The Bride Comes to Yellow Sky

Scratchy Wilson is the story’s antagonist—the villain to Potter’s hero. Initially, he is portrayed as a conventional foe. He screams in rage at the heavens, emitting “fierce cries” as he saunters through the empty town toting a gun in each hand (22). His shouts are like those of an animal, so strong and primal that they have “no relation to the ordinary strength of a man’s voice” (22). His face is contorted by “an anger born of whiskey” (22), and as he prowls the town looking for someone to fight, his neck muscles throb with passion. He is known as a “perfect wonder” with a gun.

Yet, like Potter, Scratchy belies some traditional western stereotypes. For example, when he is not drinking, he “wouldn’t hurt anything—nicest fellow in town!” (22). It is only when he is drunk that he menaces the local population. This inconsistency is an unusual characteristic for a stereotypical villain, particularly in the context of westerns.

Despite his role as the villain who is supposed to stand in contradistinction to Potter’s victorious hero, the development of Scratchy as a character mirrors that of his nemesis. While Potter is reduced to the brave but ultimately impotent gentleman without a gun, Scratchy is also cut down to size. By the end of the story, he is like a child pouting because he has no playmate. Once he sees that Potter is unarmed and domesticated by marriage, he becomes demoralized and deflated. The anticipated climax of a gunfight was thwarted—by a woman, no less. There is nothing left to do but go home.

Like Potter, Scratchy is civilized by proxy due to the mere existence of Potter’s bride.

Otherwise nameless, Potter’s bride has immense power in the story, although she neither realizes it nor wields it intentionally. She is not depicted as the stereotypical beautiful new bride of the western genre; she is “not pretty, nor very young” (16). Nor is she worldly: As Potter draws her attention to the luxury of the train car they are riding in, she stares in wonder at its elegant materials. Despite her innocence and ordinariness, she is a force with a momentum that cannot be abated, like the march of civilization itself.

The bride’s demeanor, however, is consistent with that of the conventional female character of the western tradition: dutiful, credulous, and inexperienced. She defers to her husband as a wife would be expected to do, and she is shy with him. When Potter informs her they are expected to arrive in Yellow Sky at 3:42, she responds “‘Oh, are we?’ […] as if she had not been aware of it” (17). The narrator points out, however, that her answer was prompted by the “wifely duty” to feign “surprise,” suggesting that she possesses more depth and awareness than her words reveal.

Ultimately, however, the unassuming character of the bride neutralizes the wildness and virility of the two main characters, Potter and Scratchy, both of whom personify the Wild West. This is not through any apparent calculation or strategy on her part. Instead, through the “civilizing” role of marriage, the bride represents the domesticating influence of the East that is encroaching upon the West, taming it through the unstoppable advance of Eastern-style progress.

A staple of the western genre, the saloon is the setting where macho passions often erupt, and the saloonkeeper is there to manage them. As a wizened member of the community, the saloonkeeper neutralizes trouble when he can but competently minimizes the damage when he cannot.

The saloonkeeper of Yellow Sky accomplishes a few narrative functions. He establishes a pattern of life that is familiar to the citizens of Yellow Sky. The presence of the traveling salesman, an outsider, allows the saloonkeeper and other patrons to explain the familiar rivalry between Potter and Scratchy, in addition to their respective roles in the community. This reveals Scratchy’s penchant for terrorizing the town when under the influence of alcohol and Potter’s time-honored duty to stop him.

When the young man enters the saloon and announces Scratchy’s impending arrival, the saloonkeeper reacts automatically by locking the doors and boarding up the windows. He also instructs the frightened salesman to lie on the floor when Scratchy starts shooting; although Scratchy cannot break down the door—“he’s tried it three times,” the saloonkeeper says, “he’s sure to shoot at the door, and a bullet may come through” (21). When the salesman balks at lying on the floor, the saloonkeeper makes “a kindly but forceful motion” (21), convincing him to obey his instructions. The saloonkeeper then sits “comfortably” on a nearby box.

The saloonkeeper is a stock character of the Wild West, which manages to evade total anarchy through the capable ministrations of the community’s most prominent members.