My name is Ben Urich.
I’m a newspaper man.
Nearly a month ago I approached thirteen years of employment at the New York Tribune, where I started as a yeoman and wrote my way up the rungs of the organization. I departed an editor with a weekly column and countless bylines.
In many ways a heartbroken editor, nonetheless an editor at the greatest newspaper in the country.
While my dear friend and mentor, Horace Greeley, focused on his political ventures and in conjunction with the transitional period of Whitelaw Reid assuming control of the Tribune, I began a correspondence with railroad mogul and inventor A.E. Stark. The well-written if not self-serving Mr. Stark extended invitation to me to begin a newspaper, initially to be funded by his wealth, in his developing community of Starkville.
I began packing upon receipt of the aforementioned telegram. It would be no less than fair to describe Mr. Stark as a man who doesn’t ask twice. I accepted with the exception my departure from New York be delayed until Mr. Greeley’s passing.
I spent this past tenth annual Thanksgiving Day with Mr. Greeley, sharing cranberry sauce and odd glances. He died the following evening, unaware of who I was or of his own existence. Yet he managed in his final hours to carry six of thirty-seven states in his run for presidency of the United States.
I then followed Mr. Greeley’s advice. I went West.
* * *
His name is Ben, too. At least that’s what he told me.
He is not a newspaper man. He is a killer.
I reported during the war between the Union and the Confederacy. I familiarized myself with the mortality of man. Those four years were as close to hell as we may ever come.
Luckily for mankind, there isn’t time enough in the world for all its people to make Ben’s acquaintance.
My occupation instilled in me the ability to detach emotionally when appropriate. Ben, on the other hand, is simply and entirely detached. If he has an emotion other than the instinct to inflict terminal harm, he hides it behind darting, icy eyes and a satisfied sneer.
Ben is as cold-blooded as one comes. He could step into a room and the lanterns would snuff out in fear.
“Including that sheriff, I reckon that tallies four.”
That was Ben’s response to my how many he had killed. He was smiling.
“I meant in total,” I said.
He laughed. It echoed throughout the cell he sat in and the neighboring two in the jail of the now-deceased Sheriff Reilly. The short cackle awoke Deputy Jack Monroe from his nap, and he fell back asleep as the reverberation dissipated.
“Ain’t no tellin, Mr. Urich,” he said.
“Ben.”
He raised an eyebrow as if awaiting my next inquiry.
“You can call me Ben,” I said.
The jailed man approached the bars between us. It was a slow and methodical endeavor. His eyes alternated between me directly ahead and the cigarette he was rolling.
“Funny thing,” he said. “Wasn’t that sheriff whose neck I put an arrow through named Ben, too?”
I nodded.
“Where did you learn to throw one like that?” I said.
His gaze was afar, like he was reliving the moment. I noticed the slight tension in his arm. Reality returned to him in seconds.
“Got a match?” he said.
I lit the cigarette he poked through the bars.
“Ain’t that just the story,” he said.
