Death Rattle

by Jory Sherman

  “Finch, can you bring us a blanket or something?” Cole asked.

  “You need duds,” Lenny said, a rabid smile on his face.

  “And we ain’t got none,” Fincher said.

  The two men stood there shivering, their hands crossed in front of their privates. Finch puffed on a cheroot and gave them both a look of pure disgust. He reached into his pocket and pulled out that same fifty-dollar gold piece he had offered as a reward to anyone who killed the Sidewinder. He passed it to Carmichael.

  “Lenny, run down to that dry goods store on Harrison and buy these men some duds. Cheapest you can get.”

  “What all?” Lenny asked.

  “Pants, boots, hats, belts.”

  “We ain’t got no guns,” Ferguson whined.

  “In due time, in due time,” Fincher said. “Now follow me up to my room and have a drink of rotgut while you tell me why I shouldn’t shoot both you boys dead for ridin’ here nekkid as a pair of plucked chickens.”

  The aroma of the Arkansas River permeated Fincher’s room on the second floor of the hotel. Room 208 was at the end of a dim hallway, and the window in Fincher’s room was open and overlooked the river. Garbage swirled in its eddies, and the smell of rotted food, human fecal matter, urine, driftwood, and cow and horse dung seemed to cling to the worn-out furniture, the tired and shabby drapes, the thread-bare carpet, and the Spartan bedding. There was but one table, a bed with a sagging mattress and faded covers, two rickety chairs, a bureau, and a wardrobe in the room. A chamber pot, reeking of soap, sat near the bed. Atop the bureau, there was a porcelain pitcher, two dirty glasses, and one of Fincher’s battered tin cups, along with a bottle of whiskey in an unlabeled bottle. The bottle was three-quarters full.

  “Sit down, boys, and spin your yarns,” Fincher said. “I’ll pour you a little whiskey to loosen your tongues.”

  “Well, we saw him, Finch,” Cole said.

  “It was him all right,” Tom said.

  Fincher poured whiskey into the glasses and handed them to Cole and Tom. Both men had chilblains on their arms from the fresh breeze ruffling the drapes and surging silently into the room.

  Both men drank from their glasses and pulled their elbows close to their bodies as if to ward off the chill.

  “Who?” Fincher said. He sat on the edge of the bed, and the wooden slats creaked under his weight. Dust puffed up from the bedspread, adding to the musty scent of the room.

  “The Sidewinder,” Cole said. “Saw him ridin’ out of town, plain as day.”

  “You’re sure it was him?” Fincher said.

  “It was him all right,” Ferguson said again. “Headed for the mountains all by his lonesome.”

  “And?” Fincher said.

  “We follered him,” Cole said. “Kept our distance so’s he couldn’t see us. He rode across the plain into the hills on an old road. We stayed back until we knew he couldn’t see us. Road was still muddy and a mite damp, so’s his tracks was plain to see.”

  “Tell me you put his lamp out, Cole,” Fincher said, his voice laden with a sarcasm that grated like a metal spatula scraping grease off the bottom of an iron skillet.

  “He got the jump on us up in the hills,” Cole said.

  “Hell, he was waitin’ for us,” Tom said. “Knowed we was follerin’ him all the damned time.”

  “You dumb sonsabitches,” Fincher said.

  “He got the drop on us, Finch. No fault of our’n. We was real careful and quiet.” Cole poured more whiskey into his mouth and gullet. “Can we close that winder, Finch? My balls are freezin’ off.”

  “I ought to cut them off,” Fincher said. But he walked to the window and pulled it down. He did not close it all the way, but left two inches of space between the pane and sill. He stood there, looking down at the river. A bittern pecked at a half-eaten apple. Crows hopped along the shore, cackling in throaty chatter as they fought over scraps dragged from the river. The sun painted quavering orange and red ribbons atop the flowing waters, silvered the rims of wavelets and ripples, pushed shadows back and forth, glistening one moment, subdued the next, as if the river were a serpent snaking over the earth, its scales rippling and undulating as it crawled, hissing, to the distant unseen sea.

  “Hell, them hills and mountains is Sidewinder’s country, not ours, Finch,” Cole said.

  Fincher walked back to the bed and sat next to a pillow, stretching his legs out over the coverlet. His boots made brown scars on the cotton surface, smears of caked dirt and horse manure.

  “You should have shot him when he was crossing that plain.”

  “Too far away for a clean shot,” Tom said. “Hell, I thought about it. We figgered we could get up close, brace him, and drop him from his dadgummed saddle.”

  “You got the brain of a pissant, Tom,” Fincher said.

  “I thought we might foller him to his ranch, you know, and find out where he lived and just wait for a clean shot.” Cole finished the whiskey in his glass and held it out for a refill.

  Fincher shook his head.

  “No more whiskey for either of you. I’m waiting for the rest of the story. Seems like he not only got the drop on both of you, but made you strip naked, shuck your saddles and such. Took your damned rifles and pistols and sent you packin’ back to town.”

  “I reckon that’s what happened,” Tom said.

  “You both got shit for brains,” Fincher said.

  Both men hung their heads, sheepish expressions on their faces.

  “It was downright humiliatin’, Earl,” Tom said.

  “And now both you boys are the damned talk of the town. You got no guns, got no saddles, lost your hoods, and are absolutely worthless to me.”

  “When we get us some clothes, and if you’ll advance us some cash, we can—”

  Cole was interrupted by a knock on Fincher’s door.

  “Come in,” Fincher said.

  The door opened and Lenny Carmichael came in carrying a large bundle wrapped in brown paper. He dumped the bundle on the table and wiped his moustache with the back of his hand.

  “I hope they fit,” he said and sat down on the opposite side of the bed. The bed slats groaned.

  He pulled a handful of bills and some change from his pocket and laid them on the bed next to Fincher’s leg. Fincher stared at the bills but made no move to pick them up or count the money.

  Cole and Tom set down their empty glasses on the table. Cole unwrapped the clothes and held up a shirt.

  “Looks right,” he said.

  Tom reached for the other shirt on top and stood up. Fincher turned away from them in disgust as they slid into new trousers and ran their belts through the loops, buckling them tight. They pulled on boots over bare feet.

  Cole glared at Lenny.

  “No damned socks, Carm?”

  “Earl didn’t say to get you no socks,” Lenny said. “And don’t call me ‘Carm.’”

  Earl and Tom walked back and forth in their new boots, the soles and the leather creaking from the newness and the stiffness.

  Fincher looked at them again, the trace of a smirk on his face.

  “I don’t know what to do with you two,” he said. “You’re absolutely worthless to me at this point.”

  “What about the Mexes?” Cole said. “We can still do our jobs. Maybe get us pistols real cheap at that pawn shop up on Harrison.”

  “I’ve already shelled out good money for them clothes,” Finch said.

  “Hell, we’re good for it, Earl,” Cole said. “You know that.”

  “Yeah,” Fincher said and arose from the bed. He picked up the money and counted the bills. He put the coins in his pocket.

  “There’s enough left of that fifty for you both to get you a couple of two-dollar pistols at that pawn shop. You can carry them in your pockets or in your belt. You get forty-fives and we can give you ammunition. Right, Lenny?”

  “Yeah, I got plenty in my saddlebags and on my gun belt.”

  “I’ll see you boys back
here at sundown and we’ll go after them Mexes.”

  He handed the wadded up bills to Cole while Tom looked on, feeling cheated.

  “Two-dollar pistols?” Tom said.

  “That’s all your sorry ass is worth,” Fincher said. “Now get the hell out of here.”

  “We ain’t got no saddles,” Cole said, stuffing the bills in his pocket.

  “You rode in bareback,” Fincher said. “You can ride back to the smelter bareback.”

  Cole and Tom tried on their hats. Tom’s was a tad too large for a good fit and slid down over his eyebrows. Cole’s was too small for his head. The men exchanged hats and began to crimp the crowns as a sign of ownership and personal distinction.

  Fincher watched both men walk out of his room and close the door.

  “They look like a pair of greenhorns,” Carmichael said.

  “Dumb pilgrims, you mean.”

  He walked over to the window and raised it back to its former position. He leaned out to mark the position of the sun over the mountains. The light slanted and gave a different texture to the river, gilding the small whitecaps, burning orange veins into its rippling fabric, pushing shadows under the far bank, and glinting off the satin feathers of the squawking, squabbling crows that hopped along the shore in sacerdotal splendor as if they owned the world.

  Fincher walked to the bureau and opened the top drawer. He pulled out his gun belt and strapped it onto his waist.

  “Too bad about that Sidewinder,” Lenny said, rising from the bed.

  “Well, if he’s up in the mountains, we don’t hardly have to worry about him, do we?”

  “Not right now, I reckon.”

  “It’ll be dark soon. We better saddle up and get to work. Once that sun falls behind the mountains, it’ll get dark real fast.”

  As if echoing Fincher’s words, the window darkened slightly and the golden rays no longer glazed the window-pane. The glass shimmered in the gathering dusk that softened the earth and gathered shadows into the river like clumps of dirty laundry floating downstream.

  TWENTY-TWO

  Esmerelda Sanchez put two more sticks of kindling into the firebox of her small woodstove. They would keep the tamale pie she had baked warm until Ruben came home for supper. She brushed her long black hair to a satin shine for the next fifteen minutes as she sat in front of a broken mirror on her dressing table. She had salvaged the fragment from a refuse dump down by the river, and it gave her much pleasure to be able to see her face, although part of the mirror was blackened from a fire and the rest of it was lightly smoked so that her reflection was slightly dimmed. She didn’t mind that because it gave her a mysterious allure when she sat back and viewed her pretty oval face with the high Yaqui cheekbones, petite nose, and eyes dark as olive pits.

  She turned her head one way, then the other, then leaned closer to the mirror to see if there were any blemishes on her face. Her skin was as smooth as velvet and copper-toned. Ruben told her that she looked like an Aztec princess, and her heart always pounded faster when he talked that sweet way. Her lips were small but full and bore the faint trace of the same rouge she had rubbed into her slightly hollow cheeks. She smelled of jasmine, the fragrance her husband liked best, and it blended well with the scent of flowers that stood in the small modest vases she had placed in the front room, in the bedroom, and in the kitchen window. There were morning glories, petunias, and lilacs that she had grown in her yard.

  The house was small, but she liked it because it did not take much time to clean. There was a front room with its three large windows, a bedroom, and a small kitchen. Ruben had built a small porch in front and a larger one in back where he sometimes worked on his iron sculptures that he sold at the small abarrotes store on the corner or at the open air mercado over by the river on weekends or special occasions. He had a forge and tongs, hammers, and a large kiln, almost like an horno, a dome-shaped oven, in the backyard, and a bellows he kept in the bedroom closet. He was a hard worker, and she admired the work he did at home because she knew it was art and took his mind off the labor of shoeing horses for a living.

  Esmerelda finished brushing her hair and walked out to the backyard to breathe the fresh air and watch the sunset. Ruben never got home before dark, and she always looked out at the mountains to see how long it would be before he got home.

  The sky to the west was filled with long purple clouds, their bottoms lined with shimmering gold leaf, their tops with blazing silver. Radiant light streamed from a fiery furnace behind the snow-mantled range, spreading heavenward in misty beams that made her think of the stained-glass windows in the little Catholic church in Tesquiapan.

  She heard the birds of dusk announcing the night and saw the bats flitting like scraps of black crepe in the afterglow. There was the zinging of insects in her ear and the clatter of crickets in the grass that grew from green to gray in the fading light of day.

  She went back into the house and walked through the front door to sit on the front porch and wait for Ruben. It was darker there, and she felt the loneliness of evening descend upon her like her mother’s black shawl. She missed her mother, who had been dead for five years.

  She heard Ruben coming down the street long before she saw him. There was the rumble of iron wheels and the clunking together of wagon springs, metal rods, cans, and strips of tin and copper he had salvaged from one place or another, and the clop of the horse’s hooves as it pulled his cart.

  She stood up when he loomed into view, like a knight returning from a crusade, and she could smell his manly sweat and the musty odor of the horse’s hide. She smiled and felt her body tingle all over with pleasure as she ran into the street to throw her arms around him, have him clasp her tight and pepper her neck with soft kisses that made her shiver with delight.

  “I can smell the food,” he said.

  “You should smell me, not the tamales, Ruben.”

  “Ah, you. I smell you all day long and my loins burn with desire for you.”

  She felt the heat of the blush that burst on her face like warm lotion, and she held his hand as they walked the horse to a shed at the side of the house, where Ruben kept feed and water and the two-wheeled cart he had built himself.

  “You will unload the scrap metals tonight?” she asked.

  “Not tonight, querida. In the morning. Go inside. I will unhitch Paquito and hobble him.”

  “I will set our plates on the table. I will light a lamp.”

  “Light a candle on the table. I have brought wine for us to drink with our supper.”

  She giggled as she ran away and into the house.

  “And,” he called after her, “I have brought gold for my princess.”

  When he came into the house, he washed his hands in the bowl she had placed on the sink board, and she handed him a towel. The bottle of wine was on the table. She had uncorked it and poured it into a glass cruet.

  “You must let the red wine breathe before you drink it,” she said. “That is what my father told me.”

  “Your father was a wise man, Merelda.”

  “Not as wise as you, my Ruben.”

  They ate and talked like young lovers dining in a fine restaurant. The food smelled good and tasted even better, he told her. Then he laid the five-dollar gold piece next to her plate.

  “For you,” he said.

  “For me? Where did you get it?”

  “I stole it from a bandido,” he said. “A cruel and very ugly bandit.”

  “Oh, you. You did not.”

  He told her about the man who had wanted his horse shoed and paid him five dollars for a task that took only a few minutes.

  “He was a very nice man, but he asked me a lot of questions.”

  “What kind of questions?”

  “He asked me if I paid the protection, if I bought the insurance. He asked about the Golden Council.”

  “What did you tell him?”

  “I told him I would not pay such men for doing nothing.”

  “
Good for you, Ruben. I am very proud of you.”

  She picked up the gold piece and put it inside her bodice, a coy look on her face.

  “If you want it back, you will have to take all my clothes off,” she said.

  He laughed and reached across the table for her. She reared back, laughing, and stood up.

  “Later,” she said. “I will wash the plates. Will you smoke the pipe?”

  “Not tonight. I am tired. I am shoeing the horses from the Panamint.”

  “Ah, the big horses.”

  “Yes, very big.”

  They both froze a moment later, she at the sideboard in the kitchen, he at the table, when they heard the sound of horses galloping down the street. The sound grew louder and louder.

  “What is it, Ruben?” she said, her voice tight with fear, as if someone had a hand on her throat.

  “I do not know. Stay where you are.”

  He walked into the front room as four men rode up, turned their horses into the yard.

  Ruben backed away.

  “Where is my pistol?” he husked.

  “I-I think you put it on the shelf in the closet.”

  “Get it,” he whispered. The whisper was loud. She felt the throb of her heartbeat as she ran into the bedroom.

  “What is it?” she called from the other room.

  Ruben saw the men as they dismounted.

  They all wore yellow hoods, and when they had alighted, they drew their pistols.

  He was powerless to stop them as they broke the latch on the front door and pushed their way in. He raised his arms to ward them off as they charged straight toward him.

  One of them lifted his pistol and used it like a club to smash Ruben in the head.

  “This is where you learn the value of insurance, Mex,” one of the men said.

  Then Ruben heard Esmerelda scream from the bedroom and his blood froze to ice in his veins. Lights danced behind his eyes and he felt his knees turn to jelly. His legs gave way, and he saw only the yellow hoods and the black eyeholes, the pink and obscene lips of wet mouths through the slit.