The cowboy panned the lens to the left, located the defile, and soon discerned a rectangular edifice made out of white stones. “I see it.” Narrow vertical lines that were crenellations for weapons sat upon the fort’s façade, and upon the slanted roof were two small iron chimneys. Adjoining the eastern side of the structure was a cylinder that looked like a well, and to the west were arrayed the mismatched rocks and wooden crosses of a small cemetery.
“This is where it’ll happen,” announced Brent.
“This is it.”
Chapter IV
Family Allowances
Dolores Plugford was carried by her purple-nosed younger brother to the stone bench that stood outside the eastern face of the fort and set down. The sole of her riding boot pressed into the grit, and her shortened left leg dangled. Blood tingled like electricity within the stump.
“Thanks.”
“Mmh.” Stevie departed.
Dolores leaned against the fort and looked up. After eight months of confinement, the open night sky seemed vast and alien—a thing from another person’s childhood. She looked away from the daunting vault and adjusted the folds of her lavender dress. Nearby, dark shapes that were men brought horses into the sunken stable that was located behind the fort.
“Can I help?” inquired the redheaded woman.
“Not just yet.”
Brent carried Yvette and a bedroll into the fort. Patch Up followed, illuminated by an oil lantern that he shielded from the horizon. The amber flame disappeared into the darkness.
Mr. Stromler carried five empty canteens to the well, set them upon the ground and cranked the handle. A thick old rope twined around the turning bar, emitting creaks and dust. Beyond the gentleman, Long Clay walked into the wagon and returned, shouldering a heavy iron box that clanged with each stride.
The moment that Brent emerged from the fort, Dolores seized his right wrist. “Give me the goddamn letter.”
Her brother reached his free hand into the rear pocket of his denim pants and withdrew a folded envelope. “Don’t tear it up, Yvette needs—”
“Quit speechifyin’.”
Brent paused for a moment. “She needs to be able to read it.”
Dolores snatched the missive from the man’s left hand. “You ain’t Pa.” Although she was aware that her anger was misdirected, she was unable to control it.
Her brother squeezed her shoulder affectionately. “Talk to me when you’re done. Please.”
“Okay.”
Brent strode toward the wagon.
“There’s a lantern inside,” remarked Patch Up, as he emerged from the fort. “Let me take you in so that you have some light.”
“I want to read it out here.”
Patch Up looked at his palms. “I can barely see the side that gets to vote.”
“I got used to the dark.”
Saddened by the remark, the negro nodded. “Do you need anything?”
“I’d like a crutch so I can get ‘round on my own and help out.”
“I’ll make you something you can use.” Patch Up kissed her forehead and walked toward the wagon.
Dolores looked down at the missive. One word was written in the exact center of the rectangle.
Yvette
The redheaded woman turned the envelope over, lifted its flap, reached her fingers inside and withdrew a thick letter that was stained brown with old blood.
“Good.”
Dolores unfolded the papers and saw that they were filled with an elaborate and uncommonly beautiful calligraphy. “Pompous fool.” She surveyed the top of the first page.
The Coerced but True Confessions of the Man who was Samuel C. Upfield IV
Ninth Draft
Thirty minutes later, Dolores dropped the last page of the letter to the ground. Her guts boiled with a dire, poisonous hatred for Samuel C. Upfield IV.
“Brent!”
The cowboy hastened from the fort, knelt beside the bench and took his sister’s hands.
Trembling with fury, Dolores said, “We can’t let Yvette forgive him after what he did. We can’t. He’s the reason for it all—one hundred percent.”
Brent squeezed his sister’s hands. “I know.”
“I got raped—I was fucked by hundreds of men and had my foot blasted off and Pa got killed and Yvette’s ruined ‘cause of that dumb weakling!” Dolores shoved her brother away and shouted, “We gotta kill him! You’re my brother, my twin brother, and my closest in the whole world—how can you let him be? How can you allow him after this? How can you!?!”
Brent’s eyes filled with tears. “Dolores…Please…” Stars dripped down his cheeks. “We gotta think ‘bout Yvette too.”
Dolores hammered her fists against her brother’s chest, and he did not resist her assault. After ten blows, she stopped.
“Go ahead and hit more if you want to,” Brent said, “I can take it.” He wiped his eyes and proffered his chest.
“I’ve gotta throw rocks at Samuel before Yvette reads the letter and forgives him. I’ve got to.”
“You can’t kill him.”
Dolores wiped her eyes and nodded. “Deal.”
Chapter V
Crucibles and Defeat
Wearing his yellow riding clothes and carrying three filled canteens, Nathaniel Stromler ducked his head and entered the fort, which had been built for the Mexican-American War or the Civil War or some less renowned conflict that Mexicans or Americans had with natives. (Nobody knew the history of the edifice, and the graves were unmarked.) He passed the latrine and strode into the common area, where a lantern shone upon three tables, two cast-iron potbelly stoves (a rusted unit, and its warped mate) and thirty deteriorating wooden bunks. The enclosure smelled like dust and lamp oil.
“Please put them in the corner,” Patch Up said from his stool beside the bunk within which laid John Lawrence Plugford.
Nathaniel leaned over, felt a dagger stab his bowels, dropped the canteens, stumbled to one of the tables and regained his balance.
“Are you okay?”
“It will pass in a few minutes.” The pains were infrequent, but sharp and lingering whenever they occurred.
“Let me know if I can do something for you.” Patch Up wiped blood from the dead man’s face.
“Thank you.” Nathaniel sat atop a table and massaged his lower abdomen. “How long did you know him?”
“My whole life.” Patch Up rinsed the white washcloth. “Before I was born, J.L.’s father, Lawrence Gregory, bought my father and freed him, and like every negro that man freed, my father stayed on at the Plugford plantation and was treated fairly, like an equal.” The negro scoured the patriarch’s rubbery ears. “That’s where my father met my mother and had me. This was over in Florida—long before the war.” He wrung the pink cloth.
“I was raised there, alongside J.L., like kin. He told his father that I was clever and a quick study, and so I assisted the plantation doctor and the accountant, instead of doing menial labor.” Patch Up wiped the crust of blood and dust from the dead man’s lips. “That’s probably why I’ve always had this belly.”
Nathaniel’s pain subsided and he inquired, “Would you like some water?”
“Thank you, I would.”
The gentleman walked to a canteen that depended by its strap from a nail in the wall, removed the stopper and carried it over.
Patch Up set the washcloth across John Lawrence Plugford’s wrinkled eyes. “The lids won’t stay down.” The negro accepted the canteen, drank and returned the vessel to Nathaniel, who wiped the nozzle and swallowed a full draught.
“One dry hot summer night, the plantation caught fire, and the blaze roared across the whole property.” Patch Up reclaimed the washcloth and wiped the edges of the flower-shaped cavity that sat a
bove John Lawrence Plugford’s left eyebrow. “J.L. and I were teenagers then, and we pulled children and oldsters from the servants’ houses, and we threw buckets of water, but the water turned to steam before it ever even touched the flames and didn’t affect anything. It was like we’d crashed into Hell.
“Lawrence Gregory and Darren, J.L.’s younger brother, tried to get J.L.’s mother out of the main house—she was trapped inside—and all three of them were burned to death. While all of this was happening, Teddy Tinkers, one of the slaves J.L.’s father had freed, took the safe that contained all of the family’s wealth—Lawrence Gregory did not believe in banks—and ran off with it.” Patch Up shook his head and frowned. “I still hate that nigger right now.
“J.L. lost almost everything that mattered in that fire. All he had left was a scorched plantation and me.” Patch Up wiped dirt and blood from the dead man’s huge hands.
“The workers stayed on for a week—for free—to help us salvage what we could, and shortly after the last rice and tobacco had been harvested, J.L. sold the property for half a pittance.”
“I learned, through some loose-lipped negroes at another plantation, that the fire had been started by a muleskinner named Jake Porter, and that he had been hired by two competing plantation owners who had been undersold by the Plugfords for many years.
“I told J.L.
“That was the first time he ever went dark. I was angry about what happened, and I helped.
“Not so long after that, while he was still filled with despair and anger, he met Long Clay, who was no different then than he is now.
“J.L. became an outlaw, and he and I were out of touch for a handful of years.” Employing a toothpick, Patch Up scraped grit from beneath the corpse’s fingernails.
“When J.L. met his willful little wife, he softened. He quit robbing banks and trains, and his great anger was gone—drained right out of him. He became a fulltime rancher, husband and father.
“J.L. asked me to come out to Texas and help him run things, and I accepted his offer.” Patch Up crossed John Lawrence Plugford’s arms together. “He was the same J.L. who I remembered from before the fire, and he stayed that way until the day that his daughters were taken from him.”
“It was clear how much he loved his girls,” remarked Nathaniel.
“They were his absolution.”
“Patch Up!” called Stevie from outside.
“Yeah?”
Nathaniel faced the south wall.
A silhouette approached the center slit and became a swath of Stevie’s face that contained one eye and six teeth. “I looked all the hell over. Where’re the shovels and pick axes?”
“Tied to the underside of the wagon.”
“Why’re they under there?
“So armadillos can admire them.”
“Ain’t you the wittiest nigger in the N.M. Territory? Don’t go hidin’ things for no reason.”
“I did it to make room for your father and Yvette.”
“Oh.” The halved face eyed the recumbent corpse. “We gonna bury him here?”
“Only if we have to.”
Stevie’s eye swiveled to Nathaniel and Patch Up and vacillated back and forth. “We need you two to come out and help us make holes for all these land torpedoes Long Clay brung ‘long.”
Nathaniel grimaced, but did not offer a verbal response.
“I’ll be there,” said Patch Up.
Stevie disappeared from the narrow opening and was replaced by a strip of blue-black night sky that contained seven dull stars.
Patch Up looked at the gentleman. “I suppose that you don’t intend to help us bury land torpedoes?”
“I do not.”
The negro nodded, put a cloth over John Lawrence Plugford’s wrinkled eyes, rose from his stool and stretched. “I’m going outside.” He reached his interlaced fingers toward the lantern and his vertebrae cracked. “If Yvette awakens, please give her some water. And try to get her to eat some more stew.”
“Certainly,” replied Nathaniel.
“Thank you.” Patch Up drank from the canteen and wiped his mouth. “I’m not going to pry and ask why you refuse to carry a firearm—it’s not my business and I certainly admire your decision not to wield an instrument of murder. But you should know that the odds of us winning the coming engagement are poor.”
The skin upon Nathaniel’s nape tightened.
“We are a small crew and every person counts,” stated Patch Up. “I’m very sorry that you’ve suffered and that you’re here with us now…but you can make a difference. You know who our enemies are, and what they’re capable of doing.”
Nathaniel nodded.
The negro claimed his repeater rifle from the bunk above the corpse and slung it over his shoulder. “I won’t badger you—I only ask for you to consider what I’ve said. You’re a very determined and intelligent man, and I believe that you can retain your integrity—and maybe even some of your youthful idealism—if a terrible situation forces you to waver once from your most firmly held belief.”
“I will think about all that you have said,” replied Nathaniel. “And I thank you for speaking to me in this manner.”
“I hate squabbles,” Patch Up remarked as he walked out into the night.
Nathaniel looked at the corpse of John Lawrence Plugford and the bundled body of Yvette, who slept upon the adjacent bunk. Although the gentleman knew that he would be changed irrevocably by the act of killing another man, he admitted to himself that he was already different—aware of his mortality in a physical way and cognizant that his most cherished viewpoints did not in any way alter the world that happened violently around him. The scorpions had shown him that he was not immune to death.
It became apparent to Nathaniel that fear, denial and stubbornness were the reasons that he still refused to arm himself in this desperate situation. At that moment, he knew that survival meant more to him than did his ideals.
At the age of twenty-six, Nathaniel Stromler relinquished a core and formative belief to the senseless world, balled his empty hands into tight fists and was defeated.
He exited the fort, felt night settle upon him like a cloak and surveyed dark horizons for the men alongside whom he would fight. Four upright figures, each darker than the dirt, stabbed shovels into the earth and opened black holes.
“Do you have another shovel?”
“I’ll fetch you the gilded deluxe,” responded Patch Up.
Long Clay led Nathaniel to the edge of the trench that encircled the fort, put the tip of the shovel into the dirt, gripped the handle, walked west for twenty paces and stopped. “Dig ten holes along this line—one yard deep and one yard wide. Cover the mark when you’re through.” The gunfighter returned the tool to the gentleman and strode away.
Nathaniel stabbed the shovel into the dirt, slammed the heel of his riding boot upon the metal, pulled the handle toward his chest and scooped up earth.
Somebody screamed.
The gentleman looked northwest, toward the fort, but did not see the exclaimer.
“Don’t worry ‘bout that,” advised Stevie, who was knee-deep in a hole. “It’s just some family business.”
Nathaniel noticed that Brent was missing.
Again, the man screamed. The cry echoed in the gorge immediately east of the fort.
“Who is that?” asked Nathaniel.
“The reason all this happened.” Stevie flung dirt at the stars.
The circus dog barked.
“You’ll rot in Hell for what you did!” yelled a woman Nathaniel recognized as Dolores.
The man screamed.
Stevie sullenly stabbed his shovel into the ground. “I wish I could watch.”
“We’ve got work,” said Long Clay, who was submerged up
to his waist in a southern hole.
The anonymous man screamed.
Nathaniel ripped open the earth and sank into the ground.
Chapter VI
The Goddamn Letter
Yvette Upfield felt a coarse slug slide across the back of her right hand and knew for certain that when she opened her eyes, she would be in Catacumbas, beside the dead baby turtle. The moment that she engaged reality, she would see that her rescue was imagined and that she was still a whore.
“I shouldn’t’ve let you get that far—his whole jaw is broke.” Yvette recognized the speaker as Brent.
“Gimme that crutch,” said a woman who was Dolores.
Grit crackled beneath a lopsided gait.
The coarse slug slid across Yvette’s right wrist and radiated hot moist air. Presently, the choirmaster opened her eyes and saw the circus dog, sitting on its rump, staring at her as if it were a doctor with a dangling pink tongue for a stethoscope. Lying upon the sweat-dampened wood, Yvette surveyed the strange enclosure in which she found herself and saw numerous bunks, several crenellations, some dismal furnishings and the soles of her dead father’s work boots.
“Mano.”
The circus dog raised its right paw into the air.
Yvette reached out and shook the proffered appendage.
Dolores ambled into the room, employing a crutch that was a conjoined broomstick and gunstock. She looked at her sister and paused. “You’re awake.”
Yvette nodded, and the world wobbled.
“How do you feel?” At the bottom of her lavender dress, Dolores’s truncated left leg swung like a pendulum.
“Better than before…but I don’t know where we are.”
“At a fort in the New Mexico Territory—gettin’ ready for a stand-off with Gris and his crew.”
Yvette knew that there would be more killing, and also that she was powerless to stop it. She loved her family, but they were deaf to His exhortations and wisdom.
Wraiths of the Broken Land Page 21