by David Watts
Jake came back and got in Horse’s face. “Rumor has it you been stirring everybody up with those men you got around you, stirring up their anxiety about keeping their stores, their properties, their families intact. One of your men shot and killed a prize bull the other day and I intend to hold him accountable for that. You gonna have to stop that shit or you and I are gonna cross swords, tout de suite.” He reached in his top pocket and put a toothpick in his mouth. “We just need a little more peace and tranquility here in Possum Trot. Your help on that matter would be greatly appreciated.”
Horse spat on the floor.
Jake looked down at the gorp on the floor then back at Horse’s face. “That’s a perfect example of the kind of shit you leave lying around in this town.”
Jake pulled is gun, wiped it down with a rag, threw the rag in Horse’s face. He pointed the gun at his nose.
“Bend down and wipe that up. And when you’re done take that snotty rag with you.”
“Over my dead body,” said Horse.
“Thought you’d never ask,” said Jake.
A shot fired and Horse started jumping up and down. The heel of his boot had been shot clean off.
“Oh sorry, Horse, my aim must have slipped. I meant to take off your kneecap.”
Horse gritted his teeth. Jake placed the gun in his ear. Horse bent down, wiped up his mess and started for the door, limping.
“By the way, I’ll be coming around to collect for that dead bull. Have your men get ready with their money.”
*****
Horse went back to his den. Jake went across to the General Store to tell George about the recent developments. George greeted him with a sour face.
“Morning, George,” Jake said. “You look like you been bit by a stinging lizard.”
“No, no. No scorpion,” he said, “unless you want to call that honcho of Horse’s one.”
“Which honcho?”
“The guy with the ink on his face.”
“That’s Madson Crow. What about him?”
George left the counter, went to the front door and shut it. He turned the closed sign outward.
“I’m going to have to sell the store,” he said.
Jake looked at him as if he announced death by firing squad.
“You don’t want to sell this store.”
“Don’t want to, but. . .”
George wiped the counter with a cloth.
“Out with it,” said Jake.
“It’s that Crow guy.”
“Is that what this is all about?”
George flipped the cloth over his right shoulder, leaned on the counter. “Yeah. He came in the other day, said he was going to buy the store, made some threats, then went out and shot my prize bull.”
“I know about that. That’s what I come to tell you.”
“Whatever you’ve got to say might be too late because we talked it over, Bess and I did last night, and we decided to sell. I don’t want him to start shooting up my family.”
Jake shook his head. He looked out the front window then back at George. “Did you tell anybody about that?”
“Nobody yet. That Crow guy said he was going to come by this morning. Hasn’t shown yet.”
“He won’t.”
“Why not?”
“Gone missing.”
“What?”
“You didn’t know about that?”
“No.”
Jake strolled away from the counter and stood at the window, hands on his hips. “Horse was in this morning raising hell and making a mess. Seems he’s losing members of his little gang right and left.”
George wasn’t too relieved by the news. “He might come back and anyway, he was just acting as an agent for Horse, I’m sure of that. If so, that means whether he’s around or not may not matter when it comes to making trouble for me and my family. Horse would just take over or send another of his goons around. It got too dangerous too fast, Jake.”
Jake put his hand on the doorknob. “I’ve got a few ideas, George. Don’t sell the store just yet. And check with me before you do anything.”
*****
George showed up on parson Jebediah’s porch. The parson came out.
“I need forgiveness,” said George.
“For what?” said Jebediah.
“I had bad feelings.”
“What kind of bad feelings?” my son.
George turned his face to the parson. “Have you ever wanted to murder somebody?”
FOURTEEN
“I am here to give you counseling, my son, or to receive your confession, whatever you wish.” He placed one finger studiously alongside his face. “I can do either.” He adjusted his hat to a more business-like position.
“Thank you father. I know I have sinned.”
“How did you sin?”
George bowed his head. “I am sorry to say that I have wished Madson Crow dead.”
“Ah. That is a very large sin.” Jebediah put a serious look on his face and stroked his chin. “Did you act upon this wish?”
“No. And I don’t believe I ever would.” His shoulders shook. “I’ve never killed a man.”
“Ah. Well, that is a good thing. Many stars in your crown. But he must have harmed you in some way, this Madson Crow. What did he do to you so bad as to make you want him dead?”
George realized that the parson had already known much of the story leading up to the crisis. He paused to consider the bizarre nature of how this was going. He decided that this must be how confessions were designed in order to extract the proper information and, therefore, must have a spiritual logic to it.
“He wanted to steal my General Store and when I refused to step aside, he shot and killed my prize bull. It was a sign that he would not stop until someone in my family was dead. I wanted to save my family. That is all.”
“Then you might have to admit that his sin was greater than yours.”
“I try not to make judgments, parson.”
The parson’s eyes glazed over. “Yes. Right. But I can. I don’t have the same restrictions.”
“What do you mean?”
The parson shook his head like he was trying to wake from a little lapse in thought. “Nothing, my son. Nothing.” He banged his head with a closed fist. He shook his arms out in front of him and shifted in his chair.
“It occurs to me that the Lord works in many mysterious ways,” the parson said. “Why, just the other day I saw Madson Crow walking down the street. It looked to me, and maybe this is just me talking, looked to me like he had death in his face.”
“What do you mean, parson?”
The parson assumed a very wise look, or tried to. What resulted was more like an actor trying to make his face reflect an emotion without feeling the emotion itself. What results from that has a disingenuous air.
“Maybe you’ve seen it before?” he said. “That little, I don’t know, darkness I’ll call it, at the corner of his eyes like he’d had no food for a month. What I mean to say is maybe, just maybe, the Lord had marked him already for death and you wouldn’t have to enter into the equation at any point. Wouldn’t that be neat?” As this last paragraph progressed the parson became almost frantically energized, his hands and arms spastically shaking at the conclusion.
George was puzzled. “Think it was neat? Should I let myself think like that? I mean, wouldn’t that be like wishing him dead, only hoping somebody else would take care of it?”
The parson looked stumped. He scratched his head. He got a thought. “No, because your thought, your death wish has been transferred to someone else.” He clapped his hands in self-congratulation then looked off at nothing in the distance. “Though I assume it wouldn’t absolve you totally.”
George bowed his head again.
“The Bible teaches us,” the parson droned on, “that if we think about adultery we have as good as committed adultery. I assume the same would go for murder.”
A look of shock crossed George’s face. “T
hen you must pray for me, parson. For I am done for.”
The parson nodded. “Ah, redemption,” he said. “Ah, forgiveness.” He took a very deep breath, threw his head back like he was going to shout to the heavens and said in a very dramatic voice, “So then, my son, let us pray. . .”
*****
Crissy and Jake sat on the front porch watching Galen brush down Major out in the corral. The dust was flying from his black coat as the strokes made their swift and powerful turns. His mane, as if by a sudden wind, fluttered out to the side as his head arched and nodded in response.
“You and Galen getting along?” said Jake.
She cocked her head curiously. “Sure,” she said. “He’s amazing. He saved my life.”
Jake puckered his lips. “Not what I asked, young lady,” he said.
Crissy nodded. “Yeah. Well. I guess I knew that.” She bowed her head and shrugged her shoulders. “It’s a better life than I’ve ever had before, Jake,” she said. “It’s the first time I’ve been treated like I’m worth something.”
Jake dropped his head, bobbed it there as if absorbing thoughts behind her words and then looked up at her like he was examining a precious stone. A mischievous smile hit his face. “Is he poking you?”
Crissy laughed. “Wow!” She sat up straight. “I guess I shouldn’t be surprised at your. . . direct approach.”
Jake chuckled.
She looked away, took a deep breath and then looked down at her dress, clasping her wrists between her thighs. “He loves me, Jake. I know that.” Her hands squeezed each other. “But he’s—don’t know exactly—maybe he’s shy, or afraid. . . something. There’s a distance within him somehow.”
“Distance?”
“You know. . . a little absent at times.” She squeezed her thighs against her hands and then moved them away to rub her knees. “I see him admiring me. I see him about to move on me, and then he backs off. He’s not ready, I guess. Or maybe can’t get ready just yet.”
She paused, looked out over the prairie grasses shifting in the wind. She listened to the sounds of the scrub oaks creaking. “But I know he’s ready, Jake. I know he wants me. Something’s holding him back and it hurts him so much.”
She turned her face to Jake. Jake was adjusting his toothpick.
“I can feel it in my bones,” she said, “every time he looks at me.”
Jake nodded and tilted his head to one side. He flipped the toothpick away. He leaned forward in his chair, elbows on his knees. The scent of alfalfa hay drifted over them from the field.
“A mighty fine man, Galen,” Jake said. “Mighty fine. Always wants to do things right.”
“Is it something about me?”
“Naw.” He laughed and slapped her on the knee. “Nothing at all about you young lady.”
She looked up at the sparrow’s nest under the roof, then away. She watched Charlie prance through the yard like displaced royalty. She watched Galen lead Major around the corral. “I guess he’s killed a lot of men,” she said. “Is that part of it? Do you think that weighs on his soul?”
“Nah.” He rubbed his palms together. “It’s not that. That wouldn’t be strong enough to keep him from you. If anything he’d want you to help him forget.”
“Then what is it?”
Jake rubbed his face and cleared his throat. “It’s like this. If he was thinking of you as a whore he could probably give you a poke you real good and not think too much about it.” He turned to see what her face would tell him about what he just said. What he saw was shock.
“But you see,” he said, “he doesn’t think of you that way, and for him, that makes it a lot more difficult.”
“I don’t understand.”
Jake gestured out to the corral. “What do you see out there?”
She shook her head. “What do you mean?”
“I mean, when you look at him you see a fine man, strong, smooth in his actions, carries himself like a thoroughbred. . . nothing much wrong to see.”
She laughed. “You think I haven’t noticed?”
“Nothing much missing. Is that right?”
She nodded, smiling.
“But it’s not anything you can see, right?”
There was a flash of puzzlement on her face. She leaned back in her chair and regarded Jake with penetrating eyes. “I hope you’re leading me to a good spot, Jake Paxton.”
“I am, sweet lady. Watch him out there with his horse for a minute.”
She watched his every motion with uninterrupted eyes, the ritual of his body, the arch of his neck reaching for Major’s withers, his quick feet. There was a lightness that seemed about to lift them off the ground. Horse and man moved as one, as if a an inseparable part of each other had engaged them in a furious dance around a center in which a strong will stood rigid as a may pole to anchor them to the earth.
“You see?” Jake said.
Crissy didn’t answer.
“It’s that hollow spot he carries around,” he said. “Down inside.”
A flush of sadness hit Crissy so hard she felt her whole face water up.
She gasped.
“You know what that is, right? It’s that place where somebody mashed part of his soul.” Jake looked at Crissy’s face and saw grief but within it there was a ray of understanding.
“Down inside he’s always hurting, you see. That’s what’s made him the way he is.”
Crissy’s lip buckled and wetness rushed to her eyes. She wiped her face. “I want to help him so bad,” her lips trembled so bad she could hardly speak, “but I’m afraid he’s gonna push me away.”
“Don’t be,” Jake said. He leaned back and rocked his chair. His eyes took on a faraway look. For a brief moment he covered himself in a spirit Crissy had never seen on him.
“There’s something you need to know,” he said.
*****
That night Galen came to Crissy’s door to say goodnight as he always did. Crissy met him there with a look of sorrow.
“What’s wrong?” Galen said.
Crissy didn’t say anything. She just looked at him as if taking in everything about him, his past, his wishes, his losses, his agonies. The weight of it all almost slumped her shoulders.
She reached up and stroked his cheek with two fingers. Then, without a moment’s pause to consider, a moment to perhaps risk talking herself out of the action he desperately needed and she urgently wanted, impulsively, she stood on tiptoes and kissed him on the mouth.
She threw her arms around his neck and held him there.
She felt his hands on her back, stroking her up and down, drawing her against him, reaching down, down, down below to where the body meets the legs then stopping abruptly. Then letting loose. Then a step back.
She stood apart from him, not moving. He gave the appearance of one possessed by two actions at once, one moving him to stay, the other bolting him out the door.
She took his hand and moved him to her bed. “Sit beside me,” she said. “I need to tell you something.”
He sat beside her, his thigh against her thigh, shoulder against her shoulder. He picked up her aroma, a little verbena, a little bit the oil of a young woman in a vibrant stage of luster.
She stroked the back of his hand. “I know some things now, Galen. Don’t be angry. Forgive me for knowing.” She paused, teared up, gathered strength and pressed forward. “But I know about the time your mother left you crying out in the middle of a field while she went off somewhere and left you for hours and hours. I know your desperation, your feelings of abandonment. I know you were inconsolable for days.”
Galen was silent and stiff in his bones.
She leaned her head against his shoulder, hand on his chest. “It made a mark on you, Galen.”
She could feel his quick breaths.
She fingered the snaps on his shirt. “I know also when you were sixteen your girlfriend stood in front of you and kissed another boy, then laughed and went away. I know this, Galen. And I under
stand what that did to you. I know it made you associate women with pain and betrayal.”
Galen rocked back and forth a little, almost giving in to the urge to stand and go. But something kept him there. She turned and put her arms around his neck. “I want you to hear this, Galen, all the way down to that spot your mother put into you, that ache that wants you to believe that you can never trust anybody with your love.”
She stroked his chest, felt the rise and fall of his heart. “I am yours, Galen. I am by your side no matter what. You are everything to me. You can love me or you can not love me, it doesn’t matter.” She reached up and turned his face to hers. “And you have to hear what I said and believe it all the way down to that darkness you harbor in your soul that makes you so afraid of turning loose.”
She slowed her speech and spoke deliberately. “I will never leave you, Galen Clay, never leave you, no matter.”
He was silent.
He looked at her with more tenderness than she’d ever seen from him. She wanted to hold him all night long.
A little arc of fire flashed over the rim of his pupils and he stood, touched her on the shoulder, said goodnight, and left the room.
*****
When the body turned up in the canyon surprising the hell out of a lone scavenger making his way through on his donkey, real, very much dead, mangled and rotting, the mysterious disappearance of Madson Crow had suddenly been solved.
Only now, there was a greater mystery, especially since no one stepped forward for the reward. After the customary waiting of a month, the U.S. Marshal in Abilene gave the reward to the scavenger who was quickly able to recognize that perfect clank when the teeth bit upon pieces of gold.
FIFTEEN
Horse didn’t speak in a civilized manner to anybody for three days. He just sat at his desk, stewing. He yelled at the bartender, threw things around the office then he settled down to an almost catatonic stillness, as if frozen in hatred and determination. When everyone least expected he came out of his trance and called a meeting. Everyone who worked for him was present. “The pressure just got pushed to the top,” he said.