Wraiths of the Broken Land

by S. Craig Zahler

  The huge hands became fists.

  “J.L,” said Patch Up. “We need to let the dandy talk to these Mexicans before you get involved. That’s why he’s here.”

  John Lawrence Plugford nodded his head, strode forward and vanished.

  The native slid two fingers into the cleft skull of the bobcat and scooped out a pink morsel that he swallowed without chewing.

  To Nathaniel, Patch Up said, “Your grouse is ready.”

  “Please set it aside. I may regain my appetite in a short while.”

  “I’ll save it for you.”

  “Hey dandy!” Stevie staggered toward the campfire, reached into his back pocket, withdrew a balled-up paper and flung it. The projectile impacted the gentleman’s chest and landed on the ground beside the pit, where it glowed bright yellow. “Brent said you gotta study that. They’re pictures from the reward poster.”

  Nathaniel leaned over, picked up the paper, opened it and saw—backlit by pulsating firelight—the beautiful and crumpled faces of Yvette and Dolores. They were smiling.

  Chapter X

  Bad Men

  Black toenails scrabbled upon the tiles of the trespassed den. Brent Plugford, whose face was hidden behind the rubber mask of a smoke respirator, braced the white dog, muzzled its mouth and drew a curved blade across its throat. Blood warmed his left pant leg, and he felt queasy.

  Although Brent’s job as a cowboy foreman had twice required him to shoot a man (a Yank named William who had tried to steal the payroll, and an ornery drunk with the same name who did not appreciate being dismissed from a riding outfit by a boss young enough to be his grandson), each fellow had pulled a pistol, and in so doing, authored his own end. Brent felt that his actions were fully justified, and he had been untroubled by remorseful sentiments when he had buried and abandoned each body beside the cattle trail. But the innocent creature that struggled in his hands was different from the men named William or any animal that would provide sustenance: The white dog was killed so that he could commit a wrongful act.

  Two final paroxysms contorted the draining creature, and Brent’s vision blurred. The blood that saturated his left pant leg grew cool and sticky.

  In his hands, the thoughtless, dripping animal stared out blindly.

  A shadow fell, and Long Clay, wearing a rubber respirator mask, pointed to the ground.

  Upon the cold tiles, Brent laid the dog.

  The gunfighter scratched a match. White light flared upon the glass lenses that covered the eyes of the masked men, turned orange and illuminated the enclosure. The den was large and furnished with Oriental rugs, Spanish tapestries and glossy European furniture, all of which seemed to confirm the owner’s purported wealth.

  A black snake descended from the ceiling. Brent froze.

  An instant later, the cowboy realized that the serpent was actually dog’s blood sliding down his left lens, and he wiped the gore away.

  Long Clay pointed the barrel of a black pistol at a wooden doorway on the western wall. Brent nodded, confirming his readiness. The gunfighter snuffed the match.

  Toward the chosen door, the trespassers stalked. Brent prayed that they would not have to hurt anyone.

  Long Clay extended his right hand, clasped an ornate knob and twisted it gently. The cylinder squeaked. The tall shadow pushed the door forward, slowly and carefully, revealing a vertical line of pure night that grew wider and wider.

  The space beyond the den was utterly opaque.

  Staring into the inscrutable black region, Brent’s apprehensions grew.

  A match flared in Long Clay’s right hand and revealed a long hallway, the walls of which were hung with paintings. The gunfighter snuffed the glaring head, tapped Brent’s left lens and pointed at the passageway on the opposite side of the den and at the French doors through which they had entered the house.

  The cowboy apprehended that he was to hold in his current position and monitor these two points of ingress. He nodded.

  The gunfighter was absorbed by the black hallway.

  Alone with his respirations, Brent monitored the den and the portals that led to it. The room was as still as a photographic image and the house was quiet. Upon the wall that he had not earlier surveyed hung a painting that was a family portrait. The cowboy’s stomach sank when he saw a boy depicted in the image.

  A man yelled and was abruptly silenced.

  Brent drew his gun and looked up the hallway into which his partner had disappeared, but he saw only darkness. The cowboy was a wholly inexperienced criminal, but he had heard stories from his father and knew not to run blindly into a tableau, especially when Long Clay was the protagonist. He returned his attention to the den.

  A figure emerged from the opposite hallway.

  Brent pointed his pistol. On the other side of his weapon stood the eight-year-old child from the portrait, terrified.

  The cowboy shoved his revolver into his holster, lunged forward, clapped a palm to the boy’s mouth, threw him to the floor and pressed a knee into his stomach. Brent wanted to tell the child that he would not hurt him, but Long Clay had insisted that he remain mute unless the situation were dire—any English or one poorly-pronounced Spanish word would mark him as a gringo. Fortunately for the cowboy, the prone boy was so terrified that he did not struggle overmuch.

  At the end of the hall wherein Long Clay had disappeared, a white light flashed, accompanied by a dim pop that Brent recognized as a muted gun report. The cowboy’s stomach sank.

  The boy looked west and saw the slain white dog for the first time. His big eyes filled with tears and his chest convulsed beneath the cowboy’s knee. Brent tasted bitter self-loathing, but kept the boy pinned—he knew that things could get much worse.

  Quiet footsteps sounded within the dark hallway.

  Brent raised his revolver. A matched flashed thrice and was gone. Recognizing the signal, the cowboy lowered his weapon.

  Long Clay emerged from the shadows, a lacquered wooden box nestled underneath his curled right arm.

  Fully aware that he could neither wrangle nor defeat the gunfighter, Brent hoped that his father’s old partner was not the type of man who would hurt or kill a subdued child.

  The gunfighter set the wooden box upon the sofa, holstered his gun and knelt beside the youth. The boy trembled beneath Brent, as had the white dog four minutes earlier. Long Clay reached into his shirt pocket, withdrew a plum and inserted it into the boy’s mouth. Relieved, the cowboy pulled a kerchief across the plugged orifice and tied it. The two men hog-tied the child, placed him upon an Oriental carpet and rolled him up like a burrito.

  The rug breathed.

  Long Clay tucked the wooden box underneath his right arm, strode through the French doors and disappeared into the night.

  Brent glanced at the breathing rug, the butchered dog and the opaque west hall at the far end of which an innocent man might have been murdered. Poisons tainted the cowboy’s blood.

  He cursed silently, hurried through the French doors, stole across the backyards of four houses and entered a tall stand of creosote bushes wherein waited Long Clay. The thieves removed their rubber masks, tossed them and the wooden box inside two sealskin sacks and hastened to an adjacent dirt road. Brent was a fit man, but he was usually atop a horse when he needed to move quickly, and his thighs and buttocks burned as he matched his partner’s long quick strides.

  A lean dog that looked like a brindled coyote emerged from a shack and followed the thieves for twenty yards, barking continually. Long Clay thrust a gun barrel through its eye and fired. Its skull pan wholly muted the blast.

  The men departed the western edge of Nueva Vida, entered the dark gray badlands and began to circle around to the east. As they walked across the gritty plain, Brent’s blood-soaked pant leg alternately chaffed and stuck to his skin.
/>   “Why’d we have to wear them perculiar masks?” asked the cowboy.

  “Would you have preferred a scarf?”

  Brent looked at the tall narrow man, but was unable to determine whether or not he was irritated by the question. “Scarf would’ve been easier.”

  “Do you think that a scarf—which covers half of man’s face, none of his hair and can pulled off by a child—is the best way to maintain one’s anonymity?”

  “I don’t.”

  After the pair had walked in silence for a few minutes, Brent said, “I’ve got one other question, and then I won’t ask you nothin’ more.” The gunfighter neither accepted nor refused the inquiry. “What happened when you went up that hall? I heard a gunshot.”

  “You didn’t do anything but kill a dog and gag a child,” replied Long Clay. “That’s all you need to know.”

  “I thought I was s’posed to know what happened—since I was your partner.”

  “No cowboy who cries over a dumb dog is my partner.”

  Brent was humiliated by the remark, but did not bother to defend himself.

  A silent and brisk half-hour walk brought the two men to the footpath that led into the tangled black coppice. Brent slung his sack over his right shoulder and preceded the gunfighter inside.

  Twenty strides later, the cowboy heard a distant wailing. He tensed and drew his revolver, but quickly realized that the ululation was his brother attempting to sing.

  “Hush him or I will,” threatened Long Clay.

  Brent hastened along the winding footpath, where dark tree limbs and darker yucca spikes advanced from the opaque surroundings like the weapons of inhospitable natives. As he ran, a corner of the wooden box tattooed a bruise upon his back.

  Stevie’s singing grew louder.

  An orange glow that Brent recognized as the sunken campfire flashed beyond two fronds that looked like a witch’s hands. Oriented, the cowboy sped directly toward the camp.

  Stevie sang, “The muskets flashed upon the barbican.” (Five wooden thumps punctuated the line.) “The thunder of Confederate pride!” (Wood rumbled.) “A hand with a union cuff of blue, reached down like the greedy claw of the Jew. ‘We are united!’ they lied. ‘Pay our tariff!’ they cried. But to the end, we did defend, with a rebel shield of pride.” (The singer inhaled deeply.) “Of Pride!” A miserable note was held for an amount of time unrelated to the (poorly) established meter.

  When Brent entered the clearing, he saw the dandy, the Indian and Patch Up seated around the fire pit and looked for his brother.

  “Of infantible Southern pride!” brayed Stevie, stretching the final word through ten flat notes, as if he were an opera singer, rather than a man who was completely unmusical.

  From the darkness, Brent divined his wailing brother. The bare-chested young man was seated at the back of the wagon, atop the black trunk in which the captive was kept. “Stevie!” hissed the cowboy. “Get down from there and keep your mouth—”

  “You’re back!” Stevie thumped his heel against the trunk, leaned over and (loudly) whispered, “My brother’s back from his special mission.”

  It was fortunate that the dandy was faced away from the drunken singer.

  “Get down from there and keep your mouth shut.” Brent heard Long Clay’s footsteps upon the path. “Do it now.”

  Stevie considered his brother’s suggestions. Depending upon how drunk he was, he would either obey Brent or resume his song at a louder volume.

  “Of infantible Southern pride!”

  Holding the barrel of a gleaming black revolver in his left hand, Long Clay emerged from the woods, ready to whip the young inebriate.

  Brent ran toward his little brother, the soak.

  “I believe,” the dandy remarked from beside the campfire, “that the word you are attempting to sing is ‘indefatigable.’”

  “Yank!” berated Stevie.

  Brent grabbed his brother’s right arm. “Come off of there and don’t say nothin’ unless you want Long Clay to wallop you again.”

  The inebriate glanced across the campsite and was sobered by the sight of the approaching gunfighter.

  “I’m tryin’ to save you a beatin’,” said Brent.

  Stevie nodded. “Okay.”

  “Now get off of that trunk.”

  The young man leapt to the ground, landed on two feet, teetered to each compass point and stood upright.

  A large shape emerged from the shadows, shuffled past the siblings and headed toward the gunfighter. Brent threw his brother a stern glance and followed after his father.

  “Did you earn?” John Lawrence Plugford asked Long Clay.

  “We earned.”

  The patriarch nodded, walked to the campfire and interposed himself between the dandy and the flames. “Get to town.”

  Surprised by the blunt imperative, Nathaniel reached into his trousers, withdrew a pocket watch and clicked its release button. Silver arrows glimmered in his weary blue eyes. “It is nearly ten minutes after one in the morning.”

  John Lawrence Plugford, a huge silhouette above the fire pit, loomed.

  “Most Mex’cans stay up late.” The cowboy set the plunder beside the campfire. “That’s why they’ve got them afternoon naps.”

  The dandy looked at the sealskin sack and frowned, as if he were the parent of the flayed animal.

  “Should be plenty for your performance,” added Brent.

  The dandy reached into the bag and extricated the burnished box. Firelight sparkled upon three drops of blood that sat atop the wood like ladybugs, but the tall man from Michigan did not remark upon the sanguinary keepsakes.

  “It’s got a latch.” Brent pointed an index finger.

  The dandy twisted the brass knob, pulled the bracket and raised the lid. Gold and silver coins, a large black book and bundles of paper money filled the padded, purple interior.

  John Lawrence Plugford withdrew the tome and held it close to his face.

  “That a bible?” asked Brent.

  The patriarch nodded.

  “You gonna give it to Yvette?”

  “It’s in Spanish.” John Lawrence Plugford tossed the holy book into the fire pit. The tome curled, flashed, shriveled and blackened.

  Although Brent was not a religious man, the sight of the burning bible made him feel uneasy.

  Long Clay cast his shadow upon the plunder. “Use the coins.”

  The dandy looked up. “The banknotes are for larger denominations and more commonly carried by men of wealth.”

  “Paper money is locally made at a thousand banks, individualized and easy to identify. Those coins are myriad and spend all the way to China.”

  “I understand.” The dandy yawned, nodded his head and looked at Patch Up. “Would you please extricate the ten and twenty peso coins while I tend to my toilet?”

  “Certainly,” said the negro.

  The dandy rose to his feet and stretched.

  “Mr. Stromler,” said Brent.

  The dandy looked at him.

  “Deep Lakes is gonna follow you to town. He’ll wait outside the club, hidden invisible while you wheedle Menendez and Bonito. If you go somewhere else, some other place, Deep Lakes is gonna follow you there and let us know.” The dandy did not look very confident. “Once you’ve identified my sisters—you studied their pictures, right?

  “I did.”

  “Once you’ve identified my sisters, you come outside wherever you’re at and drop your hat on the ground and scratch your nose. That’s your meaningful gesture. When Deep Lakes sees the meaningful gesture, he’ll send up his signal and we’ll all come ridin’.”

  “What happens then?” inquired the dandy.

  “Deep Lakes will get you hid and when we meet up with you
, you’ll tell us what’s inside and where the girls are.”

  “And what shall I do after I have fulfilled my obligations?”

  “After you’ve apprised us, you can start back to the New Mexico Territory. And if they make you leave your horse behind, we’ll bring her along and some water too so you can ride off north.” Brent looked over at Long Clay and inquired, “That’s it, right? How we discussed?”

  “That’s how it begins,” remarked the gunfighter. “Once I’ve heard the layout described, I’ll detail the rescue.”

  To the dandy, Brent said, “Go get presentable and on your mare. My sisters are waitin’.”

  Chapter XI

  Two Lullabies

  A tiny fist knocked upon the outside of the bedroom door, and a voice equally small and delicate inquired, “¿Padre?” The intertwined husband and wife hesitated.

  Lodged within the canal whence the knocker had emerged ten years earlier, Humberto looked up from Patricia’s flush face and over to the door. “Dos minutos, por favor.”

  “Si,” replied his youngest daughter, Estrellita.

  Humberto doubted that he could achieve his culmination in the remaining time (he was no longer in his forties), but he would certainly bring a significant smile to Patricia’s face. He did not conjure the image of the luscious barmaid Marietta, but she appeared in his mind nonetheless and brought about an unexpected release that was as sharp and soothing as the tequila wrought from the special blue agave that was grown in Guanajuato.

  The balladeer climbed from his satisfied wife, covered her body with a warm blanket, kissed her nose, pulled on his linen pajama pants, strode to the bedroom door and undid the lock that was only employed when he and Patricia were romantically engaged. In the hallway stood Estrellita, the little star. Her big eyes were wide with fear and he knew without asking that she had been upset by a nightmare.

  Humberto stepped into the hallway, shut the bedroom door and asked his daughter if she would like a bedtime song.