‘So you thought you’d just test it out by putting those two fever blisters in here with me?’
‘No, oh no! But it was necessary for the doctor to examine her thoroughly, and children of that age can’t stay in the room at such a time. Of course, you know you would already have been exposed, anyway, carrying her in here.’
‘Thanks a lot.’
‘But there was no need for alarm, as it turned out. Doctor Cheathem was able to determine the cause of the fever, and her unfortunate death. She had recently lost a child — an unborn one, that is. She had a childbed fever.’ He sighed. ‘One can only wonder what it was that forced her to travel in such a grave state of health. It’s very sad, of course, but we were relieved to know it wasn’t something like smallpox or typhoid.’ He smiled wanly.
‘Lucky for you.’
‘The poor little ones don’t know the truth yet. We felt it would be needlessly cruel to wake them in the middle of the night with such terrible news.’
‘Yeah. Well, I guess you better tell them now.’
‘Indeed. Yes. Poor boys. Ah — Mr Hollander, as I was coming up the stairs a moment ago, I said to myself that, since you had already made some slight acquaintance with them, you might be better qualified than I to—’ He was talking to no one. Jake had closed and locked the door again.
Inside the room Jake was still trying to smother an anger that should have died promptly at the sight of the hotel man’s fraudulent grief. He stripped off his coat and opened his collar so he could shave. He would have to do it with the cold water from the wash pitcher, but he would rather chip ice for the job now than have his room invaded by more of the hotel half-wits.
He wasn’t able to decide whether he believed the story about the whore being dead. In truth he could see no good point in the man’s feeding him a plate of fish, but he knew that any good confidence trick depended for its success on the confusion of the victim. He thought he knew all the flimflamming angles there were, but he also knew that anybody who thought that was ripe for a picking and deserved it.
He lathered his face with the pine-tar soap he carried in his kit and began to reap a two-day growth of graying stubble from his long jaw.
The act of shaving usually soothed him with its meticulous ceremony of movement and posture. But now he found he was unable to give it the concentration it demanded. His hand wavered for an instant, and he cut himself just under the left ear. He swore and dabbed at the cut with a towel. As he did so he glanced at the cot that had harbored his uninvited guests.
There was a large wet stain on one side of it, spreading toward the middle, fresh and tinged with amber against the rough white sheet. Tumbled in confusion beneath the cot was a collection of worn socks and shoes, their laces mended in several places with knots.
He felt the revulsion of an unwilling pity. Poor little bastards, he thought in spite of himself. He’d scared them out of both piss and boots. But he hoped he would never have to set eyes on their sad, dirty faces again.
2
The Southern Pacific railroad was driving steel eastward across the wastelands of the Arizona and New Mexico territories at top speed in spite of common sense, the terrain, and the concerted opposition of the Apaches, but as of that day in early March, 1880, the trains went no farther than Tucson.
Jake Hollander took his valise down to the office of the rapidly shrinking Texas and California Stage Company and bought a ticket for the next leg of his journey. The price of the ticket hardened his heart against the stage company’s plight. After the comfort of the train it was like paying to be arrested by the Spanish Inquisition.
He had an hour to wait before the stage came, so he spent it consuming a breakfast of steak, eggs, and the worst coffee he had ever tasted. He rinsed the flavor of it out of his mouth with a double whiskey, because he was feeling unaccountably depressed.
There was no good reason for the mood that he could discover. He had enough money hoarded around his ribs to buy his way into the saloon business of El Paso if he still felt like it when he got there, or to move on to someplace else if he didn’t.
That was the system by which he made all his business decisions, the way in which he managed life itself: to do what he felt like doing at the moment he wanted to do it. That was freedom. Anything more was a shackle. He did consider his word to be binding. But since he had no wish to be bound he never gave his word on anything if he could get around it.
He had no ties of friendship or family in El Paso or any other place in the world, nor had he ever wanted any. But he did have one or two acquaintances in that border town whom he was willing to see again for business purposes.
He had no friends. But it was equally true that he was no one’s enemy. For the most part of humanity he felt the contempt of the sane man for the fanatic. The human race irritated him, but it was the irritation of a man tormented by mosquitoes because he must dredge treasure out of a swamp. He expected nothing else.
Even so, his temper felt circumstances warm it with a kiss when he approached the stage depot for the second time and saw the hotel manager sitting there on a bench with the two Mexican pups and an arm of the law.
The men stood up as he arrived. The orphans gaped at him dull eyed, as if they thought Jake had come to finish them off and were resigned to it.
Their twin expressions of idiocy were partly due to tear-inflamed eyelids and to swollen noses that forced them to breathe with open mouths. The noses were running. He looked away from them with disgust.
‘Mr Hollander,’ the manager began, ‘if you would be so kind—’ but his companion cut him off.
‘Hollander, what do you know about that woman who died last night at the hotel?’
‘Not a damn thing.’
‘You brought her in here, didn’t you?’
‘The train brought her in, the same as it did me. She passed out in the street and I picked her up. I’ve been sorry ever since.’
‘Now, don’t get huffy, mister. I’m just doing my job. When people come into town and die of a sudden, I’ve got to try to find out who they are. Here’s the thing. She didn’t come here to stay. She had a piece of paper in her pocket-book with a name and address on it. It appears like she was going to see somebody over in Arredondo.’
‘Never heard of it.’
‘It’s a new silver-strike town just over the border in New Mexico Territory. One of them jumped-up-out-of-a-hole tent-and-shanty towns.’
‘I’ll try to avoid it.’
‘No, no! You’ll be going through it, the way you’re heading. And that’s why we’re down here now. These two poor little fellers — they can’t stay here. Their mama’s dead and they got no kin here. This county has already got all it can do to take care of its own dead and their orphans. We can’t go fostering everybody’s child that stops off here to die.’
There was a miaowing wail from one of the two children. The deputy glanced down at them guiltily.
Jake waited with cool patience for the end of the speech. It had to come soon because he saw the stage just turning onto the broad street two blocks away, churning up a tan storm around its wheels to choke the pedestrians.
‘Now, I could take the two of them up to the county orphanage next week until somebody comes asking for them,’ the lawman said. ‘I get a dollar for it, going each way. But meantime they’re at the town’s charge to feed and bed. What we propose instead is that for the same amount — a dollar a day — you take them on into Arredondo with you and turn them over to whoever is waiting there for their mama to come.’
The stage rattled up from the livery stable with its fresh team and driver. As soon as it stopped, Jake opened the door and got in.
‘That’s a mighty uncharitable attitude to take, mister,’ the lawman said accusingly through the little window. ‘Might be that I ought to send a wire on ahead of this stage to some friends of mine along the way that there’s a jackleg gambler on this stage who rakes in the chips a little too easy and could bear watch
in’.’
Jake paused fractionally in the act of putting a thin cigar in his mouth. The deputy’s eyes caught the small hesitation and twinkled. ‘Anyhow, they got a paid-up ticket to Arredondo now, whether you like it or not, and I’m putting them on this stage. If you let ‘em wander off at the wrong stop or get hurt along the way, it’ll be your business — and maybe somebody else’s.’
Jake snapped a match head on his thumbnail and said nothing.
The children were boarded after a huddle between the lawman and the stage driver. Other passengers came and took their seats, until the stage was filled. The express box was stowed on top along with a mail sack, the whip cracked, and they lurched forward in a dun haze.
For the next two hours they were the common prey of the transit line. A way station, solitary as a turtle in the desert, provided water and a brief rest from the jarring and rocking before they resumed the journey.
The midday stop was made in a town so small it could support only two saloons. Jake waited to see which would be favored by the majority of the travelers, then entered the other one. It was a Mexican cantina, with peeling, faded red paint blotching its adobe face, and black as a monte dealer’s heart on the inside. The atmosphere was morose; exactly to his taste.
He ordered a beer and whatever they had to eat, which turned out to be tortillas and red beans. In ordinary circumstances Jake was as indifferent to food as he was to people. He would eat anything that was reasonably priced and served on a clean plate. But he discovered in himself a sudden aversion to Mexican cooking and left the beans scarcely tasted.
He was watching the minuscule explosions of gas in his second beer when a small hoarse voice behind him said, ‘Tío.’ He raised his head and exchanged stares with the bartender.
‘Tío.’
‘What are you doing in here?’ he growled, still staring at the bartender, who was beginning to frown.
‘Tenemos hambre, Tío.’
Jake flushed under the bartender’s measured look. The conversation at the other end of the bar came to a stop.
‘Look, whatever he said, I am not that damn kid’s uncle.’ The bartender looked away from Jake to smile down on the two brats. ‘Get up on the stool, chicos,’ he said with sudden heartiness. ‘Tío is playin’ a little trick on you, no? Slipped off and left you on the stage? I’ll get you some dinner. Frijoles y tortillas, no? Muy buenos, eh?’ His over-large smile now included Jake in the joke. Jake remained tight lipped.
‘I am not—’ he began again, then stopped. To hell with explanations. He started to slide off the stool and found two of the three other customers had suddenly moved up behind him. He looked at their sun-reddened faces and faded blue eyes. They seemed to be cattle hustlers of a medium-low grade. He considered the .36 Colt strapped against his heart. Having his coat on was going to slow him down. How much?
It hardly seemed sensible to send two men to the undertaker over a couple of plates of beans — or to go there himself. He sat down again.
The bartender slid two steaming dishes under the pups’ noses, and they attacked them as if they hadn’t seen food for a week. He wondered when in fact they had. One of them — the one he thought had tried to shoot him that morning stuffed his mouth until he choked. He wheezed and wept as he coughed, while Jake watched with repugnance, wondering if he was going to vomit it all up again.
‘Bring him something to wash it down,’ he said to the bartender.
‘We don’t keep no milk.’
‘Then bring him a beer!’
The man grinned at him and pulled two beers, Jake laid a fifty-cent piece on the pitted bar without returning the smile.
When their plates were mopped dry with the last bit of tortilla and twin belches testified to the satisfaction of both stomachs, he stood up again. They followed him outside, wiping their crusted noses, until he turned on them.
‘How’s your English, kid?’
The larger of the two grinned sheepishly.
‘I talk it good,’ he said in his croupy voice. ‘I know all American plenty much, tío. We ain’t Mex, goddamn no, Mama says. We gringo kids, hell yes; born in America. I talk good American or she beat my ass!’
Jake waited a second to let the dust of that settle. It wasn’t any more than he expected, he thought.
‘Well, since you know so plenty much, you’ll understand this. If you call me “uncle” again you’re going to be catching your teeth in your hat. Comprende?’
‘Yes, tío.’
‘What!’
‘Yes, I-don’t-know-what-to-call-you-then, tío.’
‘Don’t call me anything. Nothing! Just get back in that stage and shut your mouth. Both of you!’
*
It occurred to him on the way to the next town that the way to be rid of them was simple. He wouldn’t board the stage again after supper. He would stay the night wherever they stopped and get another stage tomorrow. The resolution lightened his mood to the extent that he even consented to answer one or two questions put to him by the older boy.
By now everybody else on the coach must believe they were his, he decided. So he diverted himself for the next few miles by examining the complacent lot of travelers one by one; calculating the effect on each of them if he should find himself chosen to be the next tío of the little leeches tomorrow.
At supper the leeches dined at his expense more like ravening wolves, devouring two plates of stew apiece and an equal number of small beers. The beers were to make them sleep, he hoped, until they were well on their way without their conscripted Patrón. While they gobbled, he returned to the stage, got his valise, and checked it into the only hotel.
He escorted the children back to the empty coach, well ahead of the other passengers. ‘Get up in there and stay there, understand? I’ve got to look up a friend I know here, and I don’t want you two along.’
‘Yes, tío.’
‘Go to sleep. You look tired. Get some rest while you can. Stretch out on the seat and don’t get out of here. Comprende?’
‘Comprendo, tío. I know all you say in American, I told you.’ He smiled confidently at Jake. Two of his front teeth were missing.
‘Good.’
He left them staring out the window after him. He had no compunction about ridding himself of them in this way. They were expected in Arredondo, and the stage was headed in that direction. They would arrive just as surely without him as otherwise. And otherwise was beginning to get too expensive.
He re-entered the familiar haven of the saloon to attend to the real business of his life.
But he found little profit in the business that evening. The locals were dull, cautious, and incurably penny ante. Raising the pot scared them out. Bluffing made them call. When he did have a hand to play, the pot he raked in was hardly worth the effort.
He folded early and went up to bed in the barracks simplicity of his room. The bed was passable, the noise from the street wasn’t too loud compared with San Francisco, but he couldn’t sleep. His morning depression had returned, to join with a midnight sense of foreboding. The futility of his journey to El Paso suddenly assailed him.
What was the sense in putting himself through the misery of traveling a thousand miles to a new town when he already knew that all towns were alike for him? And if he had to move, why El Paso? Why not someplace nearer and bigger, like San Diego or Sacramento?
The quick answer to that was that he had already been there. He had stayed there as long as he ever stayed anywhere. They had been good-enough places, for a while. San Francisco had been even better. But he had left an easy spot there, a pleasant climate, and a companionable woman, a month ago, to come this far on a tail-busting stage and lie in a bed alone because it was time to move.
For him, time would seem to sleep like an aged dog, or it would be a trumpet in his ear. He was forty-five years old and there was a clock inside him ticking away the days and years, faster all the while. He couldn’t put a name to the apprehension he felt, but it was more
acute lately.
He thought about the woman he had been living with for the past two years in San Francisco. Her name was Maureen, but it was possible for him to think about her now without giving her a name.
He could have brought her with him; she would have come. It had never occurred to him to do so. Yet she had been good for him while they were together. She had been reliable. Warm. Good looking. Sensible, for a woman. He could admit that he was going to miss her for a while longer. But he didn’t ask himself what his feeling for her had been otherwise.
He had thought it was likely she would cry or make some kind of fuss if he told her he was leaving town. She seemed to think he would be around forever. She had begun to act that way. So to avoid the angry embarrassment he always felt when other people paraded their emotions to no purpose, he had simply left without telling her. It was the best thing to do, when he knew he would never write to her, never see her again unless by accident in some unlooked-for and undesired way.
He twisted restlessly on the bed, determined to shut off that line of thought. There was nothing wrong with what he had done; nothing wrong with him, except that he was having a sleepless night again. They said age did that. And he was stuck in a rotten town that played rotten poker. He was a man who had to change his surroundings from time to time, yet hated to travel. Who the hell didn’t? But tomorrow he would be halfway to El Paso. A week from now things would be taking shape again, and he would forget he had ever been in this hole.
There was a knock on the door.
‘Sir? Mr Hollander, sir? Are you still awake?’
He sat up quicker than there was any need to, the feeling of doom suddenly icing down his brain.
‘What is it? What do you want?’ It was the desk clerk from downstairs; he remembered the voice.
‘Why, ah — there’s somebody out here I guess you’ve been waiting for.’
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