Heat and Homicide 101

If You Can’t Take the Heat, Move to Alaska

It happens to all of us at one time. The power fails, the air conditioner goes out and somewhere in the back of our minds, we think, “How did people survive without air conditioning? What did they do?” When I was kid, we went swimming while our mothers parked in front of fans, or we all went to the movies to sit in a cool for two hours. But what did they do a hundred years ago?

I pondered this for a while. And then it hit me. Guns. Gun ownership was common and everyone had basic firearms knowledge and skill. My own grandparents who left Los Angeles after the big earthquake of 1932, crossed the United States in a Model T Ford (top speed 40 mph), with my six month old mother in a laundry basket, a cat named Heiny Wertzschitzel, a rifle, and a Colt .45. They shot and ate game along the way. Grammie carried the Colt when she had to improvise a privvy behind a tree.

Gram had to use it once, when she and a bull startled each other behind some sagebrush. Makes you really appreciate the advantage of indoor plumbing; you worry about kids barging in, but rarely livestock. I never complained about my kids disturbing me in the bathroom in front of my grandmother. Any woman who has shot at a bull from a squatting position cannot be beat in the bathroom complaint department.

July 12, 1876

In a courtroom, somewhere on the American Frontier

“Mrs. O’Malley, will you please tell the court why you shot your husband in the leg?”
“Yes, yer Lordship. Well, sir, it was Tuesday, me candle and soap makin’ day. Hot enough to make Hell seem cool, it was. There I was yer Honor, bent over the tub dipping candles, halfway done I was, when Himself comes up behind me and tries to exercise his due, if you take my meanin’”
“Yes, Mrs. O’Malley, the court understands. But why was it necessary to shoot him?”
“Well, he’s a very insistent man, he is.”
“Wouldn’t a simple “no” suffice, Madame?”
“I gave him a simple “no” yer Lordship and he stopped.”
“Well then WHY did you shoot the man?”
“He doesn’t like the “no” yer Honor, sir. And to spite me, he brought down a whole line of washin’. Down into the dirt. Half days work, lying in the dirt and sun. I was already half crazy from the heat. Then he looked over at the rope where me finished candles hung... I knew what he was thinkin’ so I thought I’d better give him somethin’ else to consider. And that’s when I shot him.”
“Mrs. O’Malley, this is the third summer you’ve shot your husband. Don’t you ever worry that you’ll miss him?”
“Never, yer Honor. I’m a good shot. I take care to aim low and I haven’t missed him once.”
“We are frustrated with you, Madame. Every summer you shoot your husband and every summer we send you to jail. Your sentence will be three weeks this time since your husband wants to drop the charges and is begging for any early release, something about not wanting to be alone with your eight children.”
“Couldn’t you sentence me to a full month, yer Lordship? 30 days is a nice round number. I’m sure I deserve it.”
“Now, why would you want to be in jail another whole week?”
“Well, yer Honor, Maureen Murphy started her sentence last week for winging her Joe, and tomorrow you’ll be trying Kathleen O’Doud. She’s hoping to get at least three weeks in jail, but I told her not to get her hopes up, it’s only her first shot at her man and you can’t get much for a grazin’. Anyway, we’d all like to have some time together to finish a wedding quilt for Moira Kinney, she’s to wed Henry McGill in the fall. So you see, yer Honor, you’d be doing something lovely for them.”
“I suppose she’ll be before me next summer for shooting at her husband.”
“No, Sir, we’re not giving Moira a gun for her shower, or as a wedding gift.”
“Oh, pray tell, why not Mrs. O’Malley?”
“She’s not like the rest of us, yer Honor. She’s a got bad temper. We’re all worried about how she’ll be in the heat when she’s got a husband and young ones tuggin’ at her.”
“SHE has a bad temper? Thank you, Mrs. O’Malley. Thank you for helping me decide to accept a position in Maine.”
“Not a’tall, yer Honor, not a’tall.”