Ralph Compton Face of a Snake

by Bernard Schaffer

  Lorenzo Escalante came downstairs from his rented room at the saloon and had to be careful on the steps so he did not fall. He’d overdone it the night before. Henry Odell had gone to bed after Sinclair stormed off and Escalante had decided to stay at the bar and drink. Now he was paying for it. His head hurt. His stomach was queasy. He knew what he needed. Some good greasy food to get in his belly and soak up all the residual alcohol. Runny eggs, bacon, sausages, toasted bread, and enough hot coffee to fill up a horse trough. That was what he needed.

  Escalante did not blame himself for overdoing it. At home, his wife, Alma, allowed him to have only one whiskey each evening. He’d learned to sip it slow. He’d sit on his porch in his rocking chair and look out over the field and drink his drink. Only on certain holidays and his birthday would she let him have a second.

  He did not even remember going back to his room the night before. He was grateful the saloon had no working girls because he’d have fallen easy prey to them. At the very least, they’d have waited for him to pass out and stolen his wallet. He no longer did such things, though. He was true to his wife and had always been true to his wife, even if the reason was because he was in mortal fear of what she’d do to him otherwise.

  When Escalante reached the bottom of the steps, he saw Henry Odell sitting at the same table where they’d been the night before. Odell was dressed to leave and drinking coffee out of a tin cup. Escalante sat down across from him and raised his hand to the bartender. “Breakfast, kind sir. I’ll take one of everything.”

  “You look like ten miles of bad road,” Odell said.

  “Just ten? Then I feel worse than I look,” Escalante said. “I can’t drink like the old days. How does the saying go? The mind is willing but the body is weak, eh?”

  “Something like that.”

  “In my head, I’m still just twenty-five years old. My wife always tells me, ‘You act like a child.’ But then I go to get out of bed or stand up from a chair, and this hurts and that hurts. I’m reminded that I am an old man now. I once heard that you’re only as old as you feel. Inside my body feels like I’m a hundred and two.”

  The bartender brought a plate of eggs and beans and a mug of coffee and set it down in front of Escalante.

  “What about bacon?” Escalante asked.

  “It costs more.”

  Escalante handed him two dollars and said, “You keep bringing me food until either that runs out or I am too stuffed to move, okay?”

  The bartender took the money and walked away. Escalante picked up a fork and started to eat.

  Odell sipped his coffee and watched. “You know Sinclair better than most. Has he changed, or was he always this much of a cowardly bastard?”

  “He was always a bastard,” Escalante said while he chewed. “But never a coward.”

  “Well, he’s a coward now. What kind of man hides in a cabin in the woods while his own family is about to be gunned down? They killed his son and he acts like he doesn’t care.”

  “I couldn’t say.” Escalante shrugged. “I thought he’d already be on his way to kill the men who did it. I was shocked when he left last night.”

  “So he has changed.”

  “I guess,” Escalante said. “I suppose we all do. Some men get bigger as they get older and some men get smaller. Inside, I mean. I like to think I have gotten bigger, because of my wife and my daughters. They give me purpose.”

  The bartender brought a plate of bacon and Escalante grabbed a piece that was still sizzling and folded it into his mouth. He pushed the plate toward Odell and told him to have some.

  Odell picked up a piece and stuffed it into his mouth. He swallowed without chewing it. “How much money would it cost to have you come with me? I could use an extra man at my side just in case Mr. Granger isn’t inclined to listen to my peace offering.”

  “I already told my wife I’d be back in a few days,” Escalante said.

  “I know. I’m willing to pay.”

  Escalante ate another strip of bacon and pushed the plate toward Odell. He watched Odell grab another piece and eat it. “How much?”

  “Whatever you want, it’s yours,” Odell said.

  Escalante waved for the bartender to come back over. “Bring us another plate of eggs and beans for my friend. My treat.”

  “That’s not necessary,” Odell said. He sucked the bacon grease from his fingers.

  “I want a hundred dollars,” Escalante said.

  “Fine,” Odell said.

  “Two hundred.”

  “I can give you some of it now and I’ll get you the rest. I’m good for it.”

  “Three hundred.”

  “I’ll pay whatever you want,” Odell said. “You can have my horse and saddle. If that’s not enough, I’ll work your fields or clean your house or do whatever it takes until it’s paid off. I just need help, and I’m asking you to be the one to help me.”

  The second plate of food arrived but Odell didn’t touch it. Escalante said, “Eat, and I’ll think about it.”

  He waited until Odell forked up a large bite of eggs and beans and put it in his mouth. “You know, that’s the first food I’ve seen you eat since we rode out together,” Escalante said.

  Odell sipped his coffee to wash down his food and said, “I had some bread two days ago.”

  “My mistake,” Escalante said. “After paying me to bring you here and paying for the drinks you and Sinclair had last night, how much money do you have?”

  “I’ve got enough.”

  “How much?” Escalante asked. “Right now. All together. The sum total of your worldly possessions.”

  Odell picked up another fork full of food and ate it. He chewed and said, “The sum total?”

  “In the entire world.”

  “Does that include my horse and saddle?” Odell asked. “Plus, whatever work you need done for however long it needs doing?”

  “I’m just talking money.”

  “Four dollars.”

  “To your name?”

  “Yes, but I swear on God, if you help keep my family safe, I’ll work as your personal servant until whatever price you need is paid.”

  Escalante nodded and ate the rest of his eggs. He used a chunk of bread to sop up the rest of the beans. “How much is the price of a man’s soul?” Escalante asked.

  “I don’t know. Priceless, I guess.”

  “I have committed many sins in my life,” Escalante said. “I’ll come with you to talk to this Nelson Granger and tell him to leave your family alone.”

  Odell extended his left hand. Escalante shook it.

  They finished their food and Escalante paid. They walked outside as the saloon’s stable boy brought their horses around front for them. As they waited, a wagon came wobbling out from between the trees along the dirt trail that led into the woods and Henry Odell tapped Escalante on the arm. “Look.”

  Ashford Sinclair blinked beneath the harsh morning sun like a newborn calf, but he held the reins firm in each hand and told his mule to get. He pulled up on the reins to stop the wagon in front of the Boldfield General Store in a swirl of dust and climbed down from his wagon.

  Paul Hanover came out of his store, waving his hand in front of his face at the dust and trying not to cough. “Mr. Sinclair?” Hanover asked. “What are you doing back so soon?”

  Sinclair reached into the back of the wagon and held up a pearl white fox pelt that gleamed in the sunlight. “Today’s the day.”

  Hanover’s mouth opened, but he did not speak. He came down two of the steps and stopped. “Did you bring all of it?”

  “All of it,” Sinclair said.

  “The blue buffalo?”

  Sinclair tossed the albino fox fur into the wagon and said, “I brought everything I have.”

  “Come in, come in,” Hanover said. His hands trembled
with excitement as he held the door open. He shouted at one of his clerks, “Bring it all inside at once!”

  The same young man who Escalante had paid to watch Sinclair’s wagon came running out of the store and down the steps and hurried to unload the pelts.

  From the front of the bar, Escalante and Odell watched the clerk scoop up as many of the pelts as he could carry and run them back inside. Through the windows, they could see Sinclair and Paul Hanover talking to each other from across the counter.

  Several minutes later, the clerk emerged from around the side of the store, leading a tall chestnut brown stallion with a fine leather saddle. He led the horse to Sinclair’s wagon and waited.

  Sinclair and Hanover then came out of the store and walked down the steps. Sinclair inspected the horse and checked the fittings on the saddle. He walked around the horse twice and stopped to check the animal’s legs and neck and the curve of its back. He held the horse’s lower jaw firmly in his hand and raised the flap of its upper lips to inspect its teeth. “Show me its hooves,” he told the clerk. One by one, the clerk bent and raised the horse’s hooves.

  Sinclair patted the horse and said, “This will do fine. Load my things up on him.” He jerked his thumb toward Escalante and Odell and said, “Load those two up with whatever’s left.”

  “What’s he loading us up with?” Odell asked.

  “I’m not sure,” Escalante said.

  Ten minutes later, the clerk came running back outside of the store with his arms full of burlap sacks stuffed with goods. He put as much of it as he could fit into the two saddlebags on the stallion and then ran across the street toward Odell and Escalante. “If you don’t mind holding your horses steady, I’ll load you both up, sirs.”

  They dropped down from their mounts and held the reins as the clerk ripped the sacks open and stuffed their saddlebags full of canned goods and bacon and ears of corn, and after all of the food was packed, he made room for several bottles of alcohol.

  Sinclair came out of the store. He walked down the steps and mounted the stallion. He maneuvered the stallion around the wagon and walked it over to where Odell and Escalante stood.

  The clerk wiped sweat from his face and set down the last sack. It was still half full. “I’m sorry, Mr. Sinclair, but that’s all I can fit.”

  Sinclair looked at the saddlebags on Escalante and Odell’s horses. They were bursting with goods. “You can get the rest in there, can’t you?”

  “I swear to God I can’t,” the clerk said. “You want me to tell Mr. Hanover to give you some money back?”

  Sinclair wound the horse’s reins around his hand and said, “Mr. Escalante?”

  “Yes, jefe.”

  “You recall how to pack a saddlebag when we need to put a whole lot of stuff into a tiny little place?”

  “Of course, jefe,” Escalante said.

  Escalante picked up the items that remained in the sack and went through them to try to see where he could fit them all. Sinclair slid down from his new horse and stroked its neck. “Boy?”

  The clerk hustled over to him. “Yes, Mr. Sinclair?”

  “If I recall, I shoved you last night.”

  “I was in your way, sir. It’s all right.”

  Sinclair reached into his pocket and handed the clerk a handful of coins. “No, young man, it was not.”

  * * *

  * * *

  Sinclair struggled to get comfortable in the saddle. He’d spent the last several years seated in a mule-driven wagon and prior to that, the closest he’d come to a horse for twenty years were the ones the prison guards sat on when they watched him break rocks.

  Lorenzo Escalante looked back when he realized Sinclair was falling behind. “Something wrong with that horse, jefe?”

  “That idiot sold me one that’s defective,” Sinclair called out.

  “The horse looks fine to me. It’s a good horse. Get it to walk straight. You keep turning it.”

  “This damn thing’s cockeyed and knock-kneed. It won’t go straight.”

  “You’re going to twist its ankle if you keep turning it like that,” Odell said.

  “I told you this beast is defective,” Sinclair said.

  “You want my horse instead?” Escalante asked.

  “Just turn around and keep going and mind your own business,” Sinclair said. He booted the horse in the side and said, “Come on, you dumb animal. Walk straight.”

  The horse neighed and snorted and kept going sideways.

  * * *

  * * *

  By nightfall they stopped and made camp. Escalante inspected the goods that the clerk had loaded into their saddlebags. Along with the food, there were a frying pan and bowls and cooking utensils. He placed three cans and a bottle of whiskey and several other items into the frying pan and carried it over to the fire like a tray. “How much were those pelts you sold the man at the store?”

  Sinclair tended the fire with a long stick as he tried to get it going. “I have no idea. I saw his eyes light up when I showed him what I had and I just started pointing at things and telling him that was what I wanted. He kept saying yes, so I kept pointing.”

  Escalante handed Sinclair the bottle of whiskey. He sat down in the dirt and used his knife to pry open a can of beans and dumped it into the pan. He cut off several thick strips of bacon and laid them over the beans. “If either of you sees a deer, let me know. I’d like to have some venison to go with these beans. I mean, it’s nothing as fancy as river rat, of course.”

  Sinclair took a pull of whiskey. “You keep making fun of beaver all you want. You’d like it if you tried it.”

  “I’ll take your word for it,” Escalante said.

  Sinclair looked at Odell. He was sitting in front of the fire with his arms wrapped around his knees, trying to keep warm. His legs were sore and he worked on them by rolling the stump of his right forearm up and down his thighs like a baker using a rolling pin.

  “Can you still feel it?” Sinclair asked.

  “Feel what?” Odell said.

  “The hand you lost. I heard men can still feel it after it’s gone. Is that true?”

  “It was for a little while,” Odell said. “Not anymore.”

  Escalante put the pan inside the flames and held it there until the bacon started to pop.

  Sinclair tried to pass the whiskey bottle to Odell but Odell said no. “I haven’t had a drop of liquor since I got out of prison until last night and I only did that because I knew drinking with you was the only way to get you to listen to me. I must confess, I didn’t enjoy going back to it that much.”

  “You swore off drinking in prison?” Escalante asked.

  “Along with a lot of other things.”

  “They cut off more than your hand in there?” Sinclair asked. He raised the bottle and took another drink.

  “Make jokes all you want. I don’t mind,” Odell said.

  When the food was ready, Escalante filled two bowls and passed them to Odell and Sinclair. Then he scooped the rest into his own. The men slurped from their bowls and Sinclair and Escalante passed the bottle of whiskey back and forth.

  “This is good food, Mr. Escalante,” Odell said. “Thank you for cooking for us.”

  “I always liked cooking for the Snakes,” Escalante said. “Even though we’re old and there are only three of us and one of them is our oldest, most hated enemy, it still feels good to be back out here, you know?”

  “I know,” Odell said. “And thank you, Ashford. I appreciate you coming with us and buying our supplies.”

  “Shut up, Henry,” Sinclair said.

  “You know, this would be better if we had some venison,” Escalante said.

  “If you want a deer so bad, go on out and shoot one,” Sinclair said. “You brought your Winchester, didn’t you?”

  “No,” Escal
ante said. “I sold that a long time ago.”

  “You didn’t,” Sinclair said. “You loved that rifle.”

  “I know, I know,” Escalante said. “It was either that or starve, though.”

  “Damn. So what did you bring?”

  “I borrowed my neighbor’s double-barreled shotgun, but he only had two shells. I think only one of the barrels works anyway. I should probably save them in case we get into trouble.”

  Sinclair looked at Odell. “How about you? What did you bring?”

  “In terms of guns?”

  “No, in terms of bowling balls. Yes, in terms of guns,” Sinclair said.

  “I have no guns,” Odell said. “I never had the need for them when I got out of prison, and I doubt I could shoot left-handed anyway.”

  “Well, isn’t this just perfect?” Sinclair said. “Three men out on the road in the middle of the night with naught but a broken shotgun, two shells, and five hands between them. Were you planning on swaying Nelson Granger with your powers of conversation, Henry?”

  “I know exactly how to deal with Mr. Granger,” Odell said.

  “Deal with him how? By talking?”

  “No, by reasoning with him.”

  “Reasoning with him? Hell, you couldn’t reason me into coming along with you on this journey last night, and I was half drunk!”

  “And yet here you are,” Odell said. “Just like with you, I am going to appeal to Mr. Granger’s better nature. I no longer believe that any man can be all bad. If a low-down, sinful wretch like me was able to find his better nature in prison, then there must be some small piece of that in everyone, including him. Yes, all I plan on doing is talking to him. But I also plan on helping him understand that life is about more than just money and acquisition, and how none of that matters in the end. He’ll hear sincerity in my voice and see truthfulness in my heart and it’s my belief that he’ll have no choice but to leave Jesse and Connor to live in peace.”

  “How about that?” Sinclair said. He took another drink and looked at Escalante. “We’re all going to die.”

  “Yeah, I’m sorry, Hank, but that’s a terrible plan,” Escalante said.