Wraiths of the Broken Land

by S. Craig Zahler

  Nathaniel turned away from himself and strode up the stairwell, across an ugly spotted rug and to the enclosure that he and his fiancé had shared like prisoners for sixteen months, since the day that the winds of catastrophe had blown. Because the furthest any tenant of ‘the baby’s room’ could be from the door was less than four yards, he rapped very gently upon the wood.

  “Is that you Nathan?”

  “It is I. Are you clothed?”

  “I have on my nightgown.”

  Nathaniel thought of Orton, the eldest Footman boy, who had more than once inappropriately eyeballed Kathleen (but was good-natured whenever the dog of puberty was not barking in his groin), and he looked over his shoulder. A sparkling white eye peered out of the thirteen-year-old’s darkened bedroom.

  “Orton Footman,” said Nathaniel.

  The door closed, slowly and quietly, as if a sudden movement or telltale creak would confirm that he was indeed trying to steal a glimpse of Kathleen.

  Nathaniel turned back to the baby’s room, put his key into the lock, twisted it around and pressed his free palm into the wood. Seated upon the raised bed that filled most of the enclosure and dressed in a rose nightgown was Kathleen O’Corley, a tall twenty-four-year-old woman with delicate features, reluctant freckles, emerald eyes and loose black hair.

  The gentleman withdrew his key from the outside lock, entered the room and shut the door.

  They kissed. Kathleen tasted like Harriet Footman’s apple cobbler (which was good, but contained far too much nutmeg). Nathaniel withdrew from his betrothed and readied himself for the unpleasant conversation that was a necessity.

  Illuminated by the lamp that hung upon the opposite wall, the woman’s eyes and teeth glowed, as did the stack of handwritten papers that rested upon her lap.

  “A letter from your uncle arrived today,” announced Kathleen.

  Nathaniel’s pulse raced—perhaps the folded advert that laid within his vest pocket could be discarded without any discussion or squabble. “Did he locate any investors?” The thought of returning to their abandoned child, the half-built hotel, caused the gentleman’s blood to quicken.

  “Quite possibly. He sent us the names of three men who might be interested in investing, but are currently undecided. Your uncle has recommended for us to send out letters of solicitation in order to sway them.” Kathleen raised the stack of papers from her lap. “I’ve written the missives already—all that each requires is your signature.” She became perplexed. “Aren’t you pleased?”

  “Certainly.”

  “Your face has a peculiar way of conveying that sentiment.”

  “I am pleased—truly, I am—but when you mentioned a letter from my uncle, I had hoped for something more substantial…more…more immediate.” Nathaniel thought for a moment. “Where are these investors located?”

  “Two are in Connecticut. One is in New York.”

  Within the gentleman’s chest, the risen hopes sank. “Then it will take days—possibly weeks—to get responses from them.”

  “We’ve been lodgers for over a year.” A small amount of irritation sharpened Kathleen’s voice. “This is the best opportunity we’ve had in some time.”

  “It is. Indeed.” Nathaniel squeezed his fiancé’s shoulder and kissed her cheek. “I appreciate you taking the initiative and writing out those solicitations.”

  “Peruse them so that we may send them off anon.”

  Nathaniel nodded, sat upon the footstool, read the first letter (the solicitation was flawless), said “Perfect” and signed its nether region with the gold fountain pen that he had intended to set upon the lobby desk of Stromler’s Very High Quality Hotel for guests to use in the registrar. He scribbled his name upon the other two immaculate documents, set them upon the floor to dry and turned to face his fiancé.

  “I found a job.”

  “You have a job.” Kathleen’s voice was flat.

  “I found a different job. One that offers far better wages than does a cobbler’s assistant.” The verbal articulation of this lowly profession brought a shameful flush to the gentleman’s face, but the point had to be made.

  “What is this new job of which you speak with so much hesitancy and circumlocution?”

  Nathaniel withdrew a folded advert from his vest, and Kathleen snatched it from his hands.

  “I would prefer to read it to you.”

  “I am a quite capable reader.”

  Nathaniel did not disagree with his fiancé’s statement.

  Kathleen unfolded the document and read it three times. She did not look up from the paper when she asked with a dry, quiet voice, “Who are these men?”

  “I do not know.” Fabrications often precipitated squabbles, and Nathaniel was an uncomfortable liar whenever he spoke to somebody for whom he cared.

  “For what purpose do they require the services of a ‘a gentleman with fancy dress who can ride long days and is fluent in Spanish?’”

  “I do not know.”

  “How did this very wonderful opportunity come to your attention?” Kathleen’s sarcasm was poisonous.

  “Miss Barlone was operating the telegraph and—”

  “She is meddlesome.”

  “Miss Barlone is aware of our predicament, and last month I fixed her son’s shoes for free when her purse was light. She showed me the advert before she posted it, so that I might claim the opportunity.” Nathaniel paused for a moment. “She has already wired my acceptance.”

  “You’ve already accepted?” Disbelief flashed across Kathleen’s green eyes and was summarily replaced by something hotter. “You’ve agreed to work for men, about whom you know nothing, way out in some far-off place?”

  “You are getting loud. And neither you nor I know whether the job is in a far-off location.”

  “The advert stipulates that the gentleman with fancy dress must able to ‘ride long days.’ What do you suppose that means? Ride around in great big circles!?!” Kathleen’s voice would be audible to any person awake on the second floor.

  After his heart had pulsed ten times, Nathaniel calmly replied, “The long ride could be out to a far-off location, as you have suggested, or away to a nearer one and then back by sunset each night.”

  “It seems far more likely that you’ll be required to ride into Mexico, since they’ve stipulated that the gentleman rider must be ‘fluent in Spanish.’”

  “That is a realistic possibility,” admitted Nathaniel. “I do not know.”

  “But you intend to leave me here and ride off with strangers to wherever they might lead you.”

  “I intend to earn four hundred and fifty dollars in one week.”

  Kathleen pursed her lips as if she were about to spit venom into her fiancé’s eyes. “The proffered wages are substantial enough to call into question the safety of this job…and its legality.”

  “Unless I am required to do something unlawful or immoral, I will do what is required of me.”

  Incredulous, Kathleen shook her head back and forth. “And I shall have no influence upon this decision?”

  “You have spoken your mind.”

  “At a time when you were deaf to contrary opinions—you had decided the matter long before our discussion.”

  “I had,” agreed Nathaniel. “This is something that I must do.”

  The woman snorted through her nostrils. “What if I told you that I would leave the New Mexico Territory and go back east to my family if you took this job?”

  “I love you deeply, but if you are no longer certain that I can be a proper husband—if you no longer believe that my actions will advance us toward a greater happiness—you are encouraged to seek out a better life with someone else. We are not yet married.”

  Kathleen was stunned.

  Nathan
iel’s stomach shifted, anxiously. He did not think that Kathleen would abandon him, but the possibility existed—she was a smart, educated and attractive woman, and she had not taken a locomotive to the frontier so that she could work as a maid for the Footman family while her fiancé cobbled shoes. Like every couple, they were two separate individuals tied together by a rope with an indeterminate snapping point, and this conversation certainly strained their line. Distant animal noises and more immediate house creaks intruded upon the heavy silence.

  Unable to breathe the thickening air, the gentleman said, “It would take five months to earn that much money at the shop.”

  “Four months.” The woman’s voice was sharp.

  “Kathleen. If the job is hazardous or illicit, I will not go.” Looking into his fiancé’s doubtful face, the gentleman added, “This is a very significant sum.”

  “It is.” The woman’s voice was gentler.

  Weight came off of Nathaniel’s shoulders—the squabble had ended. “And,” the gentleman added, “the possibility exists that these employers are simply wealthy men to whom four hundred and fifty dollars means very little.”

  “The diction employed in the advert doesn’t intimate good breeding,” the woman replied, “but I suppose it’s possible.”

  Nathaniel traversed the room with a small step, sat upon the mattress and kissed Kathleen. She admitted him for a moment and withdrew, hastily, as if they were courting teenagers and the condemning head of a parent had just materialized in a window.

  “Don’t look so distraught.”

  “You closed the door on me,” stated Nathaniel, who was very rarely shut out. He reapplied his lips to those of his fiancé, but she kept her mouth closed in firm denial. As he withdrew, the gentleman remarked, “I did better the first time.”

  “Not tonight,” stated the woman. “My mind is too full of concerns to be present with you in a romantic way.”

  Nathaniel placed his right hand upon the canvas of bare skin that was framed by lace décolletage and pressed forward, gently urging Kathleen to lie down.

  The woman resisted. “I’m too preoccupied by your departure.”

  Through a smile, the gentleman said, “Please lie down.”

  “Nathan. I am not of a mind to—”

  “I understand. And I promise that I shall remain fully clothed.” Nathaniel looked into Kathleen’s emerald eyes and felt her heart beat significantly beneath the palm of his right hand. “This is wholly for your benefit.”

  The woman’s cheeks admitted several clandestine freckles, and she nodded.

  “Lie down.”

  Kathleen laid into the locks of her long black hair and the iridescent fabric of her rose nightgown, and was gently received by the hay-packed mattress. Nathaniel touched his lips to the soft skin just above her bare left knee and landed a second kiss beneath her nightgown, exactly where the leg joined her pelvis. He exhaled warm air upon the woman’s nexus, and her entire body shuddered.

  Running his fingertips along his fiancé’s inner thigh, the gentleman asked, “Will you allow me to alter your humors?”

  Kathleen made an allowance.

  The would-be hotelier and soon-to-be traveling bilingual gentleman looked over his fiancé’s recumbent body and through the window, at the effulgent gray sky, upon which neither sun nor moon trespassed. During the interstices of his three-and-a-half hours of fractured sleep, Nathaniel had pondered the east coast investors, the new job and the progress that he could make on his sundered hotel with four hundred and fifty dollars (plus the six hundred and twenty-four bills that he had saved during these last thirteen months) and was anxious. Although he was still tired, he knew that he would not again fall asleep and so decided to begin his day.

  Nathaniel climbed over Kathleen’s long legs, gently set the soles of his bare feet upon the ground (if trod indelicately, the floorboards imitated the previous baby tenants) and leaned forward, slowly shifting his weight until he found himself standing upright. He pulled a yellow riding outfit over his union suit, picked up his shoes, took one step east, reached out his free hand, twisted the key, exited, closed the door and departed to the attic, wherein his traveling luggage was kept while he and his fiancé were lodgers in a room built for humans who possessed nothing more substantial than diapers, pacifiers and teeth the size of rice grains.

  Yawning quietly, Nathaniel strode across the second floor hallway, past the master bedroom and toward the wooden ladder that led to the attic. A door opened behind the creeping gentleman, and he turned around.

  From the darkened bedroom emerged Ezekiel, scratching the back of his hirsute neck (a location that seemed to offer perpetual itches) while his healthy stomach inflated between the open wings of his plaid robe. The squat man yawned a salutation.

  “Good morning,” responded Nathaniel.

  “It’s chilly for the summer.” Ezekiel looked over the lodger’s shoulder and said, “Going up to the attic?”

  “I need to retrieve my luggage and some garments. I will be away for one week.”

  The cattle rancher tilted his head sideways, possibly to allow the hand that scratched his nape some new opportunities, and inquired, “Business?”

  “Indeed.”

  “Kathleen’s staying on here?”

  “She will remain here and tend to her duties.”

  A strange narrowing happened in the middle of the bushy aggregation of brows and whiskers that was Ezekiel’s face. “Why’re you sneaking around this way?”

  “I did not wish to awaken anybody.”

  “We heard you two having some words last night.” The squinting clefts that shaded Ezekiel’s eyes appraised Nathaniel in a blunt and intrusive manner.

  “I am not running off.” The gentleman was galled by the implication, but suppressed his indignity.

  “You won’t do better than that woman.” Ezekiel lowered one scratching hand from his nape and applied another. “I’ve seen her with my kids, and I’ve seen her haggle with shopkeepers or reprimand them if they try and cheat her. She’s all there—complete and beautiful—and she even stuck by you after those winds wrecked your hotel.”

  “I love Kathleen and have no intention of deserting her. I apologize for disturbing you last night, but she and I have amicably resolved our differences.”

  Unconvinced, the cattle rancher wrinkled his mouth.

  “You may rouse her if you would like to check the veracity of my words,” suggested Nathaniel. It was difficult for him to keep bitterness out of this remark.

  “It isn’t necessary.” Ezekiel returned the original hand to the back of his neck, pulled the gaping robe over his belly, turned around and strode into his bedroom. “There’re plenty of successful fellows in Leesville who’d court her if you dawdled overlong or went serpentine.”

  No reply issued from the gentleman’s pursed lips.

  The bedroom door closed.

  Embarrassment and anger sat hot upon Nathaniel’s face as he turned away, strode to the end of the hall, climbed the ladder, entered the attic, located a large green valise and into it packed water skins, a flask, undergarments, kerchiefs, gloves, a double-breasted royal blue three-piece suit, a long-tailed black tuxedo, two white shirts, cufflinks, Italian shoes, shoe polish, two bow ties (royal blue and black), a red cravat, a royal blue derby, a black stovepipe hat and a novel entitled La Playa de Sangre with which he could illustrate his fluency in Spanish.

  Presently, he descended from the attic and strode across the second floor hallway. When the gentleman heard a plaintive sound emanate from the closed door of the baby’s room, he paused.

  The couple had said goodbye the previous evening, and Kathleen had specifically asked Nathaniel to leave in the morning without rousing her, so that they might avoid an anxious farewell.

  Standing in the hallway
with his heavy valise in his left hand, the tall blonde gentleman from Michigan listened to his fiancé’s quiet sobs. The sounds shrank his insides and made his vision hazy.

  And then he left.

  Chapter III

  The Plugfords

  Brent Plugford inhaled deeply, and with the unseasonably cool morning air came the odors that filled the hotel apartment—damp underclothes, soap, moldering wood, oiled leather, iron, stale cigar smoke and cheap bourbon. The twenty-nine-year-old cowboy opened his eyes and saw Long Clay, whose tall lean body was clothed in a black shirt and matching trousers, standing at the foot of his bed like the late day shadow of a scarecrow. The silver-haired man pointed to the person who slept next to Brent. “Wake him.”

  “Okay.”

  Long Clay walked toward the window.

  Brent sat up, stretched his stiff muscles, ran a hand through his wavy brown hair and looked to his left. Prostrated upon the bed beside him was his younger brother, Stevie Plugford, dead asleep and wearing last week’s long johns. “Stevie. You gotta get up. We’re goin’.”

  The twenty-one-year-old man grunted.

  “Up,” ordered Brent. “Now.” The cowboy shook his brother’s left shoulder.

  Stevie swatted his brother’s hand away and pulled a blanket over his head.

  “You shouldn’t’ve drunk so much bourbon,” admonished Brent. “I told you you shouldn’t.”

  “Roast in Hell.”

  Long Clay withdrew a black pistol, gripped it by the barrel and walked toward the bed.

  To the tall narrow man, Brent said, “I’ll get him to—”

  The handle of the gun impacted the lump that was Stevie’s head.

  The young man shouted, pulled the blanket down and rubbed his tomato-colored ear. “Goddamn that hurt!” Stevie looked up at Long Clay’s triangular face, upon which sat cold blue eyes, a thin gray mustache and a lipless mouth, and declined to proffer any direct criticism.