senator and the editor face away from each other and stand with their backs touching. The senator’s massive frame towered over the editor. They held their heavy pistols toward the ground at angles away from their legs in case of misfire. They awaited the beginning of the count shouted by the leader, an impartial man approved by both seconds. “One!” Dunmore and Falkland took a step away from each other. “Two!” Another step put the distance at four feet. The distance doubled with each count. The final step would widen the gap to twenty feet.“ “Three! Turn and fire at will!” Dunmore’s arm shook as he raised the heavy pistol while turning to face the senator. His finger brushed against the hair trigger. The gun gave an angry roar as it almost jumped out of Dunmore’s hand. “My God! Too soon! Too soon,” Dunmore cried. His shot crashed like a sledgehammer into Senator Falkland’s leg. The blow spun the senator to the ground just as he began to aim for the editor’s chest. The senator was on his right knee, stunned by the searing blow that tore a jagged path through his left leg. Idiot Gaddis rushed to father’s side and knotted a red bandanna around the ugly wound. Dunmore sank to the ground and retched into a pile of leaves. A crowd of men, women and children rushed onto the dueling field for a closer look at the results. Was the senator dead? Had the editor also been killed? A fistfight erupted among three boys using pen knives to pry the editor’s wayward bullet out of a tree. The seconds Marsh and Barr pushed their way into the throng, shouting for the group to disperse. They helped Senator Falkland and Dunmore to their feet.The seconds looked at each other and nodded in agreement. Barr spoke. “Shots have been fired by both sides. Blood has been drawn and honor has been served. We propose that all shake hands and go home.” “No,” Senator Falkland shouted. As Idiot Gaddis gave him a stick for support, the senator struggled to his feet. “I demand satisfaction!”
Dunmore stood up. He trembled as he held his empty pistol at his side. He started to retch again. Senator Falkland swiftly took aim and shouted "Damn your freedom of the press!" Then he fired.