Hell of a Horse

by Barbara Neville

  “Thank you, kind sir. We’ve been looking for them.”

  The sheriff is turning toward her. Zastee pulls away, keeping her face turned, and sprints after them.

  “Wait, where you headed now?” says Billy.

  “The train.”

  “Which way?”

  She doesn’t hear him.

  He tries to follow to see where they go, but the crowd is building once again. Having heard about the bear shooting and the bull trampling and the rabid dog, not to mention Annie Oakley; folks are coming out in force. He can’t push his way through.

  The last he sees; the girls are disappearing around a corner headed west.

  There’s a train pulling into the station. They get to the livestock car just in time to load Ten Spot.

  “Any sign?” asks Cha’a.

  “I don’t think they ever saw us, they were too interested in the dead bear.”

  “Fuck, I hope this train leaves soon,” says Cha’a, as she leads Ten Spot up the ramp into the livestock car. “They figure out that I was the one shot that bear and the shit’ll hit the fan.”

  “I told the crowd around the bear that you were Annie Oakley,” says Zastee.

  Cha’a laughs.

  “Clever gal,” says Cha’a, grinning at her. “Not the first time I been said to be the sharpshooter. Actually, though, Annie Oakley is only five foot tall.”

  About ten minutes later the train starts slowly up, headed east.

  Cha’a pulls the handcuffs out of her pocket and holds them out.

  “Come on, train’s gatherin’ steam.”

  “Damn and blast,” says Zastee, as she holds out her wrists.

  “I’ll make ‘em looser this time. Matter of fact, I’ll cuff you to me. Share the sufferin’.” She cuffs their hands together.

  “Blast.”

  They jump aboard and head into the passenger coach. The white one.

  The conductor spots them. Cha’a lifts her hand, and thus Zastee’s, in demonstration.

  “They’s a O-ring in the colored car,” he says. “You can truss her up there.”

  “She’s extry dangerous,” says Cha’a, giving it one more try. “A cold-blooded killer. One of them African cannibals. Eats her victims. And slick as a weasel she is. She got out of the handcuffs somehow, and escaped, twice already, from other officers. She don’t even get to go outta my sight to do her business. Hell, they’re givin’ me hazard pay fer this ‘un. I need to keep her close. Have my eyes on these cuffs at all times. We dasn’t have her get loose among the innocent public.”

  The conductor’s eyes are big. “Cannibals? Like in Africa?”

  Seems he heard the truly important words.

  Cha’a nods, saying, “They stick white folk in a big pot of water and build a fire underneath. Boil ‘em alive.”

  “W-w-will she bite?”

  “I won’t allow it, sir. I’ll take personal responsibility. Why I got her cuffed to me; keep her in firm control.”

  He stares at Zastee like she might.

  Zastee pulls her lips back from her teeth and growls. He actually jumps back out of reach. She has to bite her lip to keep from laughing.

  He’s so upset, he forgets to charge them for the ride. And edges past as far away as he can squeeze, even though she’s in the window seat.

  After the sun goes down, Cha’a pulls her buckskin coat out of her pack and lays it over their joined hands, passing her the key surreptitiously.

  She undoes the bastard thing and has a nice nap.

  When she wakens, she puts the cuffs back on and Cha’a takes her right into the very back table in the whites only dining car. They have a nice meal with the money they saved on passage. Even have a glass of wine to celebrate.

  When a Mexican waiter looks askance, Cha’a raises her own glass and says, “Fijate. A touch of the grape helps keep her calm.”

  Zastee snaps her teeth at him.

  “Better top us up, kind sir,” says Cha’a. “She’s not calm enough as of yet.”

  He hands the bottle to Cha’a and leaves, the whites of his eyes showing. They drink it down.

  And go back to their seats to sleep through at least part of the night.

  Cha’a talks in her sleep.

  She gasps. “Bigan. Yore here.”

  She flinches awake. And looks around at everyone in the car. Hopeful.

  “Sorry, mommy,” says Góshé, touching her cheek. “He’s not here.”

  She rubs her eyes and says, “Damn it all to hell.”

  83 Cha’a: Truth

  We debark at the next station and sit at two round tables to feed the child with the hollow leg.

  Sticking our shackled hands out of sight under the table, I undo the cuffs.

  We buy coffee and the cheapest snack they have. Zastee and I are back to back on each side of the chalk line between the white and colored areas of the small platform.

  “Is east wrong, was west right?” I ask, through the rising steam.

  She turns to me and asks, “What are you going on about?”

  I wiggle my chair around.

  “Where the fuck would the guys look?” I ask, over my too hot cup.

  “Where we would be likely to bloody go,” says Zastee, blowing on hers.

  “I can’t think,” I say. “I don’t fucking know where we’d be likely to go. When I know it’s really important that I get it right, it like turns off my instincts. Plus, I’m beside myself.”

  “Still have a lot of pain?”

  “Some, here and there. But, that’s not it,” I say. “I haven’t had sex in a week.”

  “So?”

  “I usually have it two, three times a day, minimum. Sometimes six,” I say. “More when Táági’s around.”

  “Blast,” she says. “Why?”

  “Four horny husbands.”

  “Blimey. That’s awful.”

  “Seriously?” I ask.

  “What?” she asks.

  There’s something about the look on her face.

  “Oh my god,” I say. “Yore a virgin.”

  Her eyes glance down at the floor, hooded. After a minute, she says, “Only to consensual.”

  “What’s a virgin?” asks Góshé.

  “Someone from bloody Virginia,” says Zastee, gruff.

  “Seriously?” I ask. “Okay, yore only eighteen. Maybe I got an early start at fifteen.”

  “When I was fifteen, something like that, there was a man who…” She raises a palm. “A British lord. I was quite young. He didn’t ask, he took, not all, but still, enough to hurt.”

  “Fuck me,” I say, reaching out to touch her hand. “That sucks.”

  She’s looking off into the distance. “Who would want me now?”

  “Men only wanting virgins is a myth perpetrated by mothers who want to keep their daughters pure. And not pregnant. If I had stayed pure I wouldn’t have Güero and the others. This child wouldn’t even exist.”

  Góshé is concentrating on his hotcakes, ignoring our adult talk. The boy is crazy for them and johnnycakes. Anything he can slather in maple syrup.

  “Maybe,” she says, staring at the ground. “Well, no matter. They’re bastards all.”

  “Hell, yeah, as long as you believe that,” I say, leaning back in triumph. “There’s more for me.”

  84 Táági: Bear

  Táági and Ma’cho are in The Guerrero. A Mexican style saloon in Albuquerque.

  “You should a seen that shot. By a gal no less,” says the red headed swamper, leaning on his broom. “She was as tall as they come. Tall as a tall man, like yoreselves. Rode a short little spotted cayuse. Long legs a danglin’ down, like to drag in the dirt. A dead shot. You wouldn’t wanna meet her in a dark alley. No siree.

  “She were jest gallopin’ by, chasin’ that there bull; when the bear stood up and grunted. Oh my god. He musta been ten feet tall on his hind legs, and a reachin’ fer that tiny baby. The blonde was comin’ up behind him. She just turnt her head, she did, and dr
ew her gun simultaneous. And, bam, right in the ear. That bear dropped like a ton a bricks.”

  “You see her leave town?” asks Táági.

  “Nary did, but you might ask around. Most ever’one in town saw her do it. They say she’s Annie Oakley herself.”

  Táági heads to the bar to buy a few drinks, intent on loosening more lips. Recovering memories.

  A couple of fruitless hours later, because most everyone claims they saw the bear fall or saw the carcass, even the shot itself.

  And the rest have to tell the story they heard of what happened. Even those who witnessed it have conflicting tales to tell. But no one has seen them since.

  Discouraged, Táági returns to their table.

  “Billy,” he says. “What ho? I didn’t see you come in.”

  “Back door’s mah way,” says Billy Red Bone, standing and extending a hand. “Mah own personal entrance.”

  Táági signals for a bottle.

  “It seems that everyone saw the shooting,” he tells Billy. “But no one saw them leave town.”

  “I didn’t, but I spoke to the one gal, the black haired one,” says Billy. “Told Ma’cho ‘bout it. He left right off.”

  “Without me?”

  “You see, I saw ‘em leave, we spoke of somethin’ about west. And the train yard. Didn’t see, but it felt to me that they oughta have turnt around,” says Billy, around his pipe stem.

  “Which way did Ma’cho go?”

  “He’s Injin, didn’t tell me. He knew that you needed to decide fer yoreself.”

  “Ah, a conundrum,” says Táági, tapping the table with his fingers. “No, not. West is mine, the others are east already. If Ma’cho went east also, west isn’t covered.”

  “Damn big country either way,” says Billy.

  “And, then there’s bloody north and south,” says Táági. Opening the bottle and tilting it up for a long drink.

  “I, friend, will continue to keep my eyes peeled,” says Billy, after they finish the pipe and another drink.

  After another minute of contemplation, he gets up, shakes Billy’s hand, thanks him kindly and strides out.

  85 Cha’a: Perchance to Dream

  “Bigan?” He has his arm around my shoulder. He lets go and falls away.

  I open my eyes to lean over the….

  Damn it. I’m on the train. Góshé and Zastee are asleep in the facing seat. Leaning on each other.

  I’m laying awkwardly across my triple wide seat, my head laying on the armrest. My neck is all kinked up, my right leg fast asleep. What the fuck? I rub my eyes. My other arm is hanging in the air between the seats cuffed to the teenager, cramped.

  I wiggle around, get the key out and undo the damn things. Seeing the conductor coming, I cuff her to the arm of her seat. She sleeps on.

  We’re out of the mountains, in the foothills of the eastern Rockies. A view of the wide prairie is spread out below us.

  I peer around, taking it all in. Rubbing my sore wrist. Eyes automatically searching for landmarks.

  It really is endless. And landmark free. The promised lands of our ancestors spread before my yearning eyes. My people’s Old Country, before the Nemene ran us Ndee and Osage out.

  Many hours later, as the shimmering night sky steals my view, I’ve still seen no buffalo. It’s almost too sad to bear.

  86 Ma’cho: Double Trouble

  Ma’cho climbs aboard and picks a seat in the best place, his people’s car. This time he remembered to bring a sandwich.

  It’s thick and sloppy, he lays it carefully on the seat next to him and pulls it out of the paper wrappings. Holding tight with both hands, so the thin sliced beef innards don’t escape, he lifts it toward his mouth.

  Something catches his eye. He sets the sandwich back down and slides a finger in the crack between the seat and the seatback.

  He pulls the red object out and twirls it in his fingers.

  Yes, it is. One of Zastee’s beads. It must have fallen from her dreads.

  He looks around the car. And spots the back of Lord Jacob’s hat. She’s standing in the doorway, looking outside.

  A shorter couple, standing behind her tall form obscure his view of her curves.

  He grins and stands up, just as her head turns back toward him.

  It’s not her. It’s a blonde man. He’s white. Someone asks him to leave. After surveying all the dark faces in the car, he exits.

  Macho pulls off his poncho and returns to his meal.

  As they stop at each station, Ma’cho watches for him to disembark. When the man finally does, Ma’cho catches up and has a talk with him in a shaded alley. He’s a fair-sized guy, tall, not as big as Ma’cho, but big enough.

  The man says he found the sombrero in the street, doesn’t know a thing.

  Ma’cho takes hold of his arm and waits. Eyes hard on his.

  The big, quiet Injin seems to scare him.

  After a few minutes of silence, he’s pleading ignorance and begging for his life.

  Ma’cho tends to have that effect on people, so he can’t be sure that it means anything.

  He lets the poor man go. Wondering as he sprints away, how a man that raggedly dressed could afford crocodile boots with silver toe tips.

  A gust of wind blows the hat off the man’s head, but he keeps going.

  Ma’cho walks over and picks it up. Might as well return it to Zastee.

  The tracks catch his eye, he realizes his mistake. The man’s left heel print has the mark of the arrowhead.

  A sign.

  He follows the prints until the man steps onto the wooden platform. He straightens up to look over the top of a stack of baggage. The train is already gone.

  He searches the dirt edges in case the man doubled back. And crosses the tracks in case he used the train to block the view of his exit.

  Nada. He sits down, cross legged in the shade next to the building, lowers his hat brim and leans on the wall for a catnap.

  Nothing else to be done. The world has gone crazy.

  Spirits be damned. This new contraption, the so-called iron horse, rips roughshod through his people’s country; running too fast for a flesh and blood horse to catch it.

  87 Bigan: The Dawn of Man

  “Bigan.”

  “Cha’a.”

  He reaches out to her, then realizes he has no hand on that arm.

  He jolts awake and rubs the stump. Thinking not about his missing hand, which is old news. What concerns him now is her. His missing woman.

  He sighs, goes through his early morning ablutions, then puts on his hook, moccasins and loincloth.

  He gets his horses ready to head back to the dinosaur tracks. Some of his cousins come round and ask where he’s off to.

  He explains what made the tracks, drawing images of them in the dirt with a stick, spreading his arms wide to show how huge they were.

  Several of the Nemene grin with delight at the thought of the strange mystical creatures and decide to go with him.

  88 Cha’a: Cake

  I have cake. Three pieces on one plate.

  You see, they changed conductors after the last stop. The relief conductor was unimpressed by my cannibal story, and, voila, we were separate once more.

  I push open the forward door of the separate but unequal car and step in. Determined to be admitted, paleface or not.

  Zastee is a dozen seats back.

  I step in to go meet her.

  She sees me and stands up, stepping into the aisle. She has Góshé in her arms.

  “I’ll come out,” she says.

  “Where’s the cuffs, damn it?”

  “Something’s going on,” she says.

  “Yore fuckin’ this up,” I say.

  “No. Something’s happening. About to,” she says. “I feel it in the air.”

  “You feel it in the air? Seriously?”

  Suddenly, her eyes shift, looking over my shoulder, and widen. She shifts Góshé over to her left side, freeing her gunhand.
/>
  The wind howls through as the rear door, thirty feet in front of me, opens.

  The door behind me slams shut.

  A mustachioed man barges in the back door of the passenger coach, pistol in hand. Aimed right, at a long-haired man in a white hat who’s sitting at the back of the coach. The same shape as Lord Jacob’s hat. Damn it. The same hat?

  “Watch it,” says a gruff voice behind me.

  The hair raises on the back of my neck.

  I glance at Zastee, who is facing forward in my line of fire. She’s looking down, fiddling with her clothes.

  She’s the one who had the feeling, does she not see what’s going on?

  I use my hip to shove her left, out of my way. And danger. And take two steps back to see past another passenger who’s in my line of sight halfway down the car.

  Zastee gasps and drops back into her seat as I raise my weapon. She has something shiny in her hand. Might be a pistol. Or a knife. Or a silver bracelet.

  I can’t look. Damn it. My eyes are pinned on the armed men.

  She’s on her own. Hell, me, too. She may not be ready to back me up.

  “Git.” Gruff speaking behind me again.

  I’m shoved right as the gruff-voiced man strongarms his way past, knocking me off balance. I push against a seat back with my hip to recover.

  Gruff has his sixgun half pulled. He’s dressed in a black hat and a long black duster. He’s a big guy, taller than me by a bit.

  “Up against the wall, redskin,” he says, revolver leveled.

  Not at us. He’s about to move past Zastee. Ignoring her.

  His eyes are on the back end of the car.

  I’m moving with him, intent on getting between danger and Góshé.

  Gruff’s sixgun is aimed at the Jake’s hat man. He looks up. A face appears under the hat brim.

  Ma’cho.

  Zastee turns around.

  “No,” I yell.

  She’s between me and Gruff. I shove her sideways again.

  I say, “Góshé, git under the seat.”