Wraiths of the Broken Land

by S. Craig Zahler

  Five months after the incident, Howard Stromler was discovered in the bank vault. The barrel of the security rifle was in his mouth, and the steel walls were splashed with his red guilt. Soon thereafter, the remaining Stromlers moved to a different town in Michigan and took no more trips to Europe.

  “He’s mended.”

  Nathaniel looked into the wagon. Patch Up rested Brent’s bandaged head upon a rolled-up towel, and Stevie buttoned his brother’s shirt.

  “Get to your horses,” ordered Long Clay.

  “Mr. Stromler.”

  Nathaniel looked over at Dolores.

  “Will you help me onto mine?”

  Long Clay said, “Stevie will assist you.”

  “I’ll get her.” Bearing red keepsakes from his brother upon his sleeves, Stevie hastened from the rear of the wagon, toward Dolores.

  Nathaniel knew that the interference had been deliberate (Long Clay clearly did not want the gentleman to have any more allies in the crew), but he would not remark upon such a triviality. He walked toward the brindled mustang previously ridden (and stained) by the cowboy.

  “Deep Lakes.”

  The native looked at the gunfighter.

  “Poison the site.”

  “I shall.”

  Stevie inquired, “What’re you leavin’ behind?”

  Deep Lakes extricated a crackling sack from a burlap bag. “Datura and caladium leaves soaked in lard.”

  “I hope them Mex’can horses are hungry.”

  Nathaniel grabbed the saddle horn and pulled himself atop Brent’s brindled mustang. A pain shot across his stomach, but he remained silent.

  Stevie scooped Dolores from the ground and carried her to the pale palfrey.

  “Poison some potatoes and a rasher of bacon,” Long Clay added, “and leave it in a victual sack by the fire, like we forgot it. We might get more than just horses.”

  Nathaniel turned the mustang north so that he did not have to look at the loathsome gunfighter.

  Chapter III

  Defining the New Mr. Plugford

  Lying upon the rattling wagon bed, Brent Plugford awakened, turned his head to the left and looked at the huge man who laid directly beside him. A wheel struck a stone, and blood sluiced across the goggles that covered the eyes of John Lawrence Plugford.

  The cowboy turned away from his deceased father, lifted his stitched head, looked past the brass tips of his brown boots and saw grass that was colored gold by the twilight sun. Atop the metallic flora cantered the horses that bore Dolores, Stevie, the dandy and Long Clay.

  A groan emerged from the black trunk.

  Brent slapped the portable prison. “Quiet.” He had completely forgotten about the captive. “We didn’t forget about you.”

  The man gurgled.

  “Patch Up,” said the cowboy.

  “Yes, Mr. Plugford?”

  “Why’d you call me that? I ain’t no Mr. Plugford. I’m Brent.”

  “You’re the man of the family now.”

  “Long Clay is in charge.”

  “He’s running the tactics, but you’re heading up the family.”

  “Same thing.”

  “There’s a difference.” Patch Up whipped a sluggish rump. “Long Clay was your father’s partner for a long while, but he isn’t family.”

  “That’s certain true. But you’re family—Pa always said so.”

  There was a long pause. “I know that he did.”

  Brent looked at the recumbent patriarch and remembered his forgotten question. “How come Pa’s still got his mask on? It’s full up with gore.”

  “Once we’ve settled at the fort, I’ll clean him properly. He deserves—” Patch Up stopped speaking.

  Brent twisted around and looked toward the front of the wagon.

  Patch Up turned away.

  “You okay?” asked Brent.

  The negro nodded, but did not finish his statement.

  Useless tears began to fill the cowboy’s eyes, and he became angry. “Don’t blubber!” he said, reprimanding both Patch Up and himself. “Ain’t no use in it.”

  “You’re right.”

  Patch Up set the bulb of the whip in its socket and turned to Yvette, who was curled up on the bench beside him like a kitten. Kindly, he caressed her forehead.

  A sharp concern twisted Brent’s guts. “Does she know…who we got in here? In the trunk?”

  “No. She hasn’t been awake more than a few minutes, and he’s been quiet.” Patch Up wiped his nose. “What do you intend to do with him?”

  “Don’t know.” Brent considered Yvette’s religious views and her absurd capacity for forgiveness. “Maybe we should just execute him be—”

  An appendage thudded within the trunk.

  “You keep quiet,” the cowboy hissed, “or I’ll do what I did in Colorado.”

  The man was silent.

  Brent returned his gaze to Patch Up. “Maybe we should execute him before Yvette gets lucid. We’re long past using him for barter with Gris, and it’s certain definite that Dolores—when she learns what he done—will want him dead and would kill him herself, and Stevie and I want him dead, and Pa would’ve tore out his throat in six different states if me an Stevie hadn’t’ve stopped him every time.”

  “That’s all true,” said Patch Up.

  “But…” A consideration troubled Brent. “Yvette ain’t hardly herself right now—she’s like a ghost. And she might want him alive. Even with all that he did, she might still want him.”

  “That’s true.”

  Brent glared at Patch Up. “What in the hell kind of counsel is that?”

  “I’m not counseling you Mr. Plugford, I’m—”

  “Don’t call me that. I’m Brent.”

  “No. You’re Mr. Plugford.”

  “Hell.” The cowboy snorted. “He should be killed a hundred times for what he did. For what happened to my sisters and my Pa and them horses too. But—” He shook his head. “But I can’t give Yvette another grievance. I can’t hurt her in any way, even if it’s doin’ right by Dolores and Pa and all the rest of us. I just can’t hurt her no matter what.”

  “That is a thoughtful and kind decision, Mr. Plugford.” Patch Up stroked Yvette’s forehead.

  “Dolores and Stevie ain’t gonna swallow it easy.”

  “They aren’t.”

  The cowboy looked at the black trunk. “Your wife is gonna have the decision on what happens to you.”

  From behind the wood, Samuel C. Upfield IV gurgled two muffled wet words that might have been ‘thank you.’

  “If she don’t forgive you, we’re gonna throw rocks at you ‘til you’re dead. The whole family is.”

  Chapter IV

  The Family Agenda

  Sitting on the wagon bench, Brent Plugford caressed Yvette’s chill forehead. The falling sun was a brilliant gold scalp above the northwestern hills, and in the oblique light, the gaunt woman’s face looked like a skull covered with wax.

  Resolved, the cowboy turned around and looked at his trailing siblings. “Ride up here ‘longside me.”

  “Okay,” responded Dolores.

  “Comin’,” said Stevie.

  Brent carried Yvette inside the canopy and felt as if it were a small sick calf that he bore instead of an adult human being. He knelt upon the wagon bed, laid his sister beside the patriarch, put cotton into her ears, kissed her forehead, slid the black trunk to the opposite end of the wagon and walked forward.

  Dolores and Stevie were riding beside the driver’s bench when Brent returned.

  “How’re you doin?” The youngest Plugford pointed to the cowboy’s bandaged head.

  “Fine.”

  Dolores inquired, “How’s she doin’?” />
  “Seems better—hasn’t kicked in a while. And she ate some stew a little while back and kept most of it.”

  “Good.”

  A chubby hand that belonged to Patch Up squeezed Brent’s shoulder.

  The nascent Mr. Plugford said to his siblings, “I got somethin’ to say to you both, but I want you to hear me out full before you get hot at me. I made a decision neither of you is gonna like, but it’s the right one.”

  Dolores, perplexed by the preamble, stared.

  “If this is about the goddamn captive,” Stevie grumbled, “you can roast.” The young man’s reaction was not unexpected.

  Brent looked over at Patch Up. Nodding, the negro put the bulb of his whip into the socket, grabbed his rifle and disappeared into the wagon bed. The cowboy informed his brother and sister, “He’s guardin’ the trunk until there’s some unity with us.”

  “What the hell’re you boys talkin’ ‘bout?” asked Dolores.

  Brent looked at his sister. “You girls got took because of Yvette’s husband. We know it certain true.”

  Dolores was shocked. “How? Why?”

  “We’ll get to the details later,” the cowboy said, “but it’s his fault, all of what happened. And he don’t deny it either.”

  Dolores’s eyes filled with fury.

  Brent continued, “We brung him with us to use for a barter, or in case he remembered somethin’ important, but he was double useless.”

  Dolores’s eyes widened. “Samuel’s here?”

  “He’s here. And I want him dead. Stevie sure does and Pa tried to kill him six times, but we stopped him. Killin’ Samuel C. Upfield IV’s the right thing to do and nobody knows that more than you. But you’ve seen how Yvette is.”

  Dolores hissed, “This ain’t up to her!” Her wrath was a physical force inherited directly from her father.

  “I say it is,” stated Brent.

  Stevie growled, “Roast in Hell you dumb sodomite.”

  The sky, grass and trees disappeared from Brent’s view, and his skin tingled. “I already whipped you once this trip for that sort of talk.”

  “It’s true goddamnit! That’s why you couldn’t be no husband to that Janie Dill. I’d wager you never even put your pecker in a—”

  Dolores slapped Stevie. “Shut your dumb mouth! That ain’t what we’re talkin’ about here.”

  Brent doubted that he was a sodomite, but he had not fornicated with a woman since he was a teenager (and he had been drunk during those endeavors), and he knew that he was atypical. He did not desire sexual relations with women or men, and he wondered why such shuddering assignations so thoroughly preoccupied the cowboys with whom he rode—men who chose to live in the saddle and explore the great landscape, free from the constraints of little wives and tiny towns.

  “You can’t hit me,” complained Stevie, as if he were a petulant child.

  “Talk ‘bout Brent like that and I will,” threatened Dolores. “I promise you.”

  “Goddamn.” Stevie rubbed the scarlet handprint emblazoned upon his face. “You hit hard.” He shook his head. “Like everybody in this family.”

  “Let’s finish the discussion,” said Brent

  Dolores and Stevie looked up.

  “Whenever Yvette’s awake,” the cowboy resumed, “she asks for him. Again and again. ‘Why isn’t Samuel here?’ and ‘Where is my husband?’ kind of stuff.”

  “Then we should sink him in a pond and not tell her what happened,” suggested Stevie.

  “No.” Brent shook his head. “Yvette had a whole other life with Samuel out there in San Francisco—away from the Plugfords—and it’s clear visible that him and God are what matter to her the most. That’s a certain fact. And I wouldn’t want us to kill one of the two things she cares ‘bout.” He watched his siblings for a moment and added, “You all know what can happen when a hurt person ain’t got nothin’ left in the world.”

  “I know.” Dolores contained her fury.

  Stevie slapped his pommel. “That bastard should be killed slow with rocks like we said we would do.”

  “I want him dead and you want him dead,” Brent responded, “but I’m askin’ you to think beyond yourself.”

  “Go roast.”

  “What I’m talkin’ ‘bout,” Brent continued, “ain’t justice or what we want, but allowin’ Yvette to keep her husband if she wants him. She’s dwindled, and we can’t take anything away from her.”

  Dolores lowered her face. “So you just wanna let Samuel go free?” Her voice was a distant whisper.

  “No. He wrote out a letter sayin’ how it all happened—in case we killed him or traded him over—and he wrote it true correct. I’m gonna give that to Yvette and tell her to read it and know what he done, because that has to be clear—this ain’t somethin’ to put under the bed. And after she knows what occurred, I’ll tell her she can decide what happens to him.”

  “I want to read that letter myself.” Dolores squeezed the horn of her sidesaddle as if she wanted to strangle it. “And I want to tell her exactly what I think should happen to him.”

  “That’s fair,” opined Brent.

  “I was raped the same as her. And our daddy is dead.” Dolores pulled upon her reins, and her palfrey cantered away from the men.

  Brent looked at his kid brother. “You accept it goin’ this way?”

  Stevie spat. “I don’t.”

  Patch Up emerged from the canopy, holding a repeater rifle. “Stevie.”

  “What?”

  “Listen to your brother.” Patch Up tapped the stock of his gun upon Brent’s shoulder. “He’s the man of the family and knows how to run things.”

  “I ain’t listenin’ to him or to you. Samuel’s gettin’ executed like he deserves.”

  Patch Up flung his trigger-guard forward, and a cartridge clicked into the chamber.

  “You ain’t shootin’ me,” said Stevie.

  “I will if you go against your whole family.” Patch Up’s voice was flat and grave. “I’ll go for a leg.”

  “I got guns too.”

  Stevie snapped reins and applied spurs.

  “Stevie!” shouted Brent. “Don’t you—”

  Furious, the young man cut in front of the wagon, rode up a green hill that was thirty yards to the west and pulled his pump-action shotgun from its sheath. The scalp of the sun sat beneath the hooves of his silhouetted colt like an infernal emergence.

  “He can’t be this stupid,” Brent said to Patch Up.

  “He’s been on his way for a while.”

  “I hope there’s no liquor in him.”

  “Listen!” Stevie pumped his shotgun, and a spent shell flew into the air, buzzing like an insect. “Give over Samuel or I’ll come get him!”

  Brent did not know whether or not his brother was bluffing.

  Yvette’s dog began to bark.

  A black shadow interposed itself between Stevie and the wagon. “Don’t interfere with—”

  Long Clay jerked the shotgun from Stevie’s hands and flung it to the ground.

  “I was just tryin’ to get Samuel,” defended the young man.

  “You were going to charge your family with a scattergun,” stated the gunfighter.

  “We need to execute him. He’s the reason it all happened.”

  “The only thing we need to do,” Long Clay coolly replied, “is prepare for the next engagement.”

  “You don’t want no revenge?”

  “Revenge is a fool’s obsession.” The gunfighter tugged the reins of his black mare and turned away.

  Embarrassed and angry, Stevie remarked, “Seems like you don’t care what happened to Pa none at all. I thought you were partners.”

  Long Clay pistol-whipped Stevie. T
he young man yelled, dipped in his saddle and clutched his broken nose.

  “I’m done coddling you,” said the gunfighter. “You’ve got a tally with one mark.”

  “No.” Stevie’s eyes widened with apprehension. “No!”

  Brent was stunned by the declaration. The tally was how Long Clay and John Lawrence Plugford had disciplined unruly posse members long ago—each and every mark guaranteed a broken limb once the job came to its conclusion. Grimacing, the cowboy recalled the story of a fellow who had garnered eight marks and had each leg and arm broken twice to cover the deficit.

  “You can’t do that to me!” cried Stevie. “You don’t got the authority!”

  “Now you have two marks.”

  “Close your stupid mouth!” yelled Brent.

  The young man lowered his gaze, wiped blood from beneath his broken nose and spat pink. A moment later, Long Clay rode back to the horses that he had abandoned prior to his intercession.

  Stevie clambered from his saddle, reclaimed his pump-action shotgun, and looked at the spotted colt. “He gave me a goddamn tally.” The beast flashed a tail, dismissively. “Two goddamn marks.”

  A dark blue blanket covered over the magenta vault. The motley horses that pulled the wagon were weary and had grown immune to the negro’s administrative efforts with the whip, but still they plodded onward, through the grasslands, up the inclined terrain, toward the sere land atop which stood a vast mountain wall.

  “I’ve descried it,” announced Patch Up, who had one eye to his brass and ivory spyglass.

  “Any tenants we gotta evict?” asked Brent.

  “None that I can see.” The negro handed the spyglass over to the cowboy. “Peruse the site.”

  Brent raised the telescope to his right eye, peered through and saw the sheer and crenulate face of the beige mountain wall.

  “Look west,” Patch Up advised, “near the split.”